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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 wants answers. Now.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this stocor Justin Coilson, and welcome to the Happy

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Speaker 2: Families Podcast. Today we're picking up on a conversation that

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Speaker 2: we had a few weeks ago, maybe five or six

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Speaker 2: weeks ago now with James Anderson. If you missed it,

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Speaker 2: we will link to it in the show notes. It

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Speaker 2: was I think a really important conversation for any parent

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Speaker 2: of children, who kids who are struggling, kids who aren't

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Speaker 2: quite sure about their learning, or kids who avoid doing

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Speaker 2: things that are hard because they don't want to do

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Speaker 2: 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

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Speaker 2: their learning.

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Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure to be here again.

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Speaker 2: Justin, So, I want to have a conversation today about

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Speaker 2: this idea that you've developed called learnership. We hear all

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Speaker 2: the time about things like leadership. But learnership is this

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Speaker 2: concept that you've developed to help kids be skillful learners.

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Speaker 2: Help 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 door frames with

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Speaker 1: 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,

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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 a 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 mindset. 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

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Speaker 1: say try this slightly hard thing, they'll go, no, I

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Speaker 1: can't do the thing they can do?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: They avoid what they can't do and they approach what

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Speaker 2: they can do.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and there's lots of research around how kids

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Speaker 1: know 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 day 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 teacher's instruction or just do their best. The

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Speaker 1: day starts, they produce stuff, 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: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the type

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Speaker 2: or parent who just wants answers now. My guest today

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Speaker 2: on the pod is James Anderson. James works in schools

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Speaker 2: and with parents around issues related to helping our children

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Speaker 2: to become skillful learners, to move into what we would

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Speaker 2: typically call today a growth mindset. I may be going

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Speaker 2: off track just a little bit with this, James, but

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Speaker 2: as I hear you talk about this student, this child

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Speaker 2: who embraces challenge and who grows as a result, versus

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Speaker 2: kids who are perhaps less excited, let's enthusiastic about what

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Speaker 2: challenges mean. There's part of me that is chafing a

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Speaker 2: little bit because of the way our school system demands

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Speaker 2: that all children diticipate in the same challenges. All children

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Speaker 2: have to do the same classes, they have to follow

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Speaker 2: the same curriculum. I love the concept that we want

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Speaker 2: our kids to embrace challenges, but why do they all

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Speaker 2: have to embrace the same challenges. Now that might be

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Speaker 2: beyond the scope of our conversation, but I wonder if

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Speaker 2: you have anything to say about individuality and helping kids

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Speaker 2: find and follow their own strengths and what that can

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Speaker 2: do to direct them in the path of that lifelong learnership,

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Speaker 2: that agility around learning, that growth that comes 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 strengths,

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Speaker 1: is one of discovering your abilities. It's actually quite a

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Speaker 1: fixed mindset concept. And what I would suggest to you

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Speaker 1: is that the way we want to talk to our

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Speaker 1: children is to have them choose what they want to

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Speaker 1: become rather than discover what they have, and therefore can

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Speaker 1: 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: This is not the two hour podcast for the time

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Speaker 2: 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 to

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Speaker 1: your listeners as well. One of the things that learner

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Speaker 1: who's out there embracing challenges choosing to become who they

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Speaker 1: want or need to be, understands is what it feels

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Speaker 1: like to be in their learning zone. You mentioned at

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Speaker 1: the start of the podcast about the child who runs

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Speaker 1: away from challenge, that doesn't want to put the effort

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Speaker 1: in that sort of thing. And part of the reason

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Speaker 1: is that they expect things to be easy or hard,

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Speaker 1: and if it's hard, it's going to be hard today,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be hard tomorrow, the next day, the

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Speaker 1: next day, the next day, And who wants to do that?

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Speaker 1: So what they do is they go, all right, I'll

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Speaker 1: do fine, find the things that are easy for me.

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Speaker 1: And so to help our children break through that, we

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Speaker 1: need them to understand what it feels like to be

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Speaker 1: in their learning zone. Let me explain that concept. You've

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Speaker 1: 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. Right, the world is full

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Speaker 1: of easy things you haven't done yet. Now, let me

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Speaker 1: put you on the spot. Do you know you're fifteen

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Speaker 1: times tables.

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Speaker 2: Justin I've never practiced them before, but I reckon I

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Speaker 2: could 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. There we go.

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Speaker 1: Someone showing off. There you go.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how I did that. I've never practiced

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Speaker 2: 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, all right. But the point is you

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Speaker 1: as an adult, we've got the ability to go away

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Speaker 1: and do it. Would only take time. Sure we can

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Speaker 1: know with confidence at the end of that amount of

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Speaker 1: time we would do it with one hundred percent accuracies,

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Speaker 1: well within my current abilities. The point here is that

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Speaker 1: your comfort zone is full of those things that are easy,

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Speaker 1: things you haven't done yet. And a lot of people

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Speaker 1: think that I'll do something new, and some things that

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Speaker 1: I do and new are going to be easy, and

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Speaker 1: that's getting outside your comfort zone. It's not. Your next

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Speaker 1: sort of level up is doing your best, doing your performance,

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Speaker 1: and that's where you draw on all your resources. You

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Speaker 1: do your current best, and we love our best because

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Speaker 1: again we can be confident, and that's ability to produce

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Speaker 1: that standard. But you don't get better by doing your best.

