Kareem Farah 0:10 Hello, and welcome to episode five of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. My name is Kareem Farah, co founder and executive director of The Modern Classrooms Project. I'm joined today by two wonderful guests, they Dacia Guffey and Shane Donovan. I've known both for years. They're incredible implementers in the modern classrooms model, I want them both to introduce themselves. So I'm going to start with Dacia. I met Dacia, a couple of years ago when she started to implement the modern classrooms model, and actually kind of introduced me to her school so I could train other educators. Dacia, can you share a little bit with our listeners about what you do, where you teach, and how you learned about the modern classrooms project model? Dacia Guffey 0:48 Yeah, I've been teaching in North Carolina public schools as a socialized teacher since 1998. I've been teaching in a blended learning environment since about 2013. That's when I started teaching at the Durham performance Learning Center in Durham, North Carolina. And our performance Learning Center is not an alternative school, in the traditional sense, is a choice school. So students have to want to come to our school, there's a whole application process, we take high school students from all over the district. But generally, the kinds of students we are serving our students who've gotten somehow derailed in their journey towards graduation, it can be a lot of different reasons. Family Issues, illness, hospitalization, homelessness, maybe they transfer from another state where the credits just don't transfer quite right. Or it can just be students who haven't had success in a traditional big, comprehensive high school. So we use this hybrid online learning approach to allow students to earn more credits in a semester than they couldn't in traditional high school, because they can work at their own pace. And it's that self paced approach that really attracted me to the modern classrooms project, because we had been sort of figuring out best practices for blended learning through just a lot of trial and error. And it was really that Edutopia video that Kareem made that was just like, a eureka moment for me. I mean, I literally went running down the hallway, to my principal with my laptop in my hand, saying, here it is, this is it, someone has finally taken all of these different pieces, these disjointed parts and put it together into a systematic framework. And so that's why we wanted to get involved with the modern classrooms project. Kareem Farah 2:29 I love it. And you know, it's so interesting, because Durham performance Learning Center was probably the first place I went to, in the physical setting to actually train teachers in person, and we did the training in your room Dacia. And you had already built a modern classroom, I remember actually walking up to your pacing tracker and taking a picture of it because it was just so awesome. And now you are an incredible implementer and an awesome mentor. So it's great to have you here. And the other guests we have is Shane Donovan. The crazy thing about how I know Shane Donovan is we actually went to the same high school. And during that time, I certainly didn't know Shane's incredible work in the education space. And it wasn't until after I became a teacher and started creating this model that I had found out that Shane had been doing a similar model for years, and is now both an educator and administrator at a fantastic school here in the DC area. Shane, can you share a little bit more about your work and your connection with the modern classrooms project? Shane Donovan 3:18 Sure. I currently teach at DC International School, which is a charter in the Brightwood area. I've been teaching all things stem for this is my 11th year now. And I first experimented with blended and self paced learning models as part of a fellowship run by the city bridge foundation in DC called the education Innovation Fellowship. And the reason why I wanted to join it was I was teaching physics and bio and chem and other science subjects and inquiry based teaching is great, right? The fun part of science class is like doing these labs, these big lab projects at the ends of units that where you tie everything together that you've learned. And when you do it, right, it's amazing. But when you try and force kids through content, in order to get them to the end, they have all these Swiss cheese holes in their learning, right? Because that kid was absent for a day, that kid wasn't paying attention for a day, a kid was in a bad mood because they got dumped by their significant other, like, whatever it might be. And then you try and do this big project at the end of the unit. And you get a bunch of projects that are mediocre. And I was sick of grading mediocre labs as a teacher, I wanted kids to really feel confident that they knew what they knew that they could take extra time if they needed it. And so I built a model of my own in my own class, which is very similar to what has sort of been codified by the modern classrooms over time. And I've applied it to a bunch of different types of class, physics, biochemistry, engineering, computer science on the stem kind of world. And now I also coach them teachers as well. Kareem Farah 4:49 Fantastic and one of the things I've always loved about working with you Shane is you always think about the end in mind. I think so often it's easy as an educator to just get lost in the process and our kids engage today and if kids don't the assignment today, but what inspired you to create the model was that kids were producing end products that weren't adequate enough. And that showed that they weren't, you know, actually mastering skills on the journey there. And that's why you wanted to create a change. It's such a great sort of rationale for why we should be innovating in the classroom. So I love it. You know, today's discussion is all about this concept of the disengaged learner. And, you know, I even have trouble saying this engaged learner just because I think that sometimes that like, term or that label can be misused, you know, but I want to talk today about sort of the students that have trouble feeling successful, and actually learning content. In any classroom. And in particularly in a modern classroom. You know, we've heard for years that when you implement the modern classrooms model, it's actually easier to spot disengagement, right. When you run a traditional classroom, when everyone's sort of sitting in rows, and you're leading a lecture at the front of the room, it's actually kind of difficult to spot disengagement, because a lot of times you're watching compliant disengagement. So it looks like kids are doing what they're supposed to do, but they're not actually engaged. So before we even dig into sort of the nitty gritty about the model, and how you can, you know, support and spot this engagement, why do you all actually think kids are disengaged in a learning process? And let's start with you day show? Like, why