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Three Virtues to Identify and Train for an Ideal Teacher Profile | E191

• Magnify Learning • Season 7 • Episode 191

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What if there was a way to transform your school through the power of Project Based Learning? You'll hear an inspiring story of a district that, despite facing budget cuts, managed to sustain its PBL programs through heartfelt student presentations to the school board. This episode illustrates the critical role of coaching and sustainable practices in maintaining innovative educational practices, no matter the obstacles.

We also dive into the three essential virtues for cultivating the ideal teacher: humble, hungry, and smart. Drawing on Patrick Lencioni's framework, we reveal how to identify and nurture these traits during the interview process with practical questions and real-world examples. Discover how diverse group interviews can offer unique insights into candidates' emotional intelligence and teamwork abilities. We'll share compelling stories that demonstrate these virtues in action, providing valuable insights for leaders at every level of education. Whether you're looking to build a more collaborative culture or inspire your current team, this episode is packed with strategies to help you succeed.

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Ryan Steuer:

Three Virtues to Identify and Train for an Ideal Teacher Profile. We're continuing our series on asset-based school development and we need to go back an episode or two. I forgot to include two very important topics. I was just talking to two superintendents during our high-level monthly coaching and they're crushing it. So they're in a large district and they're living out asset-based school development. They've got an innovative mindset and it's being transferred to their 24 principals and leadership teams and they're living out asset-based school development. They've got an innovative mindset and it's being transferred to their 24 principals and leadership teams and they're doing it in just such a super authentic way. And so during this conversation and towards the end, I asked them for a little feedback. I asked them about profiles of a graduate and a teacher, profiles of a leader, because at magnified learning we're doing more trainings around these ideas. We're being asked to do them and really like the frame of this and where it kind of the goal that it sets for you while you then start to change learning in your school or your school district. So I asked him about it and as soon as I did, I was like, wait a minute, I didn't talk about this, these other two profiles on the podcast. Like we talked about profile of a graduate, which is pretty popular, like it's out there. It's been out there for, you know, eight years, but we didn't talk about a profile of a teacher and that profile of a leader. So I apologize and we're going to start fixing it today.

Ryan Steuer:

Welcome to the PBL simplified podcast, where we add value to PBL movement makers so they can lead inspired, because everyone wins when leaders are inspired. Whether you're leading a classroom, a school or a district, your leadership matters. At magnify learning, we are obsessed with helping you transform your school. I'm your host, ryan story, the chief inspiration officer at magnify learning. Welcome, let's dive into our episode. Our main topic is going to be about the three virtues that you need to look for and train in your ideal teacher profile. So we've talked about the profile of a graduate, now we're looking at profile of a teacher.

Ryan Steuer:

Before we jump into that episode, though, I want to share a win, and it's hard to pick a win at this point because right now we're halfway through the summer. We have so many wins from our workshops, so many to share. We've got a high school partner and they were planning on doing PBL on Fridays, and really just Fridays. They're like let's, you know, let's kind of ease into things. They're a large high school and we are super pumped because it turns out their teachers wanted to bring PBL on Monday through Thursday. Like they saw the vision right.

Ryan Steuer:

And sometimes you might be like if you say, hey, we want to do PBL just on Fridays, and if you're like all in with PBL, you're like that might not be the best way. But what we do at Magnified Learning is we customize everything. So what we saw was a larger district that had a vision. They had a vision for what learning could look like and they're like, hey, let's start on Fridays. And that makes sense to start small and build. And what I love about this work that we get to do is we can launch the visionary piece, the why. We also get into the how and the what. Like how do you actually do this work on a day-to-day basis? And we have enough room and enough customization that the teachers can kind of take it where they need to take it. We think that the real work, the real movement, start at that classroom level, where teachers are going to grow, and then those of us in leadership positions. Our job is to create culture and places to think and have conversations, but also be able to do this work where it's innovative. So it was such a win to just see this group come together and really dive into project-based learning.

