4/22/21, Happy Earth Day!
I had the privilege of learning from Kyle Gatchalian today. He currently works as someone who helps bring new technology innovations to other educators, and was a former special educator. He has a long of thoughts, We discuss meeting each learner where they are at, and how having a more comprehensively open school can robustly meet the needs of kids who need more attention. He uses an analogy of how in sports we place kids in their developmental cohort (varsity / junior varsity) but we arbitrarily keep kids in age cohorts. He brings up the importance of school based extracurriculars and adequate transportation. Please look into Ken Robinson’s youtube. commentary on education. Mark Rober, a Nasa Engineer, and his story about his son with autism. When the state has challenges with meeting special children’s needs, as in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District. Styer and Fiztgerald, explemplars and forerunners in special education, please check them out as well. How to overcome challenges and impliment solutions, like in the Standford D School. Making sure we’re diving deep into cultural reasons people aren’t seeing eye-to-eye
https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2942&context=lawreview
Why is intelligence testing illegal on Black children in California? Listen to the radio lab episode, “The Miseducation of Larry P”. Hopefully we can address past inequalities and racist programs to more broadly .
The Seed School in Maryland, a public boarding school https://www.seedschoolmd.org/
Cultural influences and infant thermoregulation
Transcript:
keevin bybee 0:01
Welcome to the one school podcast. I’m keevin Bybee, a family physician exploring how to go further with prevention by imagining that schools can be 20 473 165, safe havens for our children by having conversations with the experts in the multitude of relevant domains. Today, I’m speaking with Kyle, Kyle gatchalian. I hope they said that right? please correct me if I didn’t, who works as a kind of a tech innovator in Baltimore schools, and also has some experience in special special education as well. Kyle, I’d love to hear, you know, kind of from you how your background, put you where you are today. And we’ll go from there.
Kyle gatchalian 0:44
Thank you for having me. Well, so my background is I started in education on an alternative certification track. So I finished first Master’s in with in biology. And then I began teaching in Baltimore City public schools, AP Biology and electives. And so I taught that for four years, and in the elective classes, I had the privilege of teaching students with significant cognitive disabilities. And some of the students also had autism. And they were in classes with their non disabled peers. And then after four years, the teacher who taught the students with autism, and with significant cognitive disabilities, he went to a different school. And then I took his place, and then taught for years in self contained, so I had a group of students for seven years. And with it, I really, I used a lot of technology. students with autism, if you give them technology, you can they give them a voice, they engage with it, compared to your normal types of lesson plans or teaching. And that it’s what led me to my current position working for our Office of Special Education on the instructional technology team, where I research technologies, and I train teachers and staff about how to incorporate technology to meet the accommodations on students, IEP s.
keevin bybee 2:38
Fantastic, really neat background, and there’s a person who was in technology myself, as a former chemical engineer at Intel, it’s a little bit frustrating to see how slow both in medicine and it seems like in education, we have been on the uptake to really bring neat innovations into learning and the best of possible science and, you know, Childhood Development into how we approach pedagogy. So, you know, my big push has to been to figure out how we can turn schools into places where kids who might be not well regulated at home, or not have a safe place to go, or a home to go to, so that schools can be open for them all the time and wouldn’t be able to send them home for being dysregulated. It kind of blows my mind that certain kids get sent home for being, you know, behavioral problems. And so I’m just kind of curious, is that a mission that resonates with you?
Kyle gatchalian 3:42
Definitely, because I think that when you have a community to support students in that manner, that you see a lot of the behaviors that manifest themselves are reduced, especially when you have the right kind of support, and individuals there that that really do care. And then you’re giving that you’re meeting the basic needs of a student, in addition to education.
keevin bybee 4:11
And the first time we talked, we mentioned a lot about how so much of education, change fails to in a lot of ways help our kids largely because their home environment or their community environment is suboptimal. And so I’m just curious what thoughts you have on how we can what what other safety nets we can put in place for our kids so that they but what is it that we can do for our kids so that when they’re at home, they get the most out of school and that when things in their home environment don’t detract from what happens at school? Any any thoughts there?
