Transformative Principal

Jethro D. Jones: Welcome to Transformative Principle,
where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.

I'm your host, Jethro Jones.

You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.

Welcome to Transformative Principal.

I am so excited to have on the program today, Shenita Perry.

I am your host, Jethro Jones.

You can find me on all the social networks at Jethro
Jones and Shenita is an assistant principal in.

Alabama and we're gonna talk today about,
the school X book study that she recently
went through with me and what that was like.

so everybody can have an idea of what that's like.

If you want to do that with me also.

Shenita, welcome.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and
what you're doing and where you're at.

Shenita Perry: Hello, Jethro.

Hello everyone.

as Jethro said, my name is Shenita Perry.

I am an assistant principal in Montgomery Public Schools,
Montgomery, Alabama at Baldwin Arts and Academics
Magnet School, which is a six through eight school.

We academically gifted and gifted students at our school,

six.

Jethro D. Jones: Okay, cool.

And so having academically and artistically gifted
students, I'm sure presents its own, types of
challenges, and, issues that other people, they
may think that's just a, walk in the park, but I'm
sure there are challenges with that also, right?

Shenita Perry: Oh, most definitely.

There are definitely challenges, especially
because they're middle schoolers,

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: Academically gifted or being artistically
gifted along with going through all the changes
that they go through as middle school students.

it's, really an interesting, setup because I've been a, I
was, my first middle, my first assistant principal position
was at another, we call 'em traditional middle schools at a
traditional middle school in our district for three years.

Totally different.

But you still have your, issues.

They may not be the same issues or to the
same level, but they are, you do have issues.

I'll just say that.

Situations, I won't call them issues.

They're like

challenges.

Challenges, like you said.

Jethro D. Jones: for sure.

I. That, that makes sense.

so you joined the school X book study that we
did, earlier this year, and I just wanted to
get your take on it, what you, enjoyed about it.

so why don't we just start there.

You, why did you join in the first place?

Shenita Perry: Okay, so the reason I joined
in the first place, I'm a, regular listener
of Principal Matters with Will Parker.

So at the end of one of the episodes I heard your, I
call it your commercial for the school X book study.

Jethro D. Jones: all

Shenita Perry: So I was really,
intrigued because, I was just intrigued.

I'm, I love to learn, so I really
was like, that sounds interesting.

So then I think I asked Will about it, and then
I, think I pulled up, I got a sample of your
book on my Kindle, so I started reading it.

I may have done that after I signed up, but it just
seemed like it was just something I needed to do.

I just, I love to learn, so I'm a, glutton for learning.

So then once I started reading a sample of your book, I
think I reached out to you and told you it was so amazing.

This is really what I needed.

So it was just, it was refreshing and
different, and it made me start looking at my.

Leadership and looking at the school
experience for everybody in a different way.

Making sure I honed in on, it's not just my experience,
it's not just my teacher's experience, it's all
of our experiences, my experience as a leader, my
teacher's experiences, my students' experiences,
the parents' experiences, how we experience school.

So that really,

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: intrigued me.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

and not a lot of people talk about the
school experience in the way that I do.

Shenita Perry: Exactly.

Jethro D. Jones: so it usually takes me a while
to explain to people what that really means.

so rather than me explain it, let's see how well
I did and explaining it to you, would you define
that school experience, which is a different way
of looking at things from how we traditionally do.

How would you define that?

Shenita Perry: the traditional thing, we look at it, the
traditional way we look at school is we look at, we get
the kids in, we teach 'em, we push 'em out into the world.

We get the kids in, we teach 'em,
we push 'em out into the world.

But from the experience that the way you, your book,

your book and the book study, we.

helped us be the best people we can be.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: It's hard to describe, and I think
it's my words, not yours, not how you, you did a
great job with the book study, but it's, just my
biggest takeaway was looking at the lens, looking at
school from a variety of perspectives and not just

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: we know school to be.

