Pasi Sahlberg on reinventing schooling

You are listening to the EduSalon podcast, a space for connection and conversation around education. Each episode, Dr. Deborah Nedolitsky talks with a global education thought leader to provide insights into where education is now and where it might move next. Hello and welcome to the EduSalon podcast, recorded on the lands of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains, to whose elders, past, present and emerging, I pay my respects. My name is Deborah Nedolitsky and today I'm thrilled to be speaking with Parsi Salberg. Parsi is a Finnish educator and author who worked as a teacher, teacher educator, academic and policymaker in Finland, and who has advised schools and education system leaders around the world. He served as a senior education specialist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., lead education specialist at the European Training Foundation in Italy, director general at Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture. And visiting professor of educational writing. His most recent books include Let the Children Play, How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive, Finnish Lessons 3.0, What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland, and In Teachers We Trust, The Finnish Way to World-Class Schools. Parsi is currently professor of educational leadership at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Welcome, Parsi. Thank you so much, Deb. Great to see you. Let's start the conversation, and I guess I was thinking back on the engagement that I've had with your work. Over some years, and some of the work that really probably first drew me into the sorts of things that you've written about and spoken about. And I was thinking back to around 2012, when you talked about the global education reform movement that was sort of known as GERM, around that sort of standardised, compliance-driven, corporate management-driven, test-based accountability kind of education system. And I was wondering if you might reflect on how much there's still ripples from that movement now, and how relevant is it still to think about what you coined back in 2012? Yeah, it's good to meet you too, Deb, again. And it's about 11, 12 years since this conversation happened about the global education reform movement. And for those who are not familiar with this idea, it kind of emerged not only through my work, but also through works of Michael Fullan, who has been your guest, and Andy Hargreaves, and some others. When we try to kind of make sense that why some countries have chosen a very different pathway in investment. And I think it's really interesting to see how many countries have chosen a very different pathway in investment. That is the fundamental idea of the Finnish system as well, is that the health, for example, or social services or other support that the children often and more often now than before are receiving in the community is something that needs to be done in collaboration with the educators and others. You know, one of those things that I've been working here in Australia now during the last couple of years is this idea of reinventing Australian schools as what we call a multi-purpose communities where the purpose of going to school would not only be learning something about the subject or skills, but it's about taking care of yourself, learn to take care of yourself as a human, as part of the community. And so often here the conversation gets difficult in Australia. As many others. Because we think that education is a kind of a silo where we do our things and then other people and other services and other public policies take care of the rest. But this is something that the Scandinavian Nordic countries have been able to leave behind quite well already long ago, that the child is at the center. And then we collaborate and work together at the level of the policy, at the level of the system and services to make sure that children are held and supported where they are. And school is the place where they spend most of the time outside of the home when they're young. And that should be the natural place for providing kids with everything they need. But you cannot do that without this sense and culture of collaboration. And the beautiful thing with this culture, of course, is that it then benefits many other things. If we run schools within a culture of collaboration and collectively being responsible for things, it benefits. It benefits also adults, the teachers, when they realize that the work is not only about my work and my results and my outcomes, but it's that we are responsible for all these young peoples in our community. And we, you know, that we should see them also as our students and our children rather than just looking at my own classroom. And I think that lens of the child piece is really important. Like people definitely talk about the student at the center, but I think seeing what the world and education is. And schooling from the child's point of view is a bit of a different way to look at it. It's not how am I taking care of this child? It's actually how is the child experiencing this? What is their view, their perspective? It's quite, it's a nuance, but an important one. Yes. And, you know, this is sometimes it's difficult to explain those things, how they happen in other places that you really need to be aware or have some understanding of about the culture of the place. Because the Nordic Scandinavian culture in many ways. Is very different to what it is here. I'm not talking about the school culture, culture in general, and that that makes it more kind of open to ideas like collectively taking care of the kids and being, you know, being responsible for everyone. Trust is one of those things that is a fundamentally different there in the Nordic space compared to here. And without the trust, for example, within part of the part of the school culture, it's difficult to do things. That Finnish schools, for example, do every day, only because they have the kind of this sense of sense of to be entrusted different responsibilities in the schools, unlike often here in Australia or the United States or other places where schools are not really trusted, not even the things that they are the best at, like teaching, teaching stuff that they are all kinds of