UNTIL THEY KNOW YOU CARE with GREG JACKSON TRANSCRIPT (050)

LILY FLAST: Hello, this is Lily Flast, founder of Soutien NYC, and you are at the Point of Learning with Peter Horn. Let me start from the beginning. I’m 14 years old, sitting in English class, having been handed my copy of The Odyssey. I was not feeling enthusiastic about reading a 500-page book, as you can imagine. But when Peter, or Mr. Horn in those days, began his dramatic reading, and from a standing position leaped onto the top of his desk, my dread became excitement. What do you get when you combine one of the greatest minds with one of the greatest hearts and an unbridled passion for learning? An educator and a leader who can win hearts and minds. So when Peter first shared that he was thinking of going out on his own as an education consultant in 2015, so he could share what he had figured out about what and how and why we learn with other schools, districts, colleges and universities, so he could influence the greatest number of leaders, teachers, and—most important to him—students possible, my response was a resounding YES! This podcast is part of that same project, so I'm excited to hear what happens in this special 50th episode of the Point of Learning podcast. Now, enjoy the show!

[01:33]

PETER HORN [voiceover]: On today’s special 50th episode, a sneak preview of a new Point of Learning project on how to have respectful conversations.  

PETER [from clip of new civil discourse video]: Small examples of compromise matter, so kids today won't grow into the Congress of tomorrow that can't somehow compass compromise as an essential part of the messy, small-d democratic process.

[VO]: I speak with my producer and collaborator Greg Jackson about why he cares about this project. GREG JACKSON: After years of being in the confrontational talk show genre, I just felt like I wanted to go in a different direction. I felt like I wanted to add something to the culture that was more serious and helpful to people.

[VO]: And some of why I care about this project.

PETER [from interview with Greg]: You know, I think with the national conversation being where it is, one of the best moves we can make is to try to work on that next generation, or the people who are just about to enter into the conversation, which is to say high school students.

[VO]: All that and much more, coming right up!

[02:51]

[VO]: Welcome to Episode 50! I began thinking several months ago about what kind of special episode I should make for this fiftieth podcast installment—after only seven years! (Can you believe it?) Then in early spring 2024, I had a conversation with another education consultant who, like me, had started out as a classroom teacher. He mentioned in an offhand way that he doesn’t keep in touch with any of his former students; he has no idea what they’re up to. It was a small moment in our conversation, but I got to thinking about how fortunate I am that, for whatever set of reasons, former students—some of them just 5 years younger than me, because I began teaching high school seniors right after I graduated college—are now some of my best friends. Three of them are on the fairly short “favorites” list of my phone contacts (what we used to call “speed-dial”); I check in with a dozen or so more former students every year to catch up, or get some advice about something I could use help with; sometimes they ask me for advice. If you’ve been listening to this podcast a while, you’ve heard from a number of them: Kevin Johnson was featured in the pilot episode of this show in the spring of 2017, an episode that started out as a lesson from this professional engineer (and my very good friend) who was teaching me the basics of how to record and edit audio. Shayfer James, of course, starred in the most recent episode, and by his gracious permission, his music always inspirits the soundtrack here. Molly Colvin, Jessie Gregory, Josh Lerner, Gil Scott Chapman, Justin Rosin, and Michael Rosin have all contributed multiple music tracks over the years. Technically the last three were not actually my students, as in English students, but it’s amazing who will wander into your classroom to play during free periods if you keep a Yamaha baby grand in there, like I did! Dave Eisenberg has suggested numerous ideas. You heard his voice talents on the episode called Baby Unplugged, where I interviewed his wife Sophie Brickman about her fascinating book on the tech that is marketed to parents of kids age 0 to 5. Very important conversations about the form and content of this show have happened with Lily Flast and Keith Zemsky, both of whom you hear a little bit from on this episode, as well as with Raj Bhandari (who I’ve got to tap soon) and really, many other former students who ping me now and then with a thought they had about a show they’d just heard. What this moves me to focus on as a theme for this episode is a major throughline for my career as an educator, for my ideas about education, and for the Point of Learning project: it’s  relationship: First, as I’ve suggested, the teacher-student relationship, which I hold as central for effective teaching and learning—I’ve got a sweet dissertation on this topic if you want to read more, but let me just flag here two standout memories from my training as a pre-service teacher; both have to do with the teacher-student relationship. One was a veteran teacher explaining to us student teachers, “As a classroom teacher, you should be friendly, but you should not try to be your students’ friend.” I think this is very important advice, especially for new teachers, especially for young teachers, in that it helps to lay out appropriate boundaries. I want to be clear that although I have come to consider many former students friends, I was cautious to maintain professional boundaries when they were my students, and consulted regularly with counselors and administrators when I believed a student needed extra support. The second memory along these lines was a small plaque in one of the Teacher Prep seminar rooms that read students don’t care what you know until they know you care (so there’s the origin of today’s episode title). students don’t care what you know until they know you care. Now this is a sentiment worth suspecting immediately because of how catchy it is. It deploys the very pleasant rhetorical device called chiasmus, where the terms “care” and “know” cross back over each other in an A-B-B-A pattern, like JFK’s famous:

