The Self-Driven Child

Student Autonomy in School: Yep, It's Possible!

• Ned Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 44

Share episode

In this episode, I sit down with Amy Buckman, an incredible educator and school counselor from Ohio. Amy has spent 19 years helping students navigate everything from mental health challenges to career counseling, all while motivating them to achieve their goals. We dive deep into the concept of student autonomy and how it’s transforming schools through an innovative three-year grant program aimed at fostering student engagement and agency.

Amy shares how her district is reimagining education by focusing on what really motivates students, exploring concepts like Flex Fridays, and even shadowing students to understand their daily challenges. If you’ve ever wondered how schools can adapt to meet the needs of a changing world while supporting kids’ mental health and academic growth, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss!

 

Episode Highlights:
[03:13] - Amy shares her background and her role as a school counselor.
[08:29] - Discussion on the three-year grant program promoting student agency.
[14:17] - Insights from shadowing students to better understand their school day.
[22:35] - How Flex Fridays aim to spark deeper learning and engagement.
[30:55] - Overcoming systemic barriers to create better learning environments.
[37:05] - The impact of giving students a voice in school decisions.
[42:07] - How passion-driven learning leads to happier, more motivated students.

 

Links & Resources:

 

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

Ned Johnson:

Hey, folks, Ned here, over the past 25 years, I've talked with 1000s of parents of high school students, parents who care deeply about their kids' education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed, but these parents need to work with the team they trust, one which is pile on more pressure to achieve better grades and scores. This is why I started prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation, tutoring in college admissions, planning. This podcast and my books reflect our company's philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school student and would like to talk about putting in place a plan, please get in touch with us. Visit our website@prepmatters.com or call 301-951-0350 19510350, that's 301-951-0350

Amy Buckman:

thanks. And Outdoor Show. You know, one of the teachers said that was stressful. That was so stressful for me to experience for that student. And he was like, I'm not even the student, and I'm stressed out. He said it was so rapid fire and the expectation in every class. This particular student was pretty top notch. Student taking a lot of AP courses, College Credit Plus CC courses, and it was like the next day he had at least two exams, had some lengthy homework in his calculus class, and like, just and this is a student who also was in athletics after school. And so by the time the student would get home, it'd be about 8pm at night, and then the cycle would start all over again. And it was stressful, and he's just like my brain was almost over stimulated. So it was really interesting. Welcome

Ned Johnson:

to the self driven child podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson and co author with Dr William stick shoot of the books, the self driven child, the science and sense of giving their 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. We know that kids do better when they have more autonomy in school, in life, their mental health, their happiness. Doggone it. It's good for pretty much everything. And it's one thing to support their choices and how they spend their time after school or on the weekends, who they socialize with, their social media choices, fashion choices, yeah, all of it. But what about school? I mean, is it possible to support autonomy in school, given all of the competing priorities, all the things that matter, all the different schools, all the different kids with their agendas and different ways of learning? Can we do this? Yeah, we can. I am really excited to bring to you this conversation with Amy Buckman, she's a school counselor and educator, great educator, frankly, just a great person, and the work that she and her colleagues have been doing in a corner of Ohio, bringing autonomy to kids, proof that it can be done at scale. Take a listen. My guest today is Amy Buckman, a an educator in Ohio who knows a thing or two about student agency, but lest I goof this all up, Amy, can you share with listeners a little bit of the work that you do with students? What? What is your typical day look like?

Amy Buckman:

Sure. So just for the listeners, I'm a school counselor. This is my ninth, 19th year in education as a school counselor, and some of my daily work actually ranges all over the place. I work with kids on career counseling. I work with kids for test prep. I've worked with kids blue hiss, yeah, on mental health issues. The majority of my day is really spent doing brief solution focused counseling. So all of those teenager issues that come up in a day's time, which there's a lot, when you're a teenager, you spend a lot of time trying to get to the root of the issue and being able to overcome that. And probably the other part of my day is motivating kids. And so that is something I find myself spending a lot of time doing is, is being a really individualized cheerleader on a lot of levels.

Ned Johnson:

Funny, I saw that on social media friend of mine put out. And it was all the things that are in kids heads, and it was math and English and social science and SAT and college admissions and did it, and all that, the immediate thought that jumped to my mind was and family issues and boyfriend issues and girlfriend issues and friend friend issues and you know, and Am I cool enough, smart enough, pretty enough, and social media and a million other things that can clog up those cognitive channels. And I think that, um, your work, probably more than anyone else reminds us that there are many other things going on in kids heads during school than just school. Yeah,

Amy Buckman:

100% you'd be surprised on how excited and or sad a student, especially a teenager, can get about what's for lunch at school as well. So don't. Forget about the lunch because that's crucial into the one's well being as

Ned Johnson:

well. So without throwing your colleagues under the bus out there in Warren, Ohio, right? What's the most popular meal and what should be like, permanently redacted. So like, Please never make that again. Nobody wants to eat it. So here

Amy Buckman:

people get really excited, and I mean really excited. Kids run to the lunch line excited over this thing that the cafeteria serves, called the KFC bowl. It's literally like a bowl of mashed potatoes with chicken nuggets, corn and gravy on top. Oh my. And that seems to be the most pop one of the most popular is that, and the homemade pepperoni rolls also cause people to sprint like mad, men and women the cafeteria.

