Visual Empowerment: Using Graphics to Enhance Inclusive Education with Kristin Wiens ~ 605

Kristin Wiens:
Hi, I’m Kristin, and you’re listening to the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Tim Villegas:
Recording from my office in beautiful Marietta, Georgia, you are listening to the Think Inclusive Podcast. Today, we have an educator from British Columbia, Canada, and creator of North Star Paths—an online platform with stop-motion animation videos and other beautiful visuals to help educators understand students with disabilities. We talked about the creation of North Star Paths and what’s next for Kristin and her outstanding illustrations. After the podcast, please visit patreon.com/thinkinclusivepodcast where you can support our goal to bring you in-depth interviews with inclusive education and community advocacy thought leaders. Also, you can help other people find us by giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. So without further ado, here is the interview.

Tim Villegas:
I would like to welcome Kristin Wiens to the Think Inclusive Podcast. Kristin is an inclusion coach in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is also the creator of North Star Paths, a website with blog posts, stop-motion videos, and illustrations promoting inclusion, universal design for learning, self-regulation, and mindfulness. She is the author of My Gratitude Jar, a children’s book where a boy named Jacob learns the value of gratitude. Most recently, she worked with the children’s entertainer Raffi, designing an online course and graphics promoting his child-honoring philosophy. Kristin, welcome to the podcast.

Kristin Wiens:
Thank you so much!

Tim Villegas:
So I think there’s a lot to talk about. I first really became aware of your work through Twitter, and it feels like a long time ago. I remember specifically the image called “Behavior is Communication.” There was this large iceberg where you could only see the top. I’m not going to butcher it by trying to describe the image, but I just remember how powerful it was. When I showed it to colleagues, they said, “Oh, that is really powerful. That makes a lot of sense—that there’s a lot of stuff underneath what we can see as far as behavior.” You listed a few things under there. So I’m very excited to finally talk with you and hear your thoughts about inclusion and inclusive education. To get us started, why don’t you tell us a little bit about North Star Paths and why you created it?

Kristin Wiens:
Okay. So the graphics in that one you referenced were one of the first sets we did. They were created almost out of desperation—that’s too strong of a word—but I’m passionate about inclusion, and I work with other teachers. I was always looking for the best way to communicate and share ideas with teachers because I believe once you understand more about inclusion, you’re way more motivated and enthusiastic about finding ways to include students in your classroom. But teachers are busy and have a lot of demands on their time. So I was looking for efficient ways to get big concepts across to them. Graphics came out of that need.

One of my passions within inclusion is visuals, and I realized there was an irony in me talking so much about using visuals and not doing it myself. I needed to create visuals that would help teachers see what I was talking about with these big concepts. What I love about the graphics is that they’re really big ideas on one page, and I think they’re less threatening and less intimidating for people to look at.

As I started making more of those, I decided I needed a place to share them and really wanted to share them with more than just my school district. So the North Star Paths website came out of that. We have the paper graphics, but there’s also a growing body of stop-motion videos. Our YouTube channel came out of that, and the website became a place to house those videos. It’s a passion of mine. I do it all outside of my regular work. Creativity has always been a part of my life, and I didn’t make a lot of time for it because I was more passionate about inclusion. When the two came together, it was just the most wonderful thing. Now I can pour my passion into inclusion and have that creative part of me happy as well.

Tim Villegas:
I’m sure that finding where your interests and passions meet and being able to share that is extremely gratifying. As an educator, I can appreciate wanting to share big ideas but not really knowing how to do that without just talking. That’s a struggle for me, and that’s why I appreciate your graphics and illustrations so much. I’ve actually used your Long Story Short videos in my own presentations now that I do trainings for my school district. They’re definitely powerful.

So for your inclusion coach job in British Columbia, were you a teacher before and then moved into that position? Can you talk a little bit about that? How long have you been an educator?

Kristin Wiens:
If you go back far enough, I started my journey working in group homes here in Canada. It was right around the time when institutions were being shut down and individuals with disabilities were being moved into community homes. That was actually in my late teens. Even further back, I would volunteer with a church group going into those institutions, providing music and social opportunities for people. I saw that firsthand at a very young age. As much as it was wonderful to be doing that volunteer work, something felt wrong about the institutional setting—even from a young person’s point of view.

So I became involved with work in a group home setting, and that set the path for me. My first role within education was as an educational assistant. I worked with students who were deaf and hard of hearing and loved that role. It was largely one-on-one in classrooms. After a while, I got to the point where I thought, “I want to be the teacher now.” So I went back to school and became a teacher.

