Discovering Genius From the Start

Have you ever had a moment when you learned about a new strategy and you're excited just thinking about its potential impact…and then within seconds you catch yourself wondering, surely this is only for older students, isn't it? Join Molly, Dr. Eve, and guest Sarah Ann Sawyers, Former A.B. Combs Kindergarten teacher, developer for the Early Learning Curriculum, and mom to two little leaders under age four, as they explore practical routines and strategies that help little learners see, and share, their genius.

Transcript

10.17.23 Discovering Genius From the Start 

 [00:00:00] 

Molly: () From Leader Me Studios. I'm Molly Garcia. This is The Empowering Teacher for Early Learning have you ever had a moment when you've learned about a new strategy, you're excited just thinking about its potential impact, and then within seconds you catch yourself wondering, okay, surely this is only for older students. Are they just too young to do this? I mean, can they really recognize their gifts and talents and share them with others?

Molly: That's what we're taking head on in this episode. And I'm so excited because later on, I'm going to be with Sarah Ann Sawyers, former A. B. Combs Kindergarten teacher, developer for the early learning curriculum and mom of two little leaders under the age of four. She's sharing practical routines and strategies that we can implement with students that are making a great impact.

Molly: And to set us up for this time, Eve, let's just go ahead and jump into what the research says and how it can support best practices.

Eve: Well, Molly, to start, let's examine how we develop our sense of self, which [00:01:00] includes our gifts and talents, as well as where we fall short. Our self concept is built through subjective and objective evaluations. So. let's talk about what that means. So for instance, Molly, are your eyes brown?

Molly: That's right. They sure are.

Eve: That is an objective evaluation.

Eve: There's a definite answer because your eyes are indeed brown. Now let's think about this. Are you a good friend? Sorry to put you on the spot. 

Molly: Yeah. Well, I mean, I know I try, I try to be a good friend and I'm sure there have been times where I might've let somebody down, but I believe I've been there for my friends during those tough times.

Eve: Yeah. Thank you for playing along. because that is an example of a subjective self evaluation where you look back at your experiences as a friend against an internal standard of what you've learned means to be a friend. As adults, we have many experiences to draw from to help us make these types of [00:02:00] self evaluations.

Eve: And they are a lot more nuanced than those of our students who haven't had as many opportunities to make those self evaluations and develop this sense of who we are.

Molly: Yeah, no doubt about that. And I'm going to say when I was much younger, being a good friend probably meant just hanging out at the park or doing an activity together, playing on the playground.

Eve: I mean, we would have been best buddies based on that self-evaluation. I would have found you on the tire swing. And this speaks to how these evaluations grow with time and experience. 

Eve: Early-learning students of this age often describe themselves in these early stages objectively, right? Like the... “are your eyes brown?” type thing, but they do it by, like, some, their physical abilities. Like, “I run fast” and their physical traits, like “I have black hair.” So, while these evaluations may seem simple, they're the foundation of our understanding of ourselves and our abilities. 

Molly: So how do we bring this to the classroom to help our youngest learners just [00:03:00] really recognize their gifts and talents?

Eve: This is a powerful question. We need to remember that early learners are scientists of the highest caliber. During their early years, they are building their sense of self through their natural scientific abilities, like curiosity, creativity, and most importantly, play.

Eve: So teachers have the opportunity to play a crucial role in this development by linking students’ creativity and curiosity and play to their daily routines.

Molly: And I imagine, Eve, that those solutions, they could be based on the students’ strengths, right, that they're discovering. So, almost like trying it on.

Eve: That's right, Molly. And a simple way to grow student self-awareness is shifting the way you ask some questions about themselves. The shift is taking your questions from why to what, for example, “What do you think you're good at?” versus [00:04:00] “Why are you so good at that?” 

Molly: That is so interesting, Eve. And I can see how the “what” questions, it actually opens me up to learning something about my strengths while the “why” question causes me to think more in terms of like a single thing I can do well.

Eve: That's exactly what the researchers found. The “what” expands our understanding of ourselves and gives us knowledge to learn from, while the “why” limits our learning and often can put a label on us that we carry and we think, “Now I'm the kid who's good at this or that” without letting us define “that” and explore “that.” 

Molly: Eve, this research brings so much clarity. Thank you. We're going to pivot and chat more about the Paradigm of Potential with our guest, Sarah Ann Sawyers. () 

Molly: Sarah Ann, to The Empowering Teacher Podcast for Early Learning Educators.

Sarah Ann: Molly, it's so great to be with you today.

Molly: I have been so excited about this interview because I know that you're going to [00:05:00] bring such wisdom to the work that we do as teachers, as well as those practical strategies that we can implement right away. So I'd like to begin with a question that I think might be just a wondering for many of our early-learning educators when it comes to that Paradigm of Potential.

Molly: So How prevalent is it in your experience that students are not ready or able to recognize and share their own genius?

