All About Jo (03:30)
Cindy:
Thanks for being here, Jo.
Jo Boaler:
Thank you for having me.
Cindy:
So set the stage for us, Jo. What is the work that you are most passionate about?
Jo Boaler:
I am most passionate about changing maths teaching to incorporate what we now know about how the brain learns maths. We've learned so much from neuroscience, particularly over the last 10 years. And I think our teaching is still in the model that it's been done for a long, long time, but in the most part. Of course, there are some teachers who are totally up to date and doing amazing things, but a lot of teachers don't know about all the recent evidence we have.
Cindy:
Absolutely. I love your work because, above all else, you're a researcher. So you followed thousands of students throughout their classrooms. Can you share a little bit about what makes the most effective learning environments?
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, I've done a number of studies now following students through different teaching approaches. And always I'm seeing students in the traditional approach where teachers are explaining methods and students are going through questions, sometimes with really great teachers who are really well-educated and they care about the kids. But each time I've contrasted that with a more active learning approach where students are seeing maths in different ways. They're talking about discussing reasons, their reasoning, and they're making connections between different ideas. And always those students are more successful. And I have studied that in the UK and also in the US. In both cases, the students who are working on sort of bigger tasks that involve investigating and problem-solving with each other. were more successful than the students listening to teachers explain methods.
Cindy:
So is the biggest differentiator kids getting the chance to apply their learning to real-world problems?
Jo Boaler:
That's one of them. It's very hard to work out exactly which of these bigger approaches is more effective. Students, I know that when we open up tasks so that they're bigger and there's space for kids to think and reason and talk to each other, that alone increases students' achievement. When we also make them tasks that are applied to the world, that's an extra boost for kids and they're more motivated and more engaged. And really having all of those is the best possible world.
Cindy:
And can you share some of the results from your study, some of the ones that kind of blew your mind?
Jo Boaler:
Well, in the UK, what was really interesting was I was in schools for three years and I followed students from when they were 13 to when they were 16. And I watched these students sitting in classrooms listening to teachers and going through books and they practiced, practiced, practiced. And then I watched kids who were in very different classrooms where they were given big open projects and they were expected to work in groups and They worked on maths problems that sometimes took a week. And it was a lot more free. And I noticed the students were more doing different things, talking about other things. And I actually thought, how successful is this going to be? I see the kids all over the place, all lesson. And at the end of the three years in England, there's a big sort of ending exam that's very important. And at the end of the three years, the kids in that project-based approach did significantly better on that exam. So that was interesting because the exam was nothing like what they'd done in classrooms. Then even more interesting, I was able to go and find students from both schools about 10 years later. And what that showed was that the students who'd gone to the project school were in higher, more higher-income jobs. And talking to them, they all talked about, oh, well, the approach we learned in math, we use that in our work now. And we were given all this responsibility and that's like how I am now. I don't need a manager standing over me. I can do this work and it reminds me of how I worked in school. The kids who went to the traditional school, 10 years later, they all said to me, you know, I see maths everywhere now in the world and all around me and I don't understand why my school maths was. so removed from the world and just so abstract and it was so meaningless to me. So really interesting that this giving kids this more active role in classrooms, thinking, problem-solving, reasoning, it's not just about getting better results, it really helps them in their lives for, you know, all their lives I think.
Cindy:
Well, it's such an affirmation that we should never be preparing kids for a test. That should never be the function of our job. We're preparing them for life and school should mirror that.
Jo Boaler:
Right, I mean that's the point of learning really, it's not to do well in school, it's to do well in your life.
Cindy:
Absolutely. So have you found in these schools, are there certain things that leaders are doing that are setting the stage for success?
