A Brain Friendly Chat

Series 5 Leaders Coaching Leaders Podcast

[00:00:00.34] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Corwin's Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast with host Peter Dewitt. This podcast is from education leaders for education leaders. Every week, Peter and our guests get together to share ideas, put research into practice, and ensure every student is learning, not by chance, but by design.

[00:00:19.05] PETER DEWITT: Hey, Tanya.

[00:00:20.44] TANYA CHANS: Hey, Peter. Season 5 is well underway.

[00:00:23.32] PETER DEWITT: Season 5 is well underway. And you know I know we've said this on some of the other intros and exits. But I just feel like every conversation we've been having so far is pretty inspiring, but also powerful for me. I'm walking away from these actually just with some really deep thinking. And then today is no different. We've got Carl Ann Tomlinson and David Sousa, both people really don't need an introduction.

[00:00:53.05] But Carol Ann is actually the William Clay Parrish Professor Emerita at the University of Virginia. And David Sousa is an international consultant in educational neuroscience. And both of them, individually, have had a powerful impact on education. Carol Ann with differentiated instruction, and David Sousa with neuroscience.

[00:01:21.09] So I wanted to reach out to them. I contacted you, and said, hey, I have two guests that I'm hoping would say yes. And they said yes pretty quickly. So that was good.

[00:01:30.83] They wrote a book together called Differentiation and the Brain for ASCD. It came out a couple of years ago. And I happened to read it in the fall of last year. And it just was one of those books that as soon as I opened it, I found myself highlighting and writing notes and seeing kind of this immediate impact on what I could be doing when I'm running workshops or when I'm coaching.

[00:01:55.91] So they're the ones we interviewed today, and I think that viewers-- well, viewers on YouTube-- but also listeners, I think are really going to appreciate what they say. But just get ready because they give a lot of information and a lot of deep information. So kind of feel like this is going to be a podcast that we're going to want to listen to several times.

[00:02:24.36] TANYA CHANS: And you're going to want to get the books if you don't have them. Because I think there's going to be a lot of filling in for information, or just, hey, what did he really mean by that? And then unfortunately in 20, 30 minutes, we can't get to it all. But leaders who were listening and any teachers who were listening, here's something that I really took away from this.

[00:02:43.23] And if I was still in schools, I think I would steal it, and I would start telling teachers, teachers is fine. But what you really are brain changers. And if you do it right, you're changing brains forever.

[00:02:57.45] And when Carol talked about that this is really an ethical endeavor, I think those two things coupled up-- don't want to make anybody like-- we all feel the weight of the work that we do and how awesome it is. But by golly, something to print and put on your wall. So that's your north star, stays in focus. So I thought that was really powerful. And there are just lots of nuggets like those listeners in the conversation up ahead.

[00:03:27.02] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, so make sure you listen for those. And you're also going to listen for where David corrects me, or he at least asked me never to use a phrase again. And I have to tell you, I will never use that phrase again because David Sousa told me not to. And yeah, when you go in to interview somebody, people that you admire deeply-- and I've met them both at different times, but have never had really like deep conversations with them.

[00:03:56.28] But when you read their work, you cite their work, you've met them, when you're going to interview them, there's kind of a heightened awareness and hope that the interview is going to turn out with the high expectations that you set. And it did for me. It definitely did for me. And I'm walking away feeling like there are some things that I need to research a little bit more. So anyway, listeners, I hope you enjoy this interview with Carol Ann Tomlinson David Sousa as much as I have.

[00:04:29.08] TANYA CHANS: Yes. Me, too. And for your comment, Peter, it's because you truly are a lifelong learner. So I love that you're so honest with our guests about that. All right, so enjoy everyone, and we will see you at the other side.

[00:04:47.57] PETER DEWITT: Carol Ann Tomlinson and David Sousa, welcome to the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast.

[00:04:53.73] CAROL TOMLINSON: Glad to be here. Glad to be here with my buddy, David.

[00:04:56.98] PETER DEWITT: I know. I'm glad to see that not only-- it actually gives me hope because I don't have many co-authors. So not only are you coauthors, but you're good friends, too, and you're still talking to each other. So that's actually a really good thing. I reached out to you to do this interview because I know both of your work.

