What is a Listening Tour?

Phil Poekert: Listening Tours are a really proud tradition at the Lastinger Center. The very first Listening Tour was started by our founding director, Don Pemberton, when he came in and went around the state to talk to teachers about what the Center could do to help them.

Out of those initial conversations came the very first programs of the Lastinger Center that were built in response to what the teachers shared. When I became the director in 2018, I wanted to repeat that tradition, and I did the same thing and traveled all over the state to hear from teachers and other stakeholders in the education system about what’s working well, what still needs work, and if they had a magic wand, what might they do differently.

So here we are in 2023; we’re doing it again, this time focusing really in mathematics but also building on the work that the Center’s been doing in early learning and literacy to try to get a fresh take on where we’re at in each of those areas to inform the work that the Center is doing but also to share those findings with the state and other education stakeholders more broadly.