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The Make It Mindful podcast, hosted by Seth Fleischauer, explores education through the lens of mindfulness, focusing on practical, transformative solutions for teaching and learning. Each episode features conversations with educational changemakers, authors, psychologists, and leaders as Seth uncovers what they do, why it works, and how listeners can incorporate those insights into their own educational practices. By applying a mindfulness lens, the podcast encourages listeners to look objectively at what’s really going on in education, using that perspective to create positive, lasting change.
Seth Fleischauer (00:00.782)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindfell. You know, I've done that the last like three recordings in a row. I've like messed up within the first two seconds after telling people it's like having an editor is enough. You're welcome. Okay.
Tierra Crothers (00:05.214)
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Tierra Crothers (00:19.006)
We do that on purpose to make us feel better. That's good teaching and good modeling, right? Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (00:30.574)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, a podcast where we explore how to keep schools relevant through looking... I did it again. Okay. Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast where we explore how to keep schools relevant by looking through the lens of mindfulness and asking the question, what's really worth paying attention to here? My name is Seth Fleishour. My cohost, Lauren Pinto, is taking a break today.
But together we delve into the world of education by interviewing change makers and focusing on practical, transformative solutions for teaching. Let's embark on this journey to make education more mindful and impactful. And this week we have Tiara Crothers on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
Tierra Crothers (01:14.814)
Hello and thank you. I'm honored to be here today and be a part of your community. So thank you for inviting me.
Seth Fleischauer (01:21.486)
Well, speaking of community, could you please introduce yourself? Just give us what you do now and maybe a little bit of background on how you got there.
Tierra Crothers (01:29.31)
Absolutely, I'd be happy to. Currently, I am a director in the School of Education at Sacramento County Office of Education. I help support the teaching and leading within Sacramento County and actually across the state with one of my roles is part of our statewide teacher residency technical assistance center. So I'm a director here in Sacramento, supporting those in our region of 15 counties and across the state. In the past, this is actually my 25th year in education.
But I like to say I started way before that. My parents are both teachers, my grandparents, aunts. So I started by putting up bulletin boards in the classroom during summers, sitting in the back of the classroom waiting to go home those long hours as a kiddo. Decided to go into teaching and absolutely loved it. I wanted to make a change. I wanted to help our next generation. So.
I made that career change a little bit into my first career and I've been doing this now for 25 years, was a teacher for 12 years and then moved into administration. Got to be a vice principal, principal and so forth.
Seth Fleischauer (02:35.118)
Very cool.
Awesome. I too have a lot of teachers in my family. My stepmom was a teacher. My grandma went to school when she was like 50 to become a principal. My mom is a music teacher. My stepdad's a music teacher. I always, when I do hiring for people, like I love to hear that people have a teaching background by being in a teaching family because I find that people...
I mean, it must be some sort of imprinting, right? Or maybe it's maybe a bit of nature and nurture. But a lot of the best teachers I've found are people that come from teaching families. I'm wondering, like, what did that do for you coming from a teaching family? Obviously, you wanted to go into education eventually. So you were given some models that made you think that was a good idea. But can you give a little bit more like shape to that? Like, what did that look like for you?
Tierra Crothers (03:28.254)
Absolutely. Well, you know, at first I thought I need to find my own path since both my parents were teachers. I need to do something else. But within that career, I was a couple of years in and I just had this passion to give back. I saw what my parents were doing to make a change, helping one student, one school and the whole community and how involved they were with the community was pretty awesome, too. They were making a big impact. Seeing students come back year after year was
was just really impactful. So I decided to go into teaching for that reason. And I got to be an elementary teacher. Both my parents were elementary and then middle school and high school. So they had the variety of educational experiences. And just hearing it as they came home, seeing the struggles of some of their students and how they were helping them not only learn, but just grow as a child was really powerful.
Seth Fleischauer (04:26.894)
Yeah.
Tierra Crothers (04:26.91)
And I knew I wanted to make a change too.
