An Old Dog Learning From an Old Trick: Lessons Learned from the September Invitation

Dear colleague,

About a month ago, I invited teachers to spend a month experimenting with tracking attempted MGCs. The goal was to keep track of what we did and see what we noticed. Here's what I learned from this work during September of 2024-2025.

What I Did

• During the month of September, I attempted roughly 140 moments of genuine connection. I know this because, when I attempted an MGC, I highlighted the student's name on my printed roster. Some of them felt great, most felt average, plenty felt awkward.
• Something I did NOT keep track of but wish I would have were students with whom I attempted multiple MGCs during the month. For a handful of students, I did a lot of checking in due to concerns I had with the students. 
• I did most of my MGCs before and after class — as students were walking in, as they were walking out. I did some via hallway pull-outs during independent work. I did others quietly with students at their desks during warm-ups.

My Favorite Glimpses of Impact

One day in class, I had a chance to check in with a disengaged and visibly unhappy student I’ll call Devony. While she was doing her warm-up, I just came by her desk and asked how she was doing. She was actually doing her warm-up on this day, so I told her great work on that, great effort. I asked her how her classes were going (she responded like she normally does: “I don’t know”). I asked if she had to pick a favorite, what would it be? She said, “This class.” I told her that I was glad about that because I really like having her in class, too.

This was significant to me because:

• A) She’s not the kind of kid to tell you something unless it’s true — she shares the brutal truth.
• B) It means there is at least some flicker of goodness she's experiencing in my class.

That’s a start.

One of the students who presented the biggest behavioral challenge for me at the start of the year has had many MGCs with me, to the point where we probably got close to a 2×10. What I focused on with him was finding the good:

• What goodness could I find with this student?

The breakthrough moment for me happened when I was discussing him with another of his teachers, Sra. Ramm. She shared that he had written on his first day of school assignment for her that he is dumb. I'm grateful that this broke my heart a bit, as I considered how heavy it is to be in school for six hours a day, every weekday, as a ninth grader, believing that you are dumb.

Ramm and I decided the next day we'd each find a way to report evidence to him that he is not, in fact, dumb. I referenced his social intelligence — how he’s funny, how many students seem to enjoy him.

Later in the week, I happened to come across him walking in the hallway. I told him that I believed he was very intelligent, and that this is why I was going to push him hard in my class.

I asked, “Do you think you’re smart?”

“No, not really.”

“Okay,” I said, “so here’s my walkaway question to you: why do you think I think you’re smart?”

I left him with that. He’s in the process of a turnaround in behavior. I suspect MGCs, from myself and colleagues, are at least a part of this turnaround.

My Takeaways From the September Invitation

• Keeping track is key. Keeping track of MGCs is important to me because it helps me see my blind spots. There are some students whom I’m not naturally drawn to — maybe because they are quiet or standoffish or are just there doing their thing in class, not causing problems, not coming to my attention. Tracking MGCs is important to me because it makes sure I try to connect with these students, too. Being Credible with ALL students is the goal of MGCs; creating an environment where EACH student feels valued, known, and respected is what I'm after. I can't do this through superhuman effort (I lack that); I can only do it through small, daily efforts undertaken systematically. Had I not kept track, I know several students per class would have fallen through the cracks.
• I am not a robot. Meaning, my favorite MGCs were the ones that just kind of came to me as I was going throughout my day: planning a lesson, reflecting on a lesson, walking around the room checking for understanding, washing the dishes with my mind wandering. It was the impromptu MGCs that were my favorite — probably because they were most genuine. When I was doing the dishes and a student I was worried about or just appreciated that day came to mind, I tried to make a quick note so as to bring that up with them tomorrow. When I was planning a lesson and a student I was looking forward to seeing came to mind, sharing that simple thought with them made for an enjoyable, life-giving moment: “Hey, Kyra, I’m really glad I get to teach you. I was just thinking about that this morning when planning the lesson. Wanted you to know. Thanks for being here.”
• At the start of the year especially, MGCs are exhausting. I made a video about this. What I realized this year is that when you’re first doing MGCs with your students, you’re having to build human beings in your mind and heart. This is incredibly tiring — especially for an introvert. It was important for me this year to realize that what I was doing was hard but that, once those humans were roughly built in my mind, it was going to get easier and more fun. I am just starting to experience this “easier and more fun” promise that comes with tracking attempted MGCs.
• There are still some students I don’t feel connected to. Even though I can say (thanks to my clipboard) that I’ve attempted an MGC with every student, I still feel a sense of stranger-ness with many students — like we both don’t have a sense yet that we know and value one another. This is a normal part of the MGC process. It’s these kinds of students that I’m focusing on as I begin my second clipboard sheet (full roster of all the students I teach in all classes) of the school year.
• Many students really want the one-on-ones. When I first did hallway MGCs with my classes, I told them that this would be a normal thing we’d do this year. During independent work segments of our lessons, sometimes I was going to pull students into the hallway for a check-in — I wanted them to know this up front. I did these hallway MGCs for a few lessons in a row, but then for a few days I didn’t do it. A student came up to me after a few days of not doing it and said, “When am I going to get called into the hallway?” She wanted me to do this for her. Not all students feel this way, but I think many more do than I assume.

I hope what I've shared helps or spurs thinking. It's interesting to me that, years after first proposing this strategy in These 6 Things and elaborating upon it in The Will to Learn, I am still learning things about myself, my practice, and my students through its use.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR