Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Helen Reynolds
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[00:00:00]

Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom. This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education. Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com. I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast. And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching. A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords. Only stuff that works

Gene Tavernetti: If you are a listener to this podcast, you are probably also interested in much of the discussions about science of learning that we have in our social media. And one of the things that we've learned, or that's discussed frequently, is that how [00:01:00] far ahead of the U. S., the U. K. is in implementing many of the science of learning ideas.

Gene Tavernetti: That's why I was so excited to have my guest today is somebody from the UK, but she's also taught in the United States. So she has that perspective and is able to compare the, what it's like to teach in the two different systems. So my guest today is Helen Reynolds. Helen has taught physics and science for 36 years, 22 of which were in a public school in the UK.

Gene Tavernetti: She was involved in the design of the UK national curriculum and has written textbooks for middle school science and high school physics and has worked for the Institute of Physics training teachers to teach physics. She is the recipient of two national UK teaching awards and an MBE medal from the Queen for services to science education.

Gene Tavernetti: She's worked in a private school in the U. S. since 2016 and is currently teaching high school physics and AP physics. And for [00:02:00] those folks in the U. K., the AP physics would be equivalent to your A levels. She teaches in Tucson, Arizona, and she is fascinated by the application of the findings of cognitive science in the classroom, where she has been using extensively and in strategies to get more students.

Gene Tavernetti: to choose physics. She's presented at Research Ed in Denver last year and will be presenting at Research Ed in New York in March. So happy to have Helen on today. I think you're really going to like this one.

Gene Tavernetti: Hi Helen, great to see you. Both of us a little bit under the weather, so we'll see how this goes. And but so very happy to see you. And like I said in my introduction, one of the reasons I really wanted to have you on the show is because you have experience teaching.

Gene Tavernetti: In both the UK and in the United States, and it's one of the things that we both know, [00:03:00] and we need to recognize is that just because you've taught at a school or a couple of schools, it's very hard to generalize. that experience to the U. S., but still, I think you are special in that way about having experience in both the U.

Gene Tavernetti: K. and and the United States. And one of the first things that I'd like to ask you like in your bio, you said that you had taught in in public school in the U. K. What does that mean? I think it's different than in the U. S., isn't it? Or

Helen Reynolds: Well, it's super interesting. So, very, I'm very glad you said that about not generalizing. Broad strokes would be that I have taught in a public school or a state school, we call it in the UK. And I've only, that's all I've done. And I've taught only in private schools in the US. I have not taught the other way around.

Helen Reynolds: So I don't, I'm not taught in a private school in the UK. or a public school here. But I know lots of people who have, but my remarks are going to be prefaced around that. The state school I taught was just outside [00:04:00] Oxford. It was it was a mixture of people, of communities, very Wealthy people who worked at the university and a whole range of different types of student.

Helen Reynolds: And we call it a bog standard school in the UK. So I taught there for 22 years. It was back, the day, the year I started was the year before the national curriculum started in the UK. So I had a year of basically quite a lot of autonomy, and thereafter I did not. We had quite a for a while, quite a rigid and extensive national curriculum, which developed over the years.

Helen Reynolds: So yeah, so it was, there were lots of aspects to it that are very different to the experience I've had in the U. S.

Gene Tavernetti: Okay, I'm sorry to, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but still I don't know the difference between a public school, a state school, a private school so if you could,

Helen Reynolds: Sorry, yeah, I misunderstood. Okay. So, yeah, so basically 9 percent of the [00:05:00] population in the UK go to private schools where parents pay. They pay quite a lot of money, a significant amount of money, almost like college money over here. The rest of the, 91 percent of the population go to state schools, which you would call public schools here, which are, used to be run, By the the government via things via sort of state or districts that as you would have them here.

Helen Reynolds: I'm going to try and translate to what the U. S. So you would have like a district that runs all the schools in the district, they would get the money from the government, they would allocate that money to the schools, the parents pay nothing, it's totally free. And back then also universities were free as well.

