Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning

Seth Fleischauer (00:00.846)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, Insights for Global Learning, the podcast for globally minded educators seeking thoughtful conversations about how education can adapt to an ever-changing world. I'm Seth Fleishauer, former classroom teacher turned founder of an international learning company specializing in the teaching of global learning. Together we explore the interconnectedness of people, cultures, and systems and how these relationships shape transformative ideas in education. Each episode features educational change makers,

whose insights lead to practical solutions and lasting impact. And today's guest is Steve Ventura, PD consultant, educator, author. Steve, welcome to the podcast.

Steve Ventura (00:40.079)
Thanks Seth, I'm completely thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

Seth Fleischauer (00:44.654)
This episode as always is brought to you by Banyan Global Learning. Steve started as a PE teacher. I love that beginning. You climbed the ladder to become a superintendent. You started consulting full-time in 2010. Your instructional leadership and collaborative team cycle is called Achievement Teams, which we'll dive into today.

The objective of our conversation is to explore how your achievement teams model can support global learning by fostering reflective practices, collaborative efficacy, and instructional leadership. That's what we're going to dive into today. And I'm hoping that you can start Steve by just telling us about achievement teams and how it came about.

Steve Ventura (01:28.187)
Sure, absolutely. know, achievement teams is an educational framework. I've always been involved in guiding PLCs. I used to do something called data teams where data teams was very, very focused on just collecting data, but not really discovering what the root causes were for the data. And so once I started working with John Hattie and Visible Learning and learning more about effect sizes, know, achievement teams was based on

some pretty good super factors from the research, but it came about to be just an effective collaborative framework where it had a beginning, middle and end. So at the end of the meeting, people could actually assess how much impact they're having and how could they make mid-course corrections to the instruction before they gave a second assessment. And cause it's a bookend pre-assessment, post-assessment process, but it's supposed to obviously enhance student learning outcomes. It's based on

and making looking at evidence, making inferences and then having impact instruction. And it's just a way that teams look at the word PLC with a little more clarity because it is supposed to promote collective teacher efficacy as well.

Seth Fleischauer (02:41.006)
So, okay, so this is, you're guiding PLCs, personal learning communities. These are groups of teachers within schools who are supporting each other, maybe made up of like an administrative coach might be in there as well. You were talking about an effective collaborative framework. So can you kind of dive into that? Like what is the framework? How does it work?

Steve Ventura (02:46.16)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Ventura (03:08.387)
I can, you know, with achievement teams, everything starts with evidence. And that usually comes from something we call short cycle assessments, where teachers would give an assessment based on a priority learning target or something that's really critical for students to learn. And these assessments aren't tests. They're just assessments. just trying to give teachers an idea like, where are my kids? But when the data is then organized, the team studies that data.

looks at the root causes. Why did that happen? Why were some of the students proficient? Why were not some of the students proficient? And every time a gap is discovered, the teachers must actually apply an instructional strategy that actually associates with whatever the students can't do or what they can do. I if students can't identify two central ideas of a text, well, then there has to be some sort of intervention and mid-course correction about how do we actually adjust that.

And that always comes from the first assessment. So they're not graded assessments, Seth. These are formative assessments. Grading these things would be academic malpractice. The only thing they're used for is for teachers to receive feedback on their impact and to let them evaluate how effective their teaching is.

Seth Fleischauer (04:20.236)
Okay, so I want to dive into this look at root causes piece because I've always found it somewhat fascinating to think about all the different reasons that a student may have gotten something, you know, quote unquote, incorrect, right? Like the does that student have the knowledge? Yes or no, right? Maybe they just don't have the knowledge, right? Maybe they don't have the skill that that could be one thing to notice.

although not necessarily a root cause, right? But like maybe they do have the knowledge and the skill and there's like a plethora of possible reasons that they weren't able to display that knowledge or skill on any given day. How do you coach people to get to the root cause of what they're seeing in the data?

