Heroes Within with Aaron Hansen
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everybody. You are listening to the Authority Podcast on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks, as always, for being with us. I'm excited to bring you today's conversation with Aaron Hansen. Aaron is a professional learning communities response to intervention and student empowerment expert, and he's highly sought after as an international speaker, strategic consultant, coach, and author.
He's been featured on CNN, ABC, Fox News, and the BBC as an innovator and thought leader in U. S. education as a principal of a turnaround middle school. Aaron has lived the work that we'll talk about to award winning levels. He is the author of a new book called Heroes Within: A Framework for Empowering Students to Own Their Learning Journeys.
Aaron, welcome [00:01:00] to the show.
Aaron Hansen: Yeah, thanks Ross. Yeah, thank you very much.
Ross Romano: Let's start with this. Question I like to use this from time to time and I think it's certainly appropriate with this book. What is the big idea of this book?
Aaron Hansen: Yeah, so I mean the big idea, the problem I guess we're, I was trying to solve here was, you know, so many of our kids are really, you know, going to school and just doing school at best. They're, they have what I would call a compliance driven mindset. where, you know, they, it's, the attitude is that it's like this 12 year act of compliance that I must endure before I get out into the real world.
And then a lot of our kids, in addition to that kind of group of kids, there's another group of kids or category of kids that really, they just don't believe that their efforts that they're making right now in school are having impact either on their long term learning or just in on their long term life or experience and [00:02:00] and so they they just see no value in it or they they have really a pretty traditional fixed mindset and so those are the two large categories that I was that have been really, like, painful to watch over the years as a, as a teacher, as a principal, and then as a consultant, too, and, and helping a lot of schools.
And so that's that's what the purpose of the book is, is to really help teachers. empower kids to move out of both of those mindsets and start to feel purpose in their learning and to feel empowered like they have a voice in that they're, they're, and not just in their learning, but really to become the hero in their, in their story, in their life story.
So yeah, that's, that's what it's about.
Ross Romano: So of course on this show we talk about a lot of books. So I'd love to hear perspective on the, you know, when you've written this book. Thought about writing this book, right? Putting these ideas, addressing these, these [00:03:00] problems in the book format and kind of the story behind that and how this book is different, how the way you wrote it and approached it makes it a little different than, you know, a a standard format , or I guess that we, that we typically expect,
Aaron Hansen: Yeah. I mean, first from the get go, like the, the artwork on the cover just kind of is, is quite a bit different just from the get go. But the, and that was intentional as it worked with the, the artists and the designers for the cover was to try to, to convey like, Hey, this isn't a normal educational book.
You know, this is, this is something different. And, and the reason that I guess the way that it's different in my mind is This book is highly personal to me and, and to the, a lot of kids that I've worked with because and, and adults that I've worked with as well. It was really born out of the pain of seeing a couple of kids in particular who just like brought these pain [00:04:00] points that I just talked about to the forefront and and kids who literally had given up hope on their future you know, 13, 14 years old, and just.
didn't believe that they, they had any, anything to look forward to in their lives. And, and so, so anyway, that, and then, and then it, it branched from there to understand, like, so many of our kids, again, are, they're just doing school, and they maybe don't have, like, that lack of hope, but they're really just struggling to find purpose.
And so, So there's a lot of stories in this book to illustrate educational principles and psychological principles about how we help kids on a frame, on a systematic way, through a framework, climb out of those mindsets and, and find, like I said, find purpose and, and some passion, even in ownership of their learning.
Ross Romano: Yeah. And, and you know, I certainly, I think the individual student stories. [00:05:00] are illustrative of one, you know, connecting the reader to the learners in their schools and classrooms and really thinking about solutions on a tangible level, right? And, and on the emotional level and the, you know, the mission and, and moral levels of the reasons why the majority of educators got into the profession.
And and and there's this line in one of the quotes for the book Testimonials from Anthony Muhammad, who said, as others in the educational arena throw around terms like efficacy, student centered, and lifelong learning, Aaron Hansen provides readers with a practical framework to actually bring those ideas to reality.
And, you know, I think that's addressed not only with the practicality of and, you know, viability of the The techniques and solutions, [00:06:00] but also the, the, the stories provide kind of the positive motivation to do it. Right. And it's like, you know, knowing that, that personal stories are more impactful and motivating than big numbers.
So if we say 5 million, you know, kids have food insecurity or 20 million kids are. You know, not proficient in reading, right? That seems overwhelming, but if I tell you about one kid and what they were challenged by, even no matter how dramatic those struggles are, but also some stories about how we addressed it.
It doesn't mean we can overgeneralize that exact same thing. It's going to work for everybody, but it makes it personal and doable. But how did you, you know, go about that connection, [00:07:00] right? Of, of, it's like about personal appeal combined with practical you know, solution.
Aaron Hansen: Yeah. So it's interesting. And I guess part of that goes back to my own story when I was A principal of a turnaround middle school and, and you know, we, we had a lot of challenges and we were able to make some, some changes pretty rapidly. And then we started getting asked to, you know, give presentations or talks about what we had done and how people could replicate some of those same things.
And. And and it was interesting because as I told stories, I, I knew and I understood the power of stories. Stories is how we make meaning of the world as humans, right? It's how we, it's really how we articulate our values is through the stories that we tell. And, and also not just make meaning of the world, but how we make meaning of ourselves in the world.
And and so I understood that. So I told stories to try to help connect people, their, connect their practice to their heart, right? And that's where. a lot of our in our profession, that's where we're leading from generally is [00:08:00] from our heart in the first place. That's why we got into the profession, like you mentioned.
And so I understood the power of those stories. But as I told stories and people would come up to me and they would, they were inspired and they would like, you know, they'd give me hugs. They'd be, they would tell me their stories about their kids and, and things that they had experienced. And and, and successes and all of that.
And, but I realized what was happening over those years of giving talks and giving presentations and some, you know, pretty large audiences. People were inspired, but they really didn't know what to do next. Right. They said, okay, yeah. I get it. Like, this is possible. We can really change these mindsets for kids.
Like, we can really put them on a path for success and help them climb out of some of these difficulties that they experience, like generational poverty and, and other things. And, and and it's, and it's doable, but what do I do next? And so the, the book is designed to kind of marry those two thoughts of like, yeah, I need to connect people's hearts to this work.[00:09:00]
through those stories, they need to see that it really is possible. And then we needed to give them a really clear framework. And so that's the what, what I provided in the book was what I call the hero maker framework. And so there's six steps and they're grounded in educational research and psychological principles as well.
And they're very doable. The intention was to keep this book very readable. I think it's like, I don't know, it's a pretty skinny book really. And and just to take people through the steps that, that the minimal steps needed to, to become what I call a hero maker. And to do it on a systematic level, like with all of their kids in every single one of their classes.
And I don't know, so far it's been pretty amazing, like the reviews, the reception it's, yeah, it was the number one seller at the first PLC conference we had this summer, and so, yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Ross Romano: So, you know, and we mentioned, all right, the books, Heroes Within, you just referenced hero makers. [00:10:00] So let's define that, you know, what's a hero and the definition of, of how you're using in this book. And then what is a hero maker?
Aaron Hansen: Yeah. So, I mean, simply put, a hero is, all a hero is, is somebody who gets back up. You know, like if you, you know, go to, you go to the Avengers, right? My favorite Avenger is Captain America. Why? Because he had his super power before he had his super strength. And his, so he, even when he was small and, and, and wimpy, he was still strong in that he would stand back up, right?
He kept, he kept standing back up. And that, and that is really kind of like on the, you know, Using Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, which is part of where the framework came from.
Ross Romano: yeah,
Aaron Hansen: You know, we're all on this, like, hero's adventure in our lives, and, you know, who else would be the hero of your story, right?
Like, you, like, you're the hero, you're the main character, somebody's gonna make a movie about your life, you're the main character in the story. And so, a lot of our kids don't see that, though. They feel like they're, you know, [00:11:00] they're either just passively, like I said, passively existing and going through and school is done to them, not with them necessarily for them.
And and so they almost feel victimized by the system. And they talk, a lot of our kids will talk about school, like minimum security prisoners, talk about prison, like literally they'll, they'll talk about little privileges that are up that are coming up. They talk about like their social groups and they talk about the big, the big question is, when do I get out?
Right? When do I get out? And it doesn't have to be that way. And so, so anyway yeah, going back to just really, like, what a hero is, is just somebody who's, taking charge, I guess, of, of, and taking responsibility for, for their journey. And, and they're willing to get back up when the inevitable life's challenges come and including school.
And then a hero maker really is is someone who is, is [00:12:00] intentional about helping these would be heroes understand what their true potential actually is. And not by talking about it, but by designing experiences that help that child experience their way into a new level of confidence about themselves as a learner.
Ross Romano: yeah, yeah. And you know, it's, it strikes me that there's so, so much of what you cover in the book and so much of what you are, you know, helping educators to, to learn how to foster in their students that has so many similarities to things that I work with people on in performance coaching, right?
Adults, professionals, same things of, of owner, You know, owner versus victim and having ownership over creating what you want to create versus having it done to you and learning how to develop that mindset. One of the big things is, [00:13:00] you know, the non linearity of progress, right? And that's part of the hero's journey.
Every story about a hero, there is that, there is that inevitable setback and it will come. And, and that's important for, of course. students to learn about and to have a growth mindset around and to have, you know, perseverance and adaptability and all that. But also for the educators to anticipate that, to know that it's coming.
With every student, right, whether they're, no matter where they fall in class, or that if we are in fact like pushing them to achieve at the height of their potential, then Everybody is going to come up against something that they struggle with, or that they were doing great with for a while, but now, you know, something went wrong, or they [00:14:00] are, they had really changed some of their beliefs and started to have you know, do away with some limiting beliefs, but they creep back in, right?
That's going to happen. And, you know, it struck me about the, the importance for the educators of saying, like, you also have to, to accept and anticipate and, and be ready for this and not get discouraged when you think, Oh, we were doing so great here. And now it all, you know, it all fell apart. That's part of the journey.
And it should be part of the journey.
Aaron Hansen: yeah, yeah, for sure. I have a line that I share with, with groups a lot, and that is that we can't steal the struggle from kids, right? Like if we, if we steal the struggle, we steal the accomplishment too. And so what we're trying to do is to put kids into a position where they're. They're really in that, that zone of proximal development as Lev Vygotsky talked about, you know, so many years ago and that [00:15:00] idea that, you know, I'm in that uncomfortable position between the place of knowing something and not knowing something and it's within that place of struggle and that, that dissonance, that cognitive dissonance that exists there and that that discomfort, that's where you stretch.
That's where you grow. And so the trick and part of what it takes to really be. a hero maker or what I call a reference as a wizard sometimes because that's on that hero's journey. You have those, those sage like people who show up in our lives, who help us believe and breathe, breathe life into our potential just a little bit by, by believing in us.
And sometimes when we don't even believe in ourselves, but but it's during that struggle, right? That, that kids grow. And and we have to understand we have to be competent enough. to understand what like what that zone of proximal development is and allow kids to, to, to fail sometimes, but to fail forward, right?
To continue to, to, to struggle through [00:16:00] it. And it's through those experiences that we actually develop a sense of self efficacy. You know, the, the, the mantra, right? If we, if we had one would, or the idea would be when kids leave our system that they would be able to say, Listen, like I know I can do difficult things from a place of quiet confidence, right?
A place of like humble confidence to be able to say, look, I know I can do difficult things. And the reason I know that is because I've done them in the past. So I'm prepared to face difficult things as they come in my life, either educationally in my career, just general life. I know I can face those things.
And I know I can get through them because I've done that already. I've had experiences. And that's. That's a, that's someone, again, who has a high level of self efficacy, and I think that's our fundamental purpose, really, is, as educators. You know, nobody, I don't know, like I've never in my entire career gotten up in the morning for 5 percent better on state tests.
I just don't care. [00:17:00] I really don't granted when we did the right work and when we do the right work, the test scores take care of themselves. In fact, they, they do more than that. They, you know, kids do really well. But anyway. So yeah, and you're right, the teachers, sometimes teachers are going to struggle with the process as well.
Like, we're all on our own, our own journey, and we have to persevere through some of those inevitable setbacks as well,
Ross Romano: How do stories, and it's so much about stories, like relate to self beliefs. I mean, what even, you know, what, what, how would you even help people understand what self beliefs really are and, and how changeable they are, right? And if we go about it with the right strategy.
Aaron Hansen: So I think Byron Katie, she's an author, she's one of the most influential folks for me. If you want to read a book, at least that changed my life, I don't know, I think it changed a lot of people's lives, a book called Loving What Is. And I don't know if you're familiar with it, but yeah, [00:18:00] so it's, it's just a, a beautiful book and part of, I think she really describes this best, and it's this idea, really this idea that, you know, if you, if you think a thought and you believe that thought, and over time, that, that belief, you'll, you'll end up acting it out.
And if you act it out long enough, it sort of becomes habituated. It's like your default program, and if you run that default program, every time you end up in a similar situation, if you run that default program enough times, then that, we start to attribute those stories that we're telling in our mind about these, about these experiences.
We start to attribute that to our very identity. So we start to, and start to attach to those stories as our identity. So we'll say, Oh, well, you know, kids, you'll hear things like, Oh, well, I'm no good at math. You know, I'm no good at reading, or I'm no good at this, or school is not for me, or people like me, or people like my family, you know, I'm never getting out of this town, or whatever, whatever that [00:19:00] story is, there's, there's, it becomes, like I said, it's, it ends up becoming a default programming.
that runs every time a similar type of challenger or scenario comes up and our minds are habitual that way and sort of break those neural pathways to give a new neural pathway. We have, you can't pep talk a kid out of that. You have to help them behave their way out of something that they behave their way into.
And there's, here's how this goes down. Let me explain real quick if that's okay. Like, you think about a fixed mindset, a lot of times you know, people think, well, the reason it, a fixed mindset is just faulty thinking, right? Like, it's an error in the thinking. And that's actually not true. Like, the kids have come to that, those thoughts about themselves based on some really clear evidence of experience.
And so, yeah, give you an example and, and that's how as human beings we're different than other animals. We all like, we have experiences, we experience things, but then as, as humans, we try to make [00:20:00] meaning of those experiences. And so we tell a story about it. So here's a, here's the example. As early as like first grade, maybe even kindergarten, we start to pull small groups, right?
Well, okay, I thought small groups were good. Yeah, they are if they're executed well, right? And the deficit is diagnosed properly in the first place. It's a good intervention and it's executed well. Then, then it's great. Yeah, that, that helps if, if it works. But if it doesn't work, And often it doesn't.
What happens is those same kids or that same kid continues to get pulled over and over and over again. And so what they start to say to themselves on a subconscious level, it's not conscious at, you know, six years old, but on a subconscious level, they start to say to themselves, well, there are those who are learners over there.
And then there's me because I get, I get pulled every single time. There are those who are learners over there and then there's me and people like me. Right. And so over time, you know, literally for years. We have kids who are experiencing this, and so they haven't arrived at a [00:21:00] place of having a fixed mindset because of faulty thinking.
They've experienced these things, and then they've attributed a story to those, those experiences, and, and then they believe the story, and now it's the default program. So every time I bump into another challenge, I'm like, yeah, I'm not even going to try. It's less psychologically risky to not try or to not put myself out on the edge of my real potential and really, really try for something.
Then you know, it's, it's just safer to hang back. And so, yeah, that's where like a lot of that comes from. And so we have to, like I said, we have to be able to help kids behave their way out of it. And that's what the three step framework does.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Let's talk about some of the specific elements of this. And, and one of them is the, the importance of clarifying the learning goal and, and how that enables students to, I think, you know, be able to understand what their journey is, right? And [00:22:00] when you're understanding what what is the destination, what's the endpoint we're working toward, and now I can be thinking you know, in context about how to navigate that and what are the different pathways to getting there, what ways, you know, et cetera, and having that dialogue and clarity.
But yeah, can you talk about that a bit? What, what that process might look like and, and why that's, you know, why we shouldn't overlook it.
Aaron Hansen: Right. Yeah. So that's again. And when I wrote, when I wrote the book, a lot of the research is like, I went back to some of the foundational thinkers, both in psychology and some of the educate foundational educational thinkers, great thinkers of our time to really try to understand on a fundamental level, like, how can we boil this down into some really clear steps that would help empower students to take ownership of that, of that learning journey?
And one of the very first things [00:23:00] that we have to help kids do is actually see what it is they're aiming at. They have to know what they're trying to actually do, what their, what their purpose is for that unit, that class, whatever it might be. And, and it's so interesting, like you, and if you want to test this, you can go test this, like walk into a classroom.
Kids, kids don't generally know what they're supposed to be learning there. I walked, I was in an affluent high school. It's not my norm, necessarily, but I was in a nice, nice neighborhood, like, you know, very affluent area. And this is a school that, you know, claims like high, You know, high achievement, high experiences, but it's interesting because we walked in, there were 30 kids in the classroom.
We went around, we watched, we asked every single or excuse me, we asked 12 kids, exactly 12 kids. I counted you know, what are you supposed to be, or what are you supposed to be learning today? And not a single kid could tell us. However, if you had used one of the traditional engagement, [00:24:00] like check sheets or like evaluation tools.
You would have said all 30 kids were engaged in the lesson. And the reality is they weren't engaged. They were compliant. They were doing what they were told to do, but not a single one of them was intentionally trying to learn something. Right. And so the first step in taking ownership of your journey is you have to know where you're going.
Like, you know, think about the analogy of a nap, a map. A map is absolutely useless unless you know where you're going. And so if you know where you're going now, as a journeyer, you can take different pathways, you can take different routes to get there, but you know where you're going, right? So that's, that's the very first step.
And kids, and it's, it's not sufficient to just like post the objective on the board. That's like, Not even close. We're talking about really helping kids get clear about what proficiency looks like in the most essential skills. And, and generally the best way to do that is through the use of models, right?
If you [00:25:00] go into a good welding class, they have models of this particular weld or that particular weld. If you go into a good music class, They, before they start playing a section of music, they listen to a model of it. If you go into a good English class, and they're talking about writing a persuasive essay, they're showing kids what, what those pieces of rhetoric actually look like, or persuasion looks like.
Right,
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting. I was just, as you were describing it, thinking about Yeah, different subject areas and my own student experience and I don't remember having clarity about this piece, right? It is, you know, you progress through the curriculum in, in order and then eventually you made it to the end, whatever that was, but you know, I don't remember students certainly having that end in mind piece of, okay, here's what we're going toward.
You know, except potentially in, like you [00:26:00] said you know, kind of a, a subject area where it was more easily modeled, um, an art class or something like that, right? This is what we're trying to learn how to do, but so, you know, using that to apply to all kinds of things and kind of really saying like, look, by the end of this, here's what you're going to understand, here's what you're going to know and know how to do, etc.
And of course, the forward looking piece of that, and here's why. Here's why that's valuable. Here's what that's going to mean to you in the future. So as students are You know, getting started on this journey. You know, the second step you write about leveraging relationships of trust to help students overcome fear.
What, what are the fears that are predominant?
Aaron Hansen: Yeah, so, you know, and we talked a little bit about this with just the, [00:27:00] the fear of, of, I don't know, I guess probably the best way to say this is like, I think we all to some degree, we fear the unknown, right? We don't, we, we fear, even, even good things can be scary, like you have a new job opportunity, it's still super scary sometimes, right?
Or, or whatever it might be, but part of what I think what we fear is, is really our own potential. And and change in general, we really fear. And so the, the ego, right? And I mean this from a technical standpoint, the, the ego, part of its job is to protect your current identity of yourself. In fact, it's deeper than that.
It's to protect your current perception of your current identity of yourself, right? And so even a positive change, change. can be a threat to the ego. The ego doesn't like change. The ego wants it to stay the same. And, and we often see when kids are put into [00:28:00] certain circumstances or certain situations, we see that you know, the, the acute stress response is a fight, flight, freeze.
And then the last one that most people don't really know about, the fourth F, right, is fawning. What fawning is, is where. I do just enough to get by, you know, I just, I do just enough to keep my assailant, if you will, from like getting after me or get, you know, and that's where a lot of our kids are at is they're, they're in this position again, where they're just compliantly doing school, doing it just well enough to keep their parents off their back, their coaches or their teachers off their back, if they happen to be lucky enough to have such people in their lives, but they're never really putting themselves out on the edge of their potential and really trying to really stretch themselves.
And, and the reason why is because it's scary to do that. It's really scary. Like I know adults, and you probably do too, who have never put themselves out on the edge of their potential. Like they've just played small their entire lives because they've been fearful of what the consequences of stepping out a little bit too [00:29:00] far might be.
And so those relationships, again, going back to Campbell's you know, framework, The Hero's Journey, we all, we all need people who who believe in us. You know, and, and the purpose of a relationship in a teacher, teacher student type relationship, different than other relationships, right? Like there's, most relationships are, are reciprocal.
The purpose of the relationship is reciprocal. You think about like a spousal relationship or like a business relationship. But in a teacher student relationship or a mentor mentee relationship, it's different. It's really al altruistic because arguably the mentor or the teacher doesn't get anything out of it.
The sole purpose of the relationship is the benefit of the mentee or the, or the student. And and so when. When someone with real competence, like wizard like competence, right, and what's, what is a wizard? A wizard is someone who's so wise that it's almost like they can predict the future. And can't you predict the future [00:30:00] of some of our students based on the path that they're currently on, right?
And that, that's not pessimistic, it's just real. And so, like, so when you, as a wizard, when you, someone who's powerful, someone whose words matter. In fact, they're so consistent with their words. When they say something's going to happen, it happens, including consequences, right? When, when they tell you after you've gained that trust in their competence.
and that consistency when they tell you, listen, I know you can take this step in your zone approximate value. You may not be able to climb the entire mountain, but I know you can take this step right now. Will you trust me? Will you take this step? And when someone says that to you, Then you'll believe it, and you'll take, you'll take a step toward, in the darkness towards your potential, commensurate with the level of trust that you have with that, in that relationship.
And so, so interestingly you know, once they've taken that step, then the next question is, well, can you take another one? [00:31:00] Can you take another one? Right? And it's, the relationship really is key. to helping kids break out of these mindsets that I keep talking about.
Ross Romano: Yeah. And as you're, you're referencing the wizard and that guidance, it's, yeah, it is making me think about, you know, another, another conversation that I have with people in a coaching setting about your default future, right? Okay. Here's all the things that are, your life is comprised of right now. Here's what your work situation is.
Here's your family, your other relationships, your other, you know, and when you look at that and how does it compare to what you would like it to be? Well, like, okay, so if you keep doing what you're doing now, it's heading in this direction and that's That's the default future. [00:32:00] If you want to create this other future, these are the things to change, right?
But that could be, you know, the same framework of that piece of, okay, there's predicting the future and saying like, this is what would happen if, if nothing changes. If you do things exactly the way you're doing them, or, you know, these are the areas of strength, these are the things you're not as strong in, so if you don't change any of that, you continue to have the same strengths and weaknesses, or whatever, these are the opportunities that will be available to you, these are the ones that probably won't be, right?
You want to go to this type of university, or you want to go into this type of career field, or whatever, whatever. Well, based on right now, you know, that might not work out, but here's what we can do to make that right. It's saying you have, you certainly have the ability to do it. And if you have that clarity of [00:33:00] what that means and the guidance and, you know, I think the relational trust also would have to you know, prioritize like that trust in the process over outcomes that, that so many years society are only focused on what the outcomes were.
And if the outcome is good, then the process must've been noble, right? We will hear about an actor who was, You know, barely getting booked at any jobs and they were working other kind of gig gigs and things for, for 15 years. And then they finally got their big break and say, Oh, like how great that they stuck with it.
And we don't hear about the one who didn't get the big break or, you know, the person who quit their job, started their own business and it was really successful. They made a lot of money. Oh, wow. And the person who did the same thing and it didn't really work out and they went back to, you know, their day job, but, but. The outcomes aren't, [00:34:00] you know, aren't defining of whether it was a good process, whether it was worth the effort. And that fear of, well, the more challenging the thing is that I want to do, the higher likelihood that it doesn't totally work out. And If it's not going to work out, does that mean failure?
Does that mean people are going to view me as a failure? Does that mean, you know, whatever, right? Or am I surrounded by and supported by people who value me for what I am? What to do and what I'm trying to do and what my goals are and you know, so much of the fear is around that piece. Right? If I never, if I never try to do anything that I might fail at, then I'll never, you know, be defined as a failure by that type of definition.
Aaron Hansen: Yeah. So, and Carl Jung [00:35:00] talks about this like, and Campbell does too, but the, in all the mythological stories, that's what Campbell did. Right. And that's why he was so, so famous and influential as he, he studied all of the like mythological stories that have taken place over human history and across cultures.
And he found these patterns of the, of the hero's journey. And one of the mythologically, a lot of times the, those fears are represented by a dragon. Right? The dragon is that thing that you fear the most and, and rightfully so when you think about what a dragon really is, it's like a snake flies, breathes fire, has like impenetrable skin and is highly intelligent.
Like, is there a more scary thing in the planet? Right? And so, Anyway, this idea, and if you watch, if you start to really pay attention as I did after I dove deep into Campbell and Carl Jung and others you know, all of the great movies, all the great stories, all the great books, they all follow these same kinds of patterns and these You know, Harry Potter faces the, the, the dragon or the snake or whatever it is in the basement.[00:36:00]
You know, anyway, it goes on Merlin and, and King Arthur. It doesn't, it doesn't matter what the story is. The Avengers, again, referencing them again. There's, there's literally dragons that come out of the sky in New York City. Like, once you see it, you can't unsee it, right? Like, it's now you start to really realize how much it shows up, but, and, and in different forms, different ways, different genres.
But what Carl Jung talked about and explained was, that on the other side of the thing that you fear the most is something of great value that would benefit you or your family or even in your entire community. And so, you know, often it's like a princess or the gold or what or knowledge, but the real, the real value in facing that fear and facing the thing that you fear the most is the transformation of self that takes place and the confidence that comes from knowing I can, I'm battle tested.
I've faced fears before, and so when fears come up again, they're not less [00:37:00] scary. When new dragons present themselves, it's not that those dragons are any less scary than previous dragons. They're still scary, but I know I can face them. And that's different. That's what, that's what courage is, right? It's not an absence of fear.
It's a willingness to, to be afraid, but face it anyway. And that's, that's what courage is. That's what we're trying to instill in our kids. That's what we're saying is because like taking this to like really practical terms, economists are predicting that kids will have, you know, depending on which economists you ask, not they'll change, not just jobs, but careers three to seven times, right?
Entire career fields. So what are the skills that kids need the most in an era where they can learn anything, anywhere, anytime, and they have artificial intelligence in their pockets that will answer any question they happen to ask. Yeah. Like, what are the skills that kids really, really need to be successful in what Tony Wagner calls an innovation economy?
And the skills are to be a learner.
Ross Romano: Yeah.
Aaron Hansen: To be, and when I say learner, I [00:38:00] use the term learner and hero synonymously. They're the same thing. And self efficacy fits right in that same thing. It's like, am I willing to persevere through challenges? to accomplish what I need to. Like, am I, am I willing to take this step and then this step?
And am I monitoring my progress as I go? And am I reflecting upon what I'm learning and, and recognizing, okay, not, not only what does this mean about my future learning, but what does this mean about me?
Ross Romano: Yeah.
Aaron Hansen: And so there's, yeah, there's so much opportunity, Russ. Like I get, you can probably tell, like, I just get so excited because Right now in education, there is so, so much opportunity to just have tremendous impact on kids lives, and I just think as, as teachers and as systems, we've got to set our sights a little bit higher, that can't just be about that state test as our, our single metric, metric of success, but instead Really getting serious about intentionally developing learners as learners [00:39:00] and developing that, that sense of self efficacy in them, as well as developing the learning itself.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I completely agree. And I've, yeah, I made a similar thought a lot recently around like, right. The future of work, the future of the economy looks like nobody's going to do just one thing. People are going to do multiple things at the same time and change careers with more fluidity.
You know, the, the barriers or the boundaries that separate, you know, having a quote unquote full time job versus having being self employed or being an entrepreneurship or a creator, right, are going to be blurred and removed and, and there, there's all these different types of opportunities and the good news for schools is that you, you don't have to get better at predicting what it's going to look like.
You just have to understand that you can't predict and [00:40:00] that, you know, what you need to do is prepare students to just continue to keep learning and having the skills to be learners. Like you said, you know, it comes up a lot in discussions around AI and what that's going to mean. You know, what it certainly is going to mean is that Things are going to change a lot, right, that these tools exist, that they're out there, that they're not going away, and that we can't totally predict what types of career fields are going to be replaced, are going to be significantly altered, are going to become more important.
But we do know that with the ability to keep learning and learning how to create something new, that that will always be valuable. What have you learned, you know, through the creation of this framework and the steps of this framework about feedback and how you, you know, how educators can, can deliver feedback to students, how that helps them to, you know, better have, you know, the better cognitive process,
Aaron Hansen: yeah, no, that's a great question. The it's almost [00:41:00] like you've read the book, you know, that's fantastic. So, yeah, it's, it's. It's interesting because I'll talk with teachers a lot. And right now, a lot of teachers are frustrated and tired. Honestly, a lot of folks who are just really feel like they're working their tails off and they feel like they're pulling teeth to get kids to learn.
And they feel like they care way more about their learning than their students do or their parents or their students do. And, and so there's some frustration there. And and part of the reason why is because we're doing all of the work. Honestly, like as adults, we're we're owning the learning to a high degree and that's great.
That's fantastic. We should. But we need to leverage a stakeholder group that has largely been held not responsible for the learning. And that's the students, right? We've got to start helping them take ownership. And And one of the, one of the best ways to do that is through feedback. Typically in a, in a traditional classroom, a good teacher is going to constantly be giving feedback.
It's just natural. They're [00:42:00] constantly up looking over kids shoulders and giving them feedback. I like what you're doing here. You might consider X, Y, Z here. But in that scenario, what's happening is they're, who's doing the cognition? Right? Like, I remember when I taught writing, I taught as an English teacher, I would look over kids shoulders and say exactly that.
I like what you're doing here. You might consider X, Y, Z here. And they would look up at me and they would say, uh huh, huh, okay, uh huh, uh huh, huh. And then nothing really changed, right? And so, like, I was working my tail off, but they were just passive and compliant at best. And, and that's what they've been conditioned to do.
You know, we've conditioned that as a system, we've conditioned them to be compliant in that process. And so, so that's what I would call directed feedback, where I say, you know, change this. I like this, but do this to make it better. That's directed feedback, but I'm the one that's performing the cognition there.
So the, what the switch, the fundamental shift is to move to facilitated feedback. And what I mean by that [00:43:00] is. If we've gotten really clear about what we're aiming at, about what kids are supposed to be learning, right, if they know what it is they're, they're trying to become proficient at, and they can see what proficiency looks like, now the conversation goes like this.
Hey, I love what you're doing here, but when you look at the model that we went over in class, do you remember that? Yeah, get your model out, okay? When you look at the model, and you look at your work, how is it different? What, where do you need to make improvements? Well, you know, I think my, my claim is a good claim.
Yeah, I would agree. Your claim is good. That's why, you know, I said, I like what you're doing here. What about your evidence? Oh, it's good. Are you sure? Take a look at the evidence. See where we highlighted evidence in the model? Yeah, I see that. Okay. Where's your evidence? Oh, my evidence isn't there yet. Yeah, I would agree.
Your evidence isn't there yet. So write that down on your progress tracker. Okay. And now my question to you is, you're not there yet. What are you going to do about that? And generally, kids, [00:44:00] when you ask that question, they're like, well, I don't, I don't know, right? They shrug their shoulders and I don't know.
And you press, you say, well, no, listen, like this is your journey, man. Like you, you're the one that's got to learn this. So like, I've already learned this. So what, what are you going to do about this? Well, I don't know. You're the teacher. Aren't you supposed to teach me? No, no, no, no. You mistake my role here, right?
Like again, I know you, my job is to facilitate and to help you. So at that point when they really, they say, I don't know, they really mean it, they don't know, and you're going to be able to offer them choices at that point. And part of the reason why we're going to offer choice is because when you choose something, you own it.
It's like when your kids are little and you know, you're teaching them to eat a vegetable at night, whether they, they've got to eat a vegetable, but you want peas or carrots, you know, and they, so here's, here's what you can do. You can look at the model. You can see if you can figure it out. You can work with your buddy and see together your, you know, your buddy learner and see together if you can get some feedback from each other and figure it out.
But it just so happens, it just so happens, I'm going to be [00:45:00] running a small group in the back of the room around this very target for the last 10 minutes of class, if you'd like. You're welcome to join me. So now who owns the learning, right? Like we co own it together. And if they don't choose to come back, we help them make a better choice because that's part of teaching responsibility.
But but yeah, so they've got to, they've got to see what they're aiming at and then they have to be able to self determine where they're, where they're performing and where they're hitting in relation to that target. And the way that we help them see that clearly is by facilitating the feedback or coaching the feedback instead of directing it.
And when you facilitate it, then they can own it and they can own a choice to make to improve the learning. And if they're tracking, then that leads into the opportunity to, to do some really serious reflection later that informs them about who they are. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Aaron, let's kind of tie things together with with the, you know, the sixth step on this journey creating, helping students [00:46:00] create a compelling vision. And one When we're talking about that, right, compelling to whom and what does this look like, right? This is something that most adults could stand to get a lot better at as well.
But yeah, like, like why and why is this step six,
Aaron Hansen: Yeah, no, that's a good question. And it's, it's interesting because like you, you're mentioning, I think you're alluding to, and I think you're right. Like there's these steps are so interwoven, it's difficult to like break them out into linear steps necessarily. But because I don't think step six has to come sixth, like it could come earlier.
But but really what it is, is helping kids, like you said, have a compelling vision for their future. And that, a lot of like, like School to Careers programs or even SES, you know, type programs or SEO, like Social Emotional Learning type programs will, like, prompt kids to think about, like, a future career and things like that.
And, and while that's good, I, I just don't know, again, we know that kids are going to [00:47:00] change careers so many times anyway, like, like, and who knows what you want to be when you're 12 years old or, or nine years old or whatever, like, you might know, but it's going to probably change a million times. So what.
What I like to do instead is have kids. Really, excuse me start to get a vision of what they want their life to be like in the future, not necessarily just, you know, their job, we can talk about that, but like, what do you want your future relationships to look like? What do you, what do you, what kind of community do you want to live in?
What impact do you want to have or interaction do you want to have with the community? What's your relationship to nature? What are some spiritual practices that you're, that you want to implement or have in your life? Or what are, you know, the, the list is endless. And in the book, we have a whole list of different prompts that teachers can choose from, you know, based on age appropriateness and also you know, just knowing their own kids.
But, and then, then if we want to talk about like a job, you know, [00:48:00] where, you know, where do you want to live? And what, what are your, what are your hobbies going to be? Do you want to have pets? And when kids, it's interesting because I've done this with like, honestly, some hardcore kids, right? Kids that are, are really struggling.
Kids that struggle with behavior issues, like, like significant. And the most, even the most hardcore kids, when you really sit down and ask them, there are some similarities that they have. They want a safe place to live. In the future, that they can call their own, they want to have good relationships in their future, and they want to have some freedom to be able to go on an occasional vacation, and to have like something meaningful, right?
To have meaning in their lives. And when you, when you can articulate that, or help kids articulate that, And then we do an activity called back, back mapping your journey, right, where they basically break down. Okay, well, what, in order to achieve this, what would I have to do the [00:49:00] step right prior to that?
And then what would I have to do the step right prior to that? And what would I have to do? tomorrow, right? Like it breaks it down a number of times to where it's like, okay, what do I need to work on right now in order to get this? And it's been amazing to me, like absolutely amazing to watch again, some of these hardcore kids when they finally make the connection, even though we said it to them a million times, hey, what you do today matters. Because what you do today is going to build on to what happens tomorrow and all the way up to what your vision is. And by the way, and I've literally had this conversation, it gives me chills every time I think about some of these conversations. When kids write this out on this sheet of paper and they have these bulleted lists of what they want their life to be like, I'll take it and turn it in front of me and just really look at it.
And then, and really consider it for a while and then turn it back to them and say, Do you realize this could be yours? Like, do you realize that? Do you really realize that? And when they, they look at it, it's like, it's, it's [00:50:00] like a light just goes off. They're like, You know, they haven't really ever truly considered it, and when, and when they do, when they start to get serious about that, and now they're having, they have something on a, like a grand scale that they're aiming at, and they're able to see, well, my ability to perform this academic skill leads me to this next step, and my next, and then the next step, and the next step, and the next step, and so now they have something that this generation is really lacking, and that, that is purpose, right?
The purpose for their, their, their work in school. Anyway, so yeah, I, that, that experience, it's fun because I can do that with kids I don't even know. You can sit down with kids in a, in a conference room or a classroom and just lead a whole classroom, or you can sit down with a couple. You know, as I've worked with schools, they say, hey, We have a couple of kids we're really like nervous about, like they're on a bad path.
Like, would you, would you, would you want to meet with them? And I'm like, yeah, let's meet, let's sit down with [00:51:00] them. And sure enough, we'll do this activity. And it's, it is amazing.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's, that is a great place to tie everything together here. Listeners, the book is called Heroes Within. It's available from Solution Tree or wherever you get your books. We'll link to that below. We'll link to Aaron's social media. Aaron, anything else listeners can check out?
Aaron Hansen: No, I think, I think that's probably it. Yeah, just, I guess what I would say, like just parting words, I guess, it's just that it is possible. And, and that sometimes I think teachers need a reminder, like your work matters. It matters intensely you have the opportunity to change the trajectory of kids lives, and you have the, you have the opportunity to do that on a profound level, not just for their lives, but for their future families and for generations to come.
And it's, it doesn't have to happen on accident or fortuitously with this kid or that kid that you happen to just create that special relationship with. There's an, there is, there is a [00:52:00] framework that you can follow with all of your kids and help them experience this. So yeah. Anyway, there's hope. A lot of it.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, everybody, please do check that out. Again, we'll put the links below to make it easy for you. If you want to get this book please also do subscribe to The Authority if you haven't already, for more author interviews coming your way every week, or visit thepodcast. network to learn about all of our shows.
Aaron, thanks so much for being here.
Aaron Hansen: Yeah. Thanks Ross. Appreciate it.
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