Beyond My Years

Phone policies and the science of self-control, starring Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

• Amplify Education • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., the New York Times bestselling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, joins Ana Torres to discuss school phone policies and what the science of self-control can tell us works. In this episode, Angela highlights the many complexities surrounding student cell phone use in schools and why there is a need to conduct research, such as her “Phones in Focus” study, to look at which phone policies are actually yielding the best outcomes. She also outlines the limitations of “growth mindset” and "simply trying hard," and instead suggests four ingredients that set young people up to reach their goals. Finally, Ana and Classroom Insider Eric Cross reflect on Angela’s insights, and Eric shares the strategies he plans to implement to provide mentors to his students.

Show notes:

Quotes:

“It is not just trying hard that makes you successful. You need to be set up in a situation that helps you like an ally, as opposed to fighting you like an enemy.” —Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

“Aside from parents, there's nobody more important than teachers in the life of a kid. They are looking to you as a role model.” —Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

“The strategy for regulating yourself that is the most successful for people of any age tends to be situation modification. That is not relying on willpower, but deliberately placing things either farther or closer, depending on whether you want to do them more or do them less.” —Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

“There is nothing more beautiful than a person who is fulfilling their potential. When people are doing what they love and doing it with all of their heart, it is like music. It is like poetry.” —Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

“That science of self-control—we have to actually teach that to our students. That is not something they come out of the womb knowing how to do.” —Ana Torres

[00:00:00] Angela Duckworth: If you ask me as a psychologist and as a former teacher and as a mom, you know, what is my number one piece of advice? My number one piece of advice is that you should alter your physical environment like a designer would.

[00:00:15] Ana Torres: This is Ana Torres and welcome to Beyond My Years from Amplify. On Beyond my Years, we are here to help educators extend their reach. Each episode we share research-backed strategies and tried and true lessons from experts and experienced educators. And today I am here with Classroom Insider, Eric Cross, to tell you about an all-time episode that we've got cooked up.

[00:00:43] Eric Cross: Ana, I'm super excited for this one.

I've been looking forward to listening to it. The work of Angela Duckworth is something that we know in education. Even if you don't know the name, you know her work.

[00:00:52] Ana Torres: And he's got a big smile on his face as he's saying it, y'all. All right, as you heard, today's episode features Dr. Angela Duckworth. She's a pioneering psychologist and the author of the uber successful book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

Now, Eric, let's give folks a quick overview of what Grit was all about.

[00:01:15] Eric Cross: Yeah. For anyone who's unfamiliar or you just need a refresher, Grit came out in 2016 and it was one of those instant New York Times bestsellers. In the book, she shares a lot of her own research and findings, and she interviews successful people from different fields to look for common practices and mindsets that led to their success.

[00:01:32] Ana Torres: We're simplifying things here, but the overarching takeaway from that book was this idea that the secret to high level achievement is not as much about talent, but this concept of grit, a mix of perseverance, persistence, and passion. So that was Grit. But Dr. Duckworth is currently researching schools and phone policies, and she's joining us today to talk about all of that as well as the science of self-control.

Wow. I could actually use schooling on the science of self-control. What do you think about that topic today, Eric?

[00:02:09] Eric Cross: Yeah, I think if you took the two biggest topics set up, at least for a middle school teacher right now, cell phones and self-control, the science of it.

[00:02:16] Ana Torres: Absolutely. And I'm excited to talk about this topic too, because when I taught, I didn't have cell phones in my classroom. So, I'm excited about it for sure.

Well, I'm going to bring her on now, Eric, and I can't wait to catch up with you a little later and unpack this episode with you.

[00:02:33] Eric Cross: Me too. I look forward to listening.

[00:02:37] Ana Torres: Dr. Angela Duckworth is on the call today. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her 2018 book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, was an instant. New York Times bestseller. I am familiar with Grit. I am sure many of you are familiar with that 2018 bestseller. But now she's leading a national research study alongside other scholars aimed at advancing the understanding of school cell phone policies and their impact on student achievement and well-being.

That's a huge topic to cover and I can't wait to unpack all of that with Dr. Angela Duckworth. Welcome to the Beyond My Years podcast.

[00:03:26] Angela Duckworth: Thank you so much. I am so excited genuinely, I have to say, given your first season in particular, as a scientist and as an educator, I'm so excited to be here.

[00:03:35] Ana Torres: And I am equally excited that you said yes to the invitation.

So let's talk a little bit about you, Angela Duckworth, and a little bit about your trajectory in the educational arena. So now you are known as a leading scholar and thinker and a bestselling author. But I want to take you back to your roots, Dr. Duckworth. Can you tell me a little bit, well tell us a little bit more about your own time as a classroom teacher?

[00:04:03] Angela Duckworth: Well, I think I was supposed to go to medical school. Anyway, that's what my dad wanted me to do. And when I made the decision to not go to medical school and instead to spend time with kids in the classroom as a teacher, I taught high school math, I taught middle school math, I taught in the public schools of New York City, San Francisco as well. And a charter school in Philadelphia.