do you think kids don't engage in a classroom environment and a task and a learning experience in the first place? Dacia Guffey 6:26 I think for, and I think this is probably even more so with the particular population of students that we serve, think there's this expectation of failure that some of our kids like walk into your classroom with, if it's a subject that they've found difficult in the past, or they've just not experienced a lot of success, there's just this anticipation, that whatever is about to be put in front of me as a student is going to be hard, I'm not going to understand it, I'm not gonna get enough direction. And they shut down preemptively. I think sometimes that they take one look at your assignment. And then like, I already feel like this is too hard for me. And so I'm just gonna kind of piddle over here and hope the teacher doesn't notice the fact that I'm not doing anything, because I don't, I don't want to try because I don't want to experience yet another failure. And I think also, and I think we see this now, possibly in this, you know, environment that we're in with this pandemic more. So I think blight more than ever before. This whole, you know, the whole Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs thing that we talked about as educators, it's just so real, how important is my history class, full of dates and dead people, when I need to take a second shift at my job to keep the lights on, because I'm the only person in my house is still working. You know, anxiety and depression are real things that perhaps more so with this generation than any previous generation, and it, it derails kids. And so I'll just engagement is just laziness, or just, I don't want to do this. I think a lot of it has roots and much deeper thing. Kareem Farah 8:05 You know, what I loved about that response Dacia is I didn't hear a single thing about sort of a kid not wanting to be engaged, which I think is such a false precedent that sometimes we set. And you know, in particular, I know Shane knows the struggle in the STEM fields as well of this idea that kids walk in thinking they're already bad at something. And they're, frankly, just embarrassed to engage because they're worried that they're going to fail, and they don't want to fail again. And they feel like they've failed over and over again. So I think that's so incredibly true. Shane, any thoughts to add there? Shane Donovan 8:38 Yeah, I would just add that the flip side of the question is also interesting. So how you know that this is a thing that school has done to kids is look at a kindergartener going into school kindergarteners don't think they're bad at stuff. They haven't done much stuff yet, right? You know, I coach robotics teams and the younger kids, the younger you are, the more willing you are to suggest something crazy. You have no like academic self concept, yet it gets built over time in both the positive sense and also the negative sense. So I've worked with lots of ninth 10th 11th 12th graders who say, I don't feel good at math, but ask a first grader, like, show them a weird problem involving counting, and they're more likely to engage. So I think that that's a big part of it is teachers realizing we have the power to help kids build their academic self concept, in terms of by what we put in front of them. And so, you know, other reasons kids disengage over time is this sense of failure? And then also the sense that what we're learning is separate from me somehow, and the dates and dead people joke for history really rings true of like, how do I engage with this? And sometimes the reason kids can't engage with it is because teachers feel this rush to cover the content in a certain amount of time, which means you can't give time necessarily for kids to build a personal engagement with it, because you're worried about hitting all the points. by whatever pacing deadline you feel under pressure for. And we find that, you know, if you can relax your pacing or be creative with it, sometimes you create space for a kid to, you know, realize that historical figures connected to them or realize how this thing we learned in physics explains how my bicycle works. That wouldn't necessarily happen if you were pushing kids through a pace because you felt pressure to do so. Kareem Farah 10:25 Right. And you know, two things I want to say about that first, it is truly amazing the misconception people have and thinking, for example, that this model is built for adult learners or older learners. And you pointed out in many ways why that's actually not the case. In fact, while it still works fantastically at higher grade levels, a lot of times the students at the higher grade levels are so used to a more traditional form of teaching, it's actually harder to show those students that there's another way you can learn and you can self paced and you can master skills. And by that point, they've lost confidence in their ability in classrooms, which is so so concerning. And one of the main reasons why is they feel rushed, like it's so incredibly hard to engage in something and get excited about something when you're constantly feeling rushed. And that's how so many of our students feel, you know, as a math teacher, I saw this constantly. So such a powerful concept and thinking about sort of, you know, what are the drivers of disengagement in many ways, so many of them are, are out of students control, or the reasons were out of their control prior to a certain point. And now they can't figure out how to reengage in the classroom. And in many ways, traditional classrooms just aren't built for reengagement. It's like, once you're disengaged, how do I get back involved? How do I get in here? So Oh, fantastic point. So given those reasons, right, kids moving to faster content, they lost confidence, there's external reasons that stopping them from being engaged, they don't really understand how the content connects to them, you know, and many more, what are the most obvious indicators of disengagement? Because I actually think that's a nuanced, you know, sort of thing to think about, and in particular, like, what are the obvious indicators? And how does it look different in the in person versus remote setting, which many educators are currently teaching in? Dacia go ahead and share some thoughts on that. Dacia Guffey 12:06 Well, you know, in the classroom setting, this engagement can be as simple as zoning out, you know, falling asleep being off task. But a lot of times, I've found that disengagement is really a, you know, a precursor to class disruptions. It's like, a lot of times the disruptive students are students who get labeled as quote, unquote, behavior problems, they're just frustrated academically, you know, and it manifests through behaviors, because they just can't get it, if they could get it if they could experience some success, if they can actually master some concepts, they would not just feel so frustrated with the whole concept of school, and they wouldn't act out in these other ways. I