January 9, 2023 • 44 mins
So many of us are thinking about the school year ahead and what we’d like to achieve across the school and in our classrooms. Mike Reading, our founding director and the goal-setting maestro has some great ideas and process tips for getting what you want to achieve to start out on the right footing. We also chat about the best way to start the year with some life-changing habits and James shares a statistics tool that we know you’ll want to be having play with these holidays and weekends.
If you’re after the links or resources that we’ve mentioned today, have a look here:
1. Tiny Habits – B.J. Fogg
2. Atomic Habits – James Clear
3. The 12 Week Year
4. Gapminder.org
We post every week and would love to have you keep up with us. If you know someone who would get value from these episodes, hit the share button and let them know. Lastly, if you have questions or anything to share with us, email us at team@usingtechnologybetter.com. You can also contact Bex at bex@usingtechnologybetter.com to find out how you can get free PD in your schools (NZ) or follow us on Instagram at @usingtechnologybetter or on youtube.com/@utb
We’d love to hear from you! See you next week.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bex Rose (00:00):
Well, I thought it was a really good time people are at
(00:02):
the beginning of the year,you're going, Oh, I'm gonna make
some new year's resolutions andI'm going to set some goals. You
know what it's like, I'm goingto lose like 40 kilos, or I'm
going to do this. I'm going togo to the gym every day, things
like that. And what alwayshappens to those big goals mark?
The better mindset podcast.
Mark Herring (00:23):
Welcome to The Better Mindset Podcast, episode
one. I'm Mark Herring and I'mBex Rose. Conversations about
Leadership, Learning,Educational Technologies and
more. On today's episode weexplore a topic fits on
everybody's mind, especiallyteachers at the start of every
year, we have Mike, ourdirector, give us some of his
top tips for goal setting andschools and the year and your
(00:46):
team the right way, kind of thedark art of goal setting with
your teams. And James shares adigital tool that could change
the way you and your studentslook at statistics forever. All
right, because they're veryfirst making wave segments. This
is all about big ideas ortrends. And we're gonna have a
(01:06):
little chat about that. What arepeople thinking about it this
time of the year?
Bex Rose (01:09):
Well, I thought it was a really good time people are at
the beginning of the year,you're going on going to make
some new year's resolutions, andI'm going to set some goals, you
know what it's like, I'm goingto lose like 40 kilos, or I'm
going to do this. I'm going togo to the gym every day, things
like that. And what alwayshappens to those big goals mark?
Mark Herring (01:28):
Or firstly, 40 kilos is a lot to lose. That's
like, man, you've had a verygood Christmas, if that's.
But yeah, I think the firstthing is you kind of think
you're, you know, you've gothigh aspirations, and you're
thinking you might achieve theworld, but I don't know, tell
me.
Bex Rose (01:45):
All right. So, they generally fall flat because you
start really well. And thenwhat, what leads you down is
potentially the systems that youput in place to keep your goals
going. So I love this book. It'scalled atomic habits by James
clear, and he is all aboutforming really good habits. So
(02:07):
goals are the big things thatyou want to sit for, you know,
maybe for the year, maybe for,you know, a month, things like
that. But the systems are howyou get those goals or how you
are trying to achieve thosegoals. Okay, so most of the
time, if your goals are notbeing met, it's because your
systems are letting you down.
Okay? And that's what happenswhat? Yeah, and that's what a
(02:30):
habit is, right? So he says thatthe quality of our lives depend
on the quality of our habits.
And if you ever think aboutthat, the quality of your lives
depend on the quality of yourhabits. Think of those, they
could be your good habits, butthey could also be your bad
habits, right? Yep. Yeah. No,that's right. So what I'm going
(02:58):
to talk about today is buildingtiny habits, which will be your
systems so that your goals canget met. Okay? So tiny habits
are little tiny things that youcan do every day that you might
not notice as doing anything onthat day. But the compound
interest of those tiny habitswill get you to your goal. Okay,
(03:21):
so that 1% improving, you'reimproving your life by 1% Every
day, is that compound interest.
So if you think about doing onething every single day, like
think this is how I think aboutit. So you go go out for lunch,
and instead of choosing thehamburger, you choose the salad,
and you look in the mirror andyou're like, well, that did
nothing, right? One, oneproceed, right. So you've just
(03:43):
chosen one meal to change. Butif you do that, or if you make
better choices with that kind ofwith your food or whatever, over
a certain amount of time, that'swhen you start seeing the
results. So think of it likethat. Right? So a really good
way of, of working on developinggood habits is a concept called
habit stacking and what what doyou call it? You call it
(04:06):
something else? Mac?
Mark Herring (04:08):
I've heard it described as anchoring. We were
talking about this before. It'syeah, anchoring is just another
way of explaining it, I think,or maybe it's just a different
way of looking at it.
Bex Rose (04:17):
Yeah, right. So habit stacking is is a really
incredible tool. And I knowbecause I have given it a go and
I have I've talked a lot aboutit too, when I was in a
leadership team to my staff. Sohabit stacking is when you say
something that you do everysingle day, without fail, your
(04:38):
body is on that autopilot, andyou attach something that you
want to achieve to that habitthat you already do. Okay, so So
one thing so what I'm thinkingabout is something that I do and
how I got to do it was sohopefully, most of us brush our
teeth every day, right? So youbrush your teeth and that's
(04:59):
something you do every daywithout fail. It's it's you're
on autopilot, it's something youdo every day. So while I brush
my teeth, I take a couple ofdeep breaths straight
afterwards, I take three deepbreaths, because I really wanted
to incorporate mindfulness andbeing present. And just having
that anchor, I guess, in my ownwell being automatic. So when
(05:24):
after I take three really deepbreaths, and I do the square
brace, so it's like n, for holdfor debt and an out for hold
for. And I do that three times.
And what I've noticed is that Ican do that now, when it's not
attached to that habit ofbrushing my teeth. So I might
get in a situation where I'mstarting to feel quite
(05:46):
overwhelmed, something's goingon in my life that I need to
really actually come down andstart using my thinking brain.
So I just go straight into thosebreaths, because it's a habit
that I have created from habitstacking. Can you relate to any
of this? But
Mark Herring (06:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
What you, I think that's, that'swhat that anchoring thing is,
you've actually, you've got ahabit that you're in the habit
of doing, you know, it's like aregular routine, you don't even
have to think about it. And sowhat you're doing is,
apparently, you're creating themuscle memory that connects to
that original habit with the newone that you want to do. Yeah,
it's a really good way of sortof trying to put all of those
(06:23):
little things that, you know,make a difference into an order.
And I think, you know, from ateaching perspective, when
you're working in schools, andthe holidays in January is a
really good time to have a lookat all of those habits, because
you've got the time and thespace and the mental energy to
start creating some newpathways. And that's often been
the time of the year that peoplekind of think I want to, I want
(06:44):
to do things differently. Youknow, it's like, after New
Year's, you've got those newresolutions, I think, you know,
that whole concept of habits isgonna put legs on the on the
actual desire to change. This isactually how you do it, which I
think there's also
Bex Rose (07:00):
something else James Clear, talked it talks about is
when you are developing thosegoals and systems, that instead
of thinking the goal itself, sothinking of the goal itself, so
for example, I want to you wantit, we want to think about what
who the person you want to beright. So, for example, a habit
(07:22):
could be making your bed everymorning, because I want to be
someone who's tidy andorganized. So it's instead of
being so who do you want to be,I want to be someone that I want
to be fit and healthy for mykids. So the habit that I'm
going to create is getting upand going and doing a walk every
(07:43):
day or every three days, right?
So it's you really want to havethat image of who you want to
be, and and create the habits tofulfill that. Yeah, and so that,
and then you might break thatdown even more. So I want to be
someone that's fit and healthywith my kids and strong enough
to be able to lift the kids upto put the star on the Christmas
tree, something like that,right. So in order to do that
(08:05):
breaking down into habit. So itmight be that I will do one
pushup every morning after Ibrush my teeth. Can you see how
that all fits up? Together? Oh,
Mark Herring (08:16):
100%. It's incredible. And that's what
you're doing and holiday mode,right? You're you're sitting
back and you're looking at yourlife and you're kind of
reassessing my bad choices, youknow, but you're trying to
imagine and do thingsdifferently. I always, that's
one of the things about teachingis that you know, you at the end
of the year, or you know, ifyou're in the northern
hemisphere, your summer break,that's the time of the year that
(08:37):
you get to close the book, andyou get to start a new one at
the start of the year, you getthat little little sort of sense
of the term breaks. But youknow, I think that's a really
good opportunity to take a lookat how you want to evolve and
how you want to grow and change.
One thing that when I'm thinkingabout habits, one thing, this is
almost a little mental heck forme, and I don't know if this is
helpful for anybody, but what Itend to do is, is I think about
(09:00):
where I'd like to be and whatI'd like to do in the future.
And you know, what kind ofreality do I want to build
towards, you know, they talkabout doing something for your
future self. But the thing thatactually helps me be a lot more
successful today is thinkingabout the return the immediate
return that I get from thathabit, you know, so, like
drinking water, we know that weshould all be drinking, you
(09:21):
know, three liters a day orwhatever it is that we do, I try
to focus on how I feelafterwards. So when you drink a
bottle of water, just a liter ofwater, or ice water, or whatever
it is, I know that makes me feelreally good. And so what I tried
to do is just try and fixate alittle bit on that and use that
as a mental hack. How do I feelwhen I eat a good healthy meal?
(09:41):
As opposed to when I go out andget a pizza? Like I know that in
the moment when you're eating apizza it feels great but then
straight afterwards for the restof that day. I just feel
disgusting, you know, I just Idon't know. Yeah, absolutely
doesn't doesn't feel good words.
If I have a nice healthy salador, you know, like don't care
Only self worth, just leave us.
