Masters, Not Victims: What Learner Agency Asks of a Leader (James Anderson)

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Welcome to Professional Learnings for Educational Leaders, the podcast from the New South Wales Primary Principles Association, where we sit down with educational leaders from around the world and talk about what it really takes to lead learning.
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Our next guest with us is James Anderson.
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James is a speaker, author, and educator behind Learnership, The Agile Learner, the Mindset Continuum, and his most recent book from Feedback to Advice really shows us the how.
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This is the first of a four-part series with James, and over the series we turn all of it on ourselves as leaders.
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The principal is the lead learner.
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This was a real privilege to hear from James as he walks us through his frameworks and insights.
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It's a real reflective piece on where we are now and what could be possible.
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In this episode, we start with agency, the environment to act, the will to act, and the power to act.
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And now let's hear from James Anderson.
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And no, look, this idea of learn agency that we've been talking about in education, I think one of the things we need to recognize straight up is it's not new.
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We we throw it around like it's a new idea, but it's something that philosophers, theologians, physicists have been talking about for centuries.
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And it speaks to the very heart of what it means to be human.
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And the part that I find really interesting is that it may not be a thing.
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Like it feels like the ability to act in the world, to make choices, exercise our free will, make a difference is at the very heart of being human.
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But um when you talk to physicists, it may be that we don't really have it and we live in a deterministic world.
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Um I was fascinated by a interview I heard between a philosopher, a theologian, and a physicist.
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Sounds like the start of a joke, doesn't it?
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It does.
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I'm I'm curious to where we're going.
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Yeah.
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But look, basically, the the um the philosopher said, you know, I think therefore I am, I I have a independent self, I have free will, and I act on the world, and this is what we call agency.
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And uh, you know, pondered the the nature of agency in that way.
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And the theologian said, Well, free will, that's given to you by God, um, and that's what makes us separate and special and all the rest of it.
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And the physicist turned around and said, Well, look, I get what you're talking about.
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Like we all experience it, but that moment of choice, what's happening in your brain is basically, you know, this neural pathway is firing instead of this one.
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An action potential is being built that causes you to make this choice and this choice.
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And he simply leant in and he said, Where's the force?
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Where's the force come from?
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And and what's the answer to that?
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Where does the force come from?
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We've looked really, really hard for the fundamental forces of nature.
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You know, we've got the large hadron collider and these sorts of things.
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We know if there are other forces in nature, they're tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny forces.
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And so the question is, well, maybe we're not.
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And people have spent centuries trying to work this out.
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You know, the psychologists these days will tell you that, you know, we can watch your brain as you make a decision.
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And we can see your brain make that decision before you say I'm making it.
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Which is which is great again, which will go into great data, great data, terrific.
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But it's it's not so what, but it's what now, where to, yeah.
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Because it's a fascinating space in terms of predetermining where the new neurons fire and what decisions we all make.
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And and people listening going, where are you going with that?
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Well, the the thought is, well, what what are your thoughts and how do you make choices?
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And then are we all, as you alluded to, are we already is it already predetermined or is it a response to?
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It's a really fascinating space.
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It is, and that's that's why I raised it at the beginning, that it's not a a trivial thing by any stretch of the imagination.
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It's something that you know lots and lots of thoughts are being given to to try and work out.
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And we hear it sort of pop up in education, and it's popped up all around the world because it speaks of something really, really deep.
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But often our responses in education have been really, really shallow.
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And I think that's a part of the issue.
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Yeah.
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So the linking as well of how and you go into that with your work is how learners learn is a real segue here.
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And if we do segue into you, when we start, we talk about learning agency, and it it turns up in policy documents, James, around the world.
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As but as you said, it's not defined well for a principal hearing this term, learner agency.
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What does it actually mean?
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What how could you describe it?
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Um, and how would they be able to lead that as well?
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Yeah, look, when you look at the policy documents around the world, there's no one agreed definition.
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And I think that's sort of speaks to the complexity of the issue.
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Um, I've always found it easiest to think about agency in terms of someone who lacks agency feels like the victim of their circumstances.
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They feel like the world happens to them.
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Whereas someone with agency feels like the master of their circumstances.
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They feel like they act on the world.
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They have agency, they are they are they are agenic.
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And I think that's what we got into the job for.
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We want kids to go out and make a difference in the world, to feel like they have choice, they can act in the world.
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Yeah, when I wrote learnership, and that's something we're going to talk about now and you know over the coming podcasts, I I went and spoke to various principals around Australia and internationally.
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And uh I remember one principal in particular, he said, you know, I really worry about my kids.
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And I worry about them because they see their future as small.
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Yeah, they say all I can do is go out and work on the farm.
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And there's nothing wrong with working on the farm unless you think that's all you can do.
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And when do you think that's that's me, I can only do this and other things happen, then the do they become the victim of their circumstances.
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And he was questioning you, how do we build in students the capacity to go out and be a genetic to make a difference in the world around them, to realise they don't have to be the victim of their circumstances?
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So, James, it's curious, you talk about agency in learnership.
