What's going on guys, busted pencils, producer Jacob with Dr. Johnny Lupinacci. Johnny, how
are you doing on this wonderful Saturday edition of busted pencils?
Hey, man, I couldn't be better, man. It's a Saturday. I love our Saturday shows because we get a
little bit of a longer format more time to chop it up and talk. And I'm especially excited about
today's topic and conversation because I won spent a lot of years as a teacher and to work with
a lot of teachers and future teachers. In a big part of getting better at teaching,
right, is having observations, being observed by your peers, being observed often by your
principal or maybe it's your mentor teacher or, you know, specialist in our district.
I get to observe teachers often as, you know, a teacher educator. And I get feedback
to people who are either better end teachers, new teachers, or are studying to become teachers.
And it's through that feedback, Jacob, through those observations that we learn what we can do
to be better at teaching. And it's a lot like coaching. I know we've talked about this before.
Yes, like the teacher coach connection, you know, not the, not the rainbow connection, but it's
similar, you know, in the fact that it's an exciting opportunity. But when we're teaching and we
get real-time feedback and observation from people who have a protocol on what to look for, you
know, on how to coach teachers to be more effective, to, you know, be more impactful with their
instruction, how to engage other students as active learners, right? There are a multitude of ways
that we can kind of, you know, you know, name the practices. But by and large, it's simple. If
you're a teacher out there, you know what I'm talking about. Every year, at least once,
ideally more often than that, right? You are observed by your principal or some leadership figure
in your building or in your district and ideally by peers and often by a mentor teacher. And they
give you feedback. They observe your classroom and you talk about how it didn't go so well and what
you might do differently. In fact, much like good coaching as teachers, we set goals, right? And then
we work towards those goals and we're observed to see if like, hey, have you grown? Are you meeting
those goals? Are you supported in trying new things in your classroom? It's an important part of
growing as a teacher. It's an important part of sort of accountability in our schools. But like
most things, it's one more thing for people in our schools to do. And you have, you know,
principals usually have the responsibility of doing this work. Maybe it's a vice principal or
assistant principal or, you know, department head in a building. But Jacob, this is something
that is time consuming as it should be. It is also something that oftentimes, you know, we have a
lot of bias in it. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it's often something we aren't
really taught to do as people observing. You know, you have to really commit to learning
how do you coach teachers? What's it all about? What protocol do you follow? What are the practices
you put into place to help teachers learn from the observations you do? And in other sense, Jacob,
instead of it just being an annual obligation for school leaders, you know, how do we develop
systems so that it's a generative process. It's one where teachers really feel like, hey,
I'm learning. And I'll relate it to coaching, Jacob. I was just talking with a really great coach
the other day. And he was saying, you know, some teams have all the pieces. They have the talent.
They have the knowledge of the game. They have, you know, experience. They have everything. And
your role as a coach is to, you know, pump them up is to keep them focused is, you know, to go
in there and say, hey, we got to try hard. We got to support one another. We got to execute the
game plan. We got to do X, Y and Z in there. They're motivators. And I think that's an important
thing that a good coach or a good, you know, teacher does for their students or anybody working
with teachers does. But they also need feedback. They need to be learners, right? Great players
on teams turn to coaches to be their teachers. They need to learn. Coach has to say, hey, you're doing
all these things really well. I need you to do, you know, this differently. I need you to think
about, you know, maybe it's your positioning or maybe it's how you made a certain play.
You know, you're always giving great coaches are always giving good feedback to people on their
team or to their athletes at all times. And really great teachers do this. Well, you know,
we talk about like if I'm learning to read in a classroom or I'm learning to write or I'm
studying math in my classroom, you know, my teacher is observing what I'm doing and giving
me real-time feedback and what I need to do differently or what I can do to be a better reader
or what's that next step to help me, you know, make a jump in my learning mathematics, right? So
great teachers are constantly observing where they're measuring and observing where their students
are at and giving them real-time feedback in a way that the student, you know, learns it. Some
students, it's, you know, auditory. We talk to the students. Some students, it's written and auditory.
