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In this episode, we talk with acclaimed author and educator, James Nottingham. His recent book, Teach Brilliantly, explores what will make a dramatic difference to students’ learning with small tweaks all educators can put into practice.
Drawing on years of both classroom experience and hands-on research and writing resources for educators, James brings our focus onto what’s most impactful for students. He emphasizes a shift from traditional questioning to fostering exploration to enhance student engagement. James highlights the importance of embracing challenges through concepts like the Learning Pit model, which encourages students to step out of their comfort zones and develop growth mindsets. The Big Dream James envisions an educational landscape that works for all students. Drawing from his personal—albeit mostly negative—experiences as a student, James envisions a system where all students can thrive, not just the select few. In this, his core focus is how do we make those small tweaks that make a significant difference to reach students who aren’t typically served by the current system. Mindset Shifts Required To create an education system that works for all students, educators can embrace the mindset shift away from managing student behavior to nurturing genuine curiosity and deep thinking. A key part of this is engagement—how do we engage a student body that is more distracted than any other generation? In James’ perspective, the answer is not “engaging” by controlling behaviors, but about engagement as thinking, embracing questions, and encouraging curiosity. Action Steps To engage students in thinking and create open, curious classrooms, here are a few practical steps that James suggests educators implement in their classrooms: Step 1: Swap exploration for evaluation. James shares the typical questioning process as initiation by the teacher > response by the students > evaluation by the teacher. That last piece of evaluation is usually limited to “good” and “bad,” which dis-engages students. Instead, by using a tool like a mini whiteboard, educators can ask students to explore by writing down their ideas and showing them. The teacher can then evaluate those responses privately, allowing them to come up with the appropriate follow-up questions. Step 2: Embrace exploration in dialogue. Similar to questioning, exploration is important in dialogue and conversation in the classroom. Encourage students to not rush through tasks, but use phrases like, “Yes, but what about…” or “Could you give me an example of that?” Remind students that they’re not responsible for agreeing with each other, there’s room for conversation and exploratory talk. Step 3: Introduce the Learning Pit model to help students understand and embrace the challenges of learning. James created this model in the mid-90s, and it has been influential since then. When introducing it to new students, he would explain that success is not straightforward, but takes time, effort, determination, etc., and we must go through challenges and get outside our comfort zones to get to success. The learning pit, then, is the place you are in when you take “two steps forward, one step back.” For a time, you may be “worse,” but that is the progress of learning. When you’re in the learning pit, it gets worse before it gets better and you have a choice to either quit or figure out how to get out—which always brings a sense of accomplishment and growth. This concept guides students through the discomfort of growth and towards self-efficacy. One Step to Get Started Begin by exploring James’ different practical tips and tweaks for your classroom and choose one to try out. You don’t have to do everything to start, but can begin with what resonates and what may make the biggest difference to your teaching practice now. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on his website, Learning Pit, or grab a copy of James’ book, Teach Brilliantly. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing graphics to make your own learning pit with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 233 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) James, welcome to the time for teachership podcast it's an absolute delight to join you. 00:08 - James Nottingham (Guest) Thank you for the invitation. 00:09 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm really, really thrilled about your book, so I have it here teach brilliantly. It's so good. Um, I think, knowing that that's kind of the context for our conversation today, is there anything you want listeners to kind of know about the book in general or about your work yourself, as we jump into our conversation today? 00:27 - James Nottingham (Guest) It's my 12th book. My first book was called Challenging Learning and I published that in 2010. And back then it was a collection of the key ideas that I'd come across as a teacher that helped me to get the most learning out of my students, the best progress for my students, and so I shared those ideas back then. After that, I took one topic per book and went deeply into it. So, for example, feedback or growth mindset or the learning pit, which is a model that I created. I took one theme and go and went deeply. Then this 12th book is, in effect, full circle and back to okay, if I had an elevator moment now, it's a very, very, very long elevator If you're going to cover everything that I've covered in the book, but it's if you want to know what will make a dramatic difference to students' learning, with little tweaks, not wholesale change, not huge great big projects, but just small, little tweaks that I can put into practice, that you can put into practice the very next time we're in the classroom with our students. Then that's what it's all about, and I've spent 30-something years in teaching. 