But whatever it is, that makesthe difference. I feel good
(10:02):
after that. So I think that's agood thing for habits as well
focusing on how it makes youfeel today, making your bed the
status sense of satisfaction andjust focusing on that. And just
taking the time to enjoy it, Ithink makes a real difference as
well, not always thinking aboutthe future and what it's going
to look like in a year's time,because sometimes that can be
too far out for me to get areward from that. So it's just a
(10:23):
absolute, and
Bex Rose (10:27):
that's when goal Yeah, when they're too big. And my
account director talks about the12 week working year. And this
is and I think that to supportthat as as building these habits
and these systems so that thoseeven those tiny goals can can be
fulfilled. So I'm just going tokind of just finish off with
(10:49):
this is that was, especially inteaching in, it has been a heck
of a couple of years. And so Iwould suggest that teachers
especially prioritize wellbeingis one of their big, big goals
like, so think about how do youwant to feel at the end of next
(11:10):
year? Right? You don't want tobe feeling like you're just like
a zombie walking through thelast couple of days of school.
So what are you going to do?
What habits are you going toform throughout the year, so
that you can preserve some ofthat energy throughout the year
and get to the end of the year,not feeling I mean, it's it's
always tiring at the end of theyear, but you know, present how
(11:30):
you going to what habits you'regoing to put in place to
preserve that energy throughoutthe year. So I my challenge to
you is to think about that.
Think about what tiny habitsyou're going to form on a daily
those 1% was 1% Every day, sothat the end of the year, next
(11:50):
year, you feel more you don'tyou're not completely worn out
that you have got some energyfor your family over Christmas.
And yeah, that's my challenge toyou.
Mark Herring (12:01):
Fantastic, good stuff to think about. Super
excited to have Mike, ourdirector of the company on the
call. Good to see you, Mike.
Mike Reading (12:12):
Hey everybody, great to see you.
Mark Herring (12:14):
you can introduce yourself in a second. But one of
the reasons that I thought wouldbe good to have a conversation
in our very first episode is tohave a chat about some of the
things that leaders are doing inschools at the start of the
year. So we all know thatwhether you're a team leader, or
a principal or a dp of a school,there are things that you're
trying to impact and change, youknow, particularly across the
school year, you've had theholidays, to kind of reflect on
(12:36):
things. And you might have donesome planning at the end of the
last year, we've worked withhundreds of schools over the
last sort of five or six yearsin professional learning. And I
know that there are lots ofthings that we see as being
really successful in that goalsetting approach. But there are
some things that don't work sowell. So I'd love to have a talk
with you about that. And justunpack some of the things that
(12:56):
you see as being reallyeffective. What would you see
would be the first, the firstmajor thing that you think is
really important, starting theterm, starting the school year
as a leader? What kind of thingsdo you think are most important?
Mike Reading (13:09):
Yeah, I think where we see the biggest runs,
or the biggest wins is when youcan have your goals really,
really clearly articulated. Butthen back to real clear vision.
So one of the biggest issuesthat we've bumped into in
schools and businesses all overthe world is that they haven't
clearly articulated what theirvision is. So when they're
(13:31):
setting goals, they've kind ofsetting goals into some of it's
a little bit vague and othernebulous. It's not like super,
super dialed in. So I think ifyou have to do anything, it'd be
like really getting clear onwhat the vision is. And then
starting with that, and maybenot even setting some goals,
just hanging back until you'vegot the vision set. And once
that's clear and communicated,then going. Okay, so if that's
(13:54):
the vision, what do we need todo to achieve that?
Mark Herring (13:57):
Yeah, talk about the vision, being the
guardrails, don't wait towhatever decisions that you're
making. So if you don'tunderstand what your Northstar
is, don't understand whereyou're going, then it's very
difficult to kind of track thatgoal setting. Like, there's so
probably so many schools outthere that are setting goals
based on kind of the vision thatthey've got in their head, but
they haven't actually got thatclearly defined and articulated
(14:18):
across the team. Yeah, that'ssuper important. What would be
some, once you've got thatvision established, what would
be the next step?
Mike Reading (14:25):
Yeah. So then, one of the things we work a lot on
is just making our goals alignedto the SMART goal framework. But
when I talk about it, I don'treally care about the art part.
So the ART. So SMART stands forspecific, measurable, and then
attainable and realistic andtime limited. But what we really
want to focus in on is the S andthe M part. So if it's not
(14:47):
specific, you can't measure it.
So again, if the vision is notclear, then there's no
measurement around it. So theway we can determine very
quickly if our vision or ourgoals Ah, clearly set is saying,
okay, so how do we measure that?
And so, again, so focusingreally in, if we're going to set
(15:08):
a goal, how can we make itmeasurable? And just keep
refining it, refining it,refining it, until it's
incredibly specific? And then wecan chase it down
Bex Rose (15:18):
with regards to developing that vision? Who
should be involved in thatprocess?
Mike Reading (15:22):
Yeah, I think then well, there's lots of key
stakeholders that need to comeinto that, I think, obviously,
you need to have your seniorleadership team and your middle
leadership team involved inthat. But then there should also
be a level of stakeholdersaround that. So for instance,
looking at parent andcommunities or looking at
potential businesses, like who'sgoing to support you, and
(15:46):
partner with you. And gettingsome of that information out
there. But at the end of theday, the buck stops with the
leader. So the principal, thesenior leader, in the they
ultimately needs to stop withthem. They need to carry the
vision, that's their primarypurpose. So if they if they're
not on board with it, if it'snot clear in their head, it's
(16:08):
definitely not going to be clearacross the rest of the team.
Bex Rose (16:11):
Yeah. So that's the most important part is what you
just said there as beingeveryone being clear on it. And
I think that's when you get thebuy in. That's when you get the
traction when everyone is on thesame page with that, right?
Mike Reading (16:22):
Correct. Yeah. So to give an example, we had a
meeting yesterday with oursenior leadership team, and we
spent a lot of time talkingspecifically around the language
about how something's going toget communicated next year. So
people were talking about thesame concept. But I wasn't
prepared to move on untileverybody had the language,
(16:43):
right, in terms of this isexactly how I want you to
communicate it across yourteams. Don't Don't say like,
let's because it leaves openlevel of vagueness that people
can interpret. So we're going tohere's the exact language that I
want us to use right across theleadership team.
Mark Herring (17:01):
Yeah, I've often heard you talk about the
elephant analogy. Do you want toexplain that? Because you put it
say, Well,
Mike Reading (17:07):
yeah, so we talked about how when we speak, we
speak in pictures, not words. Soif I say the word elephant, then
everybody sees an elephant, theydon't see the letters elephant
floating across the screen. Sobasically, what we're talking
about, whenever we communicate,we will need to paint a picture.
The problem is that if I justsay the word elephant, you see
(17:27):
an elephant based on your pastexperience, or what you've seen
on TV, or maybe you went androde an elephant somewhere. But
the elephant that I'm saying iscompletely different. So we
can't think that we'vecommunicated clearly just by
saying, here's the vision, andI'm using the word elephant, and
we're going to be an elephant asa school, then you need to
(17:48):
define that. So what size is thetrunk? What color are the is?
How big is it? What does it havefour legs or three legs. So the
more clarity that you can giveto that that picture, then the
clearer everybody else sees it.
And the less interpretationthere is, for people to bring
their own past experience, theirown worldview, all of that sort
(18:09):
of stuff that comes when peopleget moved from organization to
organization, it's about leavingthat at the door and then
redefining as you come in.
Mark Herring (18:19):
Yeah, it's so critical, because so many of the
visions that I've heard, youknow, schools, articulate them,
I have something written on thewall, or they might have even
gone through one of theactivities that we take your
schools through, where you'redeveloping what that vision
looks like, the word creativityfor it, as an example, can mean
so much, you know, different tosomebody who's teaching in the
math department, to someonewho's teaching in the science
(18:40):
department, you know, and beingable to have that ability to be
able to unpack that word issuper important. Okay. So once
you've got once we've got thevision articulated, and we've
been through some conversations,and we've, we've thought really
hard as a leader about howthat's articulated. And even in
the classroom, when I'mlistening to that I'm thinking
about it in my context, whatwould be some of the next things
(19:00):
that you think are reallyimportant if we're a leader to
try and help us move in thedirection of that vision? What
can I achieve in a year kind ofthing? And how do I go about it?
Mike Reading (19:10):
Yeah, well, I think your question, there just
highlights one of the problemsin the way that we think about
things. So you just said like,what can I achieve in a year.
And so generally, when we'rethinking about the vision, and
we're setting goals, we setgoals as the problem so
basically, most people will waituntil there's a time limit.
(19:31):
That's where that smart partcomes in, where it's time
limited. And you'll leave it tothe last minute to get something
done. So if you set a goal,subconsciously, you're like,
I've got a whole year to achievethat. So there's no urgency.
There's no filtering of activityto make that a priority, right.
So one of the things we alwaysencourage people to do is
(19:53):
obviously have a year goal, butthen break that year goal down
into 12 week, sprints and so on.
Again, yesterday, we just wentthrough this exact process for
us. So we've got our year goal.
In fact, we've got seven goalsthat we're chasing down for the
year. And all of our activityfor term one or quarter one has
(20:14):
to be somehow specificallylinked to those goals. So we
look at that goal yet. Okay, howare we going to break down that
goal for this quarter and focusin on this? And what will we
achieve in those 12 weeks? Soit's really about how do we
shorten that timeframe, and puta bit of urgency around what
we're doing?
Mark Herring (20:33):
Yeah, and that timeframe that you're talking
about, like breaking it downinto 12 weeks that can be so so
powerful, and and a lot of theleaders that I've worked with in
the schools that I've workedwith have really got some really
good impact out of that, right.
So it's just such a new way ofworking. I know that there are
some resources out there that wecan we can share in the show
notes as well, and some links tothe 12 week year approach,
because that's such an awesomeway to get some traction
(20:55):
happening. Let's say we've gottheir 12 week year, how do you
kind of hold people accountable?
Or how do you track thatprocess? Because it's one thing
to have a goal in place? Thenwe're talking about breaking it
down into a term what's what'sthe next step? Like? How do you
kind of get your team on board?
How do you measure things? Howdo you keep people accountable?
Mike Reading (21:14):
Yeah, well, I think that accountability piece
is really important. So it's notabout how do you keep people
accountable? It's how do youkeep a person accountable? So
someone needs to own it? Again,yesterday, this is fresh in my
mind, because we just wentthrough this process. We had an
opportunity where two peoplewere like, oh, you know, I'll,
I'll take that as an initiative.