Helen Reynolds: So the majority of students in the UK go to those schools that are free and funded by the government. There are Obviously, it's like, you know, there are some faith schools and things who get funding elsewhere, but the majority of people have put their children through that [00:06:00] system. There isn't a great deal of choice.

Helen Reynolds: They kind of go to their local school and it's yeah. And they don't have to pay anything. And so there are, there is a system around that where, because the money comes from the government, there's then accountability around that. Although, that has diversified recently, so it's become a little bit freer, and we have things that are more akin to the charter.

Helen Reynolds: Things that you have here. I think the charter thing interestingly was imported from the us to the uk.

Gene Tavernetti: Oh, okay. Okay. Interesting. So most of your experience was in these state schools, what we would call public schools. And. You said there was a national curriculum that was established and I know that in an introduction, we talked about the fact that you had written curriculum. Was this the curriculum?

Gene Tavernetti: Had you written curriculum for the national curriculum? Is that what you had done? Okay.

Helen Reynolds: Yeah, so basically the way it worked back then so it was I think the [00:07:00] first one I was on was not either 1990 I think they gathered together. There was a government agency The qualifications and curriculum authority and they wrote the curriculum, but they gathered together people from every subject area and every level within the subject area.

Helen Reynolds: So I was representing the physics high school level. There would have been an elementary or a middle school level. Person there in science, there would've been a university person, there would've been researchers, and we all got together and we basically wrote lists of content and later skills, but that didn't last very long.

Helen Reynolds: But you get the people in the room, basically that's what you do. You just write down that gets published. The school takes. A look at that. There are, and then decides how they're going to, I used to hate that word, deliver the curriculum. I don't think it's, I don't think it's pizza. But anyway they had a whole then a whole thing grew up around that, about packages you could buy to deliver the curriculum.

Helen Reynolds: [00:08:00] But that was basically it.

Gene Tavernetti: So there's a national curriculum What is, what's the teacher's obligation? I mean, how complete does this come? Does the teacher still need to do a lot of work in able to did we come up with another word instead of deliver?

Helen Reynolds: Oh,

Gene Tavernetti: but

Helen Reynolds: an act. I mean,

Gene Tavernetti: so, so how strict is this? Because again, when we think of, you know, in the United States, There was major uproar when we tried to just develop you know, some consistency of what it meant to be educated when you left high school or eighth grade or anything.

Gene Tavernetti: So, so what was the specificity and what was the expectations of the teachers enacting this curriculum?

Helen Reynolds: It's an it's a hundred percent. I mean, this is what you do. You don't have a choice. One of the interesting things that happened to me here, I'll just throw little anecdotes that will show you how I have, [00:09:00] how interesting it was to be like fish out of water for a while here. When somebody said, Oh yeah, I thought I was going to get to do that topic in the curriculum in, I think it was biology or something this year.

Helen Reynolds: Not at my current school, not the school. And I don't think I'm going to get to that, so I'm just not going to do that. I'm like, wait, what? You're not going to do it? Like, you have to do it. Like, you have to. Like, it's the curriculum. You do it. You deliver the curriculum. You do the entirety of it.

Helen Reynolds: You have an obligation to ensure that everybody has done everything. It's always been that way because of the external examination system. Because unlike the U. S. You have exams in sophomore year and exams in senior year and these matter and they count and they are based on the curriculum. So the teachers are obligated to do the entirety of it.

Helen Reynolds: How they do it has interestingly, has evolved. When I first arrived in school, they gave me, like, the scope and sequence and said, It would be handy if they [00:10:00] knew that in a couple of years time and gave me a book. That was it. I was brought on with it. Now, if you went to a school, you've seen on these videos that are going around, I mean, it is very much more prescribed.

Helen Reynolds: This, you know, this is the lesson sequence. This is the lesson, these are the lesson plans that go with that lesson sequence. This is the timing. It is very much more specified than it was when I started. That's developed though. And then you've got places, people like OUP, Oxford University Press.