things built around the schools to make sure that they have the best education. Yes. That they're the principals and teachers do the right thing. And that's quite uncommon in in the Nordic cultures, for example, when it comes to education. Yeah. And I know that book in teachers we trust is around that trust of teachers in the education system. But I'm interested also in that idea about collaboration that you talked about, because I I can see the idea that, you know, educators and schools need to be collaborators, not competitors. But it sounds like the collaboration is much broader than that, that it's actually an integration of other societal. And well-being and educational services that are sort of collaborating with schools and educators, which, as you say, is it's quite different to the model that we've got in Australia, where that's, you know, you get referred out of schools for those things as a general rule, rather than have those things integrated within a school community and what the school provides. Yeah, absolutely. And this public sector, public sector collaboration and and the sector policies that have been and are designed. And prepared in these countries is a good sign of this higher level collaboration that often is missing here. Like, for example, I often hear in these conversations about seeing our schools broader than just education, knowledge and skills, for example, when now everybody talks about well-being, that how much schools should be held accountable for children's well-being should be measuring the well-being somehow or, you know, seeing that as one of the outcomes that often the conversation stops or gets really complicated when somebody says, so who's going to pay for that? That whose budget is this? If we are doing this or saying that, no, we cannot do this in Australia because, you know, education budget doesn't include these things and they are not, you know, health experts and people in every school. And if they were, who should be responsible for those things? And this for me, sometimes sounds like a really. Funny conversation, because again, you know, if we put the child in the center and say that we we need to organize these things and services so that it's a most effective and economically sensible and and good for the kids, then, of course, you know, we we should not worry about who pays because the money is there anyway. That's just to think about how do we how do we solve this problem so that the kids can be where they are and grow up in a ways that will help them to make the best out of themselves? Yeah, so as you say, when it comes down to logistics and who's responsible and who's who's who budgets for it and how does this work logistically, that's where it kind of everyone is in principle agreement that we should be doing things like this if we could. But then it becomes sort of in the too hard basket. Correct. That must be frustrating as someone who advocates for these things to hit brick walls. Yeah, well, it's yeah, it is frustrating at some points, but I still see a lot of hope and I'm kind of optimistic in the sense that. That we will somehow figure out, you know, this country, we live in one of the most advanced and developed wealthiest countries in the world and we can we can do anything we want. So so, you know, this conversation would be taking place in some other places. We would probably I would be probably frustrated saying that this will never work. But here in in Australia, I think we have we have great schools that are already doing these things. We have good people and a lot of research. And we have good ideas to support this thing that we can hear. I always say that we can do this if we only want to do so. So it's mostly about people's understanding and really thinking about these things a little bit differently. We will have a good have a very different school system here. We just had more conversations and and listened to one another and then said, oh, I never thought about it like this might be a good idea. You have written a lot about what Finland can offer the world in terms of what good education can look like. Have you had time to reflect in your time? Working? With an in Australia around what Australia might be able to offer the rest of the world in terms of what we're doing? Well, oh, we are doing so many things well. And I just understand and see this clearer and clearer ways the more I visit the communities and schools. This year, I've seen probably about 100 schools, 500 classrooms or more, and spoke to hundreds of principals and teachers and thousands of kids. And there are so many good things happening in our communities that the challenge here. Is that if we if anybody comes to Australia, Australia and look at the system, like let's say that you take the the the system level statistics and data, it seems like, you know, we're not really doing particularly well in any area that we are average in performance and we have issues with equity and and many other things. There's not really much there, but I think it's very important here to go to the level of the schools, you know, your school and many others are doing amazing things like, you know, this is what. I often tell my colleagues in Finland is that go and see the Australian schools that are doing things in a way that try to respond to this question of the future, like what type of learning we would like to see our children engaging in so that it would benefit their future. We have often said that we have some of the most interesting and innovative schools here in Australia of any any other country. But as I said, the challenge is that when they are within these systems and these are across the system. The government and non government schools, we don't really see the kind of the system that's hides these different, interesting, forward looking schools in it. And so that's why in order to answer your question about what Finland or other countries could learn about this is it means that you need to really go to the level of the schools and these units of the systems and look at what they do. And so we have. You know, this idea of future future school, the questions like what what are we actually looking at or talking about when we talk about future or think about future schools? a future of education that's something that we can see in many other