And we're like, No, someone Buckneeds to stop with someone.
(21:36):
Because if it's Google's job,it's nobody's job. So once
you've found the people in theteam, and then you've given each
of them a role to play, and Iown something, the buck stops
with them, then I think whatwe've found, through lots of
mistakes and lots of learning isthat you need to have daily
accountability. So we've set upan automated system inside our
(22:00):
communication tools that pingeveryone at 5am in the morning,
and they say, what's your focusfor today, what was achieved
yesterday, and what roadblocksare there that needs to get
solved. And every morning, thatmessage gets filled out by those
that are accountable for thedifferent goals that we're
working towards in that quarter?
(22:20):
So yeah, once you've got it setup, and it's specific, and it's
measurable, then you need to setthat daily accountability
cadence, so that you're notconstantly letting things drag
out a week, two weeks, threeweeks, because in a 12, week,
year, a week is a long time. Soyou can't let anything slip,
we've got to stay right on it.
Mark Herring (22:42):
Especially in the school context, because you
know, you've got teachers thatare just caught up in that
whirlwind, it can be a realchallenge to keep an eye on the
big picture, you know, of whatyou're trying to achieve. And
whatever kind of developmentyou're trying to get across in
your school, it's really easy toget lost than that, isn't it? I
do love those 5am pings, the Xin the morning, helps you make
(23:03):
sure that you've got yournotifications set properly.
Yeah. You mark, something likethat? Well, let people think
that. So one of one of the otherquestions I've got as a leader
when I was because I was a DP ina primary school. And you know,
you're trying to achievesomething, you're trying to
(23:23):
develop something in this in theschool, sometimes with a lot of
the teachers that that you'reworking with, they can be so
focused on their classroom ortheir faculty, or you know, what
it is that they're doing thatsometimes they don't see that
bigger picture, or they may haveheard about it at the start of
the year. If you've got thatregular cadence of
accountability, and you'rehaving those regular meetings,
that might be one thing, butwhat can you do about those
(23:46):
people who just refuse to eitherget on board? Or they just kind
of don't get it? Like is theresomething you can do to kind of
capture those people andencourage them into getting, you
know, getting a part of thewhole process?
Mike Reading (24:00):
You're talking specifically not about the
leadership team? You're talkingabout the just the general
teaching team themselves right?
Mark Herring (24:07):
Well, it could it could be either. Yeah. Because
you know, you talked about thosepeople who just aren't on the
bus. I that's a real challenge.
If you're trying to set goals,it's one thing because I think
one of the things that that helppeople be successful is
obviously setting goals andsetting a strategic plan and
then holding people accountable.
But then one of the things thatcan just fall flat is that
people actively put up barriersor are resistors or, you know,
(24:29):
don't get on board and and we'vehad some things that we've tried
to develop on the team, youknow, over the years that that
have fallen flat for a varietyof reasons. What what is
something that I could do as aleader to try and encourage get
those people on board? Go aroundthem even? I don't know. Like,
do you have any any thoughts onthat?
Mike Reading (24:49):
Yeah, I think what we've found is that if you set
that system up withaccountability and daily
accountability, the problembecomes when you let things go
too long. So yeah, when thingshave fallen flat. It's usually
at the end of the quarter, we'vedone a wrap up. And we're like,
why did this not land? Andthey're like, oh, you know,
people just didn't understandwhat was going on. Well, that
should have been solved in weekone, not week 11. Yeah. And so
(25:13):
we just didn't have ouraccountability and our
communication systems set up todeal with that sort of thing
straightaway. So I think onceyou're very clear on the
language and the vision, it'squite easy to have those
conversations at the very startof the quarter or, and just
address it head on, rather thanletting things build over time,
the same kind of principle thatyou should use in your
(25:35):
classroom, as a teacher, it'slike, if you let the class get
too wild, at some point, thatyou get to this tipping point
where it's just like too muchenergy to bring the students
back into control, right, if youadded a little bit earlier, then
wouldn't have been a big deal,that wouldn't have been any
emotion, it would have just beena quick little course
correction, and then back onwith the job, but then you
(25:57):
haven't addressed it. So itturns into this massive energy
sapping conversation, conflict,kind of opportunity. So I think
it's just seen as opportunities.
And when you first notice it,just have a conversation about
it, address it. Hopefully, we'reall professional, and it's part
of our job. That's why I wasasking, Is this the leadership
team or the teaching team,because if it's in the
(26:19):
leadership team, then you'veprobably got a bigger problem
that you need to address than ifit's just in the general
teaching staff or support staff.
Mark Herring (26:28):
Yeah, I had a had a good conversation with the
principal, a friend of mine, whotook on quite a challenging
school once a number of yearsago. And there were a lot of
people who, you know, there wereall these different factions
going on. And he knew that therewere some teachers who probably
needed to just move on. And Isaid to him, you know, two or
three years later, he got in asituation where the school was
just humming. And I said to him,how, you know, what are some of
(26:48):
the keys to your success withthat? How did you how did you
develop your team? How did you,you know, find that right sort
of group of people who weregoing to help you achieve the
vision that you had. And hesaid, the main thing for him was
just focusing on the vision. Andthen you just keep preaching
that vision all the time, youjust keep talking about it, keep
saying this is where we'regoing, this is where we're
going. Don't focus on people. Inthat sense, just focus on where
(27:09):
you're wanting to head, and justbe kind of dogged about it. And
then he said, people just eitherget on board, and they, they
help you and move in thatdirection. Or they just realize
that this isn't the place forthem. And this might be, you
know, maybe this isn't thevision that they're kind of
quite bought into. So it was aninteresting kind of approach.
And I think it kind of talks tothe the importance of having
that vision at the start, butthen all the way through the
(27:30):
year, you just got to keepcoming back to it that you
making sure that that's part ofwhat you're doing.
Mike Reading (27:35):
Yeah, well, I think if you think about it, you
probably never regret having aconversation early. Like there's
never been a time we'veaddressed something. We should
have said that early. But I'vementioned this plenty of times
that you wish it had spoken upearlier. So it's uncomfortable,
and it's not necessarily easy todo at the time. If you think
(27:57):
about it, I reckon the mindsetaround it needs to be sooner
rather than later. Because ifyou think about all the missiles
that you've had, in terms ofmissed opportunities, it's
always because you haven't takenthe opportunity that's in front
of you not because you've acteda little bit too fast on that.
So even if you're a little bittoo quick, out of the gate, at
least it can open up adiscussion where maybe you've
(28:18):
over maybe you're a little bitover critical or a bit
oversensitive, and at least theycan bring some perspective to
what they're seeing. And thatcould help course correct as
well.
Mark Herring (28:27):
Awesome. Mike conversations. It's such a huge
thing at the start of the year,isn't it Bex? And I know that,
you know, hopefully that's gonnagive some value to some people
and give us all some food forthought about how we're going to
achieve some things. Not onlyover the year, but also in the
first 12 weeks, right? Awesome,thanks for being on the show.
Mike Reading (28:47):
See you guys.
Mark Herring (28:52):
Alright, in the Good To Know section today,
we've got James, one of ourtrainers. Good to have you on
the show, James.
James McMartin (28:57):
Good to be here, Mark. Thanks for inviting me.
Mark Herring (29:00):
Pleasure. And you've actually got a tool here
that I've never come across.
I've I think I've seen some ofthe results of these types of
tools and presentations. Butthis is going to be great for
math teachers and anybodyinvolved in statistics, right?
You want to tell us about it?
James McMartin (29:13):
Yeah, yeah. So this is like one of my little
gems to be honest. So as a mathteacher and not be my my jam.
This is like statistics onsteroids. But it's bigger than
that. So this is Gapminder whichis our independent nonprofit
(29:33):
organization, which is actuallybased in Sweden, itself by the
Rosling family. So if you've gota spare 10 minutes and jump on a
TED talks, Hans Rosling's TEDtalks are absolutely
mind-blowing, just like soentertaining but so informative
as well. I found out about thistoo, a few years ago, but it can
(29:54):
be applied on lots of differentscenarios. So for me, I was
looking at the statisticscontent but They've both out to
Lincoln with a lot of the UNgoals. And from a social science
point of view, if it's a boat,sort of looking at our wider
worldview, just like awesome,such a great place. So I'll take
you through a few features ofit. So the website, first of
(30:18):
all, is www.gapminder.org,you'll hit this landing page.
The first thing you see up hereis this sort of upgrade your
worldview. So this is such acool place to start. This is the
hook for the kids. So I'm justgoing to click on this teach you
through a little kind ofquestionnaire. Either get get
(30:38):
your students to do thisindividually, or can I talk
through it as a group, you'regoing to be my guinea pigs, you
didn't know this was gonnahappen. So you're just gonna
have to?
Mark Herring (30:49):
And for those who are listening to the podcast,
James, you'll need to kind ofdescribe what's happening as
well, obviously, not to thedetail, but not everybody will
be able to see it. But yeah,
James McMartin (30:58):
yeah, so So I've clicked on the upgrade your
worldview option, which takes methrough a world view, either,
you can sort of drill down bysort of topics and things like
that. But I'm just gonna linkinto here are the UN goals. And
I'll pick one about no poverty.
So you're going to be tested onsome no poverty related themes.
So here we go. First questionhere for you. How did the number
(31:24):
of deaths per year from naturaldisasters change over the last
100 years? So your options are amore than doubled, B remained
about the same, or C decreasedto less than half? So can we
have a guess? And that's exactlywhy I'm gonna
Bex Rose (31:43):
Go more than doubled.
Because I'm a negative Nancy,
Mark Herring (31:48):
I would say to decrease to less than half.
James McMartin (31:52):
Alright, okay, so I've run through this before,
so I'm gonna go decrease theless than half as well. So well
done mark. Sorry, backs, butyou're in the present the people
that get this wrong. Wow. Sothis is just an example of, of
what this does. So it'sdeliberately designed to
challenge misconceptions. So andit gives you a reason why. So if
(32:16):
you're watching grant, but ifyou're listening, it says here
that we actually got this one,right. But 84% of people don't.
