The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 089: Values At Work with Dr. Amanda March
Ever feel like the noise never stops? We invited Dr. Amanda March, former school psychologist, professional learning expert, and founder of Rise and Align Consulting, to help us turn down the volume and bring clarity back to teaching and leading. Through vivid stories and practical tools, Amanda shows how naming and living core values reduces burnout, speeds up decision-making, and builds a school culture that actually supports the work.
We unpack the science behind values alignment: what cognitive dissonance does to your brain and why aligning actions with beliefs lowers cortisol and lifts motivation. Amanda’s “tale of two district leaders” reveals how apparent personality clashes, independence versus collaboration, can transform into complementary strengths when teams do a simple values sort and embed organizational values alongside mission and goals. The result is fewer assumptions, more trust, and faster progress on what matters most for students.
If perfectionism keeps you stuck, you’ll hear why it’s more helpful to treat it as an anti-value and replace it with a daily micro-practice: Rise, Align, Reflect. Choose one value each morning, define how you’ll embody it, and keep a visible reminder so you can redirect when you slip into polishing or procrastination. We also share team practices, like quick value shout outs, that deliver immediate wins for culture, recognition, and focus. This is minimalist education in action: fewer distractions, clearer choices, and consistent habits that protect energy and impact.
If this conversation helps you rethink, reduce, or realign part of your practice, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your top core value. Your feedback helps others find these tools and keeps the work moving forward.
Find our book The Minimalist Teacher and Your School Leadership Edit: A Minimalist Approach to Rethinking Your School's Ecosystem at the links!
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.
SPEAKER_02:On this week's episode of the podcast, we have a discussion about thriving school support and values with Dr. Amanda March. Dr. Amanda March is a nationally certified school psychologist, professional learning consultant, and founder of Rise and Align Consulting. With over 20 years of experience, she specialises in translating research into practice to support systemic improvement and capacity building. Amanda serves as the executive director and past president of Learning Forward Florida. Her work focuses on aligning personal and organizational values to drive meaningful sustainable change. She has worked with educational institutions such as Harvard's Proving Ground, Pearson, Michigan's MTSS Technical Assistance Centre, and the Florida Problem Solving Response to Intervention Project. Amanda brings deep expertise in adult learning, inclusive facilitation, and transformative leadership.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Christine and I today are talking with Dr. Amanda March, who is a brilliant mind. So we're excited to have you with us today, Amanda.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you so much. I don't know about brilliant, but I'll take it. If it's coming from you, you guys are both brilliant, I'll take it. But yes, thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_03:I would love to talk a little, well, I want to talk about all the things, obviously. But we'll start with how did you come to the path that you're on right now with focusing on align values alignment? I'm super interested in that.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Thank you. And, you know, talking about, especially now mid-career, middle age, of course, I have a long path of professional leadership roles and things like that. But I'm it all led me here. So I'm a school psychologist by training and founded Rise in aligned consulting a couple of years ago, based on the premise of really just like leaning into my passion and my core values. And one of my core values is evidence. And so since I've been a school psychologist and then practiced in the schools, had a lot of leadership roles there, went back to get my PhD to specialize in organizational consultation, systems change, and then all things professional learning and bringing really evidence or research to practice. So, really what got me interested in values and values alignment is the evidence out there to suggest how powerful it is when not only we identify our core values, but then also we define them, communicate them, and live by them day to day, not just as individuals, but also as educators and leaders to reach the goals that we have set for ourselves more efficiently and effectively. I call it the secret sauce to adult learning and professional learning, but really the secret sauce, the fuel to achieve our goals and to get rid of the noise and the distractions in what we want to accomplish as educators and leaders. Love that.
