Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest. He will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's great to have Colin Seal on the podcast. Colin
Speaker 1: was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to a
Speaker 1: single mother and an incarcerated father. He has always had
Speaker 1: a passion for educational equity. Tracked early into Gift and
Speaker 1: Talented programs, Colin was afforded opportunities his neighborhood peers were not.
Speaker 1: He founded think Wall, an award winning organization to help
Speaker 1: educators leverage inquiry based instructional strategies to close the critical
Speaker 1: thinking gap and ensure they teach and reach all students,
Speaker 1: regardless of race, zip code, or what side of the
Speaker 1: poverty line they were born into. When he's not serving
Speaker 1: as the world's most fervent critical thinking advocate, Colin broadly
Speaker 1: serves as the world's Greatest entertainer to his two little
Speaker 1: kiddos and a loving husband to his wife, Carrie Colin.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being on the podcast today. So
Speaker 1: excited to be here, Scott. I'm excited to chat with you.
Speaker 1: And that was an awesome bio by the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I like to kind of point this out as
Speaker 1: a caveat, just to start it all out with. When
Speaker 1: you think about going up in Brooklyn, New York and
Speaker 1: having a dad that was in trouble with the law,
Speaker 1: and having really not a lot of opportunities afford it,
Speaker 1: I think one thing that people miss out on is
Speaker 1: the extreme amount of joy that was a part of
Speaker 1: my childhood. When I was in first grade. For incident, Scott,
Speaker 1: I lived in a one bedom apartment with nine people.
Speaker 1: And that sounds crazy, that sounds like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: how'd you deal with that? But as a six year old,
Speaker 1: that's party time. That's always having adults to talk to,
Speaker 1: always having people that want to play with you and
Speaker 1: learn from. It was playing scrabble with my no holes
Speaker 1: barred uncles who didn't really care and like will push
Speaker 1: me and push me and push me to step on
Speaker 1: a vocabulary game up and it ended up being a
Speaker 1: huge part of what made me who I am today.
Speaker 1: So I always kind of say that because I know
Speaker 1: for the educators out there that are thinking about students
Speaker 1: that are going through all these troubles, I often ask
Speaker 1: them to do some reframing and think about what are
Speaker 1: the ways that what they are doing are actually setting
Speaker 1: them up for amazing levels of success in the future.
Speaker 1: So I always like to put that caveat out there
Speaker 1: whenever people kind of hear my background and hear about
Speaker 1: my story. Thanks Colin, I really appreciate you putting that out.
Speaker 1: You know, in the field of positive psychology where I work,
Speaker 1: we're really interested in kind of figuring out the various
Speaker 1: psychological factors and reframing and mindset and various things that
Speaker 1: can help bring those who are even you know, the
Speaker 1: most disadvantaged kind of feel like there's hope, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a reason to keep working hard. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the criticists of the field is that we
Speaker 1: shouldn't care about any of that. We should care about
Speaker 1: just the structural inequalities. And so I do want to
Speaker 1: discuss with you, like, you know, how can you know
Speaker 1: that's kind of false dichotomy, isn't it? First of all? Like,
Speaker 1: can't we care about both? And you know, how do
Speaker 1: you sort of view the situation? So it's so funny
Speaker 1: you say this, because this sounds a lot like the
Speaker 1: conversations between my wife and I, where you can say
Speaker 1: race is a social construct and just call it that,
Speaker 1: or you can actually do some things to help to
Speaker 1: address some of those inequities that are there. I honestly
Speaker 1: look at any type of challenge we see in our world, Scott,
Speaker 1: whether it's a challenge in healthcare or in education, or
Speaker 1: you know, economic justice issues, and I'm like, okay, Like
Speaker 1: I have always, by nature been a so what are
Speaker 1: we going to do about it? Kind of person? And
Speaker 1: by being what are we going to do about a
Speaker 1: kind of person? It often lends us into the world
Speaker 1: of leaning on a pragmatic you know, I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. There's a lot of conversations right now about
Speaker 1: the future of work and about how what students are
Speaker 1: experienced in school isn't necessarily preparing them for this uncertain
Speaker 1: future of work. And when you go to some of
Speaker 1: these conferences, Scott, you might see people talking about we
Speaker 1: need to transform education, we need to reimagine and redesign
Speaker 1: this or this that the other thing, And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, like we're talking
Speaker 1: about a really large system that is incredibly stubborn when
Speaker 1: it comes to making that sort of transformational change. So
Speaker 1: the revolution is going to have to be practical. It's
Speaker 1: going to have to be things that people can apply
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday morning when they just came back from
Speaker 1: a fire drill and now they've got to figure out
Speaker 1: how do they get more critical thinking into their classroom
Speaker 1: in a more kind of sustainable sort of way given
Speaker 1: the personnel that we have, given the systems that we
Speaker 1: have set up, and you know, to speak to kind
Speaker 1: of a bigger question around like how do you sort
Speaker 1: of break down this psychotomy, I'm like, we've got to
Speaker 1: do a little bit of both. We've got to make
Speaker 1: sure that we always have that focus on practical solutions
Speaker 1: that are going to move a society forward while also
Speaker 1: acknowledging something back and realizing like, yeah, like we need
Speaker 1: to analyze these big picture systems and start to tinker
Speaker 1: away at ways to reform those. But we have to
Speaker 1: have some sort of trade off between short term gains
Speaker 1: and long term structural changes that need to happen. I
Speaker 1: love that. So tell me about think Wall, Tell me
Speaker 1: about this company that you founded. It looks really neat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because I made the interesting life decision
Speaker 1: to be a middle school and high school math teacher
Speaker 1: during a day at a high poverty school in Las Vegas, Nevada,
Speaker 1: and I decided to go to law school at night.
Speaker 1: And well, that wasn't the best life decision in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, like my social life and just being
Speaker 1: newly married. In other ways, it was so incredibly transformational
Speaker 1: for me, Scott, because I've always been a under achiever
Speaker 1: my whole entire life. I was that kind of kid
Speaker 1: where I'm like, ah, I'm passing, no big deal. I
Speaker 1: would be that kid who, like I would actually help
Speaker 1: people with homework assignments that I didn't even do myself.
Speaker 1: Like that was me. That's who I was, even in
Speaker 1: graduate school. So when I got to law school, everything changed.
Speaker 1: Not because I became this super avid learner with all
Speaker 1: this new enthusiasm. It was that for once it wasn't
Speaker 1: about just knowing stuff, because it turns out in law
Speaker 1: school you didn't really learn the law. You learn how
Speaker 1: to think like a lawyer, and this process of seeing
Speaker 1: things at different perspectives and asking questions to gain information
Speaker 1: and making claims and backing up with evidence. It was
Speaker 1: entirely in line with my frame of viewing the world now,
Speaker 1: being the anti actually had value now. Thinking differently about things.
