Preparing the Next Generation of Our Workforce: A Middle School Principal's Passion to Activate, Inspire, and Lead Youngsters into Their Car

0:06 There are some people that make their work just another thing they have to do, and there are those that make their work something that they want to do. Welcome to Working on Purpose with your host Elise Cortez. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration from those people who have found deeper meaning and personal connection to their work life. It's beyond nine to five. It's working on purpose. Now Here is your host, Elise Cortez. Welcome back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I'm your host, Elise Cortez, Johnie from Dallas, Texas, which is home base for me. This program is all about helping people more meaningfully and productively connect with their work and equipping organizations do the same for their employees. It was originally inspired by the meeting and work research I've been doing over the last fifteen years and now compliments the work that I do at Insignium, which is a global management consulting firm. Let me thank my meta partner and sponsor first jobbing dot com. They are the leading locally focused jobboard in the nation and are dedicated helping employers find quality talent in their own backyard and giving job stickers control over their search so they can find work close to home. Great partnership. Thank you jobbing dot Com. Last week, if you missed the show live, you can catch an on podcast. We were on the air with Martha Parker, who was president of m Urge, a corporate wellness and management firm based in Houston, Texas. She technically supports customers by offering ergonomic assistance in design, redesign, and retrofit of new and existing office in industrial workspaces. We've talked about her field of ergonomics, the four ms she addresses in the work she does. Now she works with her clients to improve the comfort and productivity

1:38 of their work. I learned a ton from her. With us this week is Evan Robb, who is the principal of Johnson Williams Middle School in Berryville, Virginia. He's the author of the Principal's Leadership sourcebook, Practices, Tools and Strategies for building a Thriving School Community, and also maintains a blog called the Rob Review Blog. He joins us to day from Winchester, Virginia. Principal Rob, Welcome to working on purpose. At least, I am so excited to be here this evening. I'm please feel free to call me Evan. Okay, we'll do absolutely excited how we you know, we connected through social media, and so I'm excited to talk about how social media has been a tremendous influence on me and helped me further define what working working for purpose means to me as a principal but also as a person. I love it.

2:28 I absolutely love it, Evan. Yes, I'm tickled pink that we've found each other on Twitter, and we also have a friend in common. Mary. What's Mary's last name? Doctor Mary Howard? Doctor Mary Howard. Yes, give a shout out to her. She's fantastic. So, speaking of shout outs, here, would you just give us a quick introduction of yourself and sketch your early career beginning as a teacher. I wist liked to give our listeners a little bit of context for who's speaking to them. I will do that, and you know, tonight, what I'd like to do is kind of frame up I'm hoping that. I'm sure some people may be interested in me talking from a principal's perspective, but I will try to broaden things and really focus around leadership and the choices that we make those of us who are in leadership positions to be a positive influence for people who are around us and encourage people to be excited and committed and passionate about the work that they do. I started in education back in the very very early nineteen nineties, and I started as a teacher. I actually started as a teacher in the school where I am currently principal, and I worked as an English teacher, a history teacher, a team leader, a department chair, and had a wonderful experience at Johnson William's Middle School in the early to mid nineteen nineties.

3:45 And the Clark is a small county, and so I needed to seek some opportunities elsewhere. In nineteen ninety eight, I went to Warren County, which is a neighboring county to where I currently work, and I served as principal of a junior high school there through two thousand four, and at that time I had an opportunity to apply and return back to Clark County, and in July two thousand and four, I became principal of the building where I began my teaching career, and I have been principal there ever since. You know, one interesting little fact about the school where I'm principal of. The school where'm principal of has only had two principles since nineteen ninety six, and that is a very very rare thing in our business. Certainly, it's a business where a lot of turnover and people are not in jobs that that long.

4:31 But I and my predecessor have been able to have long careers in Clark County. We've enjoyed it very much. I can actually tell just listening to your voice. I've been just listen to all talk about it. They absolutely love education, you know. And along the way, I've had some really exciting opportunities. You know, I have had the opportunity to write a book. I've had opportunities to speak all across the country. I speak about goal setting and team building and leadership and and again the personal choices that we make in leadership positions to be positive influence for people about how to build commitment versus using position authority for compliance. And also ultimately I'm finding ways to adopt the growth mindset into what I do and the people that I work with. But like many people who I'm sure have been on your show, I am very fortunate because I have had many people who have been an incredible influence to me along the way, to help me as I have moved through my career.