Ned Johnson:

So I know this is a podcast that people can't see, but I'm basically drooling onto my mic and and I'm vegetarian, so even that just just the description, I'm I'm sold,

Amy Buckman:

yeah. So those seem to be the really popular items that kids really seem to get excited about. Like, it's not uncommon when that's on the school menu for for the day, for to be standing out in the mornings, doing breakfast duty and hearing kids like, do you know what's for lunch today? It's pepperoni roll

Ned Johnson:

day. Now I have a question. Is the is the school menu posted in advance, or did they just show Okay? Those

Amy Buckman:

dates are circled on that menu.

Ned Johnson:

I was gonna say I would love. It. Would be really interesting if someone in your orbit, even a teen, were to make a kind of linear regression of what lunch was in school attendance. I have a dear friend who's working on a big project in in Ohio, on school refusal, in school, you know, school attendance. And how do we, how do we get more kids back to school? And it seems like this. Tell Amber all that you need is that KFC bowl three days a week. We do it Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we'll get kids there. What's even

Amy Buckman:

great too is here at our school, we offer free breakfast and free lunch, nice. And so it's, you know, it gets kids excited. They can go and have a hot breakfast and hot lunch for free. And so I think that draws a lot of kids here, in general, too, even if it's not something so great, they're like, yes, it's free, though. Well, and

Ned Johnson:

it's funny, before we when we are, we had a conversation last week discussing what we're going to discuss. And you, the profile of your school in the area is a little bit more middle class, because people may hear free food. You guys are about 40% farms. You said free and

Amy Buckman:

reduced meals. Oh, like, yeah, like, about 40% free and reduced lunch. Yeah? Okay,

Ned Johnson:

so then, yeah, the free breakfast isn't necessarily state mandated. It's just people are happy when the kids are happier, more engaged when they get free food.

Amy Buckman:

Yeah? Well, I believe so absolutely. And I mean, it starts your day off, right, if you can have, like, a decent breakfast. And then, I mean, we start class pretty early here, and so to have that hot breakfast in the morning and get the day started, I think that at least wakes up our brains a little bit. I'm not saying it wakes them up much, but it at least gets us the trajectory going in the right direction. I do like

Ned Johnson:

that. So speaking of getting schools moving in the right direction, or the school day in the right direction, or perhaps changing the direction your school has a three year grant right to help to improve student engagement and agency. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Amy Buckman:

Sure. So it is the Martha Jennings grant. And so this is kind of through learning inspired is this grant? And so through through the three years, it really looks at Student autonomy and the breakdown of student autonomy, what motivates kids, what's in their control in their school day. It kind of talks about the motivation behind the things that they do and the things that they don't do. Really, kind of spend some time kind of looking into the self determination theory and how that plays a role into students lives, and how that plays a role into just their schooling in general,

Ned Johnson:

remind people really quickly how self determination theory works. Sure, it's

Amy Buckman:

kind of like a three component model. It's basically like relatedness, the connectedness to others, is a component of the model, kind of the competency, like we want to master the world around us. They want to, you know, feel confident in knowing what they do, and then kind of the autonomy part, to the extent where they want to, kind of, you know, take their own independent choice voice and really have guiding autonomy. And so those are kind of like the three legs of that theory, and we incorporate that into kind of looking at the overall student agency model and as the why to why we're doing this. And so those are kind of the three parts to that theory, and what we're kind of. Doing right now is we're looking at, we're just, we're in year two of this grant. It's a three year grant, so the first year really is the why behind it, which is part of the theory. Understanding how the theory works also gives us an opportunity to really reflect on our own current practices and what those look like, and the results that we're getting a lot of schools I feel like struggle with student motivation, at least in the area where I'm located. But you know what happens in Southeast Ohio? And then what I'm finding from all these other conferences that I'm attending the core is kind of the same students struggle with motivation, whether that be your top tier student, whether that be your you know, your kiddo that gets the 35 and the AC T, or the kiddo that you know has reading goals and is on an IEP and is trying to, you know, make some strides in their own learning. Motivation seems to be the theme here, across the board. So the first year of the grant, we spent the whole time thinking about just the understanding of student motivation, of autonomy, what does student agency look like? And now we're in year two of the grant, which is kind of more of the what, slash how, and so kind of what we're doing at this point is we are really examining our our school and our practices, and there is a team of us that go and get training three times a year, and with this training, we come back and we meet with the staff here at the school, and we talk about Our experiences and we get ideas. And so actually, starting tomorrow, we are Wednesday, we're going to have a little PD session where we're going to go and share this with the entire staff, professional development

Ned Johnson:

for people who aren't in the education space. Yes, yeah.