Sarah Ann: Well, you know, Molly, in my experience, it feels like students are typically much better at recognizing their qwn genius than many adults. I find that our littlest leaders are much more likely to believe that they can do nearly anything and really do it well. 

Sarah Ann: What's more prevalent is that too often, we, as a society, just slowly and unfortunately script children towards feelings of self doubt and inadequacy.

Sarah Ann: I think that our [00:06:00] Leader in Me educators are incredibly interested and invested in this idea of self-efficacy. And, so, self-efficacy defined as an opinion backed by personal experience, we work to build that self-efficacy right in our Early-Learning Curriculum. We begin with the question as simple as, “What is an expert?” And then we invite students to draw pictures to show areas where they see themselves as experts.

Molly: Mm hmm. I love…

Sarah Ann: And, yeah, I love it so much. I tried it with my oldest daughter. She's not yet four. And after just a single conversation, she now routinely tells me completely unprompted that she's an expert in things like setting the table or baking cookies or grocery shopping.

Molly: I have to tell you, listening to that, I love the practicality of it. Let's just springboard off of that. How do you [00:07:00] address this in that practical way? What are some of those strategies and routines that our teachers can put in place?

Sarah Ann: I think aside from asking students to think through some of those simple questions like, “Hey, what are you an expert in?” We can, one, just honor their worth and potential by prominently displaying every student's work. So, in my own camping-themed Camping Out in Kindergarten classroom—we love a theme—

Molly: Yes.

Sarah Ann: I placed stickers over by the finished-work basket, and students could use those stickers to indicate work samples that reflected their genius or their best efforts. And then we displayed that work on our S'more Great Work wall. Molly, for me, that meant really releasing control.

Sarah Ann: It meant being okay with the idea that the display may not be as cohesive and visually as it would be if I had [00:08:00] selected all of the work. And that's okay, because it becomes about them and them recognizing their own genius. Another strategy, Molly, that I think is really important, is using leadership roles, not just as a way to complete tasks or teach students responsibility, but really as a way to celebrate and develop students interests and passions.

Sarah Ann: So, thinking about my little grocery-store expert, our oldest daughter is taking on the leadership role of marking through items on our grocery list as we make our way through the grocery store. In a classroom setting, I think that looks like brainstorming classroom leadership roles together versus having a job or a leadership roles chart up in the classroom before the children ever arrive. And then one last strategy I'll share is really around helping students to set and achieve [00:09:00] individual goals. So, early on in my teaching career, I really fumbled my way through student goal-setting, just unrealistically equipping students with little more than a pencil and a goal sheet and asking them to write a goal.

Sarah Ann: And with time and practice, I found systematic ways to really scaffold students, meeting them right where they were and using things like goal menus or four corners to form goal groups around interest, using pick lists and practice baskets for strategy work. 

Molly: I love those, Sarah Ann, because every single example gives students an opportunity to practice leadership and the ownership, that empowerment went directly to the students. They get to choose what they would like. They get to choose in four corners where they want to go, a pick list, let's choose the strategies that I think will help me get to that goal.

Molly: So I have to ask, as a result of just () embracing the Paradigm of Potential, this idea that every single student [00:10:00] has genius, what should our teachers expect to see in students?

Sarah Ann: Sure. So in my own experience, I've noticed just growth in personal effectiveness. So the impact of celebrating each and every student's genius is truly greater self-efficacy, and that leads to more resilient little leaders. They're more likely to stick with goals or tasks, even when they come up against things that feel hard or challenging.

Sarah Ann: And that's super exciting.

Molly: Yeah.

Sarah Ann: You know, that “I can lead myself” growth. I think also I've noticed “I can lead others” growth, and interpersonal effectiveness. So students who are better able to root themselves just in the principle of abundance. And that idea that someone else's bright light, their brilliance, it doesn't diminish our own.

Sarah Ann: So if a, friend is selected to serve as a Student [00:11:00] Lighthouse Team leader, and perhaps I'm not, or another friend gets a leadership role that I was really interested in, or it's someone else's birthday, and that I can find joy for my friend realizing that their greatness exists completely independently of my own.

Molly: That statement alone is just amazing and it really hits the heart because can you imagine as human beings, if we all embraced this mindset of abundance, the impact we would have together. 

Sarah Ann: Well, it is such a rich idea. And I do dream about that for every student, for every teacher. You know, when I accepted a role as a teacher at A. B. Combs, Muriel Summers, the principal there, said you are pre-forgiven. She encouraged me to take risks, to apply for opportunities, to present at conferences, to just grow as a leader.

Sarah Ann: And the banner, when you [00:12:00] walk into Combs, “We honor the greatness in you,” that is really the heart of this paradigm and how different our world might be if we really did live out in that paradigm.

Molly: Sarah Ann, thank you for sharing with us the impact we have with our littlest learners when we get to nurture them and help them discover their gifts. And of course, a big thank you to our listeners.

Molly: Keep shining. You've got this.