Episode 130: Compassionate Change in Schools with Ashley Potvin

Today’s guest is Dr. Ashley Potvin, a research associate at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute whose new book, Creating Compassionate Change in School Communities: Leading Together to Address Everyday Suffering in Schools, comes out later this month. The book focuses on helping teachers cultivate compassion and reduce suffering in their schools — a topic we can agree is important.

Before earning her PhD in Curriculum & Instruction from CU Boulder, had several jobs in education, including teaching middle and high school social studies and working as teacher coach. We talk about her journey towards becoming a researcher and the long-term impacts of teaching relationships. We discuss how to create compassion in schools, including the kinds of compassion you might’ve forgotten about, like self-compassion.

 
 
 
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.

Dr. Ashley Potvin is a research associate at the Renee Crown Wellness Institute. She has a PhD in curriculum instruction with a focus on research on teaching and teacher education. Prior to starting her PhD, Ashley was a middle school and high school social studies teacher. She also has experience supporting teachers in various roles as a curriculum leader, a coach and a university instructor. She is the co author of “Creating Compassionate Change in School Communities: leading together to address everyday suffering in schools,” which is released on April 29, 2025. Welcome Ashley. So nice to have you here.


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Hi Lily. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk with you today. 


Lily Jones  

Me too. So I'd love for you to take us back in time and tell us about your journey as an educator.


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Sure. So I started as a middle and high school social studies teacher. I mostly taught middle school, and that's really where my passion lied. I was also at some points, I had some different kind of leadership roles where I was a curriculum leader and a mentor, but what I really loved was being in the classroom with my students, and I always viewed teaching other people's children as really such a gift. I love the relational aspects of teaching, maybe less or more so than I liked teaching the content for me, it was really about like, the relationships that we were forming, the community we were building, inspiring curiosity and creativity amongst my students I loved, you know, Facilitating collaboration and thinking about deepening relationships I wanted my students to really care about each other and care about the world and to be curious and lifelong learners. And I realized pretty quickly, even though I loved teaching, that I had a personal goal, I think, because of my lifelong learning that I wanted to pursue my PhD, and so I did end up leaving the classroom, and it was a really hard decision to to pursue, you know, my higher degree, and that's what brought me into work that I'm doing now as a researcher. But I always knew that when I left the classroom. I wanted to be connected to the work of teaching and to schools and classrooms.


Lily Jones  

Yes, I love that, and I love that, like clarity on just what you loved about teaching. I mean, I think for many of us, like I haven't been a classroom teacher for 14 years, 13 years, but I still have relationships with these kindergarteners that I taught 13 years ago, and now they come over for dinner, and they're adults, and it's so awesome. Like, where else have I formed those relationships, you know? So I think that that part is so key for so many educators. 


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, I love, I love that story too, because it gives a little window into, you know, as educators and as teachers, sometimes we don't always see the benefits right away, or we don't always see kind of the influence that we have until later, when somebody comes back. You know, educators always telling us, like, you know, my student graduated and came back, or like, your students are coming over for dinner now. So those are really kind of amazing stories of the, I think, the amazing impact and positive impact that we can have as as educators. 


Lily Jones  

Absolutely. And I felt that myself from teachers too, like I've been friends with my fourth grade teacher for a long time, like I reconnected when I wanted to be a common teacher many years ago, and then she came to my wedding. She just turned 65 like, I'm like, Oh, it's so fantastic having it on both ends. Like education can pace play such an instrumental role in our lives, and educators can. And so really seeing that as key?


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, I think, I think so. And I think, you know, when we think about many of the stories we tell we probably all have memory like fond memories of a teacher who, you know, influenced our trajectory, or was, you know, a warm presence or a welcoming presence in the classroom.


Lily Jones  

Absolutely. So I know now you're with the Crown Institute. Can you tell us what drew you to the Crown Institute and what it is? 


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, absolutely. So the Renee Crown Wellness Institute is an interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. And I was really drawn to the Institute for the mission and vision. And the vision of the institute is to imagine a world where every young person thrives supported by the caring relationships and the inner resources required for a lifetime of wellness, and so all of the research and the programming that we do really is in support of that vision of every young person thrives. Diving. And so the work that I get to do is really with educators. I co lead a project called compassion and dignity for educators. And I think the vision, combined with the opportunity to continue to work in deep collaboration with teachers, with educators, and thinking about some of these things that I always cared about as a teacher myself, how do we create these kind of welcoming, caring, compassionate communities so that students can thrive, so that educators can thrive, was really appealing and exciting to me, and it's been just a wonderful place to work. You know, we I think that this is an organization that really models and tries to live out the values that we engage in the world and in our research around fierce compassion and dignity for all better together, built on trust. These are some of the shared values of the Institute, and it feels, feels like a compassionate place to work and a really wonderful opportunity to just get to continue the work that I did as a teacher in the classroom.


