Now that 2020 is over, here's to a MUCH better 2021. But there still was some good to come out of 2020. One instance is with a cleaner Hudson river, humpback whales have returned to New York City.

I just can't get enough of Seth Godin. KoKo got me this for last Christmas, and I just got around to finishing it this year. Yes, it's a book about marketing from a hall of fame marketer, BUT everything about marketing has so much crossover value for teaching.

The same ways marketers appeal to their customers is really no different than how teachers seek to connect with and appeal to our students.

Here are some of my favorite takeaways and passages -

"[Marketing - or teaching] has to resonate with the listener [student], to tell them something they've been waiting to hear, something they're open to believing. it has to invite them on a journey where a change might happen. And then, if you've opened all those doors, it has to solve the problem, to deliver on the promise."

Now I ask you this: How might students approach our classes, content, and curriculum differently if we began with that concept in mind as opposed to just delivering the content or teaching the curriculum?

Here is another great passage that applies to teaching -

"Marketing is the generous act of helping others become what they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories - stories that resonate and spread. Marketers offer solutions, opportunities for humans to solve their problems and move forward."

Yet another -

"People don't want what you make. They want what it will do for them. They want the way it will make them feel. And there aren't many feelings to choose from."

That is teaching. Students don't (really) want a correctly formatted MLA paper. I would submit they don't even (really) want the precious A grade. What they really want is the feeling of accomplishment from writing deeply about something personal so that they discover something they never really knew. They want the satisfaction of opening up an old wound and sharing it with their teacher, knowing they are sharing this in a safe environment, and receiving feedback. They want the thrill of sharing a story or knowledge or a moment that resonates with others.

And one of my favorites (this one actually has the note "This is me as a teacher" scrawled next to it) -

"Because it doesn't matter what people you're not seeking to serve think. What matters is whether you've changed the people who trust you, the people who have connected with you, the people you seek to serve.

We know that every best-selling book on Amazon has at least a few one-star reviews. It's impossible to create work that both matters and pleases everyone."

That passage reminds me of when I ran into half a dozen of my former English 9R students at the fair. They call came up to see how my summer was going and fill me in on what they have been doing all summer long.

I didn't think much of it until Kristie mentioned how all those kids couldn't wait to talk to me and check in on me. Then it hit me: They should hate me. I worked them into the ground. We read and read and read in English 9R. We read five novels . . . and I know for some of those kids those may well be the last books they ever read! Yet, here they were, all coming up and talking to me and sharing what they were doing. A connection had been made. A change and impact was made. For both of us!

Week #17 – January 4-8

Teaching Thought #70 - The Velvet Brick

This is a great idea that I’ve taken from Tim Elmore’s Habitudes. These are a series of images that teach vital skills for learners today.

The concept of “The Velvet Brick” is a great lesson to share with students. This lesson focuses on feedback. What you need to do is hit kids with a velvet brick. Think back to some of the hard lessons or difficult conversations you received as a kid. If you were like me, the feedback often felt like you were hit upside the head with a brick! Ha ha.

Elmore puts his own twist on that concept by noting that it’s vital to give critical feedback (hence, the brick), but it must come first wrapped in velvet. Think of the old school, hard as nails, leaders. They were all brick in their feedback. And it worked with some, but it turned many off . . . and that was with Gen X! That type of hard as nails stuff doesn’t work well with Gen Z. Period.

I have also had leaders who were all soft and tender. They got walked all over. That doesn’t work with Gen Z either. These kids are too smart for that. They will eat a velvet leader alive.

So you have to combine the two for maximum results.

You can give harsh feedback, but it has to be softened with some velvet first. The soft outer covering of the brick - the velvet - tells the students you care and consider their feelings. But the punch of the brick inside tells them that you also have high expectations for them and that they need to do better, work harder, or just plain pick it up.

I’ll give a great example from my youth - I lived ten miles out of town. As a result, I was one of the first in my class to drive. My parents actually let me drive to school the last two years of high school. This was quite rare in my hometown.

Well, two of my close friends, Harry and Simon, wanted me to swing by and pick them up. I gladly did, but Dad was worried about the extra gas from driving all the way across town to pick them up each morning. Finally, I convinced him to let me do it, but he said that I could only pick up Simon and Harry. No one else.

Well, of course, Simon’s little brother, Ben, and Harry’s sister, Jocelyn, wanted rides too. I was able to convince Dad to let them come along too, but he insisted that I pick up no one else. After all, I was notorious for offering rides to everyone after school down to the football and baseball fields. I mean I’d have freshmen packed into my trunk and six people jammed into the backseat!

One day - just after Dad reminded me to not pick anyone else up before school - as I was turning the corner with Simon, Ben, Harry, and Jocelyn in my care, who do I see but Renea (Simon’s neighbor) and her little brother alongside the road. Their car was broken down.

Now, I faced a huge dilemma. I couldn’t just pass them up. So I stopped and - with Dad’s warning sounding in my ears - I piled them in.