Other students, you know, it's, you know, it's in a video. There's multiple ways, you know,
we can reflect on what we're doing and make improvements and adjustments. There's as many
different ways for people to learn as there are people who have a different perspective on things
or who learn in a different way and sitting in that spot that we're, that we're in right now,
thinking about the coach teacher connection. I actually so happened, Johnny, to have a clip I
prepared for the coach teacher connection. Oh, man, because I saw this. Yeah, you're chairman
of the board, man, letter, I was watching the NFL network and they were interviewing
Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Shottenheimer asking him about what he's looking for now that he's
hiring a new defensive coordinator and he had this to say. Yeah, I think John, a teacher, you know,
I love what Jerry said. We want to cast the wide, you know, that of candidates and find someone
that's a great teacher, a great communicator. You guys know me. You're around me a lot. I'm full
of energy and love what I do. I think someone that's passionate about football, but the ability to
take what is complicated information. What we ask our players to do in all three phases is
complicated. We want guys that can say complicated information in a simple manner. And if I say
something to you that you don't understand, I need the ability to say it a different way. The same
same message would say it a different way because how you learn might be different than how,
you know, Nick learned or how Ed learns. And I think that's the starting point for me.
And so if you're out there and you were skeptical about the importance of teaching and being
able to teach in different ways and the value of these skills, well, there are guys who are making
tens of millions of dollars in the NFL and their jobs depend on it and they recognize, oh boy,
you need someone who has these skills. There's a lot on the line here and it should be just as
important. I think Johnny to us and our schools across the country to care about the education
kids are getting as it is our football players getting from their coaches and it extends, Johnny,
the evaluation process coaches are always being looked at. How's the team doing? What are we doing
right? What are we doing wrong? And that's exactly the same thing that happens with teachers that
evaluation process. Absolutely, absolutely. And Jacob in this age of accountability that we're in,
it's formalized in districts in our state. So we really turn to, you know, these procedures
to help ensure quality instruction for all of our students. And, you know, I wish it was as,
you know, formalized in sports as it is in schools. But even within it being formalized, Jacob,
that doesn't necessarily mean that it's always great. And that's not me picking on the observers or
the teacher coaches, you know, or the administrators, because like I mentioned earlier in this intro,
you know, it's one more thing. A principal or a school leader has to do in their day. If we're
very lucky, we have building leaders who, this is their primary responsibility. And in fact,
they're sort of experts on it like teacher coaches. But as we know, most teachers out there,
these observations are more obligatory and less formative in our practice as we'd probably like
them or as ideally they're designed to be. So man, Jacob, I'm pretty stoked because today on a
Saturday show, you know, without being rushed by a class in session, I love our short format. But,
you know, we get to have with us today a guest. And when he comes on, we'll be able to give him a
proper intro. But listen, you know, we've got a guest today who is one of those experts. He's made
his career craft expertise as an educator, as a school leader, observation teacher observations.
What do I mean by teacher observations? Well, you know, Jacob and I have chewed it up a little
here to get going. But it essentially is, you know, a teacher is teaching a lesson. And an
observer comes into the classroom and does an observation to give feedback to the teacher
who is essentially a student in that context, right? Yeah. I can relate. I have a terrible golf
swing, Jacob. And I wanted to, you know, correct my golf swing a bit. What did I do? I said,
you know, at the driver, I said, hey, do you guys have golf coaches? They give lessons. Sure enough,
they absolutely do. Golfers out there, you know what I'm talking about. Well, they said, okay,
let's walk out here. We scheduled a lesson. We went out there. They videoed me. They gave me
real-time feedback. We watched the video together. They talked about what I needed to do to correct
my golf swing. They gave me some things to practice, right? And after about 15, 20 minutes of
that feedback after seeing me and my awful golf swing, you know, they said, practice this. Give
it a few more tries. Take an hour or so, you know, every couple of days and hit more golf balls,
repetition and practice. And I'll come back. We'll do another lesson and observation and see how
you're doing. Do you need to correct anything else? So that real-time feedback helped me correct my
golf swing. Now, I wish I could say that it, you know, made me a much better golfer. I think there
was improvement. But man, it's a hard, hard game. So, you know, I went back for more lessons, right?
