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44: It All Orbits Purpose feat. Kendall Cotton Bronk, John Cagle, Skylar Primm, and Elizabeth Martin
15 Plays6 years ago
Frankly, I’m astonished by how little school systems spend on covering purpose in students’ lives. Where do they see themselves in 10, 20 years? We leave them to the “next step” (either lost and apathetic or in incredible amounts of debt) to figure it out for themselves. How do we go about creating a purposeful society? Is it possible for a teacher to actually make a change? And, in addition, what about our sense as educators in the classroom? What about our purpose?
GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Dr. Kendall Cotton Bronk, head of the Adolescent Morality Lab at Claremont Graduate School, Dr. Cotton Bronk is one of the founding/leading researchers surrounding youth purpose-finding.
Dr. John Cagle, a 27-year public education educator who currently serves as Assistant Principal at Jefferson County High School in Tennessee. His dissertation focused on relationship building and academic success.
Skylar Primm, an educator at High Marq Environmental Charter School in Montello, Wisconsin*, a fascinating small public charter school centered on interdisciplinary experiential learning, with a focus on the environment.
*This were mentioned incorrectly during the podcast, sorry!
Elizabeth Martin, an English teacher who recently ventured to a county school after years spent at a large urban district. She has started to document this shift on Medium.
RESOURCES
FURTHER LISTENING
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Human-Centric Education
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Season 3, Episode 2 of Things Fall Apart, our podcast at the Human Restoration Project.
00:00:18
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm a high school social studies teacher who strongly advocates for putting humans at the center rather than ranking, filing, and demeaning them.
Purpose in Education: Why It Matters
00:00:26
Speaker
In this podcast, we're talking about purpose building.
00:00:28
Speaker
What does it mean to pursue one's purpose?
00:00:31
Speaker
Are schools doing enough, if anything, to help children recognize their purpose?
00:00:35
Speaker
What can we do in the classroom to change this path?
00:00:37
Speaker
Is it even possible at the classroom level, or does it take an entire school to change these things?
00:00:41
Speaker
And finally, what about us teachers?
00:00:43
Speaker
Are schools doing enough to recognize our purpose?
00:00:46
Speaker
I hope you love listening to the following amazing thoughts and ideas from educators around the world.
00:00:51
Speaker
But first, our podcast is kept alive by generous patrons on Patreon.
00:00:55
Speaker
two of whom are Paul Wan and Mary Walsh.
00:00:58
Speaker
You can find more information about what the Human Restoration Project is and how we're helping promote progressive ed through entirely free resources, thoughts, and more on our website at humanrestorationproject.org and on Twitter at humerespro.
Challenges in Finding Purpose in Schools
00:01:14
Speaker
The teachers and students remember people who care about their children.
00:01:18
Speaker
To me, it's good to get a piece of the water.
00:01:20
Speaker
It's not really
00:01:26
Speaker
It's fundamental to our existence that we feel we belong, that there's an overall meaning to life, a place for us, a purpose to drive us forward.
00:01:35
Speaker
For some, it's faith-based, maybe it's our occupation, or maybe it's just general content.
00:01:39
Speaker
Regardless of what that path is, schools could generally be described as not going down it.
00:01:44
Speaker
Frankly, much of schools spent cramming information for standardized testing, which is not the most exhilarating drive toward greater meaning.
00:01:52
Speaker
In general, any time spent reflecting on who one is or who they could be or even what they used to be is a nice aside to class.
00:01:59
Speaker
It's not a fundamental part of the curriculum.
00:02:01
Speaker
The idea of purpose-finding is relatively new in both education and research.
00:02:06
Speaker
Prior to the modern era, most people found purpose on a generalized life track.
00:02:09
Speaker
They started at home with their family, they took up the family trade, they lived within a small community, etc., etc.
00:02:14
Speaker
Now, in some circumstances, these were quite repressive conditions, but there weren't nearly as many options that are available as today, and ironically, the myriad options available actually cause anxiety, panic, and a general lack of decision-making for our youth, and most adults.
Historical and Modern Perspectives on Purpose
00:02:30
Speaker
In 1959, Viktor Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning, which introduced the idea of positive psychology and its relationship to purpose.
00:02:38
Speaker
Then, really, in the last 20 years, researchers have set out on explaining this phenomenon.
00:02:42
Speaker
Kicking off heavily with Dr. William Damon's The Path to Purpose, he surveyed 12,000 children and found the majority of them didn't have an expressed purpose in being, with 25% responding that they had no purpose at all.
00:02:55
Speaker
What's arguably more concerning is that the majority of adults don't even have a purpose.
00:03:00
Speaker
They second-guess themselves, they wonder if their job is meaningful, if they give back to society.
00:03:04
Speaker
So we're living in a world where most children have no idea what they want to do,
00:03:08
Speaker
and most adults don't even know what they're doing.
00:03:11
Speaker
Part of the blame, I argue, is that schools do very little to allow children in room to explore the world for themselves.
00:03:17
Speaker
We give them a ton of stuff to learn, and some of those things are relatively important, but almost nothing is given to contemplating who one is.
00:03:24
Speaker
Take the following data, and take it with a grain of salt because there's certainly selectivity bias, but...
00:03:30
Speaker
We're living in a world where, according to the British Psychological Association, the majority of people who choose to have a child feel less happy as a result.
00:03:39
Speaker
The National Opinion Research Center finds that people are becoming less and less happy in marriage, and notably the majority of marriages are considered discontent relationships.
00:03:49
Speaker
The organization Mental Health America and the F.A.S.T.
00:03:51
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Foundation
00:03:52
Speaker
found that 71% of people are dissatisfied with their current jobs.
Research on Adolescent Purpose with Dr. Bronk
00:03:56
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And according to William Damon, the director of research at the Stanford Center on Adolescence, the best time to question all of these values is when you're 18 to 23 years old, right when most students are sent on the next step on a college or career pathway.
00:04:10
Speaker
So when we're looking at these things,
00:04:12
Speaker
We're basically preparing students for the fundamental time where they're going to make grandiose choices in life, and they really have never had any time to actually think about these things.
00:04:20
Speaker
And there's no one better to ask than someone who's laid the fundamental framework on studying this kind of thing, and that's Kendall Cottonbronck.
00:04:27
Speaker
Dr. Cottonbronck is one of the first researchers in this field, and she heads the Adolescent Moral Development Lab at Claremont Graduate University in California.
00:04:36
Speaker
Her work has established a link between purpose and greater life outcomes across the board, and she strives to find better ways to foster purpose in education.
00:04:44
Speaker
Here's how Dr. Cottonbrog got started.
00:04:50
Speaker
So I started conducting research on purpose almost 20 years ago, which makes me feel old.
00:04:57
Speaker
But I've really enjoyed the work because it's, I think, a really inspiring thing to spend your time focused on.
00:05:03
Speaker
And one of the first things that we explored when we got interested in the idea of purpose was really the definition.
00:05:09
Speaker
So what do we mean when we talk about purpose?
00:05:11
Speaker
When we talk about purpose with friends and family, we have sort of a general conception of what it means.
00:05:17
Speaker
But when we're going to conduct scientific research on the topic, it's really important to have a super clear cut definition.
00:05:24
Speaker
And not only that, we had to define it in a way that we could measure it.
00:05:27
Speaker
So when I think about purpose, and I think when academics more generally think about purpose, we're thinking about a conception of purpose that comprises these sort of three main ideas.
00:05:37
Speaker
The first is that a purpose in life is, it's got like a goal orientation that's sort of inherent in it.
00:05:42
Speaker
There's something that you want to achieve, something that you want to work toward.
00:05:47
Speaker
The second is that, of course, it's very personally meaningful.
00:05:50
Speaker
It means, you know, it's very significant to who you are,
00:05:53
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Often it's tied up in your identity.
00:05:56
Speaker
And the third is that it's sort of this long-term overarching aim that is really personally meaningful, but it also is of consequence to the world beyond itself.
00:06:06
Speaker
And she actively leads a team of researchers on this exact topic.
Health and Success Linked to Purpose
00:06:10
Speaker
We have a lab here at the Claremont Graduate University called the Adolescent Moral Development Lab.
00:06:15
Speaker
And we're interested in sort of that intersection of positive youth development,
00:06:20
Speaker
So just looking at how we can help young people really thrive and also at moral development.
00:06:25
Speaker
So how can we help young people make decisions that are good for themselves, but also good for the people around them and the world around them?
00:06:33
Speaker
Most commonly, we've sort of tackled that topic through the lens of youth purpose.
00:06:37
Speaker
And we've looked at a variety of different aspects of purpose.
00:06:41
Speaker
But say most recently, we've sort of sought to address two related questions.
00:06:45
Speaker
So one of the questions we've really explored is what does purpose look like among diverse groups of young people?
00:06:51
Speaker
So like I said, research on the topic kind of got underway about 20 years ago.
00:06:57
Speaker
And we looked at that sort of body of research and felt like, you know, there's a lot of really interesting findings emerging, but a lot of this research has been conducted with young people from more middle-class backgrounds, often Caucasian youth.
00:07:09
Speaker
And so we got sort of interested in expanding
00:07:12
Speaker
We've done studies with low-income youth in Los Angeles, with young people growing up amidst the global economic crisis in Greece, young people in Liberia, homeless, so these are street children growing up in Liberia.
00:07:27
Speaker
We've done a lot of research with adolescent young adult cancer survivors, looking at the role of purpose in that population.
00:07:33
Speaker
And then I'd say the second area that has been really interesting for us that we've really enjoyed exploring
00:07:38
Speaker
is what kinds of things can we do to intentionally foster purpose or really help young people discover a purpose for their lives.
00:07:46
Speaker
And we got interested in this because when we looked at the research over these past 20 years, in addition to noting some of the limitations with regards to the sample, one of the other things we noted is that there's a really clear finding that leading a life of purpose is a good thing.
00:08:01
Speaker
It's associated with all kinds of physical health.
00:08:03
Speaker
There's actually some, I think, really fascinating research that
00:08:06
Speaker
looking at changes in the biology among individuals who discover a purpose for their life because these young people experience a regression in some cancer and better outcomes with regards to chronic pain.
00:08:20
Speaker
I mean, really crazy findings.
00:08:22
Speaker
Individuals with purpose sleep better than individuals without purpose.
00:08:26
Speaker
They even live longer.
00:08:28
Speaker
And not only is it associated with physical health, but also psychological health.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so some of the early research we did
00:08:34
Speaker
looked at that and we found again and again that young people with purpose reported being happier and much more satisfied with their lives, more hopeful.
00:08:42
Speaker
And then because we're interested in looking at youth, we even looked at sort of academic outcomes and we found that the presence of purpose among young people was associated with all kinds of indicators of academic success, things like resilience, you know, the ability to kind of bounce back with grit, right?
