Avoiding Walls And Building Bridges The Six Shifts

Leo Migdal

-Dec 5, 2025, 7:41 PM

avoiding walls and building bridges the six shifts

by Jan and Kari | Aug 14, 2021 | Beyond the Book, General, Literacy Leadership, Video | 3 comments A while back, Marnie Ginsburg of Reading Simplified called us “bridge builders,” referring to the way our work seeks to connect reading communities that are often at odds. We are touched and honored by that moniker, and have really tried to lean into it. Thinking of our work as bridge-building helps us stay in a courageous space, rather than shutting down or disengaging when the work gets intellectually or emotionally challenging. We didn’t start off thinking of our work as bridge-building, though. It was simply a commitment to try to sort through information.

Writing Shifting the Balance actually began with a lot of reading and study. Reading books. Reading articles. Reading research summaries. Listening to podcasts. We read the work of people like Mark Seidenberg, Maryanne Wolf, and Marilyn Adams.

Home » Communication » Are Your Conversations Toxic? How to Master the ‘Golden Respect’ Rule in a Polarized World Stop avoiding conflict and start building connections with I Respectfully Disagree by Justin Jones-Fosu. Learn the 5 pillars of ‘bridging the divide,’ why your view of respect is obsolete, and how to find common ground even when agreement seems impossible. Don’t let politics or ideology ruin another relationship—read the full summary below to learn the simple scripts that turn enemies into allies. Learning to disagree respectfully is a critical skill for anyone who wants to collaborate with others and bridge divisions in an age characterized by increasing polarization.

Social entrepreneur Justin Jones-Fosu urges you to transform your approach to dialogue: When you attempt to empathize with those you disagree with, says Jones-Fosu, you might discover you have more in common than you... Gain insight into best practices for overcoming ideological divides and navigating tough conversations with grace — even when reaching an agreement seems impossible. Many believe the world is becoming more polarized, hostile, and violent. People on opposite sides of the US political spectrum view one another as enemies of the common good, and even more serious conflicts are brewing around the world: An estimated 25% of the global... However, there is a way to alter these dynamics. When people learn the art of respectful disagreement, they can see one another as fully human and find ways to work together — even when they don’t see eye-to-eye.

Humanity needs this skill to collectively and constructively tackle its biggest existential challenges, like climate change. The work we invite you into is not purely academic or technical in nature. It can also be emotionally taxing work, especially when it calls on us to reevaluate long-held beliefs or practices. As you commit to take an honest second look at practices in your system, school, or classroom – in order to spot misunderstandings, misinformation, and missed opportunities – we hope you will find grace... To that end, we share with you the commitments we crafted for ourselves as we stepped into this vulnerable work. Would you like to have a fun way to access the Six Commitments or share them with colleagues?

These unique printable, “color-me” bookmarks are designed and generously shared by Kim Harkreader. Thanks, Kim! Where might you place these in your world as a reminder to give yourself grace? How will you share these little goodies with those who support and inspire you? Which commitment will you focus on today? Our goal is to create momentum, one conversation and one changed practice at a time.

If you’re working to build momentum but running into barriers as people with diverse approaches struggle to hear and understand each other, we invite you to download this tool. In this one-pager we share the five walls we’re trying hard to avoid in our work, and the five bridges we’re working to build. Reading comprehension doesn’t start with reading. It starts with oral language comprehension. So, being intentional and strategic about helping young children develop oral language is an essential step toward positioning them for later reading success. Dialogic conversation can serve as a cornerstone to oral language development in the classroom and is described in Chapter 1 of Shifting the Balance, “Rethinking How Reading Comprehension Begins.”

Are you ready for a more intentional approach to phonemic awareness instruction? In this ready-to-use instructional resource, we offer word lists and language prompts to support cohesive phonemic awareness skills development, as described in Chapter 3 of Shifting the Balance. The guide is organized sequentially to align with the skills progression offered in Shifting the Balance, moving from stepping stone skills to the power skills of blending, segmenting, adding, deleting, and substituting/changing phonemes.

Avoiding Walls And Building Bridges The Six Shifts

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