Ryan Steuer:

We also have a district partner that lost the funding for all their big initiatives not just PBL then, several big initiatives that they brought in and were using some grant money for. But something happened right, things happened and they lost that funding and had to pull things back. So their knee-jerk reaction was just we're doing none of that stuff, it's all gone. It's like ah, because we were doing a lot of really great work in that district and their PBL units were so authentic. The teachers' boots on the ground totally got it. Now. Pbl units were so authentic, like the teacher's boots on the ground, like totally got it. Now. Because of that, though, the PBL that they'd done throughout their schools and their districts it was so undeniably authentic and good for learners and they did the hard work of marketing PBL to the right people. So their learners were presenting to the board. So when things got tough, there was a knee-j jerk reaction of no funds for anybody. Then the school board was like Well, wait a minute, like that PBL work that we saw those learners doing. That's exactly what we want here. How do we do more of that? So they found some funding right. So they found that funding.

Ryan Steuer:

The heart and soul of this implementation really was this super dedicated PBL district coach and we poured into that coach and she gets it. But was really cool about this model is yep, we did a PBL jumpstart. Yep, we did people advance. Yep, we did people certification. But we were also training the coaches boots on the ground. So she was in the district in different schools throughout the entire school year doing some of that that work, so that it had roots. So the work was still going. So we trained the teachers and we coached their coach on how to make the work sustainable.

Ryan Steuer:

That's always in our conversations how do we keep this going? What if the funding ends? What if a principal leaves? What if somebody in the central office leaves? How do we keep the work going? So this coaching, the coach model we love it. It's amazing.

Ryan Steuer:

The question you need to ask is would it work for your school?

Ryan Steuer:

Do you have a district coach?

Ryan Steuer:

Do you have a PBL coach at your school? How can you create sustainability for your work? It's a really important question and let me give you one more really big win. We have a title one elementary school that went through design days with us in the fall. They did school visits after that with all their staff. They had a really creative schedule that allowed them to go to a model school. It was pretty close. They utilized their subs we all know that that's an issue. They were able to do it really creatively to really spread the idea and the movement and they have so much full school momentum. We're just fired up about it.

Ryan Steuer:

Their jumpstart is coming up. They're crushing it. They already know what they're going to do with the work that comes out of that jumpstart. They get it. You're going to hear more about them on the podcast. No doubt. As you hear these stories, you know that this is coming up. There's going to be a Title I elementary school crushing PBL. They started with design days, they've got coaching, they're diving into their jumpstart and they're going to rock this school year. The question is are you a title one elementary? Do you? Are you looking for this vision of pbl? Because we can schedule those design days at a model school this fall and we coach your leadership team throughout the spring. We train your staff over the summer and your 2025 school year is completely transformed.

Ryan Steuer:

If this, if this is you, I want you to go check out the design days link that's in the show notes. Get some more info. Look at your calendar. This, if this is you, I want you to go check out the design days link that's in the show notes. Get some more info. Look at your calendar. This is super doable for you. So excited about what this group is doing. It's amazing. All in one year, like the plan has come together and we can already see it. It's a three-year plan, fully right, but you can see it coming together and you can see the sustainability in the work. It's exciting.

Ryan Steuer:

Hey, you might also want to grab a copy of PBL simplified, the book. Right now, I'm in the process of recording the audio. Going to happen. That's going to happen this week, so it's going to be published on audible. Some of you've been asking about that because it's been about a year now since the paperback came out a little bit more, and I just want to thank you, like thank you, for the support of PBL simplified paperback edition. It's been amazing. We've got 29 reviews on Amazon. Thousands of these books are out in your hands. It's super humbling. In fact, we did a workshop in Missouri and several of the teachers had their copy of PBL simplified with them. It was awesome. I think I put it out on X maybe, but there were just a ton of highlights and post-its throughout. It was like this book had been well used. The corners were worn. It's like, ah, I am pumped Like. This is why this book is out there, so you can grab a copy wherever books are sold. The audio book is going to be recorded and to the publisher this week, so be on the lookout for word of that actual published date of the audio version. Again, super appreciate your support for PBL Simplified the book.

Ryan Steuer:

Now for our main episode the three virtues to identify and train for an ideal teacher profile.

