The Luddites were not against progress.

The myth of Ned Ludd is considered by some to be more threatening to elites and the wealthy than that of Robin Hood, as it is less nebulous and more direct.

Robin Hood advocates for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

In the Luddite era, aggressive factory owners did not seek solutions that benefited everyone.

A Harvard career adviser notes that generational issues at work tend to focus on differences rather than similarities.

He observes that Gen Z highlights the importance of diversity at work and will readily leave jobs where their values are not respected.

The gap between workplace expectations and what is taught in schools has widened for younger generations.

Some young employees have demonstrated relaxed attitudes toward work norms, such as attending Zoom meetings in pajamas.

These behaviors are visible across many workplaces.

Organizations that prioritize talent are forecast to succeed in the future.

Interns are reminded that their role contributes to achieving team goals, even when editing a simple blog post.

Gen Z and young millennials are as disillusioned with work as other generations.

This workplace dissatisfaction also negatively affects young workers.

The causes of their dissatisfaction remain unclear.

Remote work arrangements have made jobs less enjoyable and less educational for young people.

Workers previously learned company culture informally, which is harder to do remotely.

Companies are encouraged to make in-office work worthwhile to employees.

Some company policies, such as time off, are ambiguous and unclear.

It is argued that CEOs unwilling to adapt to post-pandemic work realities, not younger employees, are the problem.

A healthy organizational culture is a key competitive advantage.

Talented employees seek engaged and successful teams.

Building workplace safety, connection, and respect is essential.

Leaders now face greater challenges and complexities than a few years ago.

The Luddites were not against progress.

Title:

Content: Brian Merchant, author: “Luddites are more dangerous to the rich than Robin Hood”

The Luddites have been a great historical resource. Any showy enemy of anything that looked like technological progress has been called a Luddite. Today with generative artificial intelligence and its critics, the word has been revived. The author and journalist Brian Merchant (Iowa City, USA, 1983) saw it coming and has written a book that reviews the Luddite revolt in England at the beginning of the 19th century and its similarities with current technologies: Blood in the Machine (Blood in the Machine, currently without a planned edition in Spanish) thus explores the origins of the current revolt against big technology.

Although the book has appeared in the midst of the AI hype, Merchant began his research a decade ago: “Uber was growing and it was beginning to be seen that it was having a hard impact on taxi drivers, I heard the term Luddite from the pro-Uber sector and wrote an article titled You don't understand anything about Luddites”. Now in his book he remembers that the Luddite revolt was a labor struggle, not anti-technology, at a time when unions were prohibited. In a conversation with EL PAÍS from his residence in Los Angeles, Merchant clarifies the historical impact of the Luddites and the possible similar struggles that are being played today in Silicon Valley.

1. The Luddites were not against progress

The labor revolt over the loss of rights was more important than the destruction of textile machines: “The biggest mistake about the Luddites is to say that they were against technology and progress,” says Merchant. “They were against certain technologies because they recognized the way in which they were going to be used in their context against them as workers. It was a labor movement, against poverty, not anti-technology. The British Government began to mold them in this way almost immediately, it was keen to mock the Luddites and present the argument that they were against progress. It is very similar to how today people in positions of power in technology companies accuse those who complain about poor working conditions. It's the same story for 200 years.”

The book quotes a phrase from historian Eric Hobsbawm that explains this stage: “It was collective bargaining through riots.” According to Merchant, this tactic in a workers' struggle was very powerful for two reasons: “First, it was symbolic because everyone understood that what they were destroying was not just a machine. It was also the specific machine used to transfer wealth from the workers to the employer. Second, it was useful because they destroyed the equipment that businessmen needed.”

2. Why Robin Hood is better accepted than Ned Ludd

Ned Ludd was a legendary character. No one knows for sure if he existed. It was the legend of a teenager who would have broken the first machines at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1811, rebellious workers used his legendary name to sign letters and further scare: “Ludd probably never existed. But the incarnation of it would become a mascot, an organizational tool, a wink: a powerful 19th-century meme,” Merchant writes.

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Ludd lived near Nottingham (United Kingdom), like another legendary figure who has been better treated by history. There must be a reason, says Merchant: “The Luddites organized a popular and powerful rebellion. People wrote popular songs about them. They were like Robin Hood. But it is interesting that Robin Hood has endured as a positive light, while the Luddites have not. He suggests that the myth of Ned Ludd is in some ways more dangerous to the elites and the wealthy than that of Robin Hood, which is a little more nebulous and open. The Luddites say: go ahead and break the machines of your oppression. Robin Hood says: steal from the rich and give to the poor. “I think that’s a little more tolerable.”

3. How are they similar to today's problems?

The background of the book is that the history of the Luddites is similar to what happens today in Silicon Valley, where a small group of corporations dominate new technologies. “The way technologies are developed has basically not changed. You have a handful of people with access to enough capital or political influence to be able to build a factory and use automation technologies. “Back then, the most aggressive owners didn’t ask anyone how to find a way to make this a win-win.”

Merchant has received criticism for equating the great businessmen of 19th century England with 21st century America. But there are details that he does not see that far away: “The technology development process is in some ways even more undemocratic today than then. There is this immense pool of capital available to Silicon Valley innovators through venture capital. Uber wasn't profitable for 10 years, but they had access to that capital. Did anyone really like that? Did it work for workers and delivery people? Nothing mattered, they just had more money and moved on.”

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The myth of Ned Ludd is considered by some to be more threatening to elites and the wealthy than that of Robin Hood, as it is less nebulous and more direct.

Robin Hood advocates for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

In the Luddite era, aggressive factory owners did not seek solutions that benefited everyone.

A Harvard career adviser notes that generational issues at work tend to focus on differences rather than similarities.

Title:

Content: advertisement
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A Harvard career adviser explains how managers can bridge the Gen-Z generation gap at work

Young people entering the workforce in the 2020s aren’t different, but their circumstances are.

[Source Photo: Nile Scott Studios]

Gen Z is still young, but this demographic cohort has already weathered a global pandemic, rampant inflation, and the ever-present rise of climate change. The oldest among them have had to enter their first jobs while the world was adjusting to remote work and the ramifications of COVID-19, not to mention endless worker shortages, a youth mental health crisis, and unprecedented levels of workplace burnout.

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Fast Company recently spoke with Gorick Ng, author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right, about the Gen-Z workforce, typically defined as people born between 1995 and 2010. Ng also works as a career advisor at Harvard, specializing in first-generation and low-income students. Ng has spoken to thousands of Gen-Zers and employers. He shared with us his insights on what Gen Z is facing at work and how both Gen-Zers and managers can bridge the generational gap.

Fast Company: What attributes make Gen Z unique in the workforce?

Gorick Ng: To begin with, whenever we hear about the term ‘generational differences,’ we’re inclined to talk about differences instead of what we have in common. What research has shown time and time again is that young people today aren’t that different from the young people yesterday. What we’re talking about is the difference in perspective of someone in their twenties versus their sixties. What Gen Z wants is not that different from other generations.

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That said, they are shining a light on the importance of diversity and not afraid to vote with their feet. I’ve spoken to a number of Gen Z who say that before they walk into an interview or sign a job offer, they look at a company’s leadership page to see if anyone else looks like them. If the answer is no, they are tempted to look elsewhere.

FC: What kinds of generational gaps is Gen Z facing in the workplace given the context of the pandemic?

GN: What I see is the rift between what is expected and what is taught in school has widened. I’ve visited high school and university classrooms during the pandemic and seen the instructor teaching to a wall of black backgrounds with names—and who knows what’s going on off camera? Are the kids sideways or in their pajamas? I was talking to one law firm where every intern starts in the mail room and three of the 10 are then hired on. The mailroom is a test of your competence, commitment, and compatibility: If you can be trusted in the mailroom, you can be trusted with more. But the interns didn’t realize that, and people working remotely didn’t realize that. One showed up to a Zoom meeting in their pjs lying down. The higher ups were thinking, what makes you think that’s acceptable? But this is also how the interns approached school, and if you don’t have a parent or mentor to explain what the expectations are, you don’t know any better.

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The pandemic really damaged the infrastructure for teaching the cultural norms of an institution. When students came back to Harvard, staff realized over half of the student population has been educated remotely and doesn’t know what the Harvard experience is. We can see that in the workplace too. I’ve seen organizations that have had so much turnover during pandemic that those who know what the culture was prior to the pandemic are outnumbered by those who don’t know—and those who know are very senior.

