Changing the Pictures of the Classroom in Students’ Heads by John Nail

These are my notes from John Nail’s presentation, “Necessary Accountability for Individual Learning” on February 20, 2012, at a Yukon Public Schools professional development day. John is on the school board of Yukon Public Schools and is a home developer in Yukon. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. John is publishing a book in summer 2012 with Tate Publishing.

Taught construction in the 2 year program at Canadian Valley Technology Center.

“How to get your students to do what they don’t want to do”
– some teachers today said 75% of their students don’t want to work

A self-directed learner
– has intrinsic motivation
– able to navigate their learning tasks independently

Goal Setting to help our students become intrinsically motivated and self-directed

Human engineering principles to help kids become self-directed
– teaching students construction at the tech center, I had a lot of tough kids who had dropped out or been kicked out of other programs
– I taught masonry: how to lay brick
– It was a living nightmare for me until I learned some of this human engineering principles

I guarantee you this goal sheet in front of you will produce a self-directed learner

Story of Wilma Rudolph, contracted polio as a child
– was home schooled initially as a child
– vowed she would walk
– won 3 gold medals at the Rome Olympics

What are external things we do / incentives we provide to try and help students work harder
– grades
– call parents
– suspension
– others

Not all those external things work for unmotivated students, for motivated students these may work

A few years ago a person watching me present this at Francis Tuttle Technolo

“I believe all students are at risk for not achieving their full potential”

Have you heard of Zig Ziglar”
– He says, “What the mind pictures, the body carries out”
– the challenge is changing that picture

What are pictures that some of your students bring into your class now?
– texting to friends
– talking with friends
– sleeping

We need to help students erase those pictures and replace them with something else
– key is erasing that picture and creating a new picture

What does our new picture look like?
– students listening
– bringing what they need to class

I have a finite amount of emotional energy to give to my students, so I want to set them up to utilize the things I have to offer them

This goal sheet

Book “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David Schwartz
– paper and pencil starts the mind in motion
– when I start writing things down, things start to click
– when we write something down, we can’t think of something else except what we are writing
– “managed motion creates the proper emotion”

I have my students fill out the goal sheet at the start of the day
– I would have students write down their goal for that day the first moment they came into my classroom for the day

Benefits of writing down our goals
– focuses thinking
– we see pictures and images instead of words and phrases (this is also from David Schwartz)

it’s a fact that this will replace students’ pictures
– beautiful sermons about the importance of learning won’t change the picture in students’ heads….
– students must change this picture for themselves, but students must do this for themselves
– many of my students didn’t have very good writing skills either

So now, I would never walk into a classroom without that goal sheet

Your goal in some cases can become their goal through this process
– this goal sheet asks students to do some serious thinking: identifying obstacles, making a plan, self-reflection, etc.

Learning IS self-reflection

Writing it out creates the motivation we need, and it can create desire to do something
– it also creates ownership
– if you own something you embrace it differently

When students in my class wouldn’t follow my instructions and do a process correctly (and claimed they had followed my instructions fully) I bought a camcorder
– we would record video of a student doing a process
– then I would ask a student to write down the steps
– then they would review their video and self-evaluate

MY COMMENT: HERE IS A KEY FOR THE METHOD JOHN IS DESCRIBING – HE IS HELPING STUDENTS PERFORM TASKS AND DO SPECIFIC, HANDS-ON THINGS. THAT CONCRETE, PRACTICAL SIDE OF WHAT HE WAS TEACHING IS KEY I THINK. WE NEED TO FIND WAYS TO MAKE OUR LEARNING ACTIVITIES MORE HANDS-ON, PRACTICAL, AND PRODUCT AND/OR PERFORMANCE BASED.

True learning is self reflection, and self-evaluation plays a key role in that

How can a leader provide the proper atmosphere

“The primary challenge of coaching in the NFL can be boiled down to a 1 sentence description: “Getting people to do what they don’t want to do in order to active what they want to achieve is a pretty good description of any kind of leadership.”

Many students simply don’t know how or have never been taught how to motivate themselves

Frederick Herzberg defined motivation as movement; “motivation is what happens when people charge their own batteries”

When I was trying to charge my students’ batteries as a teacher, that didn’t work very well for me

My goal is to have self-motivated, self-directed learners

Let’s go back to students not bringing the right tool to class: the pencil

Helen Keller: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

Take a right turn to Success
– Choices —> Crossroads
– door #1: Circle of the Unknown (bad attitude, inappropriate behavior, incomplete knowledge, no desire, lack of skill) – I originally called this “The Loser’s Circle” but others
– door #2: Winner’s Circle: Skill, Desire, Behavior, Attitude, Knowledge

It all boils down to CHOICES
– I found a book by Shad Helmstetter, PhD, called “Life Choices: Manage Your Choices, Manage Your Life”

“The self-talk you create helps manage the choices you make”

How does this change my behavior as a student when I say to myself:
– I’m a poor student
– I’m a good student
– I’m a great student

pyramid is: Choices, Programs, Self-Talk

What I say to myself determine how I’m programmed and how I talk to myself

I taught my students to say out loud: “I always bring a pencil to class.”
– I had students not bringing pencils to class, talking when I was talking, coming late…

I had a turning point when students set off a stink bomb in my class when a high powered developer was coming to my class as a guest speaker

Book recc: “What to Say When You Talk to Yourself” by Shad Helmstetter
– you say these phrases in the present tense, as if you possess these skills TODAY
– when students write things down and say them out loud, it works to reprogram their thinking

Some people say up to 75% of what we say to ourselves is negative
– course material we’re presenting to kids is new and requires our brains to strain
– we forget learning something new is tough
– we’ve got to help them in a mechanical way
– AND give kids some BELIEF

So now YOU are going to make a choice today
– 75% of your kids are not motivated
– your choice is whether you are going to implement these ideas today
– just like your students that make plenty of choices, you will make choices

I challenge you to use the goal setting method with your students now
– I know how effective this is in the classroom because I lived this for 10 years

Technorati Tags: change, education, evaluation, literacy, goals, motivation, students, pictures, john, nail, johnnail, reflection, reform

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