schools here and that's a very very unique thing that it's easy to talk about this you know what the future school should look like what what they should be doing and what teachers and principals what the leadership is there about but what does it look like how to do that is a quite another thing and this is exactly what we can do we can do that probably better than most other countries in the world and not only in the one kind of one format that they would have like a one australian future school but the interesting thing is that all of these future schools are different they're doing different things and they have different ways to organize the curriculum or or the the school day or schedules or personalized learning you know all those things and that is like if you have a if you have an opportunity to do that here and travel and meet the um the staff and the kids and the communities you see really inspiring things and you really begin to see like what this future what school could be in the future and that's the beauty of this australian uh situation that again as i said at the level of the system your first first impression might be that there's nothing interesting here because we are not performing internationally any any particular kind of a good way but as you as you kind of dive deeper and and get into these conversations it's a really exciting and um interesting world over there that anybody all the others can learn a lot as we're talking and i hadn't thought of this before the conversation too much but you've written for the flip the system books one of which i've edited and you wrote a chapter for that thank you as you're talking i'm thinking it sounds like what australia doesn't do well is the systemness of our schooling but that if you go to that level of the school as you say and schools that are trying to show the system this is what education can look like there's amazing and innovative things going on but it's having to filter up and it's not necessarily influencing how the system itself works and that's one of your frustrations i think that you write about is the diversity is actually not a good diversity in lots of ways it it means that there's quite a lot of inequity in terms of which school you go to depends on the experience you have whereas perhaps in somewhere like finland it's a much more even playing field i suppose depending on the school that you go to because the system is allowing that to happen yeah yeah exactly and uh you know together with the frustration that i sometimes have i must admit that sometimes it's like frustration comes from the fact that why why we just don't get get things these things done like equity is one of those things that we we all we have known that for 20 years here with all the numbers our national and international statistics but we just can't find a way to do or we don't want to probably find a way to to solve this thing but as you know on the other side with this frustration is hope that i'm um i continue to be extremely hopeful here when it comes to systems education systems ability and will to to move on particularly the south australia where you are and and looking at the system i just spent the week there working with the schools and school leaders and it's it's extremely uh empowering and exciting situation that the state state is now when the whole state the whole system has decided to take a much more careful good look at the purpose of education and what the schools actually need to do and and trying to you know give school leaders and schools much more space to figure out how to build this future future learning for each and every child rather than try to do the same thing that many others are doing that the system is trying to lead this future that nobody knows what it's going to be so so that for me the the south australian case is the good recognition of the wisdom collective professional wisdom that the principals and schools have in the communities and schools together uh to figure out what what to do so so that what gives me hope at the same time when i continue to be a little bit frustrated about that although we know everything we know the things are not good we know the problem is what we still um don't want to get into this space of let's go and fix it and have a better education and better schools a better future for all of us and south australian education across the sectors is very flexible and innovative and futures thinking is that certainly been my experience and you talked there again about trust certainly trust maybe a bit by the system that schools can have some autonomy when you think about that sense of trust and i'm thinking there's a lot going on in australia and the uk and elsewhere in terms of teachers work conditions and well-being and in terms of the trust that teachers and schools have or don't have from communities to do the work they do i think you mentioned earlier that even the things that we're expert in like educating young people learning and teaching for instance good pastoral care aren't always things that we're trusted with i suppose i'm get i guess i'm wondering partly what that looks like but also what do you see as things that will turn that around a bit that will help communities parents um to feel trust in what schools are doing yeah you know again it's a great great question and people often ask ask me and my colleagues in finland how finland created this situation where basically all the teachers and principals feel that they're trusted professionals in what they do and it's not only me saying this but you know you can you can ask this from anyone here in australia who has visited finnish schools and spoken to teachers and principals they come back and say that the trust is a kind of a common thing that most people recognize as a thing all of them actually say that you know the trust is a kind of a common thing that most people recognize as a thing all of them actually say that you know the trust is a kind of a common thing that most people recognize as a thing all of them actually say that you know the trust doesn't grow just by talking about it that if we really want to elevate the the way that society and authorities and politicians see the educators and principals and teachers we we need to give them opportunities to be worth of trust and this is exactly what