Helen Reynolds: I've declare an interest because I write books for that. We provide a middle school curriculum that covers the entire national curriculum and it's very specifically it's obvious where every single part of the curriculum exists in the books and the resources and the lesson plans.

Gene Tavernetti: So, and then you came to the US and you found something very similar.

Helen Reynolds: I flatly was [00:11:00] so funny. I mean there are so many funny stories about So, yeah, I did have a lovely conversation with a with a co worker and she said, you know, the thing about this is you can do what you like. You literally can do what you like. The problem is you can do what you like. And I've always, that's always stuck with me because it's like, yeah, you can't tell teachers what to do, but you can't not tell them what to do.

Helen Reynolds: You need to have that happy. balance of what, you know, they, what you prescribed them. So I had no scope and sequence. So I basically reverted, you know, went home and I in prep when preparing stuff and I just used my UK curriculum. For my high school courses, and then, but, yeah, I I just, I didn't, it took me, I think, probably two years, I would have to say, to really appreciate that, yes, this is how it is, like, and it is so radically different to the UK.

Helen Reynolds: And [00:12:00] the three areas that stand out are the concept of progression, which is in the national curriculum, from what you call kindergarten all the way up, there is progression described clearly, there was none of that. The exam, the assessment system, and your gr the grading system here. And then this whole concept, as you've talked about, of working together, you know, as a community.

Helen Reynolds: So yeah I it took me a little while to get used to it, I have to say.

Gene Tavernetti: so so that's a big difference. Okay, the not having a prescribed curriculum and agreed upon curriculum. I want to just go 1, a little 1 step further with respect to getting this national curriculum because there have been some you know, saw a documentary recently and it showed the. A department a department working together to adjust that [00:13:00] curriculum or make it work for them.

Gene Tavernetti: I'm not exactly sure what the proper term is because they are still responsible for that curriculum. how common is that the teachers are able to get together and work together in a productive way? And I'm asking that because in the U. S. we say we're going to do that, but it doesn't really, there are obstacles.

Gene Tavernetti: So, so is that really happening in the U. K. or is that

Helen Reynolds: Yeah, that happens, and it's always happened. And that is the thing that is the distinct difference. The autonomy piece versus the alignment, excuse me, the alignment and working together. That's, I mean, that's the huge difference. And that's where, if you're going to say there are like, I don't want to say that's the difference that's going to make moving towards any kind of collective understanding of what good practice means.

Helen Reynolds: That's a huge obstacle because if you believe in your autonomy and having just the total choice, [00:14:00] that's one thing. Whereas my life up until I moved to the U. S. was we had We, I was the head of science in a, in this state school, in this public school. We have 14 teachers in that faculty, in that department, as it was called three technicians.

Helen Reynolds: I had a budget and we had a coffee room an area we met and we would just sit there every day and we would, you know, talk about what we were doing. That was not meeting time. That was not like you, like in this video where they're actually sitting down to, to do a task. There was that as well. So we had an awful lot of time where we were having the conversations that mean that you get a common understanding of what we're trying to do and how that works and what is best practice and how we can help each other.

Helen Reynolds: And that is just the way that works. I mean, that is. That's what you would expect and when I left teaching for a short time to work for the Institute of Physics and I was going into schools to help teachers teach physics who didn't have a physics background. [00:15:00] So I saw a lot of schools.

Helen Reynolds: I mean, I've been in a lot of departments and it is extremely common and if there isn't like a special room, everybody will just get together, you know, and have their lunch and talk about, teaching and talk about this was a really terrible lesson and I need some help with this. And then there are times when you saw in that video, you have, you know, you would take, like, let's do something about this topic or this this year's worth of work.

Helen Reynolds: See if we can, like, make improvements to that. That is absolutely, yeah, that is commonplace. That is what you would expect. I expect to do that.

