Episode 3 - Niarra Coleman

Nayara Coleman shares her journey of becoming a math educator. She initially studied electrical engineering but struggled with the classes. After working as a para at a high school, she realized she enjoyed teaching math and switched her major. She currently teaches at Ypsilanti Community School District and finds it challenging to connect with students in larger class settings. She discusses the differences between tutoring and teaching, emphasizing the importance of building relationships with students. She also mentions the focus on control in larger schools and the need to give students more freedom. Nayara found the Fire Circles Professional Development to be a unique and collaborative experience that allowed for flexibility and creativity in education practices. The intimate setting helped build relationships among participants. As the little crow flies, straight talk from indigenous communities. In today's podcast, we have a discussion with Nayara Coleman. Welcome, Nayara. First, I'd like to ask you as a math educator, if you could share with us your journey of how you got to where you're at today, what's your context, how things have influenced you in becoming the math educator you are today. Okay. Well, I'll say I started off just in school. I feel like I was naturally kind of, I don't want to say talented, but I really liked math and it was just something that clicked for me. And so I understood that about myself and as I grew and went through K through 12 in high school, I had an opportunity to visit a college of engineering. One of my teachers expressed to me like, you're pretty good at math and with people who succeed in math, you can go into these types of career fields. And so I was like, oh, okay. I've never heard of engineering or like my idea of engineering was like, I don't know, somebody who worked on cars or whatever. And so like I was exposed to what engineering was and I was like, oh, I think I would really like something like this. So I went on to study in college for my first three years, electrical engineering. And after my three years, almost done with my program, it was very hard and I found that I wasn't getting through some of the classes that I felt like I should have been getting through or like it was just very hard for me. I took a step back and I kind of thought to myself, what am I doing? I need to reevaluate what's going on. And I took a little breather for about a semester where I didn't do anything but work. And I worked as a para at a high school because I was like, well, I can teach math. It's something that's like easy for me, I guess. And through that experience, I was like, I think I could do this like every day. I could get up and like come and just show people math. So I ended up switching, transferring schools and switching my major to be a secondary educator in mathematics. And alongside that, through the rest of my schooling, I tutored until I finished. And I did tutor my first year of being an educator. I feel like I've been kind of experiencing or experimenting with education in different ways, which is why I was so drawn to the professional development that you hosted. And just like learning about different dynamics or different approaches to education. Very good. I found a connection with you. You made it a little further. I started off in engineering, but it was about a year and a half before I realized I wasn't going to make it through that program. It's sort of like you found that, hey, teaching, you know, I hadn't thought of that as a career because my father really didn't want that, you know, the idea that you only teach as a backup thing. If you can't do anything else, then you go teach was kind of the velocity I was getting. And I was like you, I says, you know, I enjoy this. This is fun. I could do this for the rest of my life. And this is like fun. So that's cool that you came across on that way. So where are you teaching now? And what's your experience as far as current situation you're in? Well, right now I'm teaching at the high school at Ypsilanti Community School District, and it is a switch. I used to teach at a public charter school, and now I'm teaching at a public school. I do feel like it is very different than my experience coming from a much smaller school and being able to connect in ways that I see now that it's not as easy to connect with students and hold the kind of class settings that I'm used to holding. That idea about relationships and relationality, because I have the same experience with you having tutored quite a bit to get me through college. So there is that difference between tutoring and teaching. And how do you describe that? And what are the big differences? And what's, I guess, the benefit of both or the other? I feel like for tutoring, part of it is the connection aspect, because I actually tutor children who are younger than high school age. So they're typically fifth or sixth grade that transition from elementary to middle school, and helping them grasp concepts a little bit better. A large portion of any type of education setting is the relationship that you build with the student and them kind of understanding you as a person versus you as a teacher or an authority role. And I feel like it was just a lot easier, especially when you have like one-on-one or a very small group versus being in a classroom and teaching 30 kids. It's a lot harder for you to connect with everybody and for them to kind of understand you as well, because you may be focusing on a lot of other students, especially students who are really struggling versus students who are not struggling, even though you may want to maintain the same kind of connection that you have with other students. So I feel like that is like the main thing. And I feel like also tutoring is a lot more relaxed, or like small group settings are a lot more relaxed, where you have the ability to kind of just feel the need and say like, hey, you know, we have like our moods today are just kind of like, I don't know, off. Let's like, I don't know, do something to reset or like, let's get a snack. Like, let's get ourselves back on track. Let's take a deep breath versus like with everybody, it's like, okay, I don't know what's going on. Like half of you are here, half of you are there. And how can we come together? And being able to do that within moments, it's a lot harder to manage, I feel like, with a bigger group. Okay, so then taking that side of, you know, tutoring one or two people and then teaching a class, you've also got that experience of going from a smaller school setting to a larger school with probably larger classes. And what do you see as differences between the sort of class size as far as teaching and the culture of the school, maybe the ability to bring in different ways of doing things? I definitely think that with larger groups, I feel like there is more of a focus on control, which is not something that I'm used to. I think that a lot of administrative figures are focused on, we have to control the group. Otherwise, it would just be chaos, which in some aspects, maybe. But when there's so much focus on control and containing kids to a specific area and things like that, I feel like there's a lot more frustration that is built up over time. Whereas when people are given, because since I work with a group, they're young adults, I like to try to refer to them as people because that's how we have to see them. They aren't kids anymore. They have to be afforded some type of liberty so that they understand consequences, whether those are negative or positive, and being able to give them that freedom because that is the same amount of freedom that they're going to be given in the real world. And so I definitely think that there is more of a focus on control and making sure that people stay in line, which is not something that I typically agree with. I don't think that it's like nobody is standing over me and making sure that I'm doing whatever. Right. And especially as you say, they are young adults. And I have even at the college level, professors will say, oh, the kids. And I go, you're not teaching kids. In fact, some of your kids are in their 40s or 50s. They're returning. So we have to get past that kind of this hierarchy that gets set up. If we focus on control, how are they going to learn to make decisions for themselves? Because that's where we're hopefully guiding them to is that they get out and they are in a position where they do make decisions for themselves. And I know that wasn't something I was very much prepared for when I got out of the house. So we have to give them that ability to do that. But thank you. So far, a lot of the approaches are based upon maybe size and what the school system is expecting. So you were part of the Fire Circles Professional Development. How did that compare with any previous professional development you have gone through? How did it fit your needs? What did you get out of that particular professional development? I think that I got a lot of information and I feel like it definitely was nothing like any professional development that I've ever had before. There was a lot more, I guess, maybe facilitation or communication. It was less one-sided as far as like somebody giving information. Everybody was sharing something from their experiences or from what knowledge base that they had and was adding to conversation around a general topic. And I feel like that led to more flexibility, a lot more creativity and thinking, and a lot more collaboration and understanding where other people are coming from and how you can incorporate that in your own education practices. And I feel like that was just immensely helpful with just how information was given out, but also just like how the setup was, you know, it was very intimate, very, I feel like it allowed for relationships to be built versus like, oh, well, you know, I think I saw that person before my professional development. Right. In fact, that was very intentional. We had the discussions of thinking, well, what if this is real popular? What are we going to do if we get 12 or 20 people? And we knew that it worked well when we had five to six people and that's kind of, and then we had us, so, you know, a total of maybe less than 10 people. And we decided, well, let's just see what we get. But if we need to, we will make additional ones because we did want to keep that intimacy. And it's good to hear that you have found sort of, it could model what you could do in your classrooms. Of course, we were much freer. In fact, there was a point where we asked you all, what do you want to talk about? And for your math class, it might not be possible to say, okay, you want to do parabolas or do you want to do Pythagorean? You know, you can't just necessarily throw all that out there, but you can get input on how things are covered or what types of projects. And again, that kind of, to me, that's what I see math education. The importance of it is learning how to receive information, receive data, and then make good decisions. To me, that's really the purpose of mathematics overall, you know, in the sciences and whatever it's used for is see the patterns, see the data, and then make some good decisions about it. And like you said, there's such a push from administration sometimes to take that decision making away because they're afraid that they might make wrong decisions. Or sometimes I think they're afraid that they might make good decisions too, and then they end up learning more than they should the whole way. So that's an interesting take because I do think the same thing as far as like administration saying like, oh, wow, they're making good decisions. And I think part of that is like an aspect of like administrators always being trained on education to say like, you are the authority figure in the room and things like that. And maintaining this idea that you are a superior to these other people, you're not always open to receiving information back from these people who, or at least you were told, are beneath you. And so like, I think that a lot of people just don't want to experience that loss of power and control. It's like, it's okay. We're all people. We all experience different things, especially at different times. I know a lot of my students, they have experienced things that I have no idea about, but I learned from them, from those experiences, and I'm able to talk them through other things that maybe I know a little bit more about and give them different perspectives. Ah, very good. Very good. So let's get into a little bit more about your context as far as what are your resources, your support system as far as from within your community, your colleagues, who do you see as a mentor? What kind of input and support do you get from the community around you? I have the experience of like going to school and then also being homeschooled through middle school. So I lean on my parents a lot. In my family, most of, if not all of my like cousins and things like that, they went to public schooling or public charter, and we were like the only ones who were homeschooled for a time. And like my parents had their reasons for doing that, but I do also appreciate that because I feel like that incorporates into like how I am an educator now, but I do lean on my family a lot. I talk to my mom and my dad. And then inside of my school system or my district, we have people who we can go to like that are designated to us. So we have a building instructional coach, and then people who are underneath a certain amount of years of teaching experience, they are given a mentor. We choose who we want, and then they ask if they're like available to do that or like if they have the capacity