For this High-Leverage Practice, we are talking about providing positive and constructive feedback to guide students' learning and behavior. Specifically, this is within social, emotional, and behavioral learning. And with me, I have got Ann. She is our instructional coach for early learners, and so she hangs out a lot with all of our pre-K, kinder, first grade, second grade, all of our littles, and is constantly providing this type of feedback to the students that she is working with as she's supporting the staff that she's partnered with.

So Ann, for you, in your context, what does this high-leverage practice look like for you?

Well, it's good to be here, Heather, and have a talk with you about this because at the end of the day, if I'm not interacting with my littles on what I'm expecting, how I want them to do it, and letting them know when they've mastered and when they've attempted and when they've had success, then I really can't do anything else in my classroom. I come at a lot of this from a perspective of a gen ed teacher who always had challenging friends, and in order for me to not lose my mind, we needed to set up some ground rules and some expectations.

And I learned early on that my littles don't come to me magically knowing what school looks like, how to do it, what's expected, when they do it right, they get a lot of feedback, for when they make mistakes and when they make poor choices. And my really challenging ones, sadly, a lot of times, only ever heard when they made poor choices to the point they didn't know what a good choice looked like. So by looking at providing the feedback really in a constructive way, it was essential to being able to set up little people that everybody could work with.

Yeah, I love that because that's actually, I mean, I've worked in secondary and higher ed, and I approached my guys in alternative ed in the exact same way that you're talking about. Like, how often, if you are in an alternative education setting, have you received any semblance of positive or constructive feedback that you could actually build on and grow from, as opposed to them could list off all the things that they're not good at, that they've gotten in trouble for? Like, all the problems. But they really, really struggled to tell me what it was that they should be doing.

And that's at secondary, right? Like high school, where people typically assume “y'all have been in school for how many years? You should know how this works.” And they've just been told, “not the way they've been doing it.” And so, shifting that feedback was a total game-changer for me.

Well, and ridiculous things in the universe when you're dealing with littles, anywhere from pre-k, even through elementary ages. I hear so many teachers, as kids are ripping down the hallway, going “walk”. In their head, I believe they think they are walking. Their perception of speed is just very different from what we want. So I have stopped telling children to walk. Instead, I say, “You need to walk slower.”

And in that head, as soon as you put the describer “slower" in there, then they know, “oh, my body needs to not move as fast as it is.” When you just tell them to walk, they are walking just at their own perceived speed. So I've gotten a lot more focused on how I give directions, how I give explanations, and how I explicitly follow up with seeking feedback on what I've said. So if I give a set of directions to children, I ask them, I say, “Now tell me what it is you're going to do?”

I don't ask them if they understand. I don't ask them, are they ready to go? I say, “Now, what is the first thing you were going to do?” And if they give me deer in the headlights, I know we haven't had a communication because I may have used words, but they did not register with what they were going to do. “So what's the first thing you're going to do?” “Oh, we're going to sit down, we're going to get out our paper, we're going to write our name on it.” And I will follow that up with, “Good job on remembering the first thing you're going to do.”

“Now let's get that done. Now, what was the second thing?” So it's then incremental, small sets of directions. Repeat it back to me with reinforcement that says, “Yes, you got that.” Or “no, that's not quite what I said. If I give you this hint with what it was I said, can you come up with the idea?” And they either can or they can't. And if they can't, I don't remember everything everybody tells me all the time either.

So instead of being critical, it's, “Yeah, not quite right. But do you remember how I said we should do it this way?” and then about half the time I'll get a, “Oh, yeah. And then you said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And I go, “So what did that mean?” And again, if I get deer in the headlights, I know that means I've got a miscommunication, because I will firmly believe that, particularly in that pre-k to third, 4th, 5th grade window, I don't know that maybe more than once I have ever encountered an intentionally deceptive, deceiving, wannabe-a-blister-on-the-universe child.

And you've worked with some tough ones.

