Episode 67: Why is There No Glitter on the Floor?

Dr. Judy Willis combined her 15 years as a board-certified practicing neurologist with ten subsequent years as a classroom teacher to become a leading authority in the neuroscience of learning. Dr. Willis has written nine books and more than 100 articles about applying neuroscience research to classroom teaching strategies. She is on the adjunct faculty of the Williams College.
Dr. Willis travels nationally and internationally giving presentations, workshops, and consulting while continuing to write books and staff expert blogs for NBC News Education Nation, Edutopia, Psychology Today, and The Guardian. In 2011 she was selected by Edutopia as a “Big Thinkers on Education.”

Website:

• www.RADTeach.com

Books

• Upgrade Your Teaching: Understanding by Design Meets Neuroscience
• Unlock Teen Brainpower: 20 Keys to Boosting Attention, Memory, and Efficiency
• Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from a Neurologist and Classroom Teacher
• Learning to Love Math: Teaching Strategies That Change Student Attitudes and Get Results
• The Neuroscience of Learning: Principles and Applications for Educators
• How Your Child Learns Best: Brain-Friendly Strategies You Can Use to Ignite Your Child’s Learning and Increase School Success
• Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension
• Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom
• Inspiring Middle School Minds: Gifted, Creative, & Challenging

Helpful Articles

• NBC News Education Nation Staff Expert and Blogger Parent Toolkit 
• Most recent for NBC News Learn: a webinar: Preparing children for jobs of the Future. Was recorded March 14 and now available in their library when one signs up as if for the webinar (see “posts”)
• Psychology Today Online: Staff expert blogger: Dr. Judy Willis’ RAD Teaching Connections from Neuroscience Research to the Classroom

Todd Schnick: All right, welcome back to Full PreFrontal. We are exposing the mysteries of executive function. I am here as always with our host Sucheta Kamath.

Good morning, Sucheta, always good to be with you. I’m looking forward to this conversation. Now, kick us off, please.

Sucheta Kamath: Good morning and great to be with you, Todd, as always, and today, I wanted to talk about the mirage of engaged classrooms. On a recent trip to India, I had a chance to visit a few schools, particularly in Chennai and Pune, and I was met with these amazing teachers and administrations with great enthusiasm. The classrooms were extremely neat and tidy, the kids were impeccably dressed, and they were sitting perfectly still, and the teacher spent a lot of her time at the board, and kids worked on completing their work in complete silence. On the other hand, the last 17 years, I also had the chance to observe classrooms in the United States, and I have visited and observed many students that I work with and done professional development, and the children often are seen to be working in groups. There’s a lot of movement. Sometimes, even chaos. Teachers are still at the board but much, much in lesser quantity, and there’s lots of distractions in the classroom, and still, there’s always those who need help are in the front of the class, who seem to be doing well are in the back of the class, but generally, not all classrooms really look engaged. So, my question is, what do engaged classrooms look like, and what is the happy medium? And, that’s why we have a very special guest was going to shed some light on this.

She specializes in interventions and strategies that are firmly supported by current neuroscience research, and she believes that by understanding brains most effective process saying, one can successfully apply these strategies in the classrooms, so that kids learn to work smarter, not harder, and so it is my great delight to invite and will come Dr. Judy Willis.

She has combined her 15 years as a board-certified practicing neurologist with 10 subsequent years as a classroom teacher to become a leading authority in the neuroscience of learning. I have heard her speak myself. She is a very impressive speaker, very engaging speaker, I must say. She is a prolific writer, she has written nine books and more than 100 articles. I will be including some of them at the end of the show notes here, and all her works basically focuses on applying neuroscience research into classroom teaching.

She is currently serving as an adjunct of faculty at the Williams College. She travels all over the world, giving presentations, workshops, consulting, and of course, I don’t know how, but she does find time to write more for all of us, and in a recent interview, she was selected by Utopia to be the big thinker on education, so it is my great delight to welcome Judy.

Judy, so happy to have you.