When I made the decision to do education and not medicine, my dad was so angry that he stopped speaking to me for a full six months...

[00:04:33] Ana Torres: wow!...

[00:04:33] Angela Duckworth: Because he was like speechlessly mad. And so it was a little bit counter-cultural within my family. But I felt really compelled, you know, the decision to enter the classroom was simply from spending some time with kiddos.

I was a tutor and a big sister and I just thought, "Wow, these kids are so smart." And I really mean that. And you don't have to spend that much time with young people to realize that like, wow, their brains are like their knees and their hips. I mean they worked great! You know? And I could even tell, you know, even when I was 20, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I wish I could think the way you do."

So yeah, I went to the classroom and I did what a lot of teachers tried to do, which is to motivate the students to reach their potential. And one of the things that motivated the transition to then becoming a psychologist who studies education in a way from the outside, right, as a researcher, were my failures in the classroom. And I know that word is like a very emotional word for all of us. Like it puts the hair on the back of our neck on end. But I will say they were failures because they were. Like I tried unsuccessfully to motivate my students to do their homework, to study for their tests, to even pay attention when they were in the classroom with me. And I want to own that, you know, I tried and I tried unsuccessfully to motivate them.

And when I became a psychologist, I wanted to understand motivation better so that I could deliver more than little lectures on how trying hard would change their lives.

[00:06:04] Ana Torres: I love to always learn more about guests and just, you've got the cred!

[00:06:10] Angela Duckworth: I also don't want to say that I ever became a master teacher. I sometimes hesitate to tell people that I was in the classroom because classroom teaching is a craft. And nobody becomes, you know, the world's best at their craft in a few years. But I did have enough time to fuel my research curiosity about the psychology of achievement and self-control and goals for the rest of my life.

So I learned so much from the students that I was working with, and by the way, it wasn't like it was a catastrophic failure. I did get them to come and see me during lunch and you know, we started these afterschool sessions. But what I want to say about what I didn't do was, I think that when you have really turned on motivation, it's much more intrinsic you know, from within. I think a great teacher can help a young person discover their inner fire. And I did not come close to that as a classroom teacher.

[00:07:05] Ana Torres: Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that, because a lot of times as teachers, going to that vulnerable place of thinking about, "Wow, what are things that I did?"

But even though you're now a researcher and in a different realm, I bet you those classroom years, like you said, were pivotal in what you're doing now. And so most people know you as the person that wrote that bestselling book, Grit. So how do you feel like, you know, the phone policies and the science of self-control, how is that all connected?

[00:07:39] Angela Duckworth: There is a connection because, it's true that we should applaud when people try hard. So I could applaud myself for trying hard as a teacher. I could applaud myself for trying hard in yoga class. I mean, we should, I think, applaud effort when we see it. But one of the reasons I'm studying phones in schools is that it is not just trying hard that makes you successful. It is not, for example, just willpower that enables you to achieve your goals. You need to be set up in a situation that helps you like an ally as opposed to fighting you like an enemy. And when we talk about schools today, there is an enemy, I think, that I didn't have to contend with when I was a teacher.

Because I taught in the '90s, and not only did the students not have phones, I didn't have a phone. I don't even know if they were invented yet. Certainly not the kinds of phones that we have today and that are ubiquitous. And my daughters, I'll tell you, I have two daughters. They are 22 and 23 years old.

So when I was in graduate school, I was, you know, pregnant with the second one, Lucy. And I was, I think still nursing the first one, Amanda. Oh wow. So I kind of, you know, became a psychologist at the same time I was becoming a mom. And, you know, those girls grew up and they, taught me a lot. One of the things they said to me about a year ago was that I should study phones.

[00:09:05] Ana Torres: Oh!

[00:09:06] Angela Duckworth: And I told them both that I was very busy with the things that I was already researching and that I didn't know if I could make room in my research agenda to study phones in the classroom, phones in schools.

[00:09:18] Ana Torres: So they inspired you to, it sounds like. So this all came from your daughters?

[00:09:23] Angela Duckworth: Yeah. I mean, they felt like as young people, that one of the most challenging temptations in their lives were in the palm of their hands. And I think they understood it at a level that I didn't, because I did not grow up with phones.

So when I was 22 or 23, you know, I had my own challenges, but none of them were, " Hey, what about spending time on this thing that's in the palm of your hand? It's a portal to the universe. You can watch like any movie star you want. You know, your best friend probably just said something to you. It's waiting for you in the palm of your hand."

And I don't want to say that, you know, I think technology's evil. I don't think so. I don't want to say that there haven't been benefits of people having like little tiny supercomputers in their hands. There have been many benefits. But I also will say that as a psychologist who now studies motivation and self-control, it is extremely difficult to pay attention to hard things like algebra, when the alternative is an effortless, immediate, and unbelievably enjoyable pastime that you can hide in your lap.