finland systematically did it actually took took about a decade about 10 years starting from the um the fact that schools were allowed to pretty much design their own curriculum decide what they teach not only how they teach but what they teach in which order decide their own learning materials even assessing the students that is a unlike many other places where teachers may have a lot of trust and freedom to do autonomy to do other things but then there's somebody outside who will come and say how well the kids are actually learning those things in the finnish system this is included in this professional responsibilities that teachers have so this trust was kind of a growing and building over time so that it became a kind of a collective a common feature of the culture and you know if this is true then of course here it means that it's very unlikely that teachers would feel more trusted professional just by a minister or somebody giving a speech and say we trust you we know that you know you are able to do this we have to be we have to be given we have to give teachers and schools opportunities to show that they are worth trust and this is exactly why i i'm so hopeful with this south australian uh situation right now and it's it's similar things uh probably somewhere else but no way is is so so system-wide than south australia where the system leaders are actually asking and encouraging principals and schools to figure out for example how do they respond to the new strategy and oftentimes you know this is not the case that the system may have a new strategy and then the authorities will give you a kind of a long list of things that you need to do to implement the strategy and then somebody will come couple of years later and check that you have implemented all those things which is obvious that it's a very very difficult to see any trust growing in that type of environment so so we need to give teachers and schools opportunities to show that they can do these things and then at the same time like what finland did was that we built also these support structures around those encouragements so that the school that is not able to do that or the leadership of teachers don't have experience how to do that they will be supported and helped that's a much much better way so i guess that we need to kind of assume that and understand that building trust takes time i think in our book we write that trust arrives on foot but it leaves on horseback which means that it takes time to build this culture of trust but then if when it's gone it goes very quickly and it takes the time to do that again but but you know finland was kind of like what we did and some other places like canadians many canadian provinces have done exactly the same thing that like systematically built this sense of trust that schools and teachers and principals have over time and protect that make sure that no policy no no new reform should be kind of going against or try to be kind of a harmful for this trust and it's a it's a systematic systems work that takes over time but it's it pays off in the in a in the long run as it has done in many of these other systems yeah that time to build the trust is is really interesting i love that metaphor about arriving on foot and leaving on horseback when you lose trust it happens pretty quick that systems approach is one thing because you absolutely can't just say well trust me i've got this that's not enough obviously you do have to earn trust and it needs to be demonstrated and i like the example that you give of systems in a bit like you would engage student voice in a school so that students are part of that process of what the school might be doing, engaging school leaders and teachers in what a system's doing is also part of that building of trust and empowerment and autonomy and so on. Yeah, exactly. And I was remembering in 2017 you came to my school in Perth and talked to some of our middle leaders. I remember that, yes. You were here. Yeah. I remember you challenged the room to think about the system that they were in, so the regulatory requirements, the systemic requirements. Okay, these are the things that you think are your barriers, but what can you do? You know, what is actually available to you within your control, in your classroom, in your school, in your role to do now? Is that still advice that you give or what, if someone's listening and they're a teacher or they're in a school, what should they be thinking about now in terms of what they might be able to be doing when they feel maybe like they're within a system that is putting some barriers up for them? Yeah, of course, you know, 2017 was before I lived permanently in Australia, so I was still a visitor. Obviously, many of those things that I spoke about then were based on much less understanding and experience of here. But I would still say the same, probably the same thing, maybe rewording it a little bit differently when people ask that, so what can I do? One thing I often hear, try to encourage people to say that one thing that we should not do is to wait that somebody will come and tell you what to do. You know, even if you feel that you're part of the system that is very much kind of a controlled and part of the part of the like a larger system, they always think that you can do. And I think that this time when nobody really knows what to do next, you know, if somebody believes that there's somebody in the higher there in an organization who has a good clear idea where education and schools and learning should go to, that's not true. You know, it's almost so that the higher you go in a hierarchy, the less you really know what the future requires that this this wisdom is often in the classrooms and schools. So that's the first thing that don't expect that somebody will come and tell what to do next or how to how to respond to some of these goals and strategies and plans that we have. Then the second one is that I think, you know, then there are many things in Australian way of doing school schooling or organizing schooling that we kind of when I ask that, why do we do those things? People say that, well, you know, this is how it's always been. Let me give a good example. They still it's not in every school, but most schools are still run like this. And I have to have two of my boys go to the school