to do that. So I feel like I definitely have a lot of resources, and I feel like I'm lucky enough to be able to go to my direct supervisor and feel comfortable enough asking their input on different educational practices as well. I definitely feel like I enjoy triangulation and like making sure that I like hear at least everything, even if I don't take everything. So listening is an important component to learning. It's good. Sometimes I remember, especially being a new teacher, thinking that I had to show all the ideas that I could come up with, you know, show I was a valuable member. And sometimes I look back and say, but maybe I should have just listened a little bit more sometimes instead of try to show how different I, you know, but that's good. So it sounds like you've got a combination of a structure, a sort of administrative structure, but you've also got choice in that you can choose a mentor. Of course, you've got access to your family, which gave you great models of things, especially in the last couple of years where we had the COVID. And were you teaching remotely during that time? Yeah, I was actually. And in that instance, I feel like I didn't really have too much support. I feel like a lot of people didn't know really what they were doing, but it was a lot of me seeking out on my own, like different materials that I could use to help me kind of go through that time a little bit easier. And I also feel like kind of leaning on intuition was helpful as well, because like I said, like a lot of times everybody was going through a lot during that time and being able to take a step back and say, like, whoa, this is a lot for me. Like, how are you guys feeling? And creating a space for that, I think, was very helpful for my students and myself. And how did your experience being homeschooled help you in that situation? Because basically all your students became homeschooled, right? Yeah, I feel like it lends itself to like having more compassion for students who were not necessarily showing up. A lot of people I know, at least in my community, were their kids were essentially helping them make ends meet to a certain extent. Like a lot of kids got jobs during that time and started working, you know, and they were sometimes working during the day and working two days out of the week in the daytime, like when they would normally be in school or watching siblings or sharing devices. And so, like, you have to have a lot of understanding around those different types of scenarios, because there aren't always family members in the household who are able to say, like, hey, you need to be on your work right now. Or, like, are you up even though your room is closed off and stuff like that? And just like having a listening ear, I think. Very good. And so, partly comes through you have to rely on yourself at times and as your resource, your sole resource to go through and provide what your students need. Again, that theme of listening and hearing what they need, so important. You've kind of touched on it, but what's the relationship between administration, teacher, community within your school as it sits now as we're coming back? And if you could project into the future, how do you see it going in a good way? Or what adjustments do you think would help to make the community involvement in the school the better for the students? I think that especially dealing with older students, being a lot more intentional would be helpful in providing that support system for them. Because as it stands right now, I feel like the focus for administration after the pandemic, the state is definitely focused on addressing the learning loss and what is the data telling us and how can we get more data or better data, whatever. It's a lot less social emotional than how I would like to see things, I guess. Right. So, there's a lot more pressure on teachers to be able to show these results from the students to prove that we're teaching them something. So, they focus on content knowledge, whereas you brought up that thought of the other part they get out of school is that social emotional learning. There's a gap there as well. And maybe if we address the social emotional gap first, the learning gap, the content learning gap will just take care of itself because we motivate them. But if we don't address the social emotional gap that has been created over this time, this longing that our students have, they don't even care about learning the content. Yes, they're constantly trying to escape. And this is one thing that I definitely have noticed since transitioning to a new school district, a larger school district. It's more prevalent the fact that students don't have that connection with each other. They don't find community in their peers as much as like I would say I did when I was going to school. I had my group of people or even if I didn't know somebody in my classroom, I felt still okay with saying, hey, I overheard you. You know this stuff. And can you help me? There is a lot less of that and more of I have to do this on my own, which I feel directly correlates with them sitting by themselves with a computer during a pandemic. And I don't know, it was 21 days, the form of habit or something like that. Imagine three years of just like being like, okay, I got to get my work done, you know. And it's just only you or it's like you and a few of your friends who like are at their houses as well. How do you connect those two? Yeah, especially your students would be really at their early adult years. That's all they know, right? Whereas we have these experiences where we had support at those critical stages becoming an adult and all the changes, the physical changes, the emotional changes that we go through during high school. Very interesting. So what are some of the things that you are trying to do with your students and maybe what you might see other teachers in your school doing that might be similar or different? I definitely think that still making sure that we show that compassion and understanding and giving a listening ear to students and what their needs are because like the pandemic is not over. And then a lot of things that have come out of it are still, people are still adjusting to and trying to manage. So that is one thing. But definitely, I feel like a practice that I take is to do circles and that helps build community within the classroom, making sure that students understand this is a safe place and that we're all here for them. Obviously, it may take some people longer time than others to kind of get acclimated to being able to share things in the group. Yeah, sitting down in a circle and holding a conversation about whatever, you know, whatever the question is for the day and like just hearing other people's viewpoints about that topic or about that question. I think that that has been really helpful with students relaxing a little bit. And especially when it comes to math education, the students do not like math. And so as much as possible, you can get them to like relax even in that space and make it feel welcoming and inviting. I think that that is just like one of the biggest things that I've personally have kind of helped students get used to. It's like, it's okay. This is a place where no matter how bad you mess up that problem, we don't care. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, we're here to all learn and help each other learn. Very good. Very good. Because a lot of the professional development, at least that I've been going to and such, especially in math, focuses so much on the content. Again, we've got this, you know, this content part versus social emotional part of learning. And especially with math, I had a lot of math anxiety. And I think a lot of our students are that way. And, you know, maybe that's what allows us to relate to them. So what type of advice do you have to other educators as far as what they should be looking for as far as their professional development and growing themselves? What type of opportunities should they look for? What should they be trying to do as they try to improve their student success? That is a very good question, because I feel like one of the things that I kind of stick to when I'm looking for professional development is something out of the ordinary, if that makes sense. Yes. So like I said, with the professional development that we did, Higher Circles, when I was reading the description, I was like, oh, this is like interesting. Like, I've never heard of anything like this before. I wonder if this is common and maybe this is the first time I'm hearing about it. But like, I don't know. Let's like give it a try. Make sure that you're having an open mind when you're approaching professional development and try something that you wouldn't typically go to. Right. Very good. Okay. So on those lines, do you feel like you would have something to give as far as being a facilitator for professional development for your colleagues? Do you see that in your future? Maybe not tomorrow, but down the road. Yeah, I definitely feel like I would enjoy facilitating something in the future, like a professional development. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like working with other adults sometimes can be difficult, but I definitely feel like that would be something that could interest me in the future. Very good. Yeah, because I think you'd be very, very good at it. And it does take time. I've been involved in professional development for elementary teachers, high school teachers, college teachers, and a lot of it's been focused on the content. I've been in this for 24 years now as a teacher, and it was really this last iteration. It was just a nice mix of similarities and differences. So the similarities allowed us to work together and see things. The differences allowed us all to grow and work with each other. I felt very good about the product that we came up with, the FireCircles. We went through a one-year training of ourselves, and we tested it out. We said, oh, this is good. We learned a lot. Let's see if it works for others. So once you find that right community, you have the support where you can flourish, you can be who you are, but you can also grow from them. That's sort of a unique grouping to come up with. When it does, you've got to grab onto it. What I learned from this is the people who grow the most from the professional development are the people who put it together. I think by what we went through, as we're doing it, we're thinking of what can we give to our participants. But in the end, it was, wow, we got so much more back. And we learned so much from that process. I think like you were saying, to bring that into my classrooms much more now. I learn to listen more. I learn to get the input of my students more in how I teach, what I teach at, because they let us know what they're looking for. And if we give them what they're looking for, they're so much more motivated than if we give them what we think they need. Yes. And I was going to say that because it reminded me of a professional development that I actually had recently. And I was talking to some of my colleagues. And we were just like, I don't understand. The information that they were giving was definitely good and useful. But coming from a standpoint of like, so how it was formatted was like we were all in like a Zoom meeting. There were the facilitators and the presenters. And we had no control. We weren't allowed to comment and things like that in the professional development. And I, to a certain point, was like, OK, I understand. There's like hundreds of people here. But even if you don't get to everything, like we still get to read and interact with one another on this platform. But not being able to voice our opinions and share with one another was something that really, I guess, didn't sit well with a lot of people. And I feel like took away from or even made certain of my colleagues kind of shut down and prevented them from actually like learning stuff. And so I feel like that was a very important aspect. So much professional development is done to the teacher. I'm going to develop you rather than doing the development with the teacher. As you mentioned, it kind of gets back to your statement earlier about group size. And with groups too large, you just so many things we're trying to make efficient by, OK, if it works for a few people, it should work for 150 all at one time. And it's a different mix there. And that's why group size has a difference in the voice, being able to use your voice and learn from each other. So important. Great. You've answered so many good questions. Give me so much good perspective on this, too. And I want to give you, though, a last opportunity to say anything you wanted. The math education community or the educator community, anyone out there, what would be your words of wisdom that will help improve our world for our students that are coming up and being the next generation that's going to take over? I would just say prioritizing community is so important. It's so important in education. But in the grander scheme of things, it's important for our society, for our students to understand what community is and what it looks like and how we can work together to improve where we live. That's it. That's what I tell my students. I say, I'm hoping you guys make this world a better place because I'm getting close. I'd like to retire to a nice place. So make it good for me so I could stop working. And I know I've done my job. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Niara. It's been a wonderful discussion we've had. And I look forward to working more with you and growing. And thank you again. Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Thank you.