Speaker 1: Questioning the professor was part and part so of what
Speaker 1: made you a success. And to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: there was nothing extraneous, at least from my viewpoint. I
Speaker 1: felt like I wasn't doing assignments for the sake of
Speaker 1: doing assignments. Everything was always about the final exam. I
Speaker 1: would say about ninety percent of my classes, one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the grades, or your final exam, which is
Speaker 1: how you responded to this scenario, which was a typically
Speaker 1: a crazy, out of this world scenario that measured you
Speaker 1: and how well you thought on your toes, how well
Speaker 1: you were able to answer this question, what would the
Speaker 1: world look like if so? As a kid that like
Speaker 1: did theater, I used to be like, uh did Broadway
Speaker 1: and African dance and hip hop dancing like it spoke
Speaker 1: to this spirit of creativity inside of me in a
Speaker 1: way that school never did. Like I would walk away
Speaker 1: from doing a three hour final exam and be like, damn,
Speaker 1: that's it, Like I really wanted to do more. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, my kids had the highest test
Speaker 1: scores they ever did in the district, in an area
Speaker 1: that was one of the toughest parts of Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: We were able well to essentially get the same kind
Speaker 1: of test cards would see at the most affluent areas.
Speaker 1: And what was so powerful there, Scott, was that I
Speaker 1: realized you don't have to wait until law school to
Speaker 1: get kids exposure to this kind of thinking. It doesn't
Speaker 1: even need to be a Civics or Humanities or English class.
Speaker 1: In my math class, I would put problems up on
Speaker 1: a board where instead of like solving an equation and
Speaker 1: instead of saying, Okay, what did jose do wrong on
Speaker 1: this problem? Corrected? I would say, here are two problems
Speaker 1: that are both done wrong, which one is more right?
Speaker 1: And kids would start going for it. It will turn
Speaker 1: into this super rigorous debate where talk about the metacognition. Right,
Speaker 1: you're making predictions out of like the best case interpretation
Speaker 1: and the worst case interpretation of what mistakes might have
Speaker 1: been made, and like between the writing that's happening, the
Speaker 1: dialogue that's happening and that conflict in drama. It just
Speaker 1: transformed the energy in kids where it didn't feel like
Speaker 1: a math class. There's no I hate math when you're
Speaker 1: having that kind of robust discussion, And I tell you
Speaker 1: it was just really a transformational time for me to
Speaker 1: see what that connection was. So when I realized that,
Speaker 1: that became a formation behind my work with Think Law,
Speaker 1: our practice law for three years, and when I launched
Speaker 1: Think Law, it was around this idea that maybe there's
Speaker 1: a reason at twenty five past presidents and thirty five
Speaker 1: founding fathers of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela have all
Speaker 1: been attorneys. This is the exact kind of critical thinking
Speaker 1: our kids need, so let's start them with it now.
Speaker 1: So right now, Think Law. It helps educators each critical
Speaker 1: thinking use in legal cases and upper grades. In lower grades,
Speaker 1: we use fairy tales and nursey rhymes because there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of shady characters and children's stories, and we
Speaker 1: do a lot of training on Socratic style questioning to
Speaker 1: help all educators make that shift right from asking what
Speaker 1: and how to to more of that why and what
Speaker 1: if That will cause that saving spark that I experienced. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is so cool, and you're really like bringing the
Speaker 1: spirit of like, you know, we don't need to I
Speaker 1: really like that spirit of we don't need to wait
Speaker 1: till the person's rich and successful, you know, by society
Speaker 1: standards to learn the key skills they're going to help
Speaker 1: them thrive right now. I really really like that. You know,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate being so vulnerable and kind of talking
Speaker 1: so openly about your early struggles. I you know, also
Speaker 1: had my own struggles, you know, with being in special
Speaker 1: education and things of that nature. You know, how much
Speaker 1: do you think like we could use to have more
Speaker 1: discussions open on as discussions where we talk about our
Speaker 1: common struggles versus like, let's like talk about you know,
Speaker 1: maybe like we had similar struggles and maybe we can
Speaker 1: like understand where each other's coming from and maybe try
Speaker 1: to pull each other up and support each other. But
Speaker 1: you seem like the type of person that is really
Speaker 1: into open, honest conversations, So I'd love to get your
Speaker 1: thoughts on this. So I'm sure you've seen that thing
Speaker 1: on social media that's kind of gone viral of like
Speaker 1: you know, our inability or the advice that we've gotten
Speaker 1: to like not talk about really or politics is the
Speaker 1: reason that we keep on getting everything wrong when it
Speaker 1: comes to religion in politics. I honestly think that one
Speaker 1: of the challenging things about growing up how I grew
Speaker 1: up Scott is like, you know, I was completely, basically
Speaker 1: one hundred percent segregated in my community up until eighth grade.
Speaker 1: Went to a specialized high school, the Bronxich School of
Speaker 1: Science in New York City, whereas my first time like
Speaker 1: living like a racial minority and understanding what that felt like.
Speaker 1: And I often joke, you know, there's all these kind
Speaker 1: of talk around how when you are a black student
Speaker 1: who really cares about academics you get accused of acting white.
Speaker 1: That could not possibly have been a thing where I
Speaker 1: grew up because nobody knew what acting white meant. We
Speaker 1: didn't know any white people. It wasn't the thing that
Speaker 1: you could even accuse somebody of doing. But by the
Speaker 1: time I got to college, I realized, like, you know,
Speaker 1: what's really missing from my college experience at Syracuse University,
Speaker 1: poor white people. It just wasn't a thing, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we got there a lot of my friends and people
Speaker 1: that came from my neighborhood and my communities. You know,
Speaker 1: we got different scholarships and different programs, We had student athletes,
Speaker 1: and for a predominantly white institution like Syracuse, that's where
Speaker 1: you're probably getting the bulk of your student population. We
Speaker 1: also had some affluent African American students as well, but
Speaker 1: the vast majority of you know, white students at some
Speaker 1: of these really elite institutions across the country are not
Speaker 1: coming from more meager upbringings where we can actually see
Speaker 1: like we've got these things in common. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot of these shared struggles. And it really wasn't until
Speaker 1: I got to law school. It wasn't really until I
Speaker 1: got a lot older. Well, I started to like meet
Speaker 1: colleagues and be like, oh, like, huh, so I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one that had an incarcerated parent. Interesting also,
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one that like went to school
Speaker 1: on frame reduced lunch and like and honestly getting into
Speaker 1: the education space. I remember being at the National Title
Speaker 1: one conference, which is the collection of all these different
Speaker 1: schools across the country that have forty percent of more
Speaker 1: kids that on framer lunch and Scott it blew my mind.
