Thank you to Maggie Iuni for sharing her R.E.A.L. life with us! Maggie is an English teacher at Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn, NY. We loved hearing about Maggie’s experience using R.E.A.L. to help her students grow their curiosity and perspective-taking, and discover their own “why” when it comes to learning discussion skills. 

Name: Margaret “Maggie” Iuni

Hometown: Brooklyn, New York

Current School: At the Berkeley Carroll School, I teach “Literatures of Community”, which is our 9th-grade literature class. Last semester, I taught 10th-grade “Voice and Style”, which is our personal essay writing class. And then this semester, I have a new 12th-grade elective, which is called “The Marriage Plot and Rom-Coms”, which has been fun.

Thinking back to when you were a student, how would you describe yourself in three words?

I’m going with “curious, enthusiastic, and diligent.”

When it comes to discussion, what is your “why”? What feels compelling and important about teaching these particular skills?

I went to Brooklyn College for undergrad, and while I was there, my professors had a really heavy emphasis on critical literacy. One of the things they instilled in me is that my why actually isn’t the thing that matters. What matters is the student’s why, and so my why is actually helping them discover their own.

To me, the whole point of these discussions is helping students figure out why does this matter to them. Because if you can’t figure that out, you’re going to think that this is the most boring thing in the world. 

And why would you bother going to English class if you can’t understand that this actually has an impact on your life, right? It’s not necessarily the plot of the book, but the ideas in the book are something that could be meaningful to you. I try to really center on that and ask them, “Why does this matter to you?” Why do these ideas resonate with you? Something that I love about R.E.A.L. Discussion is that it centers student voices and doesn’t say, “Oh, that’s something that we shouldn’t be talking about, we should only be talking about the text, we should only be talking about history class”. Instead, the Relate skill explicitly says, you should be thinking about how this relates to your own experiences in your own life, and I think that that’s really powerful.

That’s such a wonderful way of putting it, especially for kids. 

It’s funny because the kids struggle with the format of R.E.A.L. A lot of them report in the surveys that it’s so unnatural, so scripted. My response to them is, first of all, if it’s too scripted, that’s because your prep work is written in full sentences. And second of all, if you’re uncomfortable with the format, I hear that. They’re right; it isn’t natural, but the structure is there for a reason.

We just made it through the end of Cycle 2 a couple of weeks ago. Some students say they wish we didn’t have to do all this extra stuff, but they 100% have grown into the format. Now they report that they’re listening better and taking notes better. So it’s about exposing them to a level of discomfort that’s truly very accessible and that they will have to figure out how to integrate into their life as academic students. 

Now that you’ve used R.E.A.L. Discussion in your class for a couple of years, do you feel like you can identify a time of the year when you see a turning point for the kids and their skill development? 

Yes, I think so. We read four complete books throughout the year, but the first conversation that we have, no matter what we would be doing it on, is about learning the format. It’s not really going to be the best conversation of all time. In fact, think that’s true for the entire first cycle. 

Once we get through the structures, they kind of realize that the structures have value. They roll with it, and then we can do more beyond that. Then Cycle 2 is really where it kicks off. This year, the kids really liked dissecting The Prime of Miss Jean Brody in their R.E.A.L. Discussions and the structure paid off. This novel is a nasty little book because the narrator is completely unreliable and on the side of this really terrible teacher, who is literally a blatant fascist, and who influences the students in terrible ways. This book is brilliant and is truly a masterclass on what a sentence can do. She has these little pernicious sentences that are so good. 

It takes a while, but by the third cycle, you start to see them use the skills more fluidly—they relate, ask strong questions, and use nonverbal cues so naturally they don’t even realize they’re doing it.

That’s so wonderful to hear. Thinking back to your first R.E.A.L. Discussion, was there anything you were worried about beforehand? Were there any surprises or unexpected successes?

I was totally terrified. I kept wondering—what was I supposed to do? How do I stay hands-off but still support them?

My first R.E.A.L. Discussion was last school year, in September 2024. I thought, we’ll just see how it goes. I was honestly shocked by how long they could talk when you give them the space, and how on task they stayed with those little accountability tools—note-taking, the timer on the board. (They’re very good at tracking their own time!) What surprised me most was how completely they rose to the prompt.

Now that I’ve done this twice, I think the real success comes when they finish that first conversation saying, “We don’t need this anymore—we can just have normal conversations.” That’s when I know it’s working, even if they don’t realize it yet. They feel confident enough to think they don’t need the structure—but they still do. That, to me, should feel empowering for other educators: it means you’ve created a space where their voices actually work. The format is just there to hold that growth until they can carry it themselves. 

That really rings true. I think a lot of teachers worry about that first discussion. The kids can be resistant to the NVCs. And it’s natural for teachers to wonder whether they are doing it right.

It’s challenging for teachers to let the kids go off and talk. You don’t have to listen to every single thing, but a lot of teachers are so anxious about that: Can I make sure the kids get what we need out of it if they talk without me being there?

The only thing that I grade for R.E.A.L. Discussions is their prep work because that’s the part that shows the groundwork thinking.  I want them to practice the skills of note-taking without writing everything line by line. I want them to be able to have flexibility in conversation while being prepared. 

By doing the prep work, when they come to class, they will be much more prepared and have much more fruitful conversations. And so, for me, if I know that their prep work is done, then I can feel a lot more confident in letting them go talk.

Right—otherwise you wouldn’t know if they’d reached a real processing level.

Yes, and to the point about not always knowing if everyone has grasped something in a class discussion—what I love to do, especially during high-stress times like midterms, finals, or the end of a quarter, is collect the shoutouts students have received. I pull them from end-of-cycle reflections and even from notes or journal entries. Then, I share some of the comments anonymously, so they don’t know who said what, but they can see how their classmates appreciated their ideas. It’s a small way to remind them that others see their insight, humor, and thoughtfulness. Giving them that little confidence boost right when they need it most is really fun.

That’s so awesome! Have you seen any student “breakthroughs” or “ah-ha moments”? 

I’ve seen two ends of the spectrum this year, and something similar happened last year, too. One student is naturally outgoing, and they are supremely invested. Early on, they tended to dominate discussions. I think they felt any dead airtime was their responsibility to fill. 

As part of the debrief, I always ask: Whose voice did you hear the most? Whose voice did you hear the least? And I have them reflect on that. In their most recent survey, that student wrote, “I’ve gotten much better at sharing airtime and being a much more active listener. I’ve realized my voice is not the only one I need to be paying attention to.” I thought, amazing—love that.

On the other end, I have one of the quietest students I’ve ever taught. They still struggle with getting into the R.E.A.L. Discussions. But one thing that’s been really empowering for that student is that all the other students consistently give them the most shoutouts. Even if they only speak twice in a 25–30 minute conversation, the thing they said is what sticks out to their peers.

R.E.A.L. is going to be different for every student because each student has different strengths and challenges. What I love about it is that the entire spectrum of students – from the most talkative to the least talkative – can find something to take away from this practice and celebrate about themselves and their classmates.

That’s so cool to hear about the growth on both sides of the spectrum, especially about the student who didn’t speak much. I think self-silencing is also very common. 

I agree. Some think, “I can only share if it’s perfect.” R.E.A.L. helps with that. One of my favorite stats on my dashboard is how many students have said that they are willing to change their minds as we go through this. I’m lucky that Berkeley Carroll has a truly amazing community, and our kids are mostly very kind to each other. But it’s really wonderful to see that they can go into a discussion thinking, “This is my opinion and everything that I say is right,” and then by the end of the discussion, recognize that there are other perspectives.

How amazing for a 9th or 10th grader to go into a class thinking that something they hear from a peer might change their mind and that they might learn from them!

That’s one of the things I really like; it ties into my top three learning goals for discussion.

Last question: Do you have a favorite quote or one that has been inspiring to you lately? 

I find inspiration in everything! As an English teacher, I really do feel like you can find inspiration from anywhere. As I’m starting to think about prepping Sula for the fourth quarter, I’ve been thinking a lot about Toni Morrison’s quote, ”If you are free, you need to free somebody else.” And I’ve been thinking a lot about that in terms of what does that mean to a society? What does that mean to me? How are we defining free? And how can I help empower others in that way? I might not be able to free somebody economically, but how can I empower this person to understand a little bit more about who they are, where they come from, and what they want out of life?

That quote has been sticking with me. It’s something that I’ve been inspired by and still try to parse out.

Feels like that comes full circle back to your why.

Yes. It does! 

It was such a delight to get to talk with you, Maggie. Thank you for sharing your R.E.A.L. wisdom with us! 

Thank you to Anastacia Ike-Foreman for sharing her R.E.A.L. life with us! Anastacia is a seventh and tenth-grade English teacher at Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School (TVT) in Irvine, CA. She shared her perspective that listening is the heart of discussion and that structured dialogue helps her students move beyond black‑and‑white thinking toward more nuanced critical reasoning. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Name: Anastacia Ike-Foreman

Hometown: Costa Mesa in Orange County, California (though I spent 10 years in Charlotte, North Carolina and Rock Hill, South Carolina).