have just found that over and over again, throughout the years. And now, in Durham, we are all remote. We are 100% as a school district remote, and it is tough, I'll have to say it is tough, because in the remote setting, they just ghost. A lot of the kids aren't showing up for zoom class meetings, they aren't logging in, they're not submitting work. If you know, this holy remote world has allowed some of my students to literally vanish. And so you have to be very creative about tracking those kids down and, and helping them reengage. Kareem Farah 13:22 Yeah, that's so so true. That idea of ghosting is just fundamentally easier in the digital space, which creates a real challenge. Shane, any thoughts on this? Shane Donovan 13:31 Yeah, I think you know, the, you mentioned it earlier Korean, the quiet compliance, that compliant but not mentally engaged. What's quite interesting about the remote space is that's not a thing anymore. Like it's so easy to be compliant. You just turn off your zoom screen, you just, you know, it's so easy to not disrupt a zoom class. I mean, as leaders of these classes, you have perfect power to quash any misbehavior if there is even such a thing. But what's gone in the remote setting is quiet compliance, but lack of learning. So it's, it's I actually think it's so easy to tell when kids are disengaged remotely, because they just don't do any work. I mean, they don't you don't have the evidence. And that's it. And I think an interesting lesson of this to reapply back to classrooms when we get back to classrooms is don't assume that just because a kid is present, nodding along, taking notes, that that means they're learning a lot. You need that evidence of there, you need independent real evidence of mastery, real inquiry, that kids are doing things that show mental engagement with content. And that we should hold ourselves to that standard that those products those things that kids are producing, showing, the discussions they're having that are genuine, are the things that show engagement. And so if any of those things are lacking, we should be wary and think this kid has possibly disengaged whether or not they're visibly checked out, visibly asleep in class or ghosting the zoom. I like to operate from this principle of until I see that you're engaged through academic product, I'm going to assume I need to keep chasing you in some kind of fashion. And in person, obviously, you can use jokes and personal charisma and other bits and pieces to make that a little easier. And digitally, it's a little harder, but you have to hold yourself to that standard of, I'm not quitting until I know for sure that you're engaging academically. Dacia Guffey 15:22 And it's interesting, because we all actually get some extra tools in the digital environment to confirm that things are happening, like, some of my students will be working on some sort of, you know, Google Slides activity. And, you know, they have their camera off, and they don't, you know, want us to engage with me verbally. And so I'll say, okay, working on this, how's it going, it's going great miss, it's going wonderful. And then I pull up their document that I can see. And then I'm like, but you're not even in here, honey, you're not even in the document at all. So you know, we have the opportunity, actually the been the technology to assist us in seeing what is really going on, behind those little squares that we're staring at Shane Donovan 16:04 also to help students realize that what I care about, I care about you as a human being, because I'm a caring human being, but I care also in terms of what I'm evaluating as your teacher. And what I'm assessing is your is your product, like your academic product. And so being I've noticed a small number of my students still are operating as though because I come to class and I'm on the Zoom. Like, somehow, that's enough. And I'm like, actually, the kid that never came, because I know why they can't come because they don't have internet at home, and they go to their parents work, to band it Wi Fi. So they can, you know, quickly upload a picture of this whole higher level math paper they did for me, like that kids engaged, even though they weren't in class, but you who sat there, politely nodding, and producing very little, you're not engaged. And that's a shift to teach kids that would engage needs. Because in traditional teacher paced classrooms, sometimes we accidentally send that message that if you, you know, jump, when I say jump, and you sit when I say sit, and you and you copy what I asked you to copy that that is what makes you good at school. Dacia Guffey 17:09 I call it the culture of completion. It's just the idea that we're going to tag bases. And, and that's good enough. And it does, you know, the mastery based learning idea behind a monitor classroom is a real slap in the face, when that has been, you know, life academically, as you've known it for a long time. And forcing them to say, wait a minute, do you really understand this? Well, if we're not really understanding this, we're not moving on until we do. And that's very new. Kareem Farah 17:40 And I actually, it's so interesting, because an article just came out today in The New York Times, and I was actually featured for a moment in the article because they were asking specifically about sort of attendance and how can we figure out accountability around attendance during this remote environment? And I kept thinking when I was having that conversation, it's not about attendance. It's about the product. Like what is yes, it's important for kids to chime in to a live session when we have live sessions if they can. But that pales in comparison to actually seeing student work come in, like the fixation should not be on whether or not these kids are able to show up to the live session, that doesn't actually indicate engagement. Who knows a parent could have just forced him to sit in front of a computer or like you said, Shane, they could just be sitting there camera off like watching TV and playing video games. What matters is the products, we need to see learning an action. And you know, that's part of the overall intention of modern classrooms model is to focus more on getting kids to mastery, not on sort of the silly structures that we create in classrooms to cultivate compliance. So I think you'll have it spot on. Now, one thing I want to talk about a little bit because I saw it come to life in my classroom, what was the difference in spotting disengagement in a traditional format of teaching versus in a modern classroom style of teaching? Like, how did disengagement look different? And were there any parts of it that were sort of surprising. In other words, like, once you made that shift, you were like, Oh, this is not what I expected. Dacia Guffey 19:07 My students wanted to live in the land of notes. Notes is their happy place. And they would just stay there. And we were going to take notes forever. And, and it was like that, I really had to work hard to push them through. And