The Self-Driven Child

Lessons on Self-Directed Learning with "Adventure Kaity!" Part 1

• Ned Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 30

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Today, I'm thrilled to have Kaity Broadbent, an extraordinary educator and parent, joining us. Kaity is the head of learning at Prenda, an organization dedicated to creating micro-schools that empower students and parents alike. In this episode, we dive into Kaity's unique approach to education, the psychology of motivation, and the incredible benefits of mastery-based learning. 

Join us as we discuss how to transform the traditional learning environment into one that fosters autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and lifelong learning. Kaity shares her insights on the importance of relatedness, competency, and autonomy in education, and how Prenda’s micro-schools are revolutionizing the way kids learn. This conversation is packed with valuable takeaways for parents, educators, and anyone interested in the future of education. Don't miss out on part 2 of our conversation in the next episode!

 

Episode Highlights:

[00:30] - Introduction to Kaity Broadbent and Prenda’s mission.

[02:02] - Kaity's journey into homeschooling and micro-schools.

[04:33] - What is a micro-school and how does Prenda support student-centered learning?

[06:42] - The challenge of traditional classroom settings and the importance of individualized learning.

[07:59] - Explaining the "zone of proximal development" and its role in mastery-based education.

[10:03] - Real-life example of a student's excitement in mastering math through self-set goals.

[12:19] - Integrating self-determination theory into education: competence, relatedness, and autonomy.

[18:36] - The power of positive language and autonomy-supportive teaching methods.

[22:23] - The difference between controlling students and fostering self-governance.

[25:15] - Building trust and positive relationships with students and the impact on long-term influence.

 

Links & Resources:

Prenda Micro-Schools: https://www.prenda.com/
Social Media: @PrendaLearn
KindlED Podcast: https://www.prenda.com/kindled 

If this episode has helped you, remember to rate, follow, and share the Self-Driven Child Podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and create more content that makes a difference. 

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

Kaity Broadbent:

So it's possible when you educate someone to understand like your goal as a learner is not to passively sit and receive and check the boxes and get the grade. Your goal as a learner is to push yourself. Kids get so distracted in the whole like bare minimum thinking like, is this gonna be on the test? Do I have to know this? They're so resistant to learning because it's only given to them in this very like forceful coerced way that they're in a constant state of resistance to it. But if you can overcome that, then it really lets them run.

Ned Johnson:

Welcome to the self Tiffin Job Podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson, and co author with Dr. William stick should have the books, the self driven child, the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives. And what do you say, how to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home? If you're like I am, you probably think a good deal about what you say to your kids? What do you want them to know? What you want them to feel? And perhaps most of all, what you want them to do? Or maybe think more about what you've said, thinking, oh, that didn't work? Or why won't they just cooperate for one minute and do what I'm asking them to do? Like me, it might occur to you that it's often more about the how than the what. And it's not just for us parents, how kids get talked to doesn't only affect what they learn from parents, but from teachers and others in school, which is why I'm pretty giddy about this conversation with Katie Broadbent, an educator and a parent, head of learning at prenda, an organization that helps students set up micro schools where parents are often both parents and teachers, so much wisdom. In fact, we had to break this up into two parts. I hope you'll listen to both. She's really incredible. I learned so much from her. I'm Ned Johnson. And this is the self driven child podcast. Well, welcome, Katie.

Kaity Broadbent:

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here, Ned.