Amy Buckman:

So right now, we're really focusing on the how and the what, because here's what we do know. We do know teachers are tired, students are tired, and we know that there's a better way out there to do this, and we just got to figure out how to do it. And so it's gonna be really fun, I think, to really explore this, how and what? Because I think lots of different things make people tick differently, and so I'm really excited about what this is going to hopefully unfold, too.

Ned Johnson:

I was last week I got to attend kind of a lunch round table with Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson, co authors of the disengaged teen we talked about last podcast and the report that came that was co done, or co sponsored or whatever, by the Brookings Institution, Rebecca Winthrop heading that and a guy named a group called transcend education. David nicht was the lead author there. And when they looked at to your point, you know you have kids who are getting top grades and kids who are really struggling, but looked at engagement and then autonomy and agency, and it was just a fantastic I mean, it was so cool, but really, really top notch educators. One of the people I met there was a woman named Janae Henry wood who just blew my socks off, and she made the point that we think about schools and the way that they're currently constructed is it's always been this way, and it just sort of fell out of the natural order that kids are supposed to just show up at school at 730 and move through six hours of class time in groups that are age batched everyone and getting the same, you know, gruel, The same instruction at the same time in the same assembly line, same assembly line. And she said, but we have to remind ourselves that schools were designed and they met purpose. But we are no longer in a mostly agrarian world or mostly industrial world, and so it may make sense if we design schools for certain time and place, we can certainly redesign schools for new time and place. So I'm, I'm just, I don't know that much about school design or school redesign, but I am looking forward to learning more, because that's part of what I gather you guys are doing right now, is, is what do we want to be redesigning in our school? Yeah,

Amy Buckman:

so those are conversations that we are actively having. So we just recently, in the fall, the group of teachers and educators that are in this grant process and in these trainings, we would spend a day shadowing a student. So we picked all kinds of different students. We picked ninth grade students, we picked 12th grade students, we picked the kids that are in all kind of athletic, kind of, you know, adventures. We picked kids who are, you know, who have tons of chores at home. We just picked kind of across the board, different academic abilities, and we spent the day every second following them the entire day from the time that. The bell. The first bell rings here at 722, and last, yes, lots of coffee. And that's it for adults. Imagine a 16 year old how your brains developed anyway. That's a whole side side bar. But and then the last, the bell for the clothes of the day is at 228, and so what we did was we spent this entire time literally shadowing that student. So we sat behind them in class. We followed them down the hall. We literally demolit them out of our sights, of course. Except, you know, bathroom breaks, right, right, right. And so what we found is, when we came back to debrief this experience, I believe there was about eight of us, the head shadow a student, including my school principal and the middle schools principal. Oh, good

Ned Johnson:

for them for doing that. Now, do they volunteer? Did you conscript them? No, they

Amy Buckman:

were really interested in, like, we are really lucky. We have great administrative leaders here that are very much in tune with the times and looking for changes as well. So walk the walk. I love that. Yeah. So we debriefed in. The first thing that we all said was we were exhausted. This is the most exhausting we have felt in years, yes, and so, and

Ned Johnson:

that's, um, with, that's with caffeine people.

Amy Buckman:

I mean, for me, that was at least two morning cups and an afternoon cup of coffee. So I know, you know, in the like, common themes came up during this, like, debriefing session. One was, oh my gosh, our kids are just sitting and getting like, there's a lot of, you know, it looks very similar across the board. There was, there was conversations of, no wonder some kids are just exhausted. No wonder they put their head down to sleep. You know, by the by the afternoon, after lunch, I was a goner, like I was, like anything that could keep my eyes open. And that's just like the actual logistics of the day. I mean, we are running an eight period schedule in there, about 40 minute classes, give or take. And so it was by the time you sat down, got got yourself situated, got your Chromebook out, to start taking notes. It was like, boom gone. Next year, sit down, get your Chromebook out, boom gone. It's so it was just so rapid fire. And there was so many thoughts that I had for me personally, when I was, like, shadowing my student, you know, I kind of, I wasn't even looking at teaching. I was even, like, I wasn't even thinking about the teacher, that aspect. I was really just going in as I'm looking at the student, this individualized student, and their experience with this. And so, you know, like, a lot of times I'm because I'm a counselor, I don't see him in the capacity of a teaching role, you know, when I meet with them, I'm like, Oh, well, where is your, you know, binder, like, where, you know, like, if I need certain things, yeah, no wonder they're not, you know, like organizations out the window, like, I would have lost my stuff, like, halfway. And so it was a really powerful experience, like it was just really powerful. And, you know, one of the teachers said that was stressful. That was so stressful for me to experience, for that student, and he was like, I'm not even the student, and I'm stressed out.