like this is just the beginning stepping stone guys into this much bigger thing we're doing. We cannot just live in the land of video. I know I'm very entertaining, when I'm teaching the history, but we need to do things, you know, that are going to put this history to work for us. And I think that I think it goes back to what we were saying a minute ago it was this is I can do this. This is I'm experiencing success in doing this. So I'm going to live here and I'm afraid to move to this next thing that I think I'm not going to do well on it And so you know, what are you checking out? Can you finish? Nope, haven't finished those notes. You should have finished those notes 16 times over. But you're, you're scared, and you're just kind of living there. So that was that was an interesting thing that started with the when I started using the model that I've never seen before. Kareem Farah 20:15 And I think you know, what that speaks to right is like kids is certainly kids who don't have enough confidence in the moment or have sort of felt like they were failures in their classroom. Like they truly are afraid to take academic risks, and they're afraid of failure. And like Shane had said earlier, like, we have to ask ourselves why we've gotten to that point, like why a child is legitimately afraid to move on to the more challenging inquiry driven, collaborative component of an assignment at this age, and what drove them to that point, like what's causing them to feel so scared of that moment? It's a critical question to ask. And it's a serious one to consider. Because it isn't a quick fix. That means if you're legitimately afraid to try something challenging, there's something bigger going on. Shane, do you have any thoughts on that in general, and just how sort of disengagement looks in the blended setting? And in the modern fashion setting? Shane Donovan 21:05 Yeah, I think two things, the first of like, don't forget that, like, why all people are a little bit risk averse, naturally. I mean, how many times have I like, cooked the same pasta dish for dinner, because I know exactly how to cook it, versus like, looking up something crazy. You know, like, just to use an example. So normalizing for students that like, it's okay, to be afraid about trying a new thing. By the way, I'm still going to make you do it, though, because it's not going to kill you, you know, you're going to be okay. Is I think part of it. The other thing that I think, the shift in moving to modern classrooms, I found myself taking almost like an anthropologist view of my classroom. So sometimes, you know, it'd be work time. And in a traditional class, if there was a kid who was totally disengaged, and potentially disrupting, or just visibly not making progress, I'd feel this urgency to, like, force them to in the moment engage, because otherwise I would lose control, quote, unquote, of the space, right? Like, the other kids can't see that this one kid is not part of it. Because you know, the 100% compliance, because otherwise the whole house of cards will come collapsing. But in a selfless setup, even for small chunks of time, it's kind of interesting, I would just, we'd be working, and I'd be like, that kid hasn't even started yet. And I just watched them, I'd be like, What are they doing instead? Like, kind of like as if I was watching from a distance and, and when I would approach a kid who is disengaged, it wasn't a you must get back on track now, because the whole earth is going to, you know, explode. If you don't start. It was like, what? Why have you not started yet? And they oftentimes they would give, they always do they give real answers. Like, I think this is boring. That kind of hurts a little bit, like fair enough, you told me or I don't understand anything about this video, or honestly, I'm really thinking about the soccer game I'm about to play this afternoon. And so it's really interesting, when you provide that space for students to give real direct feedback to you about why they're disengaged, they'll just directly tell you, whereas in a more traditional classroom, it manifests inside behaviors, because they don't have the space to just straight up tell you. Kareem Farah 23:16 Yeah, and that's, you know, that's so important, because I remember being an educator in the beginning teaching traditionally, and kids would almost reach a point where they were screaming their feedback at me, I'm trying to keep everyone sitting and listening to my lecture, and I got kids over there been like, I don't know what you're talking about, and like yelling it. And the only thing I'm thinking when they're saying that is like stop talking, take your notes like focus. And they're just legitimately articulating a real, like concern they have about why they're unable to actually engage in the learning process. And, you know, it speaks so much to why the model, and models like this can be so powerful for sort of the social emotional health of the student, which ultimately impacts engagement. Kids need the space, to be able to articulate how they're feeling and how it's contributing to the way that they're engaging in their work. If they can't do that, then they will inevitably just give up in some way, shape or form. And that that's true for I don't understand the problem, but it's even more so the case, if you have a student walking into your classroom, or chiming into a remote session, who's experiencing trauma, right, like that's the most, that's the easiest thing you can do to force a kid and 10, disengagement kid just came home from a really, really challenging thing, or there was a fight in the hallway, I walk into class and you're like, sit down, take your pencil out. We're going to study this. And they're like, so far from being able to engage in that experience, mentally, that they just give up. Like, they're just like, leave me alone. And that's really, really important. Like that idea of crafting a space for kids to share honest feedback during the learning process is a total game changer. So, so huge. Now, I want to talk a little bit about sort of what you do next, because I think we've talked a lot about sort of what causes kids to be disengaged. Some of the systems in our you know, have that have been put in place that make it very difficult for a kid to reengage. And that is critical in identifying potentially the problem. But many of these problems are deep rooted. And they're sort of been kind of conditioned over time. So once a student is disengaged, they're in a classroom in a remote setting, and they're not engaging in the work. And I'm not talking about the kid who comes in that one day and just had an off day, I'm talking more about sort of the students that seem to be chronically disengaged, are really having trouble, you know, diving into learning experience, what are some ways that you can reengage and support those kids? And how does a model like a blended self paced, mastery based model support that? Dacia Guffey 25:42 Well, I think, I think the very first thing you you have to