Ned Johnson:

So can you start by telling folks just tell people a little bit about the work that you do as an educator, kind of what's your Marvel origin story? And how did you get where you are? Yeah,

Kaity Broadbent:

yeah, good question. So I used to be a speech language pathologist in schools. And that was before I had kids. And I did that for a little bit. And I saw a lot of great things happening. And then I was able to make some kind of insight or observations. And then I jumped out of working in schools to working with cognitive linguistics, stroke therapy. So I would work with people who, who had lost their language function due to a stroke. And it's, it was such an interesting spread of experience, because I'm working with very young kids, and then very elderly people. And the main take home that I observed, like the difference between these two groups was that people at the end of their life, were so intrinsically motivated to get to regain what they had lost, right? They're making me for therapy. They're they're asking me for homework. And meanwhile, as a speech language pathologist in schools 95% of my job is bribing kids to do stuff that they don't want to do, right? What skill what game what sticker can I use to get them to do this thing that is really going to help them in their life, but they just have no context. No relevancy, no agency in that experience. So I had those two experiences. And then I started having my own kids and thought, well, what are we going to do for school? So I started homeschooling. Yeah, I did this big, deep dive into like the psychology of motivation. And here I am just like a little homeschool mom discovering self determination theory and all these, you know, things and I'm sitting here scratching my head thinking, we're not doing any of this, both in our parenting over in school. Like why don't all these experts know about that? All of this, you know, so that's kind of how I got interested in prenta, helping start micro schools and really creating learning environments that are in alignment with the last 40 some odd years of research. Wow,

Ned Johnson:

that insight about your work with folks have to relearn language. What popped to mind for me is, at one end, you're trying to help people learn language and the other end you're trying to help them relearn language and the smarter HELOC shows that kids, at least in public schools tend to forget within three months 90% of what they've been taught. So it's going to constantly be a process of relearning. And but your point about intrinsic motivation is such a good one. You have a nickname at prenda. You're the chief learning officer. Right? But you have another hat that you wear, right? Yeah,

Kaity Broadbent:

I have many titles. So I'm also our chief empowerment advocate. That's my formal title. I have also adventure Kate.

Ned Johnson:

Adventure. Kate's so how did that come about? Sure.

Kaity Broadbent:

Yeah. So when I first met Kelly, who's the founder of prenda. This is 2018. I'm a speech language pathologist, like I mentioned, and I very focused on literacy. And when I first met Kelly, he didn't really have a solve for microscopes for young kids. And at this time when I met him I think I had three kids five and under

Ned Johnson:

pause for 10 seconds. Let's explain to people a little bit what a micro school is what printed dyes this isn't a plug for micro schools apprentice specially but the model that you You guys have is really, really interesting to me. And I think there's a lot to learn from that. But then we'll come back to what you're sharing. Yeah. So

Kaity Broadbent:

microscopes, five to 10 kids learning in an informal setting with a guide, not really a teacher, we really changed the role of the adults in the room. That's helping kind of facilitate learning. So 10 Kids micro school guide, and then prenta provides a K through eighth curriculum that's very student centered student directed, very focused on agency and helping kids learn at their own pace. We do mastery based academics, we do inquiry led everything else. So it's kind of a blend of those things.

Ned Johnson:

I'm smiling for people can't hear this on the radio. I just I just, it's Ha, kids pursuing mastering things that they're driven by their own curiosity. It's crazy idea. Yeah,

Kaity Broadbent:

it's shocking, huh. So we do mastery, but like your kids are still gonna learn like all the like math and language and writing like we do all of that very mastery focus. So what that means is that we take kids in coming from all sorts of different educational, some, some homeschool, some public schools, and charter school, all sorts of things. We use technology to to figure out where they are ready to learn next. And then we actually select curriculum and set goals with them and their parents, everyone sets their own academic goals to create a learning plan that makes sense for them. Because what we're seeing and we interview all of these kids, it's so fascinating as they come in 1000s of kids, and we asked them in your pre printed experience, what was school? Like? Were you able to kind of stay with the teacher? Or were you lost? Or were you bored? And a solid 60% Say I was either lost or bored. Which means our normal classroom instruction is really only serving about 40% of kids. So yeah,