PRESIDENT KENNEDY [archival audio]: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

[VO]: Here the terms ”your country” and “you” trade places, which charges the sentence with extra music. If you were going to map this out, you might decide the pattern looks like an X, which the Ancient Greeks called chi, and so we have a term called chiasmus. (Did you think I was going to do a 50th special episode without nerding out on some etymology?) Anyway, the thing about this idea is that it not only sounds good, it’s true. My experience of 18 years in the classroom as well as my research reflect that students really don’t care what you know until they know you care. Many times the “care” is caring about them as an individual, as a whole person with ideas and curiosities and challenges that have nothing to do with your class or school. And sometimes the “care”  is caring deeply about your subject matter and your role as a teacher who is not a pompous ass or someone there just to hear themself talk or collect a paycheck. I confess I’m fired up about all this, but lest you think I’m just here to hear myself talk, I promise I’m about to bring in another voice, the voice of Greg Jackson, another former student who is now a dear friend and most definitely on my Favorites List of contacts. The owner of the company Action J Productions, Greg is also the producer of a video series spun off from this show called Point of Learning Master Class, which we hope to pitch to you as people who might help us find a larger audience for it. The subject of the first video for teachers that we polished this year is called “Respectful Conversations: How and Why to Practice Civil Discourse,” and it also, turns out, aligns with the topic of relationship. You can’t talk meaningfully with someone about hard topics if you’re not willing to enter into some kind of relationship, however temporary, based on mutual respect and trust. You can lecture them; you can scream; you can maintain that you’re right and they’re evil because they disagree with you about what should be done in Gaza, or because they’re thinking of voting for Trump. But you can’t learn anything that way, and you can’t grow from the experience. Very few people you talk to will risk changing their mind until they know you care (and vice versa). The research bears this out, and I want to underscore this point especially for fellow progressives, who tend to think that if we just present the right facts, we’ll win people over. Facts and data from vetted sources do not move most people who don’t already agree with you. Do you know what does? Relationship. If we are going to risk changing our mind, most of us most of the time experience a usually subconscious process that goes something like I believe this person cares about me, so maybe they have a point here. Maybe I’ll think about this differently. Think about some time that you’ve changed your mind. If there was a person who influenced you, I’ll bet this month’s PoL donations that you respected that person and believed they respected you. This is the other context I’m thinking of with the title “Until they know you care.” Now I don’t have to tell you that our national and international political conversations are especially combustible right now. We’re in a moment of unusual partisan animosity that flares up too often in other interactions between friends, neighbors, and family members. Many politicians and other influencers are willing to pour gas on the fire because they can get rich or get famous or get elected by doing so, but I’m hopeful that if we begin now with the students in our classrooms today, investing in their capacity to engage in respectful conversations, we’ll be able to begin finding creative solutions together. Aight. So I’m about to chat with Greg Jackson about the arc of his academic and professional life, providing a little context for how he and I came to collaborate on this new video series, and why we’d like you to help us if you agree that this project is important, and needs to reach more eyes and ears. We do have a call to action, in other words, which is different from most episodes of this show. So stick around, as I coax Greg out from behind his camera and editing suite to talk for a few minutes into a live mic. Okay, one last note before we get started: we tried a different workflow for recording this episode. Here’s a taste of me realizing what was going on when I didn’t have to think about it because we were experimenting—

[12:04]

GREG: I just got an alert saying that there's not enough room on your iPhone, so I'm gonna cut recording.

PETER: On my iPhone?

GREG: Yeah, I'm recording in 1080P, but—

PETER: You're recording to my iPhone?

GREG: Yes.

PETER: Really?

GREG: Yeah, I'm recording locally, and then the files are automatically uploaded to me.

PETER: Okay.

[12:24]

[VO]: Okay. Anyway, the sound quality in spots is a little different, but the content is strong enough that I'm proud to present it right now.