Steve Ventura (05:06.575)
We use a couple of tools. One of them is very interesting. It's called the fish bone diagram set. This is really interesting. Just imagine the head of the fish with bones coming behind the head of the fish with places to write information. And so when I work with teachers and after we get a pre-assessment, we try to decide based on that assessment, what was the biggest issue for students in terms of not being able to be proficient? And then the teachers just start listing.

one reason after another, nothing is not accepted. But at the end of this activity where teachers list things like, well, I think it's because I may have been very surface level when I taught it, or they don't have a lot of prior knowledge, or there are other areas that they've listed, at the end of this activity, we go back and circle only the things we can influence and cross out the things we can't. So if a participant says, yeah, the parents don't care,

Seth Fleischauer (05:56.792)
Hmm.

Steve Ventura (06:03.097)
We never say, well, that was a reckless statement. That might be true, but that's something we not, we may not be able to influence in the building one way or another. could, but for the most part, we're supposed to be tasked with where we can influence. And that would be with the students in our classroom and how they receive learning. So this whole root cause analysis is like an exhaustive process where you list all the things you thought caused that effect and then start chipping away. Which ones can we control?

and what would be the midcourse correction after we discovered those causes.

Seth Fleischauer (06:35.64)
Got it. And so, I mean, this kind of sounds like, like almost like agile software development, right? right? Where you're, you, basically, you have like a guess, you put it out into the world, you are gathering that data, you're analyzing it. You're like, okay, I think we were a little off here. So, or, know, we were a little off in these nine places, but like, this is the top one. We think, you know, the, biggest bang for our buck in terms of like,

what we think the impact will be and how much time and effort it's going to take in order to enact that change. Okay, now we're gonna try this. Now let's see how the data moved based on that intervention, just running these experiments over and over again, iterating on the results, doing these, I think you call them mid-course corrections and ending up at something that is optimized for that given teacher. Is that basically how it works?

Steve Ventura (07:09.231)
Exactly.

Steve Ventura (07:28.345)
That's it. And one other process we use because teachers are very conscientious. So sometimes when we look at data, I will just say, okay, here are your results. I want you to just describe what you see, but I don't want you to include an opinion with that. Just describe what you see based on your results. So they may do maybe an item analysis, like, everybody got number five incorrect, or it seems like students were very fresh when they took the, just describe what you see.

Cause when teachers find a gap, they want to fix it right away. They're very conscientious and I have to slow them down. Like, no, you have to exhaust this list of what you see. And then the next step is starting to analyze why did that happen? So when we isolate it, they actually come up with more reasons as opposed to listing one thing. What's the fixed listing and everything. What's the fit. We just developed this list. Then we start analyzing that data. And of course, after that, what are the implications for instruction?

So it's almost the same thing as this root cause analysis I discussed with the fishbone diagram. And it was an Ishikara fishbone diagram to give the gentleman credit. And it was actually used in business where it was a quality control tool. So those are some of the ways we get teachers to isolate issues and then address each one without worrying about fixing everything right away. In achievement teams, it's not getting it right. It's getting it started and then fixing it later. So.

We want people to know that they don't have to be perfect throughout this process. But if they can identify some root causes, it's the money. That's where the meeting really takes a turn for the best.

Seth Fleischauer (09:03.48)
I like that it's not getting it right. It's getting it started and fixing it later. I mean, in some ways it's sad, right? That we like put this imperfect product in front of kids and it's not right in the beginning, but of course it's not. these are human processes. Like of course there's going to be a thousand things that happen in any given lesson that you did not account for because you've got 26 little brains looking up at you, each having their own experience with it. So I like that idea of like,

You know, because we as teachers, we, there's a moral weight to this, right? Like there's this idea that like, God, like, like I remember working at other jobs before I was a teacher. And it was a sense of like, okay, I got to do well for like this reason or that reason. I don't want my boss to get mad at me. Right? Like then I became a teacher and I was like, I got to do well because like these people are depending on me to do well. And that is like, that's like,

That's heavy sometimes, right? Any given teacher has to like find that line of like, where are you going to draw a boundary here between what you need and what they need? Because you can work 24 hours a day at solving the problems within your classroom and still not get to all of them. Right? and, and, but that framing, I think is really helpful to, to think of it as like, of course you're not going to get this right. Of course you're not going to get this right. We're, but what we're doing is, is we're applying a mindset of improvement and

Steve Ventura (10:14.779)
That's exactly right.