Kyle gatchalian 4:55
I think it’s it involves the basic, the easy thing. That we really don’t think about including having nutrition like right now we’re I think we’re at a forefront of figuring out, you know, having non processed food available to students like breakfast, I’ve seen a lot of schools just kind of hand out some kind of sugary carbohydrate snack that’s processed, with a, you know, a sugary drink. Whereas they could have something as simple as like eggs, or maybe like, something that’s non processed, available for breakfast, lunch, and even make package available dinners for the students to take home. I’ve also noticed, like, in a lot of, at least in Baltimore City, we have students take mass transit, I wish it was different, that the, that there was actually buses, and they had like a huge schedule for not only students that have sports after school, but also other activities that are would be available, like theater, any kind of club that you can think of something to keep students engaged to make it more of like I go to school to learn. And I also feel involved in it because I do chess club or I’m a mathlete, or I do art, whatever you could think of that’s available after school, combined with reliable transportation and meals would be like, an easy step in the direction to provide that support that students need. Because not everybody is super involved and focused on their academics. And but if you provide other avenues for students to be engaged in a school environment, I would think that you would see more buy in, and whatever behaviors a person might be experiencing might be reduced, if they have something that they’re passionate about. And when a student has that, and they’re working with an adult, that only increases confidence, and makes them feel when way more higher self esteem so that that kind of goes over into every part of their life. And that that’s really what I think is a lot of schools are so hyper focused on test scores, that they really miss that easy element of having other opportunities for students to engage in this in the school. So that’s, those are like really easy things that I think that should be done. And, you know, sometimes you might, maybe you have some information on this, but I know that there used to be basketball leagues, at least in Baltimore, where it was like a rec league where young individuals could go and I think it was actually operated by the police so that then you had interactions between the police and in the community in a positive way. And those were open after school. I don’t think they do that anymore. But that kind of pushes opportunities throughout the day. So that if you are in a specific low socio economic environment, you push the opportunities to do something way after school, that is positive skill building, team building. And that kind of extends that day of opportunities for to do something than being idle. So from that standpoint, those are like really easy things that can be done while that kind of pushes it towards like a 24 What a 24 hour school could do. And then you could have a schedule where students can come in, they could you know, if they wanted to go home for a moment, but they could come back. It gives opportunities that they wouldn’t find elsewhere on their own.
keevin bybee 9:41
Exactly in your you speak to how it takes a community to raise our kids in so many different levels. I like how you touched on how the police used to run a rec league so that there’s more community engagement with our police service without community members, which we could use so much these days for so many obvious reasons, as well as thinking about the community of the school, so that it is a place where they can come and do not just their reading, writing, arithmetic, but all of the other things that help people be well rounded people. So yeah, you speak to a lot of really important things that are not being done as thoroughly as I think we could, especially for the relatively small price tag, given the return on that investment that it might have in our kids lives.
Kyle gatchalian 10:40
And that would, you know, after school finding people would be in a lot of places, they could partner with a lot of the universities in the area or community colleges for people who, and not if not just students who want to be teachers, but you know, a lot of, you know, you could have students majoring in biology, or whatever history, whatever they’re majoring or studying, they could also be available to come in, maybe they could offer credits or something, just getting more people involved in the area would be beneficial to,
keevin bybee 11:20
you know, one lament I’ve had as a parent, is that I really wasn’t given any formal education, or I guess, practical education on childhood development and expectations and milestones. And this is coming from somebody who’s a family doctor and does a lot of Pediatrics as well, how limited our exposure to young childhood development is, and then becoming a parent and trying to regulate a six year old who doesn’t want to put on their socks, and what kind of expectations should I even have for my son. And as you mentioned, bringing in the local college kids or even, you know, maybe having high schoolers work with the elementary schoolers on a regular basis to get more engaged, get more practical wisdom on how to interact and co regulate with these young people. So that’s a really great point you bring up.