All the way to school, I was dreading running into Dad on his way to work. But I didn’t see him - or so I thought . . . When I got home, though, he did inform me that he saw me with a pile of kids in the car. Understandably, he was livid. He almost turned around and followed me to school where we would have let me have it for disobeying him.

That would have been getting hit upside the head with a brick.

Instead, my dad wrapped it in plenty of velvet. He said that he hadn’t turned around because he didn’t want to embarrass me in front of my friends (I was eternally grateful for that), and he figured that I had a good reason for defying him and packing those extra kids in.

And it worked. I never picked up anyone else again. And it taught me a lesson on excellent parenting. Always remember to wrap those bricks in velvet. Every time I don’t do that, I regret it. Every time.

Teaching Thought #71 - Roles and Opportunities

We all need roles and opportunities. How do you offer these to your students? I realized this when I was watching the documentary Hamilton: One Shot to Broadway.

Not only did Lin-Mauel Miranda write the script, music, and lyrics for Hamilton, but he also played the main role of Alexander Hamilton. As I was watching this, one of the people interviewed mentioned how while Miranda had experienced some success before Hamilton, what he just needed was the right role and opportunity to show his amazing talents. Furthermore, Miranda’s Hamilton has become a tool to offer other unheralded actors and actresses roles and opportunities. Suddenly, there has been an influx of talent on Broadway.

The natural question to ask is “Where did all of these talented folks come from?” The question is simple: They were always there. They just needed the right role and the opportunity to perform.

This is proven again and again. Remember, Caine’s Arcade? Caine was there all along. He just needed a father who gave him the opportunity to invent and create. He could have just bought Caine a claw machine for his arcade (as most parents would tend to do). Instead, his father told him to make one himself. And Caine did. His father could have told him that it was stupid to create and then manage a cardboard arcade that no one ever comes to. But he didn’t. Instead, his father encouraged this role. Then finally, Nirvan (the director) gave Caine the opportunity to unleash his genius because Nirvan chose to buy a fun pass from Caine and then create a short film about this kid and his creativity.

The same was true for me. Mrs. Chirstianson (the greatest 9th grade English teacher in the world) could have just had us answer the questions at the end of each story or complete worksheets. Instead, she gave us the opportunity to be creative by writing original assignments (I chose to write a new ending to “August Heat” by William Harvey and later I wrote a new scene for The Outsiders). While these opportunities were amazing, what Mrs. Christianson was really doing was offering me the role of writer. I took it and ran. Totally changed my life.

What roles and opportunities are you offering your students?

Teaching Thought #72 - Five Leadership Thoughts

Since we are almost at the halfway point of the school year, I always find it a good time to reflect back on what has worked and what didn’t. In reflecting on that, I came across this article featuring an interview with Mark Sanborn in which he offers five thoughts on leadership. Here they are

1. Help others be better than they thought they could be. What can you do to make your students better today than they were yesterday. This sounds simple. But it’s not at all. It’s too easy to just let them come to class and go through the motions. It looks like they are working and accomplishing and growing, but are they? How many classes have you taken and even earned an A in but learned nothing? Challenge them.

2. Activity isn’t action. Oh, this is where I struggle. When I sit down at my computer during my prep, I can spend (insert the real term here - “waste”) time answering emails, lesson planning, and just being ‘busy.’ But that isn’t action. Am I grading? Am I working on a formative assessment so I can give kids feedback that is actually useful and lets them know what they really know and what they don’t?

3. Be nice. It actually takes more energy to be mean. Being nice costs nothing. And it’s so worth it.

4. Don’t wait for the perfect moment. This reminds me of a classic bit of wisdom Dave Doherty dropped on my class a few years ago: “Don’t worry about making the right decision; instead, make a decision and then work really hard to make it the right decision.” What new piece of technology have you been wanting to test out in your classes? What new book have you wanted to add to your curriculum? What new teaching strategy or practice have you been looking forward to trying in your classes? Don’t wait.

5. Show appreciation. This reminds me of Chris Hogan’s acronym of A.I.R. Appreciation, Inspiration, and Recognition. No one ever leaves a job or gets tired of being appreciated (or for that matter inspired or recognized) too much.

These sound so simple but they aren’t at all. I think they go against our established routines, which make them hard to accomplish even if they sound so simple.

Teaching Thought #73 - Passion, Bring it!

Passion and culture are often two terms thrown around like they can cure everything. They can’t, but they sure do a lot more good than harm. I came across this phrase recently about passion: “What comes from the heart, touches the heart.”

Think about that the next time you’re planning your lessons or setting up an activity. If you are just going through the motions, how can you expect your students not to? Tap into that passion and let it light you up. Even if not all students get into it, some will. Just because of how passionate you were.

Teaching Thought #74 - College Isn’t for All

I think we need to stress this more to our kids. It’s alright NOT to go to college. There are trade schools and other certification programs all over. The most important thing we can teach our kids is to be life long learners.

