Every Conversation Matters with Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns

Every interaction with every student is important, but how we structure (and yes, even plan) our conversations have an enormous impact on how students learn and achieve. In this conversation Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns, authors of Connecting Through Conversation: A Playbook for Talking with Students, share their strategies building connecting relationships with students.

Transcript

Scott Lee: Greetings friends and colleagues, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, the professional educator’s thought partner-a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and education organizations please visit our website at www.oncoursesolutions.net and reach out. 

In this episode I am sharing a conversation with Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns coauthors of the book Connecting Through Conversation: A Playbook for Talking with Students. Erika is the superintendent of the South Umpqua School District in Oregon. Previously she has been a district administrator, school principal and special education teacher. Tiffany is a faculty member at Southern Oregon University, having been a principal, instructional coach and ESL teacher. They will share how they began their collaboration on their book shortly, but first they share why they each became teachers. 

Welcome to the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, Erica. And Tiffany, 

Erika Bare: thank you so much for having us. We're thrilled to be here.

Thank you. 

Scott Lee: Well, great. So first off, before we get into discussing the book, tell us a little bit about why each of you decided to become a teacher.

Erika Bare: So, I was raised by two amazing public servants and my mom worked in the schools. She was a child development specialist, social worker, and I was also the oldest of three, and my siblings were quite a bit younger than me, so my sister was six years younger than me, and my brother was 12 years younger than me.

And when I was very young, I found that I really, really, really enjoyed teaching them how to do things. They did not really, really enjoy my style of teaching at that time, but it was for me, my favorite thing to do with my siblings. And I watched my mom. Kind of come and go from school and have conversations about the work she was doing and, and was really inspired.

I didn't think initially that I was gonna go into teaching. I kind of resisted that idea for a long time. But I kept getting drawn to working with kids throughout, my high school and college experience and the more time I spent with kids and then started spending time volunteering in classrooms, I knew that that's really where I wanted to be and I couldn't fight it anymore, and so I decided to head into education and it is the best decision I've ever made.

Minus my husband and fabulous children, of course. 

Scott Lee: Oh yeah. What about you, Tiffany? 

Tiffany Burns: Oh, well I love that story. Erica, we've, we've talked a lot about why we wrote our book and everything else, but I've never heard why you wanted to be a teacher, so thanks for asking that. Even as a kid, I loved kids.

Like I've just always really loved kids. I loved babies. I babysat all the way. I mean, the neighbors. I would just like, I was just always playing with kids 'cause they're the coolest people on the planet. And then as that I got older, I would do a lot of vol… Like, I would still do babysitting, but I would do volunteering as well.

I volunteered at the hospital in pediatrics, I volunteered with the Boy Scouts of America helping kids. And yeah, I just always absolutely loved kids. And as a younger person, I didn't have, I- I didn't have excellent teachers. I had a handful that really stood out. Maybe less than a handful that stood out, I mean, I had one teacher in elementary school who, who really got me.

And other than that, I did not. But as someone that really loved kids, I was like, “you know, they could do this different, do this in a much kinder and more loving way.” And so, I majored in theater actually, and then I got my masters in teaching, really because I, I love hanging out with kids and I also just love learning. I feel like I'm a person who could be in school forever. I just really love learning and love that experience, and I love watching students have those learning ideas and, and building that sense of community. Yeah. Yeah. 

Scott Lee: Alright, we'll talk about the book, specifically in a minute, but was there anything, in particular that happened or what was the motivation for each of you to write the book in the first place?

Erika Bare: So, we were fortunate that we were both working in the same district at the same time. We were both administrators and we'd been working together since. Our first days as administrators, we actually went to principal school together and really connected there and during that time we kind of, we became great friends and, and talked about someday we're gonna write a book 'cause we love collaborating together.