Speaker 1: It blew my mind because when I think Title one
Speaker 1: high poverty. I think growing up in Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 1: I think Chicago, I think LA. I had no idea
Speaker 1: that the vast majority of Title Ian districts numerically, because
Speaker 1: the quantity of those districts are rural white districts. It
Speaker 1: just completely blew my mind that like, Okay, this factory
Speaker 1: town in Montana, this small city, or this small town
Speaker 1: in Kansas on the Dakotas where they've lost a lot
Speaker 1: of industry, they're struggling with the opioid epidemic to a
Speaker 1: level and an extent that is unimaginable. They're facing the
Speaker 1: same sort of struggle. And when I start talking about
Speaker 1: things like access, access to engaging instruction, access to the
Speaker 1: kind of transformational critical thinking, and that's going to transform
Speaker 1: our kids perceptions of who they are and who they
Speaker 1: can be. The reality is when you live in a city,
Speaker 1: at least you are in a space where by osmosis,
Speaker 1: you can be exposed to these certain things. There's different programs,
Speaker 1: a lot of people target these places. There are programs,
Speaker 1: educational programs and companies that literally don't even work with
Speaker 1: small districts as a rule because there's not enough like
Speaker 1: BANG for their buck, there's not enough return on their
Speaker 1: investments supposedly, So it does really start to step back
Speaker 1: a little bit and realize, like, huh, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that are not getting a fair shake.
Speaker 1: And I suspect Scott that it's not an accident that
Speaker 1: we are kind of trained to sow in our divisions,
Speaker 1: because I think that if we actually realized how much
Speaker 1: we had in common and unite it, that would be
Speaker 1: a very dangerous force for the status quota. Handle. Wow, wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: you said so many juicy things, and as a podcast host,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, which one to our pick to follow
Speaker 1: up on? Okay? Wait, so okay, first of all, can
Speaker 1: you the very last thing you said, like, so who's
Speaker 1: the seat quote in your mind? Give me a concrete
Speaker 1: like who will blow whose mind? If we recognize that?
Speaker 1: So when I said that, and I think about like
Speaker 1: the status quo, particularly when it comes to education, I
Speaker 1: think that the one thing that was true when we
Speaker 1: were young that is still true today that if we
Speaker 1: don't change, will still be true and the next generation
Speaker 1: is that zip codes determine your destiny by and large,
Speaker 1: right like stories like mine, where you know I get
Speaker 1: this excellent education, and I go off and become student
Speaker 1: body president Syracuse and become this award winning entrepreneur with
Speaker 1: a law degree and all this stuff. That's the exception
Speaker 1: to the rule, and that rule that says that who
Speaker 1: you're born to and where you're born, how much money
Speaker 1: they make. The term is what your outcome is going
Speaker 1: to be in life. That's the injustice, Like that is
Speaker 1: the status quo. And a lot of times when I
Speaker 1: think about transformation, I think about, like, how do we
Speaker 1: move from that space to a point where we can
Speaker 1: actually say in truth, like in earnest, that every single
Speaker 1: child has a fair shot at being exceptional, Like every
Speaker 1: kid is actually a realistic thing that we're like, all right,
Speaker 1: Like we can set all of you all up to
Speaker 1: fulfill your potential and set the world on fire. Like
Speaker 1: we can actually figure out a way to do this.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm a cockode optimist, but I believe that that
Speaker 1: ought to be the goal. It's a shame that that's
Speaker 1: become like an insult. I know it has it has
Speaker 1: been to dream bigger, but I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the biggest challenges, and this
Speaker 1: is going back to like teaching kids to be dumb enough, right,
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things that was a tough
Speaker 1: thing for me to struggle with until I was part
Speaker 1: of this organizing training and I remember there was a
Speaker 1: problem that we were posed. God, this is an interesting one. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you're trying to advocate on behalf of like a
Speaker 1: community that needs seventy five full day kindergarten programs. Okay.
Speaker 1: So we're looking at it, We're looking at the budget,
Speaker 1: and we're like, all right, so what do we do?
Speaker 1: And we like set up this whole big compromise, Me
Speaker 1: and like five others, super smart like education leader people.
Speaker 1: All right, here's what we're gonna do it. We're gonna
Speaker 1: ask for like fifteen in the first year pilot it
Speaker 1: show the data whatever, and then by year whatever, your
Speaker 1: four year five will have what the seventy five. And
Speaker 1: the lead person at the training is looking back at us,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, cool, cool, all right, So you said
Speaker 1: the need was what, well, seventy five? Like all right, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you ask for seventy five schools if that's
Speaker 1: what was needed? Like, well, you're never gonna get seventy
Speaker 1: five schools. Who says you're never gonna get seventy five
Speaker 1: schools fun at full day kindergarten. Well, it's not realistic.
Speaker 1: Who says us? Not realistic? And it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you're like, oh, I guess I just kind
Speaker 1: of talked myself out right. I kind of did this
Speaker 1: logical reasoning to do this thing, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: why do we negotiate against ourselves or something that we've
Speaker 1: determined was important. We determined that it was essential, but
Speaker 1: somehow as a starting point off the block, we decided
Speaker 1: to not even start with what the core need was right.
Speaker 1: And I think about that in terms of like really
Speaker 1: smart people that like settle for like a good job. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I get economics, I get like breaking through cycles of poverty,
Speaker 1: Like I'm never gonna thumb my nose at somebody securing
Speaker 1: a job that's paying them great money and great benefits.
Speaker 1: But I do believe that we live in a society
Speaker 1: where we encourage a lot of these safe behaviors and
Speaker 1: a lot of our kids who are probably best served
Speaker 1: to transform the world as we know it, but they
Speaker 1: never get taught that skill because we are much more
Speaker 1: likely to groom them for this safe way out right,
Speaker 1: And this is where I think we end up with
Speaker 1: this culture of like underachievement that by any objective means
Speaker 1: it's fine, Like kids are doing fine in a lot
Speaker 1: of those cases. But when I think about why we
Speaker 1: I've make cured cancer, but we can order a phone
Speaker 1: from our watch, I'm like, I think we're just not
Speaker 1: unleash the passion and talent in a way that is
Speaker 1: really tapping into everybody's full potential here here, well, it
Speaker 1: sounds like both of us are on that mission. That's
Speaker 1: the same mission and all different you know, I mentioned
Speaker 1: in all different kinds of minds, whether it's autism, whether
Speaker 1: it's giftedness, whether I mean it could be to twice
Speaker 1: exceptional autism and giftedness. Right, I don't know how familiar
Speaker 1: are you with the twice exceptional movement? Very very very
Speaker 1: familiar with it, very familiar with it, And in fact,
Speaker 1: I've lived it, right, I've lived it in a way
Speaker 1: that forces me to always kind of step back and reflect.
Speaker 1: I've lived it as a participant and as a spectator.