00:08:58
Speaker
The ability to, you know, stick with something,
00:09:01
Speaker
something that we call internal locus of control, which is just this feeling that sort of your academic fate is within your hands.
00:09:07
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You have control over it.
00:09:08
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It's not being controlled by some sort of external force.
00:09:11
Speaker
We even find that young people with purpose report that their schoolwork is more meaningful.
00:09:15
Speaker
And I think that makes sense when you think about it, because if you know what it is that you really want to accomplish in your life and you can start to see how what you're doing in school might help move you closer to that, you're going to be more motivated, right?
00:09:27
Speaker
You're going to care more about your schoolwork.
00:09:29
Speaker
So anyway, I guess the finding there is just that living a life of purpose is a good thing.
00:09:34
Speaker
Physical health, it helps you, you know, associated with better physical health, psychological health, and academic success.
00:09:39
Speaker
But the other finding that emerged is that it's really pretty rare.
00:09:43
Speaker
Only about one in ten middle school students can sort of articulate a purpose for their life, about one in five high school students, and about one in three college-age youth.
00:09:53
Speaker
Even among adults, only about 40% of adults can really articulate a clear purpose for their life.
00:09:58
Speaker
So kind of across the lifespan, it's really more the exception than the rule.
Passion vs. Purpose: Understanding the Difference
00:10:03
Speaker
And so taking those two findings together, one that living a life of purpose is a good thing, and two, that doing so is relatively rare.
00:10:11
Speaker
That's how we got interested in sort of designing these.
00:10:13
Speaker
You know, as I listen, I can't help but think of our focus on quote unquote passion building in schools, such as the push for genius hour or similar concepts where students have time to do things that might become their passion.
00:10:26
Speaker
However, at the same time, I also remember reading an Atlantic article some time back surrounding why finding your passion is really bad advice as we don't necessarily pigeonhole ourselves by selecting a passion.
00:10:37
Speaker
So my question is, what are your thoughts
How is Purpose Discovered?
00:10:40
Speaker
on that?
00:10:40
Speaker
And are passion and purpose the exact same thing?
00:10:43
Speaker
Well, I do think of them as two separate ideas.
00:10:46
Speaker
It's funny because the Atlantic is also a publishing thing.
00:10:49
Speaker
This is total sidebar.
00:10:50
Speaker
But I know finding a purpose is a great thing.
00:10:52
Speaker
I was like, wait a minute, which side do you fall down on?
00:10:55
Speaker
But anyway, I think of passion and purpose as two different things.
00:10:59
Speaker
Passion, they're certainly related.
00:11:00
Speaker
I mean, passion is just something that, you know, the actual meaning of the word passion is it's something you're willing to suffer for.
00:11:06
Speaker
And so it's something that's very personally meaningful, right?
00:11:09
Speaker
So, you know, it is something you care deeply about and you enjoy doing.
00:11:12
Speaker
And I think that's a part of purpose.
00:11:15
Speaker
But purpose is bigger than that because it's not just doing what you enjoy.
00:11:19
Speaker
There's lots of things that we enjoy doing.
00:11:21
Speaker
It's kind of finding the way to apply your skills or your strengths or your talents to make a difference in the broader world and not to, you know, to make a difference in a meaningful way.
00:11:30
Speaker
And so often that does, it should to some degree intersect with your passion, but it's more than that, right?
00:11:36
Speaker
There are a lot of things that you might be passionate about, but a very, only a couple of those that might turn out to be sources of real purpose.
00:11:43
Speaker
And only those that enable you to use your skills to make a difference in the broader world would we really categorize as purposes.
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I think one of the things about that, if I remember that article correctly, you know, I worry about a little bit about with purpose is sometimes we think of it as like a thing that's out there and it's just going to like bop you over the head one day and you're going to suddenly know there's my purpose.
00:12:05
Speaker
Based on our research, that doesn't seem to be the way that it really works.
00:12:09
Speaker
Most people discover purpose by being involved, getting out there and getting involved in different things, whether they're academic pursuits, professional pursuits, extracurricular pursuits, community service pursuits.
00:12:19
Speaker
And in the course of being involved, people find out like, hey, you know, I got involved in this for whatever reason, but it turns out I actually am really good at this.
00:12:27
Speaker
And not only that, I'm doing something that actually matters to me.
00:12:31
Speaker
So it's not like sitting back and just waiting for this thing to happen to you, but more about sort of getting out there and getting involved in the world and
00:12:40
Speaker
And being reflective on what it is that you enjoy and what it is that you're good at and what it is that you really care about and sort of how your involvement in whatever activity you're doing might enable you to make a meaningful difference in the world around you.
00:12:54
Speaker
There's a lot of research looking at people who do jobs that might seem to be very non-purposeful, people working as orderlies at a hospital.
00:13:02
Speaker
They actually did this study, and this was not research that I did, but research that came out of Michigan.
00:13:07
Speaker
I believe it was Michigan.
00:13:09
Speaker
And anyway, they found that, you know, a lot of orderlies that in some way that's a, not a particularly purposeful, you wouldn't look at it and think this is a really purposeful position.
00:13:18
Speaker
And for many people, it wasn't, they looked at it as, you know, I clean up after patients.
00:13:21
Speaker
It's pretty rough, but some subset of the people looked at their jobs and they said, you know, I'm a part of the healthcare system.
00:13:28
Speaker
I'm a part of taking care of patients.
00:13:30
Speaker
And I really see that mission as,
00:13:33
Speaker
central to the work that I do.
00:13:34
Speaker
And as a result, I find a lot of purpose and a lot of meaning in the job that I'm doing and being a part of this caregiving profession.
00:13:42
Speaker
So I guess it's not just a thing that is floating out there, but sort of also an orientation.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's a way that you can approach life.
Rethinking Education to Foster Purpose
00:13:50
Speaker
As you lay out all these studies and show how purpose matters, which I mean, duh, of course it matters, I don't really understand how a human could lay out a rational argument on why
00:14:00
Speaker
we wouldn't want students to try to at least find their purpose in life or set up on that path.
00:14:04
Speaker
I can't help but think, why isn't school then just devoted to finding a purpose?
00:14:09
Speaker
If it makes you live longer, you're happy and content, you're doing something that matters, you're helping others.
00:14:15
Speaker
Why would you only spend an hour a week on that or even an hour a day?
00:14:18
Speaker
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to focus the majority of our time on these kinds of things and then spend a fraction of that said time on what we currently do in traditional ed?
00:14:26
Speaker
First, I just want to say I kind of agree with you.
00:14:28
Speaker
I mean, I feel like
00:14:29
Speaker
Really, the mission of education is to prepare young people with the skills and the knowledge that they need to go out and do the work that is purposeful to them.
00:14:41
Speaker
And a part of that, of course, is figuring out what that is going to be.
00:14:45
Speaker
So whether they're going to find purpose in working in a particular field or sometimes even outside of work.
00:14:52
Speaker
It seems like the mission of education to sort of arm young people with the experiences, the skills, and the knowledge that they need to go out and live lives of purpose, where they are doing things that are meaningful to them and having a positive effect on the world more generally.
00:15:07
Speaker
So I agree.
00:15:08
Speaker
But when I think about schools and steps that educators can take to help young people discover their purpose in life, our research suggests there are definitely some things that educators can do.
00:15:20
Speaker
One of the first things is really easy, and that is to just model purpose.
00:15:24
Speaker
Most of the teachers that I know went into the field, not to get rich, but instead to really make a difference in their students' lives.
00:15:31
Speaker
You know, we hear again and again from teachers that, you know, they really wanted to help shape the minds of the future and things like that.
00:15:38
Speaker
But all too often, they don't tell this to their students.
00:15:40
Speaker
They don't share this with their students.
00:15:42
Speaker
And it's easy for teachers to sort of lose sight of why it is they went into this field in the first place.
00:15:47
Speaker
So, you know, it may not be the case that every teacher finds purpose in teaching, and if not, that's okay.
00:15:52
Speaker
But I think that if you do, it would be a wonderful opportunity to sort of model that for your students and tell students the beginning of the school year, like, you know, I'm really excited to be here.
00:16:00
Speaker
This is really meaningful.
00:16:02
Speaker
This is, you know, touching your lives is a way to sort of...
00:16:05
Speaker
leave my mark.
00:16:06
Speaker
You know, this is, I answered this for a very intentional reason and teaching gives my life purpose.
00:16:14
Speaker
Another thing that our research suggests can be really important, really effective and relatively easy is to engage young people, especially young people in secondary educational settings, exploration of the long term.
00:16:26
Speaker
You know, I think most of our conversations with young people focus on
00:16:30
Speaker
the very short term, you know, what are you doing this weekend?
00:16:32
Speaker
Do you remember your book?
00:16:33
Speaker
Are you signing up for this class next semester?
00:16:35
Speaker
What sport are you going to play?
00:16:37
Speaker
We really just sort of focus on the short term.
00:16:39
Speaker
And in our experience, we've done, gosh, thousands of interviews with young people.
00:16:44
Speaker
And we step back and we ask them, what is it that you really care about?
00:16:47
Speaker
What do you want to accomplish in your life?
00:16:49
Speaker
Imagine, you know, 20 years down the road, what is going to be important to you?
00:16:53
Speaker
What do you want your life to look like?
00:16:56
Speaker
And we were kind of blown away the first few times we did these interviews.
00:16:59
Speaker
Now we've almost gotten used to it.
00:17:01
Speaker
Young people love it.
00:17:02
Speaker
They'll say, you know, nobody asked me these questions.
00:17:05
Speaker
We had young people call us up after and say, can you send me that transcript?
00:17:08
Speaker
I said some good stuff and I don't want to lose track of that.
00:17:12
Speaker
So I think just, and we actually found that just administering this interview around purpose actually significantly raised rates of purpose among young people.
00:17:21
Speaker
Ask them what they want out of their lives.
00:17:22
Speaker
Ask them what they want to accomplish in the long term.
00:17:25
Speaker
Ask them what the far horizon might look like.
00:17:28
Speaker
Sort of the third thing that I would recommend based on the research that we've done is a little bit counterintuitive, but it's help young people focus on gratitude.
00:17:38
Speaker
And sometimes if you ask a young person, so tell me what's your purpose in your life?
00:17:43
Speaker
It's kind of an overwhelming question, and it can be a little bit almost off-putting because young people tend to think of, like, you know, your purpose has to be some big, huge thing.
00:17:51
Speaker
So sort of an indirect way of approaching this, we have found, and our research bears this out, is to encourage young people to think about the things that they're grateful for.
00:18:00
Speaker
So think about the blessings in your life.
00:18:01
Speaker
Think about the people who have blessed you.
00:18:03
Speaker
And what we tend to find is that when young people are –
00:18:07
Speaker
focused on the blessings in their lives, they're sort of naturally inclined to start to think about how they might want to give back.
