SEL in EDU
SELinEDU Podcast is stories and insights from outstanding teachers, administrators, leaders, and students on all things Social Emotional Learning in education. These 30-40-minute podcasts are perfect for a commute, a nice cup of joe, or a self-care walk.
SEL in EDU
066: Bridging Educational Conversations: Mastering Communication with Chris Fenning
Why do some educational conversations hit a wall while others build bridges? Join us as we welcome guest host Tammy Musiowsky-Borneman and dive into the art of communication with Chris Fenning. Chris, a seasoned expert who has guided giants like Google and NATO, unlocks the secrets to starting conversations strongly, answering pivotal questions to bring clarity and focus. This episode discusses practical strategies for fostering collaboration in educational settings.
Imagine a school environment where teachers, administrators, and caregivers communicate without misunderstandings and work together seamlessly. Chris shares insightful methods for framing conversations and emails to address broader issues, emphasizing facts over emotions. These techniques make everyday communication smoother and improve interactions. Through personal anecdotes and actionable exercises, we highlight the importance of clear, concise communication in achieving common educational goals and enhancing student engagement.
Finally, we explore the crucial role of emotional literacy and self-awareness in delivering effective feedback. Chris provides a robust three-part structure for addressing feelings and behaviors without escalating tensions, and we discuss why face-to-face or phone conversations often trump emails for sensitive topics. Whether you're a teacher, parent, or administrator, this episode offers a roadmap to better communication and collaboration, ultimately creating a thriving educational environment for all.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
- Connect with Chris via his website and LinkedIn.
- Explore his books: The First Minute, Effective Emails, 39 Ways to Make Training Stick
- Get his FREEBIE: The First Minute Workbook - A practical tutorial with self-assessment and activities to help you improve the clarity of your communication at work. Based on the multi-award-winning book The First Minute.
Welcome to SEL in EDU where we discuss all things social and emotional in education.
Speaker 1:I'm Krista.
Speaker 2:And I'm Craig, and we are your hosts on this journey.
Speaker 1:Hello SEL and EDU family. Thank you for tuning back in again for another wonderful episode, and we have a few change-ups for you, so you won't be hearing Craig's amazingly soothing, melodic voice. You now get the 6 am voice of one of our best friends, tammy Musiaski-Borneman. All the way from Hona, hawaii. Tammy, how are you doing at 6 am this bright, beautiful morning?
Speaker 3:Well, it's not bright yet, but the birds are chirping and I have my coffee, so I'm feeling pretty good. My morning voice is warmed up a little bit, so I'm happy to be here, and I mean I'm not as much of a smooth talker as Craig is because he has a magical voice, but I will do my best.
Speaker 1:I don't think anybody can hit on Craig for that smoothness and I'll admit I'm already worried about how we're going to sign this off, because he signs off every podcast and I think we just might need to splice some of his sign-offs from early episodes. Yeah, he's with us. Yes, and I see you have your coffee shirt on.
Speaker 3:Yes, it says drink coffee, read books, be happy, like what else is there?
Speaker 1:Exactly, Except for the one that says something around. I'm not ready to talk yet. I haven't had my three cups. I think both of us have that one.
Speaker 3:Yes, I have a similar one. Mine's a little bit more snarky, but anyway.
Speaker 1:That snarky one though, too, I just don't bring that to the house, right? Yeah, it's one of those like well, you work in SEL. You probably shouldn't be snarky on t-shirts, right? Not publicly.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I am excited to bring on a guest. He is someone that you introduced me to through one of his newest release books, and we signed up to get a hold of the book, and then I saw all the amazing resources that he had for free out there and I thought, oh, we need to talk to him. You have already talked to him on your podcast, the Minimalist Educator, and we'll put a link here. I am incredibly excited to welcome Chris Fenning.
Speaker 1:Chris makes it easier for us to communicate at work, and who doesn't need that, no matter what job you're doing? He helps experts talk to non-experts, teams talk to executives and much more, and the reason I wanted to bring him in is because I thought, as educators, we can always learn how to better communicate with our students, with their parents, their family, their caregivers and community members. Chris's practical methods are used in organizations like Google and NATO and have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, which, if you're not reading this SEL and EDU family, the Harvard Business Review is fabulous, especially for educational pieces as well. He is also the author of multiple award-winning books on communication and training that have been translated into 16 different languages. I am going to welcome Chris Fenning, who is in Europe at 6 pm time. Chris, thank you for joining us after a long day of work. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm doing great, thank you. The sun after a long day of work. How are you doing today? Well, I'm doing great, thank you. The sun is shining, spring has sprung where we are and I get to talk to the two of you, which is a wonderful way to round out my day before I go and spend the evening with my family.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, thank you, and I remember us talking a couple of months ago and you lived in the US for a while.
Speaker 2:I did, I did. I lived in the Norfolk Chesapeake area in Virginia for seven and a half years.
Speaker 1:And then you said, oh, there's too much of the wide world out there, too many other amazing places to go live.
Speaker 2:We felt a little distant from at the time. Our daughter was three and we were just a long way from grandparents. And a few things all happened together career change opportunities for both my wife and myself and we thought let's get back closer to where our families are. So we had a little bit of a road trip and a bit of an adventure during COVID and ended up back in Europe.
Speaker 1:Well, and that makes me think too, that you know all the different ways that we can communicate. Sometimes there's nothing better than just proximity and being in physical space with each other.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is so much truth to that and I will hold myself back from the science on it. But the biases that we have about proximity and the effect that has on how we communicate in hybrid teams, when you've got remote learning for educators who've got a split audience students in the room with them and people online the natural human biases to be more attentive to those who are directly in front of us can cause real challenges and take effort.
Speaker 3:real effort of us can cause real challenges and take effort, real effort, to overcome. I think it's important the point that you said. There's just nothing like that. You know that face-to-face, especially during learning, because learning is social, right, and so if we take away that aspect, the communication just breaks down and people become unhappy, right?
Speaker 3:So if we think of that prime example of COVID, when people were forced to go online, especially when we weren't ready, like now might be different, because now we've got all the things in place but we just weren't really ready to communicate with each other solely in that way, or mostly in that way at that point. And so to me, me when I think back on that, I'm like, oh, we had a lot of breakdowns because we weren't ready and that was the only way we could communicate. A lot of the times was like we had to get online and that just put a lot of um, a lot of uh, strain on relationships and strain on schools and strain on families, and so that I do think that sometimes the online piece I mean it's great because you could stay connected there was that piece, but just that breakdown was just so hard, especially when we weren't ready for it. We need that face-to-face, that socialization.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and there's probably a portion of the people listening to this saying nope, I was quite happy by myself, with no other people. No, tristan, I see you pointing at yourself there. And it was every teenage boy's dream to have COVID, because they were allowed to play video games for as long as they wanted, all day, every day, and never had to leave the house. In fact, they couldn't, it was perfect, even people who like solitude. There is an element of social cost to that isolation, because, whether we enjoy it or not, the value and the bonds that we make connecting with other people pay dividends in lots of ways over time that we don't realize until they're gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking, before Tammy had shared the insight she did, that we weren't ready for this. I was thinking about how there was this whole shift and having to for teachers to do both at the same time and while people are like this is possible, it was just incredibly difficult. And what you've said about three teenage boys resonates because during COVID I had three teenage boys here one of them was a computer gamer, the other is a video gamer and the other was just wanting to learn and consume virtually, and I think about how that has impacted all of us in some way shape or form, whether we were introverts or are introverts and liked that time of not feeling the pressure to have to be out and on or striving for that connection again, and what that means coming out back in education where we're back face to face again and having to rely on some of those skills and or build some of those skills to be better communicators with each other.
Speaker 1:When I think about the work that you've done, you have two different books out. One is around how to communicate and there's a process to it that you call it a practical tutorial of self assessment and activities, and I went through it. I'm like this is fantastic and it broke it down. If you have something to talk about or to share and I'm thinking about a classroom teacher who is concerned about a child in their room and we know that we have caregivers on the other side who also care about that child how can we communicate in a way that is streamlined and efficient and clear? And then you have a book on emails, but I said I wasn't going to stack questions, so let's just start working on the workbook. So if you could share some of what you've learned about how to better communicate with people to allow for clarity and consistency and connection.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so the book's called the First Minute because, well unsurprisingly, it's about the first minute of communication and the core audience for the book is people at work, so I wrote it for people in a business environment, whether they're technical or business, but they're working in a corporate style environment. But it turns out that the methods are applicable in far more areas, one of which is education, one of which is special needs. There are some family uses for this, although I'm absolutely not qualified to give relationship advice, but I have heard people using the methods. So what are they? Well, the premise is there are certain things that we, as humans, need to have at the start of a conversation to be able to understand and focus on what's going to come next, and those are. They answer three questions, and I guarantee everyone listening to this has thought to these three questions, probably in the last week.
Speaker 2:Someone comes to talk to you and you say what are you talking about? Or what do you want me to do with this? Why are you telling me, or what's your point? Those are the questions that often we have. I see you both nodding. We have these in our heads. Sometimes we will express them, but often we'll have them in our heads as we're getting more frustrated with the person who's not giving us the information we need. And those three questions. So what are you talking about? Why are you telling me this and what's your point?
Speaker 2:Have a neurological and psychological basis, because until we know why we're receiving a piece of information, we don't know what to do with it. Our brains don't know exactly how to process it, which means we don't pay attention and we get frustrated, which, if you're dealing with a situation, for example, parents and teacher talking about a child, that's an emotional conversation. There's emotions at stake in that conversation and if the teacher isn't clear about what they want or why they're talking to the parent about a particular topic, the parents going to be thinking why are you telling me this? And running away with all of those other thoughts and possible assumptions and so on. So getting the first minute right sets a foundation for a really clear conversation, so the audience knows what you're going to talk about and why.
Speaker 2:So those things again are what are you talking about? Why are you telling me this and what is your point? And if you can start your message with three very short statements I think bullet points rather than sentences really, really short. I could say hey, Krista, what I want to talk to you about is this work thing. We have a staff meeting next week. I'd like your help. I'm struggling to get the complete list of attendees. I've told you what I want to talk about and now there's a bunch of other things I'm going to say and we'll have a conversation. You'll have questions, but I've given you the three key pieces of information right up front.
Speaker 1:I think back to a time when I served on what was called the SAP team, so it was a student assistance program and we were helping students who experienced barriers to learning so mental health, drugs, alcohol, anything that was impeding their ability to thrive in school and we often needed to make these phone calls to parents to talk about. You know, here is the specific, descriptive, observable behaviors that we're seeing, that we're coming from a place of concern, that there's no trouble, we're not looking to cause anything, but we're looking to partner with the parents because we care for their children. And so for me, one of the and tell me if I'm on the right track with this, because one of the first things I used to say is, as a parent, I would want somebody who was on my side or to not on my side, because then we're let me take that back Not on my side, but like somebody who understood and cared about my children as much as I do and wanted to help them be successful. Would that be in line with a? What's your point?
Speaker 2:It can be, although it sounds as though what you've described is the underlying emotion, the underlying way. You want that empathetic connection with the other person. So you wouldn't state that at the beginning of every conversation, but you'd want to know that you have that shared goal in mind. So some of the early relationship building communication which happens when your teacher meets parent for the first time and then meets over a period of time being able to convey that and find that alignment, that's an important long-term communication and relationship building component. It's not something you put into the first minute of every conversation because otherwise you end up stating something very bluntly that is a little bit. It's not how we talk about emotions. So that would be an odd thing to do but a great goal to have.
Speaker 1:That makes complete sense and I think that, as somebody who lives in this SEL space and comes from an emotional perspective, this is something that I really need help with and that I gravitate to Like. Help me be more concise and think about how I am approaching something to work on that same goal of supporting students.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, the supporting, let's play. Can we play with that as an example in a scenario? So often the the hard conversations and there are lots of different types of hard conversations but one of the hard conversations is I need to talk to a parent about something that's happened or is happening with a student and it could be they're not achieving their ability. It could be behavior that that's disruptive in class, and I'm deliberately trying to steer away from negative labels because it's not the student doing a bad thing, it's just there's a situation that we want to change or get ahead of or resolve. Quite often those conversations can begin with something that sounds accusatory, or your child is doing this, and that is immediately defensive. I think about if anyone said that about my child, even if I'd seen my child doing it, doing the bad thing or the undesirable thing, part of me would bristle Like, oh, hang on. I feel I must be on the defensive. Maybe that says more about my character than about the scenario, but the human condition? Sorry, go ahead, krista.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. I think it's a natural you were just about to say human condition. I think it's natural to feel that way.
Speaker 2:Ah, yes, I'm not crazy. I'm just a parent and a human. Excellent, it's good to have that confirmed. So when we start those difficult conversations conversations if it starts with a your child has done this, or even if it starts with this situation has happened. It's setting the scene, it's setting the tone for the other party to be defensive, whether they want to be or not, and that is not a great collaborative starting point for a conversation. So there's a different thing that we can do. It doesn't work every time. I'm not promising this is a silver bullet for every conversation but there is a way to structure the beginning of a message like that that can make it less confrontational and it starts with something that we can all get behind, which is a goal that we're all in agreement with. So the structure for the conversation is goal, problem solution.
Speaker 2:And let's make up a fictitious scenario. There's a child who is being. Their behavior in class is disruptive, for whatever reason. They might be bored, there might be trouble at home, they might be being picked on by someone else. There's going to be a cause. But the situation in class is this child, their behavior is distracting and disruptive to the rest of the class. The bad way. The less effective way sorry, not bad the less effective way to start would be your child is causing trouble in class, and here's all the bad things that it's causing. Well, that's a fight waiting to happen. In fact, that's you starting the fight with an opening blow.
Speaker 2:Instead, imagine saying this Our goal is to support all the students in the class, no matter what their different learning style is. One of the problems we're experiencing is we have different people in the class who learn at different rates, and your child is one of those that learns at a different speed to the others. That might be faster or slower, but it's just at a different speed. What we'd like to do is talk to you about some options for how we can adjust and manage this in the class so that we all achieve that great learning outcome. And that might be a little bit cheesy in the way that I've done it. That's just how the example came across, but the point is you do a few things through that you state a goal that everybody should be nodding along to yes, we want this, and if the parents don't want that, you have a bigger problem than just what's happening with the child in the class. So you find that common ground.
Speaker 2:Here's the goal, here's the outcome that we're looking for, right. Then here's a problem that's standing in the way and it's not pointing at little Jimmy or Sarah or Mary Sue, it's not labeling that particular thing. It's saying here's the problem that's stopping us achieving that goal. And then immediately moving on to here's what we want to do about it. And that last step means you're not apportioning blame, you're not picking apart who did what, why and how. It's all terrible, and so on. You can come to that later. What you're doing is saying here's what we'd like to do about solving it, and we want to do it in a collaborative way.
Speaker 3:I think that collaboration piece we assume that people know how to do that too, but if they haven't had some effective communication beforehand, it really sets you back right.
Speaker 3:So just the way you described framing that email or conversation would really like it made me feel more relaxed, because I'm not hearing the pinpointing of the issue around one particular student. We're talking about what's best for all. And so I think that style of communication for parents, even when you're communicating that as a teacher to an administrator, like here's the issue, like we're not focusing on the person, we're looking at the bigger issue, and because a lot of times in that communication between teacher because I've done this myself from teacher to my administrators you get wrapped up in the emotion of it right, because you're frustrated and then the messaging comes out on the other side to parents, or even you know, in your meetings and such, where it's negative and we don't need that negativity, we just it's really about staying factual and giving the information we need to be able to solve a problem, and if we could all just practice that a little bit, I feel like our communication would just be so much easier, right, and less stressful.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is a case where we need to pay a little now to save more, or pay a lot now actually to save more in the the long run. And you said it'd be nice if it was easy, if it was nice if we could practice. This stuff takes practice right. It takes many, many repetitions in different situations to remember, to do it, to get comfortable with these, these very small, simple frameworks. But if you don't remember them or if you're not comfortable in different situations, you won't use them. So getting through that effort now to find ways to build those habits and practice will pay dividends in the long run. And you mentioned something else I'd love to dive into, if we can, which is taking the emotion out. That is absolutely what these frameworks do, to the point that they could be described as robotic, taking out all human emotion and just talking in this very structured, robotic way. That's not the intention, but in some cases it's a real benefit.
Speaker 2:When I published the book a few months after publishing it, somebody who works with autistic children and families, where there's a challenge communicating with the children and there's a challenge where the parents and the children's communication is very contentious, often blows up because there's a lot of emotion minute to help the parents structure and organize their thoughts so they could deliver a message in a way that did strip out the emotion and it helped the whole conversation focus on the facts rather than the feelings. Now, not to ignore the feelings, they are important, but quite often feelings blow up communication to make it difficult, bad, unsuccessful, unsuccessful and so on. So if you can start by removing the big emotions, that really helps. And the second benefit which I had never considered this, but I can absolutely see the benefit was when communicating instructions to special education needs children of certain, certain types is a huge variety.
Speaker 2:They're using these methods forced the teachers, forced the parents, forced the grown-ups to give short, clear, specific information and it strips out the detail and the justification and the tangents and the other stuff and it here's what we'd like you to do, here's why we're doing it and here's the next step. Or I want to talk to you about your maths homework. I'd like you to ask you some questions. I have five questions I'm going to ask you. Here's question one Really specific, so that the child wasn't overwhelmed with all this extra info and trying to process 17 different pieces of information whilst feeling guilty that they may or may not have done their homework or whatever else is occurring at the time, so that structure without emotion and simplifying seems to really help in some situations.
Speaker 3:I'm glad that you brought that up, because that was something I was thinking initially when you were talking about how to you know what am I talking about, why are you telling me and what am I doing with the information? And that immediately brought me into the classroom right. So often and I'm going to generalize here often a teacher will give an objective but then there's no why we're doing it. We're just going to do it because we have to do it or you have to learn it, and that's not really a reason Like yes, you have to learn it. But when we connect that here's why we need to know this in very explicit ways you do get a more positive response from students, because they're understanding then the purpose for what they're doing and what they need to do with it. And a lot of times we just skip over that.