Kyle gatchalian 12:15
That’s also that’s the more interactions and kind people that you can get engaged with a school community, there’s always so for example, my first year, one of the great pieces of advice was that if you were having difficulty with a student, there was always one person, one adult in the building that that student connected with. And then you should go to that adult To find out more about the student, so that you can have that connection, instead of having the the typical on the teacher, you’re the student do as you’re told, because there’s a, there’s more ways to get ahead than be putting your feet in the ground, to be the authoritarian in the classroom. And that is significant. If you can put people in a person’s or students life that they have that bond with, so that you can break down barriers and obstacles to work with that student. That that’s an interesting, that was actually one of the first pieces of advice that I got. And then as I became more like, when I became a better teacher, I had students like that. And then so other teachers would come and say what’s going on with this student, especially because I volunteered as an assistant lacrosse coach after after school in the spring. And so the head coach was a wonderful person. His name was Lloyd Carter. He was part of the Morgan State University 10 bears, and he was the head coach, but he was never that he wasn’t he had a day job, obviously. So it was up to me to keep every one of those kids in line so that they could one not get in trouble to they maintain the grade point average. And then three, they would continue like to thrive and have opportunities because he had a lot of connections to community colleges, and to four year schools and we got a lot of those students to college. That was one of those big things but handling them I would always talk to their teachers and then during the my planning period, just to make sure that They were on track, because it would be a huge loss to the, to the kids if one player wasn’t there because of disciplinary reasons. But there goes that that big connection that if those some of those students who didn’t have that sport and didn’t have an influence, like Coach Carter, who knows if they would be motivated to go to college or, or even have that opportunity, and that’s kind of like those, those outlets that you would never think would lead you elsewhere on the bigger and better things. And it does in that aspect. So getting more people involved, is super beneficial, and just connecting with a student, even like, Coach Carter didn’t teach them, but he was a huge male role model for those players. And he was just a part of the community, he had been coaching since he was the head coach since 1999. And then he coached about 11 or 10 years, and then went on to actually coach at the NCAA division one level. And he brought some of our students to the school that he coached at. So those guys were getting four year degrees. And that was just really monumental to see that. But on the flip side, we didn’t have like a theater department or anything that was substantial for students who aren’t into sports. So it’s demonstrated how easy it is to have something like that to make the entire experience super worthwhile. And yet, on another end, we didn’t have anything for students who wanted a different wanted to participate, but didn’t have that outlet. So you can really see the how sometimes there’s there’s things that are super beneficial, but then you’re just not you’re just dropping the ball in terms of other avenues that would should be available.
keevin bybee 17:19
It speaks to the concept of salience you know, what is it that any one person finds important and how it’s relevant to their life from a, you know, basically an unconscious survival standpoint, and I would imagine your, your experience working with the children in alternative education or special education, gave you some insight into how to make things more salient to people that wouldn’t have found the standard curriculum very important to them. So how do you think about engaging people and give, showing them or making the things that we want to teach them salient or important to them?
Kyle gatchalian 18:05
I think it’s definitely, you know, I just watched the video with, there’s a NASA engineer, named, I think it’s, his name is Mark robear. And he got he’s, he’s on YouTube, he’s got probably, he gets videos with like, 18 million views. And he just recently did a video about his son. So his son is, I think, 12 years old, and he has autism. And it was one of the best videos I’ve seen demonstrating What special education or someone with special needs, is really about in terms of and the aspect of autism. So his son loves to laugh, he loves to interact with people. Because and you would say that that’s interesting, because the assumption is that children with autism are introverts, low communication, and they don’t want to interact. Whereas in reality on the spectrum, if the same as if you meet one student with autism, you’ve met one student with autism because it’s a spectrum. All students are different. And I think you don’t really get to see that in the open and he was he openly shared what life is like with his son. And he demonstrates he walks everybody through what what’s going on with a person with special needs. And it was just really touching because it you know, he his son leads a normal life and a lot of people don’t. They think when you’re in special education, That it’s, it’s, you know you’ve got a disability, you’re not going to be able to have the same type of opportunities. Whereas in reality, it’s about making things meaningful for that student based on their individual needs. And especially, you know, I’ve had involved parents and parents who weren’t involved. And you know, a 24, seven school, especially with students with special needs would be highly important just because those students, usually you have to figure out what engages them, what motivates them, what, what do they like? And how can you get them engaged, and while utilizing that as an opportunity to increase whatever skills that they need. So, you know, I had a, when I was teaching electives. I had a student, he entered ninth grade, and he was in a, it was we had, basically was water ecology based on the Chesapeake Bay as an elective, and he was non compliant. And he was he didn’t communicate. So and I was, I had no special I hadn’t taken my special ed praxis at that point, most of the time. And this is this is also an important