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Make It Mindful is a podcast for globally-minded educators seeking thoughtful conversations about how education can adapt to an ever-changing world. Hosted by Seth Fleischauer, a former classroom teacher and founder of an international learning company specializing in digital, linguistic, and cultural competencies, the podcast dives into the "why" and "how" behind transformative ideas in education. Each episode features educational changemakers whose insights lead to practical solutions and lasting impact.
Seth Fleischauer (00:00.653)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast where we explore how to keep schools relevant by looking through the lens of mindfulness and asking the question, what's really worth paying attention to here? I'm your host, Seth Fleischhauer, and I delve into the world of education by interviewing change makers and focusing on practical, transformative solutions for teaching. This week, my guest is Dr. Jordan Smith. Dr. Jordan, welcome. Thanks for being
Dr. Jordan Smith (00:26.296)
Well, thank you for having me and giving me this opportunity to speak with you. I really appreciate it.
Seth Fleischauer (00:30.721)
Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation. You we touched base and I learned a little bit about your work, but I'm hoping to dive into that a little bit more. I just want to read off the number of things on your email signature, which is which is more than most, but I guess that's OK, because, know, you just retired, so you should have a.
You know, a nice why I semi -retired, but you should have a nice little list of things here. But, you know, you've got retired 19 years, secondary mathematics teacher, a major in the US Marine Corps. You've got a ACS WSSC chairperson, CD model school field expert, Amazon future engineer, teacher of the year, Amazon future engineer, teacher ambassador. I assume you've had like 17 other lives as well with with this many lives just making it onto your email signature.
Dr. Jordan Smith (01:15.6)
Hehehehehe
Seth Fleischauer (01:18.051)
So those are some of the things that we can say to introduce you. But how would you introduce yourself to our listeners? What do you want them to know in between the lines of that resume?
Dr. Jordan Smith (01:32.11)
Well, I think in between the lines of that resume is what I call service. I went to United States Naval Academy and then entered the Marine Corps for 20 years. So I served my country, both in peacetime and also in combat. And then after that, the age of 50, I lost my mind and decided to become a high school math teacher. And the high school I chose was a school that just recently had had a race riot.
And I went there because I felt that I wanted to contribute to make change. So service, as I mentioned before, I said I'm also president of a homeowners association. Sometimes I think I probably do too much, but I am living and I like to give back because I'm feeling very fortunate. My path could have taken a different way. It really could have.
but I'm fortunate to do that. So while I am still living, as I said, I'm retired, but yet I'm not. I'm still contributing. And my hobby now has been writing books. And the reason I started writing books was because of my son who said, dad, if you don't write about it, who's going to write about it? In other words, about speaking about my accolades at the Naval Academy when I was there. But the other things I do is because,
I'm in the last quarter of my life. And after teaching, how do I transfer and ensure things that were successful to me, things that I actually thought somebody, I wish somebody could have told me about it? Well, that's why I put them in the books. That's why I write about them. And I'm still continuing to write.
But I want to be able to share. I want to make somebody else's life a lot easier than maybe mine did. And that's really important because one of the valuable takeaways I realized, I really wish I spent more time specifically focused on that social, emotional, or that mindfulness of a teacher. Because that's really what allowed me probably to get through the 20 years.
Dr. Jordan Smith (03:44.556)
I've seen so many teachers that after two, three years, they just threw it in. They just threw in the towels. So you have to have that balance. so service is that. See, I'm actually sharing that. That's the one thing that I didn't do that I wish I had more of. And that kind of attracted me here to your podcast was because of the concept about mindful, know, of thinking and sharing.
Seth Fleischauer (04:10.047)
Yeah, I hear a lot there. You one of the things I'm thinking about is you're talking about being able to adopt a mindset within the classroom that's going to keep you there, right? Because at first when you were talking, you were like, I want to make things easier on people. you know, when I have people on here, I'd really try to like kind of untangle their personal biography with the work that they do. Because there's so much about someone's personal experience that leads them to the position that they're in to be able to have the impact that they have.
And I hear it all over your resume all over your life that like, you know, there were these these things that you did these lessons that you learned that enabled you to choose that that high school that had been had just experienced a race war or choose to teach the students who are, you know, least likely to succeed, who've given up on education. Right. Like there are things in your past that that made
kind of eligible for that. and when you said that you want to make it easier for people, I was going to kind of push back on that a little bit, right? Because like, you know, anything worth doing is going to be kind of hard, right? So it's like, like, where is the the line between like, I want to enable you to, to have your own experiences to and to learn from them, but not so much that you become to score discouraged and, off of a path of maybe of service.
