Dear colleague,
Since The Will to Learn came out in spring of 2023, pockets of earnest educators have made it their own in delightful and admirable and powerful ways. One such example is from Ocean View Christian Academy in San Diego, CA. If you've been wanting to start a discussion at your school regarding the Five Key Beliefs, student motivation, and a back-to-the-building-blocks simplification of good teaching, you may really like today's article.
Let's start with what OVCA school leader Angie Birney wrote to me last school year:
Hi, Dave. When our lead teacher, Rik Williams, proposed a presentation to the teachers on the topic of student motivation (because it's that time of year), I was unsure because it was such a broad category. But Rik dove into studying The Will to Learn (while I was thinking it was still a lot to cover) and then created this presentation. The slides looked good to me, but then Rik hit a home run with his assured, easygoing manner with the teachers and his expertise. He owned this, painting with different colors of the rainbow. He even mentioned teachers' names as positive examples for some of his points. The teachers appreciated their 1.5 hours plus with Rik, and these notes pages helped them process and record their learning.
(Those links above will take you to both the slides and the notes pages.)
Let's use this example — which Angie describes as a “home run” — to unpack what I've found it takes to get solid student motivation thinking started in a school setting.
First, someone owns it. In this case, it was Rik. He didn't ask for a PD on a topic — he asked if he could do a PD on a topic. Then, he went about deeply learning the material. (The fruits of that deep learning were his “assured, easygoing manner” and “expertise.”) The good news about The Will to Learn is that it's simple and deep. If I'm any indicator, you can study this material for years and years and still find gains in clarity, insight, and wisdom.
How did Rik deeply learn the material? He did a few straightforward things:
- He read the book.
- He translated the book into slides that communicated the ideas he valued to the setting he was in.
- I'm guessing he tried the ideas out in his own classroom so he knew the truth of what he was talking to his colleagues about.
Let's look a bit more at the beginning slides specifically to see how Rik creates a learning environment in which folks want to learn about the Five Key Beliefs methodology.
Rik starts with what I call the “Led Tasso” exercise. Instead of using his own arguments to establish the Value of a PD on student motivation, he has the learners do it. This is a Valued Within move (Strategy #6 in The Will to Learn.)
Then, he situates the topic within the instructional philosophy of his setting.
A common teacher complaint with PD is that it's just “one more thing.” The two moves Rik starts with mitigate this common (and valid) problem. First, the teachers come up with reasons why a PD on student motivation is Valuable. Then, Rik establishes that the PD topic is in line with the fundamental, pre-established imperatives of the school.
From here, Rik unpacks some of The Will to Learn‘s most important distinctions:
- What is motivation?
- Why are carrots and sticks not the way to get true motivation?
And from all this, what is the burning question of today's PD?
From here, Rik gets into some of the meat of the book — specifically, ideas around Credibility. I can see why it was a home run because this is the kind of stuff that blends theory and practice and the existential concerns of teachers so well.
A Couple Last Ideas
Now you might be thinking, “Well, I wouldn't use that slide or this language.” And that's my point in sharing: Rik translated ideas in the book that were right for his school, his colleagues, and made it an OVCA thing. That's basically been my core prayer as a PD guy since the book came out: I've now said the thing (the book); how can schools take what I've said and make it their own, make it a living and breathing reality in their schools, make it not “one more thing” but just “this is how we approach helping students care about the work of learning?”
The thing with PDs like Rik's is that they start conversations around the Five Key Beliefs, but for these conversations to bear fruit, they need to keep going. Whenever I'm at work, my mind is constantly in conversation with itself about the Five Key Beliefs and how they work. It's not an app I install in my teacher pedagogy; it's the operating system. I don't use the 10 strategies in the book by rote; I use them with increasing intelligence and skill because I'm always pondering them, tinkering, experimenting, observing.
To create that kind of culture in your school, it takes consistent engagement with the ideas over time.
So, for folks hungry for this kind of change, I offer up Rik's slides and notes pages in case they are generative. (Thank you to our colleagues Angie and Rik for sharing them.)
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
P.S. I've received many emails like the one from Angie, and I'm working to share more of them this year in case they help.
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