SPEAKER_02:Got to get rid of that, that extra noise in the background for sure. So coming from your experience, as well as that evidence piece that you were just talking about, what would be some signs, some clear signs that a school, an organization, or even just an educator or leader is out of alignment with their values?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, great question. So, and and as educators like yourself, we always talk about examples and non-examples. So let's go ahead and like my definition of core values and the definition out there in the literature, there's several, but core values are those deeply held beliefs that guide how we think, make decisions, and interact with others, right? So, someone, for example, might value creativity. For example, a teacher in the classroom who values creativity and the art of their instructional design and meeting students where they are, but they might feel misaligned with that core value when, due to time constraints and a new curriculum, they feel that they have to just rapidly approach the scope and sequence as defined. And then what we find is when you're acting in misalignment, there's that what you know in psychology is called cognitive dissonance. Your brain actually wants to act in alignment with your core values, but when it's not allowed to, our cortisol rises. And we know that icky stress hormone colders cortisol, right? It stresses us out. We burn out, we start to disengage, and we start seeing lack of job satisfaction and lack of engagement within the classroom. If we're talking about this example, and then even engagement with things that used to keep give bring us joy with our relationships and so forth. So, what we know is when we define our core values, know what really helps us live within our true values and act in alignment with them. The cortisol goes down, that cognitive dissonance minimizes or depletes, and we start seeing those good doses of dopamine in our brain. Not the dopamine hits we get when we're doom scrolling, you know, on Facebook and I do it myself or, you know, on Instagram for those cat videos and all of that. But really using the good type of dopamine, which when it fuels us, we start seeing um motivation increase, our long-term memory increases, job satisfaction, senses of belonging, all of these really facilitators and protective factors for teachers, for educators, as well as for students. So really identifying what those core values are, and I've worked with many a leadership team to do this, really helps us stay on course and then really helps us identify and determine what is no longer serving us as leaders and within our organization. It helps us with those decision making, those difficult decisions. Cause when we're acting in alignment with core values, decisions become easier and more clear.
SPEAKER_03:Speaking our language, that is absolutely. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit, maybe, maybe have an example that'll come to mind. When you're working with school leaders or teachers or teams, what are some of those activities or strategies that you that are your go-to things that help build resilience in this practice? Because it's it's pretty easy to get off track when we're, you know, there is so much chaos and noise around. So what are some of those kinds, some of those resilience builders?
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So one of one of my favorite activities that I've had great success with is doing a core value sort and development of organizational values with teams. One example I provide a lot, I call it the tale of two district leaders. And it's true, a couple of years ago, I was working in Kansas. That's as far as I'll say, I won't say what district. And I had built a relationship with them as a consultant coming in and really helping them evaluate some of the data that they had for their strategic plan in their district, and then identify, you know, what needs to go and what we need to beef up in order to reach our goals. I've been doing some classroom walkthroughs, tons of meetings with their district leadership team, problem solving. They had a strong mission, a strong vision, and even some goals there. But what I call was what was becoming clear to me is that invisible misalignment. And I'll just kind of provide you an example of how it led me to the identification of these core values that was necessary. So I'm sure you've been in situations like this as well. There were two district leaders. I won't say what their roles were, but very high-level district leaders. One was Rhonda, one was Randy. We'll call them that. And before some of the meetings, I would always get called by one of them and then the other of them. So Randy would call me over and be like, hey, you know, I love Rhonda, she's great, but I need to warn you about her. Have you been there before? Right. So, you know, in team meetings, she just, and then she really wants to, she's just just really nosy. She always needs to get into my business and everybody else's business. She distracts, she always like, you know, impairs the flow and just needs to stay in her lane. Well, and then of course, Rhonda pulled me aside. And guess what she was saying about Randy? Randy is he never he's not at all collaborative, he's very difficult to work with, he always has his own hidden agenda, and he never wants to take the time to explore other options. So that got me thinking, I'm like, okay, they're both clearly working towards the same goal of school improvement, but what was getting in the way there? So they trusted me. So we made some time to do a core value sort first with their personal core values, which then led them into the activity of organizational values that they embedded within their mission, vision, and goal work. And just knowing kind of these behaviors that I was telling you about, what sort of core values do you think bubbled to the surface for these two individuals? Of course, I do cards and we sort them out and they pick their top 10 and then top five and then top three. And then what is their one core value? What do you guys think?
SPEAKER_03:That's a tough one because it almost, I mean, I don't know if this is a core value, but it sounded like control. Sorry. No, I get that. You know something? I'm like losing, I can't find the right word that's like positive sounding to that.
SPEAKER_01:So but to to be fair, Tammy, and I've told this story uh many and many times, and that's what Randy would come across as based on Rhonda's expression, like very controlling and domineering and doesn't take feedback and all of that. Well, it turned out his core value wasn't control, but instead it was independence. Independence. So what Rhonda was seeing as more control and what was behaviors that were turning off in his worldview, he was much more efficient and it was easier to reach what he was passionate about, student success, by being very independent, working alone and getting things done. Okay. What we found out then with Rhonda after her core values sort, what do you think Rhonda valued? What are some terms that positive or negative that might come out of her core values sort?