[00:10:40] Ana Torres: And can I tell you, I have a 16-year-old who is challenged by that. And this 16-year-old has you know, intense hyperactivity. He has severe ADHD. And so imagine that coupled with having a hard time focusing already, Dr. Duckworth, and then wanting to be the good student. He's also an athlete. But when you talk about phones, I've taught in different places and love two cities. I live in New Orleans and I spend a lot of time in Austin, and both of these cities have very interesting phone policies.

[00:11:15] Angela Duckworth: Yeah. Tell me more about them.

[00:11:16] Ana Torres: Yes. One, and I actually worked at a district, and this also happened right before COVID, where they picked up phones. Children could bring them, but they picked them up and put them in a vault, collected everyone's phone and they could have it after school.

And now, as you know, I'm pretty sure you're watching legislation of different states where in Texas, they've banned phones during the school day.

[00:11:39] Angela Duckworth: First bill to the last bill, right? It's a bill to bail ban.

[00:11:42] Ana Torres: Yes. So, this is a hot topic.

[00:11:44] Angela Duckworth: The hottest topic in a way, right?

[00:11:46] Ana Torres: Super hot topic. And so you are working on kind of a landmark study, like Phones in Focus.

[00:11:54] Angela Duckworth: I think that's the language that we need just to make people realize the ambition of it. But yeah, so we have a project called Phones in Focus.

[00:12:02] Ana Torres: Tell us about it. Yes. Tell us about it.

[00:12:04] Angela Duckworth: So after my daughters ordered me to study this and, you know, and they sent me books to read, they're like, "Have you read Stolen Focus?" I was like, "No, I haven't read it." And like sending me things on Kindle and so forth. So, you know, it didn't take long to convince me that this is one of the most urgent issues. There are many reasons why teachers today are exhausted.

[00:12:22] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:12:22] Angela Duckworth: It's undeniable that teachers today are exhausted. They say so in surveys. So rates of burnout are at all-time highs and you know, it's such an emotional, all-consuming vocation, teaching, that one can understand that, but the question is like, well, why are the rates higher now than they were before? And I do think that part of it is, you know, trying to manage phones in the classroom.

So what happened is that about a year ago, some economists and I— the team has grown, by the way. It used to be two economists, and it was four, then it was six. So anyway, we're an ever expanding team. You know, all of us really care about young people and we came together and we said, let's actually all make room for this important question, which is this: Which cell phone policies, I mean specifically, which cell phone policies yield the best outcomes for kids? And you would think that maybe somebody else had figured that out, but we looked high and low, we read all the articles that had been written on that particular question, and we came to the conclusion that nobody really knows. You know, there are a lot of stories.

[00:13:33] Ana Torres: A lot of anecdotal, I think there's a lot of anecdotal information.

[00:13:35] Angela Duckworth: Yeah. And also by the way, a lot of opinion on both sides. So there are many educators, and certainly there are many parents, who support what's sometimes called bell to bell, but it's also called a-way-for-the-day policies.

So that says, during the academic day, you're not allowed to use your phone. There are also opinions very often from parents, from students, that say that that's not the best policy. But there's another dimension that I think needs to be talked about that almost never gets talked about, and as a psychologist who studies self-control, I think is pivotally important, and that is not just when students are permitted to use their phones, but where they are allowed to keep them.

[00:14:17] Ana Torres: Okay!

[00:14:18] Angela Duckworth: So, what we have done... Yeah, and this is again, you know, you can look at all the state legislation and look for where they specify this dimension and it's missing. So, when we got started, we started talking to teachers. We talked to kids, we talked to parents, we talked to superintendents, we talked to principals and assistant principals.

[00:14:34] Ana Torres: Kind of a cross sectional, folks. Right? You said principals and teachers?

[00:14:38] Angela Duckworth: Yeah, we wanted to talk to everyone. I mean, we wanted to hear, first of all what the concerns were. Also we wanted to know, what are the ways that phones are being dealt with now? And we didn't know, you know. There was nothing that we could look up to say, "Oh, here are the three kinds of policies." So what we found is this, when it comes to when students are allowed to use their phones, there are three kinds of policies in the United States.

The most permissive is there's no real restriction on when students can use their phones, aside from not being able to use them when they're in instructional time, in some way. Right? There's almost no school that says, "You can take your phone out at any time and it's totally fine."

But the next most strict is like, there is a very formal, kind of like, it's only during lunch. Or some schools will say like, you know, passing periods and lunch, but there's, you know, a stated policy that you can't have it except for during these permitted times.

And then the most strict is what you were referring to, bell-to-bell or away-for-the-day policies. So, that came out. I think that part came out very early when we were talking to people. But what we then learned from these conversations is that schools vary on where students are allowed to keep the phones.

[00:15:46] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:15:46] Angela Duckworth: Imagine you are a bell-to-bell school, right? First bell to last bell. You're not supposed to use your phone, but there's still this question of where you're allowed to hold it. And the most strict schools are, that you can't bring your phone to school at all. There's only about 2% of schools in our national sample.