thing is that as undergraduates, or if you’re in any kind of School of Education, but what I know now is that anyone who’s becoming a teacher, they get one semester of special just in special education. So one semester, one course, and then Off you go. So you’re learning on the fly, when these are the neediest students because they’re, they have a disability, and then you have to find you have to figure out every which way to make weaknesses, strengths. And so a lot of different areas. A lot of different school districts handle well, are the students going to be in a general ed classroom? Or are they going to be in self contained, or which least restrictive environment will they be in and why? And it’s kind of like, it’s really a tricky area, because we don’t have unlike you said, like, as a parent, when you when you have children, they don’t come with a guide or a manual. And that’s kind of like a special education. If you’re not taking, if you’re not reading literature as much as you can, or finding experts in the field, you’re kind of like, left at the doorstep, like, Here you go, here’s an IEP, and go forth. And that process is, you know, it’s a, it’s a really good. the IEP process is meant to really give you robust information. But when you actually receive it and read it, it can be different. And then you have to interpret it in so many different ways. And then you have to take data all the time, in addition to general students, so a lot of our special needs students are, I want to say that teachers want to do the best that they can, but they’re kind of spread thin, in terms of really going through that IEP, and doing the best service that they could, and making an important. And it’s just really interesting, because it’s not, I think it’s more difficult than people make it out to be. And when robear shows that, in terms of, you know, his schedule with his son for autism, which is kids with autism, are living, they can hear and sense things that you and I can’t, so there’s just tons of stimulation. And he explains that with his son, and that, you know, his son is on a schedule. He has routines. Because it he knows what’s coming next he can predict it’s something that’s there, and that we don’t really have that for a lot of our students in special education. And in addition, having a system in place usually makes your break breaks a teacher because if the students know what’s expected of them in the classroom, During the day, they kind of run themselves. And having that kind of organization not only benefits students in special education, but it also goes, transfers over to general education. So if you are really good in terms of supporting the needs of special students, then you general education is easy. But I tend to think that we focus so much on general education, and then kind of backwards to special education. And that’s where we’re kind of missing. The point is that it’s interesting, because we’re trying to shoehorn a kid into the general world, where they need highly specialized individual skills to actually get them there. So you’re going from specialization to novel environments. So for example, my kids needed to learn how to count money, to be able to spend it and buy things to be independent. And then the, then you try to see if that can occur outside of the classroom in a in a novel environment. So, for example, I took one student to the zoo, and the student wanted to purchase lunch. So I sat there watching, I didn’t try to, I just wanted to see what would happen. Because sometimes if you work in your classroom, and you’re getting the data, and it looks great, it doesn’t transfer over to a different environment where the student is interacting with a different person, the person doesn’t know their special needs. And you want to see how that is handled. And then figure out well, did this work? Why didn’t it work? Or do we have to go to different areas in the school and try the exact same lesson with maybe some teacher who’s on a planning period and then wants to help out or if there’s a student at the general ed student who’s available, just someone different to see if that happens. And this is really easy stuff that that we don’t, we just don’t do. And there’s a fantastic there’s two fantastic teachers, Dr. Candace star, and Suzanne Fitzgerald, they have they have a program for students with significant cognitive disabilities out in Seattle on it’s called Star for Cheryl, and named after them. And they’ve basically broken everything down into easy steps, they’ve created a system, that they have a foundation, and you go off that foundation, and then eventually what you do is your you start to individualize for those students. So they I was I had a great opportunity to train with them for a week in 2012, and a lot of what I’ve learned in special education came from them. And they are highly data driven. But I wish more people, I wish they could go to every single conference and talk because what they’re doing has huge results. And I wish that were the case. But you know, in special education, I think there was a there was a 2017 case of a family in Colorado, who basically said we do not we are not seeing the students not receiving faith. And faith is a free and appropriate public education. And I think it went all the way up to the Supreme Court. And all the judges were agreed with each other that, you know, the students not realizing their potential. They’re not getting what they need. And I don’t, you know, they agreed upon it. And then when I kept reading about it, you know, this becomes a monumental case. And then, whereas there wasn’t really any follow up. It it got national attention for a little bit, and then it kind of went away. And it’s just interesting, because this is a huge need. And at the same time, when you mentioned special education, it’s kind of like Oh, no. Whereas what it should be recognized as you know, this is an opportunity that we’ve identified needs of a student. And let’s get them let’s find ways to allow that student to thrive, reach their maximum academic capacity, and even Maybe remove the IEP and let them continue on and be amazing. And a lot of it looks as though sometimes when a when a general education teacher receives a case, a bunch of students with a lot of IPS, they just viewed as something to do that’s extra. So, I mean, maybe the system is, it’s got too much that they’re asking teachers to do. And maybe there’s a way to reduce it to make it more streamlined. There’s I have a lot of questions, and I wish I had answers.