We loved writing together and we just had a really similar set of values and ideas about what it means to serve kids well in school. And we kind of talked about it and then forgot about it a little bit. And then as we were coming back from Covid, things were just a little bit different in our schools and kids were coming in with some different needs and things were looking, different than they had before.

And so, we were coaching teachers in really intentional ways that were different than how we had done that in the past. And Tiffany had been approached by one of the educators in her building, and asked to, “can you share with the staff? Some of those quick tips, things that you do with kids, ways that you help with their behavior and getting them on the right track?”

And she's like, “yeah, no problem. I can do that. That would be easy.” And so, she did. This was at a time when staff could only gather via Zoom, and it wasn't a very well-planned PD, but she looks up and every single person is writing down every single word that she's saying. And then it was immediately applied in the days following.

And so, we were having one of our regular meetings. I was the assistant superintendent at the time and she was a principal. And she says, “this is the book she was talking about, the training.” She said, “this is the book we really need how to talk with kids.” And I thought she was telling me that this was a book that she wanted for her staff.

And so, I went back to my office as an assistant superintendent trying to be supportive, and I'm googling this book, trying to find it, and I text her and I'm like, “Tiffany, I'm, I can't find the book you were talking about, who's the author?” And she, you know, sends back all these laughing emojis. She's like, “no we are, this is the book we need to write.” And so, it really became this mission of rebuilding a sense of connection and belonging in schools as we were coming back from a very disconnected time. So that's how it got started.

Scott Lee: One of the things that you focus on, is how to have meaningful conversations with students. And you asked the question early on, I think maybe in the first chapter of the book you say, what if students felt heard and valued in every exchange they had in school and I thought that was great, but I also think it kind of goes against some of the orthodoxy of “classroom management” and people can't see it- I'm holding up air quotes around classroom management. Do you all agree with that or am I totally off base? And regardless, why do you think every interaction matters?

Tiffany Burns: You know, I think sometimes what gets in the way for educators is that we are, we're really busy people and there's all kinds of different demands and there's so many folks that really feel like, “gosh, there's so much content that we have to get through.” And so sometimes we can kind of lose track of the real importance that we're teaching kids.

We're not just teaching content. And there's so much that we are teaching, like as, as educators, we're teaching problem solving. We're teaching reading, we're teaching writing, we're teaching critical thinking, but we're also teaching students how to share space. And we're also teaching students how to be able to have conversations with one another.

We're teaching them how to agree and disagree respectfully, just how to, how to navigate the world together. And that's our job as educators. And so, I think that sometimes that can be tricky. To, to keep in mind for educators. I also think that there, there isn't an incredible amount of training on how to do that.

Like Erika was saying, when we went, when she looked to, to see where to find that book that we were gonna write like that, that that book doesn't really exist. Like if you've been in education for five minutes, you have heard. That relationships are super important, but I [Scott: mm-hmm] don't know a lot of people that tell us how to do that.

And so, Erika and I really believe that there's an art and a science to building relationships with students. And so, we wanted to kind of dive into the science and then also really explain step by step the art in ways that we could. So, I don't know if that fully answers the question you asked. 

Erika Bare: Well, I think. It, it is a little bit different, right? Than what we've traditionally been taught. I think many of us, when we went and trained in how to be a teacher, there was this idea that, that the adult is in charge. They need to make sure that they are running things smoothly and students are complying. And we kind of get folks lined out.

And when we were really digging into what is it that we do with kids that really works around relationships. We found that there were three things that were really critical. Listening, dignity and trust. And our question was, what if every student felt heard and valued?

And one of the critical components of building a connected relationship so that students can learn is that we listen well. Folks aren't gonna value their relationship with you if they don't feel valued. And the only way we can do that is remember that these are just little humans. They are not, pegs in a machine.

These are little humans. They have their own identity. They have their own set of, skills and values and challenges and, and gifts, and we have to listen to understand what those things are and then really elevate and value what they're bringing to our space so that they're in a position to really feel as though we are someone they can learn from and adults have to work at that maybe 40 years ago there was just this expectation kids are gonna show up and sit down and learn, and that's just not the case. We have to build these connected relationships in order to make the kind of progress we want to with students.