SPEAKER_02:She said she sounded like she really liked that collaborative nature, the talking back and forth, getting viewpoints, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01:Her top core value, exactly right, was collaboration. So in her worldview, her beliefs were that we are going to achieve success only in so much as we can be collaborative with each other. So those were two misaligned core values that were getting in the way of them working together towards their ultimate goal. I kid you not, we shared. They literally looked at each other before they shared out their core values and then just shared them with each other and giggled. It was like, ah, okay. So then how can we take this information to understand that your behaviors aren't getting in the way or aren't necessarily impeding your goal? We just need to figure out how to harness the power of our actions, our core values and action to get to the same goal. From there, we developed four organizational goals that they both and the rest of the team were able to come to consensus on. And all of a sudden, it was like a watershed moment for these individuals. So, in addition to having their mission and vision and goals on the wall, publicly displayed and talking about them, we integrated their values statement because from an organizational perspective, right, the values are how are we, there, the kind of what attitudes, behaviors, and commitments from the team or from our group can we demonstrate to create the organization of our vision? That's what was missing within this team. And from there, they were able to act more in alignment with what they truly valued as a team, which was, and collaboration made it independence did not, but Randy was able to let go of that a little bit now, understanding how other people valued his work and activities.
SPEAKER_02:That's very cool. Because I I was curious about what do you do when you have a group of people that might have different values? But it sounds like just being aware of other people's values is so powerful because you know a little bit more about where they're coming from. So that was a really cool example to share.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and really what drives them. And in the work that I do with professional learning for professional learning, which is my passion, talking about, you know, the science of adult learning and how to train, support, and coach others, I often embed different types of values, activities for teams to not only understand, you know, you as a leader, but how the people you're working with, because professional learning and the good work doesn't live in isolation. In fact, high-quality professional learning excels from that collaborative approach, job-embedded approach. So identifying and hearing how other people define their core values from a leadership perspective or a team member perspective, provides you powerful evidence on how to make decisions a little bit more clear and then how to really make sure that we remind each other the goals might be the same, but how everybody chooses and prefers to get there might look a little bit different, which can provide some great information for leaders at all levels.
SPEAKER_02:I can definitely see how your work and our work around minimalism, there's a huge crossover there. Can you talk to a little bit more to that idea of that aligning with your values and getting some clarity is really supporting us in our work towards minimalism?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so and again, you all as the experts in this work, I would love to hear kind of your feedback on how I'm framing this work and how you know I'm seeing this Venn diagram come together. But of course, we know as leaders and educators, the sheer volume of decisions that we face every day can be not just challenging, but staggering, exhausting. And I'll I'll be very vulnerable here. Sometimes when I get overwhelmed with the amount of decisions, I just shut down. It's like I get stymied. And it has been suggested that teachers, for instance, make a minimum of 1,500 decisions daily, right? And that's on the low end. Research has said that that's probably low. And those decisions can range from like, oh my gosh, when am I going to get a bathroom break in today? Is it going to be, you know, the transition to music, or will I have to have my co-teacher take over? All the way to profound, you know, big decisions financially, impactful decisions like which universal screening platform should our district invest in out of all of the different options. So when we are clear with our core values, not only does this help us provide insight into what direction we want to go, especially when time gets really, really taxing and all of that. But we know through neurology and brain science and psychology that when we are reminded of our core values, discuss them and bring them to life every single day, that our decision-making ability becomes quicker, more efficient, and more accurate day to day. And it's almost like building different uh habits every single day. So where we might feel overwhelmed, if we know, and I'll list my six core values here. I've got them, I know that the listener can't see them, but I'm showing you the list of mine that I keep posted every day. Mine's courage, learning, collaboration, evidence, curiosity, and humor. But for those, when I wake up every day overwhelmed with my to-do list, a reminder of how I'm gonna show up as aligned with my core values every day helps make that to-do list more manageable and oftentimes help helps me when we only have 24 hours in the day and we got to sleep at some time, helps me eliminate because something's gonna be taken off that list. If it's not aligned with one of those six, it's off of the list. So, from that perspective, getting rid of the noise and becoming more of a minimalist educator, I feel like leaning into your core values really exemplifies the research and the work that you all do. But I would love to hear, you know, your insights back on that.
SPEAKER_03:One of the points that we bring up a lot in that book and in other writings that we've done is that minimal minimalism really is about finding the value, the value in things, right? Like what value add does this bring to what I'm doing? And if it doesn't add value, why am I doing it? And so we talk a lot about the purpose behind things. And then once that's clear, you can prioritize whatever lane you're looking at, right? It could be instructional practices, it could be looking at your curriculum, it doesn't matter. But you can use the same framework to guide your thinking and just clear out a bunch of the noise that just occupies our brains. And that noise is gonna stay there, but it helps us find a focus. And so we don't have to constantly live in all of that mental noise because there's so much of it.
SPEAKER_01:So much of it. So it really kind of helps us. So, like you said, it will always be there, but tune it down a little bit so it's just kind of a little bit of background noise instead of a booming distraction throughout our day that just again distracts us from our purpose and the good work that we do.