Seth Fleischauer (04:29.87)
So cool. So you went and you made a change by being a teacher. Eventually you moved out of that and you moved through a lot of different roles through teaching, through being a principal, and now you're at more of like a district level. What did, sorry, I'm gonna stop for a second and introduce Deirdre. Hi, this is Deirdre.
Deirdre Marlowe (04:54.247)
Sorry I'm late.
Seth Fleischauer (04:56.718)
No problem. It looks like you're in a little bit of a noisy place, so if you could mute your mic, that's great. Yeah, thank you. So Deirdre works with me and I asked her to listen to a lot of the podcasts and she would give me feedback afterwards. And so then I thought, why not have her come to the actual recordings and she can like text me some good questions that I should consider while I'm going. So.
Deirdre Marlowe (05:01.479)
Yeah, I'm doing that, I'm doing that.
Tierra Crothers (05:20.414)
I love it. Hey, that is all about good mentoring. That's actually what our residency program is about, modeling and mentoring right there on the spot. So I love it.
Seth Fleischauer (05:29.102)
Ha, that's cool. Okay, I'm getting back to where I was.
So in all of those various roles that you had, how do you think about impact? Because you said that that was the prime motivator for getting you in the classroom. In the first place, obviously, when you have 26 students in your elementary school class, you're going to impact those students in a different way than you will in the role that you're currently in. So how do you think about the impact that you're making? And as you transitioned through your career, what made you want to move up the ladder in the way that you did?
Tierra Crothers (06:05.246)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have to say the impact to me is still the same about student achievement, student growth, student as a whole and helping them. But my lens changed and who I was impacting changed from a teacher being in the classroom, having that the lens of those 26, like you said, to then moving into a principal position where I was changing school community and culture then and.
impacting even more students, but also the staff. As we move into leadership, you are not only supporting the students in your classroom and their families, but also now the staff and their families and making sure that they are feeling supported and a part of the community. Leadership really takes a lot of collaboration and partnership. And then at the county level, I went to a district first. So at the district level, you're supporting all those different schools.
which is also then professional development for those schools, the students, the staff in the community. So a larger lens within a district. And now at the county level, it's much larger. We are now supporting all of our schools within the county, all of our districts. So at the district level, we're supporting them. So I feel like as I have moved into different administrative positions and maybe we might say up the chain, right into a larger area.
I feel like I have even more service to give. I have more students that I'm serving, more staff that I'm serving and supporting and making sure that we're looking at all of their lenses. And as I mentioned before, my parents being teachers, as they said, as I started in teaching, I thought, you know, I might want to do this admin thing. They said, make sure you're a teacher for a long time. Make sure you understand teaching because wherever you go, keep that as a lens. So I'm always trying to keep the lens of.
Seth Fleischauer (07:52.942)
Hmm.
Tierra Crothers (08:00.062)
being in the classroom with our teachers and our students when I'm making decisions and thinking about policy and how we can help support our districts and our counties within California.
Seth Fleischauer (08:11.022)
Can you zoom in a little bit on that keeping of the lens? What does that practice look like? Do you find yourself sometimes losing that focus and then you have to bring yourself back to it? How do you make sure that you're keeping yourself rooted in the classroom as you do this work from the county level?
Tierra Crothers (08:28.862)
I wish I could say I didn't lose the lens, but absolutely, it gets a little foggy and we have to clear it off, right? And make sure it's clear and we can see through that lens still. And one of those ways is I like to get into the classrooms and be there in the classroom seeing what's actually happening. Being really open with communication with teachers and hearing what's happening. We do a lot of surveys to get feedback. We have in time professional development.
Seth Fleischauer (08:33.87)
Hehehe
Tierra Crothers (08:55.934)
where we're talking about what's happening in the classroom. How is it going? What can we do to support you? So I love to get back in the classroom and see what's going on and get on the ground with the little kids or talk to the middle school, high school kids and know what's happening. But it's also really important to have that partnership with our teachers, our principals and our district staff to know what's happening. So a good open communication really helps.