Seth Fleischauer (10:27.434)
One of the things that we talked about in the objective here is this like fostering reflective practices. Obviously this process that you've explained for us here is rich with that. I'm wondering about the like sort of emotional component of this. It can be difficult to see ourselves clearly and it can require some skills.

to be able to do that in a way where you're not going to react purely defensively or maybe you do, but eventually you get to that place where you're like, I'm going to use this as a motivation to change versus like either, you know, getting defensive and, and, know, blaming the parents or like blaming the students or like getting super down on yourself that like, gosh, look at all these things that I'm not doing while I'm overwhelmed.

with the amount of improvement that I need to do in order to be able to get my students to where they need to be. Like how much do you work in that like emotional competence space of like preparing teachers to be able to participate in these reflective practices in a productive way?

Steve Ventura (11:35.597)
Such a great question because we've learned after doing this for 15 plus years, empathy is the greatest way to introduce any type of collaborative protocol. It's not sympathy, it's empathy. must actually put yourself in the place of people who are going to be asked to self-assess their impact as teachers. We always have to remind teachers this is a no-fault reflection on practice. Please don't worry about it. We have to work with administrators especially.

not to use this as way to evaluate teachers. It's not what it's for.

Seth Fleischauer (12:07.15)
I just, I feel like both things you said are like, okay, you said those, but are they actually going to happen? Right? Like, don't worry about it. Okay, sure. Like don't use them in this way. Okay, sure. But like, do those, do those things happen? Like that, like it's the human temptation to like worry about it, to, to, to use this as a way to like evaluate someone.

Steve Ventura (12:20.261)
Thank you.

Steve Ventura (12:27.149)
It depends on some of our leaders will talk about where this is not going to work. You know, we've been in places where like we're sorry we're we don't see this happening here. But for the most part, when we work with a school that's invested in having us work with them, they're usually led by an instructional leader who understands the difference between all these mandated things that they have to do from the top down district office and what they can control at their school sites where they actually want teachers to do more reflection.

I think the biggest threat to education innovation is internal politics and an organizational culture that refuses to change. So one of the things we show people is like, we know there's a lot of things that are political in all school districts, but at the same time, some things remain a little bit fresh and sacred. And one of them is self-reflection. You know, no one can evaluate that. That can't go in your personnel file. I mean, this is something that is internally driven and motivated. So yeah, I hear you too. I mean, we have to make sure.

that it doesn't get misused. Well, even as an external consultant, we would remind people all the time, please, this is, there are other factors if you want to use to evaluate people, this is not one of them. Otherwise it won't work. people find out who are implementing this, like, we're being judged by this, it's like, it's dead in the water. So that's it.

Seth Fleischauer (13:40.728)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (13:45.804)
Yeah. Okay. So you have that, that principal who like, you know, despite saying this is going to use it to evaluate teachers. That's an example of someone that doesn't work for, you know, who, who, like you've done the work both domestically and internationally. You've gone to, I think you were saying Bermuda, a couple of other places with this. I'm curious who, who is this for? Who is this not for? Where does this work? Where does this not work?

Steve Ventura (13:55.567)
Right.

Steve Ventura (14:10.339)
Yeah, it becomes more stark the more we do it. So it's for educators who are committed to collaborative practices. Number one, these are people that are generally looking for, they feel like when they meet it's a collaborative powerhouse, not another thing that they have to do. Because at the end of the meeting, there should be a new fresh excitement about teaching, learning and leadership that they can apply and look at the results between this first cycle and second cycle.

