Latest / C3 Connecting, Coaches, Cognition / Engagement Is Not a Unicorn—It's a Narwhal: Real Strategies for Real Classrooms
Transcript
- 0:00Music.
- 0:15Welcome back to another episode of C3. I'm Courtney Groskin, and I'm here with...
- 0:20You heard that right. I'm here by myself today. Unfortunately,
- 0:23Violet has decided to step away from C3.
- 0:26All that coaching we did around work-life balance, Violet realized that she
- 0:30needed to spend more time at home with her girls. We wish her the best.
- 0:33Be sure to tune in next month to find out who my new co-host is.
- 0:37Let's get back to our regularly scheduled content. We're so fortunate to have
- 0:40Dr. Heather Lyon join us today.
- 0:43Dr. Heather Lyon has a PhD in educational administration and a master's in reading
- 0:49from the University of Buffalo.
- 0:50She is a consultant, speaker, and author, blogger, and superintendent.
- 0:54Heather's books include Engagement is Not a Unicorn, It's a Narwhal,
- 0:58The Big Book of Engagement Strategies, and 50 Ways to Engage Students with Google Apps.
- 1:03Welcome to C3, Heather. Heather, welcome to C3 Podcast. We are thrilled to have
- 1:10here to be able to engage in this conversation for our listeners. How are you doing today?
- 1:15I'm really excited to be here. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.
- 1:19We are just excited to be able to share this. I even shared the name of one
- 1:23of your books today with a colleague and they were like, what?
- 1:25No, it makes me want to pick it up.
- 1:27So we're excited to share you with our listeners and we'll dive right in.
- 1:31Will you start by just telling us about your background and how you have gotten
- 1:34to where you are right now.
- 1:36Yeah, I was the kid who wanted to be a writer and went to school to get a degree in English.
- 1:43And I needed to not live with my parents for the rest of my life.
- 1:47So teaching was the backup plan. In truth, I was really lucky because my cooperating
- 1:52teacher, my first one, her passion for teaching was contagious.
- 1:56And so I realized that, oh, wait, I want to be an English teacher.
- 2:02And they get to assign people what they want to read and write about.
- 2:07So I was like, oh, I could totally do this. And then I needed a new backup plan.
- 2:12And so administration became the new backup plan.
- 2:16And honestly, I've spent much more of my career being an administrator,
- 2:21several different titles, and now I'm a superintendent, which is really exciting.
- 2:26But I've been a staff developer, a teacher, coordinator, you name it.
- 2:32I've probably done it in education, 3K through.
- 2:37I also teach education.
- 2:39People working on an additional master's, and I teach curriculum leadership with them.
- 2:45So I've worn many hats, and I actually did become a writer.
- 2:50So that's what brings me to you today.
- 2:52So that came about very quickly because I had been trained in doing classroom
- 3:02observations, and people were talking to me about engagement at the time.
- 3:08And that got my wheels turning. I started talking to people about what my wheels
- 3:13were turning about. And they said, oh, where did you get that?
- 3:16And I said, no, no, no, that's mine. And they said, you should write a book.
- 3:19And when you are somebody who wanted to be an author, that's all you need.
- 3:23Somebody to tell you, you should write a book.
- 3:26So that's what got me here today. Well, we're so glad that you wrote that book
- 3:31so we can have this wonderful conversation with you.
- 3:35Your book, Engagement is Not a Unicorn, It's a Narwhal, reframes the concept
- 3:39of engagement in such a memorable way.
- 3:41What inspired you to choose a narwhal and what does the metaphor mean for educators
- 3:45working to foster true engagement?
- 3:48So for your listeners, not everybody does know what a narwhal is.
- 3:53So a narwhal looks like a dolphin and a unicorn had a baby.
- 3:58It's a mammal swimming around in our oceans right now.
- 4:02And you've probably seen it on a three-year-old's t-shirt or if you've seen the movie Elf.
- 4:09And so the idea is that a narwhal is a real thing.
- 4:14And yet some people don't believe that it's a real thing, just like engagement is a real thing.
- 4:21But if you think of engagement as students standing up and applauding for you
- 4:24at the end of a lesson, then that's a unicorn. That's a mythical thing.
