Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #559 Learnership With James Anderson: How to Create Skilful Learners

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#559 Learnership With James Anderson: How to Create Skilful Learners · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers.
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Speaker 2: Now. Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson, and welcome to
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Speaker 2: the Happy Families Podcast. Today we're picking up on a
0:16
Speaker 2: conversation that we had a few weeks ago, maybe five
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Speaker 2: or six weeks ago now with James Anderson. If you
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Speaker 2: missed it, we will link to it in the show notes.
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Speaker 2: It was I think a really important conversation for any
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Speaker 2: parent of children, who kids who are struggling, kids who
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Speaker 2: aren't quite sure about their learning, or kids who avoid
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Speaker 2: doing things that are hard because they don't want to
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Speaker 2: do hard things. And it's not necessarily because they're lacking motivation.
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Speaker 2: It may be more to do with mindset. James Anderson
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Speaker 2: works with schools, James works with parents. He's a speaker,
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Speaker 2: an author, and educator, and he knows about kids and learning.
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Speaker 2: So I'm really excited to have him back on the podcast. James,
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Speaker 2: thanks for joining me again to talk about kids and
0:55
Speaker 2: their learning.
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Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure to be here again, Justin.
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Speaker 2: So I want to have a conversation today about this
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Speaker 2: idea that you've developed called learnership. We hear all the
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Speaker 2: time about things like leadership. But learnership is this concept
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Speaker 2: that you've developed to help kids be skillful learners. Help
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Speaker 2: us to understand this and white matters.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, learnership is one of these things we don't
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Speaker 1: intuitively understand that I'll put it. Let me put it
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Speaker 1: this way. A mentor of mind described thinking and learning
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Speaker 1: to me this way. That we all learn to move
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Speaker 1: like as a young child. We crawl when we're ready,
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Speaker 1: we stand up and walk when we're ready, and we
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Speaker 1: can all move naturally, and we all learn naturally as well.
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Speaker 1: You know, we come along, we learn how to feed ourselves,
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Speaker 1: we learn how to talk and do all the rest
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Speaker 1: of it. But some of us, as we grow, learn
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Speaker 1: to become very graceful, very powerful, very coordinated movers, and
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Speaker 1: while some of the rest of us go through life
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Speaker 1: stumbling through the world and bumping into the door frames
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Speaker 1: with two left feet. And the same is true of learning.
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Speaker 1: That while we can all naturally learn, some of us
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Speaker 1: learn very skillfully, very effectively. We train ourselves to be
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Speaker 1: more effective in the skill of learning. And it's that
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Speaker 1: idea to think about learning not just as something we do,
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Speaker 1: but rather as something we do well to get better
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Speaker 1: at the process of getting better that this idea of
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Speaker 1: learnership is all about.
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Speaker 2: So let's imagine that there's a parent who's listened to
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Speaker 2: this podcast who has a child who hates learning, who says,
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Speaker 2: I don't want to learn. Now, I don't believe that
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Speaker 2: because they might not want to learn at school, but
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Speaker 2: they're pretty excited about learning on the soccer pitch, or
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Speaker 2: they're really excited about learning about Pokemon, or they're really
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Speaker 2: excited about learning about something. It's just the school stuff
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Speaker 2: that they're not drawn to. How do we help that
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Speaker 2: parent to engage a child in learning, especially when the
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Speaker 2: child doesn't seem to have any interest in the learning
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Speaker 2: that we as a society have deemed essential for that
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Speaker 2: child to learn.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well that question is probably related back to our
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Speaker 1: last podcast where we talked about mindset. So the kid
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Speaker 1: with a fixed mindset thinks learning is about discovering their abilities,
3:03
Speaker 1: whereas the kid with a growth mindset understands that learning
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Speaker 1: is about creating their abilities. And once you understand that
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Speaker 1: learning is about creating changing yourself, not about finding out
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Speaker 1: if you're good at maths, but becoming good at maths,
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Speaker 1: then the next sensible question to ask is, well, how
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Speaker 1: do I get good at becoming what I want to become.