There's a lot of districts that really have a focus on continuous improvement. That's where we belong. In those areas, they're looking for systematic approaches that improve with teaching and learning as well. And we see that happen a lot. More often than not, that's where we end up. But also, this works for data-driven practitioners. There's a lot of educators that actually understand how to use and disaggregate information without always grading kids. The data is used to inform instruction and help set measurable goals.

The other thing we know is that if administrators are looking for accountability and results, accountability, not the personal file accountability, but if they're looking for an accountability to a structured way to facilitate discussions and drive measurable improvement, it works there really well. So it has a lot of positive outcomes, but the mind frame is before we even ask people to do this, Seth, we have to set them up for success by telling them

this is what you will get from this if you look at our framework. By contrast, we can tell you right away where it doesn't work.

Seth Fleischauer (15:42.094)
Hmm. Oh, okay. So I just heard this, um, I was at a Vistage meeting the other day and I heard these three words together, purpose, process, payoff, uh, and that when you're coming into a, um, uh, any given situation where you're trying to enact change, that it's important to tell people why they're doing it, tell people what they're going to be doing and then what the payoff is of this. Uh, I feel like we've, we've talked about the process a lot.

What's the purpose? What's the payoff?

Steve Ventura (16:14.363)
You know, the payoff is increased ability for teachers to actually understand where they have the greatest impact on student achievement. You know, in achievement teams, the payoff is learning additional instructional strategies that you've never tried before because it's okay to take a risk. The payoff is helping students understand that they can track and monitor their own work. It's not done to them, it's done with them. The payoff is greater satisfaction personally and professionally when you know that you're

a part of a team that truly cares about the outcomes and how they can be applied to the team. So there's there's so many positives. And a lot of times we are so loving the process because we get a chance to show people how they do it. But we feel like payoffs are huge, not just grade level and proficiency wise, but just ethically. We talked about collective teacher efficacy, where when teams of teachers come together and they positively believe they can affect the lives of the students they serve. Well,

Based on the probability of that, could advance student learning two years and one instructional year, maybe more. So a lot of things happen from just really good, decent collaborative processes, but there shouldn't be something that people dread. I mean, that actually should be fun. It should be a good time. I mean, when we ask people to give a short cycle assessment, it shouldn't be like, that's a lot of work. think teachers assess all the time anyway. But the schools where it's working, Seth, they see the value.

the leaders see the value, and ultimately they see improved student outcomes.

Seth Fleischauer (17:47.214)
And you've used this word collective collaborative, this idea that this is not coming in and working with a single teacher to improve their practices. This is more of a of a cultural piece. Why why is that important for this type of work?

Steve Ventura (18:02.021)
Yes.

Steve Ventura (18:05.967)
Well, we just, we feel like when people combine their collective intelligence, they're gonna not, they're gonna overcome many challenges as if they were to try to do it in an individual silo. And teaching is stressful and there's a lot of speed bumps involved with teaching. And I just feel like many people try to overcome everything on their own. And this is when we lose them and they drop out of the field. First three to five years, they figure that teaching is not good for them. It's not a good match.

Well, we see that when teachers actually work together collectively, the hang in the game longer. I just, we have another book coming out with ASCD next summer. And one of the data points I discovered was it's like teachers who get a chance to share ideas regularly and collaborate have lower tendencies to leave their school or their district. They actually stay because of that, that process. So we think that, you know, there, there are so many pluses, but we just want people to understand that when you do collaborate.

Seth Fleischauer (18:53.294)
Hmm.

Steve Ventura (19:03.791)
the purpose is to improve practice, student outcomes, but create really great relationships. And, you know, not every team likes each other, but sometimes collaboration can break down some of that resistance.

