Transformative Principal

TP David Schipper
===

[00:00:00] Welcome to Transformative Principle. I'm your host, Jethro Jones. You can find me on all the social networks at Jethro Jones as part of our reading is fundamental partnership with rif.org. You can hear a bunch of different episodes about all kinds of stuff around literacy today.

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: I am so excited to have David Shipper on the program. He's the director of. Strategic Learning Clinic, a position he has held since 2013. He obtained a BA in English Literature in 1998 and a B educational Bachelor's in secondary Education, [00:01:00] English, and history from McGill University in 2002 after some work as a local teacher in Montreal.

David founded a tutorial educational center in 2007, and aside from his ability to put. Both parents and students at ease, David use his clinic's fairly unique approach to help get them to the root of students' learning challenges and propose the most suitable remediation to resolve those weaknesses.

As a father of two children, David knows how to relate to the concerns of parents, and as an experienced educator thoroughly understands the struggles of his students. His passion and dedication to teaching and learning is second to none. David, welcome to Transformative Principal.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: So.

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: what stands out to you as valuable from our conversation today?

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: we spoke about what really needs to happen that the change that needs to occur in education in elementary schools and high schools across North America, how do we overcome the resistance to change and what elements are part of the [00:02:00] change that needs to occur these schools so that the children who are the future of our society. Or become capable with respect to their skills in in work, and in life

for decades to come.

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Yeah. Very good. And the other thing that I really appreciate about our conversation is your insight into why it's a mystery, why students are struggling in school, and it doesn't have to be a mystery. And you offer some ideas of how we can overcome that. So we're gonna get to my interview with David Shipper here in just a moment on Transformative principle. (ad here)

​

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: So David, what would you say is the number one obstacle to helping any student to be their best?

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: Now what I'm about is a bit controversial,

Excellent.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: it's the adults. And so before I you what I'm about. Everyone I think, has

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: I.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: of this relatively [00:03:00] new challenge that many humans face called Seasonal affective disorder. the acronym is SAD. And it's clever as many of these are, I have developed my own acronym using the same letters. It is called Stubborn Adult Disorder. stubborn Adult Disorder is very likely not going to make it into the DSM six. It's very likely not going to make it in, but I have a rule of policy that if someone asks me a question I have to answer truthfully. So when you ask me what's really the number one thing in the way of any child, any student becoming the best that they can be, I will always answer the adults. The child is a child, whether they're seven or 17 years old, but very frequently, I know this is. not what adults [00:04:00] want to hear. No one wants to hear that they're in the way or they're not doing a great job, or there's something that they want to change or fix, or there's something they could be doing differently or better. No one wants to hear that. Who wants to hear that? No one. Not you, not me, but if we're really having an honest conversation about the state of education in North America today, have to be. Really honest with ourselves. Look ourselves in the mirror and say, we are doing terrible job at helping students learn how to read. how to write, learn math, conquer math, learn about language and reading comprehension and executive function, all of the skills that are needed to be a successful student, but a successful

Being. the workplace and in life, and is hard. I [00:05:00] understand completely. We've been doing things a certain way for decades, whether it's teaching, how we teach, reading, how we teach, writing, the resistance to including executive function as a mandatory course, that's as important as teaching English, math, or social studies. There's a huge resistance to all of these ideas. We know how to teach reading. We know how we just got off track for a very long time. We got off track for a few decades. were misguided. And why I say we, I don't mean me because we've been helping students learn how to read for over

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: So,

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: years, but in.

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: so, so lemme ask about that. Why did we get off track in teaching kids to read? And like, I don't want the whole history. I want the human centered response to this because there is, [00:06:00] there's a lot going on and you know, whatever. But you said that the stubborn adult disorders, the thing getting in way of kids being the best they can be, how did that impact us getting off of teaching kids how to read the way that we know works?