00:18:14
Speaker
And often with a little scaffolding that can spur discussions, you know, really constructive discussions of purpose.
00:18:20
Speaker
A lot of times in a school setting, I think we tend to focus on the next step of schooling.
00:18:26
Speaker
And really our tie to purpose building is just job readiness.
Beyond Careers: Expanding Purpose in Schools
00:18:30
Speaker
We ask a lot about what do you want to be when you grow up expecting an occupation as the answer to that.
00:18:35
Speaker
And a lot of kids choose prestigious or well-known careers and sort of figure that academic success will lead them down that path.
00:18:43
Speaker
Are you concerned that we're focused a little too much on occupations as a gateway to purpose?
00:18:49
Speaker
Careers are one common path to purpose, but they're not the only one.
00:18:53
Speaker
For a lot of, some number of young people anyway, actually find purpose in having a family someday.
00:18:59
Speaker
And they'll say, you know, it's really important to me to be a parent and
00:19:02
Speaker
you know, we hear this generally among older young people, especially in college age or beyond, but they may want to set up their lives in such a way as to, you know, enable them to spend enough time with future children and things like that.
00:19:14
Speaker
Other young people find purpose in living lives that are really consistent with their religious beliefs.
00:19:22
Speaker
And so that may not intersect much with professional choices, but
00:19:27
Speaker
but more with sort of the way they live their lives all across domains.
00:19:31
Speaker
Other people find purpose in the community service work that they do.
00:19:35
Speaker
So, you know, maybe they want a job that will enable them to, you know, feed themselves and house themselves, but really their real passion lies in being involved in some sort of community service activity.
00:19:45
Speaker
Other young people find purpose in, you know, promoting social or political change.
00:19:50
Speaker
And so anyway, I definitely think careers are one avenue for purpose, but not the only one.
00:19:55
Speaker
And so we try to
00:19:57
Speaker
We try to leave it open and not narrow young people to only a career purpose.
00:20:02
Speaker
I see.
00:20:03
Speaker
And the question I guess then is, how do we actually incorporate these practices into the classroom?
00:20:08
Speaker
If purpose is such a big deal, is there a way we could integrate it without radically changing the system?
00:20:13
Speaker
Even though I think that would be the ideal solution.
00:20:16
Speaker
At our school, we just introduced Project Wayfinder.
00:20:19
Speaker
And a quick side note to our audience, I don't mean this as a plug.
00:20:21
Speaker
We did have Patrick Cook-Deegan, the founder, on our podcast, and we're not getting paid by them.
00:20:25
Speaker
But it really has been eye-opening in our advisory curriculum.
00:20:29
Speaker
And also, you've done work with Project Wayfinder.
00:20:32
Speaker
Anyways, what steps can teachers take to integrate purpose-finding?
00:20:36
Speaker
I tend to have a lot of faith in teachers.
00:20:38
Speaker
Teachers, I think, are really creative.
00:20:41
Speaker
And I think that helping teachers to even sort of keep the idea of purpose on their radar, that there are ways of incorporating purpose into any purpose.
00:20:52
Speaker
class, right?
00:20:53
Speaker
Whether, I mean, I know at our local school, high school in town, I was meeting with a biology teacher and she was talking about this activity that she had come up with that was totally focused on purpose.
00:21:05
Speaker
And I was like, that's fantastic, you know?
00:21:07
Speaker
So they're probably the ones who are in the best position to come up with creative ways of integrating.
00:21:12
Speaker
We've had English teachers that in some ways, English is a particularly easy place.
00:21:17
Speaker
They can
00:21:19
Speaker
encourage, you know, reading on books that include portraits of purpose, especially youth purpose, and have young people write about maybe their own purpose, looking at history, right, lots of historical figures that had purposes, some really pro-social and positive purposes, others possibly anti-social, destructive purposes, but still either example, I think, at least can help young people start to think about purpose and maybe some of the, you know, what
00:21:47
Speaker
what would distinguish a positive productive purpose from an antisocial destructive purpose?
00:21:53
Speaker
Mathematics.
00:21:53
Speaker
I mean, there are examples of people who have come up with really revolutionary ideas and that have really, you know, changed the technology and the way that we live our lives today.
00:22:04
Speaker
So I think that purpose is relevant to any field and it's really teachers are, I guess what I always feel like there's,
00:22:12
Speaker
there's no one size fits all.
00:22:14
Speaker
It's not like I could come up with a curriculum.
00:22:15
Speaker
I wouldn't want to try to come up with one curriculum and tell everybody, you know, do this because I think different things work in different communities with different populations of students.
00:22:24
Speaker
So I think the best thing you could hope for is to encourage teachers to really think about it and be intentional about encouraging these kinds of long-term discussions, encouraging, you know, providing lots of examples and models of purpose, and then sort of letting them stand back and think about
00:22:39
Speaker
What is the most productive way of doing this in your own classroom, given your core subjects and your student population?
00:22:49
Speaker
If you'd like to learn more about purpose finding in schools, Dr. Cottonbrock recommends that you check out her team's academic toolkit, as well as the Greater Good magazine, which reports on findings of this data, both of which you can find in the show notes for free.
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, I think most educators have anecdotal evidence, tons of it, that if a student's happy at school, they're going to achieve more.
Happiness and Academic Performance
00:23:38
Speaker
And I wanted to come up with some stronger correlations and some data to support that.
00:23:43
Speaker
So my study was focused just on one high school and it showed a positive correlation.
00:23:48
Speaker
But what really opened my eyes was the research that's already out there that shows the happier or the more positive students feel about themselves, about their lives.
00:24:01
Speaker
about their place at school, the better they do academically.
00:24:05
Speaker
This is John Cagle.
00:24:07
Speaker
John has been involved for 26 years in public education and serves as the assistant principal at Jefferson County High School in Tennessee.
00:24:14
Speaker
His dissertation was on this correlation.
00:24:17
Speaker
And it makes us wonder, just like with purpose finding, why isn't our goal to just make kids happy at school?
00:24:24
Speaker
Typically when you talk about making students happy, most teachers and unfortunately administrators think of positive rewards.
00:24:33
Speaker
You know, they have to be rewarded for effort or attendance and things like that.
00:24:38
Speaker
And so you run into this backlash of people who think, well, these are things that students should be doing anyway.
00:24:44
Speaker
But it's not really that.
00:24:45
Speaker
The basis for the students' happiness, the primary driver that the research shows is the relationships they have at school.
00:24:52
Speaker
not only with their peers, but with their teachers.
00:24:55
Speaker
And with all the high-stakes testing going across the country, it's something that we're losing.
00:25:01
Speaker
We're losing that connection or that time for connection or the emphasis for connection between students and teachers, even though all the research shows that that's the primary focus or that's the primary aspect that makes students happy.
00:25:15
Speaker
Do I feel valued?
00:25:17
Speaker
Do I feel...
00:25:18
Speaker
Like I'm treated fairly, you know, am I seen, am I heard?
00:25:22
Speaker
Things like that.
00:25:23
Speaker
So it's really the relationship between the teacher and student that we need to focus on.
00:25:29
Speaker
You know, it bothers me so much that when we talk about these things, it always has to be framed around standardized testing or school grades.
00:25:35
Speaker
I understand why they're like that.
00:25:38
Speaker
Sadly, it keeps the doors open, but it's depressing to know that we have to have these discussions.
00:25:43
Speaker
We're literally talking about why adults should connect with people they're spending a huge portion of their day with and they're working with.
00:25:49
Speaker
That connection really should be obvious.
00:25:50
Speaker
It is seen then as something you have to invest possibly money or a great amount of time in.
00:25:59
Speaker
I mean, think about normal jobs that people have in the workplace.
00:26:03
Speaker
Money is a non-motivator, really.
00:26:05
Speaker
I mean,
00:26:06
Speaker
no matter how much you're getting paid, if you don't feel valued, you don't feel respected, if you don't feel a part of the workplace, you're not going to be happy, no matter your salary.
00:26:15
Speaker
So really it's just, you know, it's things like recognition, just, you know, hey, I'm here, you know, greeting teachers, you know, greeting your students by name and positive comments home.
00:26:25
Speaker
I mean, we're really good at education at sending home bad news, you know, discipline referrals, making a call to a parent when a kid's misbehaving.
00:26:33
Speaker
We don't do a very good job of doing the same thing for kids who are doing positive things.
00:26:39
Speaker
When you mentioned to the administrator, especially about sending letters home, their first thought is, well, this discipline letters.
00:26:47
Speaker
How often do we send letters home about, hey, your students, you know, one of our great glue kids just holds our school together.
00:26:55
Speaker
Or I saw your student hold a door open for somebody today.
00:27:00
Speaker
I just wanted to call and thank you for that.
00:27:02
Speaker
So we've
00:27:03
Speaker
It's little things like that that don't take a lot of time.
00:27:05
Speaker
It don't take a lot of money that reinforce what the research shows the students want is to be a positive part of something.
00:27:12
Speaker
And we can dig deeper, right?
00:27:14
Speaker
I don't want to go too far down this track because we've talked about it heavily in the last episode.
00:27:18
Speaker
But part of building trust and building relationships, having students feel valued, it's actually just listening to them.
00:27:25
Speaker
Can we change elements of our class that cater to their desires?
00:27:28
Speaker
Yes, I think it's involving them in the process.
00:27:32
Speaker
Even something as simple as you know classroom rules.
00:27:35
Speaker
Now obviously there are certain rules that are inviolate and you know we can't you know we can't have students saying well how about if I'm not tardy if I come in within 30 minutes of the tardy bell.
00:27:45
Speaker
We can't do that, but just involving in the process when you're talking about a classroom makeup policy for example and ask the students what do you think a fair makeup policy is and do that early in the process.
00:27:58
Speaker
You're not only
00:27:59
Speaker
establishing your classroom norms and you can guide those conversations, but now they feel like they have a part of it.
00:28:06
Speaker
They feel like, okay, you asked me my opinion, I'm giving it to you.
00:28:10
Speaker
And even if I'm the student that asked for 30 minutes after the tardy bell to be not tardy, at least you asked me.
00:28:18
Speaker
And I know whatever final solution we come up with, I was a part of.
00:28:24
Speaker
I mean, education is a partnership really between students and teachers, but
00:28:29
Speaker
Too often, we don't let the students have a part in that process.
00:28:33
Speaker
We tell them, we direct them, we command them without letting them have a part in the process.
00:28:41
Speaker
And we can still guide that process.
00:28:43
Speaker
We can still guide the conversation and we can still arrive at rules and regulations that are going to be a part of the school culture and are not going to upset the school policy, but just let them have a voice.
00:28:58
Speaker
and recognizing that, hey, you're an important part of this process too.
00:29:01
Speaker
What we're describing here is basically like the first foray into implementing student choice and voice.
00:29:07
Speaker
And we know that for many teachers, they're terrified of taking the step because they fear that loss of control.
