66 – The Story of Street Data (w Shane Safir)

What if qualitative evidence were amplified to the same status as quantitative data in our education system? How might our schools transform if we tapped into the rich insights that come from story, anecdotes, experience, and emotion? Shane Safir, author of “The Listening Leader” and recent co-author of “Street Data” with Jamila Dugan, joins Natalie to discuss why we need to amplify qualitative evidence to engage in equity transformation cycles, and how these cycles will radically transform our approach to pedagogy and assessment.

Show Notes:

How Shane’s story as a mom, daughter, and teacher in a youth prison informs her mission to cultivate equitable education. (6:20) Why schools privilege quantitative data over the deep insights that come from stories and emotion. (10:30) Street data is qualitative data that forces us to shift from being statisticians and technicians to ethnographers. (13:30) Equity transformation cycles aim to be decolonizing as they are endless, iterative, and adaptive. (16:30) Is the achievement gap a mythology? (21:50) Jamila Dugan offers important equity traps and tropes including “doing” equity, tokenizing equity, and boomerang equity. (25:45) Centering street data through a pedagogy of voice. (28:15) We can’t reimagine pedagogy without reimagining assessment. (30:30) Remove grades from feedback to build a culture of revision and redemption. (33:15) Rubrics increase equity as they lift the veil on implicit criteria that teachers have in mind and share power when we co-create them with students. (36:50) The purpose of education according to James Baldwin. (44:15)

 

Shane’s newest book with co-author Jamila Dugan, “Street Data: A Next Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy and School Transformation.”

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