[00:01] SPEAKER_00:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:15] SPEAKER_02:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Thomas Herr. Thomas is the Emeritus Head of the New City School in St. Louis and the author of five books and more than 100 articles, which you may have read in a He currently teaches in the Principal Preparation Program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and we're here today to talk about his new book, The Formative Five, fostering grit, empathy, and other success skills every student needs.
[00:45] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:48] SPEAKER_02:
Tom, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01:
Yes, and it's good to be here, and I appreciate that introduction, and I want to let everybody who's listening know that, you know, I worked in schools for years and years and years, and I often heard people speaking and I thought, well, what are they talking about? So while I think what I'm saying is true and valid and pure, I want everybody to take it with a grain of salt, be a little cynical about what I'm saying because they're working with kids every day and we've got to respect that.
[01:11] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely, and I think there's a good counterpoint to be made for just about any trend in education. We're going to talk about a number of ways that we're meeting student needs, and I think it's great to kind of have that in mind. So I wonder if we could start by having you just tell us what are the formative five, and how did you come to focus on those in this book? What jumped out about these five success skills as you wrote the book?
[01:35] SPEAKER_01:
It's interesting for me. I mean, this book has been published— recently, but I've been working on it in some respects for probably a decade or longer. And what happened is, as a principal in a school, you know, like everybody else who works in schools, as a teacher in a school, I worked on the three R's. But there was always a bit of a disconnect because I taught long enough, I had led schools long enough that I saw that some of the kids who were, you know, middle students, kids who struggled even, were very successful adults. And some of the kids who were at the top of our academic hierarchy never quite did much in the real world. And it got me thinking, well, you know, what's the connection, what's going on?
[02:16]
And I basically came to the conclusion that there are a set of skills that we need to be successful in school, but then there's another set of skills that we need to be successful in life. And I think too often we only focus on the school skills. And let me point out, absolutely, I get kids need to read, write, and calculate, no question about it. that should be the floor, not the ceiling. So once I came to that conclusion, then I really began looking at what are these factors? What are the skills?
[02:44]
What really are the qualities? And I read a whole lot. I talked to a ton of people. I mean, email is wonderful. I probably sent out about 200 or 300 emails and asked people, most of whom were not educators, what are the qualities of the folks that you consider to be successful in life? And it was really interesting to me.
[03:01]
There appeared to be pretty much of a consensus. They didn't always use the same vocabulary, but they talked about the same kinds of traits, the same kinds of skills. So in my book, The Farmer to Five, I've identified five what I call success skills, because those are the skills that can be taught that will lead kids, adults to success in life. And I talk about empathy, self-control, integrity, embracing diversity, and grit. And to me, those are the five that really are the key ones. And there are other things I considered.
[03:34]
You know, I looked at responsibility, respect, curiosity, caring, all those, those which are very, very valuable skills. But to me, they subsume under these. And so when I think about those five, again, empathy, self-control, integrity, celebrating diversity, and grit, it seems to me that's what we really need to focus on if we're going to prepare our students to be successful, not just in school, but to be successful in the real world, whatever they choose to do. And candidly, however, we define success. This is not just about making money. It's about making a dent in the world about being a good human being.
[04:10] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I wonder if we could start with the fourth of the five and talk a little bit about embracing diversity, because obviously that's something that we take seriously as educators. But set up for us, why is embracing diversity an important actual skill for students?
[04:26] SPEAKER_01:
Wonderful one with which to begin. certainly in today's time and age. And let me add here before I talk about that, specifically talk about the terms. You may have noticed when I listed the five, the other four are simply one word, you know, empathy, self-control, integrity, grit. Embracing diversity has two words. And I put that embracing there in front of it because, candidly, I think diversity is not something that everyone in our society embraces.
[04:54]
I think every parent would say absolutely, I want my kid to have empathy, of course. I want her to have grit. And for sure, I want him to have integrity and self-control. But the diversity, there might be some hesitation. So I'm saying embracing diversity because it is not enough that we help kids accept and understand. I think we have an obligation as educators to help them embrace diversity.
