The Answer Is Rarely "Out There"

When something goes wrong, it’s easy for all of us to look for something “out there” to blame. Join Molly, Dr. Eve, and Leadership Facilitator in Mattoon, Illinois, Jessica Peterson, as they explore how to help teens embrace the paradigm “change starts with me” and build their sense of agency and internal locus of control.

Transcript

12.19.23 Sec  - The Answer is Rarely “Out There”

Molly: [00:00:00] From Leader in Me Studios. I'm Molly Garcia. This is The Empowering Teacher for Secondary. Change starts with me as a mindset we choose that keeps us from blaming others and staying away from looking outside of ourselves for the solution.

Molly: We gain clarity around the things that matter most by first looking at ourselves. We spend a good amount of time trying to help teens understand this way of thinking. And today we're chatting with high school Leadership Facilitator, Jessica Peterson, from LIFT, a leadership institute in Mattoon, Illinois, around this very paradigm.

Molly: But before I jump into the interview, I'm here with Dr. Eve Miller, FranklinCovey's Director of Research, to dig a little into the research around the Paradigm of Change 

Eve: Hey Molly, great to be here with you.

Molly: Eve, it's always great to have you. I have to share with you. I remember Stephen M. R. Covey in an interview sharing the statement, “Oftentimes effective strategies are simple, however, they're not always easy.” And I feel like this relates to this paradigm because looking for blame or solutions from [00:01:00] those external forces can be pretty easy for us to do at first.

Molly: So what the Paradigm of Change is asking for is simply looking internally first and identifying actions that are in our control. So just for a minute, let's imagine the impact of this mindset living in our secondary students.

Eve: Yeah, that is really powerful. This Paradigm of Change, it's so closely related to a term from developmental psychology, called “locus of control.” And the locus of control, it's like our internal compass that tells us the level of control we have over the things that happen in our lives.

Eve: And there are two main types—There's internal and external. With an internal locus of control, we tend to believe that we have a lot of control over what happens to us. We think that our actions, decisions, and efforts can directly impact our life. That's great. Yeah. While with an external locus of control, We often believe that most things happen due to luck or fate or other people.

Eve: And so we don't feel that same sense of [00:02:00] control over what happens in our lives. And while both actually do have important aspects to them, it is critical to long-term success that we help students develop their internal locus of control.

Molly: You said the locus of control is a developmental process, and I'm wondering what this looks like for secondary students.

Eve: Oh yeah, so secondary students, they are at a really exciting crossroads in the development of locus of control, where they have developed the skills that allow them to be in greater control of their lives, and they are very motivated to continue to grow this sense of independence.

Eve: What is also fantastic about this stage of development is their drive to be part of something bigger than themselves. They are seeking out meaning and purpose the closer they get to graduating from high school and moving towards opportunities that promote well-being and setting them up for long-term life success.

Molly: So, knowing this about their development, I imagine there are [00:03:00] ways educators can encourage their natural motivation for independence and meaning in ways that help them learn and prepare for life after college or life after, you know, a structured education system.

Eve: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. this is something that I just really strongly believe in from the research. When we work within their developmental needs and motivations, we get happy students who are excited to learn, like any of us who have our needs met.

Eve: When we don't, we get students who push back in their very natural pursuit to fulfill their needs and to develop.

Molly: I think that last comment got everyone's attention, Eve. I'm sure there are dozens of ways that we can apply this in school or in a classroom setting. Can you give us an example?

Eve: Absolutely, I have a favorite: problem-solving, because it can be used to harness students’ natural desire to find a greater sense of purpose and build their ability to see themselves [00:04:00] as a change agent, as having that internal locus control. But there are some basics to follow to really maximize this very simple term of problem-solving.

Eve: They need to have the opportunity to determine the problem, that is critical. They need the opportunity to come up with a plan to solve it that cannot be done by adults. They need the opportunity to implement the solution at some level. And along with these three elements, they will often need to see it modeled by adults and be given clear guidelines on what that looks like. So it's big enough for them to feel like it's important, but small enough to actually carry out within the scope of an educational setting.

Molly: So, this instructional practice and deeper understanding of the Paradigm of Change will certainly help the types of maps that we give students. Eve, thank you so much. I'm excited to jump into conversation with our guest Jessica Peterson around practical ways to bring this research to life.

Molly: Jessica, welcome to The Empowering [00:05:00] Teacher Podcast for Secondary.

Jessica: Thank you so much for having me.

Molly: I am so excited about jumping into our conversation. Because change is something that we all have felt in education, especially over the last several years. And I can't think of a better person to chat with about this.

Molly: So let's build some context for our listeners. LIFT is an innovative high school where students really learn by doing and they have this real life application opportunity on a daily basis.

Molly: Can you share with our listeners how teachers embrace the Paradigm of Change at LIFT and then maybe the impact that it has on your school?

Jessica: Absolutely. LIFT actually stands for Leaders Innovating for Tomorrow. And we have seven different pathways that students get to choose what pathway they want to study. Everything from communications to culinary to leadership where I'm at.

