Meet Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly
Program Director, Lift All Boats
MSA: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you land in the world of education and what has your journey entailed?
Aidan: My first two years as a teacher, I worked at a school that was very, very bad because it was designed to be very, very bad. It was a GED program for high-school aged students where no one got a GED. Students had to formally drop out of school to attend, so it was a one-way street; once they came to us, they weren't allowed to transfer back to a normal high school. Most of the faculty said terrible things about our students--they called them lazy, stupid and worse--and made little effort to teach them. There was another TFA teacher at this school, Joy, and in our second year, we asked if we could run a self-contained academy: the students assigned to us would get all their academic content from me or Joy. We were told the statewide GED passage rate from schools like ours was 6%; at our school, recently, it was 0%. That year, 50% of our students got their GED, and more passed the test the next year when they became old enough to test. And we didn't know ANYTHING; we just worked as hard as we could, kept trying new things, collected and responded to data, and kept telling our students we believed in them. There was nothing wrong with our kids. They just needed the adults responsible for their education to give them what they needed to flourish.. I think about that experience a lot. I took away two lessons that still drive me: 1) don't underestimate what students can do. If they have a history of failure, it's because they have a history of being failed. If they're properly supported, they have the chance to thrive. 2) don't underestimate how comprehensively a system can fail young people. The floor is very, very low. The vast majority of educators love their kids and work hard on their behalf, and no one enters the profession to fail kids. Nevertheless, schools like the one I worked at exist, and they don't exist entirely by accident.
MSA: Thanks for sharing that with us. Could you describe a specific change project you have been a part of. What were the main obstacles? How did you overcome them?
Aidan: Coming out of the pandemic, a lot of the schools in the network I worked for were describing the struggles they saw from their new employees, especially from new or early career teachers. They seemed to be struggling to follow expectations, to mesh with their schools' cultures, to grow and take coaching like we expected them to. Everyone was confused and upset: these weren't bad people, and they weren't trying to be difficult, but a lot of them were unsuccessful, unhappy, and leaving their roles. It was a talent churn we couldn't afford. I decided to take a swing at an orientation week, in the summer, for new and early-career teachers. As I planned, I interviewed current employees who were early in their careers, both folks who were successful and thriving and those who were not. The differences were stark, but not in the way I expected: while I went into the interviews looking for disparities in placement (was there a grade level or content area that was simply too difficult for new folks to handle?), I found disparities in behavior. Both groups found their first years in the network to be very difficult, but the thrivers tended to actively seek out feedback, and then implement that feedback, which meant they got more feedback, which meant they got better and built strong mentee-mentor relationships with veteran teachers. The teachers who were struggling largely did not have those relationships, got less feedback, and worried that the feedback they did get came because of poor performance. In short, the thrivers were doing things that we used to *explicitly teach people to do*--to reach out for feedback, to implement it, to express gratitude for it. Without realizing it, as we reopened from the pandemic, we had dropped most of our "this is who we are, these are the behaviors we value because they lead to success for kids" language. The one school that had kept that sort of messaging had--you guessed it--a largely successful group of new teachers. So, I completely changed the focus of this orientation week. I cut most of the content I had written up to focus on a few foundational planning and delivery skills, with tons and tons and tons of examples and stories and messaging around feedback: why we value it, how to ask for it, what to do when you get it. I brought in successful new teachers, going into their second or third years, to share their journeys and advice and to emphasize the importance of seeking to learn from veteran teachers. Almost immediately, I heard from schools that new teachers were having an easier time adapting to their roles, that they sought out feedback, that they were easier to coach and grow. I find most of our change projects can be approached this way: find the bright spots, learn what they're doing, make those lessons explicit, teach them and reinforce them. Adults, just like kids, want to be successful and do well if they can!
MSA: What author / book / podcast has played an important role in your development? What are 1-2 valuable nuggets of wisdom you have gleaned?
Aidan: I think a lot about Daniel T. Willingham's _Why Don't Students Like School?_. The book attempts to make brain science accessible and applicable to teachers, and the first time I read it, I had an "a-ha!" moment every few pages. It revealed why some of my units and lessons and strategies really seemed to click with students, and why others fell flat. There are core parts of my approach to teaching--the importance of challenge, how the strategic use of rote learning supports the development of complex thinking, how to consider the strengths and limitations of working memory when introducing new material--that really took root when I read or re-read _WDSLS_.
MSA: What is a critical topic / question in education that everyone will have to attend to in the future?
Aidan: It's going to be critical for educators to ensure that the educational benefits of artificial intelligence accrue to all students, not just those who are already furthest ahead and most prepared for the world they are about to inherit. For instance, we are not far from students having access to custom AGI tutors who can personalize content better than any human instructor. There are many students in our classrooms who will take to these tools immediately. But there are others who will struggle to marshal the motivation and attention needed to drive their own learning in this way. A lot of the writing and thinking that imagines or plans for this future either ignores this group of students or problematizes them (these are the students "holding others back," or who "are not learning anyway"). It's going to take lots of good teaching to set these students up for success, using a combination of techniques we know and ones we'll have to come up with. Most of all, it's going to take a commitment to their success, to the belief that it's our responsibilities to help all students thrive, and to intervene whenever a student is at risk of falling behind, regardless of the mode of instruction.
MSA: Thank you for sharing your change story with us Aidan!
Contact: m.aidan.kelly@gmail.com | Linked In