Speaker 1: Where when I was in first grade, I was getting
Speaker 1: in trouble at least once a week. When I say
Speaker 1: I was getting in trouble. A guy had this science
Speaker 1: teacher named Miss Liftshits in real how could you not
Speaker 1: get in trouble if the teacher was named Aslichit, I
Speaker 1: would get in trouble every day. And I remember in
Speaker 1: first pase, she asked me to write an essay reflect
Speaker 1: on my behavior one hundred words, and I wrote, she
Speaker 1: did like a science lab thing for our class. So
Speaker 1: I wrote like I hate science thirty two times and
Speaker 1: I had four words leftover, so icker right, I hate
Speaker 1: you too. And I remember the first grade power professional
Speaker 1: like the teachers a put my mom aside and say
Speaker 1: you need to get this kid tested out of speech impediment.
Speaker 1: I was getting in all this trouble, but the test
Speaker 1: revealed that I was actually gifted. I had to take
Speaker 1: this whole barrage of tests, ended up being gifted. And
Speaker 1: I predict looking back that I was probably undiagnosed with
Speaker 1: some version of ADHD because lifelong issues with organization, my
Speaker 1: issues with like kind of time management, kind of selective effort.
Speaker 1: I feel like the more that I've learned about this
Speaker 1: as an educated I'm like, oh my God, Like they
Speaker 1: probably would never have diagnosed me because it never could
Speaker 1: have occurred to them that I could be twice exceptional.
Speaker 1: But then as a participant, I've also seen as a spectator,
Speaker 1: I've seen the sharpest young man I've ever come across
Speaker 1: in my whole education career. In juvenile detention. He was
Speaker 1: an English learner. He was the kid with like all
Speaker 1: these severe behavior challenges, but he was a prodigy. Granted,
Speaker 1: he used his prodigy skills to start this whole drug ring,
Speaker 1: but he was this exceptional young man that I thought
Speaker 1: was a perfect example of how we continuously leave genius
Speaker 1: on a table. And I just look at this and
Speaker 1: I'm like, why is it that? And it's a question
Speaker 1: I always ask gott is it that we don't look
Speaker 1: hard enough, are always so sort of overwhelmed that we
Speaker 1: kind of look at like the first thing that we
Speaker 1: see presented as a summary of what the whole deal is. Oh,
Speaker 1: this kid is a behavior your kid, this kid is
Speaker 1: an autism kid, this kid is a gifted kid, and
Speaker 1: we just kind of like take it at that phase
Speaker 1: value and leave it alone. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: answer is, but I think that if we kind of
Speaker 1: had this unifying principle around what the purpose of education is,
Speaker 1: which is to unleash every student's full potential. There's a
Speaker 1: lot that ends up being built into that definition, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I've got to know what that potential is. I've got
Speaker 1: to make it my mission to discover that potential. I've
Speaker 1: got to know what it takes to nurture and make
Speaker 1: that potential flourish. I've got to make sure our setup,
Speaker 1: like you know, ways to recognize this. And as an
Speaker 1: education leader, I've got to think about, well, we do
Speaker 1: have barriers to this. We do have this belief gap
Speaker 1: in our world where not all education people believe that
Speaker 1: all kids can truly achieve and even if they believe that,
Speaker 1: they don't believe that they have the ability to make
Speaker 1: that achievement happen. So we've got to think about ways
Speaker 1: we can start to cross those bridges to start closing
Speaker 1: that belief gap for folk. So but again, if we
Speaker 1: make that the end that we have a system that
Speaker 1: unleashes the full potential of all kids, then I think
Speaker 1: that's gonna be differentiated enough that we won't end up
Speaker 1: in this space where we're just leaving so much talent
Speaker 1: and so much genius behind on a table. I wrote
Speaker 1: an article for Side of American called talent on the sidelines.
Speaker 1: About the excellent scap that people like Jonathan Pucker and
Speaker 1: his colleagues have shown to be true. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the excellent scap for second gift education. Gift education is
Speaker 1: like predominantly predominantly white, middle class students. What do you
Speaker 1: think is going on there? These are not easy questions,
Speaker 1: are they? Of course, of course our easy answers. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to really tackle this one in
Speaker 1: ways that I think are super important and maybe don't
Speaker 1: get talked about often enough. And to be honest with you, Scott,
Speaker 1: as an African American male who is a product of
Speaker 1: a gifted program, I feel like it's almost like my
Speaker 1: responsibility to speak on issues like this and say some
Speaker 1: of the things that might be a little bit more
Speaker 1: uncomfortable for other people to say. For one, I want
Speaker 1: you to speak your truth. Sure, a lot of really educated,
Speaker 1: equity forward people often get so caught up in the
Speaker 1: ideas around the inequities and gifted identification that they almost
Speaker 1: want to throw the baby out with the bath water, right.
Speaker 1: And I can tell you, being a teacher America alum
Speaker 1: who got into education as a social justice movement within
Speaker 1: my crowd Scott, It's a very funky thing to be
Speaker 1: in supportive, Like you're supporting like gifted learners. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like okay, well coming in and I'm like okay. But
Speaker 1: at some point in our training, at some point for
Speaker 1: people that are focusing and working in low income populations,
Speaker 1: do we not recognize that there is brilliant and not
Speaker 1: classrooms in our communities? Like are we just gonna act
Speaker 1: like every single kid is coming to us with all
Speaker 1: these deficits and we are going to be that night
Speaker 1: in shining Armor. I say no. I actually say hell
Speaker 1: to the no. And we need to really focus on
Speaker 1: making sure that we understand that there has always been
Speaker 1: brilliance there. There's always been genius there, and we've got
Speaker 1: to open up our eyes in a way that presents itself.
Speaker 1: And here is the thing that makes it a little
Speaker 1: bit more challenging. It takes a special sort of person
Speaker 1: to look at a student that writes you an essay
Speaker 1: that says I hate science thirty two times and gives
Speaker 1: you the last four words, I hate you too, and
Speaker 1: think I think this kid might be gifted. What you
Speaker 1: really want to do is just send that kid to class,
Speaker 1: you know, kick him out of school, and that's something
Speaker 1: that we just have to be honest about. The truth is,
Speaker 1: if you aren't under stress, if you have really large
Speaker 1: class sizes, if you're not very experienced, if you're not
Speaker 1: getting a lot of supports, it might be the last
Speaker 1: thing on your mind to think about, who are the
Speaker 1: gifted learners in my classroom that might not get the
Speaker 1: support that they need. Oftentimes, too, we talk about like economics,
Speaker 1: and I think in the financial world, we can talk
Speaker 1: about the wealth gap, right we can like, Okay, a
Speaker 1: few generations ago, African Americans can even own property, or
Speaker 1: they were like redline out of these districts or out
Speaker 1: of these areas. So you can look at like the
Speaker 1: economic wealth gap, and that can make sense when you
Speaker 1: start talking about like this knowledge gap, when you start
Speaker 1: thinking about like generationally being excluded from a lot of
Speaker 1: these sorts of programs, it is a huge difference when
Speaker 1: you go I was in a pretty affluent district in
Speaker 1: Texas speaking at a conference there to parents of gifted children,
Speaker 1: and it seems pretty clear to me that for a
Speaker 1: really long time, probably since the time these kids were born,
Speaker 1: these parents were in the know. Many of them had
Speaker 1: been a part of gifted programs before they had parents
Speaker 1: and families that just knew how to navigate these systems
Speaker 1: and they just knew. So I think we need to
Speaker 1: think about like the cycle that starts to develop where
Speaker 1: you're like that gap knowledge winens and when you start
Speaker 1: thinking about access that gifted programs, we have to realize
Speaker 1: it's not just the program itself. One of the big
Speaker 1: frustrations got that a lot of get the coordinators tell
Speaker 1: me is like, look like we actually, you know, we
Speaker 1: did get our numbers up, but we have a lot
Speaker 1: of our black and Latino kids dropping out of the
Speaker 1: program by the time they get into middle school. Or
Speaker 1: we get people that get offered to be in a
Speaker 1: program and their parents decide not to do it. So
Speaker 1: you have to think, Okay, what is going on there?