Gene Tavernetti: so when you're hired a new teacher being hired in a school that's just expected. That's the norm. This is how and not just this school in particular, but This is the way we do this in our, in the uk

Helen Reynolds: Yeah, you would the concept of turning up and not having. Like a norm, an enormous number of resources to [00:16:00] work from a very clear what you would call here scope and sequence. I think scope and sequence with timing with expectations with tests, in my case with labs. It would be laid out for you, and then the expectation would be that you would then contribute to the further development of that.

Helen Reynolds: I think that's the sort of that's, I can't imagine, I've never seen or heard of a school in the UK where that would not be the case.

Gene Tavernetti: Okay. So, kind of established what the norm is in, in the uk. And again, there's variability within every school. We understand every school is unique but for the most part they're very similar in structure. Let's contrast now to, you came to the us. And then what did you find? And this is not to bash anything.

Gene Tavernetti: This is just to, this is just how the systems are different because I just want to say one more time that you know, the group of people that I follow [00:17:00] on Twitter and the you know, you go to research ed which is where we finally had a chance to meet in person. You know, we talk about the fact that, You know, what are we going to do here in the US?

Gene Tavernetti: Gosh, in the UK, they're years and years ahead of us. They're more than a decade ahead of us. So, so you kind of explained what's happening in, in, in the UK. And now you came to the US, what did you find what'd you find?

Helen Reynolds: What did I find? Well, the things that that I found were in almost complete contrast. Instead of working sort of vertically, you work horizontally. So you have teachers, so there's stratification. I think that's what I found, like you have the ninth grade chemistry teacher, you have the eighth grade middle school science teacher, so everybody sits in that horizontal structure, and that, I didn't realize that was how it worked I don't know, I probably didn't think [00:18:00] about it.

Helen Reynolds: And so they do that. And then they, within that structure, they have a lot of autonomy. As I said, I can't speak for people in public schools. Maybe there are schools where there's a lot of more curriculum decided for them. But what I saw was that there was not. So you, within state standards or something, you have an enormous amount of autonomy and no one's really checkings in the sense of have you completed everything that's on that, on those state standards that I understand.

Helen Reynolds: So I found the stratification thing, a huge degree of autonomy, like in, in incomprehensible to me, cause I'd never had that degree of autonomy. And then the other interesting thing that I hadn't expected was that it's quite normal that you would teach in high school, or you would teach in middle school, or you would teach in elementary school, but you wouldn't have taught any in any of the other places.

Helen Reynolds: That had [00:19:00] not occurred to me coming from the UK, where, by contrast my year would have been teaching 6, 7 sorry, yeah, 6, grades every year. I mean, how class is from each grade. And so that was a significant difference. Then I hadn't realized how the grade point average thing is so is significant.

Helen Reynolds: I mean, not always, but that whole assessment piece, there was a really funny anecdote where I was in a meeting, this will show you, I was in a meeting, we were talking about a particular student and someone said, well, yeah, the trouble is, you know, He's this close to a D, and then after that it's an F. And I said, what happened to E?

Helen Reynolds: And they're like, they looked at me and like, okay, I don't really, yeah, I've got a lot to learn about this. In the UK we have different grades. So we have that assessment system. And so what the UK US thing of [00:20:00] The UK structure of exams does put a lot of pressure on students and teachers talk a lot about the stress of that system.

Helen Reynolds: But there's no concept of a student having a grade until they, they're done. So therefore, if they improve over the course of their sophomore year, from being like essentially failing to getting an A, that's perfectly fine. They can then end up with an A. There is no concept of having a grade. We don't have power school.

Helen Reynolds: We don't have those sort of systems. So I had to get my head around what it meant to have a grade. And that is hugely problematic. For me, in my COGSci, it's all about the learning, because it is high stakes. Grades are high stakes, and they are the antithesis of what you talk about with students if you want them to learn a lot.