Scott Lee: And you all spent in the book several chapters, dedicated to planning a connected conversation. Some people might find it unusual that you can plan a conversation. Why is it important to plan a conversation in order to connect with a student? And also, what are some strategies that go into that planning for a connected conversation?

Erika Bare: Yeah, well, I think we can plan conversations. We're obviously not gonna plan out every single conversation. We want to make sure that we are consistently and often engaging in low stakes, small talk conversation with kids, building that relationship, getting to know them, and we don't need to plan that out.

That just needs to happen naturally throughout our day. But when we're getting ready to have a conversation that is high stakes, we're really thinking about a something significant that's going on with a kid or an issue that we're trying to work through in our classroom. It's really wise to step back and take a minute and think through some of those critical parts of the conversation so that you give yourself the best opportunity to do well. Right? Anytime we can think ahead of time is going to put us in a better position to get everything accomplished we want to accomplish. So, we actually, we do have a guide. It's a free resource on our website that talks through the individual components of planning. But the idea is really just taking five minutes.

It does not need to be a long time. And jotting down some key pieces that you want to make sure that you communicate. Thinking through some of the strategies that you might want to use, being cognizant of what time should I be having this conversation? Where should I be having this conversation? How am I going to have the most significant kind of impact that I want to have by setting up the environment in a way that's gonna make sense?

What are some things that I know I have to say or communicate in this conversation? I, I jot those things down. And by the way, I do this when I'm getting ready for challenging conversations with grownups too. Like if you can write down those hard things to say, it makes it so much more clear what's gonna happen in that conversation.

You're not gonna wiggle out of it. You're not gonna forget to say it, or you're not going to avoid saying it if you've written that thing down and it helps hold you accountable and helps make sure. That none of the details get lost 'cause these conversations can be stressful and they can be hard on the adult just like they're hard on the kid 'cause we care about what happens. We care about the relationship with the student and we really want what's best for them and what's best for us and what's best for the relationship between the two of us. And when we're stressed, it's easy to lose details. It's easy to forget those things that are really critical to say so.

Spending just a few minutes to write it down can be really, really beneficial. And like I said, the steps to that we talk about in terms of how to do that are, that's a free resource on our, our website, and we would encourage people to go and check that out. 

Tiffany Burns: Part of the reason we included that Erika and I have both been building administrators.

Erika is now a district administrator, and almost everything that is included in that book is different strategies and tools and sentence stems, are all things that we've helped coach educators on how to do. So, just knowing how to handle really tricky behavioral conversations, that's not easy.

And that doesn't just come naturally. And it's not like Erika and I got it right every time we did it either, right? Like there were so many times that we had conversations that we got wrong or that went kind of sideways. And so, a lot of these are just kind of hard-won strategies really. And so, what we tried to do is think what are things that, that are helpful for folks, and then include those. We tried to be as practical as we could, like sharing the, the pieces of theory, but also really making sure that it was practical, immediately applicable, so you could read it and then put that right into practice.

Scott Lee: You also spent a lot of the book discussing de-escalation. I know from my own work with teachers too, that oftentimes de-escalation is something that is scary for teachers, “oh, no kids acting out danger Will Robinson!”

I'm gonna cut that out. Nobody will get that.

Tiffany Burns: I got it. I got it. I got it. [laughing]

Scott Lee: What were your concerns about de-escalation? Have you run into the same thing that? I think this is something that is not taught well to pre-service, and early career teachers, what are your thoughts on that and, how do you approach de-escalation, with kids?

Tiffany Burns: So, I think you're absolutely right. So, I'm really glad that you asked that question because I do think it is a very stressful situation for educators to be in when a student is really escalated. In, in my experience, kids don't choose a really convenient time to have a big outburst. Right? It's always when I've got 30 other students that I'm supposed to be managing is when I'm on my way to somewhere else.