[00:05:19.24] I mean, bodies of work. And David, you do so much with neuroscience. And Carol, you've done so much around differentiated instruction, and there are just so many different kind of topics that I would love to be able to address and then just bring them all under the realm of leadership, whether we're talking about school building or district leadership, but also teacher leadership as well.

[00:05:44.18] What I'd like to start off with is, it might seem like a silly question, and I'm sorry to ask it. But when we talk about Differentiation and the Brain, what is brain research-- how is brain research changed the way we think about teaching? I hope that makes sense. And David, can I start with you on that one?

[00:06:09.13] DAVID SOUSA: Yes, think neuroscience research has given us some insights into how the brain learns. We still have a lot to go, but we've gained some amazing insights in the past few years. And some of those insights are directly related to what happens in the classroom.

[00:06:29.04] Teachers are brain changers. They never think of themselves as that, but I've always said to them, when someone asks you what you do, and you say I'm a teacher, they'll say, oh. Sometimes it's pity, and sometimes it's just moving on. And they don't appreciate the kind of work that happens in the teaching-learning process.

[00:06:48.61] So I tell teachers that when the next time someone asks you what you do, tell them you're a brain changer. And that will start a whole different conversation. Because that's what happens in a successful teaching-learning environment. Assuming the teacher has chosen the right strategies and content and an environment, and the learner decides to store that information, you've changed that brain forever as far as we know. So brain research is telling us the power of the choices that teachers make in terms of strategies.

[00:07:26.58] One of the things it has shown us is that the brain is built to be a problem solver. Its main job is to keep you alive, and it does that by solving problems in the environment. It also is a social problem solver. We have social neurons that encourage us to interact with our colleagues or with our other fellow human beings in order to survive. That's how it happen.

[00:07:52.38] Take that to the classroom, and that tells us that we're more likely to get successful learning if students work together and the teacher encourages engagement and sharing of information and sharing of knowledge because no two brains are alike. And when we put students in a situation where the teacher understands their interests, understands where they are, what their capabilities are at that moment in time, and mixes that all into the instructional strategies, then there's a much higher probability that true learning will occur rather than just the teacher telling what he or she knows and letting what happen happen what may.

[00:08:39.13] There's a big difference between telling what you know and teaching. Because the latter always assumes that learning will occur. And in order for that to happen, the more the teacher knows about how the brain learns, the more successful they are they will be at accomplishing that. It's told us a lot about attention, about motivation, about the reward cycle in the brain, and how teachers can use the reward cycle to let's say increase engagement, to capture students' interests, to expand their interests.

[00:09:19.38] And I could go on for another hour about what we're learning. But there's certainly so much that we have learned that should change what happens in a lot of classrooms and fits very nicely into what Carol has been talking about for years, that working together, participating in groups, understanding the interests of kids and where they are at any given moment in time, what they know so far, how well the learning is going, all that has been supported very strongly by what we now call educational neuroscience.

[00:09:59.94] PETER DEWITT: Thank you for that. And this is great because, Carol, I was going to go to you, but David set me up really nicely. Because I was going to say, over the years, you've been talking so much about differentiated instruction. And I even remember when you had to-- I actually have used an example of you in the past. Because I feel like we have a common language in schools, but we don't have a common understanding.

[00:10:23.47] So we use words like differentiated instruction or growth mindset or student engagement. But we don't really have a common understanding of what that means. Given what David just talked about and explained about neuroscience, can you kind of give-- is it fair to ask you to give a common understanding of what differentiated instruction means?

[00:10:47.66] CAROL TOMLINSON: I mean, yes, I'd like David give me five hours, and I'll be really glad to do that for you in 10 minutes. I'm less sure. But what I've come to understand-- and the work that I've done with David certainly contributes to this in large ways-- is that differentiation means creating a learning environment and learning circumstances, which are hospitable to the varieties of the brains that students bring into the classroom with them.

[00:11:17.18] There's good practice, which benefits almost everybody and which we don't often have at large scale. But then beyond that, there's understanding of students, culture, and the challenge of learning a new language, or what it feels like to be able to think fine, but you scramble words on a page when you want to read. There's so many things kids bring to classes with, and parents that are in a divorce, trying to make the house environment hospitable for more and more people in their circumstances.