acknowledge is that they don't care what you know, until they know that how much you care. I mean, it sounds cliche, but it's real. You have to be able to have the space and what we've been talking about with modern classrooms, having the space to make the real key conversations happen, to be able to find out what is honestly going on, is huge. And being able to be positive through that not playing any kind of blame game. And hey, be able to have realistic conversations, you know, if a kid comes in and says I'm exhausted, because I had, you know, work really late and these are, you know, or this was happening, or that was happening, say, Okay, so let's be realistic. What can we accomplish today, within this timeframe, I don't want to talk about everything that you're behind on, let's just talk about right now. And being able to have those kinds of like, you know, planning conversations, plus just being you know, for me, if I want to, if I see a student who's chronically disengaged, I want to reach out to their support people, and it may not be their parents, it may be a coach that they have they confide in, it may be a pastor, it may be some other person that they've got a real strong connection with. We have a barbering program at our school. And all the boys who are in the barbering program are very tightly connected to our barbering instructor like they are like his, they're, they're like sons to him. And so if I go to the barbering instructor and say, Hey, one of these kids, I don't know what's going on, can you speak to them immediately creates a change, because I've made that connection with something that's very, very important to them. And just, you know, have being able to talk to them about getting back on board with realistic goals. I think so many times they do get disengaged, and they stay disengaged, because they see it themselves, or like, oh, I look at the pacing tracker, and I'm just falling behind. And the more I fall behind, the more discouraged, I feel, and the more discouraged I feel, the more I don't want to engage. And so helping them say, you know, we're going to not worry about this aspire to do activity, we're going to worry about these must dues because this is critical. And that's more manageable. And we're going to do that and take away the overwhelming feelings out of the gate. I think those are important things to do to help students reengage. Kareem Farah 28:06 You know, it was so interesting that you bring that up, because one of the most profound things I realized was students post implementing the model was just giving a student bite size, feeling of success. Don't worry about your grade, don't worry about the full unit. Let's talk about you mastering one skill. Let me show you that if you commit time and energy to this process, you can master skills, right and once a kid actually realize it's in their reach, it's within their reach. Don't worry about catching up on seven lessons, just show me you can master one skill, and starting to create that kind of personalized relationship with a kid investing in that one skill. It's amazing how much power that can have, once a kid realizes that they're able to master a skill, then they start to see oh, if I can master one, I can master many more, which is such an interesting concept sort of chunking goals, and making success more attainable by just truncating. A little bit of what a child has to do in the moment to make them feel successful is one really powerful way to engage kids. Shane, what are your thoughts on this? Shane Donovan 29:04 I think to kind of extend what you were saying cream I like to tell students look at, I want to make a deal with you, which is that if each day you arrive and you engage in good faith with what I'm asking that you will learn a lot of physics, math can be whatever the subject is, because I've taught a lot. And that if you don't learn a lot, despite engaging in good faith that's on me as the teacher like that's the context that the social contract of a classroom. And also being honest with kids up front, maybe not every day, there won't be every day that you can engage perfectly. But if you're able, I'm not going to hold the past against you like today is the day so we walk in the door today's the day to try and engage in good faith as best you can. tear in your lessons really helps because you can make those adjustments when a kid has really struggled on having quick feedback cycles, right units that aren't too long, especially at the beginning. so that if it get out of bad unit, you can kind of push it aside a little bit, right, have them do the most basic thing out of it, and then give them another try. The other thing I think that's critical about this model is, of course, it has academic benefits in the chunking, and all that, but setting up a model where the vast majority of your students at any given moment, are going to be working on something that's in their proximal zone or development ish, because they're on whatever standard they're on, based on how far they've gotten. They have resources to help them that are reasonably of decent quality, like your videos, your your course, pack materials, whatever you want to call it, right? All that stuff is out there for kids, which means you as a teacher have a tremendous amount of time to just be checking in with kids, I find that I have off task conversations with students, but that's okay. Because they're relationship building conversations. And I can do that I can talk to a kid about what's going on in their life on the side, because I know that me doing that doesn't prevent everybody else from learning what they need to be learning. Shane Donovan 30:58 Building the space, in your in your classroom, whether it's virtual or not, to say like, we can take three minutes, and you can tell me, you can just tell me what you value. I think so many of the conversations about motivating students or motivating anybody assumes that like, we have this toolkit, and we just have to throw the right tool at the student. And it's like, we could just ask them, they'll probably just tell us, right, yeah, kids, people in general are willing to tell you what they value, because by definition, it's something that's important to them. So if you give them the space to just tell you what matters, like dishes, barbering students, they value that relationship, maybe they value that program, talk to them about it, that's gonna help get get kids on your bus, right for your classroom. Maybe it's a sport they play, maybe it's making their family proud. Maybe it's just the love of the discipline, whatever it is, but if you make the space for these conversations, kids will tell you what they value, and then you use what they value to try and help them get on your bus. Kareem Farah 31:51 And you know what's so interesting is, this all speaks to this concept of personalization. Like, how can you create a world for a student in a classroom, where you feel like you're actually meeting their needs, they're sharing what's bothering them, they're