Welcome to the Energetic Radio Podcast. This episode is brought to you by the
SchoolOfPlay, co hosted by Dale Sybottom and Paul
Campbell. Each week we'll bring to you tips, strategies and ideas on
how you can bring more joy and happiness into your life and those you share
it with. All right, everyone, welcome back to the podcast.
Episode number 366 of the energetic Radio Podcast.
Craig Randell, welcome to the show, mate. Thanks. Glad to be
here. I think it's my first podcast from down under. Oh,
there we go. Still pretty special. That definitely does. You're obviously
joining from Seattle. Now, mate, you've. I'm going to give you a little intro here.
I'm probably not going to do it justice, but consultant, which we'll talk about
more. Teacher, principal. You've been a principal through Asia, the
Middle East, South America, so a lot of international schools. But the
biggest thing I want to know, mate, I'm a. I love making pizzas as well.
And I know that you are a pizza connoisseur. Great. What
is your go to topic? Like what, what's your best pizza mate
that you could make? If Paul and myself were coming over, what would you do?
Now, this one's not everyone's cup of tea. Okay, but that's okay. But I like
it already. It's the one that I think is my favorite. Okay, so it's
pesto sauce. Okay. Cheese,
obviously. Then it's got kalamata olives, artichoke
hearts, sun dried tomatoes, kind of those
little pickled pepper kind of things. And then feta
cheese. Oh, wow, you've got me.
You had me. Sun dried tomatoes and feta. Dried tomatoes and
feta. Oh, what a combination. Yeah. And the kalamata too, those
strong flavors. Oh, yeah, we're in. I like it. That, that's a bit of a.
That's, that's a Mediterranean background there, Craig. Does that come from anywhere you might.
No, I didn't think about that. But I think it must have, like, it must
have oozed into me somewhere. I love. Now, I
wasn't aware of this. This has been sprung on me. Is this like a side.
Is this a side hustle or a side love that you got? Just love making
pizzas. It would like, like, like however many
other billion people I started baking during COVID
and like most things, other people could make better, so I stopped baking it.
But the pizza dough I made and I actually cook it on our pizza stone
on our barbecue outside grill. Like I realized, oh
no, I make this better than most people. So. Yeah, nice. I Like it and
has the baking, has the, the pizza dough
transferred into bread or just
bread, but, but like. I can get really. People
can make bread better than I can really easily. Like my pizza, like
it's pretty good. I like it. I like it too, mate. I like it.
I'm the same. I've got a stone like pizza oven and
it's a really nice thing when people come over. Like it's the thing I find
though, Craig, is I think everyone else has a really good time, but I'm
flat out making the dough, doing the pizza. Everyone's having a great time. They go,
you're gonna sit down? I'm like, I can't.
It's true. But you know what I like most? I mean I like make. I'm
introverted though, so sometimes I kind of like it because then I can step back.
But then the other thing though is it's like sometimes you cook a
food and it'll be like all this time and Everybody's done in 20 minutes.
But when you have to keep making pizza, after pizza end up being this three,
four hour event that ends up being way more social. I think that's my favorite
part. Yeah, that's, that's a good way of looking at it. I'll just say I
did it recently on Sunday and oh, it's like everyone was having a good time
besides me. So I like the way you think about that, that it just. You
have to drink too. That'll help you. I definitely had a couple of years. No
problems here with that one, right? No problems here with that one. Yeah. Craig, obviously
mate, you've got a glowing resume and the work you're doing now of trust based
trust is one of the hardest things I feel to gain. And we talk about
this all the time. Obviously we try and use play to make people feel safe
and through that we try and build trust just in the world.
How do build trust? What's the best way that you've seen it from?
Obviously all your practices been principal all around the world.
Is there a clear way to do it?
No, I think there's a clear way, but I'll think there's things you can do
and maybe even like. Okay, so in my earlier days I
was a basketball coach and I would read basketball coaching books all the time.
There was a guy named Dean Smith. He was Michael Jordan's college basketball coach. I
know you guys know who Michael Jordan is. North Carolina. In his book
he said, I learned a lot, a hell of a lot more about how to
be good coach. From all the non examples than I did from the
examples. So I think there's a ton of things that you
shouldn't do that work against building trust.
Because trust is hard to build, it's easy to ruin.