Ryan Steuer:

I would claim that every school can hire their ideal teacher by recognizing and cultivating these three virtues. If you've read the ideal team player by Patrick Lencioni, it's a parable style book. Patrick also wrote five dysfunctions of a team. If you've read that one, you're going to know what these three virtues are right off the bat. But what I want to pull out is that you should be looking for a different type of teacher. And if you're a teacher, these are the three virtues and really, when we get to leadership, one's going to be real close to these two leaders could listen to this one too. But we're actually going to be the next leadership episode, we're going to specifically talk about that profile of a leader. But these three virtues and I'm just going to give them to you right away is you want to be humble, you want to be hungry and you want to be smart Humble, hungry and smart will have a serious advantage over those who cannot.

Ryan Steuer:

And if you, in my main statement, my thesis statement here, it's every school can hire and cultivate their ideal teacher by looking at these three virtues, because I think it's more than just a leader's job, right, hopefully, in your hiring practices, yes, you have leadership in the room, but you also have teachers in the room, right, they're asking questions being a part of this process. So we all need to be aware of this. There's also kind of a disclaimer here that, throughout, really, that if you're not looking at, you know 10 people for the spot that you have open, which you're likely not at this point in the world of education you might be looking at three. Right, you might not be able to hire the ideal teacher based on your profile. But you still need to set the profile, because setting the profile is really setting expectations, values and priorities, and that's really important because it's not just about hiring or firing. You know, teachers. To get the right people on the bus, we need to take care of those people that are on the bus. We need to inspire them to say, like these are some virtues that you want to aspire to and we're going to help get you there with training and coaching.

Ryan Steuer:

So what's the first virtue to recognize and cultivate? It's being humble. Lencioni explains that there are. They are quick to point out the contributions of others. They're slow to seek attention for their own. They share credit, emphasize team over self and define success collectively rather than individually. Again, what you're going to see with these profiles is they're definitely going to overlap, but today we're going to try to focus on the teacher. I just want you to know that they are going to overlap to both the graduate and the leader, but today we're looking at teachers that can collaborate. They're humble enough to receive some feedback. They're humble enough to share the credit Because, as we do this, this is how we're building team, this is how we're building collaboration, this is how we're building culture throughout your school, within your classroom, and as we live these things out.

Ryan Steuer:

That's when they start to spill over into our classrooms and our learners are now experiencing, and having modeled for them, these different virtues that we want them to have. So, when we typically look at the change process, I think our first step has to be inward right, and then we have structures to obviously continue to build and get people on the team, because we're creating a movement, right, and it's really hard to create a movement if everybody's just looking out for themselves. Let me give you another Lencioni quote about being humble, and this is a question that you can ask in an interview, because I think this is something that should be in your interview. I think it's more than that, but it should be in there. Everybody in your interview panel should know what the profile of a teacher is. So here's a question Tell me about someone who is better than you in an area that really matters to you. Tell me about someone who's better than you in an area that really matters to you. That's super good. So what are we looking for? We're looking for the candidate to demonstrate genuine appreciation for others who have more skill or talent, because humble people are comfortable with this. Ego-driven people often are not, and I think it's a tough question. Right, get some tough questions in there and see where people kind of go with it.

Ryan Steuer:

You know, I look at gosh a myriad of podcasters out there that are, I think, crushing it in a way that I appreciate and try to learn from right. So podcasting is an area that really matters to me and I could point out quite a few people that you know that I look to to try to learn from everybody, from John Maxwell to Roger Whitney, who's the retirement answer man, right To John Sanders and Les Hughes, andre pastors and some of those podcasters are not in my field right, they're not in education or leadership but when I watch them do what they do and support people, I'm like, wow, that's really great and y'all are crushing it. And hopefully I'm not ruining my humbleness by pointing out that I'm really humble, I'm good at it. I think that's a Benjamin Franklin quote, actually. He had a day where he was tracking humility and he was so excited at the end of the day that he had to like he had to subtract a few points from him because he got too proud of how humble he was. But I just but I did want to show an example of trying to answer this hard question. No-transcript.