sharing what successes they're having. And you're also catering the coursework to their needs to their zone of proximal development, like so often we hear this term personalization. And it's associated with like, AI tools and some platform that adjust every move that it can make on some sort of auto generated questions. But what's way more important about personalization is a student walks in who hasn't been successful for the first two units, you have a conversation with them, you say, Look, you commit to working hard in here, I'm going to commit to ensuring that you're gonna end up mastering skills, and I'm gonna make sure you feel successful you do your part of the deal, I'll do my part of the deal. And then I can go on my end, and I can make adjustments to my gradebook, I might excuse them, I might only require them to do must do lessons. That's the art of personalization, right? This idea that this human being that walks into my classroom has so many different challenges that are unique to them. And that I have to create a learning environment that pushes them adequately without demoralizing them is so critical. And what the traditional model does is it constrains you from doing that, right? Instead, it's like, no, you're here, it's less than five today, do it. And if you don't, it's another bad day for you. And it's so destructive. And I think what that actually points to is, I think, a challenging topic, which is like, that can be the case for a student who's coming in every day. But what do you do with a student who has actually been falling behind for reasons that are incredibly out of their control? Like, you know, obviously, I saw this a lot in my school where students were really dealing with a lot of trauma, and may have missed a couple of weeks of class. And it maybe wasn't locked. Maybe there was an apparent note, but I knew and speaking to the students, something really tough was going on at home. What are the things that you all do, when any circumstances be clearly beyond a student's control? And frankly, there needs to be modifications in what they're learning to ensure that they're able to feel successful data like how do you support this? And this is one of the many reasons I'm excited to have you on the podcast, because this is the type of school environment you're in by design. What are your thoughts on students who are really just going through something that is so incredibly challenging that engaging in a learning process is the last priority for them? Dacia Guffey 34:14 Well, we have to think about, these are humans. They're not just students, and they're going through things, some of them that we as adults, we couldn't handle it. We couldn't handle it. If you know, we, we didn't get any sleep last night, because we were laying on the floor holding our little sister down because somebody was shooting through the windows, our apartment, you know, and then came to school the next day. I'm sorry, nothing that is on my lesson plan has anything to do with this kid's mental state right now, where he is in any way, shape, form or fashion. And so you've got to have that empathy. And you have to be able to give grace because what the standards want and what is humanly possible in this moment are not always going to agree And I think honestly one of the best things that I learned going through the modern classrooms training, was forcing myself to hone in on what is most important. I mean, history teachers, we're all just storytellers. And we just think everything is important. Every little detail of Teddy Roosevelt's life, you need to know that. And cream, you just kept saying it over and over again? No, not really. Dacia Guffey 35:26 And that was, but it was really good for me. Because if I forced myself to hone in on what is most critical, then I have time to stop and say, what's going on with you? What can I do to help you? Do you need someplace to stay tonight? Do we need to figure out, you know, talk to the social worker and see what's going to happen next, because history is going on a shelf right now. Their story is more important than my history. And, you know, one of our principals we had years ago, he said, he told us over and over again, it's every child, every day, anyway, whatever we have to do to meet them where they are, we will do that. And I think that's the thing that elevates education above many professions, because we have a role in these students lives that is beyond just, we're an employee of the school system. And there they've been putting our classroom is much greater than that. And, and we have to be able to give that time for them to work out those things. And sometimes we're the only safe adults, they have to work those things out with. Kareem Farah 36:40 Yeah, no, that's spot on. And, you know, inevitably, I think one of the things that teachers will sometimes get bogged down on, and I don't blame them, because depending on the environment you're in, you feel a lot of pressure, as Shane, you said, to get through content. But as an educator, you have to be able to step back and say, Look, I know that that pacing guide right there says that I have to get through this many lessons by October 15. I know there's a common assessment, I need to give that everyone on my grade level is going to be given. But that cannot cloud my ability to understand that trauma is bigger than that. And challenges are bigger than that. And you know, it actually has been refreshing, you know, in sort of a silver lining way to see sort of the educational world shift a little bit on this during COVID. It's like everyone is sort of recognized. There's an amount of trauma going on right now that far exceeds what a standardized test means that importance, and we all collectively need to agree that things are more important than these test scores and stuff like that, which is really, really powerful. Shane, any thoughts on your end on sort of like, you know, what adjustments you make when you're dealing with sort of a student's circumstance that truly is just beyond, you know, normal courses of action? Dacia Guffey 37:43 Yeah, I think I'm glad that we have space to sort of name this thing of the, the infatuation with, with the grit idea, right of like, the solution to school being really hard for you, it's just be more gritty. It's like, well, there's so much race and class ism, in construct of what that word means. students going through trauma have unbelievable grit in aspects of their lives that I don't see because I don't live in their house. So the solution when a kid comes to school, caring so much, and being behind is not to demand that they somehow like try harder, you have to investigate what's really going on with them. Shane Donovan 38:19 Understanding what is the what is the core idea that you really want to make sure kids get from a unit of study is important. There's this really difficult paradox that teachers that I coach, I try and reason out that while a kid is with you, you want to try and in everything you do communicate that