Like when we learned about the design,
thinking, and I'm about to botch this up.

I know I am, but the five levels, you gotta help
me with this now, Jethro, the five levels of the
thinking, it's going blank in my brain right now.

Come on Jethro, help me

Jethro D. Jones: yeah, I got you.

So it's empathy.

First you get empathy for what someone's going through,
and then you do a rapid prototype, and then you, sorry.

Before you do the rapid prototype, you ideate
and then rapid prototype, and then you reflect,
and then you do the whole process all over again.

And so idea.

What you said though was perfect that it's about
seeing school through different people's eyes

seeing what their experience is like.

And so what does it look like for
a parent walking up to your school?

What does it look like for a kid on the first day
of school or on the hundred and 75th day of school?

Do you ever think about the, and.

Most of the times we don't.

And so that's what I'm trying to get across with
this book is we do need to think about that and
then we need to be intentional about designing
that process so that it's actually meaningful
and valuable to the people that are there.

Shenita Perry: Exactly, because like you just said,
the hundred and 75th day at school, so we have
exactly, a little bit less than a month for the kids,
but today was like the month away for the teachers.

So yesterday was a month away for the kids.

So it's like looking, when I meet with teachers about.

Situations and challenges, and I'm looking, I'm,
trying to look at it from the perspective that they
see it because I have been a teacher, but I'm also
trying to look at it from that teacher's perspective.

like situation came up today and I was
trying to look at it from that teacher.

The way it went, that, they may have been at the
point where they're ready to just say, Hey, whatever.

There's just a month left.

You.

So help understand that, like they say, seek
first to understand and not to be understood.

So I'm starting to look at, have that empathy walk
in that person's shoes in that particular person's
shoes, not just the shoes I walked in as a teacher.

And I think that's one thing we forget too, as
leaders, we try to walk in other people's shoes, in
the shoes that we walked in, if that makes sense.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Yep.

Shenita Perry: Forget their shoes are.

Their, situation is totally
different from ours, so trying to.

Jethro D. Jones: I. I like what you said there.

You said, we try to walk in other people's
shoes, but we still keep our own shoes on.

that's essentially what we're doing.

And, that doesn't help anybody because
we're not actually walking in their shoes.

We're just saying we are to try to make ourselves
feel better, but we're not actually doing it.

And what I encourage people to do is to actually
walk in their shoes and see what it feels like and
force yourself out of your current position and
say, what would this be like if I were a student?

If we had a month left of school?

What would my day to day look like?

Would, I be able to tell that my teacher is sick of, me,
and of the class, or would I think that they're gonna miss
me like crazy because they're not gonna see me in a month?

And that just breaks their heart.

Shenita Perry: Yeah.

Jethro D. Jones: what message are we sending?

Do we ever even think about that?

Shenita Perry: Exactly, because I feel like sometimes
we send a message to the kids that they're inferior
because they're children or because, I, and that's one
message that has really stuck out to me, and I think it
has stuck out more be since I've done the book study,
the, making, the treating kids as if they're not human.

If that makes any sense.

We forget the human part of the child.

We just think, okay.

They come in my room like it's in a, like I said earlier,
they come in, we teach 'em, we spit 'em back out, come
in, we teach 'em, we spit back out, but we forget.

In the midst of that, we have little humans
or younger humans, 'cause they're not always
little, they're not always smaller than us.

Some of 'em are taller than us and bigger than us.

But, we forget the element that this kid may have not
eaten last night, or this kid may be taking care of family
members or, 'cause I think the perception with, type of
school I work at is that every kid has what they need.

And there are still kids that come from low socio
socioeconomic backgrounds, but they're able to come
to our school because they meet the requirements.

But they may be struggling, in other
ways, and we forget about that.

Or we forget.

Yeah, they're smart, but they may not be the kid
whose parent, made sure they pronounced every t
correctly, pronounced every word correctly, but
they're, they can hang with the best of them.