Ned Johnson:

Could he put his finger on what about that was stressful?

Amy Buckman:

I think when he talked about in the debrief, he said it was so rapid fire, and the expectation in every class like he had, this particular student was pretty top notch student taking a lot of AP courses, College Credit Plus CCP courses and and it was like the next day he had at least two exams, had some lengthy homework in his calculus class. And, like, just, and this is a student who also was in athletics after school, yeah. And so there was no time. By the time the student would get home, it'd be about 8pm at night, and so, and then the cycle would start all over again. And so it was stressful, like, and he's just like my brain was almost over stimulated. My brain is full, yeah, well, so it was really interesting.

Ned Johnson:

One thing that jumps to mind for me is that we know that the neuroscience of learning, that it's not so much what you teach me, but what, what I ENCODE, what gets embedded in my brain, right? And that in order to do that, we need two things. One, we need to hold things in mind long enough that they have a chance of getting stored into long term memory. But if it's, do you remember that story about 10 bears in the bed And the little one said, right? You keep rolling over and like, you know you well, we're on to class three. Whatever the heck just happened in class two. Don't have. Time for that must move forward, right? Yes, and the real learning, the real integration of learning, happens when we have a chance to reflect upon so why was that thing? Are you connected to something else you already know? And I just picture your school sounds very much like the school that I attended 40 years ago, where 43 minute classes and go and go and go and go. And it was, you know, highly stimulating. And as a probably ADHD person, we had not invented ADHD back when I was in school, great. But there's also literature that shows at this point in public schools, kids tend to forget within three months 90% of what they were taught. And it seems to me, my impression, my sense, is for your school. One, it's too early, so kids are too tired, and makes it really hard for them to integrate. And two, there's just too much stuff in any given day. Are those things that your school is looking at? You know, exploring, making changes there?

Amy Buckman:

Yes. So this kind of the student shadowing experience has kind of led to some other dialogs about all kinds of things. And so one of the things that the immediate impact things that we can do is talk about our schedule like our schedule is not really conducive to deeper learning. Frankly, because you're right, there's just a lot of stuff like you the by time you get to third period, you have forgot what happened in second period? And so naturally, deeper learning came up the opportunity, how to, how do we get kids to want to learn more and to go have deeper dives into material, and how is it more relevant to them? And so those are ongoing conversations that we're having. So naturally, we are talking our building, ship leadership team. BLT, we like to, you know, keeping on the food realm, we have been spending this year talking about schedule changing for next year. And so there's been lots of different ideas that we've been discussing. And so we haven't come with a set schedule yet, but one of the things that we're entertaining is at least reducing, you know, all of this stuff doesn't happen overnight. It's a process, right? You just can't so we're looking at going at least reducing one period of day to a seven period day. And another conversation is having a flex Friday, ooh, tell me about that. Yeah. As I say, what that would mean is opportunities for students to take deeper learning to a whole new level. And on Fridays, they could spend the morning in maybe their one of their CTE classrooms doing a hands on project in their graphic design course, giving them opportunity

Ned Johnson:

career and technical education. Yes,

Amy Buckman:

yeah. So here at art school, that's like graphic design, photography, agricultural science, we have manufacturing operations, tools, we have the technology program. So there's lots of different things that fall under the CTE for the state of Ohio. But what this would allow is students, sometimes the only reason they come to school is for their electives. Like, let's be honest. Like, I, you know, I've got kiddos that like, the only reason they're coming is their graphic design course, and they are super excited every day to go to that course and learn something new. And so the idea of spending Friday mornings, the entire morning, you know, for four hours or something,

Ned Johnson:

followed by a KFC ball, yes, the mind reels, yes.

Amy Buckman:

How motivating would that be to take on your own projects and do something that you truly want to do as a student on Fridays? I mean, I think that could get me if I could have to do Monday through Thursday, get to Friday. I think I could do it 100%

Ned Johnson:

I have to tell you, this was one of the points that was raised in this study, and I'll put this in the show notes at Brookings and transcended that parents, sometimes educators, sometimes administrators, sometimes have a tendency to withdraw from kids who are not engaging or who aren't behaving or whatever, to take away from them the thing they most look forward to is a way to compel compliance and the brain science, what would you just you said, You know what you can look forward to? Friday, reminder that the neurotransmitter most significant for motivation is dopamine, and dopamine is particularly for the ADHD among us. Dopamine is released in the anticipation of something, anticipation of reward, anticipation of activity, anticipation of senior best friend. And I remember I did a lot of music stuff in school, and I would, you know, drag myself through, I don't know, social studies or something I didn't find particularly compelling. But because I knew that fourth period, I had, you know, madrigals or chorus or whatever. And so I would have these islands of fun among a sea of stuff that otherwise like meh, and I was an engaged student, but still, there were unquestionably, classes that I would look forward to, and just knowing that I was going to get to go talk with Miss Bucha about whatever, whatever,

Amy Buckman:

and that's part of the other thing. That, you know, I really, truly connections with kids and relationships with kids make or break everything. And there's all kinds of research that, you know, supports this. But you know, my all the time, like when I'm having conversations with adults or educators, I'm like kids literally do not learn from people they do not like, like, they're not going to learn from you. Like, that's just how it is like, and if anything, it gives them more reason to dig their toes into the sand, a little bit more if, if they don't have a connection with you. And so I think a lot of it, too, is relationship building and and so I had the experience where I attended here, and I'm a graduate from, yes, I had a teacher, a chemistry teacher, who, mind you, I'm not good at chemistry. Okay, let me just set that bar.