And the line that I think I heard there was like teacher burnout, right? So like if you're able to impact teachers in a way that will keep them in the classroom, maybe that is that's the line where like, OK, I'm going to come in. I want to intervene here versus letting you sort of go through the school of hard knocks. I mean, do you think about that at all when you when you because one of the themes we want to talk about here is resilience, right? Because you are in this classroom with teachers, students, I think who.
Dr. Jordan Smith (05:41.154)
Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (06:03.659)
you've said, you know, have given up on learning, right? So like students in most need of resilience and you come in there, you inspire that, that in them. But when you think about resilience, you know, there's this, there's this dialogue, especially in America of like picking yourself up by your bootstraps, right? Like being able to, you know, just get through it, just like grit your teeth and get through it. Like, to what extent is, do you believe that
is part of resilience and to what extent is resilience like a practice that, you know, teachers can come in and teach that like, you know, there's some there's some gray area, there's some room for growth, right? Like, how much of it is just like born into you? How much of it is mindset? How much of it is practice? Like, how do you think about resilience?
Dr. Jordan Smith (06:52.45)
Resilience is key. It's kind of interesting that you mentioned that specific word. It's just because I have been writing books that were.
more directed to instructional approaches and pedagogy, but I realized that I needed to be able to tap into the other side. And that's why I switched to write a fictional book. And that book was talking about resilience. It's actually called Against the Odds Chronicles of Resilience. And because in my book about helping the students which are giving up on learning, I hit right up front in chapter two and chapter three, it deals with resilience.
Chapter two is about motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic. And chapter three teaches students that making mistakes is about real life and that some mistakes can be life -changing because some are accidental successes like penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, and Post -it notes were all accidental successes.
One of the things that I've done for resilience is, and I really kind of go back here. So let me kind of set the stage back how I actually got here. And it's actually dealing with me as first. So when I decided to become a teacher at that school, I didn't know how to become a teacher. I found out that it was bureaucracy and you had to go to university to teaching program. But when I first started teaching at
comprehensive high school in that very first classroom. At the beginning of the school year, I would only go through an introduction about myself, which didn't have the long recipe I got now. And I would review the course syllabus and classroom rules. And then we go straight into the curriculum following a pacing guide. And my job was to get my students ready for the state test. Unfortunately, I found out this was not my student's goal.
Dr. Jordan Smith (08:54.37)
You know, I could still see the faces of those students who somehow disappeared from my classroom. You know, one day they're here, one day they're gone. I just thought that they moved away. I wouldn't even connect them with the fact that the kid had disengaged and they were no longer in school. So classroom management was a big key to my sanity as a teacher.
because I started out with ninth grade students. I inherited 120 students that had gone through three teachers during their first semester. Now luckily I survived that first year and I was lucky enough to attend an avid math elective training.
program after summer school. And this changed my thinking about reaching out to students and changing their mindset about college opportunities. But in AVID, the one thing they did have was this support method to even the playing field. It was a game changer. And as a result, I began offering, you know, school tutoring for my students, but that wasn't enough. See, across our math department, the failure rate in print on paper was 25%. But the real failure rate was more
50%. Now my failure rate was about 5%. True fact, the students that failed was because they didn't show up to my classroom. And the difference between myself and those other teachers was what I call the belief gap. It's not the achievement gap.
It's the belief gap. What do I believe? See, I believe that every student could pass my class and I could find a way to explain it to them so they couldn't get it. So my first few years going to professional development workshops, just like everyone else, I got a closet full of books that I have gotten over the years for professional development. But the question is, what part of that book or that training did that actually go into my classroom?
Dr. Jordan Smith (10:51.31)
So over the years, I had developed a secret sauce, but it wasn't developed until after I left the traditional high school. See, I received an involuntary transfer from the comprehensive school to the alternative school. And the reason was because in California, we had this high school exit exam. 97 ,000 kids had failed this exam and couldn't get their high school diploma. It was affecting graduation rates.
So in 2012, before the dawn, I called a dawn of the Common Core, I began having all of my students complete an orientation, complete a student survey about them, doing a math diagnostics test.
