Tag Archives: learning

Good pushback

Yesterday I wrote Winning is Everything and on LinkedIn I got a couple really good comments that (justifiably) pushed back on this idea. Here are the comments and my responses:

Manuel Are:

Thought provoking!

While the mindset of “winning is everything” can drive success and achievement in various contexts, it’s important to balance this with ethical considerations, personal well-being, and long-term sustainability. Sometimes, focusing on personal growth, collaboration, and enjoying the process can lead to more fulfilling outcomes than solely prioritizing winning.

Is this the cultural condition of the times? Is this the societal and cultural pressure that we have now? The standards of the time? The psychological satisfaction?

What about if we teach the future of the value of losing? Of ethical perspectives? Of relationships? Of outcomes?

What if I gained the world but loses my humanity in return?

Dave Truss:

Yes, so true. I work at a school where we show the value of learning through failure. I describe a bit about this here: Educon 17 Conversation

You’ve probably read enough of my blog to know that this is not a typical post for me. I’m very focused on collaboration, teamwork, community, and belonging. This post might seem out of character for me and invited the wonderful counterbalance that you shared…

But I think sometimes we push too much on being ok with just doing our best, and the message of striving, pushing, and thriving from going the extra mile is somehow undervalued or missed.

While collaboration and teamwork are essential life skills, I don’t think we should teach these at the expense of those individualized skills that winning athletes all seem to exude… these too are attributes that help people get what they want out of life.

Mona Haraty:

Doesn’t it serve us all better to believe that everyone can be a winner if they engage more in non-zero-sum games in their lives? It’s easy to lose perspective in zero-sum games like sports.

Dave Truss:

Yes… and no. We do so much in our schools to promote collaboration and teamwork, and we spend a lot more time praising students for what they can do. But how often do we put students into competitive situations where they have to push themselves farther than they think they can go?
We see kids getting ‘A’s all through high school who can’t hack 1st year university because they never understood how to push themselves despite their glowing marks.
This is a bit of a push-back post. Most of my readers will disagree, and I value the time and attention it takes to comment (thank you)… Most of what I do as a school leader is contrary to this philosophy, but I think the pendulum has swung a little too far. We (also) need to praise students who seek individual accolades and who put themselves out there to be the best… while also teaching non-zero-sum games and activities.
Not everyone wins, but most who do win know how to push beyond most who don’t… do we teach that at all these days? Do we let students shine far above others who can’t?
Again, I’m not disagreeing with you, but I wonder if sometimes we aren’t crushing the excellence out of high performers?

Mona Haraty:

I agree that we should definitely encourage excellence, and that we are crushing the excellence out of high performers precisely because they are being compared to their classmates using the same tests or challenges. I tell my kids that if the problems they are working on are too easy, they should skip them because there’s no learning in that—there’s no point in getting an A without being challenged.

Once we encourage excellence and take into account the level and growth of each student, grades become even less relevant.

As you said “most who do win know how to push beyond most who don’t” and we can help students build perseverance and resilience by challenging them at their own appropriate level.

I love this kind of professional learning dialogue. This is the kind of conversation that pushes thinking. This is the kind of dialogue I used to see on my Pair-a-Dimes educational blog regularly 10-15 years ago. The pushback is framed positively, and the intent is to shed light… and learning. I don’t see a lot of this on social media anymore. In fact, I seldom even go to comments on other’s writing anymore. For that reason, I truly thank Manuel and Mona for taking the time to question what I said, and to invite further conversation.

When I wrote ‘Winning is Everything’ I fully intended on following up with a post titled, ‘Winning ISN’T Everything’ to counterbalance it with points shared in the comments above. However, to me the better topic is that others beat me to the punch. Their comments and my responses did more to counter balance, to provide pushback on, yesterday’s post than I could have done on my own.

So please, I invite feedback and pushback whenever I say something that doesn’t resonate with you… or simply to ask a clarifying question. And like Manuel and Mona, it can be on a platform besides my blog. While I like blog comments because then the comments are archived with my post, I also appreciate the feedback wherever you are willing to share it.

_____

*UPDATE* – One more comment and response came in on LinkedIn, which is like to add here: 

James Linzel:

I’m glad you describe the importance of collaborative skills. An excellent argument can be formed that winner take all systems dominate our society. Schools are literally designed to rank humans rather than maximize potential. Sports focuses on winning. Politics has become winner take all by leveraging voter blocks. Nationalism is given more importance than humanism.
I’d like to see a 180 from the present competition focused society to a more equity, collaborative, competency based society. I’m not saying eliminate competition, but prevent it from having the pedestal its presently given.
When your original post claimed winning is more important than sportsmanship, then I cannot agree. That position leads to the worst in humanity.