5:31 My number one influence would be my mother, who I believe as listening tonight, my absolutely hey mom, who never give up on me and always push me to to be what she thought that I could be. And because of her and many other people who I've known throughout my life, I'm including my life and I would certainly say something give a shout out to my wife. I've had a lot of great support along the way to achieve the goals that I've chief professionally. So important. It is so important to have that kind of support and cheer section. But why education, Evan, You chose a career in education, Why that field and how did it come about? I took a I took an interesting route to my career in education. I think that when I was growing up, Lisa spent I spent a lot of time trying to resist that as my calling. My mother had been a teacher and still is. My father was a teacher and a college professor. And when I went through college, I decided to go into business, and I actually went through a graduate program, an NBA program, thinking that I was going to pursue a career in business, and then decided, probably when I was just about done with that program, that that was not for me. I was actually I realized I had this sort of kids met moment that education is where I need to be in education is what I want to do. And I think one of the influences for me, although as a reflect on it,

7:02 I don't think I knew it when I was in my graduate program. But in my graduate program believe a'ren an MBA program, I came into contact with several professors who were huge advocates, although they may not have known it. Of the growth mindset. I encountered people who had incredible faith in me and encouraged me to be something that I may not have thought that I could be. And I also encounter people who were very supportive of me choosing a different direction over business and actually choosing education. So I made a decision back in the very very early nineteen nineties to pack up my MBA and pursue my teaching endorsement, and I've never looked back since then. Of course, ever made I love that, you know, I have to ask those kind of questions because I've been researching up people discover a career and find meaning in it for years, so I couldn't resist fantastic response to I'm not surprised. There's such an element of passion in what you do, and the fact that you went from business at an NBA program to becoming an English and history teacher is fascinating. Yeah, it was. It was. It was an interesting turn, but again it proved to be the best thing that I ever did.

8:18 But I learned so much in my business program about really more about myself and about my capabilities and and realize, you know, ultimately, of course, that that education was where I needed to be and I've been there ever since. Well, I think that all of your students can can thank you for that. So I'm I'm always curious when I think about You've clearly made an impact in your field, Evan. You clearly are. You're blazing a trail. So I'm interested to understand what problems are you most interested in a dressing and education today and why. Yeah, that's a great question, and it's something I think about a lot and something that I work with my team on it lot. You know, one of the things, and this would apply just not of course the education, but to anyone who's in a leadership position.

9:07 Is I am a big believer in working with my team and problem solving together. I have a long since let go of the of the weight that I could carry on my shoulders of varying responsibility for every single decision that's made within an organization. And I know at least that you're interested in strength Finder and helping people kind of focus in on their areas of strength and how that can help build an effective team. And I've read that about You're really interesting and actually in my school, we've done the strength Finder assessment with our leadership team to get better understanding of our strength and what we each can bring to the table. So everything that I talk about is all because I have really great super people that work with me. And I have a lot of people that work with me who have skills that I do not have, but I am fortunate to have them with me, and together we all make a fantast team. But back to your question about the things that I really think about when I think about education today and the trends that are happening in education, there are a few things that come to my mind in number one. I'm extremely interested in equity and opportunity for students. Big disparities across our country between areas that are wealthy in areas that are that are not, and I am incredibly committed to trying to level that playing field for students because I am have always been such a believer that education is the pathway that helps students achieve any goals that they want as they head off into life. I'm also very passionate

10:37 about technology, as you might know, because we met through social media, which of course is as a technology and medium that sees a lot within schools also but very interesting transformative technology. I talk about that a lot with my staff and we work on that a lot, focusing on how technology in schools can trans form the way that we do business, so thinking different instead of thinking about inserting technology to take the place of something. As an example, there are lots of apps that allow a teacher to do a jeopardy game or something like that within the classroom through technology, and it's no different than the same game that I had. But when I look at Google and Google platforms and I see how people can connect and access technology from anywhere in the world.

11:26 I see that as incredibly transformative and something that I'm very very passionate about. I do believe that in the day and age that we live in now, a great teacher will not be defined solely by their use of technology, but every great educator will effectively use technology. And that's an interesting thing to think about, and it represents a big shift that's going on in our business of education right now, and it's very very exciting. I am also really really interested in how to create environments that are creative and dynamic for students and staff, and looking at the environments that we have within schools differently, A lot of in schools are different than any other organizations, A lot of them, A lot of businesses, and a lot of a lot of schools do things because it's the way that they've always done them. And one of the things that I'm really passionate about is taking an honest look at the practices that we have within schools and looking at them honestly and asking some tough questions.