And so one, I mean, being kind,
being emotionally intelligent, those are good things to do. Like being short tempered,
not thinking about things, being, thinking that I know best and people should
do things my way because that was the way that worked for me. Doesn't make
sense. Like in my world, like where we rate teachers on
pedagogy, that's an absolutely horrible way
to build trust because that's their heart and soul on the line, man. Work from
strengths, don't work from deficits. I mean those are just right
off the top. Just a handful of little things. Yeah, I love that.
So true. I saw a clip about an American teacher a while back. Yeah, I
was also a former assistant principal, Craig, and a teacher as well. And
I saw a clip while back and there was an American lady and she was
marking one of her students work. And he got, you know, he got,
he got two out of 20 correct. And, and you know, and, and she's
written. And then she just wrote plus two on the thing. And it wasn't a,
you know, two out of 20, it was just a plus two. And he's like,
hey, you got, you got two. Right. Well done. You know, she didn't harp on
the fact that you got 18 wrong. She didn't write two out of 20. And
just that little notion there goes so long just to. You're harping on the positives.
Right. And the amount of trust that would have built between that lady and that
student would have been incredible. Every single person you're
with, whether it's a child or whether it's an adult that you're
working with, we have to take them where they're at. I mean,
because they're where they're at. Like we can say where we wish they were, but
that's irrelevant. They're where they're at. So if I'm going to help
support you and help grow you, I have to take with you where
you're at. And I have to differentiate what I'm going to do. And like in
my world of observing teachers, I do, I have times when I have to search
a lot harder for strengths. Of course I do when I do a 20 minute
observation. But I can always find things. And we're gonna take you
from there. And the thing is, you don't know what you don't know yet.
The reason you're not doing well generally isn't because I know better and I'm choosing
not to. It's because I only know what I know. So if I work there
and think, why don't you know that? How the hell is that gonna help anybody
or anything get better? Yeah, I love it. Can we dive a bit more into
trust based observations and just enlighten especially myself and all of our listeners out
there with what, what exactly is trust based observations? What do you do on a
day to day basis? How do you go about things? Fill us in. I mean,
what I do is I train school leaders. Like we go on site, we do
training with where they go in and observe their teachers and we practice all week
with their teachers. So that's what we do. I mean, I wrote a book, but
it's just the system. And so we help them learn the system over it. But
really, in a nutshell, it's a continuous series of 20 minute
observations. They're unannounced, which people think is scary,
but when it's from a strengths based place, it's less scary.
Because if I know you're coming in, I worry and then I'm going to plan
extra and then I'm not even talking about real teaching. So it's unannounced.
We have a form that just has nine core areas of just pedagogy. No
matter what your style of teaching is, everyone does it. And
then really though, the magic is the next day. And it's the reflective
conversation. This is really where we build trust. It's the how
is really what matters. Because we can talk about building trust, but it's, it's the
actions you take. There's a woman in the US named Brene Brown.
She's a really famous sociologist. You guys are nodding like you know who she is.
Yes, we do. And she talks about the connection between vulnerability,
trust and risk taking. And she said vulnerability is not a bad thing, but when
it's too high, it's an inhibitor. And so she says the
way you get people to take risks is by lowering vulnerability.
The way you lower vulnerability is by building trust. And she
has what I think is a great metaphor. And you think of a jar, it's.
And it's every consistent action that you take is putting a marble in a jar.
And once that jar is full, then people will trust and they'll take risks and
they'll innovate. And so really during that reflective conversation,
normally what do you do? You start telling the teacher what they did, what their
Scores were oftentimes what you need to fix. Like the need to fix
people right away. Like, you know, the compliment sandwich or two stars and
a wish or things like that. The research says that doesn't work
because people are smart and people know the only reason you're saying the nice thing
is to tell them what you really want to fix them. And so
it's not genuine, right? I mean, it's. Well, people are well intended. I'm not saying
that, but it doesn't work the way we want to. And so instead of
like starting by that, we start by asking questions.
And by asking questions, I think what I'm really saying is I value you
as a professional and I care what you think and I want to hear what
you think first. But I'm going to even go back first, so I'm going to
reference everything as a marble so you'll know what I'm talking about now.
So the first thing we do is we have the conversation in the teacher's room
instead of our office. And we always say, whether you're 7 or 17 or
37, getting called to the principal's office feels like getting called to the principal's
office. And if you were a teacher earlier in your career, I bet
sometime your boss called you down and you had a moment of panic thinking, what'd
I do wrong? And it wasn't anything, but there's just something about it. It's
how we think. Yeah, I've heard about you too.
The next thing is, sounds silly, but when we get to the room, we ask
permission. Hey, is now a good time? Because I could say, hey, let's
do it. And you will, but no one likes to be told. So just that
little courtesy makes people more trustful. I sit beside
you, not across from you. People are more comfortable when they sit beside each other
than across from each other. We share the form. It's like we're looking
at screens right now. We're transparent, we're not hiding anything. And then
like I said, well, really the next thing we do is we literally tell them
what the goal of trust based observations is. And we just say the goal is
for all of us to do observations to build enough trust with all of you
so that any one of us can come into your classroom, observe you,
see you trying something new, and even though it's highly unlikely, have
that thing you're trying be a train wreck. But as opposed to a
maybe more traditional model where you'd be freaking out that that was happening today,
you won't be worried because, you know, the next day, the first thing I'm going
to say when I come into your room is, I. I love it that you
were trying something new. Yeah. Good. And we say, because when that happens, what will
you do? You'll keep trying new things, and then you'll get better. Yeah. So
then we ask questions. We just like, what were you doing to help the students
learn? But even then, we just say, as a little trust marble,
we say, we definitely want to hear about the 20 minutes where you were in
here. But we know sometimes you'll think you just missed the best part
or you left right before the best part. And we just say, if that happened,
tell us that too. It seems like a nothing throwaway statement,
but, oh, my gosh, teachers relax. Yeah, Right. So
we take down their answers. We share back their answers,
which demonstrates that I've been actively listening to you. I make sure we're on
the same page on that. We ask a second question.
If you had to reteach the lesson, what, if anything, might you do differently? And
we had another little trust marble and say, teaching's hard.
Sometimes when we teach, we nail it. When that happens, we want to
celebrate it. I never want you to feel like you have to manufacture an answer
to this question just because I'm asking. And at the same time, we know. Most
of the time we think, oh, I wish I would ever. Next time I'm going
to. And then we take down their answer to that question, and then we
start going through the form. And the form is so specific that everything
we're sharing with them is specific praise. And
that builds them up and builds them up and builds them up. And we don't
offer suggestions. The first four visits with the first three visits.
That's interesting. I love that model. Yeah. Because it's that
sand. Well, because if I do all this other trust stuff, but at the very
end, I'm like, hey, listen, here's what I want you to work on.
It's, it's, it's, it's going to come across as the same thing. Oh, you're doing
all this nice tips just so you can tell me what to get better at.
But one, how am I going to know after one time? Like, maybe it was
just a bad day. Maybe you're good at that thing. I just didn't happen to
see it. But for whatever reason, I'll tell you that my
very first year as an assistant principal, I
didn't offer praise at first because I was
afraid of the thing. What if they were good at it, and I hadn't seen
it, but really, when I was doing this new model, I didn't even. It wasn't
even a model, and it was just what I'd learned to do. Teachers loved it.
They were like, you're the best principal I ever had. I didn't know what I
was doing. But they cared about being listened to so much and having strengths
shared that they felt that. And so the real reason I
didn't give feedback right away was I was afraid if I started telling them what
to fix, they wouldn't like me anymore. Yeah. And it's the
truth. I mean, I can say that now. But then an amazing thing happened. The
third and fourth round. Well, over half my teachers at the end of the visit
would say, craig, okay, okay, okay. But what can I get better at
now? I didn't know this till years later when I realized that I sort of
developed this thing that was trust. So now we wait until the
fourth time, but even then, when we give feedback, like,
as school leaders, we're notorious for being horrible at giving
feedback. Like, if we were to say what we want teachers to do to students
and then what we do to them, the hypocrisy is astounding. It's like,
hey, I want you to get better at your feedback. And like, just
leave it like that. Or and here's an article. But we would
never say to a third grader, listen, those
multiplication. That needs some work. Okay, we would never just say
that. Or, and here's a times table. I'll see you in a month. Right? But
that's what we tend to do. So now we provide genuine
support with you. We, we sit down, we work with you. We'll
say, let's, let's, like, we ask permission first to offer a
suggestion that's enormous. It makes a big difference because people
don't want to be told. They always say, yes, but then we work
through with you. We say, let's bring up a lesson. Let's look at it. Let's.
Here's, here's some strategies. Which one of these strategies would work?
