 Hello and welcome to Pukipondas, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. Today's question is, how can we build effective learning relationships with every student? And I'm in conversation with Kevin Hewitson. Hi, my name is Kevin Hewitson. I taught from 1977 until about 10 years ago where I left the chalk base. I now run a small company called Advocate in Creativity and Education. It's not specifically about the arts, it's about finding creative solutions for the problems teachers face. And through that I've been able to contact teachers, work with students and teachers, research, get out and about all those things you can't do when you're actually actively engaged in teaching. And the end result has been this year has been the publication of my first book, which is called If You Can't Meet Them, You Can't Teach Them, Building Effective Learning Relationships, which I think where we come in now. Absolutely, so the episode question for today, though I think we may go many different directions, but our starting point is how can we build effective learning relationships with every student? So do you want to jump off there, tell us a little bit about your book and what's in it and why you think this matters? Yeah, when I was looking for a title for the book, you go around all sorts of things, don't you? I was really struggling to come up with something, understanding learning needs and all sorts of things, and the publisher said to me, well, what is it really about? Well, you know, the short answer, you can't reach them, you can't teach them. That's it. You know, that's the title because really that underpins everything we do as teachers. If we walk into the classroom and we haven't got a relationship with the pupils, then it's not going to work. If it becomes a very one-sided dance as it were, you know, without a partner, the music's still playing, but you ain't getting any sort of relationship going, and there's going to be very little in the way of personal satisfaction for you as a teacher and learning taking place of the students. So that's how we came up with the title, but it goes back, I suppose, further than that. I mentioned that I stopped teaching about 10 years ago. It wasn't a planned exit from teaching. It was more a case of, I think, the job or the teaching environment was going in one direction, and I was very much pulling in the other direction. I was trying to say, you build a relationship first, the results will come. Depression was very much, and I understand the pressures, and I understand the risk aversion, but the pressure was very much target-driven, and still is, very much data-orientated. And I think the sort of, I don't know, the challenge, I think, for teaching was then, and still is, is to refocus on the learning relationship. Even though it might not initially produce the results you want, a little longer, and the short term is in education is, I think, hindering its development. So that got me into an environment where I was no longer teaching, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with education ever again. That went well, didn't it? You know, paint a cross on the door and say, don't come anywhere near. But I sort of met up with some people I'd worked with, and they said to me, Keva, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm making furniture. I've gone back to my roots, you know, I'm doing the things I really love doing. And I said, well, yeah, well, what about all of those things you did with us? What about all the good about building a relationship with students and, you know, the strategies in the classroom and all of that? What happened to all of that? And I said, well, it's sort of parked, I suppose, it's just sitting there. So after a couple of cups of coffee, they sort of, I left thinking, well, should I do something about this? You know, should I, should I leave at least a marker somewhere? So I spent an evening just downloading on a keyboard, a really cathartic experience, you know, two years after leaving teaching, I'd managed, I suppose, to get my head back together. I think you'd say that and, you know, begin to be able to put things in the context and look at them objectively again. So I downloaded this, this sort of thing overnight, literally overnight, my wife got up in the morning, said you're still sat there. Yeah, you know, as I'm still hitting the keys trying to put things down. And that then led to, well, why don't you do something with it? You know, because you know, you put it together, why don't you do something with it? So I said, well, I'll have to find a narrative. I'll have to find a way of trying to explain this to people, because that's always this problem. When teaching is about telling stories. So teaching teachers must be about telling stories as well. And so I thought, how do you find a narrative where you can stand there very simply and say a few sentences, a few words, and people just go, yeah, I get you, you know. And it's not a quick fix. It's not a silver bullet. It's a way of thinking. And that's what I wanted to try and tackle. So I set off reading, I suppose. It's starting with a LinkedIn post where Mr. Gove actually said, you know, we need experts to be teachers. And all teachers have to be experts. And that's not actually true. I posted that as a question. About 400 replies later. I sort of found like an alternative classroom to what I was used to. I had people coming in and dropping in comments and I'd go back at them and it was like working with a group of sixth formers doing A-levels. Well, have you read this? What do you view on that? Somebody else would come back and say, well, have you read this? You know, and so it was a fantastic start. I managed to bring a lot of that together into one presentation, which I share, which I think is still up there somewhere. On the old web. And the answer was no, you know, you don't need to be an expert to be a teacher. You