Right away, I found myself in a role we called “integration support teacher,” mostly in a high school setting. From there, I moved into what we called “life skills” in a middle school, and that was the most rewarding experience for me. I supported about 20 students in a middle school setting. Sometimes they were in my classroom, and other times they were fully integrated into other classrooms, often in elective settings. That was a great training ground for me. I learned so much in that atmosphere.

After that, I was asked to move into a district position, which started out being called “curriculum coordinator” and now we call ourselves “inclusion coaches.” It’s a district-wide role, so I can be called into any classroom from kindergarten to grade 12 to help teams supporting individuals with disabilities.

It’s a significant shift. As a teacher in the classroom, I could put my beliefs into play. Now, I see teachers supporting individuals in their classrooms who don’t have the philosophical underpinning or conviction of the heart to say, “Yes, this is hard, but I believe in it so much that I’m doing it.” My role now is to support those teams. It’s not necessarily my direct role to educate in the bigger picture, but as a person, I feel that’s what I want to do. I think it’s a more rewarding job for all educators if we’re on the same page and know why we’re discussing things. It’s easier to follow through because it’s a really hard job.

Tim Villegas:
Indeed. What do you feel is the biggest challenge for teachers who are put into a situation where there are students included in their class—let’s say general curriculum teachers—and they have students working well below grade level? Maybe they feel like those students should be somewhere else. How do you breach that barrier?

Kristin Wiens:
That’s a tough one. There are so many angles to that question. One key thing that’s become more forefront for me in recent years—and I hope it helps me be more effective in supporting teachers—is that I come from a much more compassionate place now. I really understand that it’s hard. If you don’t even agree with inclusion, which some teachers don’t, that’s a hard place to come to work every day. In British Columbia, it’s not a choice. There’s a rub between what you believe and what you’re being told you need to do.

So one of the big barriers is that philosophical shift. Can we help people supporting students have a shift and come from a place of, “Yes, this is the right thing to do”? If you remove that big umbrella piece, the struggles are probably the same across the continent: lack of resources—whether that’s flexible seating, new equipment for movement, educational assistants in the classroom, or just time. Time to collaborate and plan is a big one. All of those are universal barriers we’re up against in inclusion.

Tim Villegas:
Definitely. Everything you just said are barriers that are very real for the educators I speak with. You have educators who really do have the philosophical foundation that all children should have access to the general curriculum, whether or not they’re able to keep up. But it’s difficult to put that into practice when resources are slim. And not only that, there are other expectations—testing, accountability requirements. It’s a very difficult place.

Kristin Wiens:
Just on that note, we’ve recently started a new process in our district that’s still in the pilot stage, and we’re really liking it. We call it CIPTTD—Collaborative Inclusive Planning Teams with Purpose. In our roles as inclusion coaches, we found that we were often going out to schools, giving recommendations, leaving, and then getting called back for the same thing with the same students—or at least the same issues with different students. The knowledge wasn’t being transferred.

Our big push now is trying to build capacity within all team members, which is really hard to do without time or motivation. So we switched it. We now invite teams to come to us. Most of the time it’s at our board office. Teams come in with one child in mind that they want to support. We take two afternoons and carve out the time. We supply the money to release the teachers, which is a big deal. We try to have a classroom teacher, an integration teacher, and sometimes educational assistants.

We spend the time doing two things: going over big ideas and planning specifically for that student, who we call the “wonder child.” That term comes from a colleague, Morning Drorg, who talks about the importance of language. Instead of saying “the child who won’t learn” or “the behavior child,” we say “wonder child”—as in “I wonder how we can connect with this child,” “I wonder what’s motivating this child.”

We ask teams to plan for that wonder child based on the big idea. For example, we talk about “behavior is communication,” then ask, “With your wonder child, what are they communicating? How are they communicating that with behavior?” When they bolt out of the classroom, what is that telling you? What happened just before? What happened earlier that morning?

We also talk about visuals and give them time. The response has been really exciting. The thing that comes up over and over again is, “Thank you for the time.” I think we often talk about lack of resources being people or things, but I wonder how much those complaints would go down if we just had time. Yes, we still need more people, more things, more money—but we undervalue the time people need to think through, plan, and feel supported.

Teachers are leaving with new excitement. They come planning for Johnny and leave saying, “I think maybe Susie could use this too.” All these things we’ve been trying to do for so long are happening in a much shorter period of time. It’s really honoring the need we all have to sit with information, process it, and plan purposefully. It’s exciting, and I wonder how much we can all learn from that.