[05:17]
And by that, I mean the world's getting a whole lot smaller. The fact that we are going to be working with, living with, associating with people who are different from us it's part of life, it's reality. It's not something that we can choose to kind of stay in our own little backyard, whatever that backyard is, physical and metaphorical. And so I think we have to prepare kids to really certainly understand, certainly accept, but also embrace differences. And the other aspect of that, Justin, is when we talk about diversity, I think certainly in the United States, people kind of by default think of diversity as race and absolutely race is part of diversity. but it's only a part of diversity.
[05:55]
And so in my book, I talk about diversity, but I also talk about other kinds. Certainly there's ethnicity, there's sexual orientation, there's ability diversity. My school is a multiple intelligence school. So we got the fact that kids learn differently and had different talents. There's age. So it's basically helping kids appreciate that people who are different than them are wonderful.
[06:19]
The fact that you're different by default doesn't mean that we should look at you a little skeptically or we should be wary. Evolution, if you look at our history, that was natural. I mean, when you go back thousands and thousands of years, man survived by being a bit skeptical about anything that was different. That's why we were in homogeneous kinds of tribes and so forth and so on. Well, those days are gone and we need to equip our kids to have an open mind and an open attitude and not just accept, but again, embrace people regardless of the background, regardless of their ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender, whatever.
[06:57] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. And I think that's a great segue into the one you listed first, which is empathy. Now, you were for many years principal of the New City School in St. Louis, correct?
[07:09] SPEAKER_01:
Yes, sir.
[07:09] SPEAKER_02:
What did you see in your professional career as a leader that led you to focus on empathy as kind of the starting point for the book?
[07:17] SPEAKER_01:
Well, I think it is the key skill. It's why I listed it first, because I think if we have empathy for other people, if we really not just feel sorry for them if they've got a problem, but if we can really appreciate their situation, if we can understand it from their perspective, we're much more likely to be accepting. We're much more likely to be helpful. And the other thing I would add, Justin, as a school guy, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, as will our listeners. This book is designed for educators, principals, teachers, supervisors of all sorts, curriculum folks to help develop kids. However, it also is a book that is, I think, designed to help us work with one another.
[07:57]
And that's particularly true when I talk about empathy. When I do my presentations and I've been traveling around talking about the book, one of the things I point out is that for sure we need to teach children empathy in the classroom. But, you know, we also need to teach teachers and principals empathy for the teacher's lounge. And I think too often we as adults don't take the time to step out of our own backgrounds, if you will, and look at things from another's perspective and really understand the situation as they see it. We may not agree with it, but we have an obligation to help our kids begin to understand that so they can be empathetic and work with and care people. And likewise, we have to do that too.
[08:34] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. And I think when we start with empathy, when we start with assuming that other people have good intentions, that other people are fundamentally, you know, as humans like us, that they have similar needs and similar hopes and desires and are coming from a good place, you know, I think that can just transform the way that we see each other, the way that we work with each other, and the way that we conduct ourselves.
[08:58] SPEAKER_01:
And let me jump in just as well. But, you know, I think it's interesting. The recent presidential election, I think, has caused a whole lot of people, regardless of for whom you were voting, regardless of your candidate, to step back. And I think a good thing about it is the dialogue that I read and that I hear is we are doing a much more diligent job, if you will, about looking at how other people perceive things, I think. The election tended to put people in camps, Camp A, Camp B, Camp Left, Camp Right, and there wasn't the kind of dialogue that we need. And I would argue that that starts at the classroom level, that we, as teachers and as principals, we can lead kids in not just looking at what happened and not just looking at why somebody did that, but let's step back a bit.
[09:44]
What were the assumptions they were making? What were their perspectives? Why might they see things this way? And I would hope that if we could do that with our kids, you know, kids might be 18 years old. If we can do that with our kids, we can train them in a way where as adults they bring those attitudes to issues and we don't wind up with a polarized society like we seem to have in the United States right now.