It's where we're all trying to move to this other environment or I've got all of this content I have to cover, like whatever it is. It is not a convenient time. So that in and of itself adds a layer of stress. Also, when there's an outburst that comes up, the other students in class or the other people around first, they're watching the person having the the big incident or the outburst.

Then they're looking at the grownup going, “Hmm, how are they gonna handle this? Like, what's going on?” And so, in that situation it's really normal for people to be nervous or uncomfortable or, or just like, “gosh, what am I gonna do?” 

And so, the main thing that we talk about, we talk about a number of things, but one of the things that we talk about is this idea that emotions are contagious and there's an actual neuroscience to that. We all have, mirror neurons in our brains. Erika and I call them “empathy cells.” And mirror neurons are just our way of when someone else is having an emotional experience, our mirror neurons start to match or mirror. That emotional experience in our own bodies that we're seeing someone else have.

So, and we've all experienced this, like, so somebody's having a really bad day and they come in and they're super grumpy and they're really frustrated about something. You might've been just in a fine mood, but all of a sudden after hearing them and seeing their experience, you start to pick that up and you're kind of frustrated and grumpy too.

Or you could have been having just kind of a plain, boring day, and somebody comes in and they're super excited and they're jazzed and they're telling you about something so cool that happened and all of a sudden, you're feeling really excited for them and you've caught that emotion. And so, it's really, really important that folks realize when that happens, that we don't need to have any blame or shame there, but it's really, really easy when students are having this big emotional experience.

It could look like anger. Oftentimes it's anxiety, and that's kind of the underlying emotion there. And it's really easy to pick up that anxiety from them and as an adult to feel like, “oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? How am I going to respond to this? How am I gonna get them calm?” There's all those thoughts that are kind of racing in our minds.

And so, we talk about things like. Recognizing that when it happens really taking a minute, planting your feet really firmly on the ground, starting to take some really intentional, slow and deep breaths. Thinking about our, our speech patterns. When kids or other folks, it can be adults as well, when they start to go higher and faster, we don't wanna match them.

We wanna start to go lower and slower. We wanna slow down our speech patterns because not only can we catch the emotions from others, they can catch the emotions from us. And Erika, I don't know if you wanna talk about that a little bit. 

Erika Bare: Yeah, so I think I'll just add a couple of things. This contagion of emotion, what really helpful about that is we can use it for the good. So, if we are projecting calm, if we are feeling calm, we can help support not only the student who's escalated and starting to pick up on that calm, but the rest of the students in the room are going to remain calm because you, as the adult, set the weather, you set the tone for the classroom.

And you have the most contagious emotions, so if you start to go to a place. Of anxiety or anger, frustration, everyone else in the room is gonna follow that and so we want to be really intentional that we're setting the emotion that we want everyone else to be feeling in this space.

The other thing that I would add is when folks are really escalated, when people are having big emotions, first of all. They can't hear what you have to say, so we really encourage you to stop talking if someone is feeling really, really big feelings. We want to really limit our speech, and this is especially true with kids, but really with anybody because what we know is when someone is in an escalated state, when they're feeling stressed.

Any noise at all activates the amygdala and causes even more stress. And so, turns out our voice is noise. And so, if we start putting our own voice in the space, it's going to just increase and make that escalation cycle go longer. And we know this. We all feel this. And think about the last time you were lost in the car and feeling a little bit stressed and you had to turn the radio down so that you could see better.

This is that idea of any noise really is gonna increase the, the stress level. So, when we have a student that's escalated, we really encourage folks to stop talking or use as few words as possible to make sure that they're in a safe space and that we've got things set up to carry on. So, as a principal, I got to spend lots of time with folks that were escalated and I would often repeat the same phrase. I would just say, “I'm here when you're ready. Like, we're in a safe space. I'm here when you're ready.” And those were the only three words I would say to the kiddo. And I would say them every like two or three minutes. 'cause the first time I said it, they did not hear me. 