And then it kind of tells you alittle bit about why. So there's
survey results you'rehighlighting from from different
countries, what it is, butactually, about the
(32:36):
misconceptions, such a reallycool thing to this class with
your with your class or moresocieties have gotten richer. So
actually, the the impact fromnatural disasters and things
like that is lessened because wecan afford technology to predict
what's going to happen andinfrastructures better. So
actually, the number of deathshas dropped to less than 10%. So
(32:58):
from 520,000 to 45,000. So givesyou a huge amount of detail. So
this was exactly where I startwith a kits when I'm I'm talking
about the statistics, or I'mtalking about some sort of theme
that we're wanting to introducein the classroom. So this is
just so so cool. I won't gothrough there's like a huge
(33:18):
blanket questions, but we're notgonna have time to go through
them all. But such an amazingstatistic
Bex Rose (33:23):
Statistic's a really neat one to start the year with,
isn't it? James? Jimmy James?
I'm sorry. This is Jim on the Ijust want to clarify that Jimmy
and James are the same person.
But yeah, so six hour is areally good way to start the
year, because it's a really goodway to gauge you know, learn
more about your kids and stuff,isn't it?
James McMartin (33:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it kind of
gives you an insight and sort ofwhat their values are, and what
their their kind of theirmotivations are, and gives you
that way to kind of find outwhat makes them tick, which is a
teacher is called, because onceyou've started to unpack that
for each of the students, youcan absolutely tap into that for
(34:03):
the rest of the year when you'reworking with them. So always
such a good place to begin tohave those conversations in
those discussions. So, so that'swhy for me, spending a bit of
time looking at Gapminder givesme a window into how my students
think, what they value in life,which is just so sort of cool.
Mark Herring (34:23):
So can you give us another example of one of the
graphs and yeah, because I knowthat there are some really good
animations that go on behind soso yeah,
James McMartin (34:31):
so I'm gonna go into the animating data section.
So if you're in the Gapminder,you can scroll down on the first
page, and they've got a toolcalled Understanding the
changing world. So the data thatis linked into Gapminder is all
verified by the UN so submittedby each of the countries, but
(34:52):
independently verified by the UNand then thrown in the back end
here. So all this data is liveand real. So this is My favorite
graph, this is the bubble graph.
And this is a default graph,when you jump in and scroll
down, you can see you've gotincome, you've got March trends,
ranks ages, dollar Street, someisn't as well. But I'm going to
focus on the bubble graph justnow I'm just going to press
(35:14):
play, actually, and then I'llchat. When it plays through
some, this little toggle herejust reduces the speed. So when
I hit play here, what you'll seeis we've got some dancing
bubbles. And each bubblerepresents a country. And
they're themed by color. So theAmericas are green, Europe is
yellow Africa is blue, Asia, andAustralasia is red. The size of
(35:38):
each bubble is linked to thepopulation. So there's a setting
in here in the corner, which hassizes on population. So these
big countries are factoring Hallfor over that last India. All
right. Time is ticking through.
So what are you waiting for one,there's actually not a huge
amount has changed and sort of50 years has been taken by I
(36:01):
have life expectancy. On theleft on my y axis, I've got
income, which is if I hover overhere is the GDP per person for
each country. So the richercountries are going to move
along to the right. And then thecountries with better health
care are going to move up thescale. So you can obviously see
(36:23):
here that the UK in the late1800s was relatively rich and
relatively good life expectancy.
I'm going to click on this one.
So see if I can click on that.
So now that I've clicked on theUK, there, you can see it starts
to track where the UK hasactually been. So I can do that.
You can zoom in and zoom out andthings like that as you can go.
(36:47):
I'm gonna
Mark Herring (36:50):
second so if you're if you're listening, what
we're watching is a graph andthere are these bubbles that are
moving up and down andinterpreting the data that's
obviously inputted in it sort ofmoving across the screen. Yeah,
yeah,
James McMartin (37:03):
not definitely.
So what this does, it just canalallows you to fill context
around real life situations. Sothe the interesting bits, for me
is trying to find out what thesemisconceptions are. So I've just
stopped that. I'm going to goback to 19 hundred's and now I'm
going to, I'm going to ask youanother question or two. So as
(37:24):
we kind of tick through here,you can see there's a massive
population drop there. Can yousee that? Yeah, that was crazy.
Right? So all the countriesacross the world, just at the
end of the sort of name, teen10s evident, like massive drop
there.
Mark Herring (37:45):
So as a teacher, you'd say what do people think
this is when you send them awayand do some research if they
didn't know? Is that what you'redoing?
James McMartin (37:51):
Absolutely. So that's what we're gonna do the
end thoughts what that may be.
Mark Herring (37:57):
I think I know, Bex?
Bex Rose (37:59):
Oh, put me on the spot.
Mark Herring (38:03):
I read lots of books when I was a kid. I'd say
James McMartin (38:09):
It's actually slightly before world. So
World War One.
there's a bit of Atlas World WarOne. But the fact that it see if
I scroll this affects everysingle country. Yeah. So it's
actually the Spanish flu. Wow.
Yeah. So if you think about howrelevant that is, given the fact
we've just come out of the nextmajor world pandemic, yeah. And
then you can see what that wasthe impact of the Spanish flu.
Mark Herring (38:36):
And that was because the soldiers all came
back from the war. Right? Yeah.
And then in contexts where weare, you know, in New Zealand,
and Australia, all of thosesoldiers came back and brought
the flu with them.
James McMartin (38:47):
Yeah, so So this is just like, this is Tokyo. So
I always gonna try and get thekids to, to interpret, like, put
the context around what you'reseeing. And that's the gold bits
or statistics curriculum in NewZealand is amazing for that,
like, context is king. And ifyou can start introducing real
world context, and thesegraphical displays, and we're
(39:08):
not spending time just drawingbar graphs forever, and pie
charts forever, becauseactually, we're going to use a
computer software to do that,like when they get Yeah, NCAA,
that's what they do. What I'mgonna do is we're gonna get
closer to the the end of the20th century. I just want you to
feel silly is this China here?
So this is 1970. I'm gonna clickon China. And 1979, China had a
life expectancy of 64. And itsincome was 1360 US dollars, GDP
(39:33):
per person. All right, I'm justgonna play now. And just watch
what change what happens toChina. So for the benefits of
people listening through the waythe new 20th century and the
early 20th century China justnerves that the bubble for China
(39:55):
goes from that sort of just Toover $1,000, Mark to over
$18,000. And then approximately30 years, which is just the
economy or not, at the end and
Mark Herring (40:12):
the size of that bubble to change, yeah,
absolutely large compared to allthe other continents too. That's
awesome. What's so so to wrapthis up, if you're thinking if
we're you're a teacher listeningor watching, what would be some
of the the immediateapplications that you can see in
their classrooms, particularlyat the start of the year?
James McMartin (40:29):
Oh, totally. So So for me, it's such an amazing
tools or the worldview, upgraderis such a cool place to begin,
because you can actually startto build out some of those kind
of personal values from fromyour students. So within, so I
definitely recommend as thatsort of age break or two really
(40:51):
nice way to kind of get to knowyour students, we always kind of
focus, particularly at the startof the year on those core math
and literacy skills. So beingable to do something that's
probably a bit more engaging,and a bit more relevant to
what's happening in the realworld is such a cool way to use
Gapminder. So I would totallyencourage you to jump in here,
(41:13):
have a look at some of thegraphs, this is just a bubble
graph that we've had a look at.
But there's lots of others and,and please feel free to reach
out because I'll be more thanhappy to talk you through some
of this stuff. I could talkabout it all day forever.
Bex Rose (41:25):
Can I just ask what you think this is more
secondary? Secondary focus?
James McMartin (41:30):
Not necessarily.
So yeah, you know, like, my wifeis a primary teacher. And she
has the added advantageavailable, who can mi skill set
every time she comes home? So wehave kind of spent a bit of time
looking at how she can usegovernment there. So she's used
Gapminder, with your fours five,years, six, and seven. So
(41:51):
depending on what age group shehas been teaching, my thought is
totally doable.
Bex Rose (41:57):
So something just a bit different out of the box,
not just your run of the millstyle of the year. Yes. Could it
really up the ante in yourclassroom? Cool.
James McMartin (42:03):
Oh, definitely such a cool place to be?
Mark Herring (42:05):
Well, yeah, and you're starting stories that are
based around your real lifestatistics and graphs as well.
So for a lot of teachers, theend result, what they're trying
to assess, is actually can Icreate a graph? Can I collect
data? Can I create a graph, canI interpret it, but you're
actually starting with the storybehind the graph at the very
beginning, which is such a neatway to be able to start, it's
kind of like giving medicine butin adding sugar to it. Like
(42:29):
you're starting with the wholecontext around it, which was
fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
James is fantastic. So getminded.com gapminder.org.org
Awesome.
We'll have the link in the shownotes. And if anybody wants to,
to find out more, they cancontact you. We'll have that
there as well for them.
Bex Rose (42:46):
Thanks, Jimmy.
Mark Herring (42:50):
So that's the end of episode one. Not bad to have
one on the can, and it makes ithow did you find that? What was
some highlights for you?
Bex Rose (42:57):
I think definitely hearing about Mike's
interpretation of setting up forsuccess at the beginning of the
year. So making sure you've gotthat vision, I've got a couple
of challenges from that. Makesure that you know what that
vision is in your school and howare you going to form habits to
make those goals successful. Andwith Jimmy's creative aspects
(43:20):
with the new tool. I've neverseen it before on my 20 years.
So my challenge is also let'slet's jump out of that rinse and
repeat start of the year typeactivity and see what else is
out there and and change it upfor 2023.
