Interview with Dr. Giuliana Conti – Classroom Harmony: Music, Mindset, and Modern Teaching Challenges

Giuliana Conti (: 00:00

⁓ hi! There you are.

Mark (: 00:01

Hi.

I was on mute in case I made any strange sounds. I don't want to freak out.

Giuliana Conti (: 00:06

Great.

Trying to see if there's a back.

Mark (: 00:11

cool. I like your background. You look great. You're welcome. All all all fixed up for work or for the podcast. Really?

Giuliana Conti (: 00:14

Thanks.

For the podcast. Yeah, no. Yeah,

well that first episode, you didn't tell me that you were gonna post a picture of me. And I didn't care about my appearance, because I was like, it's a podcast. And then it went on the internet. And then I was like, never again am I gonna make this mistake. So I wear lipstick now, I care about jewelry.

Mark (: 00:25

Hahaha!

Sure, of course.

Hahaha.

You got your, everything is on point, I'll tell ya. You got the hair, the lips, and the jewelry all working. ⁓ You're welcome. I don't think you needed it, but it's fine if that's what you want. I'm just saying that I don't have a problem, I didn't have a problem with your pictures originally.

Giuliana Conti (: 00:45

Thanks.

Thanks.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Unfortunately, there is a level of vanity that I am saddled with.

Mark (: 01:10

to.

Hey, I hear you man. I've decided just just to be me because I have no choice and so I am like, you know what? I'm not shaving. Screw it. Who cares anymore? I'll just shave when I want and if I don't want to shave for today's podcast, I won't. It's not

Giuliana Conti (: 01:23

But it looks purposeful.

It looks like a goatee.

Mark (: 01:26

It does, I mean it is trimmed, it's just that I could have taken it down a notch, but I decided not to.

Giuliana Conti (: 01:32

Yeah, looks great.

Mark (: 01:34

Oh, thanks. um, yeah, you know, get to a place where you're just like, this is who I am. It's got to accept it. You know, if I do this, there was like no way I was like, what am I supposed to do? I just have to, this is fine. I'm all good. So this is going to be the podcast, by the way. This is what we're talking.

Giuliana Conti (: 01:41

Yeah.

great, well they're gonna get a really authentic burnt out version of people who are like genuinely not really sure much I can do to help anymore. So let's talk about classroom management.

Mark (: 02:02

Hey,

exactly. Let me tell you how to do it. Because I don't know. ⁓ You know, classroom management is, you know, it's so interesting because it's so varied. First of all, Julia DiCanti, thank you so much for being here. ⁓ Did I just call you Juliana? So sorry.

Giuliana Conti (: 02:10

No, I don't.

My absolute pleasure.

Yeah,

Mark (: 02:27

Did, okay.

Giuliana Conti (: 02:28

that's my name.

Mark (: 02:29

It is, I don't know why I wanted to say Giuliani. Just kidding.

Giuliana Conti (: 02:32

Yes, we don't

use I don't use that anymore as a way to help people know how to spell my name because they share all but one letter. But it's a very different association now.

Mark (: 02:36

Mm-hmm.

Right.

I know.

Yeah, it's an ugly association, whereas it used to be for some people who still had not enough knowledge of this man, still felt something, you know, before they caught on how much he was using the incident to his own benefit and then became what he became. Anyway, Julianna Conti, thanks so much for being here. This is you have, this is your third time back. You hold the record for a very...

Giuliana Conti (: 02:46

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

you

Mark (: 03:11

for an unknown podcast basically. You're in the three timers club.

Giuliana Conti (: 03:14

What an honor.

First of many, I'm sure.

Mark (: 03:19

Yeah, one of my favorite guests. love talking to you. I love listening to you. I love how you express yourself and how your mind works and the knowledge that you have. I'm not going to say anything for the next whatever. I'm just going to let you talk because whenever I interject, it usually sounds like la la da ba ba ba. And in my head anyway.

Giuliana Conti (: 03:36

Well, that's unfortunate

because I actually have questions for you too, given that we're going to be talking about classroom management.

Mark (: 03:44

Yes, no, I'm teasing, but I always, I'm more relaxed this time. Last time I thought I was like, I can't keep up with that brain, but I'm just gonna be me.

Giuliana Conti (: 03:54

That must have been after

three cups of coffee for me.

Mark (: 03:58

Well, whatever it takes to crank you up, you get there.

Giuliana Conti (: 04:01

I'm on number two, so I'm good to go.

Mark (: 04:03

Okay, cool. I went to the gym this morning and I've had a protein shake so that's about as cranked up as I get, I think.

Giuliana Conti (: 04:11

Yeah, that's leagues beyond me.

Mark (: 04:12

Coffee, coffee, coffee. Moscow on the Hudson reference, Robin Williams, I don't know if anybody knows it, came over from Russia where there's rationing and then he got to the supermarket in the United States and somebody who's living with told him to go pick up coffee and there was like 20 different selections of coffee and he had a panic attack because he just couldn't. It was like coffee, coffee, coffee. It was just too much coffee, it was overwhelming.

Giuliana Conti (: 04:36

choice paralysis.

Mark (: 04:37

See, there you go. There you go. I say panic attack, you say choice perils.

Giuliana Conti (: 04:42

I just, I

use names that I know for things.

Mark (: 04:45

Yeah, no, it's, again, I love it because I learn so much. And it makes me feel like I'm in an important realm when I'm with somebody so intelligent and someone who I consider to be important in this whole big puzzle of the world. Well, thanks. So classroom management, you wanted to talk about classroom management. Can you just remind our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do? And then we can dive into that.

Giuliana Conti (: 04:56

Thank you. Likewise.

Absolutely, thank you. So I got my PhD in music education and some of my research includes the effects of music listening on children's development and how music listening is tied to our sense of identity, how we understand our place in the world, and how an equitable education is really one that honors students' identities.

And music is one of those vehicles that can really support students throughout the school day. And it's something they use at home anyways. So we might as well tune in to what it is that they're interested in because that creates an investment on their part in learning when they see that teachers are invested in what they do. So my work is Music Workshop, musicworkshop.org.

and I have the immense privilege of creating our professional development series for teachers on music for well-being. Currently, we've got four courses available. Two are long form, so they're six hours, online self-paced on music for well-being. They cover fundamentals of well-being. They cover the relationship between music and the body and the mind, from neuroscience to psychology.