Lily Jones  

 I love that mission and those values. I mean, that's so inspiring to think about. And I love this focus on compassionate and dignity and both for teachers and students, and how you said this for all right, like really trying to hold that vision. So I appreciate all that work that you're doing, and I know that along with that, you were involved in writing a book called compassionate change in schools. Can you tell us about that book and anything you want to share about just the process of writing it. 


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, so we're really excited that our new book creating compassionate change in school communities is coming out at the end of April, and this book really focuses on how educators can cultivate compassion within themselves and then lead together to create dignity, affirming, humanizing school environments. And so we really wrote this book for educators and for anybody who's you know, tending to the hearts and minds of young people and children, and we hope that it offers inspiration and practical tools to remind educators that they are actually really essential leaders in creating this kind of change in their school communities. We hope that it provides guidance on how to do that, with care, with curiosity, with openness, with courage and compassion, and so, along with my co-authors, so there's three other co-authors on this book. We bring various perspectives. So it's really the book is grounded in a really kind of interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary approach, where we've integrated research from psychology and neuroscience around the science of compassion, research from education and our own kind of research contemplative practice and wisdom, and really importantly, the lived experiences of educators. We also have components of learning theory and theories around collective organizing and how do we make change together? So, you know, we really wrote this book, hopefully to provide tools and resources for educators. We wanted it to be an interactive book, so educators who pick it up will find there are meditation practices. So invitation to practice. There's what we call on the spot practices that are a little bit more bite size and practices that you can try in the moment during the school day, we have hands on kind of writing and dialog practices, and we also have quite a bit of reflection, questions and journaling built in. 


Lily Jones  

Wonderful. I love that, and I love the interactive component too, because so often we can read books be Like this sounds great, but what do I do? And so having them What do I do in there also sounds so helpful.


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, we, you know, we really want to support educators in finding ways to align their actions with their deepest kind of values and intentions that they hold. And I think so often, you know, I think back to when I was in the classroom. It is so busy and hectic some days, you know, you're basically moving bell to bell, and you're having all of these tiny little quiz. Interactions, there just is not a lot of space to pause and to have moments of reflection. And so we are really hoping to support educators in reading this book. And you know, take your time. Read this book with a colleague. This is a great book to do you know, as a book study or with your staff or with a teacher friend who you have so that you could actually pause and talk about, you know, what you're reading and how you're thinking about bringing what you're learning into the classroom, into the school, into wherever you're working.


Lily Jones  

Absolutely and so I know there's a ton of information in the book, but I'm wondering for our educators and school leaders out there, what advice you'd give them about bringing more compassion and dignity to schools?


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

That's a great question. Lily, thanks for that. You know, I think one of the key premises of the book is that creating this kind of school change requires really both inner work and outer work to understand and develop the skills for meeting the suffering that we maybe feel inside and also encounter in the world. And so contemplative practice is a key aspect of that these kind of on the spot practices, and then we also offer tools for for recognizing and seeing suffering that might exist, you know around you in the school, that might actually be caused by some of the practices, policies or routines in the school. So I think the first step is really that sense of the inner work, and how do we resource ourselves so that when we are in a conversation that is challenging, or we experience conflict, or we realize perhaps, that we've made a mistake. How do we meet those unexpected, difficult moments with care and concern and steadiness and presence and just be in that moment with whatever is arising? So I'd say that's really important. And then the other thing that we emphasize in the book is this sense that as an educator working with others, you actually have enormous capacity to reduce everyday suffering in your schools. It can feel really easy, and I think back to some moments when I was teaching. It can feel really easy, to feel overwhelmed. Things can feel very challenging very quickly. And we provide some some tools to say, you know, first of all, you're not alone, and you don't have to do this alone. And who are your allies in this kind of work? Are there people that maybe you haven't even thought about reaching out to and asking who might actually be an ally to you in this work of creating compassionate change in your schools? And many times, when we ask educators, and we work with educators, they say, oh, you know what? There are some people who I've actually never I'm not sure I haven't really asked them yet, but I think they just haven't been asked, and I think they would be happy to support my work in in some way. And so that idea that both compassionate change requires this kind of inner work and this outer work, and we don't have to do it alone. There are people in our midst who want to support us, and figuring out who those people are and how they might support is is really important. 


Lily Jones  

I love both of those pieces of advice, particularly thinking about reaching out to other people who could be allies, feels empowering, because part of what you said, which I related to also is sometimes the structures or systems of our schools do kind of promote suffering, and so being in that system as a teacher, where there may be practices that you don't agree with, or you see the system not working for all of your students, being able to have some agency there, being like all right, I might be a little alone in this, but I'm not. Like I can find allies, whether within my school or beyond. That can help me dig into this work.