Ned Johnson:

that strikes me as Todd Rose, the end of average, right? I mean, I always think about that if I were a teacher in a traditional school where I got 3035 Kids, my numbers, which is back napkin math, but it's pretty close to where you are, is that I kind of assumed that for 30 kids, they'd be right there. And then a third are like, Oh, my God, Mr. Johnson News, I'm boring. Why can't he pick it up? I'm dying here. And a third, like, you know, Why can he slow down, I could get this if you could just if you could just give me a chance to breathe. And your statistics are pretty close to that. Yeah,

Kaity Broadbent:

exactly. And then what that necessitates in a classroom is the teacher has to give whole group instruction and then differentiate her instruction, which makes that teaching role. Very, very difficult, right? Very stressful, right? Yeah. And they're the kids in that class, it means that they're only getting what they need, for a very small number of minutes of that whole classroom instruction time. Right. So if we can take all of the kids learning minutes, put them right at what we call their learning frontier, technically a zone of proximal development. Explain that to

Ned Johnson:

folks zone of proximal development.

Kaity Broadbent:

Yeah, so love it, love. I got the zone of proximal development, kind of like the Goldilocks zone of something that you're it's challenging enough, but not overwhelming. And it's not too easy, that it's boring. It's something that you're able to do with a little bit of help. So we want to find a child's zone of proximal development and call it their learning frontier. We want kids to become advocates of their own learning frontiers. And that's

Ned Johnson:

smack dab. FMA right smack dab in the middle of the Yerkes Dodson curve, I assume, right? Where it's optimal arousal, right? You're not bored, but you're not freaked out?

Kaity Broadbent:

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So the other day in my daughter's micro school, she was feeling like her goals were not hard enough. And so she went to her guide and said, Hey, this is too easy for me. Like I'm not being challenged enough. And in 10 minutes, I had a conversation about the I can see that in your data like that supported that you're moving really quickly, and you're not being challenged and not hitting walls very frequently. So the guy was able to go in and adjust her curriculum, she sat back down to her work, and try it again. And then she was like, Yeah, that's better. I feel like this is more challenging for me. My daughter is six. I love it. So it's possible when you educate someone to understand like, your goal as a learner is not to passively sit and receive and check the boxes and get the grade. Your goal as a learner is to push yourself. Kids get so distracted in the whole like bare minimum thinking like, is this gonna be on the test? Do I have to know this? They're so resistant to learning. Because it's only given to them in this very, like, forceful coerced way that they're, they're in a constant state of resistance to it. But if you can overcome that, then it really lets them run. And if

Ned Johnson:

I can, sort of analogize that a video game Bill sticks your point, if somewhere along line, he said, apart from a warzone, there is nothing in the humic experience that releases dopamine in a more consistent way than playing video games. Because you as you get better the levels get harder, right? And so your cause is just about to be done just about the beat this and just quick reminder for folks that dopamine the get up and go neurotransmitter that improves focus and learning and excitement is released in the anticipation of reward. So it's not actually when you achieve when What's your bout to achieve right, you're bound to conquer this level. Ellie and I met last week and I think you shared that your your son was just about to hit his mastering his math, was that right? Yeah. Did you do it over the weekend

Kaity Broadbent:

we did, he totally did. He I tucked him in Friday night and his little fifth grade eyes for just like, I'm gonna beat fifth grade math tomorrow. And like, okay, he woke up early in the morning, got it done by himself completed it. And he actually called us in before he clicked his last like, like, he called the whole family. And he's like, Mom film this, like, I'm so excited, like, so much energy around this goal, that he had said that he had worked super hard for blood, sweat, and tears. Granted, we don't do grades that print. So he's not running for a grade, there's no punishment associated with not, you know, like, and I as a parent and not saying, like,

Ned Johnson:

you're saying that kids can engage in learning without threats, or promising the maze, or