FC: What should organizations do in the face of this rift?

GN: I believe the organizations that will win out in the future are the ones who put talent first. In an era where worker well-being can be so transparently analyzed on websites like Glassdoor and Fishbowl and more, as well as social media, the companies that will win, have the best brands, most engaged workforce—are the ones who care about employees’ needs and wants.

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When I survey students on what they want from their careers, they overwhelmingly tell me they want financial stability and work/life balance. Only about 2% of any student audience I survey wants to climb the corporate ladder.

FC: What is one tip you have for managing Gen Z?

GN: Ask for their feedback. Understand what motivates them. One of the most underrated conversations that I wish more managers would have is what are your goals, what brought you here, what would make this a more meaningful experience for you and where do you see yourself in the future? How can we craft an experience where we can build your career together?

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FC: On the flipside—I know you wrote a whole book about this—what advice do you have for Gen-Zers starting their first jobs?

GN: When I ask managers across industries and job types about their biggest complaint toward early-career hires, they often repeat the same word—”entitlement”—in the form of expecting to become CEO after merely showing up to work for two months.

On the flipside, I’ve talked to hundreds of mangers, leaders, and executives, and when I ask them what is the one characteristic that’s lacking in the workforce and can set someone apart, they say an ownership mindset. That means not just looking at a problem and assuming it’s someone else’s but looking at it and saying, Hey, what can I do? It speaks to a mindset we’re not taught in school.

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School is about keeping up. Work is about stepping up. It means removing the word ‘just’ from your vocabulary. You might ‘just’ be an intern, but you were hired to help the team achieve its goals. You might have been asked to clean up the spreadsheet, but your mandate is to provide insights that makes the team say wow. If you are ‘just’ sending emails, your mandate might be closing a sale. If you are ‘just’ editing a blog post, your mandate is to sell an idea. Think, why am I being asked to do this? What’s the broader objective? Figuring out what matters to those who matter can really separate those who are just clocking hours to someone who will be a future employee.

Moreover, you can align yourself with work that matters. The more your work matters the more you matter to the organization. Managers often don’t delegate well, they toss work over the fence and expect you to figure it out—most people end up taking those instructions at face value and then getting stressed out when their work isn’t making an impact.

In school you learn by reading what’s assigned and listening to who is on stage. In the real world, you learn by googling, meeting people, and asking questions. In school it’s all about finding the right answer, which is in the back of the text book. In the real world, it’s not a matter of finding the right answer; it’s about giving a compelling argument.

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He observes that Gen Z highlights the importance of diversity at work and will readily leave jobs where their values are not respected.

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Gen Z is sick and tired of their jobs

Young workers are now as disengaged as burned-out boomers

HOMEPAGE

Young workers may not possess the experience or wisdom of their older colleagues. But they've always had one advantage in the workplace: their enthusiasm. Unattached and kid-free, they're willing to burn the midnight oil. They have yet to grow bored or disgruntled. They're full of hopes and dreams — and the naivete to drink the company Kool-Aid. That's why they've traditionally been more involved in and excited about their jobs than their graying counterparts.

But since the pandemic hit, there's been a startling shift. From 2019 to 2022, according to Gallup surveys, the share of people under 35 who reported being engaged with their jobs dropped from 37% to 33% — the lowest level since 2011. At the same time, the share who reported being "actively disengaged" rose to 17% from 12%. This rise in workplace disenchantment has been so powerful that it has virtually eliminated the old-young engagement gap. Gen Zers and young millennials, in other words, have soured on work just as much as everyone else.

This is very bad for companies. Low engagement is linked to higher job turnover and reduced profits; Gallup estimates it costs the global economy $7.8 trillion a year in lost productivity. It's also bad for young workers. If they were simply stepping away from their jobs and finding fulfillment elsewhere, that might be OK. But it's far deeper than that.

If you drill down on the specific components of engagement measured by Gallup, you find that workers in their 20s and early 30s report a plummeting sense of:

      • feeling cared about
      • having someone who encourages their development
      • having opportunities to learn and grow
      • having a best friend at work
      • believing that their opinions count

All of this points to a single, troubling conclusion: Something about today's workplace is failing our youngest workers.

Why? No one knows for sure. But I have a few hypotheses — and a few ideas about what companies can do better, for both their young staffers and their own bottom lines. "If employees aren't engaged, there is likely something about the way their work is designed that's not optimal," says Caitlin Duffy, a research director at Gartner, a consulting firm. "If you can optimize that, then you'll be unlocking all of their potential — as opposed to constraining it by legacy assumptions or processes or things that just don't fit anymore."

First, the factors contributing to the growing workplace disgruntlement of younger generations:

1. Work from home

Jim Harter, the chief scientist for Gallup's workplace-management practice, thinks a big factor is the pandemic-era shift to remote and hybrid work. We might think of Gen Z as the most flexible generation, but as I reported last year, they're actually the least likely to prefer a fully remote schedule. Only 24% of those in their 20s want to work from home all full time, compared with 41% of those in their 50s and early 60s. Which makes sense: People straight out of school typically depend on work for their social lives more than older workers, and they want and need more mentorship and guidance from their managers and more-experienced colleagues. But as the five components I cited earlier indicate, young workers aren't getting that as much from remote and hybrid work. And as a result, work has gotten less fun and less educational for them.

2. The Slack effect

A lot of the tips I picked up as a cub reporter didn't come from formal instruction. It was often accidental, like when I overheard the older reporters sitting next to me debate the newsworthiness of their scoops with their editors. In a remote world, those opportunities have begun to disappear, as face-to-face conversations (which allow for educational eavesdropping) are replaced by Slack messages (which don't).

But the problem runs even deeper than that. In one study, researchers examined the effects of a hybrid schedule at a large company in China that randomly divided its staff into two groups: one that had the option to work from home twice a week, and another that had to come into the office all the time. In the hybrid group, the researchers found, workers sent more messages than their full-time office counterparts — even on days they were actually in the office. Once you start using digital messaging tools, as the pandemic forced so many of us to do, it becomes the preferred way of communicating, even when you're back in the office. We're all Slacking coworkers who sit 5 feet away, instead of going over to talk to them — and that's making it harder for early-career employees to learn by osmosis, even in an office.

3. Unclear norms and expectations

Something else that workers used to pick up informally were the norms and expectations that make up a company's culture. That's much harder to do in remote and hybrid settings, making the experience of joining a new organization more stressful for everyone. And the uncertainty is extra tough for those coming straight out of school, with little knowledge of any professional workplace. When Gartner asked people what was preventing them from going into the office, Gen Zers were more likely than other generations to cite social anxiety.

"It's understandable because in a hybrid world, they can't observe the norms that govern how other employees operate in that shared office space," Duffy says. "Not knowing the norms for the workplace, in terms of conduct or getting work done, can lead to increased anxiety. It also can lead to employees spending time on how to do the work, instead of doing the work itself."

4. Post-pandemic stress disorder

COVID was tough on all of us, but the forced isolation of the pandemic was especially harmful for young people. In June 2021, a McKinsey survey found, Gen Zers were 1.5 times as likely as the average respondent to say they were depressed or anxious. And the stresses of the pandemic come on top of a mental-health crisis among young people that predated COVID.

"I think people are trying to sweep the pandemic under the rug, but what we've all been through has consequences," says Lindsey Pollak, a consultant who is the author of "The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace." "People who had their education or the beginning of their career disrupted, it's going to take a while for them to recover from that."

So how do companies fix this? It's clear that CEOs across the US are aware of the problem. But many of them have resorted to a truly dumb solution: requiring everyone to return to the office. JPMorgan has been enforcing office attendance via badge swipes, and Meta accompanied its recent announcement of 10,000 layoffs with a thinly veiled threat that employees should "find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person." Both companies cite their young employees as a primary motivation for getting everyone back to their cubicles.

Ironically, though, experts say that forcing young workers to return to the office will only make things worse. Data from Gartner suggests companies that make office attendance optional have a 10% higher engagement rate among Gen Zers than those that require it. And 65% say that their willingness to stay in their jobs hinges partly on whether they can work flexibly. Gallup has also seen some of the biggest drops in engagement among employees who are required to come into the office even though their jobs can be performed remotely. Remote work might pose challenges for young workers, but many of them still prefer a hybrid schedule of their own choosing — and stripping them of that option isn't exactly a recipe for boosting engagement.