Mark Herring (43:34):
Yeah, it's a perfect time to be able to do
it. And you know, January, it'sthe holidays, and the southern
hemisphere or if you're on yourChristmas break in the northern
hemisphere, this is the chanceto be able to dive out there and
explore some new things. So ifyou're after some of the links
or resources that we'vementioned today, have a look on
the show notes. And make sure tosubscribe, so make sure that you
(43:54):
don't miss any of the episodesthat are coming down the down
the pike we post every week, oraiming to and we'd love to have
you keep up with us. If you knowsomeone who would get value from
these episodes, hit the sharebutton and let them know there
are ways to be able to connectand grow our community. Lastly,
if you have questions oranything share with us, we'd
love you to email us now it's alittle bit long, and make sure
(44:15):
that I get it right Beck'steam@usingtechnologybetter.com
That'steam@usingtechnologybetter.com
We'd love to hear from you. Seey'all next week. See you later.
Well, I thought it was a really good time people are at
(00:02):
the beginning of the year,you're going, Oh, I'm gonna make
some new year's resolutions andI'm going to set some goals. You
know what it's like, I'm goingto lose like 40 kilos, or I'm
going to do this. I'm going togo to the gym every day, things
like that. And what alwayshappens to those big goals mark?
The better mindset podcast.
Mark Herring (00:23):
Welcome to The Better Mindset Podcast, episode
one. I'm Mark Herring and I'mBex Rose. Conversations about
Leadership, Learning,Educational Technologies and
more. On today's episode weexplore a topic fits on
everybody's mind, especiallyteachers at the start of every
year, we have Mike, ourdirector, give us some of his
top tips for goal setting andschools and the year and your
(00:46):
team the right way, kind of thedark art of goal setting with
your teams. And James shares adigital tool that could change
the way you and your studentslook at statistics forever. All
right, because they're veryfirst making wave segments. This
is all about big ideas ortrends. And we're gonna have a
(01:06):
little chat about that. What arepeople thinking about it this
time of the year?
Bex Rose (01:09):
Well, I thought it was a really good time people are at
the beginning of the year,you're going on going to make
some new year's resolutions, andI'm going to set some goals, you
know what it's like, I'm goingto lose like 40 kilos, or I'm
going to do this. I'm going togo to the gym every day, things
like that. And what alwayshappens to those big goals mark?
Mark Herring (01:28):
Or firstly, 40 kilos is a lot to lose. That's
like, man, you've had a verygood Christmas, if that's.
But yeah, I think the firstthing is you kind of think
you're, you know, you've gothigh aspirations, and you're
thinking you might achieve theworld, but I don't know, tell
me.
Bex Rose (01:45):
All right. So, they generally fall flat because you
start really well. And thenwhat, what leads you down is
potentially the systems that youput in place to keep your goals
going. So I love this book. It'scalled atomic habits by James
clear, and he is all aboutforming really good habits. So
(02:07):
goals are the big things thatyou want to sit for, you know,
maybe for the year, maybe for,you know, a month, things like
that. But the systems are howyou get those goals or how you
are trying to achieve thosegoals. Okay, so most of the
time, if your goals are notbeing met, it's because your
systems are letting you down.
Okay? And that's what happenswhat? Yeah, and that's what a
(02:30):
habit is, right? So he says thatthe quality of our lives depend
on the quality of our habits.
And if you ever think aboutthat, the quality of your lives
depend on the quality of yourhabits. Think of those, they
could be your good habits, butthey could also be your bad
habits, right? Yep. Yeah. No,that's right. So what I'm going
(02:58):
to talk about today is buildingtiny habits, which will be your
systems so that your goals canget met. Okay? So tiny habits
are little tiny things that youcan do every day that you might
not notice as doing anything onthat day. But the compound
interest of those tiny habitswill get you to your goal. Okay,
(03:21):
so that 1% improving, you'reimproving your life by 1% Every
day, is that compound interest.
So if you think about doing onething every single day, like
think this is how I think aboutit. So you go go out for lunch,
and instead of choosing thehamburger, you choose the salad,
and you look in the mirror andyou're like, well, that did
nothing, right? One, oneproceed, right. So you've just
(03:43):
chosen one meal to change. Butif you do that, or if you make
better choices with that kind ofwith your food or whatever, over
a certain amount of time, that'swhen you start seeing the
results. So think of it likethat. Right? So a really good
way of, of working on developinggood habits is a concept called
habit stacking and what what doyou call it? You call it
(04:06):
something else? Mac?
Mark Herring (04:08):
I've heard it described as anchoring. We were
talking about this before. It'syeah, anchoring is just another
way of explaining it, I think,or maybe it's just a different
way of looking at it.
Bex Rose (04:17):
Yeah, right. So habit stacking is is a really
incredible tool. And I knowbecause I have given it a go and
I have I've talked a lot aboutit too, when I was in a
leadership team to my staff. Sohabit stacking is when you say
something that you do everysingle day, without fail, your
(04:38):
body is on that autopilot, andyou attach something that you
want to achieve to that habitthat you already do. Okay, so So
one thing so what I'm thinkingabout is something that I do and
how I got to do it was sohopefully, most of us brush our
teeth every day, right? So youbrush your teeth and that's
(04:59):
something you do every daywithout fail. It's it's you're
on autopilot, it's something youdo every day. So while I brush
my teeth, I take a couple ofdeep breaths straight
afterwards, I take three deepbreaths, because I really wanted
to incorporate mindfulness andbeing present. And just having
that anchor, I guess, in my ownwell being automatic. So when
(05:24):
after I take three really deepbreaths, and I do the square
brace, so it's like n, for holdfor debt and an out for hold
for. And I do that three times.
And what I've noticed is that Ican do that now, when it's not
attached to that habit ofbrushing my teeth. So I might
get in a situation where I'mstarting to feel quite
(05:46):
overwhelmed, something's goingon in my life that I need to
really actually come down andstart using my thinking brain.
So I just go straight into thosebreaths, because it's a habit
that I have created from habitstacking. Can you relate to any
of this? But
Mark Herring (06:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
What you, I think that's, that'swhat that anchoring thing is,
you've actually, you've got ahabit that you're in the habit
of doing, you know, it's like aregular routine, you don't even
have to think about it. And sowhat you're doing is,
apparently, you're creating themuscle memory that connects to
that original habit with the newone that you want to do. Yeah,
it's a really good way of sortof trying to put all of those
(06:23):
little things that, you know,make a difference into an order.
And I think, you know, from ateaching perspective, when
you're working in schools, andthe holidays in January is a
really good time to have a lookat all of those habits, because
you've got the time and thespace and the mental energy to
start creating some newpathways. And that's often been
the time of the year that peoplekind of think I want to, I want
(06:44):
to do things differently. Youknow, it's like, after New
Year's, you've got those newresolutions, I think, you know,
that whole concept of habits isgonna put legs on the on the
actual desire to change. This isactually how you do it, which I
think there's also
Bex Rose (07:00):
something else James Clear, talked it talks about is
when you are developing thosegoals and systems, that instead
of thinking the goal itself, sothinking of the goal itself, so
for example, I want to you wantit, we want to think about what
who the person you want to beright. So, for example, a habit
(07:22):
could be making your bed everymorning, because I want to be
someone who's tidy andorganized. So it's instead of
being so who do you want to be,I want to be someone that I want
to be fit and healthy for mykids. So the habit that I'm
going to create is getting upand going and doing a walk every
(07:43):
day or every three days, right?
So it's you really want to havethat image of who you want to
be, and and create the habits tofulfill that. Yeah, and so that,
and then you might break thatdown even more. So I want to be
someone that's fit and healthywith my kids and strong enough
to be able to lift the kids upto put the star on the Christmas
tree, something like that,right. So in order to do that
(08:05):
breaking down into habit. So itmight be that I will do one
pushup every morning after Ibrush my teeth. Can you see how
that all fits up? Together? Oh,
Mark Herring (08:16):
100%. It's incredible. And that's what
you're doing and holiday mode,right? You're you're sitting
back and you're looking at yourlife and you're kind of
reassessing my bad choices, youknow, but you're trying to
imagine and do thingsdifferently. I always, that's
one of the things about teachingis that you know, you at the end
of the year, or you know, ifyou're in the northern
hemisphere, your summer break,that's the time of the year that
(08:37):
you get to close the book, andyou get to start a new one at
the start of the year, you getthat little little sort of sense
of the term breaks. But youknow, I think that's a really
good opportunity to take a lookat how you want to evolve and
how you want to grow and change.
One thing that when I'm thinkingabout habits, one thing, this is
almost a little mental heck forme, and I don't know if this is
helpful for anybody, but what Itend to do is, is I think about
(09:00):
where I'd like to be and whatI'd like to do in the future.
And you know, what kind ofreality do I want to build
towards, you know, they talkabout doing something for your
future self. But the thing thatactually helps me be a lot more
successful today is thinkingabout the return the immediate
return that I get from thathabit, you know, so, like
drinking water, we know that weshould all be drinking, you
(09:21):
know, three liters a day orwhatever it is that we do, I try
to focus on how I feelafterwards. So when you drink a
bottle of water, just a liter ofwater, or ice water, or whatever
it is, I know that makes me feelreally good. And so what I tried
to do is just try and fixate alittle bit on that and use that
as a mental hack. How do I feelwhen I eat a good healthy meal?
(09:41):
As opposed to when I go out andget a pizza? Like I know that in
the moment when you're eating apizza it feels great but then
straight afterwards for the restof that day. I just feel
disgusting, you know, I just Idon't know. Yeah, absolutely
doesn't doesn't feel good words.
If I have a nice healthy salador, you know, like don't care
Only self worth, just leave us.
But whatever it is, that makesthe difference. I feel good
(10:02):
after that. So I think that's agood thing for habits as well
focusing on how it makes youfeel today, making your bed the
status sense of satisfaction andjust focusing on that. And just
taking the time to enjoy it, Ithink makes a real difference as
well, not always thinking aboutthe future and what it's going
to look like in a year's time,because sometimes that can be
too far out for me to get areward from that. So it's just a
(10:23):
absolute, and
Bex Rose (10:27):
that's when goal Yeah, when they're too big. And my
account director talks about the12 week working year. And this
is and I think that to supportthat as as building these habits
and these systems so that thoseeven those tiny goals can can be
fulfilled. So I'm just going tokind of just finish off with
(10:49):
this is that was, especially inteaching in, it has been a heck
of a couple of years. And so Iwould suggest that teachers
especially prioritize wellbeingis one of their big, big goals
like, so think about how do youwant to feel at the end of next
(11:10):
year? Right? You don't want tobe feeling like you're just like
a zombie walking through thelast couple of days of school.