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Speaker 1: And so the first thing we can do as parents
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Speaker 1: is start having that conversation, not just about what you're
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Speaker 1: learning at school. Like when children come home from school,
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Speaker 1: we say what did you learn today?
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Speaker 2: Nothing? I learned nothing at all.
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Speaker 1: That's an whole other conversation. But rather than having that conversation,
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Speaker 1: ask the question, how did you learn today? What were
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Speaker 1: you doing today as you were trying to learn? For example,
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Speaker 1: when I talk about learnership, one of the characteristics I
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Speaker 1: talk about is our relationship to challenge, and this is
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Speaker 1: connected to our mindsets. Staff that some kids, when they
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Speaker 1: are confronted with challenges, will avoid them altogether, and that's
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Speaker 1: often a mindset issue. They think the challenge is going
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Speaker 1: to measure and judge them. Some students will accept a
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Speaker 1: challenge up to the point that they know they can succeed.
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Speaker 1: They'll do their best. This is what I call a
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Speaker 1: performance learner. These are the children you've probably come across
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Speaker 1: that like to go to dah, look what I can do,
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Speaker 1: Look what I can do. But as soon as you say,
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Speaker 1: try this slightly hard thing, they'll go, no, I can't
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Speaker 1: do the thing they can do?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they avoid what they can't do
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Speaker 2: and they approach what they can do that's.
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Speaker 1: Right, and there's lots of research around how kids know
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Speaker 1: where that is. Some students will be compliant, you know,
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Speaker 1: they'll attempt to challenge that the teacher gives them and
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Speaker 1: just sort of walk through being led through the learning
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Speaker 1: process by the teacher. Some students, as you get a
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Speaker 1: better relationship with challenge, will start to target their own challenge,
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Speaker 1: set their own goals, so I want to get here.
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Speaker 1: Rather than the teachers saying this is where we're going,
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Speaker 1: the student will say, this is where I want to go.
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Speaker 1: But really, really skillful learners start embracing challenges. They embrace
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Speaker 1: challenges in the spirit of JFK when he's talking about
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Speaker 1: the moon landings and he said, we do these things
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Speaker 1: not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
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Speaker 1: That they know that every time they challenge themselves, they
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Speaker 1: change themselves, and that these learners that I call non learners,
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Speaker 1: the ones that are not accepting challenges at all. They
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Speaker 1: go through a class or the day they starts, day finishes,
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Speaker 1: they've produced nothing, and they're the same the students that
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Speaker 1: follow the teachers instruction or just do their best the
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Speaker 1: day starts, they produce staff, but they stay the same
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Speaker 1: at the end of the day. The students that stretch
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Speaker 1: them challenge themselves that embrace challenges they start the day
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Speaker 1: they produce things, but they produce them in a way
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Speaker 1: that who they are. They grow as a result, and
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Speaker 1: they're the ones that when we talk about lifelong learners,
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Speaker 1: they're the ones that are really on that journey of
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Speaker 1: continuously growing because they're out there doing things because they
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Speaker 1: are hard.
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Speaker 2: Neurodiverse children are beautiful, but they also bring unique challenges
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Speaker 2: for parents and educators. The world does not always accommodate
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Speaker 2: them easily or well. Communication, affection, behavior, learning, and almost
6:32
Speaker 2: every other aspect of life can be challenging for the
6:34
Speaker 2: child and their families. The webinar A Parent's Guide to
6:38
Speaker 2: Autism by leading autism expert Michelle Garnett can help parents
6:42
Speaker 2: and educators strengthen the bond with their autistic children for
6:47
Speaker 2: better outcomes for children and families. A Parent's Guide to
6:50
Speaker 2: Autism is available at Happy Families dot com dot a U.