Unknown:

Right? It gets everything. Amy, that's right, this

Amy Buckman:

teacher, though, made me feel like I couldn't get enough. I couldn't learn enough of chemistry, like I to this day, this, this high school chemistry teacher. Shout out to Sam Wilder, if he, if he ever, but I went in as a science major in my undergrad. Now that changed on year three, but it was really interesting, because I reflect on that experience as a student in his classroom, and he made me want to be a better learner. He taught me how to learn. It wasn't really until I got, you know, to an adult, I didn't really understand what that guy was doing, other than I wanted to go to his class. That's what I can tell you. I want to go to chemistry, and I hate, like I didn't the concept, I didn't really wasn't into it or anything, but just him, like taking the time to build a relationship, like he could have taught me how to play, I don't know shuffleboard, and I would have been super into it. And so I was very I think a lot about about that time and how motivating it was and and how we can translate that to all things. Well, I love

Ned Johnson:

that. I'll put together two points. I'm a great fan of Jess Leahy, the author of the Gift of Failure, and the book called The addiction inoculation. Just a really, really good educator. And I remember hearing a talk she was giving, and she was saying that the 3r of learning, not, you know, arithmetic, you know, I'm reading relationships, relationships, relationships. And if you go back to what you were talking about a moment ago, that this three year grant, and you guys are trying to figure out, how do we motivate kids and self determination, they would importantly, and this, I wanted to make a point on this. A lot of times when people think about, how do we motivate kids, we really want to reflect on our job isn't to get them to work hard, but to help them want to work hard. And Mr. Sam Wilder and fabulous Amy Bucha is age 17. Were the perfect example of that, that because of the relationship that he cultured with you and you with him, and you would whether it's, you know, science or shuffleboard, you were all in because of that relationship. And one of the things that I'm hopeful it sounds like you as a school and school leadership are moving this direction, that by going from eight classes to seven, and by having, you know, a flex Friday where kids can deeply engage in things that they care about, ideally with teachers or, you know, any kind of educator who I wanted to make a point when I, when I was at Brookings, one of the people there, and I can't recall who it was, was saying that when we talk about educators, we often are only talking about faculty, but that's a huge mistake when it comes to relationships, because, of course, the relationships that you as a school counselor have, right? And you know folks, right, the bus drivers, you know, the custodial the physical education, and we oftentimes poo poo, people who don't show up on, you know, a high school transcript, as though they're not significant. I still remember my first year of college, as, you know, Pell Grant kid, and so my work was in food services, and there was a woman there who I have, geez, I haven't thought about her in 30 years, and I didn't even know if she had, she certainly didn't have a college degree. I'm not even sure if she had a high school degree. Sweetest person in the world, intellectual, not really, but my gosh, every time you see Ned, and she just seems so legitimately delighted to see me, for reasons I still don't quite understand. And it's like Anne, well, how was your day? My day is great, and how is your and it was when we can structure school, it seems to me where teachers aren't having to rush from one thing to the next and rush kids on from one thing to the next. It creates more space for those connections. And it also strikes man, I love to hear talk about this. There's, um, the. It seems to me there's a push pull with school accountability, because this is a significant investment of of tax dollars and teenage energy, and we want to get we want to help kids get the most out of school. But a lot of the accountability measures strike me as people outside of the school system trying to control the goings on of people inside the school system in ways that, if it makes faculty and everyone in the school building more stressed, it probably makes it harder for them to support the autonomy. You know they be when they feel controlled, they probably become more controlling of teens, and then when teens have less autonomy. We're back to your whole grant. Do you see that? I mean, I don't want you to get into, you know, hot mess or politically, but I mean, is it been your experience that when teachers are afforded more autonomy, that it's easier for them to layer that into the work with kids 1,000%

Amy Buckman:

like I, I can't speak to a lot of other states because I've only worked in the state of Ohio for the last like, I don't know, 1112, years. Yeah, there's a lot of people at the state level that make a lot of decisions on student education that have never worked in the educational system,