Dr. Judy Willis: Oh, thank you so much, Sucheta. What a pleasure to be here with you. I enjoy your podcast.

Sucheta: Thank you very much, so I have been asking all my guests this question. Can you start us off with your own executive function skills and how are they? And then, second question I have is, when did you discover learning to learn process for yourself in your journey of becoming a successful student?

Dr. Willis: I think – I feel that my story were my motivation to the goal is what drove me to work and work on things that I didn’t know at the time our executive functions, and I think that the key to motivation and sustained effort even when there are setbacks for anybody, but when I was quite young, I was very compelled to become a doctor position as early a second grade when quite some time ago, so I first remember coming home and telling my mom, I decided I want to be a teacher when I grow up, and she said, “Oh, that’s great! Have you considered being a doctor?” I said, “Mom, girls are not doctors – they are nurses,” and that was the thought, and she said, “No, no really, girls could be doctors too,” and as I processed that, within a couple years after second grade, I knew I wanted to be a physician, and I worked hard at academics. I liked the feedback of making progress, whether it was reading or math, and so I studied more and I put more effort into it. I had the long-term goal in mind which is pretty nice for executive functions to be motivated by, and with the goal in mind, I wanted to know what would help me get there, so I just kept progressing, getting feedback, and getting that dopamine reward for achieving challenges. [0:05:07]

Sucheta: I love that story. Yes, I love this idea that you talk about, that more motivation to goal was your natural talents and ability, and it got further nurtured by this feedback that you received which you realized that oh, and I’m on the right track, the feedback is minimal, probably. When you are veering away from the right track, so I see that self-correcting element to your own understanding of self.

So, you were a practicing neurologist when you decided to switch your career. Tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Willis: Yes, thank you. I was practicing neurology and after about the first 10 years, people being referred to me started being many, many more children, schoolchildren, and mostly, the referrals would come in from the schools, and of the complaints were the same that I see to a certain degree over the previous 10 years. Maybe they have Tourette’s syndrome because they have outbursts, maybe they have petit mal epilepsy because they seem to stand her and it may be playing, so before that time, for the first 10 years, the kids coming to those observations were coming not just from teachers, parents, and other people. So, there was a certain percentage that have the condition and some that did not, but then by the later years of my practice, there were so many more kids being referred to me from classroom teachers typically who said, “, they are just staring and flanking or they are making outbursts. Maybe they have Tourette’s, maybe they have petit mal,” and teachers were the schoolteachers who had taught my daughter’s, so I knew them, so I said, “Why is this happening? Because I evaluate these kids and they don’t have it.” And so, we decided I come watch, and when I came to watch, the situation sounded a lot like you describe the schools in India versus the US. Those kids were no longer sitting in groups, they were no longer collaborating, they were no longer doing a project. They weren’t even [0:07:02] grow beans in the window or hatching chicks in an incubator. So, they were now sitting, taking information down even at first grade and doing drills, and there was no glitter on the floor, so I put together what was happening in my practice, and the teachers explained this was happening to them because they were now curriculum-driven, they were now mandated with what they had to cover a year and it were responsible for covering, and it was way excessive. Even the Department of Education analysis group said it would take a year and a half, at least, to cover the curriculum they were given to cover in nine months. So, it was coming together – these kids were so stressed out that their normal brain response is taking over which like animals in the wild, fight, flight, freeze they were so oppressed by the stress of board or frustration that they were doing. Their fight-flight-freeze, acting out is [0:07:57] out, so for the most case, the hyperactivity were the outbursts, or the disruptive kid and the kids who were zoning out and blinking were doing it because their brain was under the stress state of boredom or frustration, and that’s why I felt if I went into neuroscience, took my neurology into the classroom, I A, know a lot about memory, so I could get the kids to memorize whatever they had to in less time like that, and then thought that I could use what I know about stress and emotion, but I was not exactly sure how it would come into the classroom, so instead of just saying, “Okay, I am [0:08:35] new neurologist, I can tell teachers what to do,” I said, “No, that’s totally not my approach,” so I went back to school, got my teaching credential and Masters of Education, and then taught for 10 years – five years primary, five years secondary, and that is when I tried to apply the things that I thought were neurological to teaching and things that worked [0:08:56] articles and gradually into books and presentations.