And so kind of my connection here is that ideally, when we work with observing teachers,
it's not a one-off. It's not a once a year. It's not effective when it's only, you know, the minimum
obligatory observation. Cool. Check, check, check. Give teachers some feedback. You know, they
learned something and now we move on. There is sort of a whole strategy for how to support teachers
changing what they do in classrooms, right? How to make them better teachers. So we have a guest
today, Craig Randall, who specializes in teacher observation, the trust-based observation, right?
And this is going to be exciting. Craig Randall, when we come back from the break, he's a
counselor, a coach, a teacher, a principal, an author, a trainer, a consultant, right? And he's the
author of truth-based observation, maximizing teaching and learning growth. We're going to have
Craig on and we're going to talk about observing teachers and I can't wait. Stick with us,
busted pencils. When will we come back?
Oh, welcome back, busted pencils, fully-letted education talk, educated educators,
talk at education, pencil busters, our listeners. We introduced it in the early part of this
podcast, this download, this broadcast. If you're listening on Saturday live,
we have with us a guest, Craig Randall, a counselor, a teacher, a coach, a principal, an author,
a creator of trust-based observation. Craig has worked in schools around the world and developed
a strength-spaced approach to teacher observation that replaces compliance and fear with relationships,
reflection, and real professional growth. His work centers on two simple questions.
What were you doing to help students learn? And if you could re-teach the lesson, what might
you do differently? Turns out, those questions can change a school. If you believe teachers grow
best when they're trusted and supported, then this is the guy for you, this is the conversation,
and I'm a believer, teachers need and can improve. Even if you're a great teacher, listen out there,
you know that feedback, observation and coaching and trust and relationships helps us be better
teachers. Craig, welcome to busted pencils. Thanks for being here.
Thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited to be here.
Awesome, Craig. Tell us a little bit about you, your background. I mean, I give you the intro,
but give our listeners what landed you here as an expert in developing trust-based
or trust-based observations? Yeah, I started a pretty eclectic career. I was an elementary
counselor for seven years, did a year, and a severe behavior class as the counselor in the classroom,
physical restraint, switched gears and did college, small college basketball coaching for seven
years, and ultimately though, I didn't feel like there's making enough of a difference in the kids,
and that led to international school teaching. The first principal there said, Craig, I think
he'd be a good principal, and that really led to my finding my principal certification program,
where the guy that ran the program, first day of supervision class, he said, you need to be in classes
every day, supporting teachers, identifying their strengths, building from that, supporting them,
helping them grow, and he's the one that I got those two questions from, and we practiced every single
day in class, doing observations and building from them, and I got lucky with my first assistant
principal job, with a guy where I said, I have this crazy idea for observation, and he said,
let's do it. And he did it with me, and teachers just loved the difference. They loved that you
valued what they had to say. They loved having their strengths shared without a number or rating
tied behind it, and it just grew and evolved and evolved from there until maybe six years later,
an elementary principal I was working with said, Craig, you need to protect your work. And I was
like, what? And then I was like, oh, here, and then I presented at a conference and went really
well, I thought, gosh, maybe I should write an article and I got accepted and then came back from
being overseas and put it on paper and became a book. Now it trained schools all over the world.
So I can see two great things here right away, Johnny. Number one, I can see why Tim was
comfortable letting you and I handle this because he heard this fella has coaching experience,
and he knew, okay, this is Johnny's guy. Johnny's going to love this interview. And the second
thing I hear here is what we really love on busted pencils is when somebody has an interesting idea,
a new way of doing things, an experiment in the realm of education. We're all for it,
and we love hearing stories like this where people are having ideas, they're trying things,
and they're leading that innovation in education because that's so important, Johnny.