"Rigid return-to-office requirements are a big mistake," says Duffy, the Gartner researcher. "We tend to see that actually decreases performance and intent to stay and increases fatigue."

So how can companies raise the engagement of their youngest employees? Here are four suggestions, based on my conversations with the experts:

1. Make coming into the office worthwhile

When it comes to engagement, carrots work better than sticks. The fact that so many people aren't going in to the office says more about the office than it does about them. To boost attendance, companies need to improve the office experience. Reorganize the workplace to create more space for people to collaborate and socialize. Organize more happy hours. Pay for parking and subway fares. Allow people to arrive later, and leave earlier, to avoid rush-hour commutes. In short, inspire people of all ages to work in the office because they actually want to — and help facilitate the social interactions and mentorship that young people are otherwise missing.

2. Spell everything out

Remember that thing about work from home making it harder to pick up on workplace norms and expectations? There's a pretty simple solution to that: Spell them out. When is it OK to decline a meeting invitation? Are you expected to respond to emails on a Saturday night? How polished does a first draft of a memo need to be? Pollak, the consultant, told me about a client who complained that their Gen Z employees were "abusing" the company's vacation policy. When Pollak asked what the policy was, the client said it was to take "a reasonable amount" of time off. In a workplace composed only of old white men, that kind of ambiguity might fly — but not in one with a mix of generations (as well as genders and races and cultural backgrounds) who have different interpretations of what "reasonable" means. "You can't make those assumptions anymore," Pollak says. "It's about clarity and avoiding assumptions."

3. Meaningful 1:1s

Harter, the Gallup researcher, has his own advice for companies: Nurture better managers. As I recently reported, many businesses are running in the opposite direction, getting rid of their middle managers. But these are the very people who can help young workers feel more seen and motivated in their jobs. Sure, the transition to remote and hybrid work has obliterated the old method of management — bumping into employees by the coffee machine and asking about their weekend. But even from a distance, it's still possible for managers to learn what motivates their employees, stay in tune with their ups and downs, and step in early when they start to struggle. Managers just have to be intentional about it — setting up weekly one-on-ones — instead of depending on accidental run-ins at the office. The low engagement of young employees isn't so much about remote work as it is about "how managers are managing them in this new world of work," Harter says. "Whether managers give employees meaningful feedback once a week has multiples more importance than where people are sitting."

4. Give employees a say

I'm generally skeptical of generational differences, but one thing that's struck me about my Gen Z colleagues is how outspoken they are compared with the way I was in my early 20s. (I'm 36, which, for the purposes of this story, makes me old.) Pollak ascribes this to Gen Z growing up with social media. "They're more self-empowered to have a voice," she says. In the old days, she continues, "you would've had to write a letter to the editor or an op-ed to have a national or global voice — now you just have to send a tweet." Companies would do well to keep that in mind, creating opportunities for employees — especially younger ones — to voice their opinions, ask questions, and provide input on all aspects of the business. Senior executives should host frequent all-hands meetings, and HR departments should conduct regular employee surveys. The catch is, executives actually have to listen to the feedback, answer the questions, and take action as a result. Otherwise it's just for show, and engagement will continue to suffer.

I imagine that CEOs, most of whom are baby boomers and Gen Xers, might lodge two objections to my suggestions. The first is: We can't just favor Gen Z.

I'm not suggesting that managers record TikTok dances or use more emojis. (Just to spell out the cultural expectations here: please don't.) My suggestions are targeted to shore up engagement among young workers, but they'd actually be good for everyone. Spelling out workplace norms, for instance, wouldn't just help befuddled 22-year-olds but would also help all the women and people of color and recent immigrants who are currently forced to guess the unwritten rules — and then second-guess those guesses when they don't get the results they hoped.

The second objection I can imagine is: Well, that's a lot of work. Which is true — doing all these things right isn't easy. It's hard for a big, entrenched company to change its ways. So far, though, executives are mostly reverting to their tired old playbooks, like forcing their staff to come back to the office. And when that hasn't worked, they complain that young people are lazy and don't want to work anymore.

They can't see that what worked before just won't work today. The plummeting engagement among young workers, traditionally the most enthusiastic and energetic, is a cry for help — a sign that employers need to find new ways to involve, motivate, mentor, and inspire a new generation of employees. If CEOs are unwilling to do the hard work of adapting their organizations to the new world shaped by the pandemic, it's not their Gen Z and millennial staff who are lazy — it's them.

Aki Ito is a senior correspondent at Insider.

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The gap between workplace expectations and what is taught in schools has widened for younger generations.

Some young employees have demonstrated relaxed attitudes toward work norms, such as attending Zoom meetings in pajamas.

These behaviors are visible across many workplaces.

Organizations that prioritize talent are forecast to succeed in the future.

Interns are reminded that their role contributes to achieving team goals, even when editing a simple blog post.

Gen Z and young millennials are as disillusioned with work as other generations.

This workplace dissatisfaction also negatively affects young workers.

The causes of their dissatisfaction remain unclear.

Remote work arrangements have made jobs less enjoyable and less educational for young people.

Workers previously learned company culture informally, which is harder to do remotely.

Companies are encouraged to make in-office work worthwhile to employees.

Some company policies, such as time off, are ambiguous and unclear.

It is argued that CEOs unwilling to adapt to post-pandemic work realities, not younger employees, are the problem.

A healthy organizational culture is a key competitive advantage.

Title:

Content: COLUMNS

Good company culture retains workers and creates competitive edge. Follow these principles

Emily Rogers
Special to The Ledger

The period described as the Great Resignation that began about a year ago is an ongoing economic trend. A recent CNBC headline stated that a startling 96% of workers will be looking for a new job this year in the hopes of attaining higher wages, the opportunity for advancement, better benefits, more flexibility, a healthier workplace environment, and a role that matters more to them.

This turnover is not only financially costly, it also takes a toll on workplace morale. The burden of enhanced recruiting efforts, onboarding and training add up fast. According to Gallop, the cost of replacing an employee is from one-half to two times the employee’s salary. When a position is vacated, the required duties of that role don’t go away and must be fulfilled by those left behind — increasing the likelihood of burnout and more turnover.

While the reasons for an employee resignation vary greatly and many variables are outside of a company's control, organizational culture is a widespread reason for high turnover that is in a leadership team’s power to influence positively. An employer cannot control a scenario where an employee leaves voluntarily to relocate or reprioritize family care. However, when multiple people resign because they don't feel valued by their boss, connected to the organization’s mission, or respected by their colleagues, this may be a sign that the workplace climate is eroding the ability to retain talent.

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A healthy organizational culture is a competitive edge. Your business strategy sets objectives and benchmarks that other companies can easily imitate. However, your culture determines how people feel at work and will ultimately create (or destroy) the environment for success.

Quality people want to be part of an engaged and winning team. Workplace environments that stimulate engagement generate higher productivity, and productivity propels performance. Raising pay, offering more flexibility and adding more perks are short-term fixes to a more nuanced retention problem. A toxic culture will not retain even the highest-paid workers.

Here are three timeless principles for cultivating an organizational culture that creates a competitive edge:

Healthy relationships matter

A healthy organizational climate is co-created by an ecosystem of healthy relationships. When coaching leaders and teams, I stay curious about the climate in which they are operating because it’s co-created by everyone and co-owned regardless of rank. The strength of connections between coworkers is highly correlated with the health of the climate and one toxic leader, dysfunctional relationship or actively disengaged employee weakens the entire ecosystem. Asking a leader or team member to draw the constellation of relationships within their organizational system and visually indicate where stronger and weaker connections exist quickly reveals the overall health of the climate and highlights the relationships that need attention. When these relationships are strengthened, trust is built, engagement improves and common issues like ineffective communication and unproductive conflict get resolved and fade into the background.

The keys: safety, connection and respect

Three essential nutrients are required to co-create a healthy ecosystem of relationships: safety, connection, and respect. Drawing from the field of neuroscience and Amanda Blake, author of Your Body is Your Brain, humans are hard-wired to scan their environments and relationships for safety, connection and respect. Just like plants require water, sunlight and soil to thrive, we need safety, connection and respect to flourish. In a workplace, this means that we feel physically and psychologically safe, connected to the people we work with and our common mission, and valued for our unique contributions, backgrounds and differences. We feel seen, heard, understood and safe to be ourselves. When these qualities are scarce in our workplace ecosystem, we languish and struggle to reach our full potential. If your organization has established its core values, revisit them to determine where safety, connection and respect live within those values and expand upon them if necessary. If your team still needs to establish its core values, this is an excellent place to start this vital exercise.