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What is the definition in learnership or your definition of what agency is?
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Because it's a phrase that's coined or used very often, but it's nice to actually know what we are referring to when we talk about agency and whether that's student agency or just agency in general.
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So there's a lot of different definitions out there around what agency is, and I tried to pull those definitions together to give school leaders something practical, something they can actually use in their school.
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So I define agency as the degree to which an individual is able to take initiative to meaningfully influence their world, particularly in the face of challenges.
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It involves three interrelated and equally important elements, which are the environment to act, the will to act, and the power to act.
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And I think there's important to come back to a couple of subtleties in there that to start off with, it's the degree to which.
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We often talk about agency as a dichotomy, oh, the kids have it or they don't have it.
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And and it's not that case at all.
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It's the degree to which no one has ultimate agency that would be omnipotence.
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Like, you know, we we don't.
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But we want to increasingly give kids the power to act in the world, to make a difference in the world.
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It's about taking initiative and that that's being able to make choices.
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And I think the important part here to recognize is that it's about doing that in the face of challenges.
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This is about doing hard things, not about doing easy things.
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And I think sometimes in schools we talk about, you know, voice and choice.
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We say, Oh yeah, voice and choice.
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And I get it, like I get it, because someone with agency has voice and choice.
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Like you see people in the world that are agenic and they go out there and say, But I don't like this thing happening, I'm going to make this happen instead.
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And they they make the choices and they make a difference.
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And we say, All right, let's let's give the kids voice and choice.
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Yeah, there's even one um definition, and I won't tell you which country it comes from, where they talk about uh giving kids a a sense of agency.
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Yeah, you talk about that's in learnership.
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Yeah.
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Tell us further what well if if you if you would like to, yeah.
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Yeah, because it but it it speaks to that.
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It sort of it gives them a sense of agency.
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And so what we do is we say, oh, all right, what we need to do is we we put kids on the school council or we'll let them uh choose the topic they're gonna study or the the way they're gonna be assessed and all those sort of things.
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But they could have already been on the school council.
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They already had an opinion, we just didn't let them express it.
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Yeah, they could have already chosen which topic they wanted to study, we just didn't let them.
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And my challenge to school leaders has always been if the choice is one students could already have made, but we had gagged them, if the decision is one they could have already implemented, but we hadn't let them, then we're not giving them the power to choose, only the permission.
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And I think that's a really critical issue that agency is this enormously important expression of the human condition.
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It's almost, would you say, it feels like a uh a human right or feel that to have as a as a human being to have that right of of agency.
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And it if it's suppressed, people feel that.
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Yeah.
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Look, uh and I I I would go beyond that.
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It's not about the right.
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I mean, we take people's agencies away away when they break our societal rules.
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We throw them in prison, we take away their license.
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So you you've been drink driving, you're no longer allowed to choose to drive.
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You know, you've done worse things, we're gonna put you in prison to reduce the impact you can have on the world.
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And that's why we speak to agency so keenly in education.
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Um But what we've got to realize is that agency is a capacity we build.
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It's not something we give students.
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And if our structures, our strategies, our approach to agency in schools is to give students agency, then I think we've missed the point.
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That agency is an outcome, it's not a pedagogy.
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Yeah.
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And we need to be asking ourselves, how are we changing the student to enable them to make more choices, to enable them to have more power to act in the world?
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And that's where that definition, the environment to act, the will to act, the power to act, actually gives us three levers.
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We can look at how do we create the environment that drives the growth of agency?
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How do we create the environment that helps students develop the understanding they're capable of acting?
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And how do we create um the conditions where we build that capacity to actually go and act in the world?
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Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an it's just really interesting to hear what that is and the the naysayers to that example you said around, well, you know, there has to be consequences.
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James, for for as you alluded to, uh e.g.
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drink driving or doing an offence and so forth, what do we say that in society we do have to have rules though.
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We're not saying when I just want to make that clear.
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James Anderson is not saying no rules here.
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Uh because rules equals chaos.
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Yeah, yeah.
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No, no, no.
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Absolutely.
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We we've got to have uh boundaries, particularly in the schools, around what kids do.
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This is not a free-for-all.
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Yes, that's exactly, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah.
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You know, we we particularly in schools, we have these environments to act.
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Um, but the environment has to be one that provides challenges.
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Challenges that the students couldn't have otherwise engaged in.
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Yeah, sometimes I see schools, teachers that you know talk about, oh, we're giving students agency, and that's always my first red flag.
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We're giving them the agency.
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And yeah, when when you hear that, I mean that the the there would be saying with it excitement and with genuine thinking that we are giving agency, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And look, the the things they're doing are I think are genuinely good pedagogy, like you know, giving kids choices and letting them choose their pathway through the curriculum.
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I think that's all good stuff, but it's not necessarily building agency.
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Because as I said before, if the choice is one they could have already made, then we're not giving them agency.
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We're not building agency, we're just giving them permission.
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So the choices we need to give them have to be hard choices.
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Yeah, they have to be choices where they go, I don't know how to do that.