6:54
Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast of the type
6:56
Speaker 2: or parent who just wants answers Now My guest today
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Speaker 2: on the pod is is James Anderson. James works in
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Speaker 2: schools and with parents around issues related to helping our
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Speaker 2: children to become skillful learners, to move into what we
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Speaker 2: would typically call today a growth mindset. I may be
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Speaker 2: going off track just a little bit with this, James,
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Speaker 2: but as I hear you talk about this student, this
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Speaker 2: child who embraces challenge and who grows as a result,
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Speaker 2: versus kids who are perhaps less excited, less enthusiastic about
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Speaker 2: what challenges mean, there's part of me that is chafing
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Speaker 2: a little bit because of the way our school system
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Speaker 2: demands that all children participate in the same challenges. All
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Speaker 2: children have to do the same classes, they have to
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Speaker 2: follow the same curriculum. I love the concept that we
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Speaker 2: want our kids to embrace challenges, but why do they
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Speaker 2: all have to embrace the same challenges. Now that might
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Speaker 2: be beyond the scope of our conversation, but I wonder
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Speaker 2: if you have anything to say about individuality and helping
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Speaker 2: kids find and follow their own strengths and what that
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Speaker 2: can do to direc them in the path of that
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Speaker 2: lifelong learnership, that agility around learning, that growth that comes
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Speaker 2: from embracing challenge.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. I'll just challenge you a little bit
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Speaker 1: on the idea of find and follow their strengths, that
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Speaker 1: that concept when we talk about finding and following your
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Speaker 1: strengths is one of discovering your abilities. It's actually quite
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Speaker 1: a fixed mindset concept. And what I would suggest to
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Speaker 1: you is that the way we want to talk to
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Speaker 1: our children is to have them choose what they want
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Speaker 1: to become rather than discover what they have, and therefore
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Speaker 1: can only be this choose what things you want to become.
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Speaker 1: To do that, you've got to get this relationship with challenge.
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Speaker 1: And I think this is where the essence of your
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Speaker 1: question comes in, because you're right the system. We could
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Speaker 1: change the system and allow students to negotiate curriculum and
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Speaker 1: all sorts of things, and we would probably have to
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Speaker 1: have a much longer podcast to talk about.
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Speaker 2: The This is not the two hour podcast for the
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Speaker 2: time a free parent, the parent who's got lots of time.
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Speaker 2: It doesn't need any answers in a hurry.
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Speaker 1: The two hour summary of how we fix the education system.
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Speaker 1: But I think we can talk about something here that
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Speaker 1: will be of benefit to answering your question, answer your
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Speaker 1: listeners as well. One of the things that learner who's
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Speaker 1: out there embracing challenges, choosing to become who they want
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Speaker 1: or need to be, understands is what it feels like
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Speaker 1: to be in their learning zone. You mentioned at the
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Speaker 1: start of the podcast about the child who runs away
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Speaker 1: from challenge, that doesn't want to put the effit in
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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And part of the reason is
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Speaker 1: that they expect things to be easy or hard, and
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Speaker 1: if it's hard, it's going to be hard today, it's
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Speaker 1: going to be hard tomorrow, the next day, the next day,
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Speaker 1: the next day. And who wants to do that? So
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Speaker 1: what they do is they go, all right, I'll do fine,
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Speaker 1: find the things that are easy for me. And so
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Speaker 1: to help our children through that, we need them to
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Speaker 1: understand what it feels like to be in their learning zone.
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Speaker 1: Let me explain that concept. You've heard about the comfort zone.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's where there is no growth, but gee,
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Speaker 2: it's a nice place to be from time to time.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, But there's a big misunderstanding about our comfort zone.
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Speaker 1: We hear parents and educators people talk about, you know,
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Speaker 1: you've got to get outside your comfort zone, do something new,
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Speaker 1: do something different. But your comfort zone is full of
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Speaker 1: things that you've mastered a long time ago. But it's
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Speaker 1: also full of things that are what I call easy
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Speaker 1: things you haven't done yet. All right, the world is
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Speaker 1: full of easy things you haven't done yet. Now let
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Speaker 1: me put you on the spot. Do you know you're
10:41
Speaker 1: fifteen times tables justin.
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Speaker 2: I've never practiced them before, but I reckon I could
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Speaker 2: nail it if I had to. We've got fifteen thirty,
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Speaker 2: forty five, sixty seventy five, ninety, one hundred and five,
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Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty five, one
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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty.
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Speaker 1: There we go, Oh someone showing off?
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Speaker 2: There you go. I don't know how I did that.
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Speaker 2: I've never practiced that before.