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Speaker 1: You get better by stretching and challenging yourself to go

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Speaker 1: just beyond your current best. It's what psychologists sometimes called

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Speaker 1: the zone of proximal development.

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Speaker 2: That's right. It's lev Vygotsky's idea of the zone of

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Speaker 2: just a 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

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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 says. And what happens then is that you learn

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Speaker 1: to fear going into your learning zone. The relationship that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here is to get to understand, to

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Speaker 1: get to know your learning zone. And so one of

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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 zone.

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Speaker 1: So sometimes we want to do breadth work, we need

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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

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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,

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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

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Speaker 1: step is going to be harder again the step after there,

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Speaker 1: and of course they give up. Who wants to go

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Speaker 1: down that path? But someone with a growth mindset recognizes

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Speaker 1: that it's only hard until you make it easy. You

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Speaker 1: invest the effort, and the thing that used to be

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Speaker 1: hard becomes easy.

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Speaker 2: Ralph Wade Edison said that which we persist in doing

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Speaker 2: becomes easier for us to do, not that the nature

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Speaker 2: of the thing itself has changed, but that our power

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Speaker 2: to 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 the or

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Speaker 1: the relationship between our current abilities and the problem, and

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Speaker 1: if we raise our current abilities, the thing that used

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Speaker 1: to be hard becomes easy. And so what I'm wanting

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Speaker 1: parents to do and teachers to do is to talk

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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, feel that uncertainty,

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Speaker 1: that this comfort we feel is a temporary feeling, not

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Speaker 1: a permanent one. The price of growth is struggle, an effort,

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Speaker 1: and once we pay the price, once we go through

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Speaker 1: the right type of effort, we grow and the things

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Speaker 1: that used to be hard become easy.

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Speaker 2: James, I love this conversation. I'm sure that parents are

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Speaker 2: sitting here going yes, yes, I just need my children

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Speaker 2: to understand it, because this is a podcast for a

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Speaker 2: type for parents who just want answers. Are there any

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Speaker 2: specific ways that parents can talk to their kids in

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Speaker 2: like a minute or less, Things that they can say

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Speaker 2: to their kids when they're saying I can't it's too hard,

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Speaker 2: don't want to know? What can parents do and say

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Speaker 2: to help them to get into that zone of proximal development,

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Speaker 2: to get into that learning zone, to become agile learners.

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Speaker 2: Kids who love the challenge because they know it's going

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Speaker 2: to stretch them, grow them, and then make something that

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Speaker 2: was hard easy.

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Speaker 1: All right, So two things I think i'd suggest. One

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Speaker 1: is what we've just been talking about, to recognize that

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Speaker 1: you need to get comfortable with that discomfort, that that

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Speaker 1: struggle is a part of the process of growth, and

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Speaker 1: that that struggle is a temporary thing in the moment.

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Speaker 1: Particularly if those students are on the low growth end

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Speaker 1: of the continuum, they're probably not going to buy that

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Speaker 1: repeat the message, though it helps. The second thing is

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Speaker 1: to help them recognize where that's occurred in the past,

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Speaker 1: to recognize their own backstory, to say, think back to

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Speaker 1: the 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.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. Can I throw in a third

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Speaker 2: one that just popped into my head as you were

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Speaker 2: saying that. I think it's useful for us as parents

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Speaker 2: world to highlight I'm no good at this, but guess

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Speaker 2: what I've been working on it, and look what I

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Speaker 2: can do when they see you struggling with stuff. And

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Speaker 2: I love that quote. I love what you said. Effort

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Speaker 2: is the price of growth brilliant when they see us

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Speaker 2: putting in the effort so that we can grow. Surely

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Speaker 2: that example's got to be 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 yeah, James, If people want more info from you,

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Speaker 2: whether they're parents or maybe their school leaders, who would

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Speaker 2: love to bring you on board so that you can

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Speaker 2: have a chat with them and their educators or parents

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Speaker 2: who want your resources? Where do they go? What do

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Speaker 2: they do?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Just jump onto my website James Anderson dot com

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Speaker 1: dot au slash Parenting for the parents, and you can

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Speaker 1: jump onto my blog there. I've got a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of downloadable resources and I run regular workshops of parents

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Speaker 1: as well to help them unlimit their child, develop growth mindsets,

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Speaker 1: and develop their learnership in the school.

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Speaker 2: Useful and valuable conversation, James Anderson, What a treat to

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Speaker 2: have that conversation. Thanks so much for joining us. The

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Speaker 2: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.

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Speaker 2: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. And if you would

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Speaker 2: like more resources to make your family happier, why not

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Speaker 2: check out a Happy Families membership, all the details at

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Speaker 2: Happy Families dot com, dot aut