Even looking at standards of mathematics, I was throwing everything, learning style, everything, collecting all this data. I thought I was a data scientist. Really, I became a collection funnel. See, because I didn't fully utilize the data because of time. Teachers always complain, but it looked good on paper. But after sending students to YouTube, that was with Joe Bola at Stanford about growth mindset,
I was sending students to take that initial inventory and if they were fixed, I wouldn't even give them math curriculum until I changed that. But that take two weeks to do that. And so over the years, I developed that secret sauce. How could I build trust? How could I build that resilience? Because I know that
If you build that resilience and that student has this, like building their confidence, guess what? They won't give up. They won't give up because it's now theirs. Just like that state test that I mentioned. It wasn't the goal of my students to pass that state test. I had no control of it. And I still think that's the stupidest thing in California that we do right now. I can easily say that now because I'm retired.
Seth Fleischauer (12:43.511)
Yeah.
Dr. Jordan Smith (12:45.406)
I can. So that's the other part about being retired. I can speak how I feel on it. But over the years, was two things I realized my secret sauce. First was I do a mindset check and mindset check and feel drill with each student. And it consists of those two pictures. I mentioned that to you when we were talking the day. But now I'm going to show you the actual pictures I speak about. So I do two pictures with every student.
Seth Fleischauer (13:12.227)
Alright, as you show this to me, I'm going to... sorry, Sounds like you're going to describe it, so Lucas, just cut that out and just go straight into the pictures
Dr. Jordan Smith (13:26.316)
Okay, all
Dr. Jordan Smith (13:30.86)
All right, so my secret sauce has two parts. It has two pictures that I share with each student. The first picture is a picture of a road that has potholes on it. And in the very beginning of that road, you have a lot of potholes. But as you go further and further down the road, you see that it gets smooth.
I explained this picture with the students that this is about your learning. When you first started in kindergarten and everything, there were things that you didn't understand, but they just kept pushing on and promoting you from grade to grade to grade. Then eventually you got to the end and the end and the goal is really to get this smooth road because on a smooth road, know things are there.
We wish that things were that easy, but math is not their favorite subject. So then what I do with them is that I show them the second picture. And on the second picture, I share them. And this is when, this is how I get by it. The second picture I show them, and I ask them, what do they see? And most people, when we see it, just like I saw this the first time,
I see rectangles, I see lines, I see different colors, gray and dark, and they all say this. And then I ask them, do you see circles? And they look at me and their head twists and everything, circles, what's circles? And then I just keep saying, don't you see the circles? And they keep looking and then all of sudden one would raise their hand and say, I see a circle.
And this actually works best when I do it with a group with more than one, because I want them to do something there. But they look, and then finally, one is see a circle, and then the other see a circle. And I ask them, how many do you see a circle? And there's still be kids in the classroom where they haven't seen the circles. But then another student would tell the student and show them and draw them and show them the light where it was at. And after going through this, at the end, I get these students that say, I see it. I see it.
Dr. Jordan Smith (15:35.124)
As a math teacher, those are the famous words that I want to hear. It's because I put them through a drill. See, learning math, I share with them the analogy. Learning math is just like these circles. At first, when you looked at it, you didn't see them. But first, but you kept on trying. And even though you saw it, somebody else didn't see it. But finally, we got together and collaborated over it. And then you saw the circles. And I said,
Learning math is just like this. So I asked them for two things. One, see that rope with all those potholes and everything? Let's work together to fill those potholes because the more of those holes we fill in, the smoother your ride is going to be. And long as you understand that when we're learning something, sometimes when you get it the first time, you're not going to understand it. But do you realize now that if you keep focusing on it, that you will see it? And then I asked them this.
Do I have your permission to be your mentor, to be your coach, to keep you on track? And even though you may finish all your math, because I guarantee you, you will, when I see you outside of my classroom with your other courses, do I have your permission to be your mentor, to punch you in the arm a little bit, just keep you going? And they say yes. When I have a student that says that, I don't care what their past was.
they can actually do things. And then we combine that with intrinsic and also extrinsic motivation. That's how I build resilience. I build hope, I build confidence, I restore them, and they're ready for the real world when they leave my classroom.
Seth Fleischauer (17:20.767)
Wow, this beautiful.
Seth Fleischauer (17:25.527)
I think that, first of I'm just kind taken aback by the beauty of that story. It's amazing. be my mentor, you You sold me, right? And I can see just how effective something like this can be when, again, when you combine that, sort of the person that you are with what you're saying, right? You're someone who you said your life could have gone a very different direction at one point, right?
Dr. Jordan Smith (17:34.818)
Yeah
That's it.
Seth Fleischauer (17:55.235)
You know, maybe you see some of yourself and some of these students and I think that that is like a huge part of education like The kids the kids just want to know that you like them, right? like like and it's it's it seems kind of trite and and petty but like in order to be able to like them you have to see them in order to be able to To see them you have to like bring a certain amount of authenticity of yourself to the equation
Dr. Jordan Smith (18:07.788)
Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (18:22.575)
and you, and, and you have to like have optimism, right? Like you have to, you yourself have to have hope in order to be able to communicate hope to them in order to have hope. You have to see them for who they are and see that potential within them. Right? So I see that authenticity that you're, that you're bringing. I see how beautiful like the mindset is, right? Like I love that you said, you know, if, if you're doing a growth mindset, initial inventory, and if they have a chain, if they have a fixed mindset that you are,
Focusing on just that before you teach any math like that's that's brilliant, right? And I would like to actually yeah I would like to zoom in on that little a little bit more because you have this amazing story right of like, know I showed them the picture with the potholes. Let's fill in the potholes these potholes represent the like foundational Things in math that you need to learn in order to get to the next step, right? You can't like you can't do some of like the more advanced math until you have some of more basic math There's a reason that there's a progression. So like here, let's fill in these potholes
And then, you know, that optical illusion, those circles, like, what a great trick to be like, Hey, look, like, you didn't see this. Now you see it like, wow, isn't that amazing how you can totally have not seen something and now you do. So it's a, it's an incredibly compelling, you know, visual metaphor. think, I think it's like, what a great way to kickstart a learning experience. but you said that like, you know, you might take like a couple of weeks on a fixed mindset. What do you do for those kids
that doesn't work for or that they backslide or they, you know, they get frustrated again, they start to fall back into old patterns. Like how do you completely change a fixed mindset into a growth mindset?
Dr. Jordan Smith (20:08.462)
That's where the rubber meets the road, okay? Because you're right. As we talk about learning something, but actually putting it into action and making it work, it takes work. In my school year and everything else, I had students in the alternative that students would come to me with different levels of failure. And most of them were deficient about 20 to 25 credits.
but they come to me at different times. It's not like I have students at the very beginning, no. I may have 120 seats in my classroom, but I get 300 kids that are coming through my classroom throughout the year. So I had to have a system of understanding them that was gonna do two things. One, I realized that I needed to make them self -directed learners.
Once I got them what we were working together as a team, I had to teach the students how to do goal setting, how to keep on track, to be self -directed learning, what they were in charge of their learning. That was one thing. And that was critical because for the last two years of teaching, I was out of the classroom doing all those other things. But yet, when I left, my students produced more.
My students produced more. I actually sat down with my superintendent and actually showed him that. I said, don't judge me on what you think everybody else is going to do. You say, yes, you're right. I was out of my classroom 23 times doing conferences, going to teaching. I said, but look at my results. I said, the number of graduates we got is a really direct reflection on it. And they admitted on that. But one of the things kind of goes back.
I brought some things from the Marine Corps that I really didn't realize that I had. But part of that was that in the Marines, when I went to the basic school, they had taught this thing to us as leaders. As leaders, you have to know your Marines. You have to know your Marines. And how do you do that? Well, you have to ask the right questions.
Dr. Jordan Smith (22:10.368)
So in the very beginning when I started teaching, I would collect this information. But as I got more into it, I realized that I had to do that work. So it wasn't enough to give the survey, ask these questions. I needed to read each and every survey and actually interact with the student. In other words, if the student writes down that he's got three other siblings and it's Paul, Julie, and Excelsius, those three names for those kids, I will make it purpose.
that I would actually have a conversation with the student when I greeted them at the door, I asked them, how's Julie doing? You know, I make that connection with them. The other thing really that was really important and really critical now, okay, for all teachers, I don't care what they're teaching.
is the concept of culturally relevant or culturally responsive teaching. But I'm going to break it down simple. OK, what does that mean? It means like the way I get Johnny forever, whether I'm in the classroom or away across the country or whatever, he's no longer my student, is that if I connect it to something that is personal to him, he won't forget it. See, I would ask my students, what's your favorite food?
