We recently connected with Lindsay Lyons and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Lindsay thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
In college, I double-majored in Gender and Women’s Studies and Sociology. At one point, I wanted to be a lawyer working with survivors of abuse and intimate partner violence. After doing an internship in the field, I realized I don’t want to help people once abuse happened, I wanted to prevent the abuse from happening. That’s when I turned to education as an option for helping children be feminist, anti-racist, advocates for justice.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I am an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist curricula that challenges, affirms, and inspires all students. I taught multilingual learners and students with IEPs in NYC public schools for almost a decade. I earned my PhD in Leadership and Change by studying school-level mechanisms of amplifying meaningful student voice. I run the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership.
My signature service I offer schools and districts is my 2-day coaching intensive, Curriculum Boot Camp. It gives teachers dedicated time and space with a coach and their team to design innovative, justice-centered, project-based curriculum. We develop a quarter-long unit in just 2 days. My approach to unit design is intended to be re-usable and thus, sustainable. Teachers need research-informed, high-leverage strategies they can repeat with new content each unit. Another hallmark of my approach is while teachers plan units in advance, they are designed to be flexible and involve lots of student voice via inquiry, research, and project/product-design. For teachers who do not work in the schools or districts that contract with me, I’ve also designed a self-paced course teachers can use to support them to create new units. I also provide drop-in coaching for individual teachers as part of the course, so we can brainstorm driving questions and project ideas together.
I am committed to justice in the work I do and also the way my organization functions and the content we share. I donate 1% of all revenue to an educational organization dedicated to antiracism and intersectional justice. As a podcast host, I actively seek guests who are leaders or educators whose identities are underrepresented identities in educational leadership. My goal is to have more BIPOC and female or non-binary guests than white and/or male guests as well as national diversity that highlights voices and systems from outside of the United States.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
I am constantly looking for new ways to find and support new schools and districts. I’m eager to learn as much as I can about where schools and districts find the most success is connecting with professional development providers and coaches. The most effective strategy for me thus far has been starting with my existing network of school leaders and serving them as best as I possibly can. Often, as a result, they will continue to contract me for new events and projects and share my name as a resource with other leaders in their own networks. It’s slow, but truly meaningful and humbling growth.
Have you ever had to pivot?
As I transitioned from a teacher to an entrepreneur, I took on many jobs that I had the skills for, but weren’t super exciting for me. I did a lot of technology coaching and supporting teachers and leaders to think about how they used their limited time effectively to plan lessons and—in the case of leaders—coach and support other teachers. I still do some of that work, but only within projects that specifically aim to develop new curriculum that advances justice. That feels most aligned to why I initially became a teacher and how the profession needs to shift.
Another transition point for me was moving from teachers as my primary clients to districts. Again, this was a result of feeling a little gross at asking for teachers’ money. Of course, I see my work as worth the investment, but in a system where teachers are severely underpaid and under resourced more broadly in terms of effective PD, I feel strongly that the school or district should pay for teacher’s professional development. Additionally, because I know it’s challenging to do this type of work on your own without school systems and structures in place to support you, I realized it would be far more effective to help leaders develop those supportive systems than trying to help one teacher navigate this work on their own.
It has been difficult to balance serving teachers with free content and also speak to the leaders who are ultimately the paying clients. I’m still learning how to do this effectively while staying true to my values and my mission.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lindsaybethlyons.com
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaybethlyons
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lindsayblyons
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@lindsaybethlyons
- Other: Free Resource for Educational Leaders: DIY Your Curriculum Audit in 5 Minutes a Day https://timeforteachership.lpages.co/curriculum-audit-mini-course/