here in in Melbourne. It's a nice school in the community. But, you know, again, doing things in a in a very similar way than probably most other schools are doing. And one of those things is that the school day is organized in a way that there's my boys have first two hours from nine to eleven. They do normally two different. Subjects or stuff, no break between mostly, you know, classroom based stuff. And the choice, you know, trying to keep these kids engaged, which is which is OK. And then there's a little break for the office called morning tea. And I still don't understand why we call it a morning tea when my kids don't drink tea and they have many other things in mind that they would love to do. Then, you know, having a cup of tea and then followed by another two hour chunk of some subjects, then there's a lunch break very late in the afternoon. And then followed by the last chunk of, you know, hour and hour and a half or something like this before the school day ends. And, you know, I've been asking this almost in every school where I see this, that while how did you decide to do this, you know, organize a school day like this? And it's like, why do you ask this? It's, you know, this was given to me. This is a school where I went to like there's no almost like there's no other way to do this. And but, you know, if we get into this conversation about this fact that. Is this really informed by research and evidence of, you know, how children learn and, you know, how they grow up and how they develop, how they feel about things in a school, how much they can actually absorb or receive stuff? There's no no research saying anything like this research is actually saying exactly the opposite things, especially in the Yankees where to talk about the primary school. So so, you know, this this is one of those things that anybody can do. Like if you listen to this now and say, oh, my God, you know, it's exactly you're talking about my school. And you're telling me it sounds familiar for a lot of people, I would say, yeah, that are you saying that, you know, my school is that one of the most important things in a school that the structure of the school day is not designed or built around the based on the best knowledge or evidence that we have about kids. And I'm telling you, yes, I am. So what can you do? You know, you can and there are many schools who have been in these conversations with me and other people who have decided to, you know. You know, restructure the school day to make more more time for kids to have a recess or play or just hang around with themselves, recharge, refresh and get back and learn better. This is a this is a very Australian way to do these things. And, you know, there's a more than this behind this simple idea that doesn't cost anything. Anybody can do this is that, you know, my experience is that if we want to change the culture in the school and in many places, I'm sure that you agree with me that that that, you know, the school school culture or changing the culture is an extremely important condition for transformation or improving education. But we can only we can only expect the culture to change if we make room for that by changing the structure. And that's why this idea of just rearranging the time a little bit differently and having a little bit more like research informed way of organizing students work that we call learning. Or growth in the school could make a major difference in outcomes and engagement and attendance. You know, many of those things that we are looking at right now. So this is one of those things that, you know, anybody can anybody anybody can do it doesn't cost anything. The other one is one of my favorite things right now in the same space is that why do we have the system where you have four teacher, for example, is always teaching year four. Or if you teach mathematics in the high school, you always teach. Year eight mathematics, the response is exactly the same. But this is how it's always been. But guess what? This is this is not the only way to organize your school. Like, why don't we have a system that many Montessori Steiner schools have that you have the same teacher following the same group of kids multiple years? Some people say, why should we do that? Well, obvious reason is that if you want to learn to know your students and their parents, their needs. Their their talents and passions so that you can help them to, you know, learn a growth is a much better way to do it that way than every year get a new group of kids. You know, this is the other thing that has been for me kind of a surprisingly common thing. Part of the Australian schooling is to do things as they have always been done. And there are many other things that, you know, if we sit down and you start to think about those things that what do we do in our schools only because that's always always been we are beginning to realize that they are. There are things, little things that we can change. And as I said, it's change the structure so that there will be room for new culture, the culture to emerge. So that's that's you know, that's part of this hopefulness that I have. When I look at the schooling and schools and educators in Australia, we can do much more than we think we can do. And at the same token, I'm always saying that principals and teachers here that you actually. Know much more than you think you know about not only about what you do in the classroom or school, but how things should be or could be in the future. And that's that's something that we need to kind of collectively build this sense of ownership and professionalism on what we do and then utilize that when we are moving forward. Well, there's that wisdom of teachers and school leaders as knowing their context, their families, their students best actually in that environment. Absolutely. The lens of the child came through there again, thinking about. What is this like for a young person? What is their experience? And asking that question, why do we do this? And really interesting around changing structure to allow the space for changing culture. Yeah, that was there was some fantastic takeaways there, but we're coming to the end of our time together. So I'm going to move us past you to the final five questions, which I like to call the enlightening round. The first of which is