December 3, 2024 • 36 mins
Embark on an inspiring journey with author, consultant, and President of Thistle Educational Development Ainsley Rose, whose career path defied convention and expectation. Starting as a physical education teacher, Ainsley's story is one of serendipity and leadership recognized by others, leading him to a fulfilling 52-year career in teaching and administration.
We dive into the challenges that come with reimagining traditional educational systems, discussing how entrenched mindsets can hinder the unlocking of potential in both students and educators. Through the lens of John Hattie's research on visible learning, we discuss the power of data-driven insights to revolutionize teaching methods. Our conversation delves into the rigidity of educational institutions and the urgent need to embrace strategies that focus on individual strengths, sharing experiences in the spreading of Hattie's influential work across North America.
In our quest for lasting change, we explore effective teaching strategies and the complexities of educational reform. Hear about the importance of creating a supportive environment for teachers, where voluntary, team-based professional development fosters collaboration. By focusing on a few key initiatives, we advocate for a long-term commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Here we are Cool.
Welcome back to another episodeof Shift Ed podcast.
We're coming out of Laval todayactually I'm at the office and
I'm reaching across our countryto the beautiful West Coast
where I have Ainsley Rose comingin to chat with us a little bit
today.
So thanks, ainsley, for hoppingon here and sharing some of
(00:36):
your thoughts about education.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My pleasure, Chris.
I appreciate the opportunity.
It's been a while.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I mean, you've alwaysbeen a great presence here in
Quebec in our educational Anglosphere, so I felt that
appropriate to include you inthis little journey that we're
on with talking with educatorsthat help our system move
forward.
So my first question is alwaystell me a little bit about how
(01:06):
all this started for you.
When did education kind ofstart to really grab you and be
like?
This is the direction I want togo in in life as to be an
educator to support teachers,support students, support
administrators.
Can you fill in those blanksfor us?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Can you fill in those blanks for us?
I can try.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I have to say that I had a very inauspicious
beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I was graduating out of the University of Western
Ontario in London, ontario.
At the time, I was in theFaculty of Physical Education
and I had just started mymaster's degree.
And lo and behold, at the timeas well, I was the assistant
(01:51):
varsity basketball coach,working with the head coach,
jerry Gonser, and we got a phonecall at the office one day and
I was just.
I literally sat outside hisoffice and it happened to be a
phone call about a guy by thename of Bill Bustead who was the
department head of physicaleducation at Massey Vanier high
school in Townsville.
And they were.
They were looking for a kid whohad graduated out the
(02:13):
university of New Brunswick andwas actually the captain of the
Western Mustangs basketball teamwhom I was coaching.
And they were looking to hirehim because they wanted a
basketball coach back atMasseyvania High School.
And the young fellow was goingon to do his dentistry degree,
the faculty of dentistry atWestern, and was not available.
(02:35):
And so the head coach says well, look, I got a young guy here
who's just finishing up, he'sgraduating, and he's got very
much the same kind ofcredentials you're looking for.
You might want to talk to him.
And sure enough, a week or solater I got a phone call from
Bill Bustede and a short timeafter that I was hired to get my
(03:00):
first teaching degree at MasseyVanya High School.
I was hired sight unseen overthe telephone.
I didn't have a teacher'sdegree, I was just, you know,
and back then you could do that.
And before I knew it, thatsummer I got married this was
back in 1973.
And my wife and I got in ourMercury Comet and we drove down
(03:22):
the 401, in, uh, cowensville,quebec, uh, literally at a place
called the valley blue motelone of those no-tell motels and
I started my teaching career.
so you know, that was it nothingfancy.
I didn't have these grand,grandiose plans about how I was
(03:43):
going to make you know the worlda different place, I was going
to have impact and all of that,but that's where I got started.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
That's so cool.
And what made the jump from?
Because listeners might notknow this, but Ainsley was my
principal when I was in highschool.
How did you make that jump fromteacher to to administrator at
Massey Venue?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well it's.
It seems to be um consistentthroughout my career that I have
I have never actually appliedfor a job in my 52 years in
education.
Uh, somebody always came to meand said you know, you might
want to think about this and,interestingly enough, some
(04:29):
principalship positions becameopen in the district of Bedford
it was the district of Bedfordat the time and they said you
know, you really should applybecause you seem to have some
leadership abilities.
And so I ended up doing that.
I, you know, I did have toapply, obviously, but not
because I had chosen to do that.
(04:49):
It was other people who seemedto think that I had some skills
that might be helpful for fordifferent places, and so I
applied, and my first, my firstappointment was the vice
principal of ButlerClarenceville.
My first appointment was thevice principal of Butler
Clarenceville, stambridge Eastand Farnham Elementary Schools,
working with a good friend ofmine, murray Gunson, who was
(05:11):
principal at the time.
In fact, your mom worked thereas well, interestingly enough.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's right, small world.
Eh, that sure is.
Sure is, we were just talkingabout our relationship, to me
going to the school that Ainsleywas principal at and my dad was
friends with him and colleaguesand our families intermingled.
(05:39):
So this is a real cool fullcircle that we're experiencing
today.
What did you find was thebiggest mindset shift that you
had to have from that transferfrom teacher to administrator?
Was it a dramatic or were youable to still kind of keep your
core values and your mindset thesame as you were when you were
(05:59):
teaching?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, that's a great question.
You just mentioned the wordmindset.
Mindset was sort of central toall of this, because every job
that I did, right from my firstteaching degree on, I
technically speaking wasn'tqualified for.
And so I had to realize, numberone, that I needed to be a
(06:23):
learner and that I didn't knoweverything.
And so, even though I had torealize, number one, that I
needed to be a learner and thatI didn't know everything, and so
, even though I had this quote,title of principal or whatever,
I needed to put myself in aposition where I had to be able
to learn, and learn quickly If Iwere, if I were going to have
any kind of credibility to beable to lead other people in
(06:44):
this business called education.
And so I became a voraciousreader, and I also realized that
the skill set that I had was myability to build relationships
with people.
And so the value system yes,the value system was the same.
Whether it was teaching kids ina phys-ec class at Massey Vanier
(07:06):
in the phys-ec department, theability, and then, as a coach of
the Vikings basketball team,senior boys basketball team, my
ability to build relationshipswith the students first and then
with my teachers that I workedwith became foundational to
everything that I did, and evento this day.
(07:26):
I'm going to be in Quebec nextweek for 11 days and our
leadership institute'scontinuing, and that's the
message that I leave with peopleis that the connection, like
we're in the human potentialbusiness and as my mentor who's
who's still alive uh used to saythat you know, education is
(07:47):
about the discovery, thedevelopment and the deployment
of human talent, and so it'sfinding out what people can do
and then putting them in a placethat they can maximize their
skills and their talents.
So so the value system for mewas to be a model for people to
bring out their best, and I tryto do that to this day, and it
(08:11):
seems to have served me well,for sure my family, my friends,
my colleagues.
We're in the people business andwe have to remember that.
And people are fragile.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
For sure.
Well said, well said.
And what were your biggestsurprises that you've
experienced, or the greatestlessons I guess you have
encountered as you go throughthis More of on the leadership
side of things, where you'retrying to advance people in
their learning and and theirinteractions and relationship
(08:46):
building?
What are some of your lessonsthat that you feel that you've
um internalized, that havereally supported you on that
apart?
I mean the, the relationshipbuilding, absolutely totally.
But are there other otherthings that surprised you along
this journey?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, the well, I guess I guess, whom I come in
touch with that I encounter isthat we are so myopic in terms
of the potential that we have todo things.
And you mentioned the wordmindset earlier.
You know the mindset that wehave about whether kids can
learn or not learn and for kidsto think whether they're capable
(09:49):
or not capable.
That's probably the thing thatcontinues to be primordial in my
level of thinking that there'sso much unrealized potential
that we have in school systems.
You know, primarily with kidsand and teachers, views of what
(10:10):
kids can or cannot do,especially coming into
kindergarten, for example.
And I I'm seeing that now withour, with our grandkids.
We've got seven grandkids, theyoungest of which are are two,
four and six, uh, that mydaughter has and they're
exceptionally bright littlepeople and I worry that they're
(10:31):
going to get into a schoolsystem and somehow they're not
going to fit the mode or themodel and these little guys are
going to have to conform ratherthan perform.
You know where we can use whatthey bring into the world of
learning and maximize theirtalents, their skills, their
(10:53):
abilities, their attitudes,their behaviors and so on.
So that's the main area that Ithink.
The other main area is theintransigence of the educational
system.
It is the most difficultorganization, in my humble
opinion, of all the occupationsthat there are out there, to try
(11:15):
and change, to try and get outof the mold of how school can.
It needs to be run or needs tobe organized or needs to it it.
You know we're we're repeatingbehaviors of millennia.
I mean, millennia have passedand we're still running schools
the same way.
(11:37):
Yes, you know, organizationslike learn are trying to get us
out of that box, and and and andother people are, but it's it's
.
It's not been brought to scale.
We have not reinventededucation, frankly, so that's.
Another thing is, you know anduniversities are notorious for
that, you know, there's theserules and regulations and this
(11:59):
is how school is done.
You have to have seven periodsa day.
They have to be 60 minutes long, you have to have a recess in
the morning and the afternoon.
Well, there are other ways ofdoing this stuff, but we seem to
be reluctant to get involvedwith it.
That's a long answer for ashort question.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
No, totally.
I mean I'm driving with you,ainsley, in the sense that you
think the education would be atthe forefront of innovation and
change and best practices andnew strategies that come in that
tell us that here's moreeffective ways that we can go
about teaching.
How did John Hattie and hisresearch and the data that he
(12:41):
gathered did that?
I mean, obviously it had aneffect, because I know that you
wrote quite a bit about theinfluences of that data on
teaching and how can we tweakthings a little bit?
Could you talk to a little bitabout John Hattie and his
visible learning and what it isthat you feel that people should
(13:03):
know more about that research?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Boy, I can talk for the rest of the time we have
together on this.
I got to know John very wellbecause I worked hand in, not
hand in glove.
I didn't do any of his research, but I was responsible for
bringing his research to abroader audience when his work
came to North America.
(13:28):
And what's intriguing aboutspending a quiet time with John
over lunch or over dinner orwhatever was?
The man was always inquisitiveabout the world of education and
learning.
In fact, that's what got himstarted when he was a teacher
(13:48):
here in North America.
Interestingly enough, he usedto go around and ask some of his
colleagues you know about thisor about that, you know how do I
do this or how do I do that?
And everybody seemed to have adifferent answer, and that led
him to think well, it can't bethat everybody is right.
There got to be some thingsthat are more effective and have
(14:11):
greater impact than otherthings.
And that's what prompted hisdoctoral research when he was at
the University of Torontogetting his doctorate degree,
interestingly enough.
So he got his doctorate here inCanada, of all places, and
that's what got him thinkingabout looking at the research.
(14:33):
And one of the drawbacks or oneof the criticisms that he gets
all the time is thatmeta-analysis is not bona fide
research methodology, and infact, the American Psychological
Association has adopted effectsizes and the calculation of
effect sizes as an appropriatemeasure of impact.
(14:55):
So he started examining thingsthat people talk about all the
time in education to try andfind out why is it that this
seems to have a greater impactthan that?
What is it about that that seemsto make a difference, and the
classic example that we used touse early in the training of
this work had to do with classsize.
(15:16):
Everybody says, you know, likewhen teachers go on strike for
their new contract, there aretwo things give us more money
and give us smaller class sizes,both reasonable expectations.
And so the question comes whenhis research points out that,
you know, lowering class sizedoesn't seem to have the impact
(15:37):
that you think it should have.
So the question is why or whynot?
And and that that's what hisresearch is all about is is
questioning what we hold as theschema in our heads about what
works and what doesn't work inin schooling and in education
and in teaching and learning,and so he's caused us to start
(15:59):
to think really deeply aboutwhat really is the right way to
go about this work, becausethere are so many, so many
permutations and combinations,like it's so complex.
Teaching and learning is socomplex and we try to make it
simple, but it's not simple,it's really well said, try as we
(16:22):
might.
it's not a simple, you know.
Teachers work inordinately hard, I mean, and so his work is
really helpful in terms oftrying to understand where we
should put our time, effort andenergy to have the greatest
impact.
And, as he puts, it is that we,our purpose is to know whether
(16:42):
what we're doing is havingimpact on student learning at
the end of the day, and if itisn't, then why do we do it?
Find a better way, and hisresearch now gives us a body of
knowledge that we haven't had,like the medical profession, for
example.
The medical profession talksabout evidence-based practice.
(17:03):
This kind of operation is themost effective if you have heart
problems, you know you put astent in if you've got issues
with arteriosclerosis, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, what are the similarkinds of evidence-based
practices in teaching andlearning that we need to use,
(17:24):
because they are more effectivethan other things that we have
been doing for years, and maybewe've been doing it wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
For sure.
I love that idea too, that wehave information that can put to
affect the results or theoutcomes as much as we as
educators think it might, whichis always interesting to kind of
(17:55):
like face up to some of thesethings that we've thought but
might not actually hold water.
How do you, how do you go abouttrying to I don't want to say
convince, but to show that thereare better ways based on the
(18:16):
information that we've gatheredthrough research and studies?
How do you bring that down tothe concreteness for teachers?
Is it one teacher at a time, oris there is it possible to do
system change at a school or aschool board level that that
that sticks.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, this is the next big challenge because you
know there are a lot ofoutstanding programs or
strategies out there, forexample, reading recovery.
Reading recovery is somethingthat I came to learn about and
worked with a lady who ended upfrom the Western Quebec School
(18:59):
Board, who ended up being thenational director for reading
recovery in Canada A reallyremarkable teacher and a Reading
Recovery teacher leader andwhat we learned from Reading
Recovery is that there is astrategy and what tends to
(19:22):
happen is there are all kinds ofgreat ideas that that are not
well implemented.
Implementation is the essenceand the key to whether something
works or not, and I don't thinkpeople have figured it out well
enough yet, and I think that'swhere things bog down.
(19:44):
The whole concept ofprofessional learning is.
I mean, it's just, it's partand parcel of who we are as
educators.
We run workshops and so on, buta lot of the time you find that
those things don't have theimpact that they should, because
I don't think we've got a modelthought through properly.
In my work, particularly when Igot to a position at the
(20:12):
Western Quebec School Board iswhat I'm looking for.
I'm searching for my words here.
I designed some principlesaround what professional
learning should look like in ourschool board, and I use that as
a model for everything that wedid.
And I use that as a model foreverything that we did.
(20:34):
And so you know, making itpractical for teachers is the
essence, the key.
They all go to a workshopbecause they want to be able to
put something in their classroom.
The next day they go back totheir classroom again.
So practicality is important.
But I think the mistake that wetoo often make is that we
Michael Fullen used to say youcan't mandate what matters.
(20:54):
And so when the government orthe Department of Education or
the school board or whomeverdecides, you know this is good
stuff, we've got to do this.
The first mistake we make isthou shalt go forth and multiply
.
Everybody's got to do this.
People aren't ready to do it,so we have to lead people to
(21:19):
want to taste, you know, get alittle bit of a flavor in a safe
, psychologically safeenvironment where they can try
things out, make mistakes, learnfrom them, go back, make
adjustments, et cetera, beforewe blow this up and say the
whole school or the whole schoolboard has to do this.
It doesn't work that way.
(21:40):
It just doesn't work.
That way I can have a greatconversation with you and coach
you slowly through a particularprocess, knowing that I'm there
beside you to help, support youand guide you and listen to your
questions and so forth, tweakit along the way.
That's far more effective thancoming in and saying you know,
here's the new math program,you're all going to teach it
(22:01):
this way, and what's?
The first thing that happens ispeople put up their defenses.
They get scared.
They're going to have to getrid of stuff that they've always
done, that they felt they werebeing successful in, and it
falls apart.
Three years later, all thatmoney has been spent.
Nothing has changed other thanpeople's temperaments.
(22:22):
They get upset and then westart complaining about not
enough resources, not enoughtools, not enough training, et
cetera, et cetera, and so we golooking for the next silver
bullet.
So the model for me, the basicmodel for me, is wrong, like my.
My rule of thumb was we do nomore than three things.
(22:44):
So I'm a big believer intriangles and anybody that's
ever worked with me knows well.
Here's Ainsley talking abouthis triangles.
Again, three things, threethings.
You get rid of one of those,the model falls apart.
So three initiatives, no morethan that because most, most
(23:04):
school districts can't handlemore than three major
initiatives at any given time,and even that sometimes is too
much would those be interrelated, like of the of the
three, so one needs the other.
Like you say, take one out theother two don't work anymore,
right?
Yeah, so, like, for example,the three that I used to work on
in western quebec, is that wewould do assessment, instruction
(23:27):
and design, instruction,assessment, instruction and
design.
That's and that's what I wantedto have all of our teachers
proficient with over time, andwe made it.
We didn't make it mandatory, wemake it voluntary.
As soon as you commit, youcommit for a long term.
You don't commit for one yearor for one session.
You commit long term becauseyou can't learn anything in a
(23:49):
short time.
You have to learn becauseyou're asking people to change
practices, you're asking them tochange behavior.
It's asking the change mindset.
Three thing the other thing isthat you're turning on and like
oh, ok, we're ready.
Right, learning, teaching andlearning doesn't happen that way
.
And and then the next thing isthat we know that there's all
(24:12):
kinds of research, whether it'sin education or in the medical
profession or elsewhere.
We know that it's a lot easierto help people change when
they're doing it with somebodyelse.
So the rule of thumb was inWestern Quebec is when a
principal was going off to astaff development or a teacher
(24:33):
wanted to go to staffdevelopment, they were never
allowed to go by themselves.
They had to go with otherpeople.
Better still, take a team,right.
So now you've got multiplegroups of people and no
commitment.
Just go and hear what it has,what's going on, find out about
it, get the information and thenwe'll come back and we'll sit
(24:55):
down and we'll talk about it.
So a principal couldn't go go toa staff development or a
professional learningopportunity on their own.
They had to go with a team.
They had to take teachers withthem, because the the my, my, my
concept was you know, if it wasa lousy workshop, at least
getting there and coming back,they're all in the same car.
What do they talk about?
They talk about school.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So you know.
So now you've got three peopletalking about school and they
come.
Yeah, they get all excited,they're motivated, they want to
try something, and now theprincipal can support and help
them that.
So the next, the next piece, isthat you do it in small pockets
of pilots.
You try it out.
Does this work?
What doesn't work?
(25:37):
What can we change?
What do we get control over?
Is it going to take?
How long does it take?
I mean just there's a millionquestions that people will come
up with and then you invitepeople to come and see what
we're doing.
So it's not like a secret club.
Only these people get to do it.
You can.
That's one of the principles ofinfluence is scarcity.
Only a few people can do this.
(25:59):
Oh, but I want in, I want in.
You build it that way, slowlyover time, and you learn along
the way.
You stay with it, because mostgood things don't survive the
test of time.
Yes, if you can't keep doing itover a long time and monitoring
(26:22):
, adjusting along the way,making it better as you learn,
involving more people who haveideas.
You look at any of the great,great uh organizations right now
.
There are ones that have, havelearned along the way, and
they've.
You know, now, the, now, the uh, the jargon is you have to be
agile, you have to be able tomove quickly, and so forth.
(26:45):
Anyway, I'm just blurblabbering on you?
I'm not sure if I'm answeringyour questions or not,
absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Absolutely.
You know it's making me reflect, too, a little bit Ainsley, on
classroom teaching as well.
I mean you can take the samekinds of concepts you have and
apply them to your class, whereyou're inviting error, you're
inviting iteration, you'reinviting thought, you know, and
debate and uncomfortableness Imean all of these great things
(27:13):
that make us human, need to bemore flourishing in our
classrooms, I think, where we'regetting more of that
information from our kids andtheir experiences and their
thoughts and letting themstruggle.
And we were just talking withGinny Newman, garfield and he
Garfield, um, ginny Newman, uh,garfield, and he, yeah, amazing,
um, and he was talking to usabout, about critical thinking,
(27:40):
um, and it just it starts to.
He has this quote where he saysto tweak and fortify.
And it really started to ringtrue in the sense that we do try
a lot of different things, butmaybe we don't have to change
everything all at once, that wefocus on things and we start to
see them a little bit clearerand then put them into practice,
which is the fortification of,and understandings of,
(28:14):
professional development,because I do think it's where
sometimes we are in the flavorof the month kind of thing, you
know, like new terms, newtechniques, new strategies.
And it can overwhelm a teacher,because let me get established
on what you told me a year ortwo ago that I'm still trying to
work with, and then there's anew thing that comes in, so it
can be a bit overwhelming, thatidea of too much change, where
(28:36):
we want a little bit ofstability or understanding
before that we can actuallyimplement it a little bit more
deeper.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
You've touched on an important point.
You know Doug Reeves talksabout the term that he coined
for it.
He says is that, you know,education is notorious about
experiencing initiative fatigue.
We just keep getting tired,like the new curriculum that
comes out and the new textbookthat's put into place, and on
and on and on.
(29:05):
And so that's why Hattie's work, people start to.
People start to say, oh, now wegot to do visible learning.
No See, the thing about visiblelearning is it's the, it's the
underpinning, the research,underpinning our practice that
we need to become familiar withso that we don't start taking on
(29:26):
so many different things and soforth.
You know, you mentionedGarfield, jenny, jenny Newman.
With Tweak and Fortify I've hadthe opportunity of working with
Garfield.
In fact he was one of thepeople that we were able to
bring in for the annual LCEQconference one year and people
were really pleased with him andhe's since doing more work now
in some of the boards in Quebec.
(29:47):
I talk about my triangles again,so I like to use the term
affirm, refine and aspire.
Those are the three things thatI try to build stuff around.
We affirm things that you'recurrently doing, so we're not
asking you to throw the baby outwith the bath water.
(30:08):
But we want to affirm thepractices.
We know the research Hattie'sresearch says are effective and
have impact.
But we might want to refinesome of those things.
You know, like Bob Marzano usedto say that his nine high yield
instructional strategies peoplehave completely misunderstood
they're not the only nine.
(30:29):
And you put a high impactresearch strategy and give that
to a novice teacher, it won'tnecessarily be high impact
because they haven't refinedenough the methodology.
Like Barry Bennett used to say,how do you form student groups
is really critical to whether ajigsaw activity is going to work
(30:53):
effectively or not.
If you have the wrong mix ofkids, it won't work quite as
effectively.
Peter Lillidal, the math expertin BC, here talks about the same
thing is random selection ofgroups as opposed to homeostatic
selection of groups.
And then the aspire is that wealways have to have people hope
(31:15):
for something better and that'swhy my mission statement of hope
helping other people excel isall built around that concept is
that you can be better thanwhat you think you are If you
allow us to help support you andguide you and work with you and
develop the skill set that youneed to be most effective.
(31:38):
So we have to remain hopeful inthis stuff all the time because
my God for some poor littlesouls in their classrooms now
they're coming from places wherethere is no hope that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's it.
I love that, that, that idea ofhope, um, and that we have that
embedded within our system,that, because we do want what's
best for kids in the end, right,I mean, that's our, our end
game, right, there is helpingkids succeed.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
yeah, they provide us with our jobs.
That's right, and we're judgedon the basis of how successful
those kids are.
Because another phrase I liketo share with people is that you
know, the kids we have todayare our parents of tomorrow, and
so if we don't do a good jobwith the kids we have in our
classrooms right now're gonnahave to deal with them as
(32:31):
parents.
That's right, and parents wouldbe quite happy to tell you I
pay your salary yep, yeah,absolutely I have people say
that but I was principal I payyour salary, so you better do
what I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I'm sorry doesn't work way, I have to work on the
greater good for the majority ofpeople.
Absolutely Well, ainsley, thishas been a real treat.
I mean, you're so thoughtful inyour reflections and I know
that we've benefited from yourexposure and your words and
thoughts, and this is just anextension of basically what
(33:10):
you've been doing with oursystem for a long time now and
we're all the better for it.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Well, that's very gracious of you to say, chris,
thanks, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Sorry if I blabbed on here, but I get excited about
this stuff still, which is great, it's fascinating, and I mean,
every time I have a conversation, new things come up
(33:52):
no-transcript we can use toinform and and and motivate and
really build relationships, kindof coming back to where we
started.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Well, the fascination of it is, it is, you know, if
you stop and think about it.
Um, the prime minister ofcanada, or sir frederick banting
, or great canadians throughoutthe country, were all students
in somebody's classroom.
That's right, and and you knowthey're, they're diamonds in the
(34:28):
rough and and maybe, maybe, youhave that next diamond sitting
in your classroom right now andyou know how can we polish them
and shine them so that theybecome the stars that will make
a difference in somebody's lifedown the road.
You know, find that cure.
That might be a cancer cure.
That might be a cancer cure.
I mean, I think about someyoung people that I met in the
(34:56):
Eastern townships this past yearat the at the AAESQ QESBA
conference articulate, bright, Iasked them.
My favorite question I'm askingpeople now is what if school
were optional?
Would they still come?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
You know, think about that.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Think about that would they still come?
You know, think about that.
Think about that.
Have you got a school orclassrooms where teachers are so
good that kids wouldn't want tomiss Very good reflection point
there, Leah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Wow.
Well, we'll leave it at that,because I need to think about
that now.
But again, I really appreciateyour time and I mean I hope to
have you back.
I mean we didn't even touch onso many different aspects that
we could have, so we'll be intouch and just thanks so much.
This has been really great.
(35:46):
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
So thank you, it's been a pleasure for me too.
Chris, I wish you all the best,and thank you, it's been a
pleasure for me too.
Chris, I wish you all the best,and thank you for making a
contribution to education inQuebec through your podcast.
It's just great Good for you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you and bye.
Here we are Cool.
Welcome back to another episodeof Shift Ed podcast.
We're coming out of Laval todayactually I'm at the office and
I'm reaching across our countryto the beautiful West Coast
where I have Ainsley Rose comingin to chat with us a little bit
today.
So thanks, ainsley, for hoppingon here and sharing some of
(00:36):
your thoughts about education.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My pleasure, Chris.
I appreciate the opportunity.
It's been a while.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I mean, you've alwaysbeen a great presence here in
Quebec in our educational Anglosphere, so I felt that
appropriate to include you inthis little journey that we're
on with talking with educatorsthat help our system move
forward.
So my first question is alwaystell me a little bit about how
(01:06):
all this started for you.
When did education kind ofstart to really grab you and be
like?
This is the direction I want togo in in life as to be an
educator to support teachers,support students, support
administrators.
Can you fill in those blanksfor us?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Can you fill in those blanks for us?
I can try.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I have to say that I had a very inauspicious
beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I was graduating out of the University of Western
Ontario in London, ontario.
At the time, I was in theFaculty of Physical Education
and I had just started mymaster's degree.
And lo and behold, at the timeas well, I was the assistant
(01:51):
varsity basketball coach,working with the head coach,
jerry Gonser, and we got a phonecall at the office one day and
I was just.
I literally sat outside hisoffice and it happened to be a
phone call about a guy by thename of Bill Bustead who was the
department head of physicaleducation at Massey Vanier high
school in Townsville.
And they were.
They were looking for a kid whohad graduated out the
(02:13):
university of New Brunswick andwas actually the captain of the
Western Mustangs basketball teamwhom I was coaching.
And they were looking to hirehim because they wanted a
basketball coach back atMasseyvania High School.
And the young fellow was goingon to do his dentistry degree,
the faculty of dentistry atWestern, and was not available.
(02:35):
And so the head coach says well, look, I got a young guy here
who's just finishing up, he'sgraduating, and he's got very
much the same kind ofcredentials you're looking for.
You might want to talk to him.
And sure enough, a week or solater I got a phone call from
Bill Bustede and a short timeafter that I was hired to get my
(03:00):
first teaching degree at MasseyVanya High School.
I was hired sight unseen overthe telephone.
I didn't have a teacher'sdegree, I was just, you know,
and back then you could do that.
And before I knew it, thatsummer I got married this was
back in 1973.
And my wife and I got in ourMercury Comet and we drove down
(03:22):
the 401, in, uh, cowensville,quebec, uh, literally at a place
called the valley blue motelone of those no-tell motels and
I started my teaching career.
so you know, that was it nothingfancy.
I didn't have these grand,grandiose plans about how I was
(03:43):
going to make you know the worlda different place, I was going
to have impact and all of that,but that's where I got started.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
That's so cool.
And what made the jump from?
Because listeners might notknow this, but Ainsley was my
principal when I was in highschool.
How did you make that jump fromteacher to to administrator at
Massey Venue?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well it's.
It seems to be um consistentthroughout my career that I have
I have never actually appliedfor a job in my 52 years in
education.
Uh, somebody always came to meand said you know, you might
want to think about this and,interestingly enough, some
(04:29):
principalship positions becameopen in the district of Bedford
it was the district of Bedfordat the time and they said you
know, you really should applybecause you seem to have some
leadership abilities.
And so I ended up doing that.
I, you know, I did have toapply, obviously, but not
because I had chosen to do that.
(04:49):
It was other people who seemedto think that I had some skills
that might be helpful for fordifferent places, and so I
applied, and my first, my firstappointment was the vice
principal of ButlerClarenceville.
My first appointment was thevice principal of Butler
Clarenceville, stambridge Eastand Farnham Elementary Schools,
working with a good friend ofmine, murray Gunson, who was
(05:11):
principal at the time.
In fact, your mom worked thereas well, interestingly enough.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's right, small world.
Eh, that sure is.
Sure is, we were just talkingabout our relationship, to me
going to the school that Ainsleywas principal at and my dad was
friends with him and colleaguesand our families intermingled.
(05:39):
So this is a real cool fullcircle that we're experiencing
today.
What did you find was thebiggest mindset shift that you
had to have from that transferfrom teacher to administrator?
Was it a dramatic or were youable to still kind of keep your
core values and your mindset thesame as you were when you were
(05:59):
teaching?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, that's a great question.
You just mentioned the wordmindset.
Mindset was sort of central toall of this, because every job
that I did, right from my firstteaching degree on, I
technically speaking wasn'tqualified for.
And so I had to realize, numberone, that I needed to be a
(06:23):
learner and that I didn't knoweverything.
And so, even though I had torealize, number one, that I
needed to be a learner and thatI didn't know everything, and so
, even though I had this quote,title of principal or whatever,
I needed to put myself in aposition where I had to be able
to learn, and learn quickly If Iwere, if I were going to have
any kind of credibility to beable to lead other people in
(06:44):
this business called education.
And so I became a voraciousreader, and I also realized that
the skill set that I had was myability to build relationships
with people.
And so the value system yes,the value system was the same.
Whether it was teaching kids ina phys-ec class at Massey Vanier
(07:06):
in the phys-ec department, theability, and then, as a coach of
the Vikings basketball team,senior boys basketball team, my
ability to build relationshipswith the students first and then
with my teachers that I workedwith became foundational to
everything that I did, and evento this day.
(07:26):
I'm going to be in Quebec nextweek for 11 days and our
leadership institute'scontinuing, and that's the
message that I leave with peopleis that the connection, like
we're in the human potentialbusiness and as my mentor who's
who's still alive uh used to saythat you know, education is
(07:47):
about the discovery, thedevelopment and the deployment
of human talent, and so it'sfinding out what people can do
and then putting them in a placethat they can maximize their
skills and their talents.
So so the value system for mewas to be a model for people to
bring out their best, and I tryto do that to this day, and it
(08:11):
seems to have served me well,for sure my family, my friends,
my colleagues.
