Today's Segments:
Educators' Lab
Darcy Bakkegard is a co-founder of the Educators' Lab, which is dedicated to empowering teachers as changemakers by providing personalized, relevant professional development. This summer I'm hosting a JOY LAB for educators. It's designed to help fight burnout, reduce stress, and reconnect teachers with their purpose all by tapping into the power of JOY to solve problems.
Dave Thompson's News Review
News Director Dave Thompson talks about his new newsletter and reviews the news
Matt Olien Reviews "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"
Matt says the computer generated effects in "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" are awesome!
Transcript of interview with Darcy Bakkegard:
Main Street
Darcy, welcome to Main Street.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Thank you, Craig. I'm excited to be here and share all things education.
Main Street
We are happy that you're here. Such an important topic, and teachers and teacher development, not only in North Dakota, is a big topic, Darcy. You used to be a teacher in the classroom.
Tell me about your background with education.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Sure. I was a high school English and theater teacher for 11 years. I taught in Wisconsin, I taught here in North Dakota, I taught in Istanbul.
And I love the energy in classrooms. I love working with kids. And as I transitioned out of the classroom, I wanted to help teachers find that same energy and passion and keep that energy for education going for other educators.
And so I've just shifted who I'm serving and who I'm helping, but I'm still teaching. Now I teach teachers.
Main Street
How do you do that?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
I host a variety of workshops and classes. I help facilitate Prairie Public's Amplifying Student Voices class. It's an introductory class to how to use media in the classroom, how to increase media literacy skills.
And this Amplifying Student Voices class, we have had every kind of teacher take this class. Kindergarten teachers through 6th grade teachers, business, gym, ag teachers, shop teachers. I have had every discipline of educator take this class and find value in how they can further amplify their student voices.
I do that as much as I can by designing a playground that allows teachers to play with ideas and to think about what is going to bring joy for them as an educator, what tickles their fancy and keeps them energized, but also what is going to get students excited and what is going to allow students to think about authentic problems and then create authentic artifacts of their learning.
Main Street
Off-microphone, Darcy, you shared with me that professional development really hasn't reached folks as maybe it's intended to, and that's what you're really focused on. You said you got more out of dusting your shelves getting ready for the class year than the professional development classes you took when you were a teacher. Expand on that a little bit.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Sure, that was my at worst experience, that I would sit there feeling like, okay, this might be interesting and relevant to some of my colleagues, but it has nothing to do with what I do in my classroom. You know, like for whatever reason, it was content I had just read a whole book about or I had learned. So I understand that serving a variety of educators is tough, but in the classroom, we talk a lot about differentiation and how you need to differentiate content to different students' skill levels and to different interest levels.
And yet professional development wasn't doing that. It was just everyone gets the same thing no matter how long you've been teaching, no matter what you teach. So that differentiation that teachers are expected to implement in the classroom wasn't there for them.
And I always felt like that was a little disrespectful of my, there's only so much time in a day and I already give up so much of my personal time as an educator. I want my professional development to be meaningful and relevant because, as I said to you before, I'm a dork. I love learning about new things.
And so I really want great professional development. And I've been very fortunate in my education career to experience some really stellar professional development and get amazing ideas and inspiration. But even those experiences fell short because I would get these ideas and be so fired up, but then I would go back to my classroom.
I would go back to my house and there was no follow-up. There was no implementation support. But it made me think about how can we create that differentiated, personalized learning experience for teachers that also helps them actually implement their amazing ideas to improve teaching and learning.
Main Street
You've co-authored the Startup Teacher Playbook.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Yep.
Main Street
What is that?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
It is my partner Michelle and I's response to that very problem. How do you personalize any professional development so that you take the inspiration nuggets out of even mediocre PD and really focus on problem-solving in your classroom? When you think about it, who is in the best position to enact change in education?
And I'm super biased because I was a classroom teacher and I work with teachers so I get to see how amazing they are every day. But no one is in a better position than teachers. And yet so often we wait for these top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions to education's challenges and then we expect teachers to do it.
And instead we want to flip that and start with the teacher, start with the educators as catalysts for change. And the Startup Teacher Playbook gives them a series of tools to identify problems in their classroom and then design and quickly test possible solutions. So it taps into a lot of things that in the business community and in the social startup world are common knowledge of how do you use design thinking and how do you tap into user input.
These things that if you're from a business background are very obvious. But teachers rarely receive that kind of training and for sure our professional development is not set up with that framework around it. And it's such a simple, cheap way to enhance any professional development and take even mediocre professional development up several notches by tapping into the unique inspiration and spark that every individual teacher is going to get and then helping them implement an innovation in the classroom.
Main Street
What concerns you most, I guess, about how educators are being taught today prior to stepping into the classroom for the very first time?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Well, what concerns me most about that is actually how few people are seeking out training to become educators. You hear a lot of information about the teacher shortage in North Dakota and across the country and the teacher retirement rate remains pretty stable. Where we're seeing the biggest decline is actually people entering teacher training programs.
Main Street
Let's ask you there.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Yeah.
Main Street
Why is that?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
There are so many reasons why that's true. First, I think there's a general negativity. When I...
Main Street
About teachers?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
About teachers.
Main Street
About the vocation?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
I think about teachers in our society. When I think about growing up, I grew up in Valley City, North Dakota. People who were teachers in our community were highly respected, trusted, and just really valued members of the community.
And all too often now, what you see and hear, and granted, it's a minority of very loud voices, but there's a lot about distrust of teachers, taking control away from teachers, trying to standardize things so that individual teachers can't think, and just giving them a set of instructions that they are required to just follow lock stock. And it feels like in the last four years, there's been a significant decreased trust in educators. So if I'm a young person...