Ned Johnson:

and possibly go wrong? Yeah,

Amy Buckman:

what could possibly go wrong? And so these things, of course, kind of roll downhill as we and what we're left with is, I mean, we have a funding model that has currently the state of Ohio that has been deemed unconstitutional when it comes to schools getting funding, but they've yet to correct that. That funding model, but they tell you it's bad but, but they haven't corrected the funding module. So for example, like, how much money your school gets, yeah, based off of property taxes and whatnot and so, so

Ned Johnson:

is it fair? Higher income communities get more income in their schools. So

Amy Buckman:

places that have, let's say more income, such as near Columbus, like Dublin, Hilliard, places like that, they have lots of funding to do a lot of things, because the property taxes in that area are really high, and so those monies can funnel into the school system. Well, we're in Southeast Ohio. You know, the funding system looks a little bit different here, and so it changes the whole funding mod, the funding model and how it works. So, you know, that's just one example of me, but there's lots of people that are making decisions at the state level for graduation, determining how a kid gets a diploma. I don't like so Ned like in the last let's see, six years, I believe the graduation formula has changed three times. So they've made three different graduation requirements for a student in the state of Ohio in the last six years, three times it's changed. So, and I can reference all that. So all of these decisions are making are coming down, down the hill, essentially. And so there's a lot of things you can't touch, right? It's the wall. You got to do it. And what we find ourselves is trying to make the best of, sometimes a really crappy situation. And we're not, we're not really, I don't feel like educators in this area have a seat at the table at the capitol to talk about some of the issues that we're seeing. Yeah, I know people go and have those conversations and try to try to do the best they can, but I do think it doesn't allow for teachers to have a lot of autonomy when we're like, okay, you got to get a 684 on that algebra exam to get your high school diploma. And so we're going to have to pull out all the stops to make sure you get that 684 on that algebra exam. And I have only got 179 days to do it. And out of those 179 days, in those increments, if I'm lucky with snow days, maybe, maybe it's gonna be 163 throw in some pep rallies, some PBIS and some other schedule changes, I might be down to 142 days now. Get you to get a 684 so I can get you a high school diploma. And so I think in lots of regards, we're really limited on how can we, you know, like, how do we hack the system? Like, working with some people through the Martha Jennings grant to talk about hacking the system, because it is a situation where you can't really move any of those pillars, those walls, so you gotta, kind of have to hack it a little bit. And so we're trying to figure out a way to hack the system. Well,

Ned Johnson:

Len, I'm gonna go back to your Friday because it strikes me that there's both the total number of class periods and class hours. Is that you know you as an algebra teacher, spend trying to help me as a student get this stuff. But there's also the depth of my engagement, right? And so credibly, if I were all in because you're the SAM Wilder of algebra, and I am totally into this, you might have to spend half as much instructional time because you're not saying no, this is more net, yeah, and when you have that, when I have that Friday, when I get to go work on, you know, building the generator, or whatever that, so I, I'm, I'm excited by this. Let me ask, though, so you mentioned, I think it's a really good point that these decisions are made, being made about schools and school systems and school personnel, with school personnel maybe not feeling like they have a seat at the table as much as they should. As you at your school thinking about changing the schedule, do students have a seat at the table? Yeah.

Amy Buckman:

So what's been really great this year is we have a new principal, and we have already made some changes, and the first thing he did was, well, let's pull the students like him already with the students around the conference table and see what they want to do for their graduation. We had just recently, we talked about changing up how we do our high school graduation. We pulled the students, talked with the students, had a conference room of full of students, and it was like, What do you guys want your graduation to look like? Who would you like to talk at your graduation? What color gowns Do you want to wear at your graduation? You know, and it's, it's been really nice, like it's in. So it's been some student led discussions about some what normally I think would have been some just administrative decisions, but he's been inviting groups of students in to have these conversations and have a voice, and whether or not say, Yeah, we want this or no, we don't want this, and here's why. And so that that's been really refreshing.

Ned Johnson:

Have you noted any small or large change in culture or engagement, you know, either systemically or by individual kids when they have that, when they get that, respectfully asked what they actually think about things?

Amy Buckman:

So I would say they're just more satisfied, I think,

Ned Johnson:

like customer satisfaction, has that ever been a priority in schools? I love this because

Amy Buckman:

they get to be part of the process and they understand the why, and that's the most crucial part, I think, is the why. Because a lot of times, and this goes back to student agency and student kind of decision making. No one ever tells them the why. We're just, you know, kind of shoving it down their throats. And so when you get to see the whole process and be part of the process, they're like, Oh, well, I know why we did this this way. And I'm like, Yes,

Ned Johnson:

you do. And so I love this. It's really because

Amy Buckman:

then at that point, even if it's something that they don't agree with. They know why it was led to that, why that decision was made. They understand the why behind it, yeah, and so that has really been powerful with some students. So presumably,

Ned Johnson:

they don't love it, but they don't fight it, because they understand that there's reasons behind it,