Current School: I teach seventh- and tenth-grade English at Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School, an independent Jewish day school in Irvine, California.

Can you describe yourself as a student, in three words or phrases?

Undiagnosed ADHD, very talkative, and a struggling reader.

Who was your favorite teacher and why?

My third-grade teacher, Miss Plumbo, was my favorite because every day after recess, she would bring us in and read us a picture book by an author like Tomie dePaola or one with beautiful illustrations. As a kid who didn’t really like reading words on a page, I really engaged with this form of reading. She brought those stories to life by reading them to us. I really liked her creative teaching style.

When it comes to discussion, what is your “why”? What feels compelling and important about teaching these particular skills?

When it comes to discussion, there is a piece of humanity there: seeing the state of things in our world, looking at social media, looking at how people interact in all forms of media, watching my own family have their crazy discussions, and then thinking, Could we come to a place of understanding each other? Could we come to a place where we actually get somewhere and learn from each other, rather than proving a point in a civil way?

That was sort of my big a-ha. I started by taking Deep Listening, a program by the Stanley King Institute, which I found very helpful. I had many kids coming to me and talking to me, and I was wondering, “How do I help them?” I realized it was more about listening than fixing anything. And so, fast-forward: coming back to school, I thought, What if I could get kids to listen to each other? What if I listened better to my family? What if society started listening to each other? 

Although it’s a discussion, I think the magic is in the listening, because it helps us learn about each other, about who we are, and to respect and appreciate each other for our differences and individuality. Academically, discussion is a very important tool because it allows students to put their ideas together on the spot, creating meaning by going deeper than they ever would have if they were to think through the process individually.

And I think that, especially, my middle school students have a hard time seeing things in black and white. They say, here is my point – ta-da!  Discussion helps them to develop their critical thinking skills and challenge each other’s and their own ideas. Especially in literature, it’s crucial to move away from this concept of what is the right answer and toward considering all the possible answers. There’s room for more than one truth when it comes to literature and the humanities. You can hold onto your perspective and still hold space for someone else’s experience. Two things can be true.

I think that’s really well said! What would you say your two or three top learning goals are for your seventh graders? What do those goals look like for your tenth graders?

With my seventh graders, my biggest goal is to help them ask questions respectfully. Asking questions helps them move beyond black-and-white thinking and dig deeper into what the other person is thinking. For example, they can ask themselves, “Did I hear the other person correctly?” and “Where did that person get the evidence to come to that place?”

This week, one of my kids responded to a comment with “I disagree.” I said, “actually let’s try that again. Ask them a question.” And she said, “Okay, well, you said this, and I just, I don’t see how you came to that understanding.” The other person said, “That’s not what I meant to say. What I meant was …”  It was this ‘aha moment’ for everyone. Asking questions gives the other person a chance to rephrase what they’re saying, which is a huge skill, and then reach a point of reasoning. 

I think it’s really cool to have those moments, debrief them, and then say, next time, come from a perspective, enter with curiosity, rather than immediately getting upset that somebody disagreed with what you thought.

What about for your 10th graders? What does discussion look like in terms of their learning goals? 

With the tenth graders, I think asking questions and listening are still the main goals, but they look different from those in seventh grade. They’re practicing building on their own ideas or jumping in with their own evidence in response to what someone else says. And when someone asks a question or introduces a piece of evidence, the tenth graders take time to explore it, rather than just acknowledging that someone spoke and then moving on. Sometimes discussions can sound like, “Okay, now I speak and bring up a new thing.” And I’ll say, no, let’s pause. Let’s take that apart a little bit before moving on to what someone else has to say. Because we’re going to miss a lot of really insightful conversations if the students keep bouncing around.

Another big thing with them is the evidence piece. I’ve explained that bringing in evidence—actually turning to the same page and reading the passage together—isn’t just a protocol. Just because you read something and interpreted it a certain way doesn’t mean everyone else will interpret it the same way. 

Going back to the page and seeing it in context gives everyone a chance to understand how someone else is reading that evidence, which can lead to a more meaningful conversation. You might say, “I saw it this way, but could it also mean this?” So instead of just taking what someone says at face value, we pause and do an “evidence check.” That slows things down and helps everyone really think.

I think that the practice of slowing down and considering the evidence is really preparing them for the real world. They’re going to be handed a ballot one day and told, “These are the facts.” But I want them to have the instinct to pause and say, “Hold on, let’s look a little closer.” It’s about learning to think for yourself, not just accepting something because someone else said it.

This type of practice is also an important skill for navigating AI. The world has changed so quickly – even compared to when we used to talk about critical thinking or media literacy five or ten years ago. Now we have to ask, “Why is the algorithm feeding me this?” AI systems are built on data, and that data always carries bias. So we can’t just take everything AI produces as fact. We have to slow down, question what we’re seeing, and notice what might be shaping it. I love the idea of slowing down and focusing — of really tackling issues rather than just checking a box.

Take us back to the first R.E.A.L. Discussion you led. What were you worried about going into that first discussion? 

I’m going to step back even farther, before even starting a discussion method at all. My fear was losing control, not being the one guiding them, and having them devolve into chaos as they all talk over each other, start totally misinterpreting things, and lose track of our skill focus. To be honest, the biggest thing was “I’m not going to have control over what I need them to get.” That was probably my biggest fear.

I think that’s a pretty common one. How did that fear shift or change, or that perception change? Are there systems that you have developed to be able to navigate that? 

Yes, I’ve definitely developed systems for that. I think R.E.A.L. provides a well-structured approach that eliminates much of that fear. But I will also say my perspective completely changed. I shifted from feeling like “I need these kids to get here” to “these kids are actually teaching me things.” Their process of making meaning is more important than what I’ve already discovered or what I want them to know. Because if I just shut up and let them talk, they blow my mind every time. I’ve learned that the less I talk, the more they learn, the more they grow, and the more they blow me away with things I had never thought of.

And that’s not to say that I completely lose track of the discussion question.  I still guide them back to the discussion question in a common text, but in terms of thinking, they might come up with something that hasn’t been considered before, something more relevant to our context today. 

Can we zoom in a little bit deeper on the topic of the kids blowing you away? Is there a particular moment that comes to mind that you’ve experienced when a student had a breakthrough in discussion?

Yes. This one is a little heavy, but last year, when we were discussing [S.E. Hinton’s] The Outsiders, and one of the questions was about how losing people affected their character, how it changed their choices, how it changed their relationships with others in the book. One of my students, who had recently lost a parent, felt safe enough to say: I actually relate to this because I lost my parent. This student was not one to talk about the situation very much, but they shared that when they lost their parent, they felt that they went through sort of the same thing that Pony Boy went through and the rage that Dally’s going through. The student added, “I think that loss 100% can affect your choices, because I see myself in these characters,” and the other students fell silent. And I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh, his could go one of many ways.” And immediately, a friend of the kid asked, “Does it have to be losing people through death?” I said, no, and then that student shared, “Even though I haven’t lost anyone, I hear you, because I’ve gone through things where I feel like I don’t have anyone at home, and I really rely on my friends to give me the family structure. That helps me understand their character and why they stuck together as The Outsiders; because they were family, they didn’t have a mom and dad that they could rely on.”

And from there, almost everyone jumped in, sharing how they appreciated the relating both students gave, or offering their own experience to share. They came up with something so rich that it can’t be replicated. To see, more than anything, the safety that these kids created with each other, to be able to share these really intense, deep moments and have trust that they were going to be held by their classmates, is beyond anything academic I could hope for. And this is seventh grade! Seventh grade! What a beautiful thing!

What an incredible experience. Were you on the verge of tears? 

I had chills. I was crying and trying to keep it together. But I also felt it was okay if they saw me cry; you know, I’m a human being. I don’t need to just sit here like a news reporter. My relationship with my students is much more authentic as well. It’s okay for them to see that I have feelings and that I feel for them and that I love them.

I just want to love these kids, so I feel like teaching English gives me a way to reach them and stay flexible with that. There’s the humanity in all of it.

That is truly beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Our final two questions are slightly less deep. First, what advice would you give to a new teacher who’s on the cusp of starting their first R.E.A.L. Discussion? 

I would say start slow and simple. Take a little bit at a time. You don’t have to roll out the whole thing on day one.  Liza shared that we should think about the big picture at first. Give them some time to think, discuss, reflect, and give each other shout-outs.

And I would say go with that approach. Then use the hand signals, as they will keep kids on track and prevent them from talking over each other. And also the nonverbal “I agree” sign. Thinking big picture would be the way to start, and then with my seventh graders, we first focused on what it means to Relate, and then we really focused on just Relating in the first discussion. Then, in the second discussion, once we know Relate, we’ll add Excerpt.  We roll one skill at a time, then practice. Eventually, they’re doing everything. But I think for at least my seventh graders, it was important that we practice each skill rather than front-load them with everything at first. 

Final question: What is inspiring you right now? Do you have a favorite quote or book you’ve been reading?