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I don't know how to do that, and I don't know how to do that.
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And then we have to change the student, build the capacity in them to do things that they couldn't do before.
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And that's the hard part.
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Yeah, that is the hard part, and that's part of learning, going through the hard part and what and and that inference of hard to when you and you may, you know, have those setbacks and failure, but the ability to have get that mindset to get up and do it again, and you may fail again and come back and repeat.
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Yeah, so let's go into then the environment to act, James, and and essentially the zones of learning for for people curious, tell me more, because it's you've got me with what this environment is, you've got me with the you know, what is agency, but then I'm like, well, uh James, tell me where where do we go with with this, with this work, with the environment.
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Yeah, look, I I think as I said, the important part is that the environment we'll be providing students in or giving students is one that's a challenging environment.
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And we throw this word challenge around a lot.
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So I give kids challenge, and we give kids challenge.
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And what what really is challenge?
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And so in my book, Learnership, I talk about the four zones of learning.
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And it builds on Voygotsky's work.
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Vojgoski talks about the zone of proximal development, and uh, I call that zone of proximate development my learning zone, because I've never actually seen a child approximately develop.
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But um what what I've done is you know the the learning zone is that place just beyond your current best.
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It's the bit that makes you go, uh what, how the I'm not sure.
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It's the place where we make meaningful mistakes, mistakes that actually give us information that can move us forward.
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And Wojgoski did a good job of sort of describing that.
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But what I do is I describe the areas around it.
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Just before you get to your zone of proximal development, you're doing your best.
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And that's your performance zone.
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And your performance zone is where you're confident, it's where you're concentrating, it's where you're building your, you know, taking on board all your current abilities to produce your current best.
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And then there's your comfort zone.
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And we're all intuitively sort of understand what our comfort zone is, that's things we've mastered, things we've done, all that sort of stuff.
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But there's a trap.
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You know, we often tell kids, you know, try something new.
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Get outside your comfort zone and try something new.
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And you can try something new that is well inside your comfort zone.
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Your comfort and performance zone are full of things you've mastered, things you've done in the past, but they're also full of what I call easy things you haven't done yet.
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And what's often happening in schools is in the name of agency, we say, Well, we'll give you choice, we'll give you challenge.
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But the choices students are either given or the choices they make aren't actually in their learning zone.
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They're in their comfort or their performance zone.
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They're easy things they haven't done yet.
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And they're not the sort of choices that grow.
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Is it because the faith is too bad in their mindset to give it a go, so to speak, or have go outside of their their comfort zone, is appears part of that process, or is that just the internal dialogue, or are there other variables in that environment as well?
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Look, there's a a lot to talk about when we talk about the learning zone, and part of it is mindset that we'll talk about in a a future podcast.
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But I think um a big one is the way we're treating the learning zone, the messages we send kids about it.
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You know, I I was doing some work with a high-performing secondary school in Melbourne year or two ago, and I was talking about the learning zone, and I was talking about how that's the place where you sort of feel that bit of struggle, it's the place where you grow and all the rest of it.
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And I started talking about the relationship students have with their learning zone.
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And this teacher sat back and he went, and I lost him.
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Like I could see him disappear into his own world.
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And I just went on with the workshop and I sort of noted him.
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And we we came back after lunch and I started the next topic, and this guy sort of just interjected.
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He says, Oh, James, James, sorry, I've just got to tell you about what you said before.
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You know, that that learning zone stuff.
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I teach you 11 geography, and I've just realized that whenever I give kids that is legitimately hard, you know, putting them in their learning zone, the first thing I do is I apologize.
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I say, sorry, kids, this is going to be hard.
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I'll help you through it, and if we can get through it by the end of the class, then we can do something fun.
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And so you asked me about, you know, what's stopping kids going into their learning zone.
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Very often it's the messages we send about what that learning zone means.
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Yeah, I was talking to another primary teacher just recently, and I and I love primary teachers.
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Primary teachers have the most beautiful hearts in the world.
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Well, you're always welcome into PPA then, James.
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Well said, well said.
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You know, we we get into primary teaching because we love the kids.
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In any case, so I was talking to this group of primary teachers, small regional school in South Australia, and um about the messages we send about the the learning zone and what do we do when kids start to struggle.
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And this beautiful, beautiful teacher said, Oh, well, I've got to help them.
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And what she did by default was to rescue kids.
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And kids at a very early age were starting to learn that you know, if I'm struggling, if I don't know the answer immediately, I need an adult to help me.
00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:55.680
And so they were wondering why the kids, by the time they're in grade three and four, would do find things are hard and go, Who's gonna come and rescue me from this?
00:17:55.839 --> 00:17:56.880
And it's interesting.
00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:04.720
Uh, one of the schools I've worked with for the longest around this work, a school called Glenview Primary School in New Zealand, Carl Allen is the principal there.
00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:18.160
And he tells a story where he said one of the biggest challenges for his teachers was to recognize that their job wasn't to support students, their job was to challenge students.
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:24.559
And for many of those teachers, it really impacted something very deep inside them about their role as an educator.