We forget about that part of the child or the, not
just the child though, but the adults in the building.

We forget that they're dealing with struggles
and real life when they leave school.

we forget that I, they may have aging parents or they
may have a handicap child, or they may go home to
a lonely house and not know how to deal with that.

they may have experienced major loss in their
lives, and at the time that they experienced
the loss, everybody had compassion and grace.

But, two years later, nobody, thinks
to ask, Hey, how are you doing today?

do you need anything?

Jethro D. Jones: nobody may even know.

Shenita Perry: Exactly.

Jethro D. Jones: Nobody may even know that they did that.

They had that problem

Shenita Perry: Exactly,

Jethro D. Jones: ago.

Shenita Perry: I have a tendency to look out for everybody
else, but not talk about my own, not share what I'm
dealing with, and sometimes that's, sometimes it's a.

and, then when, I get overwhelmed, I'm like,
shoot, people don't know I'm going through this.

I'm going through that too.

But that's the thing I think we all forget in all
parts, the leader experience, the parent experience,
the teacher experience, the student experience,
that we forget the humanity of every other part.

We forget.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: Are in this for the right, we're
in this to make sure that the children, not just
the children are successful, but everybody's
successful and it takes all of us working together.

I think that's one thing I really, I saw a lot
of the synergy of, if everybody's experience is
what it needs to be and we all work together.

The experience can be even that much greater
and the impact and the success rate and
what we achieve can be that much greater.

Like they say, together, everyone achieves
more, but until we understand each other's
experiences, we won't be able to achieve more.

I hope that makes sense.

Jethro D. Jones: That totally does, and that's, really what
I'm trying to get across with the book and the book study
that, the book is great and you can read it and do all this
stuff, but the book study walks you through each section and
teaches you how to do it so that you can see what it's like.

And we play games and we do different exercises
to make sure that we get the experience of.

trying it out and, trying things.

Is there, of those games or activities that you
thought was especially memorable and helpful?

Shenita Perry: Oh my goodness.

Jethro D. Jones: you're allowed to say no.

Shenita Perry: I remember, but I don't
remember what the game was called.

I think it was like there was a,
there were activities each time.

What was the one where we had to
say, and such and such and such?

What was the name of that one that.

Jethro D. Jones: Yes.

And it's a very simple game.

Yes.

Shenita Perry: Yes, and that was really cool.

And then when you taught us about the
communication cards, that was super cool.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: But there was another activity you
did with us that was, I liked all of them though.

What was the other activity that you did with us?

I can't remember.

But the Yes.

And was really cool because everybody share input to help.

Some of it might not have been helpful.

I think I gave some crazy answers, but.

Jethro D. Jones: did.

That's the beauty of

Shenita Perry: yeah.

Yeah.

But it was really, and the thing I loved about the
book study, we all came from different locations.

We came from different parts of the country.

We came from different types of schools because we
had somebody that was from like a Christian school.

We had elementary.

Jethro D. Jones: Yep.

Your middle school and then one person was a high school too.

Shenita Perry: We had principles and then we had, it
was the diversity that really, and just hearing what
everybody, the thing was, hearing what everybody else went
through and knowing that, hey, I'm not in this by myself.

because we think in different parts of the world, people
or different parts of the country, people don't experience
what we experience, but we all are in the same boat.

Or even in the yacht basin, we're in the same yacht basin.

we may not have the same type of boat, but we're
all in the same harbor trying to get to a location.

that was, I thought that was really cool.

I, just liked, and our group was small and intimate.

I liked that too because our group was not that big.

So that really made it,

Jethro D. Jones: yeah,

Shenita Perry: that made it.

Jethro D. Jones: yeah, for sure.

So what have you, if anything, and if you're like, I had
nothing, what have you taken away from that, that you're
doing now on a regular basis in your day-to-day work?

I.

Shenita Perry: I, it, does come from the
book study, but it's on a small scale.