[00:11:51.00] And one of the things that it took me a while to figure out, I think I had known it instinctively. But as you say, we have to develop vocabulary that communicates things more clearly. For me, that means that teachers need to be attuned to the varied needs of kids when they think about their learning environment, to do what John Hattie calls creating an invitational learning environment when the kids get up and really look forward to going to even though they might not admit it.

[00:12:19.55] And that means all kinds of kids creating curriculum that has meaning and helps them make sense of the world around them. Assessment, as David said, that helps us follow students' development so that we're not teaching tomorrow without any regard to who learned what today or who learned it backwards or who missed something last year that precludes their learning now.

[00:12:42.71] It means instruction, as David said, that puts kids together in a whole variety of groupings and individuals, not based on who we think are the bluebirds, the buzzards, or the wombats, but what the next step is or whose interest can be tapped into here, helping kids become supportive of one another and problem solvers together using a variety of instructional strategies that really target on what we need to have students learn not just because we picked up a new one last week and don't quite know what it's for.

[00:13:17.22] And I think it calls on creating, calls for us to create a learning environment that balances stability and flexibility. We're better as teachers sometimes at creating the predictable environment. But kids aren't predictable. So we need to have that flexibility as well. And it's figuring out how to balance those.

[00:13:37.29] So I think differentiation is a real sort of sloppy definition is teachers being attuned to the kids they teach and doing whatever they can to make learning more hospitable for all of them based on best practices that we actually know from our field are worth betting on and used to be that that field was betting on just things that psychology had told us, and then that pedagogy told us. But now, neuroscience as well. And it's interesting David and I have written a little bit about this but of the confluence of those things where all three of those fields tell us pretty much the same thing in slightly different ways.

[00:14:17.37] PETER DEWITT: When I was reading Differentiation and the Brain, one of the things you both do really well is break down the whole idea of knowledge, understanding, and skills. And I want to ask you, because I want to make sure that I get it right, because I've actually been citing that. And when I'm doing workshops, or I'm coaching leaders, and they develop a theory of action, where their area of focus is going to be, I've actually taken your work, cited it, and put it in knowledge, understanding, and skills.

[00:14:50.49] And the way that I'm using is to be able to say, what is the knowledge you have about this topic already, whatever your focus is? And then the understanding is that truly like what you're learning and how it assimilates with the knowledge that you have already? And then skills would be the skills you're able to do because of that? Am I explaining that in the right way? David or Carol?

[00:15:15.47] CAROL TOMLINSON: Let me take that one first, David. You can take the next one because that's sort of a curriculum geek thing.

[00:15:21.39] PETER DEWITT: OK.

[00:15:21.72] CAROL TOMLINSON: The Knowledge, Understanding, and Skill, what I've called KUDs, is exactly the same thing that Jay McTighe talks about with essential knowledge, essential understanding, and essential skills. And knowledge is just factual components, information about a topic. And we should be teaching the most essential stuff, not 500 gallons of it in a week. Skills are things that we can do, not just out of context, but with that knowledge and understanding. And the understandings are really the most powerful.

[00:15:51.66] Those are the concepts and principles around which a discipline is built. And an understanding is an insight about the meaning of the discipline itself to help kids see the purpose of it, to see the relevance of it, to see the power of it. And that really, when David talks about the brain, that's what activates the brain a really lot in the sense of personal meaning and personal relevance. Like, wow, this idea is helping me see myself in this.

[00:16:20.07] This idea is helping me understand the thing that I'm talking about. Comes from the work of Hilda Taba 60 years ago now or so when she talked about levels of knowledge. And she said the information she did on learning tub, archery target, in the middle is facts, knowledge. Central, but very small in its power. Concepts and principles, far more powerful because they help us really make meaning of the world.

[00:16:49.71] And then attitudes and skills she put after that is even more powerful because our attitudes shapes so much. And the skills she was talking about are powerful skills, like communication, not where the period goes at the end of the sentence, but. So what we're trying to do with those things is help teachers understand that we need to deal with all three of those levels, and they need to work in concert with one another. Kids should probably be using facts and skills in service of the understandings.

