Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: This is the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
Listen to the exciting story of the American community schools of Athens.
Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future.
Here's John Papadakis.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Welcome to owlcast. Today we're excited to host Anna Sugerman and Chris Perakis, experts in inclusive learning and differentiated instruction who have joined us this week for an immersive experience with our community. Anna and Chris are guiding workshops, conducting classroom observations and engaging in conversations with educators at ACS Athens to bring valuable insights on inclusive education.
Their visit is part of an ongoing commitment of ACS Athens to optimize its learning methods to ensure that every student can thrive, embracing diverse needs and unique learning profiles Anna Sugerman is a seasoned expert in educational psychology specializing in gifted and talented education. With a Master's in Educational Psychology from the University of Connecticut and extensive certification in New York State, she has dedicated her career to designing and delivering innovative approaches for high ability learners. Anna's international work includes consulting for schools across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean where she has presented at numerous conferences including as a keynote speaker. Anna's impact spans decades, blending her expertise with a passion for nurturing each student's potential. Chris Perakis is an accomplished special education expert dedicated to supporting students with learning differences. With degrees in elementary and Special education from Salva Regina College and Lesley College, she is currently pursuing postgraduate studies in international school education. She has co organized the ACS Athens Annual Learning Differences conferences from 2005 to 2014 and serves on several prestigious committees including the Special Education needs committees of ECIs, nib and and the Stavros Narhos Foundation Education Committee. As a consultant for ACS Athens, she has contributed to various initiatives including the Educational and Diagnostic Testing Center. ACS Athens has been her professional home since 1981 where she remains a key advocate for inclusive education. Anna Sugerman and Chris Barakis bring extensive expertise in their fields. Anna with a focus on gifted and talented students, and Chris specializing in special educational needs. Together they've developed a range of strategies that serve students across the learning spectrum, all with the belief that all students can learn. They emphasize a holistic approach where parents, teachers and students align as partners in the educational journey, supporting each student's growth and confidence. During their visit this past week, they've been working directly with students and parents, gathering insights that are critical for shaping a truly responsive and empathetic learning environment. By listening to students experiences and perspectives, Anna and Chris are able to advocate for changes that can significantly reduce stress and improve mental wellness. This student centered approach not only supports academic success but also helps young people develop resilience, empathy and self advocacy skills. In this episode, Anna and Chris share their insights on the future of inclusive education and the role of AI in supporting neurodiverse students. Their reflections on building an empathetic student centered environment underscore the essential role of student voice and parent partnership in education. Join us as we explore their vision and the inspiring, impactful work that they are doing to advance the learning experience for all.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Anna Sugerman Chris Perakis welcome to the owlcast. We are happy to have you both. You're engaging with our community during this week, having workshops, classroom observations and many discussions with our teachers about a topic affecting the learning of students. ACIS Athens has always had a sensitivity and priority to approach learning in different and innovative ways, trying to find the best, the optimal way students learn. Can you talk a little bit about the activities that you're involved during your visit and what would you say is an expected outcome from these activities?
[00:05:12] Speaker D: So in the classroom observations, the expected outcome is that we will be able to observe differentiated instruction and give feedback to the classroom teacher for different possible interventions or enhancements to what the classroom teachers are doing already to reach all students.
That's one piece that we're really focusing on. Also, we're listening to student voice, which is very powerful to us. We've listened to parents in our work as well as students of all ages, kindergarten through the academy, and it's very valuable to hear their input and their feedback as to their learning experiences. Here at acs, the outcome is to try to shift the paradigm in any way that's possible to make a better learning experience for the students to enhance their own mental capabilities as well as their mental wellness before they leave acs, while at the same time making sure that we are targeting instruction in such a way that they feel supported and that they are able to achieve their academic goals.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Chris, what's your role?
[00:06:22] Speaker E: I've been working with Anna for quite a few years. I think we've been working together for over 15 years. Anna is an expert with gifted and talented. In my background on special educational needs, I think we put our knowledge, our background, our education together because we see that all strategies that we use on on both ends of the spectrum are good ideas and good skills for every student to be able to learn. But we expect this alignment to happen also with parents and teachers and the students because this is the recipe for a partnership. So they can be successful.
[00:07:06] Speaker C: You mentioned something that I think it's quite provocative. You said you want to change the paradigm. What's wrong with the paradigm?