Taking Test Scores Off The Table (08:48)
Jo Boaler:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, every time I've seen schools that are doing amazing work, they have the backing of their leadership. And I talked about the school I studied in the UK. In the US, I did a sort of similar study following students in different high schools for four years. Same kind of result. The kids who are more actively engaged did a lot better, but their principals were very supportive of the work of the maths department. and they allowed them to innovate and to try different things. Another place where I've seen really good work happen and really big changes happen is when I was working in a whole school district to improve maths and I worked with, I was given all the middle school teachers in the district for a year, we met for a year. So that was really interesting because it wasn't teachers who chose to come and work with me. In fact, some of them were dead against coming and, you know, changing their maths teaching. I remember one teacher, he'd been, he was close to retirement. He had a year left and he didn't want to be there. Halfway through the year, he was the most excited teacher. I still remember him coming to one of the sessions, he'd spent the whole weekend making a life-size tarpaulin graph with his wife that his kids
Cindy:
Oh.
Jo Boaler:
walk around. He ended up putting back his retirement and creating these really amazing classes in the middle school. So, but what I was gonna tell you about was in that district where this was happening, the superintendent wanted maths improvement. And one of the things he said to the teachers, and I... still remember this being so critical, he said, I am not going to judge you, I'm not gonna judge what happens by your students' test scores. We are taking test scores off the table
Cindy:
Yes.
Jo Boaler:
and we're going to look at other measures. We're gonna look at how many kids are going forward in maths. And so that was enormously freeing for the teachers.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Jo Boaler:
and really important. I work in other places where we're trying to bring about maths change but the teachers have these really narrow tests and you know they feel so constrained by things that the district's doing.
Cindy:
There's so much fear in math, like on the teacher's side, on the student's side, on the administrator's side, that I think as much as we can kind of remove those limits and give that freedom and flexibility to play with math,
Jo Boaler:
Hmm.
Cindy:
it's something that's often missing.
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's one of the greatest things I think we are able to give to teachers. We have workshops at Stanford where teachers come and I go out to districts and we just play with maths and we play with numbers and we see them in different ways and we find out these really cool things about them. And I feel like the teachers really change because they develop this playful approach to numbers and maths. and they realize, oh, I can play with numbers with my kids. I can invite them to, it's not all about rules and methods. It's actually this lovely playground and we can dive in and investigate and explore. So yeah, I think that's such an important experience for teachers when they get to experience maths in those ways.
Cindy:
we need leaders to model that, to give that space
Jo Boaler:
Well,
Cindy:
to look at math in a new way.
Limitless Leadership (12:24)
Jo Boaler:
and I have found when I've gone out and about doing this work, that the most important change places are when the leader comes to that professional development and they take part. Because sometimes leaders don't do that. Sometimes they come and they're sitting on in the back doing their email. But some leaders and it's only a few of them, they'll actually come and they'll take part with the teachers. And then they really get it and they you know, are really equipped to make fantastic changes.
Cindy:
So much of leadership is actually just walking that walk and not settling into the complacency of being above it all.
Jo Boaler:
Absolutely. I think it's interesting to me to see leaders in the US because in the UK and in other countries in the world, the administrator is called the head teacher. And you only get to be the head teacher if you've taught a lot and gone through teaching, you know, taught for many years. Whereas I see here some people go up that administrator pathway, not really through expertise in teaching. So that's kind of a different thing. Some administrators have certainly been teachers for a long time, and they are that teacher through and through. And I think that's really great. But yeah, you have to be there with your teachers, I think. And really, if you can go to a PD session and experience what the teachers are experiencing, then I think that's really great.
Cindy:
Beautiful. So I want to pivot a little bit because in your newest book, you zoom out of the math classroom
Jo Boaler:
Hmm.
Cindy:
and you focus on leadership, limitless leadership. So can you define first what is a limitless leader?