Speaker 1: And it turns out a parent looking at options for
Speaker 1: their kids doesn't just look at the quality of their program.
Speaker 1: They also don't want them to be the only minority
Speaker 1: student in the whole class. They don't want them to
Speaker 1: be separated from their rest of their peers and all
Speaker 1: of their friends. And when I think about the experience
Speaker 1: of going to Bronties schools giens, where there were not
Speaker 1: a lot of black students. And I remember being a
Speaker 1: sophomore reading Huckleberry Finn and everybody's having this conversation about
Speaker 1: the N word, and I just didn't really feel like participating.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't really the thing. And you know, the
Speaker 1: teacher is like, so, Colin, what do you think about
Speaker 1: the use of the ndword and Huckleberry Finn? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know on behalf of the entire African American race,
Speaker 1: Like what am I supposed to say here? You know?
Speaker 1: And I can see a lot of reason that it's
Speaker 1: valid that I might not necessarily want to be a
Speaker 1: part of that, which is why again, having awareness and
Speaker 1: education around gifted education in high poverty schools become so crucial,
Speaker 1: because if you can really encourage and build those pockets
Speaker 1: of giftedness within their existence spaces, I'd rather see that
Speaker 1: come up that way. I think that would do a
Speaker 1: lot more for increasing our numbers over the long haul.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, Scott, I can probably talk all
Speaker 1: day about that. Ess Donna Ford writes a lot about this,
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, she contributed to a book I edited
Speaker 1: on twice exceptionally, Yeah, it's just it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much built up in this whole thing and
Speaker 1: point blank period. You know, racism has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with this as well, you know, like it's really
Speaker 1: hard to see giftedness and populations when your idea of
Speaker 1: what giftedness is supposed to look like is kind of
Speaker 1: prescribed by like upper middle class, like white values. If
Speaker 1: that's the basic prescription of what it is. And I
Speaker 1: have a teaching profession that as a whole is predominantly white,
Speaker 1: and as a gifted teacher, like, I gotta tell you, Scott,
Speaker 1: I'm always taken aback at the gifted conferences that I
Speaker 1: go to, and I'm like, wow, Like, why don't more
Speaker 1: black and brown educators get involved in gifted education? If
Speaker 1: that doesn't change, it's going to be really hard to
Speaker 1: change these numbers at a certain point because those conferences
Speaker 1: trend a lot whiter than the education population as a whole,
Speaker 1: and that certainly doesn't help matters a lot of creditors do.
Speaker 1: I've heard increasingly more frequent conversations around the equity challenges
Speaker 1: in gifted education, both in identification and in support of
Speaker 1: minority populations, and giftedness definitely broad in a lot of
Speaker 1: it understanding around twice exceptional children as well. So I
Speaker 1: think the trend is in the right direction, but this
Speaker 1: needs to be a bigger platform by and large. And
Speaker 1: if we get to a point where every single teacher
Speaker 1: training program required courses in gifted education as a part
Speaker 1: of that process, where we included twice exceptionality, where we
Speaker 1: include it like the way that giftedness presents in all
Speaker 1: of different forms, then we'll get closer to a place
Speaker 1: where kids all have that equal shot at being at
Speaker 1: least statistically consistent with their representation in the general population.
Speaker 1: So that's a big deal. That would be wonderful for sure.
Speaker 1: I think you know, there's all sorts of bates about
Speaker 1: all these topics. These are there are no easy answers here.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's a distinction that some people make
Speaker 1: between the importance of equality of opportunity, which is what
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're talking about, and then a quality
Speaker 1: of outcome. So you know, it might not ever be
Speaker 1: possible to have fifty to fifty, you know, just based
Speaker 1: on like, like you said, proportional representation, and if you
Speaker 1: think about how many so like where do you stand
Speaker 1: on the like do you think there should be a
Speaker 1: quality of outcome. Do you see what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: hear that what you're saying. And you know, we were
Speaker 1: going back and forth on Twitter this weekend about like
Speaker 1: not having a tribe. Well you, I really appreciated your support.
Speaker 1: This is where I lose part of my tribe. You know.
Speaker 1: I know that in a lot of our lower income
Speaker 1: areas when we look at like test performance, like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of weight is given to growth, and it's
Speaker 1: important to grow kids. It's important to see that they're
Speaker 1: like you know, achieving and getting close to where they
Speaker 1: need to get to. But there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that's like, Okay, at the end of the day, there's
Speaker 1: like one year growth, two year growth, three years growth,
Speaker 1: but it still turns out that only seventeen percent of
Speaker 1: these kids are proficient in reading, then only nineteen are
Speaker 1: proficient in math. I don't think that growth matters, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's enough. I think that like
Speaker 1: we need to actually focus on kind of going back
Speaker 1: to that issue of you know, seventy five early childhood
Speaker 1: centers or full day kindergartens. We need the kids to
Speaker 1: actually be proficient. So the question is what is it
Speaker 1: going to take. What do we need to accomplish. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's going to be the summer, Maybe it's gonna be saturdays,
Speaker 1: maybe it's gonna be after school programming. How are we
Speaker 1: gonna make us so that more kids are actually proficient
Speaker 1: and at grade level, so that like we can stop
Speaker 1: having that conversation about kids and not being proficient and
Speaker 1: not at grade level. What needs to happen? And you
Speaker 1: might say, well, you got kids at our English learners
Speaker 1: and the new arrivals, Okay, what do we need to
Speaker 1: do in the first two years to make sure that
Speaker 1: by the end of those first two years they are proficient?
