Greenfield Team Spotlight:

2020 learnings & silver linings

Featuring Daryl Brook

Educational Services Team - Southern California

1. Can you tell us what a day in the life of Daryl at Greenfield Learning is like?

Working part-time for GL has turned out to be a perfect fit for me during these challenging times. My day consists of supporting teachers with Lexia learning programs, along with Zoom school (for the 6 year old, Desmond) and childcare of my 2 year old Sadie. I think I may be the only Implementation Partner who has never presented in-person to schools. I can’t wait to have this experience! In the meantime I am grateful that I can do the important work of supporting implementation while at the same time supporting my family, which was a priority for me when I decided to leave school administration.

2. What are three things most of the Greenfield team won't know about you?

Ha! Where to begin… Well, I think everyone knows that I am Canadian, having grown up in Kitchener, Ontario — about an hour outside of Toronto.

I am adopted. This was a very positive experience, and I share this fact about myself because it informs my core values and beliefs about identity and learning. I am always thinking about how we constitute our personal identity, and the ways in which our experience is shaped by our ideas about our own identities. This is especially true of learning.

Lastly, I am a super committed cyclist. I raced as a teenager until I suffered a career-ending knee injury. In my twenties and thirties while I lived in Toronto, the bicycle accompanied my daily life in daily commutes through all kinds of weather to work. Moving to LA, commuting distances got longer, car speeds faster, and drivers more oblivious. Nevertheless, I still was ale to fit in a ride to work once a week across the city, as well as having reintroduced racing style bike rides back into my life. I just have to do this very early before the children wake up!

3. Drawing from all your experiences in education, what are going to be some "tools in your back pocket" you will carry with you for the work that you do at Greenfield?

I find myself very often drawing from my two related but distinctly different experiences in education: that of the classroom teacher and the school principal. We all want the best for students, but there are times when the perspectives of administrators and teachers differ. I always felt like I sat in the “uncomfortable in between” of these two perspectives when I was a principal. Now that I support both groups, I feel that I can draw on 20 years of experience and am able to hold a keen awareness of how teacher needs and administrator needs differ.

Another key learning that informs my work is the experience that I had trying to support struggling readers in middle school-- first as teacher and then as principal. A core value of mine is a commitment to social justice and equity. Fair access to opportunity and success in the core classroom is a critical social justice issue, and I witnessed so many ways that we have failed struggling students. I know there is so much more that can be done to help address foundational literacy skills. I often draw anecdotes from “my back pocket” of experience to reinforce how powerful PowerUp can be used in middle school, and how critical addressing these needs can be in elementary before student head off to the middle grades.

4. What have you learned about yourself as you’ve maneuvered the challenges of work and life in a pandemic?

For years, and especially since my kids were born, I have struggled with the life/work balance. Doing this work during a pandemic has given some new insight into how to strike this balance-- especially with 4 people in our little 1,200 square foot cottage of a house! Haha. Having so much time with my kids has been a gift, even if occasioned by this tragedy. Nevertheless, each week we learn a little more about ourselves as we negotiate school, two working parents, and a toddler who is constantly on a “search and destroy” mission. We are having fun!

5. What are some of your aspirations for the educators and students you will be helping for the rest of this school year?

As I write this, it is looking a lot like most schools I support will need to stay in remote/distance learning. This has been so hard on everyone: students, parents, and teachers. I hope to do everything I can to help them, and allay concerns about reading skills, especially as we start to think about what a return to the classroom might be like. We know already that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting poorer students, in particular those from black and latino communities. It is a critical Social Justice issue to ensure that these students get the support they need, and equity dictates that we hold our attention on them in particular as we think about supporting students at home.

We hope you enjoyed Daryl’s interview as much as we did! To read more of this Team Spotlight interview series, navigate back to: the Team Spotlight 2020 Learnings & Silver Linings main page.

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