[00:17:17.35] PETER DEWITT: OK. And David, Carol just mentioned the whole idea of attitude. And one of the other things that I enjoyed from your book is, I mean, from your work in general. I think sometimes when we talk about what we need to be doing differently in the classroom, or in a building, or in a district, there's almost there's a risk that it's going to come off judgmental.

[00:17:43.20] And I always make sure that I want people to understand that this is a non-judgmental attitude. It's kind of like, we all have things we need to learn when we're moving forward, whether you're the facilitator, or you're the person sitting in the room. And one of the pieces that you focus on, because I think the work that you're offering is that non-judgmental. It's here is the information. Here is what you can do with it.

[00:18:09.28] One of the pieces that you have in the book is the difference between the positive environment and a negative environment. And I want to go to you about this, David. Because over the past few years, there's been much more of an emphasis on well-being. Things that used to be considered social emotional learning, prior to COVID, there would be pushback. I write a blog for Education Week, and I would get pushback on social emotional learning blogs all the time.

[00:18:39.18] Nowadays, you hear Maslow before Bloom. So when you're talking about neuroscience and the learning environment, you both went very detailed into the difference between a positive learning environment and a negative learning environment, which I think kind of coincides with-- Carol was just saying with the whole idea of attitudes. Can you talk a little bit about the responses from the brain when it comes to the difference between the positive and negative environment?

[00:19:07.70] DAVID SOUSA: Sure. A positive environment generally means that the student wants to come to the classroom, that they find that an inviting place, that there's a mutual respect not only between teacher and student but among the students themselves. And the teacher encourages an environment where students have respect for each other's opinions.

[00:19:34.41] Remember that the emotional part of the brain develops much earlier than the cognitive problem solving part of the brain. So emotions are a big part of what the brain is doing when a kid crosses that threshold into your classroom. A lot of that will depend on what happened the day before, or what experiences those kids have had in that classroom, what experiences they've had and feeling they've been successful at learning, that the teacher really cares about what they learn.

[00:20:05.73] And I think evidence of that came from a study done not too long ago. It was part of a study about attitudes in school. And the question they asked kids was-- years ago and for quite a few years-- what is the most important quality that you would like your teachers to have in your classroom?

[00:20:29.60] And for years and years and years, the number one quality was fairness. That they felt that the teacher was fair in what was happening in the classroom. That changed about 8 or 10 years ago. All of a sudden, fair dropped down, considerable drop. And what moved into number one spot? Care. That the teacher cares about me and cares about my success.

[00:20:58.82] So kids are telling us that their brain is saying, look, if you want me to engage, if you want me to be part of this experience, I've got to feel that you care about my success, and I've got to feel that you're choosing things that will allow me to be successful, that you're presenting information in a way that I see where I am right now. I see what I need to learn, and it makes sense that I learn it. Learning makes sense.

[00:21:23.61] But as Carol knows, I beat these two things to death sometimes. The two major criteria that the brain uses to decide, do I want to get involved in this learning and save it? Or sense and meaning? First of all, do I understand it? Does it make sense? And then, what's it got to do with me? Has a teacher been successful in allowing me to see the connection that this new learning has to what I already know? And how it will help me in the future?

[00:21:53.58] When you do that, that's a very positive environment. A negative environment would be pretty much the opposite. The teacher just tells you what you know. I hope you learned it. Let's move on. And doesn't find out how much you've learned until the end of the week or end of the unit test and said, oh, well, it didn't work. But we got stuff to cover, and they keep moving.

[00:22:15.22] And if I may just add one more thing, Peter, with regard to leadership. Back in the 18th century, Francis Bacon said knowledge is power. And we often use that expression, which really isn't that true. It's only half an expression.

[00:22:35.31] And I'm going to be bold enough to improve on Bacon, I think, in my mind, and say, knowledge isn't power. It's the application of knowledge that's power. Because sometimes, people know things that they don't use in their application, in their practice. They know more than what they do.

[00:22:54.23] And in order to apply knowledge successfully, you have to understand it. You have to see where it fits into to everything else that you know. So the application of knowledge, the power comes from the application. And the application being appropriate because you understand how it works. That makes sense to you?