Engaging Students in Creativity and Curiosity
00:29:13
Speaker
I know practically speaking that I've never set rules with my kids and had them make like legitimately outrageous claims.
00:29:20
Speaker
In fact, they're often way more strict on themselves.
00:29:23
Speaker
That kind of goes across the fold too.
00:29:25
Speaker
Kids just tend to be harder on themselves.
00:29:27
Speaker
And to substantiate that, they're more likely to follow through on their own promises if they're the ones that are sending it.
00:29:32
Speaker
Well, and it helps the students, again, feel valued and they're not surprised.
00:29:37
Speaker
I mean, in my school, I have teachers who count kids tardy if they're not in their seat when the bell rings versus some other classes where if they're in their room.
00:29:47
Speaker
Well, the kids typically who are in those first classrooms, the teacher didn't tell them what a tardy was.
00:29:54
Speaker
They didn't have that conversation.
00:29:55
Speaker
And so
00:29:56
Speaker
In their mind, hey, I'm in the classroom, you see me here, but just because I'm not in my seat, you're going to get me tardy?
00:30:02
Speaker
You know, I have teachers who send me referrals for kids that don't have a pencil.
00:30:06
Speaker
Well, how does that help the relationship if you're sending a kid out of the classroom for discipline when you can just as easily give them a pencil?
00:30:15
Speaker
Or, heck, you know, if you want to be capitalist, sell them a pencil, you know?
00:30:19
Speaker
I've got pencils here for a nickel, so if you give me a nickel, here's your pencil, and you don't have to go see the principal.
00:30:25
Speaker
There's a thousand different ways to do it, but none of them cause very much money.
00:30:29
Speaker
None of them take a lot of training.
00:30:33
Speaker
I think you just have a simple philosophy in the school, and especially in the classroom, keep the students in mind.
00:30:40
Speaker
Not cater to the students, but keep them in mind.
00:30:45
Speaker
Know that your success as a teacher depends on their success, and that their success depends on how satisfied they are with the process.
00:30:55
Speaker
I mean, when you talk about other businesses, that's common sense.
00:31:00
Speaker
We don't do that in education.
00:31:02
Speaker
And, you know, it's taking Maslow, it's taking Marzano, it's taking Glasser and molding all these things together and just having a common sense approach to the educational process with your students.
00:31:13
Speaker
I think common sense approach is probably the best way to put it.
00:31:17
Speaker
I see all the time people promoting positive relationships on Twitter, and I guess I forget what some teachers are still doing in their rooms.
00:31:24
Speaker
The pencil hoarding situation brings back nightmares of my days in school.
00:31:27
Speaker
I mean, I absolutely despised the majority of my teachers because they were frankly like egomaniacs.
00:31:33
Speaker
I had a few cool ones that empathize with us, but even the teachers who are passionate about their subject, the second that they became authoritarian, like they had a bad day and just shut down the class.
00:31:43
Speaker
I essentially lost all respect for them.
00:31:45
Speaker
Like I wasn't going to learn in their classes anymore.
00:31:48
Speaker
And just want to shift gears here for a second.
00:31:51
Speaker
You're an assistant principal.
00:31:53
Speaker
So when I look at progressive practice, the commonality among teachers embracing it is curiosity.
00:31:58
Speaker
They're curious people.
00:31:59
Speaker
It's what we want from our students, to be curious, but a lot of teachers have lost that desire to do so, especially in the way that they teach.
00:32:07
Speaker
They're no longer seeking anything out that's radical or re-envisioning anything.
00:32:11
Speaker
So what actions can you take as administration to see change?
00:32:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think there is a way to teach them that.
00:32:19
Speaker
And the way you teach it is to allow that curiosity.
00:32:24
Speaker
I mean, if you're constantly telling me what I want to do, then I'm not
00:32:29
Speaker
really engaging my higher order thinking to figure out how to do it because you're going to be an autocratic manager.
00:32:34
Speaker
You're going to tell me how to do it.
00:32:36
Speaker
If you use a democratic management style or teaching style and you're asking for opinions, now I have to be curious.
00:32:44
Speaker
Now I have to think.
00:32:47
Speaker
Again, this is something we don't do well in education.
00:32:50
Speaker
I mean, from kindergarten on, color inside the line.
00:32:53
Speaker
I remember I had an argument with my first grade teacher on telling Tom wrong.
00:32:58
Speaker
You know, I would say it was like right now, it's about 15 after 12.
00:33:03
Speaker
Well, I would say it's 45 to one.
00:33:06
Speaker
But she said, no, you're wrong.
00:33:08
Speaker
I said, you know, even if I'm a first grader, I'm doing the math, you know.
00:33:13
Speaker
No, it's still 45 to one.
00:33:15
Speaker
Maybe that's the way I see the clock, you know.
00:33:17
Speaker
And then when they go out into the workplace, the first thing companies ask them to do is to be creative and be curious.
00:33:23
Speaker
So you have to allow things like that.
00:33:26
Speaker
Maybe it's a writing assignment.
00:33:29
Speaker
or or or public speaking assignment.
00:33:32
Speaker
Why not let the students pick the topic they're going to speak up?
00:33:37
Speaker
Is the goal that you want them to write or do you want them to write on the symbolism of Billy?
00:33:41
Speaker
But well, I really want to see how they probably want to see how they process it.
00:33:46
Speaker
So let's this have them right.
00:33:48
Speaker
Let's just have him talk and and let them pick it.
00:33:51
Speaker
Same way with teachers, you know, instead of coming up your professional development focus for the year.
00:33:57
Speaker
Ask the teachers, what do you need the most help with?
00:34:00
Speaker
And then let teachers lead those professional development.
00:34:04
Speaker
Pick those teacher leaders who you see are doing a good job in that and let them lead the PD instead of administrator who might have been in the classroom back when smart boards consisted of a piece of chalk.
00:34:18
Speaker
So if you let people be a part of the process,
00:34:24
Speaker
they're going to be curious about how to come up with those solutions.
00:34:27
Speaker
And you're teaching, you know, and vis-a-vis you're teaching the curiosity.
00:34:33
Speaker
You're just allowing them to be curious.
00:34:35
Speaker
John then went on to describe how he got into education in his late 20s after pursuing a career in the private business sector.
00:34:41
Speaker
That, coupled with his ideas on making curious learners, reminded me of the book, Linchpin by Seth Godin, in which he talks about being an innovative worker, the person who, quote unquote, makes the business.
00:34:53
Speaker
And it's interesting.
00:34:54
Speaker
It's not necessarily the manager or the CEO or someone in charge.
00:34:58
Speaker
It could just be like, for example, the awesome barista who you're like, hey, you're the guy that makes me smile when I walk in the door, you know, whatever it is.
00:35:05
Speaker
It's people that are really passionate about what they're doing.
00:35:08
Speaker
They're really good people to be around.
00:35:09
Speaker
They're creative.
00:35:10
Speaker
They're interesting.
00:35:11
Speaker
And Seth Godin notes that they're also people that tend to bend the rules, which is really just a harsh way of saying innovation.
00:35:18
Speaker
They're innovating their practice.
00:35:19
Speaker
They're doing what they think is best, even if it's not the way things have always been done.
00:35:23
Speaker
So John goes on with those thoughts.
00:35:25
Speaker
You're exactly right.
00:35:27
Speaker
And the blowback I get from colleagues and other people I've talked to is, well, you're preparing them for a standardized test, which two words I hate, standardized test.
00:35:37
Speaker
But that's true.
00:35:39
Speaker
That's the end goal for most educators.
00:35:41
Speaker
What are my students' performance on this?
00:35:43
Speaker
But again, how do you get them there?
00:35:46
Speaker
I mean, to this day,
00:35:48
Speaker
When I alphabetize something, I sing the alphabet song in my head.
00:35:52
Speaker
I can, I can never remember that little stretch, you know, JKL.
00:35:56
Speaker
So I sing the song, ABCD.
00:35:58
Speaker
So if you have students who are being tested on materials, uh, say in geometry on, on slope and you've helped them come up with a fun mnemonic way, or they've come up with a fun mnemonic way of remembering rise and run, uh,
00:36:15
Speaker
Maybe instead of run DMC, you have the equation.
00:36:20
Speaker
They can go through that in their heads while they're doing the standardized test.
00:36:25
Speaker
That's what we go back to.
00:36:26
Speaker
We go back to things we've developed, little things that we've come up with.
00:36:33
Speaker
Unfortunately, we haven't come up with a better way to teach the alphabet than the alphabet song, so we still sing that in our head.
00:36:39
Speaker
Those of us who are exposed to schoolhouse rock as kids, we do that.
00:36:44
Speaker
You know, a noun as a person plays your thing.
00:36:47
Speaker
As soon as I say that to a certain age group, they start playing the schoolhouse rock video in their head.
00:36:52
Speaker
You know, so if you're having students learn those concepts in a way that is fun for them, they're going to remember it.
00:37:00
Speaker
We remember jokes.
00:37:01
Speaker
We remember funny jokes much better than we remember the third segment of a TED talk we saw online, unless it was a very good TED talk.
00:37:13
Speaker
So you're exactly right.
00:37:14
Speaker
I mean, those people that keep us coming back to their businesses, they have found a way to be unique in their business.
00:37:21
Speaker
They have found a way to excel at certain things.
00:37:24
Speaker
Maybe that barista is not the best coffee grinder.
00:37:30
Speaker
Maybe she puts a little bit too much cream in my latte.
00:37:34
Speaker
But if she's, you know, hey, it's National Chili Day when you come in, and she's memorized all these stupid holidays.
00:37:43
Speaker
I want to come in and see what the next holiday is.
00:37:45
Speaker
You know, that, that keeps me coming back to that place.
00:37:47
Speaker
So it's exactly like you said, and another guy, Sean Acor, who wrote a book called the happiness advantage.
00:37:54
Speaker
He says the same thing in the books.
00:37:55
Speaker
The ones who are most successful in their job have, have found happiness in it.
00:38:01
Speaker
They have found through their own way, how to be happy.
00:38:04
Speaker
And the bottom line is you're not going to be any good at anything.
00:38:07
Speaker
If you're not happy doing it.
00:38:09
Speaker
I mean, I'm not happy dieting.
00:38:11
Speaker
That's why I struggle with my weight.
00:38:12
Speaker
Uh,
00:38:14
Speaker
You know, we, well, yeah, exactly.
00:38:17
Speaker
So we're going to remember what we're happy doing.
00:38:20
Speaker
And so why not help our students be happy doing what they're doing by recognizing their contributions, being there for them, giving them choices, the things that all successful teachers have done for years, but just making that now part of the process and allowing those teachers to step up and really be your change agents within the schools.
00:38:59
Speaker
Hey, I hope you're enjoying listening to things fall apart here at the human restoration project.
00:39:03
Speaker
There's a few things I want you to be aware of.