We're in the people business andwe have to remember that.
And people are fragile.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
For sure.
Well said, well said.
And what were your biggestsurprises that you've
experienced, or the greatestlessons I guess you have
encountered as you go throughthis More of on the leadership
side of things, where you'retrying to advance people in
their learning and and theirinteractions and relationship
(08:46):
building?
What are some of your lessonsthat that you feel that you've
um internalized, that havereally supported you on that
apart?
I mean the, the relationshipbuilding, absolutely totally.
But are there other otherthings that surprised you along
this journey?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, the well, I guess I guess, whom I come in
touch with that I encounter isthat we are so myopic in terms
of the potential that we have todo things.
And you mentioned the wordmindset earlier.
You know the mindset that wehave about whether kids can
learn or not learn and for kidsto think whether they're capable
(09:49):
or not capable.
That's probably the thing thatcontinues to be primordial in my
level of thinking that there'sso much unrealized potential
that we have in school systems.
You know, primarily with kidsand and teachers, views of what
(10:10):
kids can or cannot do,especially coming into
kindergarten, for example.
And I I'm seeing that now withour, with our grandkids.
We've got seven grandkids, theyoungest of which are are two,
four and six, uh, that mydaughter has and they're
exceptionally bright littlepeople and I worry that they're
(10:31):
going to get into a schoolsystem and somehow they're not
going to fit the mode or themodel and these little guys are
going to have to conform ratherthan perform.
You know where we can use whatthey bring into the world of
learning and maximize theirtalents, their skills, their
(10:53):
abilities, their attitudes,their behaviors and so on.
So that's the main area that Ithink.
The other main area is theintransigence of the educational
system.
It is the most difficultorganization, in my humble
opinion, of all the occupationsthat there are out there, to try
(11:15):
and change, to try and get outof the mold of how school can.
It needs to be run or needs tobe organized or needs to it it.
You know we're we're repeatingbehaviors of millennia.
I mean, millennia have passedand we're still running schools
the same way.
(11:37):
Yes, you know, organizationslike learn are trying to get us
out of that box, and and and andother people are, but it's it's
.
It's not been brought to scale.
We have not reinventededucation, frankly, so that's.
Another thing is, you know anduniversities are notorious for
that, you know, there's theserules and regulations and this
(11:59):
is how school is done.
You have to have seven periodsa day.
They have to be 60 minutes long, you have to have a recess in
the morning and the afternoon.
Well, there are other ways ofdoing this stuff, but we seem to
be reluctant to get involvedwith it.
That's a long answer for ashort question.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
No, totally.
I mean I'm driving with you,ainsley, in the sense that you
think the education would be atthe forefront of innovation and
change and best practices andnew strategies that come in that
tell us that here's moreeffective ways that we can go
about teaching.
How did John Hattie and hisresearch and the data that he
(12:41):
gathered did that?
I mean, obviously it had aneffect, because I know that you
wrote quite a bit about theinfluences of that data on
teaching and how can we tweakthings a little bit?
Could you talk to a little bitabout John Hattie and his
visible learning and what it isthat you feel that people should
(13:03):
know more about that research?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Boy, I can talk for the rest of the time we have
together on this.
I got to know John very wellbecause I worked hand in, not
hand in glove.
I didn't do any of his research, but I was responsible for
bringing his research to abroader audience when his work
came to North America.
(13:28):
And what's intriguing aboutspending a quiet time with John
over lunch or over dinner orwhatever was?
The man was always inquisitiveabout the world of education and
learning.
In fact, that's what got himstarted when he was a teacher
(13:48):
here in North America.
Interestingly enough, he usedto go around and ask some of his
colleagues you know about thisor about that, you know how do I
do this or how do I do that?
And everybody seemed to have adifferent answer, and that led
him to think well, it can't bethat everybody is right.
There got to be some thingsthat are more effective and have
(14:11):
greater impact than otherthings.
And that's what prompted hisdoctoral research when he was at
the University of Torontogetting his doctorate degree,
interestingly enough.
So he got his doctorate here inCanada, of all places, and
that's what got him thinkingabout looking at the research.
(14:33):
And one of the drawbacks or oneof the criticisms that he gets
all the time is thatmeta-analysis is not bona fide
research methodology, and infact, the American Psychological
Association has adopted effectsizes and the calculation of
effect sizes as an appropriatemeasure of impact.
(14:55):
So he started examining thingsthat people talk about all the
time in education to try andfind out why is it that this
seems to have a greater impactthan that?
What is it about that that seemsto make a difference, and the
classic example that we used touse early in the training of
this work had to do with classsize.
(15:16):
Everybody says, you know, likewhen teachers go on strike for
their new contract, there aretwo things give us more money
and give us smaller class sizes,both reasonable expectations.
And so the question comes whenhis research points out that,
you know, lowering class sizedoesn't seem to have the impact
(15:37):
that you think it should have.
So the question is why or whynot?
And and that that's what hisresearch is all about is is
questioning what we hold as theschema in our heads about what
works and what doesn't work inin schooling and in education
and in teaching and learning,and so he's caused us to start
(15:59):
to think really deeply aboutwhat really is the right way to
go about this work, becausethere are so many, so many
permutations and combinations,like it's so complex.
Teaching and learning is socomplex and we try to make it
simple, but it's not simple,it's really well said, try as we
(16:22):
might.
it's not a simple, you know.
Teachers work inordinately hard, I mean, and so his work is
really helpful in terms oftrying to understand where we
should put our time, effort andenergy to have the greatest
impact.
And, as he puts, it is that we,our purpose is to know whether
(16:42):
what we're doing is havingimpact on student learning at
the end of the day, and if itisn't, then why do we do it?
Find a better way, and hisresearch now gives us a body of
knowledge that we haven't had,like the medical profession, for
example.
The medical profession talksabout evidence-based practice.
(17:03):
This kind of operation is themost effective if you have heart
problems, you know you put astent in if you've got issues
with arteriosclerosis, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, what are the similarkinds of evidence-based
practices in teaching andlearning that we need to use,
(17:24):
because they are more effectivethan other things that we have
been doing for years, and maybewe've been doing it wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
For sure.
I love that idea too, that wehave information that can put to
affect the results or theoutcomes as much as we as
educators think it might, whichis always interesting to kind of
(17:55):
like face up to some of thesethings that we've thought but
might not actually hold water.
How do you, how do you go abouttrying to I don't want to say
convince, but to show that thereare better ways based on the
(18:16):
information that we've gatheredthrough research and studies?