Kaity Broadbent:

stickers. Amazing, right? Shocking kind of blows. But it really is true. And I see this, like across 1000s of kids, like, I just have so many conversations with people, that sounds something like if you don't force kids to learn, if they're not afraid of losing recess, or you know, losing their gold star or something, they just won't do anything. And I think that that is largely true if you kept them in the same environment and didn't change any of the cultural factors. And you just just said, you walked into a normal third grade classroom, or sixth grade classroom, whatever. And you said today, do whatever you want, they would probably not do many productive things. Because they're, they would feel suddenly like, oh, I don't have to do all this thing I'm gonna repel, right? So but if you if you can get them in an environment where learning is the thing to do, and they don't feel pushed or coerced, they see purpose, instead of that, you know, they will run so much farther and faster than you can ever push them. Oh, and just a little data to drive this. We, we see. So kids come into our software, and they set goals, right? So we can see what goals they're they're setting. And on average, our kids set goals of 1.8 years of growth. So when we say hey, no grades, no force, what do you think you could do in math this year? They're like, I think I could do one, one 1.8 year, so like almost twice what their peers are going to be forced to do. And then did they hit all those goals? No, of course not. They make big goals. And they run super hard. And sometimes they miss and then they get up and they try again. But wow, that's that's the kind of drive we're seeing in kids K through eighth graders? Well, we really let them choose. Now

Ned Johnson:

as we, as we know, and as we sort of started this conversation, put together your work as a speech language pathologist. And with a deep, deep understanding of appreciation for self determination theory, which I'll remind folks really quickly as three psychological needs to be met, a sense of competency, a sense of relatedness and a sense of autonomy, right? So actually, can you speak to how the prenda model kind of gets the trifecta of those? Yeah,

Kaity Broadbent:

totally. So in a small knit group, five to 10 kids, you can get such a deeper sense of relatedness. We call this connection or attachment. Even with that adult guide, they can become your mentor, because in a traditional classroom, that adult does not have the emotional bandwidth or energy to really look at you as an individual. And that's not their fault, right? That's the system's fault. But sometimes we will get guides and we'll say k 10. Kids, and they've been classroom teachers. And they'll say, but I could do 15, I can handle more kids. And I say to them, yeah, it's not about what you can handle. I know that you can use coercive methods and stars and stickers and charts to control more kids. That's not my there's no question there. The child cannot handle being more than about one in 10. Because they need from you the emotional energy to invest in them to see the good in them to see that they have a unique destination. And your job as as that guide is to help them craft a unique and interesting path to that unique destination. And you can't do that for many more kids than I'd say about 10. Right? I research shows that once. Once a human group gets above like 12, you have to start treating that group of people like a group, they stop being a set of individuals and they start getting to work with you. And that's we want to stay on that individual line.

Ned Johnson:

And Tristan, and the mastery, that sort of microscope mastery. Also, I would then get to the competency piece, right? Because I'm not behind you or whatever. I'm on my own goals.

Kaity Broadbent:

Is that about right or right? Yeah. So we talked about relatedness. So yeah, the next thing is competency. I love this video game analogy, because it's like, how long would you play a game? Of like, level one Tetris? If you were like, a master type? Like, how long would that be continuing? You'd be like, I'm gonna go to something else. This is. Yeah, so then on the other side of that, right, like, how long are you going to stay in that game? If you are a level two Tetris player or, and it's on level 50, or whatever. It's like, Oh, I'm gonna quickly see I could never reach this and I'm gonna quit right either way you quit. Right? So this competency is this feeling of this zone of proximal development and interest. So we do that through mastery, getting every every kid at their learning frontier, but we also do that through inquiry. Because competency is not just Can I do something? It's do I want to do it? And do I feel capable of using all of my skills in an interesting way to me. So we try to keep kids engaged through mastery and also inquiry, letting them say like, I would really like to discover more about whales today. And I would like to learn more about molecular biology. Like, if you look at the standards, it's like, all fourth grade students will learn about whales, the third grade, it's like the third week of fourth grade, whatever it's like, who decides whales like why whale, you know, like even JT

Ned Johnson:

for what it's worth, is in Arizona. So you know, the practical application of whale knowledge might be a little thinner.

Kaity Broadbent:

Yes, definitely. That is how you competency and then autonomy, all the kids set their own goals, we don't do grades. In a traditional sense, we do feedback, we do assessment, we are very transparent with kids about their data and where they're at, we actually use your analogy from self-driven child, that they're the CEO of their education, and that our role is a consultant, the consultant does not own the company or the results of the company, right. And then we tell the kids and you're the CEO, where we totally reframe this. And just like, if a CEOs company goes under the consultants company didn't go under, right, like, this really is all about you, we do a ton of future me work, which is really interesting to start so early, because we know the prefrontal cortex, the power to like, project yourself into the future, and say, like, my decisions now will affect my future self. That's a prefrontal cortex skill. And that doesn't start to come online until the age of seven ish, you know, not fully formed till 25. And so we start this conversation with five year olds, and people will tell me like, why are you even talking to them about this? There? It's so far, but then they can't, they can't conceive of it, the brains not ready. And here's what I tell them. Do you not talk to a baby? Because they can't talk to you? Right? It's like, no, no, it's the talking to them, that creates the competency in their brain to be able to speak to you right, and there is like comprehension, and there's first exposure, and then comprehension a lot sooner than we have expression. Right. So yeah, we're trying to create an environment where the child's brain will develop a rather early concept of a future self and that that that part of the prefrontal cortex will be nurtured early on, instead of saying, like, you know, what, I know you can't talk yet, but I'm just not going to talk to you until you're five cuz that's the normal age for talking. We don't do that in any other developmental skill. But I get this pushback of like, kids can't get it. And just going back to my daughter, again, she was so frustrated in math. Granted, she was had done her school goals, she'd come home, and in her free time chosen to do more math. So I was not like, this was not homework. This was not assigned. She's like in tears. I can't understand this. It's telling me I'm wrong. So frustrated. And I just said, Why don't you quit? And she looked at me, mom, that would not be in the best interest of my future self. She's six. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, like you are getting it. And you can make good decisions now early on in a highly autonomy supportive, you know, I'm not actually gonna let her quit math. But like I was able to, in that moment, let her feel like the weight of that, like, you could quit, like, what would happen to your future stuff. If you quit math as a first grader? You know, it's might be a little too early to give up on math. We'll talk in high school. But yeah, it's just it is there if you if you trust kids, and if you if you give them the benefit of the doubt that they can do something that's beyond your belief about them?

Ned Johnson:

Yeah, I'll just make one more point that that last piece, the autonomy piece of, hey, I'm the prenda consultant, I'm the parent consultant, you know, this is your choice, you know, I will help it help you any way that I can. But I'm, but it's not my choice to make for you. That autonomous supporting language is not what students always get in the traditional school environment. Yes, that's true. And so I wanted to pivot a little bit because I, there's a story that I want you to share as we get into it. But when you and I met last week, you were talking a little bit about the kind of language that is often used all say, on children, that is very rarely used with other adults. But if we're we had to receive that as adults, we'd be like, Ned, step back, buddy.

Kaity Broadbent:

So right now I know you can't see this. But that's bookshelf looks a little disorganized to me. And so that I'm going to tell you, like, before we can continue our conversation. I'm gonna need you to reorganize all of your books, and I want them to be in color order. Whatever other organizations schema you've thought of. Not good enough. Why don't you just go ahead and take care of that right now? Quietly, please. So if I said something to you like that, you'd be like, no, like, like, stay in your lane lady. Right. Right. Right. Stay in your lane. And so what we we we give adults To the benefit of like lanes, right? Where it's like, this is my lane and my life and I have autonomy over a lot of things as an adult. And as kids, we just do not give them the benefit of that whole concept. It's like, oh, you're a child, I can tell you what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and I can do it in a tone of voice that is, would just make any other adult like, want to punch you in the face. And if you get mad at me, I will send you to your room or withhold something from you. Like, I