Amy Buckman:

yeah, because they were either part of the decision making process or they, you know, whenever the student representatives came to them and said, Well, this was the conversation we had, and this is what we talked about, and this is why we chose this answer, as opposed to just giving an announcement in your email saying we'll be doing this, this and this. And so I think just that has made a world of difference in a couple of small changes that we have done. And so in the next part of talking about the scheduling, and what we're hoping to do next year is we have some students, right now, about 30 students who are already out on Fridays doing an internship, and so they're providing us feedback. And these are students that maybe aren't the most engaged students, yeah, but what we're finding Monday through Thursday, all of their grades are now going up because, guess what? They want to go out on Friday and do their job or do their internship. Some of them are learning to weld. Some of them are getting there, some nursing credentials summer, you know, like there's just a whole bunch of different ones that they're kind of doing on Fridays, but programming wise and so, but these kids, all of a sudden, who we found out had kind of poor attendance and wasn't really super motivated, was failing some courses, coming to school every day, and their grades are going up because they have a reason to be there, because they have a reason to be there, because that is getting them to their Friday, like, extension or, like, internship. There's just a whole bunch of different things we're doing with those kids. So it even in those like, handful of kids were like, Oh my gosh. Can you imagine if this was, if this was all a student body? I

Ned Johnson:

was. Love to see if you guys, you know, if you've kept data on that of of you, I'm just making this up, we decreased instructional time by whatever half of a Friday is, or all Friday by, you know, by 20% or by 10% but the school attendance increased by, you know, 25% because, again, they have something to look forward to.

Amy Buckman:

Yeah, it's kind of, so that's why we're really this good algebra

Unknown:

problem

Amy Buckman:

Friday could be really powerful, and it's going to be super individualized, which a lot of kids, you know, if you think about it, we're kind of the assembly line education is very much, you know, the assembly line model. And so I'm like, here we go. This is something that they want to do, something that they have interest in, or maybe it's a kid that's totally clueless and they have no idea what they want to do. But you know what? Let's try this. Let's try this thing on Friday if you find out that you hate being a teacher's assistant. And you know, preschool is not for you. Let's take that off the list and maybe find another area of interest. You know, if you know you want to work with kids, but you don't know what in capacity you want to work with them. So I think it's going to provide a lot of opportunities to find some early career interest, but also to have fun and to be passionate about something in your daily life. Because I think what happens right now is we lack a lot of times for kids to have true passions, and so because they're too busy having, you know, homework, jumping their hoops, yeah, doing all that stuff. I'm like, gosh, when you ask a kid, well, what do you like to do? And I sit there, I'm like, Well, I play some video games. I'm like, but what do you like to do? Like, yeah, something that gets you excited and and so it's really interesting, because we've kind of created this like monster of a system that it doesn't even cultivate people's passions anymore. And so I think this could really open the door for some really unique opportunities to kind of find some things that you might love.

Ned Johnson:

I love it. I have two thoughts, and I'd love to put a challenge to you guys, one, if we go back to where we started, and you're talking us through self determination theory that when kids get to identify and then spend some time pursuing a passion. You're really hitting all three points of they're choosing something where they feel competent, right there. No one's likely to choose the thing that everybody else is good at. But they're not they, because it's something that they're interested in. They have that relatedness, ideally, both to the topic and to the SAM Wilder, who are, you know, Amy Bucha, whoever is going to be the the advisor there. And, of course, autonomy, because they get a choice there. And so it's, it's, um, it's hard to think of a better thing that kids could do in school to really fuel that intrinsic motivation that we want. The other thing I was, I, I took note at the beginning that this grant came through learning inspired, and Mike Nicholson and his group, is that right? That's correct. Yeah, doing great in the world on there. I will put this in the show notes as well for folks. But there's a book that Mike and all these, these are bunch of educators who are trying to bring student autonomy to school systems, you know, at scale. And one of the books they lean into is a book called The School of our own. And Sam Sam Levin, who was, at that point, a high school student, and his mom was a professor of psychology, I think, at Williams College. This is up in rural mass. And the quote that's on the website, and I just pulled this up, is quote, how can you ever expect me and my friends to learn if we aren't engaged? And how can you expect us to be engaged if we have no authority over what we're learning? Yeah, it's true.

Amy Buckman:

Like it, I love it. I Mike has really shared some literature with myself and with our group. Yeah, that has really just been eye opening. So every time that we get to go to professional developments, he is bringing something to the table that we've, you know, have not seen, and also has, you know, provided resource resources for us that says, oh, you know what? This school here, Grandville, they kind of went through the same thing. You guys are kind of talking about, connect with them, you know. So that way, you they have maybe some resources already in place. So he's provided a door of opportunity for a lot of connections and for a lot of learning for a lot of us. And it's been really excited, because exciting because when we sit down together as a team, it's amazing how the ideas just start popcorn with popcorn, right? It's like, did it? Did it? I I always joke with people, but it's pretty, it's pretty much who I am. I think it's like, Ready, aim, fire is like the, you know, the analogy, like, I'm always like, fire, aim, steady, ready. Okay, fire. And then. So I don't ever really like, I'm like, let's just do it. Let's just launch into it. Like, I like the cannonball effect.