need other things. And that's one that's sort of, okay, what do we need? And what do pupils need to engage in learning? Well, lots of reading later and a groaning bookshelf, I must admit. It started to sort of coalesce. And I realised that I read a book by William Glasser on choice theory, where he said, you know, all we do is behave. And that's just really sort of hit a chord with me. And okay, you know, what drives that behaviour? And so I mean, so then you go into Maslow and, you know, you've gone through the hierarchy of needs. And after we feel safe and secure, and you've got shelter, then we start looking towards, you know, building relationships and self actualisation, etc. So they're okay that there's something sitting in all of that, you know, what is it? You know, what is the fundamental part of that? So I started reflecting on my own teaching again and the relationships I had, you know, when when some students, it was always the naughty students who would want to be in my class. And so I thought, Oh, you know, I might do it was I'm doing something different. And on one occasion, I assume to know the register is wrong, sir, I am in your class. No, you're not go away. No, I am wrong. And it culminated in a project, which I had where I was given or asked to take on number of students who were not doing so well in their normal curriculum. And at the end of year 10, there was about, I was told 10 students were identified. And their behaviour was causing problems. It was distrusting the learning of others. And it's mainly in options. Because we have to stay with the core subjects, so the options were an issue. So I was asked if I'd take them on. And I think the phrase was do my thing with them. And so I said yes. And I'll do it in a sort of almost as a research project, you know, an active research project. So I'll look at the data and I'll keep the track of things and we'll see how it goes at the end. That group from 10 turned to be 17. And the school was going through a rebuild and reorganisation. We were going from a three tier to two tier system on the same site. All classrooms have been abandoned and the building had been cut off from power of water, but the new building wasn't ready. And I've got a classroom which had been just left. And if you've ever been into a school where the kids have left and the teachers have left, you realise the heart and soul just disappears. It's a funny, funny feeling. Anyway, that's what I had. So I cobbled together some furniture and the displays on the walls didn't exist. You can imagine. It was just the day after. The energy had gone. So I met with these and they wouldn't speak to me. They're self-esteem, you can imagine. They didn't know they were coming back to this. They didn't know what their new time tier was in year 11. And they met me and they didn't want to speak to me. And I couldn't get through to them at all. It was a really stressful situation for my point of view, but it must have been from them as well. So we came to a sort of compromise where I didn't interrupt them and they didn't interrupt me. And I thought, at least we're in the same room together. We'll have to start. We'll see where we can go from there. And every time I went in with anything that looked like work, like a piece of paper or a book, we're not writing. We're not doing this. They made it very clear that they weren't going to engage. So that's when I think my true teacher training started. For 30 years before that, we're just leading up to this. They were just a precursor to, okay, you think you're a teacher. Now prove it. One day I went in with some paper, blank paper. I was told they weren't going to do any writing. And I said, no, no, it's okay. We've got an agreement. I understand. But I've got something that I need to do. I can't just sit here. So I started making a paper aeroplane. Now, this is a style which my grandfather showed me and takes about 30 minutes to make. It's not one of those quick three folds and your third across the room. It involves origami, I suppose you would do class about more than just a paper folding exercise. So I started this and one lad said to me, what you're doing sir? So I said, well, no, no, no, no, no, we've got an agreement. You do your thing. I do my thing. You don't have to be with each other. But what you're doing? Well, if you're interested, you can plug your chair up and have a watch. I'm not writing. Well, I don't think I've mentioned writing, but okay. So one came up and then another. And I said, well, do you want to have a go? I'll go back to the beginning. So I went back to the beginning and I got a couple joining in and then I got them all joining in eventually. We all started making paper aeroplanes. Now, I want you to imagine what happens when you've got 17 kids with paper aeroplanes in their house. They look at you and you look at them and say, well, what are you waiting for? What have you made them for? Have a go. So they started throwing these paper aeroplanes around in the classroom. With one eye on me waiting to go into trouble. And I didn't. I didn't pull them up at all. So one of them stood on a stool on a chair. Now, I'm applauding this internally because I'm thinking he's worked out the higher you stand, the further the aeroplane can go. And he's looking to go into trouble. And that didn't say anything. So more stood on the chairs. Well, you know, it's going to go after this, don't you? After the chair, it's got to be the table, more height. And these were all knackered desks and things. So didn't say anything about that. We got to the point eventually where I think they were thinking about the windowsill and we're on the third story. So thought that's not a good idea. Let's go outside. Well, I was told quite plainly that they weren't going to be seen outside throwing paper aeroplanes around. So we snuck around the back of the sports hall out of sight. And I have a lovely photograph