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yes, that's, that's exactly right. And, you know, I think, I think there is something that feels when you can recognize kind of your own agency in that right, like we, we know we can't change. There's certain things that are really hard to change, that we might not change. And so we also encourage educators to think about, okay, you're noticing this suffering. And in fact, we take a lens of, like, who is suffering in your school and who's suffering maybe the most, and like, what's, what are the causes of that suffering. Maybe you can't take away all of the causes of that suffering, but there might be something you could do. There might be some kind of a routine that you could shift with your grade level team or your department level team that would still kind of work within the boundaries that you need to work in and make a significant change for your students, or, you know, for one another. Sometimes, like, the suffering isn't always like the suffering of the students. Our teachers recognize when we start to ask them to notice who is suffering in the school community. Sometimes they're like, it's us, it's our colleagues, you know, we're in conflict with each other, or it's some of our families. So how can we think about, you know, making this a more caring environment?


Lily Jones  

Yeah, absolutely. And it's educators who are really overworked, right? And works so much that they feel completely burned out. And so I'm curious, along with that, how you think self compassion can help educators move past burnout? 


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, thanks for that question. I think this is a really important question, and it might it's maybe one of my favorite questions to talk about, because this is one of the the most compelling pieces of the work that we do with educators, that they tell us is the most compelling so self compassion is about offering the same sense of kindness and patience to ourselves that we so often and readily offer to other people, especially as people oriented in this, you know, helping caregiving, profession of teaching, of educating, we are really good at helping other people, and in fact, our jobs are about helping other people. But there's quite a bit of research that's emerged that shows that self compassion can really help you move beyond burnout and overwhelm. It helps with greater attentiveness and with emotional regulation and stress and anxiety and conflicts. And what we're hearing from our educators is that self compassion helps them to move past feelings of overwhelm and towards action and towards hope, which I think can be really, really powerful. So part of that is that when we make a mistake, when we see something that we've done as a failure or not living up to our expectations, we can be really critical and tough on ourselves, and sometimes it's so automatic that we don't even know We're doing it. You know you, you make a mistake, or you know you, you feel like you didn't quite reach all of your students, and you're telling yourself, I'm not a good teacher. Or like, how can it be so stupid as to do that? And we say these things to ourselves, and can you imagine saying that to a student, we just we wouldn't. We don't talk to our students like that. We don't talk to our friends like that. And so learning to offer ourselves compassion, to treat ourselves with patience and kindness, to see our mistakes and our set packs as part of learning and growth is really important. That's what we tell our students, right? Like, make a mistake that means you're learning. That's part of learning and growing. The same is true with us, right? We're all still in process, and so, you know, we've had educators tell us, one of our educators really powerfully said that the practices of self compassion helped him to replace this rumination over his shortcomings or his perceived mistakes with forgiveness. It allowed him to forgive himself so that he could move forward and better, not only that, feel more resourced himself, but then better show up for his students, which I think is it's so powerful. We had another teacher tell us, you know, I've been practicing self compassion. And my student, she was a high school teacher, so my high school student was sharing something really heavy with me, and she was I recognized, because I've been practicing. Self compassion that my student was being really hard on herself, and I was able to ask her, what are you going to do to care for yourself and to to engage in a conversation? And she said, without practicing the self compassion I don't I'm not sure I would have been able to see that and recognize that that was a need with my student. And so these moments are so powerful because we talk about self compassion over here and compassion for others over here. But there's, it's really, they're intertwined. So I think this sense of self compassion can also help us gain a new perspective on what's happening. It can also help us to start to see those practices and routines that might be causing suffering might be causing suffering for us too. So when we learn to relate to ourselves in a different way. It can really help with those feelings of burnout, of overwhelm, of feeling like we're not enough. And if you're practicing these kinds of things, you are enough, you know are all enough. So I think that's that's really important. 


Lily Jones  

Those are such powerful stories. Thanks. Thank you for sharing them. I love thinking about too, and I say this to teachers all the time too, about treating yourself the way that you would treat a student. You know, like as teachers, we have these tools, right? Like we know how to coach people through problems, we know how to like resolve conflicts. We know how to do these things, but we often struggle doing them with ourselves. And so I think realizing that, like we have these tools, we just have to turn them inward, is so powerful. And then the other thing that really stood out to me that you said was like building self compassion helps you move towards action and hope you know, and that story about getting stuck in rumination, I think is so relatable, right? Like, we've all had times of being like, we're like, ruminating on something, we feel like we're stuck, and we're going around and around, and it's like we just want to find a way through. And so seeing self compassion as a way through is so powerful,