Absolutely. Yeah, Craig, we talk here a lot on busted pencils about the teacher coach connection,
and similarly, as a high school teacher, you know, and coach, and then professor,
teacher education and coach, you know, I was never as an educator able to separate out coaching
from teaching and teaching from coaching and the two go hand in hand. But Craig, for our listeners,
and this is really exciting because we get a lot of teacher guests on here. And we talk about,
you know, teaching and what it's like to be in the classroom. And a lot of our listeners are
principals and educators. So this is a topic near and dear to them. But for our listeners who are
in the community who are learning about how schools work, it's less familiar to them. Maybe
they're a parent or they're just a member of the community who hears about school effectiveness
and instruction. Can you talk to us a little bit in the listeners, explain what sort of
teacher observations typically are in general? And then what's really different because
there's something unique and different about trust-based observations. Can you give
our listener a little overview of what it typically is and what trust-based observation is?
Yeah, for sure. I think typically it feels really high stakes. It's a formal observation where you
with a teacher meet with your principal and tell them what you're going to teach. And then they
come in and watch you teach. And then they come in and have a meeting and they give you scores
on all these different areas of teaching. And they write you on a one-to-four scale. And then they
give you the report oftentimes because it's so high stakes. You're not really seeing real teaching.
You're seeing teaching that's done to tick the boxes. And so we're not even having real conversations.
Teachers don't like the stress that's involved. They don't even like that they're having fake
conversations. And they don't think principals really like it either. And so we come in unannounced.
We don't and would say to teachers really like because they don't have to do extra preparation.
So we're having conversations about real practice. And we focus on strengths. And we start with
strengths. We don't put numbers in front of it. And we ask those questions. And we ask those
questions without having the numbers tied to it. And we've focused on strengths. Teachers all
of a sudden feel valued. You care what I have to say. That matters to me. And then they're not
used to having their strengths shared unless there's some number. And then there's always something that
makes you feel less more cautious about it. And so really when that happens, teachers trust more
and they open up. And then they're much more willing to try new things that are going to help
them grow as opposed to the traditional way that we've been doing it all these years.
I love that. And listener, I bet you did too. We got more when we come back. More time with Craig
Randall and Trust Base Observations. Busted pencils.
Welcome back. Busted pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talk in education
Saturday broadcast. If you're downloading listening later, it's a podcast nonetheless great
conversation here with Craig Randall from Trust Based Observations right gave us an excellent
explanation in the previous segment about what we mean when we're talking about teacher observations
and what's different than the typical teacher observations that we've all experienced at least
all hopefully at least once a year in our schools and classrooms and all of us teachers and
school leaders out there know it's just not enough. It's not the kind of support that helps us
become better teachers right and that Trust Based observation as Craig kind of described
it's like a dream whether you're a veteran teacher or you're a new teacher that feedback,
that relationship, that conversation, that support about how we can be better at our craft
that you care so much about every kid deserves an excellent teacher but we become excellent teachers
and we get even better when we have awesome observations and great feedback and excellent support
and coaching that's what Craig's talking about Craig now we're in the next segment we got a little
more time and I love stories and so does our listeners and Jacob's a big fan you tell us a little
bit give us a story give us a memorable experience and when like Trust Based observation like big
moment it was like wow this stuff's really working. I have a good story I was training schools and
I had a school in the UK because we trained all over the place and it was amazing head teachers
what they call principal and so she had followed two incredibly toxic head teachers before
one had been so toxic that they actually called the teacher the seawird in front of other teachers
if you can believe it and so she comes in she's got a huge heart she reads Trust Based observation
that resonates with her she's like we got to get trained this is gonna be so great for my teachers
so about a week before the training she sends him an email saying hey we're gonna start something
new called Trust Based observations next week you guys are gonna love it and this is coming out
a co-editment observed in two years and all they have is their memory of their previous experiences
the word Trust doesn't mean anything they're thinking ah and so she messaged me and says Craig
we're not gonna be able to do this my teachers are freaking out and I said just calm down
and she explained what's going on and we agreed that on Monday morning I would talk to the teachers
which I don't normally do and just explain Trust Based observations so I talked to the Monday
morning and ultimately I say here's the goal it's for all the observers to build enough trust with
all of you as teachers so that any one of us can come into your classroom observe you see a
trying something new and even though it's highly unlikely have that thing you're trying be a train
like a disaster but as opposed to a traditional observation where you'd be freaking out it won't
happen because you'll know the next day the first thing the head teacher's gonna say when they
come into your room is Johnny I love it that you're trying something new and then give you high five
and we say because when we create those conditions it'll feel safe to try new things so jump to midweek
we are going observe a teacher that by her own admission and by everyone on the leadership team's
view she was the most change of her teacher in the school the week or two before we'd got there
they'd had some keg in cooperative learning training because that's a kind of a piece that we
really value and so when we went in she did a couple of keg in cooperative learning structures and
she did a great job with them and so we come on we have the conversation afterwards and she says
during the conversation she says I got to tell you I don't like change I like doing what I've
been doing the whole time and she said I never would have done a keg lesson even if you weren't
coming I just wanted to listen god of the training and then kept doing my own thing she said but
I heard what you said Monday morning and I thought what the heck and I did it and then she said
ultimately you know we just want to be valued and heard but then the next morning the leader that
was leading that conversation for the training comes into our room and she says you'll never
guess what happened yesterday and she said that at the end of the day yesterday she and that same
teacher were walking out of the building at the same time and she said that teacher said to her
I just want you to know that today meant more to me than you'll ever know and she gave her a big hug
and then the Tuesday after the reflective conversation after we laughed on Friday
the Tuesday after we laughed that head teacher emailed me she said Craig the healing has begun
you can just feel it so that's the story that is a beautiful story Craig I want to ask you this
because when I'm thinking about the situation and why it's so difficult for people to open up and
receive that training or receive that advice I think on one level there's a natural fear that if
I'm being observed and I do a poor job or I make a mistake I could get in trouble but there's also
a dimension that's very natural to say I don't want to look wrong or look silly in front of another
person even if I'm not going to get in trouble but it's just natural to have a pride in your work
or a worry about coming across that way how do you how do you bridge that gap how do you not just let
people know I'm not the policeman here but also I'm somebody who you can be vulnerable vulnerable
with and I'm I'm not going to judge you or give you a hard time I'm here to help
well one we literally tell them that statement every week so they know that that's happening but
but that's not enough because it also look people have had traumatic experiences with observation people
have had traumatic experiences with leaders that aren't super kind and and so we have to realize
that trust takes time and you know Brittany Brown talks about the connection between vulnerability
trust and risk taking and she says one vulnerability is too high people won't take risks she said
you lower vulnerability so people will take risks by building trust and she is this great metaphor
of of a jar and every positive action we do is putting a jar and a marble in the jar and you have
to fill that jar up before people are willing to take those chances and so during the reflective
conversation one by starting by asking questions instead of telling those are putting marbles in the
jar by sharing all the strengths those are marbles in the jar and we do all these other actions like
we have the conversation in your room because having in the principal's office doesn't build trust
we sit beside you not a crossroom for the same reason so we do all of these actions and we don't
feel the need to offer a suggestion right away because people aren't ready for it there's exceptions
with new teachers but we wait usually wait till about the fourth visit but even then we don't tell
you we ask permission to offer a suggestion and we work with you and people that started out
a growth mindset live over time become more fixed mindset they switch back to growth mindset and
want to grow again it's it's amazing do you think that there's a mistake that people could make in
this situation where they come on a bit too strong right away because I think one of the most natural
responses to someone immediately demanding to have your trust is to recoil a bit and say well I'm
not so sure it sounds like your approach putting those marbles in slowly giving it the time that
it needs to grow and develop is pretty darn important to the process what it's it's vital I mean
trust takes time I mean we're we're born to be trusting people but but look we have a whole
career for all of us of really observation sort of feel like gotcha yeah and so some new guy comes
in and like I can be all nice and do all this stuff but if I start offering you a suggestion
right away you're just going to feel like I'm snoozing like you know the co-orio cookie technique