Leaders set the tone

Leaders and managers bring the weather to the ecosystem. Leaders set the tone and managers are your cultural ambassadors. When coaching a leadership team, I often begin with these questions, “What are the weather patterns you're experiencing in your organization? Sunny or cloudy? Turbulent or calm? High pressure or low pressure? And how might you be contributing to those weather patterns?“ How employees feel about the organization is strongly influenced by the "weather" leaders bring to the environment — individually and collectively. The role of today's leaders is much more complex and challenging than just a few years ago. Mid-level managers are often most challenged because they are wedged between the competing wants and needs of their senior leaders and direct reports. As the conduits of safety, connection and respect throughout the organization, mid-level managers' responses to these dynamics strongly influence the organizational climate. Ensuring your managers are trained in how to skillfully respond to these pressures will reduce the likelihood of turnover caused by company culture or an unskilled boss.

The generational shifts that are occurring in our labor force are amplifying the need to make organizational culture a higher priority. The employees that have recently entered our labor force and those that are soon to join them are less tolerant of a toxic boss, a disrespectful environment, a culture that doesn't value growth and development and an organization that doesn't have a higher purpose. This shift will become more pronounced in future years. Organizations that don't utilize these three principles will have a more challenging time retaining talent today and in the coming decades.

Emily Rogers, Founder & CEO of Emily Rogers Consulting + Coaching, is an executive coach, team coach, and leadership development facilitator. She strategically advises and supports leaders and teams in growing and realizing their full potential in purposeful and balanced ways. You can connect with her athttp://emilyrogers.com.

Talented employees seek engaged and successful teams.

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Leaders now face greater challenges and complexities than a few years ago.


When we view hard work as a sign of low aptitude, it harms our ability to learn and grow.

Just like a muscle, our brain gets stronger through hard work.

No one seemed to have to try hard to make it.

In fact, the opposite is true; when we get a question wrong, we’re actually more likely to get it right in the future if we take the time to struggle with it afterward.

They are participants in a classroom community in which all children have the emotional and cognitive support of their peers and their teacher as they learn.

We teachers can never get enough ways to help create the classroom conditions for students to motivate themselves.

I’d ask them to write down and discuss what I would need to do in order for it to be the most successful and best year for them.

And if they weren’t holding up their end of my list, I’d point that out as well.

The best ways I have found to help them have confidence and interest is to allow them to pose questions and to give them choices in their projects.

We hope to create a classroom culture that is so fun, engaging, and magnetic that students actually WANT to be in school.

When students are not engaged, the teacher has to find ONE thing that connects the student and the teacher.

The question of the week is:
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It's OK to feel uncomfortable as you work with your students; it can even be a better choice than trying to control the learning process.

The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity.

With the music you are familiar with you know what to expect, so it doesn’t distract you from your work.

Allow your students to form their own questions over a new topic.

Jump directly to the content.

The other thing I know is video games, and I also know that they have a stigma attached to them as mindless rubbish.

This of course was just one lesson, but it was easy to see how the same model could be applied to pretty much all subjects.

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Neuropsych

Stanford duck syndrome: How the myth of effortless genius hurts learning

When we view hard work as a sign of low aptitude, it harms our ability to learn and grow.
Key Takeaways
  • Research shows that like a muscle, our brains really do get "stronger" through effort and hard work.
  • When people work hard to learn something new, they develop more neural connections between different brain regions.
  • Recognizing effective effort can increase motivation and help people overcome challenges, argues Mary C. Murphy in her 2024 book Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations.
Adapted from Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations by Mary C. Murphy. Published by Simon & Schuster. Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.

Just like a muscle, our brain gets stronger through hard work. The idea sounds catchy, but is it true? After all, our brain isn’t a muscle — it’s far more complex

Hoping to answer this question, a group of researchers placed study participants in an fMRI machine, then monitored their brain activity while they listened to two tones. Their task was to press a button to indicate whether the second tone was longer or shorter in duration than the first. In the “easy” portion of the test, the tones were more clearly differentiated, whereas in the “difficult” portion, the second tone was more like the first. As the researchers dialed up the difficulty, the participants’ brains began to light up: The more challenging the task was and the more effort it required, the more areas of the brain were recruited to help.

Not only was there more activity and connectivity among different parts of the brain during the challenging task, one of the areas that came online during the hard part was the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This part is associated with higher-level executive functions such as our working memory, ability to switch between multiple concepts, and abstract reasoning. The more we’re challenged, the more parts of the brain we call on to help us and that, in essence, increases our overall abilities to meet the goal.

Research also shows that it’s not just any effort that makes us grow new neural cells and pathways, but effort expended in the process of learning — something we call effective effort.

Scientists compared the brains of two groups of “gym rats,” which were put on different physical exercise regimens, with a control group of “cage potato” rats and a group of “acro-rats” who learned to navigate an elevated obstacle course — a task that was mentally, but not physically, challenging. Though both groups of gym rats developed a higher density of blood vessels in their brains than the cage potatoes, the acro-rats developed more synapses per nerve cell than all three other groups. When we’re working hard and learning something new, we develop more connections among different parts of our brain, and that helps us complete tasks more quickly and easily in the future.

The neural pathways we don’t use die off over time. What makes our brains hold on to these pathways — and create more — is not simply repeating the same things we’ve learned over and over again, but continually taking on difficult problems. Just like exercising our muscles or our cardiovascular system, once we’ve got something down so well that we can perform it with little effort, it may boost our ego, but it won’t boost our performance. We’ve got to keep dialing up the level of challenge.

If you’ve heard the advice that the way to keep your brain sharp is to tackle Sudoku or the New York Times crossword puzzle, those activities may serve you up to a point, but only so long as they remain challenging. Spending an afternoon with a Rubik’s cube would make my brain grow (and make me grow plenty frustrated), but not so for mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil, who’s been solving them since she was 14. Neuroscientist David Eagleman says that in order to keep his brain healthy, he constantly invests in challenging activities, such as learning new software programs and wrestling with Mandarin.

Yet if multiple avenues of scientific exploration tell us that it’s only by engaging in challenging tasks that we develop and grow, why does the belief that having to apply more effort means less ability persist? What’s keeping it going?

Fueling false beliefs about effort and ability

You might be familiar with some version of the widely acknowledged “Stanford duck syndrome” — something I experienced personally in grad school. To be successful in the elite, high-pressure educational environment of Stanford, you were expected to glide gracefully across the water, though, beneath the surface, you were kicking like crazy to keep up. Hardship and struggle were expected to simply roll off your back.

In the day-to-day, undergrads, in particular, could be seen lounging around the student union or coffee shops, listening to music or socializing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. No one seemed to have to try hard to make it. By evening, they would begin to hit the books, sometimes studying alone in their rooms through the night in an effort to, well, hide their effort. The price they paid to align themselves with the cultural value of genius was a high one: Exhaustion and psychological distress were common.

Fellow researchers and I saw something similar at Cornell University. Through a series of focus groups with students, Cornell Health Counseling and Psychological Services counselors identified an unusual and disturbing trend. As is typical at many colleges and universities, companies selling a variety of dorm room posters — everything from puppies to popular bands — would come on campus to peddle their wares. During the most challenging times of the semester, such as during midterm and final exams, the most popular poster was one that was supposed to be motivational. It read, essentially, While you’re sleeping, someone else is getting ahead

One could argue that the posters simply encouraged the students to dig in and work hard. When such “motivation” links to a cultural belief system where hard work is thought to signal low ability or talent, it can fuel mental health issues.

These beliefs tend to start young. Kindergarten through sixth-grade teachers attending our summer institute often describe how difficult it is to counter children’s perceptions that if they have to try hard at something, it means they’re not good at it. The teachers, themselves, sometimes harbor these same beliefs. One of the ways we see this is when teachers take our baseline evaluation survey and they give an affirmative response to statements such as, I hate to see my students struggle; Seeing my students struggle makes me uncomfortable; and I am likely to assist right away when I notice my students struggling. However, struggle is a critical element of the learning process.