Tim Villegas:
Absolutely. Everything you’re saying is really resonating with me. As I’m sure is the case in your district, you’re spread thin. You probably get lots of referrals and requests to come out and help with certain situations or students, and there’s just not enough time to adequately address them. But I love what you said about taking the time with a particular school and focusing on one student—not just for an hour, but for a couple of afternoons where you really do a deep dive into the supports for that student. And that it’s outside of a… do you call them IDPs in Canada as well? The meetings for the students?

Kristin Wiens:
Yeah, outside of that. And interestingly, I think it’s important that it’s outside of the school building.

Tim Villegas:
Yes.

Kristin Wiens:
Even if we had that same amount of time in the school building, it’s extremely telling about how demanding the job is. We have teachers on call come in, we release the teachers, and yet still—how many times do you get a knock on the door? “We need you right away.” Teachers are being pulled out of the meeting. So I think the significance of removing them from the school building and saying, “This is important enough that we want you to be able to focus just on this,” really matters.

Tim Villegas:
Yeah, I like that a lot. This is great. I’m learning so much. I really appreciate your time. I love talking about this—I feel the same way. I wanted to ask you about the differences because I know that you talk about self-regulation in the content you produce for North Star Paths. Even thinking back to that “Behavior is Communication” graphic you did, I know that some people who are more on the applied behavior analysis (ABA) side will look at that graphic and say, “No, no, no, that is completely wrong. There is no research to back that up.” They’ll say, “We have the four basic functions of behavior.” You described a student who was eloping from class—they’d say that must be to get attention, escape or avoid something, access something, or meet a sensory need.

Do you feel like self-regulation and behavioral analysis can coexist? Or are we talking about two separate ways of looking at behavior?

Kristin Wiens:
I think they could coexist. I have to confess that I have limited experience with ABA, just because of the path our district has taken and the experiences I’ve had. So I’d be delighted to have that conversation with someone. But just on the surface, I think they could coexist. For example, the sensory need—for me, that would fall under a biological need. I would still look at that.

The needs that an ABA perspective would identify, I think I could fit them within the domains on the iceberg I’ve listed. There are five: biological, emotional, social, prosocial, and cognitive. They all come from Stuart Shanker’s work. He established the MEHRIT Centre here in Canada, and his approach is called Self-Reg. It’s obviously about self-regulation, but it’s a very specific approach. He points to a lot of research and a growing body of research.

So if I were going into that conversation, I’d be looking at that research again. But if someone were interested, that’s where I’d point them for the research behind what I’m looking at in terms of self-regulation.

For me, I think I could easily say, “Yes, those are the motivators through an ABA lens, and I see them working here too.” The common ground, I believe, is that when we’re supporting students in schools, behavior is seen by others as unexpected behavior—that tip of the iceberg. Whatever is below the iceberg, whatever you’re calling it, is what we want to start looking at in terms of detective work. How can we find a replacement behavior? How can we support the student to be more regulated in the classroom?

So I think the approaches are somewhat similar. I know that if you go deeper, there are going to be broad philosophical differences in how you approach it. But on a surface level, I think there would be some commonalities. We see unexpected behavior, and our desire is to try to explain it and then support that student to move from a maladaptive strategy to a more adaptive strategy.

Tim Villegas:
Yeah, I definitely see how there can be some overlap. While I’m more familiar with the ABA lens of looking at behavior, I’m certainly not married to that being the only way. Fortunately, I have the freedom to do that because I’m not a board-certified behavior analyst. If you are, you really do have to—like, that is your worldview. You have to see and practice in that particular way.

But like I said, I’ve got a little more flexibility. So when I saw your graphics and the ones about self-regulation, that’s definitely something I’m interested in. I encourage anyone who’s listening to go to Self-Reg and look up Stuart Shanker to learn more about that, because that’s something I definitely want to utilize within my own strategies.

I wanted to talk about the PATH process. I believe that PATH is uniquely Canadian—is that correct?

Kristin Wiens:
It is, yeah.

Tim Villegas:
And PATH is… I don’t know if it’s in the same kind of umbrella as making action plans. Is that the same type of thing?

Kristin Wiens:
Yeah, it is. I think there’s a little bit of confusion. I believe—and I could be wrong here—but PATH and a process called MAP were designed here in Canada by Jack Pearpoint and Marsha Forest. I think it’s more supported than… I’m forgetting another name.

Tim Villegas:
That sounds correct, yes.

Kristin Wiens:
Okay. They traveled—Jack still continues to travel internationally teaching. So MAP, I believe, that’s associated with PATH, is different than the MAP you’re talking about. There’s the McGill Action Planning and the Making Action Plans—they’re somewhat separate.