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Speaker 1: But it was you never had the time to learn it. Normally,
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Speaker 1: I say to people, if I gave you a day,
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Speaker 1: would you be able to learn them? And they go, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I could do that in a day. You've done it
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Speaker 1: in ten seconds. But the point is, as an adult,
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Speaker 1: we've got the ability to go away and do it.
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Speaker 1: Would only take time. Sure we can know with confidence
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Speaker 1: at the end of that amount of time we would
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Speaker 1: do it with one hundred percent accuracies, well within my
11:23
Speaker 1: current abilities. The point here is that your comfort zone
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Speaker 1: is full of those things that are easy, things you
11:29
Speaker 1: haven't done yet. And a lot of people think that
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Speaker 1: I'll do something new, and some things I do and
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Speaker 1: new are going to be easy. And that's getting outside
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Speaker 1: your comfort zone. It's not Your next sort of level
11:42
Speaker 1: up is doing your best, doing your performance, and that's
11:45
Speaker 1: where you draw on all your resources. You do your
11:47
Speaker 1: current best, and we love our best because again we
11:50
Speaker 1: can be confident, and that's ability to produce that standard.
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Speaker 1: But you don't get better by doing your best. You
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Speaker 1: get better by stretching and challenging yourself to go just
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Speaker 1: beyond your current best. It's what psychologists sometimes called the
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Speaker 1: zone of proximal development.
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Speaker 2: That's right, Levvygotsky's idea of the zone of just a
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Speaker 2: bit more than what you're comfortable with right now.
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Speaker 1: That's right. And I've never seen a child proximately develop,
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Speaker 1: so I call it a learning zone. But it's the
12:19
Speaker 1: same thing. And the point there is that as you
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Speaker 1: go beyond your current best, you feel uncomfortable, you feel uncertain.
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Speaker 1: And for that child who thinks that learning is about
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Speaker 1: discovering their abilities, they're going, well, that's the limit of
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Speaker 1: my abilities. I can't go there. And they rush straight
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Speaker 1: back to the comfort the certainty of their comfort and
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Speaker 1: performance zones. And what happens then is that you learn
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Speaker 1: to fear going into your learning zone. The relationship that
12:50
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is to get to understand, to
12:53
Speaker 1: get to know your learning zone. And so one of
12:56
Speaker 1: the things we talk about is identifying those times when
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Speaker 1: it's okay to be in your comfort and performance zones.
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Speaker 1: So sometimes we want to do breadth work, we need
13:05
Speaker 1: to perform and do the things well, but we need
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Speaker 1: to know other times when actually, today we're going into
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Speaker 1: that learning zone and to expect that it's going to
13:15
Speaker 1: feel like struggle, it's going to feel uncertain, it's going
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Speaker 1: to feel i'd say seven out of ten uncomfortable, not
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Speaker 1: ten out of ten, just like unsure and uncertain, and
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Speaker 1: that we're going to have to put that effort in there,
13:28
Speaker 1: because the effort is the cost of growth. You see,
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Speaker 1: we talked about the kids who go, well it's hard,
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Speaker 1: I'll stop. They think, if this next step is hard,
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Speaker 1: the next step is going to be harder. The next
13:41
Speaker 1: step is going to be harder again, the step after
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Speaker 1: that is and of course they give up. Who wants
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Speaker 1: to go down that path. But someone with a growth
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Speaker 1: mindset recognizes that it's only hard until you make it easy.
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Speaker 1: You invest the effort, and the thing that used to
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Speaker 1: be hard becomes easy.
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Speaker 2: Ralph Edison said that which we persist in doing becomes
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Speaker 2: easy for us to do, not that the nature of
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Speaker 2: the thing itself has changed, but that our power to
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Speaker 2: do has increased.