Jessica: Um, and within that pathway, they then select their course. They're selecting their courses from almost this a la carte [00:06:00] kind of menu of options. And so it's very nontraditional in the aspect that we are definitely changing the way we do education with these regional students. When the concept of LIFT was developed, I think we were all excited and as we got making plans and discussing things, just realized what kind of impact and how great this could really be. And then, as we got into the actual doing some of those realizations of how much change it was going to take from each of us, that paradigm of change starts with me became really evident.

Jessica: Because, when you're revolutionizing education, you're having to break a lot of our known or comfortable ways of doing things. And we have facilitators here who are very new to teaching. We have kind of that middle zone, and you have me who's in my 24th year of teaching. And I would say for us veterans, it's been hard because we've all had our own educational experience.

Jessica: We've taught for however many years, but now we're [00:07:00] saying, yey, we're going to, like, flip that on its head. We're going to open the doors for these students so that they have more agency, more voice and choice and basically get out of the way for them. And so that change starts with me is first looking at our paradigm of what we believe about kids that everybody has genius, everyone can be a leader and then allowing them to really move forward with that.

Molly: Jessica, let's go into, like, the practicality of it. So how do teachers model this paradigm for their students? And then maybe what does that even look like on a daily basis?

Jessica: Yeah, that's a great question. I know that a lot of the practices, like the daily habits that we have put into our daily routine have been really effective with that. In terms of starting each session time in that connection of celebration or what is your big rock for today or for the week? I think having those open conversations really helps each of us take personal responsibility.

Jessica: So [00:08:00] these are conversations happening with facilitators and students, and there's just a lot of that language of leadership. I think we also as the adults, really display our vulnerability and have open communication with our students around struggles we might be having, which is powerful because it's modeling for them that we need to work within our Circle of Influence and we need to see what we need to personally be doing or changing so that we see that change ripple into our own realm,

Molly: I just keep on thinking about the secondary student. 

Molly: What do those strategies look like for them to look internally first, right? And then how do we help them course correct when that's just a part of change?

Jessica: Right. Setting up kind of that structured day of where we have accountability with one another. So open communication being very, uh, responsive to our WIGs, right? We're celebrating with one another. When they're not working, we're taking a few steps back and looking at the lead measures: were the right things selected?

Jessica: What we're finding also with our students is that [00:09:00] when they come with still this very traditional mindset of, “Well, just tell me what you expect. Tell me just what you want me to do. What do I need to turn in?” We are allowing them to live in the struggle. 

Jessica: You know, the first thing we'll often say was like, “I don't know, what do you believe?” And that more of that executive coaching method of empowering them because they have the answers. They have this within themselves. So it takes our restraint to not just bail them out, to give them all the right answers, let them dwell in that struggle so that they can come out on the other end empowered and they've found the solution.

Molly: So, are there structures that your teachers engage with that really provide that opportunity for students?

Jessica: Absolutely. Knowing that when students are given the opportunity to internally reflect on something, that is how we most strengthen that intrinsic motivation for it to happen again and again. And so some of the structures that we have in place, for example, is when a student does something service-based we have them getting in their Leadership Portfolio, getting in the service tab [00:10:00] and doing actual journal-writing around how that impacted themselves and their community and how that's maybe changing their trajectory for future thinking forward.

Jessica: We also spend time every week, one-on-one with our kiddos. And that's a really great time to just have a conversation with them so that they can internalize and put to words the changes that are happening within them. 

Jessica: But the more we can speak life into it, you're helping them realize just how wonderful they really are.

Molly: Okay. So I'm a listener, and the minute you said, “I meet with every student” that might've shut me down thinking how in the world. Do you make time for that? 

Jessica: Right? So right now, as LIFT is only in its second year of existence, we have more manageable numbers for that. But a one-on-one coaching time does not need to take up a great amount of time. As a matter of fact, sometimes it might be five minutes. Sometimes it's as quick as two. And then there are those days that it might extend beyond or we say, “You know what? We're [00:11:00] out of time right now, but let's touch base again on this tomorrow or the next day.” I would guess I would say even though it's hard to find that time within a day, I would also say it's too important to not find that time

Molly: Paradigm flip right there. And I'm also hearing you say because it's not utilizing all that time that we think it needs to have. It's a micro moment of reflection that sometimes that's more powerful, 

Molly: All right. So thinking about what you just shared with us and the possible structures and the mindset and really embracing change. What results should teachers expect when we choose to really embrace this paradigm?

Jessica: Yeah, I will say the results that we see within day-to-day or throughout the semester are that students are growing through their own empowerment because they are seeing that the change occurs within them.

Jessica: That means the greatness lives within them already. So we see students who are stepping up to lead, coming forth with ideas and executing on those ideas in such a powerful way, and we hear from our students from last [00:12:00] year who have stepped on the next steps of employment or doing the college life, and they're not experiencing the same struggles that they're seeing some of their peers are having just because of living these habits of effective living. Or even sharing that they have their WIGs hanging in their dorm room and they're still holding true to those. So it's wonderful seeing this process as a part of who they are.

Molly: It is who they are. I'm going to hold on to that statement and thank you just for shining the light on what happens when we choose to embrace the Paradigm of Change and the impact that it has in our classrooms and to our listeners, remember you matter, you make a difference and you've got this.