The idea of errorless learning — the perception that fewer errors on tests means better learning — leads one to assume that getting answers wrong would have a negative impact. In fact, the opposite is true; when we get a question wrong, we’re actually more likely to get it right in the future if we take the time to struggle with it afterward. Struggle enhances learning and recall.

Still, we don’t want to blindly encourage all struggle, but instead emphasize strategies that enable effective effort. It’s critical that we praise effort in the right direction. Research further clarifies that the effectiveness of what we refer to as effort praise is tied to our beliefs about effort and ability. Among students who believe that effort is an important way to increase their ability, having their effort praised boosted their views of themselves and their levels of intrinsic motivation. The stronger their belief, the bigger the boost.

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Content: Emotions are vital to learning. The way students feel about themselves and about particular educational tasks influences their success. Students tend to avoid tasks they dislike and situations that make them feel incompetent. This avoidance has a spiraling effect that denies kids the opportunity for practice when they most need it. Further, it may be that some learners may not feel sufficiently secure to enable them to make mistakes; hence, they may ignore any errors they make or forget about them as quickly as possible.

Others may refuse to take the risk of responding incorrectly. In either case, the self-monitoring strategies so important to learning are impossible without adequate support. Thus, learners' feelings about themselves and their learning situations can have profound implications for subsequent success.

Classrooms that foster children's learning are places that are emotionally safe and supportive. This is a good place to start children on their success path. Children's varied individual strengths are accepted and celebrated because all members of the classroom community are seen as collaborators rather than competitors. A safe, supportive atmosphere encourages children to take risks, and learning involves risk taking. In such an environment, children know that their "mistakes" will not be seen as a cause for ridicule, but rather as evidence of their effort. Viewed as windows into how a student approaches a learning task, mistakes yield information that may be useful in helping learners redirect their attempts in more effective ways. Children in such classrooms are much more likely to try new things, to monitor their own learning and to seek and give help. They are participants in a classroom community in which all children have the emotional and cognitive support of their peers and their teacher as they learn.

In a positive, low-risk environment for learning, students thrive emotionally and cognitively when the tasks in which they are involved hold meaning for them and where they can see relationships within and across subjects. Thus, purposeful activity and integrated learning experiences foster learning that helps students develop language and literacy and use it to make connections across texts, contexts and content.

Purposeful activity helps students feel good about what they are doing and promotes learning. Learners succeed when they think they can learn, when they want to learn and when they see the purpose for learning. Language learning is embedded in a social and cultural context.

Children learn language because it has pleasant consequences: expressing oneself, enjoying a good story, understanding others and learning about the world. Learning is easier when the content is of interest and importance to the learner and when the learning tasks make sense.

We cannot merely consider the learner's cognitive needs as we attempt to improve learning models, though. Emotional responses precede conscious understanding and are essential for memory and application of learning. Consider the benefits of emotions in the digital age. As reflected in cinema, from “The Matrix” to “Blade Runner” and other popular films, emotions allow us to retain our humanity. They distinguish us from the technology we use and, more importantly, are a springboard to commitment and motivation. In other words, feeling leads to thought, which leads to action. In parallel, positive emotions can be elicited during learning in order to increase motivation. A variety of methods such as creating personal interest in a topic, instilling the confidence that it is possible to meet the objectives, eliminating comparison between learners and making connections to reality are useful for ensuring higher levels of success.

Positive emotions stimulate motivation and lead to higher achievement. Another way that emotions are linked to learning is through emotional intelligence, or EI. Understood as the ability to manage emotions and relationships, EI has a direct influence on student success.

In her article “Emotional Intelligence Is No Soft Skill,” from the Harvard Business Review, Laura Wilcox writes that when compared to IQ and technical skills, emotional intelligence makes up nearly 90 percent of what distinguishes us from others and leads to growth in an educational environment. Every time a student meets learning goals because they followed advice given by a teacher or heard encouraging words from a coach, they experience the benefits of EI. As artificial intelligence increases its presence in learning environments, the need for greater emotional intelligence must be prioritized. Understanding learning as an emotional process is not the opposite of intellect, it is not the triumph of feelings over thoughts. Rather, it creates a unique intersection for both.

Michael Strickland of Pocatello teaches at Idaho State University and Boise State University

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Classroom Q&A

With Larry Ferlazzo

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to lferlazzo@epe.org. Read more from this blog.

Teaching Opinion

How to Get, and Keep, Your Students Engaged

By Larry Ferlazzo — March 29, 2023 14 min read
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We teachers can never get enough ways to help create the classroom conditions for students to motivate themselves.

This post kicks off a series sharing lots of ideas, and today’s contributors also participated in a ten-minute podcast we did together.

‘Build Great Relationships’

Chandra Shaw has more than 24 years of experience in education, as a teacher, reading specialist, instructional coach, and now a literacy consultant at one of her state’s regional service centers. Chandra is a TEDx speaker and amateur YouTuber:

One of the best strategies to create classroom conditions where students are more likely to motivate themselves is to build great relationships with students by making learning relevant, making them feel comfortable, showing how much you care about their learning, and teaching them what they need to know.

One way I did this was to start off the year by asking students to imagine this being the best school year they’ve ever had. I’d ask them to write down and discuss what I would need to do in order for it to be the most successful and best year for them. They’d work in groups and create a list. As they worked, I’d walk around and read through some of the things they’d written, affirming pretty much anything they’d put down by saying, “Oh yeah, I can definitely do that.” Once they’d shared their lists with the entire class, we’d make the class’ top 10 list from the things that had appeared the most on the groups’ lists.

Each year, the students’ lists would undoubtedly include things like, “You need to be nice, provide treats, not show favorites, play games, allow student use of phones in class, and teach them what they need to know to be successful.” OK. That last one is what I’d often suggest as I walked around listening to their groups, and they usually agreed it was important and added it to their lists. At any rate, once the class list was done, and I’d assured them that I would absolutely do everything they’d listed in order to make this year the best year ever, I’d then share MY list of what I needed from them!

Throughout the year, I’d point to the list and ask if I was holding up my end of the bargain. And if they weren’t holding up their end of my list, I’d point that out as well. By returning to our lists again and again, it showed that WE were in this together and all trying to make this the best year. It really seemed to motivate the students when they saw how consistent I was with doing what they needed to succeed.

Asking Questions

Irina McGrath, Ph.D., is an assistant principal at Newcomer Academy in the Jefferson County public schools in Louisville, Ky. She is a co-creator of the ELL2.0 Google site and is a co-director of the Louisville Writing Project (LWP) and a University of Louisville and Indiana University Southeast adjunct professor:

Over the years, I have discovered that certain strategies are more effective than others at getting and keeping students - especially English Language Learners - motivated to learn . One such strategy is simply giving students the opportunity to ask questions and search for answers on their own. Studies have shown the power of asking questions, and some cognitive scientists believe that they are so important that we cannot learn properly until the right one has been asked: If memory does not ask the question, it will not know where to index the answer” (Bain, 2004). By encouraging students to pose their own questions about what they are learning, teachers will be able to help fuel students’ curiosity and promote further engagement in the classroom.

A great way to stimulate question asking is the Read Aloud Response Cards strategy, which teaches students to pay attention to the metacognitive process happening in their heads while listening to a passage being read out loud. The activity involves colored cards indicating tasks for the students to perform based on the card they receive: Those with yellow cards generate questions, green document their connections, red create a summary of the passage, and purple draw images either on paper or in their minds while listening to the passage. When the passage is completed, the students are sorted based on card color and work together to discuss and compare the results of their task, and eventually representatives from each group speak to the rest of the groups about their discoveries and questions during the activity. Ultimately, once posing questions becomes a routine and students realize that they are welcomed and encouraged, ELs’ curiosity will start fueling their learning and desire to discover something interesting and new.

Another strategy that promotes conditions for students to motivate themselves is choice. Students get excited when they are provided with options for books to read, topics to study, assessments of learning, and final product. Every student is a unique learner, and by offering them a choice, we offer an opportunity to build on their interests and talents and take on a new topic in a way that brings joy to learning and gets students excited. For example, if we think about the end of the lesson reflection, there are different ways English-learners can accomplish that when they are provided with choice. Students can either list three or more things they learned that day or create three true statements and one lie about content covered in class. They can also use Vocaroo, Padlet, or any other app/platform to record a note to themselves with advice on how they might approach the lesson’s task differently. Students can even create a two-minute video or a sketch to help classmates understand the lesson’s content better.

