Learning and the Brain Reflections - Using Anxiety for Good

I didn't plan for this post to fall on the day after Christmas, but given how anxiety-producing holidays can be, it actually might be kind of appropriate.  Some of you make New Year's Resolutions, and while I am on record as thinking that's kind of dumb, perhaps this will help you in keeping those.  

In my last post, I talked about how neuroscientists don't think of anxiety as a negative thing, simply an inevitable one (except for two scenarios - when it is chronic or traumatic - those come with accompanying difficulties that are certainly problematic).  Normal anxiety, however, can be used for good.  Not only is it a gift from God to help you survive (too little = no response to the danger of a knife-wielding attacker), your response to daily anxieties can be a catalyst for you to do something beneficial.  They do, after all, identify what is important to you.  Once you have identified that, you can turn your fears into plans.

People with high anxiety spend a lot of time asking "What if?"  What if someone breaks into my house?  What if I get attacked while walking to the store?  What if I have a heart attack at a young age like someone I know did?  Adolescent girls spend much of their time on social what-ifs.  What if I tell my friends that I like a certain kind of music and they think I'm weird?  What if I don't drink with them and it makes them not like me anymore?  What if I fail a test?  There are potentially an infinite number of what-ifs, and the anxious person's brain will endeavor will find them all.  The first step in using anxiety for good is to recognize that each of these what-ifs reveals something we are afraid of losing (the security of my house, my physical health, a relationship).  

The second step is to turn those what-ifs into plans.  If I am concerned about someone breaking into my house, that can spur me to invest in better locks or a security system.  If I am concerned about a physical attack, it can prompt me to sign up for a self-defense class (and then perhaps teach one for other women).  If I am concerned that I'll lose friendships because of certain behaviors, it might open me up to making friends with people that make me feel more secure.  If I am fearful about failing a test, I might be motivated to put better study habits in place.  When what-ifs become plans, we have a better sense of control and can take positive action in our lives and those of others.

For students, school is a series of building stressors, and for some, those stresses lead to academic anxiety.  Part of the responsibility for that lies with adults who put too much pressure on grades and college admissions, leading students to take on AP and honors classes for which they may not be suited.  It may lead them to take on more extracurricular activities than they have time for.  Then, they experience sleep deficits that create a vicious cycle.  As a Christian teacher, I want my students to understand that God is preparing them for His plan and to match their academic (and non-academic) pursuits to that plan.  

No analogy is perfect, and they all break down somewhere, but the one comparing mental training to muscle training is pretty close.  Other than the reality that the brain is not, in fact, a muscle, you can beat this analogy to death.  It is also helpful that most students have an understanding of physical training either from sports they play or their PE classes.  

Dr. Lisa Damour, the author of Untangled and Under Pressure, says that students often feel better just knowing that there is a design to the stress level of school.  She talks to them about how you start muscle training with small weights and then build intensity by increasing the amount of weight and number of reps, and she tells them that school is like that.  In kindergarten, we give you the mental equivalent of one-pound weights.  When those get too easy, we give you the three-pound weights in first grade.  By the time you get to high school, you are doing some high-intensity "lifting" and a lot of reps.  Knowing that it is meant to get progressively more difficult can reduce anxiety because they know we aren't going to throw a hundred-pound weight at them when they are just getting good at reps with thirty pounds.

I don't get the question "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" very often, but I got it a lot early in my career.  This was when I found the benefits of the weight training analogy.  I would ask them if, while lifting weights, they ever asked "When am I ever going to need this weight to be six feet in the air in real life?"  They knew that was a silly question because the purpose of weight training isn't to put the weight at a certain height.  You lift the weight to that height because the process puts appropriate strain on the muscle to strengthen them.  Academic content is the equivalent of using the correct form to lift a weight.  It puts the appropriate amount of strain on the brain to strengthen it.  Unless you are dealing with a very grade-focused system, this knowledge can help a student recognize that a good amount of stress is useful for future learning.

We seem to be in a perpetual state of questioning traditional pedagogy and assessment.  There is value to these discussions, but I fear that, more often than not, we are simply implementing change for the sake of change.  We assume a newer method is a better method without asking what the purpose of time-tested techniques was, to begin with.  Semester exams are one of those things.  Because people don't like the stress of exams, they assume we shouldn't have them.  These same people will tell you how valuable a marathon is.  They'll tell the value of pushing the body to its limits; they'll tell you how training for a marathon is valuable because you are working toward a goal and training harder than you would have if there weren't an upcoming marathon.  They get that strain on the body is good, but they don't want to apply that to the mind.  Exams are like marathons, and studying for them is like training for a marathon.  You prepare better because of the coming challenge and push yourself.  In the end, you recognize that the strain is good for you and didn't kill you and learn that you are stronger than you previously thought.  When students experience test anxiety, I remind them that they have felt this before and they got through it.  I remind them that no one has ever died from an exam.  Relying on past and vicarious victories can reduce their anxiety to a good level, the level where they are spurred forward and finding new strength.

When you join a gym, you have a number of options.  You can work out on your own, designing your workouts around things you like or things you believe you need (treadmills, stair climbers, weights).  You can take group classes (step aerobics, spin classes, yoga).  You can pay extra for personal training.  There are academic analogs to this as well.  Prior to the pandemic, there had been a lot of discussion about whether internet access would eventually supplant teachers.  Using YouTube, Khan Academy, Crash Course, Wikipedia, etc. to learn is fantastic but it is a lot like walking into a gym and designing your own workout.  You do the things you like, but you may not know what you need or what would be the best way to progress in order to maximize your training.  What you do is beneficial, but you might get more out of it if someone with expertise and/or experience guides the process.  I have taken a couple of step aerobics classes, and when I do, it has some benefits.  Social pressure keeps me from stopping mid-workout, which I sometimes do when I am working out at home.  The teacher designs a progressive routine that keeps me from overdoing it in the beginning but also pushes me into an intensity level I would not have pursued on my own.  When I am flagging, I get encouragement from the instructor or the music on the woman on my left.  Normal school classes are the academic analog, designed by a professional to build at the appropriate pace and take students to an intensity level they wouldn't pursue on their own with the online tools they like.  The expert designs methods and pacing, and there is motivation and encouragement from the group.  If, in the gym, you want to push a little harder or find that you have difficulty with things in a group class, you can pay extra to hire a personal trainer.  They diagnose your weaknesses and give you customized training to help you overcome them.  The academic equivalent is hiring a tutor.  The group classes may give you most of what you need, but if you want to progress farther or compensate for a weakness the class helped you discover, you might need a little more individual attention.  A tutor can give you that, but it isn't something you need every day.  When students realize this is all intentional, they may not love the stress they feel, but at least they know there are options in the plan.

The previous paragraph describes a pretty ideal situation, but we all know that humans are messy, and the education system is made of humans.  For that reason, it is important to help kids recognize when something is wrong and give them tools for how to handle that.  While I've never hired a personal trainer, my understanding is that one of the things they do is teach you how to differentiate good pain from bad pain.  It is not their job to make you feel comfortable; in fact, if they don't make you uncomfortable, they are wasting your money.  It's their job to get you to lift one more pound and do one more rep than you want.  The adage of "no pain, no gain" is true.  However, there is pain, and there is PAIN.  The type of pain that leaves you sore at the end of a workout is good.  The kind of pain that indicates injury is bad and will ultimately slow your progress.  The academic equivalent of this is to recognize the good kind of mental tiredness that comes from a good, long study session and differentiate it from overwhelming burnout.  We should teach a student how to stop before that breaking point, how to change techniques or subjects at the right moment, how to advocate for themselves with their teachers, and when it is appropriate to take a rest day.  In pedagogical terms, we want them to experience desirable difficulty because if we don't strain, we don't retain.  There's a right level, and learning to operate within that level can reduce fear and use the stress to accomplish more than we know

This post is a lot longer than I anticipated, but if you would like to know more, I recommend Dr. Wendy Suzuki's book, Good Anxiety in addition to Dr. Damour's books.  Don't let our culture sell you another coloring book.  Instead, use your stress for the benefit of yourself and others.  

Learning and the Brain Reflections - Turning Down the Volume on Anxiety

We might as well face it.  Anxiety is going to be the word we hear most for the next few years.  We were already on our way there prior to the pandemic, but 2020 and 2021 have broadened the scope because more people have more to worry about.  For that reason, the theme of this year's Learning and the Brain Conference was "Calming Anxious Brains."  There were several speakers on this topic, so this post is my attempt to synthesize several speakers into a cohesive message.  There will also be a second post on using anxiety to accomplish good because of I put all of that in one post, it will be way too long.  As Andrew Watson wrote, "our students aren’t little learning computers. Their emotional systems — when muddled by the stress and anxiety of Covid times — influence learning profoundly."  Anxiety will influence more than a student's personal life.  It will affect his learning, so as teachers who care about a student as a whole person, we will have to address it.  