00:39:05
Speaker
First off, if you subscribe to us on Patreon, not only do you know that you're supporting all of our free resources that you can find online, not only are you supporting this podcast and all the cool things that we do, you also get everything within an electronic magazine that we send out every couple months.
00:39:20
Speaker
Uh, it's,
00:39:20
Speaker
Pretty professional looking, in my opinion.
00:39:22
Speaker
You can share it out with whoever you want.
00:39:23
Speaker
It's printable the whole nine yards.
00:39:25
Speaker
So make sure you check that out on our Patreon, which you can find via our website at humanrestorationproject.org.
00:39:32
Speaker
And if you're enjoying listening to this podcast or you just want to leave some feedback, feel free to leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast from.
00:39:41
Speaker
I appreciate anything you send over to me, even if it's not necessarily positive.
00:39:44
Speaker
I always want to get better.
00:39:46
Speaker
So you can also shoot me an email at chris, C-H-R-I-S,
00:39:49
Speaker
at humanrestorationproject.org.
00:39:51
Speaker
Thanks.
Skylar Prim's Environmental Charter School
00:39:55
Speaker
Next up is Skylar Prim.
00:39:57
Speaker
Skylar works at Highmark Environmental Center in Madison, Wisconsin, which is centered on interdisciplinary project-based learning with a specific focus on the environment.
00:40:07
Speaker
Also, Skylar is one of our earliest supporters for the Human Restoration Project, so it's pretty cool to have him on.
00:40:12
Speaker
He works with a group of roughly 30 students, all the way between 7th and 12th grade.
00:40:16
Speaker
It's a very small public charter school.
00:40:18
Speaker
And I was interested in learning more about all the awesome stuff that he's doing.
00:40:22
Speaker
So Skylar, sort of explain your school a little here because the setup's really interesting.
00:40:27
Speaker
Within our county is Marquette County, hence the name.
00:40:30
Speaker
And down the road from us is where John Muir grew up, like his boyhood home.
00:40:34
Speaker
So his, you know, they moved from Scotland, kind of traveled from the New York area over to Wisconsin and settled.
00:40:40
Speaker
in Marquette County.
00:40:41
Speaker
And we're also not too far away from Alba Leopold's shack.
00:40:45
Speaker
So we've got this kind of, you know, these really strong connections.
00:40:49
Speaker
Not to mention that the community itself is really largely reliant on its lakes and
00:40:56
Speaker
it's hunting and that sort of thing.
00:40:57
Speaker
So it's really relying on tourist dollars basically.
00:41:02
Speaker
There's a reason to do it as an environmental focused school, even though like the community is rural and politically pretty conservative.
00:41:10
Speaker
And I think that's pretty cool because it shows that this is not
00:41:13
Speaker
You know, we're not like a hippie school that only allows liberal views.
00:41:19
Speaker
So the school was founded in 2010.
00:41:22
Speaker
Our founding teacher was Sarah Hackett.
00:41:24
Speaker
I came in in year two.
00:41:25
Speaker
I had spent two years teaching at Tagos Leadership Academy in Janesville, which is an early project-based charter school in Wisconsin.
00:41:32
Speaker
I came into Highmark and
00:41:35
Speaker
I have spent the last eight years, this is my eighth year there.
00:41:38
Speaker
We have a cap of 32 students, two full-time teachers, and one part-time program assistant.
00:41:45
Speaker
We're really lucky in a lot of ways to have that luxury.
00:41:50
Speaker
We have a lot of budget autonomy, so an unusual amount of budget autonomy for a public charter school.
00:41:56
Speaker
In Wisconsin, we call them instrumentality charter schools when they're funded by the school, overseen by the school district.
00:42:04
Speaker
And so we're able to prioritize having a small school.
00:42:08
Speaker
The main reason for keeping it that small is that we have every Thursday we spend outside and usually on a bus, you know, we take a bus somewhere off into the school forest.
00:42:17
Speaker
that we have not too far away.
00:42:20
Speaker
But we go to all kinds of places like, for instance, the park that's at John Muir's boyhood home.
00:42:24
Speaker
And 32 is about as big as we can get and still fit on a bus, on one bus with gear that we're going to use out there.
00:42:33
Speaker
And so in the initial plans for the school, it was going to expand beyond that, but we haven't.
00:42:38
Speaker
We kind of made a pivot several years in to say like, no, this is actually a pretty ideal size.
00:42:43
Speaker
Skylar goes on to explain that his school uses a public lottery system, just like the Magnus school that I work for uses, where there's no academic or background requirements to attend.
00:42:53
Speaker
they're becoming more popular in a sparsely populated region, and now they have a wait list.
00:42:57
Speaker
And although having that small of a school isn't always ideal because you can't accept every single person that wants to come, Skyler explains.
00:43:04
Speaker
One really strong benefit that we have, again, because of that small school thing and because we cover all those grade levels, is that I have students for up to six years.
00:43:14
Speaker
Last spring, we had our first graduate who had been seventh grade through 12th grade with us, and she's now at a kind of progressive private college in
00:43:23
Speaker
the Milwaukee area that doesn't have grades and allows retakes of things.
00:43:28
Speaker
And I saw her at Christmas and she was loving it, but said that sometimes she wanted to just be able to like pass a class with a D, but she, they wouldn't let her obviously because they made her redo things.
00:43:39
Speaker
I was like, yeah, but that means you're really learning that.
00:43:41
Speaker
And, and to be honest, in seventh grade, she had no idea if she wanted to even go to college, actually up through like 11th grade, she didn't think that she wanted to, which is fine.
00:43:49
Speaker
I, I certainly don't want a kid to waste
00:43:51
Speaker
their time, money, and future on going to college if they're not, if that's not what they want to do.
00:43:57
Speaker
We're a school that most of the curriculum is student-driven.
00:44:01
Speaker
And so we certainly encourage, you know, we try to draw out what their interests are and what their skills are starting, you know, from the start.
00:44:09
Speaker
Sometimes those are things that are important
00:44:12
Speaker
going to lead to a purpose.
00:44:13
Speaker
Sometimes, you know, like art, we have one of our first four-year graduate, who is now also our first college graduate, draws graphic novels now, because that was her passion.
00:44:24
Speaker
She ended up going to the Savannah College of Art and Design, which again was kind of an unusual school and worked really well for her.
00:44:30
Speaker
For a student like her, who's really into art, and that's kind of her jam, to say what the kids say, we would say like, you know, while you're doing a project that's on
00:44:41
Speaker
science, but you can use your illustrating to make it yours so that it's not just about, you know, it's not just about like learning the parts of a cell.
00:44:49
Speaker
It's, you know, making it yours.
00:44:51
Speaker
And it's not just about everybody doing some food, edible cell or whatever.
00:44:56
Speaker
I mean, I guess I would say that we have open minds to whatever, you know, the student proposes something as and they're interested in.
00:45:04
Speaker
Thinking back, I had another student who thought they were really interested in being a vet.
00:45:10
Speaker
And they did some like job shadowing of that because they did a project on it.
00:45:15
Speaker
And they learned that like they had no interest whatsoever in doing that.
00:45:18
Speaker
And that was really important.
00:45:21
Speaker
And then we have students that I think
00:45:24
Speaker
don't think that they have a purpose and don't know because they just haven't even thought about it.
00:45:30
Speaker
And those kids take a really long time because they haven't, especially if they've been really good at traditional school.
00:45:36
Speaker
So we end up attracting students of all kinds.
00:45:39
Speaker
At the beginning, I think this is kind of typical, at least in Wisconsin, for public charter schools is that they are pigeonholed as kind of the alternative school.
00:45:47
Speaker
And so it's, I used to describe it as like kids are choosing it for what it's not instead of what it is.
00:45:55
Speaker
So it's not the traditional school.
00:45:56
Speaker
So we're choosing it.
00:45:58
Speaker
So we want to go there because we don't like the traditional school as opposed to we want to go there because it's project-based because we get to go outside.
00:46:04
Speaker
It seems like purpose-finding naturally lends itself to a small school environment, especially when the school is less traditional.
00:46:10
Speaker
You know, I'm a huge advocate of switching to small schools, either by building new ones or offering a lot of different choices for free, as in,
00:46:17
Speaker
There's a public education option with different styles and different themes for different students to do different things.
00:46:22
Speaker
Or maybe you just take very large schools that already exist and subdivide them in order to meet the same goals.
00:46:28
Speaker
And, you know, kind of a separate question.
00:46:32
Speaker
As a teacher at a similar type of school, we're not certainly as different as what Highmark is doing, but I still find a lot of my work to be in the deprogramming element of traditional education.
00:46:42
Speaker
As in, a lot of the work that I'm doing is convincing students that I'm telling them the truth about the aims of education, and it's not all about getting A's.
00:46:49
Speaker
So what steps do you take to go about that deprogramming process?
00:46:52
Speaker
Like, what does that look like in that year?
00:46:54
Speaker
That's another benefit of having the multi-year, multi-generational thing, is that we really rely on our older students to, you know, carry on the legacy of the school and to kind of induct the new students into it, but also to hold us accountable when we
00:47:12
Speaker
when we screw up.
00:47:14
Speaker
You know, if we forget to do something or if we forget that, like we said, oh, next year we'll try X, Y, or Z. Almost always a student will remember if we forget.
00:47:23
Speaker
But we actually start every year with two weeks of boot camp, which we actually refer to it as like Highmark boot camp.
00:47:31
Speaker
which is an idea I got from my previous school, Tagos, where we all do kind of a shared project.
00:47:36
Speaker
And a lot of times that's been kind of around identity.
00:47:39
Speaker
And actually we change it up every year, just depending on what we think we need.
00:47:43
Speaker
Last year in the middle or towards the end of the school year, we were really struggling with some students not not really connecting and they weren't there.
00:47:51
Speaker
There was some quickishness, which you wouldn't really think would happen in a small enough school, but it still sometimes does.
00:47:57
Speaker
And we decided that what we were going to do when we started the new school year was have a project where they were doing they were learning about a
Teachers' Non-Linear Paths to Purpose
00:48:04
Speaker
peer.
00:48:04
Speaker
So it's a peer research project.
00:48:07
Speaker
And we paired them up this year for those two weeks.
00:48:10
Speaker
And they
00:48:12
Speaker
It was a really basic project where they just had a questionnaire.
00:48:15
Speaker
They interviewed their peer.
00:48:17
Speaker
They put together a presentation and then introduced their peer to the community or reintroduced if it was an older student.
00:48:24
Speaker
And that gave them some ideas about not only who these people were and it
00:48:28
Speaker
kind of help them understand like, oh, I do have stuff in common beyond just going to the school with this person.
00:48:33
Speaker
We also do a lot of, even beyond that, just tons of team building activities in those first two weeks.
00:48:39
Speaker
We do almost no academics.