[00:23:14.24] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, it does. Because actually, there are so many things going off in my head right now. It's the both of you were talking, and I'm very excited about that because it's like the book is coming alive, and also things that I've been thinking about since reading the book. And David, I reached out to you after and just said, is it fair to assume that a lot of what you're writing about and researched and talking about it within the book is also true for adults?

[00:23:43.35] And one of the frustrations that I see for adults is that teachers are told they have to model all of these great practices. And yet, they go to a professional learning session. Or leaders are told they have to practice instructional leadership, and then they go to a district meeting. And none of it is modeled for them. They're not allowed processing time. And I feel like I want you both on the record for this so I can say Carol Ann and David actually said--

[00:24:12.42] One of the things we fight for, I think, when it comes to practicing true instructional leadership is being able to go to a district office meeting and having time to process that information. Because the metacognition, the transfer of learning, that application is all really important. Same with teachers.

[00:24:33.41] They go to these one and done professional development, and then they're told to go back and use whatever it was within their classroom right away. Is it fair to say that we really need to be advocating for much more processing time for teachers and leaders to actually engage in this kind of transfer of learning and application? Carol?

[00:24:59.06] TANYA CHANS: Yeah, the short answer to your question is yes. But I think there's much more than just processing time. I mean, that if you're looking back at those five classroom components-- environment, curriculum assessment, instruction, and leadership, and management. The processing thing is an instructional deal. And we need to teach teachers differently so that things work for them. And that's a part of that.

[00:25:25.85] But it's also hard to expect teachers to be empathetic, which we really need teachers to be now. If no one in leadership is particularly empathetic of them, it's hard for them to feel like they can actually acknowledge students differences in any meaningful way when the only message that they're getting is cover all this stuff and prepare kids for the test.

[00:25:49.97] So one of the things that I've said really often to principals is if you want teachers in your building to be more effective in responding to the students that you teach, you have to model for them a learning environment that's really Invitational for them. You have to have a learning agenda that they can make sense of and connect with. You have to have some formative assessment mechanism to understand who's learning what and translating it into the classroom and who needs more support or different support and so forth.

[00:26:22.38] So if we want teachers to live differently, then we have to lead differently. And I think one of the things that is really important in that line is that you were talking about the judgmental thing. And I think there's enough judgment for all of us. None of us have this thing nailed and to point fingers. Somebody always said to me when you point one finger at somebody else, four of them are pointing back at you. And that's true.

[00:26:54.52] But I think we sometimes blame teachers for systemic failures. If the only thing that matters is a test score, then any insights that David has about teaching in the brain are gone. They're just gone. And so I think we need to take enough time to understand who we want to be and move forward from that standpoint. And yes, they need more processing time, but they also need to be treated like human beings and dealt with as individuals and giving different support systems.

[00:27:23.08] And nobody needs to be assuming that the once and done staff development is going to change much of anything in a classroom. We have plenty of evidence that it can be a good appetizer. But if you don't follow with main courses that are consistent, you're sunk. So complex, but yes. We need time to process who we want to be and how we want to get there as well as what that new strategy was in the meeting.

[00:27:46.61] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, and I think with the processing time, I think it also goes hand in hand with the idea that if we're going to give you time to processing time, it also means we trust. There's a lot that's in there as well. I want to ask a question. There's so much coming at us in education-- books coming out, publishers publishing books.

[00:28:07.85] You both have such credibility in the world of education and neuroscience and in everything else. How does a teacher or a leader understand the difference between a practice that says it's brain-based and one that really is? That a fair question to ask? I feel like sometimes, as soon as something becomes a thing, a word that we can use, then it gets tagged onto the book and gets sold.

[00:28:41.38] And I see David, you're shaking your head. So I'm going to go to you. Is that a fair thing to say? Because when I was reading through your book, I know both of you. I know your work. And so I'm reading it, and I'm seeing the citations and everything else. But what about people that are picking something up that they think is brain-based, and it's really not? David?

[00:29:02.71] DAVID SOUSA: Yes, first of all, Peter, I'd like to get rid of that term brain-based. It drives me absolutely crazy. Because it assumes that there's a learning that isn't brain-based, and that's ridiculous. What is it, liver-based learning? Pancreas-based learning? I mean, all learning is brain-based.