And they would tell me shrimp scampi or whatever, whatever meal that their parents or their dad did at a barbecue, their favorite meal. Why would I ask them that? I'll tell you why. Because when I have them working on something that's struggling in math and they finally get it, I connected and I said, well, let's go ahead and call this shrimp scampi. Let's call this shrimp scampi. And then when I had another student that was in the classroom struggling with the same thing, instead of me working there,
Seth Fleischauer (23:47.255)
Yeah.
Dr. Jordan Smith (23:58.208)
I would ask Julie, hey Julie, remember Shrimp Scampi? And she said, I said, can you teach Paul Shrimp Scampi? Sure, student would get up and go over there. And the first thing they'd say, why do you call this Shrimp Scampi? And I said, you'll find out, you'll find out. You'll call it something different, and that's what. So it's those connections. If you're going to collect the information, the more that you know about your students, the easier your path is going to be.
Seth Fleischauer (24:26.209)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Jordan Smith (24:27.279)
and they know that you care. They know that you care. That opens up the doors.
Seth Fleischauer (24:30.487)
Yes, yes. Yeah, it's funny too, because you talk about culturally responsive teaching and I think that there's all these, there's an understanding around that of most teachers where it means something about like the aggregate of that culture, right? So like if I'm teaching
Latinx kids or if I'm teaching African American kids, I need to like understand like the general culture. And I think that's part of it. But what you're talking about is like, what's their culture, right? Like, what is their personal culture, you're asking about what their favorite food is, like, there are all of these elements of culture that are very basic, but they make up like the fabric of our lives, you know, like, I do a lot of work internationally connecting students and like the simplicity of the conversations that some of these kids have about
video games about food about what the grocery store looks like in their their in their city versus another city like like what you know all these just like like what kind of trees there are these like basic things that like it's amazing because as as when you do these intercultural connections it's a vehicle to like learning more about yourself right so you like learn all these things about other people and you're like whoa like all these assumptions that I had about what life was
are actually like, that's just my life. wow. Like I have a cultural identity. Interesting. You know, it like leads you down that path of like, of self understanding, which allows you to like, be more present for other people when you have that that greater like sense of yourself. And I think that what you're doing for these kids is like in celebrating those little pieces of culture, you know, that kid who likes strip scampi, like probably doesn't think that like that's all
big a deal or that like defines them in any kind of way. But it does right like it's part of their cultural identity that they love shrimp scampi. And you're able to like tap into that and leverage it. It's beautiful.
Dr. Jordan Smith (26:20.226)
Yeah, it's part of their culture.
Dr. Jordan Smith (26:26.744)
Just like when you mentioned the Xbox, I give you a way about when you said that, how I flash back on the Xbox. Two things, when I'm dealing with linear functions, I bring an Xbox controller because I talk about input and output.
Okay. With the functions and the buttons. And I shared a story with them first about how my grandson invited me to play Xbox. And he didn't tell me about all the different buttons and everything else. And he whupped my butt 105 to zero. Okay. And then I shared a story because I went on research. Yeah. I didn't know it, but I wound up, but I got ticked. So I wound up going back and researching on the internet, then bought my own Xbox and put it up in my
Seth Fleischauer (26:53.731)
You didn't know the input output.
Dr. Jordan Smith (27:11.864)
where they couldn't see it. And I practiced on that for a whole year, waited to the next Thanksgiving to come back, waited for them to ask me to play. so the other thing, Xbox, is that I'd use when teaching students how to factor trinomials, they get confused and everything else. Well, I have something I'd call was the Xbox. I draw an X and we draw a box. And I go through this procedure. Any student that I taught that with,
Seth Fleischauer (27:14.53)
Nah.
Dr. Jordan Smith (27:40.324)
they got it. And when I say Xbox, they automatically drew the X and put the box and they already ready. Again, I did that because I had so many kids that were playing video games. So I made the connection. even started, I even started singing and recording songs because they were interested in songs and music and put myself out there with them to do that. And again, it was connecting with them.
Seth Fleischauer (27:46.209)
Yeah,
Seth Fleischauer (27:51.681)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Meet them where they're at.