Seth Fleischauer (09:21.678)
Yeah, and so I have to ask what's happening. What's happening in education right now? What are you seeing as you go into classrooms from all levels as you engage the stakeholders at all the different levels of management? What do you see? What do you notice right now about education?
Tierra Crothers (09:40.51)
There is so much going on with education from technology and AI to mindfulness and SEL with our social emotional learning that's happening within our schools to my lens that I'm really focused on right now is teacher preparation programs so that we are preparing teachers to be effective on day one as a new teacher in the classroom. So our teacher shortage will say is the big
issue right now for us in California.
Seth Fleischauer (10:13.486)
And so what are you doing about that shortage? I know that that's a big focus of yours. Like what sort of, what new ideas are you bringing? I know you talked about this residency program. Tell us what's going on.
Tierra Crothers (10:26.366)
Absolutely. So teacher residency programs have been around the nation for, I think, since the 60s. And in some states have really started to grab ahold of this new teacher preparation program. California has started, about eight years ago, they started a grant that our commission on teacher credentialing started a grant to help support and build up residency programs. So traditionally what would happen in...
our teacher preparation programs would be somebody gets their bachelor's degree. They say, hey, I want to be a teacher. They go to a four year university and get a teaching credential. That takes a year, year and a half. They do coursework during the day for their theory. And then they pop into two classes typically for maybe four to six weeks during the school year. And then they get their credential.
So the clinical practice, what we call, was this shorter period of time where you're just seeing a segment of one or two classrooms throughout the year. And now there's been this shift. And actually the shift has been a little bit slower where we have intern programs as well, because the need is so drastic that we're hiring people and they're getting their credential as they are a teacher of record. But this residency program is actually,
a wraparound intensive program where we have our residents go into a classroom for a full year with a mentor teacher. So they get to start day one, actually hopefully a couple of days before that to see what's happening with all the prep that goes on before the first days of school, right? We know that that is a lot of what's happening, that summer work. So our resident and mentor pair up prior to school starting.
Seth Fleischauer (12:09.582)
Hehehehehe
Hehehehe
Tierra Crothers (12:20.446)
They are in there the full year doing their clinical practice as well as taking courses. They might be in five days a week. They might be in four days a week, three days. It just depends on the program. And the key part of this is that they're in the classroom. So the district is a part of this professional development and teacher prep program, as well as the university. The IHE, the Institute of Higher Ed is doing the
coursework. So the partnership between the Institute of Higher Ed and the district has to be very, very strong because our residents are taking courses throughout the year as well. So it's a one year program to get their teaching, their preliminary teaching credential program and with intense clinical practice. And then they come out at the end of the year ready to go. So their first day of teaching is doesn't feel like a typical first.
day of teaching for their first year because they've already been in for a full year. So it's really intense and the candidates come out with a lot of support and they understand the ins and outs. They know that the first day of school classroom management is very, very different than the middle of the school year to the last day, right? And so they get to see the full year.
Seth Fleischauer (13:16.43)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (13:33.806)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (13:39.278)
Wow, yeah, just that part of it, right? Just the idea that they get to see the rhythm of an entire school year as opposed to like, oh, I do my student teaching in the last quarter of the year, second quarter, or jumping around to different places, right? They're really immersed into that journey that a classroom goes on from the first day to the last day.
Tierra Crothers (14:02.174)
And our candidates feel that they say, oh, I get to be in a classroom seeing what's happening. And I just did this in my coursework. So I am bridging that gap between the coursework, the theory, and the clinical practice. And they can put it into play right then and see what's happening. It's really wonderful.
Seth Fleischauer (14:12.078)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (14:21.134)
Yeah, yeah, gosh, I think about, so I was a New York City teaching fellow, which is like Teach for America, and they gave us like a student teaching, so like grad school started, you know, the first day of the summer, and student teaching started that same day. And then you were in the classroom doing your own thing within two months, which thinking back on it was insane.