Speaker 3:I just had this same this conversation with a teacher last week at a school. I'm like let's get to the. You know you're late in the year, we're in that final stretch. When was the last time you talked about why you're doing some of the things that you're doing? And she's like, yeah, you're right. I haven't really gotten into that and I'm like that will probably alleviate or could alleviate some of the little things that you're seeing pop up in your classroom, where it's like those little behavior things that are coming up. Maybe they need to know why. Maybe you just need to be a little bit more articulate or specific about the things that you're doing and see like monitor to see if there's that change. So the communications communication is, you know, it's like a thing we have between teachers, but then we want that to translate into students and this is like exactly what you're talking about to be able to solve some of those problems.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you've just reminded me of something I haven't thought about for 25 years and is quite possibly part of the inspiration for what went into the books. I was a horrible student to have. All through school, I was one of the most annoying students. I really feel for my teachers and I'd be one of the kids who'd go.
Speaker 2:Why do we have to learn this? What is the point? Why am I doing this? Let's say it's history, and one of the responses or an example of a response I would got. Let's use history as the example was.
Speaker 2:Well, we want to have a good, prosperous, happy future for everybody. The problem is we can't predict what happens in the future, so what we do is look at the past and learn from it so we can make better decisions. Well, that's the goal, problem solution to justify why you should have history lessons. There's more to it than that, but very simple things like that that connect to an understandable goal that we can all nod along to builds that affirmation and the okay, yeah, fine, I get it. And then you'd get kids like me who would then continue the argument to go oh, but this and but that, but that's so. There's a limit to the, the usefulness. But you can get a lot of people in in that kind of approach, find a goal that they all agree and aspire to and then then say the problem is, do we all know how to do it now? No, no, we don't. All right, so we're going to have some lessons and give you the tools and methods to be able to do that and practice it and do great things.
Speaker 1:I have all of these ideas bouncing around in my head and so I'm going to try to streamline them. To be very clear on practicing and just for those of you who are listening, like, this is something I actively need to work on and I know this my emails are too long, I'm too wordy. I need to work on this. And one I love your workbook because it takes you through exercises and it actually says how many words did you use to be able to get this?
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, that's a challenge. How did you find that exercise? Some people love it, some people hate it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I loved it. I mean, it was kind of like at first I'm like oh yeah, okay, wow, that's okay, hmm. But I think as you keep going through, you see the progress that you're making and so it is empowering Like I can do this and you get to see that growth as you go through. So for me, I really liked it and I needed that, and so I think the pieces I'm putting together here are looking at like the relevancy and the goal, and my understanding around creating teams, creating groups that are high functioning whether it's a classroom or a faculty or connections with caregivers is you do have a common goal, and so it's kind of that. Why are we here? What can I contribute to this?
Speaker 1:And if people are not on the same page, I appreciated how you mentioned in your example around the solution and it wasn't here's what I'm going to do as the teacher. It was what can we do? You're co-creating this with the families and the caregivers and I think, like in Tammy's situation too, we can co-create that with students. What could be some solutions? If we're not coming, if we're not on agreement with that goal, it's not me saying this is how it's going to be, and so we're opening up some of the relationships there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's a lot of power in asking for help and doing it collaboratively, and in the example I gave, I said oh, oh, I'm looking for your help. It's not always going to work, but quite often, even if you have a solution you want, if you ask the other person for help, they will buy in more. There's a a human nature that when we're asked for help, we pay more attention, we lean in and we're more likely even if perhaps begrudgingly, but we are more likely to get involved with that conversation. Now you have to be genuine in wanting their input. You may have an option and you want help from the other party, from the parents, to validate that that's a good option or find ways to implement that option.
Speaker 2:You might not be able to's a good option or find ways to implement that option. You might not be able to move on the option. We have to do this thing. So I'd like your help in to find ways that we can do it without friction or we can do it easier. It doesn't have to be fully collaborative, but you do. If you use the can you help technique. You have to genuinely want and look for ways to bring the help in.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking too. I'm in the middle of writing out an agenda for teachers who are in Title I schools, who want to find ways of being trauma-informed, healing-centered and working with kids who demonstrate big emotions, and I'm thinking about how this structure that you're laying out would be a perfect resource for them. When we're talking with students who have experienced, I think, way more than what kids typically should have to go through, and how do we, as adults, become more clear and concise to communicate expectations and relevancy to them? And so I think there's a lot of practical application if we continue to keep these procedures at the forefront.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could almost be described as simply as just say one thing at a time, deal with one thing at a time. You may want to talk about five things, there may be five connecting reasons for your request, but say your request, have that conversation and strip out all the extra detail, get very clear and very succinct and then think we all find hardest, then shut, shut up, let's stop talking and get their, their input.
