In This Issue:

1. Mattering matters

2. Five reasons leaders sometimes don’t listen well

3. Putting retrieval practice to work in college classes

4. Handling controversial topics in high-school history classes

5. Calculus or statistics for high-school seniors?

6. Music as an emotion regulation machine

7 Timely suggestions for school scheduling

8. Short item: High-quality activities for students who finish early

 

Quotes of the Week

“To be of importance to others is to be alive.”

            T.S. Eliot (quoted in item #1)

 

“To affirm people’s significance, consider their strengths, purpose, perspective, and wisdom. Strengths are the overlap between what people love to do and what they’re good at. Purpose is the contribution a person wants to make in the world. Perspective is how people see the world, and wisdom is what they’ve learned from living their lives.”

            Zach Mercurio (ibid.)

 

“Despite a growing partisan divide over curricular content, the American public is in agreement that preparing younger generations to participate in democracy should be a major purpose of public education.”

            Constance Flanagan in “Teaching About Social Issues in Politically Volatile Times”

            in Theory Into Practice, Spring 2025 (Vol. 64, #2, pp. 121-124)

 

“An emerging body of research allows us to take what had been anecdotes and place music on an equal footing with prescription drugs, surgeries, medical procedures, psychotherapy, and various forms of treatment that are mainstream and evidence-based.”

            Daniel Levitin (quoted in item #6)

 

“The clearer you are about your priorities, the easier it is to say no.”

            Shane Parrish in Brain Food, April 27, 2025

 

“To know what you are going to draw, you have to begin drawing.”

            Pablo Picasso (quoted in ibid.)

 

“You can teach a donkey to climb a tree but it’s easier to hire a squirrel.”

            Peter Cundhill (quoted in ibid.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Mattering Matters

            In this Harvard Business Review article, researcher/consultant Zach Mercurio draws a distinction between people feeling they belong in an organization and feeling they matter. “Belonging is feeing welcomed and accepted in a group,” says Mercurio, “whereas mattering is feeling significant to the group’s individual members. Mattering is an even more fundamental need than belonging.” 

Polls show that many organizations have a “mattering deficit”: 30 percent of people say they’re invisible at work, 65 percent feel underappreciated, and almost 82 percent feel lonely. A talent management company found that 60 percent of people said they’d never had a manager who truly appreciated them. Another survey found that 90 percent said they felt grateful for people in their lives, but less than half expressed it. 

            How can organizations make sure people feel they matter? Building on a foundation of decent pay, access to healthcare, and predictable schedules, a culture of mattering comes from leaders seeing and hearing team members in daily interactions and modeling that for everyone else. “These behaviors may seem like common sense,” says Mercurio, “but they’ve ceased to be common practice in a world of brief digital communications and condescension toward soft skills, and they’re worth relearning.” His suggestions:

            • Make time and space. Work is hectic, and a key to good time management is being systematic about connecting with colleagues. That includes team meetings, one-on-ones, informal check-ins, and casual watercooler chats. 

            • Pay deep attention. “When interactions don’t get our full attention, they become transactional,” says Mercurio, so it’s important to move beyond standard scripts:

-   Instead of asking, “How are you?” ask “What has your attention today?”

-   Instead of asking, “Did the meeting go well?” ask “What was the most important insight you heard in the meeting?”

-   Instead of asking “What did you get done today?” ask “Today, what was most challenging to you and why?”

One manager jotted down little things she noticed about her colleagues each week, and the following Monday had micro-check-ins starting with, “I remember that last week…”

            • Listen for total meaning. This goes beyond the standard advice to give eye contact, nod, and not speak, and might include:

-   Questions like, “Can you tell me more?”

-   Exploring: “Can you give me an example?”

-   Paraphrasing: “Let me make sure I understand…”

-   Validating: “I can see that you’re feeling…”

In all this, the listener is attentive not just to people’s words but to their non-verbal cues.

            • Respond compassionately. This means going beyond quick responses like, “Everyone’s overloaded now” and learning about people’s anxieties, stresses, and challenges. 

            • Show people their unique gifts. “To affirm people’s significance,” says Mercurio, “consider their strengths, purpose, perspective, and wisdom. Strengths are the overlap between what people love to do and what they’re good at. Purpose is the contribution a person wants to make in the world. Perspective is how people see the world, and wisdom is what they’ve learned from living their lives. By naming these gifts, showing their impact, and nurturing them, you help employees see how they matter.” 

            • Follow up. Of course, what happens during conversations matters, but even more important is what happens afterward – specific actions in response to concerns, perhaps changes in procedures and policies, and then looping back to those who provided the feedback.

            • Tell stories of significance. Make a regular practice of sharing positive, personal outcomes that result directly from colleagues’ work, showing how they are personally part of a successful enterprise. In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy reportedly asked a NASA janitor, “What do you do here?” and the man replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” 

            How can these practices become part of the culture of an organization? Mercurio suggests the following:

-   Set the right intention and increase the leadership team’s motivation. Mattering fills a deep human desire for dignity, agency, and efficacy.

-   Develop and practice the skills tailored to your organization’s mission and strategy.

-   Measure mattering by conducting self-assessments and team assessments. 

-   Optimize the environment. “Don’t reward and promote high-performing people who treat others poorly,” says Mercurio, “Reward, develop, and promote leaders whose assessments show that they dignify, include, respect, and affirm people while performing well.” 

Mercurio closes with a quote from T.S. Eliot: “To be of importance to others is to be alive.”

 

“The Power of Mattering at Work” by Zach Mercurio in Harvard Business Review, May-June 2025 (Vol. 103, #3, pp. 100-109)

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2. Five Reasons Leaders Sometimes Don’t Listen Well

            In this Harvard Business Review article, Jeffrey Yip (Simon Fraser University) and Colin Fisher (University College London) say many managers think they’re listening to colleagues but actually aren’t doing it very well. Being a good listener is “a cognitively and emotionally demanding activity,” say Yip and Fisher, requiring empathy, patience, and being able to respond in real time to what you’re hearing. It’s especially challenging when the subject is complex or emotionally charged. 

In their research, the authors have identified the most common reasons that leaders don’t listen well:

            • Haste – Being under time pressure can lead people to be inattentive to colleagues’ concerns and say things that don’t come across well. “When you respond to people too quickly,” say Yip and Fisher, “they’re likely to feel frustrated, demeaned, or unimportant. And when you miss the message because you’re hurrying, you may also make decisions based on incomplete information, which can further demotivate your team.” Being a good listener takes time – focusing your attention, demonstrating interest, and making sure the other person feels heard. It helps to ask clarifying questions and not interrupt.

            • Defensiveness – When a leader is asked difficult questions, this is often the knee-jerk reaction, but it’s almost always unproductive; colleagues feel dismissed and trust and morale are undermined. “Before you speak,” advise Yip and Fisher, “take stock of yourself. If you feel criticized or threatened, buy yourself time by simply restating what you think the speaker has said or thanking that person for sharing.”

            • Seeming indifferent – A classic listening gaffe was when George H.W. Bush glanced at his watch as he was asked a question during a presidential debate. Even though he answered the question, his body language said he wanted out of there. Leaders show they’re attentive by eye contact, an open body posture (versus crossed arms), saying things like “I see” and “That makes sense,” and paraphrasing what’s been said. 

            • Exhaustion – “When leaders are physically or emotionally drained, they lose their capacity to focus, process, and engage productively with employees,” say Yip and Fisher. The best antidote is to set boundaries: block out times when you are fresh and can really focus, set time limits on discussions, take breaks when things have gone on for a while, don’t try to be the office therapist for everyone, and avoid putting yourself in an impossible situation – as was true when the leaders of Google tried to hold biweekly virtual open forum meetings with 100,000 employees. 

            • Not following up – “Inaction after employees raise issues erodes trust between managers and subordinates,” say Yip and Fisher. “There is a fix for this: always close the loop. Before ending a conversation, affirm what you’re heard, identify the next steps for action, and agree on a timeline for checking back in. That emphasizes forward momentum and ensures accountability. Be transparent about what you can and cannot act on, and in all cases explain why.” 

 

“Are You Really a Good Listener?” by Jeffrey Yip and Colin Fisher in Harvard Business Review, May-June 2025 (Vol. 103, #3, pp. 139-143); Fisher can be reached at [email protected]. 

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3. Putting Retrieval Practice to Work in College Classes

            In Cult of Pedagogy, Jennifer Gonzalez asks two cognitive scientists to share specific applications of retrieval practice (trying to recall something you learned from memory instead of just looking at the answer; the act of retrieving strengthens the memory):

            • Whiteboard activities – Janelle Blunt (Anderson University) uses small whiteboards with her college students in every class. “When they have their whiteboard,” she says, “they have their eraser in one hand and their pen in the other. And when they make a mistake, it just goes away. It almost is normalizing these mistakes. Like it’s fine; this is part of the process. Whiteboards let them practice retrieval in this really low-stakes, low-anxiety kind of way that is apparently quite fun.” 

            With whiteboards, when Blunt asks a question, every student responds and she can quickly check to see how many are on the right track and if additional thinking and explanation is needed. She sometimes uses what she calls “radical retrieval” with the whole class standing at large, wall-mounted whiteboards and working for a full 75 minutes. “So they’re retrieving and I can actually see what they’re doing in the moment,” says Blunt. “And that’s been a really powerful way to improve learning.” The course where she implemented this showed a 20 percent improvement in exam grades over those in previous years. 

            Blunt uses whiteboards for class content, checking for understanding, and other activities. Four prompts she uses frequently:

-   Brain dump – Students write down everything they remember about a topic for two minutes.

-   Rapid retrieval – During a lecture, she stops every 10 minutes and asks a question about a topic they’ve covered and students answer on their whiteboards.

-   Examples – Students come up with ideas from their own experience – for example, in an introductory psychology class, she asked students to think of a really extroverted Disney character. 

-   Drawings – Students sketch an image on their whiteboards illustrating a concept from the lesson. 

Blunt shares these pointers for using whiteboards in any classroom:

-   Start using them right away, creating the expectation that all students will participate throughout every lesson.

-   Have students retrieve information without looking at their notes. “It’s not retrieval if they have access to the information they’re trying to retrieve,” says Blunt. “It’s better to make a mistake and practice retrieval than to use your notes and be right, but not have meaningful learning.”

-   Retrieval doesn’t work as well when students write on paper. “They don’t have that freeing-type zone that the erasers create,” says Blunt.

-   Don’t assign points for whiteboard activities. This creates anxiety and takes away from the mistakes-are-for-learning ethos. 

-   With the stand-up radical retrieval where students can see each other’s work, Blunt advises keeping things medium-stakes to avoid too much social pressure. 

• Bite-sized chunks – Michelle Rivers (Santa Clara University) uses these strategies to get her college psychology students retrieving on a regular basis. 

-   Name tents – Students have their names on folded cardstock and regularly write answers to retrieval questions on the back – for example, What’s the most important thing you learned today. She collects the tents at the end of class and gets insights on how well she taught.

-   Peer instruction – Students are asked a multiple-choice question and answer by holding up the number of fingers for the answer they believe is correct. Students then find a classmate with a different answer and try to convince them to change their mind, followed by a wrap-up class discussion of the correct answer and the concept behind it. 

-   Question du jour – Rivers poses a question at the beginning of class – for example, Why do we remember some things for a long time and forget other things very quickly? Students write their answers, and she leads a discussion and explains the research. Students who gave incorrect answers at the beginning of the class tend to remember the correct information better – Oh yes, I was wrong about that. I felt it was right but no, I was wrong.

-   Answer explanations – With multiple-choice tests, Rivers has students write beside each answer they chose a short explanation of why they believe it’s the right answer. Even if Rivers doesn’t have time to read these explanations (with large classes), there’s a benefit: she cites research showing that students are more likely to pick the correct response when they’re asked to go through the elaborative process of explaining their choice. 

-   Confidence ratings – When students respond to a retrieval question, she has them rate how confident they are 5-4-3-2-1 about their answer. “When there’s a mismatch between a student’s confidence level and the accuracy of their answer,” says Rivers, “that’s an opportunity for identifying misconceptions and areas for further study.” 

 

“Retrieval in Action: Creative Strategies from Real Teachers” by Jennifer Gonzalez, Pooja Agarwal, Michelle Rivers and Janell Blunt in Cult of Pedagogy, April 27, 2025; a new book, Smart Teaching, Stronger Learning, edited by Agarwal (Unleash Learning Press, 2025), has chapters by Rivers, Blunt, and other authors. Gonzalez is at [email protected].

 

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4. Handling Controversial Topics in High-School History Classes

            In Theory Into Practice, Bonnie Lewis (University of Delaware) and Kathy Swan and Ryan Crowley (University of Kentucky/Lexington) say these are contentious times for social studies teachers, especially with the weaponization of the term critical race theory. Embattled teachers tend to fall into three categories: avoiders, containers, and risk-takers.

The researchers describe how two Kentucky high-school teachers, whom they describe as contained risk-takers, used inquiry-based instruction to teach units on Reconstruction and Germany between World War I and II. The teachers successfully navigated the potential that these topics might open the door to harmful opinions and get community pushback. Here’s what they did: 

• Ask big-picture questions that invite inquiry. Here were the “compelling questions” each teacher posed for their unit:

-   To what extent did Reconstruction change the United States?

-   How did the Treaty of Versailles cause World War II?

“Both compelling questions intentionally framed possible arguments addressing the questions in ways that were safe to answer,” say Lewis, Swan, and Crowley. “This approach offered more control over contentious social studies while still leaving space for practicing deliberation and argumentation.”

            • Frame what is open to discussion. The teachers did this by zooming in on parts of the issue that felt safe to discuss or zooming out and focusing on broader historical themes, avoiding politically volatile content. They also asked students to deliberate on which answer was more right or which factor was more important, with prompts like To what extent… and How did… In the Reconstruction unit, the teacher raised the issue of unequal access to education immediately after the Civil War and left implicit how this resulted in 21^st-century inequalities.

            • Defer deliberation by using field experts and original sources. The teachers were careful to say that what students were studying was not the teachers’ opinions but the consensus among historians and information from primary sources. In each classroom, say the researchers, this created “a baseline of accepted knowledge… exempt from deliberation… By requiring students to cite credible sources when discussing, deliberating, and crafting arguments, the teachers ensured that what their students said and wrote was grounded in evidence rather than opinion, which may be more politically charged.”  Describing the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles, the teacher said, “historians believe this led to World War II” and had students confirm that by reading the sources.

            • Use sources to push student thinking. Both teachers’ approach was “source heavy,” say Lewis, Swan, and Crowley, “and students were familiar with the expectation that their responses, written and verbal, had to be based on evidence.” Students internalized this and called each other out: in one class, a student said, “So, Brayden did not use anything from the documents; he was just kind of doing his own thing.” 

            • Contextualize and scaffold sources to guide deliberation. The teachers had “a heavy hand in guiding students through source analysis,” say the researchers. “They previewed content that might be charged” and had students “answer document-based questions and do skill-based tasks like comparing and contrasting documents with frequent checks for understanding… [to] catch misconceptions before students shared their arguments with the class.” In the Reconstruction class, the teacher asked students to replace the term negro with African American, “not to erase historical terms but for the sake of history class.” 

            • Separate deliberation from argumentation. The teachers spent 60-70 percent of class time having students thoroughly analyze source documents and understand their meaning before exchanging opinions. “Instead of setting up students for debates or arguments that might produce false (or harmful) dichotomies,” say Lewis, Swan, and Crowley, “they wanted their students to weigh the evidence before moving toward conclusions.” 

            • Move deliberation from independent consideration to deliberative discussion. In these two classrooms, the researchers found, “deliberation was a multi-step process that always started with independent consideration before moving into small-group and large-group deliberative discussions and, ultimately, concluding in arguments.” Some of the most productive time was students working with partners to share takeaways from documents and develop their own positions. 

            • Treating deliberation and debating as mutually exclusive tasks. These have been muddled in today’s political debates, say the authors. “When designing and delivering inquiry-based instruction, teachers must understand that debate sets students up to focus only on winning an argument. In contrast, deliberation allows students to uncover their stance by considering the available evidence. Teachers need to be aware of these differences so that they do not inadvertently set up tasks that ask students to prove a binary point when what they should be doing is exploring the nuance of an issue.” 

 

“Navigating the Politically Charged Classroom: Using Inquiry to Teach Contentious Social Studies” by Bonnie Lewis, Kathy Swan, and Ryan Crowley in Theory Into Practice, Spring 2025 (Vol. 64, #2, pp. 223-234); Lewis can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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5. Calculus or Statistics for High-School Seniors?

            “Are high-school students better served by completing their math studies with calculus or statistics?” ask Amber Northern and Michael Petrilli in Education Gadfly. Admissions officers in selective colleges definitely look for calculus on applicants’ transcripts, but paradoxically, 95 percent of them say calculus is not necessary for all students. For students not going into STEM fields, statistics seems like a good alternative. It teaches “valuable quantitative skills that may be more easily transferable to any number of other career fields,” say Northern and Petrilli: “skills like evaluating data to identify patterns, trends, and biases; being able to test a hypothesis; and understanding probability and distributions.” 

            To explore this question, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation just published Calculus or Statistics: Does It Matter? by Matt Giani, Franchesca Lyra, and Adam Tyner. Drawing on data from over 5.2 million Texas public high-school graduates from 2003 through 2020, the study focused on those who took either AP Calculus AB or AP Statistics. Here are the main conclusions:

-   Statistics is increasingly popular, while calculus enrollments have been relatively flat.

-   Although broader access to advanced math is a “rising tide” that lifts all boats, it has not reduced disparities by SES or race.

-   Students who complete higher-level math courses in high school tend to do better in college and earn more after college.

-   Students who take calculus are more likely to enroll in selective colleges and pursue STEM majors, but are no more likely than statistics-takers to earn degrees.

-   Taking AP Calculus AB does not lead to higher long-term earnings than taking AP Statistics (at least after eight years).

-   K-12 schools should strengthen non-calculus pathways with robust standards, curriculum, and assessments. 

-   Students of all backgrounds need preparation that gives them access to rigorous advanced math. 

Northern and Petrilli have three big takeaways from the study:

            • In terms of future income, AP Statistics is not inferior to AP Calculus. Students, families, and high-school admissions counselors need to know this important finding about long-term remuneration. Graduates who took calculus and statistics do tend to pursue different kinds of employment: calculus-takers are more likely to be in manufacturing, health care, oil and gas, and construction, while statistics-takers are more often employed in finance, insurance, accommodation, food services, administrative services, information, real estate, and arts and entertainment. “This suggests that both pathways can lead to success in quantitative careers,” say Northern and Petrilli.

            • To prepare high achievers for either capstone course, the standard math sequence needs to be adjusted. Northern and Petrilli believe Algebra II should include statistics, probability, and other data science topics, with less repetition of Algebra I content and some topics moved to pre-calculus. For students headed for statistics rather than calculus, the standard 11^th-grade pre-calculus course might be replaced by trigonometry and probability or introductory programming for data analysis. 

            • Build a wider pipeline for advanced math students. In 2019, only 16 percent of high-school graduates took calculus and just 17 percent took probability or statistics – and those students were disproportionately Asian and white. Northern and Petrilli advocate beefing up the elementary curriculum, especially in low-SES schools, allowing early kindergarten entry for students who are ready, universal early screening for gifted students, grade-skipping for high-achieving students, and automatically enrolling advanced students in accelerated classes. 

 

“Calculus, Statistics, and the Capstone Course Question” by Amber Northern and Michael Petrilli in Education Gadfly, April 24, 2025

 

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6. Music as an Emotion Regulation Machine

            In this article in Inc., Jessica Stillman quotes neuroscientist/author Daniel Levitin on the mind-altering potential of music: “An emerging body of research allows us to take what had been anecdotes and place music on an equal footing with prescription drugs, surgeries, medical procedures, psychotherapy, and various forms of treatment that are mainstream and evidence-based.” 

What kinds of music are helpful in which situations? “Psychologists, musicologists, and music therapists are on the case,” says Stillman. Here are ideas in four categories: 

• Music for creativity – There’s a specific tempo for helping people who are searching for inspiration – 50-80 beats per minute. This helps induce “the alpha state where the mind is calm but alert, imagination stimulated and concentration heightened,” says psychologist Emma Gray. Spotify has curated lists of classical, pop, and indie songs with this range of tempos.

• Music for happiness – There’s plenty of evidence that listening to music, singing, and music therapy can produce significant improvements in mental health. The best happiness-boosting songs are uptempo – averaging between 140 and 150 beats a minute – and written in a major key. A group of music therapists has curated a list of songs that move people toward bliss. 

• Music for productivity – When we’re powering through less-than-enthralling tasks, the consensus is we’ll work most efficiently listening to music we enjoy. On the flip side, studies show that if an office is playing background music not to a person’s liking, productivity goes down. Spotify has curated a playlist of songs that appear most frequently on listeners’ “productivity” playlists. 

• Music for brainpower – If we’re trying to learn something difficult, reports Stillman, it’s probably best to work in silence. Music distracts. But if we want background music, instrumental is best – no words to tug at our concentration. One study in the U.K. found that students who studied in quiet environments performed more than 60 percent better than peers who studied while listening to music with lyrics. 

“The overall point here,” says Stillman, “is that music really is medicine. The right tune can alter your entire frame of mind, giving you a fresh perspective on your day and boosting your productivity. Choose wisely when you queue up some songs.” 

 

“Neuroscience Says Music Is an Emotion Regulation Machine. Here’s What to Play for Happiness, Productivity, or Deep Thinking” by Jessica Stillman in Inc., April 16, 2025

 

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7. Timely Suggestions for School Scheduling

(Originally titled “5 Ways to Make School Scheduling Season Easier”)

            “April and May are prime scheduling season months, a critical window when decisions about time allocation will shape learning opportunities for the upcoming school year,” say Emma Holdbrooks (Educational Leadershipmagazine) and David James and Nathan Levenson (New Solutions K12) in this online ASCD article. “The most successful schedules are never static; they evolve based on student needs, staff feedback, and school priorities.” They have five suggestions:

            • At all grade levels, focus on quality time, not just more time. For each schedule block, is time being used optimally for the students who need it the most? For example, it’s better to have 45 minutes of daily math for all students and an additional 45-minute intervention, taught by content-strong math teachers, using the same curriculum, than 90 minutes of daily math for all students and a 30-minute afternoon “flex” block with mixed-content support. 

            • At the elementary level, use a whole-school approach. Stagger core literacy, math, and interventions across grade levels so specialists can concentrate on one grade at a time – and ensure that no student misses core instruction to receive intervention services. 

            • Create micro-schedules for core elementary subjects. For example, daily 90-minute literacy blocks all have 15 minutes of readaloud, 10 minutes of word study, 20 minutes of phonics, and 45 minutes in which three groups rotate to decoding, individual/paired reading, and vocabulary. 

            • At the secondary level, schedule precisely by enrollment. Set clear class-size targets and minimum enrollments and alternate low-enrollment electives by quarter, semester, or year, say the authors: “This frees up ‘hidden’ capacity without hiring additional staff.” 

            • Optimize within your current schedule model. That means making school priorities come alive with whatever product is being used.

 

“5 Ways to Make School Scheduling Season Easier” by Emma Holdbrooks, David James, and Nathan Levenson in ASCD Online, April 22, 2025; see Memos 586, 737, 762, and 998 for other articles on scheduling. 

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8. Short Item:

High-quality activities for students who finish early – In this Edutopia article, Todd Finley (East Carolina University) shares ideas for extension activities in elementary, middle, and high-school classes.

 

“Your Student Finished Early – Now What?” by Todd Finley in Edutopia, March 20, 2025

 

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