Episode 502: Dialogue Circles: Listening to Understand

Looking to improve communication with your students? Join us in conversation with Ashleigh Wright of Southeast Bulloch County High School to learn how dialogue circles can make a difference in your classroom!

TRANSCRIPT

Ashley Mengwasser: Hello, educators. Thank you for listening to Classroom Conversations, the platform for Georgia's teachers. We've positioned this platform as a place where you can share and learn to enrich your classroom instruction, and we've got two dynamo departments to thank for that, the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting. I'm Ashley Mengwasser, the talker around here. You've heard the phrase, "Talk is cheap", but for teachers, talk is invaluable. You've also heard this phrase uttered annoyedly, "Quit talking in circles", meaning the speaker is not advancing their point. But what if I told you talking in circles is a methodology teachers can use to advance their point. What am I even talking about? Let's talk it out. Picture this, dialogue circles. Talking in a circle. In a circle. In a circle. In one Georgia classroom, the teacher of the year for Bulloch County is an excellent case study for the instructional benefit of dialogue circles, and she's doing it the right way. Ashleigh Wright is a nineteen-year educator teaching tenth-grade government and AP government at Southeast Bulloch High School in Brooklet, Georgia. It's rare but special when I get to host another Ashleigh. So this is already going to be good, but wait until you hear Ashleigh Wright's energy. There is no better person to bring us this creative unexpected topic. Welcome to the show, Ashleigh.

Ashleigh Wright: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Ashley Mengwasser: Your earrings are on fire today. I always warn my guests not to, I say leave your hoops at home because sometimes the headphones can crush your skull if you've got big earrings on. But tell us about your beautiful dangles today.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes, when you said that, I thought, "Wow, I don't know if I can do that." I'm known at my school for my big crazy earrings, especially with Christmas coming up now. I've been wearing all my different, I even have some nice glittery leg lamps and Santas and trees and all sorts of things, but I thought, "Nope, I got to wear my big earrings for today." I have a whole wall in my closet for my earrings.

Ashley Mengwasser: These are red and they're dangly and they give me a little bit of a 70s vibe maybe.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: I appreciate that.

Ashleigh Wright: You got to go with the red shoes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, there's red shoes? Let me pause to appreciate those. 10 out of 10 in matching. Matching skills on fleek. I had not heard of Brooklet Georgia before. What's it like in Brooklet?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, goodness. Brooklet is a small little country town in the middle. Our school is right in the middle of peanut and cotton fields.

Ashley Mengwasser: Wow.

Ashleigh Wright: We have cotton gin right there in Brooklet. You can always tell when it's time right now, actually, they've been harvesting the last few weeks and you'll see the big bales out in the fields and it looks like that's the only time we get anything that looks like snow all the way down the road to the cotton gin. You see the cotton all down the sides of the road where it's fallen off the trucks, and that's about the only time it looks like snow down there, but it's just outside of Statesboro right down the road. Not even a red light. So less than a one red light town. We do have a caution light.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's as close as you get to snow is cotton fiber?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's so very Georgia of you. Did you talk your way into teaching? You dialoger? I know you are. How did you come by this career?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, goodness. So my mom was a teacher. She actually taught me in the fourth grade. I think she always suspected maybe I would go into education. That wasn't my original plan, but when I was in college, that kind of changed and I decided to go into teaching and haven't looked back. Here I am.

Ashley Mengwasser: You haven't looked back.

Ashleigh Wright: Three degrees later from Georgia Southern and go Eagles and yeah, 19 years later.

Ashley Mengwasser: How long was your mom a teacher?

Ashleigh Wright: 46 years. 30 years with elementary and then 16 years with teaching early childhood at the technical college.