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Speaker 1: That's right. And the people think that hardness difficulty is
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Speaker 1: a property of the problem, it's not a property of
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Speaker 1: the problem at all. It's a property of or the
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Speaker 1: relationship between our current abilities and the problem. And if
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Speaker 1: we raise our current abilities, the thing that used to
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Speaker 1: be hard becomes easy. And so what I'm wanting parents
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Speaker 1: to do and teach us to do is to talk
14:28
Speaker 1: about what it feels like to be in your learning
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Speaker 1: zone and to help students understand or children understand that
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Speaker 1: being in your learning zone, that struggle that we feel,
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Speaker 1: that uncertainty, that this comfort we feel is a temporary feeling,
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Speaker 1: not a permanent one. The price of growth is struggle
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Speaker 1: and effort, and once we pay the price, once we
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Speaker 1: go through the right type of effort, we grow and
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Speaker 1: the things that used to be hard become easy.
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Speaker 2: James I. Conversation. I'm sure that parents are sitting here
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Speaker 2: going yes, yes, I just need my children to understand it,
15:04
Speaker 2: because this is a podcast for a time for parents
15:07
Speaker 2: who just want answers. Are there any specific ways that
15:11
Speaker 2: parents can talk to their kids in like a minute
15:13
Speaker 2: or less, Things that they can say to their kids
15:16
Speaker 2: when they're saying I can't it's too hard, don't want
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Speaker 2: to know what comparents do and say to help them
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Speaker 2: to get into that zone of proximal development, to get
15:24
Speaker 2: into that learning zone, to become agile learners, kids who
15:28
Speaker 2: love the challenge because they know it's going to stretch them,
15:30
Speaker 2: grow them, and then make something that was hard easy.
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Speaker 1: All right, So two things I think i'd suggest. One
15:36
Speaker 1: is what we've just been talking about, to recognize that
15:39
Speaker 1: you need to get comfortable with that discomfort, that that
15:42
Speaker 1: struggle is a part of the process of growth, and
15:46
Speaker 1: that that struggle is a temporary thing in the moment.
15:50
Speaker 1: Particularly if those students are on the low growth end
15:53
Speaker 1: of the continuum, they're probably not going to buy that.
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Speaker 1: Repeat the message though, helps. The second thing is to
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Speaker 1: help them recognize where that's occurred in the past, to
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Speaker 1: recognize their own backstory, to say, think back to the
16:08
Speaker 1: last hard thing you did. How easy is that now?
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Speaker 1: And to recognize that struggle has paid off in the past,
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Speaker 1: it'll pay off again in the future. Yeah, I love it.
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Speaker 2: Can I throw in a third one that just popped
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Speaker 2: into my head as you were saying that. I think
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Speaker 2: it's useful for us as parents world to highlight I'm
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Speaker 2: no good at this, but guess what I've been working
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Speaker 2: on it, and look what I can do when they
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Speaker 2: see you struggling with stuff. And I love that quote.
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Speaker 2: I love what you said, Effort is the price of growth.
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Speaker 2: Brilliant when they see us putting in the effort so
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Speaker 2: that we can grow. Surely that example's got to be
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Speaker 2: worth something.
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Speaker 1: We could have another whole podcast on the idea of effort.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps save that for another day.
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Speaker 2: Hey, James, if people want more from you, whether they're
16:48
Speaker 2: parents or maybe their school leaders who would love to
16:52
Speaker 2: bring you on board so that you can have a
16:53
Speaker 2: chat with them and their educators or parents who want
16:55
Speaker 2: your resources, Where do they go?
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Speaker 1: What do they do? Yeah? Just jump onto my website
17:00
Speaker 1: James Anderson dot com dot au slash Parenting for the
17:03
Speaker 1: Parents and you can jump onto my blog there I've
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Speaker 1: got a whole lot of downloadable resources, and I run
17:08
Speaker 1: regular workshops of parents as well to help them unlimit
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Speaker 1: their child, develop growth mindsets and develop their learnership in
17:14
Speaker 1: the school.
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Speaker 2: Useful and valuable conversation, James Anderson. What a treat to
17:19
Speaker 2: have that conversation. Thanks so much for joining us. The
17:21
Speaker 2: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
17:24
Speaker 2: Craig Bruce is our executive producer and if you would
17:28
Speaker 2: like more resources to make your family happier, why not
17:31
Speaker 2: check out a Happy Families membership. All the details at
17:33
Speaker 2: happy families dot com dot au