Sucheta: Yes, and I think that was such a gift because I think you brought clinical work certainly informs the way we do diagnostics, and when educators are working with children, of course, they do not feel comfortable or neither do they have any training, but somehow, they have this group in front of them, certainly not homogenous, you have to kind of teaching that group to sort of on the trajectory of following the same goal and that goal may be invisible, or maybe the teachers are not making it visible enough.

So, before we jump into the actual process of helping students achieve more, can you give a little bit of a bird’s eye view on this understanding that we have about executive function? Our own understanding of the field has changed radically. What we considered children being self-disciplined was something we expected rather than now, we understand that it is a skill that matures over time. How do you see that developmental trajectory influencing the way we understand the brain as well as understand executive function?

Dr. Willis: You described it very well, and I know it is one of your specialties that you had an impact on as well, so thank you for that.

Sucheta: Thank you.

Dr. Willis: I feel that executive functions are terrific and important, and they do develop along their own trajectory, and these neural networks in the prefrontal cortex undergo the greatest growth spurt, the greatest responsiveness to activation during the school years. So, here they are, they are going to grow and develop, and even as recently as past months, some of the neuroscience research has [0:10:34] mainstream with reports in regular media, that the prefrontal cortex executive functions are continuing to mature. They have not yet reached their developmental peak through the 30s or well into the 30s, and as we – the history of our [0:10:52] for the executive functions were that the kind of grew and developed during childhood, and the kids should be able to organize and prioritize, and make good decisions by the time they were in junior high or certainly, high school, when they were driving cars. So, as we’ve done more research about following the changes that have been in any part of the cortex when it is going through maturation, the increased density of synapse is, pruning away of circuits that were not used, and most importantly, the increased myelin connecting the neurons in the circuits that were used, so as we talked about the development of executive functions through childhood now into the 30s, we see that kids are not – their brains are not junior adults; their brains are very dynamic, and responding executive functions specially [0:11:43] during the school years, they are responding to their conditions to what experience do they have, to what opportunities they have, and they are very valuable. The neuronal plasticity which as a circuit is used, it gets stronger. The firing of communication from neuron to neuron produces a response that increases the wiring among those neurons, more of this myelin that coats the axon and lets information travels faster, more of these dendrite connections, and as these more dendrites, and more myelin comes, and synapses, the structure of these functions, the part of the circuits in the brain become so well-structured, they are so strong, they’ve got so much coating and connections, that they become more and more automatic and the go-to network in the brain, but until that happens by using the circuits and through their natural development, they are erratic, it’s like frayed wiring. These executive functions could not be called on voluntarily all the time, and they’ll vary in how well they work from day to day, and the more opportunities we have to provide the environment that challenges the experiences that let the brain build these, the more successful and faster they can become active in her age because yeah, okay, great, so their brains would be ready when they are 30, but they are driving cars and making decisions that affect their health and life, and drugs and alcohol, and dating when they are halfway to their 30s. So, we need to understand that they are executive functions are not up to the challenge now as opposed to 20 years ago because suddenly, 20 years ago, the Internet became a big demand on executive function. Think of this, when kids go into their social media and it’s so accessible and World Wide Web, how are you going to use what you don’t have, like [0:13:41] long-term goals when your brain is programmed for immediate gratification? So, they have a higher challenge in school where there is so much more curriculum demanded for them to memorize or earn, and they have a big demand on their self-management because oh, my goodness, [0:13:59] things are available to them with a click.

Sucheta: Yeah, and I think the whole notion that these skills were supposed to be present, and then used, and somebody who does not have these skills showing or they are not present in their behavior or their education, then they were somehow lacking, I think I like that we have moved more towards the compassionate attitude towards those children – all the children and particularly those who struggle.

So, from the feet on the ground perspective, do you believe that educators have been given adequate tools and knowledge to keep up with this dynamic insight we have into brain’s prefrontal system?