Ryan Steuer:

Another interview question tell me about the most important accomplishments of your career. What are the most important things you've done? And what you're looking for is your mention? You're looking for mentions of we more than I, we more than I, because sometimes we can get overly humble and then we're not telling people the great things that we're involved in. I think it's important to let people know. The easy example I give is it would be silly for Michael Jordan to say, oh, I don't know if I was really a good basketball player. You know that's for other people to say, well, sure, but hey, michael, you were pretty good. Like you were good, it's okay to say that you're good at things and, as we're welcoming people on a team that we do want to hear more of, we. This is what we did at my last school. This is how we built a culture and environment at my last school. So that's the first virtue. The first virtue is to recognize and cultivate, which means we're going to try to grow in this area of humility.

Ryan Steuer:

The second virtue that Lencioni talks about is being hungry, and that's not skipping lunch, right, it's not skipping breakfast, but it's this idea of having a passion to grow, a passion to make things happen. And some of you, a lot of you are in really challenging school environments right now, whether it's classroom, school or district, and we're trying to grow those things, and that doesn't happen by sitting around and waiting for somebody to tell you what to do, right? So you're looking for teammates that are hungry and want to grow. So growth mindset comes to mind. At this point, we've all got a pretty good idea of what growth mindset is, but you also want to look for evidence of these things, not just that you can say growth mindset, like where's a time where you demonstrated growth mindset? Where's the time where you've had a fixed mindset? Because we're not one or the other. We have different situations where we might have one in a better situation than others.

Ryan Steuer:

So, also in this virtue of hungry, you know we're looking for people that are innovative, like where, where are they looking for something different? Right? Where are they pulling resources from? When did they try something new? Somebody who's hungry and trying to find new solutions for the classroom? That's somebody that is trying to do something different. Now, you can't innovate all the time 100%, or you're not going to keep best practices right. So it's great to say like here's something I know works. I'm also always looking, always reading, always listening to try to find something new.

Ryan Steuer:

So one piece to ask in the hungry area is how would your colleagues describe your work ethic? How would your colleagues describe your work ethic? Again, the questions that we're asking are a little bit different, frame A lot of them. We're not asking them to describe themselves so much, but how would other people see them? Because it gives you an idea of how that person sees themselves or how they want to be seen. So that's the second virtue. The second virtue is hungry. It's that passion point. It's people trying to get after it, trying to learn new things, trying to do more things. You know they might use words like fail forward, like I'm trying this and moving forward. That would be a green flag for me, right, like that'd be somebody that you want to bring on your team. So the third virtue to recognize and cultivate when looking at your teacher profile is smart and I'm going to be on the.

Ryan Steuer:

I think the episode releases in the next couple of weeks is the what is smart podcast, and Garrett does an awesome job of getting us thinking about a simple but pretty deep question in education what is smart? Is it getting points? Is it getting advanced degrees? Is it graduating with honors? Well, it's probably more than that, right, it's probably harder to define than that and I think the podcast really helps. But when Lencioni is talking about smart here, he's really talking about EQ. He's talking about emotional intelligence. So are you smart with people? Can you interact with groups in a different way? So here's one of his quotes. It says smart people tend to know what is happening in group situations and how to deal with others in the most effective way. They ask good questions, they listen to what others are saying and they stay engaged in conversations intently. That's a team player, right?

Ryan Steuer:

If you put everybody in a room, it doesn't mean that collaboration is going to happen. In fact, I like to reference the middle school lunchroom. We put a lot of people together, but awesome things do not typically happen. Typically there's tater tots going across the lunchroom. So putting people together is not necessarily guaranteed collaboration. Right? You need people that are going to ask questions and then listen. Right? It's okay to be an extrovert, but you still need to have time to listen. It's okay to be an introvert, but we also need to hear your voice right. So that's what you're looking for with smart people. You're looking for people that understand how humans work and who want to understand that.

Ryan Steuer:

Because, again, you're not going to find, we're looking, this is the profile for the ideal teacher, right, but none of us are in the ideal right. So we want, we're going to need to be coached in certain areas. There's not. There could be places where, you know, maybe your, your candidate, says you know, I like to think that I'm smart in interacting with people, but sometimes I know I don't want to jump in in a full group faculty meeting. He's like, well, okay, that could be fine. Sometimes I read a situation wrong. I could use some help in coaching there. That's somebody that I would want on my team, right, if you can understand where you need help and you can articulate that and you're open to coaching. That's somebody who is humble, hungry and smart, right Like they're right in there the person we want. We're not gonna find the perfect person, but this is gonna help us identify where we can help people. Another quote from Lencioni I often like to talk with candidates in a room with multiple team members.