Speaker 1: Because it's never gonna be okay with me that in
Speaker 1: these schools we're okay with growth and these schools we're
Speaker 1: looking at proficiency and mastery. And then when you exit
Speaker 1: twelveth grade, there's this huge disparity in what the outcome is.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, the outcome is the opportunity. Because
Speaker 1: if your outcome guarantees that I'm never gonna be where
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be, If the outcome guarantees that I'm
Speaker 1: now going to college taking remedial everything that doesn't count,
Speaker 1: and I have to pay for sometimes out of my
Speaker 1: own pocket. That's not equality in outcomes nor opportunity. Like
Speaker 1: we have to focus on the bottom line, like what
Speaker 1: is it going to take to get kids ready? What
Speaker 1: is it going to take? And I know tests are
Speaker 1: not the most perfect indicator, but it's what we've got
Speaker 1: and it's what we know we're dealing with. So let's
Speaker 1: do what it takes to make sure at a bare
Speaker 1: minimal we can say we've got kids to this level.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where I focus on because I
Speaker 1: often find too it's such a chicken or a kind
Speaker 1: of deal. A lot of times it still comes down
Speaker 1: to opportunity. It still comes down to opportunity. Like I
Speaker 1: was in a classroom the other day observing a sixth
Speaker 1: grade class and it was English Leinners, and they were
Speaker 1: doing third grade work. Okay, Now, on its surface, a
Speaker 1: lot of things could be going on. It could be
Speaker 1: that the teacher noticed there was a specific deficiency, so
Speaker 1: she pulled this one worksheet that have these kids working
Speaker 1: on this one third grade standard. But more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's I don't think these kids can to handle the
Speaker 1: sixth grade work, so let me just make it easier
Speaker 1: for them so they can experience success. It might be
Speaker 1: well intended, but it's that kind of love that's grounded
Speaker 1: and those low expectations that we know. We know we're
Speaker 1: going to haunt our kids. We know we're going to
Speaker 1: underprepare them for their futures and make sure that they're
Speaker 1: ready for neither college nor career upon exit on twelfth grade.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how I look at that whole
Speaker 1: opportunity versus outcomes argument. Colin. I have to say that
Speaker 1: was what you said. The outcome is the opportunity is
Speaker 1: literally one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard
Speaker 1: of my entire life. And that was a real, real
Speaker 1: aha moment for me. So I just want to thank
Speaker 1: you for saying. I don't know if you've said that
Speaker 1: before in things, but I'm going to make that the
Speaker 1: opening quote of this this podcast chat. If that's no,
Speaker 1: that makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's so funny you talk about recognizing genius in all
Speaker 1: of its forms. I think a lot of between my
Speaker 1: writing and public speaking and stuff like this comes from
Speaker 1: the fact that, like growing up in Brooklyn and going
Speaker 1: to this nerdy high school, I kind of balanced it
Speaker 1: out by hanging out with like kids that were more
Speaker 1: or less like hoodlums, and we used to rap a
Speaker 1: lot and I freestyle. So the ability to like think
Speaker 1: on the top of my head and like come up
Speaker 1: with different rats and whatever is a part of like
Speaker 1: how you can be on a flow. Yeah, passionate about
Speaker 1: it and just start saying these things, and you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of gives me permission to be authentic as well.
Speaker 1: So when I'm speaking truth and I'm able to actually like,
Speaker 1: you know, get into that zone, it's just like when
Speaker 1: you catch a hot beat. He's just start going and
Speaker 1: you're like, you don't even know what you're saying. You
Speaker 1: gotta go back and like, let me see that video again.
Speaker 1: What did I even say? Because what you're saying is
Speaker 1: just it's just a culmination of all my years of
Speaker 1: living in unjust systems and then being able to teach
Speaker 1: in them, and now working with schools in fifteen different
Speaker 1: states and realizing whether it's rural or urban, or poor
Speaker 1: or more affluent, it's so much of the same sort
Speaker 1: of problem being played out over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thanks for recognizing that. No, I love it
Speaker 1: absolutely so related to all this stuff we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You wrote an article argument the argument that when love
Speaker 1: is grounded in the soft bigotree of well expectations, it's
Speaker 1: the wrong kind of love. Could you explain what the
Speaker 1: right kind? What's the difference between the wrong kind and
Speaker 1: what do you think is the right kind of love?
Speaker 1: So what prompted this is that was sitting next to
Speaker 1: a superinten in of the largest district in his state,
Speaker 1: and I asked him, like, what keeps you up at night? Like,
Speaker 1: what's the one thing that pains you to the core?
Speaker 1: And his response completely blew my mind. His response was
Speaker 1: mother teresa syndrome. I was like, what's that Mother Teresa's syndrome?
Speaker 1: This feeling that like a lot of kids, particularly kids
Speaker 1: that are coming from a low income backgrounds, they have
Speaker 1: it so tough, They've got it so rough that I
Speaker 1: want to give them the kind of education and space
Speaker 1: that coddles them, that makes them feel loved and secure.
Speaker 1: And when he said that, I was like, huh, I
Speaker 1: think he's onto something. Because, as I mentioned in that article,
Speaker 1: there was a first grade teacher that stopped me in
Speaker 1: the middle of one of my critical thinking training and
Speaker 1: I was like, look, this critical thinking stuff is great,
Speaker 1: but as a first grade teacher, I feel I'm in
Speaker 1: the business of building my kid's self esteem. So I
Speaker 1: struggle having like work through a problem and then they
Speaker 1: start crying because they don't know the answer, they don't
Speaker 1: know how to figure it out. And I'm thinking to myself, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the problem is when they come see me in
Speaker 1: middle school and they're still crying because you never gave
Speaker 1: him that opportunity to have that challenge. If you take
Speaker 1: away that opportunity to have that productive struggle, like when
Speaker 1: I say the wrong kind of love. What I'm asking
Speaker 1: educators to do, what I'm asking parents to do as well,
Speaker 1: is to not deny our kids the glory of persevering
Speaker 1: through productive struggle. It's a glorious moment when kids learn
Speaker 1: how to tie their shoes on their own. Like my
Speaker 1: daughter is six years old. From the time she was three,
Speaker 1: I'm like, go get your milk yourself. Sure that involves
Speaker 1: doing some acrobatics to get up to the level of
Speaker 1: the fridge that it's at. Sure it's going to involve
Speaker 1: a lot of different skills that she has eventually learned
Speaker 1: how to clean up on her own. But there's a
Speaker 1: satisfaction every single time she does that, right, She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: pull my own milk, baby, And I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: to stay on a couch. So like it's a win
Speaker 1: win situation, but we don't go for that win often enough.
Speaker 1: We like things to be just so right, Like we
Speaker 1: want our kids to get ready, we lay their clothes
Speaker 1: out for them. I'm like, you know, why do we
Speaker 1: feel afraid to truly transfer that power to our young people?
Speaker 1: And then we complain when they get older and we all,
Speaker 1: they just don't have that hustle, right, they don't have
Speaker 1: that like fire, that desire. Well, we've taken away any
Speaker 1: reason they would have that desire. By that point, they
Speaker 1: come out of the womb with all this intellectual curiosity
Speaker 1: about the world, ask me why every five minutes. At
Speaker 1: some point we start shutting that down. At some point
Speaker 1: we start saying these things like you know, you know,
Speaker 1: stop trying to get smart, and these messages that come about,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, why should I even do this?