because I just happened to have a little digital camera in my pocket. And I learned that if you hold the camera up, suddenly you disappear. It's strange. If you hold a camera up in front of a group of people who were not good, you stop being the teacher and you just disappear. Because their whole body language just changed the instant they held the camera. And I have a lovely photograph of 17 students lined up displaying every type of body language you could possibly think of from, I'm excited and interested. So I don't really want to be seen here at all. And we had us throwing around the paper aeroplanes. That was the breakthrough. That's when I suddenly began to think, okay, there's a way we can get through to these kids. Now, let's see if I can take it any further. I was reading and involved with some work with Barbara Prashney on learning preferences at the time. And they did a learning styles analysis. And I know a lot of people are jumping off about learning styles and intelligence. But a little aside, to me, it's a bit like the horoscope in the magazine. You open a magazine with a horoscope and put it on a table. I bet you'll get people talking about their horoscope. So learning styles, multiple intelligences. To me, it's a way of starting a conversation. And where it goes might not be specifically learning styles and things, but at least it starts a conversation about learning, which we don't often do with pupils. We teach them, but we don't, I think, talking enough about the learning experience with them. So I was doing that. That gave me a way in to start talking to them. And I realised then that there was quite a bit to this. So we got to the end, long story short, we got to the end. Their tendencies had improved. Their referrals to misbehaviour had almost gone to zero. We had a working relationship. We met for breakfast once a week. They learned how to talk and eat at the same time. Some skill that they didn't have to start off with. They even tidied up after themselves, which they didn't at the beginning. They learned all sorts of things. And so did I. I was very proud of them as a group. They had developed their own reward system. They didn't quite meet their goal. And this was another thing that brought it home to me. We didn't get to Alton Towers. They didn't get enough points on their system to get to Alton Towers. But we had a fallback, which was to go bowling. So I took them bowling. And one of the kids said to me, can I bring along my friend? And I thought, no, no, this is you and me. This is our relationship. This is, you know, what we've achieved together. And I said, I'll think about it. And I was talking to the staff and to a number of staff and this number of staff just said, no, Kev, that's the best compliment that could pay you. I went, what? They're willing to share their friendships with you. And I just sat back and thought, wow, actually, that is quite profound, isn't it? You know, we've got to the point now where I wasn't an adversary anymore. I was somebody who they had a relationship with to the extent that they were wanting to share that. So I said, yeah, okay, okay. So yes, others came along and they were so well behaved. It was embarrassing. I mean, I'm there going bowling. And I got a strike and they go, sir, sir, sir, you're showing me something. I almost had to give them permission to have fun. And that was another element. So you can imagine having stopped teaching, trying to put all of this into a narrative was particularly difficult. And that's when I came up with understanding learning needs as a concept. And then drilled down into that and got down to the fact, well, actually, it's fundamentally based on four needs that drive our behavior for engagement. Funny enough, it not only applies to pupils, it applies to everyone. So it's a fundamental truth, I think we'd have to sort of call it. And these four needs are what the book is all based on, really, it's at the core. But I realized as a teacher, you don't teach in the vacuum, there's all sorts of things going on. There's all the politics, there is all of the procedures and practices and expectations and upstairs and a whole bunch of things. So to get to the core, I felt as though I had to develop a narrative which took all those other things into account and almost give teachers permission to engage in this. So although I haven't got time, I'm stressed. I'm being told to do this. I've got too much on. The kids aren't what they used to be. The curriculum's moving, that's still, you know, something's just changed again. So that was the hard part, I think, trying to put it together so that teachers could buy into it. I understand that I too understood all the challenges and I too also had similar experiences. And more than that, I found some solutions. So what are those four fundamental needs? Is this in PBCF? Yeah, which is power, belonging, choice and fun. Dead easy to remember, please be child-friendly. Please be child-friendly in what you teach, in how you teach, how you plan and how you sort of engage with the students. So that was the breakthrough moment. If you stand there and say, please be child-friendly, nobody's going to say no. It's like raising standards, isn't it? No. Driving up achievement. We're going to drive up achievement. I think Ken Robinson said that. Have you ever heard anybody say you're going to drive down achievement? No, you haven't. So please be child-friendly. And then that reminds you to build into your teaching, your planning, your relationships, an element of power. So giving students a voice, creating a sense of belonging, giving the options for choice, not free choice, but choice with consequences. And one of the biggest challenges for teachers is associating achievement with fun. Yeah. And if you can do that, you cracked it. So yeah, PBCF, those are the four. So the way the book is sort of structured is it starts off by saying, really, to be your