 Thank you. So nice to be here and thank you for joining us. And I think as Michelle said in our setup, we really are hoping to have a conversation and the conversation I want to have centers around this question of how do we get students to be the leaders of their own learning. And for me, it's a question that I've been really dealing with for a long time because I grew up in San Francisco. I was actually born on the Presidio Army Base when it was an army base at Letterman Hospital and my grandparents had come out here in 1940 in the last wave of the black migration out of the Deep South and came looking for better opportunities. My grandmother was a maid and was unable to read and write and my grandfather was a longshoreman in the port of Oakland. And they bought a house in the Richmond District, five blocks from the beach. And on the right there you see an old snapshot of the Richmond District. And when it was time for us to go to school, my mother who by that time had gone through San Francisco Public Schools and had become a teen parent and by the time she was 22, had three children and she was living with us in the Hunters Point Projects, that image on the left. And it was really there that she became radicalized around education. It was time for us to go to school and she went down to the local school and just was not pleased with what she saw. And decided then she'd take it matters in her own hand and use her parents' address in the Richmond District and put us on Muni, two hours, two different buses from Hunters Point out to Richmond every day. And she had to go to work so we were by ourselves. And that radicalized me because even though I didn't have words for it, I saw that there were two different types of education going on. I was really excited about school. We did things that now would be called project-based learning. But the reality is my playmates back in the projects weren't that thrilled about it. Because what I learned is they were getting worksheets and drilling kill and school did not feel fun to them. So they were a little confused when I was super excited about things that we were doing. But I realized we had a two-tiered system. Some children weren't getting the kinds of experiences that really helps the brain grow. Now my mother worked in the public, San Francisco Public Library system for 30 years. She wasn't a librarian. She was a library technician. And she was part of the CEDA program, the very first welfare to work program. And they put her in a branch library, Noe Valley. And when it was time for us to come home, we'd take the bus and we'd go to the branch. And she'd fill the table with books. And she said, when you hit the table, you've read all these books, it's time to go home. That was my after-school program. And now that I'm an adult, I can reflect on how rich an experience that was. That lit my curiosity, my intellectual curiosity. And what we know when we start to talk about that equality versus equity, how do we get the equity? We know getting children's brains fired up so that those brain cells grow is the only way we're going to start closing achievement gaps. And I started to have that experience. And indirectly, my mother didn't know she was firing my brain up. All she knew was she was keeping us focused while she could finish out her job. Now, I remember the day I asked her, could I go over to the adult section? Because I'd read everything in the children's section. She gave me the side eye. I know it's over there. And she said, go ahead. And a whole world opened up. I learned about mythology and geology and all this stuff that now we would talk about a child needed because it builds background knowledge. You start to make connections. Those connections stimulate the brain. And when we start to talk about what closes achievement gaps, that's really what we're looking for. What ways do we stimulate children's brains beginning in early education so that they are lifelong learners with intellectual curiosity versus just being compliant in schools? So the work that I do really is around helping people understand that closing achievement gaps, getting to equity is not a matter of what's the new strategy. And how do we actually get kids' brains on fire? Because only the learner learns. So the degree to which we can get the child fired up about learning is the only way we're going to get them college and career ready, as we talk about in terms of those 21st century or 22nd century leaders. So for me, this is exactly what happened. So the curiosity that I had led me eventually to UC Berkeley. And I know that that early childhood experience that I had, becoming an independent learner, really was at the core of my ability to lead my own learning, to find myself at the University of California, Berkeley. So here's a thought. Vygotsky talks about this idea that children grow into the intellectual life around them. So our task is, no matter who the children are, rich, poor, black, brown, white, regardless of what the mother tongue is, we have to create environments that are stimulating to children that allow them to use play as they're learning, because that's what the brain wants to do. How do we set that up? How do we create that environment? Every child should be an investigator versus just sitting down, being quiet, being compliant. How do we actually create community in the classroom where students are actually able to be curious and experiment and make things and break things if that's what happens? Because we learn from all of our experiences. But here's the thing I think is really important to remember, because only the learner learns, the learner has to believe he or she can. The work at the University of Chicago really talks about the idea of, what does it mean to have academic mindset? And that the student has to believe he is capable of doing that. Creating that intellectual environment is really what's at the core of culturally responsive teaching. Not some