[00:07:13] Speaker D: So oftentimes certain things are done in schools without student input. The students are the consumers, and without hearing how it affects them, we're kind of like pushing through instead of hearing feedback from them. That is, they're the consumers, the families are paying for them to be here. And without that input, we can sometimes misstep.
[00:07:42] Speaker C: And you said you have meetings with students from all grades?
[00:07:47] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: How do you introduce yourself when you go to the lower grades, the young ages?
[00:07:52] Speaker D: When I work with younger children, I tell them that the work that I do is to look for students who school may seem too easy for, and that that's my job, to try and make sure that they have a match with their instruction that makes them kind of step on their tippy toes to reach the basketball into the basket instead of easily throwing it in.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: And Chris, how do you introduce yourself?
[00:08:18] Speaker E: I tell them that every brain is different, it's wired different, so we all learn differently. Therefore, I'm trying to find out how they learn best so I can ensure that the work that everybody does to enhance their learning and make it easier for them so it's not a struggle.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: And stressful experience make it sound a little bit easier for them.
So you have been both involved in the past with the learning differences conference that we had a few years ago. So it's not your first visit, Anna, in the school.
So we were organized these, and it had a very profound impact to our community and the wider parent and teacher audience that it attracted. How have things evolved, in your opinion, especially around the commitment of educators towards supporting these needs of students?
[00:09:12] Speaker D: So sometimes we hear from educators within the system as well as the students. And through our observations, we're able to see the increase of the usage of the strategies that we have asked them to put into place. So we either hear again from the kids or the parents. Sometimes we hear. And so that really gives us direct input. It's anecdotal in some cases, but. But in some cases it's direct observation that we see the shift.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: And the educators, you think they show a better commitment after all these years that you've seen how it has progressed?
[00:09:52] Speaker D: Well, I think in international schools, there's a shift in that some educators are transitional. They're not staying in ACS for their career. They're moving in here for only a couple years, and they go somewhere else. So with those people, I can't Speak on their behalf, how it impacts. But it's in the conversations that we have where you can hear a difference in the philosophical shifts that people have about understanding that students have different brains, like Chris says, and that they are able to, or they have changed their thinking, and that it's not just one kind of student they're trying to reach.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: But even those that are leaving, as you said, they take away some skills.
[00:10:35] Speaker D: I would hope that they take it to the next place, the next Internet.
[00:10:39] Speaker C: So, Chris, during your tenure in the school, one of the many things you've been saying, and I remember, is that all students can learn. There is no quantitative measurement there or exclusivity, just the pure expression of what it is or should be universally acknowledged and accepted. So during your many years at the school, you saw a transition of acceptance of difference that took hard work, a lot of convincing and empowering through passion and commitment. How can a new parent coming to the school see this approach? Is it through feedback they receive? Is it through discussions? Is it through meetings with the child study team? What do you think is the most effective way for the parents to adopt our belief that all students can learn?
[00:11:26] Speaker E: I think we cannot assume that they're on the same page as we are or have the same educational background and philosophy. Depending which community they come from or culture, it might be different for them. So we have to educate them. I think we're doing a very good job as a school to educate the parents from day one, what we can provide and what we cannot provide for their students, for their children. We ask them to become partners with us so the child hears one voice and not different voices. We're all on the same page.
I think we give them hope, and we ask them to become advocates for their children. And we ask our students to become advocates for themselves, because everybody learns differently, and we have to focus on their strengths and not so much on their weaknesses.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: One of the workshops that you do has a topic, Making thinking Visible. Can you explain what this approach entails, how it benefits neurodiverse students?
[00:12:33] Speaker D: So this is out of the Project Zero from Harvard University.
And the idea is to make sure that students have the capability of recording their thinking in some form of writing, whether that's using symbols or pictures or language that they could use, and so that the teacher is asking questions also that will provoke thinking and then documenting that thinking somehow. In general, it allows us to have a kind of a formative assessment for students that we can see their work instead of trying to figure out what's in their Head we can see it on paper and also it increases the intellectual conversation between students because they can also see that on paper and make greater connection and understand others perspectives on whatever the topics are. So today, this afternoon we'll be doing a session on making thinking visible with the emphasis on questioning. And the topic will be AI and education.