Dr. Willis:  That’s one of the reasons I’m glad I went to the system of going to med school and getting my credentials, and at the University of California, it’s very high academics, but there also regulations and tests teachers need to take and certifications, so it was the best of all possible learning experiences. There were only 40 of us, we set at roundtables, there were discussions, projects, yet when it came to how much they could embed in the curriculum and still keep it so engaging and valuable, and memorable, there was a lot they could not include [0:15:12], and so being there, I saw that. So, they would love to teach more neuroscience of learning, but they showed me and I’ve been there. Where can we fit in? So, that’s a significant problem and I really can’t say. There is no day in class where I felt that what I was learning was not helpful or useful, so somehow, there needs to be, ideally, opportunities [0:15:36] for teachers to have more incentive less professional development when they are in the field and in classrooms, and the same for administrators, so that they can, among other things, just have the foundational knowledge of neuroscience that they could really build in even a half day, and then build up on within their professional learning communities, but if they could have the opportunity to learn about neuroplasticity or limitless potential of a person to build the brain, they would, but activating the circuits that they want to be stronger, I would have them learn about the amygdala, how during that stress state we mentioned, the normal behavior, the brain, a healthy brain, becomes a survival mechanism, so fight-flight-freeze or in a classroom, act and zone out, and that there’s one being that because of changeability of the brain and neuroplasticity, and what we now know of as the executive functions with things like mindfulness, being able to, even in a younger person, tell the lower brain, the stress brain, the amygdala, recognize that they was stress building, and then provide feedback that is open before the stress take over by lowering the stress through things that students, kids, have learned – mindfulness, breathing, visualization, so those three things that students’ brains – they are not bad, they are not lazy, they are not unsmart, they’re not belligerent in any or in any way trying to be bad when they act out or zone out. It’s their brain doing what they are programmed to do for survival, and they need to know that, and if the teachers know it and understand it, think of all the second chances there will be.

So, teachers are really smart, they really want to know, but funds in many states are cut back for the number of days they can have professional development or them to be able to go to it.

Sucheta: Yeah, and I think what I see is that the education itself for teachers is centered around a learning theory and pedagogy of delivering learning, but how students learn from the cognitive neuroscience is not part of the repertoire, and particularly, how to make those who are not learning is also not part of their repertoire, so there’s a little gap.

Dr. Willis: All, the schools of education – you are right, they do not provide this information and it is not because they don’t want to. The important thing is that the problem is not with schools, it’s not with the administration, it’s not with the teachers. It is with the non-educationally trained legislatures who are evaluating the funding, and influenced by both publishers and testing companies, the [0:18:15], for-profit companies, so the influence and the fact that the people making these educational decisions in the legislation – in the government, don’t have the background and are exposed to – well, obvious – the people from the publishing and the testing companies. So, that is where we need more educators to influence legislators.

Sucheta: Thank you for clarifying that. So, let’s get into the meat of it. So, I know you speak quite prolifically on motivation. So, can you help us understand that little bit, and you often talk about the videogame model, and you describe how the industry has it that – video industry has gotten it right. They are incredibly effective in engaging the gamer, letting him feel challenged and constantly in a state of wanting to level up. So, tell us what that looks like in teaching and learning.