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: Essentially we were sold a story. We were sold a story that if students would just memorize words, all the words, then they would be able to read them when they saw them. Okay, so were. We, again, not, again not you or me, but many educators, many schools across North America have essentially been sold a story for many years that if we use the three queuing system of reading, okay, show the student a picture, let's say some visual information. Okay. students [00:07:00] will reading. So I, in my work, I frequently meet students whose reading ability is based largely on having memorized admittedly thousands of sight words. But as soon as you show them a word that they've never seen before or have seldom seen, or they have to try and figure it out, they cannot read it. And I'm gonna tell you a quick story. I had a meeting once with a school. The speech language pathologist, the psychologist and the mother of the 12-year-old boy was present in addition to myself, and it was during the pandemic, so it was on an online meeting, and the psychologist said, Tim never needs to learn how to read. Tim, like is my go-to name when I don't wanna reveal the name of the actual student, And so when the psychologist said that, like in my mind, alarm bells are going off, but I said to her, oh, tell me more. Why do you think that? And she said, well, [00:08:00] Tim can just have. The computer program read to him, the software can read to him. Or if it's an exam and we're not allowed to use that, one of our staff members can read for him instead. Now, that

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Wait, the school psychologist said this, okay.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: said this, and so that meeting could have gone one of two ways. At the conclusion of that meeting, the mother could have easily contacted me and said, well, if the school psychologist think that Tim needs to learn how to read, we don't need you, David. But to her credit, as soon as it was over, she called me up and said, David, if that woman thinks that my son never needs to learn how to read, we need to start working with you immediately. goodness. But what about all of the parents for, forget about Shipper and what I do. What about all the parents who depend on the school system to [00:09:00] do

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Yeah.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: for their child, them how to read, write, understand words, conquer, math, et cetera. I could spend hours and I won't, but I could spend hours telling you stories. About students 17 and 19 and 21 year olds that we meet, who we meet,

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Yeah.

~they slip through the cracks,~ they've slipped through the cracks. They've been neglected for so long. Eventually the school just says, well, it just seems like you're not cut out for school. you should go into a work

Yeah.

Where you're still gonna need to read. And so ~this comment,~ this commentary, really, I. Hits home for our family because our oldest daughter has Down Syndrome and a lot of people thought, one, she's never gonna be able to read. And two, she probably doesn't need to because she's not gonna really have a job where she does need to read.

And my wife and I demanded early on that that girl needs to learn how to read, and in the beginning we don't care about anything else. [00:10:00] She needs to learn how to read and now she's 18. She's in a super senior year of high school and she doesn't need to learn how to read. She needs to have friends interact and learn how to start doing things around, getting a job.

She needs to know how to communicate effectively. And the IEP goals for the last several years that have been trying to get her to do certain things that. She actually really doesn't need to be able to do. Those things we've said, let's just stop banging our head against the wall because we know that this is not gonna come before she's 21, and we're okay with that.

But we have knowledge, we have awareness, we have an understanding of what her ability is, and so we can confidently say these things we're not gonna worry about, and we're gonna focus on these other things that are more important and timely. But to think that you could live in our society today. And not need to be able to read [00:11:00] is just mind-boggling, and it makes no sense how anybody could say that with a straight face.