So having teachers go through this process, that's the way I teach and I think Chris does too in that we have them immersed in the experience that we want them to have their students go through so that they can see the benefit of the strategy. And we will see what happens today with their own thinking and we will have documentation so that everybody can see what's going on in everybody's minds about this particular topic. Instead of just assuming what people think, you're really trying to tap in for the students that are in front of you at that moment to help them build these habits of mind so that when they approach a topic together and like a collective group that they can use this approach to document their thinking.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: You touched upon very briefly but and it's a topic for a whole, whole different outcast. You said about AI and learning differences. And because we are in the process of formulating some kind of strategy, some kind of policy of onboarding AI practices. Do you think that is a potentially positive, neutral or negative in approaching students with learning differences or neurodiverse qualities?
[00:15:28] Speaker D: I just think it's very interesting and that we will know more as we go along. But I also think the game has already begun and that it's a little bit of catch up on our part to see what's available out there. And there are some tutorial systems and online learning projects that would really benefit teachers. We're going to introduce Khanmigo today in our session this afternoon which is a tool for teachers to use to generate exit tickets on a topic or level different text for students. So I think we have to start somewhere. And so I am positive about that. If it's something that will help teachers save time in certain ways so that they can spend more time thinking deeply about the work that they do or working with individual students, I think it's powerful.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: We're just at the beginning, of course, everybody's in the beginning and we're trying to feel the road ahead.
Most of the challenges schools face in diagnosing differences and providing accommodations originate from home parents. Anxiety and insecurity most certainly permeate the children. And it comes to the school to balance learning and personal development. And this goes to you both. If we consider the case of gifted children, how do you recommend working with parents to help them understand and advocate for the unique strengths and needs of these children?
[00:16:57] Speaker D: Of the gifted children?
[00:16:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:59] Speaker D: So I have a training I'll be doing Friday morning that I created from scratch, actually, for acs.
The focus of really how to identify these children. What are the characteristics that piece and then different things that play into raising a gifted child. What are you looking for for academics, like through the intellectual, the emotional, the social, actually included physical and spiritual for raising a gifted child. So trying to give parents some kind of guardrails to stay within because it can be exhausting to be a parent of a gifted child and also confusing in raising a child in which direction to take. And the last thing that we want any of our parents to feel is guilt and that they did not do enough for their children or that they sent their children down the wrong path or they didn't advocate enough.
So it's just to kind of give them a knowledge base to then just to strengthen them and to make them more confident. And being a parent, it's not an easy. It's not an easy thing.
[00:18:15] Speaker E: Chris, I'm just going to say something that we studied last year and has really grown, and it's the advanced learning for mathematics and looking at the criteria and qualifiers on how can a student be qualified to go into this next level. It's been a year full of working with the elementary school principal and her team to put some process and procedures together. So it's clear. Informing the parents, informing the teachers. But we have the students that have really shown us that if we need to believe in them and we need to give them the chance to grow and really do the things that we believe and they believe they can do. So we have some math students that are in third grade doing fourth grade math and fourth graders doing fifth grade and fifth grade going to six. So we were even looking yesterday, where is this going to lead as middle schoolers going to high school? So we're having these kind of conversations.
And tomorrow we're also looking at the advancements of literacy and how this will take place. So we're putting process, procedures, what kind of testing. We look at the map scores, the parent input, the teacher input. So we have clear directions. So there's no question about who can actually do it. Anna and I believe everyone should be given the chance and then we work with whatever they have.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: So we're moving down the age ladder. I Mean, in middle school and high school, these kind of things can definitely happen much more easier because you have different levels of students doing different grades, different things. But in elementary was pretty much standard. So we're moving down the ladder now.
[00:20:11] Speaker E: We're pioneering.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Excellent, excellent.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: We're creating trails.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: So I guess this question should be done after the whole session that you've been doing right now, but I'm not going to have you by the end of this week. So up to now, what are some interesting discussion points or insights you already had during your meetings?
[00:20:33] Speaker E: I can say that teachers want others to mentor them and kind of coach them to ensure that what they're doing is the right thing or the right path for reaching every student. And time does not allow for this to happen. So Anna and I are looking at ways that this can possibly be implemented in the school. Another thing, we've seen teachers that we worked with last year coming back to us and say, we tried this, it's really working and they're really excited to tell us what the next steps are.
We had parents yesterday that it was more like being among like minded people that really cared about every student and they want them to be advocates for their own learning. They want to know what's happening, they want to become partners with us in ways they can actually be able to do this.