PETER: I had a good time talking with Shayfer James a few weeks back, and it occurs to me that I had you as a student at the very same time. But I had you twice, first for English III, beginning in the fall in ‘97. And then for English IV your senior year in the fall of ’98; you graduated in ‘99. Do you have thoughts, or recollections of that period in English?

GREG: Going into your class, I always looked forward to it. You know, the music going in was like a breath of fresh air. I felt like Okay, I can do this. I can relax. And I was just in a great state of mind.

PETER: Was there a song that you remember? Was there particular music?

GREG: “Sir Duke.” Okay, I'm walking in and the first thing I'm hearing is—

[MUSIC CLIP from start of “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder]

GREG: I had never heard “Sir Duke” before. Stevie Wonder. And I was just like, What is happening right now? This is amazing. And how have I not heard this? Like, I should have heard this by now. I had heard “Superstition,” but I'd never heard “Sir Duke.” and I was just like, Oh my god, what? And I'm in school? Is he allowed to play this stuff? I was just like, amazed. And then I don't remember how you tied it in, but there was a reason you were playing it. You don't just randomly pick songs; there's always a reason, a method. And you were always able to tie that stuff in. So I loved it. It was always, What is he going to play this time? And I just remember all of the music you exposed us to, and I loved how you did your worksheets—your assignments, or how you were going to do your curriculum or whatever, the lesson for that day. They were like masterpieces, the effort that you put in. It just was like, staggering. And that you had a method for going through papers. I enjoyed that there was a system there, and it wasn't just like, underlining like, Nope, this is wrong. It felt more collaborative, like I was a part of it, rather than me versus you. And that was fresh. I liked that. I don't know. It just felt like I was in good hands.

[15:41]

PETER: I think one of the things that struck me, besides first being struck by your obvious size, which was formidable even then—I think you were all of 6’5” when I met you—but also that you were an athlete. You played lacrosse and football, at the very least; I knew that. But then also you were a very serious singer: you took your role in various choral groups, not just, the big choir, and then would sing in the musicals. So the kind of parts that you had going on, and that you just leaned into all of it. It seemed to me was this was a striking feature.

GREG: Yeah, if I could have been graded on my extracurriculars, I would have had a lot better grades in school! As I said, I wasn't a great student. But I really excelled at some of those other things and really enjoyed them and bulked up my schedule to do all of that that I could. It was a huge part of my life. And yeah, I loved it. If it wasn't for that, I don't know what I would have done.

PETER: So let's move forward a little bit, because I saw you again when we were both singing in the Westfield Chorale. I was doing it as a teacher. And this was a group—listeners to this podcast know that they were just featured in an episode where they were providing the music for a new version of A Christmas Carol. We met up again then when you returned as an alum, and I was still singing as a faculty member. And we just reconnected again, and I found out about what you were doing. What were a couple of the things that you would say that engaged you after college? You had a career for a couple of years, right, singing professional opera?

[17:46]

GREG: So my goal was to become a performer, an operatic singer or classical singer. And I was on that track. I graduated from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, and that was a fantastic experience. And I got another teacher, Marc Embree, who was a wonderful influence on me. And I was able to tour with him on a show he was doing with the Da Capo Opera Theatre, a little teeny tiny opera theatre in basically the basement of an East Side Church in New York, but I don't even know if it exists anymore. But, you know, I for the first time got paid for being in a show. And it was like, Whoa! Like, What? I couldn't believe it. And it was just in the chorus, right, but I had such a good time. And so then I decided I was going to keep going with that. And, you know, various opportunities came about. I got a lot of performance experience, but that moment was a seminal moment for me. It was like, Okay, this is what I want to do. And then my teacher got a job in Chicago as a professor, so I was like, All right, well, I'm gonna go to Chicago. I’ll go to school there and get some performance experience. And it was wonderful.

[20:05]

PETER: So of course, the next logical step was The Jerry Springer Show.

GREG: The Jerry Springer Show. Right? To be frank, this was around around 2008: the economy was tanking, and I had a bunch of student loans. And I was just like, I don't know, I'm not ready to make a living singing. Like, I'm not there yet.

PETER: Sure.

GREG: So I just had to get a job. And so through networking craziness, I got a job at The Jerry Springer Show, which was still in Chicago—surprisingly, I didn't, I had no idea was even on the air. But, you know, someone suggested like, Why don't you interview there? So I was like, All right, and so they hired me. And I showed up with a tie, like really buttoned up. And the first thing they said was “Dumb it down and lose the tie.” I was like, Okay, I'm in a different world now. It was a lot of fun, unlike anything that I'd ever experienced. I talked to all sorts of people. And that led to an opportunity to do a remote [video] shoot. So we would go out in the field, shoot, and bring the tape back, and it would air, and I just was like, Wow, something I just shot now is going to be on the show! And that just felt amazing. So I was like, Maybe I should stick with this. And I did that for 12 years. And I also worked on The Steve Wilkos Show, mainly.