Dave Truss:

Excellent points.
I have competed in sports at a fairly high level. I’m not a natural athlete and had to work my butt off at every level, and was never the best player playing. But I had games and moments where I felt that drive and that competitiveness that pushed me harder than I thought I could go, where winning the game was everything, and the hours of hard practice paid off. That’s not something you can easily achieve in an environment that doesn’t foster competitiveness, and those moments are powerful memories of achievement through hard work… that’s what I was trying to describe in my post.

But in reality, I think your points are extremely relevant. I think people like Andrew Tate and many others including a particular political leader, glorify the idea of selfishness and being first, or being losers. Your point that, “Nationalism is given more importance than humanism,” is so on point, and strikes a counterpoint that I wholeheartedly agree with.
I invite you to see my follow up post: Good pushback

I have now included your comment and this response there as an update.
Thank you for sharing your insights!

Persistence and Patience

I like images and graphics that make you think, and especially ones that are motivating. But sometimes for the sake of an image trying to tell a story, another narrative can either be missed or take over from the intended message. That’s something that immediately occurred to me when I saw this ‘inspirational’ image.

To me, the intended message is that we always need to keep learning, but it suggests a uniformity of practice and process that’s just plain wrong. To the person who posted it, Steven Bartlett, the message was about relentless consistency. He said,

For anyone frustrated with how long something is taking you right now…

Remind yourself of this.

Relentless consistency is usually the answer. I’m not talking about a sprint, I’m talking multi-decade.

What’s one thing you do to remain consistent?

But that uniformity between LEARN and APPLY in the image really bugs me no matter what the intended message. While other commenters mentioned positive interpretations like, ‘Consistency is key’, and ‘Focus on the long game’, I commented:

I think my greatest learning is that application always takes longer than you think. Persistence needs to be tempered with patience.

I wish learning was that easy. I wish I could apply everything I learned so consistently and effortlessly. I can’t. And I don’t think anyone can. There are hours of practice, there are mistakes made, detours and distractions. There is never the consistency and uniformity off application of learning seen in the image.

Is the message of relentless consistency over a long period of time important? Absolutely! But I really think this image misses the mark in sharing what relentless consistency looks like. The hardest part of relentless consistency is when application of learning does not go smoothly and application of what you’ve learned takes months to accomplish. And yes, sure that also often means more learning, but the grunt work of making things work can often be the times when consistency really matters, and isn’t so evenly worked through as suggested in the image.

Persistence needs to be tempered with patience. If constant results and application of learning are expected, this will lead to disappointment and frustration… neither of which inspires consistency.

If I’m not learning…

I’ve had a connection on LinkedIn invite me into some conversations that he hosts. So far I’ve declined. In writing this. I was planning on sharing my full correspondence, but really it’s the last sentence I wrote that inspired sharing. Here it is:

If I’m not learning something new, I’ve got more important things to do!

The full, 2-sentence paragraph was:

“Sounds selfish, but I’m too old and too far into my career to waste my time:) If I’m not learning something new, I’ve got more important things to do!”

I don’t want the sales pitch, I want to see excellence and learn from people doing good work. I don’t want the conference session that’s about inspiration, I want to learn about the perspiration and the hard work that got results. I don’t just want the showcase of results, I want to understand the messy failures that helped get you there.

If I’m not learning something new, I’ve got more important things to do!

Community of Learners

Yesterday we had the incoming Grade 8 class join us for the day. Our Grade 9’s, under teacher supervision, organized the day. We welcomed our nervous, shy Grade 8’s with some icebreakers and a challenge to work in groups to do maximum 3-minute a skit that showed a challenge of working in groups. Then a 1-minute solution.

One example of a skit students came up with was a team worked hard to get a presentation ready and then the day it was due the person responsible for building the PowerPoint was away and didn’t share anything… and hadn’t actually done what they were supposed to do. The solution the students came up with was asking for a one day extension. The other things our teacher and other students suggested as a solution included:

How could they share their knowledge without a PowerPoint? Could they come up with about 5 slides in 10 minutes that would be a good backdrop to their presentation? And going further: What could they do to ensure that this student does more visible work before the presentation next time? And/or what would be a better role for that student next time?

The skits were not judged on how good they were, they were about a team facing a challenge and seeking a solution. They were dissected to learn, as a community, how to work effectively in a community. The skits were humorous, and often included things like dealing with tyrannical teachers with unrealistic actions or expectations. One skit had a teacher that threatened to beat kids up with a ruler. But even in this silly scenario, there were lessons to be learned.

Our Grade 9’s made sure everyone felt welcome. Our teachers made sure students worked together and shared what we expected from learners at our school. And the Grade 8’s moved slowly from nervous visitors to members of our community. After school a few students stuck around for an hour waiting for their parents to join us for our PAC (Parent Advisory Council) pot luck and then AGM Meeting. During that wait, the Grade 8’s mingled with the Grade 9’s that were also waiting, and it was great to see them all in cross-grade groups chatting and laughing.