Seth Fleischauer (19:19.205)
Yeah, it's, uh, sometimes collaboration can break down some of that resistance. Sometimes collaboration just teaches you how to work with someone you don't like, you know, because that's necessary too, right? Like that is, that is a skill. Like there, there are going to be those people out there. Um, I, I love this, this cultural piece, you know, something that we talk about in global learning, uh, is, cultural competence, right? This idea of

Steve Ventura (19:32.891)
me.

Seth Fleischauer (19:46.894)
Developing an appreciation for and an understanding of different identities, cultures, traditions, ways of life, including your own. I'm hearing a lot of things in here that kind of weave into that, that connect with that. One of those things, just that process of self-reflection, you are developing a sense of identity when you can see yourself more clearly. I'm wondering if you can connect other dots for us. How does your process help with

Steve Ventura (19:56.283)
Mm-hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (20:16.962)
like I know that the point is to to improve student outcomes. Oftentimes those student outcomes are like academic outcomes, right? But a lot of the things that we talk about in global learning, cultural competence, digital media literacy, like critical thinking, awareness of global issues and like how you fit into all that intercultural communication and collaboration.

Steve Ventura (20:30.074)
Yes.

Seth Fleischauer (20:41.998)
How are those types of skills and knowledge impacted by your process?

Steve Ventura (20:48.599)
Yeah, that's another great question. So I for four years I worked with the Zambian Ministry of Education and we would go to Zambia and work with lectures and professors professors from nine teacher colleges who want a professional development about how could they create really good candidates for teaching in Zambia. Well, when you're in Zambia or another place, if you're going to analyze data, you have to contextualize that data for where you're working. So

you know, maybe it's by subgroup or language proficiency or socioeconomic status, but what we've discovered in the places we work, these culturally responsive goals, if you create a goal, has to be with some cultural nuances to that. So they are relevant and meaningful to all students. We see cultural norms and a lot of meanings we use, and we try to promote that where there could be different communication styles or meeting structures. So we're very like fluid with this no matter where we go. But, you know, we have to make adjustments for

and respect cultural preferences like consensus building or what we have is sometimes collectivist cultures. So we take a great deal of pride in understanding where we're at first before we just say it can only be done one way. There are so many different ways to adapt to this, but like for instance in Africa, I introduced them to these collaborative protocols, but it had to be completely sensitive to the way they collaborate and the data that they really want to use.

Seth Fleischauer (22:13.198)
Hmm.

Steve Ventura (22:15.439)
There, mean, literacy is the number one priority in Zambia, right? Kids who can read will live much longer than kids who can't. So that's a major life and death goal that they have. But still we have to kind of take a look at a country that has 78 different dialects in one place. And we have to take into consideration how do we meet those needs without sacrificing the core value of collaboration. So there's a lot of opportunity for culturally responsive collaboration.

Seth Fleischauer (22:45.548)
Yeah.

So I like asking a question about people's work because oftentimes, you know, I people on this podcast who do such amazing things. They're not going to work with everybody who's listening to this, but the people who are listening might be inspired by some of the work that you're doing. And I wonder like what some of these like first steps are for a teacher who maybe wants to institute these types of practices even amongst their students.

but they don't necessarily have the support of their school administration or a school leader who wants to build this type of culture at their school but might not have the funding support from their district. Like how what's what's the baby steps towards enacting this type of change getting on this type of program?

Steve Ventura (23:38.533)
Well, there's two types of approaches here. One is that with teachers who have this very positive outlook about working with each other, sometimes the first steps are helping them identify what would be the best learning targets for your team to look at and assess. What would make the most difference? You know, we do something called teacher clarity, which is helping teachers identify these targets and then helping them write success criteria for the students so the students can actually assess their own progress, whether it's

Seth Fleischauer (23:52.27)
Hmm.

Steve Ventura (24:07.311)
believing that the teacher is the fountain of all knowledge. The kids do have the ability to determine if they're proficient or not. And sometimes that precedes the collaborative process by a year. Just understanding how to pick a learning target and assess it, Seth, like write a good assessment for that. We have a lot of people that will refer to artificial intelligence. I'm not opposed to it at all. But if you don't have the background of what assessment literacy is, you can crank anything out.