Overall, students are more likely to be motivated to learn if given a sense of autonomy and self-derived excitement for a topic. The best ways I have found to help them have confidence and interest is to allow them to pose questions and to give them choices in their projects.

‘Opportunities for Choice’

Meg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at the Possible Zone, a youth-entrepreneurship and work-based learning program with a mission to advance economic equity. She has been in the field of education for almost 30 years as a middle, high school, and college teacher; researcher; leadership coach; school designer; and director for a network of schools:

While many factors influence students’ motivation and engagement, it is central to ignite connection via relationships, share and uphold expectations, uncover and tap into students’ strengths, create relevant learning experiences, and design for choice. Such strategies can unlock students’ motivation for learning that lasts a lifetime.

Prior to the pandemic, a student survey of over 3,000 schools found that motivation and engagement declines as students progress in school; while 5th graders reported their engagement level at almost 75 percent, by 10th grade, students’ engagement hovered at 33 percent. Read that again: 33 percent. Despite this stark statistic, there is hope: two items drive motivation and engagement: 1) when students “strongly agreed” that school was “asset- and strengths-based” and 2) when they affirmed that they had “at least one teacher who made them excited about the future,” they were 30 times more likely to be engaged compared with those who disagreed. Search Institute research corroborates that students are motivated and goal-oriented when they feel a sense of belonging, safety, and acceptance.

Since the pandemic, additional forces amplified students’ lack of motivation: virtual instruction, social distance from peers, economic hardships, and racial reckonings, to name a few. Given these conditions, what strategies can educators employ to create classrooms where students motivate themselves and sustain engagement? I explore ways to motivate, engage, and support learners.

1. Build relationships and seek out students’ strengths

Research shows that young people who experience strong developmental relationships demonstrate increased academic motivation, social-emotional growth and learning, and a sense of responsibility. Developmental relationships are “close connections through which young people discover who they are, cultivate abilities to shape their own lives, and learn how to engage with and contribute to the world around them.” In the classroom, this might take the shape in the following ways:

  • Design opportunities for students to show who they are: Kick off the school year with a project in which students take selfies or create profile silhouettes of themselves and share words, symbols, and pictures of things that they value; teachers can connect with and build from students’ assets. Throughout the year, educators can provide opportunities for two-minute interviews in which students speak on a topic they’re passionate about (e.g: the worst pizza in town or why Serena Williams is the best athlete ever); knowing who our students are and seeing their strengths is a powerful driver to build relationships and spark motivation.
  • Provide clear expectations, ask what students expect from you, and strive to uphold and meet expectations: When educators are clear about expectations and invite students to share their needs, the relationship becomes bidirectional and is more likely to offer space to express care and challenge growth, both key aspects of developmental relationships. School designs like EL Education promote co-creation of norms and ongoing opportunities for students and educators to revisit and reflect on owning and meeting shared expectations; this cultivates an environment where voices and actions are valued.

2. Create relevant learning and opportunities for choice

Students experience motivation and engagement when educators help them get excited about the future. To see oneself in the future, it’s important to activate students’ self-concept and create opportunities to develop self-efficacy and agency. Consider these ideas:

  • Create authentic projects for real audiences: Research shows that when students actively pose questions and problem-solve real issues, conduct fieldwork, talk with experts, and produce meaningful work with impact beyond the classroom, not only does engagement soar but so does achievement. While educators may feel constrained by standards, consider small and larger steps to integrate relevant projects. This might include integrating interviews into a unit or, go big, like The Possible Zone, which engages young people in consultancies with local industry partners to solve authentic challenges and present solutions. Schools like High Tech High offer models of projects for inspiration.
  • Embed options throughout students’ learning experiences: Student choice and autonomy develop agency, building decisionmaking skills for careers and lives. In the classroom, this might include entry points such as choosing where to sit, “how” to learn (e.g.: reading, listening to podcasts, interviewing an expert), or choice of topics (e.g.: demonstrating research and synthesizing skills via a topic determined by student interest). When designing—or co-designing—learning environments with students, educators should ask: Where can I offer productive choices? When determining where to sit, for example, a teacher might suggest, “Choose a seat where you’ll be most engaged,” or “Sit where you’re comfortable.” Students can revisit choices and reflect on their predictions.

Classroom Culture

Andrew Sharos is a teacher, administrator, speaker, and author in Chicago. He wrote the Amazon-best-selling book All 4s and 5s, which has become the road map to instructional methods and culture building for gifted and talented teachers. He also co-authored Finding Lifelines, a book for new teachers and their mentors:

Motivation for students really comes back to classroom culture. We hope to create a classroom culture that is so fun, engaging, and magnetic that students actually WANT to be in school. Teachers who engage students are ones who create a unique and different experience for the students every day.

In terms of concrete strategies, I like to have students learn outside the classroom in the halls, courtyard, on the grass, or in the auditorium. The walls of a classroom have limitations, and mixing it up in different spaces keeps the students on their toes.

I enjoy having a theme every day, like Weekend Monday, Positive Tuesday, Thankfulness Wednesday, Joke Thursday, and Cookie Friday. It might waste a few minutes at the beginning of every class, but it is time well wasted if the students are more engaged after we engage in some playful dialogue at the beginning of class. These are hallmarks of the class and moments students enjoy.

When students are not engaged, the teacher has to find ONE thing that connects the student and the teacher. The teacher could, and maybe even should be the reason why the student wants to come to school. This can only be made possible when there is a relationship built on love and trust.

Sometimes, this takes time. One student of mine was impossibly difficult to connect with, or so I thought. I recited a movie line from “Ace Ventura” one day, and she was the only person in the class who “got it.” From that moment on, we connected. We have to keep chipping away at the less motivated. The students don’t have to love the content and skills we are teaching, they just have to feel connected to us to be motivated to learn.

This is the first post in a multipart series.

The question of the week is:

What strategies have you used to create classroom conditions where students were more likely to motivate themselves, including those who didn’t initially seem very engaged?

Chandra Shaw, Irina McGrath, Meg Riordan, and Andrew Sharos kicked off this series today.

Chandra, Irina, Meg, and Andrew were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Thanks to Chandra, Irina, Meg, and Andrew for contributing their thoughts!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@educationweek.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all EdWeek articles, has been changed by the new redesign—new ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 11 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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The question of the week is:
Chandra, Irina, Meg, and Andrew were also guests on my 10-minute BAM!

The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity.

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The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity

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Does music help you concentrate? Since we spend a lot of time in front of computers trying to finish our work, wouldn’t it be nice to listen to some of music to help concentrate? Well, music lovers, it seems like Mozart and Beethoven could actually help you with your productivity. Beethoven once said: «Music is where the spirit lives, thinks and invents.»

This relationship between music and the brain is an area that has been intensively explored in research. Many studies point to the ability of music to help employees be more productive and help children in their learning process more effectively. University research in France found that students who listened to music for an hour while reading, scored significantly higher on a questionnaire compared to a group of students who read without music.

Your attention span is better when listening to music

It seems that music for concentration puts students in a heightened emotional state, so that they can be more receptive to information. «It is possible that music causes a change in the learning environment and influenced students’ motivation to stay focused while reading, which led to better performance on a multiple-choice questionnaire,» concluded the french research team in a recent article.

But before you start playing any type, you have to find the music that works better for the type of work you are trying to carry do. For example, the classic from the Baroque period is said to do wonders for brain activity when you are studying or writing. But not all classical music is created equal, so dramatic changes and complicated fugue changes may not be as conducive as a smooth piano piece. So if you have to choose a composer, we would say Mozart. There seems to be evidence that Mozart’s improves mental performance: it is called «The Mozart Effect”.

Build a harmonious space

If you don’t like classical, the discreet sound found in ambient music may work well for you instead. What is the purpose of this if you are not at the airport, you ask? Well, for creative purposes, it’s better than emptiness and silence. According to one of its pioneers, musician Brian Eno: “Background music must be able to accommodate many levels of attention when listening, without forcing one in particular. It must be as ignorable as it is interesting ”.

In fact, researchers have shown that a moderate level of noise, such as that found in the environment, can actually get creative juices flowing. Music with especially low-lows or especially high-highs should be avoided. Certain types of jazz instrumental melodies can also get your brain working.