[10:06] SPEAKER_02:
That's exactly what I was going to get into next is that idea of polarization. If we want to only pay attention to people like us, to people who think the way that we do, to people who have the same opinions and the same positions on things, we can do that. It's certainly possible to kind of wall ourselves off and just not engage with people who have different opinions. And I definitely felt that during the election, just seeing that happen through the Facebook algorithm. The Facebook algorithm shows you kind of more of what you want to see, even from your friends and family. And I ultimately just kind of looked back on that whole experience with a little bit of disgust to say, hey, I don't necessarily...
[10:49]
want that polarization. I do believe in what I believe in. I do support what I support and oppose what I oppose. But I don't want that to define every aspect of my relationships because I think just in terms of the way we exist in the world, we've got to exist alongside other people. We've got to partner with other people. and not simply wall ourselves off and just choose who to associate with and who to just kind of write off.
[11:17]
So I think taking other people seriously, taking their perspective seriously, I think is such a life skill, as you said.
[11:25] SPEAKER_01:
It is, and I'm agreeing with you 100%. And one of the things that I talk about in my book is that if we, the adults, are going to promote these success skills, then we also need to look at what we can do to develop them in ourselves and in our colleagues, whether you're a school leader, whether you're a teacher, whatever. And so as I was writing it, candidly, I felt a little guilty because I thought I needed to do a better job of practicing what I preach. So what I have been doing for probably the past nine months, maybe a year, and I'm not in the car that often, but when I am, I make a point of listening to radio stations that are politically very, very different from those that I would normally tune in And it's been interesting to me. And a lot of what I hear, you know, I reject. I don't agree with that.
[12:11]
But it's fascinating for me to hear what other people are thinking or saying. And occasionally I do find myself thinking, well, gosh, that's a good point. And that wouldn't have happened if I didn't get out of my comfort zone and make a point of trying to hear what other people are saying. Why are they thinking that way? And how can I better understand and work with them?
[12:28] SPEAKER_02:
Well, let's talk more about the leadership level. So the formative five, again, are empathy, self-control, integrity, embracing diversity, and grit. And we can get back into those again. But I want to ask from a leadership perspective as a principal and now as someone involved in principal preparation, what's our responsibility as educators in ensuring that those capacities, that those skills are developed? actually part of students' school experience, not just something that hopefully they develop at home, but that we actually take steps to put in place in schools? What does that look like from a leadership standpoint?
[13:05] SPEAKER_01:
Well, you know, you presented it correctly. And absolutely, we have that responsibility. And to me, and you know, I have a simple answer. And like most simple answers, it's remarkably complex once you peel it away. But to me, the simple answer comes down to school culture. And when I talk with people about this, everybody's workday is busy.
[13:24]
We've all got standardized tests hanging over our heads. And so what I'm trying not to do is here's an add-on. Oh, here's what you do for another 30 minutes every day. That's just not realistic. And so a lot of it comes back to school culture. And I think as principals, we can do a great job of framing that.
[13:40]
There was a wonderful article from which I worked in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago by a man named John Coleman. And I talk about this in the chapters. And he talks about culture having, and he wasn't saying school culture, just organizational culture, having six components. And he talks about things like what's the mission, what's the vision, what are the practices, who are the people, what are the places, and what is the narrative? And those combine the culture. And as a school principal, you can really frame that.
[14:08]
And so when you talk about places, you know, we all have a school. But places is also what's in the halls, what's on the walls. In my class that I'm teaching at the University of Missouri St. Louis, for example, one of the assignments I gave to the students, and these are kids working on their master's degree, was to walk around their building and look at what's up, what's the message you get, forget that there's any body in the building. And no surprise, it was really interesting. Some of the buildings were vibrant, and by vibrant, I don't mean necessarily colorful and attractive, although I suspect they were, but they were vibrant in that what was up there was in tune with the school's mission, with their vision, and it was new, it was changing, it was attractive.
[14:48]
Whoever was in charge, and it could be a principal, could be a teacher, saw the power of display. Conversely, there were other students who said, gosh, I came back from high school, and this one corner of the hall was great, the other one, here it is April, and they still have the same stuff they had in September. So I think looking at that as part of place, looking at narrative as what are the stories people tell? What are the traditions? I wrote an article in Education Week about, oh gosh, five or six years ago. And it's one of my favorite articles that I've written.