Speaker 3:Tammy, really leaning in there yeah, I think it's just so easy to want to keep talking a lot of the times, like I think there's two different skills at play there. Right, practicing writing this in an email and being super concise, which I think I've, over time, have gotten much better with. Like I just sent an email before we got online and I was pretty proud of like how concise I was. But then we get on a podcast talking and I'm like, oh, I could just like keep talking about these things, but like what's my point?
Speaker 3:So you're right just say the thing and but here give yourself a break.
Speaker 2:There's a social aspect. So there's a big difference between transactional and social, and in a social environment, stories can weave all over the place, as long as we're not that person that talks for 20 minutes on the one story that like, oh, where is this going? Is it ever going to end? So there, there is give and take, but don't you and anyone else listening to this, don't beat yourselves up for for for being social communicators, that can be messy and twisty and interesting and repetitive. All that stuff is great. That's we need that. When you're doing transactional in the classroom with the parent at work, then we do need to put in that extra effort to structure. That's a lot of. This is how do we structure the message and make sure we're giving what the other person needs so that we can achieve our goal. Can I go back just a little bit when, when we were talking about collaborative solutions?
Speaker 1:absolutely and using usually.
Speaker 2:Thank you, so using goal problem solution for uh, for, with the kids that's. I could be really sticking my neck out here, but that's kind of the montessori method or it's connected to the montessori method of of it's what is the thing you want to learn about? All right, what are the problems that you either want to solve, or how do you find that information? And then the children are coming up with that solution. How would they do the research? Do they go online? Do they find books? Do they go? So?
Speaker 2:Silly example, not a silly example. My daughter went to Montessori for a while and they did a project on birds. The kids got to discover, like, pick, what did they want to do? Some of them pick the life cycle, some of them pick nests. And something else said okay, how do you learn about nests? And the children came up with well, I can go to a hedge and look for a nest and can I pull one out? And then they could talk about disrupting birds in nature and so on. And that was solution-led from the children, guided, structured, but solution-led from the children.
Speaker 1:I'm smiling a lot because Tammy and I partner in curriculum writing spaces, so there are schools that don't have the bandwidth necessarily to do the written curriculum and so they come to us, and Tammy has expertise in inquiry learning, and so what you're describing is something that we work into K through 12 to. And, tammy, tell me if I'm speaking out of turn, because you also work in agency how can we provide a sense of agency to students? And in the research that I was doing today, connecting agency and efficacy and hope to building resilience among our students, and they're all tightly woven in.
Speaker 3:And so thinking, tammy, if you wanted to jump in from an agency perspective to really reinforce what Chris was sharing about the birds and his daughter, yeah, I think that it's all the skill development that we always talk about, right, we're like these are all skills that we want students to come away with from school and, yes, we want them to have the content. We want them to learn about birds and what's in nature and around them. But how are we opening the opportunities for them to be able to figure that out for themselves? And not completely unstructured? Right, there is a structure behind it.
Speaker 3:It's not willy-nilly, like some people think, that inquiry is just this very open thing, which it could be, but it's really not. It has a structure to it and a purpose and deep meaning, because we have kids that are constructing their own knowledge in their own way, and when we do that with communication as well, think of how strong our students will be when they leave school or move to the next grade, when they're coming away with effective communication skills and they're moving along like being able to articulate exactly what they need and why they need it. Right and that's it. So, yeah, it's very exciting. I'm like you know, here's my thing. I could just keep talking.
Speaker 2:And that articulation is not just the transactional lesson stuff, it's all the. When you can do it in one area, it gives you a tool you can use to articulate the emotions, which is the hard thing to do. Articulating facts, desires etc. That's you know. And regurgitating stuff is one thing. Asking for things, but being able to articulate what's going on inside and structure and organize the thoughts to say I want to do this thing but I can't because of this, please help. That could be the solution. Part is just a cry for help. Or I want to talk to you about this. I need this thing. Here's the thing I need.