best of a teacher, you must be relaxed yet alert. And in martial arts, there's a thing called Zanshin, which sort of fits in quite nicely with that. And it's also how I see teaching. It's like the wise owl who's just perched on the branch, watching what's going on and knowing when to intervene, not adding to the energy, guiding the energy, managing the energy in the classroom. So that's first part of the book deals very much with, where are you now? And reflected upon, I've got a little sort of exercise, come back a bit. It's a book, but it's more of a learning journey. Yeah. It's full of tasks and activities, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the sort of thing I want people to sort of carry with them, sort of having the bags so that they can, I've left plenty of space in there to scribble on. But all of the exercises are also downloadable as well. So you can print them off and carry it round and build your own journal if you want to, so you might want to do the exercise a couple of times. So start off with looking at where does your professional drive fit in a matrix with anxiety? Yeah. And I found that as a really, I know there's complex ways of looking at motivation and engagement and everything else. I mean, I've read a lot of the psychology behind it, but I wanted a simple tool. If you said to a teacher, there's a grid, four squares, you know, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right. Anxiety is on one scale and professional drives on the other scale. Where are you? You know, put across. Yeah. And then the next thing is circle where you want to be. And it's across, it's in the circle. Brilliant. If it doesn't sit in the circle, then we've got some work to do. Yeah. So that's the first part. So the book also looks at the environment which teachers work in. And this very much comes down to the environment leadership in the school creates. So we look at leadership and somebody said to me, I found my voice about leadership the other day as I wrote an article for an online magazine and where I think our leaders in schools are far too compliant. Okay. Tell me about the big contentious. Well, I have this theory. We return like salmon to this to where we feel comfortable to an environment where we feel comfortable. And we do that as a profession in life or as a vocation. A lot of teachers were successful pupils. Yeah. Compliance is a key element of being successful in schools. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. If your learning needs are being met by the school, that's great. Yeah, you're more likely to be compliant. You can be compliant in an underachieve as well, by the way. But anyway, as we go through life there, we face certain challenges. A lot of successful pupils will go on to further a higher education. Then what? What do we do? Some have a vocation and go straight to teacher. Some wander around in the wilderness for a few years and get a job as a manager at McDonald's or beef eater or whatever and find their way to teacher. I've met and I've talked to teachers in initial teacher training. And one of my questions is why? Well, why do you want to be a teacher? If they're in their late 20s, early 30s, it's often, well, I remember what it was like to be a kid. I enjoyed school and I want to go back there. I want to do my bit for the students. And the motives of perfectly sound is just that they're taking this compliant nature with them into teaching. And so when you get into leadership, you get told to do something, the directive comes from somewhere. It's a bit like, okay, how do we do this? Rather than should we be doing this? Yeah. And I mentioned advocating creativity and education has been the sort of flagship for this, my philosophy if you like, you know, get creative. Yeah. I mean, I see learning as a problem solving activity. And soon as we do, we bring into play a whole series of strategies and tools we can apply. So evaluation, if what I've been asked to do, does it support teaching and learning in my school? Yes or no? If it does, adopt it. Yeah. And make it personalized to you. Because we know one side doesn't fit. All we need to contextualize it for our particular environments that we are schools placed in. So if it does, if it doesn't, what can I do about it? Can I deflect it? Can I modify it in some way and take the good bits out? Yeah. Can I sort of just say, okay, we'll put down the backbone and think about it. Get creative. So I see leadership in schools as a filter. And the filter is there to act as an umbrella to protect the teaching and learning relationship. So the book talks about it. Yeah, by the contentiously, I suppose. But it's about mission statements and not very many people actually understand what a mission statement is. Yeah. The minds do no harm. Yeah. So as a teacher, if what I'm asked to do, I think will cause harm to that teaching learning relationship, I ain't going to do it. Yeah. And I know that's risky. And I know the cost. And I know that teachers have lost their careers. Yeah. And their positions in school, et cetera. And the first reaction lost there is often to move on the leadership team within the school because they're seeking instance change and improvements. But I've also come across often inspectors in HM. I've argued by case and I've had the evidence. And very, I don't think ever that anybody's disagreed with me. It doesn't mean so the outcome is not any better because if it's a tick box situation, I remember being told, you know, you're doing all the right things in the right order, but there's no evidence. So I can't tick the box. I said, we'll come back in 12 months. Well, I can't. I'm here now. I'm doing my inspection now. So, but there's that honesty with yourself as well. I think, you know, can I sleep at night? Am I doing the right thing? Yeah. So the book looks at the leadership filter and I'm hoping that we can create a bit of a sort of supportive community