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. My mom's going to do it for me,
Speaker 1: my dad's going to do it for me. Somebody else
Speaker 1: is going to figure this out. And then they developed
Speaker 1: these intellectual habits that are less curious, they're more complacent,
Speaker 1: they take less risks. And again this was what happened
Speaker 1: after like time after time of these low expectations, and
Speaker 1: they don't always seem like low expectations. They don't always
Speaker 1: seem low. Sometimes they seem well intended. I think about
Speaker 1: a kid for my first year of teaching, and I
Speaker 1: talked about him in this story as well, where like
Speaker 1: he was failing almost every class. Then he turned it
Speaker 1: around and it was such an inspiration, like to this day.
Speaker 1: I got att a chance to have breakfasts with him
Speaker 1: about five months ago, and I was like, man, he
Speaker 1: was such an inspiration. But I got to ask this
Speaker 1: one question, like, well, we had that assembly at the
Speaker 1: end of the year and like you got most improved
Speaker 1: student and almost every single one in your classes, why
Speaker 1: did you just not show up? Everybody had these special
Speaker 1: speeches to you and whatever. And he was like, I
Speaker 1: just don't understand why y'all would give me an award
Speaker 1: for things I was supposed to be doing anyway. And
Speaker 1: it made me sit back and think, like, huh, even
Speaker 1: in the moment where I thought I had the highest expectations,
Speaker 1: like I was subconsciously lowering the bar and giving this
Speaker 1: guy the medal of honor, but basically showing up and
Speaker 1: showing me that he can, like do the basics. He
Speaker 1: went on to earn his associate's degree. He has actuations
Speaker 1: to do so much more. But I'm like, what if
Speaker 1: we didn't settle for the basics. What if no matter
Speaker 1: what our kids presented, whether it was behavior or lack
Speaker 1: of enthusiasm, we demanded the outstanding. We were committed to
Speaker 1: them reaching their full potential no matter what, and there
Speaker 1: was no metal, no prize, no nothing until they got
Speaker 1: to that point. The victory was in the struggle, and
Speaker 1: we made it clear that that was what the victory was.
Speaker 1: It'll be a really different world. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I talk about, like the right kind of love.
Speaker 1: I can see how me and you would both be
Speaker 1: annexed from every possible identity, group, imaginal because you're you're
Speaker 1: a freethinker. I mean, it's obvious to be you're a
Speaker 1: free thinker. Not every single thing you think is on
Speaker 1: down one particular party line, you know. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about this controversial article that came out in ED Week
Speaker 1: the other day. I don't know if you saw it.
Speaker 1: The title was grit is in our DNA, Why teaching
Speaker 1: grit is inherently anti Black? That was the title of
Speaker 1: the article. It seems to me like you have a
Speaker 1: perhaps a little more nuanced view about it, that it's
Speaker 1: either you teach grit or you help with social inequalities
Speaker 1: that maybe you can. You know, what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that kind of argument, because some people have criticized,
Speaker 1: you know, perseverance and grit as a construct in low
Speaker 1: income schools, especially in African American populations. Some people have
Speaker 1: criticized it saying what these kids need is not grit
Speaker 1: because they already are gritty, you know. What they need
Speaker 1: is like money, you know, and opportunities and things, and
Speaker 1: kind of treat it like an either or issue. So
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on this? So I think the
Speaker 1: problem is and this is by and large, we don't
Speaker 1: describe things with enough specificity, and that causes like challenges
Speaker 1: around things like for instance, there's a popular guy in
Speaker 1: education reform that says these things where he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I fought for like civil rights, where we like sad
Speaker 1: in that counters. So we can be served that the
Speaker 1: restaurants and today our kids can sid at their restaurants,
Speaker 1: but they can't read the menus, and people are like
Speaker 1: ooh man, yeah, yeah yeah. But I'm like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: stop for a second. Like kids can't read Hamburger three
Speaker 1: ninety nine. Get at it. That's not true, right, Like
Speaker 1: kids are not performing as we would like to unstandardize exams,
Speaker 1: and those performances are I'm gonna sandarize exams trend on
Speaker 1: race in negative ways, Like that's what it is. But
Speaker 1: just because twenty six percent of kids are proficient doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that only twenty six percent of those kids can read.
Speaker 1: But we got to start saying things for what they are.
Speaker 1: When it comes to the grit discussion, I think that
Speaker 1: it becomes another similar issue around around like how we
Speaker 1: describe things. So what I often say and my relationship
Speaker 1: with grit is like, yes, a lot of our kids
Speaker 1: already exemplified grit. They are living and breathing examples of grit.
Speaker 1: The young man I referred to that was a brilliant
Speaker 1: man that I met in juvenile detention. He had two children.
Speaker 1: At eighteen years old, he had spent four months standing
Speaker 1: in front of home depot doing day laborer work. Until
Speaker 1: he realized, like nobody really wanted to hire a scrony
Speaker 1: little boy to do task around the house. He needed
Speaker 1: to find a different hustle. Like when I think about
Speaker 1: a lot of our kids throughout this country who were
Speaker 1: taking care of younger siblings, going through all sorts of drama,
Speaker 1: navigating through dangerous neighborhoods. You know, we have some schools
Speaker 1: on the Navajo Reservation here in Arizona where kids are
Speaker 1: commuting an hour and a half to two hours a
Speaker 1: day to get to school. I'm like, yes, on one hand,
Speaker 1: please don't tell me that our kids don't have grit. Okay,
Speaker 1: because a lot of our kids are using grit every
Speaker 1: single day just for the issue is in school that
Speaker 1: This is the question I always pose. Are we giving
Speaker 1: our kids a reason to exercise their grittiness? And I
Speaker 1: say this because you might look at my life story
Speaker 1: and say, like Colin, you have a really gritty you've
Speaker 1: been persevering. Okay, Am I gritty about doing the dishes? No?
Speaker 1: Am I gritty about doing taxes? Absolutely? Not right. Those
Speaker 1: are things that I suffer to through. At some point
Speaker 1: I figure it out. But when it comes to like
Speaker 1: actual grit, we need to give our kids a reason.
Speaker 1: It's actually inefficient to be gritty about every single thing
Speaker 1: under the sun, totally and in fact, when it comes
Speaker 1: to like gifted children and often sometimes you know twice
Speaker 1: exceptional children or autistic children's like you need to really
Speaker 1: make sure they understand, like kind of like the gambler
Speaker 1: went to hold them? When to fold them? Like when
Speaker 1: does the task actually not worth completing? It is the
Speaker 1: thing we have to ask ourselves all the time. I'm
Speaker 1: sure as a researcher there's some projects you're like, you
Speaker 1: know what, this isn't going anywhere. I got to noticecrap, this,
Speaker 1: this is not going to really be what I thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be. Put this on a background.
Speaker 1: I'll do some other things instead, Like are we giving
Speaker 1: kids a reason to be gritty? Our approach with think
Speaker 1: law is we tap into their inherent sense of fairness
Speaker 1: and justice. Typically, kids are pretty gritty when it comes
Speaker 1: to what's fair and what's not. They want to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of it or there's a reason why.