So what are you going to do?
What habits are you going toform throughout the year, so
that you can preserve some ofthat energy throughout the year
and get to the end of the year,not feeling I mean, it's it's
always tiring at the end of theyear, but you know, present how
(11:30):
you going to what habits you'regoing to put in place to
preserve that energy throughoutthe year. So I my challenge to
you is to think about that.
Think about what tiny habitsyou're going to form on a daily
those 1% was 1% Every day, sothat the end of the year, next
(11:50):
year, you feel more you don'tyou're not completely worn out
that you have got some energyfor your family over Christmas.
And yeah, that's my challenge toyou.
Mark Herring (12:01):
Fantastic, good stuff to think about. Super
excited to have Mike, ourdirector of the company on the
call. Good to see you, Mike.
Mike Reading (12:12):
Hey everybody, great to see you.
Mark Herring (12:14):
you can introduce yourself in a second. But one of
the reasons that I thought wouldbe good to have a conversation
in our very first episode is tohave a chat about some of the
things that leaders are doing inschools at the start of the
year. So we all know thatwhether you're a team leader, or
a principal or a dp of a school,there are things that you're
trying to impact and change, youknow, particularly across the
school year, you've had theholidays, to kind of reflect on
(12:36):
things. And you might have donesome planning at the end of the
last year, we've worked withhundreds of schools over the
last sort of five or six yearsin professional learning. And I
know that there are lots ofthings that we see as being
really successful in that goalsetting approach. But there are
some things that don't work sowell. So I'd love to have a talk
with you about that. And justunpack some of the things that
(12:56):
you see as being reallyeffective. What would you see
would be the first, the firstmajor thing that you think is
really important, starting theterm, starting the school year
as a leader? What kind of thingsdo you think are most important?
Mike Reading (13:09):
Yeah, I think where we see the biggest runs,
or the biggest wins is when youcan have your goals really,
really clearly articulated. Butthen back to real clear vision.
So one of the biggest issuesthat we've bumped into in
schools and businesses all overthe world is that they haven't
clearly articulated what theirvision is. So when they're
(13:31):
setting goals, they've kind ofsetting goals into some of it's
a little bit vague and othernebulous. It's not like super,
super dialed in. So I think ifyou have to do anything, it'd be
like really getting clear onwhat the vision is. And then
starting with that, and maybenot even setting some goals,
just hanging back until you'vegot the vision set. And once
that's clear and communicated,then going. Okay, so if that's
(13:54):
the vision, what do we need todo to achieve that?
Mark Herring (13:57):
Yeah, talk about the vision, being the
guardrails, don't wait towhatever decisions that you're
making. So if you don'tunderstand what your Northstar
is, don't understand whereyou're going, then it's very
difficult to kind of track thatgoal setting. Like, there's so
probably so many schools outthere that are setting goals
based on kind of the vision thatthey've got in their head, but
they haven't actually got thatclearly defined and articulated
(14:18):
across the team. Yeah, that'ssuper important. What would be
some, once you've got thatvision established, what would
be the next step?
Mike Reading (14:25):
Yeah. So then, one of the things we work a lot on
is just making our goals alignedto the SMART goal framework. But
when I talk about it, I don'treally care about the art part.
So the ART. So SMART stands forspecific, measurable, and then
attainable and realistic andtime limited. But what we really
want to focus in on is the S andthe M part. So if it's not
(14:47):
specific, you can't measure it.
So again, if the vision is notclear, then there's no
measurement around it. So theway we can determine very
quickly if our vision or ourgoals Ah, clearly set is saying,
okay, so how do we measure that?
And so, again, so focusingreally in, if we're going to set
(15:08):
a goal, how can we make itmeasurable? And just keep
refining it, refining it,refining it, until it's
incredibly specific? And then wecan chase it down
Bex Rose (15:18):
with regards to developing that vision? Who
should be involved in thatprocess?
Mike Reading (15:22):
Yeah, I think then well, there's lots of key
stakeholders that need to comeinto that, I think, obviously,
you need to have your seniorleadership team and your middle
leadership team involved inthat. But then there should also
be a level of stakeholdersaround that. So for instance,
looking at parent andcommunities or looking at
potential businesses, like who'sgoing to support you, and
(15:46):
partner with you. And gettingsome of that information out
there. But at the end of theday, the buck stops with the
leader. So the principal, thesenior leader, in the they
ultimately needs to stop withthem. They need to carry the
vision, that's their primarypurpose. So if they if they're
not on board with it, if it'snot clear in their head, it's
(16:08):
definitely not going to be clearacross the rest of the team.
Bex Rose (16:11):
Yeah. So that's the most important part is what you
just said there as beingeveryone being clear on it. And
I think that's when you get thebuy in. That's when you get the
traction when everyone is on thesame page with that, right?
Mike Reading (16:22):
Correct. Yeah. So to give an example, we had a
meeting yesterday with oursenior leadership team, and we
spent a lot of time talkingspecifically around the language
about how something's going toget communicated next year. So
people were talking about thesame concept. But I wasn't
prepared to move on untileverybody had the language,
(16:43):
right, in terms of this isexactly how I want you to
communicate it across yourteams. Don't Don't say like,
let's because it leaves openlevel of vagueness that people
can interpret. So we're going tohere's the exact language that I
want us to use right across theleadership team.
Mark Herring (17:01):
Yeah, I've often heard you talk about the
elephant analogy. Do you want toexplain that? Because you put it
say, Well,
Mike Reading (17:07):
yeah, so we talked about how when we speak, we
speak in pictures, not words. Soif I say the word elephant, then
everybody sees an elephant, theydon't see the letters elephant
floating across the screen. Sobasically, what we're talking
about, whenever we communicate,we will need to paint a picture.
The problem is that if I justsay the word elephant, you see
(17:27):
an elephant based on your pastexperience, or what you've seen
on TV, or maybe you went androde an elephant somewhere. But
the elephant that I'm saying iscompletely different. So we
can't think that we'vecommunicated clearly just by
saying, here's the vision, andI'm using the word elephant, and
we're going to be an elephant asa school, then you need to
(17:48):
define that. So what size is thetrunk? What color are the is?
How big is it? What does it havefour legs or three legs. So the
more clarity that you can giveto that that picture, then the
clearer everybody else sees it.
And the less interpretationthere is, for people to bring
their own past experience, theirown worldview, all of that sort
(18:09):
of stuff that comes when peopleget moved from organization to
organization, it's about leavingthat at the door and then
redefining as you come in.
Mark Herring (18:19):
Yeah, it's so critical, because so many of the
visions that I've heard, youknow, schools, articulate them,
I have something written on thewall, or they might have even
gone through one of theactivities that we take your
schools through, where you'redeveloping what that vision
looks like, the word creativityfor it, as an example, can mean
so much, you know, different tosomebody who's teaching in the
math department, to someonewho's teaching in the science
(18:40):
department, you know, and beingable to have that ability to be
able to unpack that word issuper important. Okay. So once
you've got once we've got thevision articulated, and we've
been through some conversations,and we've, we've thought really
hard as a leader about howthat's articulated. And even in
the classroom, when I'mlistening to that I'm thinking
about it in my context, whatwould be some of the next things
(19:00):
that you think are reallyimportant if we're a leader to
try and help us move in thedirection of that vision? What
can I achieve in a year kind ofthing? And how do I go about it?
Mike Reading (19:10):
Yeah, well, I think your question, there just
highlights one of the problemsin the way that we think about
things. So you just said like,what can I achieve in a year.
And so generally, when we'rethinking about the vision, and
we're setting goals, we setgoals as the problem so
basically, most people will waituntil there's a time limit.
(19:31):
That's where that smart partcomes in, where it's time
limited. And you'll leave it tothe last minute to get something
done. So if you set a goal,subconsciously, you're like,
I've got a whole year to achievethat. So there's no urgency.
There's no filtering of activityto make that a priority, right.
So one of the things we alwaysencourage people to do is
(19:53):
obviously have a year goal, butthen break that year goal down
into 12 week, sprints and so on.
Again, yesterday, we just wentthrough this exact process for
us. So we've got our year goal.
In fact, we've got seven goalsthat we're chasing down for the
year. And all of our activityfor term one or quarter one has
(20:14):
to be somehow specificallylinked to those goals. So we
look at that goal yet. Okay, howare we going to break down that
goal for this quarter and focusin on this? And what will we
achieve in those 12 weeks? Soit's really about how do we
shorten that timeframe, and puta bit of urgency around what
we're doing?
Mark Herring (20:33):
Yeah, and that timeframe that you're talking
about, like breaking it downinto 12 weeks that can be so so
powerful, and and a lot of theleaders that I've worked with in
the schools that I've workedwith have really got some really
good impact out of that, right.
So it's just such a new way ofworking. I know that there are
some resources out there that wecan we can share in the show
notes as well, and some links tothe 12 week year approach,
because that's such an awesomeway to get some traction
(20:55):
happening. Let's say we've gottheir 12 week year, how do you
kind of hold people accountable?
Or how do you track thatprocess? Because it's one thing
to have a goal in place? Thenwe're talking about breaking it
down into a term what's what'sthe next step? Like? How do you
kind of get your team on board?
How do you measure things? Howdo you keep people accountable?
Mike Reading (21:14):
Yeah, well, I think that accountability piece
is really important. So it's notabout how do you keep people
accountable? It's how do youkeep a person accountable? So
someone needs to own it? Again,yesterday, this is fresh in my
mind, because we just wentthrough this process. We had an
opportunity where two peoplewere like, oh, you know, I'll,
I'll take that as an initiative.
And we're like, No, someone Buckneeds to stop with someone.
(21:36):
Because if it's Google's job,it's nobody's job. So once
you've found the people in theteam, and then you've given each
of them a role to play, and Iown something, the buck stops
with them, then I think whatwe've found, through lots of
mistakes and lots of learning isthat you need to have daily
accountability. So we've set upan automated system inside our
(22:00):
communication tools that pingeveryone at 5am in the morning,
and they say, what's your focusfor today, what was achieved
yesterday, and what roadblocksare there that needs to get
solved. And every morning, thatmessage gets filled out by those
that are accountable for thedifferent goals that we're
working towards in that quarter?