[00:16:06] Ana Torres: Right. Where, you can't bring it at all. Yes.

[00:16:08] Angela Duckworth: Yeah. And you know, I would be surprised if that's ever going to be a very high number, because parents care about safety and they also care about just logistics. Like, "Oh, you know what? The dentist called and I've got to pick you up at 3:30, and I need to tell you that."

So, that's the strictest policy. The next most strict is what we call in our survey, centralized collection. That means you turn your phone in at the beginning of the day and you get it back at the end of the day. So you were mentioning kind of a vault kind of thing.

[00:16:34] Ana Torres: Yes. That's what I've experienced.

[00:16:35] Angela Duckworth: So that would be centralized collection in our book. And, that's, you know, not that common either, by the way. And it's a little bit logistically hard because it means you really do have to collect a bunch of phones all at the same time and give them back.

The third policy that we have found is yonder pouches. So, you know, these magnetized pouches. And then there is lockers only. So lockers only is, you can keep your phone in your hallway locker and that is the only place you're allowed to have your phone. Then there is classroom collection. The teacher collects it at the very beginning and gives it back again at the end of each academic period.

All of these policies have their schools. But before I complete, like you can see there's a progression, the very most common policy in the United States today, in our sample about half of schools have a no-show policy. Like don't ask, don't tell. you can keep your phone anywhere, you can keep it in your backpack or in your back pocket. I just don't want to see it.

[00:17:32] Ana Torres: And make sure it's off, right?

[00:17:33] Angela Duckworth: Sometimes it says it's off, sometimes it doesn't. But I'll tell you this, kids are not like old people. They don't have their phones on. Their phones are always off, right? Like on silent. Kids are not like us, like interrupting a conflict with our phone going off. But the physical placement of the phone was important to me as a researcher because there's a finding in psychological research that says this: The place that you put your temptation matters enormously. If you put temptations very close to you, where you can see them and where you're reminded of them, and also where it takes almost no energy to access them—by the way, it's not just phones. It works for food or any other temptation, right?—It's much more psychologically potent than if you put it away where you cannot see it or you cannot touch it, or both. So we say in psychology that physical distance creates psychological distance. And the strategy for regulating yourself for the most successful people of any age tends to be what we call situation modification. That is, not relying on willpower, but in fact deliberately placing things either farther or closer, depending on whether you want to do them more or do them less.

[00:18:50] Ana Torres: Like when I'm on a diet, putting the cookies like just in a place where I'm not going to have access to them all the time.

[00:18:56] Angela Duckworth: Top shelf, you know?

[00:18:56] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:18:57] Angela Duckworth: You know, like in the freezer. That friction will... it's not a miracle, right? So if you're really determined, obviously you're going to have your cookies, right? But the friction helps. The friction helps, and instead of using willpower, you can use that physical distance to create that psychological distance between you and temptation.

[00:19:15] Ana Torres: And that is so powerful. I mean, I think intuitively we may know that. But to think that through your research of cell phones and cell phone policies, this came out, meaning that great piece of advice. What else do you think is most important for educators to know about that kind of science of self-control, Dr. Duckworth?

[00:19:36] Angela Duckworth: So, you know, first of all, I think it is intuitive to us. We're like, "Oh yeah." You know, when something is really close to me, first of all, I will remember it. Right? You know, half of the things that we do or don't do are because we remember or don't remember to do them. And if something is right in front of you, you're more likely to just think of it. But also there is this kind of magnetic field that objects have, and so, you know, the farther away, the weaker that pull. But I do want to say something to educators in particular. I've done two studies, both very large, one of them with the Gallup organization, so it's a nationally representative sample of teenagers. And what we find in both studies is... we ask the teenagers, "where do you keep your phone when you're studying, for example, for a big test?" And there are five possible answers from the closest to the farthest. The farthest, by the way, is in a different room altogether. And believe it or not, there are teenagers in the United States who say that's where they keep their phone.

And what we find in that data is striking. The farther the phone, the higher the GPA. And what that tells me is that, you know, some of this common sense that we have ourselves about food and even about our own phones, you know, it's translating into objective measures of academic performance. So if you ask me as a psychologist and as a former teacher, and as a mom, what is my number one piece of advice? My number one piece of advice is that you should alter your physical environment like a designer would, right? So that you're not like, sometimes encountering temptation and other times you're not.

But you're designing your space. You're setting up your space for you to be successful. And it's offloading that burden of self-control onto your environment. Right? And I think that's one reason why in our data, I will tell you that we have a snapshot now. We have over 20,000 classroom teachers and school staff who have answered the Phones in Focus survey. They've gone to phonesinfocus.org and they've spent five minutes. And what we find in the data so far is a pretty striking pattern, which is that when you look on both dimensions, when students are allowed to use their phones and also where they're allowed to keep them, the happier teachers are in schools with the stricter policies. And those teachers in our sample are reporting that the kids are on task. They're not distracted in the classroom, you know, because they're texting or on social media. So I think educators should be thinking both about when and about where students are allowed to access phones during the school day.