[21:39]

PETER: I wanted to ask, though, just because as you know, of course, Jerry Springer just died last year.

GREG: Yeah.

PETER: He he had an influence on you.

GREG: I would say so. I didn't get a chance to work with him one on one as much as I would have liked. But the times that I did, he's just the most generous, intelligent person that I know, he's just such a good person. And nothing like, you know, the show, right? He would always joke that he's “ruining the culture,” and tell people not to watch the show. Because deep down he's a good person. And his final thoughts at the end, you know, sometimes were very poignant. And, you know, it was a good time. And he was very generous to the security guys, to all of us on the staff. I couldn't really say enough about him. He was one of the greatest people you could hope to work for.

PETER: And a very committed and gifted politician, a public servant as well. Was it Cincinnati that he was mayor of?

GREG: He was mayor of Cincinnati. And he also worked on the RFK campaign—RFK “I” [senior] that is.

PETER: Not the worm-eaten brain RFK [junior].

GREG: Yeah. He was a politician at heart. He wanted to do public service. That's what his passion was. The show just happened as an accident. He was just asked, because he became a newsreader, he was asked to fill in for this person who was leaving the show. And then that turned into The Jerry Springer Show. And it started off as a legit talk show. They had Oliver North for one of their first episodes. And then the ratings were kind of not there. And the more lowbrow they went, the higher the ratings went until finally they eclipsed Oprah. And that was a very big moment for the show. Yeah, I didn't come in until season 18, or maybe 17. By that time, I didn't realize it was still on the air—but it was, and I'm thankful it was, because I wouldn't have the life I have now if it wasn't for The Jerry Springer Show or The Steve Wilkos Show.

PETER: So you had you had Springer, you had Wilkos— Not to give him or that show short shrift, but we’re getting to this point where you open your own production company. You've got these years of experience and you decide you want to strike out on your own with Action J Productions.

 [24:15]

Yes. The idea there was, you know, I had been working on the shows for about 12 years, gained a lot of experience in how to put a production together and how to put a compelling video together. And gradually, over time, became confident enough to say like, Okay, maybe I could do this on my own. And it's been a huge challenge, to be quite honest! I am not at the level of success I want to be yet, but I love the effort. I get to choose who I do work with. And one of the first thoughts I had was Maybe I can work with you, because I was listening to your podcast and I was just like, Man, I feel there's a lot of potential here. And that's how that thought began. After years of being in the confrontational talk show genre, I just felt like I wanted to go in a different direction. I felt like I wanted to add something to the culture that was more serious and helpful to people.

[25:27]

Hi everybody, this is Keith Zemsky. Pete was my English teacher for AP English about 20 years ago. Now this is the part of the episode where people drop in, and they tell you that they contribute to the show, and maybe you should too! This strategy is sometimes called “the bandwagon effect,” or “social proof.” I'm here to tell you: don't fall for it! If you like the show and want to support it, go ahead. Put your money where your mouth is. Fine. But don't feel any pressure to give a lot. This pressure campaign is totally inappropriate. Let me tell you something. As Pete loves to remind me, I make a lot of money these days. I'm not bragging here—just reporting. Do you think I give Pete a lot of money for Point of Learning, a show I can stream for free, by the way, just like you can? Hell no. Absolutely not. I give about three bucks a month through Patreon, which means Pete can probably buy a couple of AA batteries and a cup of coffee. Let's be real. It's been 50 episodes, which is great. But on the other hand, he's been doing this for seven years. How many podcasters do you know who have been at it for seven years and only made 50 episodes? That’s only one every two months, which is a pretty low production rate, frankly. So bottom line: Give if you want to, but only if you want to, and only as much as you want to. You can pay him through PayPal, Patreon. He also accepts Carrier Pigeon, Bitcoin, other crypto … The details are on the show page if you want them. Thank you for your kind attention. Pete is absolutely the best. Now back to the show!

[26:46]

GREG: So one day, when I was on vacation in Point Pleasant Beach with my family, I was just walking and you popped in my head because we had done some work together with RD Unfiltered, [a YouTube series starring] my wife's cousin Britt.

[VO]: That Point of Learning podcast episode, which Greg produced, is called “NO BAD FOOD with Britt Schuman-Humbert,” a registered dietician who has delicious, healthy, and sane ideas about food. She also supports trans kids in her private practice, so this one’s a great episode to visit or revisit during Pride month, or any month. Greg and I had a blast putting it together.