(22:20):
So yeah, once you've got it setup, and it's specific, and it's
measurable, then you need to setthat daily accountability
cadence, so that you're notconstantly letting things drag
out a week, two weeks, threeweeks, because in a 12, week,
year, a week is a long time. Soyou can't let anything slip,
we've got to stay right on it.
Mark Herring (22:42):
Especially in the school context, because you
know, you've got teachers thatare just caught up in that
whirlwind, it can be a realchallenge to keep an eye on the
big picture, you know, of whatyou're trying to achieve. And
whatever kind of developmentyou're trying to get across in
your school, it's really easy toget lost than that, isn't it? I
do love those 5am pings, the Xin the morning, helps you make
(23:03):
sure that you've got yournotifications set properly.
Yeah. You mark, something likethat? Well, let people think
that. So one of one of the otherquestions I've got as a leader
when I was because I was a DP ina primary school. And you know,
you're trying to achievesomething, you're trying to
(23:23):
develop something in this in theschool, sometimes with a lot of
the teachers that that you'reworking with, they can be so
focused on their classroom ortheir faculty, or you know, what
it is that they're doing thatsometimes they don't see that
bigger picture, or they may haveheard about it at the start of
the year. If you've got thatregular cadence of
accountability, and you'rehaving those regular meetings,
that might be one thing, butwhat can you do about those
(23:46):
people who just refuse to eitherget on board? Or they just kind
of don't get it? Like is theresomething you can do to kind of
capture those people andencourage them into getting, you
know, getting a part of thewhole process?
Mike Reading (24:00):
You're talking specifically not about the
leadership team? You're talkingabout the just the general
teaching team themselves right?
Mark Herring (24:07):
Well, it could it could be either. Yeah. Because
you know, you talked about thosepeople who just aren't on the
bus. I that's a real challenge.
If you're trying to set goals,it's one thing because I think
one of the things that that helppeople be successful is
obviously setting goals andsetting a strategic plan and
then holding people accountable.
But then one of the things thatcan just fall flat is that
people actively put up barriersor are resistors or, you know,
(24:29):
don't get on board and and we'vehad some things that we've tried
to develop on the team, youknow, over the years that that
have fallen flat for a varietyof reasons. What what is
something that I could do as aleader to try and encourage get
those people on board? Go aroundthem even? I don't know. Like,
do you have any any thoughts onthat?
Mike Reading (24:49):
Yeah, I think what we've found is that if you set
that system up withaccountability and daily
accountability, the problembecomes when you let things go
too long. So yeah, when thingshave fallen flat. It's usually
at the end of the quarter, we'vedone a wrap up. And we're like,
why did this not land? Andthey're like, oh, you know,
people just didn't understandwhat was going on. Well, that
should have been solved in weekone, not week 11. Yeah. And so
(25:13):
we just didn't have ouraccountability and our
communication systems set up todeal with that sort of thing
straightaway. So I think onceyou're very clear on the
language and the vision, it'squite easy to have those
conversations at the very startof the quarter or, and just
address it head on, rather thanletting things build over time,
the same kind of principle thatyou should use in your
(25:35):
classroom, as a teacher, it'slike, if you let the class get
too wild, at some point, thatyou get to this tipping point
where it's just like too muchenergy to bring the students
back into control, right, if youadded a little bit earlier, then
wouldn't have been a big deal,that wouldn't have been any
emotion, it would have just beena quick little course
correction, and then back onwith the job, but then you
(25:57):
haven't addressed it. So itturns into this massive energy
sapping conversation, conflict,kind of opportunity. So I think
it's just seen as opportunities.
And when you first notice it,just have a conversation about
it, address it. Hopefully, we'reall professional, and it's part
of our job. That's why I wasasking, Is this the leadership
team or the teaching team,because if it's in the
(26:19):
leadership team, then you'veprobably got a bigger problem
that you need to address than ifit's just in the general
teaching staff or support staff.
Mark Herring (26:28):
Yeah, I had a had a good conversation with the
principal, a friend of mine, whotook on quite a challenging
school once a number of yearsago. And there were a lot of
people who, you know, there wereall these different factions
going on. And he knew that therewere some teachers who probably
needed to just move on. And Isaid to him, you know, two or
three years later, he got in asituation where the school was
just humming. And I said to him,how, you know, what are some of
(26:48):
the keys to your success withthat? How did you how did you
develop your team? How did you,you know, find that right sort
of group of people who weregoing to help you achieve the
vision that you had. And hesaid, the main thing for him was
just focusing on the vision. Andthen you just keep preaching
that vision all the time, youjust keep talking about it, keep
saying this is where we'regoing, this is where we're
going. Don't focus on people. Inthat sense, just focus on where
(27:09):
you're wanting to head, and justbe kind of dogged about it. And
then he said, people just eitherget on board, and they, they
help you and move in thatdirection. Or they just realize
that this isn't the place forthem. And this might be, you
know, maybe this isn't thevision that they're kind of
quite bought into. So it was aninteresting kind of approach.
And I think it kind of talks tothe the importance of having
that vision at the start, butthen all the way through the
(27:30):
year, you just got to keepcoming back to it that you
making sure that that's part ofwhat you're doing.
Mike Reading (27:35):
Yeah, well, I think if you think about it, you
probably never regret having aconversation early. Like there's
never been a time we'veaddressed something. We should
have said that early. But I'vementioned this plenty of times
that you wish it had spoken upearlier. So it's uncomfortable,
and it's not necessarily easy todo at the time. If you think
(27:57):
about it, I reckon the mindsetaround it needs to be sooner
rather than later. Because ifyou think about all the missiles
that you've had, in terms ofmissed opportunities, it's
always because you haven't takenthe opportunity that's in front
of you not because you've acteda little bit too fast on that.
So even if you're a little bittoo quick, out of the gate, at
least it can open up adiscussion where maybe you've
(28:18):
over maybe you're a little bitover critical or a bit
oversensitive, and at least theycan bring some perspective to
what they're seeing. And thatcould help course correct as
well.
Mark Herring (28:27):
Awesome. Mike conversations. It's such a huge
thing at the start of the year,isn't it Bex? And I know that,
you know, hopefully that's gonnagive some value to some people
and give us all some food forthought about how we're going to
achieve some things. Not onlyover the year, but also in the
first 12 weeks, right? Awesome,thanks for being on the show.
Mike Reading (28:47):
See you guys.
Mark Herring (28:52):
Alright, in the Good To Know section today,
we've got James, one of ourtrainers. Good to have you on
the show, James.
James McMartin (28:57):
Good to be here, Mark. Thanks for inviting me.
Mark Herring (29:00):
Pleasure. And you've actually got a tool here
that I've never come across.
I've I think I've seen some ofthe results of these types of
tools and presentations. Butthis is going to be great for
math teachers and anybodyinvolved in statistics, right?
You want to tell us about it?
James McMartin (29:13):
Yeah, yeah. So this is like one of my little
gems to be honest. So as a mathteacher and not be my my jam.
This is like statistics onsteroids. But it's bigger than
that. So this is Gapminder whichis our independent nonprofit
(29:33):
organization, which is actuallybased in Sweden, itself by the
Rosling family. So if you've gota spare 10 minutes and jump on a
TED talks, Hans Rosling's TEDtalks are absolutely
mind-blowing, just like soentertaining but so informative
as well. I found out about thistoo, a few years ago, but it can
(29:54):
be applied on lots of differentscenarios. So for me, I was
looking at the statisticscontent but They've both out to
Lincoln with a lot of the UNgoals. And from a social science
point of view, if it's a boat,sort of looking at our wider
worldview, just like awesome,such a great place. So I'll take
you through a few features ofit. So the website, first of
(30:18):
all, is www.gapminder.org,you'll hit this landing page.
The first thing you see up hereis this sort of upgrade your
worldview. So this is such acool place to start. This is the
hook for the kids. So I'm justgoing to click on this teach you
through a little kind ofquestionnaire. Either get get
(30:38):
your students to do thisindividually, or can I talk
through it as a group, you'regoing to be my guinea pigs, you
didn't know this was gonnahappen. So you're just gonna
have to?
Mark Herring (30:49):
And for those who are listening to the podcast,
James, you'll need to kind ofdescribe what's happening as
well, obviously, not to thedetail, but not everybody will
be able to see it. But yeah,
James McMartin (30:58):
yeah, so So I've clicked on the upgrade your
worldview option, which takes methrough a world view, either,
you can sort of drill down bysort of topics and things like
that. But I'm just gonna linkinto here are the UN goals. And
I'll pick one about no poverty.
So you're going to be tested onsome no poverty related themes.
So here we go. First questionhere for you. How did the number
(31:24):
of deaths per year from naturaldisasters change over the last
100 years? So your options are amore than doubled, B remained
about the same, or C decreasedto less than half? So can we
have a guess? And that's exactlywhy I'm gonna
Bex Rose (31:43):
Go more than doubled.
Because I'm a negative Nancy,
Mark Herring (31:48):
I would say to decrease to less than half.
James McMartin (31:52):
Alright, okay, so I've run through this before,
so I'm gonna go decrease theless than half as well. So well
done mark. Sorry, backs, butyou're in the present the people
that get this wrong. Wow. Sothis is just an example of, of
what this does. So it'sdeliberately designed to
challenge misconceptions. So andit gives you a reason why. So if
(32:16):
you're watching grant, but ifyou're listening, it says here
that we actually got this one,right. But 84% of people don't.