00:48:40
Speaker
We just do tons and tons of community building, tons and tons of connections just to bring us all together and understand that, yeah, exactly, we're not lying.
00:48:50
Speaker
And
00:48:50
Speaker
I think that the older students, again, have been through this with us so much that they vouch for us in a way that I think is really powerful for the younger students as well.
00:49:03
Speaker
But I think that the older the student, the harder it can be, although it really depends on the kid.
00:49:09
Speaker
You know, they're all in division.
00:49:11
Speaker
I have a new student this year.
00:49:12
Speaker
He's an 11th grader, and she used to come visit us last year as a 10th grader, just like at lunch because she was friends with one of our students.
00:49:19
Speaker
And
00:49:19
Speaker
So I knew her already and she bought in like day one, no question.
00:49:25
Speaker
Versus a couple of years ago, one of our seventh graders had come from, we also got a lot of homeschooled kids coming in.
00:49:33
Speaker
And I had a seventh grader whose mom
00:49:36
Speaker
wanted her to come post homeschooling.
00:49:37
Speaker
And like, that was how she would always describe her reason for coming was like, Oh, my mom made me.
00:49:42
Speaker
And she was just very like stoic.
00:49:44
Speaker
And, uh, and by the end of the school year, she was like, decision I ever made, I love this place.
00:49:49
Speaker
And like, uh, I have a quote from her that she still uses, uh, which is that, uh, just listen to Mr. Prim.
00:49:56
Speaker
He's always right, which is not at all true, but, but she believed it with life advice, uh, that I gave her one time.
00:50:04
Speaker
And I was like, well, let's go with it.
00:50:07
Speaker
And with a small group of kids, I'm sure you can do so much regarding a quote unquote path to purpose.
00:50:12
Speaker
What does that look like?
00:50:13
Speaker
I think that another way that I help students with this understanding, like the path to purpose thing is that my, I'm open with my story.
00:50:21
Speaker
I tell them that like my path was really nonlinear to the classroom.
00:50:26
Speaker
You know, I started teaching my first teaching job at 30 after master's degree in geology and thinking I was going to get a PhD.
00:50:34
Speaker
deciding that I didn't want to do that, working in like an engineering lab for a couple of years, trying to figure things out and moving from New Orleans to Wisconsin for grad school and then staying here.
00:50:46
Speaker
And I was that straight A kid, not necessarily in high school.
00:50:51
Speaker
I mean, I went to a magnet, but in college, I was a straight A kid because that was just my identity was like, I am doing this.
00:50:58
Speaker
And I can talk about that now.
00:51:00
Speaker
Like that was a ridiculous way to, like I would drop classes if I wasn't gonna, if I knew I wasn't gonna do well in it.
00:51:05
Speaker
But yeah, so I mean, I think that, you know, I closed myself off to experiences by not being willing to accept that grades were not
00:51:15
Speaker
that important and I didn't even figure that out until much later in life and but now like I took a class in the fall it was just a certification class for just an online environmental science thing and it was needed
00:51:35
Speaker
It wasn't like we weren't getting her grades, but it was scored because that's just a way that she makes sure that people complete the course essentially within a time, a reasonable timeframe.
00:51:44
Speaker
And it felt gross.
00:51:46
Speaker
It like, as soon as it, that happened, I felt so much stress over so much more.
00:51:52
Speaker
Like I was, I was, I was taking the class because I was interested in it and because it was something that was cool.
00:51:57
Speaker
And I still did get a lot out of it, but it was, there was in the back of my head, there was this like,
00:52:02
Speaker
the little like grade demon telling me like, you got to do well on this.
00:52:07
Speaker
You got to get in.
00:52:07
Speaker
And I think it was like, yeah, they get 80% or something.
00:52:11
Speaker
And it wasn't even that she was not a hard grader.
00:52:14
Speaker
It's not like it was, you know, there was no reason to believe that I was going to not pass and get certified for this thing.
00:52:19
Speaker
Cause it really was just a placeholder, but it, I still like that.
00:52:24
Speaker
It like triggered that part of my brain from forever ago that worried about that kind of thing.
00:52:29
Speaker
And it just felt gross.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah, this all makes me think about how bad of a student I instantly become in professional development settings.
00:52:36
Speaker
It irks me so much that PD is almost always a lecture.
00:52:41
Speaker
I sort of revert back to how I was when I was in high school.
00:52:43
Speaker
I just zone out and hate it.
00:52:45
Speaker
And I find it so ironic that education majors teach quote unquote forward thinking practice in the most boring ways because adults apparently can handle it or something.
00:52:54
Speaker
I know I can't.
00:52:56
Speaker
Anyways,
00:52:57
Speaker
this school sounds really cool and I'm glad the students have the opportunity to try something different.
00:53:01
Speaker
I'm curious then if your experience teaching there has restored your own purpose in education.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:08
Speaker
So I, um, as part of that whole like non-traditional path, I, I lucked into student teaching at an alternative high school.
00:53:15
Speaker
I was not seeking, um, necessarily an alternative placement, but that was just where the side of town that I lived on at the time, uh, in Madison.
00:53:25
Speaker
And, uh,
00:53:26
Speaker
They were actually the teacher, my cooperating instructor, Heather Messer.
00:53:32
Speaker
She was, I was her first student teacher.
00:53:34
Speaker
So it just like, it just kind of, you know, the timing was just perfect.
00:53:37
Speaker
And when I walked in there, I had all my previous practicum experience had been in regular giant high schools in Madison and very traditional classrooms.
00:53:46
Speaker
And I walked in.
00:53:48
Speaker
So that was what was normal.
00:53:48
Speaker
Cause that's also what I went to.
00:53:51
Speaker
And I walked in and I,
00:53:53
Speaker
started learning about their school and their, you know, how they had like these social pillars and these, they started each class with a circle where they just, you know, transitioned into the classroom and they had life skills classes, which were like advisories, except by a different name.
00:54:08
Speaker
It showed me that there was a different way to do things.
00:54:11
Speaker
And that was just awesome.
00:54:13
Speaker
And I, again, was able to go to a school where I was, got to be kind of mentioned
00:54:21
Speaker
doing that sort of teaching for a while and were already skeptical of grades and traditional teaching and all that stuff and already had established that you could do that stuff.
00:54:32
Speaker
So I didn't have to, I didn't have to for myself decide like, oh, I don't have to give grades because they already weren't giving grades and they already were like giving students voice and choice and building really strong relationships with students and that sort of thing.
00:54:47
Speaker
And
00:54:48
Speaker
It was so I my path was was was paved by a lot of mentors, which was awesome.
00:54:56
Speaker
And then as I've I like I said, I joined Highmark in the second year.
00:55:01
Speaker
And then the third then in that second year, the first starting teacher decided to leave at the end of the year.
00:55:07
Speaker
So immediately I was casted to the oh, now I'm the veteran here.
00:55:13
Speaker
And my co-teacher, Amanda, who came in, I actually knew her from, she had student taught at Tagos, which worked out well, because we had a similar ethos.
00:55:23
Speaker
But I think that the more I teach in this type of school, originally, when I, for my first couple of years of teaching, I was like, well, I could teach in a traditional classroom, but I would be
00:55:34
Speaker
I wouldn't be super happy, but I could do it.
00:55:37
Speaker
The last couple of years have convinced me that like, there's no way, there's just no way I could teach in a regular classroom because I would, it would just be too against my, my beliefs that I would, it would be bad for the students.
00:55:51
Speaker
It would be bad for me.
00:55:53
Speaker
It would be just that all around.
00:55:57
Speaker
And so my purpose, I guess, is to, oh, and I also, I guess early on when I first started like
00:56:04
Speaker
exploring teaching and uh sign up being a teacher in my head it was like well you know you teach for a while then you go on to become an administrator and that's the that's the normal path and uh like there is no way i would want to be an administrator at least in the by the like current traditional school definition of what an administrator does um because i would i just i love working with students and uh and working on that level
00:56:26
Speaker
I think that, again, teaching in this kind of environment has really helped me recognize that that's where my skill set is and that's also where my interest is.
00:56:34
Speaker
So yeah, I think this has had a profound impact on me.
00:56:57
Speaker
And now, Elizabeth Martin, a seventh-year English educator who recently made a drastic shift in her
Elizabeth Martin's Rural Teaching Experience
00:57:03
Speaker
career.
00:57:03
Speaker
I did like six years in urban ed.
00:57:07
Speaker
The school that I was in had over 2,000 students in it.
00:57:11
Speaker
Over half the student body is racially and ethnically diverse.
00:57:14
Speaker
Over half the student body on free or reduced lunch.
00:57:17
Speaker
So a lot of diversity in the school, economic, racial, ethnic diversity.
00:57:22
Speaker
Now I'm in a rural school with less than 600 students.
00:57:27
Speaker
very, very, very little, if at all, ethnic and racial diversity.
00:57:31
Speaker
So it's been a real 180.
00:57:33
Speaker
It's been a complete change in school culture and everything.
00:57:39
Speaker
On a personal level, it was a great change because urban ed is really high stress and I was burning out.
00:57:44
Speaker
So just for me as a person, it's been an excellent transition.
00:57:48
Speaker
And as a teacher from a professional perspective, it's just helped me just to
00:57:53
Speaker
have a different view of issues in education right now after having such two very different teaching positions.
00:58:00
Speaker
So you make this shift from a large urban district to an incredibly small rural one.
00:58:05
Speaker
What was that transition like for you personally?
00:58:07
Speaker
That has to be a culture shock.
00:58:09
Speaker
Well, the culture is definitely very different.
00:58:11
Speaker
My personal background, I actually went to a very small rural school for high school.
00:58:16
Speaker
I grew up in rural East Tennessee, and right now I live in rural Southwest Virginia.
00:58:20
Speaker
So it was different for me teaching in an urban school.
00:58:23
Speaker
That wasn't my personal background.
00:58:26
Speaker
I was able to fit in there because as in any urban setting, you're going to have, you know, more progressive politics maybe.
00:58:33
Speaker
And so that fit was just kind of who I am as a person.
00:58:36
Speaker
So I was able to really acclimate really well to, um,
00:58:42
Speaker
urban life in that regard and urban students and their parents.
00:58:45
Speaker
You know, the demographics of the school, we would have the poorest of the poor kids in the city, but we also had the richest of the rich kids in the city.
00:58:51
Speaker
And so, you know, having students in the class whose parents were, had master's degrees and doctorates and just highly educated was different for me because that's not really how I grew up.
00:59:01
Speaker
But where I am now, culture is way different.
00:59:04
Speaker
A lot of people just, you know, kind of working class, lower middle class families,
00:59:08
Speaker
not necessarily coming from families where parents went to college.
00:59:12
Speaker
Politically speaking, it's a very conservative area.
00:59:15
Speaker
Definitely lots of Make America Great Again sons.