I do a lot of reading and thinking, but one thing I’ll share isn’t necessarily the most inspiring. We use MAP [Measures of Academic Progress] testing.  One of our curriculum leaders was going through the readiness skills with each of the kids, and that gave me an idea. I started thinking about grouping students for discussion questions that target the same skill, but differentiating the questions based on their readiness levels.

So, for example, if we’re working on a theme, Group 1 might focus on What is the theme? Group 2 might look at How is the theme is proven? And Group 3 might explore How does the theme develop? They’re all working on the same overarching skill, but their discussion questions are different.

Then, after working in groups, everyone returns to the whole-class discussion to share their evidence. That way, all students get to access the text and the learning at a level that’s right for them. Everyone’s part of the same conversation; they’re learning from each other, but the differentiation gives each student a real stepping stone into the discussion. That’s something I’ve been inspired by lately and am thinking about trying—it’s a little new for us.

It was so wonderful speaking with you, Anastacia! Thank you for inspiring us with your ideas and innovative and caring approach to discussion!

Name: Kacie Neville 

Hometown: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but I currently live in Cleveland, Mississippi. 

Current school: I teach tenth grade English at Cleveland Central High School but will be taking on a new position as principal of an elementary school next year. 

Thank you so much for speaking with us today, Kacie! We always like to start by asking you to think back to when you were a student. How would you describe yourself as a student in three words?

Talkative would definitely be one. I was an avid reader. And I don’t know what the third one would be, but I liked getting good grades; I was very grade-motivated as a child.

Tell us about your journey as a teacher and administrator. What got you interested in teaching, and how did you land at your current school? 

It’s been quite a journey! I joined Teach For America after undergrad, and I had studied business, so teaching wasn’t even really on my radar. I got interested in Teach For America through extracurricular activities that I was involved in in college. When I joined Teach for America, they placed me in Mississippi for my first two years. I taught at a school that’s about 10 miles south of where I live right now. I stayed past my commitment to do a third year and then moved out to Los Angeles, California to teach at a charter school. Then I moved back to Mississippi to work as a teacher coach with Teach for America for five years. I coached novice teachers while I was in grad school at Penn and also while I was in grad school at a local university here called Delta State University. In 2022 I decided I wanted to go back into the classroom, because I wanted the experience of teaching after COVID. I was coaching while people were teaching during COVID, and it caused a really big shift, especially where I live and work, in terms of access to technology. When I first started teaching, my school didn’t have computers, it was very low tech, and now it’s one-to-one everywhere, and that’s a totally different thing to manage. I was watching a lot of things change, especially around the teaching of reading in Mississippi, and wanted to see how that’s playing out in the classroom before becoming an administrator. I’m about to embark on my first administrative position at a magnet Elementary School in the same district that I currently teach in. 

Thinking about your path and how you were able to take a bird’s eye view as an instructional coach and work with a bunch of different teachers at different schools: What do you think has changed the most in terms of student needs or student challenges over that time?

I think this was true before, but we have words for it now – we’re seeing the incredible impact that a strong social environment can have for students. COVID really laid that bare. There were a lot of teachers who were talking about it as an individual thing. For instance, I’d hear them talk about how “I create this kind of environment for my classroom. This is how my students feel about each other.” But really it felt like it was left to the individual teacher. 

Once students came back from spending a year or two out of a social environment, and we saw the ramifications of that, folks really started to see how we needed more intentionality around that in our schools. We couldn’t just be like, “Okay, we’ll drop them back together and they’ll figure it out.” I’ve been teaching students who were in middle school when they were virtually learning. We weren’t setting them up to speak to each other academically or learn how you listen to another person when they’re speaking. And I think that the increased access to technology also creates some of that communication barrier. So we’re working on multiple fronts and dealing with the fact that a lot of their communication and relationship-building skills are happening on external platforms.

Keeping those changes in mind, when you think about class discussion, what is your “why”? What feels compelling and important to you about teaching these particular skills?

So many things! I work with a population of students who, on average, are operating several years behind their reading grade level. But there’s a big push, as there should be, for them to be accessing grade level material. In class I get richer and more thoughtful responses from them orally than I do in writing. It’s too many processing layers for our brains which are programmed to communicate orally – it’s genetically how humans operate and how we operate socially. Writing and reading are actually not natural processes for our brain. We learn them. But when you’re struggling with reading and you’re struggling with writing, it is so hard to express yourself that way. So for me, students having the ability to take their ideas the way they would say them, work on them, and then share them with others to level up the depth of those ideas is a very appealing prospect. I’ve known for years that I get better responses and more engagement with the text if we’re doing it with our voices than just with pencil and paper. Even with students who are struggling to read, sometimes I am just blown away by some of the stuff that they’ll say and how much they understand when all I’ve been doing is reading their worksheets, which are not giving me an accurate representation of how much they truly comprehend. 

That really goes back to the point you were making before: if students are doing this thinking in isolation, they’re missing the social-emotional piece. They’re also missing that opportunity to have more discussions to build their understanding and see if everybody else gets this concept or not.

Yeah, during the pandemic teaching virtually was like teaching to a blank wall. Kids weren’t talking to each other. So imagine a student sitting there thinking that they don’t get it, but no one else is expressing that they don’t get it. You’re just going to sit in your own misunderstanding. That organic piece is missing when we’re not together. I just did a student survey, and one of the things that students said they like best about this class was the discussions we have, the things we talk about. And then their least favorite thing was reading. I thought that’s funny because when we talk about the reading, you’re really into it! So I think the discussion amps up the engagement in something that could potentially be less engaging or hard to access. 

That’s a really good point! Tell me a little bit about how you’ve been structuring R.E.A.L. Discussions in your class. What does it look like with a large group?

We’ve done two full R.E.A.L. Discussions in groups, and we also do what I’m calling “Mini-R.E.A.L.s” in centers. They work in small groups of four or five and move around in six centers. They move through three centers one day, three the next day like a circuit. Each center lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. They all start in different places. One center is for DQ Prep and another is for discussion. The other centers are ones that they do all the time – like vocabulary, independent reading, grammar – so they are good at self-managing at those centers. There’s a group that starts at the discussion table, which is my table, and I usually start my struggling group there. I help facilitate that discussion and the DQ Prep for that group. Everyone else primarily does it independently, but I try to keep the discussion happening at my center, so that I can hear what they’re saying. Occasionally I’ll jump in and be like, oh this has sparked a new idea for me too!

I think that’s a brilliant structure, especially for scaffolding the routines! Are there any other things – especially when it comes to texts and DQs – that would be helpful for a teacher teaching a large class?

A lot of it is like any classroom structure or system. It’s about practicing and holding students accountable to doing it the way that it’s laid out and just making sure that the content is aligned with what it is you’re asking them to do. 

Timing it so that the discussions are at a place in the curriculum where there’s enough for them to discuss is important too.

My curriculum has theme-based units and some pretty good essential questions for each unit. I tweak some of those as the discussion questions, so that they can pull from multiple texts to support. The second discussion was very aligned to the essay they were going to have to write at the end. So they used their DQ Prep as their collection of evidence for the essays. And when they realized that’s what was happening, they were like, “We’ve already done this! I’ve seen this question before!” So they were excited to be able to use their workbooks while they were writing their essays. And those were some of the better essays I’ve gotten this year – they were the most well thought-out and had the most evidence. I think it was because we had layered on collecting evidence, discussing it, and adding to our writing.

Thinking back on this year, does a moment come to mind where you saw a student have a breakthrough during discussion? What did it look like, and did you see it have an impact on other students?

One of the moments I’m thinking of was a moment of conflict between two students in a R.E.A.L. Discussion group who were fully misunderstanding each other. They were using the same word to mean very different things. They were going back and forth, and their whole group was watching them. Eventually another student stepped in and was like, “I think that you guys disagree, but the reason you disagree is because when he says this, this is what he means, and when she says this, this is what she means. Is that right?” And then they agreed that was right. And that was really great, because they were starting to get frustrated with each other. But to have another student feel comfortable enough to step in and be like, “Hey, I’ve been watching this volleyball for a while, and I have a thought!” was really cool, and I highlighted it to the class afterwards. Sometimes discussions lead to conflict, and that’s okay. When we’re open to listening, like that student was, we can take it to the next level. 

I love that it came up naturally too! That’s really neat. Have you encountered any other challenges through the process?

The attendance issue is always a challenge, especially if my students weren’t present on the day that we read the story. Then they miss some crucial piece of evidence. For a student who has missed a third of the texts that we are discussing, I adjust and have them just discuss the two that they know. Sometimes if there are four kids who haven’t read the text, I have them go sit and read the text, and we’ll do a R.E.A.L. Discussion with that group during independent reading time some other time, or something like that. 

Two final fun questions: first, what is your go to reward for grading a big pile of papers?

I generally try to create a grading environment that I enjoy. So when the weather is permitting, I like to grade outside. I don’t really know if there’s a go-to reward, just besides the grading being done. But generally, I try to make sure that I’m not grading in an environment that makes me feel stressed, like my messy desk.

That’s very wise! Okay, final question, what is feeling extra inspirational for you these days?  