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, and you know, we didn't, we didn't talk yet about the definition of compassion, but that's a key part of what differentiates compassion from empathy. And sometimes, you know, compassion is the awareness of suffering. So first of all, seeing it, recognizing it, and then it's feeling moved by that suffering. So that's where the empathy piece comes in. But then it's not just staying and kind of the feelings and the movement of the kind of the emotional experience. It's this desire and willingness to be able to act to relieve that suffering, whether we're talking about our own suffering or somebody else's suffering. And sometimes those actions, you know, we think about actions at a large scale, and some of those actions are pretty big and important when we're talking about making change at schools, but some of those actions can be quite small. Sometimes it's just recognizing that somebody is suffering. Sometimes it's just like listening and being present to that suffering. So I think that that can be really powerful to just this orientation to action. So recognizing, like, I'm I'm kind of ruminating. I'm feeling stuck like, what, what is something that I could do to alleviate the suffering, even a little bit, even a little bit, or even small actions, can have really big impact and consequence to the person who is feeling that, to the person who wants to be seen, to heard and recognized for their experiences. So yeah, yeah, I think that can matter. And something else you said reminded me that, you know, as as educators, I like what you said, like we we can forget that we have the tools and resources already. You know, we offer them to the students. How do we offer them to ourselves? And some of the on the spot practices that we offer in the book creating compassionate change in school communities serve as reminders to do just that. So there's one that I love that fits in this self compassion framing, and it's after you try out this kindness and compassion for yourself meditation where we offer ourselves some phrases. You're encouraged then to grab a post it note, or, you know, you could put it in your phone and write a phrase to yourself that you need to hear in the moment. So educators have said things like, you know, I am enough, or. Or, you know, you are worthy of kindness, or whatever it is that they need to hear, and they jot it down on a post it note. And then we ask people put that post it note somewhere that you will see it many times. Maybe it's on the side of your computer or on your desk at school, in your plan book, on your refrigerator at home, you know, somewhere where you'll see it, and every time you see it, pause for just even 10 seconds, offer yourself that phrase or those phrases, and then just notice your experience with that. It's very quick, but sometimes we need that reminder. You know that visual reminder. 


Lily Jones  

Yes, and it doesn't have to be these giant actions. Like the idea that we can just take these small actions and create real change and momentum and a ripple effect is really powerful. 


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, I think so. And I think those small changes are what help us to feel resourced when it is time to work together to make a bigger a bigger change.


Lily Jones  

Absolutely. And so going back to your own journey, you know, I know you started as a classroom teacher, and now are doing this amazing work that's such a joy to hear about. I know a lot of our audience is full of educators who may want to stay in the classroom and do some more work on the side, or really expand their impact, or they may be looking to leave the classroom but still work in education. And so I'm wondering what advice you have for educators who might want to work beyond the classroom.


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Yeah, I am. So a lot of the educators who we work with in our programs are working outside of the classroom, so to speak. So we have mental health professionals who find their way to our programs or community liaisons, librarians, counselors, people who are in more administrative roles, and they're finding ways to apply this work, to apply this compassion and dignity into the work that they're doing. And they're finding a lot of value, I think, another kind of key theme that we see over and over again with people who engage with the compassion and dignity work is that people tell us that this work really matters for their professional lives, that it it's really helping them to feel resourced to make change at a school or systems level, but that it's much more than professional development that these are tools and practices that people are using and applying in their personal lives, too. And so we have lots of you know, educators say like, I'm using these practices at home and I am a much better parent or spouse or friend or family member or community member, because these practices can move across contexts and work. I'd also say that for some of our classroom teachers who are aspiring to maybe more leadership roles in schools or even outside of schools. They're finding some of these tools and resources. I think they're also finding their sense of of I'm a leader, even without the kind of formal title. So we take a really broad view of leadership, and if you are working to make this kind of change within you and within your community, whatever community that is, you're absolutely a leader. And so the teachers who are in the classroom have been thinking together and working together to really lead some important efforts in their schools. You know, we have one group of teachers who noticed that there was some conflict among their staff, and that that was actually trickling down, not surprisingly, to the students, and that was kind of causing suffering at all these different levels. And so they went to their principal and said, Can we have five or 10 minutes at the faculty meetings this coming year, at every meeting to work on our our community, our teacher community, our culture and our communication? And so they're stepping into these, these roles in ways that that people are telling us are are really hopeful and feel exciting to them. 


Lily Jones  

Wonderful. I love that. And thank you so much, Ashley for sharing all about your amazing work and all these great suggestions and advice. Can you tell folks where they can connect with you? Sure?


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

So I will. To give you the link to our book sites, which is www.colorado.edu/crown Institute slash compassionate dash change, dash schools, dash book. And if you want to connect with me personally, I'm on LinkedIn, so that would be a great way to connect.


Lily Jones  

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ashley,


Dr. Ashley Potvin  

Thank you, Lily. It was a real joy to get a chance to chat with you today. Yeah, it sure was. Thanks.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai


Lily Jones