00:59:21
Speaker
So yeah, culturally it's been a huge change, but I've been able to sort of fit in in both places because they've spoken to me on a personal level.
00:59:31
Speaker
I mean, I have a background being somebody who grew up in rural America.
00:59:35
Speaker
So I do fine in my rural school now, but then also did fine in the urban school because of my own sort of personal politics and that sort of thing.
00:59:43
Speaker
Right, right.
00:59:44
Speaker
I know that a drastic shift for me as someone who grew up in Columbus and the suburbs, really, I student taught in urban districts, and now I teach in a semi-rural, semi-urban magnet.
00:59:55
Speaker
The shift for me that was shocking was the political discourse.
00:59:58
Speaker
It really wasn't that apparent until the 2016 election where I had some students adamantly supporting our current president, and then you had those that vehemently opposed him.
01:00:08
Speaker
I'm personally an advocate for letting anyone share their opinions and having a safe space to speak, but there was a worrying amount of discourse that had to be mentored, like racist and sexist viewpoints that you just can't tolerate within a classroom.
01:00:20
Speaker
I feel in the last political debate,
01:00:23
Speaker
that most people would agree that those sentiments became more public.
01:00:28
Speaker
I'm curious how that came out where you were.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yes and no.
01:00:31
Speaker
I don't struggle as much as I expected that I would.
01:00:34
Speaker
When I was in the city school, I sponsored the Young Feminist Club and I assisted with the Young Democrats and I helped another teacher.
01:00:44
Speaker
We started an LGBTQ support group.
01:00:47
Speaker
And that was just
01:00:49
Speaker
totally fine.
01:00:49
Speaker
There was nothing sort of out of the ordinary.
01:00:51
Speaker
You didn't feel that sort of transgressive doing that kind of stuff in the city school.
01:00:55
Speaker
Whereas in my school now, this just would never happen.
01:00:58
Speaker
There's none of that.
01:01:00
Speaker
So it's definitely, I mean, I wouldn't really say censor myself at all, but I can't necessarily be, I got to be more subtle about it.
01:01:09
Speaker
I can't be as open about, you know, my own stance and my own politics as I maybe was in the city school.
01:01:16
Speaker
But it's also been nice because I expected this to be a huge sort of, you know, con on a pro-con list for teaching in rural ed that I was having to give up, you know, teaching students and being around parents who were more like-minded.
01:01:32
Speaker
But it's actually been interesting to see from the perspective of somebody who grew up in rural America and who didn't really ever have teachers who, you
01:01:44
Speaker
challenged that worldview in any sort of way.
01:01:46
Speaker
It was just always constantly reinforced.
01:01:48
Speaker
And so to be a teacher who gets to challenge the way they think about things and ask them questions that they've maybe never been asked before, I can definitely see how it's a gap in rural education that's just not there.
01:02:02
Speaker
You know, it's a misconception to think that, you know, when we talk about the politics of rural America, we're talking about the politics of adults.
01:02:09
Speaker
We don't really know.
01:02:11
Speaker
We're not polling teenagers, you know.
01:02:13
Speaker
And teenagers are still forming their worldview.
01:02:15
Speaker
And so when they have somebody who challenges just kind of the politics that they've known, the worldview that they've known, I'm finding that they're actually incredibly receptive to it and that they want teachers who are making them think this way rather than just kind of reinforcing what they've always been told.
01:02:32
Speaker
I really like that point of being a different perspective.
01:02:35
Speaker
I don't see my role as converting anyone, but I do know that some students see my class as interesting just because I'm a lot different than the stereotypical conservative football coach social studies instructor.
01:02:47
Speaker
We spend a lot of time talking about socioeconomics and identity-based histories in my class, not only because students lack that perspective, but
01:02:54
Speaker
more so because they're interested in it.
01:02:56
Speaker
Like I surveyed the class and those are the things that they want to talk about.
01:02:59
Speaker
And despite the stereotype people might assume about a more conservatively aligned teenagers, they really want to learn more about what is seen as, I suppose, liberal leaning history.
01:03:09
Speaker
Many of them are intrinsically motivated and ask more about gay rights, for example.
01:03:14
Speaker
It's nice to know as someone who has a different perspective on these things, that's going to at least present this information to kids that not only
01:03:22
Speaker
Are they learning if they're also really open to learning about it?
01:03:24
Speaker
They want to talk about these things.
01:03:26
Speaker
And for the most part, kids are very receptive to it.
01:03:29
Speaker
I know that a fellow teacher who just joined our staff introduced Gender Sexualities Alliance to an area which I'm fairly confident, 99% sure, is.
01:03:39
Speaker
that there has never been a GSA anywhere close to that school.
01:03:43
Speaker
And it has like 40 people in it after two weeks because kids crave talking about safe, open places where they can talk about these really serious issues that often have gone on set.
01:03:53
Speaker
You know, to shift away here for a minute from the political landscape, let's talk about the benefits of your new position because you did mention that you had less stress there.
01:04:01
Speaker
Well, just being able to be somewhere that has the privilege of
01:04:07
Speaker
where students can just be students and teachers can just be teachers is huge.
01:04:10
Speaker
I mean, that's one thing that I noticed in urban ed, you would read all these articles about educational reform and this cool new thing to do in the classroom and engaging students.
01:04:21
Speaker
And so much of it just falls flat for the city school teacher because
01:04:25
Speaker
you know, the problems of the city schools are just the problems of society.
01:04:29
Speaker
You know, we're dealing with poverty and institutional racism and just, you know, you're dealing with more problems than just the problems of public education.
01:04:38
Speaker
So it's a privilege to be in a school now where you can just be a teacher and students can't really just be a student.
01:04:44
Speaker
So with that in mind, I've been able to just be a lot more reflective about my practice, research more, you know, first six years teaching, I never really...
01:04:55
Speaker
got on Twitter and looked to see what other teachers were saying and what was happening because I just didn't have the energy for it.
01:05:00
Speaker
I didn't have the mental energy.
01:05:01
Speaker
I didn't even have the desire.
01:05:02
Speaker
So that has changed a lot.
01:05:05
Speaker
I'm familiar with how many teachers who just could never have large-scale progressive reforms because how do you align a vision with 2,000 to 4,000 people and all those personnel?
01:05:15
Speaker
It's not feasible without a literal revolution.
01:05:18
Speaker
I know that's the reason why so many teachers burn out.
01:05:20
Speaker
People go into this profession because they want to make the world a better place.
01:05:24
Speaker
And when you yourself become a cog in the machine, it's just like the lack of purpose that we see among our kids.
01:05:31
Speaker
I actually think one of the best arguments toward progressive education, as in a way to convince people to try it out and believe in it, is the overwhelming stress of being a traditional teacher.
01:05:41
Speaker
If our purpose is transformed in being test preparers, for example,
01:05:45
Speaker
it shouldn't be shocking that teachers grow to hate their jobs.
01:05:48
Speaker
Plus, if teachers are told to do this without any voice and choice, and when they're just corralled in the masses, and when we ignore the underlying problems that go along with large districts, especially in lower socioeconomic areas, then why wouldn't we burn out?
01:06:03
Speaker
I mean, even at a small school, I feel so stressed when my kids can't afford clothes, or they just lack opportunities that other kids have.
01:06:10
Speaker
Of course, I'm not saying that other socioeconomic levels don't have problems, or that
01:06:14
Speaker
These are the majority of circumstances for those who are struggling, but it's something you have to deal with more often, especially in the city.
01:06:20
Speaker
And I was just feeling so burnt out to the point where I was questioning whether or not I was even in the right career.
01:06:27
Speaker
Cause you get to, you can, it can get so bad where you, you're not necessarily sure.
01:06:31
Speaker
I mean, I had a sense that so much of my issues were tied to the fact that I was just in a high stress environment, but I still worried that when I,
01:06:42
Speaker
moved to a new school, a completely different teaching environment that I still wouldn't be happy.
01:06:46
Speaker
And then what am I supposed to do with myself?
01:06:49
Speaker
So it was definitely a great, you know, a great thing to know that I am in the right career because it was such a good change.
01:06:58
Speaker
The first semester, the fall semester in my new school, just immediately, you know, solidified for me that I was in the right place, that I do enjoy spending my time with young people and helping them sort of
01:07:12
Speaker
figure out who they are and what they think about things and what their interests are.
01:07:16
Speaker
And really the thing that, you know, like you said, sort of the one thing that hit that home for me was around Thanksgiving, I decided that I was going to, because we, one thing that was new for me is we went to, I teach at a four by four now.
01:07:30
Speaker
So you get new students at the end of the semester, kind of like college stuff.
01:07:34
Speaker
whereas in my old school it was just every other day so you kept the you kept the same kids all year so after winter break I wasn't going to see those same students anymore so I decided I wanted to give them all a little Christmas card and write them a personalized note so I took for all my I think I ended up having let's see how many total students like 75 80 students and I wrote them all a note a Christmas card that was personalized and
01:08:00
Speaker
said something about them and about, you know, how much I enjoyed having
Implementing Purpose-Driven Education
01:08:03
Speaker
them in class.
01:08:03
Speaker
And I had absolutely never done that before, never had the desire to do that before, never had the thought to do that before.
01:08:10
Speaker
So the fact that it even occurred to me, and then I sat down and took the time to do it really showed me that I'm in the right place.
01:08:17
Speaker
This was a good change.
01:08:18
Speaker
And I'm, you know, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
01:08:20
Speaker
And in this more restored practice, if that's the right term,
01:08:24
Speaker
When you have more autonomy at a smaller school, what are you now able to do?
01:08:28
Speaker
Do you find yourself that you can just take more progressive ideas or calculated risks?
01:08:32
Speaker
Well, yes and no.
01:08:33
Speaker
I guess I've been able, a lot of things that I can do now are things that I've always been interested in and curious about.
01:08:38
Speaker
I just was sort of hamstringed in the city.
01:08:41
Speaker
So I have always tried to, you know, implement student choice, which of course is a core value in progressive education.
01:08:47
Speaker
So, you know, what students read, what they write,
01:08:52
Speaker
I try my best not to dictate that.
01:08:53
Speaker
I've always tried not to dictate that, but I can do that so much more so now in my new school.
01:09:00
Speaker
So, you know, that's not to say that I give them 100% choice with everything.
01:09:04
Speaker
It's not about making yourself disappear as a teacher, but I've certainly been able to bring student choice out much more so than I could in the city.
01:09:14
Speaker
Part of that because one, I'm not having to plan along with another teacher and two,
01:09:20
Speaker
just not having to deal with so many of the outside issues that you have to deal with in the city.
01:09:24
Speaker
So yeah, students implementing student choice a lot more, trying to engage student questions.
01:09:32
Speaker
You know, students want to talk about things.
01:09:34
Speaker
They want to talk about things that matter as a humanities teacher.
01:09:38
Speaker
And I do seem, even though I'm an English teacher, I do see myself more as a humanities teacher.