01:59 I still teach to this day. I work with researchers such as Carol Dweck, such as John Hattie I and spent a lot of time with both of those on tour for many years. So I look at research, I look at practice. I'm always focused on okay, yes, but how does this translate into our teaching practice, into our classrooms? And one of the things I do a lot is demonstration lessons. Give me any students, any class of kids, so long as they're happy to speak English with me, then I'll work with them and I'll demonstrate any of these techniques working with your students, and then we can talk about it afterwards. So that's my focus really is how do we tweak things a little bit such that it has a big impact on our student learning? 02:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That blend of researcher and practitioner is so present in the book, the distillation of all of the meta-analyses, all of the research it is so beautifully written about. And also you don't ever feel like as a reader, I never felt that you weren't in it. You know that you weren't in front of classrooms all the time thinking about the practicalities and it just comes through so beautifully. So I really appreciate that, because sometimes we lean really far into one or the other, and it was, it was a beautiful blend. So thank you. 03:18 - James Nottingham (Guest) No, thank you for saying that. Actually, when one of my books was the first one to be translated into Norwegian I do a lot of work in Scandinavia and they really struggled to place it because they said we have the academic research books and we have the practical, nice little planning books, but we don't have this thing in the middle. And they struggled to find the voice with it and they went for the third person in the end and I said no, no, I'm sorry, that just doesn't work for me. This is me talking to my colleagues. Um, and albeit I might not have met these colleagues, we're all colleagues in the teaching profession and that's what I want it to be. And this is what I've learned by hanging out with researchers and this is what I've learned by hanging out in the classroom for that long. And here you go, dear colleague, this is what I've learned by hanging out in the classroom for that long. 04:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And here you go, dear colleague, this is what I found out. Yeah, I absolutely loved that tone. I felt like I was, you know, I was in there with you, I think, taking kind of a big step back from the book and just thinking broadly across your years of experience. I like to ask about freedom, dreaming. So Dr Bettina Love talks about this as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, and so I'm curious what is that big dream that you hold for the field of education? 04:38 - James Nottingham (Guest) Let's start with a small question, shall we Goodness me Right in in there? What's the meaning of life? Well, here we go. Yeah, okay, so can I just have another sip of coffee? Absolutely, yeah, well, I think, um, I do feel as if I'm on a bit of a mission. 05:00 Um, I hated school myself as a student. You probably tell from my accent. I'm from the UK and we have a system primary and secondary or primary and high school and we switch at the age of 11. And so I went from a small little primary school with a couple of hundred students to to me, it was a big high school with a couple of thousand students to, to me, it was a big high school with a couple of thousand students. I know, if you're listening from Texas, you just think that's tiny little thing. But 2,000 to me was a lot. 05:33 And two months after I started high school, my mother died and I, and then my, my father, was sent off to the Falklands War, which was a bit of a skirmish between the UK and Argentina at the time, and so my sister was farmed off to some neighbors and I was home alone and, funnily enough, I acted up at school. I suppose pop psychology would be. I was looking for a bit of attention, you know. I suppose pop psychology would be. I was looking for a bit of attention, you know. And as so often happens, my peer group labelled me the class clown and my teachers labelled me as naughty. And I kind of lived to both of those labels and played up to them. And I got expelled from one of the high schools actually, and I went to another one. And high schools actually that I and I went to another one, and so it got worse and worse and worse. And the very best day of my childhood was the day I left school, you know. So I didn't think for a moment that I would ever want to go back, um, but um, I didn't have any qualifications, so I ended up going into pig farming, turns out. That's quite a hard job and I'm not cut out for that. And then I went into a chemical factory. That was even worse. 06:53 And then a friend of mine said he was going to Cape Town to do some work in some of the squatter camps outside of Cape Town, and this was the very, very end of apartheid. This was 1989. And in fact we were outside Victor Vestaire prison in February 1990 when Nelson Mandela was released. So it was quite a time of it, and when we were there we did lots and lots of different voluntary jobs, and one was in a school and I found my place. I thought this is amazing, I want to be there, I want to work with kids. 07:34 And when I got back to the UK, I got a job as a teaching assistant in a school for deaf children and loved it and thought that's what I'd be doing forevermore. But then it was every head of faculty was a Catholic nun. I think they probably saw the 666 on the back of my head and they said look, james, you should really leave. Oh, thanks very much. I thought I was doing a good job and they said well, you are, but we think you should be a teacher. 