Helen Reynolds: So, and then, as I say the autonomy and the working very much on my own was very different. So those are the main things, the stratification, [00:21:00] lack of teaching. except in your grade, and the assessment thing. I

Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so let's talk about some things that may be similar. And that is you as I mentioned a couple of times now you presented at research ed, you are interested in the cognitive science. You're interested in science and learning things. Is there any difference in the implementation of those strategies? Within the two cultures, or is it just we're kids were human beings. This just works.

Helen Reynolds: thought a lot about this, and and I'm actually changing my perspective on a lot of it almost as we speak. So I spoke in Denver about the the strategies, the game changing strategies that I've used, that I've learned from Cognitive Science, that I've used in my classroom, and it's worked extremely well.

Helen Reynolds: But if you're talking about the contrast of the UK and the US in relation to this, the big question, and you've alluded to, I think, before is What is this [00:22:00] for? What are we doing this for? This thing, this education thing. And there's that, and then there is a huge cultural thing of conformity versus autonomy.

Helen Reynolds: So it's much easier, I think, for these things to bed in the UK than they are necessarily in the US. So there are various layers. to it. On the one hand, I want them to learn physics. Now, I did teach science, but physics. And I know that the more physics they know, the easier it's going to be, they are going to find it to learn more physics.

Helen Reynolds: So, the more you know, the easier it is to learn. So therefore, for me on a daily basis, now that I've got into this groove and they have the language of retrieval practice and slop and long term memory and forgetting and everything on a, like just a day to day, week to week, [00:23:00] semester to semester, it's vastly improved my practice.

Helen Reynolds: And that's, but I am an individual and I'm choosing to do that in my classroom with my students. For change beyond that within schools and within districts and states and possibly, you know, federally, then that is, there are enormous challenges because I, and I might put this, I'm going to apply to talk in New York.

Helen Reynolds: My next talk, I think, is going to be about something to do with this as well, because I've managed to get together a fabulous group of teachers in my school, and they've enacted this curriculum that is based on the UK. We've moved things around, but it's got Cogs Eye piece in it, and they're all working together.

Helen Reynolds: It takes such a long time to do that, and you've got to have a will to See that these things are better for the students, but we have a clear vision of what we're trying to get [00:24:00] to like we Have got together and we've decided a well educated student looks like this. They know these things they can do these things They are able to apply these things.

Helen Reynolds: This is we have a shared vision of that I think if you get US teachers together, I'm not I've never done it But I don't know that everybody's trying to do the same thing And I don't know where the cog side pieces, all the cog side pieces are tending to revolve around getting stuff into long term memory, building schema, and so on.

Helen Reynolds: If you go back to stratification, if you're teaching a course that is a year long, or even a semester long, There isn't much mileage in that. What mileage is there in developing strategies that help students build their long term memory in your particular subject area, if they are going to teach, if they're going to learn that subject for a year, and then stop, and then go on to another subject the following year, which is completely unrelated.

Helen Reynolds: Unless there's some kind of joining up, [00:25:00] then that CogSci piece in the UK works because we have a national curriculum, we have clear goals, we have examination boards, we have external exams, the exams count so they're high stakes, but in the interim, you can do lots of low stakes work, which gets stuff in their memory, which helps them to pass these exams and so on.

Helen Reynolds: In the U. S., There isn't the, what incentive is there in order, you know, that is this piece that I am beginning to struggle with now that I've tried to embed it in my own personal practice. I don't know if that answers your

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah,

Helen Reynolds: question.

Gene Tavernetti: I think it's part again. I think it goes back to things that have been in place had been in place or are nominally in place and that is, you know, at some point during the year, if you look at a P. D. schedule or a C. P. D. schedule you know, it will have time for vertical articulation.

Gene Tavernetti: And [00:26:00] theoretically, that's when the grade levels get together to talk about exactly what you're talking about.

Gene Tavernetti: But I don't think it happens very well. And again, it's one of those things that may we may say we do that on paper, but it just doesn't happen. And it's very difficult for it to happen because of the all the other things that we've already discussed that it's so freewheeling I'm going to ask you a similar question but it is to me, it's a cultural question.