- 4:30And really what had happened was I started writing the book, the manuscript, which,
- 4:36And it's sequential in that it talks about continuum of engagement.
- 4:41And there are four levels.
- 4:44So noncompliant, compliant, interested, and absorbed.
- 4:48So in the book, it's sequentially talking about what does it mean to be noncompliant?
- 4:52What does it mean to be compliant?
- 4:54What does it mean to be interested? What does it mean to be absorbed?
- 4:58And then it goes into not just the what, but the so what and the now what.
- 5:02And I got to the part in the book where I started to think about,
- 5:08well, what does it mean to be absorbed in a classroom?
- 5:10And I kind of hit a wall because I knew what absorption looked like outside of classrooms.
- 5:16But in classrooms, absorption is actually quite rare.
- 5:21And I set
- 5:24the manuscript aside and I was running
- 5:27that summer and so I had time
- 5:30to think and I was thinking about it like well maybe I don't know what I'm talking
- 5:36about maybe absorption doesn't exist inside of schools and I was like no no
- 5:42it's a narwhal it's real it's out there you just have to know where to look and what to look for.
- 5:49And it's not a unicorn, this mythical thing. It's a real thing.
- 5:54And actually, Dave Burgess, who wrote Teach Like a Pirate, I had been in communication
- 6:01with him when I was in the early stages of writing the book.
- 6:05And then I reached out to him when I finished the manuscript.
- 6:09And I was telling him about this concept of the novel because it didn't yet
- 6:13really have a title. And he was like, you got that kit.
- 6:16Like, he goes, I can picture so many people like in an audience wearing like
- 6:22the narwhal horn on their head.
- 6:26So really, he inspired me to make sure that narwhal was in the title.
- 6:32It's such a great catching title. I mean, I you can't I don't think there's
- 6:36another title out there to rival that.
- 6:39Thank you it's such a great hook thank you
- 6:43so much i it's not necessarily
- 6:46the most telling title but the
- 6:51book is pretty descriptive so i can hook people with the title and then i can
- 6:56dive into the deeper things in the book and i really appreciate you laying out
- 7:01the different levels of engagement i think that's something a lot of educators
- 7:05and administrators looking for engagement in a classroom struggle with.
- 7:08It's either there or it's not, it seems like, in an observation.
- 7:11But there's a continuum of levels here of what to look for in students.
- 7:17That was the big aha, I think, is that rather than being like an on-off switch
- 7:24on a wall, it's more like a dimmer switch.
- 7:27And so you can be a little bit engaged or a little bit disengaged or a lot of one or the other.
- 7:34And so that's why that continuum is so important. And I felt like a rock star
- 7:38when I really conceptualized those four levels.
- 7:42But as an educator it's not enough to
- 7:45understand oh yeah okay so sure compliant
- 7:49is better than non-compliant interested is better than
- 7:51compliant absorbed is better than interested but as an educator what do I do
- 7:57in order to help somebody shift from one level of engagement to another level
- 8:02it's so powerful and I I completely agree with the narwhal analogy of being
- 8:08just so clear and I love you bringing it back to that.
- 8:11It is something real, but sometimes it feels unattainable and we have to,
- 8:15you being able to share your wrestling with your efficacy and some of those things as well.
- 8:19I laugh, my daughter has always called it a unicorn hopper.
- 8:22So instead of a narwhal at our house, it's called a unicorn hopper from very
- 8:26old stuffy from long ago.
- 8:28But it just, as soon as I saw that title, I read it to my daughter and she goes,
- 8:31oh my gosh, a unicorn hopper coaching book. This is great, mom.
- 8:35So you're enticing even the next generation of educators possibly.
- 8:39And we want to drill in and share even more of your work and a little deeper understanding.
- 8:45In the big book of engagement strategies, you had collaborated with other educators
- 8:50to offer over 50 strategies.
- 8:52Now, obviously, we don't have time for all of those, but can you highlight one
- 8:56or two of those that have personally surprised you in your terms of impact and
- 8:59why did they impact you in such a way that they did? Yeah.
- 9:04So I just want to point out that the big book of engagement strategies really
- 9:10came as I was writing, Engagement is Not a Unicorn, It's a Narwhal.