We had our college signing day today, so I went and saw a bunch of my former students sign for the universities that they’re going to go to. They were so excited to have their t-shirts on. And the local universities came and brought them swag! Watching my current students watch these older students going to college – and being so excited about it – was really, really inspirational! 

That’s so wonderful. Kacie, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us today!

Can you describe yourself as a student in three words?  

Jessica: Overachiever, rule-follower… maybe a little anxious. Definitely a people-pleaser too!

Katherine: I’d say I was teachable, creative, and a very visual learner.

Maggie: Total opposite of Jessica. I tried to follow the rules, but didn’t always succeed. I loved learning, was very eager and strong with big-picture thinking—but details overwhelmed me. So…creative, slightly disorganized, and visionary.

Tell us a little bit about why you decided to prioritize teaching communication skills this year.

Jessica: For me, I could explain things all day, and my students seemed like they were listening—but when it came time to write or do a project, they’d say, “I don’t get it.” We’ve learned that when students explain what they are thinking to each other in their own words, when they’re the ones taking ownership of their work and really digging deep, then they’re developing a better understanding of it. So I thought if they can communicate from the get-go better what they’re understanding, instead of me just saying it back and forth to them, then we’re going to see the benefits of that a lot earlier. Teaching communication helps them own their learning earlier.

Katherine: Since COVID, and with kids being behind a screen and on devices more, they’re really having a harder time with that communication. So teaching targeted, face-to-face communication is becoming more important.

Maggie: One thing I’ve noticed in our discussions since implementing R.E.A.L. is how the routines have made some of the classroom discussion dynamics visible. We use hand signals, and students only get to share three times, so even our most talkative students pause and think about whether what they were going to say was really meaningful and whether what they want to share is adding to the conversation and moving it forward. So, it’s helped balance voices and encourage everyone to contribute. 

Tell us about where you started – which skill did you start with and how did you sequence the mini-lessons? 

Maggie: This year, I started with “Ask”. In Social Studies, “asking” lends itself so beautifully to deep conversations. For example, when we were studying Susan B. Anthony, I posed the question, “after learning that Susan B. Anthony felt more strongly about white women’s right to vote over black men’s right to vote, does it change your opinion towards Susan B. Anthony?” I wish I had recorded the discussion! It was so amazing. It was so awesome to hear their responses and to see them really put some thought into it. 

It’s funny because throughout the day, for instance in math, they’ll start saying, “do we need to use hand signals?” Because they can tell some people are constantly answering and some people are not. I kind of love that. In my head, I had it that it’s going to work right here in this content area with Social Studies. And with them, they were like, “let’s just use this all day long!” So this year, just for the sake of time, I just kind of jumped into it. 

Jessica: That’s where her visionary big picture stuff is – that’s Maggie, she’s like, “I’m jumping into this!” because that’s where her out of the box thinking is. But for me, the rule follower, I was like, at the beginning of the year, I’m gonna do the first lesson, then the second, then the third. 

We all three did a novel study at the beginning of the year because we had a guest speaker coming, so I started with the “Relate” lessons and also introduced “Excerpt.” We pulled specific pieces from the text and did those lessons, and we connected it to other things we had read and discussed. We did those beginning lessons, even though the Excerpting lessons happen later on, because these girls have been exposed to it in second and third grades through our other curricula. We felt like they were ready for it, otherwise we wouldn’t have pulled it in. We didn’t have to focus on listening as much; we just reviewed that real fast, and they were ready, so that helped kind of jump start the whole program.

In our Social Studies class, we really leaned into discussion because it lends itself more to that debate-style format. As Katherine was saying earlier, it’s so important to teach them how to communicate in a respectful way, and how to disagree with each other. And even for those hard topics, like Maggie mentioned, these girls have done a really great job respectfully disagreeing and adding on and just really looking at, “what do I want to say? Is it going to be beneficial to this conversation?” So I started following the portfolio at first and then jumped around and adlibbed a little bit. 

Can you think of a moment this year where a student had a breakthrough and what did it look like?

Jessica: I think our biggest breakthroughs have been in Social Studies this year because our topics in fourth grade have been pretty deep. We were studying abolitionists and suffragists, and now we’re into our unit on influential women – those topics are huge topics for these 10-year-olds to discuss. I remember one of my kids during the Susan B. Anthony discussion was looking at a primary source, and she shared that she didn’t understand why Susan B. Anthony was fighting with Frederick Douglass and was not happy for her friend. And then someone else pointed out something different in the text and read it a different way. They had this really unique discussion and both realized they wanted to learn more about this. Based on their discussion in the text and what we had talked about in class, they went and they did their own research. At first they asked me for answers, but I said, oh, I need to do more research too! So I was getting on my computer to look things up, and I was showing them how to type in the question and look for the information. But then they said, “we want to research too!” I said, go for it, because these are two kids that I could trust to actually research and not look up crazy things. To me, though, that was an aha moment – to see them have that light bulb go off and really have students invested in their own learning. 

Maggie: For me, having students tie their response to textual evidence has been so important and instructive. A lot of times they have an opinion or a thought – or sometimes their parents’ opinions or thoughts – but it’s not tied to textual evidence, and they would share it in class. With excerpting, we’ve focused on that skill. And in civil discourse, we’ve focused on how to agree and disagree, how to base your information in evidence, and how to ask respectfully of other students, “what is your source?”

Katherine: I would say for me, the breakthroughs have happened when the girls are able to relate what they’re learning about into bigger picture ideas. When we were doing the “Intro to Relate” with the visiting author’s memoir, they were able to see, “oh I relate to the author because I’ve also gone through something challenging!” And then with the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass discussion, they realized, “I’ve had disagreements with my friends. Maybe it affected my friendship for a little while, but we were able to ultimately respect each other’s opinions.” So, they’re able to pull in these life experiences with the discussion and relate. 

That is really cool to hear! I’m excited to hear how things go as the kids get older and continue having deeper discussion in middle school in a couple of years.

Maggie: I think fourth grade is a great year to kind of nail the introduction to this to the process and the format! I have an eighth grader here, and they use it as well in eighth grade. And I have another daughter who is in college now. The two of them would kind of get into discussions, but all talking at the same time. My eighth grader would then say, “wait, where did you get that? What’s your evidence?” So she definitely enjoys it.

That’s so great! Thank you all so much for sharing – it sounds like it’s been a great year so far with the fourth grade! 

Name: Eamon Thornton 

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia, but I was actually a boarding student here at McCallie. 

Current school: I teach ninth grade honors English here at McCallie in Chattanooga, TN. 

Eamon, thanks for being here today – we are thrilled to have a conversation with someone who has so clearly already established himself as a stellar R.E.A.L. practitioner even in year one of the program! To start us off, could you describe yourself as a student in three words?

As a student, I would say I was gifted, lazy and that autonomy was the main thing that I wanted. I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do, so I could be really passionate about certain things if I was the one driving the car, but I would also just be really reluctant if I didn’t think there was value in what we were doing in class. 

How about a favorite teacher?

My senior year English teacher was the one who kind of hooked me on the subject. You know, so much of high school, at least in my mind, was about getting into college. But my AP English was the one guy that really didn’t teach to the test and was really student driven. I think we even got to choose one of the books that we read in the second semester. 

Turning to you as a teacher: when it comes to discussion, what’s your “why”? In other words, why do you think discussion is important in your class?

What ultimately drove me to English is that it is one of the primary subjects where people really get to voice their own opinions, and you don’t have an authoritative text. I’ve always tried to teach from a place that really tries to grow that in students, and to free them up to have their own interpretation. With all the websites like Spark Notes and Gradesaver and ChatGPT, I love the ability to challenge students to think for themselves, and say to them, “okay, well, sure. I mean, that’s what everybody says about that thing but what do you think?” And in discussion, that’s a place where they can really do that, and where they can ask that of their peers, and ask follow up questions, “well, why do you think that? Where do you see that?” I’ve struggled for  probably 10 to 12 years now on how to have those discussions in a way that allows for that thinking, and that I am able to evaluate and have clear guidelines for students so that they know what I’m looking for. 

You’re definitely not alone in those pedagogical challenges – that’s why we built R.E.A.L.! So, when you’re having a class discussion, what are the learning goals that you focus on for your students?

For me, I care less about whether the students remember who the characters are in a specific novel in the long term. I want students to develop the communication they need for life beyond my classroom – and to practice doing so with the text at hand. 

In the last few years, given all that’s happening in the world, students are really struggling to do this. I generally have some kind of content assessment first – like a book test that ensures students are engaged with the content – so that they are structured for success in discussion. It’s hard to have a discussion if the kids don’t know the text! 

But, more than anything, the skills that I try to focus on are related to Excerpting: how do you support your claims with the text? If you say that this character is this way, show me in the text where there’s something that he says, or some narration about him, or some particular word that demonstrates your point. I tell students, “I’m more interested in how you back up your opinions than whether you’re right or wrong.”

Before your first R.E.A.L. discussion, what were you worried about going in? 

I don’t know if I was really worried about anything in particular – maybe because I’m a lacrosse coach as well as a teacher, and I constantly preach to my players “don’t be afraid to make mistakes.” I tell them a lot “let’s just give it our best shot and see where our mistakes are, and learn from there.” So, I kind of went into the first R.E.A.L. Discussion with that mindset, and tried to emphasize that to students as well. We did a practice R.E.A.L. and we stopped at various points and talked about things – so I’d given them a lot of training before we got into it.

What challenges have you faced in your first year using R.E.A.L.?

What I have seen is that in the beginning, it turns into popcorn reading where students just want to read their excerpt, or their prep, and the next guy will be like, well, here’s another quotation, and here’s what I got out of it. There’s no connectivity or building and synthesizing. That’s the biggest thing that I’ve tried to lead them into more of over the first semester. We’ve talked about this a lot as a class, and now I see it on their own after discussion reflections. 

I’ve thought about how to address this, and I think what I’m going to try to do is actually have them observe each other. Because boys, especially ninth grade boys, are really good at pointing out what other people do poorly! And during the discussion they can have blinders on about themselves. So, I’m going to have one group go and the other group observe, and then halfway through, flip it. I’m hoping that that’s going to help them see the moves their classmates make and then in the debrief talk about what we all saw. 

I think it’s also so interesting when students see discussion in action because I think sometimes students are eager to get their voice in, or they’re anxious about speaking in class and the anxiety or the instinct to talk can get in the way of what they’re saying and how they participate in the discussion. 

I honestly think one of the things I emphasize in my class is that English is so different from the other subjects because I’m not just checking for retention. The goal of the discussion is not for me to see that you did the reading and that you did your discussion prep. But that’s still where students’ brains are, because it’s kind of been indoctrinated into them that the class discussion is to show that they did their homework. So in using R.E.A.L., the goal of discussion is not to show me that you read the chapter and completed your discussion prep; it is about expressing and backing up your opinions.  

Can you think of a moment in using R.E.A.L. this year where it clicked for students? 

I remember there was one student who made a claim, and another student in the group disagreed with him, and as that student was disagreeing, the original student used an NVC, like “hmm I agree with your disagreement with my point.” And I just remember thinking, oh wow! That’s a very visual moment that encapsulates that goal, that the discussion is a kind of a threshing floor where you’re supposed to just put it out there, and in that process, really figure out what you’re trying to say and what you think, and it’s okay to change your mind during the discussion.

The last question I have is kind of a fun one. Do you have any new year’s resolutions?

We stopped doing resolutions, my wife and I probably eight years ago, but we picked up on having a one word focus for the year. My word this year is “devote”. So I’m trying to be more intentional about how I devote my time, more to family, more to rest, and just try to slow down this crazy world a little bit. 

Thanks so much, Eamon. What tremendous insights and thoughts. I’m excited to see what the second semester holds! 

Hometown: Wallingford, CT

Current School & Teaching Assignments: History Department Chair at the Westover School in Middlebury, CT.

Describe yourself as a student in three words: 

Curious, studious, and engaged.

Who was your favorite teacher and why? 

I loved my high school English teachers. Two who meant the most to me are still teaching, and I always think about how lucky their students are. David Loeb was my Freshman English teacher, and Megan Shea was my 11th or 12th grade English teacher. I also had transformative teachers in higher education. I took multiple classes with Dr. Stephen Tyre at St. Andrews, and I think he was the first teacher to show me that my thoughts and ideas were unique to me, and that I had something unique to contribute. That was huge, and as a teacher, that’s one of the things that’s most important to me – I’m trying to convey to each student that if they’re not here on a given day, it’s actually a huge loss to everybody in the class. 

The other teacher who was very important to me was my Master’s and PhD supervisor, Dr. Tony Badger, at Cambridge. His magic trick was that he would listen to what I wanted to do, then he would tell me to look up a certain book or person. As I learned more, I realized that he was actually being completely attentive to having me follow my own ideas – he just knew more than I did, so he was able to put me down the right path.

As a teacher, I really hope to be able to give students voice and choice and be able to send them further down their own paths.

When it comes to discussion, what is your “why?” 

I really believe that every student has a unique perspective, and they add so much value to the class by sharing those perspectives. I want my class to be as rich an experience as possible, and that means every perspective needs to be shared. 

I’m also someone who learns by talking things through. When done right, discussion actually helps you figure out what you think, and R.E.A.L.® supports that so beautifully. A lot of times, students hold themselves back because they’re afraid they’re going to get it wrong, or they’re afraid that they don’t know something yet. The act of discussion is how you figure out what you think.

Take us back to the first R.E.A.L.® Discussion you led – what were you worried about going in? What surprised you about it? What was the biggest success in that first discussion cycle?

I was nervous about letting go of the reins. It felt a bit scary to trust that the kids would be able to figure it out. As it turned out, though, the kids did great, and they learned from the things that didn’t go perfectly. One of the things that made me so glad that I did take the leap was, yes, this was not a perfectly smooth first couple of rounds, but as we practiced more, the growth that students were able to show because they were in the driver’s seat was really transformative.

Now that you’ve done this for a few years, what advice would you give to a teacher about to start their first R.E.A.L.® Discussion? 

I think the biggest piece of advice is to trust the process. And also: take the time to set norms around discussion. Actually tell the kids that this might not be perfect. One of the suggested activities that I highly recommend is to talk with the students about the best and worst in-class conversations they’ve ever had. When you do that group brainstorm, first of all, you’re practicing that discussion piece already. And second, it really normalizes and defuses a lot of the fears. Again, it puts kids in the driver’s seat to ask them: what do you want to get out of this? 

And one thing new teachers should definitely try is the “shout-outs” at the end. It’s amazing. It builds community. I’m always really touched by how students don’t just call out their friends. Often, students will shout out something I hadn’t even noticed. As soon as they name it, I realize they’re right – and it’s incredible.

How do you go about planning for a R.E.A.L.® Discussion? 

I think it works really well when you’re able to use shorter texts, especially at the beginning. Keeping it tight so the students are able to be literally and figuratively on the same page as one another makes a big difference. 

When you think about discussion, what are the top three learning goals you have for your students? 

I think it depends. This is a tool that can be used for lots of different things. For instance, it can be a springboard for students to formulate their own questions. That’s something a lot of students struggle with, and I really try to center it as a skill and not something that comes naturally. It’s something you get good at with practice, and it’s actually really hard to figure out why you’re confused if you’re not good at formulating questions. I shared a Google Doc with all my students, and for homework, they put down three discussion questions based of their own based on the reading. As a class, we winnowed down the questions, and the students voted on the DQs they wanted to use in their own R.E.A.L.® Discussion. Again, that put the students in the driver’s seat. 

I’ve been super impressed by what students can do when given the right scaffolding. It’s pretty dazzling.

Can you think of a moment this year when a student had a breakthrough during a discussion? 

Yes. There are lots of students I could talk about, but one comes to mind. I was blown away by the growth she showed. This was a student who described herself as not really ever having been taught how to study, how to do homework, these sorts of skills. We had a R.E.A.L.® discussion, and this student came in extremely well-prepared. She ended up putting together the most nuanced argument of everyone in her class, and as her classmates respectfully disagreed with her, she really stuck to her argument. I was so glad she did, because it showed that she had grown in her confidence. She did a beautiful job supporting all of her arguments with textual evidence. It was layer upon layer of skills, and to watch it fit into place was magic.

What is your go-to reward for finishing grading a huge pile of papers? 

Oh my gosh. To be perfectly honest, I usually finish grading a huge stack of papers super early in the morning. So my prize to myself is to…go to work. 

But honestly the prize is just the sigh of relief. No other great prize than the weight of the world being lifted from my shoulders.

What discussion challenges have you encountered? How do you approach them? 

For me, the biggest challenge is students who are on the quieter side, or the students who maybe aren’t as well-prepared as they should be. Although, again, I would say that the students I worry the most about not being prepared are usually able to come in with something with this structure. Again, these supports, the scaffolding really help with those problem areas. 

The other thing that can be tough is the students who really like to take up air time. And again, there are tools with R.E.A.L.® Discussion that help mitigate that. 

These are the same sorts of problems you would get in any sort of classroom discussion or dynamic, but I feel like those problem areas are eased by these tools. The non-verbal cueing really helps. One thing that really helps is the hand signaling of how many times each student has spoken, and I really encourage students to make sure they’re definitely doing that. 

What inspires you? 

I’m a great lover of good stories. Personal experiences and unique details are the things I find most inspiring. I think we often make the mistake as writers or teachers or people participating in a discussion, where we take out the pieces that most speak to us in the name of making a point. And you actually make your point less compelling when you take out those unique pieces.

What’s next for you in your class? 

I’m so excited. I’m launching a new skills course this year called Historical Inquiry. The idea here is that the most important pieces are the scaffolded skills. So, discussion, with R.E.A.L.® at the center, writing, research – all those really critical skills. The units themselves can really become plug-and-play so we can follow student interest, because a goal of the ninth grade class is 1) to make sure students have foundational skills, and 2) to convey that history is a class for everyone. Often, when we get to survey courses, can lose the skills and those fun stories when you’re trying to march through and achieve certain endpoints. So I’m psyched to roll out this new course.