We still continue working with teachers, but I will leave Anna to say the emotions that we got from talking with students just before coming here, the emotions.
[00:21:45] Speaker D: From the students and also the meeting we had yesterday with the parents there you were doing the training on neurodiversity. So the students today that we worked with, to see them be compelled as seniors to come to us and to advocate on behalf of younger students was very powerful. Just before we walked in here, we were speaking to students and it was unbelievable. Their compassion and their earnestness to make changes at the lower levels to actually reduce stress for the younger kids. It was just really powerful to listen to these 12th graders and 11th graders speaking with such fervor and belief that we need to change this. And so that was that. And then parents last night, the vulnerability that parents allowed themselves with each other. In some ways I wish that we had had teachers with us. And I think that'll be a project for the future so that the teachers can really feel what's going on with each one of these parents and what the parents are trying to do for their kids and what they live with on a day to day basis.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: We are cultivating a whole different mentality in approaching these issues. And I think this is very powerful. You know, definitely the students, especially the older ones, going to talk and work with the younger ones. What do you think the effect is going to be on the older students after this encounter? I think that other than developing more empathy.
[00:23:22] Speaker D: Right. They're developing empathy. They already have empathy. I think it's a life skill that is something that's not an AI piece. Okay. That it's a life skill of how do you make a difference in the world, how do you change? And voice is so powerful in doing that. Without your voice, if you are not confident, that's one piece. And if you don't have a collective to work with, you also are less powerful. So collecting voices and teaching them that how you can advocate together, I think.
[00:23:54] Speaker E: They'Re becoming conscious, global citizens or leaders as I called them, because this is what we try to do at the school, like give them the know how and the skills to have a better living and life on this earth. And one way to do this, if you see something that's not working or stressing others, like the case today, what can we do to help? It's too late for us as seniors, but when we see these younger students stressing out for this and this reason, who do we need to talk to to help them out? And I think they felt relieved that we heard them and we gave them suggestions and we even said, we're here with you to continue this conversation either face to face with me or online with Ana as well. Because we believe in their voice and the changes, positive changes they can make to help and support everyone.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: This is very powerful. And in closing, and on a more personal note, if you had the opportunity to talk with one person that you admire or you get inspired from either living or not, who that person might be and what would be your first, your most burning question to them?
[00:25:17] Speaker D: I think I would ask to speak to Jane Goodall.
And I have seen her, I have seen presentations by her, but I was inspired by her as a young girl and continue to be inspired by her ability to impact at a greater degree. So how do you really reach out? I feel sometimes that the work that I have done in my lifetime has been absolutely incredible, more than I ever thought, but yet I still dream and I believe I still have time to do that. So she's not a young woman anymore and yet she's having tremendous impact on the entire planet. And I would want to get advice from her for next steps is how to do that, how to continue to do that, and for not only myself. But for other people that may have had things already in the past and they just want to keep increasing impact to improve the world and help people.
[00:26:20] Speaker C: She transcends disciplines and we've had her. We were fortunate to have her here twice in the school and I remember all her presentations and she's an amazing person.
[00:26:31] Speaker E: Yes, Chris, there's a couple of people that are not with us any longer, but they inspired me. They believed in me, number one, and they gave me their approval to do something about the students that were outlawed in schools, not necessarily in the school. It was Dr. Yelamas and my brother.
So giving the opportunity to educate others, get more information, education on all student needs and what they need, and to be able to transfer this knowledge to others, I think this is a lot more powerful. And we have to look at baby steps. As I was telling to parents yesterday, you cannot see what happened from last month to this month. Think about where your child was last year or two years ago and where they are now and believe in them and they will make it because one size does not fit all. Like a child said today, one students, why do I need to take music? This is not useful to me. So we need to have pathways in different courses and, and find out what the kids are good at and provide opportunities for them to build on their strengths. And I think here at the school, between the Innovation Zone, the institute, the classroom, all the projects that we do, we try as a school to give different venues for students to succeed in one way or another.
[00:28:07] Speaker C: Anna Zuckerman, Chris Perakis, thank you so much for being here and thank you for doing what you're doing this week. And most probably, we're going to do a debrief afterwards. Okay. On a remote basis. Thank you so much, both.
[00:28:21] Speaker D: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the owlcast on Google Podcast, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the ACS Athens Media Studio.