08:01 And so I went into teaching with that sense that teaching education does work for many. Problem is it doesn't work for all. When I think about my friends, a lot of them did well at school and they had the same teachers and they're in the same school. So why did it work for them and it didn't work for me? And so I I realised that if we started with a clean slate, we would build something very different these days for education than exists today, but I'm not so pessimistic as to think that this is entirely broken. And therefore, what can we do? And what's the point? It's like trying to put up a tent in in a hurricane. You know why bother? Well, actually, it does work very well for a lot of students. 08:55 Problem is, it doesn't work for all, and so my focus is how do we, as I tweak things a little bit to make a significant difference to all of our students? 09:08 And we were talking before we started recording about that idea of equity and one of the things that I found when going through the meta-analyses again and again and again, I see this message that this works for all students, and particularly for vulnerable students or bilingual students or at risk students or those who come from poverty, and so so these are the things that there are things we can do. Now, of course, there's a lot of things outside of our power that we can't do, but as a teacher, we have got a tremendous influence on young people and we ought to use that for good, and I believe that there are things we can do that will make a difference, and that's what I've been pursuing. That's, that's, that's really. Let's make it a better educational experience than the one I mean. I don't want to put it on a website, make it better than it was for James Nottingham. No, it's just let's make it better for as many students as we possibly can sharing your life story and your goal. 10:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm really really grateful to you for your vulnerability, both in the book and on here, in sharing your story, because I think, as you said in the book, you know, stories are what we remember and we connect to, and so when we're teaching, you know, remember that. But this is also kind of an illumination of that principle. It's just like people, listeners and folks who are engaging with episode will engage. So thank you for that and let's dive into some pieces of that book. So I love that you start with engagement as one of the first kind of meaty chapters and you think about kind of this idea of exploratory talk was really, really interesting to me. So I'm curious if you could talk to us a little bit about, you know, engagement, but specifically even the exploratory talk what is it, what is it different from? And then maybe we can get into some of the strategies for thinking in that chapter which I really got excited about. 11:11 - James Nottingham (Guest) So engagement? I think often we we talk about engagement that students aren't engaged. They're not as engaged as they used to be, and I think that is probably correct. Albeit, every generation, I think, complains about the next generation, and we've all done it, and our parents complained about it, and our grandparents, and so on, so on, so on. I'm sure everybody's always complained about the youth of today. But I do think it's right that we are facing a student body who have so many more distractions than they ever had before. And how on earth do we engage them? I worry that engagement is often sort of morphed into behavior. How do we get them to behave? And of course we need them to behave. 12:02 But I think that's a different category altogether, because engagement is whatever you are thinking about. So, those of you listening to this podcast, if your mind is drifted, then you're no longer engaged. If you're thinking, where am I driving, or what am I having for tea tonight, or you know you, all of a sudden, you're not engaged tonight. Or you know you, all of a sudden, you're not engaged. You, um lindsay, you mentioned that you, you're a voracious reader. Let's say you sit in a cafe and you're reading. Everybody around you if they glanced over at you, they would assume that you were engaged in that book. 12:38 But let's say, as you are reading, your mind drifts someone, someone says something else. You give the impression of engaging, but actually you engage in something entirely different, and so my premise is engagement is thinking. Now I also have strategies for helping kids to behave. But if we're talking engagement, engagement is thinking, then that leads to the next bit how are we better able to engage students thinking? And that's through. The number one strategy, of course, is questioning, and, as you'll have seen, I went into questioning quite a lot because we use questioning all the time, and early estimates had it at between 300 and 400 questions per day. More recent ones are between 100 and 350 per day. 13:29 But it's still a lot of questions we're asking every single day. I mean, no wonder we go home and say don't talk to me. And the problem is the questioning style that we tend to use is initiate, respond, evaluate. That is, I ask a question, that's initiate. I give a nod, I give a gesture, I ask a question. That's initiate. Response is students give something back and that's fine. 13:57 But the last bit, evaluate. That's where it goes wrong, because we typically say very good, well done or no, that's not right. Goes wrong because we typically say very