12:31 Many of them absolutely are great and certainly worth carrying on, but I think there are other practices that exist within schools and organizations that need to be looked at and maybe their time has come. I think that one of the things that I've often talk to staff about is that we all carry sometimes aligness is blanket. If you're a fan of peanuts, he would carry his blanket with him everywhere and never let go of it. Sometimes we do need to let go of those things, and when we let go of those things, we have a really much better chance to find the personal greatness that's inside of us. And I think at the end of the day, I am incredibly interested in developing greatness and people around me, and of course providing opportunities for students.

13:18 It just seeps through every tone of your voice. Ivan, for sure, there is so much. Yeah, there's so much you said there. But I just want to grab one thing really quick before I go onto the next thing I want to get from you, and that is you mentioned you giving up some of these long held practices. Can you give us maybe one example of a practice do you think that really needs to be examined and considered to be let go of? Absolutely? Absolutely. Well, I'm going to give you two. I'm going to make the first one really short, then the second one will be a little bit longer. I think extra credit is something that that schools need to take a really good look at. When my own children were in school, I remember that they could bring in lots of boxes of shoes and get extra points added to their tests when they take a test. But the extra points that they would learned from bringing in tissues were not necessarily giving a good indication of their learning. And I think that's a practice that needs to be looked at, and I commend my staff. I'm so proud of my staff because we had tough conversations about that and we have let go of that blanket that certainly some people have held over time. The other thing that I think needs to be looked at with their education is grading.

14:31 And of course, you know, since you and I met on social media, I thought it would be really cool tonight if I talked about people that I've connected with through social media and how I've learned from them. I'm kind to integrate into our conversation. So a couple of people that I've learned a lot from on social media is Rick Wormeli and Tom Gusky, and they've done some amazing work on grading and really get people to think differently about grading and shake up the paradigm about grading. I think that grading in schools at times can become a chase for point accumulation, and sometimes students are more motivated to achieve points than they are to learn. And I think it's a really interesting conversation that schools can go through, which is how do we make that shift, how do we encourage students who are who are so focused on the grade to take more risks than they're learning in a safe way. And that's a big conversation. I know, it's more than the scope of our of our chat tonight. That's certainly something that is very valuable to talk about something I've been talking about with my staff for a long time. I mean, we're making good inroads in that. I really appreciate both of those points, and those are phenomenal, and I'm glad that I was that you were able to just kind of give us some particulars on how you would think to change some of the status quo or long held traditions. Beautiful, Oh my gosh.

15:52 And I also appreciate that you shared a couple of people that you learn from who you found on social media, because I know that's one of your big things is using technology and also using using social media to connect with students and parents. So what a gorgeous example. We only have a couple of minutes for we need to go on on our first break here, but I want to start with a little bit about this whole notion about your interest in promoting a growth mindset among both your students and also your faculty. Will you say a little bit about why that's important to you, How did you discover it, why is it important to you? And we'll probably continue the conversation after the break, but at least start us off. Yeah, that's that's fantastic, you know, to frame up for our listeners who may not know about that. There's there's really three kinds of mindsets. A fixed mindset is the mindset that most of most people grew up with when when they went through education, and that certainly did and I can speak more to that if we have some time a little bit later. Fixed mindset means I will make those determinations made about what I can do and what I cannot do. I'm a typically surface in the surfaces in the ear of mathematics, where you're often here kids or families say well, you know, I can't do math. No into my family could ever do math now. A growth mindset is based off of the work of Carol Dwick from Stanford. It's fascinating and it has to do with a mindset of you know, I'm not good at math, but with a lot of help and a lot of support and a lot of practice, and with people that believe in me, I can do math now.

17:25 The next level, which I find very interesting, is based off of the work of George Corros who I also connected with through Twitter, and that would be the innovator's mindset, which is an extension on the work of Carol Dwick. Where you're saying, with practice, I can create a growth mindset would be with practice, I can learn how to play the piano, even though I'm not naturally good at the piano. With lessons I can I can stick to it, and I can learn how to play the piano and apply an innovator's mindset to that. You would say, not only can I learn how to play the piano with practice and support, but I can create music that is gorgeous and a perfect way to cue us up for the break. So hold is your thought for the next bed here? I want to die more into that. I'm your host, Elise Cortez. We've been on the air with Evan rob who is the principle of Johnson Williams Middle School in Berryville, Virginia. He's the author of the Principal's Leadership sourcebook, Practices, Tools and Strategies for building a Thriving School Community. He joins it today from Winchester, Virginia. We've been talking about his early career, why he got into education, what he sees needs to be changed. After the break will dive more into the growth mindset and some other other areas that he's working on with his students. Stay with us Friend us on Facebook to keep up with what's empowering the world. Voice America Empowerment Elie Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development