SPEAKER_03:I think that's a really great visual, actually, when you said like the booming noise and just kind of tone it down. That's a super powerful visual because yeah, it is always there in the background. And something that can also live in the background for many of us and can stagnate our alignment would be perfectionism.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh. Can we talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. Well, and I'm I'm glad you bring that up. And and Tammy, I know you know me, and perfectionism is definitely something that I struggle with. I always have, and I know many of us overachievers do. So I'm not pointing fingers, but I feel like both of you can relate, right? For me, good is never enough. It's it's an old script. I don't need to get into the psychology 101 behind it, right? But it has to be perfect or it's not, or it's worthless. These are these old narratives from childhood that comes up. And when I get super passionate, especially in the service industry that we're in with helping other people achieve their goals, whether it be adults or students, it becomes even more elevated. So perfectionism is my misaligned characteristic, right? Of my values. So is where other people see perfectionism as some goal to achieve, I've had to reframe that. Perfectionism is no longer a goal for me. My goals are very different. Perfectionism is actually an anti-value of mine now. I've actually had to breathe that into the air because perfectionism stymies me. It boosts my cortisol up, right? And then I get lost in the noise and dysfunction and my to-do lists. So that's why one thing that I've started to do, I've called, I call it the rise align and reflect activity. I do it every morning instead of journaling, which I kind of know it's good. The research is sound behind it. It's my quick way to journal and reflect upon how I'm going to live in the moment and live in my core value each day. So I simply get into my planner and there's a little part here where I pick one, not all six of my core values. Sometimes even that overwhelms me. I pick one for the day. I write it down and I decide how I am going to embody that value today. So, for example, today's value was curiosity. And I even have a values card sort deck that I can provide you some information on to peak values. So I actually pull the card that I'm working on today is curiosity, and I literally put it on my screen to remind me to lean into the value of my strong desire to know or learn something new, inquisitive interest. So when I remember that, I see it. When my perfectionism tendencies, even sending the perfect email comes through, I remember, no, no, no, I'm leaning into curiosity. I'm sending this email to a potential client, not to provide a perfect response to their question, but to inquire more about how I can provide a service to them to get them to where I need to go. That's it seems like a simple shift, but I it challenges me every day. But that rise, align, and reflect kind of card pool has really done wonders for me. So that is one strategy I would recommend to some of your listeners, no matter how they do it, reflect upon their core value and how they are checking every single, you know, maybe every couple of hours. How are you doing? When do you need to kind of reconfigure? Or are you getting into sitting there scrolling on cat videos because I'm distracted because I'm overwhelmed with perfectionism? Instead, let's refocus and get back to our core values.
SPEAKER_02:I love that idea of just picking one and coming back to it, coming back to it, coming back to it. That's that's really awesome. Amanda, this has been such a great chat. And I I hate that we're having to wrap up in a second, but we do like to end our episodes with a pair-down pointer. Do you have one strategy that you would like to share with us? Might be something that you've already touched on.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Well, that was one of them. I have a couple of strategies. Another one that I have seen work really, really well in group situations, I call it just a value shout out. So once you've identified your core values, and I will also shout out, I've got a mission, vision, values, and goals facilitated discussion tool for teams. If teams are interested in doing that type of work to identify their core values as a team and then how to integrate it into their work, it's available for you. But once you've identified your core values of the team at any level of the organization, publicly acknowledge not just like when you show up, but when you see another member of your team show up and exemplify and personify that core value. That could be in, you know, a virtual platform. We used to use Jamboards all the time. That went away, some sort of public forum, maybe in leadership team meetings at the start of the day, maybe reviewing the norms, but also provide that quick minute or whip around of celebrating successes and living core values and what that looks like and celebrating that. Again, publicly acknowledging it, even if it's not about you personally, giving that feedback to somebody else not only benefits them with that feedback and boosts their dopamine, you get the hit as well, that positive dopamine. And it's also a nice callback to the purpose of your work, right? And to minimize the noise and refocus. So that is one strategy or peer-down pointer that if anybody takes one thing away from, shout out shout it out when you see other people living their core values or their team values.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much, Amanda. That is super powerful. And I don't think we do it enough. Thank you for being with us today. That was such a great conversation, and we're gonna have to have you back.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I would love it. Anytime, anytime. Thank you all so much, and I look forward for the ongoing work and continue to rise and align each day with your core values.
SPEAKER_02:This episode was brought to you by Rise and Align Consulting. Elevate your impact, aligning organizational values with actionable strategies for transformative change. Find out more at Rise and Align Consulting.com.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit plan zeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.