[00:29:20.43] PETER DEWITT: OK.

[00:29:21.00] DAVID SOUSA: The term, please, remove it from your vocabulary and encourage others to do it. I've been fighting a lost battle now for 20 years to try to get rid of that damn phrase because it's so ridiculous. Brain-friendly makes more sense. That means you're doing things that are compatible with how the brain learns. And that's really what we're saying here.

[00:29:44.70] Yes, you're absolutely right, and that also is one of my pet peeves is that some people, they write a book and they say, oh, you know what, if we put the word brain on the cover, that's going to sell more copies because that's the big thing these days. And they don't know beans about the brain. So like anything else, you have to be a smart consumer.

[00:30:08.84] You have to always ask yourself, if I'm going to read this book, that purports to present research-based information, what's the background of the author? And what proof do they have? What citations are they using? And are they using the citation appropriately? Does the research in the citation reflect the point they're trying to make?

[00:30:31.46] So yeah, we have to become smart consumers of this. We know certainly now educational neuroscience, we finally, I think agreed on that back in 2010 I think. So the term has been around now for 12 years or so. It's now a legitimate area of scientific inquiry.

[00:30:56.00] And as a result, you need to look at the work of people who have been in that area and are either have a science background or are such good researchers that they know what kind of research studies will support the point they're trying to make. But there's too much junk out there unfortunately.

[00:31:18.98] And so you're right, you have to be a smart consumer and be careful when you say, oh, this is brain-based. That awful term. Or this has support in brain research. It may not. In fact, there are some things that we do in classrooms that are the antithesis of being brain-friendly. And we have to be smarter in what we do.

[00:31:42.24] PETER DEWITT: Well, I know that I'm going to walk away from this conversation never using the words brain-based again. So you had an impact on me, David. I promise. As we close up, I know this is kind of a bigger philosophical question.

[00:31:55.72] But for both of you, when people are reading through Differentiation in the Brain, or just reading your individual work, is there a bigger message somehow that you want people to walk away with after their reading or after their reviewing and reading and researching your work? Is there kind of a bigger message that you're offering?

[00:32:21.53] Because sometimes, I feel like when we talk about neuroscience and education, it becomes a scary thing for people. They think, oh, gee, I don't know if I can do that. So when we're looking at both of your work and bodies of work, is there kind of a bigger message that you're hoping people will walk away with? Carol?

[00:32:42.56] CAROL TOMLINSON: I hadn't thought about this in a while, but your question reminded me. When I was teaching at the University, I had a class one time. It was just one of those ones that kids thought young people thought so interestingly in and seemed to be so passionate about the work they were getting ready to do that it was really great to go in there. And there was one young woman in particular who was deeply passionate about teaching and had done a lot of research and work on her own and had had experiences with kids.

[00:33:12.06] And we took pride at the University, of course, as all people do, and the fact that we were teaching good stuff in good ways. And one day, she came into class, and she said-- I think I asked the students to jot down on a piece of paper for me an insight that they had had about their role as teachers since they had started the course. And there's one young woman, who I thought was as good as we've ever had, wrote that her insight was that teaching is a deeply ethical profession.

[00:33:42.69] And she had never seen teaching as an ethical proposition. That would be my message. When you get really down to the core of life, there are things that we do that are good for people and bad for people. And in the leadership position, as a teacher, we ought to be doing everything that we can to dignify kids and to make them understand the power that's within them and to do what they need, even if it's inconvenient to us sometimes. That doesn't mean martyrs, but really making our decisions with that in mind.

[00:34:12.95] And I think if we just ask ourselves every day with an ethical compass, which way should this thing be pointing today in terms of kids needs and the future of the world and the crazy place that we live that needs them to be stronger, to make us better than our generation has been able to do? What are the ethics here? What do we do? Because it is the right thing to do, not because it's popular or comfortable or convenient, but because it's the right thing to do.

[00:34:40.74] PETER DEWITT: Thank you for that. David?

[00:34:43.70] DAVID SOUSA: I would add to what Carol just said. Because my thought fits in very nicely with hers. Part of being an ethical professional is recognizing that you're having an impact on the clients in front of you, and the clients the students. And it can be a very powerful impact.