Would, Would you like me to model it for you? Do you want to co.
Teach it? Do you want me to watch you? And when, when you do it
like that, and it's genuine support, it really, really moves the
needle. And people want to grow and they want to get better. Yeah.
You're giving them a nutshell. Yes. That's bloody brilliant, mate.
You, you're getting them to make the decision. You're not telling them, like, it's
it's very clever in that way because like you said, no one wants to be
told to do something. But because you've got the trust and you're giving them options,
you're actually making them feel safe as well. And when you've got that trust and
they feel safe, that's when the magic happens. Mate, mate,
I've got my pen and my notepad here, Craig. And I've been taking notes as
a parent and as a sports coach and you've absolutely blown my mind on
how simple it is. And I'm an infinite learner and
you've literally just taught me in the space of about seven minutes there, that
grab of how I can improve myself as a dad
but also as a sports coach. And so I'm taking what you've just taken out
of the classroom and everyone listening out there, especially,
like I could coach my kids under Sevens Soccer this evening,
right. And I am useless. This is something I'm working on. Put my hand
up at not making everything a teachable moment and even with my kids
as well. And thank you because I'm now going to make sure that the.
The first section of my session tonight is just gonna be fun
and no teaching and just positive prose, no matter what
happens. And don't try and correct technique and those sorts of bits and pieces.
And for everyone out there, if you're coaching your parent, be
intentional with that, right. Like have days upon days where you go, right. I'm not
going to give any instructional thinking. I'm just going to give positive praise
and harp on the strengths and the effort and the endeavor and
wait and be patient for that moment to teach. You know what I mean? So
I think what you're talking about in terms of building trust, then building confidence
in learners can be transferred into. So into every.
That's any aspect of every area of. Life, business,
home, sports, coaching, relationship. Yeah,
man. I'm actually a little bit mind blowing. Thank you. That is awesome.
Did you. When, when you start. Sorry to cut you off. There you go.
Is it. Obviously it makes so much sense. I think the way the
world's working now. You just particularly like looking at sports coaching during, like
it was all autocratic, you know, people just abusing and yelling. And
now it's all about relationships and talking to people and building, leading
with kindness, being empathetic, things like that. Are you finding now
that what you're saying, people absolute, they're like, I
want this now because they know it works.
It's hard. I think in the. I'll
say this every week when we do a training, every time we do a round
because over the week we do 12 or 14 teachers we practice with over the
week. And we always ask the teachers, hey, what do you think of this new
stuff? I mean they're overwhelmed sometimes tears of joy. They're so not used to
having their strengths shared with them. It gets them already thinking about what to do.
The trust, you can see it building right away. The school leaders at the end
of the week they're like, oh my God, this where I've been. So
we get that. But Honestly, in the US
since 2000, really, we've had these hyper
rigorous rubric based models that had 60,
70 different indicators of teaching practice. And it's been
embedded now for a generation, 25 years. We've got
two main studies in the last eight years that say literally no
improvement, it's not working, it's not improving teaching and learning and
worse, it's causing harm, it's causing teachers to lower their sense self
efficacy, be self critical, lower their dis,
increase their dissatisfaction at work. Yet
it's so deeply embedded and change is
so hard and there's state laws about teacher evaluation that
I find, I have conversations and people are like, yes, right away we're
into it. But for a lot of people they're still,
they're afraid. Yeah, yeah. To make the change because
the systems are so deeply embedded and it's
frustrating but you just keep plugging away. Yeah, we're the same over here,
mate. Our educational system has gone just data, data data
mad instead of bad and gone just in almost like
three week blocks. Now you've got to get through this amount of content in three
weeks and it has to be graded and, and you then use that data to
drive your next, you know, approach. It's burning teachers
out. It's, it's not fun. There's no, there's no flexibility.
I mean there's no, you can't bring your own personality to the floor. It's just,
you know, hammer, hammer, hammer. And we're now starting to see a little bit of
a shift to what we call connection before content.