where you say a good thing and then what to get better at like Adam Grant put out a thing
that's your saying that doesn't work because people know that you're really just saying the
nice thing to tell you what I really want is what to fix you and it's the same theory we have to
trust if it's going to be genuine trust it does I have to build a relationship with you
Craig I love this I'm sure our listeners are nodding along with us as you know you're you're
talking about this and sharing that powerful you know story from you know trust based observation
and Jacob great questions about trust because it is one of those things we often hear like we
really got to trust the process or trust you know this and for us especially as teachers
connected to evaluations often met you know at the end of the day there's going to be some kind of
score and I'm either going to be good at what I do or not so good at what I do let's just get it
over with and keep things moving we've got a million things going on Craig you know I'm curious
for school leaders out there for teachers that are hearing this you know where can what steps can
they take where can they one learn more about your work but also just kind of what are some practical
steps they can take to move away from the traditional and you know to build this relationship
based observation protocol I mean it's a good question and it's like it's not easy you don't
just like just do it it has to be purposeful and by design and in the system and really that's
what we think we've done and and I think I mean sure you can read the book and but I'm happy to talk
to anybody about what they're doing and listen to what they're doing and and have a conversation
with them and they can email me at craicatrustbase.com or the website stressbase.com and I'll chat with
anybody I think like what do I do in the meantime I mean depends what our laws are and our state
but boy if you can get away from rating pedagogy or when they're on your focus year or not your
comprehensive year you can say let's do make our focus a non pedagogical thing so we can talk
about what we really want to talk about I think that's a great start I think even if we haven't
fully started trust based observations if I could just start by sharing strengths with my
teachers and notice because when we put ratings behind a teacher when like the system requires
that it inadvertently subconsciously creates a deficit mindset in this and I start to think
what's wrong not what's right and that colors my view of you as a teacher so if I start to look at
you from a strengths based land and specifically and I want to say this like I know people will say
this and there's nothing wrong with this but people will say so every time I do an observation I
make sure I leave a little post that note in the teacher's desk something nice I saw and I'm like
that's great but that's one thing like how many strength things did I see in there and so I think
really really starting by that and starting by focusing on strengths it starts to change your mindset
and it's so much easier for me to work with you when I see what you're strong at and I think oh gosh
I just think starting with questions instead of telling too because that says that I value you
when I just start going right to right to the ratings I mean it just says this is just about
how I see you and it creates fear and people turtle up and then they're way less prone to take risks
yeah I mean it's I mean I'm having flashbacks to Craig to being observed to doing observations
and I love this I absolutely listener if you know teacher if you're out there a school leader if
you're either being observed or observing or you're part of your own growth plan which is usually
part of the process I love that suggestion Craig about you know picking something non pedagogical
at times like really working together talking about the things you know that you want to talk about
in terms of how to become a better teacher what are the things what kind of supports do you need
or what kind of strengths do you have and how do we build up those strengths and then identify
areas of growth together you know after we've built that relationship and we see that investment
we feel really good about being you know in that coach teacher learner student relationship I think
it's really great Craig appreciate the work you do listener you heard it you can check out trust
based observations we'll put the website you know and the connect and the contact information for
Craig in the description of the podcast if you're listening on the broadcast you know shortly after
the broadcast this drops you can check that out but Craig really love this man and before we wrap up
though you know I'm getting a lot out of you here Craig we got a minute can you leave us with one
quick kind of hope you have for every teacher out there a school leader like what's your kind of
word piece of wisdom advice to pass on I think really what we're talking about is
teaching is hard and they want to feel supported and they want to grow and I think as leaders
generally we want to help them grow and so I think we want to create conditions of trust and
honor how hard that work is and support our teachers and work together to help them grow
and find the best pathway to do it because there's good pathways and bad pathways and finding
the correct pathway will make all the difference between a culture of trust and a culture of
defensiveness here I love that it's those differences that make a difference folks busted pencils
more when we come back