But I don't ever believe they've had intentionality and foresight in planning. There's just a glitch in communication. I said it in a way they don't understand. I explain something they've never seen before. And it's only through that interaction and the feedback that you get a sense of, do we have a meeting of the minds so that you can do the behaviors, do the procedures that I want you to do, and so that you can have success, because nobody likes to be forced to go to someplace that they're always criticized and never have anyone that says, hey, you did a good job there.

Even middle school kids will work for shiny stickers. Boggles my brain. But they're like, I want the sticker. I want the sticker. Okay. I'm buying rolls of stickers because apparently they really work.

Yeah. I mean, it's anything, especially out of the norm. I mean, I spent my whole career working in that emotional behavioral disorder world. And they can tell you everything that they have done wrong, or at least stuff they got in trouble for. Even if they're not owning that they actually did it, they could tell you what they got in trouble for. But any of those little things, like, it always blows my mind how simple some of these things can be that are truly motivating for students that are seen by most adults to be incredibly challenging or really hard to work with or, you know, “they don't have any motivation. They're not working.” that kind of stuff.

You can find that little thing sometimes. Yeah, it's just, “Wait, I get a sticker?” Like, you want a sticker? Then sure, we can do a sticker, you know? Whatever works for you. But then you get to connect that sticker with “because you actually finished out the worksheet” or “because you actually showed up to class today, you could actually get the sticker. If you just blew me off and skipped again, you can't get the sticker because you can't get it if you're not here.” You know, things like that. You're actually providing that constructive feedback, and you're doing it in a friendly coaching kind of way, but you're still calling it straight with them. I've worked with some staff that are almost fearful to provide anything that they would feel like is maybe critical feedback because they don't want some blowback or some pushback from the student.

And they're also like, “I'm not going to tell them positive stuff if it's not true.” That kind of thing. So it's like, no, no, no. How can you find positive things that are accurate and then be just gentle and constructive in how you're providing that critical feedback when you can do both of them simultaneously? Like, that's where the magic sits.

But the magic is: it's a conversation with the student. It's not an authority figure lasting on a student.

Good point.

A lot of times when I see adult-student interaction, that's not productive, it's some adult wielding a power of authority, speaking in a threatening, aggressive, angry vocabulary term, body language. And the student does one of two things. They either shut down, cower, and don't hear anything else going on, or they match the aggression that's coming at them and blow back. So every time I've seen adults have a caring, open conversation with an angry student, One of my firmest memories is I had a fifth grader once who was treated very badly on the playground, and he wanted nothing more than to rip the head off of the child who was the perpetrator.

And his fuse was lit, and he was ready to just go after. And I stepped in front of him, held my hands up on his shoulders, and said, “Dude, I totally understand what you want to do. I get it. I watched it. I can't really say that you shouldn't be angry, because I would be angry too, but I can't let you do what you want to go do. So just take it down a notch and take a couple of breaths. If you want to take a walk over there on that part of the playground.

You want me to walk with you? We're good with that, but I cannot let you do what you want to go do right now.” I didn't get in his face. I didn't yell. I didn't tell him he was so totally wrong for what he wanted to do. Validated his feelings. And that's a key that I also see very often as missed. When you're dealing with challenging kids, you say, You know, knock it off, dude. You're not supposed to do that,” but they really feel like they want to at that moment.

Yeah. And it's coming from somewhere that's so real and so valid, then it's like, no, acknowledge where it's coming from and shift how it's coming out.

Right? I say, “I know that's really what you want to do, and there's a part of me that wants to let you do it because that kid needs to be taken down a peg or two. However, as human beings, we need to find a different way to deal with those really hot feelings that are coming at us at the moment.” And again, done in a conversational, encouraging kind of way so that you've got that feedback that says, I understand.

I get it. How can we change this direction? What other choice can we make? “Well, I can’t make another choice because this is what. I really want to rip their head off.” I get it, dude. I get it. But we'll be in so much trouble if we go do that. So what's a way that you can start to feel a little better and not rip the guy's head off when you really, really want to?