keevin bybee 30:36
Well, you’re certainly dropping a lot of nuggets. I’m I definitely going to make sure I put in the show notes. The Mark robear, the Fitzgerald Dyer Foundation, and I was actually just googling that case you mentioned in 2017. So look at that offline. You know, you mentioned how we’re shoehorning special ed kids into Gen eight education. And it also seems to me like we’re shoehorning general education kids into a model that is certainly not how we developed to learn back on the African savannas, you know, 100,000 years ago, where we got this, I guess, industrial assembly line model of bell to bell, arbitrary guideposts of when to move from one place to another. And then, you also mentioned the last time we talked how there’s, in athletics, we’ve got JV and varsity, but we really don’t have the same thing for our kids, we just got them in these arbitrary age brackets, that may or may not reflect their developmental or social level. And, as you also mentioned, I think the IEP individualized education program, you know, with scare quotes around it certainly has a lot of specific in implications. But as you mentioned, wouldn’t it be great if we could meet every individual child where they’re at in the mainstream education? You know, I think you mentioned how teachers are overburdened, and that’s 100%. Right? They are, you know, what’s the average teacher salary 50, to $80,000. And as most things are money issues, I really think we as a society need to pony up and pay them, you know, professional salaries, similar to what I make as a physician, and there needs to be at least three times as many. So that’s certainly a money issue. And that would take a whole other six hour podcast to go into why we don’t do that, and why we haven’t done that as a society. But I just resonate with what you’re saying. And I’m just curious how you can speak to the, the you mentioned the varsity analogy to academics.
Kyle gatchalian 32:58
Yeah, that’s right, the we just for some arbitrary reason, we have a, we’ve decided to have first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and grades, and this is you’re going to be around this age. And you’re just going to be with a peer group based on your age. And, you know, everyone’s an individual. And we don’t, it’s illegal to, to take a similar academic type of group of kids, and then group them. So like having a high level or mid level, or maybe you’re not at grade level and below, to kind of group it. And then try to do your best as you can. Because to move those students forward or higher up having them you know, you’ve achieved this level, you’re going to move this hear there, because we know that each individual is has their own unique ways of learning. But we kind of we do we do make this like a factory. There’s a wonderful whiteboard animation of I think, I think it was a TED talk, but it’s Sir Ken Robinson. And he’s hilarious, too. He kind of questions why we we have an assembly line for education, where what we know that we have different ability levels. So for instance, I’m sure there’s like 13 year olds out there who were capable of maybe doing 11th or 12th grade math, but kind of don’t push them there just because we’ve had this system forever. We really don’t. We don’t really try to do anything novel. We do thurs, International Baccalaureate, and there’s AP education where you can take a year long course and at the end receive college credit So I mean, you have those opportunities. But in reality, we have a system where it’s just rigorous in terms of first, second, third, fourth, and then you will go to your you’re gonna come in, you might have homeroom, then you have this class. So you’ve probably had maybe 45 minutes to an hour, or even longer, maybe even a 90 minute class, or you’ve just had, you’ve just been with a teacher. And then right after that you are going somewhere else. Like you might your break is going in between a classroom in a big building. And you’re not, you’re not really leaving that building, based on the kind of campus that you have. And then you are going to immediately start something else. I don’t know. In the in the real world, we all get breaks, maybe 1520 minutes, just to catch our breath. And we don’t really give that to our students. So that’s, that’s something I wish we could have more. Maybe, for elementary students have structured time in between where they’re allowed to explore or play or choose, I think that with, I’ve read in child development, that giving a child choice is super important. So for example, if you, if you have say that your son wants to go to, you’re taking them somewhere, and it’s a really warm day, but they for some reason want to wear a hoodie, and you know, they’re going to get hot, they’re going to complain when when they get hot. But I’ve heard the best thing to do is to let that to let the child choose to wear that hoodie, and then they’re going to learn on their own that, you know, maybe I shouldn’t wear a hoodie during a hot day, or maybe they’re completely