Jo Boaler:
Well, my new book is, I share six pieces of information. I call them keys. And I refer to them as keys because I really think they have the potential to unlock people in different ways. And they come from neuroscience that we know that brains are growing and changing all the time. There's really no such thing as a math brain. It's all of our brains are constant influx. One that I think is really important for leaders, as well as for students and teachers. is the evidence we have about the importance of struggle. We know that that's the best time for your brain when you're struggling when you're finding things difficult. We also know that scientists call a place that's really important to be as being on the edge of your understanding. And you want to be on that edge. On that edge is where really incredible things happen, where you... great knowledge breakthroughs where you learn the most, where you have the greatest conversations, it's just a really important place to be. And I see leaders who are really comfortable in that place of struggle being out there on the edge. And they're different kind of leaders. So I really encourage people to get into understanding that and be more comfortable. One of the people that I quote a lot, who I like a lot, is a mathematician called Steve Strogatz. And he's very comfortable talking about struggle and how important struggle is to his work. He was sharing, I interviewed him for one of my online classes. And he's like one of the world's top mathematicians. His paper, one of his papers is one of the top, is in the top hundred. studied scientific papers of all time. So this guy, Cornell mathematician, top of his field, he shared that he was in a room, actually with math educators running this day with a whole group of mathematicians, and they were given this kind of complicated, creative task, and he couldn't do it. And he said, after a while, he just raised his hand and said, I'm stuck. And he said, I knew I was in this room where people had like, just gone on past me that. And he said, one by one, more and more people started to share that they were also stuck. And, you know, they had this great conversation. But what was interesting to me about this is the biggest response to that interview in my online class from teachers was complete shock that a top mathematician struggled on math. And so many people vote that, but couldn't believe it, that he'd, you know, couldn't do a maths problem. It was just like inguicy ball to them. So anyway, I mentioned Steve because he often talks about struggle and I think as a leader, that's really important. And for people to know, you're not like this person that's perfect all the time, that can do everything, that you go through struggle. And people who have really got comfortable with that, they're able to go to meetings and say things like, you know, I don't know the answer to that, but let's find out together. They don't try and pretend they know everything. It's really a different way of leading.
Cindy:
more vulnerable way of leading.
Jo Boaler:
Exactly. More vulnerable, more willing to share their vulnerability and people will open up to that.
Cindy:
I love that. Okay. So harnessing our, our struggle, harnessing our vulnerability is a big piece.
Jo Boaler:
Mm-hmm.
Cindy:
And I'm wondering, are there other bits about neuroplasticity that you wish every teacher and leader knew? Because that's to me, the coolest part of your research is all the brain knowledge that's come out.
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, very cool. Well, neuroplasticity is the knowledge we have now that our brains are constantly in flux. They're changing, they're developing, they're strengthening. Some of the neuroscientists will say, every time you wake up, your brain is different to the one you went to bed with. There's that much change happening all of the time. And what this really means is that anybody can achieve anything. I mean, that is the big... you know, the big output of that evidence is that there's really no limits. This is why my book is called Limitless. There's no limits.
Cindy:
Mm.
Jo Boaler:
to what we can learn or do. And scientists have tried to study people's limits and they've gone about giving them harder and harder and harder things. And their goal is to find their limit. And they've always come away just saying there wasn't one, whatever we gave people could just kind of up their game. And so. I was sharing some of this recently in a presentation on my book and a surgeon came up to me, this was local to here, he was a surgeon at Stanford and he said, oh, I realize, he said all these years of teaching others, I've always thought some of them had aptitude and some of them didn't, but now I realized they've had different experiences and they can all learn it. Yes, that is exactly it. But, um, so I think as, as leaders, we have to believe in people and not sort of pigeonhole them. I would say another thing about leaders that I think about, this is back to the kind of struggle piece is you have to be okay yourself with making mistakes. So we know that mistakes are really good for learning. I
Cindy:
Mm-hmm.
Jo Boaler:
need your brain. And as a leader. If you make a mistake and then you make a big, or if somebody else makes a mistake, somebody on your team, and you're harsh about that mistake, that sets up a culture that's very, in which people will not be willing to try things. So, that's just another really important piece for leaders. Be mistakes friendly, be... Okay with making mistakes yourself, be okay with your team making mistakes.
Cindy:
And just, yeah, so realizing that giant capacity of every learner and having the flexibility and the space and the acceptance of the mistakes.
Creating a Culture of Collaboration (21:00)
Cindy:
So to me, a big piece of this comes back to language then. And that's something that you emphasize in your book is the importance of language as leaders. So I'm wondering, can you share some, just like shifts in our language that we can make that can have an empowering effect on our teachers?