But I actually started doing my own thing within three days because the teacher that I was supporting in student teaching was like doing her last summer before she retired in order to like get that little pay bump for her retirement. And so she just let me take over on like day three of student teaching. Now, I imagine that the in I want to call them interns, but residents, the residents are taking a lot of ownership, right? If they're a member of the class.
Yes, there's a lead teacher in there who's, who's, you know, taking on the, uh, that leader role, but they're obvious. Like I think about my son's class with a couple of different teachers in the room, like they're all his teachers. And I imagine that there's a ton of responsibility that's given to these people, which I felt was the, by far the most effective way for me to become a good teacher was to actually get that hands -on experience. Um, would you say that like, that is a, a pretty typical of.
the experience? Is it a lot of variation based on who you get partnered with and who the teacher is? What is the goal in terms of independence that these people get within the residency program?
Tierra Crothers (15:55.902)
Absolutely, that's the goal. And that it's the unique part of a residency program is you jump in day one as a co teacher and that partnership of we are two teachers in the classroom together for the students, not only in the classroom, but in the school community. So the resident has that feel of community as well. And they are definitely a part of the school. They go to staff meetings, they go to back to school night.
Seth Fleischauer (16:05.358)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (16:18.574)
Yeah.
Tierra Crothers (16:23.87)
open house, all of this, parent teacher conferences, all of that. But it's gradual where they take over. So the gradual release of responsibilities is outlined so that it isn't that first week that you had like, oh, wait, now I'm the teacher. I'm not ready. I need more time. Right. And so we have 180 school days for that slow takeover. So there's a lot of observations and learning and discussions, reflection time.
Seth Fleischauer (16:36.078)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (16:49.582)
Hmm.
Tierra Crothers (16:53.598)
throughout those first few weeks and months, you see the down of October when we're getting tired and needing that break, right? And then seeing how that goes. And so the resident will get to slowly take over part of a lesson, a full lesson, then a full day, and then towards the end, they'll be taking over a lot of the day, if not weeks at a time. And so that confidence is built up, which then in turn means a lot more retention.
Seth Fleischauer (17:16.302)
Wow.
Tierra Crothers (17:23.358)
Right? When you have that confidence, you're going to want to stay. It's not that teacher burnout.
Seth Fleischauer (17:23.566)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's so I was gonna ask that because I imagine that this is a much more stable way of entering the teaching profession. So it's going to build that confidence from the beginning. I imagine that retention is something that we would drastically improve. I'm wondering, you mentioned the teacher shortage from the top. Does this affect the teacher shortage on the front end at all? Are there more people who are willing to come into this program? Are there some?
barriers that are removed for people to get into the residency program or is it just a retention play?
Tierra Crothers (18:03.518)
Oh, so this is absolutely a great way to not only get people into teaching, but a lot of our candidates who maybe would not have done it without a teacher residency program or in our programs right now, a lot of them are running on grants through the commission. But teacher residency programs are designed for candidates and we are removing many barriers with that. One,
huge barrier for people to get into teaching is taking that year off and being a student, going in to do your student teaching, being able to then pay for tuition and not have a job. The teacher residency grant programs and the other programs, I'm gonna cut that. So the teacher residency programs are grant funded and they provide a stipend to our candidates. So it's a living stipend that they are getting.
Seth Fleischauer (18:45.038)
Mmm.
Tierra Crothers (19:02.11)
So hopefully they don't have to work and they can focus on school. There are some other grants that they might be able to get for tuition as well. So we're braiding these different funds to hopefully have our candidates get a living stipend during the year and not have any student debt when they are out. So they can then just focus on their teaching. So it really helps a lot of our candidates because financially that has been a barrier in the past for sure.
Seth Fleischauer (19:31.918)
Absolutely, gosh, that seems like such an essential transition from the way that we've traditionally done things, right? Like teaching has kind of been a luxury for people who can afford to take the time off to get the education and credentialing necessary in order to do it. Do you target like any like paraprofessionals, just like people who are like already in the teaching community as candidates for this program?