[00:22:15] Ana Torres: And you saying that makes me think of a colleague. I have a lot of colleagues in Texas and she was a little hesitant about how this bell-to-bell policy would work. And can I tell you, she literally, and the kids too, are very excited because she's like, "Ana, they're talking to each other." Right? You know, like they're talking to each other! "You should see the way they collaborate, the fact that they're not thinking about their phones," because she said, "I didn't know how that was going to go."

[00:22:44] Angela Duckworth: Right. Like how's it going to go? Is it going to be terrible? Is it going to be wonderful? Is it going to be new? I was just today on the phone with an educator in Arkansas and he said that before there was a bell-to-bell policy in the school, if you went into the lunchroom, you could almost hear a pin drop because the kids were just there on their phones eating and not talking to each other. He said, "Now you go in there and you can hardly hear yourself because it sounds the way a cafeteria should sound," right, with the energy of kids socializing. And he said, "When you see the kids get their phone at the end of the day," because they do go home and they get their phones—and in this school it is centralized collection, so not only do they have bell to bell but the kids really don't have access to their phones. He said it goes back to being able to hear a pin drop again.

So sad. And I think one of the things that is maybe not said enough in this debate about phones is that I think that social skills, you know, and social skills during the time kids are in our classrooms, are at least as important as academic skills. Right? Maybe we can debate that, but I think everyone wants someone who can look you in the eye and smile and ask you how your day was. And teachers, If you look at research that's been done, not by me, but by other researchers, they are extremely concerned that social skills are not being developed right in the way that they need to be.

So, you know, I don't want to say that I'm advocating for a certain policy, I'm a researcher, but I am feeling a kind of a moral responsibility. Yes, because of my daughters. And also because of common sense that I do think, we need to have collective action on a problem that cannot be solved by individual willpower.

[00:24:29] Ana Torres: I love kind of the idea of the thinking of the classroom design, and what the research also said, having that phone not be around students—yes, you can have access and we can debate policy all day, but the fact that that physical distance component also creates greater outcomes for students...

[00:24:48] Angela Duckworth: And I think a more general point should be made. You know, my job is to study kids in schools, but I also study outliers. I study people like Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky. I study people who won the Nobel Prize and if you ask me, "Taken together, Dr. Duckworth, with all of the research you've done, you know, kids, school cell phones, world-class achievers, what's on your mind right now?"

[00:25:11] Ana Torres: That's a great question, Dr. Duckworth. A great question.

[00:25:14] Angela Duckworth: Well, I wake up every day and I ask that question, so, you know, not always on a podcast. When I started out as a psychologist, and when you even say things like motivation, you know, I study effort and motivation, you know, you immediately think of what's inside the head, right?

"Oh, you must study growth mindset." I do, I study growth mindset. I love growth mindset. You might think like, "Oh, well, you know, she's a psychologist. She studies effort. Maybe she studies habits." Absolutely. I study habits. I study a lot of things that are inside the head of someone who is successful. But in the last 10 years, I have become increasingly interested in what's outside the head of somebody who is doing great. And when I say what's outside the head, well, sometimes it's a temptation, like a phone and how close it is to you versus how far. But I want to expand beyond that. When you ask me like, who becomes Michael Phelps, right? Like who becomes incredibly successful? Invariably they have things outside them that are supportive of their goals, and it's not just physical stuff. It's also their peers and their mentors and their culture. So if I'm permitted to give you a little bit of a recipe for a successful situation for young people...

[00:26:26] Ana Torres: I love recipes!

[00:26:26] Angela Duckworth: Recipes are great!

Okay. Four ingredients, right? Four things. So, the first one we talked about a little bit, which is their physical setup, right? We've talked about the classroom. I would also say when kids come home, you are not setting them up for success if you let them charge their phone by their bed. Right? So the first ingredient of a successful situation is that it is physically a situation that makes doing good-for-me things easier, and bad-for-me things harder.

[00:26:54] Ana Torres: Like that.

[00:26:54] Angela Duckworth: The second ingredient, out of four, is their peers. And during those developmental years, it's the most impressionable we are. I mean, who doesn't care about what their friends are doing when they're growing up. The third ingredient is mentors. So your peers matter for sure. Your physical setup matters. Absolutely. But also, and I think this is really important to say about young people, they are wired to look for an adult to guide them, and that includes people outside the home. I became a classroom educator because I think I had an intuition, even if I couldn't articulate at the time. That aside from parents, there is nobody more important than teachers in the life of a kid. They are looking to you as a model.

[00:27:37] Ana Torres: Well they're the ones who spend the most time with our children, right?