We will continue the community building in September, and the beautiful thing about hosting a visit like yesterday is that there is already some momentum built. We won’t be starting from scratch, and our new students will start in September excited to reconnect. It’s so much easier to build a positive learning environment when a strong community of learners is established.

Rationalize or Analyze?

I was at a meeting yesterday morning where some critical feedback was shared by a group of students. I think the feedback was very useful, and there was a lot to gain from the information. I don’t know how it was received by others?

When you get feedback and it isn’t what you are looking for, what’s your first instinct?

Is it to rationalize why the feedback was not ideal? Was it a bad question? A misunderstanding? …An excuse of one kind or another?

Or do you analyze, reflect, and think critically about what the feedback really means?

Rationalization is really easy, but renders the information useless. Analysis can lead to uncomfortable realizations, but may lead to meaningful learning and, more importantly, changes in behaviours or systems.

I think rationalization is an emotional response, it’s a defence mechanism. It’s a way to comfort your ego… but it’s not a way to learn and grow. Honest analysis is not about finger-waving and blame, nor about making excuses. Rather it’s about informing practice and getting better. And in the end, getting better feedback in the future.

Rhyme (and) reason

Sometimes something happens without rhyme or reason, with no logical reason for it to happen. Other times it is abundantly clear… to some people but not to others. So while an observer can see and make connections between events or experiences, the person in the situation believes there is no rhyme or reason, no connections at all. I witnessed this first hand in a conversation recently.

I was talking to someone who was very upset with the behaviors of another person. Why couldn’t this other person understand how to help themselves? Why did this other person not do what needed to be done? There was much frustration because this other person wouldn’t respond well to feedback. Then the person I was talking to shared a personal struggle, and it was abundantly clear to me that the rhyme and reason for their struggle was identical for them as it was for this other person. The situation was completely different, but the points of struggle were the same.

Isn’t that fascinating how we can see and be frustrated with the challenges we see others struggle with, and yet be blind to how we struggle in similar way? Simultaneously asking ‘Why can’t this other person see what needs to be done’, while being oblivious to the fact that we struggle in the same way in other areas of our own lives. Maybe I’m being unfair in saying they are oblivious? Maybe the frustration they see in themselves is precisely why there is frustration in the other person.

‘I hate seeing this other person struggle, because in this other person I see the thing I least like about myself.’

I saw the rhyme and reason. But that doesn’t mean I handled it well. On the contrary, and upon reflection, I could have navigated the conversation much better. I realize this only after the fact. The person I was talking to knew the other person wouldn’t respond well to feedback because they knew they wouldn’t. When I saw the connection, the parallel relationship, I should have realized the it was the wrong time for me to offer feedback. It wouldn’t be well received… it wasn’t well received. The pattern was there for me to see, but I missed it.

We don’t always see the rhyme and reason for why we do what we do. But maybe it’s easier to see this in other people… maybe we project our own insecurities and frustrations on others because we struggle ourselves. The very reason it bugs us in others is because it bugs us in us. But even knowing this, it hurts to hear it.

Boxes Made to Fit

William (Bill) Ferriter shared a post on LinkedIn about the struggles his daughter is having at school. While I will share a key quote from his post, I encourage you to read the full post here. Bill said,

Should we be failing students who pass unit tests and quizzes but don’t turn in practice tasks? Were those practice tasks essential as a vehicle for preparing students or assessing learning if a student can demonstrate mastery on the unit test without them? How many assignments do we really need to determine if a student is working at or above grade level? Could we use something other than zeros — think codes like INC or placeholder grades like 50s — to report on missing work? Does every student have to do every assignment?

On a more philosophical level, are we cheapening our professional credibility when we report that a student who passes most/all of our quizzes and tests has failed our class? Are grading policies with rigid consequences for missing work effective for encouraging learning? For changing behavior? Is the purpose of grades to report on student mastery of essential outcomes or to report on the ability (or lack thereof) to keep up with schoolwork?

I left Bill the following comment:

In my first year teaching a colleague (also in his first year) was experimenting with grading and asked a simple question that has stuck with me:
“Are we counting marks or marking what counts.”
(See the first half of this old post – if you go past the first half, sorry that the image links seem to be broken.)

My daughter was training 24-26 hours a week in Synchronized Swimming and missed some gym classes going to Provincials and Nationals. Despite consistently being the second fastest girl doing their weekly runs (behind a Provincial level soccer player), she was told at the end of the year she would only get a ‘B’ unless she made up a run and did a volleyball rules quiz she missed.

I share this because it exemplifies the idea of just counting marks.