19:00 catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. Have you friended us on Facebook yet? Why not? Just go to Facebook dot com, forward slash Voice America or search for the keywords Voice America. Once you are part of our Facebook network, you'll receive daily messages about what's happening with our shows, this week's feature Yes, and new happenings at the Voice America Talk radio network. And you can add your voice to be always active discussions on our wall. Just go to Facebook dot com, forward slash Voice America or search for Voice America. It's your world. Motivate, change, succeed, Voice America Empowerment dot com. This is Working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, please call in to one triple eight three four six nine one four one. Again that's one triple eight three four six nine one four one. You may also send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back

20:34 to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. If you're just joining us. My guests. Principal Evan rob of Johnson William's Middle School. He speaks across the country on leadership and the effective principle, how to improve literacy in schools, the digital digital teams, and the impact of culture and positivity on work. He enjoys authoring his blog called the Rob Review Blog. I'm your host to Elice court Has so just before the break, Principal Rob, I know that you asked me to call you evanbo. I'll go back and forth just for fun. We were talking about the growth mindset and you help us understand the innovator's mindset. So I'm interested to understand what you think the role of efficacy and collective efficacy is in contributing to the innovator mindset or the growth mindset, either one. You know, I'm so excited about our conversation tonight, Alice and efficacy and collective efficacy that they totally intertwine. Growth mindset is the mindset that a student can have in a classroom if conditions are set up within the school for that to happen. And part of the way that that happens has to do with the belief systems that teachers have about students that are in their classroom. But I would also say this totally connects to any organization where people want to optimize and get the absolute best out of people. Efficacy is simply the belief that a person has that they can make a difference for someone else. In education, that means the faith of a teacher in the students that are before them.

22:07 Collective efficacy is very powerful because that has to do with the vibe or the feeling within the entire organization and how the organization focuses and believes in the students that are there. In the case of the school. A lot of this is based off of some really interesting research by John Hattie out of New Zealand and also by Peter DeWitt On, both of who I've also connected with on Twitter. And John Hatty's research would actually say that the number one thing that makes it makes a real difference for students within the school is the efficacy that a teacher brings into the classroom when they work day in and day out with the students that are in front of them. It is an incredibly powerful thing and it has a really strong effect because when teachers believe that they can make an impact on kids, it coincides beautifully with the growth mindset, because people who have a fixed mindset do not believe that everyone can get it. Fixed mindset would lead people to believe into the sorting and selecting mechanisms that many of us experienced when we went through school, whether it was the Bluebird group, when you were a little kid in elementary school, which was the high reading group, or you were in the higher the low reading group, or when determinations were made when you were in high school about where you could go after high school. So I'm a big champion, always been a big champion of bringing in people and making sure that we're developing people that have a high degree of personal efficacy when they work with kids. And I would say that when

23:41 schools, and I think anyone who's listening to this is a principle would agree with me. You know, when the question always comes up with you know, what do you look for when you're hiring teachers to come into a building, When you're looking for people that have content knowledge, that have great pedagogical skills, that have a growth bond set, that have a really really high degree of efficacy, and also people that get what Eric Scheneger, who's another person I connected with through Twitter, would call the three hours of education, which is relationships, Relationships and relationships. Those things are in place, magic can happen in a classroom. Oh my gosh, this is just brilliant to listen to you talk. This is right up my alley. All no wonder we connected immediately as we did on Twitter. I just I get your vibe.

24:22 I appreciate your perspective, your passion, and I'm aligned on these things. So one of the things that we talked about while we're on break is talking a little bit more about how what you've been talking about relates to some of these this limited perspective and belief that we have about math in this nation. Will you say a little bit more about that. I will. I think that you know. And this is this is me talking from some of the things that I'm incredibly passionate about. I believe that algebra is a gateway course for students and opens up opportunities not only for advanced math in high school, but there is certainly recent search that points to students who successfully take algebra in schools that they pursue higher level of mathematics and in many cases pursue education after high school. So I think it's very important that schools make a commitment to helping students learn and master algebra, but also all mathematics. But I can think of no other subject when I think about subjects that occur in school that are more entrenched in a fixed mindset than mathematics. There is not a year that goes by that I will not have a meeting with a student, or sometimes a parent or even sometimes a grandparent who will who will communicate that they've never been good at math, and then when in their family is ever good at math, so certainly their children can't be good at math. And unfortunately, people who feel that way are products of going through schools that were very focused on a fixed mindset where they were sorted and selected and possibly not

25:56 given the opportunities to learn how to develop skills and become really good math students. And it's really sad, and it's something that I'm very, very determined to change. I absolutely believe that with the right teacher, the right relationships was in the classroom, with a high degree of efficacy, strong content knowledge, and a commitment to professional development and strong pedagogical skills, that magic can happen in the classroom. And absolutely kids can learn mathematics, they can learn algebra, and they can learn above algebra. But I think it's critical that that schools and sucial people that are leadership positions do not do not get entrenched in this mindset that students can or cannot do mathematics or any subject for that matter. Well, I certainly applaud that. I mean, as the person who's dedicated herself to basically helping people develop themselves in one form or the other.