And then we talk about teaching strategies in ways that teachers, either music teachers who have their own course, because music teachers rarely have the opportunity to get professional development specifically for them. So we wanted to make sure that we were serving that community first and foremost. We help.

show how the national standards in music bridged with music listening and other ways of engaging in music with a well-being focus can really enhance student outcomes beyond just the musical outcomes that are already important. And for general educators, we also believe in a musical school day. So what does music integration look like for teachers who have been told it's...

not their job, it's not their responsibility to teach music, but we have so many teachers who believe in music. And then at the same time, there are especially general elementary teachers who become responsible for music in the absence of a music teacher, where in the US, those national standards need to still be fulfilled. So where do you even start, especially if you don't have any music experience or training that's formal, that would lead someone to believe it's not their place. And we want

general educators to know it is your place. Something as simple as music listening, creating classroom playlists, asking students what they listen to, and finding ways to teach through music, assess knowledge and understanding through music. Those are all extremely viable opportunities for also enhancing student well-being. Our two shorter courses include teacher well-being because you obviously can't

Be good for other people if you're not good to yourself. And so we ascribe to the model that you have to put your oxygen mask on first before you can assist others. And then our final course is Music Listening for Well-being. It's a two hour shorter version of our six hour courses for anyone who maybe doesn't feel like they've got the six hours for professional development investment, but really wanna know what does music listening do in the classroom and within two hours, how can I learn how to apply that?

And I'm really excited to be on this podcast today because we are in the process of building a new course on classroom management in and through music. And I'm excited because when we read the feedback on our current offerings from teachers who have taken it, we ask what are topics that are missing from what we already offer that you would like to learn more about? And it's been an almost unanimous classroom management request. So.

looking at what does classroom management mean, what are teachers really asking for help with, especially post-COVID and in our current educational climate, what do teachers need? And when we think through students with special needs, when we think through students with different demographic backgrounds and those who are formally

Mark (: 09:08

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 09:22

IEP 504 students, those who are not. What does classroom management look like for a trauma informed, student centered, culturally responsive teacher who wants to support their students any way they can and maybe just need some fresh tips to help their classroom feel more.

Mark (: 09:42

Yeah. I don't mean to throw the word out, but I think that sounds like what you're going after, right? You want the rounded.

Giuliana Conti (: 09:43

Yeah, manageable.

It is, it is.

Yeah, and I will say, I would be remiss if I didn't also plug what the rest of our organization offers, which is free curriculum. And one of the benefits I think of advocating for music across the school day is...

Mark (: 10:00

Yes.

Giuliana Conti (: 10:06

being able to provide some of those initial resources for teachers to make those first steps. So for any teachers listening, whether you teach general subject courses, music, or you're a special education teacher and you are just across the board, or maybe you're a paraeducator, our free curriculum at musicworkshop.org has almost 40 different topics of really high quality, professionally produced

videos on different cultures, genres, instruments, and careers in music so that students can learn about the world of music in a really fun, engaging way. They're broken down into different grade bands for K2, 3.5, and 6.8. Also works for high school really well, and they come with different worksheets and fill-ins. It's perfect for subs so that you can take that day to take care of yourself.

The only catch, because it's a fully free account, is that we ask you for feedback on how does it go with your students. when we talk through different strategies around classroom management today and when we look at some of the challenges that teachers are facing, there are resources out there. And if you're trying to make your classroom more musical, start with our free curriculum. It's a great place.

Mark (: 11:19

And we got into it in the previous two interviews, a little bit more in the last one, too. So I encourage people to go back and listen to those so they can get a bit of a deeper dive into what you were referring to. Excuse me.

When you were just speaking, I thought of two things, particularly one being that teachers not feeling prepared to be able to take over the music lessons. And that automatically made my mind go to general education teachers who have special needs children mainstream and included into their classroom and who are not necessarily trained or prepared for the population and.

what kind of assistance is there for them, right? So that's one question that we may not have an answer to, but it's just something that comes up. I think my sense would be now that because it's more common when it first started, I think there was a lot more of an upheaval with general ed teachers who just didn't wanna deal with it, right? Because it was just too much and they didn't know how to do it. And fairly they didn't know how to do it. They weren't trained.

So I'm hoping I'm not in the classroom anymore so I don't really have the day to day knowledge. So maybe you're closer to it because even if you're not in the day to day you're in touch with teachers who are. Maybe you could speak to that. And the other point I wanted to make and now it's gone is gone. So we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that I'm sure. I think that oh I know what it is. It's the.

Giuliana Conti (: 12:39

We'll come back to that.

Mark (: 12:46

The climate we spoke, you mentioned the climate today. And when we're talking about the arts, it's looked at as the arts, right? But it's not really. It's education through music. And so I wonder, have you had any kind of sense of the energy out there when people are trying to cancel?

emotion and all these things in the classroom, right, where teachers aren't allowed to talk about a child's emotion and these type of things where they don't want them to. They just want them to teach the math and the science and the English. Is that something that you feel may be a problem in the near future or do you see it as a problem already? Does that conjure up anything for you?

Giuliana Conti (: 13:25

Yeah, great question. Let's start with that question

because I think that is tangentially related to your first question. So let's start with what it is, which is the divisive concepts law. So there are many states who have now created a list of words that teachers are unequivocally prevented from using in class.

to the point where they might be fired. And we get feedback internally in Music Workshop about teachers who are trying to teach history and use music as a method for teaching history, but can't use words like slavery for a genre like the blues where it is inextricable from the history of the development of the blues because...

Even now to this day when someone's blue it's because they're sad, they're not well and I can't think of a worse offense than being enslaved that would cause someone to be blue. So.

I mean, a history of language would also, I'm sure a linguist would come in here and give me a much better rundown of the use of the word the blues. But just as a cursory example of a genre that is fundamentally part of American roots, to not include that kind of contextual information in class really is not just a disservice to the students, but it's also

blatant misuse of music in schools as a representation of what happens in our history and even if we're talking about STEAM, is science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, we have to be able to learn from our mistakes and music has been historically one of the best ways for humans to vocalize what is wrong.

what generations have had to deal with. And then that sustains across generations through.

listening and learning to sing by ear and families passing down songs and there's so many cultures where life lessons are communicated through song. So music is a fundamental part of the human experience and should be a part of everyday life in school and how we learn but when teachers are being prevented from using even basic words like woman in class

how can we really get to the core of what we're supposed to be teaching our students, which is how to function in society? What kind of math do you need? What kind of understanding of science and human history and how to read and write, how to participate in culture?

if you're prevented from being able to teach some of the most core elements of what that human experience really is about. So music is a great medium for being able to communicate without direct language. We can teach students about concepts through music without having

necessarily a conversation specifically about race and slavery, but if you play the blues, if you play rhythm and blues, if you talk about the history of rock and roll and its roots in American history, now we're able to teach the human experience and sort of circumvent some of these divisive concepts laws and their core tenants, which is like avoid all things. I wouldn't even say potentially disagreeable.

Uncomfortable, yeah, uncomfortable for certain people. So as for certain people, let's make that clear. teachers have the obligation of preparing students for life. It's similar to the purpose of a music teacher, which is highly debated across all factions of music teachers, from general music to ensembles like.

Mark (: 16:55

uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Right. For certain people. Yeah. Exactly.

Giuliana Conti (: 17:19

Music for music's sake. Music deserves to be taught because it is part of what humans do and we're consumers, whether or not we even mean to. Like when you go to the store and you listen, you hear music in the grocery store, we are still being consumers in that moment. But music is...

one of those subjects where we also want people to just grow up and be musical. Would I love everyone to be professional musicians? Sure. There are theories that the orchestra is dying. I have an indigenous friend musician who says sometimes things die and other things emerge in those ashes. So, you know, what is our priority as music teachers?

Mark (: 17:57

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 18:03

I'm not advocating that any part of our current music education system goes away. I definitely don't want us to lose music teachers, but what I want are for students to be musical in some way. Create music, consume music, love music for the rest of their lives, music be a fundamental part of them. And that becomes really difficult when we're losing teachers because funding is cut.

when laws prevent teachers from being able to teach incredibly important parts of our education curriculum and

Mark (: 18:39

And human development.

Giuliana Conti (: 18:40

And human development, exactly. I mean, there's so much research around even the first four years of a human's life. Exposure to music is an incredible developmental tool for language, literacy, auditory processing. mean, name it. Music has an incredible effect on how we...

Mark (: 19:02

I

mean, at birth, At birth, people play music in the womb, right? They're playing music. The monser.

Giuliana Conti (: 19:02

Absolutely in the womb. There's so much research about the inner

ear development in the womb and the effects of music outside the mom's body. So it's heartbreaking to know that there's schools without a formal music teacher and in that stead teachers who are then

general subject educators not really sure what to do because now they've got more responsibility than they already had. And I think if I was to have one mission, it would be to say, no, you're gonna be okay. You can do this. We're not asking that you teach students how to play instruments. If you feel like taking the recorder on, bless you.

That's one part of my job I'm really grateful to not have to do anymore. When I was teaching music, I would have parents come to me and be like, my student won't practice the recorder. And I would say like, don't worry, there's different incentives you can introduce in your home to make sure they practice. And they're like, no, no, no, you're not understanding me. I will not let them practice the recorder because I cannot stand the sound of this instrument. So it, you know.

Mark (: 19:58

Yeah.

Giuliana Conti (: 20:22

Some of music education at that level is comical and cute, like boomwhackers. If you don't know what those are, they're basically PVC pipe weapons that you place in the hands of children and then ask them to bang on things rhythmically and in synchrony with other sized boomwhackers in the hands of other students. there's really cute comical ways that music can be present. But there's also really simple ways like

Mark (: 20:44

dangerous.

Giuliana Conti (: 20:48

music listening again. I'm just never gonna stand off of this soapbox on the power of music listening as a really powerful tool for learning.

Mark (: 20:58

Well, mean, music defines eras in our history. I mean, you look back, wars are defined by certain types of music, the blues, et cetera. And so what's potentially happening is you want these kids exposed to music, but you don't want to teach the context because you don't want to get into these uncomfortable areas, right? So this music comes and you don't really.

know the history of it and why it exists and the etiology is really important sometimes for kids to understand their place in society and how they relate to the world because a lot of, as you said, a lot of kids relate to the world through music. It's a release for them and we've talked about that in the past. And so by

taking out certain words by, mean, teachers looking over their shoulders constantly now. I wouldn't want to be a teacher now because I feel like the pressure to perform in a certain way now, it takes away a lot of the freedom and the creativity, I think. And it may not, I don't know to what degree.

But it feels like it does tie a teacher's hands, the standards and the expectations and the kind of policing of what they're saying and teaching in the classroom. And I don't even know if it's how legitimate a lot of the accusations are. There's a lot of these things that are made up about what teachers are teaching students at what ages and things like that. And I don't know how legitimate a lot of these accusations are. ⁓

Giuliana Conti (: 22:16

Yeah, and I don't even

think that matters as much because the threat is still so real that teachers are cornered into ⁓ obedience toward these threats of job loss. And I have so much respect for the teaching community because it really requires a level of resilience and stubbornness.

Mark (: 22:25

Yeah.

Giuliana Conti (: 22:41

that I clearly didn't have because, I mean, went to grad school, I went from teaching to grad school because I was so interested in the ways that my students were interacting with the music from around the world that I was programming in my curriculum. But there was also a part of me that was tired. I was in year five and between administration and the daily logistics of teaching on a card,

It was hard. And that was when I was only teaching at one school. There was a year where I was teaching at two schools and that for a music teacher is so common. There are so many teachers who are at like three or four schools. It's crazy. Literally hundreds of students and classroom teachers. amount Alexa, stop, can, we can cut that out, right?

it.

Where did you go?

Did Alexa kick out Mark?

I think I can pause it. I think you're gonna get all of this.

I'll just say hi to future Mark because you're going to have to go in here and edit and watch all of this to figure out what to cut out. So I'll just wait patiently for you to join your own link again.

Hey. Okay, I created a marker for you so that you can know around where in this podcast to cut out.

Mark (: 23:51

big pangra.

my god, you're amazing. Thank you.

Giuliana Conti (: 24:00

I had a lot of time to sit here and just look at the screen. it's more like I read

that that icon existed and thought that could be helpful right now.

Mark (: 24:08

That's awesome. So you hit the marker. That's perfect. That's great. I couldn't do it because it went away. Yeah.

Giuliana Conti (: 24:10

Yeah.

I said hi to future you,

by the way, because you're gonna have to go in and edit this. So I just said hi to the future you that's going to be editing.

Mark (: 24:20

yeah.

thank you. You did? You're a gem.

Giuliana Conti (: 24:26

Yeah. Well, it was either that

or awkwardly sit in silence staring at the camera, which I don't do well at, so.

Mark (: 24:32

I think it'll make the most of your time.

just riff. Fantastic.

Giuliana Conti (: 24:37

I could have kept

going, you're right. I could have started saying who knows what to your audience.

Mark (: 24:43

Absolutely, and the thing is that I'm like, well, maybe it'll come back on and if you're still talking then that's great because we didn't lose it, hopefully. But I don't know if we lost it or not. This has happened once before now, no twice before now, so I gotta find out from my internet carrier what's going on here because this is not good during an interview.

Giuliana Conti (: 25:02

Yeah, ⁓

we have, what is it, fiber, and it is awesome. So not sure if that's an option where you live, but highly recommended. Do you have Comcast?

Mark (: 25:12

All right, yeah, I'm going to...

I have a optimum cable vision.

Yeah, live and die with it. I'd like to get rid of it.

Giuliana Conti (: 25:18

Anyways, what was your second question?

What was the question I was even answering?

Mark (: 25:23

Yeah, I know and it just pisses me off because you were in the middle of a great run there and I'm just like, that's the part that really sucks is now trying to like recapture and then putting it together. Creative editing.

Giuliana Conti (: 25:32

Yeah, you're going to have to do some editing.

Mark (: 25:36

So.

Giuliana Conti (: 25:36

No problem. mean, honestly, I was getting so angry anyways thinking about divisive concepts law and what teachers have to deal with. So let's move on. You had a first question.

Mark (: 25:46

Right. Do you want to move on?

Well, that's fine. If you want to round it out. ⁓ there any? Yeah, well, basically, think what I was talking about was teachers having to look over their shoulders constantly and be policed. Well, what they're saying and teaching.

Giuliana Conti (: 25:55

Yeah, that would require me to remember what your question was.

Hmm. Yeah, okay, so

what I think, because, let me back up for a second. If I was to have a thought on that and put a pin in it, I would think about teacher wellbeing and what self-care for teachers looks like, because there are some teachers who are gonna have to resign to not resign their jobs. my gosh, that's not what I'm saying.

Mark (: 26:27

numbers

on themselves,

Giuliana Conti (: 26:27

but resign themselves

than we have since the early: 1900

There's a part of me that wants to give permission to teachers to do what it takes to get through if it means that you're able to keep your job and you're able to stay positive for the students who really need that positivity. So when I think about the role that music can play in a classroom where you're having to balance the curriculum and the assessments, but also as we're gonna get into.

the behavioral challenges and the emotional dysregulation of students and the what am I even capable of managing right now? Like how much of a difference can I really make given gestures at the world? So if music can play a part in cultivating joy in your classroom, find it. If music has been a part of cultivating joy in your own life, that's a great place to start. Have conversations around

I use music in my life to do XYZ. That could be enhance your workouts or you put it on to help relax or you use a certain playlist to think of someone that you've lost and feel connected to them. What are ways that students can learn from you to apply music in their own lives as a tool for self-regulation, as a tool for engaging more purposefully?

throughout their in-school and out-of-school lives, especially since we know that we can't control for what students get when they go home. And as a music teacher, I think that was what I was always thinking about, which is that a teacher is not supposed to be a dictator. Sure, you manage the knowledge and information that students are supposed to learn and master, but...

you are a guide, you're a facilitator, you're not the all-knowing bringer of all knowledge. So can you take a step back and actually find peace in that role as facilitator and guide? Because then when you're using music in different ways for students to learn and to have joyful experiences with their student, their colleagues in class, colleagues.

with their peers. That's the word I'm thinking about. You know that you've been spending way too much time with adults when you forget that like children don't have colleagues. This has been a sign that I need to get back into classrooms. So.

Mark (: 29:03

Mm-hmm.

I always refer to my friends as my colleagues, but that was just me. Sure, yeah. When I was nine, yeah. ⁓

Giuliana Conti (: 29:15

For sure. ⁓ And peers, but it's really cute to imagine a bunch of children

in like little business suits talking about their colleagues. Like that's what just came into my mind. ⁓ So ultimately, I think that teachers who are still in the classroom right now have a level of resilience that is unmatched.

Mark (: 29:25

Yeah.

Exactly.

Giuliana Conti (: 29:40

and deserve to find nuggets of peace throughout the day. And I really believe music can be one of those things that brings them closer to their students, helps them detach and unwind a little bit. And some of what I'm talking about, let me give some real examples because obviously when I use the word music, that is so vague and broad. So,

Let's take class culture.

If you're finding yourself struggling to connect with your students and really get them invested in what it is that you're trying to teach them, can you build relationships with them through music that might look like creating several different types of playlists together? So you might want a relaxing playlist where you say, I want you to go home and with your families come up with a list of instrumental songs that I can add to a playlist.

that I will put on in the background when we are in reading time or study time or quiet time. Now you'll find that your investment in their interests and their family will return a level of excitement and investment in them when they hear those songs on a casual day reading in class and they're like, my God, that was my song. They get excited.

Mark (: 31:01

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 31:03

because they feel validated. Or maybe you need music that really gets the class excited for a project or an activity. Then you can say, I need you to give me a list of songs that won't get me fired. Basically, language. And that way you're also not shaming them for their taste in music because I can say with confidence, there's a lot of teachers who look at pop and hip hop and other

Mark (: 31:05

Yeah.

Granted.

Giuliana Conti (: 31:30

modern styles of music as inappropriate for class. And some of it is actually a lot of it is because of language, whether it's swear words or content that doesn't change whether or not students are listening to it. So I wouldn't avoid it. You can always find clean versions. If you're able to include music that students are familiar with in a safe way in class, then they're going to get excited. It's going to pump them up. It's going to get them

more interested in participating in the project because they are bragging to their friends that that was the song that they contributed and now other people who know the song and love the song are connecting with them. And then even if you have to like corral them a little bit because of their excitement, that is going to be a different cultural energy in your class than if you just didn't have any of that music at all. And you're telling them, I really need you to pay attention. Come on, let's go.

Mark (: 32:23

Right, what's the incentive? I think like ownership, giving a child ownership in anything in their learning is always going to up the investment that they're going to put into it.

Giuliana Conti (: 32:24

Exactly.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And now you're not having to do as much work scolding, yelling, being negative, feeling like the dictator in the classroom with an unruly army of children. Instead, you're with them, enjoying the music and saying, great, I want to keep this playing so long as we're able to follow the directions for the activity. And then now you've also got a tool for

Mark (: 32:38

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Giuliana Conti (: 33:02

I wouldn't say negotiation because you can't negotiate with terrorists and children in groups will find their way to be unmanageable. But you at least have something that is a bargaining chip to be able to say, look, I love bringing this in for you because I love what you like. However, I also have a responsibility and I really need us to get on track. If we can't do that.

Mark (: 33:06

Hahaha

huh.

Giuliana Conti (: 33:28

Unfortunately, we just won't be able to have this music in the background. Or can you show me that you can stay on task while also enjoying our shared playlist? And that's just surface level Spotify playlists that you can create either by having them take the list home and do it with their families or them giving you the songs verbally in class. But then there are some more active

purposeful ways that you can engage students in learning content and some of my favorite examples are a hallmark of differentiation, which is to give different ways of students demonstrating their knowledge and understanding. So if you're a science or math teacher and you need students to understand certain concepts that you're going to test them on, you can either have them study for the test and then see how they do.

maybe give them a project to show that they can understand one concept. Or for history and language arts teachers, maybe it's an essay and I can't think of a single person who has loved every essay prompt they've ever had to write and then submit it and think, boy, that was my best work. What if there were different options? So math and science, what if the class rewrote the lyrics to a song on the topic of what they're learning in class?

And now they're familiar with the song already enough that you're not having to teach the melody. You're not having to teach them how to sing. You are getting them to think creatively about, OK, we have this amount of space for words. What kind of words can we use to describe this concept? Let's put this together. Put it on the whiteboard. Put it on my Google Chromebook, whatever it is. And then we'll practice it together. And

word essay,: 1000

yourself, you can perform it for the class. You can create a music video. You can write a one act. And especially for students who are shy, maybe they just turn it in. Maybe they don't perform it for the class. But for those students who really seek the limelight, maybe they perform it for the class. And now their relationship with you is stronger because you've given them this opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge in a way that if they were to write an essay, maybe that's

Mark (: 35:50

think make a music video exactly that size.

Right.

Giuliana Conti (: 36:12

that's really not one of the strengths that helps them feel like they're able to reach their goals and achieve. Maybe that's one of the more challenging parts that should they continue to work on their essay skills? Absolutely. But for the moment, if you're seeking to create a larger investment from your students in the material that you want them to learn in a time where maybe they're generally not okay and you're generally not okay.

Can this be a way for you to now spend hours grading material that is more enjoyable, coming from students who enjoyed the experience of the task to begin with?

Mark (: 36:50

Right, and it allows them to express and to show competency, right? Demonstrate competency in an area in a way that's better, that works better for them, because not everybody's a great writer or not everybody's a great singer, whatever it is, you know? So it allows them to work to their strengths to show that, they've got the concept, they understand it, that's fair.

Giuliana Conti (: 36:56

Exactly.

For sure.

Absolutely.

And I think this is where in the conversation it would be helpful to take a step back and talk about what is classroom management then. Because differentiation is an approach to a more managed classroom. There is someone leaf blowing outside.

Mark (: 37:19

Right, because you've already.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, go grab that person.

Giuliana Conti (: 37:31

to just

Mark (: 37:32

Just invite them in.

you

Giuliana Conti (: 37:33

Okay. So I did write down a few questions and I'd love to know your thoughts on this too, because I have some, I always have thoughts. It's kind of an issue, but when we were asked by teachers for content on classroom management, we learned that they weren't necessarily asking for help managing classrooms. That it was sort of a term that

Mark (: 37:41

Mm-hmm. Okay. That's good.

Giuliana Conti (: 38:00

was an umbrella for a lot of different things. And for you, with your teaching experience, what would you say is classroom management and what do you think teachers actually need help with today?

Mark (: 38:03

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

mean, classroom management comes down to being able to create an environment where every child can function, right, to their best of their ability. And when you have such, when we're talking about my experience, the classroom was, you had to differentiate because it was special needs population, kids having all different learning styles, learning disabilities, whatever they came to the table with, there was not a uniform group of students. And so,

as getting my masters back in: 1990

The, for me, classroom management came down to there were always going to be behaviors that you had to deal with, right? So there was behavior modification that you had to somehow figure out what was the best thing to, what motivated each student in different ways that didn't necessarily cater to one student over another because you end up getting a lot of attention to one student over another, where parents run into that too, where they have to give their one child a lot more attention than another.

other children. But finding their strengths was always the thing that was kind of top of my priority list, who was this person that I was dealing with. And it took a long time for me to get better at it. I think I had a just inclination towards it.

I think that I was the kind of teacher like I even though I had it was a school for the deaf I had kids with different levels of hearing loss.

So some kids could hear a little bit of the music. So I often had like classical music playing in the background because that also regulated me throughout my day too, because it's a very challenging job, right? And so that helped to regulate me, but the kids loved it too. And just even having instruments in the classroom, loved it. So giving them that flexibility to have a choice and say, and how you set up the classroom, but with the qualification that it comes down to what we need to get done, as you mentioned earlier, was always...

always how I approached it. I wanted some feedback from them, I also had to create approaches for each individual child that made sense for them. And it was not always easy to do because, again, it's not a perfect world.

Classroom management is a very difficult situation for lot of teachers. I think that universal design was something that when I came upon it, setting up the classroom, arranging it in ways that were physically comfortable for kids.

I think made a difference. I use an example of I had a classroom where I had a bedroom set up so we literally had a bed and we had a dresser and we had a whole thing and one of my students sometimes he would take a lesson from the bed. He'd laying in the bed and that worked best for him but he would participate right so he was comfortable and he was happy and I think that

finding that within reason. You know, can't have a bed in your classroom, but you can have chairs, can have stand-up tables, you can have bouncy balls that people sit on, things like that. I know I'm kind of all over the place. haven't...

Giuliana Conti (: 41:26

No, I think

that's exactly what I was looking for, which was like, what was your approach and understanding of classroom management? And you've brought up the two concepts that really keep coming back to me in my research on classroom management, which is differentiation and universal design for learning. These are very humanist approaches to teaching because what it sounds like to me is you saw each individual child as a developing human with

Mark (: 41:30

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 41:55

needs that might be different than the other students in their class and the best way for you to get them to learn the material that you needed them to learn was to honor their individuality and the kind of environment that would enhance their learning and really keep them motivated and engaged. And I think about the number of times that I would study on my bed and my mom

would just squawk at me about how I'm not at my desk and how I'm not gonna learn as well. And in my head I was like, really? Because I feel so much more comfortable right now. And so something as simple as that, providing that for your student, if that's what worked, fantastic.

Mark (: 42:27

Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you have to get past what we consider to be a normal classroom situation and a typical classroom situation where everybody has to abide by that standard of sitting at a desk and staring at the teacher in a way that...

These kids are very physically uncomfortable. They're fidgety. They have sensory issues, lot of these things. And they can't sit for long periods of time. So you have to build in break times, things like that. You have to be aware of it. For me, was always my interest was never the academics. It was always the human development.

So I connected to the human and I don't know, not every teacher's the same, right? So for me, that was the area that I was most interested in. And it was the area that I found reached the students the best because I felt like it built a trust that they knew that you were invested in them and you cared about them. And had I had an opportunity, if I had an opportunity to do it again, I would have the kids.

to their best of their ability invest in the classroom construction as much as possible. I would want them to have a say in how they would want to build that classroom as much as possible. Now I know teachers have kids groups of 20 and 30 students and it really makes it very difficult to do that. In my situation, we'd had anywhere from four to the max eight students in a classroom. So you had a little bit more.

But you didn't always have kids that could actually give you that kind of feedback, you know, but you would just kind of pay attention to what they liked and how they functioned best and try to accommodate them if they couldn't actually have that input.

Giuliana Conti (: 44:04

Absolutely. And even for larger classes, think there's still something to be said about at the start of the school year, building community by asking, is there anything in this classroom that we could rearrange? How does the class feel about facing this direction? How does the class feel about this corner over here? Let's create some art to put on the wall so that it reflects you. What kind of theme do we want for the class?

Mark (: 44:30

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 44:30

Because

when students do feel like their environment reflects them and there's an investment in their personal self and identity, then they're going to feel more safe in their place of learning. And that allows their nervous system enough relaxation and calm to then be able to focus and pay attention. Exactly.

Mark (: 44:35

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Because it becomes a familiar environment to them. if you

can reflect something from their bedroom perhaps, a poster or something like that. You know, yeah.

Giuliana Conti (: 45:00

for sure. Or maybe it

looks completely different from home, which is actually the scary place. And what they needed was that safety and comfort of a safe haven.

Mark (: 45:06

Mm-hmm. That's a point. You're

Yeah, and maybe it's something that they're not allowed to have or display at home that they can display in the classroom. Yeah.

Giuliana Conti (: 45:18

Right, so

then if you were to take a guess at what it was in, at least for the feedback that we've gotten from teachers around what it is that they're actually looking for when they ask for help in classroom management, what is it that teachers are struggling with today that they really need help with?

Mark (: 45:36

Again, I've been away from it for a little bit. And I know the environment's changed quite a bit since I was there. And I was never in a public school. was in a small, know, state funded but private school for the deaf. And so my experience is gonna be a little bit different from the average teachers. Not to say that I didn't come across these same issues. I did, but on maybe a smaller level and maybe...

In some instances, depending upon the administration, you were accommodated a little bit more than with others. There were certain expectations of one administration over another. And I think as pressures came on, because we were kind of a school, again, not to take too much time, but we were a school that was.

not on par necessarily I think early on with the public school system as far as the expectations and the curriculum standards that eventually that changed. And so the pressures then to be able to perform and get your students who were struggling up to these standards became kind of override, overrode a lot of things because now classroom management became, it was important but you also had to get these things done. You had to get these things

taught and you weren't really shown how to get these things taught. know, there was language barriers, was all these disabilities that got in the way, learning disabilities, et cetera. So I think that...

teachers going in really need to be guided. There always needs to be more support at the beginning, I think. And I think, I feel like that was always the place that the ball was dropped. I felt like teachers were always just thrown into situations, because I feel like I was too, and you were just like forced to sink or swim. And that then slows the learning process, and you get overwhelmed, and you get stuck in certain places.

It can take time to get to a place where you have a better handle on how to manage your classroom on a daily basis, how to balance lesson plans with student life and the needs of the kids. so I, no, no, no, go ahead.

Giuliana Conti (: 47:31

And I think, sorry.

I think you've gotten to the crux of it, is like expectation reality. In our US education system, there's been decades of this belief around classrooms that the teacher stands at the front, teaches the material, the students learn it, they're assessed on it, rinse and repeat. But then teachers are in classrooms right now where it's like,

Mark (: 47:39

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 48:01

I can't even keep students in their desks. I am breaking up fights all the time. Students aren't showing up.

I don't know what to do when I've tried teaching the material and there's just like vacancy behind their eyes. And when they're assessed, it's clear that they didn't process the information. And...

Mark (: 48:22

Well,

if you don't mind, I think that's where the major disconnect is between the people who are creating the expectations of teachers and the teachers who actually in the classroom trying to manage. And the people on the outside that are having these expectations and creating these standards have no idea, right? They have no idea what a teacher has to manage on a daily basis. And so when I think about, I thought about when you were talking about this was to serve with love.

Giuliana Conti (: 48:32

Exactly.

Mark (: 48:49

It's Sidney Poitier, the movie. I don't know if you've ever heard of it from the 60s. He was a, he was a

Giuliana Conti (: 48:52

I haven't.

Mark (: 48:55

an African American teacher, actually was he African American? He was a black man who ended up going into a really difficult area of London to teach in a school. And it was a school where kids were from really broken homes and things like that. And they had a lot of bullying and harassment and just not serious about school. School was the last thing. They had real life issues to be taken care of, like taking care of their mother's baby that the mother couldn't take care of because she was an alcoholic or whatever it was, right?

And he had to find a way to manage these students and bring them to a place where they could respect themselves first of all, right, before they could respect anybody else. And everything he was trying was according to, like you say, the expectations, the tradition that we typically try to follow, the standards. And he realized I needed to let them...

tell me what they needed to learn about, right? And to talk to them in their language and in touch, touch their real life and make this, make this knowledge and this, this content accessible and connected to their life. And real life connections are always going to make someone more invested, right? When they feel like they're connected to it. And think we referred that earlier. and so I feel like

That is somehow missing in how teachers are trained. How to actually look at your students as an individual and try to connect with that student and pull them in and find what it is that speaks to them so that they can invest that they find a reason to invest in what you have to put out. I think that.

Giuliana Conti (: 50:31

Absolutely.

Mark (: 50:32

Yeah, and I think that's what's missing in that. And so in the end of the movie, he was able to do that. And so he ended up having these, you know, they had this formal dance and they were all very formal and respectful of each other and of him. But they had respect for themselves. And I highly recommend that that movie to people. Yeah. And to start with love is just a great song, by the way.

Giuliana Conti (: 50:48

I'm gonna check it out.

There's so many

movies about education that is basically the same premise, is teacher goes into school, class is crazy, teacher cannot teach any material.

and then realizes, I have to invest in the individuals in my space and classroom and kind of flip the classroom so that sure, I'm teaching them, but they're also teaching each other and themselves and I'm honoring what's happening in their lives. We create community and then I find success.

Mark (: 51:20

Mm-hmm.

Exactly. But I'm sure there's teachers who listening to this and saying, yeah, show me the time to be able to do all that, right?

Giuliana Conti (: 51:29

Right.

And so that's where I think talking about the barrier to classroom management that we've seen in our feedback is really telling because it comes down to what I see as two confounding variables. One is the teacher believing that it's their responsibility to be the dictator of the classroom, as in top down,

I know the information that you're supposed to learn, so I'm going to teach it to you, and then you have to show me that you've learned it. That is so common across many countries, and yet the variable that is getting in the way of this is that students are still traumatized and developmentally behind from COVID.

We lack social resources for things like adequate nutrition, medical care, daycare, financial support for families, and other parts of the student's life that position them to sit and listen in a classroom calmly.

The volume of emotional dysregulation and aggressive behavior that is being noted in countless research articles right now about K-12 students is unavoidable. We are struggling as a culture with

the expectation that students sit, listen, learn, and the reality that they are so traumatized, they are so stressed, they are so distracted and hungry and unwell that there isn't a place in their mind for the information that they're needing to learn.

And it makes me think about if we were to look at the nervous system and the stress response that happens when any animal, part of human evolution would show us that if you're not safe, you're on alert. If you're hungry, you're looking for food. If you're alone, you're looking for community.

We know that children's bodies carry the human evolution and history of what it took to get to this point now as an industrialized society where we had to cultivate and grow food within an agricultural system. had to create ways for civilizations to be safe from other threats and

We had to protect ourselves from the elements. We had to ensure food and safety and we had to make sure that we could care for our babies so that they could grow up and then carry on our line of other humans. And it's almost to me like we forget about this part of who we are when we look at a classroom of children.

and ask why aren't they paying attention? Why aren't they following the teacher? It should just be that they're paying attention.

Mark (: 54:36

It should just be that. Just do.

Because I am the authority and you should just be paying attention.

Giuliana Conti (: 54:43

Right, and your

job as a student is to show up, to listen, to learn, to show that you know it, and then go home, rinse and repeat. But what I'm finding in my research as we're building this class on classroom management,

is that it's just, there's so many barriers for students right now to be able to focus on what might be such a menial, useless topic in class compared to the monster of reality that they face at recess, when they go home, on the weekends. I mean, even something like nutrition.

Bless Michelle Obama for really making a point of showing us that like unless students get not just food, but adequate nutrition in school, you can't focus when you're hungry. So we really need to start by making sure that students have access to food. But when we think of low income neighborhoods, those are food deserts. Some of the only groceries you can find might be from Grocery Outlet or some of these like Marshall's Ross equivalents of grocery stores because there aren't

like full grocery stores for miles. Instead, you're gonna get fast food chains and the nutritional benefit of those are almost in the negative. So.

Mark (: 56:05

Right. Well, how else do we control? How else do we control groups, right?

Giuliana Conti (: 56:09

Totally. Starve them.

Mark (: 56:11

starve them. And with the passage of this new bill, I mean, even the things that we're talking about that we feel like we can see where some daylight could happen for a teacher in a classroom, what resources are they gonna have?

Giuliana Conti (: 56:26

Right.

Mark (: 56:28

you know, are they really going to be able to do the things that they would like to do because the expectations now are changing and with all these cuts to Medicaid these kids are going to, they're not, their SNAP programs are going away. I mean they're, what, I mean really what's the future holding here? How do we, how do we have hope for being able to teach kids who are starving?

Giuliana Conti (: 56:42

Right.

Mark (: 56:50

can't focus in the classroom and have broken homes or wherever they're coming from and they have this anxiety like you said from from post-covid all these things the pressures on kids today are tremendous

Giuliana Conti (: 57:01

And I think

they know that too, because we don't give students and children, teens, young people enough credit for the level of awareness they're being raised given the access to handheld technology and media compared to how we grew up. I had AIM, AOL, Instant Messenger for all the millennials out there.

Mark (: 57:19

Yeah, for sure.

Giuliana Conti (: 57:27

And so it was so weird to have in my house, in my free time at home, access to conversations with others, other classmates, where we were talking about things. And then the next day I would see them at school and it was like, we continue that conversation. Whereas before that came around, it was just, go to school, you have conversations. Maybe you talk to someone on the phone. Otherwise it's the next day and that's how conversations continue. But children are inundated, not just

with access to technology, but advertisements and music and people, media, news, and they can read us. They can see when adults are not okay. And for the most part, I think there's a lot of adults right now who are not okay. So it would be really naive of us to assume that

children are innocently showing up to school being like, I'm ready to learn. The reality is probably they are dragging themselves to school or being dragged to school, trying to figure out why this math concept matters when their dad just talked about potentially losing his job and the entire family needs to move or downsize. And I can say as a person with...

complex PTSD from childhood trauma from two sick parents that there's a number of years I don't remember. And I have very few memories of sitting in classrooms, but the ones that I do have are either moments where my teachers somehow got me excited and happy and interested in learning. I remember those moments. I also remember asking, why should I care about this right now?

in science class thinking my dad is at home dying.

I have to get home as soon as possible after school in case we have to go to the hospital again or my dad's in a coma again or my mom is sick again and hasn't gotten out of bed in three days. I could not care less at that point in my life about what I was learning and my grades reflected that. I still have my report cards that showed

I was an irresponsible student. I was not paying attention. I was not turning my homework in. I was disobeying orders. I was talking out of turn. I was restless and I wouldn't sit still for the teachers. And I was staring off into space a lot. And I think about my inner child.

and how I had to wrestle with the parentification that was forced upon me. And I love my parents, I still have both of them. They are my best friends. And we've talked very openly about what happened to me during these developmental stages where I had a 504 plan and there were supposed to be accommodations made for me for learning. And I just could not.

bring myself to invest in this material that these adults were telling me I needed to care about when what I really cared about was genuinely on the line every single day. And that was without technology. So imagine now students of all different ages having an acute awareness or at least a strong sense that there is something very wrong in their

family's life, in their friends' lives, in their community.

I know that at least with the amount of news that is still talking about the same issues every day and somehow us as adults are like, how is this still happening? Like the new thing will happen and I'm so desensitized to it. Why? Exactly, if I was to be in school right now, I think I would really struggle. Like thankfully I've graduated and there aren't degree levels higher than what I've.

Mark (: 1:01:15

Yeah, as much as you try not to be, you do.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:01:27

achieved probably to my benefit because I think if I could be a forever student I totally would but genuinely right now I do not think I would be successful in school because I am my nervous system is so constantly dysregulated that as a full-grown adult I can barely manage keeping track of what I eat, hydrating, getting any form of exercise, staying in contact after social thinning for so many years post-COVID

Mark (: 1:01:31

I'm

Right.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:01:53

trying to keep

my job, working in music education in an education industry where federal funding has been shot and we don't know what our own security is and being driven by passion for this field which in and of itself is exhausting and you add layers on. If as an adult we're struggling, why would we think?

that a child is gonna walk into a classroom and it's going to work that we say, I want you to learn this and then they're just like, okay. We have to find really innovative ways to get them interested. And I think that's really exhausting about teaching is when you realize that the top down method just doesn't work, which you find out pretty quickly in year one, you have to become improvisatory in your teaching.

Mark (: 1:02:30

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:02:46

You have to do planning that you didn't anticipate. You have to change your direction. You have to change what kind of projects you assign, how you grade, your own work-life balance, and with the amount of behavioral challenges we're seeing in our students and emotional dysregulation, I genuinely believe that if we can figure out ways to start with class culture, to start with our individual relationships with our students, that

Then we can start to build those knowledge building systems that students need. And that to me, what?

Mark (: 1:03:21

because you have the buy-in

now.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:03:25

Because you have the buy-in, exactly. And

that's where I'm seeing the request for help with classroom management really is, I was not prepared for what I'm observing in my students in class and my inability to know what's happening in their minds and hearts and why that's manifesting in this behavior that I'm seeing and what to do about it. Because suspending them is not gonna work.

detention is not gonna work. Punitive consequences do not work. Especially like, come on, if you're gonna take a child away from their learning environment and be like, you were not acting responsible, so I'm gonna remove you, ostracize you socially.

prevent you from the next period or two of learning material so you're even farther behind and then I want you to be fully caught up and then reintegrate all on your own when you return. And I expect you to then behave properly. Like, in what world does that make sense?

Mark (: 1:04:29

Because that's your motivation. If I'm going to miss, then of course I'm going to work harder, right? ⁓ Yeah, I'm not going to get down on myself. I'm not going to look at myself as somebody who is a bad person or whatever it is that the teacher is inferring. Punitive doesn't work. It's a reaction.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:04:33

Right.

Mark (: 1:04:45

And it's not a response. And I think that's the difference. I think that we need to as you said we need to kind of we just we need to kind of rebuild the system is what we need. And I just don't know that we're in a position to be doing to even be talking about that right now because I don't see it happening. But what I do see is the opportunity for teachers to get the idea in their heads that meeting their student where they are is the place to start.

and involving it can be a communal situation as opposed to the top down. And if it can be looked upon as a communal situation where

The bottom line is we need to learn these things, but how are we gonna learn these things is, I think that's where you put yourself in a better position to get things going to the place where you wanna get them to go. And I think too, when people listen to this interview, they're gonna see the difference between how I speak and how you speak. Just wanna say that. You're like, boy, he struggles to get his words out.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:05:39

No self deprecation.

Mark (: 1:05:41

No self-deprecation whatsoever. I'm good. I'm a good person. smart person. No. It's the bottom line is that, you know, we don't have to express ourselves exactly the same way. We get the idea. And the idea is that we're all human and our expectations of our kids have to change. Our understanding of them as

Giuliana Conti (: 1:05:45

Yeah, this is the person who has a whole podcast and does all of this that I could never.

Yes.

Mark (: 1:06:06

Contributing human beings to society is real. It's not that it starts at a certain age. We need to respect kids from the beginning. And then they will feel some value. And trust is everything. Trust is everything. Yeah.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:06:18

Right. We have to model it. Also, we need to let go

of our need for control. As adults, it's totally understandable that we want to be in control of the elements of our life that we spend so much time in, but control can look like many different things and a controlled classroom might actually be a really loud, messy looking classroom, but students know what their tasks are.

Mark (: 1:06:31

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:06:45

they're engaged, they're learning, and then when you do need to corral, they follow. Like that to me is a controlled classroom, not I'm at the front of the class, I'm telling you what you should know, I'm lecturing and you will listen and somehow through osmosis now know it all. ⁓ And if we were to continue on the humanist,

Mark (: 1:06:52

Mm-hmm.

absorb and spit back. Yeah. Right.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:07:12

vein of all of this because we are talking about humans. Like if we think of children as humans, sometimes adults make huge mistakes in infantilizing children as if they're incapable of having their own identity and own culture. Like children's cultures are strong. They don't need us for everything. So what would it look like as a teacher to invest more in

Mark (: 1:07:21

Okay.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:07:41

patience and open-ended questions than the need for control in a classroom where you feel like you're losing control. Obviously, these are very personal missions and endeavors for teachers. There's no one size fits all at all. And I, you know, despite how many years in school I've spent, I'm still not convinced that I am right in all of

Mark (: 1:07:48

Mm-hmm.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:08:08

you can take or leave whatever I think and say based on my experience as a teacher, as a teacher educator, and as someone who just thinks kids are so cool because they're so smart and capable of so much more than we give them credit for. The more independently resourceful and

agentic we can help students become and more in control of their own learning. I think that's when as teachers we've really succeeded.

Mark (: 1:08:37

Yeah, I agree. I agree with you 100 percent. We have to cut it off here unfortunately because I only had six. We.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:08:42

I was, I scheduled nine hours. Are you sure?

Mark (: 1:08:47

No, there's a lot to delve in, a lot more to delve into, but I think we rounded it out fairly well. And I think it's also a place where this is a discussion. This is not the be all end all. We're not telling people what to do, but this is your take on it, this is my take on it. I think we come to a similar finding about how human beings work together to succeed. And.

I would love to follow this up by maybe having a couple of teachers come on and talk to and hear from teachers and maybe have them listen to what we've talked about and then and pose some of the similar questions to them. So maybe we can you and I can put our heads together about that. Maybe we can come up with something. I would love to get the teachers perspective.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:09:16

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. love... I

totally agree. And there's only so much that you and I can say or do that really matters given we've been out of the classroom for a bit. And we're clearly still in education, but it's different. again, incredible respect for teachers who are in the classroom, hopefully right now taking a summer break, refreshing themselves.

Mark (: 1:09:35

Yeah.

It's different. Yeah.

Yes.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:09:53

And for anyone who is looking for

Mark (: 1:09:54

Not all.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:09:55

resources that could be helpful, again, musicworkshop.org, our Classroom Management In and Through Music class, our online self-paced professional development course will be available in September. So you can create a free account and then you'll be signed up for a newsletter and that will let you know when it's available. Also, there's a great book that comes up a lot in my research and I've had it for years. I wish I had it when I was teaching.

but it's called the first days of school. And it's an incredible step-by-step guide to, it's by Wong and Wong, to how to prepare yourselves for a successful classroom management experience throughout the school year by starting the classroom right in the first days of school.

Mark (: 1:10:44

days.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:10:45

And that's really where I think it, that's where the golden nugget lives.

Mark (: 1:10:50

I agree and that's what I tell parents too. And I also say like the work is front loaded because once you can then establish where you want to go, establish your classroom, then it starts to work for itself. Giuliana, you are a gem and I encourage people to reach out to you and to reach out to Music Workshop because your material content is incredible. ⁓ Yeah, and I want to continue to promote you and your work here.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:11:01

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Mark (: 1:11:18

So that's what I'm to keep doing.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:11:19

Thank you for having

me.

Mark (: 1:11:21

You are always welcome back and I think that's obvious now that you're a three timer. You gotta keep the streak going. Absolutely, absolutely.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:11:24

Well, I have to keep my streak, so. ⁓ The second you get

someone on interview number three, let me know because I'll have to do interview number four.

Mark (: 1:11:34

yeah, I think it's already happening. We just didn't set a date.

Thank you for all your knowledge and your perspective. I love to hear it and I think it's really helpful. And it gets people to start thinking, maybe in ways that they are not thinking. And we can only hope that with the way things are kind of, you know, just appearing these days and the way they're unfolding that they're somehow we can have some hope. But I'm trying, trying to hold on.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:12:01

all we can do right now, genuinely. Take care of yourself.

Mark (: 1:12:06

You too. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you very much.

Giuliana Conti (: 1:12:07

Thank you. All right.