How I, one thing, like I mentioned earlier, the
biggest thing is trying to look at things through other
people's, through the lens that everybody else sees.

It, sees how they experience.

How they're experiencing things at school.

like you said, the kids, so when they, when I
talk to the kids, I tend to ask more questions.

I try to dig deeper.

like, how does that make you feel?

Or do you realize this based on, do you
realize your, I had a conversa, lemme say this.

I had a conversation with a student.

he was upset with his teacher one day.

I know this is gonna sound weird,
but he was upset with his teacher.

So I, I said to him, I said, you do remember
last year your teacher dealt with a lot.

She had a lot going on.

she had a very tragic thing to happen.

And so he was like, and I said, it's, this might've
been right before the book study, but the book
study helped me see that I did the right thing.

So I said, I said, you remember, it was around this time of
year when that happened because he was saying she was, it
seemed like she was in a bad mood and just stuff like that.

So I said, you realize that.

It may be because of what happened last year.

And so he was like, you know what?

That makes sense Ms. Perry.

That makes sense.

So what I'm, gonna do, I'm gonna try
to be a little more compassionate.

So then not long after I started the book study,
something else similar happened with another student.

So I was able to kind of channel, Hey, think
about how your teacher try to look at it.

And so they were like, oh, I
never thought about it like that.

But the hardest part is not to
get the kids to think that way.

It's the hardest part is to get the grownups to try to
remember, you remember what it was like when you were a kid.

'cause I did that with one of the teachers.

He was having some classroom management problems.

And then I said, yeah.

I said, but you gotta remember they're this age.

And he was like, yeah, I remember
how I was when I was that age.

Yeah.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

Shenita Perry: Even though that's not walking in these kids'
shoes, because when I was 13, 12, 13, 14, 11, number one, we
didn't have cell phones, so that's a whole, we didn't have
social media, we had like bash books and stuff like that.

we had the, hard copy version of what they do online now.

it's the access.

They have faster access to stuff than we had.

So I try to.

That now try to get the teachers to remember that
and at the end of the day, they are still children.

children are gonna do stuff that makes no sense to us.

But if you think back to when you
were a child, oh yeah, I did do that.

Or I probably did worse than that.

it's just different.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Shenita Perry: I dunno if that answered your question.

I hope that answered your.

Jethro D. Jones: oh yeah, you totally got it.

And that's key is being able to see others' perspective,
see where they're at, and see what their experience
is instead of just thinking that, just because.

I think that is automatically the truth and really the key.

We, got a bit open to what they're
thinking and what they're, seeing.

So my last question is, what is one thing that a principal
can do this week to be a Transformative Principal like you?

Shenita.

Shenita Perry: That's a good question.

Jethro D. Jones: thank you.

Shenita Perry: just have a, just be, have a
listening ear and an open eye to see what other
people see from the vantage point that they see it.

So just start trying to look at
things from different perspectives.

And then to be, this is one thing, and
I think we may have talked about this.

These might not be the exact words, but this is something
that has resonated with me a lot since the book study.

Listen to understand instead of listening to respond.

Because a lot of times when we listen to what,
when we're in a conversation, we're just listening
to say, see what we're gonna say next instead
of listening to make sure we understood what was
said before we say something or before we do.

Or before we ask the next question.

So when you try to look at stuff through
other people's experiences or perspectives,
you tend to listen to understand.

So that's one thing.

I think as leaders, we don't really, we, our, lives
are so overwhelmed with everything that's going on.

We forget to take the time to make the time to do
that because you have to make the time to do that.

And to remember, we don't need to do all of the talking.

Sometimes the listening part is the.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Boy, that is fantastic and a great place to end.

thank you so much for being here.

If you're listening and you would like to join the book
study, you can do that at a link in the show notes.

Jethro Do site slash s xbs for school X book
study, and there's a link to that at Transformative
principle.org on the show notes for this episode.

Thank you so much, Shenita, for being
part of Transformative principle today.