26:55 I am also in the general field of education, so completely apply odd what you're saying. And it also makes me now wonder of the one of the things that you mentioned on the phone when we spoke. When we spoke at first, was you reference something about Simon Sinek's golden circle concept. I don't know how this relates to or if it does relate to their growth mindset, but I'd like to hear more about that. Yeah, it absolutely does. If there's one video that I could recommend anyone who's listening to us tonight or anyone who listens to this at some later date, is take a look at Simon Sinek's video called the Golden Circle. It is probably the most powerful YouTube video that I have ever watched, and I have shared it many times with staff in our building and used it as a springboard for wonderful, wonderful conversations. And I can give a very simplistic overview of it, but I don't want to take away from people that I would really encourage to watch that video. So he draws three concentric circles and basically what he says on the outside is that people are not inspired by what you do, and they are not inspired in the second circle by how you do it. People are inspired by why you do things. The power is when your words are congruent with your actions and what are really really interesting concepts. So within the classroom and education, so I can I'll move this into a middle school zone and say,

28:27 you know, there have been times over the years when when friends of mine may have hired someone who has very very strong credentials. Let's say that they have an Ivy League degree, the very very very very strong content knowledge, but they don't connect well with kids. And you and I know, at least because we're in this business, that if you can't connect with twelve and thirteen year olds and you're a middle school teacher, that they don't care that you have a degree from a very very University Head's right exactly. But where the magic occurs is when the students understand the why. And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about. We're talking about efficacy.

29:08 Efficacy is this belief that I, as a principle or I as a teacher, believe that I have the skills and I will continue to develop the skills to make you successful. The why component comes in when kids get me and they understand and they believe that I am the vehicle that can help them achieve their goals. There's a really really interesting duality there. So it's not just my personal belief and how I communicate my personal belief, but it's also the student understanding me and believing that I can be that person that can help them get it. Even though they never learned, they were never able to do math before, I can be the person that can help them learn math.

29:52 And it all comes back to getting that good understanding of what your why is and communicating your why. And I would say for people and leadership positions, and again, I've read a lot of a lot of this stuff, so I feel like I'm saying things that I know you believe in. It is very important to know your why, and it's equally important to communicate it, and to communicate it over and over again. I completely I will say two things to that if I can't even First, I literally just came back from a very very large breakthrough project where the leadership team hadn't well articulated the why of this really enormous schoolbal project that they were enrolling literally almost a hundred people in to do. And no surprise, there was a big, dull thud, right. But once they got them back on track with the why, everybody was totally enrolled. But you took some work, right to get everything back on course. But if they had said that why up front in a convincing, clear, compelling way, we wouldn't have had that hiccup. But so that's one thing I'll say. The other thing that I'll say about the whole hy thing, and I do know Simon CinEx work. I completely had forgotten the notion of just that goal in circle, but the ypiece registered.

31:02 When I teach my students that s are the Methodist University how to get and keep their first job, one of the things that I have them do, of course, is to create a little bit of an elevator pitch and they have to have the y statement and they're really compellingly situated. And that's the great fun, right when these kids can articulate why they're on fire to go off and do something. I'm like, that's what people are going to get enrolled. So I completely get that and appreciate how you connected those concepts back to efficacy and the innovation mindset, the growth mindset that was that was alluring. Shall we say for me, well, I appreciate that. I think that it is. It's a wonderful thing when when you figure out what, no matter what position that you occupy within your life, why you're interested in doing it, and where does your passion come from? And when that happens, people will be drawn to you, and they'll be drawn to you for the right reasons. Of the challenges in leadership positions is sometimes people try to build alliances by compromising what they believe in. And that may build a temporary alliance, but it's not good and it's not healthy. You know best, the best alliances and the best team building to bring into an organization is to have people that have an incredibly high degree of alignment to what you believe in them to what you believe in. And you know what, I always like to tell people, you're positive, and this is just simple, but positive people always attract positive people. Negative people tend to attract negative people, and

