Episode Transcript
Kate: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Teaching with CLASS podcast, the podcast that gives you quick, actionable tips to easily implement in your classroom. I'm your host, Kate Cline. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to diffuse a negative climate. We're joined today by Paul Cline. It's no coincidence that we have the same last name. Paul happens to be my husband and educator with about 30 years of experience in the classroom.
I asked him to join us to talk about diffusing negative climate, because he has an incredible talent and skill in connecting with students and creating a classroom community, where negativity is managed with care and respect. I'll let him tell you all about it. Let's get started.
All right. Everybody, welcome to the Teaching with CLASS podcast. This is my husband, Paul Cline. We're really excited to both be here together, and I'm really excited to talk to you today about this topic of reducing negativity in the classroom, because I know that's something you really value in your classroom.
Paul: Definitely.
Kate: Tell us first, why is this important to you? What is, from your experience, a real connection to this topic?
Paul: It's important to me because as I went through my school years and of course, I became a teacher, as a young person, one thing I always observed was consistency when it came to the adults in the room. I looked at the atmosphere as far as the other children in the room. I didn't grow up in a homogenized situation, which was great. It allowed me to look at how different groups work together.
It was very important for me to notice when a teacher treated everyone equally or not. I was very sensitive to that. When I became an educator, whether it was conscious or not, it was important for me to make sure that every child walked in the classroom, had a consistent experience, and not to be abstract. Also, it felt like there was love in the room, respect, and they were seen.
These are cliches. You hear people say this in education, but it really is true. It speaks to the art of teaching. It's something that came naturally to me. I was very social in high school. I was in all the clubs and everything. Being a social human being was never difficult. Again, I consider that the art of teaching.
I had to develop the science of teaching because when I started, I was a football coach who taught English. Early on, I received the lower students because they would say in Texas, your job is to coach football. That was great. I didn't realize as far as the timeline was concerned and the narrative was concerned that that would actually give me the tools that I needed to branch out. Ultimately, as I moved on in my career, taught upper level students, and AP, it was those students where the challenges were definitely things that you had to address. That really helped me to address all of the challenges, whether the level be entry level or approaching to higher level students, like advanced placement students.
Again, the art beyond the science, because the science is something you developed as a teacher. The art was understanding people. Why we get into the business ideally is to deal with human beings beyond content.
We believe our content is important, whether it be science or English or whatever, but really most students who come through the door are going to have a human experience in the key of English. It was important for me to make sure that the room had a certain atmosphere and probably speaks to the way I was raised, family reunions, and people were always welcome in the house. That's something I brought to the table for sure.
Kate: Yeah, that's awesome. You alluded to your experience and everything, so just give us a quick rundown on your background, your experience, how many years you've been in the classroom.
Paul: Almost more than a quarter of a century in the classroom, started in Texas, and taught in California. The majority of my career has been in Hawaii. I'm now back in Texas. The variety, I mean there's been the myriad demographics. I've taught in wealthy schools, I've taught in super duper inner city schools, middle class, Hawaiian Island, rural. Again, probably a little bit of that as the wandering soul aspect of life or chasing whatever adventures I wanted to chase.
In the end, it really helped me to see a bigger picture when it came to human beings. At the core, most people are the same. The motif may be different, the locale may be different, but I think humans are mostly the same at their core.
Kate: High school from a wide variety of places, locations, and demographics. That's awesome. Let's dive into negativity. Negative climate is all about, and I thought I would just pause for a second and make sure that the listeners understand what class defines negative climate as, because really the point of understanding negative climate is like you're talking about, to reduce that, to make sure that's not happening in the classroom. We have to be aware of what it is in order to catch it, catch ourselves, or see it happening in the classroom.
Negative climate, as it's defined in CLASS, really are the level of expressed negativity in the classroom. We have things like anger or frustration coming out on the part of the teacher or the children in the classroom. Irritability, it could be verbal, it could be nonverbal, things people say or rolling eyes, things like that can communicate this negative aspect can also be punitive control. When a teacher tries to control a child's behavior with things like threats or physical, moving the child physically, restricting their movement in some way, particularly in response to a challenging behavior.