GREG: I loved doing that. That experience of working, of collaborating with you was so positive that I was like, I want to keep doing this. I don't want to lose this. And so I helped you out a couple times, just very minimally, on a couple of your other videos. And then I got to thinking we should create a master class. Like we should do something that sort of encompasses the experience of being a student of Mr. Horn—Dr. Horn. Either that experience itself, or teach other teachers how to incorporate some of your techniques. And so, you know, we did a few episodes, test episodes, or test modules. The idea was to make like a master class, like you would see—you know, there's all sorts of online education material—

PETER:—including one that famously calls itself MasterClass™.

GREG: Ok, but no. That’s a trademark there, but this is like a “master” space “class.”

PETER: And you can hear that space, so no intellectual property infringement at all!

GREG: No. Yeah, this is for, you know, graduate level students, or maybe undergrad, that are looking for enrichment in tips and techniques for how to be a more effective teacher. You know, some of the stuff that you wouldn't get normally in school in your normal classes. So that was my idea. And so we shot a bunch of stuff. And, you know, hopefully, it turns into something, but right now, we're focusing a lot on civil discourse, which is— Everyone needs this education: the fact that people are so entrenched on either side, and they're just in their own camps. They're literally in camps. And they won't come out to talk.

[VO]: We recorded this conversation mid-May 2024, when news stories proliferated about college campus protests against the War in Gaza, including many images of encampments set up by protesters.

GREG: It doesn't matter what the issue is. It's Either you're with me or you're against me. And we need to figure out a way to have conversations that are hard. And I believe through your research and experience and methods that we've hit on something that is helpful, and at least moves the needle.

PETER: It was really kind of shopping out some of those early samples, the pilots or teaser modules, you know, the sample videos—as we talked about them to some folks who really told us over and over and again, in different ways, that the civil discourse topic—just having better hard conversations, having better conversations about hard topics—this is “the thing that the world needs right now.” I mean, we heard that from a couple people in explicitly those words: “The world needs this right now.” And so if you subscribe, as I do, to the goal that you should try to find the sweet spot of what it is that you love to do, what it is that you're good at, and what it is that the world needs—if you're fortunate enough to be able to operate in that sweet spot of where those circles converge—I think for us, right now, it's about civil discourse. You got Trump-Biden 2024, you got Gaza, Israel, Palestine—

GREG: Police brutality, Black Lives Matter, all this stuff—

PETER: You got Congress bringing in K-12 educators after they're finished, you know, raking college presidents over the coals about what? And how, honestly, are they really sharing what it is that they're actually concerned about, or motivated by? There's so many levels of posturing and signaling, and, of course, incredible market forces that prevail on these conversations. We inhabit this United States, where we have really a set of ideas that we tell ourselves. It’s a set of ideas and values that hold us together, because it's not, you know, the common ethnic ancestry that so many people have, or even even the common territory, you know, of people who have been living in a country for hundreds of years. Some people have, but we get new people all the time, that's the U.S. deal. So we're really held together, in terms of national identity, by this really precarious mix of concepts. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, but then, of course, that unity doesn't make you much money if you can't market to different segments of it. And so there's always a tension between the division that marketers—not to, you know, defame any particular group or profession—but anybody marketing an idea or a product [can exploit]. But all too often those ideas are division and rancor, because they yield control and influence for somebody. So I think the national conversation being where it is, the best—you know, one of the best moves we can make is to try to work on that next generation, or the people who are just about to enter into the conversation, which is to say, high school students. This [module] gives, I think, the clearest idea so far of what we've made, of the kind of thing that we would like to make a series along these lines today. And so our next step is to try to get that in front of more organizations who do similar kinds of work. So: organizations that are committed to civic conversations and civil discourse, and anybody who's trying to safeguard democracy in this in this particularly precarious time, or who feels that there might be some value for this particular set of skills, such as we're exposing, or introducing in this short video.

[34:15]

GREG: The time is now for people to hear how to have better, more productive conversations, how to have civil discourse. The time is now, so it can't wait for us to, you know, sell our show, or sell our series. We need to put this out now. And hopefully, it's enough for someone to say, Hey, you know, I'd like to see more of this. I believe in this. Make more. Make more of this stuff. You know, that's the hope. Because up till now it's been a passion project. We've put a lot of hours of our time into it, and we're excited to share it. I'm excited for people to see it. But just know that it's geared for teachers. It's not meant really for a general audience just yet. But that's where we're at. I love the progress we've made on it. And I hope we can make a lot more.