00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:29.039
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying, you know, just let the kids struggle on, you know, leave them on their own.
00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:31.440
But let's go back to this school in South Australia.
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:36.319
One of the things they did to sort of try and build a better relationship with challenge.
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:38.799
So kids want to go into their learning zones.
00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:48.000
What they did is when they saw that child struggling and they felt their heartstrings pull and go, I gotta go help that kid, they said, I'm gonna smile.
00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:51.440
So that's the first thing, because we we tend to drop our faces and drop our tone.
00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:53.119
Oh, you know, do this sort of stuff.
00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:54.559
So I'm gonna smile.
00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:58.400
I'm gonna say to the student, I can see you're in your learning zone.
00:18:58.640 --> 00:18:59.599
That's great.
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:00.079
Right.
00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:02.480
So to tell the student, this is where I want you to be.
00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:04.480
You're about to grow now.
00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.279
And this was more for the the teacher than for the student.
00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:11.440
I'm gonna do one lap of the room because that stopped them from actually intervening.
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:16.400
And when I come around on my next lap, if you need some help, I'll give you some help then.
00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:24.400
And what she was doing was she was giving the student not just permission, but the signal that this is a valuable part of your learning.
00:19:24.559 --> 00:19:30.880
It's not a sign that you're against limitations, it's not a sign that you should stop, it's not a sign that you even need help.
00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:33.119
This is the place where you grow.
00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:36.400
I love you and I don't want to steal that from you.
00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:53.599
And that school, like just in the space of a semester of doing those sorts of things, with a few other things they did as well, started reporting how kids were, you know, taking on challenges for longer, how they wanted to go into their learning zone, how they started to recognize that their teachers wanted to see them struggle, and that wasn't a bad thing.
00:19:53.759 --> 00:19:59.279
Um, and it's really we we send these messages all the time in all these different ways.
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:08.160
And the work I love that I that I do with schools is about helping us recognise where do we send them and how can we do better with that.
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:10.240
It's the strategies, James.
00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:12.720
It's the how and you're spot on.
00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:21.839
Everyone wants to support there's no one who would disagree with the statement that we want to all help our students and we want to help them perform to their best ability.
00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.319
Who that who would argue against that?
00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:43.519
But what you're showing, there's a there is another way, how, and is also what's refreshing about learnership and your work is thinking about the how of how you what is mindset, what is mindset, what is learning actually is, what is the struggle of learning.
00:20:43.759 --> 00:21:01.359
You talked about also the the environment and how it plays and what is actually genuine, really big things to really think about uh where where and how and what where to next and what I mean do do you and do we measure that?
00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:02.400
How do we measure that?
00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:08.400
You could see my internal thinking going as well, going, where do I, where to, where do you go next?
00:21:08.720 --> 00:21:28.319
Because as you said, teachers are good people trying to help, but they're also from not just students, but also there's the parent factor as well, saying if the if a child responds, for example, in that year three or four, using that example, um the teacher doesn't help me anymore.
00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:32.240
I'm sure you've come across that, and leaders come across that as well.
00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:45.200
And then does the principal then come and rescue the rescue the situation by rescuing the teacher and enabling that pattern of behavior, and it becomes this cycle loop to a pe of appeasement, which is not actually learning.
00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:48.640
I know that was a lot that I just tried to sort of unpack there.
00:21:49.119 --> 00:21:53.039
Yeah, so I I think there's a couple of things that respond to there.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:22:01.599
And the first one is that if you're going to come up against those challenges from parents, we we need to make sure we've got a messaging right first.
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:10.240
And one of the questions I always ask in my workshops and things like that is if you asked your students why do they come to school, what would they say?
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:16.400
And once you get past the, you know, see my friends and because I have to, what they all say is I come to school to learn.
00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:20.319
And if you're in primary school, they say I come to school to learn to read and write and things like that.
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:23.440
In secondary school they say I come to school to learn to be do.
00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:25.039
Then you ask them how do you do that?
00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:29.279
And what happens next is they go, well, I do what the teacher tells me.
00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:33.599
I listen, I follow instructions, you know, I'm compliant and yeah, those sort of things.
00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:36.160
And what they're saying is they got the first question wrong.
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:37.680
They didn't come to school to learn.
00:22:37.839 --> 00:22:39.920
They come to school to be taught.
00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:51.599
And this is the, I think, at the core of it that most of our sort of messaging to schools is that you come to school, the teacher directs, I tell you what to do, and you learn as a result.
00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:58.160
In my work, I talk about the growth equation and I say student growth is equal to skillful teaching.
00:22:58.240 --> 00:23:00.240
It's absolutely important we have skillful teaching.
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:05.839
We've been focusing on that really hard for the last 10, 15, 20 years times skillful learning.
00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:08.960
And it's the skillful learning part that we've been missing out on.
00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:16.400
So when you ask me that question about well, how do we address the parent that comes back and all the rest of it, I said, well, we're not just teaching your student.
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:18.079
We're not just teaching your child.
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:20.880
We're helping them become skillful learners.