Gene Tavernetti: And one of the things that gosh, I was old when I realized that I have no idea what my culture is. And the reason that I don't know what my culture is because I just do stuff.

Gene Tavernetti: But it's very easy to go to another state and go, wow, they're very different. So, so I don't know if this is just, you know, a cultural issue in [00:27:00] that and I'm going to broaden this to the United States is that we just don't want to tell people to do things.

Gene Tavernetti: That's not who we are.

Helen Reynolds: Yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, that's very interesting because that's what I say to my UK friends is if you want to understand the US. then just preface, put the premise of you can't tell me what to do in front of everything and then it'll all make a lot more sense. And you, cause you just can't, you know, that's, as you say, that is culturally where you are.

Helen Reynolds: Whereas, you know, again, broadly and in the UK, that's fine. I mean, and I don't know if that's a result, I'm not a sociologist of some kind of historical thing in terms of the class structure or whatever, but there is that definite difference, for sure.

Gene Tavernetti: you know, you're not talking about the class structure in the US. We have none.

Helen Reynolds: Exactly.

Gene Tavernetti: About thinking more about, cognitive science, one of the things that and [00:28:00] being behind that teacher's not understanding, it's not embedded in, it's not embedded in their practice. I've talked to many teachers now on this podcast and I ask them, you know, a very similar question and that is do people know at your school, do people know you're a hotshot? Do people know? No, I said, you know, because, you know, because I talk to people who are doing these wonderful things, these teachers, I meet them at national conferences, and they have absolutely no status. They don't want to hear from them at their schools.

Helen Reynolds: well, my middle school, because We're all together in the same boat in the middle school. They've got some idea and they sort of follow me in various places and so on. Generally I think no. I mean, and I haven't presented my stuff. I did one presentation when I did the original curriculum development, but I, since then, no.

Helen Reynolds: I, no, I would say that's [00:29:00] not been the case.

Gene Tavernetti: And why do you think that is?

Helen Reynolds: Just priorities, you know, schools have lots of priorities. We've had, in my particular school, we've been looking for a new principal. We've had the, I mean, there is, there does seem to be, you know, the SEL agenda is huge. The DEI agenda is huge. We have, there are lots and lots of pressures, I guess.

Helen Reynolds: And this is the thing about You know, if it isn't such a tricky thing to change people's practice and they don't It's difficult to sort of point out, it's the unknown, you know. They don't know that there is something else there. Why would they want me to come in to talk about the thing that they don't know isn't there?

Helen Reynolds: So

Gene Tavernetti: well, and I think that is another thing that I talk to people about a lot because I think I have a little bit of a contrary [00:30:00] view and that is said, you know, if people just understood the research if people just understood the research and you're shaking your head Yes, but here's my counter argument. Do you know that we know? We absolutely know based on science, whatever that means here in the U. S., based on science is that there's pretty much an agreement of what's healthy eating, and there's pretty much, you know, science about, you know, exercise and the benefits of exercise. Does that get people in the gym door?

Gene Tavernetti: No, you know, so, so there needs to be, and I don't know what it is to me. I always think that it's an emotional understanding, like, like, if I could just get Helen to try this one thing that I've talked about, and Helen gets to see the kids just. Explode with excitement and understanding and they get it, you know, maybe that emotional component will get them to see, well, why did that happen?

Gene Tavernetti: How can we do that? So [00:31:00] I'm a action first, why second type of guy where I think a lot of folks is that they just know the why, if they just know, I think the why is important at some point, you know, to understand, to replicate what they did, but me down, Helen.

Helen Reynolds: No, I have. I mean, I was nodding because, you know, being British and very polite. I nod. But no, I agree with you. You have to do it to see it because changing people's practice is incredibly hard. I mean, it's just remarkably hard. And I had like six years, I think, with the Institute of Physics, and I had, I was group, talking to teachers.