Most teachers are like, we want things to go smoothly and well. When things start not going that way, we can get irritable. Whether it’s our day is just not going well, or something happened in the classroom, these things can start to happen and catching them. It can also be disrespect like sarcasm, saying disrespectful things to children, things that communicate bias or discrimination, or just things that might communicate they're not part of the group like excluding them in some way, disrespect, and sarcasm, which is challenging as children get older because older students start to develop their own sense of sarcasm and disrespect. The idea is that even with older children, older students who understand sarcasm, it's still a negative way of communicating.
Lastly, the thing that we never want to have happen but does happen sometimes is real severe negativity, like actual fighting in the classroom or actually, unfortunately, teachers harm students, all of these things are things we want to reduce. What we want to talk about today is all the ways that you have experiences in ways that we can help educators understand. How do we avoid and diffuse if these things happen? All of that. Anything else, or is this jogging any thoughts that you want?
Paul: Sure. I think it's an important topic. It's more important than people realize. Yes, I understand everything that you just verbalized. These are all important elements.
Kate: Yeah. I'll just throw a situation out there. One of the things that came to my mind while I was talking about all those things are moments when on high school campus. I actually heard a teacher really berating their students, telling them things like, you're never going to amount to anything, you're stupid. It broke my heart to hear an actual educator talking like that to students.
I know you've had situations in schools where fights happen amongst students and things like that. We know it's the reality, but we want to think about, how do we make this not happen, or how do we diffuse it? Right off the bat, you set up your classroom. You start the year in a way to set the tone. How do you approach that so you can head it off before it even has a chance to start?
Paul: I believe you have to strike a balance. When I first got an education, Lee Cantor, was that his name?
Kate: Yeah, there is a person. Yes.
Paul: I believe. Sorry if it's not his correct name, but he was the one who talked about the first days of school.
Kate: Harry Wong.
Paul: Harry Wong. Harry Wong had something that really affected me when I was a young educator about starting off setting the tone immediately. It probably speaks to the coach in me. I'm the type of person students walk in, they have assigned seats. Some might believe that's it. That's restrictive. Ultimately, by the end of the year, we understand who's who, but they understand there's a place to sit. Also, when they walk into the classroom, there's something to do, so you understand the procedure.
I think people are comfortable when they understand consistency. That's something I do, believe it or not, that I think starts and sets the tone. I think if kids come in and it's loose. That's the way you set that tone for the rest of the school year. Of course, there are always different ways to break the ice. I don't think I'm very innovative in that way, even though I have things that I've done, but I have some sort of assignment.
I think Hawaii was really a place where this was really embedded. Whatever it is, you want to build those relationships. You want to let the students know this is a human endeavor first and foremost. Once they understand that you're a human being, they're going to be treated as human beings, I feel like that helps them to be actually more comfortable when they know that there's going to be structure and consistency, but also is going to be Aloha, love, and respect. That, to me, is the most important thing as far as the immediate impression that you want to make on the students.
Kate: I know something you do regularly. It was a Harry Wong thing to meeting them at the door every day. Tell us about how you do that and why you do that. What are the things that you do to individualize for students in forming that relationship?
Paul: I like meeting the students at the door every day. My favorite part of the day or the passing periods, I enjoy meeting students at the door. I do it every day. It's important to me. Greet them, fist bump post Covid. Greet them by name. I'm a nickname person. About the first half of the year, everyone has a nickname, which is an individualization of each student.
I try to make it relevant. Something happened, it's a play. It's a twist on their own names, and that individualized them. Of course, I want to be respectful. Some students, their names are very important to them, but I got that from my father. It's just, again, seeing them individually, letting them know that you see them.
I think really from the very start, as I told you, as a young teacher, I want to make sure that this is a human endeavor. That's going to require me to be consistent. At the same time, being the "facilitator", the curator of the classroom, it's my responsibility to be consistent. That, for me, is very important. It took years. I grew up in teaching. I was a 23-year-old human being when I started teaching. I did mature and go through those phases in front of people as those people were developing too.
At this point in my career, I think you have to be somewhat unshakable. That doesn't mean you're inhuman. You have to be transparent. To let them know I'm not having a great day, it might be a reading day today. Because you have that relationship, you've built that with them. They know that Mr. Cline is more than just a person. I'm trying to tell them to write papers.