Seth Fleischauer (24:33.646)
Mm.

Steve Ventura (24:35.707)
from AI and not still know if it's valid or not because AI is still evolving too. So we feel like some places start with, we need to find a target. What's our focus? Is it going to be English language arts? Is it math? Do we want to focus on culture in the building? know, sometimes it has nothing to do with ELA or math. I some people want to assess how do we reduce the number of classroom disruptions or, you know, how do we take care of our kids who...

Seth Fleischauer (24:39.384)
Yeah.

Steve Ventura (25:02.299)
May not go home to families that understand how to support them for school a lot of things that come into play and I think that When we look at everything that you could do to start this The first thing is to just start with and we don't survey or do a lot of surveys and people and stuff we just try to find out what is the culture of the building and What do people believe in? This latest book talks about leaders creating a culture that

Seth Fleischauer (25:22.83)
Hmm.

Steve Ventura (25:30.519)
essentially says you got to get out in front and live the way you're asking everybody else to live. And then we find that our leaders who do that, we have people that have very low resistance to this process. you mostly we, if I wanted to go from a flood that to a flash, it is about assessing key areas of learning so we can improve student outcomes. But I don't think we just throw people in headfirst, okay, you're now on an achievement team. There's a lot of like prep before.

we start turning people loose on this collaborative process because, you know, everybody has different levels and ideas about what collaboration really is to us. It's shared practice. it's designed to promote really great practice by having people learn from each other through vicarious experiences or master experiences, whatever that is. And then turning all that into a powerhouse of collaborative processes. And then again, translating into great teaching and learning.

Seth Fleischauer (26:28.536)
And so I'm hearing that when you engage with people, you're not just putting them on an achievement team. You're discussing purpose. You're discussing process. Maybe payoff also, right? To bring back that triad of considerations. And you're allowing them to co-create with you what those rules of engagement are going to be.

agreeing on why we're here in the first place. I find it so interesting sometimes, you if you don't do that type of work beforehand, you get in to collaborate on a project and it's almost inevitable that you end up having to do that work. Like you kind of like, cause you're going to get to a point where you're like, but I didn't think that this is what we were.

why we were doing this, right? And then you have that discussion. It's just easier to have it upfront than to try to correct midstream. Would you agree that that is why you do it at first?

Steve Ventura (27:36.321)
Yeah, and there's so many different moving parts. Like we screen the building level leadership very carefully. You know, when we meet with them, it's got to be the type of leader that's willing to participate in the implementation. We always tell our leadership friends, really strong leaders don't sponsor learning for others. They are learning with others. And so we need our administrators to look at this process and continually communicate it to the teachers about how they're going to support them.

Seth Fleischauer (27:57.996)
Hmm.

Steve Ventura (28:06.203)
How they trust them, how they'll be involved with it, as opposed to somebody who thinks that maybe something magical will happen after we come and visit their school. It just doesn't happen that way. There's got to be something intentional. And so we usually look to our building level leaders or district level leaders to set the tone for that. And we coach them on that. Sometimes teams aren't ready to collaborate. I just had a meeting last week where we met with the leadership team first. Like, is this a good fit for you? Like, will this work? Will they work in an area that results in a ton of resistance? And so.

Seth Fleischauer (28:14.552)
Hehehe.

Yeah.

Steve Ventura (28:35.407)
You know, you're not going to lower levels of resistance by mandating something. It's going to be a great deal of planning for you. You set that out. You set that off. So I hope that kind of addresses that question because.

Seth Fleischauer (28:40.014)
You

Seth Fleischauer (28:49.3)
Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I'm trying to think about whether or not that's totally true. Like you can't lower levels of resistance by mandating something. I think in like an authoritarian system you could, but like then there's a question of how effective those are in education. okay, so you mentioned, first of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing this method with us. These are processes

that I think even if we do not have the luxury of engaging with your team, I think that we can take something out of these in order to understand how to identify things that are important to work on, which ones we have impact on, which ones we don't, prioritize those, choose one, put them in the context of this is going to be imperfect.