Helen Reynolds: You have to show them that it works. They have to see that it works, like exactly. So I would not try and talk you down. I would try and, you know, get you to get some federal regulation that every teacher has to do retrieval practice, at least once a

Gene Tavernetti: Okay. Okay. Don't make me, don't make me cough. Okay. A national, you know what? Okay. I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop you right there. Okay. I'm going to stop you right there. We [00:32:00] have in the county where I live, I don't know how many people we have but I live In my school district where my daughter went to school, it's the 4th largest school district in California and California.

Gene Tavernetti: What would be the 5th largest economy in the world? If it was a nation, I mean, so it had the 4th, the metropolitan area, not really, you know, but we would say it's about a million people.

Gene Tavernetti: Then we have and that there's two districts in that million people serving those million folks.

Gene Tavernetti: And then we have 33 other districts. Okay, some of them that have their own superintendent, their own governing body many of them. Only go to K8 and then need to go to another separate district for high school, which makes this articulation piece we talked [00:33:00] about even more critical and more difficult to do.

Gene Tavernetti: So, I mean, we can't do. A county wide measure, much less when you talk about, you know and I think, and the reason that I bring that up and make a big deal about it is because again, you know, we have people saying this. I mean, I have a lot of respect for you, Helen. We wouldn't be talking if you didn't, you know, and how do we get that done in this place where we live?

Gene Tavernetti: The United States, you know, with, you can't tell me what to do. Okay. And that's why we have all those school boards because you know, oh our kids are different you can't tell us what to do

Helen Reynolds: Yep, it's a challenge. I yeah, it's really, it's super interesting. I think my hope is, and I really believe, for with all the teachers that I've ever worked with, you wouldn't be in the job, you're certainly not in it for the money, you wouldn't be in the job unless you really [00:34:00] wanted to do well, you then end up with all these pressures and everything happening to you.

Helen Reynolds: And then somehow you don't have the time to do stuff. But I do think fundamentally people, teachers love to see kids learn. That's the thing. And that's the way in the trouble is it's going to be like turning a super tanker. And I, For a while I worked with, I was on a group with Eric Mazur in Harvard talking about changing physics education and I came in very sort of like bright, idealistic about how we could have some, we could make it required that people do physics in the U, in the U.

Helen Reynolds: S. That's again a Big difference, they don't have to do physics. And he, and they, you know, they were just laughing, like you, like they, you can't even do it within, you know, within the state the, within Boston or wherever. But, if we can seed enough places. And so all the teachers who have, [00:35:00] who are doing the CogSci piece in my school, you know, they've said, you know, they are going to always do it like that now.

Helen Reynolds: They're always going to have retrieval practice because it works. It's the thing that means, you know, where kids are. It's the only thing I grade. I mean, I cannot be bothered to, to grade like long, long sets of questions. The kids can grade sets of questions and tell me which ones they found hard.

Helen Reynolds: And then we can move on. All of those pieces make your life easier. Make your job better. Make your job more enjoyable because it's more manageable because you're doing what works. You're not wasting your time on stuff that doesn't work. You're not adding. You're replacing. All of those messages. So then, you know, I meet people at research ed and it's their first time at research ed and I'm like, So excited for them.

Helen Reynolds: Like, Oh my gosh, this is great. You know, just take that just, and you don't have to like be a, you know, sledgehammer about it. You just seed it gently as I've done in my school. I think with, you know, this, [00:36:00] these ideas really are going to help kids learn and make your life easier. And that's a really winning combo.

Gene Tavernetti: I Think we better leave there on a high note

Helen Reynolds: Okay.

Gene Tavernetti: Because I you know, there are so many people Have expressed something very similar. So, you know, it's it, you know, we're hoping that it can spread out. It will last beyond the next superintendent who comes and has to change everything you know, because I think good teaching that the things that you just described if a teacher is doing it.

