The Friday Mindset - Issue #34

December 03, 2021

It's Friday!

It's good to see the end of the week of Arwen and Omicron. We don't know about you, but we've begun thinking of Arwen and Omicron as two entitled, middle-class siblings who do very little work all year, then get their tiger parents to complain when their predicted grades aren't good enough to get them into a Russell Group University. We need a surname to really complete the picture. Suggestions to the usual email address.

Aa-nyway. Let's brush aside potentially insensitive jokes and dive in. We've got plenty to share this week.

Something to try…

For the last two issues, we've been talking about motivation. It's an obsession that began because we’ve been contacted a lot recently by folks asking for help with students who are feeling directionless and down. We’ve also been exploring the problematic advice, “follow your passion” and trying to offer alternatives.

There’s a lot of resources to help challenge the “follow/find-your-passion” narrative but if it’s new to you, a good place to start is Cal Newport’s tremendous So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

With all of this in mind, we’ve put together a PowerPoint for you. This is part 2 - last week we shared part 1 (thanks for the positive feedback!) so start there if you need to. And it's so huge, we've even had to split part 2 into 2 bits! (*shakes fist at Goole Drive*).

Anyway, a reminder; the presentation features Australian designer, artist and Youtuber Campbell Walker. It’s clipped from a longer video of his. If you want to watch the full video it’s here, but we’ve filleted the most relevant bits (we think!) and trimmed them into a presentation. Walker covers:

  • The prevalence of ‘follow your passion’ advice and the problems that brings

  • How you build passion rather than follow it

  • How to start with interests not passions

  • How to experiment, taking action to turn an interest into a passion

  • The corridor principle: how action itself reveals new opportunities.

January is the perfect time to give this a go! It took us flippin’ ages to put together. Check out the two parts of part two here:

Campbell Walker on building passion, not finding it

Campbell Walker on building passion, not finding it

Something we've been reading...

Prof Robert Coe's Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review is widely available and has been an essential read since we saw Coe discuss the findings during a webinar earlier in the year. The report is separated into four sections and even for old hands like us, there's been plenty in there to think about.

The report is here in case you haven't already checked it out:

And if you fancy a 15 minute primer, this online interview with Coe is a helpful starting point as well:

A short interview with Professor Rob Coe of Evidence Based Education on the Great teaching toolkit. (15 mins!)

Last chance on two offer(s)!!

Our new FREE twilight, Motivating Students, is happening next week. We’ve got some interesting stuff to share. It’ll be part theory, but we’ll aim to throw in some super-practical activities for tutor groups too. Great for starting 2022 with! If you’re a tutor, Head of Year, Head of Key Stage or you’ve got some assemblies coming up, hopefully, we’ll be able to give you some useful ideas. We’re going to run it from 3:45-4:45pm on Thursday 9th December.

If you want a free place, say hello at [email protected] and we’ll send you the Zoom link.

And there’s just a week or so until our London training day on December 14th. We're keeping it small and covid-safe... which has the benefit of meaning we can easily discuss and share; we’ll be giving away and going through new, unpublished activities, covering coaching, implementation and anything else you want to explore!

There's probably a ticket or two left. Check it out here:

Eventbrite - Steve Oakes & Martin Griffin presents VESPA - Full Day (London Course) - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at Union Jack Club, London, England. Find event and ticket information.

And that's it! We'll do one more newsletter before Christmas - December 10th - then we'll give you all a rest and see you in the new year.

Take care, stay safe, stay positive and have a great weekend,

Steve and Martin