Let's start with this.  Anxiety isn't always bad.  To neurologists, it is not considered good or bad, simply inevitable.  Change, whether a good change or a bad one, is stressful.  Without stress, living things die, so don't read stress as bad either.  Change also bring uncertainty, and uncertainty makes us fearful.  

Another important thing to note is that we call a lot of things anxiety that are not that.  Anxiety is persistent fear and worry, but we tend to label any feeling that isn't perfectly calm as anxiety.  The semantics of that may not seem like a big deal, but identifying our emotions is helpful in responding to them.  We respond differently to anger than we do to sadness, and we respond differently to sadness than we do to fear.  If we can't describe our emotions, it is difficult to choose a proper coping strategy.

It is generally only considered to be a negative thing if it is chronic (never able to take a break from it) or traumatic (severe enough to break the dams of your coping mechanisms).  So, in spite of what the wellness industry tells us, our goal should not be to eliminate anxiety, but to turn the volume down on it so that we can function in our daily lives.  The worst thing isn't to be stressed.  The worst thing is to be numb.  

Fear serves a purpose in our lives.  We need only look to those with a rare pituitary dysfunction that leaves people without the ability to experience fear to see how dangerous a lack of fear is.  It alerts us to danger and helps us prepare to respond to it (the well-known fight, flight, or freeze response).  It's how our ancestors stayed alive in the face of bigger threats than we face.  One difference between us and them, however, is too much access to fear-feeding information.  A prehistoric woman who experienced fear when she saw movement in the grass, fearing a saber-toothed tiger, would return to her calm state after finding the sound was caused by a bird or rodent.  A modern woman who experiences fear when she hears a sound in the back yard does not return to a calm state after seeing that it was a rabbit because she thinks about the news report she saw earlier on local burglaries, googles crime statistics in her area, reads a blog post written by a rape victim, and texts a friend who affirms her fear and tells her that she can't help her feelings (which is not true, but that's for another time).  So, this thing that is meant to be a gift for our safety becomes a source of crippling worry. 

So how do we turn down the volume on our anxiety and help our students turn down the volume on theirs?  It's a complicated answer, so I'm not going to address everything here.  I would recommend a couple of books - Dr. Lisa Damour's books Untangled and Under Pressure, are based on research with teenage girls, but the strategies in them would help anyone.  Dr. Wendy Suzuki's book, Good Anxiety, has some great ideas as well.  What I will talk about below are some of the simpler things we can do and possibly implement in our classrooms, but it is by no means a comprehensive list.

1. Limit News - I know we all want to be informed, but there is a difference between being informed and doomscrolling.  As I mentioned earlier, the difference between the good anxiety our ancestors experienced and the ability we have to stew over a situation for hours is largely caused by our access to scary information.  For them, danger was a binary situation - "tiger - not a tiger," but we find ways to turn "not a tiger" into fifty hypothetical tigers by continuously linking from one fear to another.  Choose a time period in which to get your news, and be rigorous about staying to that time.  Don't read the same story on three different platforms, or your brain will think it happened three times, leading to a belief in higher frequency than in reality.

2. Recognize Reality - Anything that can be monetized can be used to manipulate us.  The Wellness Industry is heavily invested in our belief that something is wrong if we don't spend all of our time feeling great.  Since that is not possible for anyone, we will then look for something to "solve the problem," whether it is an oil, an herb, a weighted blanket, an adult coloring book, a scent diffuser, they make billions of dollars every year by perpetuating the idea that we must always be caring for ourselves as though the biggest problem in the world right now is selflessness. (By the way, none of those are bad things, but they aren't solutions to a problem.)  One of the best things I heard at the Learning and the Brain conference was when Lisa Damour said, "It is healthy to expect our emotions to represent reality.  When things are bad, the healthy response is that we feel bad about it."  We and our students have bought into the idea that we should never feel anything bad, and it leads us to pretty unhealthy responses.  Perhaps, a good approach would be to write down the trigger of our feeling and decide if our emotion matches the reality.

3. Write it Down - One of the things our brain does when anxiety is chronic or traumatic is to over-estimate the threat and underestimate our ability to cope with it.  This is due to a stress hormone called cortisol.  Our brains are only meant to experience a quick rush of cortisol during the fight, flight, freeze response, so when it is in our brains long term, our brains don't respond appropriately to the degree of the threat.  This is where writing is helpful.  It forces us to slow down long enough to think about the threat rather than just feel about it.  Write down exactly what the threat is and rate its level of danger (not everything is a level 10, but sometimes respond to everything at that level).  Sometimes, the identification alone is helpful because we don't always know what we are responding to.  

Second, write down any tools you know you have that you could employ in response to the threat.  You will then respond with more confidence.  Teaching students to do this will give them a skill they can use for the rest of their lives, so it is worth the investment.

4. Recognize the Worst-Case Scenario - We are often pumping up the power of positive thinking so much that we only allow ourselves to expect the best.  The problem with that is that the reality is rarely only the best-case scenario.  It seems counter-intuitive, but it is also valuable to consider the worst-case scenario.  For one thing, having a mental dress rehearsal of the worst-case might give us a chance to practice using our tools and figuring out what the consequences of that case would be (I often ask kids if they think I will stop loving them if they fail a test.  They giggle a no, so I remind them that their parents won't stop loving them either and that Jesus won't stop loving them even if they make a zero.)  The other benefit of considering the worst-case scenario is that we give ourselves a chance to realize that it is as unlikely as the best-case.  Reality is usually somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, so realizing that the worst might not happen can be calming.  Talking through this with students can break a worry spiral, and rehearsing it can help them break their own future spirals.

5. Breath Control - Much of our stress response happens in the autonomic nervous system.  That's difficult to consciously control, but we do have one connection - breathing.  Intentionally slowing your breathing (four-count inhale, hold, four-count exhale, hold) lowers your heart rate and blood pressure.  Counting the inhale and exhale gives you something to think about besides the trigger.  The best part is that it can be done in any situation without anyone knowing you are doing it.  Two or three rounds of breathing control during a test or a stressful conversation can be enough to turn down the volume on your anxiety to a manageable level.

6. Express and Contain - I remember an episode of Mr. Rogers in which he sang a song about expressing our anger.  It was called "What Do You Do with the Mad You Feel?" and advised punching a bag, pounding some clay, playing tag, running as fast as you can.  It acknowledges that you might have planned to do something wrong and tells you it is great to stop and do something else.  In other episodes, he talked about drawing pictures and writing our feelings.  He was a big believer in healthy expression.  We need to help kids with finding healthy expression.  For some, it may be talking, but for others, it might be throwing a tennis ball against a wall for a few minutes.  A good cry might work for some while a nice loud, controlled scream might be what others need.  It is, however, unhealthy to express all the time and in every place.  Learning when and where and for how long to express leads to healthy containment.  Dr. Damour defined containment as "pulling yourself together" in order to do what needs to be done.  She advised that we identify what the student needs help with by observing what they are doing.  If they are expressing a lot, they need help with containment.  If they are too contained, they need help with expression.  Both are needed.

7. Movement - Our brains were designed to operate in rhythms.  Morning and evening, class periods, the cycle of a week, mealtimes, etc. keep us all in a kind of sync with one another.  One of the things that happens to the brain of a traumatized person is that those rhythms are broken.  They suffer sleep disruptions, appetite changes, and disruptions in their understanding of time (We've all experienced this during the pandemic).  Helping students re-establish a sense of rhythm isn't as hard as you might think.  Having students do some synchronized movement at the beginning of the day can bring them back into sync with their surroundings.  It doesn't have to be a big involved yoga experience.  It can be as simple as having everyone take a deep breath at the same time, a stretch we do together.  You can connect it to your content by doing hand motions to show the particle movement of solids, liquids, and gases, having them show you the shape of a graph using their arms, or having a little chant about parts of speech with a hand clap attached.  Any movement that everyone does together will be helpful.

8. Routine and Predictability - One of the best gifts we can give to our students is a predictable routine.  For me, that looks like starting class the same way almost every day.  I run through the plan for the day, read a scripture, and pray before we start.  I continued to do that during remote teaching because it was one thing I could keep predictable.  In some classes, it looks like ten minutes of reading.  In other classes, it may be a quiz every Friday.  Schedules may not seem like a big deal to most of us, but for a kid experiencing anxiety, it means security and safety.  During the summer, I am the photographer at a camp for children in the foster care system.  One of the things we do for them is to post the schedule in a lot of places and ask the counselors to carry the schedule with them at all times.  Kids ask to see it frequently because it is calming for them to know what is coming next.  It doesn't mean there won't sometimes be changes or that you can't surprise your kids, but those should be interruptions to a regular routine, not a constant state of upheaval.  

Coping with anxiety is part of being human, and we should treat it that way.  We should teach our students to treat it that way.  It can even spur us to good action when it is not excessive.  I'll talk about that in another post.   It's hard in our culture not to feel like we are "failing at wellness," leading to an even higher state of unrest, but we should remind them that responding to reality is healthy.  Bringing anxiety to a productive level, not trying to eliminate it altogether, will help our students know they are human.  And that's something the wellness industry will never give them.