comfortable. It’s about giving that choice early on, that really gives is important for child development. And we don’t really give that to a lot of students early on at the elementary level. And then we don’t, if a student’s like gifted, the parent has to advocate move that child up. And then it’s just beyond. Like, where else like we should be able to try different things just to see what I mean. Again, that’s going to get into some legal issues and trying to figure that out, to determine you know, and get people on board with it in terms of allowing students to flow, maybe you are so advanced that you’re you know, you’ve heard about the geniuses that complete, like high school, um, they might have been like in college by age 11. But we don’t do that we just assume that you have to be 18 when you’re graduating, and I think they have it like it’s, there’s a term I think it’s called extended adolescence. Because not only do you have to go like to a four year college, after that, whatever you if you want to pursue something else. So for instance, you you know, medical school, you four years undergrad, and then four years of medical school, and by the time you’re finished around 26. And, you know, my cousin, and she graduated from the University of Philippines School of Medicine at age 20. So it’s kind of like you have other countries that have acceleration in terms of age of what someone is capable to do. And then they have the rest of their career ahead of them. Whereas here is really just kind of like this is this is how much time you’re going to spend. But on the flip side, we have a flex up, like we talked about earlier in terms of JV, varsity, you know, some students come in ninth grade, and they’re already playing varsity. Or you have someone like Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, who skipped college and went right to the pros. And that demonstrates that we have a diverse population of individuals who are at their own specific level, and that if they’re ready to go forward, we should definitely we should allow that and cultivate it. And just because someone if you’re ahead, that’s great. And if you’re not, that’s okay, too. It’s just, we’re treating everyone on an individual scale and trying to move them forward, as best as we can, and as fast just because it’s going to benefit for that student, but we’re just stuck in this this kind of like, Well, we’ve done it this way. And this is the way it is, without really much thought or justification.
keevin bybee 40:10
Yeah, there, there is a lot of momentum and calcification. I think it’s worth being aware, there was a great radio lab called the MIS education of Larry p, where it’s actually illegal to IQ test black kids in California, because of the racist ways that people have misapplied certain kinds of standardized testing. And so I’m certainly there’s some history there that has now, I think, swung so far back in the opposite direction, that it’s really hard to make sense of it or do things in the same way. Plus, we also do a lot of very hyper specific narrow testing, you know, the common g factor has a lot of things that are very specific, and don’t necessarily take into account a lot of other intuitive emotional or social kind of skills that are just as if not more important, sometimes, than your math or spatial ability. And so I think that runs into the legal issues you mentioned. But I guess being aware of that, and then hopefully, with a little bit of enlightenment, we can expand the kinds and ways that we we test our kids, so that we don’t have to stay in this calcified state that really only hurts everyone and holds back some individuals, while at the same time not taking into account other people who may have specific challenges that also need a little bit more development. And, you know, you also mentioned how in certain countries are able to push people through, like the same thing in Europe, you know, you go straight from high school into your professional degree. Although a neat thing they do in most Commonwealth like English Commonwealth countries is kids right after they graduate high school take a gap year, so that they don’t have to jump straight into college. I think something like that would also be neat. This extended adolescence, like extended childhood is, you know, what separates us from most other animals as we give our brains a little bit of extra time to myelinate. So that we can be a little bit more open minded in our lives and not have to worry about being a productive member of society and feeding our families at the age of 20. Not that we certainly couldn’t, and just being more flexible with that. Yeah, you bring up a lot of great points. I’m just curious if you see any major roadblocks to starting a school like this, obviously, money’s a big one. But just in terms of logistics, is there anything that you would like to put in front of us so that it doesn’t hit me from behind something that I wouldn’t see coming? Some challenge that you think we really need to address to make this happen?