[VO]: So we may have started sounding a little bit like a public broadcasting pledge drive there toward the end, but there’s a reason for that. We’re proud of what we’ve made, and if you like it too, we would like your help connecting this content with people who might be interested in helping us make more modules along these lines. I really am about to share the audio, but do keep in mind that this is only the audio, so some things—quacking duck sounds, for instance—will make a lot more sense when you see the beautiful video that Greg has produced. Ready? Here you go: audio from the first Point of Learning with Peter Horn Master Class module on civil discourse: The title of this 14-minute module, geared specifically toward HS English teachers, but that I hope is interesting to anyone curious about what and how and why we learn, is “Respectful Conversations: How and Why to Practice Civil Discourse.” You’d be able to see that on the title card if you were watching the video. Did we mention this is a video? Aight, here you go! 

[36:13—audio from “Respectful Conversations: How and Why to Practice Civil Discourse,” the pilot video for Point of Learning Master Class]

PETER HORN: Do you remember that week in 2015, when then-CEO Howard Schultz encouraged baristas at 12,000 Starbucks locations to write the words “race together” on customers’ cups in order to begin discussions about race relations in the U.S.? The experiment did not go well, as almost everyone guessed that it would not. And why should it have gone well? Conversations about hard topics like race relations require mutual respect, and some level of relational trust—which are not defining features of going to buy coffee from a national chain of stores. In this segment, I’m going to focus on what is sometimes called “civil discourse”: what it is (essentially, respectful conversations); why it's hard, and some strategies for how to practice civil discourse in the classroom. But first, why civil discourse matters. Three guesses who said the following, back in October of 2017:

“We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns to easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions—” Any guesses?

That was President George W. Bush, on October 19 2017, nine months into the Trump administration. What he's talking about is civil discourse, a term that has its advantages and disadvantages. So I want to explain quickly why I use it. For the first part, the adjective “civil,” the benefit is that it succinctly conveys two meanings. When we say discourse is civil, we're talking about things in a way that is respectful, and also things that are focused on areas of shared concern for a community, such as when we talk about “civil wars.” The downside of the adjective “civil” is its colonial baggage. It's very close to judgments of which cultures are “civilized” or “uncivilized,” where the hegemonic superpower imposes its judgment on another culture that it seeks to overpower and subsume, or be settled involuntarily. For the noun “discourse,” the benefit is that it can refer to different kinds of communication, from writing to speeches to discussion. I'll be focused on discussion in this segment. The downside is that the word discourse just sounds strange to lots of people. Nevertheless, I'm talking here mostly about respectful conversation about areas of shared concern. My aim is building our capacity to talk respectfully with people about these issues, especially those areas where people are apt to disagree. It's fine if you want to call it “civil discussion” or “civil dialogue” or “respectful discussion”: whatever makes sense to you and the kids you are teaching. I'm just glad you're doing it.

Now there are many reasons why civil discourse is hard to do. Here are five of them: First, people just plain look at the world differently. So when you're thinking about areas of shared concern, people sharing that concern have different takes. Take the basic idea of change. Some people tend to believe that change is good for us—that social change, for instance, tends to yield positive results for most everybody, if not absolutely everybody. It's fair to recognize that the U.S., for instance, has traditionally valued some people's perspectives more than other people's perspectives. So changing that would be a good thing. On the other hand, some people believe that change tends to be negative; their attitude is more like, Things are pretty good the way they are. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It’s fair to observe that every new technology brings unanticipated negative consequences alongside advances. Nuclear power may just be the energy source that saves us from catastrophic climate change, but nuclear warheads have the destructive capacity to destroy the planet many times over.

A second reason that civil discourse is hard: Controversial topics are often avoided, so there's little opportunity for kids especially to practice having reasonable conversations about these areas of shared concern. Think of that drunk uncle at Thanksgiving who spouts off, even though everyone's been encouraged to avoid politics at the dinner table. In this respect, civil discourse is a lot like critical thinking more broadly: if kids don't have the opportunity to practice it in school, they are unlikely to learn how to do it ever.

A third reason that civil discourse is hard is that it makes terrible television. So if it happens on TV, almost nobody watches it. There's never been a viral civil discourse video. Trust me. I've tried to make one! So there are few examples for kids outside of school to experience people wrestling with ideas or listening patiently to somebody with another viewpoint, let alone actually changing their mind. Some of the most important modeling we do as classroom teachers is giving students an opportunity to watch somebody think, including the boring parts or false starts or changing your mind. But it matters. Those times when you can say something like, “You guys came at me a little hard for the due date on this paper. But you know what, lots of you are involved with the X exam, or the Y championship or the Z school performance. So I'm going to move the due date back a week.” Small examples of compromise matter, so kids today won't grow into the Congress of tomorrow that can't somehow compass compromise as an essential part of the messy, small-d democratic process.