Jo Boaler:
Well, I definitely like to avoid fixed language. We know that when we talk about people in fixed ways and praise them in fixed ways, that that causes them to be kind of locked up. So we know that a lot of people will praise others for being smart. You hear that a lot in US culture. You're so smart, that's amazing. And smart is one of those words that's very fixed. And... We know that when people hear, when they're told they're smart, kids for example, when they're told they're smart, what they hear is, oh, I'm smart, great. And they feel good about that. But then later when they mess up on something, they start to think, I'm not so smart. So praising things people have done, it's fine to praise and say, I love that work you've done. That's a really creative solution. Well, that's a lovely piece of work. And I really appreciate those connections you've made without the, you're so smart is one of the big language changes that I talk about with educators.
Cindy:
So we're not grounding our identity to success. Like you are. So then if you are not, then who am I? That
Jo Boaler:
Right,
Cindy:
makes a lot of sense.
Jo Boaler:
right. It's not about you, it's about what you've done. And it's shifting the language and the talk from a person and evaluating a person to what they've done and talking about their ideas and their contributions, because those can all be different.
Cindy:
Well, and that makes the space for the mistakes, right?
Jo Boaler:
Exactly. Yeah, these things are all tied together.
Cindy:
I love that. Okay, I'm gonna get kind of nitty-gritty here because you and your books share three actions we can take to turn negative conversations into collaborations. And those are opening minds, opening
Jo Boaler:
That's
Cindy:
content,
Jo Boaler:
fine.
Cindy:
and embracing uncertainty. Can you dig into those a little bit?
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, yeah. Well, these I've written about for thinking particularly about learners in classrooms, but they equally apply to all of us and people in our lives. And yeah, I talk about how collaboration is much better if we have those three changes. So I have seen teachers work really carefully with students. to teach them to be respectful of each other and to respect each other's ideas. And the teachers I've seen do this really well, focus on that in one of the schools where the teachers were doing this, they spent the first 10 weeks of the school year just focusing on kids learning to work together and being respectful of each other.
Cindy:
Amazing.
Jo Boaler:
And they taught them. And I'm writing a new book at the moment that's called Mathematical Diversity. It's about the importance of diversity in people, in teams,
Cindy:
Yeah.
Jo Boaler:
but also in the ways we see and approach mathematics. But I mention this because I'm doing more reading and learning and writing about being metacognitive, where you are aware of your own learning and being. And when teachers teach kids to respect each other, they're teaching them that kind of metacognition. It's... They're teaching them how to interact. They're not assuming that kids come to a classroom and they know how to interact. So same for leaders. If you can be really respectful of other people's thinking where you open your mind to, there can be different perspectives on this and I value different perspectives. I'm not looking for one perspective. I'm looking, you know, I'm open. That's an opening of minds that... is really important. And then content is, opening content is really having content that's much more open for people to access. And again, in maths classrooms, we can give kids narrow content and we do that a lot. Narrow questions with one answer, or we can make it open multi-dimensional content that kids can open access in different ways. with work we do as leaders, we want to work to make sure that what we're talking about, what we're working on is accessible to everybody. We talk about things having a low floor and a high ceiling, everybody can access this, maybe they take it to different places. But, and then this embracing uncertainty piece is, as we've talked about, just being okay about not knowing everything. And... Sharing. I don't know this, maybe somebody else knows this or maybe we can find out together. But not trying to go about life as though you have all the answers.
Cindy:
It's such a beautiful framework for simplifying work that seems challenging at times, right? As leaders, we wanna be aware of the narratives that are happening in our school. We wanna create spaces that invite collaboration. And this just feels like such a practical way to do that.
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think about when I see schools that have done so much to have kids working so well together, everything that's going on with those kids, you can just replicate for the teachers and the way they work together. And the leaders of the school, everybody really can benefit from these ideas of being good collaborators and connecting with each other in these much more open and flexible ways.
Leaning into pushback (27:09)
Cindy:
Another thing I wanted to call out from your book is that you mentioned that pushback is a really positive sign. And I know it can feel that not feel that way when you're in that position. So what advice would you have for a leader who's going through that journey right now trying to make change, feeling that pushback?