Kyle gatchalian 43:02
I think the two there’s two challenges. So I only gave you an example. And you can correct me wrong if my science is incorrect. Because there’s a there’s a there’s a thing at Stanford called the Stanford D school. And what they do is that they, they basically, you come up with an idea. So I’ll give two examples. So these, these two students were at the Stanford D school. And they, they said that they wanted to create an app. So what their plan was was they came, they came up with an idea for an app, and they sat at like Starbucks, or a coffee school, or not, or like a coffee place around the school. And they, they just took people just walk by and they’d said, you want to try our app. And what they did was they they let the user use it. So they’re basically they were going to say that their their users were going to be just random people. So it’s like a randomized RCT, essentially, sort of, and they were getting feedback from all these different people. And what they came up with was kind of like, I think, I believe it’s a news app. And when they finally completed the project and launched the app, I think Apple bought it because it was based on news. But that’s how they develop their app. And then, I think another project was, and this is this is the science part that you might have to help me out with is that in India, they found that a lot of the infant mortality was low because of a thermal regulation problem. And so they went and we’re trying to get, they organized an ability to get incubators for the local hospitals. And then what they noticed was that even though the hospitals were better equipped. People weren’t bringing bringing their infants there. And so then they had to do a deep dive, why won’t people just come to the hospital? We have the resources now. And then they went out to the communities. And it was, I think the issue is twofold. And I’ll get to the second issue in a moment. But the one was just the traveling, getting there was an issue. And then actually, like, I guess, a family member staying there was also an issue. So they said, Okay, well, what kind of technologies are out there that we can provide to these families, so that they can ensure that thermal thermal regulation of the of the newborn is, is going to be fine. So they developed something, and I think you actually put it into the microwave. And then they they put after it’s, after they take it out of the microwave, they put the infant in it. And then what they noticed was was that there wasn’t being used correctly, so that they had to go ahead and find out what, why wasn’t being Michael, the temperature wasn’t correct. And they basically said this, they said, Well, we don’t really believe in, like, if we receive a prescription, we basically take half the dosage. So they would look at the time to put it in the microwave. And or to heat it up, and they would cut it in half. So then they had to take the the the thermo regulation and change it so that there wasn’t a specific time, they just looked to see if there was like a color change on it for the for the infant. And then then that started to get that to go ahead and help out the communities in India, but they went through all those steps. And obstacle after obstacle. So basically, it’s it’s, the first thing would be to, you can do as much research as you want, you can read the journal articles. And then the interesting about journal articles is that for every article that you for any kind of study that you read, you probably can find one that says the exact different thing. And so not only do you have to do your homework, but then wherever you would want to do a 24 seven school, you have to really get to know the community where you want to establish this. And you would probably want to start to talk to a lot of parents who would send their students to the school and try to see what they think is valuable in that specific area prior to opening to kind of take away a lot of the initial hiccups that you would get. And then once it’s secured, you know, once once it’s thriving, and there’s a system that’s set up. It would be great to replicate it in other areas. But I think we have such different small communities that you might that it would be more beneficial to create the kind of like the the system in which the checkpoints of meeting with parents in the community and finding out what why they would send their their student to a 24 seven school and then creating it based on the needs of that specific area. I think that I think that would really cause a lot of kind of be like the catalyst in terms of not only establishing a 24 seven school but making it work in completely different areas.
keevin bybee 49:08
Absolutely great insights. I definitely want to avoid, you know, any sort of barging in and you’re right, like learning what people anticipate or expect or interpret based on any recommendation is so important. Again, it just comes back to meeting people where they’re at. So thank you so much for that insight. You had mentioned before the the seed school in Maryland. And what do you know about the seed School of Maryland?
Kyle gatchalian 49:46
So the seed school in Maryland is a it is not under any local school district control it’s under msde And what it is, it’s a, it’s a, basically, it’s kind of like a boarding school. So the students are there 24, seven on campus. So they get that, that opportunity. And I think it’s, you know, it’s basically a boarding school. And I think students have to apply. And they really are changing the way we think about school. And I wish I had more statistics on in terms of, I want to see their outcomes. I don’t know if they have a lot of data, because it’s, I wish I actually knew how long they’ve been open, but it is a it is a 24 hour learning environment.
keevin bybee 50:45
Great One, I think the thing with a lot of the any data we’d want to look at what we’re really hoping to do is make more well rounded, adjusted adults. And, you know, that’s a, an experiment 40 years in the making. So hopefully there are we can think of our measures, some intermediate corollaries, that would be helpful. Do you know anybody that works there that we might be able to be put in touch with?