I'm looking forward to this one. What is something unexpected that people might not know about you? People. Probably don't know about me that there's a there's a small rock and roll star living within me that is just about to come out any day now. It's actually it's already out there, but I try to hold on to. But just what's the space that you're going to probably going to hear about me, but not not in. Do you play an instrument? Is it electric guitar? Yeah, I play guitar and I've been fortunate here in Australia to get to know some really dear friends of mine. Who play music and we are going on tour soon. Yeah, exactly. We're trying to put together something something. So in in Adelaide next September, we're going to have a gig. Oh, fantastic. You must invite me. So that so that people didn't know. But now you know. Yeah. And what sort of music does your group play? Well, you know, that's a good thing because we we play we play music that is linked to education or leadership. So every every every song that we perform has a story. A story to tell to teachers or leaders or kids about learning. So it's a it's a typically a kind of a classic. rock music that we all love we only play music that we all like feel strongly about but also the music that will easily engage our audience to the storytelling and then through music to remember and experience something um something new so that's what we want fantastic and what about something that's currently on your desk the most important thing on my desk now is the emerging holiday i really need a break after this this has been really busy uh busy year yeah i'm really thinking about this this like a leadership space now when it comes to work a little bit about what would a a new type of way to help school principals and and classroom leaders as well to think about leading future learning type of thing so it's not about kind of i'm not talking about concrete program or professional learning or something like this but what would be the kind of a new image for for that so that's on my my desk here as a kind of abstract pile of questions and challenges nice when you've got those emerging ideas that are still a bit unformed but exciting yes who is someone that inspires you in the work that you do well i have a lot of inspiring colleagues here and things but as i said this you know the south australia we're probably sick of south australia too much but south australia is very inspiring it is but you know that's a honestly that's that's a place that inspires me in the in the middle of this uh you know i think that's a place that inspires me in the in the middle of this uh you know there was crazy world you know look look what's happening and you open the new news this only only bad news and kind of a disappointment uh disappointing thing so you know what's happening there is is really inspiring me but you know if i can mention a person uh sir kent robinson who passed away three years ago and i don't know if you had a chance to talk to him or interview him but he was um obviously everybody most people know who's sir kent robinson is but he he was my kind of a coach and mentor for many years until he died really um and i promised when on the on the day when he died or the week when he passed away that i promised promised to him to try to keep his legacy on as a champion of children's play and creativity and those things alive as long as i can do that and so he he's like a continuously you know part of the work and thinking that i do and especially in the times when when you feel that you know why why why do i do this nothing's happening it's like you you need to keep on going because of this promise to uh to him and others but there are many others but you know those those who are still with us here i have a impressive amount of inspiring strong colleagues and friends here that is a very very important part of my work what is one thing that you apart from your holiday or it can be your holiday that you have coming up that you're excited about i want to see how the um how the surf goes here in in victoria because i just got a kind of an idea of surfing waves in northern new south wales before we got here within the warm waters and beautiful beaches i haven't tried it here with my my kids who both of them are kind of a crazy crazy about the oceans and and waves so i'm looking forward to this and and see whether i can do that in the future i'm looking forward to this and i'm looking forward to seeing whether i still can can stand on the board a little bit and maybe find some people who can help me to do that but i want to explore this beautiful part of the country as well here in in victoria and around melbourne during the next coming months fantastic and finally if you were to distill your current thinking about education down to its essence what's one thought or resource that you would leave listeners with i i would say this we spoke earlier about principals and schools and how much more they know that they uh they think my principle is this that is uh shared with the some of my good friends and colleagues like peter hutton here in victoria dave ranch that we often say that children have much more capabilities to do good things for themselves and the community that we give them credit for and it may sound like a cliche but when you think about it it's actually a really important thing to keep keep in mind that we we you know if we just take this to heart when we think about how to teach and how to run a school that the kids can actually do much more than we think and not only things like technology and other things but they have a lot of they have the power to do amazing things we just need to kind of give them space and trust them and help and support them to do so so that is a kind of a more and more the driving principle of my educational thinking and philosophy well thank you so much parsy for joining me today on the edu salon thanks uh deb and you're doing great things by the way by bringing you know giving voice to people and sharing these things so thank you thank you for what you do thank you thank you for listening to the edu salon podcast you can join the conversation by subscribing to this podcast and sharing it with your network by giving this podcast a rating or review and by connecting with deb and her guests on social media you