Ep 228: Activating the Village

New Teacher Talk takes on a mindset that quietly wears teachers down: the belief that you have to support every struggling student entirely on your own. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran are joined by Amie Livengood, a high school family and consumer science teacher and former instructional coach, and Dr. Kelli Hamilton, a high school instructional coach, to offer a repeatable plan for activating the village, the network of people already surrounding each student. Amie and Kelli name a pattern they saw again and again while coaching: new teachers internalize every success and every failure, convinced they must solve everything alone. This episode is the corrective. They walk through a clear, four-step process for identifying the students who need support and systematically engaging the adults and peers in their lives, from parents and counselors to coaches, previous teachers, and the student themselves. Along the way they share the kinds of stories that make the framework stick, like a student who did better on hard days after shooting hoops with a trusted security guard, and a volleyball coach whose honest conversation changed a student-athlete's whole trajectory. The four steps: Identify roughly five students of greatest concern in the first weeks, and write them down Map each student's village broadly, and remember the student is part of it too Decide what to ask of each person, seeking insight from some and specific action from others Give it time, follow up, and keep records that carry forward to the next teacher One reframe to carry with you: asking a parent for insight, rather than reporting a problem, invites partnership instead of defensiveness. And as Kelli puts it, once they're our student, they're always our student. If this episode lightened the load a little, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes. #NewTeacherTalk #ScienceOfLearning #RetrievalPractice #EvidenceBasedTeaching #TeacherPD #InstructionalStrategies #CognitiveScience #NewTeacherSupport #PowerfulTeaching #TeachingStrategies.