Renewed Traditions Renew Gratitude

I am interrupting the Learning and the Brain Reflections series because I am compelled to talk about the power of what I experienced last week.  

I went into the week prepared for exhaustion because I was looking at the number of events and how late each would be.  It was also the week where a few days are devoted to exam review, and of course, it is also the time to get grades finalized before heading into exam week.  What I didn't know was how powerful those late-night events would be and how much I needed them to happen.

School is a lot of things.  Among everything else school is, it is a series of traditions.  From the senior breakfast on the first day of school to middle school letters to graduation, the year is filled with traditions.  Traditions are important because they anchor us psychologically to a time and place and culture, giving us a sense of belonging and predictability.  Whether it is something small like the way you greet kids every Monday (or the Brown Rabbit thing our English teacher does that I don't truly understand but has staying power with some of our students long after they've graduated) or something big like having your students create a piece of artwork for the school, traditions give kids a sense of stability and safety.  

One of the most difficult things about Covid was that it upended almost all of our traditions.  Starting in the spring of 2020, school plays were canceled all over the country (I thanked God so often we had already had ours).  Yearbook signings were digital, which was a nice touch, but let's admit isn't as good.  Every school was faced with figuring out graduations, which were handled in a variety of ways, from a simple drive-in diploma pickup to individual graduations for each student.  Even though I was teaching face to face (hybrid) in the 2020-2021 school year, most of our traditions either couldn't happen (Grandparents Day, Christmas programs, basketball games with fans) or had to happen in a modified way.  We were all physically exhausted, so I'm not sure how much time we spent reflecting on the impact of each of these lost traditions.  For me, that happened last week, when two of them returned.

Monday night, our theater and dance programs had their Christmas productions.  As kids danced to "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and "Mary, Did You Know?" the audience got to experience beautiful movement in a way they haven't in quite a while.  We sat together and giggled at silly jokes in a faux news report about Christmas.  We held our breath together while I sixth grader's eyes filled with tears because she had forgotten her lines and were collectively proud of her as she persevered through it.  It has been a while since I have laughed as hard as I did at the Star Wars Nativity skit, where a senior with Yoda ears walked around on his knees, saying the lines of the angel Gabriel.  (What most of the audience didn't know was that a few of those students filled in for a sick classmate and found out mere hours before they stepped on the stage.)  We all left feeling more cheerful than when we arrived, in part because the skits were fun and Christmasy, but also because we were once again experiencing this tradition together.

Friday night, our band and choir were back on stage for the first time since Christmas 2019.  While we had school plays last year (the fall one virtually presented and the spring one in person), band and choir were hit especially hard because students could not stand together to sing and wind instruments were, in the words of our band director, pressurized germ cannons.  They did their best to keep the power of musical arts in the lives of our students.  Our choir director sent out a zoom-style performance at Christmas and graduation, and while that was helpful, it just doesn't have the same power as students standing next to each other harmonizing.  Our band director turned every student into a percussionist, and they got to enjoy playing music together, but they really only got to hear each other because we couldn't have concerts.  Friday night, I stood in the corner with my camera, taking photos of girls in pretty black dresses again for the first time since the start of the pandemic.  When five high school students began to sing, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Silent Night," I cried with relief that this program was still here, even if it is a small group that will anchor future growth.  When they sang "Carol of the Bells," I cried until the top of my mask was soaked (I don't know if you have experienced masked crying, but it's pretty gross.  I knew that from experience, but I made no effort to hold back these tears because they were joyful.) because that has been my favorite Christmas tradition for many years, and it was back!  When the band played a song with three drum solos (each of the three students taking over for the last without missing a beat - literally), they had the entire audience in awe.  In spite of how physically tired I was, I left that night with so much joy because we were able to experience traditions again, and we were able to do it together.

Is it normal yet?  No.  The audience was masked, and the kids took them off to perform and put them back on.  The choir didn't get to do their usual performances at the governor's mansion and the state capitol building.  We are still getting periodic news of students in quarantine.  While the world seemed to shut down at all at once, re-opening is slow and staggered and challenging and messy.  But, every time something returns, we have more gratitude for it because of having lost them for the past 21 months.  Whatever you are able to do this year that you couldn't do last year, enjoy it, and be more grateful for it than you might have been in 2019.

Learning and the Brain Reflections - Tutoring

The theme of this year's Learning and the Brian was "Calming Anxious Brains."  Because there were a lot of speakers on that topic, it is going to take some time and mental effort to synthesize that into a good post.  With a yearbook deadline yesterday and exams coming up, I don't have that time and must reserve most of my brain's power, so I'll wait until Christmas break for those.  Among all the seminars about anxiety, however, there were a few simple and practical sessions (like this one on tutoring), so I'll begin with those.

This presentation was taught by John Almarode.  He is, hands down, my favorite session speaker at Learning and the Brain.  To say that he is engaging doesn't do justice to his energy.  He is an education professor at James Madison University, and I am always thrilled to know that he is out there training the next generation of teachers (BTW - something to consider if you are going to major in education).  If you have the chance to attend a John Almarode seminar, do yourself a favor.  You won't regret it.  He also does some webinars through Learning and the Brain.  I have not attended those, but I cannot imagine him trying to limit himself to the confines of a screen.  He must have to tie himself to the chair.

Okay, all that said, let's get on to what I learned from his session.

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There's been a lot of talk during the pandemic about "learning loss."  While students did not make the same gains they would have in a normal year, he felt it was important to point out that no learning was actually lost.  As he put it, "Eight times seven didn't just fall out of their shoe."  (You have to imagine this being said in a charming Virginia drawl.)  Tutoring isn't meant to be remedial.  According to some studies, in fact, it has a negative impact when viewed that way.  Rather, tutoring offers us the opportunity to extend learning and address unrealized potential in our students.  If we view it as a way of moving learning forward, regardless of their starting point, it has the potential to do students a lot of good.

If you are familiar with John Hattie's work on the "effect size" of various practices, you know that 0.4 is considered an effective skill ( because it represents making one year of gain in one year of time - For the statistics nerds, he may have said it was one standard deviation, but I don't actually remember).  Anyway, for everyone, any practice that ranks higher than a 0.4 is something to explore.  He was careful, however, to point out the effect sizes are about potential.  The technique itself has no power, so you still have to think about how to do it well.  

Some of the ideas for addressing "learning loss" have had little to no benefit because they assume that more time is better time.  Summer school has only a 0.19 effect size (because of working memory overload - something I'll address in a future post).  Extending the school year has been talked about in many district, in spite of the fact that is a 0.01 effect size.  Doing more of the same will not work.  A well-designed and effective tutoring program, however, has an effect size of 0.51 so it is worth talking about what it looks like to be well designed.

A good design for a tutoring session should involve the following:

1. Investment in relationship - A student learns better from someone with whom he has a relationship.  There is an opportunity to develop trust and a sense of safety, so the student is more engaged, less afraid to answer a question wrong, and more likely to take on the suggestions of the tutor.  If you have found a tutor your student likes (or there is an established relationship with a peer, neighbor, or family member), stick with them.  Credibility is built on trust and competence, so the relationship helps student develop intrinsic motivation.
2. Address confidence as well as learning challenges - Every teacher has sat in a tutoring session where the student has no confidence.  He came there because he was having trouble understanding the material, so he's afraid to be wrong when you ask a question.  A students' self efficacy (the believe that he can learn with effort) has a 0.71 effect size, which is second only to the teacher's belief that they can help the student learn.  That means we need to get them a "win" early in the session.  After that, you can move them forward much more quickly.
3. Goal setting - If you don't know where you are going, it can be hard to get there.  How you do this may depend on the nature of your session.  If you are meeting with a student weekly, you may be there to clarify whatever they have learned that week.  You may have a goal for the session, or the student may have a goal.  Regardless, it is important to establish the goal at the front of the session.  The goal should be immediate (something we can finish during this hour) and concrete (something we can know if we have achieved).   Saying something like, "We're going to go over some chemistry" doesn't really feel concrete.  On the other hand, if you say, "Today, we are going to balance chemical equations," it establishes an attainable goal and allows them to know when they have reached the goal.  After they have confidently balanced a few equations in a row, they know they have succeeded.  It is also a good idea to have the student state the goal in their own words.
4. Teaching them how to learn - The best tutors will eventually become unneccessary to the student they are tutoring.  That's because the goal isn't just to learn this week's math skill.  It to learn how to tackle any math skill.  It isn't to analyze the novel they are reading for their English class; it is to teach them the strategies needed to analyze any novel.  Tell them how helpful it would be to summarize their learning from memory.  Teach them how to use a graphic organizer, not just for today's content, but for any content.  You aren't teaching the content as much as you are teaching study skills using the context of the content.
5. Teach success criteria - I was honestly stunned at the effect size of this.  Simply establishing for a student how they will know when success has been achieved has an effects size of 0.88!  If tutoring is compared to a hiking path through the woods, success criteria is a bit like knowing the path ends at a waterfall.  I've been on these hikes in national parks.  When your legs are tired, and you are breathing so hard you want to quit, it is helpful to remember that the end goal is a waterfall.  When you start feeling the air get cooler, you know you are close.  When you hear the sound of rushing water, you start walking a little faster in spite of the pain in your calves.  Evidence that you are near your goal is motivating, so give your students that simple power.  "Hey, the goal is to identify the subject and verb of the sentence.  I got the subject of that one, so I'm half-way there," will keep a student going when a teacher's prodding might not.
6. Deliberate practice - Practice matters.  We all know that when it comes to music.  We all know it when it comes to basketball.  We seem to have forgotten it when it comes to education.  We've downplayed it by giving it names like "drill and kill," but intentionally practicing that which is difficult to do has an effect size of 0.79.  To be deliberate has to be challenging, but not impossible, a concept known as desirable difficulty.  ("To retain your brain has to strain.")  Desirable difficulty causes myelination of neurons and promoted dendrite growth in your brain cells.  Repeating something easy over and over does not; in the same way lifting a one pound weight over and over would do little to nothing for my biceps.  Doing something far too difficult can been damaging to learning in the same way attemtping to lift a weight to heavy for me would be damaging for my muscles.  Choose problems carefully that fit into the Goldilocks zone, and you can give your student the tools they need to learn anything.