Jo Boaler:
Well, I am a person who's had a lot of pushback.
Cindy:
Just a little.
Jo Boaler:
Just a tad, yeah. Because I'm trying to change maths and it's really hard to change something as set and traditional as maths, it turns out. Particularly if you're a woman, it turns out. Though people can come after you. I get a lot of people coming after me. So I've thought a lot about this. question of pushback and one piece, something to think about that's always helpful, I think, is to know that if people come after you, it's because they see you as a threat. They don't bother going after people who aren't making a difference. So it's kind of a compliment. As you say, it doesn't always feel great, but if people are coming after you, you probably you probably are doing something really important. Because we have a very inequitable entrenched system. And if you're not being disrupted, if you're not getting pushback, you're probably not being disruptive enough. So, expect pushback is one of the piece of advice I give. Even welcome pushback. And for me, I'm always happy to have people disagree with me. I'm happy to have... People say, you know, I don't think this is right. Let's talk about it. I've had people who've kind of crossed the line to much more serious like threats and attempts to discredit me and ruin my career. So that's some pretty serious pushback. But I think if we're getting disagreement, then we should welcome that. I mean, that's part of a healthy society where we can disagree with each other. But if people are... really sort of getting particular groups against them, that may not be a bad thing, that might show that you're actually doing something really important. I would say for educators too, it's really a time that we need to stick together because education has been dragged onto the political floor and it didn't used to be like that and it's become sort of something that lots of people are willing to share their views on and try and bring about change even if they have no education experience. So I think it's a time when educators definitely need to support each other and that's the only way we'll really bring about good change is if we're backing each other up and working together.
Cindy:
So what's your North Star, Jo? Like what are the things that you come back to that affirm your practice even when you're facing it?
Jo Boaler:
I guess for me, what I come back to is I know that we can teach kids differently and cause them to really love maths and believe in themselves and have a fantastic relationship with maths. I know we can do that for people. So I'm really passionate about getting that way out to people, letting them have that positive maths relationship. And I know that very few kids go on with maths in the US. So it is a system that really needs something to change. Across the US, here in California, about two thirds of kids are not proficient in maths.
Cindy:
Mm-hmm.
Jo Boaler:
And across the US, 16% of kids take calculus in school. And people are surprised about that because nearly all the arguing that goes on is really focused on those kids and there's a lot of other students that are just really left out. And so I'm really passionate about changing that. We have a fiercely inequitable landscape of mathematics education and but I know we know how to make it better. So if we can just get that to teachers, we have a website called Youcubed. And lots of teachers come to Youcubed and they use the resources and they love what's there. But I know most teachers don't know it exists. So that also keeps me going. Like if only people know that there's a different way, then if they don't choose it, well, okay. But let's at least have people know that there's a different way to learning maths that's much more equitable and much more successful.
Youcubed, an easy win! (32:38)
Cindy:
To get vulnerable here, your book for me was like a breath of fresh air because I grew up with math anxiety. I grew up thinking I was dumb in math.
Jo Boaler:
Hmm
Cindy:
And I read this book by a woman and read all these perspectives on how I could make it different for my girls in my classroom. And we spent the first two weeks of every school year learning your mathematical mindsets. And it's transformative and it's empowering work.
Jo Boaler:
Fantastic, I love to hear that.
Cindy:
Yeah!
Jo Boaler:
We have something on our website, we call it the week of inspirational maths and lots and lots of schools and teachers come to the website for the, and it lays out the whole beginning of the school year for anybody. Has tasks that go up to grade 16 and it's a playlist, you can just pick tasks and videos for kids that help them see themselves differently. And we do everything we can really to help these messages and lessons get to teachers in the easiest way we can. Well, the what makes it easiest for teachers to use it, because I know teachers are hugely busy and don't have time to spend like looking around websites. So we really work hard to try and get as much out there as we can in a form that's super easy for teachers to use.
Cindy:
leaders your easiest win this week. Share Youcubed with your staff. Do one of the math activities in your staff meeting. It will boggle minds. So easy win. Yeah.