good, well done or no, that's not right. And since students work out very quickly, okay, there's going to be public evaluation here. It tends to reduce engagement to one third because students start to think only say something if you know, you've got the right answer. Now, of course, if you're talking kindergarten, they're all just shouting out anyway, you know. But I'm talking about the older kids. The older they get, the more judicious they are in their decision-making and the more likely they are to think now, have I absolutely got it right? Even if I have got it right, is it the right thing to say, because people might make fun of me this culture in this classroom is not conducive to being willing, and so on and so on. There's all that sort of stuff going on in their head, and so the evaluative approach, even as simple as yes, very good, well done leads us to lose engagement of students. It actually reduces it to one third. 15:09 If and here's one of those an example of a tweak if we change it from evaluation to exploration, then the evidence is that lifts it to two thirds. Now it's still not perfect, but I have yet to come across a perfect pedagogical strategy, but two-thirds, of course you think all right, all right, there's a good starting point for me. And exploration means I don't evaluate publicly. Now, privately, I'm still thinking where in the hell did you get that idea from? But I'm not giving any of that away, I'm just oh, that's interesting, can you tell me more? And I piece that together with mini whiteboards. I mean that's a a strategy that you'll have seen come very strongly through the book, that I honestly truly haven't come across a piece of equipment in a classroom that makes as big a difference as a mini whiteboard. Because if I go for hands up, I might get, let's say, one third of the kids volunteering, maybe, maybe half, if I'm really really, really lucky, if I go for cold calling, okay, you at at the back, you at the front okay, then I get different kids. 16:30 But if I go for mini whiteboards and use the language to go with it and it needs to be exploratory what do you think it might be? Put down, some of your one or two of your ideas? Stare with your neighbor and then, together, put down a thought, work this out on your whiteboards and, when you're ready, show me. And that tends to get way, way, way more responses. And now what I can do? 16:58 I can look around and I'm privately evaluating because I'm thinking, okay, yeah, most of them have got this, a few haven't. I wonder why those few haven't. Is it that they are rabbits in the headlights? Is it because they weren't listening? Is it because they were just all over? Or is it that they actually really don't know? So I need to maybe ask another question to check it out. 17:20 So I'm doing lots of evaluation, but it's not public, no-transcript. I need to ask questions that will find out their reasoning for that, because it might be they just got lucky, it might be that they saw it on the wall, it might be that they've just been told it by a different teacher. I want to know is it that or is it that they knew it because they thought about it, because they'd reasoned and so and so the exploratory approach is very, very, um, much more productive. It leads to much better gains and I saw this in the research and I thought, well, let me try it in practice. And honestly, I just think it's transformed my teaching practice. It really, really has. I mean, to start with, the kids were like well, why isn't he telling us? Well, what's wrong with him? Why is he grumpy? Today I had to say listen, when I don't respond, it's not because I'm not interested, it's because I'm thinking about it and wondering and seeing what else we can ask to find out more. So that's exploratory in terms of questioning. And then there's exploratory in terms of dialogue. 18:52 And one of the things that I like to do with a new group of students is when you get them into groups, and we typically do get them into groups at different times. Problem is, most kids haven't learned how to collaborate very effectively, and so I will give them a task to do, and partway through the task, most often they've kind of rushed to get it done, and I'll pause them and I say now if you have finished or pretty much finished? If you have finished or pretty much finished, I'm sorry to say you've probably been using cumulative talk. And what I mean by cumulative talk is somebody says something and somebody else says, oh yes, very good, that's nice. And then somebody adds to it and it's all very lovely and it's all very friendly, but it doesn't lead to much critical thinking. And I want you to engage in critical thinking. 19:46 Now, of course, if I'm working with younger students, I adapt the language a bit. I might say something like it's not your job to agree with each other. Now, that's not to say I want you to have a fight or an argument, but it is your job to help each other to think more. And by that I mean I want you to use phrases such as ah, yes, but what about? Or could it be? Or could you give me an example of that? Or I was wondering about. So it's not dismissing their ideas, and you're certainly going to continue to be respectful and a good listener, certainly going to continue to be respectful and a good listener, but your response ought to be exploring their ideas rather than simply agreeing with their ideas. 