Speaker 2:Being able to have a structure gives us a life raft to cling on to in that ocean of emotional turmoil. And I wouldn't want to be a kid again now going through education, because it's harder now and I say that I'm not in it, so I guess I'm making a big assumption. But, for example, bullying when we were kids you could go home and and shut the door and the bully couldn't get you. They were still in your head. They would still be there when you open the door again, but the bully couldn't get you. Now the bully is in your pocket and in your hand, on your phone, on your computer, or there is no escaping anything, and so being able to articulate and talk about those things in the safe way if there's more to deal with now than we had when we were young.
Speaker 1:And, as I'm thinking originally, this started when I was like, oh, we could connect this to how we can work with the caregivers better, and it's really becoming apparent to me how we can scaffold this for our students, and I'm even imagining in classrooms that we're working in an anchor chart is what they call them, right Tammy, like in the elementary level, like what is the goal, what is the problem that we're seeing being specific, descriptive, observable, like what's this language, so that we're not accusing or coming off as well, I think, and how do we take some of that emotion out of it? And then how do we come up with a collaborative solution and even some sentence stems for students and for us adults, because I feel like I could be using those as well to facilitate some of that conversation until it becomes a routine, part of who we are and what we do.
Speaker 2:Until it becomes a routine part of who we are and what we do. You mentioned stems and conversation stems. There's a structure for giving feedback and this works for adults. It's taught for corporate environments or adults giving feedback, but it also works for relationships and it does work with children. It's another three-part framework.
Speaker 2:In any situation where you want to give feedback to someone because they're doing something you don't like or there's an undesirable, is that that's very short, so it's hard to conceptualize. So when I'm talking and you interrupt in my sentences, I feel that you don't value what I'm saying and the result is I don't want to talk to you about some of these topics. It's not when you do this thing, it's when this thing happens, when I'm talking and I'm interrupted halfway through. It makes me feel this emotion. You can't tell me my emotions are wrong. I mean they might be, but my opinion and my emotions are how I interpret and feel in that situation. I'm not saying how you feel. I'm not saying that it's your fault or you mean to. I'm just saying when this thing happens, I feel this. This is what happens to me, and the result is something else.
Speaker 2:The result is other children can't learn and the result is we have a breakdown in communication. The result is other children can't learn. The result is we have a breakdown in communication. The result is something else and that states the situation. It states the negative thing and then opens up the conversation for I'd like to talk to you about how we can solve this. And it takes out a lot of that emotion, doesn't remove it completely, but it takes out a lot of that emotion. It doesn't remove it completely, but it takes out a lot of that emotion. That three-part structure can help anybody articulate the feeling that they've got, but without throwing a punch with the first line the SEL fans out there from social awareness and relationship skills now into self-awareness and self-management.
Speaker 1:So being able to have that emotional literacy with this is how it impacts me. You don't need to agree with me, but you can't invalidate how I'm taking this and I need to think about. Here are the natural, logical consequences of me feeling like this, as I think to like. I feel like we could keep talking, and I have one more question that I'd like to put out there for you, because I was immediately pulled in with the communicating, the talking, and you also have effective emails, and I know thinking about education and how we're always feeling and I'm generalizing because I'm not in the classroom, but my sense is that we're always rushed, time is very limited and so when we pick up the phone, we might not get a hold of somebody in that moment, and so people tend to default to email. But we also don't want our emails to be really long and lengthy, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and even what you've experienced in business phone calls and conversations versus emails.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so the short answer to what I believe you're asking is this the more emotive the topic, the more emotion that is in the topic, and the more important the topic, the more you should reach for the phone. And, unfortunately, most of the times when we're reaching out to parents from school, it's because of a bad thing or it's a a negative situation or there's something where there's going to be emotional friction somewhere in there. And, yes, email can seem like the better way to do it. Don't Use email to set up an actual conversation, and here's why. Here's the evidence for that.
Speaker 2:There was a study done a couple of years ago and it was done in a fun way about how well we can interpret emotions from text, and the study asked people what they thought the chances were that a stranger could tell if they were being sarcastic in a text message or in an email, and the result was it was 50-50. It was a complete guess, complete chance. You could toss a coin as to whether that stranger would understand, and so if you think you're telling a joke, the other person may take that seriously. That very quickly can lead to misunderstandings and problems. Here's the really interesting part of that study. They then asked people really interesting part of that study. They then asked people what do you think the chances are that your long-term partner can tell when you are being sarcastic in a message, and what do you think the result was from that?