Dr. Jordan Smith (28:10.563)
Later on, I realized a lot of teachers and stuff were tired of kids on this, but one of the reasons I was able to be across the country and still have my students working, because all of my students, I could pick up my phone and send a text message to every student in my class. And their phones would go off when I'm clear across the country.
And the substitute was, look, what's going on? What's going on? it's Dr. Smith. He's giving us a math problem. And it was in. What? Did I get? that was the other thing, too. When you build it right, and you build that kind of community in there with the students, there's allegiance. I stopped having any bad reports from any substitute in my class. Because if a student get out of hand, the other students would get on them and they said, no.
He's gonna give us a bad report and Dr. Smith is not gonna allow us to spin this wheel. So I had this little wheel of fortune. Yeah, yes, I had this wheel so that whenever they did good, they could spin the wheel and on the wheel was things that they picked. So sometimes it was like hot chips or something and was remove three questions off of a quiz or whatever. But the thing is, they liked it because it was fun. It was a game.
Seth Fleischauer (29:07.639)
Yeah, extrinsic motivation.
Dr. Jordan Smith (29:30.059)
It was those connections, those little things.
Seth Fleischauer (29:32.311)
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, what I'm hearing is, because I asked you like, you know, what your secret sauce is, right? And, and you said it was like kind of two simple things. And I appreciate that you, that you kind of reduced it to those, but I'm hearing a lot of different things here, right? Like one of them is sort of, is, a mindset piece, right? Like you come in with a mindset of fierce curiosity about your students because you really want to know who they are, what makes them tick, what's important to them.
And then you want to be able to leverage that towards not just learning, but learning about learning, executive functioning, right? That was another thing that I heard there was, you know, intrinsic motivation, right? Like this is how to goal set. This is how to continue to practice the things that I'm teaching you this now, but it's up to you to practice this throughout your life. let's talk about how that's going to happen.
Right. And so and then there is these like teacher tactics, right? Like spinning the wheel for an extrinsic motivation. The theory is extrinsic motivation is going to be part of the cocktail of motivation that gets us to do things. But the tactic is spin a wheel, have them choose the rewards that gives them autonomy. Like it's all of these like, you know, there are all of these best practices for teaching that are mixed in with this mindset that of
authenticity, curiosity, and belief. I love that you talked about the belief gap, right? You know, I work in distance learning. One of the things that I talk about when teachers are like trying to transition into the medium of online learning or, you know, they're struggling with like delivering educational experiences over live video. I tell them that number one thing is belief, right? Like you have to believe
Dr. Jordan Smith (31:01.635)
Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (31:22.551)
this space that we're in right now, like you and I have never met in person, but here we are having this great conversation, right? And I can see your face, I can see your demeanor, like your tone of voice, like all those things are put together to give me an approximation of who you are as a person. And that approximation is very little different than what I would get if I was in the actual room with you right now. There'd be certain differences here and there.
Dr. Jordan Smith (31:28.898)
Really?
Seth Fleischauer (31:49.805)
But if I don't believe that, if I don't believe that that connection is legitimate, then I'll find all sorts of reasons to believe that or to, to, to, to excuse why we haven't made an authentic connection over live video. Right. And it's no different than what you're talking about with your kids. If you don't believe that your students can achieve that each one of them can get to a certain point, you're gonna, you're gonna stop trying, right? Because you're gonna, you, you will have in your head that
Dr. Jordan Smith (32:15.746)
Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (32:18.441)
that kid, he's not going to get there. So it's not my responsibility anymore to help him get there because he's not able to do it. Right. But if you have that central belief, that belief gap that you're talking about, I love that that term, right. If you if you transcend that belief gap and have that authentic belief that each one of your students can get there, like why would you stop trying to help them get there? Right. And then inevitably, they'll see
they'll feel that and then they'll believe that they can get there, right? Because like it's all about, it's about belonging, right? It's about like, like human connection is so utterly motivating for us. And to have someone that you respect, right? Because you obviously, bring that air into a classroom where you're like, you know, I'm a serious person, right? Like I'm a person with gravity. I am here to make a difference, right? And they feel that about you. And then that person that they respect, respects them.
Dr. Jordan Smith (33:08.569)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (33:17.111)
Like, that is powerful stuff.