00:23:21.119 --> 00:23:25.519
And one of the first things to understand about that is that learning's not learning.
00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:27.119
Learning's not one-dimensional.
00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:28.079
We don't just do it.
00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:29.119
Not linear.
00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:29.519
Yeah.
00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:34.319
Well no it's not even that that idea of linear and sort of moving through the curriculum.
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:38.400
It's the idea that you know most people when they think about learning describe one act.
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:58.240
And when we come back to that zone model, what we do in our comfort zone, the way we learn, the expectations, the currency we deal in, and the feelings we have are different to the learning and our performance when we do our best and the strategies we have to use and the feelings we have and the currency we deal in.
00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:01.119
And that's different again to our learning zone.
00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:04.880
And so when the parent comes up and says you know why are you helping a child a child?
00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:07.839
Because we're helping your child, we're doing two things.
00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:14.880
One, we're helping them understand that learning in your learning zone is meant to feel like that.
00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:21.519
Because when they showed up at the front start of the year and they started to struggle they thought that was a sign of their limitations.
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:28.000
And we're trying to teach them that that feeling of struggle is a sign of their growth not a sign of their limitations.
00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:29.440
And look around the room.
00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:31.519
See what we've got up on the wall here?
00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:35.200
And in the schools that I work with there's a copy of this in the book.
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:37.920
We talk about what it feels like to be in your learning zone.
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.359
And he said when you're in your learning zone you should expect to struggle.
00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:42.319
Expect it.
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:46.720
Not some people do some people don't everyone in their learning zone should feel like they're struggling.
00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:56.880
Seven out of 10 uncomfortable you know treading water not drowning that sort of feeling we should expect to make mistakes and Johnny you know you have had had all the answers for the last 20 minutes.
00:24:57.039 --> 00:24:59.839
That tells me you're in your performance zone not your learning zone.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:05.039
I expect I want like if you don't make 10 mistakes in the next 15 minutes you're not in the right zone.
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:11.119
And we we tell them that this is what the learning zone feels like and we tell them that you know set that expectation up in the school.
00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:29.839
It's a real mindset shift because that is almost how would I describe the complete almost opposite James to what many school settings are and that's not a d this this that comment is not to be condescending at all to it's just a mindset as we work through.
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:37.359
Sorry continue I did just processing because their listeners going where are we going here?
00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:38.160
Like how?
00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:44.400
Tell us further yeah well look I I'll give you an example from a um primary school in Swan Hill.
00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:44.960
Okay.
00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:52.319
And uh I I think after a year or so of working with me around this work that they one of their teachers in particular just nailed it.
00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:57.680
She said that she'd set up the class and she said to her kids got three groups we're doing today.
00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:04.720
She said this group over here you're going to be in your comfort zone you're doing the tuning in tuning in activity for an integrated unit.
00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:17.119
What I want you doing is just you know researching the topic finding out what you can it's straightforward you can talk to each other while you're doing it's not going to challenge you just get it all together so you're ready to present it and tell the rest of the class what you found out.
00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:22.160
What she was indicating was that the work she was doing those kids were doing wasn't meant to be challenging.
00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:32.480
It needed to be done but it need to be done like the dealing in time just get it done quickly yeah then she turned to the other group and she said you guys are consolidating what we did last week.
00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:35.519
Now I know you've got it like we've answered most of your questions.
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:38.960
I want you working through these activities getting it right.
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:46.480
You'll need to concentrate you'll need to be focused you might make a few mistakes but you should be able to work it out between you if you've got any questions.
00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:53.920
And so you guys will be working quietly in the the breakout room over there making sure you really got what we did last week.
00:26:54.079 --> 00:26:55.519
That's your performance zone work.
00:26:55.680 --> 00:27:06.000
This other group you guys are going to be in your learning that's why I'm with you because in your learning zone you're going to have lots of questions you're going to make lots of mistakes you're going to need lots of information and you're going to be feeling a little bit wobbly.
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:09.839
You're going to have that feeling that and and that's part of the learning process.
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:16.079
And what she did is she set up the expectations for each of those groups in her classroom.
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:22.880
If she just said I want you guys doing this you guys doing this you guys doing that well if I'm in my learning zone why can't I get it done quickly?
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:26.559
Why can't I just get like why can't I be talking to my friends like the rest of the group over there?
00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:27.200
Different?
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:32.480
Yeah we when we talk about it we talk about in your comfort zone the currency is time.
00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:34.319
Get it done efficiency is important.
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:43.599
If you can do it quickly great in your performance zone the currency is standards performance and that takes concentration it takes your current best abilities.
00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:54.480
But in your learning zone the currency is effort and effort is the nonlinear part that you were talking about before it it it doesn't sort of all happen at once and it is messy and you should expect that.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:28:39.039
But you can imagine if the teacher just said right yeah you guys doing the tuning in activity just go and do it and you guys doing the learning activity they wouldn't have had an understanding or they wouldn't have had the why why are we doing this random stuff and also I really like how you've unpacked that from a practical perspective because an average of 30 students in a classroom how do we teach this work through and what that is an as a real example of of how and how did that go in terms of that and we call keep calling it I don't want to call that an experiment how did that actually go because that's not a traditional style of teaching in this current era.