[00:35:08.76] And therefore, ethically, you should have a knowledge base that is as up to date as possible in order to be effective and understand the various brains you have in front of you. And the power that the educational neuroscience is giving us is a deeper understanding of how learning occurs. And therefore, insights into what we need to do in the classroom to make that more successful for more kids.

[00:35:39.93] Because no two brains are alike. And you have to understand, although there are commonalities, that the bigger your kit bag is of strategies that make sense based on what we know about how the brain learns, the more successful you're going to be with more kids. And that's a big piece of the ethical performer saying, I know I'm working hard to update my research base, to update my knowledge base, to update my strategies so I can be more successful with more kids.

[00:36:14.50] Too many times I've been in schools where teachers are working hard, but they're working hard from a 1970s database that they learned when they were in teachers college. And you got to give them credit for effort. But they need to have a more up to date bag of tricks and understand more about what we are learning about how the brain learns. That's it. And when you do, by the way, it makes teaching more enjoyable.

[00:36:43.75] Because you become-- helping to share knowledge, but you're working smarter, not harder. Because you're shifting the burden of learning. One of my expressions is the brain that does the work. Is the brain that learns. And in too many classrooms, the teacher is doing all the work, and the students are just being passive. So if you shift the burden of learning to where it's supposed to be, to the learner's brain, that makes your job a little easier and smarter and likely to be more successful.

[00:37:18.81] CAROL TOMLINSON: Let me pop back in there for one second, Peter, if you don't mind because--

[00:37:22.51] PETER DEWITT: No, of course.

[00:37:23.05] CAROL TOMLINSON: [INAUDIBLE] to say Amen to what David said. One of my more recent pitches with the definition of differentiation is doing the best that we can to maximize a student's affective social, academic and intellectual capacities based on our current best knowledge of what it means to have a good learning environment, powerful curriculum, effective assessment, successful instruction, and a classroom that is habitable and functional.

[00:37:55.21] And so I think what David said is really right. If I don't have an ongoing knowledge base, including knowing who this student is, we tend to teach the students. The students like it when we do this. The students are crabby on Monday. And we talk about them as one and teach them as one. And so part of that knowledge base that we have to continue to build is trying to understand this student.

[00:38:19.66] Because you can't teach a class if you've got 20 kids in it, you have to teach 20 different brains. The class can't learn anything. Every individual has to. So Amen to what David said. It's not a knowledge-free proposition.

[00:38:34.81] PETER DEWITT: Well, I think it's Amen to what both of you said. Carol Ann Tomlinson, David Sousa, thank you not only for being on the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast, but just for your bodies of work, and because you've certainly had an impact on many including me. So thank you for allowing me some time to interview you today.

[00:38:54.57] CAROL TOMLINSON: Thanks for the opportunity to be with you and to be with David.

[00:38:57.66] DAVID SOUSA: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE] to be with Carol and happy to contribute to your podcast.

[00:39:05.83] TANYA CHANS: You're right, and we say this often, but these are some really heavy hitters. Great conversation. Anybody who does not know these two guests, I know they are probably already on Amazon clicking purchase for all of the books that-- there's something about when you talk to people who have been steeped in work and particularly a specific area of research for a very long time.

[00:39:33.42] It's almost hard to put words in front of it. It's like great art. You just really know it when you see it. And these two guests are those guests. So we were only able to scratch the surface. But it was a great surface. So as always, I wanted to talk about a couple of things I really took away from this conversation I thought were great. One is like an of course, but a yeah. Got to always remind ourselves about that.

[00:39:58.33] And the other one is something that I as an educator just think it's really important for us to also always have in the forefront of our minds. So the first having two small children who are currently in pre-K and in first grade, I have the pleasure of watching them almost skip off to school every day. My son absolutely loves to go to school.

[00:40:22.78] He's not a morning person, but once we get over those 10 minutes of fret, like, he's good to go. He loves his teachers. He hugs them all the time. He's a great kid, if I might say so myself. But what they've done that these two guests talked about is that they've just made the classroom a place he wants to go.

[00:40:39.40] PETER DEWITT: Yeah.