multicultural kumbaya, let's have the festival around bread from every country. We've all been there. And this rotates through what the child is saying to himself, I belong to this academic community. So that you create a community of learners where that child sees himself as part of that inquiry, trying new things, making things, breaking things, and doing that in community. I can succeed at this. Meaning I have a sense of competence. It's not about the right or the wrong answer, particularly with our youngest children. We really have to give them an opportunity to have their hands on things and to ask questions about how something goes or doesn't go. My ability and competence grow with my effort. And this work has value to me. So being able to make sure that we help students really understand that their effort is going to move them forward. And that they see the value. This is the whole idea of culturally responsive. What's important about that term is not the culture part, because we have a tendency to stumble. But it's the responsive part. That I see the child and I can understand those cultural displays and I can synchronize myself to them. A lot of times we talk about this. Well, they just need a growth mindset. You know, poor Carol DeWick has had to come out of retirement to correct us on really what she meant by growth mindset. Right. And the way we talk about grids is that the children that come to school, particularly diverse students that may be poor, that may come from marginalized and underserved populations, don't already have grit. They have it in spades. It's how do we actually capitalize it? So grit isn't what they need. What they need is the support of the environment that allows them to grow into their confidence. Because here's what's real. Competence precedes confidence. A lot of times we think, oh, if we just do something culturally responsive or have multiculturalism, or even if we just do something social justice oriented, that that's going to pump the kid up. The kid doesn't need a pep talk. It's that internal conversation that we need to support the child to see that they can do what is in front of them, that they can try new things that they can learn because the brain is a learning machine. And when we start with our youngest children, by giving them opportunities to put their hands on things, to see how things work, we are moving toward being more responsive. So again, not gimmicks, but gadgets. Right. How do we get kids playing with things? That's important. I love this picture because it really talks about not just kicking leaves, but what do we notice about leaves? How can we be in investigators and interrogators? So being able to actually ask questions while in the midst of enjoying nature around us. That is what starts to prime a child's brain. But too often, we think children aren't ready for that, either because they're behind academically, or because they're too young. They are never too young. They have a brain that is ready for learning. How do we create the environment? Children grow into the intellectual life around them. So being able to give them opportunities where they're coming together as a community of learners to figure things out. It's not always teacher directed, that students actually have routines and they can regulate themselves as learners. That's the beauty of giving students the gift of independence. You give them a library card and they can wander these stacks continually feeding their brain new information that they can use another context. Here's a really important concept. It's called the learning pit. All brains learn this way. And what it means is our brain grows in response to rubbing together complex ideas. And at the bottom of that pit is this idea of productive struggle. Now what the child says to himself going into the pit is equally as important as what he's doing in the pit. Because if I tell myself I can't, then I won't go into that pit, calm and ready. And this is where the neuroscience really is important. Too much cortisol and the prefrontal cortex of the brain starts to shut down. No learning is happening. No matter how compliant the student looks. So being able to help the student have a positive academic mindset. I belong to this academic community. This work has value for me. I grow with my competence. These are the things that they're saying. You don't want the student getting to the point that he says oh this work is stupid. I want to quit. Now we all know when learning gets hard, we have to remind ourselves that we have ways to make learning less confusing. Ways to make learning make sense. That's the hallmark of an independent learner. Now how do you get up out of the pit after you've had a wonderful opportunity for productive struggle is through information processing. So when we look at inequity in schools, what we really are seeing is this disconnect between teaching students to process information at higher levels. We want them to be critical thinkers and creative thinkers and be at the top of Bloom's taxonomy. But if we don't help the student build those dendrites and cognitive routines, knowing how to get unstuck when you get stuck because all learners get stuck. Just independent learners don't freak out about it and they have a strategy or two to get unstuck. So recognizing these are the tools that perpetuate inequity. It's not just implicit bias. That has an element. But more insidious is our inability to create rigorous learning for the neediest children and being able to get them up out of that pit because they can process information. I understand what an example of this would be and what a non-example also is, what it is and what it isn't. I see how this comes together. Oh, that's starting to make sense. That's what learners do that moves information from just being inert facts and figures to usable knowledge. And those are two very different things. That's the hallmark of equitable education. So here's the