The second time I said it, they like maybe recognized I was in the room, but they're not processing anything I had to say. And maybe by the third or fourth time they're gonna start coming down and getting to a place where we can start working through the situation. But as adults, when we try and push a kiddo onto our timeline around escalation, we're only gonna make it go longer.

And that's why educators tend to. Really try and talk through a problem. They try and talk a kiddo into calm, and that just doesn't work. We have to remember that this isn't the moment. We're not gonna be able to talk them into calming down. We're really gonna have to give some, some space and time for that to happen.

Tiffany Burns: As educators, we're such helpers. We're fixers. We're solvers like we went into education because we want to make the world a better place. We want to really help all students and to say to somebody, so just stop talking. It feels like you're not doing something right, like it feels like you're. But what do you mean stop talking?

And it's like, no, no, that'll work. But people not only need permission to do that, they also have to understand, again, like the science behind it. Just like Erica was saying, like noise activates the, the amygdala, so here's why you wouldn't want to talk. And I think once people really understand the science of it, it makes it so much easier to go, oh, okay.

I can remember to do that next time. 

Scott Lee: It, it kind of reminds me of something else that you all discussed in the book. Something that I wish I had known, when I was an early career teacher, because one of the things that, and I saw this so many times, a teacher would get upset with a student doing something or whatever.

And I'd hear a comment like, “look at me when I'm talking to you.” And I'm like, “I don't think that's right, but I don't know what is.” And of course I learned, and you mentioned this in the book, that eye contact is very culturally unique and sensitive. And I think about the nonverbals and all of the nonverbal things and how it can change and be different depending on the culture of the teacher and might be different from the culture of the student.

Can you talk a little bit about, nonverbal or nonverbal problems that teachers sometimes have in communicating with kids? 

Erika Bare: Yeah. I think there's two big pieces to that. There's both kind of recognizing what messages we're sending with our body and then also recognizing the nuances with eye contact.

So, with eye contact specifically, you mentioned that it's culturally specific and that is a hundred percent true. It is also individually and situationally specific, and so we know. And by the way, when, when I was a brand-new baby teacher, you might've heard me say also, “look at me when you're, when I'm talking to you.”

I was raised in a white, western, middle class culture, and so eye contact meant I was listening and I was being respectful and. In many cultures, it means the opposite thing. In many cultures, making direct eye contact with someone, especially a person in a position of authority, is the opposite of respectful.

It's actually very disrespectful, and so we don't want to inadvertently put someone in a position where they're acting outside the norms of their own culture. The other piece though is that it's individually specific. So, we know that students who are neurodiverse might experience challenges with eye contact.

We know that students who have experienced a significant amount of trauma are gonna struggle with eye contact. Folks who have post-traumatic stress disorder really struggle with eye contact. Students who experience autism sometimes oftentimes have challenges with eye contact. So, there's individual components that we also need to be aware of.

But for all of us, for every single person, when we're in a situation that is stressful, eye contact becomes more difficult. It is very challenging to look someone in the eye when you're under significant stress and for kids. When we're talking to them about their behavior or something that isn't going well at school, that is stressful.

And so, eye contact is gonna become way more challenging. And I think about this for myself. I'm sure no one listening to this has had. To have a difficult conversation about their own performance, but I have, I've gotten some really challenging feedback that I needed to hear that was really important.

That made me a better educator. But as I was having that conversation, I felt a lot of stress, and it was really challenging for me to look at the person who I was talking to directly in the eye. And so we really encourage folks to think about how can we help know that they're listening and know that they're engaging without forcing them to look us directly in the eye.

We really advocate the use of a third point or a neutral place where we can put our eyes right. And so, in the situation that I was talking about for myself, like if we'd had the data from the classroom observation in between us that we could be referencing if we had some student data that we could be looking at that gives us a safe place to put our eyes.