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, I love that. One of my co founders, the co founder of Youcubed Kathy Williams. She was a director of maths for the district I was talking about that I worked in before she came to Youcubed. And she used to get the board members doing maths problems.
Cindy:
Love that.
Jo Boaler:
So yeah, she would have all the administrators and all the superintendents, they would all do maths.
Cindy:
Well, if you have naysayers, experience it. So if you've got a parent who doesn't understand, if you have an administrator who's not on board, get their hands dirty doing it because it changes you.
Jo Boaler:
Yeah, it really does. And you have to do that, I think. Whenever we do professional development with teachers, we always have them doing maths themselves, experiencing it in the way we want the kids to experience it. And it is that that makes them go, oh, yeah.
Cindy:
Love that. Can I ask Jo, this one is an unprompted question, but
Jo Boaler:
Yeah.
Insight into Jo’s newest book (35:04)
Cindy:
what lit the fire for your new book? Because you're writing about diversity, what is the need you saw? What is the problem you're hoping to solve with this new book?
Jo Boaler:
Um, well, I haven't written a book about math for a few years. I wrote mathematical mindsets and that was eight years ago now. And I shared all the latest evidence. So now we have more evidence and more things that are really, um, key to helping teachers and students. And in preparation for this book, I actually, I read a lot of neuroscience and I read a lot of education research. For this book, I read a lot, which I hadn't done before, on expertise, very, very interesting literature on how experts hold knowledge. And absolutely fascinating, completely ties in with what we know from neuroscience and everything else. But I have been kind of unpacking that, what does that mean for maths classrooms? So one of the things that they talk about in all the expertise literature is, experts, when they study experts, they hold knowledge differently. And what's different is they hold knowledge as patterns, they see the world in patterns, and they have these really clear mental representations. So they give as an example, somebody might look at a soccer pitch, or who doesn't really know soccer, or for me, I could look at an American football pitch and I... I, when I didn't know anything about it, what, what you see is just like a random collection of lots of people. But when an expert looks at the same pitch, they don't see that. They see these groups that are moving in patterns around. They see like, this is the attacking section here and they're moving this way. And so they have these very clear kind of mental representations and they find that all experts have this. mathematicians. And so some of my book is about how do we help kids develop these really clear mental representations. We actually do a pretty good job in elementary school of having kids learn things that are visual and physical. That's really going away by middle school and completely gone by high school. But That is what we need kids to understand. You could take any high school topic and think, what is the strong, clear mental representation I have at that visually and physically? And most people will tell you they don't have one.
Cindy:
Oh.
Jo Boaler:
So that's one of the pieces of the book is like develop sharing like how we can get kids thinking about getting these mental representations in their learning.
Cindy:
So are you digging a lot into concepts then and conceptual understanding, transferring across discipline,
Jo Boaler:
Yeah,
Cindy:
that kind of thing?
Jo Boaler:
some different maths concepts and saying what would it look like if we held this differently in our minds? And then other things that I'm excited about in the book, as I said, metacognition turns out, you know, I didn't realise this, but if we just change one thing that probably has the biggest impact on achievement for kids than anything is having them learn how to learn. And people think of metacognition as thinking about your own thinking. I think of metacognition as learning how to learn. And
Cindy:
Okay.
Jo Boaler:
maths teachers don't usually teach kids how to learn. They just, they turn up and they teach their content. But if we actually engage kids with learning how to learn, it's not just about what's in your mind. It teaches them to be problem solvers. It teaches them to be inquisitive. to connect with other people's ideas. All these things we're talking about, it teaches them to stand back from questions and think about what is being asked. It's a complex combination of mindset and problem-solving. It takes place in a particular part of the brain. And the kids who are metacognitive are the most successful kids in the world. That comes out all the time. So this also is a way of being in your life. it's good for kids but it's good for all of us.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Jo Boaler:
So what does it mean to learn that, to learn how to learn and how to interact and how to speak to other people? I have a whole chapter on that and yeah it's really interesting to me.
Cindy:
I can't wait to read it. Yeah, I'm
Jo Boaler:
Thanks.