you this is the most important thing to you, like my physics class is so amazing. And what we're learning right now is the coolest thing, and I care so much about it. But if you turn that into pressure on yourself, which means if kids don't learn every single thing in my class, I'm a horrible teacher, like that just becomes debilitating for you as a as an adult, and you can't work that way. Schools are sometimes tasked with using our reserves of skill to make up for tremendous structural inequality. We're sort of trying to fix the problems with capitalism ourselves in our own classrooms. And that is a huge ask. And so from a teacher standpoint, like cutting yourself some slack, when you find that the magnitude of this is causing you to not be able to do your job well, isn't really important. But also when that student is with you, that student who's experienced so much, so much difficulty, being able to provide some kind of ray of hope for them, and say, Look, I know you've got a lot on your plate right now. But we're going to try and focus on one thing, right? The biggest thing from this unit or this topic, and I think mastery is a hot ticket word, and we like to, we really like to think of mastery as a goal. But a secondary goal to mastery sometimes can be competence. Maybe you aren't going to master this unit on Newton's laws, all of them, but you can be competent enough that I know that you'll remember to put a seatbelt on when you're driving a car when you're 19. And so you have to like be reasonable with with what you put in front of kids, knowing where they come from, this can sound like a lowering of expectations. But really, it's just about being honest. Because if we're blind to the reality is that our kids bring into our classrooms, we end up just teaching through them, not with them. And we can feel really great that we set all the words and covered all the content, but it's not about what I cover. It's about what you learned. Kareem Farah 40:23 Yeah, no, and you know, it's just, in the end, you can't hide behind the fact that you will inevitably just demoralize a student, if you don't meet their needs, and meet them where they're at. Right, you can try all you want to build the greatest curriculum, and the most beautiful setup of videos and assignments, and design all these systems and structures. But you know, you have to be able to be present in the moment and recognize that what you are producing in your classroom, while that is your primary job to teach a potential skill or content. Kareem Farah 40:54 Inevitably, if a child is going through something bigger than that, it's just not going to be that important to them. And you can try to make it seem like it's that important to him, but it's not. And if you do teach through them, they'll know it and they'll lose confidence in the system being able to meet their needs. And that's so, so important. Now, I do want to ask one important question, though, as we close today, which is this idea, though, of, you know, there are your students who are going through incredibly challenging issues, traumas, making it difficult for them to engage, they're trying their best, but then there are also students, obviously, that sometimes aren't necessarily trying that hard. And one of the things I struggled with as a young educator, when I first started in the classroom, was I felt this desire to give my kids everything I was like, you're confused, let me give you everything, you don't know how to do this problem. Let me just help you solve it right here, right now, you don't know how to think through this concept. You don't access these materials. Let me just walk you through every single thing now. And I actually learned from the veteran teachers in the building that were great, they came to me and said, Look, I get what you think you're doing. But you're actually doing a little too much. You're not letting the kids wrestle with the content enough. And by doing that, you actually aren't believing in them enough in their capabilities to be self directed learners and their capabilities to problem solve and their capabilities to persevere through challenging work. And I think that fundamental distinction is really, really challenging. So can you all talk a little bit about sort of how the modern classrooms project connects to this idea of pushing students a to take control their owning learning environment, even when sometimes they don't believe they can, and also this idea of failing forward, that you shouldn't coddle a kid from failure, because it's actually failure, that potentially is the best way that they're going to learn and grow. Learning from your mistakes is a powerful experience Dacia, can you talk a little bit about that? Dacia Guffey 42:45 Well, my husband, he's also an educator. And he always says, show up, don't quit. And I think that that kind of is encapsulate a lot of what we're talking about, it's like, if you will be here, and you will be present with me, I'm going to make the I'm going to set up the framework so that you can be successful. Just don't quit on me. Don't quit on me when it gets hard. Don't quit on me, when you start feeling, you know, sort of out of your element, don't quit, because we're going to arrive at the end destination as long as you're willing to put forth that effort. And I mean, I understand what you're saying about coddling. And I think I'm a little iffy, probably on that idea, just because of where I've been teaching for the past seven years. And honestly, it's torn down a lot of my assumptions about what students should come into my room, knowing there's a lot of prior knowledge that deficits I guess, I would say that even some of our students who may not be from a low socio economic background, or it's surprising sometimes what they come to you, and they just really honestly don't know, they're not being lazy. They're not being, you know, whatever. They just, they don't know. And so, you know, we have to have think we also have to be cognizant of not trying to turn our high school classes or into little universities. Dacia Guffey 44:12 If my you know, if one of my students says, Hey, I really need to do my video questions on paper, because I just can't, my brain is not letting me do it this, you know, on the computer. Yes, I want you to do that. Write it on paper, take a picture of it, I would much rather be adaptive, then say, No, it has to be this way. It has to be in this particular format, every single time. I feel like we can get a little too rigid in some things, as educators about you know, you have to use this kind of font you have to do with this. I don't I don't think we should be that way. I think we should be more more flexible. If that makes any sense. Kareem Farah 44:55 No, it does. It absolutely does. I mean balancing this issue is incredibly difficult and If, again, if you push someone beyond their zone of proximal development, like their ability to access something, then you run your run into a real issue. Real real issue. Shane, any thoughts on this? Shane