- 9:15I had all of these strategies in mind.
- 9:18And I was like, the book is already pretty big.
- 9:21I think I have enough strategies to be the start of another book.
- 9:26And the more I interact with people, the more I hear these great things that
- 9:30they're doing that I want to be able to share with others.
- 9:33So furthermore, the contributors to the big book of engagement strategies are practitioners.
- 9:41And so it's really nice to see practitioners supporting other practitioners.
- 9:46So I just want to say the big book of engagement strategies, my name's on the cover.
- 9:53There are dozens of people who contributed to the book and they deserve real recognition.
- 10:00I want to point out, I'm a big, so,
- 10:04okay, let's back this up just a moment because I talked about the engagement
- 10:09continuum and I alluded to that there are leverage points that would shift somebody
- 10:16from one direction to another.
- 10:17If it's all right, if I could dive into kind of what those levers are.
- 10:23Absolutely. Please. Okay. So you need to envision a four-pane window.
- 10:32So I've never met a two-by-two matrix I don't like.
- 10:36It's a great graphic organizer of thinking.
- 10:40So along the bottom of this window, going horizontally, is somebody's relationship to the task.
- 10:49Do they want to do it or don't they want to do it? And that's really the first
- 10:53question you need to ask somebody in order to determine whether or not they're
- 10:57engaged. So that's a leverage point.
- 10:59Do you want to do it? Don't you want to do it? That's pretty simple.
- 11:02And if somebody wants to do it, they're either going to be interested or they're
- 11:06going to be absorbed. Those are your two options.
- 11:09If they don't want to do it, they're going to be non-compliant or compliant.
- 11:15So how do you shift somebody?
- 11:17Well, that's the vertical axis.
- 11:21And the vertical axis is the relationship to the person assigning the task or
- 11:28the consequence, neutral term, positive or negative, for doing the task.
- 11:32So somebody who is non-compliant in this window frame, their bottom left,
- 11:39And so noncompliant people, they don't want to do the task.
- 11:43They don't care about the consequence, positive or negative, for doing the task.
- 11:46And they don't care about the relationship between themselves and the person assigning the task.
- 11:52So my classic example is I'm not taking out the garbage. I don't want to take
- 11:57out the garbage. I don't like taking out the garbage. I'm not doing it.
- 12:00But if grandma asked me to take out the garbage, I mean, I love grandma.
- 12:05I'm not going to let grandma down. I'll take out the garbage.
- 12:08So I'll shift from non-compliant to compliant because of that relationship.
- 12:13And teachers see that, right?
- 12:15When they're talking to other teachers and they're like, wait,
- 12:18that kid is doing their work for you? You're like, yeah, wait,
- 12:22they're not doing their work for you.
- 12:25It's about the relationship sometimes.
- 12:28Sometimes it's about the negative consequence. I don't want to take out the
- 12:32garbage, but you tell me that you are going to find me money if I don't take
- 12:37out the garbage. I'm doing it.
- 12:39I'm not going to pay you $10 because I don't take out the garbage.
- 12:43And then the last option is I don't want to take out the garbage,
- 12:46but you're going to pay me to take out the garbage. Okay, I will shift from
- 12:51noncompliant to compliant because I'm going to do it for this reward.
- 12:55Now, let's not get it twisted.
- 12:58Somebody who is compliant does not enjoy the task any more than somebody who is noncompliant.
- 13:05What they enjoy is either the relationship, the positive consequence,
- 13:10or the lack of negative consequence that they are receiving because they're doing it.
- 13:16So that is really critical to understanding how all of these different strategies work.
- 13:22Because if you are working with somebody who is noncompliant,
- 13:25it is a victory to get them to be compliant.
- 13:28So what are the things that you could work on if somebody is noncompliant?
- 13:32You can work on your relationship with them.
- 13:34You can work on the negative consequence or you can work on the positive consequence
- 13:38or some combination thereof.
- 13:41And so I personally like to build relationships with people.
- 13:44So one of the strategies that I really like is just, it's in the big book of
- 13:50engagement strategies.
- 13:52I call them caught tickets. And I literally catch people doing good things.