20:33 It's a little bit like Goldilocks porridge. There's porridge that's just a little bit too warm and that's cumulative. It's just very, very nice, but there's not a lot of thinking, it's just about being nice and getting the job done. Then there's porridge that's just a little bit too cold, that's disputational and that's ego-driven and it's point scoring and who can be the wittiest or the cleverest? And then there's porridge that's just right and that's exploratory talk. And again, the research bears this out. And so I thought okay, let me try it. And I've been developing it more and more and more with my students, and goodness me what a difference it makes in terms of the depth of their thinking. 21:16 Now we have to also be willing for some groups not to finish quote-unquote, because all too often in lessons, as we well know, it's about industry, it's about getting the job done, and if I might bounce for my final response to that question is a bounce to the difference between setting high expectations and setting low expectations. Between setting high expectations and setting low expectations, a classic symptom of low expectations is make sure you finish your work, whereas a classic symptom of high expectations is make sure you understand this. That's a big difference, isn't it? Now, of course, in the high expectations. They're still going to be doing things, but the emphasis is on am I remembering it, am I understanding it, am I connecting it? What questions do I have? Whereas with low expectations is have I finished? 22:21 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, I love the almost like permission that you're granting to students when you're like yeah, no, agreeing is actually not super helpful to anyone. Your job is to ask questions and to push your thinking and to think more. I just, I think as a student, I am definitely like a people pleaser, I think, and it would have been so nice for a teacher to be like no, actually that's not your job. I am a rule follower, so I would have listened to that. Right, ok, I'm going to ask questions, I'm going to push back. I think a lot of students, particularly the students who succeed in traditional school, like just try to like okay, check done. You're right, like you said, low expectations actually to just finish the work, and it's such a push to be like no, I want you to explore that more and so many people are unfamiliar with it, but I mean, I was a former high school teacher that you've done school this particular way for so long. 23:08 To kind of unlearn takes some time, but how worth it would it be to do that? 23:13 - James Nottingham (Guest) It's incredible. Yeah, yeah, I did a demonstration lesson south side of Chicago. It would be less than two years after Covid began, because we're all still wearing masks and you probably have no problem understanding the accent. But I'm thinking, what on earth are these kids saying? And they had masks on as well and I'm like blinking, eh. 23:36 And it was in grade nine class and I was getting them doing some collaborative work and I'm thinking, do I just let them get on with it and then pretend that I understand what they're saying when I don't? But anyway, there was that classic thing of a few groups just kind of got it done. And even more classic was that it was typically one kid did it and the other two, three, four kids just kind of went along with it. And so I introduced what I've just shared with you and I use those three terms as cumulative there's disputation and there's exploratory, and I linked it to Goldilocks Porridge and so on. And they were nodding. Well, I think they were nodding Maybe they're nodding off, but they seem like they're interested and I said, right, have another go and this time be more exploratory. 24:30 And it's funny because one of the guys who is obviously a very dominant character in the class generally, and he was definitely leading his group. He says, well, I think we've all been very cumulative, haven't we? Of course, they all agreed with him in a cumulative way. And he says let's be more exploratory. But and I thought, isn't he just like being sarcastic here? But actually he was being genuine in it and it really did lead to because he says, right, I'm going to stop now. What do you think? You know? Come back at me, right, what questions do we have for her? What questions could we ask of him? And that I I thought isn't that fascinating in, and it was just a 40 minute lesson and that pivot that was so noticeable. Yeah, it was lovely that's brilliant. 25:17 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I I love that story. Thank you for sharing that because I could envision that in many of the classes that I taught, if I had just had the language they'd be like oh yeah, and I love the strategies. 25:24 - James Nottingham (Guest) I'm looking at my notes here. You have so many and folks should get the of the classes that I taught. 25:26 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) If I had just had the language, they'd be like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love the strategies. I'm looking at my notes here. You have so many and folks should get the book and truly explore them. But kind of like the sense of ranking, like the inner researcher in me is like thinking of like a QSort or something no-transcript, and I love the question section. But beyond even just asking the verbal question is like here's some stuff, here's some concepts, here's some terms Like play with that, explore that. It's really cool and totally would rework, I think, how a lot of teachers plan their lessons in a positive way. 26:15 - James Nottingham (Guest) Yeah, yeah, there's lots and lots of strategies that I've come across. There's one or two in the book that I've invented, so to speak, but most of them are just brilliant practical strategies that I've come across, so to speak. But most of them are just brilliant practical strategies that have come across in teaching in