Cindy:
hearing this theme of conceptual understanding and then thinking about our learning almost like a toolkit. We each have our own toolkit that
Jo Boaler:
Right?
Cindy:
we bring to solving problems. And if you look at it
Jo Boaler:
Yeah.
Cindy:
that way, it's so much more freeing.
Jo Boaler:
Some people who work in mental cognition talk about it as like driving your own car. Your brain is like a car and you're driving it. You're in charge of it. You're able to back it up to rethink about a problem or drive out of the way of distractions. You're making decisions and you're aware of those decisions. And I think that's... really interesting. Other people in metacognition say, you know, if your cognition is knowledge, then metacognition is the conductor. And it's, you know, the way that that knowledge gets to come out and be used. So it's pretty cool. And it combines mindset, it sort of goes beyond mindset into effective problem-solving. But yeah, a lot as well. in the new book about dealing with maths as a conceptual subject.
Cindy:
love that. Okay leaders we've got one to add to our summer reading list. Do you have a timeline when it's coming out?
Jo Boaler:
Well, next summer. It'll be
Cindy:
Okay,
Jo Boaler:
next year.
School Leaders’ Countdown: The Final Three! (41:23)
Cindy:
next summer's reading list. Amazing. Okay, Jo, I've got a list of the final set of three questions that I ask every guest who comes in the show. So are you ready for our final three?
Jo Boaler:
Sure.
Cindy:
Okay, so number one, what is the book that you've read that has had the most profound impact on your practice?
Jo Boaler:
Oh, so many. That's really hard.
Cindy:
I'm gonna go to bed.
Jo Boaler:
Um, there was a book I read. It's just pretty theoretical, but I'll show it anyway. It's by somebody called Jean Lathe. And, um, I read this when I was doing my PhD and she's an anthropologist. And she shifted my thinking really pretty dramatically because she talks about, um, the practices that are in the world and how, and she talks about transfer, we all want kids to transfer their learning, but it turns out that what you transfer is the ways you engage rather than the knowledge. So that was really interesting to me. And I've read a lot of good books that I love, but that one definitely changed my thinking and my doctoral studies that I was doing.
Cindy:
It was just one of those
Jo Boaler:
Yeah.
Cindy:
flips the switch kind of a box.
Jo Boaler:
Oh, this is a different thing to look at. Instead of looking at what are they learning and all this knowledge, let's look at how they're exactly interacting
Cindy:
Well, who are they becoming as a result of learning? That's cool. Do you remember the title of the book?
Jo Boaler:
Situated cognition.
Cindy:
Situated cognition. Okay, cool, out to the list. Ready for question number two?
Jo Boaler:
Yes.
Cindy:
Okay, this is my personal research question. So I'm really interested in this idea of, when you talk to leaders, there tends to be almost this dichotomy. Some focus more on this sustainable, joyous workplace. Some focus more on metrics, delivering performance. And I wonder how we strike that balance as leaders of having both joyous and highly productive workplaces. Any advice there?
Jo Boaler:
Well, I think I would go back to something I said earlier, which is we can't measure teacher effectiveness by students' test scores on narrow tests. And if we keep looking at that as a measure, people are gonna stay really locked up. And we need to unlock people so that they can innovate and really be real people. I've just been doing some work with elementary teachers and reading, I was reading their reflections in the last few days and they're talking about this. I was so locked up before, I was locked up. I was just doing this and now I feel free. Like I can choose tasks and I can play with the content and it's a freedom, it's a form of freedom. So we need that for teachers and... We won't get it while we're measuring ourselves by kids' achievement on standardized tests. And metrics, okay. We can have metrics, but they need to be better ones.
Cindy:
What makes it better?
Jo Boaler:
Well, things we want to know about who is successful, who's going forward in courses, for leaders, how long a teacher's staying and what are they, do they want to be in the school, do they want to take part in things that are organized. I think we want to look at how people are engaging and how they're interacting and not whether they can repeat something in a timed situation.
Cindy:
And this keeps coming up in conversations, that this idea of metrics are fine, but if we're not measuring things we value, then those metrics have no value.