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:49.920
It's not it it's it's explicit to a part but it's not the it's not a it's not a standardized way of teaching that is prescribed at this point in time.
00:28:50.240 --> 00:29:00.720
Yeah look you're leaning into the explicit teaching stuff and we know look the explicit teaching stuff if you want this particular learning outcome the explicit teaching is great.
00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:07.440
But the problem with the way we're going about the explicit teaching the I do, we do, you do is it's lacking the and this is how we do it.
00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:12.160
And it gets great learning outcomes without creating learners.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:18.319
And I think that's a a phrase that we can have the learning outcomes without creating learners.
00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:21.200
And that's a phrase that I think should get principles up at night.
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:26.079
Absolutely do you want to go there now or do we leave that for later?
00:29:26.400 --> 00:30:44.720
Because it's a really interesting topic to and that is what the work that has excited many many of our colleagues who have said yes the can you just explain that what learnership is as a definition and in terms of it as we alluded to the explicit teaching model what is the difference because explicit teaching does have a there is a place for it and it does produce outcomes and then more broadly what is drawing us into the work of your work is you're giving us another thinking of how or what what's the ultimate purpose of education school etc so yeah if you wanted to if we wanted to go into learnership and then that the currency at the moment is many people yes explicit teaching is the prescribed um language or the pedagogy to so to speak for for teachers to and they do deliver learning outcomes quality teaching delivers quality teaching for but what the refreshing nature of your work James is that we are focusing here your work focuses on the learner and what does that product look like from the learner perspective.
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:45.440
Yeah.
00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:51.519
Look I I think what you're asking is bringing us back to the start of the podcast where we're talking about the idea of agency.
00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:52.079
Yeah.
00:30:52.240 --> 00:31:00.640
That's you know when I think about what the principals I spoke to when I started writing the book Learnership Wanted they want students to succeed in school.
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:07.519
The the the learning outcomes are important but they also want them to thrive in life after school.
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:11.440
And you know there was a time when we could teach kids stuff.
00:31:11.599 --> 00:31:17.440
Yeah you could teach them what they needed to know in school and then send them off to the world and they could you know use that for the rest of their life.
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:18.960
And we don't live in that world anymore.
00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:20.079
We we know that.
00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:32.720
There's a famous quote um in a book called Future Shock by um Elvin Toffler and he said that the illiterate of the 21st century won't be those who can't read and they'll be those who can't learn unlearn and relearn.
00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:45.920
And he was talking about in the 70s 50 years ago the information age and how the amount of information was accelerating and people going to have to be involved in you know relearning and all the rest of it.
00:31:46.079 --> 00:31:47.519
That was 50 years ago.
00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:50.960
We're past that it's not just a matter of keeping up anymore.
00:31:51.200 --> 00:32:00.319
It's the nature of the change that it's the that's the challenge at the moment that you know we live in a world where change is the only constant and uncertainty is the only certainty.
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:04.480
And in that world it's not enough just to know stuff.
00:32:04.640 --> 00:32:18.000
You've actually got to leverage that challenge you've actually got to be able to know how to use those that adversity you know we talk about resilience we could come back and have that conversation but leverage that experience to help you grow.
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:39.759
And so when we talk about the environment to act in schools we're setting up an environment that provides challenging choices that teaches students that their learning zone, that place where they're unsure, that place where it's messy, the place where they need to involve effort that's an important that's a place that is setting you up to grow and to thrive in life after school.
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:46.880
In education we've been focused and I I don't want to diminish anything we've been talking about in terms of skillful teaching.
00:32:47.200 --> 00:33:19.839
So absolutely and that's the clear narrative for people listening this is a conversation around what learnership is and also the principles around what what what are the current practices in in place and also but you always the work goes always back to the student James and that's the ultimate isn't that the ultimate of what the outcome should be of of learnership or of of what school that the purpose of school is to learn and to grow and to be successful beyond school.
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:41.920
You know I I had the great fortune of having Art Costa um habits of mind fame uh as a mentor for many years passed away recently for those that don't know and um art told me that we had replaced the the things that are important in education that are hard to measure with the things that are unimportant but easy to measure and I I think that's probably a little bit harsh.
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:43.599
That the things that we're measuring are important.
00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:46.240
The literacy the numeracy that they're important things.
00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:58.160
But you know as I reflect on and I tell this story in the book Learnership um one of my principals here in New South Wales said that the true measure of school success is not what students are doing in one year's time.
00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:00.799
It's what they're doing in 20 years' time.
00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:05.279
And that's why the work around learnership is set up to help students succeed in school.
00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:24.559
Absolutely if you're getting kids to understand their role as learners that they're not there to be taught that they're but there to participate skillfully in the learning process if you're giving them the challenges that help them grow, that the sort of building the responses they're going to have to have in future life, then they're going to be succeeding in school.