around the book. That's the idea where people will share these stories and realise they're not alone. And I think the pandemic has been great, great for that. I mean, I've been able to sit here and tune in to so many conversations around the globe, really, where teachers are expressing the same desire really. Absolutely. And I think it's an interesting moment in time because I think that certainly from my point of view, it feels like the amount of schools and organisations who are interested in thinking about our students as more than kind of mini learning machines and thinking about the whole child, that seems to have really increased, you know, thinking more about their mental health, their wellbeing, their longer term outcomes and how we build strong adults from these children, which I think speaks to a lot of your philosophy. But then there's, you know, behaviour is quite a controversial topic, isn't it? And it does really divide opinion. And I'm sure that, yeah, for every school that you're finding and every person you're finding who buys into what you're doing, there will be others who sort of disagree. And I know as we're talking today, there's quite a lot of chat on Twitter and social media about our pal Gavin Williamson. So maybe if you mind giving a little bit of context for that, maybe a bit of your thoughts on that, just remembering some of the people listening in won't have a clue who Gavin Williamson is. Lucky them. Yes, our new Secretary of State, I'll say new. I looked actually looked the other day, the average tenure of a secondary state is about a year and a half. Doesn't really speak to any sort of continuity or progression. And everybody seems to be looking for some sound bites. And given that a lot of the Secretaries of State are not professional educators, the thing that they base their own education, their own philosophy on is their own experience of education. I remember what I said about compliance. And, you know, it worked for me so they'll work for others. I mean, Nick Gibb has big influence in the Department for Education Minister. What's his proper title? Nick Gibb's title. Minister for Education. I mean, he's been around a long time. He's been in that post about 10 years, I think, and has had a significant influence on everything from phonetics, you know, reading and our approach. And this idea of how pupils will sit in rows, facing the front, raise their hands when they get a question. They want to question the teacher and things. All of those which we've referred to, won't be the Victorian approaches to education. They seem to be the driving force for education policy in schools. And behaviour is always seen as compliant behaviour. In the book, I asked people, one of the tasks, if you go and find several, their own start-up with behaviour policies in schools, and just analyse it in terms of tone and how much of it is directed at learning behaviours and how much of compliant behaviours. And my experience is normally compliant behaviours. We rarely look at and explore learning behaviours. So the book is very clear about behaviour. It says, and this is the philosophy, if we start to see behaviour as a symptom of need, then we can address the need. And that gets to the behaviours we want. Yeah. And those four needs really do show themselves quite clearly if we start looking at behaviour in terms of symptoms. So when we haven't got a voice, when we feel powerless in a situation, how do we respond? How do we engage? If I ask you, Cookie, if I say, I want you to do this task, it's going to take six months. It's going to be you working 40 hours a week. And this is what I want. And this is how you're going to do it. I mean, how would you think? Would you feel engaged? Would you feel... I'd just say no, actually. You'll obviously work a compliant student. Do you know, actually I was, but I've learned in adulthood that that wasn't a good thing. I've spent a lot of my adult life saying yes to everything and trying to please people. And it doesn't do me any good. No, no. And it's one of the things, it's interesting actually hearing you talk about the, yeah, compliance and whether it sets you in good stead. One of the things I often look at my own daughters who are, they live in much easier circumstances than I grew up in. And I see that they're not always as compliant, particularly at school as I was. And I look at them and I do often think, yeah, they're going to be great adults. And they might not be the easiest always getting them into school or getting them to do what I need them to do. But actually I think I would employ them over the compliant kid. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You know, it's not, you know, how hard do you want me to jump this? Why do you want me to jump? Yeah. Yeah, indeed. So, you know, looking at this, we start looking at behaviors and I take time to go through and sort of describe, you know, what it looks like in the classroom when students' needs aren't being met and how to identify the primary needs. Because you can't differentiate, you can't sort of, you know, put behavior to one side and belonging and power and fun. They're integrated, you know, one affects the other. But you can start seeing the primary needs. And with that group of students I had, belonging was the primary needs, you know. And once I've got a relationship and I kept saying, I look forward to teaching them and they were my favorite group and, you know, what fun I had with them and everything else, you know, and what challenges I had with them. And I let them know I was being challenged as well. Once we got the belonging sorted out, even though, you know, they will come back and challenge you. Just when you think you've got it sorted, they just want to check. They just, it's just like a check, you know, are we still friends? I'll just push this little bit. Are we still? Yeah, okay. Right, you know, you haven't gone to, you haven't, you