Jo Boaler:
Right. That's the trouble. We measure what is easy to measure.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Jo Boaler:
We don't measure what's important. One of the things I talked about in Limitless Mind is the PISA tests that have done internationally and they're actually not bad tests. They're tests of problem-solving. They're not the awful, short, multiple-choice questions. But even so, girls do worse than boys in 38 countries on this In classrooms, girls are doing just as well or better. They gave a different test called a test of collaborative problem-solving. And in this test, people still did math problems, but they interacted with a computer agent and they solved problems together. So girls did better than boys in every country in the world on this collaborative problem-solving test. And still, maths, both of them were the same maths. So that just tells me lots of things. One of them is how we assess really changes who does well. And that test of collaborative problem solving, probably harder to run, but that's something valuable.
Cindy:
what's worth it for us? What's worth seeing? How are we doing it? And coming back to that and really not just doing things because that's how we've always done them.
Jo Boaler:
Right, the whole system is doing things that we've done for hundreds of years and we need to move on from that.
Cindy:
Okay, the final question for you today, Jo, is you've worked in schools, you've worked with leaders around the world. If you had one piece of advice to give to an educational leader that you think would really transform their practice, what would it be? What would it be?
Jo Boaler:
I would ask leaders. our internet working. I would ask leaders to really look at the system they're managing for where there are things in place that set limits, where are things that limit kids' performance or limit what teachers can do and just look in the system for those. When I've worked with leaders and said what are the things that limit kids achievement they can just list them off and We need to really work to remove those, even if they are things we've always done, because we know more now. We know that we don't need to put kids into boxes. We know that everybody can learn anything. So what does that mean for our structures? And that's what I would hope leaders do. Really look at that. What are the limits we're putting in and who's getting past those limits and who's not? That's another really important question.
Cindy:
And if you're locked into like musts from a state system or a district system, are there ways that we can work around those or make them less limiting?
Jo Boaler:
Definitely. I have worked with teachers who are inside districts where they have state tests and they have all of the same, you know, they've got the same pressures, they have the standards, they have the books, they have the tests. And they have made maths, this multi-dimensional experience for kids, they're sharing mindset messages there, and their kids have just shot up in achievement. So. Even inside these systems, we can bring these things about. For kids, we can bring about a different mathematics that's engaging and joyful. What's hard is it takes some courageous teachers to think, I can do that. And we have those courageous teachers and they do it and their results are amazing, but we have to help all teachers to get to that place.
Cindy:
Well, and it comes back to what you said earlier about pushback, that sometimes that pushback will mean we're on the right track and we in our hearts have to know what we're advocating for and take that risk.
Jo Boaler:
Right, yeah, you have to remember who you're fighting for. And for me, I'm fighting for those kids who do not get a chance to do well in maths. And, you know, they deserve somebody out there fighting for them.
Cindy:
I love that. One question just came to my mind, Jo. Should every kid do calculus?
Jo Boaler:
No, I don't think every kid should do calculus. I think one of the initiatives we're working with in California is just broadening high school maths courses so that there are different options, different flavors, varieties. I've just been reading research of some different systems that gave innovative different high school math courses and how it really diversified who went ahead in maths, kids took more math courses, more kids went to college. Calculus is fine. I personally loved calculus when I learned it and some kids need it and some kids will do great with calculus but not everybody needs calculus.
Cindy:
So just being more responsive, creating math programs that align with what kids are passionate about and helps them solve problems.
Jo Boaler:
We certainly need more options. I mean, I'm loving data science as a course in high schools. Kids are super engaged with it. They see how valuable it is. They see it's about their lives. It's high-level maths. It keeps them going in STEM. So I love that we can bring in more modern ways of looking at maths and getting kids using computer systems and building models. These are all really important 21st-century skills that kids need. And so there's a lot of space to create different kind of maths courses for kids. And we're seeing some of that work now that it's really exciting.
Cindy:
I love that. Jo, I hate to see you go, but thank you so, so much for coming on this show. It's really a dream come true to get to pick your brain and I'm just so appreciative of the work that you do.
Jo Boaler:
Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. And it's been really nice chatting.
Cindy:
Thanks so much.