Dr. Willis: Okay, you have certainly explained it the way I understand it. The research done, people like [0:19:09], I remember. In any case, the research done on people who already were – kids who were already avidly into video games, so it was to see what is making them so engaged in these things that they don’t eat meals, don’t go to sleep – they just stay there? And, as these group of people were evaluated, the components that seem to drive their sustained perseverance was that there was initially buy-in. They could tell you what the goal was of the game and even though it was fantasy – and they are going to save the world from an asteroid – even though it was fantasy, it could tell you where they would get to after they leveled up 10 levels in a game, so there was goal buy-in, and the fact that it could be fantasy is a big importance to teachers or parents because the kid, as well as they feel that there is some gold that is of interest to them, not you need to know this algebra, so you can take calculus, that’s very unappealing to the brain that is programmed for survival and for pleasure – the pleasure of this dopamine pleasure comes in the rest of the videogame model, and you will see how it works out in all of us. You will see how your intrinsic motivation came from this videogame model which is the model of the dopamine circuit you have. So, first with the videogame is they had buy-in that could tell you what would happen now if they achieved 10 levels of the game. Second part was they got to make predictions – second and third part – and work at their own level of achievable challenge, their own level of mastery, and then [0:20:45] that is stressful to kids in the classroom when one-size-fits-all, when it’s the easy and it’s boring or it has no relevance, so it’s boring over and over, or when they get to the frustrated stage of stress, so boredom activates the stress response, sustained repetitive boredom. So does sustained or repetitive frustration. The frustration on their part is to reach the goal. Maybe it’s someone who gets all Bs and their goal is to get an A in all reports. Maybe it’s somebody who just gets by on fractions or essays, so whatever the goal is that they are – in school, sometimes, there’s no buy into it but even in their video games, if the challenge to get to the goal was achievable and not boring, then the brain buys in because the dopamine reward system works at certain experiences, and all mammals will cause a release of this dopamine to circulate in the brain, and when it’s released in this increased flash, one experience is the deep satisfaction and pleasure, decreased stress, increase memory, increased motivation, and increased perseverance and effort. So, here’s a video gamer. The big pushes of dopamine release, they are small wins are good ones like listening to music were being read to, but to really big ones, making predictions, finding out how your prediction was, or achieving challenges. They both are very similar in a way, but you can think of even your own experience, when you have achieved the challenge you’ve set yourself to go to the gym or get to a certain distance in jogging, or to get so far in a language that you are learning, or to change a behavior pattern. When you set yourself a goal and you see progress, that keeps you on it, even a little progress. Sometimes, if you don’t see a progress, you may increase the effort, but when you get back to seeing it again, that drives release of the dopamine. When the brain is aware that there has been some progress made for the goal, the release of dopamine comes with it. With it, coming at increased drive and motivation to persevere.

So, here’s the videogame model –

Sucheta: Can I interrupt you with two questions? As you described, this comes to mind, is I think that a lot of people are describing – there’s always this discussion about the amygdala and the stress response, the limbic system, the lower brain, and where we talk about stress response have too, something that challenges you, but I like that you are also framing it, that boredom can lead to stress response, so it’s really critical thing to the listeners because a lot of kids with ADHD, the parents as well as educators will describe this board child who is untamed or is not roped into education, and the second thought is maybe you can elaborate along the way, is how is – you’re not talking about entertaining children; you are talking about engaging them, and I think that’s why sometimes, I hear pushback when I present rather the parents feel that the research is telling them to become these entertainers, or I need to now become something I am not, and I always try to remind them that you are not entertaining kids – you are engaging them, right?