01:09:41
Speaker
I was a double major in English and history and,
01:09:44
Speaker
in college.
01:09:45
Speaker
So you get, my students always talk about how sometimes they feel like I'm their history teacher and not their English teacher because so much of what I do is, you know, related to what they're also doing in history.
01:09:55
Speaker
But, you know, just getting them to engage in questions, it's so hard because by the time they've gotten to high school, they've been so beaten into line.
01:10:04
Speaker
You know, they really, it's almost like they really want you to just give them a worksheet and have them turn it into class.
01:10:11
Speaker
and give them their A and go on to pass me on to my junior year of high school.
01:10:16
Speaker
You really have to do some coaxing to get them to that headspace, even though ultimately once they're there, you know, they're happy to be there.
01:10:25
Speaker
And they recognize that like, oh, this is a way more interesting class than if I were just doing worksheet on literary illusions, you know, like kill me now.
01:10:34
Speaker
But yeah, so trying to coax those questions out of them, trying to get them to sort of
01:10:40
Speaker
read this a lot about progressive education, about how ultimately you're trying to get students to love learning.
01:10:47
Speaker
We want them to leave us and keep on keeping on with this whole process, just be a lifelong learner.
01:10:54
Speaker
And I really think the humanities, they, you know, we have such an opportunity to really stoke that because, and I tell my students, I say, you're, we are naturally, we're naturally curious.
01:11:07
Speaker
We're naturally interested.
01:11:09
Speaker
Like,
01:11:10
Speaker
give all of this a chance.
01:11:12
Speaker
Like, even though you're uncomfortable with the process of questioning things and having discussions and this, that, and the other, like, give it a chance.
01:11:19
Speaker
Give yourself a chance to like it because you do like it.
01:11:22
Speaker
You just need to sit back and allow yourself to like it.
01:11:26
Speaker
There's a really great line from a Wendell Berry poem.
01:11:28
Speaker
He says, ask the questions that have no answers.
01:11:32
Speaker
And so I try to get them into this idea of
01:11:35
Speaker
And a lot of this, too, is what's so great about having these rural kids, because in the city, you know, a lot of times these kids have already had a teacher who's been, you know, cool and pushed the envelope and gotten them to do controversial things and have controversial conversations.
01:11:53
Speaker
But kids out in the country, it's just never happening.
01:11:55
Speaker
And so when it does, they get, they're definitely, they're definitely paying attention, even though it takes me a while to get them to sort of open up and talk.
01:12:04
Speaker
they're definitely listening.
01:12:05
Speaker
And so it's been great to get to focus more on those sort of big questions about life and hopefully just sort of stoke that fire to be a lifelong learner, help them recognize their own interests, their own passions, their own worldviews, just through the process of just questioning.
01:12:31
Speaker
In closing, I'd like to detail some steps on enacting purpose at your school.
01:12:34
Speaker
It's one thing to theorize and another thing to implement it.
01:12:37
Speaker
This isn't prescriptive.
01:12:38
Speaker
We can't rule out initiatives to every location that will always work.
01:12:42
Speaker
but there certainly is room for suggestion.
01:12:44
Speaker
First, a story.
01:12:46
Speaker
This is from A School of Our Own by Samuel Levin and Susan Engel.
01:12:49
Speaker
Engel is sort of like my recent obsession.
01:12:51
Speaker
She's a child development psychology professor who has written her fair share of books, but she's never really mentioned in progressive circles.
01:13:00
Speaker
Samuel is her son who in high school started his own student-led school based off a passion project that he did.
01:13:06
Speaker
And early on, Samuel describes a situation that I really related with.
01:13:10
Speaker
I saw it so often.
01:13:11
Speaker
He talks about
01:13:12
Speaker
one of his friends who's named James.
01:13:14
Speaker
And James was regarded as a not-so-great student.
01:13:17
Speaker
He didn't take a lot of things seriously, he goofed off all the time in class, and teachers figured that he wouldn't amount to that much because he didn't take academics seriously.
01:13:24
Speaker
So they figured he wasn't that smart or he just wasn't someone who applied himself.
01:13:28
Speaker
Therefore, at least in traditional terms, he was a failure.
01:13:31
Speaker
Not to mention, James spent a lot of his time obsessing about random things that he quickly dropped.
01:13:36
Speaker
For example, he started snowboarding regularly, and then he stopped.
01:13:39
Speaker
Then he wanted to be a filmmaker, and that lasted for a few weeks, then he dropped that.
01:13:42
Speaker
And he said he wanted to be a cop, etc., etc., etc.
01:13:45
Speaker
And as Samuel explains, quote, his teachers thought that these were just phases, passing fancies, a sign of his lack of seriousness.
01:13:54
Speaker
But what was really happening was that he was searching for exactly the thing he told me he wanted, more depth.
01:14:00
Speaker
He wanted to dive into something, to really grapple with it, to become an expert in it.
01:14:04
Speaker
And since he wasn't getting that at school, he searched for it elsewhere, often finding things that didn't quite meet his intense desire to be a master at something.
01:14:12
Speaker
In my view, we should be creating spaces that allow for this exploration, a space where teachers can guide and help students reflect on their future life choices.
01:14:21
Speaker
I started to write these ideas for implementation actually in book form.
01:14:24
Speaker
So this might be long winded.
01:14:26
Speaker
You know, I grapple, there's a quick aside, I grapple with the idea of writing a book not to turn a profit because it grosses me out to sell progressive ed and like sell something to kind of pay well like that.
01:14:35
Speaker
But then again,
01:14:36
Speaker
To spread these ideas to a more average consumer, there is a sense that you see it in the bookstore, it gives it more validity.
01:14:43
Speaker
So in my perfect world, there would be a book about progressive education that's just full of wonder and imagery.
01:14:49
Speaker
There's a lot of actual illustrations and it's short.
01:14:52
Speaker
It recaptures that imagination of a young teacher, their obsessions when they were younger.
01:14:56
Speaker
But I digress.
01:14:58
Speaker
Here's what we could potentially do.
01:15:01
Speaker
We must frame classroom time toward exploring student-led pursuits.
01:15:05
Speaker
Notably, this is not the same as pairing subject areas to student interest.
01:15:09
Speaker
This often has the adverse effect of pairing the already apathetic school mindset to a now weaning interest that we've garnered.
01:15:16
Speaker
By providing set time during the day, coupled with discussions on why this time is given, we'll see students naturally learn.
01:15:23
Speaker
Students are natural learners.
01:15:25
Speaker
Our ultimate goal will be transitioning to this as much as possible, taking a calculated risk or dismissing certain quote-unquote core content.
01:15:33
Speaker
We need to provide a space that students can work in.
01:15:35
Speaker
These spaces should be spacious, allowing for collaborative work while featuring private, quiet areas for independent study.
01:15:41
Speaker
In addition, it should be filled to the brink with tools, appliances, and software.
01:15:45
Speaker
Preferably, students would populate this space based off their request, which could build into future years.
01:15:52
Speaker
Creating, maintaining, and utilizing a space such as this would lead to fascinating experiences.
01:15:55
Speaker
Like imagine where children could come together and produce an album in a self-built soundproof music studio.
01:16:02
Speaker
Or maybe they're playing board games together.
01:16:04
Speaker
Maybe they're creating a putting green to practice golf in the winter.
01:16:07
Speaker
Maybe they make a clothing line to raise money for a non-profit.
01:16:10
Speaker
Maybe they're just talking to each other.
01:16:11
Speaker
Maybe they're reading books in the school library.
01:16:13
Speaker
Maybe they had time to reflect and unwind from traditional school.
01:16:17
Speaker
You know, just operating a classroom where one gives students time, or even better, a school gives students time, to just seek out answers that's worthwhile.
01:16:25
Speaker
Developing close relationships with every student where the teacher knows what their interests are and helps guide them on their journey is possibly the largest life-changing event for a child.
01:16:35
Speaker
And note, this isn't supposed to be a genius hour or just a fraction of the schedule.
01:16:39
Speaker
It should just be the other way around.
01:16:42
Speaker
You give an hour of time, or maybe a little bit longer, for current mandated knowledge.
01:16:46
Speaker
with the rest of it being up to the individual or class.
01:16:50
Speaker
And to be absolutely clear, the goal is just a large space with options for activities and time to mess around.
01:16:57
Speaker
That might seem overly simplistic, but time and space is all one needs for intrinsic motivation.
01:17:03
Speaker
If one supplies ample time for self-determined options, they will fall into place.
01:17:08
Speaker
There's going to be a deprogramming period, and many students will spend initially all of their time playing video games or on their phones or talking to each other.
01:17:15
Speaker
But that's to be expected.
01:17:17
Speaker
It's natural human behavior to socialize.
01:17:20
Speaker
Imagine going to any meeting among teachers without someone leading the conversation.
01:17:25
Speaker
Everyone's going to be goofing off.
01:17:27
Speaker
That free time, though, is healthy as it makes us human.
01:17:29
Speaker
Play and socialization are fundamental to our existence, and it's going to lead us down the eventual exploration of new opportunities.
01:17:36
Speaker
Then, the teacher's role is to mentor and guide.
01:17:39
Speaker
We can suggest and encourage while being careful not to cross the line toward coercion or demands.
01:17:45
Speaker
The choice, self-initiation, and responsibility that comes with ample time to intrinsically guide one's path is paramount to developing lifelong learners.
01:17:53
Speaker
Not to mention, maintaining this space, such as providing cleaning supplies and guidelines to self-police, builds a closer communal connection.
01:18:03
Speaker
So in closing, if we could build a space, either amongst a school preferably, or just even in one's classroom, where you give students the opportunity to think, learn, and do,
01:18:12
Speaker
I mean, that would make a world of difference.
01:18:14
Speaker
And I challenge anyone that has even some of the means to do that to try it.
01:18:18
Speaker
If you go home every single day and you realize, man, this sucks.
01:18:21
Speaker
I don't like what I'm doing or this could be so much better or I don't think my kids are really getting the point of anything that they're learning.
01:18:28
Speaker
Why not just try something new?
01:18:29
Speaker
Why not just take that step?
01:18:31
Speaker
It's scary.
01:18:32
Speaker
And I'll admit I haven't done all of that.
01:18:35
Speaker
But I know when I go to work, I'm at least trying my best to take the most calculated risk I possibly can.
01:18:41
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Things Fall Apart from the Human Restoration Project.
01:18:44
Speaker
I hope this conversation was enlightening and helps you feel more confident, inspired, and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
01:18:51
Speaker
If you have time, I'd love for you to leave us a review on iTunes, social media, or anywhere you see fit.
01:18:56
Speaker
The more people that share this, the more people will feel comfortable having these conversations and doing what's best for our kids.
01:19:01
Speaker
I hope the coming months are enlightening and we all take a step forward to finding our own purpose as well as helping our students find theirs.