[00:27:40] Angela Duckworth: A hundred percent! In some cases, more time than you're parents. So, you know what? We all know it. We can really, truly come to love our teachers with a capital L. So, I think the third ingredient, if you're trying to set up a kid for success is, they need mentors.

You know, research shows, and my own research included, that mentors play a very important role in at least a few ways. One is they tell you things that you don't know. Two is they believe in you when you don't believe in yourself yet. And I think the third thing is, you know, they really open your eyes up to opportunities that you couldn't even imagine.

So, they open doors, they take you on field trips, they bring into the classroom a world that you may not otherwise ever glimpse. So that's the third ingredient. And the fourth and final one is a little hard to define, but it's culture. Every school has a culture. Every classroom has a culture.

In one of my studies, we measured culture. We had students say, well, you know, what is it like around here? Because that's what culture is. The way we do things around here. And in the growth mindset cultures, we found that kids would endorse statements like, you know, "At this school, what's really important is that you're learning. Mistakes are okay as long as you're learning." Teachers believe that each and every one of us can succeed.

In fixed mindset cultures, kids would say things like, "The teachers treat the smarter kids better than the other kids. The teachers pay more attention to the kids that they think are gifted. It doesn't really matter whether you're learning. It mostly matters that you're performing." Right?

And what we did was we tracked these kids and these schools over time, and we found that being in a growth mindset culture led to increases in grit over time and increases in grit over time led to increases in report card grades. So to me, you know, if you think about your own children, your son, my daughters, you think about kids around the block and in the world, you know, they need all four of these elements. Yeah, I believe in grit. Look, I love growth mindset. I believe in all the things inside the head. But where do those things come from? Why would a kid have that optimism? Where would their work ethic come from if they're not in a situation that enables them, that encourages them to have those psychological assets.

[00:30:07] Ana Torres: I so appreciate the four ingredients that you've given us. The four important ingredients. And so listeners, as you know, I always use the term wisdom nuggets. We've got Dr. Duckworth. We got a recipe, y'all. Okay? So, here's also what I want to tell listeners, Dr. Duckworth. I hope that you've learned a lot from Dr. Duckworth, and please contribute to her research by taking the five minute survey@phonesinfocus.org. Am I saying that correctly, Dr. Duckworth?

[00:30:39] Angela Duckworth: You said it perfectly. Yes. Thank you. Now you're my best friend. Help us. Help kids.

[00:30:44] Ana Torres: Take that five minute survey@phonesinfocus.org. We'll also have that linked in the show notes. Now, before we go, it's time for Wisdom Nuggets. What first comes to mind? This is our Wisdom Nugget segment.

[00:30:57] Angela Duckworth: Don't overthink it.

[00:30:57] Ana Torres: Don't overthink it. I mean, you're a researcher. I think that's your job. But anyway, here we're going to go. If you weren't in education or in the field of research, what would you do for work?

[00:31:09] Angela Duckworth: Hmm. I might be a chef. I love to cook like you. I love recipes too. I might be a chef.

[00:31:13] Ana Torres: She loves recipes. I love this. And thanks to your work you've gotten to advise NBA and NFL teams and Fortune 500 CEOs. What's been the coolest part of that work?

[00:31:24] Angela Duckworth: Hmm. I think the coolest part of that work is that to me, like quite literally, there's nothing more beautiful than a person who is fulfilling their potential.

And that could be on the basketball court or it could be in the swimming pool. It could be on the stage, it can be in the classroom, it can be anywhere. But when people are doing what they love, and doing it with all of their heart, it is like music. It is like poetry. And I. am truly privileged to be able to, you know, for a living study these people.

[00:31:56] Ana Torres: Now tell us the name of a mentor, educator, or someone who's mentored you and a quality that's made them a great mentor. Because we talked about mentorship, as far as is one of those ingredients.

[00:32:07] Angela Duckworth: Yeah. Okay. Well, I will say that one of my mentors is the person behind what's called the 10,000-hour rule, like 10,000 hours of practice will make you great. And a lot of classroom teachers have heard about that. And his name was Anders Ericsson. He passed away several years ago, but you know, one of the things that he did for me was he would get on the phone and he would listen to me as I was having my latest existential professional crisis of the moment.

And one of the best pieces of advice he gave me was, always look for a role model, especially when you're lost. Ask yourself, if I had a magic wand, who would I wake up and be tomorrow? And I found that advice and his mentorship to be essential for me to develop into the psychologist that I am today.

[00:32:50] Ana Torres: Oh. What a beautiful homage to pay to your mentor. And so, finally, we give our guests a chance to do a shout out to either a school district that's close to your heart or anyone else that you'd like to give a shout out to.

[00:33:05] Angela Duckworth: Well, I'll shout out an educator named Anthony Yom. He's in LA Unified School District and I stalked him. This is how I met him. I read in the newspaper that this kid, this is years ago, that this kid named Cedric Argueta got a perfect score on the AP calc exam. And not just a five out of five, like literally a perfect score. And I think that year only 12 kids around the world had gotten a perfect score.