At the same time, this is my personal belief, I think leadership requires a person to be consistent. You have to put on a costume when you come in. You have a responsibility to be consistent. When you were speaking earlier about sometimes people don't realize that they're bringing things from outside the classroom into the classroom, then you're dealing with the reflections.
This is 28, 30, whoever human beings that were reflecting aspects of your own personality back to you. If you haven't done that self work, which I know is not really germane necessarily to this conversation, but maybe it is, when you do that self work, you understand that I have to be on an even keel. I have to make sure that I'm a consistent thing that happens in the room. In addition to the procedures, I'm consistent.
I don't bring bad moods to the classroom. It doesn't mean I'll have fun with them, it doesn't mean I'll say the things that need to be said when they need to be said. But again, building that relationship allows me to speak to them in certain ways. I can say, hey, you know what, let's talk about this a little bit because they understand I'm not out to get them, I'm not competing with them.
When I was in my 20s, I couldn't maybe make those same comments because I was more like the kids. But at 50, that's something to be said about age. I'm able to detach myself from the young people in the best ways.
Kate: Yeah. What came to my mind while you were talking is that the reason why I wanted to invite you to have this conversation on the podcast today was because I was looking through all of our dimensions guide is what it's called, it describes the dimensions, I was looking at the pre-K one, because that's where I do a lot of my work here at Teachstone.
In the pre-K dimensions guide, it describes negativity, negative climate, and then it lists a variety of ways to reduce negative climate. The things that I saw in that list are these things that I know you do every day. I don't know if you remember, I called you on the phone like, oh, my gosh, I was just looking at the dimensions guide. Guess what? You do all these things that it says, how to reduce negativity.
All of these things you're talking about are those things that are mentioned in there, where you're talking about connecting with them individually, meeting them at the door, setting that tone, knowing who they are as people, building this community. The word community comes up a lot, but then also this idea of who you are in the classroom, being that grounded, mindful, reflective person, that stable base for the classroom is another one of those suggestions, which is awesome. It is relevant to the conversation that you're talking about.
Another one of those suggestions was setting children up to succeed so that children are experiencing success, the thinking is right, they'll experience less feelings of their own angst, and things like that. What are your thoughts about that in the classroom?
Paul: It all goes back to me to the relationship. I'll give you a brief anecdote about something that happened to me as a student with one of my teachers who actually was that teacher for me. We did the Russian revolution. I don't know what happened, but we were writing, like, explain the rest of revolution, the prompt was, and I decided I was feeling some kind of way. I wrote this narrative, I just went for it, and I was like, I'm going to fail. I'm failing. I got an A on the thing. I was like, wow.
He encouraged my creativity. He encouraged me taking that risk. That really hit home for me. When you know the student, you can encourage them to take risks from their own perspectives. You can see them and know them enough that this human being took a risk. This human being is breaking out of the mold. This person is trying to break new ground or whatever.
I think that's important to encourage students to meet the standard, meet the benchmarks, but meet them their own way. That goes back to recognizing them as a human being. You can always say, okay, he likes dirt bikes. You can guide him and say, well, I have a student this year who has cars. He was like, I can't explain things. I'm like, he's just explaining how to do an oil change, do that on the paper. That was from days and days of talking to him about cars when we had the time, having those conversations, knowing him, and trying to make those connections. That's important.
I think another thing is meeting students where they are, like teaching AP this year. We had to meet these students where they are. Some of these students have never been in a rigorous environment. We had to teach them that first of all, this is not a scary thing. Yeah, you're going to be held accountable in certain ways, but meet them where they are. It goes back to Josh, my student that I told you. He's camped out, homeless, came to school every day with a smile on his face.
Speaking of that negative climate, he came into class one day and he didn't sit in the assigned seat. I said, Josh got to sit in the assigned seat. He was so angry at me. Of course, we became great friends. I had to realize that this kid had been up all night running from people trying to move him from his campsites and take care of his older brother because his father was not there. Whenever you read Josh's paper, he was the one who gave the commentary. It was like, you got to give respect to get respect.