Fourth, as we all know too well from U.S. and world politics, we are afraid to get kicked off the team. We're here today because our ancestors survived. And they survived because they learned how to establish cooperative networks. We are wired to commit to teams and tribes. What this means for you most urgently as a classroom teacher is to listen carefully for those kids who might worry that they’ll be kicked off the team for trying out an idea or sharing what they truly believe about a topic. So you need to make sure your classroom is a place where every kid is honored as a person, and that they are encouraged to honor the humanity of everyone else.

A fifth reason civil discourse is hard is that facilitating any kind of conversation is the most complex classroom skill to master: Q&A is one thing, but getting kids to really talk with each other is a skill and an art that takes months and years of practice. I hope it goes without saying that it's critical for educators to observe the difference between modeling how to think and indoctrinating what to think. Furthermore, if you're in a school or district obsessing about test scores, or finding itself in the crosshairs of groups of parents or legislators believing that they understand more about the complexities of education and adolescent development than professionals like you who have devoted their careers to kids and teaching and learning—it ain't gonna be easy!

However, if you believe, as I do, that the only way to a better national discourse is by teaching young people to do it better, I've got four suggestions for you to start with. Remember, the fundamental requirement is respect. We're going to differ about things, but I respect you as a human being. A teacher I spoke with recently uses James Baldwin's line: “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” Respect is a two-way street, so to get started, here's a strong way to show students you respect their ideas, just as you're hoping they respect yours.

Civil Discourse Suggestion #1: solicit feedback from your students on your class. Hear me out. The standard model is teachers assess students. I'm saying, if you want to get as good as you can as fast as you can at this very difficult job, invite your students to assess you, too. They might not be experts in English Language Arts, but they are experts in how they learn best. Over the course of my 18 years in the high school English classroom, my favorite strategy along these lines—and the one I learned the most from—was this: Every two or three months (the end of a 10-week marking period is ideal), allow a few minutes for kids to fill out anonymous 3x5 cards with their candid responses to questions like, What works about this class? What doesn't work? Comments/Suggestions. The best feedback I ever got on my teaching—better than any supervisor’s report—came from their answers. When I made good changes based on what they wrote, they told me they were being heard.

Community building activities and discussion prompts also help to establish and reinforce mutual respect, and gradually, trust builds over the course of the semester or year. For building trust on top of respect, start small, build up the level of risk gradually. Here are some prompts you can use. First are some low- to no-risk prompts, and then some questions that invite some risk from students. And then discussion launchers that really encourage class members to get to know each other at a deeper level. You'll notice that most of these have nothing to do with the prescribed English curriculum—unless you believe, as I do, that 50% of your curriculum walks in the door with your students. My former colleague Emily Style shared that gem with me, and I share it every chance I get. The more you all know about each other and the texts of your own lives, the more deeply you'll be able to connect with, explore, and apply the texts you study together. Some of these prompts I have adapted come from the article cited at the bottom of the screen [Jill Harrison Berg, Christine Connolly, Abda Lee, and Emmanuel Fairly. “A Matter of Trust: How a Boston Turnaround School Built Its Plan for Improvement Around Relational Trust,” Educational Leadership, March 2018]. Some have been suggested by teachers like you that I've worked with in recent years.

NO RISK: “Share some good news.” “How was your weekend?” “What's your dream vacation?” “What season best describes you, and why?” “What condiment could you not do without?” “What was a favorite book of yours when you were little?”

INVITE RISK: “What's a personal or academic hope you have this year?” “Use your gestures to draw a picture or show how you feel right now. We'll make two guesses!” “Sum up your day so far in three words or less.” “What do you like about the end of the school year?” “If you could devote the next three months to learning something, what would it be?” “Share your six word memoir.”

ENCOURAGE RISK: “Share a recent win in your life.” “What's something you tried that made you want to give up?” “Tell about a person who challenged you. What did you learn from them?” “Share a quote or song lyric that's meaningful to you and explain why.” “Think of one thing you have added or removed from your life to improve yourself physically, emotionally, or spiritually.”