Thanksgiving - Colleagues

Every November, I use this blog to express my gratitude for those people in my past who have formed the educator I am today.  These have mostly been teachers I had in middle and high school.  I am continually thankful for formative people, but this year, I want to express my gratitude for the people who are currently in my educational life.  I will do this in three posts because I am thankful for my current administration, the parents of my students, and the colleagues with whom I share my daily life.  This post will be about the teachers of GRACE Christian School.

This is the most important post of the Thanksgiving series.  While admin is important, they do not necessarily set the tone of your day.  While supportive parents matter a lot, you don't see them or hear from them that often.  Your colleagues are the closest people to you and the ones who can make your day better.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of the teachers right around you.  When you have a problem, you turn to them for support and advice.  When you have good news, you want to share it with them because you know they will understand it more fully than anyone else.  When you step out into the hall and make eye contact with them in their room, volumes are spoken without words through a smile or the raise of an eyebrow.  While I love all the teachers at GRACE, I want to express my gratitude specifically for a few.  

My art teacher friend, Elizabeth, is the friend you want to have.  She'll tell you what you need to hear, but she'll do it in the most loving way.  She'll celebrate with you, help you with whatever scheme you are hatching, and give you a hug just when you need one.  In the 2019/2020 school year, I ate lunch in her classroom every day, with a small group of senior art students.  She made me part of the class (except I didn't get graded for doing art projects).  When we went into remote learning, she sent me the link so I could continue to eat lunch with them.  It was one small bit of "normal" that helped me maintain my sanity.  She has always framed it as my doing her a favor, but it meant more to me than she could know.

My room is placed in an area of the hall where the walls are blue, so we have called ourselves "Blue Pod" since moving in.  There have been a number of great blue pod members (and some that just moved on through), but I would say the best total group is there today.  

- Zane, a biology and anatomy teacher, was higher standards than anyone I know.  He challenges students at a high level, but they also know he will support them in meeting those standards.  His room is always hopping with students asking questions, attending help classes, or studying a skeleton.  He's been at GRACE the same number of years as I have, so we've been through a lot together.  I can say just a few words or a name, and he knows exactly what story is associated with it.  I am grateful for our history together.

- Julianne is the most encouraging person I've ever met.  No matter the situation, she's always looking for the good or the lesson God is teaching her or the part she should be thankful for.  She's not a Pollyanna; she doesn't silver-line your pain.  She is just purely encouraging.  If a student has complimented you in her class, she will track you down to make sure you know about it.  She always challenges me to find a more Godly perspective, and I am thankful for that.

- Melanie is the friend who checks on you.  Once, I left not long after school got out.  That night, I had an email from her, asking if I was okay.  She thought perhaps I was sick or upset about something and wanted to check-in.  During the lockdown, she was the one who said, "Let's figure out a way to safely eat lunch together or go for a walk.  Near the start of this year, when I was especially down, she said she was concerned about me and suggested that we laugh together on Friday afternoons.  

- Meagan is the person I go to for wisdom.  She wants to make sure she doesn't live in an echo chamber so she reads and listens to podcasts that offer a differing perspective from her own.  When I have a complex issue to deal with, she's the one who can help me analyze it from all sides.  Hers was the room I went to on January 6th, and she's the one I ask to read a reply to a parent email if I want to make sure I'm not being rude.  She takes on responsibility with grace and poise.  Even though I am over a decade her senior, she is who I want to be when I grow up.  

There are others who I could talk about for specific events, and there are a Latin teacher, Bible teachers, and an English teacher who have moved on to other jobs; but the ones mentioned here are the people who impact my life each and every day.  It's an embarrassment of blessings, and I am grateful for them all.  Thank you, Lord for my co-laborers in education.

Thanksgiving - Parents

  Every November, I use this blog to express my gratitude for those people in my past who have formed the educator I am today.  These have mostly been teachers I had in middle and high school.  I am continually thankful for formative people, but this year, I want to express my gratitude for the people who are currently in my educational life.  I will do this in three posts because I am thankful for my current administration, the parents of my students, and the colleagues with whom I share my daily life.  This post will be about the parents who send their students to GRACE Christian School, especially those who I have taught during the pandemic.

If you asked teachers to rank their challenges in educating students, dealing with parents would likely rank high on the list.  We all want to view the parents of students as partners in their child's education, but it can be hard because our perspectives are very, very different.  Parents have a small number of kids to deal with, but they are their own.  They have to deal with the homework meltdowns and the lost games and the sibling relationships.  They know their individual child's strengths and weaknesses, which they have feelings of pride and guilt about (even if they shouldn't).  Teachers have a large number of kids to deal with, but we get to send them away from us at the end of the day.  While we love them a lot, it is folly to pretend that our relationship with them is the same as that of their parents.  We have some pretty specific goals for them, but we haven't had those goals since they were in diapers.  Neither of these perspectives is wrong, but because they are different, it can lead to conflict in a meeting.  When I was younger, I was often told, "You're not a parent, so you'll never understand."  (Side note:  That's a fundamentally mean thing to say to a person who is has chosen a career in which understanding kids is crucial, so you should find a different way to express to the teacher that you have different perspectives.)  What I wanted to respond was, "You have one kid.  You'll never understand." (but I didn't because, you know, professionalism)  Twitter is where a lot of educators go to vent their frustrations (which I'll never understand because, you know, professionalism), so if you look at their posts, you will often see a lot of complaints about lack of support and unrealistic expectations and even some fringe-y people who basically think they should be able to take over for the parents entirely.

This wasn't meant to be a post about why parents and teachers sometimes have conflicts.  I said all that to set up my gratitude in contrast to the adversarial relationship and lack of trust that shows up in a lot of these online discussions.  The vast majority of parents I have dealt with (especially in the last three years) have been supportive and helpful.

While the world looks at 2020 as the year the world fell apart, I am reminded that for GRACE, 2019 was no picnic either.  When we lost one of our students that February, the GRACE community showed what it does best.  They rallied around each other, engaging in a time of corporate grief.  Flowers were sent.  Love and grace were extended from every direction.  Weeks later, a parent of a senior wrote to me and said, "I wanted to let you know that I am specifically praying for you.  I'm praying for all the teachers generally, but I am specifically praying for you."  What do you say in response to that level of kindness?  She recognized that the lost student was in my class, and even though her son (who I taught) didn't know the girl, she was supportive of me.  In April of that same year, we were on the 8th grade Washington DC trip, when we received some sad news.  Again, the parents on that trip rallied to support us.  One mom just pulled three of us into a circle and said, "We're going to pray now."  A dad on the trip said, "I just want to fix it for everyone."  

When we went into lockdown in March of 2020, our culture praised teachers for their response as parents realized how challenging it was to teach their own children.  In the general public, that support lasted about a month.  Then (again on Twitter, which I recognize isn't a random sample of the population, but it is what I see most), I began seeing teachers talk about unrealistic expectations from their parents, demands at all hours of the night and day, complaints about the teacher's expectations, methods, and practices.  It seemed that a month is what the world thought was a good amount of time to have "figured this out."  While I was reading all of this from far-flung educators, I went to my mailbox and found hand-written notes of support from parents.  I got thank you emails for the efforts we were making for kids.  At last year's graduation ceremony, parents applauded when the teachers stepped into the aisle for the recessional.