Music without lyrics

In general, if you are doing work that requires writing, you should avoid listening to music with lyrics as the words in a song are especially destructive to your concentration. Since hearing words activates the brain’s language center, attempting to perform tasks related to another language would be like trying to have a conversation while someone else is speaking to you. But, if you are a cartoonist, and you don’t deal with sentence construction, hearing letters may not have the same effect.

Finally, studies show that listening to music you’re already familiar with may be better if you really need to focus. New songs take you into the unknown and your brain will want to listen closely to see what comes next. With the music you are familiar with you know what to expect, so it doesn’t distract you from your work. And if you like the tune you’re listening to try not to whistle it while you work, as that will only distract you.

The post The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity appeared first on Mundo Hispanico

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Inquiry Project Part 4 - Bayley Carder.pptx

  1. 1. How Can Intentional Teaching Be Applied in an Elementary Classroom? Bayley Carder
  2. 2. What intentional steps do you take to make sure your students are getting the most out of their learning? Through research, it is apparent that there are four key points to intentional teaching; 1. Thoughtful lesson planning 2. Intentional questioning 3. Developing curiosity 4. Promoting intrinsic motivation
  3. 3. Using the proper steps helps ensure that you are intentionally teaching. Lesson Planning
  4. 4. Allow your students to form their own questions over a new topic. This will spike their curiosity. Intentional Questioning
  5. 5. Giving students the opportunity to choose what works best for them, gives them the sense of autonomy, but also allows them to nourish in their own learning. Student Choice Everyone desires a choice.
  6. 6. Allowing students to find their own curiosity and make their own choices, leads them to learn through intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic Motivation
  7. 7. ● Does not add extra steps to your schedule. ● Should become a habit throughout your day. ● Gives your students ownership of their learning. Remember Intentional Teaching…
  8. 8. References Epstein, A. S. (2007). The intentional teacher: Choosing the best strategies for young children’s learning. National Association for the Education of Young Children. Ostroff, W. L. (2016). Cultivating curiosity in K-12 classrooms: How to promote and sustain deep learning. ASCD. [Kindle Version]. Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Wynn, S. R. (2010). The Effectiveness and Relative Importance of Choice in the Classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology. 102(4), 896-915. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019545 Salmon, A. K., & Barrera, M. X. (2021). Intentional questioning to promote teaching and learning. Thinking Skills and Creativity. 40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2021.100822
  9. 9. Images Reference Le Duc, S. (2015). Intrinsic motivation should be known like the back of your hand. https://www.flickr.com/photos/25982074@N00/22460861689 Myznik, E. (2020) Little boy chooses a drink in the vending machine. https://unsplash.com/photos/DRs9XsNlAZw VMFoliaki (2011) Lesson Planning Flow Chart. https://www.flickr.com/photos/58802138@N02/5807299569 WoodleyWonderWorks (2011) Fairness sticks: tongue depressors as math engagement tool. https://www.flickr.com/photos/73645804@N00/6235929403

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STUDY ONLINE

I’m an education expert and video games could be the future of schools

BEFORE I began writing about video games for a living, I worked in education for around 15 years.

Working with children from nursery school age all the way to 6th form, I have taught in countries all over the world, including England, Wales, Germany, India, Taiwan, and Japan.

I studied for my postgraduate degree in education at the University of Bristol and graduated with a distinction.

I mention all of this not as a sort of humble brag, but to establish that I know kids, and even more so that I understand how they best learn.

The other thing I know is video games, and I also know that they have a stigma attached to them as mindless rubbish.

Some games are mindless rubbish, of course, but I would say the overwhelming majority of them help people to develop skills that can carry over to people’s day-to-day lives.

For young children there are the obvious connections to fine motor skills, and problem-solving, but video games develop skills up until adulthood.

Many games require patience and resilience, others can include information on culture and history, and if you’re brave, you can use them to learn a second language.

While many parents are more open to the idea of allowing their children to play video games at home, I’m sure there would still be plenty of raised eyebrows if teachers wanted to incorporate video games into lessons.

However, the times are changing, and just like everyone else, people learn more when they are motivated and enjoy learning.

The usual motivation for children to learn is the inevitable exams that come at the end, but exams themselves are pretty controversial.

Testing often leads teachers to teach skills based on how to take tests, which are skills that aren’t needed outside of the classroom.

And there are of course many ways to motivate students outside of the looming doom of poor results.

This is where we come back to video games. If you have children then you probably already know how popular Minecraft is.

The base game is mostly about gathering resources and building things, which is already a great base to build an educational platform on.

There are chemistry and physics systems in place that decide how each material can be used, and later parts of the game include knowledge of coding, arguably one of the most important skills that children should learn.

However, Microsoft has bigger plans for Minecraft that expand beyond what the game is already capable of doing.

That brings us to Minecraft Education, an add-on to the game that features standalone lessons.

I was invited to a class where ten children, armed with a laptop each, were given a lesson about wind farms and renewable energy.

The important thing here is that the whole lesson wasn’t just playing Minecraft.

A geography teacher was there to teach them the important vocabulary that they would need, and give them basic information about wind farms.

They then spent 25 minutes exploring an area where they could build their own wind farm.

This was important because not only were they taught things like that turbines can’t be built near areas with protected wildlife, or that there are different types of turbines for different depths, but they then learned more about this through trial and error.

While the different style of learners myth has long been debunked, there is weight in the fact that the more ways you do something, the more likely you are to remember it.

So, reading about how wind turbines work is one thing, but then applying that knowledge to building a farm is another completely.

The lesson was rounded off by reading people’s opinions on building wind farms, including the pros and cons.

This included a critical thinking component, where the students were allowed to consider their own opinions on whether more wind farms should be built.

Speaking to a number of the students following the lesson a couple of things became apparent.

Firstly, every single student had enjoyed the lesson, and they came away saying they wish more lessons could be taught in this interactive style.

The next was that even an hour after the lesson they had retained almost all of the information presented, which if you’ve ever taught children you’ll know is a miracle.

Memorable lessons lead to better retention of information, and if you look back to your most memorable lessons, they are likely those that had a practical and interactive element.

This of course was just one lesson, but it was easy to see how the same model could be applied to pretty much all subjects.

While it would be hard to get your laps in or cook a pizza while playing Minecraft, you can learn about nutrition or the effects of exercise on the body.

Minecraft Education already has a lesson builder in place to allow teachers to design their own worlds, and if a school purchases the license, students will be able to play the lessons again at home for free.

This opens up children to a world where they might look forward to revision, and playing games at home is almost as effective as sitting in a classroom.

It’ll probably be a while before ideas like this gain widespread acceptance, but the sooner we can mix students’ interests with classic educational concepts, the easier it is to tap into the key to learning.

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Classroom Q&A

With Larry Ferlazzo

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to lferlazzo@epe.org. Read more from this blog.

Teaching Opinion

How to Enhance the Craft of Teaching

By Larry Ferlazzo — February 22, 2023 13 min read
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(This is the third post in a seven-part series. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.)

The new question of the week is:

What do you think are the best one-to-three things a teacher can do to improve his/her/their craft?

Carissa McCray, Ph.D., Latrese D. Younger, Kayla Towner, and Verónica Schmidt-Gómez, M.Ed., started this series in Part One.

Carissa, Latresee, and Kayla were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

In Part Two, Aisha Christa Atkinson, M.S., Angela M. Ward, Ph.D., Meghann Seril, and Altagracia H. Delgado contributed their suggestions.

Today, Ron Berger, Nancy Frey, Ph.D., Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., and Mary K. Tedrow continue the discussion.

‘Questions and Responses’

Ron Berger has over 45 years of experience in education, 28 of those as a public school teacher. He is the author of a collection of books on education including Management in the Active Classroom and Leaders of Their Own Learning. He leads EL Education’s vision for teaching and learning:

This is a challenging question. To list a hundred things would be easy; to narrow it to one or two is daunting. One challenge: Which dimension of our teaching craft? Relationships—ensuring that all students are cared for, valued, and inspired? Inspiration—building classroom communities that bring out the best in students? Planning and Instruction—designing and leading learning experiences that are challenging and meaningful? Assessment—building student agency and ownership for growth? And what format for improving our craft? Peer observations? Professional learning communities? Working with a coach?