I don't care what the story was. It could be any story, any fictional, any short story. He could drive the commentary. You got to give respect to get respect. That was a big value for him. He did it properly. He had a line of reasoning, which was always about respect for him because his world was built on respect. You know kids in Hawaii, that's what they are.
You have to know that in a standards based rubric, yeah, it's going to be a two approaching or even a meet. It's not going to be the four, whatever the rubric is. But for him, that's about as much as he's going to need in the world. He's not going to, and that's knowing that child.
He's not going to Harvard, but he's articulate himself. He needs to get that piece of paper. Being able to customize, be flexible with students as well, and understand that again, everybody's not going to be a high flyer, but everyone can come to this place where they can feel confident in themselves. To me, that's the coaching me. That transcends to me contentment.
Kate: Yeah. I feel like you've jumped from, Josh had a bad day, he was really negative, and of course we became good friends. I'm like, wait a minute, you went from A to Z. How did you become good friends? What did you do that built that relationship with him?
Paul: When I found out his situation, I talked to him about it. That transparency, there's that human part. It's like, Josh, sorry about the other day, I was trying to do my thing, you were trying to do your thing. I'm glad that you did the way you did it, and I'm glad that we can talk about this. That was something that helped him to feel seen.
Throughout time, I think he just understood that I was more of an ally. He was a tough kid. He was not intimidated. He's one of those students that was not in awe of the adult school. The way his world was, you couldn't kind of sell him on certain things that maybe other people you could, it's just his reality was different, but I think the fact that I was able to understand him in that way. Call on him, actually give him chances to lead, let him guide conversations, and let him be able to speak in class.
Josh had some issues with profanity. You're not going to stop this kid from doing that. When he came with something that was a contribution to the conversation, we praised him for that. We're like, I never thought of it that way. You just let him know that you understand, that he's making strides, and that he's more than his grades.
After a while, that kid will kill concrete for you. He always came by, always spoke, but I think it was just a matter of knowing that I was someone–At the same time, I was not a pushover as well and he respected that. He respected the fact that we're going to have a relationship here. I pulled him outside the class, didn’t embarrass him on that day, and talked to him. I think from that point forward, he just was a tough nut to crack that he's been so opened up.
Kate: There was a moment where there was this challenge, it could have gone sideways. It could have turned into a huge confrontation in the classroom. You defused that situation. In the moment, he did find his seat and everything, but then later you took him aside privately. Like you said, you didn’t embarrass him, but you continued to build that relationship, find ways that he could be successful, experience success, built his confidence, and valued his contributions. That's huge. I think that no matter the age of the student, educators can keep that in mind.
We don't know what's going on for a child. Josh is living on the beach. He was being chased away from his campsite by the police. He's taking care of his family. We have lots of children in all kinds of situations. We don't know. We don't even necessarily need to know, but understanding there's a lot going on with this kid. It could be four years old, 10 years old, 15 years old.
We need to understand that they're that person bringing that to this situation. How do we respect and value them? As soon as we come at them, like it says, the disrespect, sarcasm, those kinds of things, it's going to build resistance to that relationship.
Paul: Right. As a young teacher, I had a terrible experience, young, ego. I was young, maybe my second or third year of teaching. I'm just 25. I called the kid out, embarrassed him, and he went nuts. It was crazy. I couldn't do anything. I learned from that lesson as the years went on.
For example, you never return negativity with negativity. Sometimes you have to say stuff. If a kid does something and you have to address it, I often all the time, when the time comes and we're working on things, hey, let's talk outside. Take them away from their audience and make sure you address it. Don't let these things go by. I find that if you remove them from the larger group, but not in a way that embarrasses them, you talk to them, you have a discussion about things. I know this is easier for older kids.
Kate: Even in the same idea of shifting this idea of time out, in an early childhood classroom, there was this practice of ostracizing basically children when they're not conforming. We put them over there until you can calm down and figure out how to be part of the group, then you can come back kind of thing, which makes them feel disconnected. They're separated from you, they don't feel valued, they feel called out, all those same things you're talking about. Instead, we're talking now about, how do we have time in?
Like what you're saying, how do we find a moment to connect with that child to find out what's going on? How can we move this forward in a positive way? What support do you need right now to reprocess what just happened here? Little kids will punch each other just like older kids will. They'll throw things. Things happen in the classroom that are very upsetting as the adult sees it happen.