It's not like a never get an unreasonable request or a parent whose perspective rubs against my own.  That's always happened, and it is always going to.  What I have considered, however, as I compare my experience with those of others is that they view their relationships with parents (and administrators) as adversarial.  Those teachers don't trust the parents of their students, and they assume those parents don't trust them.  My experience is far different because, for the vast majority of my students and their parents, there is a basis of trust. Even when conflicts arise, we are able to engage in problem-solving with a belief that the other wants what is best for the student.  Four years ago, I met with a parent because her daughter's paper appeared to be plagiarized.  The mom pointed to the introductory paragraph and said, "Yeah, I wrote that part."  I fell into laughter because you can't stay mad at someone who is that willing to own the problem.  We talked for a long time that day, and I made a friend.  When she asked if her child should re-write the paper, and I said, "How about I just don't give her any points for the first paragraph (because she actually had written the rest of it herself, which was obvious from the change in level), she said, "Yes, that sounds right."  That's not how I expected that meeting to go, but I've always been grateful that it did.

Parents of GRACE students.  We know that you are sending us your best kids and trusting us to do right for them.  We take that responsibility seriously, and we are so grateful for your extraordinary level of support.  

Raw Notes From Learning and the Brain 2021 - Sunday

Each year, I used my blog to take notes.  What you will find here are raw, including a mix of the presenter's thoughts mixed with my own responses as I mentally process.  They will make sense to me, but they may or may not make sense to you.  I usually process all of this in the following week and post things that make actual sense, so check back in if you are interested.

Keynote I: Handle With Care: Managing Difficult Situations With Dignity and Respect When School Returns - Jimmy Casas, EdS

He has a lot of energy.  Getting through the day with your students can take so much energy that you have none left for anyone else when you get home.  If we want our best people to stay in the profession, we have to take care of them.  Veteran people must be welcoming and care for new teachers to nurture them.

• Don't talk about excellence.  Live your excellence.  The kids need you at your very best.  Kids know which teachers are all in and which teachers are not.
• We are genuinely idealistic in our interview, but some have lost their way.  It's hard when you can't get a kid to reach their potential.  It's hard to let it go when parents are demanding and bashing you online.  It's hard, but you can't change them; you can only change you.  "Remember what you said you were going to do for students when you sat in the interview char."
• They are the way they are because of an experience.  We can listen to it, understand it, and help them reframe it.
• You have to get past the idea of immediate results.  Think long-term.  Any time you champion a kid, you have made a difference whether you see it or not.  But this job was never meant to be a committee of one.  If you are trying to do everything yourself, you will not serve kids well.
• "You're not a problem.  You're a drummer." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5286T_kn0 
• What if we put a "Handle with Care" sticker on our most challenging students because we know they have stuff going on in their lives?  Since everyone has something going on, what we put a "Handle with Care" sticker on all of them?
• "You lose your way when you forget your why."
• The majority of time should be spent on the goals and philosophy that guide decisions.  You will spend less time putting out fires if you have set up a system to have fewer fires in the first place.  
• Clarity is Kindness - Lack of clarity in expectations leads to confusion, anxiety, and bad behavior.  When you lose hope, you become apathetic, which leads you to a state of hesitation.
• You need to lead with your core values.  The people in your school need to agree with and practice those values.  Otherwise, they are just words about words.  Revisit your values every year, and decide how you are going to deal with people who don't live up to the values.  There will be days when you don't live up to the values, but if you live in a culture of trust, people will lovingly confront you and redirect you back toward your values.
• Just don't quit.  You can't fix a kid, but you can not quit on them.
• You don't choose the students or families you serve, but you do decide what kind of climate you serve them in.
• Model and expect excellence.  
• Everyone in the school is responsible for everyone else in the school.
• Administrators:  If you expect your teachers to differentiate based on the needs of students, then you have got to be willing to differentiate based on the needs of your teachers.
• Don't let anyone else take away your excellence.  You are responsible for your own mind.
• He may not be a difficult student.  He may be a student going through a difficult time.
• Quit trying to this job by yourself.  Be willing to say, "I need your help."
• When a student (or parent) gets louder, you should get softer.  Don't escalate; de-escalate."  At the end, of the interaction, they should think you treated them fairly and that you care about them.
• Be a merchant of hope.  Give kids an opportunity to be great.
• I'm not asking you to fix them.  I'm just asking you to not quit on them.
• Every student may be one caring adult away from greatness.

Keynote II: Reaching Teens in Times of Trauma, COVID, and Uncertainty - Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MSEd, FAAP

• Obviously, COVID has created a time of uncertainty, but to be honest, just growing up is a time of uncertainty.
• Resilience is built by lending them your calm.
• We re at an inflection point in human history.
• Childhood trauma MAY affect:  the body, the brain, behavior, and genetics.
• Trauma is a risk factor, but we are complex.  There are also many protective factors.
• The trauma-informed movement has done a lot of damage because, instead of viewing kids as a whole, we have made or expectations based only on their trauma.  
• We need an integrated model that includes what we have learend from
• Positive youth development.
• Resilience building strategies.
• Trauma-sensitive practice.
• Restorative practices.
• This means harnessing the power of human relationships that are safe, secure, and sustained.  Lowering expectations traps them in a cycle of failure, but they must know that high expectations are rooted in caring.
• He's a doctor who works with kids who are homeless.  He has a strengths-based program to help them find what they can do to break the cycles.
• Stay in your lane but know your power.  Outside of the home, school is the place with the most sustained relationships with caring adults.
• A neural pathway is something that happens so often, you never have to think about it.  It's just the way it is. When you experience the world as a safe and secure place throughout childhood, you view the world that way later.  If you don't, you communicate more dramatically until your needs are met.  
• A kids with an "anger problem" is someone whose brain pathways have been developed by experience because anger was the only thing that got their needs met.
• Adolescence is the second window of astounding brain growth for the formation of pathways.  It is the best time to take advantage of teachable moments.
• Kids live up or down to the expectations we set for them (if we make them feel safe).
• Zero to three and adolescents are when they are super learners and natural explorers.  
• They push the edges because they get a dopamine hit they explore a novel situation.  It's not about risk-taking; it's about novelty.  We must activate rational thought by speaking calmly and with questions they can answer, not emotional thought by yelling, talking too fast and not letting them answer.
• In fight or flight, blood leaves your stomach and brain, goes to your legs so you can run or fight.  This means you also cannot think and plan or act rationally.
• Uncertainty creates a state of constant threat.  Cortisol keeps the body on high alert ALL THE TIME because we don't know where the danger is.  Authoritarians always sow uncertainty first before they take you over because they can take advantage of the chronic fear it creates.
• When a kid you know and love misbehaves, you can start with their strengths and then address the behavior as an inconsistency.
• Resilience is not invulnerability.  Don't just say a kid is strong enough to handle what they are going through.  They still need your support.
• Sometimes what a kid hates about himself is the greatest thing about him.
• When resilience reaches its limits, there are
• physical symptoms like fatigue.
• disinterest.
• dropping grades.
• irritability/anger.
• substance abuse.
• They won't always look sad.
• Kids learn from their experience and observation of others.  Modeling how you work through complexity is how to create thinking, problem-solving kids.
• Model forgiving yourself when you feel you have failed.  
• But also model learning from the failure.
• Don't just tell them to have empathy.  Show them what empathy looks like.
• Adolescence is about gaining independence, forming social connections, planning the next phase of your life, honing your idealism, and looking for adult role models.  They have had to step back from this for almost two years, which is why this time is more frustrating for them than it may be for adults.
• We are always nastiest with the people we love the most because we know we can't push them away.  It's part of being human.
• Maintaining your physical health strengthens your emotional health by activating the autonomic nervous system.
• Dial down catastrophic thought by
• Recognizing "I better" or "If I don't" thoughts.
• Evaluate whether it is really as high risk as you are telling yourself.
• Ask what tools you have.
• Things aren't going to be the same, but kids can make it better using the tools they have gained during this time.  Just like people who grew up during the depression were frugal for the rest of their lives, this generation will be problem-solvers for the rest of theirs.
• A lone stick is breakable.  A bundle of sticks is not.  This is why strong relationships matter so much.  Trauma affects us, but it does not have to break us.  The change in the brain made by cortisol as a result of childhood trauma can be minimized or reversed by a loving adult providing a safe place because they are doing the vigilance for the child.  It does harm to the adult, so we must take care of them as well.
• If you go from emergency to emergency, the thinking/planning part of your brain is less developed.  The sensory part of the brain develops more.  
• The starting point of helping them is to recognize their behaviors are not about you.
• Traumatized kids have a "protector's brain."  You'd want them with you on a desert island.  Help them to view this as a superpower but when it is appropriate to keep the cape tucked in.
• There should never be a diagnosis of ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder).  It is not real!  A traumatized brain is not experiencing a disorder.  
• Change your lens from "what's wrong with you?" to "what happened to you?"
• Tolerable stress is uncomfortable, but it is within our window to cope.  The key to whether or not it is tolerable is whether you have skills to adapt to and deal with it.  This is where adults are helpful.  Self-regulation is a skill to be developed.
• Co-regulation - borrowing someone else's calm (flight attendant still serving snacks).
• Behavioral Change
• There will be both forward and backward movement.  Don't praise them only when they are moving forward, or they won't come to you when they are going backward.  Provide genuine relationships when they are moving both forward and backward.  Have their back at all times.
• Shame will keep them from starting to make change.  Confidence will allow them to start.  Find ways to give them confidence by listening and celebrating their strengths even when it is mixed in with messiness.  Tell them what is good and right in them and that you are here for them FIRST.  Then tell them why you are concerned (because it won't give you your best life).  Accompany them to people with more resources; don't just refer them (because they will fear losing you).
• Hot communication is counter-productive because you have activated the danger part of the brain.  Cool down the communication.  Pause to let them process and answer to activate the rational part of their brain.
• Defining the stressor
• Distinguish real tigers from paper tigers.
• Identify when bad things are temporary.
• Identify when good things are permanent.
• The worst thing is not to be stressed.  It is to be numb.
• I __________ it out. (Ways to express/release feelings in addition to coping strategies)
• www.parentandteen.com 
• The things that matter most are not measurable.  Judging your success will likely not be something you can put in a spreadsheet or a graph.  Success is when a student knows he is worthy of being loved.