[15:20]
And I always like my writing, but it's one of my favorite articles I've written because the title inevitably gets people to raise their eyebrows. And the title of it is what if faculty meetings were voluntary? As you can imagine, when I say that at meetings, I get all kinds of comments. But my point is that We as school principals should consider what what if faculty meetings were voluntary. What would we need to do to get people to come to meetings. And where we wind up with and this ties into my success skills is that faculty meetings should be learning meetings.
[15:50]
They shouldn't be times when we simply share information. They should be times when people come and they learn and they grow. And I think it's a great time for us to work on these success skills with our teachers similar in the way that we want them to work with our kids get them engaged in some of the activities having them do some of the same things because what that will do is generate enthusiasm it'll make the meetings meaningful and it will set the stage again for an attitude when i talk about the formative five what really needs to happen whether it's a classroom or whether it's a school or whether it's a school district is there needs to be an attitude that we need to do more than prepare our kids in the three r's we need to prepare them to succeed in life and if we have that attitude then it plays out. And again, as a school principal, the key is school culture and how we leverage that culture in a way that it causes people to see things and to act in a way that helps kids grow.
[16:43] SPEAKER_02:
Beautifully said. I've heard a very similar message from Dave Burgess, author of Teach Like a Pirate, who's been on the show. And if you've ever been to one of Dave's presentations, you know he is all in. I've seen him present at ASCD in costume with magic tricks, and the theatrics are dialed up to 11, absolutely amazing. But he has the same kind of response, that this is not, you know, teaching in an engaging way is not an add-on. It's not something extra you do.
[17:09]
It's part of your culture in your classroom. And he asks the same question. You know, if your students didn't have to be in your class, if your class was optional and attendance was not mandatory, would anybody show up? And they've actually done pirate days in a lot of schools where they will allow students to choose where to go and they'll have different topics, different classes that students can visit throughout the day. And of course, that's kind of a special one-time event. But I think that question is powerful and applying that same question to faculty meetings.
[17:38]
Are we creating opportunities for people to learn? Are we creating a kind of culture where people are really engaging, really happy to be there as learners?
[17:48] SPEAKER_01:
let me jump in and give an example. And in the book, I talk about this. And when you think about mission and vision, which is, you know, Coleman says, and I agree, that's where you begin with culture. If I looked at the mission statement of all of your listeners, you know, there are going to be some differences, but there are also some things that we're all going to talk about. We're going to talk about responsibility, preparing kids academically, maybe world leaders or whatever. So there are some phrases.
[18:13]
And too often, those are simply pet phrases. And so one of the things that that I've done, and I would suggest your readers may want to try, is at New City School, we had, for example, the term joyful learning in our mission statement. That was something that we wanted. And so one of the things I did is prior to a faculty meeting, we would meet on Mondays. The preceding week, I said to people, hey, just so you know, at the faculty meeting next week, we're going to take the phrase joyful learning, and I'm going to start off and I'm going to ask you in small groups to talk about what you've done in your classroom the past week that speaks to joyful learning. What did you do that brought this to life?
[18:49]
So people knew, some folks like that preparation, came in, the meeting started, I greeted everybody, we did the bulletin board stuff people need to know. And then I said, okay, joyful learning. And I had people count off so they weren't necessarily in a group with their department partner or with their best friend. And I said, you've got seven minutes, talk about what you're doing, groups of three or four for joyful learning. Well, Justin, I can tell you it was successful because I had trouble getting the group to stop talking. Several times I said, folks, we need to end.
[19:18]
They were so engaged in talking about what this means. What are they doing with Joyful Learning? And for me, when you talk about culture, when you talk about attitude, creating that kind of a climate, because I know then meeting was at the end of the day, but I know the next morning these people came in and they were thinking about what they had learned from other folks, what they had shared, and doing that kind of thing on a regular basis, taking your mission statement, for example, looking at that, even if you did it once a month or once semester stepping back bringing that to life that's a way of framing the culture looking at your mission looking at your vision in a way that's going to make the meeting meaningful and going to help teachers and everybody else in the building proceed with teaching the success skills so tom i wonder if you could share with us what are some of the the leadership aspects of making a school-wide effort to build these skills that we might tend to miss that you don't want us to overlook
[20:08]
Well, let me just throw out one little, and I don't want to say caution, but one little thing I think of which people need to be aware. And that is if you're going to go get into this, which of course I hope you do, a key component of this, and I think any kind of change, is parent education, getting parents on board. As educators, I think we're quick, the argument I make, we're quick to buy. But I think for lots of parents, it's not something they're used to thinking. They want to make sure, as we do, that their kids are learning the three R's. And sometimes when you talk about success skills or values that may cause people to wonder, well, hold on, what's the school doing?