- 13:57It's a really brief handwritten.
- 14:00It used to be handwritten. Now I type it or whatever, but I send people,
- 14:04I say, this week I caught you being good when you did this thing.
- 14:07And it reinforces the behavior that I want to see more of anyway.
- 14:11So it's a win-win. That small investment of time makes that person feel seen
- 14:17and valued for doing things that they were already doing anyway.
- 14:21So I really love that. Another quick strategy, and this one is to go from compliant to interested.
- 14:30I'm a huge fan of this strategy. It's the almost some learning targets where
- 14:36you differentiate the learning target itself so the people who are doing the
- 14:41work understand what's expected of them.
- 14:44So in the learning target, all students do this really basic thing.
- 14:49And this really basic thing is really what would be on a four point scale, most likely a two.
- 14:55So the kids who can't do this all thing, they're really a level one.
- 15:00The kids who can only do this are a level two. Now, most students should be
- 15:04able to do the bump up from that.
- 15:06Those are the level three kids. And then in the learning target itself,
- 15:10almost some students will aim for this highest level.
- 15:15And if you can achieve that highest level, you get the level four,
- 15:18which is above expectation. So I really love it because it's a great way to
- 15:23differentiate and not a heavy lift.
- 15:26And the reason why this is a shift from non-compliant to compliant is because
- 15:33it crosses that threshold into choice and voice, which is the easiest way.
- 15:39People always ask me, you know, what advice do you have? What's the easy takeaway?
- 15:44How do you get people to be engaged? Well, remember, the lowest level of engagement is interested.
- 15:51Interested is top right. Top right means I like the task and I need some relationship
- 15:58or consequence in order to do the task.
- 16:01Because when the bell rings, interested kids hear the bell and leave.
- 16:06Absorbed kids don't hear the bell.
- 16:08You have to, you know, push them out.
- 16:12Absorbed kids are the kids who come back to you the next day and they tell you
- 16:16all about this, you know, hole that they have drilled deeply into this thing
- 16:21that they're learning about.
- 16:22So my point here with this is that Interested is actually the place I encourage
- 16:28folks to target in all classes every day.
- 16:32Absorbed, I've never met anybody who's absorbed in everything.
- 16:35And so absorption is the place you visit, not the place you live.
- 16:40So target interested and, and this is a great way to achieve that. And then lastly,
- 16:47I'll just say the last strategy in, or no, hold on.
- 16:55Yeah, the last strategy in the big book of engagement strategies is room to breathe.
- 17:03And again, this is for people looking for absorption, like this could really get it.
- 17:09But the concept of room to breathe, and it's by Erin Quinn and Tara VanderTorn out of Canada.
- 17:17They talk about it as inhaling and exhaling.
- 17:21So inhales are texts and other things that you would take in and input and exhaling
- 17:29is what the students would produce.
- 17:32And I really love that dynamic relationship in learning because so often kids
- 17:40feel so passive and that passivity causes disengagement.
- 17:45So when you have this inhale, take this in and this exhale, what are you going
- 17:50to produce based off of what you are inhaling?
- 17:53And giving students the choice in what that exhale looks like is just really
- 18:00powerful and dynamic. Highly recommend it.
- 18:03Those are some great tangible ways for classroom teachers to start making this shift.
- 18:08What are some ways instructional coaches can help teachers move students into
- 18:12a higher level of engagement?
- 18:14So quite honestly, this framework is not a school-based framework that I've developed.
- 18:23It is a human-based framework that I've developed. And you do not have to be
- 18:29pre-K through 12 in order to experience non-compliance, compliance,
- 18:34interest, and absorption.
- 18:35I am sure that there are lots of things that, unfortunately,
- 18:40professionals have to do where they're like, I'd rather not.
- 18:46Paperwork, grading, I mean, fill in the blank, right?
- 18:50So I think about coaches and the work that they're doing.
- 18:54And I invite them to use this framework and thinking about the work that they're
- 18:59doing with the adults to help adults garner deeper engagement with what it is they're doing.
- 19:06And again, the easiest way to think about this is through choice and voice.
- 19:11There are certainly states and school districts that are more rigid in terms
- 19:18of what teachers are required to do or assessments they're required to administer.