The PATH and MAP process we are trained in is different, but it might be similar to the Making Action Plans. Is that a graphic-recorded process as well?

Tim Villegas:
I believe so. Although I was introduced to MAPs through the McGill Action Plan system, which didn’t have to be graphically organized—although you certainly could. The ones I’ve used with families have been a series of questions: What are your dreams and hopes for the student? What are your fears or nightmares? Then it goes on to what a typical day looks like for that student. I don’t have the process memorized because it’s been a while.

Kristin Wiens:
They sound similar. So the MAP you’re talking about and the MAP we use with PATH—well, the acronym there is “Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope.” When I was getting the training, MAP was just “map,” as in we’re making a map. The difference between those two things—and it sounds similar to the one you’re talking about—is that PATH is looking into the future about your dreams and hopes first. It’s an eight-step process. That “North Star” is actually where the name North Star Paths came from. They talk about that North Star dreaming in the first step. It’s anchored in where the individual wants to be, and there are no limitations—they can just dream really big.

Then you come back from there and start planning step by step. If you were moving toward your North Star dream, what would be things you need to strengthen? Who would be people to invite on that journey? What might your job be? Then you get more specific—what does it look like in a year, in six months? You create action plans.

Whereas the MAPs that they teach go back into the history of the person first to identify strengths. They also identify the nightmares—things that have been struggles—and then make a plan to move forward. So they’re similar in that you’re identifying strengths and challenges in a very systematic way. PATH moves forward into the future and anchors in dreams. MAP is about the strengths you can find in a person’s history.

We’ve chosen to do PATH in our district. Either could be effective, but we chose one to concentrate on. We use it mainly with individuals in grades 11 and 12 who will be transitioning into community support. We found that was a big gap. A not-very-nice analogy I’ve used—because it’s how it felt—was that in our education system, we were bringing students up the mountain, supporting them, and then when we got to the edge, it almost felt like we were just pushing them off the cliff. They weren’t ready for what was there in the community. The support tended to be less than what we had for them, and families and individuals were quite shocked by that during the transition. It just didn’t feel prepared.

So we went looking for something that would help us with those plans and found PATH. We use it as a way to say, “What is the future, and what do we need to have in place in order for this transition to be successful?” It’s been the most incredible process—so rewarding. It’s a two-hour process, and I don’t know any other process that gets so much richness in planning and honors the student and their family and supports them so well.

Tim Villegas:
Are you the one who does the illustrations?

Kristin Wiens:
I am! The graphic facilitation—generally I’m the one doing it. It’s my passion. I find that as more people become familiar with some of the work I do in graphics, they hesitate to pick up the pen, which is too bad. We actually do PATH training as well, and I do the training for the graphic facilitator. I love the philosophy there because we say it’s not about art. You don’t have to be an artist—it’s about mark-making.

If you put a mark on that paper that connects with the person you’re planning for, then you’ve done your job. It’s just about trying to put a visual representation down to remind them of the conversation. That’s very difficult for some people. People have a lot of fixed mindsets or critical thoughts about their artistic ability. So it’s quite a joy to spend an afternoon with people, getting them to doodle and explore that. They’re quite happy when I can say, “You know what? I can get you to draw a bicycle in five easy moves,” and it’s quite exciting.

Tim Villegas:
Yes!

Kristin Wiens:
And my PATH graphics—they’re real-time graphics. They’re colorful and fun, and I do a fine job, but it’s nothing like the graphic work where you get to do revision after revision. They’re separate processes. But it’s interesting—when I went and got the PATH training, I just fell in love with the graphic recording. I’d always been a bit of a doodler. Creativity was always part of my life. My dad is a graphic artist, a cartoonist, and a beautiful watercolor artist. So I grew up surrounded by creativity.

It got a hold of me when I took this training. That graphic recording inspired me to start doodling more and more. It was like an invitation to put more creativity into my life. A lot of what I’m doing now stemmed from the excitement of that graphic recording.

Kristin Wiens:
That was the first kind of marriage of my creative love and my love of inclusion—meeting them and saying, “Hello, look at this possibility.” If you look back, the first Long Story Short stop-motion animation we did was on Universal Design for Learning. I did that as an assignment when I was doing my master’s degree. I’d always wanted to do a little bit of stop motion, and I thought, “Here’s the time.”

If you look back at the office in that video, it’s very much a PATH-inspired graphic—much more basic, very simple, not a lot of color. You can see the influence of PATH and graphic recording in that first Long Story Short. From there, I got excited and thought, “Oh, I don’t need to limit it to that.” Our more recent ones involve more cut paper and more detailed illustrations. But the root of it came from that graphic recording inspired by the PATH process. I’m really grateful for that.

