A Quick ask before we get into it: FUSE is working to bring this research to SXSW EDU next March with a proposed session, “Disengagement Isn’t About Attention, It’s About Status,” chosen by public vote. If this conversation is useful to you, a vote would mean a lot.
Every teenager walks into a new classroom running the same quiet calculation: Who’s in here? Is this safe? What kind of adult is this? Can I take a chance without getting embarrassed? That calculation is mostly finished in the first five minutes, before the syllabus even comes out.
In this week’s FUSE Live, Ryan Smith sat down with Krisstian Langford, a FUSE facilitator and 14-year secondary math teacher, to talk about what to do with that window. Krisstian was once told not to smile the first week of school, to be firm, no exceptions. It took her years to unlearn that and see that a classroom feels safe not because a teacher is strict, but because students can tell whether the adult in front of them actually respects them.
Krisstian’s day one isn’t a syllabus review. It’s marshmallows, spaghetti, and a challenge to build the tallest tower. That’s not an icebreaker. It’s a first, low-stakes test of whether mistakes are welcome, whether people listen to each other, whether getting it wrong together is something to hide or work through out loud.
“Teenagers aren’t used to being given justifications of adults’ actions. And when a teacher does that, it takes them back for a moment, like, wow, they respect me enough to tell me why they’re doing what they’re doing.” Krisstian Langford
The conversation also gets into the harder stuff. Krisstian used to have “no late work, ever” written into her syllabus, until a student she cared about needed an exception. What she built instead, a clear and honest window for late work, shows that a real deadline and genuine respect for a sixteen-year-old’s reasons aren’t in tension. They only feel that way when the why never gets explained out loud.
“That’s a sign of respect. Like I respect you too much to lower my expectations. And this is how I am going to support you.” Ryan Smith, on wise feedback
That’s the idea running through this whole conversation. Teenagers aren’t used to adults justifying themselves, so when one does, it lands as respect. And kids notice fast when that respect is real versus performed.
“Teenagers are the world’s best hypocrisy detectors.” Dr. David Yeager
If your school year is starting or about to, this one’s worth the half hour. Krisstian’s closing advice is simple but hard to do: remember your own first week somewhere new, and ask whether the way you’re opening this year would have made you feel worth investing in.
Wishing everyone a strong start to the school year.
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