Ned Johnson:

use this example, last week, I can picture this as like a, at a staff meeting, or we are

Kaity Broadbent:

at a corporate. Yeah, we were at the International microscope conference, and I just told the, the organizer of the conference to like, I just said, Siri, stand up and walk quietly across the room and sit down. And the whole, the whole conference was like, why? Like, why would you speak to her like that, you know, and I'm like, okay, but if she was six, everyone's like, Oh, that like you can exactly port that language to how we talk to a six year old. And then you know, six year olds become seven year olds become eight year olds become teenagers. And suddenly, like, they, they aren't so reliant on our relatedness or our like, our connection for their survival. And so they're pretty much done trading their autonomy at that point. And this is something that you've taught me a lot about is how we have these three needs. But initially, you know, kids need kids need autonomy, but they will trade their autonomy away for care, right? For connectedness, because they want to feel like their brains know, like, Oh, if you take this adult off, you are not going to eat, you're not going to have a house like this is a survival issue for us. So trade, trade trade. But once they don't need that, they're like, okay, but I've always needed this, and you've never given it to me, and now I'm taking it.

Ned Johnson:

And I'm gonna catch up in spades in a spectacular way. I am out of here.

Kaity Broadbent:

Yeah, definitely. And I think that that's what that's that's a mistake that we make in parenting and a mistake we make in teaching. We think that good parents and good teachers control kids, when you walk into a classroom, and it's quiet, you think that's a good teacher, she's got the class under control, right. And that whole concept is tricky, because when we use specific methods to create short term compliance, what we every time we do that we actually erode our long term influence. So if we zoom out,

Ned Johnson:

we say, well, so well said Say that one more time, because this is. So say that one more time, when we

Kaity Broadbent:

use short term compliance methods, you know, when we use abrasive methods to get short term compliance, we erode our long term influence. And once a child is no longer dependent on you, all you have left is your relationship and your influence because they don't have to listen to you. And they don't have to care about what you think about their shorts being too short, or what they put in their body or any of that, right, you don't get to have an opinion unless you have leaned into influence and relationship. And so it's hard because we kind of have to trade this vision of this quiet, well controlled classroom or kids that always listen and speak respectfully, because that's not actually developmentally appropriate, right? We have to let kids be kids so that they can learn the self governing tools to be people in societies, adults and adolescents, I'll say in society who can be self governing and not need to be controlled, but we give them no opportunity to prep. Right? It's a

Ned Johnson:

well controlled classroom, well controlled children as opposed to self controlled children,

Kaity Broadbent:

I think is that is it Alfie Kohn, who says, kids who are being governed by extrinsic like extrinsic motivators or fear, they're not governing themselves, those things are governing them. Yep. Right. And so as soon as you think like, Oh, these kids are so well, well behaved. It's like, no, no, the controls are behaving them. They're not intrinsically behaving themselves, right.

Ned Johnson:

And then I felt bad for as long as I can remember, I was always thinking about not how do I exert power over my children, but influence knowing that and my kids are now 20 and 22. My son texted my wife and me about a week ago, he's just now finishing up his semester. Can you guys have time to talk and he was, he's bitten off a lot this semester. He's taken an extra class, and he's composing film scores for six. This is outside of schoolwork for friends of his who are in film school at NYU, and so he's just like, I am kind of dying here. He said, I love it all. But I'm really overwhelmed. Can we talk about it? And my wife's an educator too, and just not like, like we could be experts on on how to navigate this stuff. But we can ask a lot of good questions we can say Would it help if? And it's just delightful because by taking this process with him, he also has been telling us about things going on with romantic interests and delighted to share with us but also sometimes asking advice not that he probably needs it. But one point he said, I can't believe the things that I that I share with you guys. And I think the biggest part of it is we're keenly interested in everything that's interesting to him. But we're not telling him what to do, you know?