And then it kind of tells you alittle bit about why. So there's
survey results you'rehighlighting from from different
countries, what it is, butactually, about the
(32:36):
misconceptions, such a reallycool thing to this class with
your with your class or moresocieties have gotten richer. So
actually, the the impact fromnatural disasters and things
like that is lessened because wecan afford technology to predict
what's going to happen andinfrastructures better. So
actually, the number of deathshas dropped to less than 10%. So
(32:58):
from 520,000 to 45,000. So givesyou a huge amount of detail. So
this was exactly where I startwith a kits when I'm I'm talking
about the statistics, or I'mtalking about some sort of theme
that we're wanting to introducein the classroom. So this is
just so so cool. I won't gothrough there's like a huge
(33:18):
blanket questions, but we're notgonna have time to go through
them all. But such an amazingstatistic
Bex Rose (33:23):
Statistic's a really neat one to start the year with,
isn't it? James? Jimmy James?
I'm sorry. This is Jim on the Ijust want to clarify that Jimmy
and James are the same person.
But yeah, so six hour is areally good way to start the
year, because it's a really goodway to gauge you know, learn
more about your kids and stuff,isn't it?
James McMartin (33:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it kind of
gives you an insight and sort ofwhat their values are, and what
their their kind of theirmotivations are, and gives you
that way to kind of find outwhat makes them tick, which is a
teacher is called, because onceyou've started to unpack that
for each of the students, youcan absolutely tap into that for
(34:03):
the rest of the year when you'reworking with them. So always
such a good place to begin tohave those conversations in
those discussions. So, so that'swhy for me, spending a bit of
time looking at Gapminder givesme a window into how my students
think, what they value in life,which is just so sort of cool.
Mark Herring (34:23):
So can you give us another example of one of the
graphs and yeah, because I knowthat there are some really good
animations that go on behind soso yeah,
James McMartin (34:31):
so I'm gonna go into the animating data section.
So if you're in the Gapminder,you can scroll down on the first
page, and they've got a toolcalled Understanding the
changing world. So the data thatis linked into Gapminder is all
verified by the UN so submittedby each of the countries, but
(34:52):
independently verified by the UNand then thrown in the back end
here. So all this data is liveand real. So this is My favorite
graph, this is the bubble graph.
And this is a default graph,when you jump in and scroll
down, you can see you've gotincome, you've got March trends,
ranks ages, dollar Street, someisn't as well. But I'm going to
focus on the bubble graph justnow I'm just going to press
(35:14):
play, actually, and then I'llchat. When it plays through
some, this little toggle herejust reduces the speed. So when
I hit play here, what you'll seeis we've got some dancing
bubbles. And each bubblerepresents a country. And
they're themed by color. So theAmericas are green, Europe is
yellow Africa is blue, Asia, andAustralasia is red. The size of
(35:38):
each bubble is linked to thepopulation. So there's a setting
in here in the corner, which hassizes on population. So these
big countries are factoring Hallfor over that last India. All
right. Time is ticking through.
So what are you waiting for one,there's actually not a huge
amount has changed and sort of50 years has been taken by I
(36:01):
have life expectancy. On theleft on my y axis, I've got
income, which is if I hover overhere is the GDP per person for
each country. So the richercountries are going to move
along to the right. And then thecountries with better health
care are going to move up thescale. So you can obviously see
(36:23):
here that the UK in the late1800s was relatively rich and
relatively good life expectancy.
I'm going to click on this one.
So see if I can click on that.
So now that I've clicked on theUK, there, you can see it starts
to track where the UK hasactually been. So I can do that.
You can zoom in and zoom out andthings like that as you can go.
(36:47):
I'm gonna
Mark Herring (36:50):
second so if you're if you're listening, what
we're watching is a graph andthere are these bubbles that are
moving up and down andinterpreting the data that's
obviously inputted in it sort ofmoving across the screen. Yeah,
yeah,
James McMartin (37:03):
not definitely.
So what this does, it just canalallows you to fill context
around real life situations. Sothe the interesting bits, for me
is trying to find out what thesemisconceptions are. So I've just
stopped that. I'm going to goback to 19 hundred's and now I'm
going to, I'm going to ask youanother question or two. So as
(37:24):
we kind of tick through here,you can see there's a massive
population drop there. Can yousee that? Yeah, that was crazy.
Right? So all the countriesacross the world, just at the
end of the sort of name, teen10s evident, like massive drop
there.
Mark Herring (37:45):
So as a teacher, you'd say what do people think
this is when you send them awayand do some research if they
didn't know? Is that what you'redoing?
James McMartin (37:51):
Absolutely. So that's what we're gonna do the
end thoughts what that may be.
Mark Herring (37:57):
I think I know, Bex?
Bex Rose (37:59):
Oh, put me on the spot.
Mark Herring (38:03):
I read lots of books when I was a kid. I'd say
James McMartin (38:09):
It's actually slightly before world. So
World War One.
there's a bit of Atlas World WarOne. But the fact that it see if
I scroll this affects everysingle country. Yeah. So it's
actually the Spanish flu. Wow.
Yeah. So if you think about howrelevant that is, given the fact
we've just come out of the nextmajor world pandemic, yeah. And
then you can see what that wasthe impact of the Spanish flu.
Mark Herring (38:36):
And that was because the soldiers all came
back from the war. Right? Yeah.
And then in contexts where weare, you know, in New Zealand,
and Australia, all of thosesoldiers came back and brought
the flu with them.
James McMartin (38:47):
Yeah, so So this is just like, this is Tokyo. So
I always gonna try and get thekids to, to interpret, like, put
the context around what you'reseeing. And that's the gold bits
or statistics curriculum in NewZealand is amazing for that,
like, context is king. And ifyou can start introducing real
world context, and thesegraphical displays, and we're
(39:08):
not spending time just drawingbar graphs forever, and pie
charts forever, becauseactually, we're going to use a
computer software to do that,like when they get Yeah, NCAA,
that's what they do. What I'mgonna do is we're gonna get
closer to the the end of the20th century. I just want you to
feel silly is this China here?
So this is 1970. I'm gonna clickon China. And 1979, China had a
life expectancy of 64. And itsincome was 1360 US dollars, GDP
(39:33):
per person. All right, I'm justgonna play now. And just watch
what change what happens toChina. So for the benefits of
people listening through the waythe new 20th century and the
early 20th century China justnerves that the bubble for China
(39:55):
goes from that sort of just Toover $1,000, Mark to over
$18,000. And then approximately30 years, which is just the
economy or not, at the end and
Mark Herring (40:12):
the size of that bubble to change, yeah,
absolutely large compared to allthe other continents too. That's
awesome. What's so so to wrapthis up, if you're thinking if
we're you're a teacher listeningor watching, what would be some
of the the immediateapplications that you can see in
their classrooms, particularlyat the start of the year?
James McMartin (40:29):
Oh, totally. So So for me, it's such an amazing
tools or the worldview, upgraderis such a cool place to begin,
because you can actually startto build out some of those kind
of personal values from fromyour students. So within, so I
definitely recommend as thatsort of age break or two really
(40:51):
nice way to kind of get to knowyour students, we always kind of
focus, particularly at the startof the year on those core math
and literacy skills. So beingable to do something that's
probably a bit more engaging,and a bit more relevant to
what's happening in the realworld is such a cool way to use
Gapminder. So I would totallyencourage you to jump in here,
(41:13):
have a look at some of thegraphs, this is just a bubble
graph that we've had a look at.
But there's lots of others and,and please feel free to reach
out because I'll be more thanhappy to talk you through some
of this stuff. I could talkabout it all day forever.
Bex Rose (41:25):
Can I just ask what you think this is more
secondary? Secondary focus?
James McMartin (41:30):
Not necessarily.
So yeah, you know, like, my wifeis a primary teacher. And she
has the added advantageavailable, who can mi skill set
every time she comes home? So wehave kind of spent a bit of time
looking at how she can usegovernment there. So she's used
Gapminder, with your fours five,years, six, and seven. So
(41:51):
depending on what age group shehas been teaching, my thought is
totally doable.
Bex Rose (41:57):
So something just a bit different out of the box,
not just your run of the millstyle of the year. Yes. Could it
really up the ante in yourclassroom? Cool.
James McMartin (42:03):
Oh, definitely such a cool place to be?
Mark Herring (42:05):
Well, yeah, and you're starting stories that are
based around your real lifestatistics and graphs as well.
So for a lot of teachers, theend result, what they're trying
to assess, is actually can Icreate a graph? Can I collect
data? Can I create a graph, canI interpret it, but you're
actually starting with the storybehind the graph at the very
beginning, which is such a neatway to be able to start, it's
kind of like giving medicine butin adding sugar to it. Like
(42:29):
you're starting with the wholecontext around it, which was
fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
James is fantastic. So getminded.com gapminder.org.org
Awesome.
We'll have the link in the shownotes. And if anybody wants to,
to find out more, they cancontact you. We'll have that
there as well for them.
Bex Rose (42:46):
Thanks, Jimmy.
Mark Herring (42:50):
So that's the end of episode one. Not bad to have
one on the can, and it makes ithow did you find that? What was
some highlights for you?
Bex Rose (42:57):
I think definitely hearing about Mike's
interpretation of setting up forsuccess at the beginning of the
year. So making sure you've gotthat vision, I've got a couple
of challenges from that. Makesure that you know what that
vision is in your school and howare you going to form habits to
make those goals successful. Andwith Jimmy's creative aspects
(43:20):
with the new tool. I've neverseen it before on my 20 years.
So my challenge is also let'slet's jump out of that rinse and
repeat start of the year typeactivity and see what else is
out there and and change it upfor 2023.
Mark Herring (43:34):
Yeah, it's a perfect time to be able to do
it. And you know, January, it'sthe holidays, and the southern
hemisphere or if you're on yourChristmas break in the northern
hemisphere, this is the chanceto be able to dive out there and
explore some new things. So ifyou're after some of the links
or resources that we'vementioned today, have a look on
the show notes. And make sure tosubscribe, so make sure that you
(43:54):
don't miss any of the episodesthat are coming down the down
the pike we post every week, oraiming to and we'd love to have
you keep up with us. If you knowsomeone who would get value from
these episodes, hit the sharebutton and let them know there
are ways to be able to connectand grow our community. Lastly,
if you have questions oranything share with us, we'd
love you to email us now it's alittle bit long, and make sure
(44:15):
that I get it right Beck'steam@usingtechnologybetter.com
That'steam@usingtechnologybetter.com
We'd love to hear from you. Seey'all next week. See you later.
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