- 19:26But more often than not, it is a an outcome standard with so many different
- 19:34mechanisms to achieve that standard.
- 19:37And we paint ourselves into a corner of doing things one way.
- 19:42And I was an English teacher once upon a time. And I would assign, you know.
- 19:49120 students the same essay prompt, and then wonder why I was crying as I was
- 19:57creating it because of the monotony of having to read the same thing 120 different ways.
- 20:05And it would have taken me very little to think about the standard of what the
- 20:12expected learning outcome was, devise two,
- 20:17three, four different ways that students could have demonstrated that learning standard outcome,
- 20:24and they would have been more engaged just through the function of their choice,
- 20:28and I would have been more engaged just because I wasn't reading the same thing 120 different times.
- 20:35I do want to say, here's the difference between choice and voice,
- 20:39because we use these terms, right? But do we really know what they mean?
- 20:42So imagine, Courtney, that it is your birthday. Happy birthday, Courtney.
- 20:48And I asked you, where would you like to go for dinner?
- 20:52And just for the ease of this experiment right now, you are going to say, name a fast food place.
- 20:59So Courtney, where are we going to go for your birthday dinner?
- 21:02Taco Bell. Fabulous. Taco Bell it is.
- 21:05So Courtney had voice into
- 21:09where we were going and now I'm going to give her
- 21:12choice when because she at Taco
- 21:15Bell cannot order a Big Mac so she no longer has voice when she gets to the
- 21:21menu she is choosing the options so voice is where do you want to go choice
- 21:26is what are you going to select off of that menu and so the best and easiest way to insert,
- 21:35Voice is actually easier to offer people because you say, here are these three choices.
- 21:40The fourth option is you tell me what you want to do that would still achieve
- 21:45this outcome and let them decide.
- 21:48So that's the difference between choice and voice. And those two pieces are game changers,
- 21:53both for the students, but also the adult who can feel very disengaged doing
- 22:01the same thing repetitively,
- 22:03especially when it is something that the standard or the performance or whatever
- 22:10has low levels of choice for the adult.
- 22:14I appreciate how you illuminate that voice and choice both with students and
- 22:18with educators and how really we're trying to do the same thing and it helps
- 22:22to enhance the relationship when you do that.
- 22:24So it's only going to help with that first piece because in everything in you
- 22:27were speaking, you start with those
- 22:28levers and you always go back to the relationship and the starting there.
- 22:32And that's where we build that solid foundation for good teaching and learning, right?
- 22:36So I appreciate you bringing that to the forefront again. Thank you.
- 22:40So I'm sure we have a lot of teachers hooked. Other than reading the book, where can they start?
- 22:45What's one practical step that they could try tomorrow if they want to make
- 22:48an immediate difference in their classroom?
- 22:52Again, I know I sound like a broken record here, but honestly,
- 22:57first of all, start small. Do one thing.
- 23:03I am, like most teachers, I think we're all perfectionists.
- 23:07I think there's a solid, you know, thread of that woven through educators.
- 23:13I'm a recovering perfectionist.
- 23:16I like to introduce myself that way. Hi, I'm Heather.
- 23:20I was a perfectionist. And what I realized about perfectionism is that it does
- 23:25not give me joy. It gives me anxiety.
- 23:27And quite honestly, I don't like being anxious.
- 23:30And so what actually gives me joy is progress. I love progress.
- 23:37So progress means identifying what the starting, I'm sorry, what the finish
- 23:43line is that you're headed towards, but also how do you know the mile markers
- 23:48along the way in the marathon?
- 23:50Because when you are one mile into a 26.2 mile race, like you have left the
- 23:58starting line. This is good news.
- 24:00But if all you're thinking about is I have 25.2 miles left, that is exceptionally discouraging.
- 24:09So I would say start small find
- 24:12one thing find one assignment this year that you can in the first marking period
- 24:19insert some level of choice in voice and see how it goes that would be a really
- 24:25small bite oh here's my here's my new next analogy I'm full of them.
- 24:32So let's go back it is now Violet's birthday happy birthday Okay.
- 24:39And yeah, let's imagine that I got you your most favorite yummy delicious birthday
- 24:47treat. What would that be, Violet?