different countries. And you mentioned ranking. I mean it's just a lovely, lovely, lovely strategy, you know. So a good example I was working with a district in Wyoming a few months ago and I mean I work a lot in Australia and I thought Australia had some remote areas. This place in Wyoming, it took four hours to drive in a straight line from Salt Lake City and for the last three hours there was no mobile phone reception at all and I passed like three cards in three hours, you know, and there was just cows everywhere. I was just like where on earth am I? Anyway, I got there and I did this ranking thing. I said, right, okay, in groups, could you get a piece of paper, rip it up into nine little slips. On each slip of paper will you write a job or a profession. And they did that and I said now rank them. And the classic thing that students do kind of well, you can't rank them. But many groups said, yeah, fine, let's get on with it. And they ranked them. You know, and of course, being in Wyoming, it was like the life or death. You know, who do you rely on for life? And, of course, who do you rely on for life? And of course, guess what? Cowboy was at number one, you know, and teacher was at the bottom. But anyway, there was this and I said, okay, if you've, and I only gave them a few minutes and then I paused them and I did what I mentioned a few moments ago, that okay, if you have managed to rank them, I would gently suggest you've been involved in cumulative talk, which means da-da-da-da-da. Now I want you to get into exploratory talk. The energy in the room changed so much and they started questioning and challenging each other, and so then you do that with children. 28:20 So let's say, in an elementary classroom you get them to think of some characters in a book that they've been reading. I mean, if we stick with a Goldilocks porridge for a minute, you have the three bears and Goldilocks, there's four. And how do you rank them? But you don't tell them how to Say I want you to rank them and they're like, well, how? And I say, well, that's a good question. And they're like, yeah, but can you answer it then? No, I want you to think about it, have a think. What are some of the ways in which you could rank them? Older students might be could still stick with literature for a minute and take Shakespearean characters and rank them, but you don't tell them the criteria for ranking them, because you want them to think about that as well, you know. So it's this permission to think. I think that's what, what the purpose is totally. 29:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I, yeah, that's. It's awesome. I love how these illuminate to your. Their last story just really illuminates how multiple strategies and approaches can be kind of combined. They they're like very cumulative right. You create this class culture. Now you could do this thing. Now we introduce the idea of exploratory. It's so, so great. I think I'm looking at time like wow, the time has gone by very fast. But I would love to get into this concept of challenge. I mean, you've done so much. The learning pit is classic right in education. So I wonder if you can kind of talk us through kind of that culture of challenge and the learning pit model, if you don't mind, just so we can kind of think about how that plays into the culture that these discussions are happening in. 29:52 - James Nottingham (Guest) Ideally, Sure, yeah. So I created the learning pit in the mid-90s and it's probably worth me sharing with you how I introduced it to a new group of students, and these are the sorts of messages that I give them. I'm sorry to say that success is not straightforward. I wish it was, but it's not. If it were straightforward, every single one of us would be as successful as we want to be. I would be multilingual, for example, I'd be able to play the guitar like Jimi Hendrix. I can't do any of those. 30:22 Reason is because to become really, really successful, it takes time, it takes effort, determination, it takes good strategy or strategies, it takes some brilliant teaching, it takes a bit of luck. There's all sorts of things that contribute towards becoming more successful. What we do know is the first step, always, always, always. The first step in becoming more successful is to step out of your comfort zone. There's no choice about it, because if you stay in your comfort zone, well, it's nice, it's a nice place to be. It's a bit of a giveaway in the name comfort zone, you know, I like it. But to become more successful, I necessarily have to go beyond where I am right now, and so then, when I step out of my comfort zone, I'm going to encounter a performance dip. That's what psychologists for decades have called it a performance dip. And then I do this with students and it's a good way to illustrate it with students and that is could you all pick up a pen and will you write out your full name? Now will you put your pen in your other hand and write out your full name again and of course there's always a bit of laughter about that and so on. And now show the person next to you your two attempts and hope that they don't laugh at them too much. Did you notice your second attempt looks worse than your first and that's a performance dip, because you've gone from what was comfortable writing with your dominant hand to what was uncomfortable writing with your weaker hand. Did you also notice how much more effort it took, how awkward it felt? 32:08 Those are the sensations associated with learning, and my job as a teacher is actually to create those sensations in the classroom. I don't want you to feel socially uncomfortable, emotionally uncomfortable. I don't want that, but intellectually I want you to be uncomfortable. I want you to feel awkward. I want you to feel like you're putting in loads of effort and it's looking worse at the moment, and that's the key. It's not. It's looking worse full stop. It's looking worse at the moment. 