Concurrent Sessions D

Helping the Helpers: Recognizing and Coping With Secondary Traumatic Stress for Teachers - Mays Imad, PhD

Personal Note (Pre Session):  Since August, I have been looking for language to put around the impact of being a hybrid teacher last year.  Many have called it PTSD, which made me uncomfortable because I didn't want to minimize or pretend my experience was on the same level as those who have seen someone shot or been a victim of violence.  At the same time, I knew what we were all feeling upon returning this year wasn't nothing.  If I get nothing else from this session, I am happy to finally have a name for this (Secondary Traumatic Stress).

Second Personal Note (Pre Session):  I am skeptical of things having to do with Self Care.  It's not that I don't understand the concept that an unhealthy person can't help others.  It's that we have swung the pendulum so far that we act like the biggest problem the world has is selflessness (which is clearly untrue) and that people can nobly shirk their responsibilities in the name of self-care (which is, as it always was, just being a jerk) and because anything that can be monetized can manipulate us with messages that make us feel like something is wrong so we have to buy something to make it right (which is why self-care now a multi-billion dollar industry).  I cannot think of anyone I respect in history or in Scripture that I can imagine using the term self-care.  This session has not yet started, so I don't know if it will be about this, but if my notes turn to the skeptical, this may be why.  

• When she was offering trauma support to students, she began to realize how many teachers were struggling as well.
• Uncertainty is one of the biggest stressors.  Add a heavy workload, anxiety, and grief to that, and the brain will become overwhelmed.  Yes, we are expected to keep giving and work more.
• http://sacompassion.net/poem-think-of-others-by-mahmoud-darwish/ 
• She was a refugee, and she remembers getting help and seeing exhaustion in the face of the helpers.  Then she started working with refugees, and she had exhaustion and a broken heart every day.  
• Secondary Traumatic Stress 
• "It is the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person."
• Vicarious traumatization
• Symptoms include exhaustion that sleep doesn't alleviate, a sense of helplessness, wondering if other people care at all.
• It can change your worldview at a fundamental level.
• Leads to burnout.
• Burnout causes:
• Excessive workload causes chronic stress.  The amount we used to do seems like more now because our minds are occupied by the stress of uncertainty.
• Perceived lack of control
• Lack of meaningful connections and relationships
• Lack of recognition
• Lack of fairness
• Values and skills mismatch
• Trauma-Sensitive Teacher Care
• Resist pathologizing (making everything about the trauma)
• Don't try to fix your feelings, just acknowledge them.
• Get to know individuals rather than making assumptions about categories of people.
• Acknowledge that we are a work in progress and that since we all are, we can journey as a community.
• Develop a coping plan.
• Strategies in a Coping Plan
• Negotiate with your brain.  Ask "will this matter in six months?" and 
• Give yourself permission to move forward more slowly than usual.
• Ruminate on the positive.  "I am a good person because . . ."
• Have a distraction plan for when you find yourself in a worry loop.
• Develop backup plans in anticipation of setbacks.
• Create something.  Write something. (likely why so many people gardened or baked bread or learned a craft skill during lockdown)
• Laugh with others
• Hold your hand.  Hug yourself.  (In late May 2020, I looked down and found myself patting my own hand.  I don't even know how long I had been doing it or if it was even the first time.  My body just knew what it needed.)
• Document hope and beauty.
• Lovingly say "no" to or delay some things. ("Can we talk about this tomorrow?")
• Know who you should contact when you are about to crash.
• Check up on your colleagues (I love you, Blue Pod.  I love you, Elizabeth.)
• Try to detach from the outcome because so little of it is within your control.
• Try not to take things personally.  You didn't cause the problem, and it is unlikely that you can solve it.
• Psychic disequilibrium (realizing suddenly that the world is different than you thought) can lead to shutting down.  Advice - The problem was there before you, and it will be there after you.  Don't be arrogant enough to think that you alone can fix it.  Do what is within your control.
• Have a conversation with yourself to remind yourself what you can do and what you cannot do.  Students know you can't solve it, but they want you to see and hear them.  That can be enough.
• It is NOT only about self-care because that is not sustainable.  It is about community care.  Turn to your elders for wisdom.  (She lived in Iraq during the first Desert Storm, but what she remembers isn't depression but laughing with her family.)  We need to transform systems to help the community care for each other and give each other grace.
• https://poets.org/poem/kindness 

Personal Note (Post Session):  Okay, so it turns out that she was lovely.  I left out one or two pieces of self-care advice, but her history as a refugee and her work with refugees definitely gave her more credibility.  I am not going to the next one in this thread because it is done by a vendor, and as I've already mentioned, I think the monetization of self-care is a problem.  (Also I heard them talking to people yesterday and thought they were loopy.)  So, I'm going to hear a man tell his own life story and talk about how he went from unmotivated to even graduate high school to getting a Ph.D.

Motivating the Unmotivated - Craig J. Boykin, PhD

• From GED to Ph.D. - Had dropped out of school, didn't consider school important.  After going to jail and getting shot, he changed his mind.
• Started his seminars with young, black, at-risk men.  He only started doing professional development for teachers when they reached out and said they wanted to be able to connect with these students.
• To grow, you've got to get at least a little uncomfortable.
• If you only see a person for a short time at a high-stress moment, you will think of their behavior only as disrespectful or inappropriate.  You might change your perspective if you know their story. (Personal side note:  This reminded me of what Leslie Odom Jr. said about playing Aaron Burr in Hamilton.  He realized that the only thing he knew about him before was the worst day of his life.  It wasn't until he played him that he understood what led up to that day.)  The behavior is still not okay, but you can have a better understanding of its cause.
• Causes of Low Motivation
• Lack of home support
• Lowered expectations from educators
  
• Hurt, at-risk kids put up a tough facade because their experience has taught them that vulnerability will get you killed.
• Don't be the next person to hurt them.
• Empathy vs. Sympathy
• An empathetic response never starts with "at least."  Don't try to "silver-line" their pain.  Don't tell them how you feel about their situation; let them tell you.
• It is a rare occurrence that saying the right words will make any situation better.  What makes it better is human connection.  Just be there and listen.
• As an adult, you have to turn down your emotional response.  "He who angers you controls you."  Don't give them the keys to your temper.
• Kids haven't changed; stop saying that.  The environment has changed, and their brains have responded.  They've been exposed to too much too fast (easy access to porn, nonstop nature of social media, nonstop nature of news events).
• When you are in survival mode, it is physiologically impossible to learn.
• It's much harder to unlearn something than to learn it, so be careful what you are learning.
• Apologize when you are wrong.
• Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.
• If you don't like a kid, there is no need to let them know that.
• Your actions must match your words.  If you make a promise you can't keep, you might be able to rebuild trust with some kids, but you won't be able to with an at-risk kid.  You'll just be one more person they can't trust.
• Model appropriate levels of vulnerability.
• Praise in public.  Correct in private (I'm going to add whenever possible to that one because I have had times where the correction HAD to be immediate).

Raw Notes From Learning and the Brain 2021 - Saturday

 Each year, I used my blog to take notes.  What you will find here are raw, including a mix of the presenter's thoughts mixed with my own responses as I mentally process.  They will make sense to me, but they may or may not make sense to you.  I usually process all of this in the following week and post things that make actual sense, so check back in if you are interested.