Ned Johnson:

I'm ready, fire, aim. Yeah. My wife loves that about me. Anyway. Dr, Mike Nicholson, the Pied Piper of student autonomy and scatter shot ideas. But no, I love it well, and I would last thing I want to ask, well, two things. One is, through this Jennings Foundation grant, is there going to be this kind of service of capturing student voices and what they have, either interviews or testimonials, of kind of what they've observed in themselves about their own motivation? Do you know?

Amy Buckman:

So I'm not entirely sure we have, every year, we have a closing meeting in the month of May, where, because there's more than, I believe there's a dozen different districts in this grant. That's on year two. I think he has another dozen districts maybe on year one, and he might have a few in year three. So every May, we have, like, a closing meeting with the districts. And Mike kind of leads us through this agenda. And we always have kind of success stories or share outs, yeah, of kind of what's happening in our district. And so I know this round there's student testimonials that are happening on different levels, and there's some different opportunities that students can take part in. We use Strengths Finder a lot here at art school, like that's every single student has had their strengths finder. They've already taken that and they know their top five strengths, and that's kind of embedded in our curriculum here, and how teachers use that, and so and so, students can tell you, like, Hey, that's not really one of my strengths. I don't really share the Woo, but like, so it's kind of interesting, because those kids can really speak to some of the changes that we've done here that I think are slowly going to provide them with just, like, an opportunity to be better citizen, you know, like, communicate better and but it's really nice when Mike has those closing meetings in May, because we get to hear all the stories from different districts and their students. I love it. And how things are, you know, going in their world. And it just kind of, frankly, leaves me hopeful. I just like, you know, sometimes education doesn't have a lot of hope. I'll just say that, yeah, well, and it is a big hamster wheel, and so I'm feeling really hopeful and really excited about some of this, some of this work that we're doing.

Ned Johnson:

I am too okay, my last question, so, when you're walking down the hall and you and you and your colleagues who were on the on the shadow day, and you, you see your shadow student? Do you? Do you people in this you can't see? Do you give them a high five? Do you sort of like, look away, you know? Do you say, you know you're Hang in there, buddy, you're almost there. So

Amy Buckman:

I talk with my shadow student once a week. She stops in. Oh, just give me an update of relatedness, relatedness, relatedness. And so she's like, well, you remember that day when we were doing that project? I do remember that day. And, and she's like, well, this is what I ended up getting on it and and things like that. I can speak for the couple of other teachers on my team, they are definitely fist bumping and patting on backs and just having ongoing dialog, because when the student actually shares, like, man, today was long, yeah, we feel you today was long, like, you know, and so I actually even found myself, I offered a cup of coffee To my kiddo. I

Ned Johnson:

was like, Hey, first one's free

Amy Buckman:

pot of coffee. Would you like a little bit? I don't have any cream, but, you know, so you can hear some coffee. If you'd like to have a little afternoon. Pick me up.

Ned Johnson:

Oh, I love it. I love it. Well. Amy, Bucha. Thank you for your leadership there, boys. I'm I'm eager to follow the work that you guys are doing there, because it sure sounds like a lot of good things are moving in a better direction. And like you, I am, I am hopeful, because in a perfect world that's not just the kids are engaged, but, you know, this year in this work, but But year after year after year, and ideally, like oftentimes, bad ideas spread more readily. And ideally, this is a good one that takes hold in some, uh, neighboring communities as well. So there

Amy Buckman:

are area schools that are also doing some of these things as well. And so I am just feeling really grateful that I work in a great district, and it is a great district. It is, you know what? I am glad that I still work in a place that they want to do what's best for kids, and they are trying to to hack the system and and do everything we can to give kids an opportunity to enjoy their learning experience. And so I just, I'm feeling, you know, really grateful and hopeful, and it's just been a nice, just a nice way to feel, you know, because sometimes the job. Can bog you down and and make you feel like you're up against a pretty big wall sometimes, but, but I'm lucky to work in a place that is really, you know, trying to make some changes for for what's best for kids, and so it just, you know, it's good. What's

Ned Johnson:

best for kids, it sure is good. Well, Amy, thank you for joining me.

Amy Buckman:

Thank you so much, Ned. I had a great time.

Ned Johnson:

Oh, I did, too. For those who are interested, follow along, we're gonna be talking this whole semester about bringing more student autonomy to schools. Coming weeks, we're gonna talk with Rihanna Alexander, a mental health advocate out of Arizona who's now in her first year of college, doing really great things, as is Amy and her students there in Warren, Ohio. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven Job Podcast. Hey folks, Ned here, over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age 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 reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student and would like to talk about putting a plan together, please get in touch with us. Visit our website@prepmatters.com or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person, if so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350