32:43 And then this is when I draw out the learning pit. I say to them typically people talk about success, as you just need to keep taking steps towards where you want to get to, towards your goal, and so that sounds lovely. But more often than not, you take one or two steps and then you get worse before you get better. And I say this to the students I'm going to let you into a secret. When I ask teachers to do exactly what you've just done write with your dominant hand, and then you write with your weaker hand. Their handwriting looks terrible. And then I ask them how many of you are ambidextrous? How many of you can write equally well with both hands? And I promise you this there's normally about one or two teachers in the room, that's it. All the others can't, and everyone who can't is a quitter. They quit. Now, that's not me making fun of them, it's me talking about what is human. We quit with so many things because you just can't do everything, and so what we do is we prioritize. And since we prioritize, what it means is we quit with lots of things and you will find yourself in what I call the learning pit, because I draw it out and it looks like it gets worse before it gets better. 34:03 And when you find yourself in that learning pit, there are two main solutions. Number one is quit, just think it's not worth it. Number two is work out how to get through it. Is it the strategy? Is it the approach? Is it the way you're collaborating? Is it a different question you need to ask Is it a resource that you're missing? Is it some bit of information that you need? Is it that you need some advice from someone? But there are lots and lots and lots of ways to help you through the pit, and my job is to help you to get into the pit, but also to give you advice about things you can do to get out of the pit. 34:44 And now let's get to the good news. The good news is, if you are willing to work through the pit and out the other side, I promise you you will feel so much more accomplished than if you'd given up. We all do that, all of us. We quit, it's quick, but if we persevere and go through and out the other side, we know that sensation of feeling so good about ourselves because we think I figured it out, I did it, I persevered and I got here. And that's what makes it worthwhile. And then, when you get out of the pit, you think to yourself I figured it out. And since I figured it out this time, I bet you I can figure it out again and again, and again and again. And, incidentally, that notion of I can figure it out is self-efficacy, that belief that I can influence things. And so the idea of challenge is we have to create this sense in our classroom, that challenge is a good thing in a learning situation. Now, challenge crossing the road is not a good thing, but challenge in the classroom is a good thing and it's what helps us to grow. And we have to learn how to get through this pit and out the other side. And it's about I think the final thing worth mentioning is it's about the purpose. It's the purpose is to improve. 36:21 You see, the next time you get on a flight, what would you think if the pilot says well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is my maiden voyage, but listen, we all have to learn sometimes. So if you wouldn't mind, please buckle up. It's going to be somewhat of a bumpy ride. I suppose all of us would be like, can we get off, please? Because what we want is that pilot to have done so many, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of training hours that she or he could land the plane upside down on the hudson river. You know, we want them to be that expert such that they find flying the plane easy. So when I'm on the plane with them, when they have got passengers, don't take risks, just perform brilliantly. But please, please, please. At pilot school and in your professional learning, please, please, please, go on those simulators, try lots of things, work it out. What, if? What about? Could we? And that's what schooling ought to be like. 37:24 It's not performing, it's the learning phase, and so that we're ready to perform in exams or on the sports field, or in the on the stage, or playing in the band or something you know, it's rehearsals, ready for performance, and it's we really, really, really need our students to be much, much more willing to go for challenge in the learning situation. Not the crossing the road situation, but the learning situation. That's the key to it. And what I worry about is there is a meta-analysis that I share in the book covering 42 studies that show when we give kids choice, they learn less. They learn less when given choice, not because choice is a bad thing, but because most kids, when given choice, pick the easier option. 38:15 Not because they're lazy, but because they think that's what we want them to do, because they have noticed that when they get things right, we praise them and we say very good, well done, and when they don't get things right, we say try harder. Well, what we want them to think is we encourage them to be out of their comfort zone, or what I call in the learning pit, and I need to adjust my praise for that. So if they find something straightforward and easy, I need to say well, you find it really easy, let's make it more interesting. If they are struggling, that's when I need to give them loads of praise. You do brilliantly. I'm so impressed that you're keeping going with this, that look of determination, how about? And then you offer them a strategy or an idea. I've got to make challenge much, much, much more a common feature of the classroom, much, much more a common feature of the classroom. 39:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, oh my gosh, I'm glad you brought up the choice piece around challenge, cause I'm all about my, my background is in student voice and I'm like, yeah, let's co-create as much as possible, and that's exactly it. It's like it's not inherently bad. It is the choice that they're making is because of this culture of schooling that we've we've done, so I love the praise adjustment as the kind of a response to that, and I'm also looking at time, so I'll wrap up here, but I want to just name the 80-20 split, which I think was a really good one too, that you named right, it's like they can't be in challenge mode 100% of the time. 39:39 Right, it's about 20%, that is ideal for 80% successful, so that was a new learning for me that I really appreciate Okay good, good, good, good. 39:48 - James Nottingham (Guest) And it's the purpose. Where are we now? I don't want them to feel challenged in an exam hall or on the stage or in an interview. I want them to think this is my time to shine, to show what I'm capable of, to show what I've learned. But in the classroom I want them to be out of their comfort zone. I want them to be exploring and wondering and making mistakes and then learning from those mistakes, because that's the learning part. 40:18 Ready for the performance, let the pilots make all the mistakes in the world on the simulators and then perform brilliantly. You know, that's what we're trying to do with our kids. And if the pilots are like, oh no, I just want to show you how brilliant I am at landing the plane on the simulator, well, what are they learning from that? And yet when we see kids do things like that, so often we praise them and we say very good, well done. I'm thinking, for goodness sake, if it's the learning situation, they need to be out of their comfort zone. If they're in the performance situation, then let's see what they're capable of absolutely. 40:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love your, um, your adjustment to, uh, putting up work as like, don't put up the final product, put up like the butterfly. Example of like. Here is the stages of the drawing. Here is the progress that I made. It's such a bigger thing to celebrate that than like. What did the final work look like? 41:13 - James Nottingham (Guest) Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, don't just put that final pieces of work on the wall. Also put the earlier iterations. Yeah. 41:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Love that. All right, a final question from question from you. Well, final two mini, kind of really fast ones, lightning round what's one thing you would encourage listeners to do when they end the episode. So we've talked about a ton of strategies, what might be like a good starter or like the most impactful thing to like do tomorrow um, goodness me, you start and finish with a list of questions. 41:46 - James Nottingham (Guest) Oh yeah, I mean anything that you've heard that you, that interests you, that tickles your fancy really, because we're all at different places in our career and all got different interests and we're all teaching different age groups and different subjects. 41:59 So it's it's really uh, what makes, what do you suppose will make the biggest difference, a to your teaching and therefore B to the students' learning outcomes? Which is why this book Teach Brilliantly is quite an eclectic mix, although I think it hangs together very well, if I might say so. I mean, you know there's a very strong thread going through, but there's lots and lots and lots of things and I don't anticipate that people will read it cover to cover. You're self-excluded from that. I can't believe it that you read it cover to cover. But most of the time it's about dip in and find, ooh, ooh, I'm interested in feedback, or that's interesting about challenge, or that exploratory talk or that questioning, you know, and just pick something that you think, yeah, I can imagine having a go at that, and then say play with it. You know ready, play refine. 42:56 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love it. And then, finally, people are going to get the book, so I'm going to drop a link in the show notes and the blog post for this episode. But also, where do people connect with you? Where's a good place to follow your future work? 43:06 - James Nottingham (Guest) um, so um. Best one is my website, learningpitorg just as it sounds um learningpitorg. Yep, and I'm there um, but teach brilliantly through solution tree, and they've got information about me on the solution tree website as well excellent. 43:25 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) james James, thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate it. 43:28 - James Nottingham (Guest) It's been a delight, and thanks for those huge questions. I mean, typically I only answer those questions when I've got beer in my hand. But you know, there we are, thank you.
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AuthorLindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist civics-based curricula, discussion opportunities, and equitable policies that challenge, affirm, and inspire all students. A former NYC public school teacher, she holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Lindsay believes all students deserve literacy, criticality, and leadership skills. Archives
November 2025
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