Ashley Mengwasser: Major claps for that, and we have to give the matriarch her due. She is here in the control room today cheering you on. Her imprint is clearly visible, but she told you, you said that you'd make a great teacher and you originally were like, "I'm not doing that", because your family had another business growing up that you thought you might be involved with. Tell me about that.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes, yes. We had a flower shop and that's what I always wanted to do. I would take flowers out of the trash can that they were throwing away and make corsages and make arrangements, and that's what I thought I would do. I was going to go get a business degree and come back and do that and plans changed. But interestingly enough, early on in teaching a co-teacher in my room, we got to talking. I met her that year and she has a wedding floral business, and so I started helping her out a little bit, and so I still get to do that.

Ashley Mengwasser: Just been helping out?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: But your primary gig is as a high school teacher. What do you like most about teaching high schoolers?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, high schoolers are so fun. Teenagers are unpredictable. You never know what you're going to get. No two days or two classes or two hours are the same. Everything's always different. You have to be real flexible with them, but they also are, they're very authentic. They will be real with you. They know when you're not being real with them and they're not very tolerant of that. So you really get to be yourself, bring your own personality, even if they think it's quirky or-

Ashley Mengwasser: They'll respect it.

Ashleigh Wright: Nerdy or whatever it is, they still respect that because it's authentic.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's not phony.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. Let's keep talking about your personal life. You had me at floral design. You've got two kids and a husband. Tell me a bit about them.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes. Yeah, so I've been married to my husband Alan for, oh goodness-

Ashley Mengwasser: Don't listen to this, Alan.

Ashleigh Wright: I know I'm going to get this wrong. 19 years, the same amount of time I've been teaching, so 19 years now. We have a daughter, Brooks, who is a sixth grader, and then Shelby Lou, who is a kindergartener now.

Ashley Mengwasser: So you've got two coming your way into high school eventually.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes. Yes. They'll be right there at my high school.

Ashley Mengwasser: Do you think that will be exciting teaching them or a little bit odd?

Ashleigh Wright: I think so, yeah. Yeah, I think so. My mom taught me so we'll see. Although she would not let me call her mom, I had to call her Ms. Brooks. She was serious business. She would not call on me until the very end, but I better know the answer. If we forgot the homework, she wouldn't tell us. We had to call a friend because she said nobody else lived with the teacher.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's the truth. That's fair.

Ashleigh Wright: She wouldn't help us with our homework. Our dad had to help us. If you left something at school, she was like, "Not everybody has a key to the school. Nope, we're not going back." She would make us pay her a dollar to go back and get something from the school we lost.

Ashley Mengwasser: That sounds fair and balanced. I'm completely on board with this.

Ashleigh Wright: She's pretty strict.

Ashley Mengwasser: And you have two kids, but you've actually touched many children's lives in your lifetime. Tell me about that.

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, so between my daughters are almost seven years apart between those two, and when my oldest was two, we decided to explore foster care and foster parenting, and so we went through that training and for several years we hosted, we were lucky enough to have five kids in our home, not all at the same time. And so we were able anywhere from, we had them anywhere from maybe four months to 18 months living with us and as part of our family, and we have been very lucky that almost all of them, four of them were still in contact with either the family they went back to or their adoptive families, and so we're able to see them. Just a couple of weeks ago at a football game in town. I saw some of our first two that we had when they were, goodness, four and one, and they're in fourth and seventh grade now. It's crazy. But it has been such a blessing, the most difficult thing I've ever done, but the most rewarding.

Ashley Mengwasser: What does fostering mean to you? Why do you think it was so rewarding?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, goodness. I think it's just an opportunity to really give back to the community and also to really touch not just children, but their family. When we first went into it, most of my thoughts were about the children that we would have and how to go about parenting them and helping them and impacting their lives. But what I found was we got to build such good relationships with their families too, particularly one family, and they ended up going back home with that family and we're still friends to this day, and we were able to form such a great relationship with their parents and really able just to see a whole family's life turn around.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's an incredible story. Did you see the 2018 film Instant Family comedy?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes. So great.

Ashley Mengwasser: Isn't that wonderful?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Everybody should watch that if they haven't, but it really highlights just the unexpected benefit that you get if you foster. And then it also just the comedy of errors.

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, absolutely

Ashley Mengwasser: It's near constant.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Did you ever have any moments like that in your house? Did anything explode?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, goodness.

Ashley Mengwasser: Anything like that?

Ashleigh Wright: Nothing exploded. No. Nothing too crazy. I don't think.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's good. You had things under control, like a good teacher, Ashleigh.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Cakes and flowers. You have this creative bent within you. I have to know what is the instrument used to ice cakes called? I've wondered about that.

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, goodness. There's lots of different ones. It depends on what you're doing. Most of mine I did with buttercream, so you have all different kinds of spatulas and then you have all different kinds of icing tips that you use to make all different designs and shapes and things like that.

Ashley Mengwasser: Are there any best practices for cakes that we should know about baking or decorating? What did you learn in your time?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh my goodness, definitely attention to detail. I think in doing that, one of probably my favorite, I did my daughter, my youngest... No, this is my oldest daughter. When she was two, we had a storybook birthday party, and so I did one and I wanted to include all these different books and things, and it was so much fun. I had the Pokey Little Puppy on there and I had the cookie from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and the yellow hat from Curious George and Corduroy's buttons and just all these different fun, Dr. Seuss' hat and all these fun little things.

Ashley Mengwasser: So for you, it sounds like vision, it's to have a vision for the cake.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: How'd you even get into cake decorating?

Ashleigh Wright: That's a great question. I really don't know. My middle sister, she feels like she's much older than me. She's much wiser than I am. She's only about 20 months older than me, but one day we were talking and she was like, "Hey, I think this is something that you could do. You should look into cake decorating." I'm like, "Really?" And so I looked and our technical college had a class and I was like, "I'll try it out." So I took that class and I learned a few things there, but then just started doing kids' birthdays and yeah, I had so much fun. I did that for several years until we started fostering actually, and then the time for that kind of went out the window.

Ashley Mengwasser: You just fly with the spark of an idea, which I love so much about you, and I know your floral design skills came from working with a family business. Do you have a favorite flower you like to arrange?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, probably peonies.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. Oh, they're so beautiful. That's your favorite. Do you have a second favorite?

Ashleigh Wright: Ranunculus maybe?

Ashley Mengwasser: Me too. Oh, that's my favorite. Good old buttercup. Maybe we should talk about today's subject now because we could talk about flowers all day, but I want to discuss dialogue, your creativity in the classroom.

Ashleigh Wright: Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser: Which makes for good dialogue. You've been so creative with your 10th grade government and AP government students. Mainly what I think we know about good dialogue is that it should be not a monologue, right? So tell us what are some things that make for good dialogue? What are some factors?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, I think definitely is attention, which is one thing I like about dialogue circles is it kind of forces, at least for me, teenagers, to really pay attention to each other and listen. Those listening skills, that's not usually their strong suit. They're all about texting and snapping each other, but those listening skills and being able to really not just be thinking while someone's talking, you're not just formulating your response, you're really listening and seeking to understand what they're saying and their perspective and their point of view. So I think really being engaged and attentive and then listening to what the other-

Ashley Mengwasser: The dialogue is about listening first. That's a really good point. And not just listening to respond, listening to understand. Those are some good takeaways. What are dialogue circles? Let's just get right into it. And how do you use them?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, so for high school teachers, I think sometimes it can be intimidating or we don't really know what that is. Elementary, my kindergartener, if I said, "All right, let's come to the circle, everybody come get in the circle on the carpet", they would jump right in.

Ashley Mengwasser: They'd know what to do.

Ashleigh Wright: But middle and high school students and teachers, not so much. We're like, we're not really sure about that. Dialogue circles for me started a couple of years ago, we had RISA training that my school was doing, and we talked about this idea of circles, and it was really intriguing to me. It's really a way, it's just what it sounds like. Everybody gets in a circle, either sitting, standing, however you want to do that. In high school classrooms, at least for me, generally standing works best. We usually have a little more traditional classrooms probably than an elementary school teacher, but we all face each other. We have a little talking piece in my class that's a little sunshine, Aldi dog toy because that's what I found at the time, and it seemed to work, and we go through, it's just really a discussion method that makes sure everyone is engaged, everyone's involved. No one can hide. A lot of times in classroom discussions, especially in high school, you're going to have those who are always talking and you're always hearing from, but you're also going to have those who-

Ashley Mengwasser: Hang back.

Ashleigh Wright: Really try to fade into the background. And in a circle, there's no background. There's not really anywhere to hide. And so that can be a little intimidating for students and teachers sometimes at the start. So I always like to start with things that they're comfortable sharing. The beginning of a semester, beginning of a school year, when I'm getting to know the students, I'll start with things simple. "What's your favorite Starbucks drink? What's your Chick-fil-A order?" Whatever it may be. Something that anybody would feel comfortable sharing.

Ashley Mengwasser: Good icebreakers.

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah. And so then as they get used to that idea of, "Okay, I can share in this circle, it's fine. This isn't too intimidating." As we start to learn one another more, then we can take that into discussions about the content, about self-reflection, about reflection on the class, all sorts of things.

Ashley Mengwasser: Isn't it funny how the circle is the go-to shape for these sorts of things, even in support groups?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: If somebody said, "Okay, everybody form a square, form a triangle" people would short circuit.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: They would not know what to do. So there is something open and accountable about the circle. And I think you said it, you have to look at everybody in the eye. You can't really hide.

Ashleigh Wright: That's right.

Ashley Mengwasser: And there have to be some benefits to that. What are the benefits that you've seen from dialogue circles?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, so I think that a lot of times one of the biggest benefits is I think especially as high school teachers, sometimes we are really guilty of doing most of the talking, and our students hear from us a lot, but sometimes hearing from each other is even better. They get a different perspective, even if we're just reviewing a topic, if we're reviewing some content and they've heard me explain it, they've heard my explanation, but hearing it in a different way from their peers is sometimes so beneficial. And then even for that person who is doing the talking, seeing kind of the impact that somebody really understands what they're saying and that they're able to explain it in a way that makes sense, really cements the learning for themselves, but also gives them some ownership in the classroom and they see the benefit of a larger learning community.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. Can this practice be used in other schools as well? Elementary, middle?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, absolutely. I'm sure elementary teachers, they do everything already.

Ashley Mengwasser: They are living it up in elementary.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes, they exhaust me just thinking about it. But yes, middle and high school. Like I said, for me, when we first went through this training, this was an easy implementation for me. I tend to be pretty open with my students anyway. I teach government, which lends itself to a lot of open discussion and dialogue anyway. And I'm also, I really have tried to be real reflective with myself, modeling that to my students and with my students, helping them self-reflect on their progress and their learning. And so this was an easy kind of implementation for me. But for some other teachers, it was not. It is giving up some control. We don't know what they're about to say, and you're going to-

Ashley Mengwasser: It's passing the sun dog toy.

Ashleigh Wright: You're passing it on and letting them have their turn. But I think that's so empowering for the students, and so you get a lot of benefits in students who don't normally participate, who start participating, they really start listening to each other even with things. I mean, we've had some where if maybe I have a class where maybe things aren't going so well, maybe I have a few behavior issues in there, and we can talk about, we might start with a few easy little questions and I might say, "Okay, what's one thing you think is going really well so far in this class and everybody can share?" And then maybe, "What's a pet peeve you have? Or maybe what's something that's getting in the way of your learning?" And it's amazing. I can tell you all day long that if you quit trying to sneak your phone, you'd probably learn more. Or that your behavior over here, it's not just hurting you, you're distracting other people. I can say that all day long, but when you hear your peers say, "Oh, it really makes me struggle when I can't focus because somebody's trying to be the class clown." So it's so much more impactful coming from other students.

Ashley Mengwasser: From them. It's so grounding. We know that middle school and high school students are more reluctant to share and talk among their peers as you've told us. How are you able to build trust with them so that they will share and go there with you?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah. I think one way is by modeling. I've always been just real self-reflective of my own teaching, of my own class. So I'll ask them or I'll share with them if maybe let's say we had a quiz or a test and it didn't go so well for the majority of the class. We'll talk about it and I'll say, "Okay, here are some things that I notice that I think I need to do differently or that I think I need to do better. Do you agree? Do you see those same things? What are some things maybe that you do in other classes that you've had with other teachers or some strategies that work really well for you that maybe I can incorporate?" And I think by me being open and transparent with them-

Ashley Mengwasser: And asking for feedback.

Ashleigh Wright: Yes. And asking for that feedback and being willing to take that constructive kind of criticism, that it helps them to be more open as well.

Ashley Mengwasser: More fluid themselves?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Are these dialogue circles planned topically or do you do them impromptu?

Ashleigh Wright: Both, absolutely. Yes. Typically, like I said at the beginning of a semester with a new group of students, I definitely plan in with some specific kind of icebreakers, get to know you things, some things to build that classroom culture. And then throughout the semester, throughout the course, I'll intentionally plan some to maybe discuss certain topics or to review content in certain ways. But then we also have some impromptu ones as well. Depending on what's happening in the classroom, we may be learning about something and I feel like it really needs some more discussion than what I'm getting. And I might say, "All right, let's take a break and have a circle." And I might even start with a, would you rather question just to get them thinking and then go into some content. Or sometimes when you have those, your lesson at the end don't really have time to start something new. You got those five minutes. It's a great time to have a circle. Let's have a circle and everybody share. What's the most important thing that you learned today, or whatever it may be.

Ashley Mengwasser: Have you ever used these to solve an issue in your classroom?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: Can you give an example?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes, a few times. One, like I mentioned earlier, I had a class where I felt like some students were really struggling with other students' behavior, and by opening up and asking them, "Okay, tell me what's something in this class that's helping your learning? And then what's something that's maybe impeding your learning a little bit?" And having the students hear from each other without calling out names saying, "Hey, when people do this and this, it makes me struggle a little bit more." And then also other times where I've even had smaller dialogue circles outside of the classroom, so I had a group of students a couple of years ago who they were good friends. They were always picking on each other, but in that fun, playful way, until one person, until it's not fun and playful anymore.

Ashley Mengwasser: And it hurt feelings.

Ashleigh Wright: Yep. And so I decided we need to chat about this. And after class, I was able to grab my para pros in that class with me, who was awesome, an assistant principal and about four students in that class. We were able to go to a conference room, have a little circle, everybody could share what they were feeling, and all of them admitted that they were getting their feelings hurt. Even though they were all a part of it, they were all participating. I think they all felt like they were the only ones who were getting their feelings hurt, and so it was a really good way for them to all see-

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, you too?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah. Oh, maybe we are taking this too far. And then we could also say, "Okay, what are we going to do going forward? What's our plan? Is there something we can do? If it's going too far, what can you say? What can you do to let them know this isn't the day for it or I've had too much?"

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. So you're using this tool for relationship building. You're using it for problem solving and classroom management. Can you give me an example where you've used your circles positively to talk about something content related? What's a good government question they have discussed in the circle?

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, yeah, yeah. Government's full of them. Anything from is the death penalty is that cruel and unusual punishment? Under the eighth amendment, does that count? What do you think? Do we need to put term limits on Congress? And if we do, how are we going to go about doing that when they're not real likely to propose an amendment themselves to do that? How can we get around that? All sorts of things like that.

Ashley Mengwasser: Is it about coming to consensus or is it more about honoring the individual perspectives around the circle? What happens?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, definitely. You're never going to get to consensus. I think politics is a great example of showing us that. We're going to come to consensus usually, but it's really about honoring the different perspectives and really listening. A lot of times, even if you disagree with that other person, you may not have thought about something in the way that they see it. And so just hearing their perspective about the death penalty or whatever it may be, even if it doesn't change your mind or change your perspective, it still just broadens your understanding of the topic, and it also helps you to be more empathetic to those different perspectives out there.

Ashley Mengwasser: Multiple perspectives. Are these tailor made? Can this be a five or 10 minute tool and a full class length tool? Have you ever used them at different lengths to take up? Yeah?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes it's only three or four minutes, and sometimes I think it's only going to be three or four minutes, and it turns into longer. Sometimes I would say probably 30 minutes is as long as I've had one go, but it definitely could depending on your students and the discussion. Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: But I hear you saying that dialogue is just so rich and so beneficial that it's worth it.

Ashleigh Wright: Oh, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's worth the time. What important aspects of dialogue circles should be considered by teachers in terms of implementation?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: Time would be one piece.

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, definitely time. Definitely thinking out ahead of time what that's going to look like in your class. I have round tables. I know that's different for a lot of high school teachers, they would not like that, but a lot of them have straight rows and desks, whatever that is. What's that going to look like? In my class, we can pull our chairs out and sit in a circle? Are we going to stand around? We even have some teachers in our school who go and do them in the hallway. We even have somebody who take them outside. Let's go outside. The kids always love that. Even teenagers, they still like to go outside. Go right outside the classroom and have a circle in the fresh air. Thinking through logistically, how is that going to work?

Ashley Mengwasser: Some people think it's a seance if they drive, "Wow, what are those students doing?"

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, probably so. And generally, even though maybe in the beginning it feels maybe a little hokey, but some kind of talking piece of some sort just to give that visual of, "Oh, it's not my turn." Like I said, mine was as simple as looking through the Aldi Instacart aisles and adding a dog toy that I saw to my Instacart shopping list when I decided to start.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's the sunshine?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, it's like a big sunshine. It is perfect. And so anyway, that's what we use. So definitely coming up with that. And then when you introduce it to students, doing so in a way that makes them not feel intimidated, willing to share in the beginning, and also laying some ground rules. That we speak one at a time, that our discussions stay in this classroom, that we're going to respect each other even if we disagree with each other, when that we're really going to listen with that intent to understand.

Ashley Mengwasser: Those agreements have to be in place first?

Ashleigh Wright: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: What tips would you give a teacher beginning dialogue circles in their classroom? Are there a couple of go-to questions they can start with?

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah, I think just to not overthink it to start with and pick something easy and short to start with. Just something where everybody, depending on the grade level, depending on what your kids are into, it might be, "What's your favorite Taylor Swift song?" It might be your Starbucks order. It might be, "What'd you eat for breakfast this morning?" Just something that you think your kids are going to be willing to share. Something that maybe everybody's going to have a little bit of a different answer with. I don't want to hear the same thing 28 times, so something that definitely has a lot of possible answers. And then go from there. Even I have a little deck of would-you-rather cards.

Ashley Mengwasser: Those are fun.

Ashleigh Wright: And sometimes you can pull one of those out and here you go, "Would you rather" whatever it may be, and let them share what they think.

Ashley Mengwasser: So it's really not much mental load on the educator. It's really about just posing the question and let the fruitful work unfold. Take note, watch everybody come together. It sounds like this has really been working for you.

Ashleigh Wright: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I would also say for teachers, if you are intimidated, if you have multiple classes like in middle or high school, pick your safest class. I won't say best. Pick that class that you can see this working the best in and start there. And then once you're comfortable, then you can branch out to others. You don't have to jump all in.

Ashley Mengwasser: Expand.

Ashleigh Wright: You don't have to jump in the deep end to start with.

Ashley Mengwasser: I hope that dialogue circles take over the world after this. Ashleigh, thank you so much. You are a high demand dialoger. We appreciate you sharing your conversational skills.

Ashleigh Wright: Thank you so much.

Ashley Mengwasser: This has been a wonderful conversation. Now it's time to talk turkey, teachers. Dialogue circles are the move. Straight talk. It's not about talking heads or talking big about talking jive or talking through one's hat, about talking to hear one's own voice. No, it's about the give and take of talking true listening, responding to conclude this episode. I'll talk from the heart with this pep talk. You're a great teacher. I'm Ashley. Join our circle next week for more teacher talk on classroom conversations. I'll stop talking now. Goodbye. Funding for Classroom Conversations is made possible through the School Climate Transformation Grant.