00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:31.039
In fact many of the schools you know Carl Allen school for example he had a school um it's a fascinating story.
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:34.079
There's a case study on my website if anyone wants to download it.
00:34:34.239 --> 00:34:36.960
But um he had a school that were going well.
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:38.000
No one was complaining.
00:34:38.079 --> 00:34:41.039
The kids were at standard and you know just doing all the right things.
00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:48.960
Ticking all the boxes it was sounding if you looked at from afar even probably within the school good vibes.
00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:50.000
What's the problem here?
00:34:50.239 --> 00:35:00.079
Yeah and Carl said to me one day he said look you know my kids come to school most of them are you know fed and they've got good families and they supported education all the rest of it and he said and that's not their fault.
00:35:00.239 --> 00:35:00.800
I said what?
00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:04.639
It's just not their fault that they're coming to school well prepared and all the rest of it.
00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:07.360
Why do they deserve to be challenged any less than anybody else?
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:21.760
You know these kids are cruising they're spending their time and their comfort their performance and the work that they did at Glenview to that they changed one of their motto they used to have their motto is be our best and they I said to him one day I said sure you want kids to be their best eight years old.
00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:26.480
Like is that their best what what is the best in eight year olds across the world?
00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:38.400
Yeah what does that look like that's right and I said surely you want them to better their best and they they changed their focus from performance you know reaching the standards doing what was necessary to improvement.
00:35:38.559 --> 00:35:57.519
And what he's had done by sort of doing this work around zones, talking about how students engage in the learning process all this bit that we're going to talk about as part of the series we're working on is that school that was you know cruising along no one's concerned ticking the boxes now has the equivalent of about a third of the kids in the upper growth bands.
00:35:57.599 --> 00:36:03.599
So they've gone from a school that's average to a school that's performing based on teaching the kids that yeah we've got good teachers.
00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:05.679
There's no doubt about that we've got good teachers here.
00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:07.440
We're going to help you be better learners.
00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:24.000
Yeah another school in um New Zealand Tardale intermediate school so six seven school and they talk about how in the space of just a year or two teaching the kids about the zones of learning teaching them about that they are learners and that learning is a skill it's not just something you do it's something you learn to do well.
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:34.800
They said they've got kids that will come up to them now and say Miss can I have something harder please and the way they describe it is that one they've never seen that before like it's always been is this enough for am I finished yet?
00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:36.159
You know, those sort of questions.
00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:45.519
But secondly the kids are doing it not because you know they get praised for doing hard things they're doing it because they now see that they have skin in the game.
00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:47.360
They're not having it done to them.
00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:50.239
They're here for their own reasons.
00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:58.239
And when students have that ownership when students have that I'm in charge this is the agency piece coming out again.
00:36:58.480 --> 00:37:06.239
Well if I can if I can change myself someone please help me find out how to do that really really well and that's what learnership is here.
00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:09.519
I'm not just coming to school to be taught I'm coming to school to learn.
00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:41.920
If I'm coming to school to learn I want to learn as well as effectively as masterfully as I can and that's I think that's sort of where the next couple of podcasts absolutely but it it was terrific that that story and example of the product of the work of learnership and also you could have cruised that Carl uh the school that you Glen Glenn views in New Zealand there are many schools across Australia across New Zealand across many countries.
00:37:42.239 --> 00:37:50.000
It could be status quo, yet we're doing everything right and it wouldn't be questioned because it's they're just again the product of their environment.
00:37:50.239 --> 00:38:06.960
Yeah and I think perhaps the point to end on for your principals that are listening today to sort of reflect on this word learning funny one we we use it to mean two different things and we often use it to interchangeably in the same paragraph.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:18.960
We use it to mean the outcome of a process and we use it to mean the process itself and when we're not clear about that there's a word to describe it it's called polysemy when a word can mean two different things in different contexts.
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:31.840
It's a really good word yeah it is it is because when we think about it you know we we have the word pedagogy to talk about how we teach what's the word to talk about how we learn and the word I I would pose is learnership.
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:32.079
Yeah.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:36.400
We have the skill of teaching which is the pedagogy now we've got the skill of learning which is learn.
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:44.559
And I I I would question you know pretty much every school I work with every school I've ever met has someone in charge of teaching and learning.
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:50.000
Whether that's a curriculum leader or a teaching and learning leader or they have different names but they're they're that person in the school.
00:38:50.239 --> 00:39:06.159
And sometimes it's a group but the when I look at the role description of that person, the role description of that person is nearly always make sure teachers are doing a good job, support them, provide professional learning, all that sort of stuff, but make sure teachers are doing a good job and measure student learning outcomes.
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:08.400
They're not actually learning leaders at all.
00:39:08.559 --> 00:39:12.159
They're teaching leaders that are measuring learning outcomes.
00:39:12.320 --> 00:39:17.920
What this work is about is that focusing on what the learning process is and helping kids become skillful learners.