haven't left me or abandoned me type thing. I just mean that reassurance. So you will get the challenges and you just smile as you get the visit sort of thing. But once we start seeing that behavior and we take time to address or think about the symptoms, rather than employing a sanction. A sanction is like putting a blanket over a fire, I suppose. You can't see the fire, but it can burn through, you know. And when it does burn through, it tends to come through with gusto. Yeah, you know, because you've just actually added fuel to it. And that's what we see, I think, in the classroom. So coming back to behavior and how important is we want learning behaviors. Yeah, that's the focus. So stand at the classroom door and welcome your students. Get to know them or something about them. Go out of your way to do it. I mean, the school staff room is a superb place if they still exist. And I say if they still exist. Because, you know, I've seen little mini micro satellite staff rooms set themselves up, you know, there's science teachers who don't need that little domain and math teachers don't need theirs. And the actual staff room itself is actually not that big enough anymore. It's not seen as an important part in the new school build. But if you get to the staff room, you hear stories. You hear about kids, you get to learn about things that you never know when it might just come in handy. You know, I'm just smiling to myself because I remember I started a new school and I was given a year 11 tutor group who were a challenging group. And there's a couple of boys who every day every registration twice a day, they were going to push it. They really want to, you know, but I was working with them. And I had a girl in the group as well, who was a carer. And I stood up for her with a couple of in a couple of occasions, just said to staff, you know, just give her a bit of space and talking the kid off, you know, a brother offered the school at the road, and they've changed their starting times. And she can't quite get me in on time. And sometimes they just put her a bit of slack. So, you know, the old past very important in schools, absolutely critical, especially if you're trying to build learning relationships. She let it known one day that one of these boys had sort of pushed it a little bit with the girl and she'd sort of called his bluff and said, come on then, come on then, you know, if you want, you want to go on. And she reached across and did his belt and pulled his belt off and his trousers fell down. And at which point he laid it, you know, sort of, she called his bluff. So, she'd let me know this on the quiet, just that this incident had happened. And so, when this guy was giving me some stick, I just looked at him, stopped talking, just looked at him, his trousers falling down. You need a tight new belt. Oh, the look. So, you know, building those relationships, go out of your way, get to know something about the kids. Yeah, stand in the dinner queue, walk around the playground and go on activities with them, try and get, you know, if they're on work experience, if they can get out that way these days, go and visit them. You know, you'll find a whole different side of the kids. And you just never know when that could actually come useful in a situation in the classroom. So, once you start looking at all of the behavioural symptoms, it becomes clear that there's only lost four, there really is only lost four. And then I've taken time to sort of explain why they're important. Yeah, what's the benefits, you know, to you as a teacher and to the community and to the school of having those needs met. And I've detailed those. Then I sort of looked at, okay, how can we do that? How can we build those into our everyday teaching without adding to the workload? Which is crucial. Yeah. Which is crucial. And it's a mindset. There's a lady called Ellen Langen, who wrote a book on mindful learning, or mindful teaching and learning. And it's not mindfulness as we stay in the sort of meditative context, being in the moment and things. It's being mindful of your relationship and your interactions with the pupils. What are they actually telling you? One of my mentors in the book is John's 12 Rules. These are from John my mentor, who never actually listed them as 12 rules. But when I did his university after nine to 35 years, unfortunately, I sat down and I realised, yeah, we have 12 rules. And some of them were spoken occasionally, like, you know, work out what you want to know before you ask the question. Such a critical one. Great rule, yeah. Great rule, yeah. You know, always ask the question to elicit the least number of responses. So not who's got a pen, but who hasn't got a pen. Simple little things like that. Anyway, I've almost lost my trainer's thought there. Okay, sorry, I've got one. I went off with John's 12 Rules. That's all right. I love the idea. John sounds like a great mentor. And I think it's interesting often when you talk to people who have a great grip on what they're doing, often they have someone that they look to who's helped to, you know, help them find the way and presumably you try to be the John to. Yes, I mean, I didn't realise at the time as well that I was, you know, absorbing all of this. As I say, it wasn't until I sat down and noticed 12 rules, then I realised it was the 13th rule. Oh, yeah, which is when John died, he had about four lawnmowers and no grass. Oh, right. So you think, hang on. And what it was was, if you didn't know what to do with something, you give it to John. Which in a metaphorical sense, what he really was really what John was all about was, turn nobody away. Always help if you can. And I think that's a great rule for teaching. I think, yeah. You know, it's just coming back to that mindful bit, which is where I lost my trainer's thought in the second year of learning. Being mindful means that you actually pick up on all of the little