I.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: I have two comments. Comment number one is years ago, many years ago, 20 years ago or so. There was a speech writer for president George W. Bush, Michael Gerson, who came up with a phrase, the soft bigotry of low expectations or the tyranny of low expectations. It's a patronizing and dangerous attitude that's cloaked as kindness that assumes certain people are capable of less because of their background. it's, and then the other thing that I was thinking about when you were telling your story and Bravo, okay. Is that your daughter is lucky that she has parents who are passionate advocates for her and who know how to. [00:12:00] Guide, if I'm using a friendly word, the professionals to a different place where they were. There are so many students out there who don't have that, I'll give you a, just a quick example. The, this is the first time that this has ever happened to me and I've been the director of strategic learning clinic for ~11. For~ the last 11 years of its 35 plus year existence, we met a young man this summer who was between ninth and 10th grade and well below grade level, like reading and language skills the grade one level. And it never been. Evaluated by the school, not at any point in the first 10 years of his education, had anyone pulled him aside and said you seem to be struggling. Maybe we'll do a few tests to see what's wrong, what's behind this. He marks between 20 and 30 and all of his subjects, aside from, of course, Jim and Art, [00:13:00] right? All the core subjects, the school's response was, he just needs to try harder. So met him, we did the consultation, we did our assessment. We found out all the information the mother and I attended an online meeting with the incoming vice principal of the school, again, just before the school year began last month. And the principal, the incoming vice principal, basically said, well, nothing we could do. We're not willing to write a letter for him to go to another school where he would get the help that he needs we're really not gonna be able to do very much for you. unbeknownst to me, the mother was quite sick with stomach cancer during this process in, during the summer, she died a few weeks ago and it was her dying wish that her son. Get the help change schools. 'cause they already had an idea of [00:14:00] what school he had to go to schools and the help that he needed with us. Now, I don't have an end to the story for you because of the mother's death it's the first time that's ever happened where we met a family. And the only parent is the fathers long ago been outta the picture. The only parent died. Like there, there are many reasons why a family might not start working with us right away, right? They'll say things like, well, we're divorced and my ex-husband is paying and he doesn't agree. we can't really afford your services right now.

There's a woman that recently said, I, we can't really afford your services until middle of the school year, but you are the best. And I like she was talking about strategic learning clinic, you are the best and I want the best for my child. So [00:15:00] I'm not going to waste money on traditional tutoring.

That's not gonna be, have an impact. I'm gonna wait until I'm ready. And I love that because the parent has said they will do whatever it takes to help their child. And this mother that just died was exactly the same way. when I found out that she, she died like it, it affected me deeply because I care so much. spoke to the young man on the phone, right, right after she died. And I almost didn't know what to say beyond the usual platitudes. felt so bad for this young man because it's in flux right now. I'm not sure whether we're going to be working with him or not. He, for all intents and purposes, doesn't have any parents. And so what happens to all of these students? Who slipped through the cracks, what becomes of them? What becomes of the teenagers and [00:16:00] the young people in their twenties and thirties who never got a high school diploma, never got their GED, never went to trade school or vocational school. In the big, bad world today, it's really hard to live alone on

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: First,

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: I, and when I say really hard. I would say it's close to impossible depending on where you live,

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: well, it,

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: right? Like you need to live with one or two other people, at least if

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: And here's the thing. It's hard to live on your own. But it's even more difficult to raise a family in that situation, and it's even more difficult to provide for, you know, some security and stability for the future. And these are the implications of something as simple as, can my child read proficiently?

In third or fourth grade, you know, like these have long ranging impacts that, that really do matter. And I just finished a podcast interview that's gonna be coming [00:17:00] out in a couple weeks with Garrett Cook and he's a principal in southeastern Missouri and he talked about his ICU time where he's really focusing on.

Supporting students during the day at school. And one of those big things that he's focusing on is having students turn in, having students be assigned and turn in quality assignments. So it's not just like busy work, it's not just a little bit here or there. It is like really focusing on what are the things.

That they really need to know and understand and how do we know it and all that. And it's really it's really powerful when kids are doing work that actually matters and is going to help them long term. And that's really powerful because it is a lifelong issue and what we do as children can impact us for all throughout the rest of our lives.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: So I what I appreciate that a great deal. And you [00:18:00] mentioned reading by the end of third grade or fourth grade, if it was up to me. In other words, this fantasy that David Shipper is in charge of the education system, I. Quebec or Canada some other place in the United States, ~some random state, all the states, ~I would make it mandatory to test all the children by the end of grade one. Now, I'll explain if you are a young person or an adult or an older person who has a mysterious ailment. Necessitating a visit to the hospital, they will do tests in order to determine exactly what the cause is of that person's ailment. Okay? If it's unknown. And that's indeed what happens in hospitals around the world. Yet in the education system, it's a total mystery to the school. to why certain students struggle [00:19:00] or not struggle. So for example, locally in Montreal, in one of the school boards, there are, let's say there's one psychologist that shared amongst five of the elementary schools, just to give an example,