00:39:18.159 --> 00:40:08.079
Where did that it just seems so of it seems so obvious when you say it so clearly like that James what happened or could we we'll probably go into that in uh future episodes and there's nothing wrong with student learning outcomes but what the ultimate pinnacle is student having agents real agency for their own learning and I love that example you said where the student said the work's not hard enough can I have more but also which you would is those kids who are in that struggle how they can overcome that struggle as well as well so the two two two ends of that equation and what seems to happen is that rescue mode goes in to um reinforce the helpless learner.
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:10.559
And there's a there's a lot in there that we could talk about.
00:40:10.880 --> 00:40:52.480
Absolutely so great conversation so far James really really getting invested in this and our listeners curious to let's just recap what we've we've talked about in this this podcast one of four part series that we're going to really unpack and you've really given us what learn in learner agency is and if we just recap those three elements on the environment to act the will to act and the power to act just help our listeners unpack so they can we can tie that into our series that we're we're leading we're working our way through.
00:40:52.800 --> 00:41:08.000
So what we talked about was that uh the idea of learner agency wasn't a pedagogy it was an outcome it was a quality we build in students and if we're going to build that in students we need one a a practical model and a practical definition to help us do that.
00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:21.280
The way I defined it sort of drawing on all those different definitions that are out there was to recognize someone that lacked agency felt like they were the victim of their circumstances the world happened to them someone who was the master of their circumstances.
00:41:21.519 --> 00:41:31.440
The way we did that the way we defined it was to say that agency then involved those three interrelated parts the environment to act the will to act the power to act.
00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:40.639
And we said the important part about the environment to act which was the school in our situation was that as an environment that was rich in challenging choices.
00:41:40.800 --> 00:41:44.719
Not just choice, but choices that stretch kids into their learning zone.
00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:48.159
And that's important because challenge is the pathway to growth.
00:41:48.239 --> 00:41:59.440
If we're not being challenged we're not growing and if we want students to go out into the world where they succeed in school and thrive in life after school they need to build a positive relationship with that learning zone.
00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:02.880
They need to be able to go into it and say I am going to feel uncomfortable.
00:42:03.119 --> 00:42:06.000
This is where meaningful mistakes are going to happen.
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:08.559
This is going to make me feel a bit wobbly.
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:10.000
But that's a good thing.
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I'm not just going to tolerate it.
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I'm going to embrace it because this is where I grow.
00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:19.360
If I don't it's like going to the gym and lifting all the lightweights and going I've done my workout.
00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:28.159
No I haven't and so we build this environment where students understand themselves as learners and they walk into the place where growth happens.
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.960
Being in that environment is just the start.
00:42:31.199 --> 00:42:39.599
Yeah we can throw challenging stuff at students and if we just if that's all we did, a lot of those students would struggle and fail and then continue to give up.
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:43.599
And that's where the other two elements come in that are the subject of the next two podcasts.
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:44.159
Yeah.
00:42:44.400 --> 00:42:49.840
One is the will to act which is fundamentally the understanding you're capable of change.
00:42:50.079 --> 00:43:01.760
That when you go into that learning zone where you go I I don't know how to do this you know that that's part of the process and that will result in you growing not in you failing.
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:07.840
But even then giving them the challenge helping them understand they're capable isn't the same as being able to do it.
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:13.199
Yeah when we talk about growth mindset growth mindset is the understanding you're capable of growth but it's not the growth.
00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:16.000
It's just the understanding you can do it is the growth part.
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:21.760
Learnership is how you engage when you're in the learning zone to actually achieve that growth.
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:38.320
When you put those three parts together an environment that challenges students to grow building the understanding you're capable of the growth and the skills to achieve that growth we build students who succeed in school and thrive in life after school.
00:43:38.639 --> 00:44:42.480
Terrific and I'm excited about where this can go in terms of for for our principals listening and the preface of what James has said on learning learner agency what resonated with you there were so many great takeaways there but you've really laid down the foundation James in terms of what learner agency is and made us really reflect for listeners what is the what is the best practice for learners and I'm really excited to you can see or hear listeners why we are putting this into our four part series because we're walking you through that mindset and also the learnership so learnership so a plug here if you haven't purchased learnership please do that executive and principals that I've been speaking to have and that I'm saying this genuinely James there's really real excitement forward to learnership in our next part of our podcast.
00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:50.159
That was part one with our guest James Anderson if it has you looking at your own school differently that is the point.
00:44:50.400 --> 00:44:56.960
As we said this is a real reflective piece on leadership.
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:05.360
So what are your takeaways I don't often ask but this time I will send me an email I would genuinely love to hear your thoughts.
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:12.000
The email details are in the show notes along with all of the links and the books referenced in this episode.
00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:14.239
Are you curious to find out more?
00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:21.039
The next episode drops in a week or if you're listening a little later it may already be waiting for you.
00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:42.800
Episode two is on learnership the skill of learning itself and it might just be my favorite of the four follow the show so the next one lands in your feed and you can find James's work including his guide learner agency for school leaders at jamesanderson.com.au a great place to start with his work and his fabulous books.
00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:44.880
I'm Drew Janetsky.
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Thanks for listening and I'll see you in part two