Current Role and School: Sixth grade lead teacher at Nativity Preparatory School of Boston.

How did you learn about R.E.A.L.®? 

I used to work at Shady Hill School, where Liza had done her teacher training. One of Liza’s mentors is also one of my mentors, and she saw that we were thinking about some of the same things when it came to conversation. She connected us pretty early on in the R.E.A.L.® journey. 

I did the training and got to try out an early version of the program at Shady Hill, and it was really cool. I’ve loved being part of R.E.A.L.® and seeing it grow. What’s been especially cool is seeing how we can use the same skills to address a different set of needs. At Shady Hill, for example, kids were kind of tech-oriented. We realized they didn’t always have these face-to-face conversation skills, because they’d been used to communicating through a phone. At my current school, Nativity Prep, that’s less of a challenge. I’d say the challenge at Nativity is learning the cultural norms around an intellectual conversation and exploring different versions of different conversations. It’s been really cool to think about how to translate those same R.E.A.L.® skills in a very different cultural context.

Nativity is where it really has helped to think about conversation with a sports metaphor. Conversation is kind of like a team sport – no one person is going to “win” the conversation. The win comes when your team develops new understanding. We’ve gotten good mileage out of that.

Thinking back to your first R.E.A.L.® discussion, how did that go? What were you nervous about? Did anything surprise you? 

Oh, it was a total disaster. I learned a lot from that. What I learned from that mess of a first discussion was that just because it’s a mess doesn’t mean learning isn’t happening. That was a really formative moment for me, because at first I thought, everything is going wrong. Kids were talking over each other, nobody was on topic, I thought I’d messed up because I somehow didn’t prepare them. 

And what I have really learned is that all of that is okay. Whatever happens in that discussion is okay, because it’s all just the raw material from which we’re going to do the learning when we process what happened in there. 

My journey has been learning to be okay with the chaos of those discussions and knowing that even if it goes off the rails, it’s still going to serve the purpose of bringing the kids back to reflect on what happened and why, and what other moves we could have made that might have changed the outcome of the conversation. Then we get in next time, and we try it again.

I love the idea of  R.E.A.L. ® discussion being the raw material that you learn from. I think that’s a beautiful way to view it, because whatever happens, you can use it to learn and grow. 

Exactly. Early on, I was really focused on the content of the discussion: what are they saying? Are they getting to good ideas? And that kind of thing. The more I’ve worked with R.E.A.L.®, the more I’ve realized that the content is actually the less important thing happening during those discussions.

In those first chaotic discussions or perhaps later, can you think of a breakthrough moment you’ve seen with a student or group of students that stands out to you?

There are often some of those, and it’s pretty special. I can remember a group that was talking about a coming-of-age novel about a boy, and it’s kind of standard middle school stuff. But I remember a really cool moment where a group got deep into that and in discussion started to realize that, everywhere in the book, there were other things that were moving from small to big. There was a chapter discussing where the boy was watching the boats in the river and noticing how big they were. And the kids in the class started to think, oh my gosh, wait – the boats are getting bigger, and he’s getting bigger! It’s a metaphor! They jumped up and stopped the discussion and ran over to me and said Mr. Farmer, we just figured it out! And I said, that’s great – now get back in there!

That was really cool. That middle school shift from concrete to abstract thinking starts to happen. What I loved about this was they figured it out for themselves. None of them came into the conversation with that idea. They worked it out together, and then the level of excitement they had about the idea was through the roof. 

That was a rich moment for me, and it reinforced why we do this. Making new discoveries about what we’re reading is exciting, and that excitement is contagious and really fun.

Why did you join R.E.A.L.® as a trainer?

I think what made me want to train was the experience of learning to sit with the chaos of a student discussion. The more I started talking about and processing that, I realized that so many teachers have often been very successful as students and can be kind of perfectionist about what happens in the classroom. I think my number-one message I wanted to share as a trainer was that R.E.A.L. ® empowers you to let go of that and live in the moment with your students. That can create a more powerful learning experience than whatever perfectly sculpted lesson I’ve dreamt up. Joining my students where they are in the mess, and helping them make meaning of that – that’s where learning can happen. That’s the message I want to share with my brilliant, perfection-oriented colleagues from whom I learn so much. There’s one thing to add: it’s ok to be messy.

What is your favorite part of the workshops you lead?

My favorite part is trying out the mock discussion. Because kids, adults – we’re all just people, and I see the same things happen in these mock discussions with adults that I see with my students. We’re all trying so hard to follow the rules, and it’s kind of clunky and awkward, and I love that in the mock discussion we get to feel that awkwardness that our students are going to feel magnified a million times over, because they’re already self-conscious adolescents. Then we get to talk about how some of that felt awkward for us, even as fairly secure adults. So how do we prepare our students to navigate some of that awkwardness? How can we set them up for success? It’s not like we read some article about it – we actually felt it. 

When it comes to discussion in general, what do you see as the power of discussion in today’s world for students, teachers, and parents? 

I think the power of discussion is that we’re engaged in collaborative meaning-making, and that is such a model our world needs to solve problems. No one’s coming to the discussion with the right answer. We’re coming with some ideas, and we’re going to use those ideas as raw material to build some new understanding together as a group. 

There are not a lot of contexts where we get to practice that. So much of school is about: I watch the video, I get the information, I spit it out on the test. This is different from that. 

There’s kind of a radical vulnerability, a loose holding of ideas that happens in discussion. You come in with what you think – but not your final thoughts. You come in at a starting point. Teaching kids to enter into discussions with that kind of humility and understand that it’s okay if their ideas might change as a result of this discussion is really important. It’s really different from what tends to happen in our world, where I know what I think, you know what you think, and we’re going to fight until one of us yields. No way. That’s a dead end.

This is a way of helping kids learn that you don’t have to hold your ideas so tightly – and actually, if you hold them a little more with an open palm, you’ll bring others in, and you’ll get something better out of it.

That answer is so helpful, and I resonated with a lot of what you said. Can you think of anything in you brown background that’s helped you realize the power of your voice and discussion? 

Certainly when I think of my own experience as a student, the moments that stand out to me were those when teachers were willing to take the risk and open up discussion. The seminar-style classes in high school and college were the places where I learned the most and where I connected the most with my classmates and teachers. That was definitely a formative influence. 

I think another influence for me was that I had a kind of different path in my career. As a divinity student, I did my hospital chaplaincy rotations, and that was a really powerful meditation on deep listening to people in a lot of pain, and listening to them making meaning of that pain really deeply moved me. It showed me the power of conversation in terms of making sense of really complex grapplings with these things. The way we can do that is by creating space to listen as we talk out our ideas. So I think in some small way, R.E.A.L.® is like that. It creates norms around making space to talk and wrestle with big stuff.

That’s just beautiful. I would love to know, at this point in your life: who inspires you? 

I have lots of teacher mentors I look up to, but really my inspiration right now is my students. The deck is stacked against them through no fault of their own. By virtue of my identity as a white, straight male, I have never had to live that experience. The grit and resilience of my students who take that with a smile on their face and do everything they can to break those barriers is an endless source of inspiration. 

Last question: do you have any reading recommendations? 

Yes. Mostly in the summer, I’m reading fiction for fun. One book I really loved recently is called The Madstone, and it’s a western, which is not my typical genre. It’s a really fun, totally engrossing adventure. I love that it’s narrated in the first person by a character, Benjamin, who’s trying to make sense of these experiences that are happening to him. He’s using the narration of the book to try to figure out what’s happening and kind of grow up. I do think there’s something there about discussion too, even if it’s a discussion with the reader.

Thank you, Patrick, for chatting with us and for all the work you do on behalf of R.E.A.L.®!

Name/Hometown: Sumner McCallie, Chattanooga, TN, McCallie School

Current Role and School: Dean of Faculty & Curriculum at McCallie School in Chattanooga, TN.

How did you learn about R.E.A.L.®? [R.E.A.L.® Founder] Liza Garonzik had presented at a conference, and our Middle School Principal came back and said, “you’ve got to be connected with her. She has a great idea about how to get students to be more engaged, how to connect, and how to feel more connected in discussions.” It was pretty obvious after going through that training that yes, absolutely – R.E.A.L.® has figured it out. 

Thinking back to your first R.E.A.L.® Discussion, how did that go? What were you nervous about? Did anything surprise you? 

There’s a lot to think about on the front end. And the sense is, particularly as a teacher, you’re trying to cover a lot of things. You’re trying to make sure everything goes well, and there’s a lot of thought that goes into the program. My initial nervousness centered around trying to hold all that in my head while making sure I could get out of the way so students could do the discussion themselves. 

What’s fun about R.E.AL.® is you fairly quickly realize you don’t have to do that. You can focus on individual pieces, and everything comes together over time.

One thing that surprised me was that R.E.A.L.® has thought so deeply about its program. A lot of the routines are, in fact, needed – and they are picked up even by seniors whom you might worry will reject it. That’s pretty significant.

The difference between the first time I ran a R.E.A.L.® discussion and, say, the fourth time I ran it was very much an internal change. I was still focused on me – and on wondering if I was managing it right, hoping that I’d designed it correctly. The more you do it, though, the more you realize you can adapt it to your own course. 

For me, the most important piece of R.E.A.L.® is ensuring there’s a debrief that allows kids to focus on the skill of discussion. If you have that debrief, then the next discussion is infinitely better. That was a surprise for me: realizing that it’s worth going through all the R.E.A.L.® steps and processes to get to the end, because it’s a really well thought-out program. 

Why did you join R.E.A.L.® as a trainer?

I deeply appreciate that Liza and Emily reached out to ask if I would be interested in joining as a trainer. I had already started talking to teachers at my school, because R.E.A.L.® is so useful. 

When you capture something in teaching that can be shared with a number of teachers and transform student experiences, that’s worth sharing. Also, being a R.E.A.L.® trainer is a good reminder of the details of the program. Whenever you teach something, you do it better yourself. And finally, it’s so much fun to train alongside Emily and Liza. They are such a wealth of information. They really understand teaching, and they also understand discussion. I’ve learned something every single time I do a training session with them. 

R.E.A.L.® is a truly transformational thing that can happen in a classroom, so I was absolutely happy to join in on that. 

What is your favorite part of the workshops you lead?

The most fun part of it for me is the personality discussion. Watching that is just delightful, because I love those types of conversations. I love when people can begin to let their guard down. You can then get a sense of what their classroom is like, and who they really are. That’s really fun to see. 

The second part that’s really fun but is a little more abstract is asking people to think deeply about how discussions work. Much like students, I don’t necessarily know that teachers have thought deeply about that either. I think most students and even teachers tend to say: this is something else to try. It’s another tool to use. 

It’s so much more than that. What R.E.A.L.® is allowing teachers to do is to begin to realize they can play around with something that serves a specific purpose, to draw content out, to draw students out, to draw those connections. In the training workshops, you can see them begin to understand why discussions are important, how people come to discussions, why discussions are in fact really critical, and how to plan for them and actually do them the right way. 

Why discussions, why now, and how does my class relate to the larger world – those are the types of questions that are so critical. It goes so far beyond content, and it’s really fun to watch teachers recognize that they actually have a lot more they can use for discussions. 

It’s a great way for teachers to start to understand what discussion can do in their classrooms. 

That’s exactly right. Some of the teachers that went through the training earlier this year have already called me to tell me how phenomenal this training was, which is great. I have one teacher who’s found an extra level of energy and excitement about what’s happening in his class. It’s no longer just about getting across content that will be important for students to learn. It’s doing something that goes much deeper and builds the relationship with students even further.

When it comes to discussion in general, what do you see as the power of discussion in today’s world for students, teachers, and parents? 

There may be two levels. One: if we can help students understand the logistics of how discussions work, they can become more part of a community, because they can enter into discussions even if the other people in the discussion don’t understand the dynamics. Secondly, they can actually manipulate – and I mean that in the best way – and play around with a discussion to get the best out of it. That means they can recognize people’s particular strengths. They can think about how people are approaching discussion. They can learn how to respond respectfully, even when they don’t agree with a point. 

So, part of it is the students’ sense of how they can contribute and how they can create space for others to contribute. I think that’s absolutely vital, on a personal basis, to understand a place in our world. 

If you take time to think about the logistics of discussion, I think it makes a difference in a larger sense in terms of well-being, belonging, and digital citizenship. It feels like we’re in a country that desperately needs conversation – not necessarily agreement, but an ability to converse with each other without demonizing the other side. If we can develop that type of skill, that makes a big difference in addressing issues and raising ideas without getting stuck on the level of ‘you don’t agree with me – that’s it, forget it.’ 

On the digital side, one thing that happens is people can sort of shut off things they don’t agree with by unliking, unfollowing, and disconnecting. That leaves people with an idea that they can deal with life simply because they’ve eliminated all conflict as opposed to working through it. 

We have so many pressures in our society today that are allowing us to become more isolated, either physically or mentally, and discussion has got to be a key in terms of reversing that. But there have to be logistics to that. You can’t just say, “ok, get together and talk correctly.” There has to be a process to do that. 

What in your own background has helped you realize the power of your voice and discussion? 

I’m sure part of it comes from having watched my mom and dad. Dad was a diplomat, so the idea of exchanging concepts and getting together with people that you agreed with and didn’t agree with, and trying to convince folks of certain things, and trying to listen to what their needs were, and going into a discussion where there wasn’t a predetermined outcome already –  like we teachers do – that sort of opened the door. Going into a conversation excited about where it could go, as opposed to feeling like “I’ve got to get it somewhere” I think comes from watching him. 

My mom is an unbelievable listener – one of the best I’ve ever seen. I’ll find myself thinking, “I didn’t expect to be talking about that.” And yet, she didn’t push, she just created space. 

I think these two people are incredibly important for me. And there was a summer camp I went to for years, which was so focused on relationships and people. There, relationships were foundational – and if you got them right, then all the other skills and activities were even more fun, because you were doing them with people that you really enjoyed being with. I think that formed a lot of how I ran boarding life here at McCallie, and it sort of created that philosophy of what I’m trying to do in my class. 

So I think my interest in discussion comes from my family background, my personal experience, and my having found a community environment where people are valued, where what they have to say is valued, and where going out of your way to listen to them is valued. 

As a R.E.A.L.® Trainer, you’re working in adult learning, whereas at McCallie you obviously work with young people. Has that been a big transition? Have you learned anything about your teaching practice?

That’s a great question. But no, it’s not so much of a difference. For the past 20 years, I’ve been working with faculty. I’ve been working with people who are deeply committed to students, deeply committed to learning, and deeply committed to their profession. That’s part of how they get their sense of purpose. The idea of guiding a group of people who share that type of commitment is not new. I’ve been doing that for most of my career. 

What’s been useful to watch is how we all, even as adults, still have insecurities. We still come to spaces wanting to be connected, wanting to be heard, and wanting to be seen again. I think that’s why R.E.A.L.® is so useful – because it addresses those things directly. That’s true with both students and faculty. Some of the processes and metaphors I use are different, because if I’m talking to a faculty member who has kids themselves, that’s very different than an 18-year-old who has no idea about that. But there are similarities, regardless of age, that are worth paying attention to. The way they express themselves, the way they emerge might be a little different. But if you’re looking for the deeper part of who we are as human beings and start there, that’s going to be pretty similar. 

Who inspires you? 

Oh, people like you all. That’s easy. Folks who have a passion for people and who have decided that people are worth going out of their way for – people who are other-centered. People who have passions for things that will make others’ lives better in real ways, and they’re doing something about it. Those are the people that inspire me. 

Last question: do you have any reading recommendations? 

Oh yeah, absolutely. Fredrik Backman is an unbelievable author. He wrote A Man Called Ove, which is fun, and then Anxious People, and his Beartown Trilog is stunning. These are not discussion-based at all – they’re just reading recommendations in general. 

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is truly one of my favorite books. And his new short story collection is really well done. 

I’ve been recommending Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. There’s a really cool series the Library of Congress has developed recently, which are mysteries that were significant for the genre. So, the first courtroom drama, etc. That’s kind of fun. 

Thank you, Sumner, for chatting with us and for all the work you do on behalf of R.E.A.L.®!

Name/Hometown:

Holly Silberman/Doylestown, Pennsylvania

Current School:

William Penn Charter School, where I teach sixth and eighth grade English.

Can you describe yourself as a student in three words? 

Curious, volunteer, perfectionist. 

Who was your favorite teacher, and why? 

Miss Perry was my favorite teacher. She was an English teacher. She just had this way about her that made me feel comfortable talking about my life, and not just about English class-related things. She always pushed me to do my best and to be the best version of myself as a writer and as a reader. She also made it very obvious when she was pleased and when students were doing a good job. That made me feel very accepted, and very much like I wanted to do well for her. 

When it comes to class discussion, what is your “why?” What feels compelling and important about teaching these skills? 

I think the “why” has a lot to do with how today’s kids’ main mode of interaction with one another is through screens. I feel as though they’ve lost some of the essential skills to be in-person and have a real conversation. 

And secondly, it’s a very divisive culture we live in right now. People are not willing to hear other people’s points of view, and they’re afraid to express themselves because of fear of retribution. I think it’s really important to teach kids early on how to express themselves, how to listen to others, and how to listen to understand instead of to argue. 

Thinking back to your first R.E.A.L. ® Discussion, what were you worried about going into it? Did anything surprise you?

I was worried about coming up with the right questions for kids to dig into with enough evidence to bring to class. I was also nervous about them sitting there silently staring at each other and finishing the entire discussion in five minutes. 

That was a big fear, but right away it wasn’t a problem. They were really engaged. 