and welcome back busted pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talk and education
listeners we just had Craig Randall on what an amazing interview what a great work he's doing
you know I love Jacob what he left us with in terms of saying you know we've been doing this
for a really long time we haven't well with good intention right and an ideal way we know that
feedback and observation is really important to teachers learning and it's in place but we've
been doing it not so great and and I love that he came on and didn't say I've got the greatest
way to do this you know he he just said you know through his experiences and through these protocols
you know through developing trust based observation you know look from learning about it right
to practicing it to you know putting it into action and seeing it grow and seeing it really support
teachers in schools what a great guess to have on love that I think we could all agree any time we
commit to improvement and figure out ways to focus in on that and you know hear from an expert
who's focused is that we all get better so I love to have in that conversation with them hope
that it's the first of many because I know as a teacher you know today's show with something I
still even as a teacher educator have a lot of questions about like how can we make the best of
you know this obligatory annual review observation kind of protocol that we have yeah
and make it more meaningful than that score or that rubric even when I'm working with a pretty
detailed rubric which I love doing observations with a good rubric and you know getting good feedback
on that I still feel like at the end of the day it's about where I landed on that even though we
you know talk about it's not about where you're at on the rubric it's about you know the feedback
and the process and the relationship it doesn't feel like it but what
Craig was talking about and that feels a lot like dare I say it teacher coach you know
athletes student con relationship it feels like man I want I want to learn that way as a teacher
and I want to you know observe my teachers that way so I like that Jacob what were your thoughts
about Craig and trust based observation today my big takeaway from meeting Craig and hearing
him out about what he's trying to do and what he has learned through this process is that getting
the trust of these people the teachers that they're observing is such an important component of
things because you can come in with the intention of helping these people improve in what they do
but if they don't trust you if they don't feel comfortable enough to show you that there are
you know possible deficiencies or areas where they could do better then you can't do it you simply
can't help somebody improve if you don't know what's wrong and people don't want to show you what's
wrong if they don't trust you so that process is so important Johnny and one of the things he said
that I liked about that or I thought that he really hit on a way to do it is to come in and look for
the positives in the teachers that you're observing because right away that gives the teacher
and the feeling that oh this guy isn't looking for all the problems with me he's here to learn
what a good teacher I am absolutely yeah I mean I think that goes in life right when you really can
recognize and identify strengths and then build up around those strengths to areas that might need
strengthening I think we all we all do better and I love that approach
and and Jacob I mean I'm biased I love anything that already acknowledges the great work teachers
are doing oh yeah and then says how do we make it even better right not like how do we add more
work to it because it's always gonna take hard work to improve but it's hey we're doing great work
this is what we're doing really well and here's what we can be doing better let's do it together
let's get stronger and let's work to make sure every kid has the best possible teacher in these
classrooms across our great country and that's for you all in Wisconsin Minnesota Michigan Illinois
all the places where you're listening live and then wherever you are in the world right on the
podcast because you download and listen from everywhere right you heard it Craig Randall from trust
based observations today really love it thanks for busting pencils with us folks and Johnny that's
the super awesome thing I think about Craig and what he was telling us is that they're finding ways
to be on the same team you know we're not the very internal affairs guys coming to get you
we have the same goal you want to be the best teacher you can be and we want to help you get there
Johnny I think that was fantastic I can't wait to have Craig back so Tim can meet this awesome dude
and and feel them out get some ideas and Johnny I think there is time for one last thing
and now it's time for your moment of Zen
small acts when multiplied by millions of people can transform the world
thanks for listening to the busting pencils broadcast today and remember to grab great podcasts
chalked bull with more fully-ledged education talk on Apple podcasts Spotify and of course
on the civic media website hey and don't be late for home room on Monday and make sure you catch next
week's class in session on Wednesday and find us on Friday for producers choice and of course
just like today you can catch the busted pencils broadcast at 3 p.m. central time every Saturday
across all the civic media network stations for that one hour of your favorite blue colors colors
Tim and Johnny and keep busting pencils
you