So that, that real shift in, in the educational system and I think at the
wider world too, but definitely education about just being intentional with
sacrificing, you know, five, ten minutes of your class time to build connection
before you get into your content, which we're all about, which we love. So it's
helped, definitely helping us. But is that apparent over there? Is it
you picking that up in the States? I mean
look, when I'm in classes, I teach teachers that do amazing stuff with
relationship. You can tell they built it from day one. You can tell it's happening
every day. It might necessarily be not, might not be five or 10 minutes at
the beginning, but it's embedded in what they're doing. And I'll see school leaders
that I can tell that that's, I mean, look, right now the people that are
saying yes to me, those are already the right emotionally intell people. So
you know, we're at the choir point. But
I see,
I see a lot of talk about it, but then I see
administrations can't helping themselves like the central officer at the district
office. Like they get obsessed with the scores and the data or they,
or they, or they're afraid themselves of maybe the school board
and being upset with the school board. But it's like you're either performance
based or you're learning based. I was listening to an Adam Grant thing and he
was talking about in performance based cultures, you're so worried about the
outcome that what ends up happening is creativity and innovation
gets stifled because people are afraid to get it wrong. But when you
have a learning culture, it's okay to make mistakes.
And then I'll keep trying and then I'll get better. And so I think what
we're really is deeply embedded, really for the last 25 years
is performance based culture. And we have to move
more towards learning based culture. Not that people aren't talking about it, but it's
still way too pervasive. The thing is, if you think
about learning based culture and you operate in a learning based culture, the performance
will show, it will grow. But if you work in a performance based
culture, the learning won't grow. It's like, it's
counterintuitive. Yeah, 100%.
I'm coming over to North Carolina, Asheville in a couple of
weeks. Is there anything I should know about? Because I lead
with fun. Is that
any tips for you? I'm keynoting The National Institute
2025 conference is leading with fun
something that will resonate with a lot of,
a lot of us educators? Yeah, no, I,
I think so for sure. I mean, I think, I mean, plus why they're having
you out because they know that's what you guys are about. So that's what they
want. Right. So. And you're going to be an astronaut. You're going to be in
a cool place to start with. So. No, I think people, people, I
mean, look, does anybody get excited about when you ask that Initial
icebreaker. Nobody's excited about it at the beginning but then usually once
they're into it, they do it. But, but no, people
like what you guys are talking about play and what you all are about. Like
people realize that people know the value of that. Has
early education become too academic and less play and would be
better in my opinion if we went to more play based and would that set
kids up for better academic success down the road? For sure.
But I mean, geez, we're human beings, we want laughter in our life.
We know play is laughter. Right. So yeah, I
don't, don't worry about that. You guys are going to be good. Yeah. I've got
a random question for you, Craig. Obviously you've got a company called Trust Based
Observations. What's your relationship like with trust?
So not, not your business relationship, your personal, let's take the business hat
off our business cards, not who we are. What's your relationship like with trust
in your own life? Have you burnt it before? Have you been burnt? Fill me
in. I want to know a bit about you.
That's a deep question. It is a deep question. Bloody glad
I didn't ask that. Sorry, I gotta go. It's been nice chat
guys. Well,
I mean obviously I, I, I'm not perfect. I
fail too in, in places in my life but, but,
but I try to live it and have I been
burned? Yeah, I've been burned by stuff in my life and, and,
and man, sometimes it stings and sometimes it stays and, and
that's the thing about trust. It's so, it's so hard
to build and it takes time and time and it has to be consistent and,
and if you've, if you've built enough you can make a mistake. And
like using our analogy, that tip that jar over and I think you'd be
able to pick a lot of them up but some are going to slip under
the, under the, under the sofa. Right. And some are going to go into heater
vent and you're going to have to work to build some of that stuff up
again. And, but if you do it, you know, more than
once, I mean it's. Just, Yeah, I just,
and let's be honest, as human beings, I'm a firm believe that every single one
of us have made a mistake at some stage. Everyone, like, come on, like every
single one of us. However, so many people, when points once
someone burns them once so to speak or get something wrong,
they don't forgive that easily and sometimes they've moved themselves in
that world of trust, even though they've broken themselves.
That's a hard thing too. Right. Because we. Sometimes it can
be hard to forgive. Right. And. But sometimes I think we end up just
punishing ourselves too much with forgiveness. And. And
maybe it's. Maybe sometimes it's not forgiving, maybe it's accepting, you know, or
whatever. And depending on the severity of what
someone has done or whatever. Or what you've done. But I
mean, we all live in glass houses. That's for d. We
do, don't we? You are speaking our language here, mate. I know I'm not different
sides of the world, but I, I'm intrigued. I love going to
obviously do a lot of work internationally. Paul's starting to do a bit with me
as well. Where's the. Where's the best place that you taught? I know
obviously multiple continents when you were principal. I know it's
hard to pick one, but did you have a favorite place? Because international teaching,
it's vigorous, it's full on, but it's also an amazing
experience. Fun. It's an amazing experience for sure.
Oh, man. I mean, you don't want to slide a place. I mean, one
like places like the Middle east has great food, Korea has great food. Like
for food. Those two places are the best. But I mean, I don't know if
I can say one or the other. The top two places to me were when
I was in Warsaw and Poland, you saw that classic European
old town kind of feel. And I always say any place that has beer
gardens, on bike paths, baths. It'S a good, good,
good be too very nice beers. They're two. They're
two. Drafts are delicious. Oh, they do. They do for sure. And
then. But Brazil, I mean, come on. Brazil is.
We were in a city in Brazil that other Brazilians would say, oh,
Cura was the city, like city of 3 million people nobody's ever heard of.
And they would say, oh, kurichibanos are so cold. And all I could think is,
like, if these are the cold Brazilians, because they're the
warmest, nicest people I've ever met. Like
Brazilians. And then, you know, like Brazilian beaches. Or you go
to Rio for the weekend. I mean.
We'Re picking up what you put down. That's about it. Well,
I'm really intrigued. So all the world travel done in teaching was
that. Was it. Was it with a partner? Was with your family? Was
it pre family? Was it young? Was it intentional? Did you set out going?
I want to go and see the world and, and
explore my you know, my, my profession, or did it just happen by
chance? How did it all come about? How did you travel the world and
teach everywhere? I mean, I think I've always followed passions
in terms of my work and,
and it was just at the time my wife and I,
our kids were entering kindergarten and we just, we talked about
it on our first date and then we thought, well, let's do it. And you
went to a job fair and then did it. And then where you end up
from place to place after that is just, you know, that's just. Kisma, you can't,
you, you can't decide. I only want to go here. It doesn't work like that.
So, like, I would never have chosen to live in Saudi Arabia, but, you know,
it was good for two years and so. Yeah, but it was. I'll tell
you this, that the experience was amazing. My kids
are true global citizens. The way they think the way,
the way they. We live in the Middle East. We went to this school with
displaced Palestinians and so their vision on the world
is so much more mature than their. I have twins that are 23
right now, I'll tell you. We came back their junior year in high school
and it was their 17th birthday in January, and I said, what do you guys
want to do? They said, we just want to take the day off. We want
to go play in Seattle. Like, great. And they said, oh, and that night
there's a lecture at the University of Washington on the Arab Israeli conflict and we
want to go to that.
Oh, that is amazing because that's a question to have for you, me
included in this statement. I think so many human beings are really,
really concerned and worried about pulling their kids out of
school with their mates, with their friends and then going to do that travel thing.
For me, we would. We're in that mindset of let's get them through primary
school first before you consider, you know, turning their world upside
down. Because you want them to have a, a bit of a balanced and set,
you know, routine and friendship groups and, and they're safe.
Would you say stuff that and throw the window and, and they'll be just
fine. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's all international or. International,
but here's what I'll say. It's actually, it's easier when they're earlier. I mean, right,
they just go along with you. You're their security blankets. Sure, they're friends, but,
but they'll come home and they'll see them in the holidays still. And
especially you've been in the same place the whole time. But now it's easy.
The early moves were harder. Like when he moved when they were in middle school.
Yeah, they weren't so happy with us. I can imagine.
But even now, I mean, they're so grateful now. They weren't always in
the moment for it, but no, when you're early and I mean,
honestly, that story of my kids, like who
to be thinking like that and so, and
it's. Oh man, it's a fun life. Yeah. And are they now, if you don't
mind me asking, are your kids now jet setters? Are they, are they travelers? Do
they, have they got the bug? My daughter went to school in London at King's
College and she's there right now and she's graduated and
she's attending bar for a couple years before she does grad school. But
because of a certain person in the White House, she will not do grad
school in the United States. She doesn't want to have anything to do with her
country. And I don't blame her
tipping my hand there. And they would,
they would both probably consider themselves Marxists.
They're 23. But, but they. And my
son is, he just finished his first year of teaching at a severe
behavior school and that was. One year was enough of that.
But I can tell he's got the international school teaching bug and, and I
wouldn't be surprised to see that happen in his life too. Yeah, I love that.
And it's such a cool profession, you can take it anywhere, isn't it? It is
such a cool profession. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah,
it's wild as well. So Craig, when you look back and obviously
pretty impressive story, mate. Like, you've got a great resume, you've seen the
world, you've impacted so many people. Do you ever sit back and think what you're
most proud of? Like, is it what you've created? You know, if you trust based
observation? Because that first 10 minutes where we were just
listening, I was just in awe, man. It wasn't about, you know, the
schools, the teachers that we work with, the students. I was thinking as me, as
an individual, how I treat people. And I know Paul's the same,
particularly we've got younger kids, so trust is so important. And the way you
were speaking, it just hit home with me. Are you, are you really proud of
what you've created and that you're sharing with other people and allowing and more importantly,
to feel safe and empowered?
Yeah, I mean, I feel awkward talking about that. Please
don't it's look, I didn't know I was creating
it. If I'd known what the problem was and tried to figure out, oh, this
is how to solve it, I don't think I could have done it. But it
just evolved from the really the guy that was when I was in my principal
certification program that run our program. Ran our program and it evolved and evolved and
evolved. And then at a certain point somebody actually said,
Craig, you need to protect your work. When I was in Brazil, the elementary principal
and I didn't even know what he was talking about, he said, you created something,
you don't want somebody to steal it. And I was just like, oh, thanks. And
then I thought I should present at a conference and it went really well. And
then I thought I should write an article and it went really well. And then
we ended up coming home and I thought I'm going to try and turn it
into a book. And so one creating a book and
persevering through a book. I am proud of that because it's hard and,
but I feel more than proud. I think I just
feel lucky because I have a mission in life. Like now
till the day like people, I've got friends that are nearing
retirement and I'm like, why would I go golf? I mean every week
I get to go and have this impact and I know it's, it's
making a difference in the lives of teachers, it's making a difference in the lives
of school leaders which I hope is trickling down into the lives of students.
And so I, I'm proud of that. But
mostly I feel just, I feel really lucky that I, I'm
not sure everybody gets to have a mission and I won't
retire. I, maybe I'll slow down. But this is my, this is, my goal is
to change the world of teacher observation. So purpose. Yeah. You've got a
purpose. Yeah. Is there any animos? Because over here
I don't, I don't believe there's anything. Well, I worked in the education game
for 18 odd years and never did we have an external organization
come in to sort of observe or you know, do peer sort of teaching,
whatever it might be. Was there anything like that before
trust based observations came about or was it all internal in our schools? Over here
it's all peer to peer, colleague to colleague. I'll buddy up with Dale,
he works with me, he'll come in and observe me, teach gives me some feedback,
vice versa. That's the system over here. But yeah. Did
you find, was that already set up the external organizations coming to schools
or. Well, I mean there have been models and, and so since
those like the Danielson and Marzano are the two biggest models in the
US and like, so for the last 25 years, you know, I'm not sure before
that really, it was maybe less formal before that,
but it's been like the peer to peer thing. Like I have no
problem with the peer to peer thing, but I think it's,
I think it's incomplete because
every single week when I'm training a school, someone somewhere will say,
hey Craig, what about this? What about that? Sometimes it'll be a tiny little thing,
sometimes it'll be a thing that will dramatically improve trust based
observations. And so I'm the guy that developed this thing
and I have so many blind spots that
every single week I'm training a school, I, I learned something
new that makes for a better product. And so I think the
thing that's missing from peer to peer is oftentimes it's
what do I want to work on. And it's great what I want to work
on on myself, but I'm not aware of my blind spots.
And so if we've got something that's in a trust based way, it's helping
to tackle, tackle all of our blind spots or our blind
spots. I think that adds extra value in. Terms of what we're doing. I love
it. And in that peer to peer model, you're not taking the learnings from every
single other school or every other teacher from across the
country. You know what I mean? Those learnings that you've taken along the way, you
just, you know, you get, you get your blinkers on, don't you get your blinkers
of your school on and what's happening within your school. And I think with the
peer to peer model, you're almost a little bit worried about upsetting the apple cart
because you've got to work with them every single day, right? A little bit. I
think, you know, one of the things in our form that I'm really, that I
am proud about is we have, for each of the nine areas of pedagogy,
we have hyperlinks. So you hit this thing and it brings you, here's all these
actionable articles on, on this area of pedagogy. Here's all. So now
all of a sudden I've given you a wealth of information right at your
fingertips. So as a teacher or a leader, I can tap right into
that in a way that feels safe. Maybe if I'm less Comfortable digging into
it in front of others. Love that. That is brilliant. So we know you're not
going to slow down. We get that narrow time, the cards. But for the life
of Craig, what's next? So you've developed a business, you're loving life.
No golf, we know that. Pizza's on the card. What else, what else, what else
in your world, mate? What are you looking forward to? What's coming up? Oh,
I mean I'm dealing with a publishing thing to try and get a new publisher,
but more books. Writing is
hard and I don't think I always like it because it's so hard.
But kind of like you were saying earlier though, people are like, well what about
like trust based for like supervisors and schools to into
do supervision with other supervisors? What about for coaches? What
about. So I think those are some of the things. And then I'm just
working to grow it and spread the word. So it. Yeah, I mean my goal
is to change the world. I'm not, I'm not saying that in the littlest way.
I'm saying it in the biggest way possible. So it's just, it's
all really, it's all in the same framework and opportunities come when you see like
we've got people in India, Pakistan and Korea saying of hey, could we do it
here? And you know, in that language. And so we're trying to figure out how
do we make that happen and that kind of thing. I love that, I love
that. Now people listening episode number 366 can go to
trustbase.com obviously that's where they can reach out.
Obviously. We've got quite a lot of international listeners that aren't all in the States,
Craig. So they can go in there, get your book. They can still reach out
to you. Obviously you said you thinking about expanding or things like that.
Is that the best way is to reach you? Yeah, for sure. Just you can.
There's a contact button somewhere on there they can do. Or just
craigrustbase.com either way, done. Yeah, love that. I love it
from the bottom of my heart, honestly. Thank you. I've. I love a podcast when
I can take something out of it that I can put into my own life.
But I love it. I love it. Yeah. 100. But if I'm doing that then
everyone listening out there who's a parent or a sports coach or just another human
being can also do that. Right. So honestly, thank you.
Huge tick for this one for me because I'm literally going to take something from
this and put into Practice straight away in about seven hours time.
And I'm also going to do it with my own kids at home. So honestly,
mate, thank you for just that little snippet of those golden nuggets
of. Was it for the first four visits you don't give any.
Not on the fourth visit. Yeah, not until the fourth visit is when then you
start asking for permission to give some feedback. And I
would have never have gone down that pathway. Not four visits. I wouldn't have been
that patient to wait that long. And I would have thought sometimes you. Have to
bite your tongue. All human beings and parents in particularly,
but especially parents and sports coaches, they all think, right, my role here
is to teach and is to improve. Yeah, and
change. But let them, let them. But it is your, it is your
role. But it's. But what's the best way to achieve success in
that. That's what I mean. And honestly, you've now changed my philosophy. The rest of
my life. I will not forget this because he will change them. But the way
most people do, it doesn't change them. Yeah, because they end up rebelling.
Because it's not them. The ones that are making the change or they think they
are. This way allows that to occur. In all honesty, I'm picturing two of my
players and reflecting now upon this. I've knocked the confidence
out of them. You know what I mean? That's, that's what I've done a little
bit and I've had to now really work the last few weeks. I put my
hand that and go, ah, I've knocked the confidence out of them. And it'd be
the same with teachers, right, or employees if you go straight in for,
hey, that was good. You know, the positive, negative, positive sandwich you spoke about, they
see through that. It can tend to knock the confidence out of people and then
it's really hard to get that trust. And that confidence takes a lot more. Work
than waiting for the morph. Is it? Yeah.
Well, mate, we two people here, we really appreciate your
time today. If you can help our listeners a fraction of what you've
been able to do for both of us because light bulbs are going off in
our little pinheads here. I'll tell you what, mate, we are. I'm
loving that. I'm soaked. Thank you so much, mate. And just
think you are making a difference. So if anyone has been
exactly impacted like us both sitting here today, taking notes, been
just so blown away by how simple it can be, but also how wrong
we've probably been doing it, reach out to Craig, thank him, because,
you know, that's what we. We all need praise and we all love that
along the way and. And when you have a purpose that gives you the fire,
the flame to keep going and, you know, more books, like you said in the
race. So, Craig, thank you so much for your time, mate. What a
powerful episode. Really appreciate it. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Craig. Thanks,
gentlemen. Had a great time.