Keynote I: Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion - Wendy Suzuki

• Brain plasticity can be positive or negative
• Good anxiety is protective.  It is wired into the human brain so that we can respond to signs of danger.
• The problem is that we have so many triggers of danger in the modern world.  There are so many alarms, notification bells, arguments on social media, etc.
• You don't want to get rid of anxiety.  You want to turn the volume down so that it is at a healthy level (the level at which you can use it to propel you forward rather than shut you down).
• There are responses from the nervous system you cannot control, but there are many that you can.  You can slow your breathing.
• Box Breathing - Inhale for a count of 4, hold it at that point for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4, hold it at that point for a count of 4. (What is great about this method is you can do it any time. You can do it during an anxiety-provoking conversation without the other person even knowing.
• Changing your mindset is powerful. In an experiment, a variable group of hotel workers who said they never exercised were told that their work met the scientific definition of exercise.  They became harder workers and reported more satisfaction in their work than the control group.  Their activity didn't change, but their mindset did.
• Moving your body turns down anxiety.  This can be vigorous exercise, but it can also just be a quick walk or stretching.
• Immediate effects (after only one 10 to 30 minute session) - Increase in neurotransmitters, growth factors, and hormones.  It's like giving your brain a bubble bath. This improves your mood, your focus and attention, and your reaction time.
• Long-term effects - A group of healthy but unfit adults were given cognitive tests and EEGs were given a free membership to a spin class and asked to do it 3x per week for 12 weeks (in a team setting).  The control group did competitive video game playing (so the variable was exercise and not teamwork). The tests and EEGs were then repeated.  The exercise group lost weight, increased aerobic capacity, had more motivation, better attitudes, better long-term reaction time, better memory.  The exercisers were even better at finding items in a virtual town than the video game players were.  
• An emotion being uncomfortable doesn't make it bad.  We are complex human beings.  We have all of our emotions for a reason.  
• Worry tells you what is important to you, so learn from it rather than JUST trying to get rid of it.
• What makes you angry?  It's telling you what you are passionate about.
• What does your fear tell you?  It tells you what you believe to be dangerous.  Perhaps that needs to be addressed.  
• Enjoy the superpowers of anxiety - Properly harnessed anxiety at a healthy level can give you more productivity, increase flow (not when anxiety is super high), and grow your empathy.  "I am the high-paid lawyer that I am because of my anxiety," said a lawyer because she could take every "what if" and turn it into a plan.
• Don't be stressed out be trying to reach flow states often.  You can enjoy micro-flow many times a day.  Relative contrast means the moments of micro-flow will feel even better because you have anxieties.

Keynote II: Under Pressure: Confronting the Pandemic of Stress, Anxiety, and Mental Health Concerns in Adolescents - Lisa Damour, PhD

• Husband is a teacher.  He's never been so worn down as the last 20 months.  He leaves looking put together.  He comes home looking like the bus dragged him home.
• Bad news - Stress, anxiety, and mental health concerns have skyrocketed in teenagers.
• Better news - There is much we can do for them.
• Because of the commercialization of wellness, we entered the pandemic with a lack of understanding of mental health, and now it is worse.  (They make money by making you believe you should feel good all the time and then sell you something when you don't.)
• Neuroscientists and psychologists don't talk about stress the way culture does.  Culture proclaims it to be bad.  Psychologists are neutral to pro-stress.  They know it is inevitable (change = stress), and they know growth doesn't happen without it.
• The two times it is bad (according to psychologists and neuroscientists):
• Chronic stress - No break from it for long periods of time
• Trama - stress at a level that breaks the coping dams.
• We must deprogram kids from the messages of the wellness industry.
• Beat this metaphor to death - Mental stress is like muscle building.  Lifting a 1 lb weight won't build your muscles, but neither will lifting one that is too heavy for you.  Telling students that school is designed to be a progressive mental weight lifting program.  Knowing it is by design reframes their mindset and allows them to see that they can feel good about their stress in the same way we feel good soreness after a workout.  It also helps them see breaks as a time of restoration rather than laziness.
• Anxiety at the appropriate level of response to a situation is good.  If you aren't anxious enough for the situation, you are in danger.  If you are having a panic attack, you cannot respond to the situation.
• We can teach them about the systematic nature of anxiety.  
• Whether a test or a tiger, it's all the same to your amygdala.  It's logical to respond to the threat.  This helps kids understand that it is good.
• When we over-react, we overestimate the danger and underestimate our ability to respond.
• It's a physical response.  Deciding to call it anxiety is a choice.  We could call it activation, excitement, or self-protection.
• Because your heart and lungs have gone into overdrive, the act of box breathing can bring the response back down.  The brain and the lungs/brain communicate on a two-way street.
• Kids call a lot of things anxiety because they don't understand their feelings, so they are looking for language to put on it.  "Whenever Mrs. Bennet was discontented, she fancied herself to be nervous."  Kids use anxiety for any time they don't feel perfectly calm (anger, excitement, sadness, discontent).  It's not all anxiety (fear), and we can help kids identify what they are actually feeling.
• Managing actual anxiety involves recognizing the level of risk properly.  Are you overestimating the risk?  It also involves recognizing the tools you have for managing it.  Are you underestimating your ability to cope?
• We have to change the way we talk about mental health.  It's not about feeling good. 
• You should count on your emotions to reasonably resemble the world.  It makes sense to feel bad when things are bad.
• It isn't about not feeling.  It's about regulating response.  Are you managing the feeling effectively?  Regulation is a two-part process (express the feeling, contain the response).  Express it and then pull yourself together.
• We can help them with expression and containment.  If someone is expressing too much, they need help with containment.  If someone is entirely shut down, they need help with expression.
• If expressing isn't making them feel better, they are turning to rumination, which is a worry loop.  Then, you help by having them go into distraction, or "why don't you leave this for now and come back tomorrow?"  Give them an activity to do that engages their brain.  When they revisit it, it will seem less bad.  
• Don't put them on the spot or ask for an answer in the moment.  They need processing time.  You can email them instead.
• When they need a break, help them figure out if they need distraction, connection, or reflection.
• How to Manage a Meltdown - drlisadamour.com 
• For the parents who believe their kids must get into Harvard, the research shows that the keys to a satisfying life are that they have
• Strong relationships
• Meaningful work
• A feeling that they are good at their work.
• Harvard isn't necessary for any of that.  (Maybe college isn't even needed for it.)  Focus on them becoming a good person, and these things are likely to be fulfilled.

Concurrent Session B - We Needed Executive Function During COVID-19 and Still Do - Jack A. Naglieri, PhD

Personal Note:  I'm kinda tired of doing Mindful Deep Breathing at the start of each session.  I get its value, but if we do it too much, doesn't it lose its value?  I don't think I was particularly mindful on this one because I was not paying attention to the moment without judgment.

• Executive function is a type of intelligence.
• When he taught guitar, he wondered why he used the same methods and books with every student but had such varying results.  When he got to college, he became intrigued by psychology.  As a school psychologist, he wondered the same thing he had wondered when teaching guitar, but about school work.  He came to realize the measurement tests were not helpful.
• Executive Function is the most important ability we have because it is how we decide what we choose to do.  (During Covid, we had to decide if we should do things we had never thought about before, like going to the grocery store.  Since our routines were disrupted, we had to think about how to do almost everything.
• Executive function is about thinking, not remembering.
• Executive function is about neurocognitive ability, so it can be trained.
• Executive function takes place in the frontal lobe.  It is the "organ of civilization." It's about making decisions, leadership, motivation, drive, vision, self-awareness, awareness of others, creativity, etc.
• He wrote the Comprehensive Executive Function Inventory - It is not designed for you to look at the individual parts.  It is only meant for the total score to have meaning.  Don't abuse the information by taking a person with an average total score and trying to drill into the one weak area.  What matters is how it all works together, not how one factor might be an outlier.  It's like a minestrone soup.  It has pasta, but that is not the defining quality of the soup.  It's the whole that matters.
• Any novel task demands executive function to create a strategy.  After it is practiced and becomes a skill, less executive function is required.  
• Executive function is not a skill.  Skills are what you do with minimal thinking.  We should stop scripting things for kids if we want them to use executive function.  Give them an idea of the principles involved, but they only build executive function if they make plans on their own.
• It takes energy (which is why we were so tired during Covid).  
• Controlling emotion is important because it will interfere with executive function decision-making if it is uncontrolled.
• Look at executive function from a strength-based perspective (build them even more) rather than a weakness perspective (even if it gets a little better, it won't affect the overall ability too much).
• Don't do all the planning for students.  Give them opportunities to make plans for projects, problem-solving, etc.
• EF is not measured by traditional IQ tests.  They only measure half of what is going on.
• PASS theory is a modern way to define intelligence (not about only knowledge and skills)
• Planning - Thinking about thinking
• Attention - Being alert
• Simultaneous - Getting the big picture
• Successive - Following a sequence
• How do you know f you are good at something?  You need a reference point, which is the value of a norm.
• Intervention - Teacher facilitates student planning.  Direct instruction isn't the way to go here.  Ask questions to help students self-reflect, like:
• What was your goal?
• How did you start?
• What strategies did you use?
• How did the strategy help?
• What would you do again next time?
• What other strategies might you use next time?
• This not only makes them perform better on the math skill being assessed, but it also improved their ability to think about math overall.
• Think smart, and use a plan.