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: It's very typical here also.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: does. assessments in a year per school. Right. So psychologist is doing 50 assessments in a year, but only 10 students out of a school of 500. Okay. And the assessments are because the psychologist is quite busy and is only in that school one day a week during the school year. The assessments are bare bones assessments. So a whisk, a partial Wyatt. and maybe the one of the teachers and a parent has filled out a questionnaire well. The Connors something similar. Okay? bare bones. It [00:20:00] gives us some information but not all of the information that we need order to properly help the child. But imagine if it was compulsory okay to, for every student at the end of grade one. To do testing, and I don't mean a short little one or two or five minute screening, one of these commercial screenings that schools adopt because they're cheap and easy to administer, quick to administer. I mean, spending a few hours with a student, with a young child and doing reading, testing, language testing, phonological processing, testing. Um. Visual perceptual testing, drilling down to see why is this child struggling? Why? if we know who the students are, who are struggling by the end of grade one, we can then do what we call high [00:21:00] impact tutoring, which is a vogue term, which we're gonna be hearing a lot in the months and years to come. I think they borrowed it like from a, like a fitness, a similar fitness term. And so what it is essentially is we're taking students in small groups the same highly trained professional is going to spend at least 30 minutes twice a week with this student or small group of students in order to provide proper remedial reading instruction and whatever else they need. Right now that's not happening in our school system, school systems in North America. There's very little testing that's being done overall, and it's something I read somewhere that 11% of public schools the United States, I think this was in 2022, are supporting students with,

Such instruction. [00:22:00] I mean, if we think about this, I'm not saying that the solutions are necessarily easy to implement. They're not. But the biggest part of the of the biggest challenge here is convincing the adults in the school system that this is something that has to happen. if we. Our children in the school system to acquire the skills that they will need to have a successful life, to avoid being incarcerated, to avoid being homeless, have enough money to put food on your plate every day, and not worry whether you're choosing between feeding your family or paying the

rent or whatever

else. (ad here)

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: And David, you know, we're talking mostly about literacy 'cause that's that's what brought us together. But being able to um, to Students, um, [00:23:00] in in multiple aspects, not just literacy and math, but also in, like you mentioned, executive functioning those things, uh,~ is, is is~ I, so I I, I do this coaching with people called Positive Intelligence by Sherzad Shain, and stuff.

Have you heard of that at all?

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: I have not.

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Okay, so basically what it says is there are saboteurs in each of our brains, and these saboteurs come out and first they judge us and then they do all these other things. they, uh, they make us anxious us worry about what could go wrong. They they tell us that we need to achieve more and then we will have value.

And the reality is we already have value 'cause we're human beings. And saboteurs come in and. Uh, I I put my own kids through this coaching program and taught them about the saboteurs, taught them about the sage, how to overcome the saboteurs, and it made a huge difference for my kids.

And it was really amazing to [00:24:00] them make some changes, uh, and do things a little bit difference for me personally, and and these kinds of things that, you know, sometimes we call learning. Sometimes we call 'em. Character, all these things. Humans are complex beings and we have more just academics that we need to, uh, develop in to have a successful life.

And that is essential. And you know, we're just scratching the surface here in our conversation today, but we definitely need to be doing more than just focusing on and reading and writing. We helping uh, supporting in helping their children become flourishing, adult humans, like that's really what we need to be focused on.

If we get on the same page with that and see that that's all of our jobs, then that's gonna be, I think, a

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: I think that [00:25:00] much of my work over the next few decades going to be to try and convince as many school and other school staff as possible of what you've just said, which is if we do things differently. If to, to borrow the phrase of one of the clinic's, program directors. If we put the emphasis on a different sable, we can achieve so much for our young people who are the future of our society.