reality. We have to set things up in classrooms where children can experiment. Where they have the opportunity to see how do things work. Because every time they do, they are building dendrites. Sitting, paying attention to what the teacher says and following directions does not build dendrites. And if we want kids to operate at higher levels, eventually academic language, being able to do that critical thinking, then we are going to have to let them experiment. And you can call that plain, but that's an engineer at work. And how do we orchestrate that and not freak out? As a teacher, that means we create these environments that allow students to actually move around and have that leeway. We have to reimagine our relationships with children. In my book, I talk about this as learning partnership. Not only do you have to be friendly and build rapport, but how will you be an alliance? How will you actually be the mentor and apprentice the student into this work? Many trips to Alaska, this is where this picture is from, they're making traditional paddles. The children are learning how to make the paddles that their foremothers and forefathers made before them. So they're passing a long knowledge as well as working and learning what does it mean to use these various tools. Here are older children again using their indigenous knowledge, using their environment in the context to actually learn about environmental science, to learn some biology. This is contextualized learning, because when you talk about culture and coming from a collectivist culture, then what you get is this contextual orientation. What's the big picture? Hold to part. Too often when we think about culturally responsive teaching, we think, oh, we're just talking about social justice, or we're just talking about race. But we aren't. We're talking about how was the child's brain wired? Your nurture culture, the first zero to five, your brain is wired to take in the world through a particular cultural lens. So understanding more about that is also part of that adult child relationship, shaping of that lens. So being able to help children actually organize and present their information, it's not just random information. This is an example of thinking about pets, but we're going to think about pets through the lens of our word study and through math, and because this is how the brain is organized. We call it schema, that we have a knowledge treat in our brain. How do we bring this to young children? Being able to help them see that you literally can grow your understanding when you allow them to use inquiry as the basis of their learning. They also need something really important and fundamental, and that is feedback. Where are the feedback loops in your classrooms? And this is not good job. This is, oh, here's the learning target. Here's what we were working toward. You made it on these points, but in these three areas you might want to go back and do some practice. You might want to go back and correct that. That feedback is timely, it's actionable, and it's an assessment for learning, not of learning. Did you get it right or did you get it wrong? We all rely on feedback to get better. How are we giving children that opportunity to get authentic, realistic, timely, actionable feedback in a way that helps them become better in their investigations? Inquiry requires a feedback loop. I tried something, did it work, and if it didn't what do I need to tweak? That is how the brain learns. So being able to think about that becomes really important. And so if we think about inquiry as the great cognitive equalizer, there are a couple of things that we want to remember. This idea of curiosity over compliance. This is not about getting kids to be quiet while you go over some stuff and tell them what they should be thinking. This is creating an environment where it's okay for them to have a little chaos, to have the quiet hum of real learning where you hear the murmur of kids talking, and how will you orchestrate that? Where you're just not shooting from the hip, but you know you want children to engage in this kind of curiosity so you set your classroom up to do that. Children that come from collective as cultures learn by doing. So the degree to which you have real experiments, real maker spaces for them becomes really important. The next is questioning over quiet. Where will the children get an opportunity to ask their questions or to debate or to listen to their peer or a classmate? Because Vygotsky also talks about social cultural learning, that we learn better when we're talking to each other. Another hallmark of a collective as culture, the opportunity to talk, to stimulate thinking. The last is this idea of errors as information. Errors are information, not confirmation of low intelligence. So making sure that our children know that not only do we have norms of behavior in the classroom, but we have norms of cognition. That if we get feedback, we also are making mistakes, and that those mistakes are information. They are not some reflection of you as a learner. That has to come from adults. We help children know whether or not that is the case. And I want to leave you with this quote. This is Atwell Gawande. He is a heart surgeon and finds the time, God knows where, to actually write really thoughtful books. This quote comes from the checklist manifesto and he says, better is possible. It does not take genius, it takes diligence, it takes moral clarity, it takes ingenuity and above all it takes a willingness to try. That's really what inquiry is for young children. Let's keep trying and see what we learn. So being able to understand that we will get to equity when we give children permission to inquire, when we create spaces that will stimulate their brain and when they have that level of intellectual curiosity. I want to stop there. I'm going to thank you for your attention and engagement and I think we'll have an opportunity for some questions. Great.