Keynote III:  Bridging the Gap Between Innate and Learned Behavior: A Parent’s Role in Promoting Survival - Bianca Jones Marlin, PhD

It is going to be hard to sum up how awesome this presentation was because it was mostly based on complex research that would be difficult to explain in writing.

Teachers are the biggest influencers today.  I would not be here if it hadn't been for teachers who recognized something in me and helped me develop it.

• The Nature v. Nurture battle has damaged our understanding.  They communicate with each other.
• Hard science on the effects of Oxytocin - Research on mice because their brain pathways are similar to humans and their lifespans are short enough to study multiple generations.
• Oxytocin is generated in many ways, including birth, breastfeeding, soft-touch, eye contact. deep conversation and plays a role in social reward and relationship building.
• A mother mouse will rescue a lost pup if it gets separated from the group and cries.  A virgin mouse will abuse or even cannibalize the pup.  
• Because she hears it cry, they wondered if oxytocin might be generated from hearing the sound.  The experiments are complex, but they involve manipulating the mouse brains directly with drugs and blue light.
• When the mother is removed, and the pups are left with the virgin mouse, those that have been given oxytocin treatments and blue light treatment will rescue the pups. "Oxytocin can make bad babysitters into good nannies."
• Antibodies are used to track where the oxytocin receptors are.  There were twice as many in the left auditory cortex than in the right.  They chemically suppressed the left hearing center, and the mother mouse would not rescue the pups (neglect).
• Adoptive parents should take comfort in the fact that whether you give birth or not, you can generate oxytocin in other ways.
• Conclusion:  Nurture informs and communicates with nature (2-way street)
• They then studied whether the effects of trauma could be passed on to the next generation.  This was stimulated by stories of Holocaust survivors who fear certain smells having children who fear those same smells and by victims of the Dutch Hunger Winter whose children and grandchildren still suffered from metabolic issues (even though the experience of the first generation lasted less than a year).
• It can be difficult to discern in humans whether the fear is actually passed down genetically or if it comes from hearing stories, so animal studies give better insight.
• They used light shocks whenever a male mouse went into the side of the cage that had a gas in it with an almond smell.  The mice became afraid to go into that side of the cage.  Their offspring were separated from them as soon as they were born, but they were also afraid of the almond smell, and so were their offspring.  The conclusion is that the experience of the first generation mouse affected his sperm, which caused a genetic passing of trauma to the next two generations.
• In humans, it takes about 12 days for olfactory (smell) nerves to regenerate (which is about how long it took people with COVID to get their sense of taste and smell back).
• Conditioned taste aversion is when an experience makes us be repelled by it (like when you get food poisoning and then never want that food again).  In mice, if you make them sick after a certain food a few times, not only won't they eat it again, neither will their offspring.
• The next step is to see if the offspring can be changed back by their own experience because the thought is that because the brain is plastic, since it can be changed by experience, it should be able to be changed back by experience.
• Questions wondering about other senses.  If the next generation can be influenced by an aversion to a smell or taste, can the aversion to a visual also be inherited?  

Concurrent Sessions C

How Tutoring Works: Raise Motivation and Accelerate Learning - John T. Almarode, Ph.D. (My favorite presenter from 2019) 

• We've been at 30000 feet.  Now we're going to drill down.
• What if they aren't keeping up with skills.  Can we move learning forward regardless of where their starting point is?
• Define tutoring 
• Extended learning - Tutoring offers us the opportunity to extend learning and address unrealized potential in our learners.
• Tutoring has a .51 effect size
• Effect size is only a potential.  It is only realized with effective implementation.
• "Learning Loss" isn't real.  Kids didn't make the same gains they would have pre-pandemic, but they did not lose anything.
• The ideas that have been suggested (extending the school year, etc.) have had no benefit.
• Six Dimensions of Tutoring Sessions
1. Invest in relationships - The student is more successful once a relationship is established because there is trust.  (Effect size is .48) Build credibility through trust, competence, and immediacy.  
2. Address confidence and challenges to learning - There may be a barrier you don't know about.  Define what is in the way of the learning goals.  Self efficacy (the belief that I can do something with evidence) has a .71 effect size, so get them a win quickly.  Avoid labels at all cost because labels have a -.61 effect size.
3. Goal setting with students - "Today, we are going to work on . . . "  Have the student write the goal in their own words.  It's an immediate goal.
4. Don't just teach them what to learn.  Teach them how to learn. - Talk to kids about strategies first.  You aren't using practice ON your learners but teaching them to use them for themselves.  Will they know what to do when you are not around?  Students must engage in the generative process of selecting, organizing, and integrating their learning.  (Note-taking is less effective than summarizing.  Drawing an image of what you have learned makes the learning stick.  Elaborate interrogation causes them to dig for themselves.)  The tutoring session should involve the teaching of study skills in the context of the content.
5. Teach content and how to know what success looks like.  - Success criteria can almost double the advancement of learning.  The objective should not only be clear, but it should also be clear how they will know when they have achieved it.
6. Deliberate practice - Practice that which is hard to do. (Effect size .79)  To be deliberate, it has to be challenging.  (To retain your brain has to strain.)
• Decisions must be made within your local context.

Providing Support for All Students to Address Learning Loss - Kathleen Lynch, EdD
www.studentsupportacceleration.com

• Covid caused setbacks
• Research-based strategies can improve learning
• Learning loss = not on track with pre-pandemic standards
• Summer represents an opportunity for enrichment if done correctly.  
• Effective summer programs include SEL, Reading instruction, Math instruction
• Recommendations
• Keep it voluntary
• Focus on enrichment rather than remediation.
• Support teachers with materials, time, and lesson plans
• Maintain ample vacation time (programs should not be more than 5 weeks and about 4 hours a day).  They don't have to look like traditional summer school.
• Prioritize in-person learning

Rethinking Motivation and Mindsets: Strategies to Reengage Students - Andrew C. Watson, MEd 

(I finally got to meet him Off-Twitter, and he used my tweet in his presentation)

• Just teaching kids about mindset will not mean they know how to do it.  We have to change our practice to show them how to have a growth mindset.
• Doing what a researcher does won't necessarily work in your classroom because your context is different.  Instead, think about what he did and how you might adapt it.  "Don't just do this thing.  Think this way."
• Meta-analyses on growth mindset interventions say the results are trivial.  That alone is not a reason to drop it.  You have to ask why the results are trivial.  It could be that the method is sound, but we are applying it incorrectly.  We shouldn't think, "Growth mindset doesn't work."  We should think, "It is difficult to do growth mindset well, so we should really focus on doing it well."
• Steps
• The teacher introduces a new topic.
• Students work on the new skill
• Struggle/Failure 
• Lather, rinse, repeat (due to desirable difficulty)
• Learning
• Easy learning doesn't stick (desirable difficulty)
• Some kids consider a hard thing fun, so their emotion helps their cognition and builds persistence.  (Charge! response - I got this)
• Some kids have negative emotions when it gets hard, which makes them forget things, and destroys their persistence. (Retreat! response - I give up)
• We want to reduce the Retreat! response.  
• We used to think If they believe they are not good at something, they will retreat from it.  But that turned out not to be true.
• Carol Deaner and Carol Dweck asked if it was about what we say to ourselves.  Those who describe things based on ability tend to retreat.  Those who talk about their effort or their strategies tend to charge.
• How we praise students matters to their perseverance.  "You must be smart" is demotivating.  "You must have worked hard" is very motivating.  Success should be reflected on with the strategies that made them successful, so they can focus on what they do.
• Use verbs instead of adjectives.  Be specific and precise with your praise.
• Dangerous kindness - It can be hard for us to give critical feedback because we don't want to make them feel bad.  We try to soften the blow by lowering expectations or by saying "some people are just not good math."  Or we call on them less so we don't embarrass them.  These strategies are demotivating.  
• Students with fixed (ability) mindsets have performance goals won't let you see them working because it should look effortless and be flawless, and they value high scores.  Those with growth mindsets have learning goals, so they want you to see the effort, view flaws as signposts for what they need to work on, and value high learning.  We should normalize struggle.
• Run like a bunny to read Teach Like A Champion
• Frame wrong answers as normal
• Ensure wrong answers occur frequently by making the material high challenge
• Emphasize the usefulness of a wrong answer
• Wrong answers will ultimately lead to the right answers (No answer won't).
• Let them share what they used to struggle with but have overcome.  Let them share what they are still finding challenging
• Given EEGs while taking hard trivia quizzes.  Told them if they got it right or wrong and gave the correct answer.  Asked them again.  Fixed mindset thinkers activated the "error detection" area of the brain ("I got it wrong.".  Growth mindset thinkers activated the area of the brain the processes the meaning of language ("Oh, that's the answer.").  The more activation there was in the language processing area, the more likely they were to get it right the second time.
• Teach students that ability can change.  Coach students to teach others that ability can change.  Think about how and what you choose to grade.  Think more about how they can learn at school and less about how they can perform at school.
• Don't do this thing.  Think this way.  Adapt and apply to your context.