To me this undermines the professionalism of teaching. It says, ‘We only care about the numbers’, and that my friend is exactly what AI can do better than us. I hope to see educators around the world thinking more deeply about what really matters to students in school. We need to stop building schools and courses like boxes students need to fit into and more like boxes made to fit students!

Surrounded by Fixed Mindsets

One of the most powerful things we can do is to steadfastly hold an opinion, receive new information… and change our minds. This is what school board member Courtney Gore did:

A GOP Texas school board member campaigned against schools indoctrinating kids. Then she read the curriculum.

“Gore, the co-host of a far-right online talk show, had promised that she would be a strong Republican voice on the nonpartisan school board. Citing “small town, conservative Christian values,” she pledged to inspect educational materials for inappropriate messages about sexuality and race and remove them from every campus in the 7,700-student Granbury Independent School District, an hour southwest of Fort Worth. “Over the years our American Education System has been hijacked by Leftists looking to indoctrinate our kids into the ‘progressive’ way of thinking, and yes, they’ve tried to do this in Granbury ISD,” she wrote in a September 2021 Facebook post, two months before the election. “I cannot sit by and watch their twisted worldview infiltrate Granbury ISD.”

But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find.

The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”

Gore rushed to share the news with the hard-liners who had encouraged her to run for the seat. She expected them to be as relieved and excited as she had been. But she said they were indifferent, even dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.”

To learn new information that ‘doesn’t fit your narrative’, and then to change your mind and take a new stance… this is learning. This is a growth mindset. This is what we need in the world.

But if you read or listen to the full article, you’d learn that Courtney Gore’s new outlook led to threats against her and her family’s lives. It’s hard to change your mind, even harder to change the minds of people with fixed mindsets.

Fixed mindset thinking is why I spoke out before our last School Trustee election. It’s why our votes matter in every election. It’s why we need to pay attention to civic positions of power and not just provincial or federal elections. Fixed mindsets threaten learning and common sense… and can ultimately limit our rights and freedoms. At least here in Canada it’s less likely for guns and threats of violence to be the part of the consequence of fighting a fixed mindset. So we really don’t have an excuse.

Being tough vs having high expectations

In your schooling you’ve probably had some really tough teachers that gave you no slack or leeway, and some of them you might have liked and others you didn’t. What made them tough and likeable versus tough and unlikable?

I think it comes down to high expectations, consistency, and connection.

• When a teacher has high, but realistic expectations the message is that they believe in you and your capabilities. But this is individualized, not every student can achieve the same thing, but every student knows the difference between a teacher wanting them to do better rather than just expecting results they know they can’t achieve.

• When a teacher is fair and shows consistency, students feel respected. Favouritism undermines morale, and invalidates the integrity of the classroom. High expectations can’t be mixed with greater strictness for some students without them feeling picked on.

• When a teacher connects with students and shows genuine interest in them high expectations becomes an honour not a challenge. Students recognize that the teacher wants them, expects them, to be successful… and believes in them.

Having high expectations, being fair and consistent, and genuinely caring and connecting with students can build a classroom environment where a teacher being strict comes across to students as wanting to get the best out of them, and believing in them. But take any one of these three things away and being strict can seem mean, unfair, or even vindictive.

It’s a pretty special classroom where students are all held to a high standard and they feel like their teacher sincerely wants the best out of all of them… and believes in them.

Changing Our Opinions…

I recently wrote Certainty Versus Evidence, and concluded with, “Seek out wise people who are smart enough to be humble, and uncertain, and as curious as you are… And don’t let yourself get stuck in concrete thinking.”

It really comes down to the idea that we need to be willing to change our opinions and our point of view when more information comes our way.

This means:

  • We need to respectfully listen to alternative points of view.
  • We need to ask clarifying questions.
  • We need to challenge our own assumptions.
  • We need to be humble enough to recognize that we don’t know everything.
  • We need to keep learning.

It always surprises me the that changing of one’s opinion is seen as weak. To me it’s a sign of strength. Openly admitting that you’ve changed your mind based on new evidence is a superpower. It means you don’t have a fixed mindset.

The difference between this and being gullible is that you aren’t easily persuaded, but rather data driven. You aren’t blindly believing new information, you are discerning, measuring, calculating, and being inquisitive.

We aren’t having our minds changed, we are changing our minds.

It’s not hard to do this when your new opinion fits with the views of those around you, but if that’s not the case, a simple change of opinion could be very challenging. I think both Copernicus and Galileo would agree with me.

It’s a big step to openly change your mind on a challenging topic. It takes strength of mind and will to do so, and it is a sign that you are willing to learn and grow. Certainty is the enemy of understanding, compassion, and growth. Ultimately if we are willing to change our opinions, we are willing to change and grow.