Dr. Jordan Smith (33:22.68)
So powerful. I know the opposite of that belief gap is that I've heard this when I was a first year teacher. I heard as a veteran teacher said, it's not my fault. I taught it. They just didn't get it. And it was like, well, what do you do after that? I mean, yeah. I mean, I'm It's like, it's not my fault. No, I'm sorry. Well, it is your fault.
Seth Fleischauer (33:34.989)
Hmm... Hmm...
Dr. Jordan Smith (33:48.0)
It's your fault that they didn't learn because you didn't try to figure out why they didn't get it and try something new. That one size fit all mentality that they're to fix it. mean, teach it one way. that's the one thing. Every one of my students that came to me through the door, I sit down. I know who their teachers were. OK? And I also asked them about different methods. And a lot of times they said, well, they only taught it one way. And if I didn't get it, then.
I just didn't get it. And then I just failed the test. And after a while, I just stopped asking. I'm expecting to fail because none of them cared. None of them cared enough to ask me why I didn't get it. What was the problem? And that's the key.
Seth Fleischauer (34:37.751)
Yeah, and even if it's, you you said like, it's not my fault. And obviously, like the blame can go around about why any given student's not achieving. But even if it's not your fault as a teacher, is your responsibility. And I think a lot of people, you know, it's hard, right? It's hard. It's a weight, the teacher's experience, right? Like to have that many people depending on you. Like, it's hard.
Dr. Jordan Smith (34:59.424)
It is hard. Yeah, it is. I remember going back when the term equity came out. So we had equity and we had equality. And then we have removing systemic barriers. And the one picture I like was the one where you get the three kids. And so you had the three kids and they were all given the same thing, the same love of box. And that didn't work.
Seth Fleischauer (35:26.497)
Yeah. Yeah. Looking over the fence.
Dr. Jordan Smith (35:27.148)
Then you had the next one with equity where each kid was given a box based on their height so they could all see the thing. Because they were trying to gaze over a fence to look at a game. But the key is to be able to keep working through this so that you create that fence.
that they all can see through. And that's removing the systemic barriers. And so as educators, we have to be able to acknowledge and address those systemic barriers by first educating ourselves about the challenges that our students face. And most important, most important thing, need to be able to listen to the students' experiences.
because it's crucial for creating that inclusive environment and that helps foster that sense of belonging that you spoke about, which is going to require us to adapt our teaching methods, to be culturally relevant, and to differentiate that instruction, I don't care how many times, so that it works for that child. And that takes work.
It takes work. There are many times that I've had a student that that's you mentioned before. I had this student that I tried multiple things. I tried to talk to him, try to call the parents. I tried to do this. I tried to do this, try to do this motivation. And it just wasn't working. It wasn't working. Some of them, I swear. It's like a hundred times. I tried a hundred different things, a hundred different attempts to try to wake this child
And sometimes it did. And it was, God, it was so tiring. I would come home and sometimes some child, a student, I was frustrated because I couldn't reach them. That I would have a tough time sleeping. But you know what, it was worth it because that one day when I came into the class and for some other reason, that student decided to try.
Dr. Jordan Smith (37:41.058)
And when they say these words, Dr. Smith, is that it? That's easy, doc. And I'll stop and ask them, what did you say? They say, Dr. Smith, it's easy. And I said, wow. And I turn away, walk back to my desk, take a breath. And I said, wow, I got it. And guess what? That recharged me for another year.
Seth Fleischauer (38:06.903)
Hehehehehe
Dr. Jordan Smith (38:07.81)
That recharged me for another year. I couldn't wait for the next student to walk through the door and say, I hate math. Ain't nothing that you can do to help me with it. I said, yeah, okay, I got me a new challenge here.
Seth Fleischauer (38:20.131)
So speaking of challenges, you mentioned this and like you mentioned systemic barriers, right? And in the context of resilience, in the context of intrinsic motivation, you know, these systems are entrenched. They're not easily changed. And I think for a young person, especially it can feel overwhelming. can feel inevitable that these systems will just be there forever.
How do you teach resilience, intrinsic motivation, growth mindset within the context of a world that seems stacked against them in certain ways at certain times?