To practice lively discussions, choose high-interest topics. Write a clear, discussable question that you, the teacher, are also interested in. Consider using a short text like a passage of a novel or a brief article or poem that confines the parameters of your discussion in class. Develop the discussion ground rules together. Take five minutes to write some thoughts, or sketch or map or doodle in response to that question alongside your students before you pair-share and/or discuss with the full group. Note: doing some tasks with students reinforces not only the value of the assignment, but the image of a more egalitarian classroom.

Develop discussion routines that support more interaction between and among students. Again, most classroom interactions that pass as “discussion,” in my experience, are really a series of questions by teachers and answers by students, which is fine. But that's not how discussion happens in the wild. The following models are adapted from a book called They Say/I Say [Gerald Graff and Kathy Birkenstein (Norton, 2009), pp. 133-135]. Frame your comments as a response to something that's already been said: “I really liked the point that Aaron made earlier when he said that ________. I agree, because ________.”  “I take your point, Nadia, that ________.  But I think that ________.” “Though Sheila and Ryan seem to be at odds about ________, they may not be all that far apart.”

To change the subject, indicate explicitly that you are doing so: “So far we have been talking about ________. But isn't real issue here ________?” “I'd like to change the subject to one that hasn't yet been addressed …”

Be even more explicit than you would be in writing: “So in other words, what I'm trying to get at here is ________.” “My point is this: ________.” “My point, though, is not ________, but ________.” “This distinction is important for several reasons: ________.”

Got it? So those prompts can help. Big picture, how this works—my theory of action, if you will: A learning environment that honors student voice and offers opportunities for students to have some input in their education has a better chance at engaging students as citizens of the classroom invested in a shared enterprise. Once the common purpose is established, teachers can build relational trust with small, low- to no-risk activities as opportunities to practice civil discourse before tackling more controversial topics. Short term, we support students in engaging meaningfully with different viewpoints. Long term, we achieve a more reasonable national discourse.

[50:57]

[VO]: I’m jumping in here because, as you’ll hear when you check out the video, which I hope you’ll do—it’s really slick, you guys—it ends, as most episodes of this podcast do, with the end of “Villainous Thing,” courtesy of Shayfer James. I thought including the signature closing music twice might make the end of this episode a bit tricky to navigate, so I’m just gonna bring it up real casual as I read us out in a second. Before I do that, I want to give an example of a topic I’ve been urging the school leaders I’m consulting with right now to pursue as their teachers and students practice civil discourse. You don’t want to start with super-charged issues like abortion or the War in Gaza or the 2024 Election, but you do want to start with something real. Every middle and high school I know of is contending with issues related to cell phone addiction, including social media, and online harassment, intimidation and bullying. Because our phones are very carefully designed to addict us, this is an authentic issue of shared concern for adults as well as young people that they can practice sharing honestly about as they think through together what makes sense for them as a learning community to do about it. Any policy steps schools take after giving everyone a chance to think through their concerns and questions together will have a much greater chance of success than if rules and restrictions are introduced from the top down. Jonathan Haidt has a new book about this called The Anxious Generation, but he’s been thinking about phones and social media for years, as we discussed when he was my guest in 2020. You can find a link to that episode on the show page. Also on the show page are full citations of the article and book I referred to in the civil discourse segment you just heard, a full transcript, and a link to the brand new Point of Learning Master Class video itself! Because Greg and I really would like to know if you know of anyone or any organization who might be interested in supporting our civil discourse video project—or if you have ideas about organizations or institutions we should share it with, please shoot me an email at pointoflearningpodcast@gmail.com That’s right, all one word: pointoflearningpodcast@gmail.com. Would you believe that when I went to go set that address up specifically for this special 50th episode, I was disappointed (and a little threatened) that the address was taken, only to realize that in fact *I* had set up the address in 2017 and forgotten all about it? True story! So try it out, send me an email at pointoflearningpodcast@gmail.com if you have any feedback or ideas about any aspect of this episode or any other. I love compliments, but it’s the constructive criticism that keeps me at the point of learning. Special thanks to Molly Colvin and Gil Scott Chapman for the music they recorded for previous episodes that was featured again today. The clip of Greg singing in his senior recital at Mason Gross featured pianist Lynda Saponara. The song is called “Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun,” with text from Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline and music by Roger Quilter.  Finally, thanks to you for listening, rating, reviewing, sharing this audio or the YouTube video of the civil discourse module prominently featured on the show page with anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. Point of Learning is written, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered, and produced by me, here in Sunny Buffalo, New York. I’m Peter Horn, and I’ll be back at you very soon with Dr. John Webb and his new book Molyvos: A Greek Village’s Heroic Response to the Global Refugee Crisis. See you then!