Speaker 1:I'd like to say that people thought their partner would be on the same page with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they weren't. So thought oh, like an 80 chance or more that my partner because my partner knows my sense of humor they can tell when I'm joking. No, 50, 50, even our partners can't tell whether we're joking or not. And that was a light-hearted situation. Now imagine you're talking about an emotional or emotive topic connected to a child in a classroom. There's no way the end user is going to interpret, or it's complete chance sorry, not no way, but it's complete chance whether that end reader is going to interpret the message in the way that you intend. So why take that chance? Have the phone call. So why take that chance? Have the phone call? Phone, even voice only is better than text, because tone of voice will convey your level of sympathy, your empathy, your actual desire to solve the situation, whereas an email may be considered as a finger pointing and throwing this over to the parent to solve. So to keep the email short, if you need to talk about something with a child and it's not a happy, really happy, positive, crazy situation, get as close as you can to phone or face-to-face. While I've just given an example about how the more emotive a topic, the more you should get close to the person, for relationships and so on.
Speaker 2:There is a time component and I've been through this in the business world and I can absolutely understand anyone listening to this saying yeah, that all sounds really good, don't send emails, talk to people, but we don't have the time because of the crushing weight of other stuff that's required of teachers now, which again wasn't required 20, 30 years ago. Here's the glimmer of hope I'd like to be able to give you more than a glimmer of hope. Here's why I think you will actually save time if you pick up the phone. The email can be sent to arrange the phone call so that you can have the conversation that doesn't go off track and doesn't get misinterpreted. If you send the long email, you've got the time it takes to write the email, which is actually longer than it takes to say it, because we type much slower than we speak. So we're already saving a bit of time.
Speaker 2:The second thing is you'll avoid, or more likely to avoid, misinterpretations and misunderstandings, and that's where those email chains get longer and longer and longer and end up in an angry parent-teacher conversation. Not always, but those situations can very likely be avoided by sending a short email to ask for a phone call and that phone call time is going to save time in the long run. So if you're, if you are thinking, oh, great advice, but it's only in an ideal world. We live in the real world, chris, we don't have time to do it. It's the email is to arrange a time that's convenient, that you can talk to the parents and you will save time in the long run. So that that is something I really wanted to make clear, that it's it's not just pie in wishful thinking. There really is a time saving for the teachers involved here.
Speaker 1:I love that piece adding in because then you can also arrange for a specific time that is convenient for both people and I think it can give you an opportunity to kind of decompress and think about your problem or goal, problem solution and maybe write out a couple thoughts so that you're prepped instead of just picking up the phone and you know when you have some of those big emotions going on. So, thank you, I think that many of our administrators and teachers are going to find that incredibly helpful. Just Just quick email out, schedule the phone call. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:I love a circle conversation where we're kind of back to that in-person communication is usually going to be best or, you know, being able to hear each other's voices, because, right, tone matters and it gets lost in the emails. And I feel like, as you were talking about you know, like, can you determine, you know what your partner was intending to mean in this email, that I feel like that can be like a superpower, right, like, oh yeah, I fully know what they're saying, what they mean by that, and so at the end of all of the sel and edu podcast, the question is what is your sel superpower? I feel like you have a lot of them, so what do you think? Gosh?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, um, I guess be being able to use structure when I feel emotion taking over. It's getting to the point clearly, in spite of big emotion. Check in with my wife to see whether I actually do that or whether I just believe it Right.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think we all aspire to that and I joke that that is my worst SEL skill, like when I'm really happy, I'm like woo and it takes me a long time to get really upset, but it's usually just like a and um the regulation piece. But I like that you've provided, like the structure, and Tammy loves structures and systems and she's usually my go-to person for how do I streamline this and make things doable and manageable to get that shared outcome? And I think that the resources that you share while I know they originated in business and this is why I like the Harvard Business Review is that we're not running a business in education. We're working with human beings who have emotions and I love that flexibility and adaptability.
Speaker 1:But there are some things that we can use that can make our lives easier and better, and our kids deserve that. And so how can people get a hold of you, chris? They're like this is amazing. I want to be able to connect with him, to buy all his things, to sign up for the email list. Could you share for those people who are listening and don't have a chance to look at the show notes yet?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes. The place to find out me, get all the free resources you mentioned earlier and so on, is chrisfenningcom, it's mynamecom and my social hangout is LinkedIn. So you can connect with me on either one of those and I'm more than happy to answer any questions at all. We've done this. We've talked a few times outside of this, so happy to chat, and if anyone would like training, support, coaching et cetera, you can find all those details on my site.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. We appreciate your time, your willingness to share your expertise. For those of you who are listening, I am not able to sign off like Craig. I'm not even going to try to sign off like Craig, but I do want to remind you that we are all here, working together to support our students, no matter if we're in the US, if we're in Europe. We all want our students to thrive, and so we hope that you continue to hold all of those that are near and dear to you and stand in the SEL light. Thank you, and we'll see you on our next episode.