So there's that issue. Now, if I'm a young person who's grown up in a gig economy, post-pandemic, where virtual work and being able to telecommute and all of these things have really become second nature, we all figured out how to do that by force, the pandemic. If I'm in that era, and I could be making $35,000, $40,000 as a teacher, and I have to be in the building from 7.30 to 4.30 every day, and this is a standard joke, but it's also really true, where you don't even have control of when you get to go to the bathroom in the course of a day. Because if you're an elementary school teacher, it's illegal for you to leave your kids unattended. And so for me, I was a high school teacher, but I had to wait until my prep period, right? There's not enough time, usually, between classes.
So if you taught three or four classes in a row, you're just there. So if I'm a young person, and I grow up in this gig economy reality, why would I take a job for $40,000 a year, where I'm locked into this schedule? Yes, there's the allure of the summer's off that everybody talks about for teachers.
But why would I do that when I could make that much money or more working wherever I want, whenever I want? So I do think that the gig economy and the flexibility of the average workspace is a big detractor. And when you're 20 or 18 deciding what you're going to major in, you're not necessarily looking at, well, who still has good retirement packages?
And what careers give me the long-term stability? Because education still does a pretty good job in that sphere. All you see in the media is how hard teaching is.
And it is hard. But what we're missing, and the story that I really want to help emphasize, and what I want to help teachers really reclaim, is education is an act of joy. It is exciting and meaningful.
And it is one of the few careers where you truly have an immense purpose. And as an educator, you can serve as a catalyst for change and really and truly change the world because you are helping equip the kids of the future with the skills we need them to have in order to solve the world's greatest problems.
Main Street
Very much enjoying our conversation with Darcy Bockegaard. We're talking about teaching and teaching today and professional development. She has authored, co-authored the book, The Startup Teacher Playbook.
And Darcy, you said the word joy a minute ago, and you also have the Joy Lab.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Yes. What is that? It is literally going to be a lab for teachers to come and play around with joy.
So my idea in my head is that we need to get our hands dirty, so to speak, with playing with joy. Because the reality is joy is a unique thing, that the more you cultivate joy for others, the more joy you receive, right? So we can really be actively cultivating joy and focusing on how do we bring joy to the people around us?
And that helps fuel our own internal joy. Joy has also been proven to be one of the best stress reducers. In her book, The Stress Prescription, Dr. Elisa Eppa talks about how joy is a buffer. And joy for me is even more specific than just being happy. I always say there's two ingredients that I've identified for joy. There has to be a concrete task, something that you're working on, that you can complete.
And that task needs to be in service of someone. Now that someone can be yourself, right? And it can be as simple as, wow, that last delectable bite of cheesecake.
Main Street
That I made, maybe.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Yes. And I am going to really focus on enjoying that moment. And my task is just eating it.
But it's of service to myself and all of my senses. And I just feel this burst of joy through doing that.
Main Street
How can they take advantage of the Joy Lab?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
The Joy Lab is going to be here in Fargo on July 30th. They can sign up through going to bit.ly Joy Lab Fargo, capital J, L, and F on those. And sign up for the event.
There is continuing education credit associated with the workshop. Professional development credit. Yeah.
And so teachers will be able to come work on something that has maybe been bugging them. Something that is reducing their joy and stress and increasing their stress. And take control of some aspect of what they're going through as an educator.
And design a solution. But instead of doing that in the isolation of their kitchen, you know, sometime this summer. They'll be able to do it in a collaborative, supportive environment.
Where we will help give each other ideas. We will share those struggles. And you'll be with a group of educators who get it.
Main Street
Darcy, let me ask you this question. Are you confident in the future of public schools? Or does the rise, it seems, of the numbers of private schools away from the public school system that you really want to impact concern you?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
I am very hopeful because I just, I firmly believe that every child needs a great education. And I say that because society needs the genius of each of those kids. And if we aren't tapping into the collective genius of everybody in all of its different forms.
Because genius is not always easy to recognize. And it comes in different ways and strengths. But some of those unexpected geniuses are exactly what we're going to need.
Because we don't know what the future job market is going to look like. Things are changing so fast now that we cannot say accurately what kids who are in kindergarten right now, what their jobs are going to be when they grow up. Think of the number of jobs that exist now that did not exist in the 80s when I was going to school.
And so we need everyone. So I feel very passionately about supporting all teachers, regardless of where they're teaching, but really empowering public schools, especially in a state like North Dakota, where rural communities, our schools are the heart of our communities. And they can act as catalysts for joy and change and energy within their communities.
And we have to empower those educators, especially in rural communities, to do that work and stay in the classroom, in those places, teaching the kids what we need for the future.
Main Street
Where can people learn more about your work, Darcy?
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
They can go to theeducatorslab.org and learn more about what we do at the Educators Lab, what I do. Feel free to reach out to me at darcy.educatorslab.io. I genuinely love talking about education and anyone who wants to have a brainstorming session, I do that just because it brings me so much joy. So reach out and I will happily just brainstorm away a problem with you in your classroom or if you're an administrator, brainstorm with you how to improve professional development and create a culture of joy in your school.
Main Street
Darcy Bakkegard, she has created the Educators Lab, she's authored the Startup Teacher Playbook, and she's hosting the Joy Lab this summer. Darcy, thanks for joining us on Main Street and good luck with empowering teachers.
Darcy Bakkegard, Educators' Lab
Thank you.
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