- 24:49Harbour Gummy Bears. Really? Yes, that's my favorite treat.
- 24:54Okay. So let's imagine I bought you a one pound bag for your birthday treat.
- 25:01So does that sound enticing to you?
- 25:04Absolutely. Okay. Now, what if I told you you have to eat this entire one-pound bag in one bite?
- 25:10Do you still want these gummy bears? No. No, thank you.
- 25:16And what's important here about that is,
- 25:19People will refuse things that they want if it is not served to them in ways that are manageable.
- 25:29Resistance is generally not to the thing, it's to the how.
- 25:34And so if I told you, you have as long as you want to eat all of these bears.
- 25:39And or what if I told you over the course of this month, we're going to finish
- 25:44this bag, we're going to finish it together.
- 25:46You get to decide how much you want and you can share it with other people to
- 25:49lighten the load here because eating a pound of gummy bears in a month might
- 25:53be a lot. I don't know what your consumption is.
- 25:56I eat. I allow myself four at a four-first serving of these gummy bears.
- 26:01People make fun of me about my four gummy bears. But yeah.
- 26:05And then they get stale because I don't eat them quickly enough.
- 26:08And then I'm like, listen, it's worth chewing these stale gummy bears.
- 26:11So I think that it has negative calories because I'm burning more calories than I am consuming.
- 26:18Your gummy bear strategy. I love it. Yeah. I see a future book.
- 26:24Right. The gummy bear strategy.
- 26:29Oh, my goodness. But I love that analogy and thinking of it that way.
- 26:33And in my family, I always said you can't eat an elephant in one bite. So same idea,
- 26:37we have to go one step at a time and give ourselves some grace and honor that
- 26:40there's always a lot on an educator's plate and any one small shift to elevate
- 26:45that practice is a good shift and a good step forward, right? Yes.
- 26:50Well, let's shift just lightly here and let's go to our rapid fire question.
- 26:54So as in roughly 30 seconds to a minute or so, let us know what is one strategy
- 27:00every coach should have in their back pocket, according to you.
- 27:03I think some type of goal setting strategy with accountability.
- 27:08I'm a big fan of Jim Knight's peers, a goal setting strategy to make it personable or personal.
- 27:16But setting a goal is insufficient. You need somebody to help hold you accountable.
- 27:21And that's really the value of the coach.
- 27:23They get to see you doing the things that you don't get to see.
- 27:26And they're your partner in this. So when they're asking you, how's it going?
- 27:31They're asking you because they're there to help you achieve the things that you want to achieve.
- 27:37Absolutely. And having a thought partner is so powerful. And somehow,
- 27:41Jim Knight always finds his way into one question or another.
- 27:45So here's another episode. We'll put it on the tally board there,
- 27:48Courtney, of how many times we've looped back to Jim.
- 27:51But tell us one more here, Ms. Heather, is if you had 60 seconds with a brand
- 27:55new teacher, what's one thing that you would tell them?
- 27:59I would talk to them about the difference between motivation and engagement.
- 28:04We often use these terms synonymously, but they do not mean the same thing.
- 28:10Motivation is why we do what we do. Engagement is how we feel about what we're doing.
- 28:15So you can be highly motivated to do something that you're disengaged in.
- 28:19My classic example of this is paying taxes. So I am yet to meet anybody who
- 28:26is engaged in paying taxes.
- 28:28They may be engaged in doing taxes, but they're not engaged in paying taxes.
- 28:32But most people are highly motivated to do it.
- 28:36And when we confuse the difference between motivation and engagement,
- 28:42we are working on the wrong leverage point.
- 28:45And we're shifting. And that's where grades come in.
- 28:49Some other time I will digress into grades because grades and engagement work hand in hand.
- 28:54And I feel really strongly about this, but focus less on motivation,
- 29:00why somebody is doing what they're doing and focus on how they're feeling,
- 29:04which I know I'm long for 60 seconds. So I'll take a pause here.
- 29:10You're all good. You're all good. But I will circle back to a conversation that
- 29:15we had earlier in terms of engagement and motivation when we were talking about
- 29:22the levers that shift somebody from one point to another point,
- 29:27if the first question we're asking is,
- 29:31Does the person doing the task like what they're doing?
