Hello everyone, today I will be talking about challenging the status quo to rewrite

new school rules. In education when we challenge the status quo, it means we can
find new ways to meet the needs of us as a student, families, and learning
communities despite the norms and the ways things have always been done. 
Increasingly, educators are rejecting the fact that students need to be sorted,
ranked, and managed and challenging long-held assumptions about intelligence,
curriculum, and ultimately learning.

For example, on a typical school visit (back in 2019), a group of educators witnessed
a student fall off a chair. Much to the amazement of the observers, he wasn’t sent to
the office or ridiculed, he was asked if he was ok. He was and everyone went back
to their work. The end. Imagine if a student eating, listening to music, or talking to a
friend, isn’t an affront to the teacher, or a challenge to authority. It’s might just be
viewed and accepted as kids being human.

The focus becomes learning and what people need, not dress code, infractions, and
educators being in control. In my my experience as a student and a teenager, when
kids feel trusted, they don’t test the rules as much because they don’t need to. It is
so clear that they feel valued and empowered and then we get to spend more time
on learning, which is the goal!

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

I have pondered over this Laurel Ulrich quote for several years after hearing it,
and especially during Women’s History Month. I hope during this month, and
beyond, I want people to know about someone who decided to take risks, be
brave, go against the grain and not “behave” to make the world a better place.
Teach them about Rosa Parks, who chose to be non-compliant and sat where
she wanted to sit and made an impact on this nation. Teach them about the first
woman to run for president under the Equal Rights Party in 1872, Victoria
Woodhull. This took significant courage, as women had not even earned voting
rights. Teach them about Shirley Chisholm who decided to be the first African-
American woman to seek the nomination for president.
TEACH THEM ABOUT THE MANY WOMEN WHO HISTORY HAS
OMITTED FROM THEIR BOOKS.Teach them about the many women who
history has omitted from their books. Teach them that it is OK to be different.
Teach them about Sojourner Truth who imperiled her life in the service of others;
Malala Yousafzai who pushed forth to risk her life for what was right. Teach them
about Sally Ride, Harriet Tubman and Maya Angelou. Daisy Bates helped to
desegregate schools in Arkansas; Angela Davis brought attention to the corrupt
industrial prison complex system; Mamie Till showed the world the injustice done
to her son Emmett Till and sparked the birth of the civil rights movement; and
Sybrina Fulton, who turning the tragic loss of her son, Trayvon Martin, into a
movement that urged us to realize that #BlackLivesMatter.
These women did not listen to the naysayers who said, “not yet,” “some other
time,” or “wait your turn.” They decided that tomorrow is today.
I hope that we will teach our students, our girls and boys, that they do not have to
be compliant; they should challenge the status quo; they should ask questions
like: why, how and when.

JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS “THE WAY WE DO THINGS”

DOES NOT MAKE IT THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Students need to be

empowered to question things that are considered the “norm” when they go
against our moral compass. Just because something is “the way we do things”
does not make it the right thing to do. Many of the women who made history did
just that, they decided to be change agents. Our students should be encouraged
to be social justice change agents as well!
Women who behave rarely make history. Resist—make your own history!