I was actually surprised by how some of my quieter students really came out of their shells in the smaller groups. One piece of advice I would give to other teachers doing R.E.A.L. ® is to be very intentional in terms of grouping. In the first discussion of the year, I take a lot of notes about who’s participating, who’s leading, etc., so the next time I can make sure to rearrange groups so we have the best mix of kids to allow everyone to get something out of the exercise. 

What other advice would you offer to teachers about how to make R.E.A.L. ® work really well in your classroom?

My kids really love doing skits to demonstrate what a bad discussion looks like before we get started. I give them roles: you’re the one who’s always talking, you’re the one who’s completely disinterested, etc. They get really into doing the roles. I love launching the program this way. 

I also sometimes have groups leave the room and record themselves. That way I can listen to groups one-on-one rather than try to bounce between four discussions at the same time. 

And don’t forget to do the shoutouts, because that’s so great. They really love it.

How do you go about planning for a R.E.A.L. ® Discussion?

I try to make it very intentional: right before a writing assignment, we have a discussion. They don’t realize that they’re generating ideas for their writing assignment, but they are. 

And then I always try to lead them up to the discussion without their knowing it. Today, for example, we did charts on character change. And then at the end, I said, ok, one of your questions that you’re going to prep for is which character changed the most over the course of the novel. So, they had done activities leading up to that in class, which makes the DQ prep a little richer. 

How have you collaborated around the R.E.A.L.® framework with colleagues? 

Within grade level teams, we share DQ ideas, talk about best practices we’ve used in our classrooms, workshop how to deal with a challenging student. It’s great to collaborate. 

And then across divisions, what’s awesome is that we’ve set it up so that eighth grade is the introductory year to R.E.A.L.® Students are expected to remember it and know how to do it in ninth grade, and it just keeps building from there. 

One thing I really love about our English department is we’ve been very purposeful. We’ve been very intentional about guiding them along through middle and upper school. 

Thinking back on the past year, was there a moment where a student had a breakthrough that really stuck out to you? 

Yes. We did a R.E.A.L.® discussion about the book Night, which is a difficult text about the Holocaust. There was a moment when somebody brought up the symbolism of nighttime – how the concepts of daylight and nighttime were essentially flipped, because night was a safe time when it was possible to hide, and the daylight brought danger and exposure. Another kid said, “I’d never thought of it like that – that is so good.” And you could see the breakthrough on his face. 

Throughout the book, every time a new moment of daylight or nighttime came up, it related back to what we talked about in that R.E.A.L.® discussion. I think it just gave that student access to the book in a deeper way that he otherwise would not have had. And seeing it on his face – that’s the moment we live for as educators: when a student not only “gets it,” but they’re excited about it, and they keep applying it again and again. 

He ended up writing about that topic. It was an awesome moment. And I would say he was a child who had struggled to find the abstract in literature. He was a very literal kid. This time, he felt like he understood symbolism – and that understanding didn’t come from me. 

What is your go-to reward for grading a big pile of homework? 

A glass of wine and a hot bath, and reading whatever I want to read. No more kids’ papers! I’m reading the next thriller, my book club book, or something else not written by a child.

What inspires you? 

I’ve been inspired by the students. There are moments when they’re just not getting it, or they’re not applying things, and as a teacher, you can think, why am I doing this? And then you have little minutes throughout the day where they make you smile, or they surprise you with an answer, or they make you look at a text differently. And that just always keeps me inspired and coming back every single day. It’s like a dopamine hit when they get something. That inspires me – and my colleagues always keep me smiling. 

Names/Hometowns:

Matt Tilford: Joshua Tree, California
Jack Fischer: St. Louis, Missouri

Current School:

Woodward Academy in Atlanta, Georgia

Can you describe yourself as a student in three words? 

Matt: Academic, musical, overachiever.

Jack: Curious, inconsistent, engaged.

Who was your favorite teacher, and why? 

Matt: This is always a hard question for me, because I had so many great teachers that influenced my life and my career now. My favorite teacher was Mrs. Smith, my high school science teacher three of the four years. She was just a genuine person. She was organized, she was structured. She gave us hands-on real world learning opportunities, field trips, field work labs. She really stands out in my memory.

Jack: If I had to choose one, it would probably probably be my math teacher and advisor, Mr. Tasker. He was super enthusiastic and connected well with students. He always kept students on our toes and held us accountable at the same time. 

When it comes to class discussion, what is your “why?” What feels compelling and important about teaching these skills? 

Jack: My “why” is that discussion puts the students at the center of the classroom, and I think that is critical for their learning. I think it creates more engagement, asks them to take more responsibility, and allows them to dig deeper into topics and really figure out how they think about them. 

Before I started implementing R.E.A.L.® Discussion, I felt like I was driving too much, and that wasn’t necessarily the best way to set up a classroom environment.

Matt: Student-centered student engagement also comes to mind for my “why.” I think it helps build classroom culture and create a true classroom community. My other “why” is that I hope the skills will transfer to other aspects of their lives, whether it’s writing in class or outside of class, or events outside of school. Maybe when they’re older, for example, they might be able to apply discussion skills to have constructive conversations in all kinds of different contexts.

Thinking back to your first R.E.A.L. ® Discussion, what were you worried about going into it? Did anything surprise you?

Matt: I felt a generalized anxiety going into it. I really didn’t have any idea what to expect. 

What surprised me is how well it went right from the very beginning, how quickly the students took to it, and how quickly they grew and improved. The first discussion easily filled half of the period, and one of my students said: “is it halfway through class already?” That was a real win, because students are usually asking “how much time do we have left?” 

Jack: My biggest anxiety was that they weren’t going to say anything. To echo what Matt said, a lot of the sections picked up on it really quickly. Even if the first discussion wasn’t the highest quality, it offered more engagement than I had anticipated. That gave me confidence early on that this was going to be something really beneficial. 

As a team, how do you go about planning for R.E.A.L. ® Discussions? How have you figured out how to work with one another to make sure there’s alignment across your content areas? 

Matt: We start by figuring out what sources or texts we’re going to use, then what discussion questions we’re going to use with those. Sometimes one of us is busier than the other, so the other one will create those DQs, and sometimes it’s a really good back-and-forth collaboration. 

Sometimes Jack will have ideas or think of something and I’ll say, “Oh, I didn’t think of that that way before, that’s really insightful or that’s a good idea.” And, you know, hopefully he would say the same thing the other way. 

Jack: 100%. We share discussion questions. We don’t always use the same ones, and sometimes we add or remove some questions to differentiate between levels. For the most part, though, we’re on the same page. One discussion per unit, similar assessment structure. It’s been great so far. 

When it comes to discussion, what are your top three learning goals for your students?

Jack: Effective communication, close reading, and confidence. I find it super rewarding if I get some quiet students to pick up a little bit and share.

Matt: 1) I want my students to be able to use evidence and back up what they’re saying with specific details from what they’ve read. 2) I want them to actually listen to what other people are saying. I think a lot of the R.E.A.L. ® skills tie back to listening: to relate to what others have said, for example, you first have to listen. 3) I hope they can transfer what they’ve learned to other situations: other contexts, writing, and conversations outside the classroom.

Thinking back on the past year, was there a moment where a student had a breakthrough that really stuck out to you? 

Matt: What comes to mind is that I do have some students who maybe have a little too much confidence. Early on, a few students weren’t really approaching a R.E.A.L. ® Discussion as a discussion – they were approaching it more as a debate or an argument and trying to get their point across no matter what. 

To see some of those students evolve over the course of several discussions has been wonderful. They’re not really approaching it as a debate to win anymore. They’re more open to listening, they’re more open to finding consensus or even to changing their minds. That has been a real win for me: to instill a bit of intellectual humility.

Jack: Another big win has been seeing the students drive their own progression with the R.E.A.L.®  skills. At first, they start by saying, “ok, our goal is to listen,” and they just want to do the R.E.A.L.® Discussion hand signals and check it off a list without really participating. Over time, they start to understand what listening and participating really mean. Building beyond that, seeing students drive their own learning and figure out what they want to get better at has been great. 

Another win is seeing the progression of note-taking skills. I was flicking back through some of the booklets, and I saw how much better their DQ prep got between discussions. That was really valuable to me.

What is your go-to reward for grading a big pile of homework? 

Matt: Can we say adult beverages?

Jack: Adult beverages and a day on the couch – without the papers.

What inspires you? 

Matt: I’m an idealistic sort of person. Some of the people who inspire me from history are the idealistic changemakers: people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela. One of my favorite quotes is from Nelson Mandela. He said, “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.” That’s what I hope for my students, and what I hope they get out of R.E.A.L. ® Discussion: that they might walk out of here and be able to use their education and their own spheres of influence to change the world in some way.

Jack: I draw most inspiration from seeing the student growth. If I can see that, and they’re coming to class with smiles on their faces, and they have good relationships with both myself and their peers, it makes the day-to-day so much easier and so much more rewarding. I think that’s the inspiration: when they come to my class, and they’re happy to be in my class, because the culture is inclusive, and they feel like they’re known. That keeps me going from day to day.