So I'm reading this new story and Cedric Argueta is like the child of migrant farm workers and you know, LA Unified School District. And I'm like, "What? I want to know more about that." So I found his teacher, his math teacher, Yom as the kids call him. Mr. Yom. I became friends with him and will tell you that when I became acquainted with Cedric and Mr. Yom, you know, that is why we go into education. Because nobody knows what a kid can do. And I think those teachers who are changing lives by seeing what is sometimes hard to see. It's so beautiful. And Cedric Argueta grew up and he went to, I think, Stanford and then he went and got his Ph.D. and, you know, he's doing great.

And Yom became a principal in LA Unified. So that's where he is today. He's at a middle school in Koreatown in Los Angeles.

[00:34:18] Ana Torres: What a great way to end our time together. Wow. Just celebrating and elevating teachers who make great impacts.

[00:34:26] Angela Duckworth: Change the world! Change the life, and change the world!

[00:34:28] Ana Torres: And in this profession it is. It is, we're changing lives, we're making impact in the world. So thank you for ending on such a positive note. And also just thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and your research. We talked more than just about phones, y'all. We talked a lot about what it takes not only to be a great classroom teacher, but the impact that we're making as educators in the field.

So thank you, Dr. Angela Duckworth, for your time today.

[00:34:56] Angela Duckworth: Thank you. It was a pleasure. I look forward to our next conversation.

[00:34:58] Ana Torres: Me too. Because there has to be a next one. I need more. I need more recipes!

[00:35:02] Angela Duckworth: Yeah, exactly. I'll work on it.

[00:35:06] Ana Torres: That was Dr. Angela Duckworth. She's the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faculty co-director of the Penn Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative, and faculty co-Director of Wharton People Analytics. And of course, she's the author of the bestseller, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

Again, you can participate in her study by visiting phonesinocus.org.

Classroom Insider Eric Cross is back.

[00:35:44] Eric Cross: I'm back. I loved listening to it.

[00:35:46] Ana Torres: Well, let's get started. It's time for Eric Cross's takeaways. What's the first one?

[00:35:53] Eric Cross: The first one was, design beats willpower. This is one of those things, do you ever have a situation where you like through experience, you stumble onto something and then you find out that there's research to back up what you were doing and you feel so validated?

This is one of those things. For instance, you know, it could be like one of the things in the classroom where a student has like a toy or a fidget and it's not for supporting learning, they're just playing. And you say, "Put it away." And they put it in their pocket. And I say, "No, no, no, no in your backpack."

And I figured out that the more difficult it is to get to the less likely they're going to want to bring it back out. Right? And then Angela talks about this, this design aspect. She said physical distance creates psychological distance. And another way of me thinking about that was not relying on student willpower alone. Change the situation, create physical distances, and redesign your classroom so that it sets up students to succeed.

[00:36:41] Ana Torres: So designing for a purpose, that way all students feel belonging. So thank you for sharing that. And we're off to a great start, Eric.

[00:36:49] Eric Cross: The second one ties directly into when she was talking about cell phones, and this was setting the time and a place and making the rules crystal clear for when and where. Effective cell phone policies are clear for students. They know what's supposed to happen, where it's supposed to be throughout the day, and staff all know. It's not vague like no cell phones. It should be in your backpack and off or whatever the plan is.

And when the policy's vague, students will struggle. They're not going to know, there's kind of wiggle room. And you have to be able to respond to the issues that come up. For instance, if it's in backpacks, but you don't have lockers, let's just be honest, like theft is a thing. It could be one out of a hundred, but still that's a big deal. And so it's maybe having an advisory teacher lock it up. Just having a plan, because students will bring up kind of the holes or the pain points that the policies created, and we have to have a plan for each one of them, because the last thing we want to do is create more stress.

[00:37:38] Ana Torres: Absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that. And again, our Classroom Insider giving us some really, he's giving us some nuggets right now of, this is what it looks like and feels like in the classroom today. Any other takeaways you have from Dr. Angela Duckworth's episode?

[00:37:55] Eric Cross: Well, this third one really speaks to my heart. This is the reason why I became a teacher. And this is when she started talking about mentors. And I'm a product of people that cared about me that didn't have to, and most of these people were teachers in my life.

[00:38:07] Ana Torres: Same.

[00:38:07] Eric Cross: Yeah. And so she said, she talked about these four ingredients, design, peers and mentors, culture. But the peers and mentors, having students around peers that are ambitious, that are trying to get after it. There's a quote, and I can't remember it in Spanish, Ana, you might know, " If you tell me who you walk with, I'll tell you who you are."

[00:38:23] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:38:23] Eric Cross: And I had a teacher kind of say that to me. , It sounds more beautiful in Spanish, but yeah. Who you surround yourself with is kind of like a compilation of who you're going to be. And so if you want your students to develop character and you want them to have that grit and you want them to be goal oriented, you want to surround them with people like that, but you also want to give them mentors that can show them the way.