Gene Tavernetti: It doesn't matter what curriculum they bring in, what goofy new thing that happens. If a supervisor principal, you know, whomever comes in to watch a teacher and they teach a good lesson, they recognize that it's a good lesson, you know, and you know, and then maybe we have to backfill and let them know why it's good and [00:37:00] why you can do it every day and why the kids are learning.

Gene Tavernetti: But yeah. But I got my fingers crossed for you, Helen.

Helen Reynolds: Yes. Oh,

Gene Tavernetti:

Gene Tavernetti: (Helen has Question for Gene) Helen, do you have a, do you have a question for me?

Helen Reynolds: Well, yes, I have two questions because the first question is if you could just, as we've been talking, and this is, you know, probably scientifically on the cards, if you could magically transport one of the findings or the thoughts of cognitive science into the brains of every teacher in the U. S.

Helen Reynolds: Like, instantly, what would you want every teacher to know that is going to be really just the most useful thing? Or maybe three things, but what would you want?

Gene Tavernetti: Okay, well, I would, I'll let you decide how many things these are. I would just that teachers as a baseline would be able to teach a lesson based on Rosenshine's [00:38:00] principles. Because so many of the SOL stuff is embedded in that, and so if you did that would be a baseline from which we could have discussions about, oh, how do, you know, is there a little trick we have about this?

Gene Tavernetti: Because we know where it fits in the lesson. It's not throwing everything out. Oh, we have a new thing so, so that's what I would, that's what I would see, and that's basically what my work has been. For the past 20 years is just you know how to do explicit instruction.

Gene Tavernetti: And again, because we're in the US with all the things that we've talked about, you get to have your personality come out Still. You could still be an individual here and use all of these good strategies in your lesson.

Helen Reynolds: Can I have a follow up question?

Gene Tavernetti: Okay.

Helen Reynolds: I've, I have started to ballroom dance since I came to the U. S., which has shown me that I am totally a novice. And it's been really [00:39:00] helpful for my practice because I know nothing and I'm reminded of how the curse of the expert, what have you done like that recently?

Helen Reynolds: What should I take up?

Gene Tavernetti: You know, I don't know what to take up, but here's one of the questions that I forgot to ask you is because people who are explicit instruction people, I found that they have some performance. element in their past, whether it is, whether it's in the arts athletics, or you've got like, like Carl Hendrick, who is you know, football coach and a musician because you just understand, you know, I break these things down.

Gene Tavernetti: And when I was a teacher, I tell people I was awful as a teacher. I was a really good football coach. Because I knew how to teach techniques and put them together, but I had never figured out how to generalize that to other content areas. So, so I think [00:40:00] if you have that in your background, anything, you know, again, performance and if I was working with you, if I was working with you as a coach, Helen, that would be one of the things that I wanted.

Gene Tavernetti: To know about because that's our shared schema. You know, now we can always use that. That's our anchor for understanding all these other elements.

Helen Reynolds: Totally true. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, before dance, I don't think there was a, I'm just trying to think, but yeah, I think. That the dance has definitely cemented the explicit instruction and I've actually interestingly taught my dance instructor how to do explicit instruction

Gene Tavernetti: Oh,

Helen Reynolds: to me.

Gene Tavernetti: you know, it's funny, when I was younger I was taking a karate class and it was a young person. It was a young person teaching me and. I said, you know, they showed me some move and it was way too complex for me. And I said, can you show me that again? [00:41:00] No, I'm the teacher. Oh, wow.

Gene Tavernetti: You know what? So you can't go back once you know it. And again, talking about that emotional knowing, if you weren't an explicit person before, and now somebody talked to you about being a novice. Oh, I get it. I get it. Helen, it has been a joy and we will talk oh gosh, we'll see each other in New York.

Gene Tavernetti: If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend. Also, please leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can follow me on BlueSky at gTabernetti, on Twitter, x at gTabernetti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website, BlueSky. Tesscg. com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, [00:42:00] Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.

Gene Tavernetti: Talk to you soon