Dr. Willis: Right, right, and it is a responsibility, but it’s far minimizing, let’s call it entertaining, engaging, so if you want motivation which I agree, the motivation is a word we used. The experience the brain is doing because really, it isn’t set up for long-term goals – I happen to really latch onto mine as a kid but the brain is motivated by expectation of pleasure which comes frequently with this dopamine of achievements and progress, and feedback [0:24:30] that’s being made, so especially for kids who have never experienced that in a formal way, maybe they probably made progress – progressive achievements when they were learning to ride a bicycle or a keyboard, or learning an instrument, but not with the feedback. See how you were last week? Well, listen to the recording of how you played it last month, what a difference exclamation because their brains are so in the moment that they may not register that they have made progress with their effort, and even writing a bike, they interpret it because they don’t know the neuroscience, right? They say, “Oh, yeah, for a lot of days, I didn’t get it, then I day.” So, when parents and teachers, especially see someone who is frustrated and acting out or zoning out because they don’t feel they could achieve it, they’ve given up, that’s the kid that needs to have an experience or several experiences of feedback of progress-making [0:25:24] able, and it doesn’t have to start as entertainment or education, or entertainment. It’s the experience with progress and feedback. It could be a parent who likes basketball, taking the child to shooting basketball groups and helping the child make a graph of how many they got in in the last five minutes of their practice with their parent, how many they got in that day and they see on a graph, yeah, it goes up and down, but woah, yeah, this month, gotten so much better, and then discussing, well, what did you get better? Now, there is a graph. It says effort, time spent, and progress. So, that begins to connect in their brain and it is so empowering to have someone show you how your effort toward the goal lets children progress over time rather than not knowing until the end or disassociating that you have anything to do it, like bike riding, so whether it’s academics or finding something they are interested in – in nature, names of flowers or dinosaurs, or facts about the solar system, whatever they are interested in, it would be then to buy in – just like the videogame is – so, if a parent wants to help a child built their executive functions for top-down control of prioritizing, organizing, planning ahead, immediate gratification, then it needs to start with showing that the kids have buy into, so whatever it might be – rocketry, colors, patterns, so weighing, finding that and showing the child what a variety of outcomes can be. It’s someone who pursues this as a career or a hobby, and then if the child, “Oh, I’d like to be able to do that,” make that model plane or make that [0:27:04] that pattern, then it takes somebody who is going to be there helping them with the skills that’s showing them, helping them see the daily progress to the goal. Then, they get the dopamine and feel, I can do it and I want to keep going.

Sucheta: Yes, I can see every child that had you as a teacher has benefited from that enthusiasm and deep understanding with the nurturing attitude.

Let’s talk about the attention in the classroom. In the digital age, every teacher and parent is struggling to help learners engage their attention, and form strong memory for learning. What do you think of this problem and what solutions do you suggest will work?

Dr. Willis: The brain has to care about paying attention, just like the videogame and the buy in, and [0:27:50], we have an attention filter, like particular activating system, and it is programmed for which data to take into become attended to. There’s millions of bits of data every second available sending reports to this low brain, but continuously, the brain is getting messages from all the little nerves at the tips of your finger, hundreds of them in its first centimeter. So, all these nerves from your senses, from your body are reporting their data continuously, so there’s this filter, attention filter, that is giving programs and you are want with it, like animals in the wild – [0:28:27] very similar, it has not evolutionary only adapted or increased. It’s pretty much the same as animals in the wild: it gives priority to information, all the data coming in that’s a different, unexpected change in the pattern, and that is what it’s programmed to do.

So, yeah, no wonder if somebody is in a classroom and the teacher is speaking and same sitting arrangement, and they are sitting all the time, so of course, when there is noise out in the playground or a fly comes in the room, that could change and that’s where the attention will go. It’s not to say all have ADD and something sparkling was thrown at them. The brain will go and prioritize new different areas. Now, we know it, so use it. If we initiate attention with students, don’t start with the usual lecture, do something about the topic that will make them curious about what will follow, curious about why the color changed when a different dye was added, why they heard something seconds later than they saw it, just a video of something that gets – or a question: why can’t we fly? Whatever the subject is, a question or a curiosity engagement at the beginning, that is the buy in they need. You want them to have such great curiosity – that gets kind of squashed out of them because often in school, sorry, I know you are interested in that but that is not where we’re going now. Well, get them interested in something, and then they will want to know what they have to learn, whether it is a homework in helping students with that with parents doing better teachers, if a parent or teacher went to build their effort, then get their attention by building their curiosity, so that the attention filter will say, I want to know that information and let it in. Then, of course, there’s the top-down executive functions that they can gradually built to control what gets in, because as adults, we don’t need bells and whistles for curious questions. We have the executive functions to make the attention filter let in things that are desirable for our achievement of the goals we want, not just survival or curiosity, but if they are building their top-down attention control and they can say, “Okay, filter, I want,” while they are building it, we need to spur their interest with curiosity and change, so that they will be interested in the lesson that comes next.

Sucheta: So, that’s great. So, when it is done well, there is definitely the teacher who is totally engaged or prioritizes her class goal to engage the kids, but from your fieldwork, what do you notice when it’s not being done right. What are some of the best ways to give feedback to the teacher that they are delivering information in a boring or ineffective way?