Dr. Jordan Smith (39:07.15)
Kind of going back on the key lesson, remember I mentioned about collecting the data. It really does make a difference when you're crafting your assessment or survey, which I call it like a cultural sensitivity assessment.
how you draft those questions gives you like garbage in garbage out. Okay. But it gives you those answers. And when you actually start to apply those, opens up the other doors because I realized that see promoting resilience and a growth mindset is a daily task. It's not just given a one lesson at the beginning year. In my early years, I started doing it. I was doing it like, well, I'm going to give it this one time and I'm going to fix it now. well, wait a minute. There's years in their subconscious brain that
this stuff don't work or I can't do it. So it has to be reinforced throughout the whole school year. And so that means that as a teacher, I have to teach. I started developing. now I'm starting to realize, see, my book was only about, it was, the book was designed to get a teacher going. It wasn't everything.
Because I'm realizing as I did it, there were things that I've been doing as we've been discussing here that I realized, my God, that really worked. So I realized I had to teach resilience, come up with a lesson plan to teach the resilience to the students at activities.
and also try to also connect it with their families. See, because if you have the trifecta, that's the trifecta. So I got the student, but I got the parent, and you have the teacher, and we're all together working together on that. That's unbreakable. So collaborating with that, bringing in and engaging parents and partners into the classroom to share.
Dr. Jordan Smith (41:00.714)
I love to have a parent come in my class that's overcome adversity and realize that the way that they were able to do is by building confidence and actually having resilience to keep don't giving up because they had a really they had a they had a why and that's really that's going back again. Yeah, so I need a why as a teacher. My students need a why. Why are they doing this? Why are you getting up and coming to school? What are you? What's your end goal?
And in order to do this, besides doing that daily work, yeah, and it is tiring, sometimes it's sleepless nights and stuff, but there's an educator we can also do this. We should regularly reflect on our practices and we have to be open to be able to adapt them because of feedback that we get from our students.
so that we can foster a supportive and empowering environment. Because really, if you take all that together, resilience and confidence and the mindset and everything else, we're fostering an environment there. It's empowerment. Because my final goal is that when my students finish my math, and I'm telling them, so my classrooms are empty the last two months of the year. Why?
Because I know that if a student needs to graduate, and they're recovering their credits to graduate, if they get done with their math in February, they graduate. Because math is a stumbling block. So if I remove that stumbling block, they can go forward. So.
Seth Fleischauer (42:34.337)
Hmm.
Dr. Jordan Smith (42:41.401)
We need to equip our students with the tools and as teachers, we realize every year now I realize I had modified and changed something in my classroom and my instructional practices every single year. Every single year. You know, I changed and then eventually you were able to get to that refinement point. So. Wow, this time just went by this.
Seth Fleischauer (42:57.325)
Hmm. Man.
Seth Fleischauer (43:05.195)
Yeah, and it's. Well, yeah, and we do we are rapping, but like, you know, what you're talking about is expecting of yourself the same thing you're you're trying to foster in your students, which is a growth mindset. Right. And that takes curiosity. It takes humility. takes awareness. You know, all of these things that that that we talk about here on this on this program, right. Like these these mindsets that help us succeed in life. This has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for for coming in, for reaching
to come on. Last question, is there anywhere on the internet that you would like our users to, or our listeners to find your work?
Dr. Jordan Smith (43:45.076)
yes, I have a special thing. If they go to books, just b -o -o -k -s dot teachleadandinspire .com and forward slash welcome and I'll send the link to you. So that's books dot teachleadandinspire .com forward slash welcome.
It will take them to a page and they'll be able to get a free copy of my book, 11 Effective Strategies for Teaching Math, and also be able to get access to my other books and stuff at a discount. So I have that and that's set up there for this whole time. I set that specifically up so for your listeners and stuff. So it'd be up there for at least 30 days or so. Okay, so I have that there. So they get it free. And why do I do that? It's because I want to reach more teachers because the more teachers I reach, the more students they can help. And I don't care if it's just
Seth Fleischauer (44:25.155)
Excellent.
Dr. Jordan Smith (44:35.965)
If it's one, that's fine. Because that's by calling, that's what I want to do. Thank you so much, for having me on. I really enjoyed our conversation. And you're right, the way we've been going on, you would think we've been doing this a long time. But this is our first chance of chatting. It really is. So looking forward to. Thank you so much.
Seth Fleischauer (44:55.907)
Yeah, no, this is yeah, this has been fantastic. Thank you. You know, for our listeners, if you would like to support the podcast, please do leave a rating or review. Tell the friend, follow us. I think it was always to our editor, Lucas Salazar. And if you would like to bring positive change to education, we must first make it mindful. See you next