What are your thoughts about how you do that kind of stay calm? You said, don't return negativity with negativity. How do you keep in that calm centered place when things are going sideways or could go sideways?
Paul: I think it's basically my lifestyle, things that are valuable to me, as far as background, I've always loved Samurai philosophy and Navy seal stuff, which is just me. That's the stuff that inspired me. Keeping your head at all times. Sometimes it's difficult, but that's something that I've tried to develop.
Ways that I've tried to evolve is that I try to keep an even keel and again, understand that many behaviors are an SOS. You're dealing with a representative from a variety of different families, dealing with circumstances that are unforeseen. It goes back to the students knowing this is a place where things are going to be done a certain way, but you're always welcome. You said the negativity?
Kate: Yeah. How do you stay calm? But then I want to go to the SOS thing too. Do you have a technique or something that you do when maybe at a younger age, you would feel your pulse quicken, or you want to go after this situation and make them mind? How do you pull yourself out of that?
Paul: I wish I had three or four steps I take, and I don't. Again, understanding the human being. I do believe your energy will reflect in your classroom. That's an energy that I bring to my classroom. I try to be a calm person, and a person who speaks throughout the year slowly.
When a student has a negative behavior, I have to understand that, I hate to say it, but that's a child. That's a younger person. Just like every kid doesn't go out, can't wait to get the English class today, out of a thousand students, maybe two students say that. They're going to have to go to class. They have seven classes, and I'm not taking myself so seriously. I think that's another thing that I've done. Of course, we all take ourselves seriously. But I think as far as how I present myself to the students, I don't take myself so seriously.
The way I stay calm is, and this is something I try to express them, I don't stand above them with all of the information and knowledge. This is one little thing that I know a little bit about. You have to do these things to get the piece of paper that said you did it. If you're going to be a journalist and you're going to write the next great American novel, I probably have nothing to do with that. I'm just in your world for a minute.
As far as everyone else, I don't take myself so seriously. When things come up, I'm able to say, this is not about me. They may see me as a reflection of what is wrong in their world, they don't like school, teachers are a part of school, teachers are authority figures, but that has nothing to do with me.
Going back to the relationships, I'll tell the students, I'm a teacher. I have these little sayings. I'm a teacher seventh in my list of my identities. There are work bikes and there's all these things I like. Teaching is a thing I have to do and I enjoy it, and I get to spend time with you guys.
I think that that whole ethos is always being at points being driven home. Look, let's just calm down. This is a thing we all have to do. Again, transparency. I tell them, hey, I have to do stuff too. I have to grade these papers. You have an assignment, I have an assignment. I think that I keep that humor.
Again, when those moments come up, I have to remind myself that, Josh Lagmay wasn't mad at me. He was mad because he's up all night, because he had to take up his campsite. Once I can do that, then I don't take it personally. It's not always easy. I'm not saying it's easy.
I wish I had a better formula, but really, I just try not to take myself so seriously. Of course, I take my job seriously, but I try to let them know that this is transcendent of content, how to write paragraph, topic, sentences, and thesis statements. These are things you have to know how to do.
Kate: We’re a community here too.
Paul: We're doing this thing for eight, nine, whatever months. This is a moment in time. I get really philosophical, you know this. To be honest, that energy works for me. It just works for me.
Kate: Yeah. The behaviors are an SOS, like you said. They're speaking to what's happening for the child, the student, more than what it is necessarily about you. You're saying, look, I'm making this demand. The demand could be that you write a paper in an elementary school. It could be that we all have to line up right now, you have to stop what you're doing, you have to leave the playground, all these different times when the demands of the school, children can have difficulty with that. It's not personal. This is what we're all doing.
Paul: I think another one too really quickly is the power of non response. For example, some students when it comes to this SOS have learned to exhibit behaviors to get attention, to manipulate the situation. It's not evil, that's just how they've learned. You say it best, people have relationships they know how to have.
Sometimes I've had students who immediately come in like gangbusters, and they want to be that person. It sounds crazy, but you stand off from them. They'll watch other students interact with you. They'll see you not like playing favorites, but they'll see, wait a minute, if I talk to him in a certain way, I'm going to get what I want. One example is, and this is a big one for me, this is a quirk, this is something I tell my students, you use interrogative statements or sentences for request.