And sometimes those mentors are like a second voice. You know, parents tell their kids all the time, but you know, they kind of get tone deaf after a while. And then a mentor comes in or an outside person and they tell them the same thing and then it clicks. And so having those motivated peers, those peer mentors, and then having those adult mentors too, getting those around your students is really important.

[00:39:01] Ana Torres: And I like that you used the word motivated peers. Because we can have peers that we enjoy being around, but are these peers that are going to motivate us to be better? My son just found a really cool friend at school. He goes, "Mom, he has got a job and he's doing some really great things, things that I want to be doing. I've got some friends that aren't really like that." I'm like, "So what do you want to do? You want to explore that relationship a little bit more?" And he is like, "Absolutely."

And so it was really great to be able to kind of talk with her, not only on this phone policy research she's doing, but how that science of self-control, how important that is, right? And how we have to actually teach that to our students. That is not something they come out of the womb knowing how to do. And that aligns to what you just said, Eric, is having not only peers, but also adult mentors in their lives.

[00:39:51] Eric Cross: It's, it's huge. And Dr. Duckworth said something, she said, "Mentors tell you things you don't know and believe in you before you do. And they open doors." And I run into the problem of scaling, like these good things. And what I mean by that is, "Okay, I want to do mentors, but I have 200 students that I teach. How do I do that?" And I get overwhelmed and then I stop. And so I've been working on, is trying to figure out, "Okay, I don't have to have a big brother, big sister program for every type of student." Like that's, that's too much for one person to do. On my campus, I might have teachers or staff members or parents who have expertise that could come into the classroom when I'm doing a different thing and have them check in with different students. For instance, right now I have two students who are making a podcast. I might have another student who's really into graphics design, and we have staff members who are really into graphics design, and they can pop in for 15 minutes, and kind of give them some tips. A little bit of exposure is better than nothing at all.

[00:40:38] Ana Torres: Agree. Anything else? Because I see some extra little excitement today, Eric. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?

[00:40:47] Eric Cross: Yeah, I think this is like the squishy one that Dr. Duckworth was kind of talking about, but it really resonated.

[00:40:52] Ana Torres: He is smiling ear to ear. He just had to get a fourth one in y'all.

[00:40:56] Eric Cross: Because we've heard this so many times from the educators that you interview. It's building a growth mindset culture and not just having it be a lesson.

[00:41:02] Ana Torres: Yeah.

[00:41:03] Eric Cross: She said every school has a culture. And in growth mindset cultures, what matters is that the teachers believe students can succeed and students feel that. They know that they're believed in to be successful.

Here's an activity. This is just a simple one that we did in advisory a couple weeks ago that one of our teachers found. And it was the yet plus process and praise day talk. And what it was, was simply just a piece of paper and it said, "Yet. YET in bold letters and it was hollow inside the letters. And on the outside, students had to write what they could do around the word yet. And on the inside, they wrote what they couldn't do. But then when they read it, they said, " I'm not a fast reader," or "I don't remember what I read all the time, yet." And they added the word, yet. And then we started using that word yet.

[00:41:47] Ana Torres: So powerful.

[00:41:47] Eric Cross: Yeah. "I'm not great at doing math equations, yet." Yes. When you put in these strategies, you start changing and reframing the way students think.

[00:41:54] Ana Torres: Absolutely.

[00:41:55] Eric Cross: And it creates a culture. It creates an environment where students believe that they're believed in and then they start believing in themselves. And that's a critical component and, there's the science and things you can do, but some of it is just, it's also feel in your belief system, and your heart.

And that's that kind of like squishy part of it where, you know, a cell phone policy, you can go and you can look up and you can just do Culture is this living thing, and it can shift from classroom to classroom, and it shifts from year to year. And so building that is just as much of an art as it is a science.

[00:42:25] Ana Torres: Ooh, we need Eric Cross to get more squishy, right? We're going to have him have more squishy moments on our future episodes. So that has always been kind of my, like my motto and why I got into education, similar to you is, I believe that all students, and this is like in my core, in my, you know, in my bones, Eric, right?

I believe that all students can be successful in a classroom given the right supports. But like you said, students have to believe that as well. So we have to be genuine and authentic when we show up in that way, because they know when you're not. So Eric, as always, it's so great to chat with you. Can't wait to do it again.

[00:43:13] Eric Cross: Me too, Ana. I look forward to it.

[00:43:16] Ana Torres: Thanks for listening to Beyond My Years from Amplify. Next time around, we're tackling another big topic: Where to start when you are a new educator and everything is new. The best way to get that episode as soon as it drops is to subscribe to Beyond My Years on the podcast platform of your choice.

While you're there, please consider leaving us a short review. It will help more people find the show. I'm your host, Ana Torres, our Classroom Insider is Eric Cross, our music is by Andrew Smolin. Until next time, please remember to reach out and say thank you to a seasoned educator who has shaped your life.