Kaity Broadbent:

Yeah, it's a tricky line to walk as a parent. Yeah, sometimes we kids interpret our behavior towards them our warmth, what we give them what we allow them as our love for them, right? But when when your parents like you do it unconditionally love your child, right, but they don't perceive that. So I've done this little block experiment that I think is really helped my kids differentiate that. So there's a love block, and it's literally like, super glued to like this platform, and it can't look, right. But then there's two other blocks trust and approval. And those can leave those can leave. Like if, you know, if you violate trust, it's like, yeah, like your trust block, like, this makes me I'm gonna take my trust block for a minute. Because your behavior makes it difficult for me to trust you. Or maybe I trust you, but I just don't think what you're doing is like, super wise, you know, like, I'm gonna have an opinion about this, I'm not going to stop you from doing it. But you don't have my approval block on this. But you're letting my love block never wavers. Right? And this helps them to conceptualize our relationship a little bit better, where it's like, oh, mom's never going to stop loving me, or stop caring about me or not, or stop thinking that I'm awesome. You know, like, those things are, are cemented. But she is going to have some other opinions about everything that I do in my life. And if we've if I played my cards, right, they'll care. And if I have not played my my cards, right, they won't care if I don't trust them. They won't care if I if I don't. That's their prerogative, right. But I can still as a parent, you know, express those things in a way that's not harmful to my long term influence. And playing this like little love trusted purple block game has helped my very small kids understand that I

Ned Johnson:

know, I get asked, Is this a construct? Or do you actually have these blocks? And we're like, you have to have to share a picture with me. That is, Oh, I love it. I love it. It's

Kaity Broadbent:

interesting. As

Ned Johnson:

an educator, what would you say is the you know, kind of teacher equivalent of that? Yeah.

Kaity Broadbent:

So instead of unconditional love, unconditional positive regard is the term that is used in self determination theory. You know, maybe you're a kid in my class that makes teaching really difficult. But when you walk into my classroom, I can still smile at you and put that like, twinkle in my eye that I'm glad you're here. And that that, that communicates to the kid, wow, our relationship is powerful enough to overcome me being a child, me being a child, meaning all of the crappy stuff that I'm going to do as a kid as part of my normal developmental sequence, I can't sit in my seat, I can't not talk to my neighbor, I can't get my things done. I don't have the executive function to get my homework done, like all of these things, right. But if you can still express to a child, that you are still glad, despite all of this, all of their insufficiencies will say, the gap between what they quote unquote, should be able to do and what they're able to do, which is, in my opinion, kind of garbagey. But but if you can still be that warm adult that's like, hey, we had a hard day yesterday, but I'm glad you came back. And I'm we're gonna try again today. That is essentially like the equivalent of unconditional love as a parent. And trust, I think you can do the same thing, trust and prove as long as there's not like a safety issue where you really need to, like step in and be like, No, there's like a hard boundary here. Like we can behave that way. I think we can trust kids a lot more. Funny example. So I went to public school in California. And so in high school, I was a senior in honors English. And the height of my autonomy is that my honors English teacher allowed me and my two other friends to sit up on the windowsill, like there was kind of like a, a window, so we didn't have to sit on our desks. And she said, you can sit there because I trust you. Like, wow, the height of my public education autonomy level is like being able to sit in a different place because I had the trust of my teacher, right? Like, what else could we trust kids with? And can we have transparent conversations about trust? It's like, can we create a collaborative vision for what we want our class to look like? What is the purpose of this class? What do we all want to get out of this? And can we agree on behavior sets that support that, that are kind of in and out that kids can make basic judgments on?

Ned Johnson:

Hey, folks, Ned here. Over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school aged students who care deeply about their kids education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill sticks route, reflector calm any philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a plan together, please get in touch with us, visit our website at prep matters.com or while your kids may only text you might want to actually talk with the person. If so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350