Self-reflection is sacred. love that you said that this idea that it's this like protected space, like nobody, nobody else, if you don't let them can have an impact on what your self-reflective processes are. no politics, no, no cultural considerations. That is yours. and I love that message. you, you teased a book. I'd love to know where we can find that book and also where else can we find your work on the internet? Where would you like to send people?

Steve Ventura (30:14.063)
Yeah, our website is steventura.com and it explains our four flagship offerings there. can read more about what we do. There's tons of blogs that I've written on there as well. And then I'm an author with AACD. So our first book was Achievement Teams, How It Can Actually Improve PLCs and Collective Efficacy. And I am working, just submitted my manuscript to AACD again, which is an editing now, which will be released in August, 2025. And you know, Seth, I wish I had the title for you.

Seth Fleischauer (30:43.927)
Yeah.

Steve Ventura (30:43.951)
But, you know, after the editors at AACD read it, they will tell me what the title is going to be. So it is why, you know, I toyed with Leading the Collective, how to create teacher team essential actions. But it is a book on instructional leadership, which is I've always wanted to write, where it talks about what are the best processes for leadership in your building? And how do you create a very supportive culture in schools where

people feel like it's worth it coming every day. just talked about resistance to change. People resist change because they want to know if the change is worth it. And so we have to make sure that we, we, we create a really good culture and an area where people feel like this is worth it. You know, cause I think I heard somebody say, like a lot of people say our district doesn't like to change. like, well, I'll tell you what, if we offered everybody a $10,000 change in salary for the better, I don't think there'd be any resistance.

Seth Fleischauer (31:30.829)
Yeah.

Steve Ventura (31:42.159)
So you have to understand where the resistance is coming from. And then we can kind of work with that. So we have the website and then we have a book out already and just look for achievement teams like on Amazon if anyone wants to see it. And then the next book I'm very excited about, but it's still just in the editing process. so, but I'm just.

Delighted that chance to finally really zero in on the leadership practices after being a superintendent and principal and in public education for 25 years. I've learned a lot. Plus the last 15 years of consulting. Wow. I've had so many great exposure to different things that work. So excited about that. Thanks for asking too.

Seth Fleischauer (32:20.204)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (32:26.782)
Awesome. Yeah. And ASCD. So are you going to be at ISTE this year? Awesome. I will see you there.

Steve Ventura (32:30.137)
I will. Will you? Okay. Yeah, I'm doing a break and you'll meet my wife, Michelle, who's going to co-present with me. So we will be there. We're on the ASCD side. mean, I'm trying to get my hands around how this is working, but,

Seth Fleischauer (32:38.949)
Seth Fleischauer (32:45.919)
Estes working. It's a gigantic. Have you been before? It's overwhelming. Okay. you were there. I was there too.

Steve Ventura (32:49.219)
I presented there last year at ISTE and then, yeah. And so, but we're really looking forward to it. San Antonio, beautiful. I think it's in June or July. Yeah. And I'm heading to San Antonio, Texas next week and it's apparently very cold. So.

Seth Fleischauer (32:57.686)
Yeah, I've never been. Yeah, yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (33:04.206)
We're recording this in winter. By the time it's released, maybe it'll be warmer there. Well, let's meet up in person when we're there. I love taking pictures with people I have only met digitally, especially at ISTE where there's a huge convergence of folks. So that'll be great. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you to our listeners. If you'd like to support the podcast, please do tell a friend, leave a rating or review. Follow us.

Steve Ventura (33:07.407)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (33:31.962)
Thank you as always to our editor Lucas Salazar and my advisor Deirdre Marlowe. And please remember that if you'd like to bring positive edu... It's first time I've messed that up. And please remember that if you'd like to bring positive change to education, we must first make it mindful. See you next time.