How do you bring that down tothe concreteness for teachers?
Is it one teacher at a time, oris there is it possible to do
system change at a school or aschool board level that that
that sticks.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, this is the next big challenge because you
know there are a lot ofoutstanding programs or
strategies out there, forexample, reading recovery.
Reading recovery is somethingthat I came to learn about and
worked with a lady who ended upfrom the Western Quebec School
(18:59):
Board, who ended up being thenational director for reading
recovery in Canada A reallyremarkable teacher and a Reading
Recovery teacher leader andwhat we learned from Reading
Recovery is that there is astrategy and what tends to
(19:22):
happen is there are all kinds ofgreat ideas that that are not
well implemented.
Implementation is the essenceand the key to whether something
works or not, and I don't thinkpeople have figured it out well
enough yet, and I think that'swhere things bog down.
(19:44):
The whole concept ofprofessional learning is.
I mean, it's just, it's partand parcel of who we are as
educators.
We run workshops and so on, buta lot of the time you find that
those things don't have theimpact that they should, because
I don't think we've got a modelthought through properly.
In my work, particularly when Igot to a position at the
(20:12):
Western Quebec School Board iswhat I'm looking for.
I'm searching for my words here.
I designed some principlesaround what professional
learning should look like in ourschool board, and I use that as
a model for everything that wedid.
And I use that as a model foreverything that we did.
(20:34):
And so you know, making itpractical for teachers is the
essence, the key.
They all go to a workshopbecause they want to be able to
put something in their classroom.
The next day they go back totheir classroom again.
So practicality is important.
But I think the mistake that wetoo often make is that we
Michael Fullen used to say youcan't mandate what matters.
(20:54):
And so when the government orthe Department of Education or
the school board or whomeverdecides, you know this is good
stuff, we've got to do this.
The first mistake we make isthou shalt go forth and multiply
.
Everybody's got to do this.
People aren't ready to do it,so we have to lead people to
(21:19):
want to taste, you know, get alittle bit of a flavor in a safe
, psychologically safeenvironment where they can try
things out, make mistakes, learnfrom them, go back, make
adjustments, et cetera, beforewe blow this up and say the
whole school or the whole schoolboard has to do this.
It doesn't work that way.
(21:40):
It just doesn't work.
That way I can have a greatconversation with you and coach
you slowly through a particularprocess, knowing that I'm there
beside you to help, support youand guide you and listen to your
questions and so forth, tweakit along the way.
That's far more effective thancoming in and saying you know,
here's the new math program,you're all going to teach it
(22:01):
this way, and what's?
The first thing that happens ispeople put up their defenses.
They get scared.
They're going to have to getrid of stuff that they've always
done, that they felt they werebeing successful in, and it
falls apart.
Three years later, all thatmoney has been spent.
Nothing has changed other thanpeople's temperaments.
(22:22):
They get upset and then westart complaining about not
enough resources, not enoughtools, not enough training, et
cetera, et cetera, and so we golooking for the next silver
bullet.
So the model for me, the basicmodel for me, is wrong, like my.
My rule of thumb was we do nomore than three things.
(22:44):
So I'm a big believer intriangles and anybody that's
ever worked with me knows well.
Here's Ainsley talking abouthis triangles.
Again, three things, threethings.
You get rid of one of those,the model falls apart.
So three initiatives, no morethan that because most, most
(23:04):
school districts can't handlemore than three major
initiatives at any given time,and even that sometimes is too
much would those be interrelated, like of the of the
three, so one needs the other.
Like you say, take one out theother two don't work anymore,
right?
Yeah, so, like, for example,the three that I used to work on
in western quebec, is that wewould do assessment, instruction
(23:27):
and design, instruction,assessment, instruction and
design.
That's and that's what I wantedto have all of our teachers
proficient with over time, andwe made it.
We didn't make it mandatory, wemake it voluntary.
As soon as you commit, youcommit for a long term.
You don't commit for one yearor for one session.
You commit long term becauseyou can't learn anything in a
(23:49):
short time.
You have to learn becauseyou're asking people to change
practices, you're asking them tochange behavior.
It's asking the change mindset.
Three thing the other thing isthat you're turning on and like
oh, ok, we're ready.
Right, learning, teaching andlearning doesn't happen that way
.
And and then the next thing isthat we know that there's all
(24:12):
kinds of research, whether it'sin education or in the medical
profession or elsewhere.
We know that it's a lot easierto help people change when
they're doing it with somebodyelse.
So the rule of thumb was inWestern Quebec is when a
principal was going off to astaff development or a teacher
(24:33):
wanted to go to staffdevelopment, they were never
allowed to go by themselves.
They had to go with otherpeople.
Better still, take a team,right.
So now you've got multiplegroups of people and no
commitment.
Just go and hear what it has,what's going on, find out about
it, get the information and thenwe'll come back and we'll sit
(24:55):
down and we'll talk about it.
So a principal couldn't go go toa staff development or a
professional learningopportunity on their own.
They had to go with a team.
They had to take teachers withthem, because the the my, my, my
concept was you know, if it wasa lousy workshop, at least
getting there and coming back,they're all in the same car.
What do they talk about?
They talk about school.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So you know.
So now you've got three peopletalking about school and they
come.
Yeah, they get all excited,they're motivated, they want to
try something, and now theprincipal can support and help
them that.
So the next, the next piece, isthat you do it in small pockets
of pilots.
You try it out.
Does this work?
What doesn't work?
(25:37):
What can we change?
What do we get control over?
Is it going to take?
How long does it take?
I mean just there's a millionquestions that people will come
up with and then you invitepeople to come and see what
we're doing.
So it's not like a secret club.
Only these people get to do it.
You can.
That's one of the principles ofinfluence is scarcity.
Only a few people can do this.
(25:59):
Oh, but I want in, I want in.
You build it that way, slowlyover time, and you learn along
the way.
You stay with it, because mostgood things don't survive the
test of time.
Yes, if you can't keep doing itover a long time and monitoring
(26:22):
, adjusting along the way,making it better as you learn,
involving more people who haveideas.
You look at any of the great,great uh organizations right now
.
There are ones that have, havelearned along the way, and
they've.
You know, now, the, now, the uh, the jargon is you have to be
agile, you have to be able tomove quickly, and so forth.
(26:45):
Anyway, I'm just blurblabbering on you?
I'm not sure if I'm answeringyour questions or not,
absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Absolutely.
You know it's making me reflect, too, a little bit Ainsley, on
classroom teaching as well.