But the charge here is to be focused and specific, so I will choose one topic: Questions and responses. I am amazed by the power of great teachers to use questions artfully and respond to student answers in ways that open minds and doors. Our craft will profoundly improve if we can all get better at this.

When I observe lessons, most teacher questions are low-level recall questions, regardless of whether it is in a kindergarten or high school classroom (e.g., “The next step in the process is …?”, “And who discovered that?” “We call that a …”). We often don’t even realize this is the case unless we watch ourselves on video with this specific focus. It is a habit we learn as students and repeat as teachers.

But sometimes, I observe classrooms where teachers regularly push students’ thinking and open minds with their questions. They compel students to reflect on their thinking, explain it to each other, and question one another: “You have an interesting hypothesis. Can you explain it to us?” “What evidence would you point to for that?” “It sounds like you disagree with Jalen. Jalen, how would you defend your idea given this argument?” “Katelyn, I don’t think I understand your solution. Can you explain the mathematical steps you took to get there?” Questions like these empower students to own, reflect on, and defend their thinking and then debate it with their peers.

Equally important to how we as teachers ask students questions is how we respond to student questions. We often wait for the “right answer” to appear, and when it does, our faces light up, and we confirm that it is correct. Students know this game; many are passive and wait for a peer to respond. No sense in wasting time thinking or risking being wrong. They attend to the teacher’s words and face to affirm that they don’t have to think—they are off the hook.

But everything changes if the teacher gives a neutral response—an intrigued face that does not telegraph right or wrong: “Fascinating, Susana. Explain why you feel that’s right.” Students will immediately look at the teacher to read her face. They need to know: fascinating as in “correct” or fascinating as in “wrong”? Which is it? If the teacher can keep a neutral face, students have to actually stop, listen, and think. Do they agree with Susana or not? They may have to choose a side. They have to think and understand, and everyone is engaged. A neutral stance can change everything.

I worked with a sparkly-eyed teacher, John Reid, who showed his students strange and puzzling geological scenes in the field or through slides—rocks, rivers, landscapes. He asked them to describe in detail what they saw and explain the story of how they thought those scenes came to be. Every time a student came up with a hypothesis, he asked a series of probing questions, drawing out their thinking and simultaneously teaching concepts via the questions themselves. And then, he named that hypothesis after that student and recruited a different idea from another student. The students couldn’t wait to discover who was right and why, but John was inscrutable. He was excited and amused equally by all the ideas. Sometimes, he even ended a class without closure, and students eagerly rushed to research which hypothesis made the most sense.

This advice also applies to drawing out questions from students. I love visiting classrooms where the walls are covered with student questions that drive learning—anchor charts of “100 questions we have about our classroom snails”; “Questions we have about whose story is not told in our history book”; “Questions we have about the universe.”

Recently, I met with middle school teachers who were implementing “Crew” (EL Education’s name for a daily advisory-meeting structure and school culture that focuses on personal and academic wellness). An excited teacher shared a strategy she used: “I gave my Crew index cards, and they anonymously wrote questions about topics they hoped we could discuss. Their questions dealt with things like mental health, race, gender identity, body image, parents, social media, love, death, bullying. … It was eye-opening. Our conversations have been remarkable, and they really matter to my Crew.” Empowering students through recruiting, respecting, and giving time for their deeper questions can transform classroom culture.

Focusing on questions and responses may seem like a small part of our craft, but doing it well can fundamentally improve learning and life.

‘Professional Generosity’

Nancy Frey, Ph.D., is a professor in educational leadership at San Diego State and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Her published titles include Visible Learning in Literacy, This Is Balanced Literacy, Removing Labels, and Rebound.

Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High. He has published numerous articles on teaching and learning as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook, PLC+, Visible Learning for Literacy, Comprehension: The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading, How Tutoring Works, and most recently, How Learning Works:

Educators are knowledge workers, and the currency of our profession is the knowledge we possess. An educated society enjoys more robust economic growth and better health outcomes. Our investment in educators is long-lasting and extends far beyond the schooling years. As educators who are members of our communities, we owe it to ourselves to invest in our own professional knowledge. But to do so requires that we invest in ourselves with intention and don’t leave it to chance. Here are three practices to ensure that we continuously build our knowledge and skills.

Set annual knowledge goals and develop an action plan to attain them. The notion that experience equals skill has a shelf life—while skill development increases rapidly during the early years in the profession, it levels off after five years. A teacher with 17 years of experience isn’t likely to be more skilled than one with seven years under their belt. The difference, however, is knowledge. Teachers who pursue advanced degrees, attain national-board certification, and seek new opportunities to enhance their skills continue to invest in themselves. Take an annual inventory of your own skills and performance. Identify areas where growth occurred as well as where knowledge gaps persist. It can be helpful to meet with a trusted colleague to identify these areas. Once you’re done so, develop an action plan to address your next steps for growth.

Spend time in colleagues’ classrooms and invite them into yours. There’s a real danger in isolating oneself in a single classroom. And there is so much to learn from collegial observations of teaching. In fact, this should be a central feature of professional learning communities. Capacity-building learning walks are not evaluative observations but rather are short, scheduled 10-minute visits through a succession of classrooms. Members of a 3rd grade team may arrange with their 4th grade colleagues to walk classrooms to gain knowledge about expectations for their students next year. Geometry teachers might conduct a learning walk of the classrooms of their Algebra 1 colleagues to gain a better sense of how mathematical thinking is manifested. Schools that regularly conduct teacher-led learning walks enjoy higher degrees of relational supports among teachers as well as an increased collective responsibility for student learning across the building. Importantly, learning walks are a catalyst for the spread of effective instructional practices.

Get involved with school and district organizations and committees. You possess the ability to positively impact the professional lives of teachers through your advocacy and leadership. Your voice is an essential one for obtaining resources, building student learning, and fostering family empowerment. In the meantime, the learning you gain from such experiences is immeasurable as you interact with others on shared goals. The next time you are approached to join a committee, resist the urge to catalog why you can’t and, instead, consider how you might. Your time is precious, to be sure, but must include opportunities to interact with adults to discuss what is central to your professional life—continuous learning.

If you have detected a common thread of professional generosity, you’re right. Doing so means that you are generous to yourself in focusing on what your learning needs are. In addition, it extends to the supportive relational conditions needed for schools to be learning, not just teaching, organizations. And it is further evidenced in an intention to be a part of our institutions’ need to address inequities and gaps. We are knowledge workers—how will you invest in your knowledge this school year?

Annual Goals

Mary K. Tedrow, NBCT, taught in the high school English classroom beginning in 1978, ending her K-12 career as the Porterfield Endowed English Chair at John Handley High School in 2016. She currently teaches and directs the Shenandoah Valley Writing Project at Shenandoah University in Winchester Va. Tedrow is also a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Write, Think, Learn: Tapping the Power of Daily Student Writing Across Content Areas:

I have benefited from including the following habits into my own teaching practice. Not only have they changed practices, they keep me engaged and growing in my chosen career.

  • Set an annual goal on an aspect of teaching for improvement. I accept this challenge each year and have added the following to my repertoire: How to lead a better whole-class discussion. This led to Socratic Seminars and then to the Harkness discussion model. How to use writing as a tool for learning in the English classroom. This was an ongoing challenge to embed writing to learn language arts concepts. How to build collaboration into class and still meet curricular goals. This challenge forced me to think about student-centered learning and to shift the responsibility for learning over to students. All of these questions arose out of a true reflection on what needed improvement.
  • Take your goals and questions to your professional community. That community could be the other teachers in your building (our resident expert let me sit in on one of her seminars and shared handouts and guidelines), online communities (I learned about Harkness discussions on an Advanced Placement discussion board), or professional books. My favorite professional books are written by teachers who have walked the talk like Nancy Atwell, Kelly Gallagher, and Penny Kittle.
  • Don’t forget to ask the students! If students know your question is an honest overture for input, they will provide valuable feedback. When I am stumped in resolving a problem, I ask students for suggestions. Some of the best changes made came directly from student feedback. In fact, I trusted them so much that the students annually revised our Staff Manual for the Journalism lab. We relied on these guidelines for producing the paper.

Thanks to Ron, Nancy, Douglas, and Mary for contributing their thoughts!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@educationweek.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all EdWeek articles, has been changed by the new redesign—new ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 11 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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