- 29:34Are they engaged? That's the first question. You know, do they like it?
- 29:39You cannot tell by looking whether or not somebody is compliant or interested.
- 29:46You have to talk to somebody.
- 29:49And because the person doing it, taking out the garbage because you're paying
- 29:54them $10 is different than the person who is doing it because they like a clean
- 29:58and tidy environment for themselves.
- 30:01They're both taking out the garbage they and
- 30:05this goes back to how I got started in this
- 30:08in the first place I was being trained
- 30:12as an administrator to go into people's classrooms
- 30:15and to walk through and I was doing I was being taught to do things like tally
- 30:21up the number of kids who are doing what they're told to do so I'm being taught
- 30:26this and then at the same time I had a coach who was coaching me about what
- 30:33engagement was supposed to look like,
- 30:35and she referred to it as brain sweat.
- 30:38She said, when you go into a gym in physical education class and kids are supposed
- 30:44to be moving, how do you know if they're doing it? Well, you can see it like they're sweating.
- 30:49You can see their sweat. So you might be able to smell it, sorry.
- 30:53But she said in a classroom that is not performance-based in that same way, how do you know?
- 31:01There should be brain sweat going on. The students should be doing the heavy lift.
- 31:06Well, I don't know if they're doing that lift. If they're doing the lift,
- 31:10like you can see the kids who aren't doing the lift, right?
- 31:13But just because you see somebody doing the work doesn't mean that they're engaged.
- 31:17It means they're doing it. It means they're at least compliant.
- 31:21And by the way, and this is one of the real dangers when it comes to looking
- 31:27at students who are doing the work.
- 31:31It's that teachers get very comfortable with having students picturely compliant
- 31:41and instructionally non-compliant.
- 31:45In other words, they're quiet.
- 31:48They're not disrupting class. They turned the book open to the page that they're supposed to.
- 31:54That's what I need them to do. They're not. And so these are kids who can quietly
- 32:00slip through the cracks.
- 32:02These are kids who can get.
- 32:05I was a I used to be an 11th grade honors English teacher.
- 32:10And some of the kids who I had in my 11th grade honors English class were really nice kids.
- 32:15They were exceptionally polite and respectful and they did their work.
- 32:20But that didn't mean that they were at the level that they needed to be in terms
- 32:25of the quality of their work.
- 32:28But because they had been behaviorally compliant in kindergarten,
- 32:35first, second, third, all the way up to 10th grade, they were put into this honors class.
- 32:41And I was expecting then in 11th grade that they would have skill that they didn't have.
- 32:45How did that happen? It happened because they were nice kids.
- 32:49They were good kids. And that's just as dangerous as a kid who we let sleep
- 32:56in the back of class because they're not being disruptive,
- 32:59even though they have opted out of the learning expectation and we're doing nothing about it.
- 33:06Kids deserve us to care about whether or not they're actually learning.
- 33:11Oh, what a beautiful sentiment to end that up and tie it with a bow.
- 33:15And we're just so grateful to share your expertise and your wealth of knowledge
- 33:19with our listeners. And we love that you had that whole full circle moment of
- 33:22trying all things in education and becoming your dream of a writer.
- 33:26So we'll be looking for your next book out. And make sure you let us know when
- 33:30you have something coming down the pike.
- 33:32Thank you. I would encourage you and your listeners to check out my blog.
- 33:37I write a weekly blog post during the school year. And so there's much more
- 33:43where this came from, and it's all free.
- 33:46That is fantastic. Thank you so much. You beat me to the third question of where
- 33:50can we learn more from and with you?
- 33:52That would be the best place. I do have a couple of contributions that are coming out soon.
- 33:59One is connected to engagement and AI.
- 34:03So that's a really interesting pathway, too.
- 34:07So thank you so much for having me and for the amazing work that you guys are
- 34:12putting out into this world.
- 34:13We're all better for it. Thank you. Thank you.
- 34:17Thank you to Heather for really making engagement strategies visible.
- 34:22How might you support teachers with student engagement? Thanks for listening to another episode of.
- 34:26Music.