things. John had a saying, never ignore, this wasn't one of his rules, but it was one of the things he said to me was, never ignore the red herring question. Okay. I am laughing. Well, because you know, you're told aren't you that kids are trying to get you off track. Yes. Now you've got to get going. He said, no, they're letting you into their world. Okay. It's a little, little gap in the door, you know, it's a little glimmer into their world. If they're saying to you, oh, is that like, you know, which football team do you support then, sir? You know, they're thinking about that belonging again. You know, what are they trying to do? They're possibly trying to bridge the gap between you and them. They may be trying to get you off the topic that they don't want to study, but that's because you haven't linked fun to achievements. Yeah. Yeah. You see how they start impacting each other. It's a very simple narrative. But you know, sit down with me for more than an hour. Read the book. Look on the blog. You know, you realize that it pervades everything you do, if we allow it. And it's done without having to add to our workload. But when we plan lessons, if you ask many teachers, what should we put in the lesson planning headings? It'll be time, content, achievements, resources, et cetera. I'd advocate PBCF as well. How can I plan to meet belonging? How can I give pupils a choice and explain the benefits as well as the consequences of those choices? Yeah. Yeah. You know, how can I, how can I really associate achievement with fun? How can I celebrate? What plan will I celebrate? How can I build that action into my lesson in a way? And how can I signal it to the pupils that I'm choked, that I'm really celebrating internally as well with what you've achieved? I remember having to stand in and teach business studies, which is not my subject. And we were doing marketing. Yeah. And I'd linked it to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Yeah. And I didn't think it had gone in. And we had an assembly where these year 11s had to sit and listen to, I think it was called Aim High or something. It was about going on to higher education anyway. Yeah. The idea was, you know, to promote going into university and what have you. And this group of kids, and one turned to me and said, he's talking about that thing we did, aren't we? I said, what thing? You know, that thing was like the pyramid. And I said, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And she said, yes, that's it. I thought, well, at the time, three months ago, I thought I'd wasted my time. Yeah. But actually, I find that's often the case that this, I found this often, the student who I think is paying least attention is often. So I'll be usually going in to talk about, you know, something to do with mental health or something to be the one who's been fiddling with a pen or, you know, where you don't think that they're on on the same page at all. And they'll be the one who'll come up to you in the lunchtime and have a chat. And you'll realize that, yeah, it's really resonating. Yeah. That comes back to the though. Can I just mention that there about you said about fiddling with a pen or dueling on the paper? If you start looking at what we expect, what, what are they, the myths about learning behaviors? Yeah, city quietly, facing the front, paying attention. I just wish Gavin Williams was listening to this. You know, all of those things which are talented out, aren't they? Because they're seen as learning behaviors. They're not. They're not. I mean, have a look at Barbara Prashnik. She's got 12 learning myths as well. And she's spent ages sort of detailing all of these things that we, you know, we fight against as teachers, we're told to fight against, you know. Yeah. And they're actually just preventing the kids engaging in the learning. Absolutely. Well, and this is, I think, I find as a teacher of teachers is that when you hold teachers to account by their own standards of what they'd expect in their classroom, they're appalling learners. And it's not about, you know, when I'm teaching a roomful of teachers, if every now and then I have to just say, okay, go on, just talk about it for a minute, because you can feel the energy bubbling up and they're whispering to each other and they're writing. That's great. If they really want to talk about the thing that I'm trying to teach, fantastic, but it's not, you know, what we would expect. And when you try to bring them back on task and they want to carry on their conversations again, you know. That's right. I mean, there's an exercise in the book specifically for that. Right. One of the, I did a workshop. And one of the things I did, these teachers, I was told, were struggling building their relationships with their students. And that's often interpreted by the number of referrals, how many kids have stood outside the lesson. And I thought, okay, then, so I went in and I put them into a learning situation. Right. So I had them sat and I give them a test. And what was worse, I give them a maths test. Yes, I can see. I mean, what's subject to be all of. I think maths is phenomenal, actually. I think maths is great. And if we, if we taught maths as a language, we would get on a lot better. But that's another story. So anyway, I get them into this mental state. And I get them in the beginning to actually mark how they feel on a piece of paper, their level of stress and anxiety and enjoyment and all that sort of thing. And we keep that to one side. And we've had a jolly time up to them because I've been working hard through the PBCF with them. Because please be child friendly is please be colleague friendly. Okay, good. See if you did that. Simple narrative but never so far from. So I get them into that. Then we, I tell them it's going to be done. They can't confer. Yeah. And it's going to be timed. And there's no talking. And then the papers go face down and they can't