And it also takes the emotional weight of the conversation from the two people to the neutral thing or the situation that we're talking about. And so, that third point can be a really useful tool, and it absolutely works with kids as well. You can use anything from, a notepad where you're taking notes to, a whiteboard where you're telling out the story of a student's behavior.

So, thinking about what can we do with our eyes that is not, “look at me when I'm talking to you,” because that is gonna shut down a lot of conversations. And eye contact is just one of the many components of, body language and how we position our bodies. I'm sure Tiffany could expand on that quite a bit.

Tiffany Burns: Yeah, what we know about body language is that the overwhelming majority of what we're communicating is nonverbal. So, 55% of what we communicate is through our body. So, Erika and I say, “your body is talking.” What's it saying? 38% of what we're saying is through our tone and volume, and then only 7% is our words.

So, our words are really important, but they're not conveying the, the majority of what we're saying to, to students or to anyone really. So, we really want to consider our bodies when we're thinking about communicating with kids. I'm a tall person and so when I work with elementary students, I want to kind of crouch down or get down on their level.

I might sit down next to them. I might kneel down. I might squat, so I'm not like towering over them. Because that really is, it's kind of threatening and a student is like, “oh my gosh, that's really, you're a scary big lady.” You know? So, I want to think about, about how I'm positioned.

And this is a thing we do really frequently is we stand or we sit and position ourselves so we're face to face with someone. So, our shoulders are directly facing theirs, so we're like mirroring them. In the animal kingdom that is really threatening sit, standing, face to face in that way is really saying like, “hey, this is, we're about to brawl.”

Like this is a confrontational pose and a really easy fix for that is just standing side by side or standing at a 90 degree angle, so you're opening your bodies out. It does kind of what Erika was just talking about, about eye contact as well. It doesn't force that eye contact right on the person. Like we can have that point that we're looking at, off in the distance.

Or we can have the third point, in between us. We also want to really think about what we're doing with our arms. For me, again, I'm a tall person. I have long arms. It is very comfortable for me to just stand with my arms crossed over my body. That's just a comfortable way to position myself and, it's really easy for me.

But what it looks like is that I'm not someone that wants to have a conversation, right? I don't look approachable. I look very closed off. I don't look like, somebody that you feel comfortable talking with. And with kids, I want to make sure that I look like someone they want to talk with, right? Like I want my whole demeanor to be approachable so they'll have a conversation with me.

So, it's just kind of considering what you're doing with your hands. It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. We don't want to point. Disney actually taught us that instead of pointing, we can use an open hand to gesture, and that's a lot more inviting and welcoming. But really just so much of what we talk about are just easy little tips and tricks that you can change to just really slightly tweak your behavior that is going to get better results and better connection with students, and honestly, with grownups as well. 

Scott Lee: Yeah. So, can you tell us about a success story or two? 

Tiffany Burns: Yeah. So, one of the big things that Erika and I talk about a lot is this idea of care out loud. We believe that if you went into education, you did it because you think kids are just the coolest people around. And so, you love kids and you know that your colleagues know that, but you know, who doesn't always know that are the kids? And so, kids don't just come in to school thinking, “oh my gosh, every single grownup who works here loves me and cares about me, and they're just totally, completely dedicated to my success.”

And so, we have to tell them that. Like we have to really explicitly and intentionally tell them that we care about them. Early on, I had a parent give me a call when I was a building administrator and she was really upset, this was in a middle school, she said one of her child's teachers really, really didn't like her son.

And this mom was very, very, escalated and really upset. And she was telling me that this teacher is on my son's case all the time. She's constantly giving him all this direction. Like he, she, he thinks that she hates him. And she was really worried that her student wasn't gonna graduate high school, and this was in middle school.