Dr. Willis: Okay, certainly, nobody – teacher or you are right, likes to receive one’s criticism. It always works, if there is something that is important feedback that is corrective, we want to share that or receive it. We want to see that in a way, the sandwich model, first, something positive, then the suggested were corrective feedback, and then something positive. So, with the students, with parents, with teachers, with friends, I would say let’s try to teach you though where the child is bored. It would be you are doing a great job, Johnny particularly likes and names something that the child likes other than recess and say, “I find he’s [0:31:58] Johnny [0:32:00] they focused, but when he does something with us, he is so interested in [0:32:05] navigation that if he finds a way that it relates to that, he is very connected, or [0:32:11] so interested in graphics were interested in art, so I find that things you are learning in school, when I did some connections between the shapes that he is learning and the building or designing of buildings, he gets really interested in learning why a triangle, how it works in area or how it works in volume, so now, the parent is saying, “Here’s the interest that my kid has. I’ve been able to find to connect him to the things he is studying with school, or it’s here are some things that is interesting in his past or his history that he loves about things he’s done or places he’s lived that really connect him because it’s personalized.” So, what the parent is doing is saying, “If you want my kid to engage, personal relevance is going to be there buy-in.” The border won’t be profound, and therefore, they will pay more attention and want to know what you have to teach if they engage from the beginning. So, knowing the students, especially those that are not engaged, finding out that information from parents and using it is very powerful, and it’s even better if the teacher knows that and says, “I want all your kids to be interested and care about what they are learning.” It’s their education, it’s not mine or yours. So, you can help me do that for them by telling me what they are very interested in and excited about, things in their past that they really linked to, and so their interest and also their strengths: when they finally do their best, [0:33:45] physically, when they are getting time to think about it, so asking parents and asking the teachers from the year before, passing the wrong – that is a treasure chest for teachers and for parents: what gets their attention? What is their strengths to get them engaged? That is much more important than test scores and punishments in behaviors.

Sucheta: You know, I really want to Texas, and during the break, one educator came to me and she said – because I have the same idea that I ask educators to kind ever really build a personal narrative, no more about the children that you are teaching. These are little mini walking talking treasure chests, unlocked it and see what’s inside, she said, “I had this young 10^th grader was being very, very difficult to teach, who would always be quiet and never participate, never answer any questions.” She would call on him and he would never respond, and then one day, she was talking about this kid to another teacher and she said, “Oh, do you know, his mother, she’s bilaterally deaf, and he has grown up without anybody talking to him, so he is not used to responding to oral commands,” and so suddenly, that background, simply knowing that about that young man changed her approach and change her attitude towards his quietness. So, that’s kind of what you’re talking about, the backdrop of individual story. That is very powerful.

Dr. Willis: Yes. Well stated, because that information is not always passed down. You get test scores and that’s not of value.

Sucheta: Yes! So, as weekend, looks and with some amazing things that you always share which is the practical classroom ready strategies. You call them no prep classroom ready interventions, and a lot of them have incredible and immediate application. You have been sprinkling this whole talk with those strategies, but are there some top of the mind strategies that maybe you can share before we end?

Dr. Willis: Sure. One of the things that I mentioned was that the brain is making predictions, getting feedback of the correctness, releases the dopamine response. For example, to relate to that yourself, think about if you are with a friend and you are figuring out who starred in a movie that you are talking about, and sometimes, it gets, “Oh, I bet it was him – no, I think it was him!” Then, finding it out is kind of exciting, and when people watch basketball or football, if they have a little wager, a few dollars on the winner, who is going to be the winner, they are much more attentive during the game. [0:36:15] much during breaks. That is because once the brain buys in in making a prediction, the dopamine release system which the brain wants is sitting at the ready: all right, all right, I want to know if I got it right. Then, I get my dopamine reward. On that system or making a difference in the classroom, it happens that every student has an individual response device. It could be a piece of paper, it could be like a blow dryer raised tablet with dry pen, but any time the question is asked, especially when to evoke curiosity or interest in the lesson, how come humans can’t fly? If we resort to the pick-a-stick and name a student or whoever raises their hand and that student answers, then the rest of the class, their brain says, forget it, I’m not going to get the reward because if someone answers right away, the brain of the person in the classroom says okay, I was interested because I wanted my dopamine for making a prediction, but now, I’m going to hear it before even getting to figure it out for myself. I’m going to hear this other person say it and they are always right and there’s only one answer.