Tierra Crothers (20:00.254)
I'm so glad you brought that up. Some of the residency programs are that model exactly where they are a paraeducator in the classroom. So that which is an instructional aid, we use those that language, you know, simultaneously. And so right now we have paraeducators in our special education classes that are getting their six hour para pay their benefits. They are a resident going to school, getting their living stipend.
Seth Fleischauer (20:07.246)
great.
Tierra Crothers (20:28.798)
And in a year, they're gonna have their credential and be the teacher of record on that teacher salary, which is amazing. So they're the para, learning, guiding, fully paid as well. We also have that in some of our elementary classrooms. We have a huge initiative in California for our TK, our transitional kindergarten, where that's gonna be universal. And their ratio for teacher to student is lowered. So those classes also need a para educator.
Seth Fleischauer (20:34.638)
Hmm.
Tierra Crothers (20:56.19)
and we're doing the program within those as well. So across California, there are residency programs built to meet the needs of each specific district or charter, and we are using the PARA model for sure to help support the funds.
Seth Fleischauer (21:09.582)
Ah, that's so awesome. I'm wondering as you get to know these candidates, and I assume many of them are young people, what do you notice about young people joining the profession at this time? Right? Because it's kind of a crazy time to want to be a teacher. There's just, you know, there's a lot of bad press out there, right? There's a lot of, you know, learning loss and behavioral challenges coming back from COVID.
It's obviously, you know, people don't do it for the money. You know, like, what are you noticing about the people who are making this choice nowadays?
Tierra Crothers (21:49.854)
You know, after the pandemic, I noticed a lot of people coming in that wanted to make a change. They said, because of the pandemic, I want to give back. I want to help support. I saw what was happening and I want to be there for our students. And I was actually surprised that that was the case because it was such a challenge with everything being shut down. But we had a lot of people with that drive that really wanted to come in and help. Maybe they had done some work with students, but...
They took that dive in of wanting to be a part of a school community. I have a lot of people, we have a lot of new students, excuse me. I'm gonna cut that. We have a lot of younger people coming in that maybe are just out of college, but we also have a lot of career changing people who maybe have their first career in an industry and now they wanna bring that in. I was just talking to someone who was a scientist.
and now wants to be a science teacher or is a science teacher and has that passion. And our teacher prep program is now they have the content, but how do I deliver that content to my students in a way that they will connect to the content of science? So there's been a lot of people who have decided to come into education. Another thing that I think has really brought our numbers up with our programs.
are the number of grants available. Because we have the shortage, we have a lot of different grants available to candidates throughout the state who are trying to get their first teaching credential, which has been a huge, huge change. And some of that is for those that are classified employees that are already a part of the school community. And now we're helping them finish their bachelor's and get into a teaching credential program or maybe just like a career change. So with grant funding has been really helpful.
to bring people in so they don't have to pay for the teacher prep programs.
Seth Fleischauer (23:42.734)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (23:46.478)
It's fantastic. It's so rare that we get like good news like things that are happening in education that make sense. But this makes a ton of sense. I want to get into a little bit of the priorities of the teacher prep. So you mentioned that a science teacher comes in, they have all this content area knowledge, but they need to be trained on how to deliver that to students in a more effective way. What are the things that you guys focus on as like the pillars of the
teacher preparation process? What is the content? What are the skills that people need to go either from being a career transition or just entering into the field as a young person coming out of college? What are those pillars? What do you guys focus on?
Tierra Crothers (24:33.598)
So in our residency program, we have something called the six healthy habits of mind for our residents and what they're focusing on. Of course, we need them to know the content standards and what to teach and then the framework of how to teach. But really what we're focusing on with our habits of mind is advocacy, helping our teachers or candidates who are being teachers advocate for themselves and also have that asset based thinking.
Seth Fleischauer (24:59.886)
Hmm.