Tim Villegas:
Yes, I’ve seen the growth in the videos, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve definitely enjoyed seeing that, and I’m hopeful for what’s coming next. So let me ask you—what do you see for North Star Paths? What vision do you have for it in the future?

Kristin Wiens:
Well, a few things. Once you become a facilitator, you start thinking through that. I have so many doodles in my journals of a PATH—what do I want to do, where do I want to be with it? Some of the things that come to mind: definitely more stop-motion videos. We’re actually recording one this weekend that will be out soon, and it’s the first time we’re doing one for somebody else. It’s based on Karen Copeland’s blog. She has Champions for Community Mental Wellness—hopefully I said that right, her organization. She approached us to ask us to do one, and it’s been a really wonderful process and learning experience. The topic is “Start with Strengths,” so it totally fits with our philosophy.

I don’t know that we’ll do collaborations like that again soon, just because of the demands on time. I do the stop-motion with my partner Paul, who is not an educator and not involved in this field. We both have our day jobs, so the time it takes is significant. I think that will be a great retirement job! So I think we’ll stick to stop-motions that are more based on the work I do personally. That was great learning, and I’m learning so much as I go.

I’ve also been approached to do graphics for a few different people’s books and publications, which is exciting. I’m doing a little bit of experimenting with some stuff for the MEHRIT Centre in Self-Reg with one of their new publications coming out. I don’t know where that will go, but doing graphics with them has been really rewarding. Graphics are easier to do in collaboration with someone because it’s not as involved as the filming process, so I could see more collaborations with graphics.

Another thing that’s increasing in my life right now is speaking at conferences. I’m really enjoying that. I have such a desire to help build capacity in other teachers, and conferences are great places because they carve out time. I know the efficacy of having a speaker come in isn’t always great, but I hope it’s one small part of a district’s plan to build capacity. I’m enjoying accepting those invitations and creating workshops around the visuals.

For instance, next month I’m doing one specifically on visuals. It’s based on our visual called “Nine Reasons to Use Visuals.” The workshop is designed around those nine reasons. That’s another marriage of presenting and teaching adults. I teach our education assistant course here in our district in the evenings, and I really love working with adults. So again, that combination of “Here’s a visual” and “Here’s a workshop built around that visual.”

It’s quite fun because people tend to like to leave with a visual reminder of what they’ve just learned. That’s what we know about good learning—having those visual notes and reminders. So those things are all moving forward together, and somewhere in there is where I’ll spend the next few years. Which now that I say it, seems like maybe a bit more than I can handle. Oh—and I’d love to write another children’s book.

Tim Villegas:
Oh?

Kristin Wiens:
I don’t know where that’s going to fit in. That children’s book was actually my final project for my master’s degree. I give a great big shout-out to Vancouver Island University for their flexibility. When I approached my supervisor with the idea, I thought for sure the answer would be no—and that would’ve been fine. But I’m a true believer that it doesn’t hurt to ask, and they said, “Sure, that’s great!”

I was focusing on mindfulness and self-regulation, and those are the themes in that book. I was really motivated to do the research behind it. I was probably one of the most involved students with their projects going on. That was several years ago, and I still continue to do work around using that picture book—going into schools and doing presentations around gratitude. It was very exciting and good fun, and I’d love to do it again. But I had the motivation of a master’s degree to get me to that final product. Without those deadlines, I don’t tend to get the next picture book done.

Tim Villegas:
Right. Well, it sounds like you’re certainly busy enough. You have a lot of things going on. I want to thank Kristin Wiens for being on the Think Inclusive Podcast. You can find her on Twitter at @KWiens62A. You can look her up on her website at northstarpaths.com. Is there any other place, any other social media you’d like to promote?

Kristin Wiens:
We’re also on our YouTube channel, which is “Long Story Short” with a Zed—or “Z,” as you would say. If people want to look at the videos, they’re also on the North Star Paths website.

Tim Villegas:
All right, fantastic. Thank you so much for your time.

Kristin Wiens:
Thank you very much for the invitation.

Tim Villegas:
That is our show. We’d like to thank Kristin Wiens for coming on the podcast. Make sure to follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as on her website at northstarpaths.com. Follow Think Inclusive on the web at thinkinclusive.us, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram.

Today’s show was produced by myself, talking into USB headphones, the Zoom H1 Handy Recorder, MacBook Pro, GarageBand, and a Skype account. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or Podomatic.com—the largest community of independent podcasters on the planet.

From Marietta, Georgia, please join us again on the Think Inclusive Podcast. Thanks for your time and attention.