Kate: Not I need a pencil.
Paul: Yeah, I don't have a paper. Because I've developed that relationship, I can be a little sarcastic and I say, you know what, I don't have $13 for lunch today, whatever. I'll tell him, may I please have a piece of paper? Of course you can. That other student who's used to never asking, you find some students like, oh, so we just have to be nice.
You're nice back to them like, oh, can I have a pencil? Of course. They're like, oh, so it's just a matter of how we interact? Modeling good interaction. Even when those behaviors happen, sometimes you have to stand your ground and say, look, we aren't going to interact in this way.
Kate: Right. This is a community we're building, and this is how we do this.
Paul: Respect goes both ways.
Kate: Right, exactly. The last thing I wanted to get your insight on is, as an educator, and you mentioned it's seventh on the list of things that are important about you, but what does that speak to in terms of how we handle negativity in the classroom, knowing that we have things going on in our own lives that we enjoy and that we take care of ourselves? How does building my own sense of self, enjoyment of life, and all of that contribute to how I can handle negative things around me in school?
Some schools are pretty negative places to be. Teachers will complain to each other a lot. There'll be negative meetings that happen, administration's making demands or whatever. There's just this negative tone. One thing I know about you is you create this oasis of peace. What you're bringing is you to the situation. How can we provide some thoughts or guidance for other educators about why that's important?
Paul: We all have to live our individual lives. I enter into teaching as a learner. I love the odyssey because of the adventure, the journey, The Hero's Journey. One of my favorite things is Joseph Campbell, the monomyth. Why I'm so passionate about it is because that's everyone. We're all walking that path. I think I can route like Josh Lagmay can route everything, give respect, get respect. I can route everything to the hero or heroine's journey.
Everything's like, you're in the mentor pupil stage. You're at 6:00. I think because I try to remind the students that this is a circumstance in your story. I believe that. I believe that the best educators are people who are educated by life itself, who love to learn, who love adventure, and whatever that looks like.
I've had a very adventurous life on the outside doing all the things I like to do, but that doesn't mean that's the only way. It goes back to the human. I think it's important to enter into the situation and tell students that, yes, we're here to do this, but this is a human endeavor.
As far as negative climate, reminding people that you are selling yourself. You do have something as an educator to bring to the table. That's another thing in my class. I tell my students all the time, everyone in this room is Michael Jordan in some way. Everybody's Michael Jordan in some way. There's real Michael Jordans.
I see kids drawing on their iPad, and that again goes back to like, oh, you're an amazing artist. You recognize that about them. I try to encourage the students themselves that you're more than a kid sitting in the English classroom. This is what you have to do right now. Hey, maybe there's something that's going to happen that will inspire you. I'm hoping. But at the end of the day, it's a human endeavor.
I think the content is important. I'm all into the data, the science, and delivering the lessons in the best ways possible. I just got my scores back from the AP exam and reflecting on that. Really, what I think is important for educators to know is that you have something to offer. I think that people who don't believe they have something to offer, then that negativity comes in because it's like, how are you doing? How's it going? It's going, and then you're around other people that are feeling mopey at the school, and it's hard to have a spirit because kids will reflect.
They come, they're languid, and all those things. It's important that you bring that energy and an individual energy, not some fake energy. If you can find that genuine aspect of yourself, and you can inject that into your lessons in the classroom, I believe that that is helpful to teachers.
Sometimes we don't understand that you're more than chemistry. You may love chemistry, but you as a person who maybe loves chemistry can convey or can pass on information. They can feel the love for the content because you're an individual who enjoys that.
Again, it goes back to English is a great place. Humanities is great, because I can customize my lessons and bring in inspirational speeches or stories that are very The Alchemist, that's right up my alley. You have those moments to be able to talk to them. You have the moments to go, look, this is a story. You're doing some literary analysis, but really this is a human thing.
I always tell them goldie. We talked about Goldie. When I was teaching their commentary, I was like, okay, prove it. What's your topic? Prove it with some examples. Now, Goldiefy it. I always do that. Make it Goldie now. What's the Goldiesm here? And own this. Then they go, oh, wait, I have something to say. Yeah, this is not a two plus two is four, but that's why I don't teach math. I can't do two plus two is four, I can't help you there.
