95. Solutions to Beating Burnout & Bridging the Gap with Apathetic Students through Finding Flow with Special Guest Angela Watson

Feb 28, 2024

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As a teacher, one of the biggest challenges that is experienced in 2024 is the increase in students who don’t put forth any effort and won’t think for themselves. There is an epidemic of apathetic students in our classrooms and this behavior is met with the push for teachers to do and be more. Leading us straight to burnout.

In this episode, we chat with Angela Watson about how the solution to this issue with students is not to put more onus on teachers, but rather support students with how to take initiative and how to persevere through challenges.

Angela Watson is a productivity and mindset specialist, author, and motivational speaker for educators. She is National Board Certified and has a masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction, along with 11 years of classroom teaching experience and over a decade of experience as an instructional coach. Angela believes in challenging the narrative of the overworked and unappreciated “super teacher.” Through her blog, podcast, books, printables, online courses, and professional development services, Angela has supported countless teachers in choosing a new identity for themselves which is healthy and focused on what matters most.

TOPICS COVERED:

Student disengagement and apathy in the classroom
The impact of student disengagement on teacher morale
The root causes of student disengagement and lack of motivation
Shifting the focus from putting more onus on teachers to supporting students in taking initiative and developing perseverance
The challenges teachers face in addressing student disengagement and finding time for skill-building lessons
The importance of teaching students productivity skills and providing them with tools to build their own toolbox of strategies
Ways for teachers to incorporate productivity skill-building lessons into their curriculum
Angela Watson's "Finding Flow Solutions" curriculum and its impact on addressing student disengagement
The impact of empathy and open conversations on addressing student disengagement

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

Finding Flow Solutions by Anglea Watson

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TRANSCRIPT:

0:00] If you have been dealing with students who don't want to think for themselves, don't put forth any effort, or they just seem like they don't know what to do or won't even ask questions to find out, I want you to know you are definitely not alone.
Student disengagement and apathy has been a growing problem for teachers for the last couple of years.
And the thing that most education leaders defer to is just to have teachers work harder to get those students engaged, make lessons more personalized, more engaging, put all all of those additional supports and interventions in place.
But that just kind of leaves students to continue doing the bare minimum.
It's leaving teachers to continue doing more and more.
And in this episode, I get to chat with Angela Watson, who is a big inspiration for me about how the solution is not to put more onus on teachers, but rather supporting students with how they take initiative and persevere through challenges. challenges.
Angela Watson is a productivity and mindset specialist, author, and motivational speaker for educators.

[1:00] She is national board certified and has a master's degree in curriculum and instruction, along with 11 years of classroom teaching experience and over a decade of experience as an instructional coach.
Angela believes in challenging the narrative of the overworked and unappreciated super teacher.
Through her blog, podcast, books, printables, online courses, and professional development services, Angela has supported countless teachers in choosing a new identity for themselves, which is healthy and focused on what matters most.
This episode is a part of a mini series that we're going to be doing to help support you through handling this type of behavior.
Because above all else, this is one of the biggest things that I hear from teachers about the challenges that they are experiencing in the classroom.
So make sure that you are following along with the podcast so you don't miss another episode.
And be sure to stick around to the end of this one because we've got a free resource specifically for handling these apathetic students, and you're definitely going to want to try it out. So let's get into it.

[2:11] I am so excited to have Angela Watson here on the Resilient Teacher Podcast.
Hey, Angela. Thanks for having me. Yes, it is such an honor.
And I really wanted to bring you onto the show because as I am sure that you have talked with teachers about, there is an epidemic of apathetic students, or at least that's what it seems like.
And that has directly impacted teacher morale.
It's leading towards teachers almost working harder than their students.
And I know that you've been working over the last couple of years kind of exploring this. Can you share a little bit about why maybe this is happening, why this is becoming more and more common?

[2:51] Yeah, you know, it's funny, Brittany, as I was just, I've been rewatching The Sopranos. It's a 25 year anniversary of when The Sopranos was filmed.
And it's so interesting in that series that we see the son, AJ, and other young people who are worried about the future. They're worried about the planet. it.
This was in New York and New Jersey. And so 9-11 was weighing really heavy on them, the threat of terrorist attacks and things like that.
And it's really been a reminder to me that this sort of existential teen angst is not specific to this generation only, just to Gen Z or just to Gen Alpha, that every generation has their struggles with motivation.
I'm part of Gen X, and we were said to be unmotivated when we were in school and apathetic.
We were the most apathetic generation that anyone had ever seen.
And so I think seeing that sort of perspective is really important because humans respond in very human ways to whatever is going on in their environment.
And I think that what we're seeing with Gen Z and with Gen Alpha is to be expected, basically, given some of the things that are weighing on them.
So I think they have real and legitimate I think they have a lot of exposure to world problems that previous generations had less access to.
Humans have not evolved to process this much trauma.

[4:12] Normally, you know, if something awful happened, you would only know if it was in your local village or local tribe.
And now we not only hear about it, but we see video of it in real time, you know, from just horrific things happening all over the world. It's a lot to process.

[4:27] It is. And I think a lot of people also would point to the rise of smartphones, right, and social media. So Dr.
Jean Twenge has done a lot of research on this and how, you know, teen depression and a lot of the other issues that we've seen have really risen since 2012 when smartphones, particularly iPhones, started to become really ubiquitous.
So I feel like kids today have a lot of things competing for their attention and they have that distraction of worrying about what their peers are saying and doing online. line.

[4:57] And, you know, I think also the other piece is that they are inheriting a world in which, you know, there are so many comforts that any kind of hard work feels incongruent, right?
So like if you have a washing machine to clean your clothes, you have a microwave to heat up your breakfast, and then you get in your heated or your air conditioned car and you arrive at school effortlessly, then suddenly this need to work hard just doesn't really fit with that, right?
All of these modern comforts lead us to crave more comfort and an easier life.
And so when we juxtapose all of these things that make our lives easier with physical labor or with tedious schoolwork, I think we're just so disconnected from that. We're disconnected even from our food sources.
We expect things to just magically appear to us and we take them for granted.
So all of that to say, there's a lot of cultural stuff going on.
And these are just a few of the deeper issues that stick out to me the most and that are They're sort of creating an epidemic of disengagement and unmotivation in students. And that's really just cultural.
I won't even get into all of the things that have happened in schools with standardized tests and, you know, disconnecting, learning from meaningful things.
So it's a lot. It really is a lot.

[6:09] Yeah. I mean, I can, you said that about, you know, you are Gen X and even then they said you were the most apathetic. I'm a millennial.
They said that we were the most apathetic and now it's like, and you said that about the smartphones too.
And I noticed that with me, like even just looking for things, like I look for a recipe.
I never go and grab a book because it's so so instantaneous to look up something on Pinterest and find a recipe for something.
I take for granted, you know, like that I have an air fryer now.
Everything is so instantaneous.
One of the things that you mentioned, and I just love it, I love and completely agree with, is that the more that you've learned about student disengagement is that the answer is in the solution is not to put more onus on teachers, right?
Where they have to make lessons more engaging and more personalized, wise, but rather to address the root cause with the students.
That makes all the sense in the world. I mean, honestly, like why has nobody thought of that sooner?
But so what are some of the things that need to happen, I guess, in order for students to start to put more effort in? Where can we make those changes?

[7:23] Yeah. You know, I feel like teachers are easy scapegoats for student disengagement, right? Well, my teacher's boring.
My teacher didn't make it it interesting enough, you know, and I think folks outside of the education field don't realize how little control teachers have over what they teach and how they teach that, you know, the most boring things that you're doing are usually the required things.
And, you know, there's just some things that are just set up in the way that we do school.
So I feel like, you know, telling teachers that it is your job to make your lessons more engaging.
And, you know, particularly the buzzwords are, are, you know, personalized, differentiated, individualized.
We have to figure out what motivates each and every kid. What are all of their interests?
What are all of their different personality types? What are all the things that make them tick?
Tailor your lesson for that and then implement it with, you know, 180 students, if you're talking about at the secondary level, even with 30 kids in elementary room, it's, that's not possible, right?
So I think this is one more thing now we're putting on the backs of teachers to solve this.
And expecting them to make everything relevant, everything meaningful, everything engaging.
That's not real life. And teachers know this.
And so I think a lot of times, you know, we sort of think, well, you know, oh, well, they're just going to suck it up.
You know, the kids just need to understand life is not always fun.
Life is not always easy. Well, that doesn't work either.

[8:43] So what we need is some sort of middle ground where we're helping kids understand how their brains work, understand how they learn, understand how to focus their attention, attention and engage themselves.
So how do you push yourself through a hard task? How do you motivate yourself to go through different challenges and to meet your goals? Because that is a life skill.
That's something we're still doing as adults. It's not like, you know, you graduate from high school and now, you know, life is super easy.

[9:08] You know, you're always going to have to push yourself. And in many ways, it's more challenging because you no longer have other adults forcing you to do things. You really have to do it yourself.
And so helping kids develop a toolbox of strategies is what I think is really important.
Because there's not going to be, you know, one thing that works for every student, that's not true for any teaching strategy.
And so when you're exposing kids to different ways to focus their time and manage their energy and attention, some things are going to really resonate for certain kids, it's going to be life changing for them.
Other kids are going to be like, yeah, okay, yeah, that's that's decent.
And other kids, it's not going to impact them at all.
So go into teaching these kinds of things, knowing that don't look for something that's going to work for every single kid, but you want to offer different tools and help kids to build their own toolbox of strategies.

[9:56] So I like to have kids think about, you know, any kind of toolbox they're interested in.
It could be power tools, makeup tools, artist tools, whatever kind of toolbox resonates with you.
And think about adding strategies for motivating yourself or achieving your goals for staying focused.
And then you can pick and choose the ones that work for different tasks, for different moods, for different times of day for you.
And you can sort of, you know, your teacher has provided ideas for you and helped you practice them.
And then you can select the ones that you need. So the role for the teacher then moves from, let me try to personalize every single lesson for every student to let me give students the tools for personalizing the instruction themselves, for making this relevant to themselves, for making it meaningful for themselves.
And then I can help them pick and choose those tools to apply to different tasks.

[10:44] I love that. I wish that I had had something like that in school, because what I did after school was realize, oh, crap, there's nobody to keep me accountable.
I have to create these these skills by myself.
I have to research them. I have to figure them out. And I had a lot of that, I guess, internal motivation to want to perform well.
And for what I see now a lot of students don't have those skills to want to do that and so they don't and I think providing them with those tools to put in their toolbox even like you said like you have students think about their like if it's a makeup toolbox like even if they don't use those specific tools at that moment just having exposure to them may have them use them later on down the line.
I can tell you that somebody's told me Pomodoro method 50 million times.
I never wanted to use that method until recently, and now I'm starting to use it because it makes sense for me right now.
So even if the students don't use those specific tools in that moment, they may use them further down the line just because they have that exposure to it.
One of the things that I was just thinking about, though, there's this big piece that might be missing in those conversations with students. And you've talked about this before.
What are some of those things that need to be discussed with them?
And what is that big piece that is kind of missing in the discussion?

[12:14] So the idea of the lifelong experiment, I think, is important.
And it's exactly what you pointed to. I took years to get on board with the Pomodoro Method, too.
It just didn't make sense to me. And now, recently, I've been using it all the time, like really focus my attention and work on something for 20 minutes, take a five-minute break, and come back.
So sometimes that works. Sometimes you want to push yourself to just, you know, knock something out, to just keep going until it's done, you know, and then take a break. And that's a good strategy, too.
So having these different approaches and thinking of it as a lifelong experiment, this is something you're going to need to do all throughout your life, including, as you mentioned, with college, because we hear college professors saying these kids are completely unprepared.
If they don't have a grown up standing over their shoulder and telling them what to do, they don't do their work. work. And so, you know, thinking about this as something that we're going to experiment with throughout our lives, different things are going to work at different times for different tasks, I think is important.
Another key thing that kids need to understand is that.

[13:10] It is not just you and there's nothing wrong with you because that's the message that I feel like a lot of young people are getting.
And, you know, going back to what we said at the beginning, generationally, like, you know, the hate for Gen X, the hate for millennials, the hate for Gen Z, you know, and like, if you think about boomers as well, you know, like the hippies, the rebels, you know, like they had a reputation as well.
And so when we lump kids in like a whole, like young people these days or kids these days, nobody wants to work.
Like all of that stuff is is not helpful because this is endemic to the human condition.
All humans struggle with motivation. All humans have trouble focusing and all humans would rather do something easy than do something hard.
Who would not rather lay around on the couch than do hard work?
Like this, there's nothing wrong with young people. And I think that's a really important message for them to hear.
You know, it's not something that just you are struggling with.
I think it's something that they They need to hear that adults struggle with as well.
And I think a lot of times the pushback that we get from young people is because we don't share those struggles with them.
So, you know, they're like, what do you mean get off my phone?
You're always on your phone.
Every time I look at you, mom, or every time my teacher's on her break, you know, she's on her phone. So how could you tell me to get off my phone?
So that's why it's really important to say that this is a, you know, this is something that all humans are going to have to deal with. It's figuring out.

[14:31] You know, how to use our devices in a way that does not control us and that enables us to get our things done.
And it is difficult. And we as adults don't always make good choices.
We have not been good role models for young people.
Most of them see the adults in their lives constantly checking the phone.
You know, you're sitting at a red light and look at the phone, you know, it's just anytime we are bored or uncomfortable, we reach for a device.
We have modeled that for kids and then we yell at them for doing it.
And they're like, you're hypocrites.
And then they they tune us out. So I think that coming from this place of like, we're all learning how to manage this and we're going to do it together as a lifelong experiment, rather than there's something wrong with you that is broken and you need to fix it and you need to just work harder and just try harder.
These technologies are designed to be addictive.
You can't just like willpower your way through an addiction.

[15:19] It's a lot more challenging than that. And I think just that realness with kids really lays the foundation for honest conversations.
And it just, it moves the needle in a completely different direction because you're actually working together instead of against students. Right.
You know, you were saying that and I was thinking about even my kids, my kids at home are on devices and my husband, that's the bane of his existence. Like he is the opposite.
I'm more of a, like a tech savvy type of person. So I like to be on my phone.
I do reach for my phone. I do have an addiction to my phone, but they hear him say these things.
And then I I kind of agree with him and they're like, but mom's on her phone and I've heard that conversation happen.
I've heard that conversation happen in the classroom and it's just coming from a place of more empathy and more, let's do this together.
I think is a big piece of how we can start to see change happen is when we stop thinking.

[16:22] Almost like demonizing human behavior, you know, like making it more, you know, coming from that place of empathy.
Talking about this though, you know, having these, having these conversations, teaching them those productivity skills and putting things in their toolbox.
I know that there is at least, there's at least one teacher out there listening right now that's like, that sounds great.
But like, when do I get to do this with my students when I'm responsible for getting that content to them, especially, I think, for those like middle school, secondary teachers.
Do you have any suggestions on how they can kind of make time for this or really like emphasize the importance maybe to their administrators on why they need to have this time to be able to do this?
Yeah, I really want to validate that because teaching kids how to learn has become yet another thing on teachers' plates that, you know, that they have not been trained to do, that they don't have the resources to do, they don't have the time to do.
And yet, if you don't do it, it's going to be really difficult for kids to learn the rest of the curriculum.
So I find that really frustrating. I feel like this should be absolutely foundational to learning. And the good news is we do see more schools moving toward that.

[17:34] You know, a lot of schools now having advisory periods, you know, and things like that, where they are teaching these kinds of skills to students explicitly and seeing the value of that.
So I see the trend moving in the right direction because I think more and more school leaders and decision makers at the district level, at the state level, are starting to realize that what we used to do with kids is just not going to cut it anymore and that we do have to approach this differently.
So that is encouraging to me. I think in terms of making time for it, the resources that I've created really are designed to only take 15 to 20 minutes per lesson.
So it's something that you can do during a homeroom. It's something you can do, you know, at the start of class, you can do it on Friday afternoon.
So it's something you can kind of weave in.

[18:22] Um to your curriculum and i really think that's the best way to approach this because if we're talking about lifelong experiment this is not a one-and-done unit it's not something you talk about the first week of school and then you know after that it's just you know i'm going to take away your cell phone if i see it like these are conversations that we're going to have all throughout the year they do not have to be lengthy you do not have to you know belabor the point with students expose them to the ideas keep returning back to it give them that shared vocabulary so they can talk about their struggles and explain what's going on with them.
And, you know, it can, I think those informal discussions are just as powerful as the more formal instruction about these skills.
Yeah. I think just having those informal discussions has made a huge difference.
I taught a class called Academic Seminar, which was really like our resource style class where we focus on organizational skills and those types of things.
So I had the ability in my classroom to be able to have these informal discussions, but also have like structured lessons.
However, I didn't have a curriculum for that.
So I was kind of just like pulling things out of what worked for me, but not really having those true research-based lesson plans.
And you have that like from in your Finding Flow Solutions curriculum.
So can you share a little bit more about your curriculum and how it's really helping to solve the problem that teachers are experiencing?

[19:48] What I wanted to do was to make it really, really easy.
So no prep and, you know, nothing that teachers really have to do ahead of time, including having to master these skills yourselves, because I think that's another reason that a lot of times we shy away from teaching things like time management to kids because we don't feel confident in the way we manage our own time. Yeah. Yeah.
So if we can present it like, like, hey, let's try this together.
I also am having a hard time with this, and I would also like to try this out.
So let's go through this lesson, and let's learn some strategies together.
So the way that the Finding Flow Solutions curriculum works is it's 15 to 20-minute lessons, and it's a slideshow, which is editable.
So if you don't like the way something's worded, you want to leave something out or add it in, you certainly can.
But it's designed to walk you and your students through the activities and help them practice these things.
And it comes with a a student journal as well. So they can do it in a hard copy, which I really recommend.
I'm finding that young people more and more wanting to get away from the screen. Yes.

[20:47] So you have that option, or there's also a typeable version.
Sometimes that's just easier.
And that just lets kids sort of reflect on things and have something to keep.

[20:56] To help build that toolbox of strategies. So that's really the idea.
The high school units are completely done.
The middle school units are finishing in March.
So perhaps even by the time this episode comes out, those will be done.
And then we'll begin working on the elementary.
So sort of working backwards from what do students need in order to be successful, beyond the K-12 setting?
And that's really what the high school resources do. And then scaffolding from there. Okay, what do middle schoolers need to be able to know and do in order to get to that level?
And then working backwards toward elementary, how do we lay the foundation?
So again, it's an experiment. It's something that we're going to do all throughout our K-12 careers, all throughout our lives.
I love it. I love it so much. And I love that you have on your website right now some resources to just try it out and just to see what works well for, you know, as far as like almost like a sample. Is it like a sample lesson almost? most?
It is. Yeah. The first unit is free. It's called, for both middle and high school, they're both called Foundations of Flow.
And it introduces students to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory, which is about finding that sense of joy and ease, losing yourself in your work.
What could that possibly look like in school?
How can we reimagine the way we show up in the classroom to find flow together?
And I think that even just that can be really transformational for kids. Yes. Yes.
Oh, my gosh. So I'm going to link those resources down in the show notes.

[22:22] But I just want to thank you so much for being a part of this podcast, for having this conversation today, because I think this is going to get teachers thinking about how they can really help support those students and maybe even shift their mindset about their apathetic students or their disengaged students just to kind of change that mindset.
Set because I think oftentimes we need to do that in order to start to take action towards it.
And so I think that's a big thing right now. So it just truly means a lot to me that you came onto the podcast. It's an honor.
Can you share with the listeners where they can find more from you, learn more about their Finding Flow Solutions, just everything that you have to offer for educators because it is a plethora of things.

[23:08] Yeah, it is a lot of stuff because I've been been doing this online since 2003.
So I have a ton of just, you know, courses, books, all kinds of stuff.
But the best place to go really is just truthforteachers.com.
You can find out more about my Truth for Teachers podcast, about the Finding Flow Solutions, 40-Hour Teacher Workweek.
Everything is kind of there at that truthforteachers.com hub.
And I'm on all the socials as well. If you'd rather connect there, send me a DM, that's great too.
Yeah. So we'll put those into the show notes so that everybody can go and check you out if they They haven't, I can't imagine that they haven't already heard of you before, but maybe they haven't heard of finding flow solutions.
So we'll definitely put those in the show notes. Well, thank you so much, Angela, for being a part of this and for chatting with me today.
Thanks for having me. Of course.

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