KB Educational Consulting, Inc.

Revisiting from last week. Because it brought me so much joy and lightness. I was lucky enough to both present AND volunteer to support operations with

Grateful for colleagues and friends who care about the things I care about and the privilege I had to spend a few days with them in Albany teaching AND learning. 👩🏼‍🏫🖤

My only regret is that I didn’t manage to nab any pictures with other peeps!!

Feeling spicy. Might delete later. (But probably not. 💃🏼🔥)

If any of this feels uncomfy or gets you feeling like the hackles on the back of your neck are standing to attention, I get it!! These are tough and controversial topics! I’d love to invite you to sit with those feelings (non judgementally of course) and get curious about it for a moment.

If you don’t feel you have the capacity to sit with the discomfort right now, feel free to save the post for another day and keep on scrolling!

I am simply a girl. Standing in front of a system. Asking it to be more humanizing for the young people we all care so much about. 🖤

I’m away from my desk for the next week on spring break with my family. ✌🏻

So as a nod to that, here are some photos of all the other times I’m away from my desk while I am working. Because this job means I don’t sit in one place very much, and thank goodness for that!

Let’s be super clear!

“Trauma-informed” doesn’t mean less rigor. It doesn’t mean “no accountability.” It doesn’t mean lowering expectations or standards.

It means:

✅more access
✅more support
✅more care and compassion
✅more understanding of how stress affects the brain and adjusting policies and practices accordingly

The bar stays high. It’s a disservice to kids to lower it. We do need to widen the doorway, though, so more students can reach that high bar we’re setting.

When we widen the doorway, we make room for regulation, belonging, skill-building, growth, and resilience.

The bar STAYS HIGH. Trauma-informed care is about making the pathway to it more accessible. Removing unnecessary barriers and obstacles. Creating the conditions for a felt sense of safety.

How are you widening the doorway lately? 🚪

Finished this last week. Listened to it, and then because my partner heard me talk about it 1,000 times and gush about how “I need the physical copy so I can go back and take notes,” he bought it for me.

This feels like the kind of book every white person should read, reflect on, and reckon with. Written by Isabel Wilkerson… this was POWERFUL in ways I cannot begin to describe. I couldn’t put it down.

Recognizing that an Instagram caption could never be enough space to flush my thoughts out in all their messiness, here are a few things that came up for me as I related it specifically to my work as a white woman in education:

1️⃣ Our systems work exactly as designed. Wilkerson writes (and brings RECEIPTS) that inequity isn’t accidental, it’s engineered. So in education, that means disparities (discipline and otherwise) are not random. Policies aren’t neutral. And “behavior problems” should absolutely be considered potential responses to structural stress.

2️⃣ Good intentions do not equal good impact. And sometimes they don’t even equal neutral impact. Wilkerson had me thinking about how individuals can absolutely be kind, wonderful people and STILL uphold harmful systems. We can unintentionally over-pathologize historically marginalized students. We can frame adaptation to inequity as “resilience” and not realize we should be pushing toward liberation instead, and that kids shouldn’t NEED to be resilient in so many cases.

3️⃣ My friends, discomfort is not the same thing as harm or oppression. And man did I feel uncomfortable in this book at times. But sometimes that’s what accountability needs to look like and feel like in order to make moves. Woof.

4️⃣ Proximity is NOT the same thing as understanding. Wilkerson shared some personal stories about her interactions with white friends and colleagues that had me relating the idea to the fact that if we are white educators serving students of color, we can care VERY DEEPLY about them AND still totally miss the mark when it comes to their lived realities and experiences. Listening and believing MATTERS.

There are a million more things. But have you read this?? What’s your take? 📚

I’ll be back and presenting this spring with the folks at at the statewide Empower Youth Success annual conference in Albany, NY!! 🗣️🎤

This year I’ve got TWO topics going, both on Wednesday, April 29, and I’d love to see you!

👩🏼‍🏫 From Punishment to Partnership: Restorative Practices in MTSS at 10:00am

👩🏼‍🏫 Reclaiming Realistic Self-Care for the Adults Who Hold It All Together at 3:45pm

The link to register is in my bio! Weee! 🔗

Bringing this one back because the collective nervous systems in our classrooms need support, and I’m doling out these kinds of strategies in person a lot right now!!

Here are a few tools for your mindfulness toolbox that have nothing to do with breath work! 🧰

And remember… these should be invitations to participate, NOT requirements. Each student should have a choice in whether or how they engage.

A common modification for students who feel activated or hypervigilant amid more quiet strategies is to provide a choice to use headphones with music or white noise while they participate if they’d like. You can also have students do some of these activities paired or in small groups (like the mindful object exploration. They can explore and share together and pass the objects around.)

You know your students best. Make it make sense for your community and make sure to give them the option to add ideas for how they’d like to practice these. There’s no right or wrong! Lots of room to make it your own/their own! And as your class learns more and more strategies, you can simply have a “mindfulness time” and they can choose any one of them they’d like for that space. 🖤

Some feedback from tonight’s 2-hour webinar:
“I just told the gentlemen in my group that I wish your workshops could be 8 hours long!!!!!”

Grateful, first of all, for this educator’s excitement. And feeling the weight of that compliment because how many educators do you know who ask to spend MORE time in PD??

Let’s face it… no one needs longer meetings. But this comment tells me that our learning space felt supportive, reflective, and worth lingering in.

This work centers on helping educators slow down, take care, and build systems that actually support humans - students and adults alike. We determine real strategies anyone can try TOMORROW that can help to reduce overwhelm, clarify priorities, and do work they can feel proud of in ways that humanize teaching and learning.

If you or your team are ready for professional learning that feels thoughtful instead of exhausting, I’d love to work together.

Link in bio to connect. Let’s chat. 🔗🖤☺️

To the educators wondering why “all the things” that used to work don’t anymore…

You’re not failing.
Your students aren’t broken.
Your colleagues and leaders aren’t either.

We’re asking regulated behavior from VERY dysregulated nervous systems during a prolonged period of uncertainty.

That response is normal. It’s biology. Our brains are simply trying to keep us safe. (But it sure doesn’t help our classrooms feel calm and comfortable day to day right now!)

So…

Slow down.
Connect first.
Build predictability.
Lead with regulation.

And take good care of yourself and each other. 🖤

To the educators wondering why “all the things” that used to work don’t anymore…

You’re not failing.
Your students aren’t broken.
Your colleagues and leaders aren’t either.

We’re asking regulated behavior from VERY dysregulated nervous systems during a prolonged period of uncertainty.

That response is normal. It’s biology. Our brains are simply trying to keep us safe. (But it sure doesn’t help our classrooms feel calm and comfortable day to day right now!)

So…

Slow down.
Connect first.
Build predictability.
Lead with regulation.

And take good care of yourself and each other. 🖤