So, truly, the gift to give all students is let all of their brains buy in and care about giving it the time, the wait time, to think about a response for anyone else [0:37:34] and by writing it down onto the whiteboard, and after 30 seconds, you don’t have anyone start holding it up right away, when they are ready, folded up, teacher sees that no one else does, so there’s no mistakes here, and they got to make a prediction. So, when the lesson on why, this is especially – just start with the question why can’t people fly? So, at the beginning, they write down a prediction, no wings or weigh too much, as they will be told, they know that as the lesson goes on, they’ll get to make more prediction, revise their predictions, add to it, and the lesson is going to be giving them information about flight, wings, gravity, so the lesson becomes something they really want. It’s how they bought in, they made a bet, they predicted it, and their brain is wired and firing to learn because they’re going to get to change their prediction or strengthen it. So, the quickest, most powerful thing I can think is allowing all students to have an individual response device and time to predict, learn, and changed their predictions.

Sucheta: I love that strategy, and because as you mentioned that we are so losing those kids who never get called upon, and of course, this way, it’s also kind of circumventing the individual students personalities, so if I’m a shy person, I don’t want to speak that I can raise my board and write my predictions there, so I am still being seen and heard, and that prediction is again, as a teacher unveils the answer, you can compare his own response to the actual response and feel excited about that oh, I got it or huh, why did I not think it? So, there is some kind of engagement which can lead to excitement. You know, what I love about your message here is, you are inviting all educators to become and stay creative, engaging children is a creative job, not a challenging job the way I see it, actually.

And so, I, Judy, really appreciate your time and wonderful insights that you shared with all of us, and I will link up a lot of your tools and resources that you talk about and your website which is very thorough. Any parting message for parents as we leave?

Dr. Willis: It is that truly, parenting, teaching is harder than brain surgery. It is not brain surgery – it’s harder, and their job is incredible because neurosurgery – in my training, you do it so many times and you do such a small part, just observing for years and years, so by the time you’re actually doing it, you have done so many very easy and building up levels, that it is not that challenging because you have one thing to focus on. When you are with your kids or in a classroom, every minute, every change in the environment, who is there, what the past is, what you’re saying is impacting their brain, and to stay on top of that, to notice that, whether you have three kids at once in your home or in a classroom full of kids, you know, the more you know neurology and neuroscience, you know that their brains are responding in different ways. Over quickly, over the time, hundreds of [0:40:34] kids have gone through multiple emotional and cognitive states, and just to know that it is so hard to tune in and respond, you cannot do it to all those brains at one time, so recognize that is okay, and one kid or one aspect of the child can build that confidence or that recognition of effort for goal achievement with your child and give yourself time to recognize the impact you had – before you even start, okay, I’m going to do this, what do I hope to get? What do I have to notice in my child? So, when your child progress is not only will they get the feedback but you as a parent or teacher will say, I did it. You’re doing that as a result of you achieving a challenge and that will help you get to the next one.

Sucheta: Fantastic! Well, that is all the time we have today, but I really appreciate you being here and sharing these amazing thoughts, and I bet the listeners will love it. Thank you, Judy.

Dr. Willis: Oh, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure, Sucheta.

Todd: All right, if you enjoy today’s episode, we would sure appreciate it if you would kindly forward it to a friend or colleague who just might benefit. So, on behalf of our host Sucheta Kamath, today’s guest Dr. Judy Willis and all of us at Cerebral Matters, thanks for listening today and we look forward to seeing you again right here next week on Full PreFrontal.