32:34 most interestingly, negative people who wonder why they only attract negative people, they probably need to take a look in the mirror. Yeah, just not quite aware. A very interesting concept, you know, But I believe that, and I've spoken to the beginning that I'm really interested in helping kids and everyone that works around me find whatever the personal greatness that's inside of them. But to do that, you need to understand your way. And if you don't understand you why, you're never going to find that because that's going to be your source of personal inspiration and that's going to be how you inspire other people. Completely agree, and then maybe on the other side of that camp, I like to talk about two areas around the education and workspace that I think are really compelling and interesting topics today. One is about critical thinking and the other one is about creativity. So I'm interested in your perspective, Evan, on how students today are learning to think critically and what are you doing to help contribute to that learning. That's a fantastic question, you know, And I would probably bring it, bring it all the way back to some personal experiences that I had. But I would venture that there were people listening right now, with people who will listen that will relate exactly to one I said.

33:52 To what I say, I would say critical thinking is one of the most important things that we can bring into schools all across all across America, because public schools and private schools need to start thinking about the skills that students need to have when they graduate school to get ready for working beyond. But I was a product of mechanistic teaching. So I'll give you a simple example. But I bet people can relate to this example. When I was in high school, I remember thinking I was a fantastic student of history, and I had this history class that was incredibly structured. We would come in and take notes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we would play a review game on Thursday, and we would take a multiple choice test of facts every Friday.

34:35 And I did very well. And I also thought I was a great history student. Possibly I had some sort of career being connected to history, but what I learned was all that I was good at was regurgitating knowledge. I wasn't necessarily good about a good thinking about history. And so the interesting thing when we think about public schools nowadays is everything that I used to judge myself, every factoid about history and how whatever I memorize to make high grades on my tests when I was in high school. I can access every single one of them on my iPhone, which is sitting right in front of me, every single one, but my iPhone will not tell me how to make an emotional connection to history. It won't tell me how to think and conceptualize events that occurred in history and possibly how they relate to me personally or how they relate to the world around me. Those kind of skills involve critical thinking, and it involves a bit shift within classrooms from public schools probably all the way up through your end at the university level, and how we go about getting kids to think to think differently. I would say that what's most important is that staff needs to start learning to do things differently, and they need to be willing to invest in ongoing professional relevant that enhances their skills to change the way that they do things. One of the things that I like to tell

36:06 my staff, and I pushed out on Twitter A lot is in education today. We need to teach students for their future, not our past. Oh great, it's an interesting concept. And yes, and it has a lot to do with mindset, because people that have a fixed mindset might say, well, it was good enough for me, why wouldn't it be good enough for you? But people who have a growth mindset would say, the world is a lot different now than when I experience school. So I need to think differently about what I do because my job is to prepare children for a world that I don't necessarily even know what it's going to look like. Public education, public educators all over America are preparing students for jobs that didn't exist five years ago. That is a great point. That is a great point, perfect one. Let's hold that for a second time for another short break.

37:00 Here, I'm Elise Cortez, your host. We were on the air with Evan rob who is a principal. Who is the principal of Johnson Williams Middle School in Berryville, Virginia. He's the author of the Principal's Leadership sourcebook, Practices, Tools and Strategies for building a thriving school community. He joins it today from Winchester, Virginia. After the break, we'll talk more about the idea of creativity, as well as many other new trends happening in education today. Stay with us Friend us on Facebook to keep up with what's empowering the world. Voice America Empowerments. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase in engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite a last to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. We're making it easier to listen to the Voice America Talk radio Network wherever you go. In addition to listening live, you can check out information about your favorite talk show hosts, discover new talk show personalities and shows to your list of favorites, and listen to all our show archives on demand, all from your iPhone BlackBerry or Android downloaded from the Apple

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39:57 You may also send an email to Elise a Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose. If you're just tuning in. My guest is Principal Evan rob of Johnson Williams Middle School. He speaks across the country and leadership and the effective principle, how to improve literacy in schools, the digital principle, social media, how to involve all staff and goal setting, how to organize effective work teams, and the impact of culture and positivity on work. He also enjoys authoring his blog called the rob Review Blog. I'm your host, Elise Cortez so Evan. Just before the break, we were talking, of course, about critical thinking and the importance of being able to develop that in students today, and then you mentioned while we were off on the break together how that might relate to grading. Will you say more about that? I certainly well appreciate your bringing that to the forefront here. I have learned a tremendous amount of grading and have the opportunity to work with with our staff for several years to think differently about the way that we grade in schools, and a lot of what I have learned has been based off of research by Rick Wormelli and Tom Gusky. My goal is to get people to think differently. So what I would say is that most people that are listening tonight, at some time or another, when they were in school, dealt with the average and in terms of all the grades that they received across a