For many people of my generation, we made it out of college in spite of trying to learn as little as possible. That won’t work anymore.

I was watching a Christmas movie with my family when a text came through from a student. She saw on Tik Tok a video that reminded her of something I showed the class a few weeks earlier. She just wanted to share it.

There is nothing better than realizing something you shared resonated with a student where they feel compelled to reach out and share it with you.

Part two of the amazing Focus 3 podcast on "Look Under the Hood." Part 1 was all about what a successful culture looks like. Part 2 is all about what to do as a leader if an individual (a student, a player, an employee) isn't performing like they should.

Coach Meyer breaks it down to two options:

1. Eliminate them. This is the easiest but most painful option. This causes a culture of fear and anxiety.

2. Develop them. This is the most difficult. It's the messiest option, but really it's the only option.

Meyer elaborates that there are three reasons why people aren't performing - 1. It's a trust issue. 2. They lack the skills. 3. They are in conflict.

These are all quite fixable.

First, if it's a trust issue, the leader, coach, teacher, or boss needs to fix that right away. Get down to what is causing the lack of trust. Nothing can happen until this is addressed.

Second, skill set. This one is easy to address too. Maybe the coach, boss, or teacher is asking the person to do something they simply can't. Then they have to be given the skills and coached up. If the will never get those skills, then the scheme has to be changed. As my friend, Sara, likes to say, "It's not enough to just get the right people on the bus. You have to get the right people in the right seats on the bus."

Third, and this is the hardiest (and messiest), problem to solve. You have to find out what the conflict is with the student, player, or employee. The nice thing, though, is if they trust you and know you are working to maximize their talent, they will be more likely to open up, share what conflict they're having, and allow you to do what you can to help resolve it.

Finally, I picked up a great quote from this episode. It comes from Michael Jordan: "Winning has a price . . . So does leadership."

Now, ask yourself this: is YOUR leader paying that price or slacking? If you are leading, are YOU paying that price or slacking?

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

My amazing former high school English teacher, Mrs. Christianson, shared this with me after she found out that we read Wonder and then watched the movie.

Twitter is the best PD I've ever had. I learn more in half an hour on Twitter than I did in my first decade of school sponsored PD.

If you are like me, you're giving a lot of quizzes and assessments via Google Classroom. Here is how you can create a timed quiz. Genius! Why am I just coming across this now?

Now who can argue with this?

If you caught Seth Godin's iconic TEDx Talk from the last Teaching Thoughts newsletter, here is a link to the .pdf version. This is a great read.

I am married to the most amazing person in the world, Kristie. It was love at first sight. At least for me. And it still is.

We have four wonderful children, Casey, Koko, Kenzie, and Cash. And now we have been blessed with five grandchildren!

I also happen to have the greatest job in the world: teaching English to high school students.

I am in my 23rd year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in Red Lake Falls in 1992. I decided to enter the field of education because of two amazing teachers, Mr. Mueller, my fourth and sixth grade elementary school teacher and assistant baseball coach, and Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade English teacher.

I attended Northland Community College, and had my life changed by the amazing Dr. Diane Drake. Then I transferred to Bemidji State University in 1995. There I had amazing professors who further inspired me to teach English (Dr. Helen Bonner, Dr. Mark Christensen, Susan Hauser, and Gerry Schnabel). I graduated with my BS in English Education in 1997.

I student taught with the wonderful Lisa Semanko and then began teaching full-time at LHS in 1998.

I took a year's leave of absence in 2001-02 to return to BSU for my MA in English. There I had the privilege to teach and work closely with my greatest mentor, Dr. Mark Christensen. I earned my MA in English in 2006 and was honored with "Thesis of the Year" for my creative non-fiction, braided, multi-genre memoir, "Meeting Myrtle: A Biography."

In 2013, thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jodi Holen, I was offered an adjunct teaching position fall semester at the University of North Dakota. Tuesday nights I teach Intro to Education: Teaching and Learning 250 from 5-8. Those three hours fly by in about ten minutes.

Then in 2016 I was blessed to win a WEM award (thanks to a nomination from a former student (and now an elementary school teacher), Ciera Mooney).

In 2017 I became part of the #pineconepd podcast club along with Brian Loe, Jeff Mumm, Kelsey Johnson, Kelly Weets, Josh Watne, Tevia Strand, Megan Vigen, Mariah Hruby, Laura Brickson, Loren Leake, Katie Hahn, Melora Burgee, and new members all the time. This has been one of the best forms of PD I've ever been a part of. They make me a better teacher every time we meet. Please think about joining us in the summer at the Pine Cone Pub from 6:30 - until we've solved all the world's problems. For that evening anyway.

Thanks to the inspiration of Shane Zutz (our former principal) I devised this as a way to distribute my Teaching Thoughts and add more content to, hopefully, help out and inspire others.

Email: kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org
Website: http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com
Location: 101 South Knight Aver Thief River Falls MN 56701
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