Yeah. So I know this is a recommendation you and I bring to the folks that we work with on the regular. If it's, how do we break down our feedback in a way that it can actually be constructive, and we can walk them through their learning and shift toward whatever we're trying to help them with? And how can we frame challenging things in positive ways so that it can be better received?

It's not that we're being dishonest or that we're being too soft. It's how can we provide that feedback in a way that it will be received, and then they'll be able to actually act on that constructive feedback. So, I'm really curious from your perspective. I mean, sometimes we'll get pushback on some of these things, and sometimes, you've you've been around the block a lot. You're one of the highest tenure folks that we've got around the consultancy.

What is kind of your belief that this isn't just being too soft, it's not just being a pushover, it's not, call them to the carpet, and they need to know what they did wrong and all of that. How is this not just being too soft or being too nice? It's actually being helpful.

Well, they need to know what choice they made that's not appropriate. But the way I deliver that is going to provide the outcome for whether or not I get a change in behavior. Very much so, it's that method of delivery. I find very often my challenging kids are often my loudest kids because in their community, in their home space, it's the loudest voice that gets the attention. And because of that, in those kids, I practically never raise my voice at them. I will drop my voice a tone or two so that I come at them quietly, and that confuses the stuffing out of them because they're not used to being talked to quietly; they're used to being yelled at. And when they get yelled at, they shut down.

So if I come at them quietly, then all of a sudden I'm different and I've got their attention. If I can't engage them, I cannot get a behavior changed. Because if I yell, they shut down. It does not matter what I tell to them. It's not making an impact. It's not getting through. It's not going to have any sort of change effect. If I come at them, what could be perceived from the outside as too soft?

What I'm really doing is engaging and having an impact. And from the outside, if you don't know the kids, you're not going to necessarily see that. “Why are they not calling that kid on the carpet?” Well, because when I call the kid on the carpet, the kid's going to just shut down and flame out even higher than they're already flaming.

Yep.

If I take it down a notch, then de-escalation is happening, and hopefully, through conversation, how to make a different choice is being imparted. Because with my challenging guys, they are not typically intentional on, “I really want to be a badass.” It’s “This is the only thing I know. This is what I have grown up. This is what I have learned. These are the behaviors I have used that have gotten me through life, that have gotten me to the point at which I am now.” If they knew how to do something different, they might, but I have to go in on the assumption that they are what they are as they are because that's what they've seen, that's what they know, and you cannot demonstrate behavior you have never seen in your life.

Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah. It's so cool listening to you talk about this from the elementary perspective because the way you're describing it is exactly how I work with students in secondary. So it's kind of neat to hear that the same approach, you know, can I just be quiet when you're getting loud? And then all of a sudden, I am out of your norm, and you don't know how to handle me. And so now all of a sudden we're engaged as opposed to, like, “I know how to deal with this”, right? Like, and “you can raise me and I can raise you back”. There's none of that that's at play because all of a sudden it's like, “wait, what's going on?” They're truly out of their element, and they don't know.

I mean, I've worked with students 18, 19, 20, right? Like, they're trying to push through to try to get a diploma out of their train wreck of a high school career. And they are just now- like, I've had students literally on the way out to the bus right before graduation, just then having the “aha” of going, “oh, I could do this differently.”

Like literally at that point. So the same conversations that you're planting the seeds for well back in elementary, you know, I'm having the same conversations with some students that either haven't had those conversations, haven't had them frequently enough, it hasn't landed, it hasn't stuck, it hasn't hit them in a way that they're making their own. And then all of a sudden, right before graduation, they're going, “Oh, I get it. Maybe this is possible.”

Well, and to just sort of tag on a little bit of your coming across too soft. All the research says when you are hot and angry, your endorphins are charging at a pace where you are not logical, you are not reasonable, you are not receptive to anything other than “I am hot and angry right now.” But a lot of times it will be, “No, I'm not charging at you to correct you.” It's like, “dude, you are really angry right now. We can't have a conversation.” Or “You have pushed my last button, and I am really angry, and I can't have a conversation right now.” So we both need a little bit of a timeout, and then we'll come back at this in a couple of minutes when all of the body chemistry has chilled down a little bit, so that just physically, two parties are in a place to have a conversation to impact change.