Donovan 45:10 Yeah, I think the the technical feedback that I often give to teachers a lot, and I try and live by it in my own classes is, can you just asked questions back to kids, when they ask questions to you. It's annoying for kids at first, but then they get used to it. And they stop even realizing that that I'm doing it. And can you coach your kids to ask quality questions? So I teach explicitly, like, when I'm starting with this model, especially with younger students, and especially in an in class setting where the default is immediately stick your hand up, right? Whack a Mole, I just said, Alright, guys, remember where you picked up yesterday? Let's go 10 hands are in the air. This is you know, second third day of school. I'm like, That is impossible. You have been working on this for all the four seconds. Shane Donovan 45:59 And I don't I don't say it that bluntly to them, because that's kind of mean sounding. But what you have to do is teach kids like how to use resources, sometimes they don't know how to do it, because they've never been expected. So you model for students? Have you like watch the video? Again? Remember that coursepack thing that has the definitions of all keywords from our from our unit? Living right there? Do you remember how to find it? And then also, if a kid saying that they're stuck, you have to teach them how to formulate a good question. So I literally have like a syntax for a question, which is I'm stuck on blah, I've tried blah, blah, and blah, blah, and blah, blah. I've also talked to these other friends of mine. And we all still don't understand this specific thing. That's a great question that shows that a kid has put in the effort to diagnose their confusion. I tell students like you wouldn't just go into a doctor and scream, it hurts super loud, you tell the doctor, you know what, how you're hurting. And that's really helps them know where to be looking to help you out. And that's the thing that takes students time, but you can teach them that. And I think that that's a transferable life skill. Besides being in a science class, or history class, that's just a good thing to be able to do to really put the finger on what's hard for you. Because that's the again, the contact I make with students is if you can tell me what's tough. I have the toolkit to try and be flexible, right? I'll quickly draw something that isn't in the course pack to try and help explain it another way. I'll pull up like a random YouTube video, that isn't my video, because I realize it might help you. Like that's what, as professionals, we train, we build a toolkit, but we have to know what a kid needs. And there's this combination of you diagnosing them from observation, but then you teaching kids to share themselves what it is that they need from you. And that's a skill they can take away with them past your class. Kareem Farah 47:45 Yeah, that's so fantastic. And you know, one of the things I always realized as an educator was like, if I'm so worried that a kid master this specific skill in a certain timeframe, then I'm not actually allowing them to realize when they maybe haven't put their best foot forward, or maybe they haven't tried as hard as they could, or maybe they haven't had themselves the same expectations as I know that could. And in turn, what happens is, those students, we stopped them from sort of seeing what happens when maybe they disengage for a reason that they could control and have they not disengaged, they would have been successful. If we don't let a kid learn from their own mistakes, then it's really hard for you to grow over time, we have to create a little bit of space for failure, and show those kids hey, it's actually okay to fail. But here's what happened. Let's learn from it. Let's figure out how we can do better next time. Let's diagnose the problem earlier and make those adjustments. And then in turn, maybe you'll see a greater success, Master more skills or just feel like you enjoy the classroom environment more. So I love that feedback from both y'all. What a wonderful place to end Kareem Farah 48:42 Dacia and Shane, to no surprise, it is an absolute joy talking with you both about this topic. It's so so important. I know a lot of educators are thinking hard about how to keep their kids engaged. So thank you both for joining us this week on the podcast. It was a pleasure to have you both. Shane Donovan 48:56 You're welcome. Thanks so much. Dacia Guffey 48:58 Thank you. Kareem Farah 48:59 Absolutely. And remember every one that you can always learn more about our work at our website. It's actually a brand new rebranding. So if you haven't gotten recently check it out at www.modernclassrooms.org. You can also learn our model for free at learn.modernclassrooms.org You can follow our social media accounts @modernclassproj on Twitter, and most of all, if you do really want to get some more of that personalized support. If you're looking to really build a unit modern classroom style, and have someone like Shane or someone like Dacia actually mentoring you through the process. You can always check out our virtual mentorship program to get that more comprehensive support. Thank you all for listening and have a wonderful rest of your week. Bye everyone. Kate Gaskill 49:46 Hey, everyone, Kate Gaskell head of teaching and learning at the modern classrooms project here. I wholeheartedly agree with Shane and Dacia when they reflect on how too often our students come to us already feeling defeated. I loved how the modern classrooms instructional model gave my students hope and showed them they can do this they can master material. Modern classrooms changed the way I view teaching and student learning and I'm excited to lift up the voice of Jeff Mercer, a fantastic educator we were fortunate to work with who had a similar experience of modern classrooms. Jeff Mercer 50:20 Hi, this is Jeff Mercer from Howard City, Michigan. I teach high school English language arts and Advanced Placement computer science principles at Tri County High School, home of the Vikings. I have to tell you, I love how my students are challenged to work. Many students appreciate the opportunity to learn how to maximize their time and master ideas at a higher level. I am thrilled about teaching for mastery where I can hold kids to higher standards, proving to them they are worthy and capable. I appreciate the methods for placing the responsibility of lesson pace and completion on the shoulders of my students. I have always wanted to be able to spend more one on one time with my kids that need it. And now I am able to I am so grateful for the modern classroom project for providing engaging professional development classes. Modern classroom hands down. This is the best instructional system available to you. And it is what is best for kids. I love it and you will to Kate Gaskill 51:29 Remember you can always learn more about our work at our website www.modernclassrooms.org. You can learn more about our model and our free course at learn.modernclassrooms.org