[00:40:40.30] TANYA CHANS: And it makes everything else so much easier when that is in place. And conversely, when it's not there, you can just imagine how hard it makes all of the other important work that must follow that to actually happen. So I loved hearing that. And I see it every day. And I know it's so true.

[00:40:57.73] The other point is this is one little nugget among so many. But again, my takeaways, that they talked about the assessment piece and how we have such a duty to make sure that we know where kids are before we ever think about going on to the next thing. It is so true that there's no way that you can just teach at kids and not really have a sense of where things are landing or wait too long to find out. Like your instruction is supposed to be responsive to what's going on the ground.

[00:41:28.67] Responsive is one of those terms we use all of the time and I think thinking about you and unpacking things. Giving people actionable ways to be responsive is so important. And one of those is being very clear about how the work you've just done has landed with students. That you can really, really differentiate and meet them where they're at. So those are my two takeaways among so many. But those are the ones I wanted to mention.

[00:41:55.40] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, there are definitely a few for me. I think people need to know that like I don't have a list of questions that I'm going to ask before I do the podcast. I don't have a list of questions. I don't send them to the guests ahead of time. We are trying to do is just have a conversation around education. So the back of my mind, I was thinking, is that going to be a good question or not?

[00:42:23.97] And I just ask from-- I know it can be philosophical, but what do you want people to take away from your work? And when Carol Ann started talking about the ethical piece, I was just thinking, wow, she's just brilliant. Like they just have a deep sense of what they would like to be able to see, not just in education, but in classrooms.

[00:42:48.74] One of the other pieces for me that's important because I work with so many adults. And I'm it's just always interesting to me that we're always saying this is what teachers need to do with students. But it's not the same experience teachers get when they go to professional learning. Or that leaders get when they go to a district meeting is just that, focus on learning.

[00:43:10.06] And so I love that Carol Ann actually unpacked knowledge, understanding, and skills for me. And because that actually helped me go deeper with that. But also the idea of what processing time really means, and what it should look like.

[00:43:26.09] And from David's standpoint, I think David is brilliant. And so when he's talking about what a positive environment does, that's really important. I had to ask the question about what if-- it's so hard for educators. It's hard for me. It's hard for people. You have so much coming at you. And if it says brain-based you're like, oh, I want to make sure I read that.

[00:43:52.01] I know I will never use the word brain-based again after this podcast because David does not want that to happen. So I'm going to listen to him. But I also really appreciated the fact that he said we just have to really be smart consumers, and make sure that what we're reading truly is brain-friendly or neuroscience-based or whatever we want to say. And I think it goes along with the credibility of the people who are doing it.

[00:44:22.10] When we're looking at those kind of resources, does the person behind it, does the author, the researcher, have credibility where these topics are concerned? So yeah, I feel like we're covering a lot of ground within 30 minutes for all of these podcasts. But they were just-- that to me was one of those interviews that I'm going to appreciate for a very long time because I've looked up to their work for a long time.

[00:44:47.93] TANYA CHANS: That's fantastic, yeah. I'm listening to you. I'm unearthing another theme or lesson in many of our podcasts, which is, what works for students generally is what works for adults, too. And so there's a transfer of knowledge there. As we move into leadership, if we can hold on to that, it might go a long way.

[00:45:05.75] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, for sure.

[00:45:06.85] TANYA CHANS: And lastly, now remember, the brain that does the work is the brain that learns.

[00:45:11.08] PETER DEWITT: Oh, I love that, too. Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, they just had so many nuggets.

[00:45:16.82] TANYA CHANS: So many.

[00:45:17.69] PETER DEWITT: A lot of tweetable stuff. [INAUDIBLE]

[00:45:19.81] TANYA CHANS: They very tweetable.

[00:45:21.35] PETER DEWITT: So this is what I want to say to listeners. If you listen to that interview, and you loved it as much as I did, let us know. Give us some feedback. Follow the podcast. Because when we have people like that, like David Sousa and Carol Ann Tomlinson on, and they're giving us so much really great and deep information that we can walk away and start to research on our own, make sure that you let us know what you think about the shows so we can keep doing those kind of interviews.

[00:45:54.65] TANYA CHANS: Yes, please, please. All right, well, listeners, thank you for learning alongside of us. And Peter, it was a blast learning with you.