turn them over and they can't look. And then we're going to start. So I create the absolute, you know, you can imagine the environment I created. Yeah. Not one conducive to learning or to doing a learning challenge. Then start. So I'm then walking the room, walking around, pacing. And I'm saying eight minutes left. Seven minutes left. Do you know, I sent this to a group of your sevens and they did it in four minutes. And then you get the behaviors. Yeah. The pen goes down. The arms cross. The seat gets put. You see all of those behaviors that we mentioned, you know, about seeing them symptoms of need. Yeah. Because I denied all their needs. I distanced them from each other. I destroyed the sense of belonging. The relationship with me. I'd now become, you know, the aggressor, you know, in the situation. I've taken away all of their choices. I hadn't made one. And I've given them no options in terms of how they're going to tackle it. So we see all the behaviors. So at the end of that, stop, right, reflect on that. You know, now think about your students. You know, think about how they behave because you are going to mirror their behavior as well. If they're not relaxed, they're not comfortable. You are not going to be. You're not your best. They'll pick up on that. Yeah. The whole Zanshin thing about being, you know, relaxed, yet alert in the classroom is so important. Absolutely. I love that. Yeah, that analogy with the martial arts, that's really strong, I think. And I think there is something really powerful as an adult, putting yourself in the situation of learner and actually just stopping and considering what is it that we are expecting of our children all day, every day. One of my daughters has had past history of school-based anxiety and avoidance. And having had all this time at home, it's been sort of re-triggered and it's been really challenging. And when I've stopped and I've kind of thought about it and I thought, I could not do, particularly now, having had all this period at home, I could not do what we're expecting her to do every day. It's I think it's unreasonable what I'm expecting of her. I did a little active research project where I followed a student around during the day. He didn't quite know it. I was popping in and out of the class, you know, imagine. And in secondary school, so I saw I think five teachers that day. Wow. Started off compliance underachiever. Yeah, that did as he was told, didn't challenge, didn't ask questions, had learned as a little aside here again, look at how many, how many, sorry, we must get this out somehow, reporting in schools, what a waste of time. Yeah. Well, there is so much information there if we use it. Yeah, the return on investment, I think is very poor at the moment. It goes into the draw, goes into the envelope, goes into a covered wherever. I had a job once where I was in charge of the set of recording and reporting. And I was able to see the difference in behaviors of students across a range of subjects. And I then realized we students on the three camps, compliant achievers, dead easy to write a report for, compliant, sorry, non-compliance underachievers, dead easy to write a report for. Yeah. Then there's the other bunch, compliant and achievers. Who are they? What did they do? You know, it's very difficult to write reports for. So you can think about that in terms of what's going through the school, in terms of abilities and learning, achievements, etc. But you've got that whole bunch of, you've got kids who will withdraw internally, their anxiety is so high that they just, you know, they don't engage. But they're compliant on the outside. Yeah. And up to a point, that's what happened with the students. We started off and no, this thing about a pen, have you got a pen? Have you got a pen? Seven times or five times during the day. He had a pen to start off with. And he guarded that pen because he knew having a pen was a way of avoiding any sort of conflict or actions with the teacher. It got to the second to last lesson of the day. And bearing mind, he'd had a 10 minute break, a 30 minute lunchtime where he had on the hoop and had to go across the other side of the school, no movement between lessons, etc. The actual level of activity during the day is just, it was immense. Got to the last lesson, got one, and somebody took his pen. Got to the last lesson, teacher, have you got a pen? No. This was the thing he was not looking forward to at all. He got the borrowed a pen, went through the whole rigmarole, you have to give the name, borrow a pen, return for the end. Somebody else took that pen off in during the lesson. Oh. He stood up and thumped him. Oh. Yeah. End of his tether. Yeah. And the teacher, rightly so, had to deal with that as a behavioural incident. Of course. But we had actually created that. Yeah. From 8.30 in the morning. Yeah. You could actually see by following that students during the day. Each little incremental step. Yeah. That was going to lead to either, you know, exiting from the environments, going home, you know, getting out of the lessons, listening lessons, or acting in some way or another. It was, it was something that made me really reflect on teaching and what we do in schools. Yeah. We expect a huge amount that we can ask students every day. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm aware of the time, what, what thought would you like to close with, Kevin? What thought would you like to leave with people? See behaviour. See the symptoms as a, as a need. Yeah. And focus on the needs. And reflect on PBCR. Reflect on it in terms of your planning and your interaction with the students and with your colleagues. And look at leadership in the school and try and work if they aren't creating environments which is supporting your relationship with the pupils, which is causing you anxiety and stress. And start, start a conversation and talk about mission and talk about do no harm.