Kyle gatchalian 51:18
Absolutely, I have a colleague who used to work on our team, and I will get in contact with him. The one thing I will say, though, about the the seed school is that a lot of these charter schools, it so let me backtrack here in terms of a lot of things that you’ll read about. So you might read about a school that was low performing, and they bring in a new administration to do a overhaul, and then all of a sudden, the test scores go up. And on paper, it looks amazing. However, what you really need to ask the questions to ask are Is it the same students? So behind the scenes, a lot of times what happens is that the students that were there are kind of pushed to other schools. And then you have like a, an admissions process. So by chance, if you have highly motivated students, and parents to get to have to like, complete an application, and it’s reviewed by an admission administration, of course, you’re if, if you’re doing something, you’re just looking at their kind of academic scores and whatnot, of course, you’re going to see a turnaround. And that’s where a lot of things, you know, I want to see a place where anybody who in the community wants to come, that’s where you see that turnaround, because that’s kind of like a blind spot that we kind of ignore when we see these rapid turnarounds, and, and success. And so there’s like hidden elements there, because I think a lot of people are scared to fail, especially in education, because you’re dealing with a student. But if we don’t take these chances, and don’t try to do something different, then how will we ever know? So that’s a really interesting part about, and this actually extends to charter schools, is that, you know, you have a parent sitting in an auditorium with a number, and there’s a lottery. So your kind of hopes for your child is based on, you know, random chance.
keevin bybee 54:01
Yeah, it’s a stressful spot. And it’s a shame that we just aren’t able to distribute the best of, you know, the information to any physical location. That’s 2021. We’ve got the internet, we’re pretty soon going to have starlink. And it just, it’s, in one sense, mind boggling that we couldn’t give any child anywhere. The best of education through the internet and technology. You know, as a one of the things I like to do to keep this project moving forward is I’m curious if you know anybody in the education of educators realms, you mentioned how there is not the best or a minimal amount of special education, training in teachers, normal curriculum. And so I’m just curious if you knew somebody is Who would be able to speak to that in their professional role?
Kyle gatchalian 55:04
I do. I know one person. So she is a PhD. And she works. She works in our office of teaching and learning. I think she is also a professor at the College of Notre DOM. So for teacher preparation, she leads those courses and would probably be able to provide some insight in terms of teacher preparation.
keevin bybee 55:34
Sounds like an impressive person. Well, Kyle, I really want to be respectful of your time and want to say thank you so much for the insights, thoughts and questions you’ve brought to the table. Is there anything that you’d like to plug as a closing thought, anything that any way that people can reach you, or anything that you think people should start learning about?
Kyle gatchalian 56:00
I think one thing I think people should start learning about is in terms of just technology wise, is that we have the ability now for single board computers. So people think that to get ahead, we have to purchase some kind of like 15 $100 or $1,000. Computer. And in the past decade, we’ve made accessible technology accessible to everybody, for a super low price. So you have examples out there, like, you know, the most famous one is Raspberry Pi. And you could research on your own any single board computer could do and that could be life changing for any student because of there’s lots of different free programs that are open source that you can purchase that would be like you have inkspace is like is akin to Adobe Illustrator for free, you have something called Blender where you can do 2d animation, 3d animation that’s available for free and you can utilize that for open source. So you’ve got open source or for an single board, computers that provide a huge opportunity for people who wouldn’t be able to afford a PC or a personal computer at home. And so we really expanded what we’re able to provide to students nowadays, and people can reach me at Kyle ky LE at grades are due calm.
keevin bybee 57:48
Well, fantastic. And maybe we can touch base again in the future once I’ve made some progress on this. And, again, anytime you have insights, I would love for you to update me. Thanks again and we’ll be in touch.
Kyle gatchalian 58:06
Appreciate it. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai