Roberto Germán [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space, we talk about education which is inclusive of, but not limited to, what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and Our Classroom is officially in session. Anti-Reading Revolution by Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul provides K-8 educators with a comprehensive framework for anti-racist teaching. Learn how to create joy, community, and justice in your classroom through transformative reading experiences. Chapters in this book offer personal and insightful anecdotes, provide a clear and actionable guide for K-8 literacy educators, encourage reflection, and guide educators toward selecting and teaching with books that center the lived experience of BIPOC in an anti-racist classroom.
Roberto Germán [00:01:02]:
Reading helps us to dream, experience joy, engage in collective struggle, liberate our minds, and love. Let’s move forward to realize our vision of an anti-racist reading classroom rooted in love and liberation. Hey, welcome to Our Classroom. Today we have Christopher Lehman, but he goes by Chris. People, let’s get that clear. Founding director of The Educator Collaborative, a K-12 literacy think tank and professional development organization working to innovate ways educators learn together. If you don’t know, Chris is an international speaker, literacy consultant, and New York Times best-selling author. Excuse me.
Roberto Germán [00:01:52]:
Hey folks, y’all are in for a chat. Well, Chris is doing great work. The Educator Collaborative, with whom we’ve worked at Multicultural Classroom, is doing great work, and so welcome to the platform. Thank you for being here.
Chris Lehman [00:02:07]:
Thank you, Roberto. I really am honored and appreciate the invitation.
Roberto Germán [00:02:12]:
Well, I want to hear a little bit about The Educator Collaborative because I want to suspend the assumption that my audience knows about it. I know the wonderful work that y’all are doing. But for those who are not familiar, can you tell us a little bit about the organization?
Chris Lehman [00:02:31]:
Sure. So The Educator Collaborative, we’re now in our 11th year. We just had our decade anniversary. Somehow, I swear I’m young.
Roberto Germán [00:02:40]:
Congratulations.
Chris Lehman [00:02:41]:
Thank you. In my heart, I’m young. And so, we’re an organization of practicing educators. I like to say we were on Zoom before the whole world had to be on Zoom. So since the beginning, we are a group of educators from across the U.S. and around the world. Our focus is on literacy education and all areas around literacy, including language, content area literacy, etc. We have everyone from classroom teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, college professors, researchers, authors, consultants—kind of all of us in different roles inside of education. We meet online once monthly in our think tank and share best practices, study together.
Chris Lehman [00:03:31]:
One thing I love the most about our work in our think tank is that we really, over time, have built a good structure to decentralize our learning. So there isn’t, like, myself or one of us who’s directing everything. Instead, we have topics that we meet on across the course of several months, and it’s led by members. And really, our groups are around facilitating collaboration and conversation with us and with each other. In addition to that, we also provide professional development. So we do consulting in schools, have speaking engagements for literacy organizations, districts, conferences.
Chris Lehman [00:04:14]:
So we take our learning together and then bring that into classrooms, schools, and organizations.
Roberto Germán [00:04:22]:
Well, I love the notion of being collaborative, and you’re doing impactful work as it relates to literacy. You use the term members. Is this a secret society? Like, how can people be part of The Educator Collaborative? Because it sounds like you’re doing amazing work.
Chris Lehman [00:04:38]:
Yes, well, thank you. That’s a great question. So we have two parts of our think tank. So one part is our fellows. These are longer-term members that we have. Our riches are also our curse: we have great people doing amazing things, who stay with us as long as they can, and then they take on many other amazing things and go off to other opportunities. So we have that group that’s longer-term.
Chris Lehman [00:05:02]:
One thing I love about our think tank—and all credit goes to Dr. Chantal Francois, who is now in Virginia—when she was a member many years ago, she brought up the point that a lot of us in the think tank already knew each other, either through conferences or just in our professional lives. It was her idea to create what is now our fourth or fifth cohort of our associates. So every two years, anyone with a literacy focus in education can apply to be an associate. They then have a two-year term with us as part of our think tank. Our current associates are in the second year of their term. So this spring, we’ll have a new application. This innovation, thanks to Chantal, really has brought even more life into our think tank because we have people opting in from all over. It always amazes and reassures me that people want to be a part of what we’re doing. So you can read the current bios on our website and find everyone there.
Chris Lehman [00:06:15]:
But yeah, that’s how you’re a part—either you’re invited in or you join as an associate member.
Roberto Germán [00:06:21]:
Okay. And I know one of the unique things that you offer is The Gathering. I know because I was a part of it, and Lorena was part of it. Thank you for inviting us to participate. We were blessed, and it was awesome even to see the number of people who showed up to our sessions, including amazing educators we recognize. Can you talk about The Gathering, what it is, and your vision for it?
Chris Lehman [00:06:56]:
Sure. Thank you. So The Gathering started when we started. We’ve now had our, I think, 22nd Gathering. They are totally free, no registration, online literacy conferences. It’s a one-day conference that happens twice a year, every September and April. This was way before the pandemic.
Chris Lehman [00:07:19]:
We were one of the few online free conferences. The backend is all volunteer-run. We’ve always had educators who volunteer to help run the session. Technology has changed over time, and some things have gotten easier. In the beginning, we had Google Classrooms on air, if you remember. It was complex, but we managed. Basically, it’s a literacy conference.
Chris Lehman [00:07:49]:
So people from all over can submit a session they’d like to present, or we have our own think tank members, or invite guests like you and Lorena to keynote and present. There are two main purposes. One, it’s our gift to the literacy education community. We learn a lot from everyone involved, and we want to share that learning. The other part is, as you mentioned, that we call it The Gathering because we want it to be a way to find each other too. The work needed in literacy and learning requires us to find people who want to teach kids as kids, not as curricula, and want classrooms that reflect the world. We see it as both sharing learning and connecting people who believe in the same work.
Roberto Germán [00:09:07]:
It’s great that you offer it for free. The cost of many conferences is a barrier for people who want to learn and connect but simply cannot afford it. So one, thank you for offering it for free, and two, maybe you could elaborate a bit more on your intention to keep this conference free because it’s rare for a free, high-quality conference to have such amazing presenters.
Chris Lehman [00:10:01]:
Thank you. I think one challenge we’ve had since starting The Ed Collab—it’s a good challenge—is that, as a business, there are things we need to do. But my colleagues and I continually come back to our moral compass: what matters most to us. Charging would help business, but that’s not what we want for The Gathering. Conferences are expensive, and while they provide good experiences, it’s still a huge barrier.
Chris Lehman [00:11:00]:
Many districts are either losing funding or not willing to send people out for PD, focusing on curricula or technology that often doesn’t truly support kids. We’ve kept it free because people need access to quality learning, and we’re trying to remove barriers. Even the fact that there’s no registration—yes, that would be better for business if we had people sign up or join a mailing list. But if you can log into YouTube or visit a website, you can watch our conference. So we kept it that way to provide access to learning, which has been increasingly hard as teachers face more barriers.
Roberto Germán [00:12:34]:
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that and being honest about the tension because it’s a struggle for us at Multicultural Classroom in terms of wanting to work with many organizations and bring down our offerings as much as possible. At the same time, this is a business, so there’s a real tension there. Yet, we know it’s critical for educators to receive solid, strong professional development. So what makes good professional development, and what is the right attitude for providers?
Chris Lehman [00:13:20]:
Great question. And it’s particularly timely because right now, especially in elementary literacy, a lot of districts or states are mandating specific curricula. For example, Connecticut has a short list of approved curricula, but that won’t solve all problems. Professional learning is often focused on the “stuff”—publishers coming in to teach how to use their products, which is focused on tools and not people.
Chris Lehman [00:14:41]:
If teachers are told to use certain curricula, they deserve training on it. But if learning is centered only on “stuff” and not people, it depends on the quality of that stuff. Many literacy curricula rolled out recently have been found to be culturally damaging, which can be dangerous in classrooms. It’s a form of deprofessionalization, implying that the curriculum knows better than the experienced teacher. Poor PD focuses only on the materials rather than the people.
Chris Lehman [00:16:09]:
What makes good PD? We rely on research on adult learning, like that of Linda Darling-Hammond. One key idea is coherence—professional learning needs to fit the context, people, culture, and policies of a school or district. If you ignore the local context, it becomes a one-off session without lasting impact. In our approach, we start by listening. We talk with leaders, teachers, visit classrooms, talk to students—understand what’s already happening. Then we find strengths to build on and identify where we might help. Good PD must be collaborative and based on mutual learning.
Roberto Germán [00:17:40]:
That makes sense. I like the term coherence, especially when bringing in external providers. Many schools benefit from them, but how can school admin best partner with external providers?
Chris Lehman [00:18:01]:
Great question. Some administrators, like Dr. Krie Fletcher, believe in two levels of support: internal learning and external expertise. He invested in a coaching cohort and lead teachers, fostering strong internal PD while valuing external insights. For instance, he’d call me “fun uncle” because sometimes, hearing the same message from an external provider resonates differently.
Chris Lehman [00:19:31]:
Administrators also need to be partners, not just delegators. It’s essential for leaders to drive the vision and work closely with providers, deciding together what comes next. At The Ed Collab, we don’t do pre-packaged work; everything is custom-built with leaders based on district needs. Leaders need to champion their vision while remaining responsive. Leaders who strike this balance partner best with outside providers.
Roberto Germán [00:23:37]:
Yeah, that’s good. It’s critical for everyone to be on the same page, co-creating, co-leading, and being responsive to the faculty and staff—not just pushing without support. Sometimes administrators need external providers to help say, “Maybe slow down, give them time to process, and create space for implementation.”
Chris Lehman [00:24:31]:
Exactly. Teaching and leadership are both incredibly demanding. Leaders need to foster an environment where learning feels challenging but supportive. For example, Shelton School District in Washington is in a rural area with unique challenges. Superintendent Wyeth Jesse and Director of Secondary Chelsea Brady create a network of support, including teacher leaders who relay feedback and guide practices. Our PD is ongoing throughout the year, which builds a sense of community and growth over time. In a supportive environment, we’ve seen teachers grow incredibly in their approach to instruction.
Roberto Germán [00:27:56]:
That’s great—push and support. So, Chris, what message of encouragement would you like to offer our audience?
Chris Lehman [00:28:07]:
A lot feels discouraging right now, but the work we do is about shaping the future. We interact with young minds who will make decisions on important issues. Teaching has always been challenging, and we’re currently facing attacks on our profession. But what’s continually new are the young people we serve. Watching their growth, especially when everything else frustrates me, keeps me going.
Roberto Germán [00:30:42]:
Thank you. A good reminder. Hey, kids, we see you. And when we don’t, call us to the carpet.
Chris Lehman [00:30:49]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:30:51]:
If you could have lunch with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Chris Lehman [00:30:59]:
Thanks for the heads-up on this question! I’d choose Dr. Roz Linder, an incredible educator from Atlanta and a member of The Ed Collab for a short time. Roz had an incredible presence and made everyone feel special. Her sudden passing affected me deeply. I’d love a chance to thank her, get advice, and just talk about the world.
Roberto Germán [00:32:56]:
Thank you for sharing. For those who want to connect, learn more about The Ed Collab, or get your book, where can they find you?
Chris Lehman [00:33:10]:
You can find everything Ed Collab-related at theeducatorcollaborative.com. We’re on social media, though we decided to leave X (formerly Twitter) for safety reasons and solidarity with queer rights organizations. You can find us on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and our YouTube channel, where past gatherings, including your recent keynote, are available.
Roberto Germán [00:34:37]:
Chris, thank you for being here. Hearing your vision and heart for The Ed Collab is inspiring. We look forward to seeing the organization’s growth.
Chris Lehman [00:35:11]:
Thank you, Roberto, and thanks to you and Lorena for all you do within and beyond Multicultural Classroom. You continue to be a guiding light, and I appreciate this opportunity to converse with you.
Roberto Germán [00:35:32]:
Take care.
Chris Lehman [00:35:33]:
Thank you.
Roberto Germán [00:35:35]:
As always, your engagement in Our Classroom is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe, rate the show, and write a review. Finally, for resources to help you understand the intersection of race, bias, education, and society, go to multiculturalclassroom.com. Peace and love from your host, Roberto Germán.