Tierra Crothers (25:03.006)
that it's not a deficit, but an asset for our students. What do our students have? What are their strengths? What are they focusing on? I'm really working on persistence as well. And that follow through solution oriented is a huge area that we are focusing on. Inquiry is our five E's of engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. I want to say the two main things that we really are focusing on is,
Seth Fleischauer (25:09.838)
Hmm.
Tierra Crothers (25:32.99)
making sure our teachers know how to collaborate and communicate. One of the areas that I have found in my leadership that teachers have sometimes a challenge with is communicating with parents and if there are some issues going on right. But if you start that with a positive mindset at the beginning of the year and build those relationships and are collaborative, then it's a lot easier and that's there. So I'd say that that's what we are focusing on is the six.
healthy habits of mind for our residents.
Seth Fleischauer (26:04.398)
Oh my gosh, I love those. I imagine that to a certain extent there are people who are self -selected that might... Sorry, let's start over. To a certain extent when you're looking for people who have those qualities, there's somewhat of a self -selection going on where...
teachers might have more of that solution oriented growth mindset. And so coming into a situation where you elucidate these six healthy habits of mind, I love that phrasing, healthy habits of mind, that they might grasp onto that and be like, yes, that is something that I can practice. Just give me ways to practice it. I imagine though that there's some cultural challenge, sorry, scratch that.
I imagine that there's a culture piece as well. Like how do you build a culture where people are solution oriented, where they can get through adversity and be persistent, where they can, I think that asset -based thinking, I love that idea, but it's also like not necessarily how our brains either work or have been trained, right? To like see people as that like, you know, glass half full like.
you know, I think about my own brain, like I'm a rational thinker, a lot of like that rationality comes with like being critical, right? So I'm like looking for deficiencies all the time, you know, to the detriment of my kids. But how do you how do you build that culture? And is there is there another component here of like, how do you get people more generally to sign on to those healthy habits of mind?
Tierra Crothers (27:42.75)
And I think a key part of this is our mentors, right? So we have to select mentors that have this same mindset as well. So when we are going through our selection process for mentors, making sure that they have that growth mindset so that they can model it and work with our residents to breed the same open mind growth mindset. We do a lot of professional development for our mentors. And so part of...
Seth Fleischauer (27:51.566)
Hmm.
Tierra Crothers (28:11.454)
residency programs is having a mentor training, but also ongoing professional development for our mentors and coaches. That communication and collaboration that they have in their weekly meetings allows that to happen as well. And so a lot of modeling happens. So that professional development also goes into the next phase after they're done with their preliminary teaching credential, they get their induction.
They go into induction for their clear teaching credential and the mentoring continues with that. And so I think it has to be at the forefront of everybody's mind, but it also needs to be at the principal. Right. So part of our residency program is working with our principals and having ongoing meetings with our principals to see how things are going, to make sure that they are getting into the classrooms and being supportive so that they can feel a part of the community in the school, but also have the same.
So we are bringing all partners in when we are talking about the six healthy habits of mind and, you know, making sure that that is the focus for our program.
Seth Fleischauer (29:22.222)
And so are these people your finding? Are they finding you both? Like, how do you recruit the mentors and the principals?
Tierra Crothers (29:29.95)
Yeah, so each program is a little bit different, but we are working with districts. So residency programs are based within a district or charter school. Then they partner with local universities or maybe even online universities. Now, with the shift to so many programs being online, we have a lot more variety, especially for our rural counties to be able to have residency programs because of this. So a lot of different ways. So local.
agencies, so our school districts, are recruiting and going out and trying to find new residents to come in. They're maybe recruiting from within their community, which is always the best because then they're more likely to stay as a resident. And then mentors are either recruited through the district or through the mentors, principal. Principals do a lot of the recruiting, you know, that tap on the shoulder of, hey, you would be really good at this.
Seth Fleischauer (30:22.158)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (30:26.478)
Hehehehehe hehehe he
Tierra Crothers (30:27.998)
We want to clone of you next year, so you want to come on and be our friend. But I do want to say that we are also recruiting part of the statewide technical assistance that I am part of with our residency is recruitment across the state. So we are doing recruiting for residents, just giving some information out there saying, hey, this is a new way, because a lot of times people just think they just go to a university.
to get their credential, but now go to your LEA, go to your local education agency or district or charter and say, do you have a teacher credentialing program that I could go into? So a lot of that recruiting is happening. Part of what residency is really helping do is like you mentioned earlier, taking down some of those barriers, the fiscal barriers. And we are also really focusing on our BIPOC population.
So recruiting within the community of the school. So a lot of our teachers are more like the students that they are teaching is our goal for residency as well. And so local recruitment is really important.
Seth Fleischauer (31:35.726)
Yeah, gosh, I love having these conversations because people have thought so deeply about the work that they're doing. And I feel like I could talk to you about this for a long time longer. But we are coming up to the limit of most teachers' attention spans for podcasts. I do want to ask one more question. And it has to do with the fact that a lot of teachers are pretty kind of controlling about their...
environments, right? And there, I think that there's sort of, I've always thought about as two kinds of teachers, like those who welcome people into their classroom, they're like, yeah, whatever, like, come in and watch. I don't like you couldn't you couldn't possibly be phasing me. And others who are like, wait, you're coming when? And how long are you going to be there? Are? How do I know as a teacher, if this if this mentor experience is for me or not? Like when you're talking to people,
Um, like, or is it just that whole, like, are you comfortable having with some, someone in your room with you or is there something deeper that goes beyond that?
Tierra Crothers (32:42.526)
Well, not only are you comfortable having somebody in the room with you, because a lot of teachers might be comfortable with somebody in the room, but also somebody who understands how to teach teachers, which means you have to think about how you're teaching and can share that and also be very vulnerable. So in the beginning, you have to build that relationship with the mentor. Resident relationship is really strong so that there is trust there. So open to also growing, although the mentors are seasoned teachers.
They also are growing and learning as they go. So it's somebody who's open to learning as a seasoned teacher. Learning also because a lot of what's happening in our content for our teacher prep programs might not be what they were taught and it might be challenging their thinking some. So open to changes in their own teaching. So it's kind of this mutual learning that's happening. It's a win -win that's going on. So that open mindset is really important as well.
Seth Fleischauer (33:24.398)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (33:33.614)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (33:39.246)
Oh my gosh, I love those teachers. You just described like all the teachers I love to hang out with.
Tierra Crothers (33:41.63)
Right? Well, yep. And I'm just going to go back to I think it starts with the leaders as well, right? Breeding that community and the trust so that our doors are open to each other and observations are comfortable and a common place is always important.
Seth Fleischauer (34:00.686)
Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, this podcast is called Make It Mindful. Like, I love that you closed with this idea of like a teacher who thinks about their teaching, right? That someone who's able to like actually take a step back and observe what they're doing and thinking and how they're getting to the place that they are. That's something that so many of us do on autopilot. It is an act of mindfulness to observe yourself in that way.
to take that beat to like step back for a moment and notice and pay attention even if those notice things are painful and uncomfortable and inconvenient and maybe not consistent with the way that you were taught to do things but here's this new way and let's go give it a try. So it sounds like you have a really amazing program working there. Thank you for the work that you're doing for education in California and for the model that you are.
showing for our listeners and for all the other residency programs out there. I'm wondering if there's anywhere that you would like our listeners to find your work. Is there a place on the internet where they can go and learn more?
Tierra Crothers (35:08.254)
Absolutely. For those that are looking into residency, just Google statewide residency technical assistance center and CTC and you will find us. We have a website on the CTC and also Santa Clara County Office of Ed or check me out. I'm at Sacramento County Office of Ed. I'm always happy to help anybody anywhere.
Seth Fleischauer (35:31.79)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast here today for your expertise and experience and how you've described that to me and to our listeners. For our listeners, if you would like to support the podcast, please do tell a friend, subscribe, leave a review or a rating. And thank you as always to our editor, Lucas Salazar. And remember, if you want to bring positive change to education, we must first make it mindful. See you next time.