I mean you can take the samekinds of concepts you have and
apply them to your class, whereyou're inviting error, you're
inviting iteration, you'reinviting thought, you know, and
debate and uncomfortableness Imean all of these great things
(27:13):
that make us human, need to bemore flourishing in our
classrooms, I think, where we'regetting more of that
information from our kids andtheir experiences and their
thoughts and letting themstruggle.
And we were just talking withGinny Newman, garfield and he
Garfield, um, ginny Newman, uh,garfield, and he, yeah, amazing,
um, and he was talking to usabout, about critical thinking,
(27:40):
um, and it just it starts to.
He has this quote where he saysto tweak and fortify.
And it really started to ringtrue in the sense that we do try
a lot of different things, butmaybe we don't have to change
everything all at once, that wefocus on things and we start to
see them a little bit clearerand then put them into practice,
which is the fortification of,and understandings of,
(28:14):
professional development,because I do think it's where
sometimes we are in the flavorof the month kind of thing, you
know, like new terms, newtechniques, new strategies.
And it can overwhelm a teacher,because let me get established
on what you told me a year ortwo ago that I'm still trying to
work with, and then there's anew thing that comes in, so it
can be a bit overwhelming, thatidea of too much change, where
(28:36):
we want a little bit ofstability or understanding
before that we can actuallyimplement it a little bit more
deeper.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
You've touched on an important point.
You know Doug Reeves talksabout the term that he coined
for it.
He says is that, you know,education is notorious about
experiencing initiative fatigue.
We just keep getting tired,like the new curriculum that
comes out and the new textbookthat's put into place, and on
and on and on.
(29:05):
And so that's why Hattie's work, people start to.
People start to say, oh, now wegot to do visible learning.
No See, the thing about visiblelearning is it's the, it's the
underpinning, the research,underpinning our practice that
we need to become familiar withso that we don't start taking on
(29:26):
so many different things and soforth.
You know, you mentionedGarfield, jenny, jenny Newman.
With Tweak and Fortify I've hadthe opportunity of working with
Garfield.
In fact he was one of thepeople that we were able to
bring in for the annual LCEQconference one year and people
were really pleased with him andhe's since doing more work now
in some of the boards in Quebec.
(29:47):
I talk about my triangles again,so I like to use the term
affirm, refine and aspire.
Those are the three things thatI try to build stuff around.
We affirm things that you'recurrently doing, so we're not
asking you to throw the baby outwith the bath water.
(30:08):
But we want to affirm thepractices.
We know the research Hattie'sresearch says are effective and
have impact.
But we might want to refinesome of those things.
You know, like Bob Marzano usedto say that his nine high yield
instructional strategies peoplehave completely misunderstood
they're not the only nine.
(30:29):
And you put a high impactresearch strategy and give that
to a novice teacher, it won'tnecessarily be high impact
because they haven't refinedenough the methodology.
Like Barry Bennett used to say,how do you form student groups
is really critical to whether ajigsaw activity is going to work
(30:53):
effectively or not.
If you have the wrong mix ofkids, it won't work quite as
effectively.
Peter Lillidal, the math expertin BC, here talks about the same
thing is random selection ofgroups as opposed to homeostatic
selection of groups.
And then the aspire is that wealways have to have people hope
(31:15):
for something better and that'swhy my mission statement of hope
helping other people excel isall built around that concept is
that you can be better thanwhat you think you are If you
allow us to help support you andguide you and work with you and
develop the skill set that youneed to be most effective.
(31:38):
So we have to remain hopeful inthis stuff all the time because
my God for some poor littlesouls in their classrooms now
they're coming from places wherethere is no hope that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's it.
I love that, that, that idea ofhope, um, and that we have that
embedded within our system,that, because we do want what's
best for kids in the end, right,I mean, that's our, our end
game, right, there is helpingkids succeed.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
yeah, they provide us with our jobs.
That's right, and we're judgedon the basis of how successful
those kids are.
Because another phrase I liketo share with people is that you
know, the kids we have todayare our parents of tomorrow, and
so if we don't do a good jobwith the kids we have in our
classrooms right now're gonnahave to deal with them as
(32:31):
parents.
That's right, and parents wouldbe quite happy to tell you I
pay your salary yep, yeah,absolutely I have people say
that but I was principal I payyour salary, so you better do
what I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I'm sorry doesn't work way, I have to work on the
greater good for the majority ofpeople.
Absolutely Well, ainsley, thishas been a real treat.
I mean, you're so thoughtful inyour reflections and I know
that we've benefited from yourexposure and your words and
thoughts, and this is just anextension of basically what
(33:10):
you've been doing with oursystem for a long time now and
we're all the better for it.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Well, that's very gracious of you to say, chris,
thanks, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Sorry if I blabbed on here, but I get excited about
this stuff still, which is great, it's fascinating, and I mean,
every time I have a conversation, new things come up
(33:52):
no-transcript we can use toinform and and and motivate and
really build relationships, kindof coming back to where we
started.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Well, the fascination of it is, it is, you know, if
you stop and think about it.
Um, the prime minister ofcanada, or sir frederick banting
, or great canadians throughoutthe country, were all students
in somebody's classroom.
That's right, and and you knowthey're, they're diamonds in the
(34:28):
rough and and maybe, maybe, youhave that next diamond sitting
in your classroom right now andyou know how can we polish them
and shine them so that theybecome the stars that will make
a difference in somebody's lifedown the road.
You know, find that cure.
That might be a cancer cure.
That might be a cancer cure.
I mean, I think about someyoung people that I met in the
(34:56):
Eastern townships this past yearat the at the AAESQ QESBA
conference articulate, bright, Iasked them.
My favorite question I'm askingpeople now is what if school
were optional?
Would they still come?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
You know, think about that.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Think about that would they still come?
You know, think about that.
Think about that.
Have you got a school orclassrooms where teachers are so
good that kids wouldn't want tomiss Very good reflection point
there, Leah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Wow.
Well, we'll leave it at that,because I need to think about
that now.
But again, I really appreciateyour time and I mean I hope to
have you back.
I mean we didn't even touch onso many different aspects that
we could have, so we'll be intouch and just thanks so much.
This has been really great.
(35:46):
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
So thank you, it's been a pleasure for me too.
Chris, I wish you all the best,and thank you, it's been a
pleasure for me too.
Chris, I wish you all the best,and thank you for making a
contribution to education inQuebec through your podcast.
It's just great Good for you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you and bye.
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