Caroline Slee-Poulos and Ron talk about their experiences as teachers.

That's that's not fair. My first classroom experience was teaching at McGill University at night school. And I was teaching people how to teach in the physical education department. And half of the class was in a classroom and half of the class was in a lab, specifically in this case in the swimming pool. Well, the classroom had a lectern at the front of it that was raised by about two feet. The old days looking down on everybody, right? And there were stairs on both sides so I could get up and down easily. You know, in those days I could have jumped up and down just as easily. But I had a podium at the front and a blackboard. And the chalk I used was about two and a half inches in diameter, big stuff, easy to write with, easy to see. And because of its size, it was also easy to race. So being the lazy guy I am, that's what I used.

And I had a habit and still do of wandering around through the classroom so that people have to kind of follow where I go. But this room was weird. It was long and skinny. It might have had six people across and an aisle down the middle that was maybe three or four feet. So every now and again, we had a weatherman in Montreal in those days by the name of Percy Sulzman. And I got the idea from him. He used to walk around in front of the map throwing his chalk up and down. And he used a big piece of chalk as well. Now, this chalk would hurt. And somebody... somewhere always in the first class would not be paying attention or be talking to somebody else. In other words, they weren't there as students, they were there as disruptors. And I had a habit of throwing chalk. And all I needed to do was hit one person in that first class. And from that point forward, nobody did anything wrong. They followed me around the room watching the chalk.

Now, I hope they had a two-track mind. One had their eyes watching the chalk and their ears listening to me talk. I was never really sure about that. I'd be in jail if I did that today, just as another illustration. Now, just to give you some bookends on the fourth generation teaching, my grandmother, who I called Granny of the Great when Caroline was born, got a master's degree at the University of Manitoba somewhere around 1920, maybe 15. And Caroline got her master's degree in education last year. My mother and I, we're the slugs just in undergraduate school. My grandmother and my daughter are the pros. So that's how I kept attention in the classroom. I do that today. I just don't throw things. I warn people. I tell people that story. And today we're using flip charts and felt pins. And I hold up the cap on the felt pin and said, you've got to be careful. This doesn't hurt as much as the other one did. And it wobbles.

So it's kind of a zone shot. And in the classroom, I used to have round tables, had five or six people at a table. And we'd have six tables in the room,30,35 people in a class. And I always told them that story and threatened to throw this wobbling felt him pit. I never did. And hit somebody, got a chuckle, but they paid attention when I wandered around the room. So that's sometimes your words don't do it. I had a teacher in grade nine health whose name was Tommy Thompson. And he's the one that hired me at McGill, as it turns out. But Tommy, he taught health to grade nine students. Now, think of that. Grade nine boys being taught health. Today, they call it sex education. And Tommy, to get our attention, would play all kinds of rules. He'd screw up his face. He'd squint. He'd talk funny. Anything he could do. And he was. trying to get and keep our attention. And it worked.

And that's the root of how I tried to practice teaching in a room to get people's attention. You're trying to transfer information, but if the audience doesn't want to receive, it doesn't get you anywhere.

Well, the trick on that is identifying what it is that works and using it. You know, Caroline, you're teaching people subject matter that they don't know. You're starting from a clear blackboard, an open head, and filling it with ideas, trying to get them to think about things, especially with English, and make something out of it. I'm dealing with adults. It's a different world. I won't want to say that they think they know everything that there is to know, but in many cases, it's very close to that. And it's, you know, what am I doing here? I don't need to spend the next two days with you. What is this? And to some degree, that's why we modified to the subject-specific classes on the internet where we've got roughly a two-hour time block. Some people can go through an hour and a half. Some people go three hours. But that was an offshoot of the webinar approach back in the early 2000s where you had an hour.

to transfer information about a specific subject to an audience you couldn't see. I hated that. So as you know, we put a high-definition camera in, we projected to an eight-foot-by-eight-foot screen, and every now and then I would turn off the projector and walk in in front of the camera so that they would be able to see me. And if you remember, it became a standing joke because I wore Hawaiian shirts. Again, something to get people's attention, something to get them engaged. And, you know, people would pay attention. They kept waiting for when's he going to show up because I want to see what kind of Hawaiian shirt he's wearing today. And, you know, the two of us are teaching two very different audiences. And each of those audiences needs a different way to be engaged. If singing works, if standing on your head and spitting nickels works, you know, quite frankly, as a teacher, I don't care. I love.

I really get excited when I see the lights go on in somebody's head when they get it. That really turns my crank.

It happens a lot, doesn't it? They're wrong, teacher.

Yeah, that's cool.

Well, you know, we're doing. We continue to do everything we can to attract people's attention. We just put up a new banner line on the bottom of our webpage called The Time Is Now on our podcast. And tomorrow, there's a podcast going up explaining how we arrived at the name Learning Without Scars. Because as you know, Caroline, many people, and you've spoken to them, say there's no such thing with me of learning without scars. It's always with scars. Yes. And the thing I keep saying to people, and they don't really get it, they do, but it's hard. Learning is difficult. Trying to grow as an individual, try to become better as a person is difficult. It's not easy. And if you're going to be in a classroom, you're engaged with people, you're trying to get to learn, to understand. And it goes back to my three things in management. Everybody has to understand what it is we're trying to do.

So in the classroom, everybody has to understand what I'm trying to transfer to them, what you're trying to transfer to your kids. And then comes acceptance. And that's the part that most people miss. With acceptance, you have to allow vigorous discussion, debate, arguments. Now, that's an arithmetic term, right? An argument is the formula. It's not a fight. So if we're going to... if we're going to have understanding what we're trying to do, then I need you to accept that what we're trying to do is the right thing to do. And in many cases, that's alien to what they're used to. It's different. It provokes a change. And change is really tough. I teasingly tell people, if you think change is tough at work, go home and tell your wife or significant other you're going to sleep on the other side of the bed and let me know how that turns out for you. Because... That won't happen. You're going to sleep on the couch.

So it's, you know, it's a whole host of things that comes through in that debate. And if you have understanding that we understand what we're trying to do, and if we accept that what we're trying to do is the right thing to do, you don't need to worry about it happening because people will be individually committed to make it happen. And that's the magic because you're not there all the time. I used to say to the students when I'm teaching them to teach, look, your job is to teach curriculum. That's true. But more importantly, you're there to teach them how to teach themselves. And that's a lifelong skill and one that we, you know, too many people leave school and figure that's the end. That's just the beginning. And that's what makes this whole darn thing so difficult. I love teaching. I really do.

And we're not sure that that stops when we pass either. You know, that's the other, that's the other hysterical thing, the mysterious thing. The, the, the ability for people. The blog I posted last night was about seeking out your potential. And you've heard Caroline me say this over and over again. If somebody tells you at 16, you've got a lot of potential, that's a heck of a compliment. And then I flip it and say at 66, if the same person asks the same question or makes the same state and you have a lot of potential, what have you been doing the last 50 years? And a lot of people, life is tough. Jordan Peterson's got a new book out and he's. identifying what he calls 12 rules for life. This is the second 12 rules, but, you know, he's got some very basic fundamental things. Stand straight. Keep your shoulders back. Make one room in your house beautiful.

You know, in other words, like the head of special forces, who's now the chancellor, I think, at UT, said, make your bed so that you've always got some place to go back to that's the way it should be. Some sanctum, you know, sanctum somewhere that you can escape from whatever the travails are, the problems that you've had during the day and regain your sense of balance. It's hard to do. Getting people to strive is difficult. I was blessed because I swam and I was never competing against others. I was always competing against my best time. My coach was always driving me, pain in the butt that he was. You know, beat that time. Come on, get with it. And when I couldn't, he became a really nasty son of a gun. I tell the story. I cannot swim 25 meters underwater, arms only. Can't do it. My body shape just doesn't allow it to happen. And my coach was from Scotland. His name was Dick Gall. And he rode my butt on that like a maniac.

Well, he ended up working for me at McGill. And paybacks are sometimes pretty nasty. Well, we used to run drills across the width of the pool. You'd be in the pool. Everybody's lined up against the side. I'd blow a whistle and you sprint it to the other side. And we did that back and forth, wind sprints, until I could see their tongues were hanging out. And then we had a five-meter board. No, it must have been a 10-meter board in the pool. It was an Olympic style. pool back in those days. Today, they're all 50 meters. This was 25. But I put Dick all up on the 10-meter pool board and had him platform and had him do a stride jump, which is a life-saving move where you go in feet first and you smack your arms down when you hit the water and your legs are like a scissor and you smack them together when you hit the water. But it's painful. As you can imagine, just close your eyes and think about somebody coming down 33 feet.

And having to keep their head above water. And he was not a happy man. Sometimes his bathing suit was up at his shoulders.

Didn't hurt my feelings one bit. And, you know, he said, why are you doing this to me? And I said, well, think about it. And he did. But again, it's the same thing. Find something that works. You know, class positions. How people, you know. come to the front and talk. Dale Carnegie, at the end of the Dale Carnegie structure, everybody who's in the class apparently gets up, I haven't taken this, so this is third-hand or more information. They stand in the front of the classroom and everybody else, their co-students, fellow students, has to stand up and say something nice about you. That's kind of an interesting exercise. So I tried that a few times in the classroom. It gets embarrassing, so I stopped it. But that might be something you try, Carolyn, with your crowd.

Yeah.

You're right. That is tough. And that subjects them to a little bit of ridicule at times, too, I'll bet.

Isn't it strange? Another one that would be nice is what do you think is your most significant attribute? What do you think you're best at? And just getting people to think about that is progress. Because we don't give ourselves time in this world where everything's sowing so darn fast, change is happening so quickly. It's almost like we're out of control. Social media pounding you all day, your peer group pounding you all day, your customers, your suppliers, your co-workers. It's very difficult. Take a moment. Calm. You know, at one point I was supervising a counter. This is in Montreal. There were eight men. In those days, it was nothing but men. Rather sexist industry, but that's another subject. And whenever the boss came around, there was nothing happening. You know, Murphy truly is an optimist. So I had these eight guys sitting there doing something, catching their breath. Some of them having a cup of coffee, some of them having a smoke.

In those days, you could smoke indoors. And my boss always said, you got too many people. And they were never there when the phones are ringing off the wall and there's three or four people stacked up at the counter. And the guys are going nuts. It's really an amazing circumstance. Reflecting on who you are, reflecting on what you know, reflecting on how to become better. Leaders are also teachers. Management is a teacher. You know my deal about we manage process. We lead people. We don't manage people. That's an arrogant comment to begin with, isn't it? But as times have evolved. You know, you used to have the boss sitting at the front of a room of people,40,50,60,100 people at times, with a green eye shade over his head. You know the characterization, caricature. Teachers, the same thing. You know, why do we have a classroom structure the way we do?

Maybe this pandemic will force us to rethink some of that stuff, like rethinking learning is happening. The Khan Academy radically transformed. learning for young people all the way through high school. Coursera is doing things. Today, all of the major universities, Harvard, MIT, Georgia Tech, Yale, et cetera, Stanford, they all have all of their classes online, but you don't earn college credits. That's how they justify the fees they charge, which let's not get into. But when I was in school, I paid roughly $500 a quarter. And I still had to work. five nights a week and two days on the weekend. I don't know how people make out today. I don't know how you make it made out, you know, student loans and all it's, it's tough duty at work. Your companies are prepared to pay for you to take classes, to pay for you to learn, take advantage of it. Absolutely. I call walk around assets. It's what's between your ears and that's transferable.

That goes with you wherever the heck you go. So how'd we do Caroline?

Thank you for listening to our podcast. We appreciate your support. Should you have any thoughts or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us at www. learningwithoutscars. com. The time is now. Mahalo.