So, so much. I read recently I forget who said this, I agreed with it, that. Learning how to read in general is the number one civil rights issue of our time, and I really believe that. I believe that everyone deserves to learn how to read. [00:26:00] And I also think that somewhere between 95 and 99% of all students can learn how to read. a relatively short period of time. I don't mean a week or a month, but a year. Okay. Depends on the, how good the instructor is and how often the instruction is, and if the, if it's a program that's quite good. There's, there are factors involved. It's a very small number of students who have severe intellectual impairments who are severely developmentally delayed, where it will take. significantly longer for that child to learn how to read. But if you think about it, that 95 to 98 or 99% of students, that's almost everyone we can do better as a society than what we're doing right now, and it shouldn't take 30, 40, 50 years to [00:27:00] accomplish this. It shouldn't take that long to convince the adults. What many of us already know, many of us already see that, like in my work, we're working one-on-one with students like mostly outside the school system. So for us, it's ideal conditions and we're often working with students during the school day where the. The parent either has us come into the school to work with the student or arranges it, or the student leaves school a little bit early or misses first period to work with us and so on. we we make it work and schools just simply have to make this work. But that's the effort that has to happen to achieve it. We already know how to achieve all this. We know that if there is proper teacher training, [00:28:00] if teachers who are getting their bachelor's degree in education at the university level similar programs are taught how to teach reading, are taught how to teach writing, are taught how to teach math. They'll be more effective. That's the other major plank that's missing here is that teachers generally don't have the knowledge to be effective with what they're being tasked to do in the classroom, there aren't enough professional, remedial reading teachers out there. To pick up the pieces as a result. So again, we know what to do. It's just there's a lack of

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Yeah. So let's, let's make it concrete as we close out here. What is the thing that you would tell a principal to do this week to improve literacy in their schools? They're not gonna be able to go out and test everybody in the extensive way you mentioned, but what's one thing they can do [00:29:00] right now as they're listening to this week?

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: So,

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: have just one, David, you can't be like, well here's seven things you can do. Like what? What's one small action they can take? I.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: So one small action they can take. This wouldn't take very long simply test the phonological processing skills of the students in the classroom. it a game. Make it fun. Okay? The first three sub tests of the comprehensive test of phonological processing, you can adapt it to the classroom and see how the students do essentially. Note who's really struggling with this, that's the first thing that comes to mind. It has to be, if you're gonna go to a school and suggest something, it has to be something that they can easily and quickly that anyone can do. You don't need special training ask a child these simple questions, right?

You can follow a script. It's these kinds of [00:30:00] things just to get the ball rolling for the school. 'cause it all starts with the school knowing. Which students are struggling. It all starts with that. If we don't know who's struggling, we don't know who we have to help. So that's my off the cuff answer to your question.

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Yeah. Well that's good. I, and I appreciate your clarity is figure out who's struggling and how they're struggling like that. If you like, if we made it even more simple, if you found one kid who was struggling in your school that you didn't know was struggling before, that would be That would get us set on the right path, for sure.

So people wanna learn more about strategic learning clinic or connecting with you. How would they do that?

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: The easiest ways to just go onto our website, which is strategic learning ca. A lot of information there. can have a look at our different programs, our unique approach, and just reach out to us. We [00:31:00] work with students across North America so we have students this year in California and certainly many students on the East coast.

And everything in between, be the beauty of what we do is that we can work with anyone if we're helping with English skills or

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: Excellent. Well, thank you very much. This has been a great conversation and I definitely encourage you to check out strategic learning and thank you David for being part of Transformative Principal today.

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: So

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: ~Alright, so now we'll do the intro. I've got an intro for you that you emailed me. I will read that and then, will I usually ask for like a little teaser like what is something valuable from our conversation. So short, like 32nd hi, hit of what it is so that people will want to listen to the rest.~

~Sound good?~

~No. I'll cue you in~

david-schipper_1_09-25-2024_170614: ~or.~

jethro_2_09-25-2024_140612: ~a sec. Yep. ~