Yeah, I love that. I think we've used the words around here, “teacher timeout”. Going, like, “I need to put myself on pause because I'm about to say something that I am going to regret, so I need to not do that. And then we will come back to this when I'm a little less hot”. And I’ve had those conversations, used those words, modeled walking to my desk, pulling myself together, and then walking back and jumping back into instruction, and like, I will model for you what it looks like to pull yourself back together and keep doing what we need to do. But then, yeah, we're going to circle back to this conversation and figure out, like, “okay, so what happened?” I mean, I've literally looked students in the face and been like, yep, you got me.

I am choosing to keep what I am thinking in my head because I will get in trouble if it comes out of my mouth. You got me. I'm not going to say what I'm saying. We'll deal with this later. You know? 

I'm taking my adult timeout, and I'll get back to you.

Yep. And it is like, I'll own it, right? Like, you got me. You got me. But that doesn't mean that I then need to react and blow back and do what they already know and are kind of expecting when I use those words, of being like, you got me. I'm gonna pull myself together, and then we're gonna talk about this. They're like, wait, what?

I have had the occasional student who knows exactly where to poke and how to poke. And I'll just look at them and say, okay, I got you. Now, can we move on?

Yeah, exactly. I used to get a new student, and they'd cuss me up and down and all this, and all the other guys would be kicking back, waiting, like, okay, okay. And then they'd be done. I'm like, “Okay, you feel better now? Cool. So here's what we're doing for our lesson.” And they were like, mind blown. The rest of the class would giggle like, yeah, that's all right. Welcome, man. You'll get used to it. This is miss, you know, like that kind of stuff. But it is just that unfamiliar, like a non-reactive blowback type of response that they're used to, that then all of a sudden they're like, wait, what?

Like genuine confusion. But then that has positioned them to be more receptive, more open. I've been able to have some very real and raw conversations with students that, quite frankly, either former and or current staff have kind of tossed aside as like, that's not going to happen, right? Like, they are the hold the feet to the fire, “they know what they're doing. You just need to hold consequences, and then they'll get themselves in line, or we'll just kick them out of here.”

I've had very eye-opening conversations with students simply because of how the feedback was provided was so outside of their norm that then they started hearing it and then they started trying things, and then started seeing how that actually worked out for them, and then started seeing options and opportunities, and they were like, whoa, mind blown.

But the whole hold your feet to the fire mentality does not really open the door for any sort of constructive dialogue that allows the student to internalize differences in the choices they could make. Because at the end of the day, I cannot force any human being to do something they are not willing to do. Now, I can provide them guidance, I can provide them explanations for why choice a is more appropriate than choice b.

But at the end of the day, every human chooses between choice A and choice B. As an educator, it's my goal and my intent to say, let me put together a set of instructions, conversations, explanations, so that the person to whom I'm speaking can say, Oh, yeah, that kind of makes sense. Maybe I'll give that a try. And then when they give it a try, oh my gosh, you better believe I'm going to notice because those little people who are used to being told they're not doing it, not doing it, not doing it, not doing it.

It is so depressing. So you got to say, hey, dude, I noticed you walked in line and you did not touch the person in front of you. It may have only been for three and a half feet, but for three and a half feet, they had success. Maybe next week it'll be 5ft, and the week after that we'll get all the way down the hallway. But every journey starts with an initial step.

Thank you so much for this perspective. I love that last week we had Manny talking about kind of that respectful learning environment and how that kind of staff-student interplay really fuels the culture of that space. But he's young and new in his career, and I love hearing this from your perspective, who's done this with tons of students in all kinds of different settings and schools and needs and all of the things really echoing the same message. It's really refreshing to kind of hear that from both sides. And I'm so lucky that I get to work with both of you. So thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.