You can weave in when Odysseus and with the Cyclops, and his arrogance and the lessons, and he had to use his mind instead of his brawn. How does that apply to your life? When did you have to think about some things and make midstream adjustments? I think that's my passion for life, my passion for adventure.
I think that every teacher has that. They should have it. You have something you bring into the table, something that you can give to these children, then that comes out. The students recognize this. Instead of doing this, they understand. The last thing is in Hawaii, which was very important, some of those kids in Waimahia don't care about conjunctive adverbs. They do, but they're in Waimahia.
Kate: Not just their many, many places.
Paul: Right. They're going to jump on a mule, go to the Nepali, and shoot a pig. But if you love them, you respect them, and you show them honor and reverence, then they'll go, it's because it's you, Mr. Cline. I'm going to do them because it's you.
Kate: Right, you build that relationship.
Paul: The next thing you know, they can write a sentence. That's the way it worked for me.
Kate: Yeah, that's awesome. I'm glad. I'm so glad we had this conversation with everybody here today. The last thing I always ask of the guests on the podcast is, and you might have already said what you wanted to say, I don't know because you were saying some really amazing things, if you could speak from your heart to the heart of an educator, the educator who really needs some encouragement right now, maybe they're getting ready for the new school year to start, they're reflecting on that, or just need some encouragement any day, what would you say?
Paul: I’d go back to however it takes, whatever you have to do to get there, you as an educator, you bring something to the table. You have an individual experience that no one else has. I don't know how you can apply that to all subject matter. But I believe that when you enter into it with Aloha and a certain sense of self and awareness, and then figure out the science and the data. Because so many people, so many young people, people in general need something consistent in their lives. More than you know, when those children walk in the room and they know, I know this at least for an hour, I'm going to be able to like, I'm not going to get yelled at, I'm going to be respected, and enjoy basking the relationships. Do the work. Stay on topic and make your lesson plans happen, but enjoy it.
Look at the year as a song. That's the way I've always looked at it. I get to know a hundred and something kids every year for a certain amount of months, and that has brought joy to my life. Understand that this is a human endeavor and that you're dealing with young people. They may never remember anything you taught, but they'll remember how you treated them.
I think that that's important. Know that you bring something, you have something, and use that as a trademark. Let that lead. Be strong in yourself and stand in your frame. Be humble and everything, be firm when you need to be. Be consistent, but understand that you bring something special to the game. If you can project that, kids will see past the things that they don't want to do because they can feel. It's not about passion. It's not like, oh, you're going to love the odyssey or whatever, Oedipus Rex, but if you can make it human, and I know English, it's a lot easier to do this with language arts, but look at yourself.
Also, be transparent. Understanding like, hey, everyone, I'm just like you, I'm a little older. I've had a few more laps around the sun, but hey, I don't have all the answers. I'm going to give you everything I got. That's the way I was doing. I said, I'm going to hear some stuff they told me, I said, this was before I was born, they made all this up, and I'm going to pass it on to you, then you go do your thing with it, and then maybe you'll tell someone else later.
I think keeping it human, understanding that it's beyond the content, but the content is paramount. We know that, but know that you have something to bring to the table. I think that if you can find whatever that is and own it, I think it brings a lot of reward in it.
Kate: Yeah. I know a lot of times, when you've told me about the observations that have happened in your classroom and things like that, people will come, oh, how do you do what you do? You were able to describe for us today a lot of very specific things you do.
One of the most important things you're offering here is everybody can do those things, but bring your own special thing to it. That's so awesome. Thank you so much for being with me on this episode today.
Paul: It was fun.
Kate: Yeah. It's great talking with you.
Wow, I hope you found this conversation enlightening and encouraging. We know that negative climate has detrimental effects on everyone in the classroom, and we also know that it's possible to reduce the impact of negativity in some really practical ways like Paul mentioned.
Until next time. Remember, thriving educators create environments where children can thrive. Please take care of yourself because what you do matters. You can find today's episode and our transcript on our website, teachstone.com/podcasts.