41:28 nine week grading period for example, and how they were averaged together to be a descriptor of what they learned. So I'll pose a really simple question for people, and hopefully some people can take this and bring it back to their buildings, or parents can consider this as they have conversations also with teachers as they think about grading. So here's a really really simple example. Let's say that we are all going to work on our running skills and we practice running on the track. So the first time we go out to the track, we want to run a mile in twelve minutes, and we practice, practice, practice, and the next time we run it in ten minutes, the next time we run it in eight minutes, and finally, after lots of practice and some good coaching along the way, we run the mile in six minutes. So my question at least two people would be how fast do you run the mile? And most people, when they're given that question will say, well, I guess you run the mile in six minutes because you started at twelve and you went twelve, ten, eight, and six. But if you're using the average, you would average all of those times together and say eight minutes. But eight minutes is not a descriptor of how fast you can actually run the mile. So think about that in terms of a classroom and things such as mastery learning and us wanting to make sure that the grades that we give students in our schools are representative of their knowledge. So go along the same example of the mile times that I give and consider a student

42:58 who made some very poor grades beginning of nine weeks, but have lots of intervention and lots of support, and go and behold, at the end of the nine weeks, they take their final assessment and they make an A, and the A is representative of everything that they have learned over the course of that nine weeks. Should what they make in the beginning of the nine weeks be averaged to and held against them if it was with that pain and accurate picture of what they really know, and would it incentivised them to continue learning and develop that growth an innovative mindset. I think that that's a brilliant comment at least because I would say, and this would certainly coincide with the work of Rick Ormelly, that the most important thing that we can bring for kids in schools all across America, but also you as a college professor is hope.

43:50 And if you take away hope, kids don't try. And if you take away hope, I don't try either. Right. It's a very very important thing to have in schools, and but I believe that if we think a little bit differently about how we do things, we can find more opportunities to give kids hope and more opportunities for kids to be successful. Because I would say a lot of what we do with grading all across the United States of America is simply based off of the grading that we experienced when we were in school. Doesn't mean that it's it's that it's good. Certainly means that there's an opportunity to have some conversations about it. And those are courageous conversations, but those are conversations that are very important for people in leadership positions to have as we look to do the best we can for students all across the country. Great conversation, just the depth that I was hoping were to get from you. Thank you. Well. The other thing that you talked about that already queued up with you as well, that I definitely want to address here is this notion of creativity you talked about thinking differently, and certainly in the work that we do in Insignium, which is so much around performance breakthrough organizational transformation, a lot of what we're really getting at is help people.

44:59 People too, you think and act differently. So first, would you just say a little bit about what's your perspective on how is creativity encouraged at school? Then how do you cultivate it? Cultivating it is a really interesting question. I think I'll start there and say, and this goes for anything, whether it's education or any business. It's cultivated by building trust and relationships with the people that you work with within your organization. People will not be comfortable to stretch outside of their box and try new things if they don't feel trusted and if trust doesn't exist, and if those relationships are there, people simply won't take chances. They'll honker down. So it's incumbent on the leadership within an organization to not only model creativity and celebrate creativity, expose people to professional development on creativity, but to communicate the importance of it, and establish trust and relationships with staffed try things because when people try things, sometimes their fear is that they won't do it well and there's an leadership opportunity for administrators to set the stage that it's okay and we're all not going to be perfect on things when we first try things. But if we don't try things, we're never going to be good at doing something different. I think that schools need to take a really good look at the time that they have within their school day and the things that they do to cultivate creativity. I would encourage people

46:30 that are listening tonight to check out AJ Juliani's blog or connect with Aj on Twitter. He has some fascinating stuff on a thing called Genius Hour, which is very similar to something that grew out of the Google organization where people were given twenty percent of their time to work on innovation and creativity within Google. The Genius Hour is all based about around people or students rather exploring things that they're particularly interested in and delving deeper into them in a very different kind of way. Wow, I'm thrilled to hear about some of these concepts that are working well in the world of business, like what you mentioned at Google, are being considered and brought into the classroom. That is incredibly exciting to me.

47:20 Well, I appreciate you sharing that, you know, I didn't outside of the scope of our conversation tonight, but years ago, and I still continue to have a really strong interest in total quality management and the work of Edward Deming. I'm sure you're familiar with that with your business background. Yes. Deming was a big proponent of something called the eighty five fifteen model, which is maybe five percent of the problems that exist within any organization have to do with the system. They're typically not people related, and so we need to look at how we design the systems, in this case, how we design schools to set up opportunities for people to do things differently, to think differently, to create exciting opportunities for kids that are different m m oh, my gosh, it's just too bad. I only have you for an hour, because I could there's much more I want to talk with you about.