Speaker 1: Regardless of how bad the first three minutes is of
Speaker 1: a law and Order episode, you're inclined to want to
Speaker 1: stick it through. You're inclined to figure out like why
Speaker 1: was that body there who did it? Like, God, you
Speaker 1: want to get to the bottom of it. There's a
Speaker 1: reason for that, and that's kind of what our approach is,
Speaker 1: and that's what we teaching teachers to do, whether it's
Speaker 1: math or science, Like that conflict, that drama, that's the
Speaker 1: draw to bring out that grittiness and kids. But if
Speaker 1: we just were more capable about the language and didn't
Speaker 1: act as if like kids don't have grit and if
Speaker 1: only they had grit, they'd be successful, and instead realize
Speaker 1: as teachers, we need to give them space where we're
Speaker 1: going to tap into that intrinsic motivation, tap into that
Speaker 1: agency that's going to make them super excited to be
Speaker 1: able to be in a space where they're sharing knowledge
Speaker 1: and build a relationships with their peers and just really
Speaker 1: pushing themselves. Like that's where the rubber hits the road
Speaker 1: when it comes to that great conversation. Thank you for
Speaker 1: that level of nuance. I couldn't agree more. I've used
Speaker 1: a corny term I've called I refer to organic grit
Speaker 1: because I say, like, you know, we need to grow
Speaker 1: grit from within, not you know, from like you fail
Speaker 1: class if you don't have show grit. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe your classes sucks, right, Like, it's not the student's fault.
Speaker 1: You know that they're not great about your class. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I've refard of that as organic grit. But so I'm
Speaker 1: very much aligned with with a lot of what you
Speaker 1: just said. So let's end with a topic of disruptors
Speaker 1: as innovators. You've written really thoughtfully about that topic as well.
Speaker 1: Could you talk a little about what that means and
Speaker 1: why we need to recognize disruptors as innovators? Sure? Sure,
Speaker 1: And this is something that really struck me when I
Speaker 1: was an attorney at a big corporate firm doing intellectual
Speaker 1: property and litigation work. And you know, you go to
Speaker 1: these mixers, and you go to these events and you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy, this guy goes against the grain,
Speaker 1: and this is such a different thinking leader, and this
Speaker 1: person marches it to be to their own drummer, and
Speaker 1: I don't we represented a dude who he like owned.
Speaker 1: He opened up a liquor store in the Las Vegas Airport,
Speaker 1: which ended up being one of the best selling liquor
Speaker 1: stores every first he wanted when to go to Point
Speaker 1: in Vegas and buy some alcohol. But like I'm like
Speaker 1: watching to be to their own drummer. This guy, you know,
Speaker 1: is a disruptor. Like we we actually talk about Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs and you know Uber and these different CEOs. Is
Speaker 1: like they're just so disruptive, and I'm like, the natural
Speaker 1: inclination is to kick disruptive kids out of class. That's
Speaker 1: a natural inclination. You're disruptive, You're not paying attention and
Speaker 1: not behaving like you're out of class. And I wonder
Speaker 1: what we might be missing. And I often ask this
Speaker 1: question in my training Scott. I asked in this room
Speaker 1: of one hundred people, how many of you educators were
Speaker 1: like good students, did your work? You never really got
Speaker 1: in trouble, you'd be disappointed if you got to be.
Speaker 1: And like almost every person kind of luckily raises their
Speaker 1: hand like yeah, kind of smile like they were proud
Speaker 1: about their grades. And I'm like, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 1: you might be part of the problem. And they started laughing,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, I don't really mean to
Speaker 1: blame you. I don't really mean to say that you're
Speaker 1: a problem for real. What I'm saying is there are
Speaker 1: many ways that you are breeding and building out this
Speaker 1: culture of compliance, well doubt necessarily knowing it, but you're
Speaker 1: building out this culture of compliance where if kids just
Speaker 1: did this and they just adhere to this and that
Speaker 1: and the other thing and just follow the rules, they'll
Speaker 1: be good to go. But what happens when the rules
Speaker 1: are the problem? What space are you creating for those
Speaker 1: kids to be successful? Because there's certain kids that look
Speaker 1: at a system and they're like, this isn't going to
Speaker 1: work for me, and those are usually the people that
Speaker 1: end up being those same disruptors. So why do we
Speaker 1: want to downgrade their potential success by forcing that compliance?
Speaker 1: And it's a thin line, right because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to teach anybody if chairs
Speaker 1: are flying through your classroom. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: like when students questioning things, it should always cause you
Speaker 1: to a fucking be like, well, why is this question happening?
Speaker 1: And maybe I can create space for this answer to
Speaker 1: exist in this framework to exist to start thinking differently
Speaker 1: about this. I'll give you a quick example. There was
Speaker 1: a discrimination case and a think Low lesson well the
Speaker 1: teacher polls a question of what would be worse if
Speaker 1: I threw a stick at you because you were Asian,
Speaker 1: or if I threw a stick at you because you
Speaker 1: were wearing a black shirt, and every kid was like, oh,
Speaker 1: much worse if it's Asian. If you're Asian, you know
Speaker 1: that it's racist and you can't control what race you're
Speaker 1: born into. Whatever have you? All Right, one girl raises
Speaker 1: her head and I knew this woman, this girl, seventh grader,
Speaker 1: I knew that she was on IP was kind of
Speaker 1: like a just a different sort of thinker about stuff,
Speaker 1: and she's like, black shirt much worse. This teacher knew
Speaker 1: how to create space for her idea. Though She's like, okay, well, like,
Speaker 1: how are you justifying it? Why would you say that
Speaker 1: the black shirt is worse? And she explained, well, at
Speaker 1: least we know that racism is a thing and there's
Speaker 1: actual racist people out there in the world. But if
Speaker 1: you don't stick to somebody because of the color of
Speaker 1: their shirt, you might have some more serious issues. And
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, I haven't thought about that. That
Speaker 1: actually made sense now I can see that argument as
Speaker 1: why the black shirt might be worse. But you created
Speaker 1: that space for diversion thinkers within our classroom space, and
Speaker 1: it mattered one that that wasn't necessarily a right or
Speaker 1: wrong answer. Right, it was can it be justified or
Speaker 1: can it not be justified? And I think that once
Speaker 1: we start going along those lines with creating that space
Speaker 1: for disruptives to be able to thrive, now it's much
Speaker 1: more likely we've created a pathway to innovation, a pathway
Speaker 1: to really make sure that every kid is reaching their
Speaker 1: full potential because you haven't arbitrarily placed a glass ceiling
Speaker 1: on their success levels. That's awesome calling. Thank you for
Speaker 1: being your own disruptor and the great work that you're
Speaker 1: doing and chattel with me today. Thanks so much. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Skyt. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way to something you heard, I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast
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