And so, she was adamant that I changed this child's class out of this teacher's classroom. So, I thanked the parent for talking with me and then asked her if I could maybe go talk to the teacher. And, and I really knew the teacher well and I wanted to be able to have a conversation. I thought that was good feedback for the teacher to have, but also, I knew the teacher would be, you know, upset to hear that.

And I thought that I would want to talk to her about it. So, I went and talked to the teacher and I, I calmed the message down a little bit, but as I shared with her what, the parent said, the teacher literally said to me, “Tiffany, are you kidding?” That's my favorite kid. And I know we're not supposed to have favorite kids, but she was like, this is a kid that I just absolutely adore.

And he's a kid that needs all kinds of redirection. Like he needs to be reminded to get to class on time. He needs to be reminded to turn his papers in. He needs to be reminded to sit up and not have his head down at the desk. But when he does engage he makes the conversations in our class so much richer.

He's so thoughtful. He can be such a leader in class, and I'm really trying to get that out of him. But he needs a lot of reminders and direction to do that. And, I listened and I was like, “oh my gosh. Yeah. That's incredible. Have you told him that?” 

She was like, “well, no. No, I haven't. I haven't had that conversation with him.”

And I said, “well. We're gonna have a meeting with this, with this parent and the student. And when it's your turn to speak, I really want you to lead with that. I want you to share those bits of information.” And the teacher was really hesitant. She was just like, that feels awkward, “how, how would I say that?”

And I was like, “well, go ahead and write it down. I care about you. And you can actually just say what you said right now.” She trusted me. Thankfully we had a solid relationship, so we went in to have this meeting with the parent. It was still heated, but it wasn't as escalated. It was respectful but intense.

And when it got to be the teacher's turn to speak, she shared all of those things that she had said with me to the student and the parent, and really said, “I care about you so much, and you're such a cool student, and I'm so glad you're in class.” And here's kind of where I'm coming from and the moment that she's finished sharing all that, like the whole room, like tenor just changed. You could see the mom's shoulders relax, like she just obviously felt more comfortable. The student actually looked up, we almost saw a smile. We didn't quite get a smile, but, but it was close. And it just shifted everything about their interaction. 

The teacher had work to do with the student to kind of repair some of their relationship, but the student actually ended up being this, he was a seventh-grade student in the classes looped. So, the seventh and eighth grade teachers stayed the same. Not only did I not have to move his class, he stayed in that teacher's class the next year. 

And to me it just really highlighted and like he wanted to, it highlighted for me this idea of just how important it is to really care out loud. And we need to do that with not just words, but with actions. We've got a whole bunch of different kind of strategies on our website, like we call 'em care out loud routines that folks can do in their day just to make sure that kids really know that we hear about them and we love them and we're glad they're at school.

Erika Bare: You know, I had the amazing opportunity to be a middle school teacher. And so, I want to share a little bit about how I learned about the importance of planning a conversation. So, I had the joy of being with my kids for three years. I was a special educator and so I was their teacher for in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

And I had a student come in in sixth grade, and I knew the importance of really getting to know our kids and. Having a lot of conversations with them, engaging them in small talk and really getting to know them. And for whatever reason I could not get this student to talk to me. And I was doing all of the things I knew worked.

I was telling them funny stories about myself. I was asking them questions. I was doing all of those things that you do to try and engage kids, and I just could not get him to engage with me. And it was getting to be close to the winter break, so it was kind of in that stretch between the Thanksgiving and winter break.

And I just was like, “I am going to get this kid to talk to me” because he was already demonstrating that it was gonna be important for me to have some of those high stakes conversations in order to make sure, he had the kind of success we wanted him to have in middle school. And so, I'm like, this is critical.

We're gonna have to figure out how to do this. And so, I went home over the weekend and I did, I wrote it down. I made a plan from beginning to end where it was gonna happen, what time it was gonna happen, how I was gonna approach it, and I went in that Monday and I found him where he always was at lunch.

He would hang out in the library. He would, he was always sitting, leaning up against a stack of books, and so I went and found him. I slid down on the floor next to him, so we're sitting side by side. We, there was no pressure for eye contact and I was quiet for maybe 30 seconds, which for those who know me, is a challenge.

My wait time was always something I got critical feedback on. But I counted backwards in my head for 30 seconds and then I just kind of glanced over at him and I, and I said, “gosh, could you help me understand the difference between a fighter jet and a passenger jet?” He kind of pauses and he looks over at me like I'm not a very smart person.

And then he looks at his watch and he goes, “well, I mean, I only have eight minutes, so I can't teach you everything that is different, but I will start. And first of all, that's not what you call them.” And then for the next eight minutes. Shared with me all kinds of details that I don't think we have time today to share, but if anyone wants to know, I can share later the difference between these two kinds of planes.

And it was eight minutes of information. And from that day forward, our relationship was different. It was, we were able to have conversations and we did have a number of conversations that were really important in helping him stay on track with where he wanted to go. I had the opportunity to go to his graduation four or five years later after he left the school that I was at, and his grandma, who was his primary caregiver, came up and gave me a big hug, and she just said, “thank you so much for seeing my kid.”

It made all the difference, and I, I don't think in any way that I made all the difference, but I do know that having that relationship and having that foundation made a significant difference in our ability to help him be successful as he moved through middle school. So, planning the conversation, it doesn't take a long time, but it really can make a big difference in, in having an impact for those more critical conversations.

Scott Lee: Yeah. Yeah. Those are, those are great stories. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can listeners find out more? I. 

Erika Bare: So, the best place to find information about our work is through our website, which is connecting through conversation.com. And we have a bunch of free resources, like we talked about, available on that website.

You can of course get your hands on the book, and reach out to us. We would love to stay connected with folks, and there's actually an exciting opportunity for your listeners. 

Tiffany Burns: Yeah, so, Erika and I go all over the country doing professional development and talking with educators about how to build cultures of connection with their students and how to transform student behavior.

And that is super fun. We love doing it. Often what we hear from people or the people like, see us at a conference or something and like that, I think. I'm not gonna say the number one issue that educators face, but a huge issue is the lack of time. And so, we'll have folks say to us like, “gosh, this is so great, but I just legitimately do not have time for more professional development.”

Or, “we can't have everybody come out, you know, and do this. So, it would be so great if you all could make videos” And we finally did, and so it launched this year on Valentine's Day. 

We have a whole online course and we have two hours total of different strategies and tips and tricks and they're split up though into five to 10 ish minute lessons that people can watch on their own, that they can, have a whole site license and watch together. There's discussion questions, but it really just kind of takes folks through in these little bite size pieces of, of professional development, and it can be really flexible and turnkey, but it's super helpful for, for learning some of these strategies.

And for your listeners, if they want to use a discount code to get $50 off the course, they can just type in “CTCPODCAST” and that'll get them $50 off the course. And they can find that all on our website, like Erika said, connecting through conversation.com. And if folks want a site license, those have a much deeper or steeper discount, but they'd need to email us for that amount.

Scott Lee: Well great. We'll have a link to your website on our website as well. Thank you so much for joining us today Erika and Tiffany.

Erika Bare: thank you so much for having us. It was really fun to get to chat with you. Thank you. 

Tiffany Burns: Thank you. This was lovely. 

Scott Lee: The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and youth organizations strengthening learning cultures and developing more resilient youth, please visit our website at w w w dot oncoursesolutions dot net. Also, please follow me on social media, my handle on Instagram and Bluesky is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com

This has been episode 7 of the 2025 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about us, in person and on social media. Also, five-star reviews on your podcast app helps others find us. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is a production of Oncourse Education Solutions LLC, Scott Lee producer. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest pay to appear. Episode notes, links and transcripts are available at our website w w w dot thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Theme music is composed and performed by Audio Coffee.