48:10 We're getting close to the end here. I definitely want to hit this next thing that's very much on the forefront of my mind here, Evan, and that is that I read in the Wall Street Journal that schools are returning to the idea of recess now. As somebody who is very interested in physical fitness and certainly live a problem with obesity in in this nation. I'm really curious about what's driving this need, this this idea to return to recess. I know, I knew, I've got a fourteen year old daughter, and of course i know there's been an emphasis on having more time for testing and more time for learning, more time in the classroom. So why the shift? Well, that's really interesting question. You know sometimes when and it goes true for this is true for any business, with the education or the business world, when people are questioned about having to do more, to do something a little bit different, responses often to have more time. So well, if I could, I could do that, but I would need more time to do that. But the other way to look at it is you would be it is the time that you are using the most effective way to use your time, and can you use time differently? And I think in terms of fitness and kids working on having some breaks within their school day. That's a really interesting way to think about schools. And again I would come back to again, a lot of what we do within schools across America we do because we've always done them. I would love to know why most schools in America

49:43 seem to have four minutes in between every class. I'm guessing that a long time ago someone decided that that was a good thing to do, and most schools in America have four minutes in between classes. But to my knowledge, there's no research that four minutes is any better than three and a half, four or five. But again, we do it because we've always done it that way. There are schools across the world that look differently at integrating physical breaks for kids, and I would point people to take a look at what's happening in Finland. Finland for several years has been a big proponent of students having more physical activity during their school day. I believe Finland and also some research on brain breaks where kids have breaks from their academic day during the school Our research shows and improve cognitive skills and improved perseverance and grit with students, and the opportunity to develop social and emotional growth as kids move through adolescence.

50:45 One of the things that I would say is that I would always encourage any administrator to take a day and shadow a student and see what it's like to go through a school day from eight in the morning until three thirty in the afternoon. And what I would venture to guess is that if your school has a very engaging environment where kids are moving around and they're learning, and they're working in groups and they have cooperative opportunities, probably could be a pretty invigorating day. But if it is a day similar to the days that I experienced for many many years when I was in middle school and high school, it could be rather tedious because sitting through a day of lecture and sitting and taking notes one block after the other is very very hard to do, certainly hard for me to do as a fifty one year old, ma'am, and extremely hard to do for a twelve year old who has a lot of energy.

51:44 So I think that we need again to continue to look at at our day, at the way instruction is delivered within our schools, and of course, as you could tell him, an opponent for instruction that is that is engaging for students, and also taking a look at the time that we have within the school day and looking at some opportunities to do things a little bit different. And again that that been shaking up that box a little bit, because it is very easy within education, but within any business to be tied down to one way of doing things. But when you really really dig into that bag, you realize that there may not really be any reason reason other than you've always done it that way. Oh my gosh. Well, and so when I think about just last week when I was on the air with Martha Parker, she was talking about ergonomics in her four MS. One of those ms she talks about is is engineering mini breaks in our work schedules, and of course that applies to school as well, and just the importance of being able to infuse that change of focus and and certainly having the physical piece integrated into that as well, and just how important that is for sand, for peace, for productivity she talked about as well. So it fits right into what you're talking about too, absolutely, it does. You know. Again, what I would always encourage is, don't I guess I want to make

53:16 sure I'm articulating this right. It is always good to look at how we do things and reflect on our practices and see if there's a different way to do things. I would encourage, And I'm looking forward to myself this fault to follow the student all the way through a school day and being able to debrief and share some really honest reflections with our staff about that as we continue on our journey to reevaluate some things that we're doing. Oh gosh, I've gotten so much of this conversation and we are officially at a time. So let me thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing your wisdom, your passion, your perspective. You gave us so many helpful ideas and different and people who have contributed to your learning. Thank you so much for being with us. It has absolutely been my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on yourself. If you want to learn more about Principal Evan Rob and the work he's doing an education, I would encourage you to visit his blog, which is the robreviewblog dot com. So that's the and Rob is with two Bees reviewblog dot com. Join us next week when we talk with Staff Sergeant Jason Morgan, who has a most remarkable story of service and survival while serving in the Air Force and is now on a mission to help people embrace their own adversity and sur brothers to find purpose in their life.

54:34 He actually is both quadriplegic and an imputee and has much to share. Also is the single father of three boys, incredible man to talk to, be able to share a perspective about adversity. So see you then, remember that work is one third of our lives, So let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose, featuring your host, Alice Cortez, every Wednesday at six pm Eastern Time three pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, find your life's purpose at work.