[20:44]
This belongs in the church, the synagogue, the home or whatever. And I think as we explain what we're doing and why we're doing it, parents are definitely on board. But I think if you're a principal planning to move in this direction, whether you're going to go quickly or you're going to go slowly, you need to be very aware that it is in your best interest and your kids' best interest to set the stage by investing the time and energy in explaining what you're doing and why you're doing it. At my school, for example, and I did this more than once at our back-to-school night in the fall when parents would come to hear what was going on, you know, I have this stage and I introduce people and I talk about the school year. And not unlike what I did with the teachers that I described a couple minutes ago, I would often say to parents, and I'm going to give you a second just to think to yourself, think of two or three people you know who you consider successful. I'm not going to define success.
[21:33]
That's up to you. And I'd wait, you know, and I could see people kind of thinking, you know, they were sitting in the theater. And I'd say, OK, now, here's my second question. What are the qualities? Why are they successful? What were you thinking of?
[21:45]
And then I would have them turn and talk for three or four minutes. And again, they would often have such engaged discussions that it would be hard for them to come back together. But once they would do that, I would say, OK, the reason I asked you that, raise your hands. How many of you said reading, writing? How many of you said self-confidence? How many of you said self-control, dah, dah?
[22:04]
And what I would do is get them to generate these kinds of skills. And I would say that's something on which we're going to be working this school year. Some of the things you may be hearing about from your child's teachers, you will be reading about from me in my letters home, are going to speak to things beyond reading, writing, and calculating. And the reason is because of what we just said tonight, what you just said to me, or to your partners, five minutes of going to theater. So it's that whole notion of parent education. We can't take it for granted.
[22:31]
We need to bring everybody on board. The job of the leader of the school is to educate everybody.
[22:36] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely a team effort. And I think such a wise point because we know that will come up if we don't do that outreach, if we don't do that engagement and bring parents into the conversation. So the book is The Formative Five, Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs. Tom, thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.
[23:00] SPEAKER_01:
Yes. And this was really fun. Good luck to everybody. Educators deserve an extra pat on the back. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to share what I'm talking about.
[23:10] SPEAKER_00:
And now, Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership.
[23:14] SPEAKER_02:
So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Dr. Thomas Herr? One thing that really stands out to me is the importance of culture, the importance of treating the formative five or however many key attributes are on your personal list of skills and values that we need to teach to students for their future success in life. that it's not an add-on, that it is a part of our culture, and that it's only going to be a part of our culture if we as leaders are intentional about fostering that culture, about, as Tom said, building time into faculty meetings to talk about it, to talk about what it looks like in our classrooms to talk about what it looks like at the school level, the intentionality has to be there at a leadership level. And I think we sometimes feel a pressure to only focus on tasks in faculty meetings, to only focus on the onslaught of professional development topics that are in front of us.
[24:13]
And I think we've got to really intentionally give ourselves permission in those professional development sessions to set aside time to talk and to make meaning and to say, well, what does this mean to you? What does empathy mean to you? And how do you foster that in your classroom? When we have those conversations, often we realize that we are our best resource for each other, that I can learn so much, not just from books, not just from podcasts like you've done today, but from the people that I work with every day. And it's only by talking together that we can create a culture in our school that's going to help our students get to where we want them to get in life and help them have the opportunity and have the potential that they deserve. So I hope you take a look at The Formative Five by Tom Herr, fostering grit, empathy, and other success skills every student needs.
[25:06]
And I hope you take some time in the coming weeks to sit down with your staff and talk through those issues. How do we foster those skills in our students?
[25:14] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