Ryan Steuer:

This allows us to debrief more effectively, such as what do you think he meant when he said? This also gives you a sense of how the candidate deals with multiple people at once. It's a critical skill on a team. So if you're interviewing someone in a group setting which again we highly recommend you have a diverse group there right, it might be principal, ap coach and teachers, and you've all got a similar rubric of what does the ideal teacher profile look like, right? And if you get a candidate that only talks to the principal, right, like teacher, asks a question, then they look at the principal answer because that's the boss and they want to impress the boss.

Ryan Steuer:

Might not be the best team player, so team environments are really important. How can you get people in environments where you can see how they interact with the team? Because that's where you develop the smarts. Right, like I can be really great inside my room, but we're trying to start a movement, so we need to develop some of those smart characteristics or identify them and hire those people. So ideally, we're hiring people with these traits. Right, that's the ideal. But sometimes you have an open position and one person applies.

Ryan Steuer:

Do you still talk about these three virtues? Yes, you do, because you're inviting people into a story. You're inviting people into a place where they can be humble, hungry and smart, where they can showcase and be a part of this movement that you're creating. And you want to inspire people up to these virtues. And if we're not talking about them, then we're not showing what we emphasize in our vision. So, even when the group is there and you have this one candidate, you're still talking about these ideal teacher profile, because even just the people that are in the room are starting to understand what's important to our movement. So you want to start telling the stories of what you want more of. So, as you develop your teacher profile, it doesn't have to be these three virtues, right? You're going to do it collaboratively with your team, so you have different wording and obviously I suggest these three are in there. They're really important.

Ryan Steuer:

But as you figure out your wording now you want to identify hey, mrs Smith, you did a great job. I know you're super humble, so I need to tell your story, right? So you just acknowledge this virtue that she has. It's important, and then you're going to talk about how she read the room really well. Maybe there was a difficult parent. She was able to read it and diffuse the situation and help everybody out. So you just identified humble and smart as really important things for your school culture. You're telling these stories and then your teachers are then going to identify those things in their learners right, and learners are oh hey, ryan, you did a great job of right and it's going to be in this virtue category or in the portrait of a graduate category. But you want to identify the things that are important to you and tell those stories.

Ryan Steuer:

The other thing you have to do is you have to train people on these traits and Lencioni's got a great graphic in his book. Highly recommend it. And it shows you know, we're all. We're all not ideal, right, like, I am not ideal, I do not have all of these, but I've got some right. And then there's others I need to work on. There's some I need to emphasize, and he's got a graphic that shows you kind of what the people are. He kind of gives them some labels so you can talk about them.

Ryan Steuer:

Like, if you're just hungry, then you're a bulldozer right, you're just bulldozing people over. You're going to make this happen, you're probably going to offend people, right? Because you don't have that EQ portion. You're not going to be humble. You're going to say I'm going to do this, let's make it happen, and you've got. If you're smart and hungry, there might be a skillful politician. If you're humble and smart, you could be the lovable slacker. Like you're not making those things happen. But you're humble and you're smart. You know people and if you're humble and hungry, he's got the accidental mess maker. So you're hungry and humble. Like you're making things happen, you're doing it for those right reasons. You're not looking for fame, but you might not understand how your actions are affecting other people, so you might be starting some messes accidentally. So I think that graphic can help you have really great conversations as you're talking about. You know what is your ideal teacher profile and it's super helpful as you start to hire and grow the culture of your staff. So what's your call to action today?

Ryan Steuer:

Today, I want you to look at your interview process because you're likely making some summer hires. You've got a few openings and ask a few questions that will help you listen for humble, hungry and smart. Just add some of those in. So even if you, even if you've only got one candidate right, you'll still you at least want to know where you need to coach them, because they're not going to be perfect. So listen to those answers and figure out like, oh, ok, they're going to need a little bit of coaching over here, we can do that. And as you're doing that, you're also conveying what's important to you to that candidate, because they've likely got other options as well, even if you have one candidate. We're currently in an environment where you know, you know how this, this can work. Great candidate, but they're going to go to another school district every now and then and that happens. So you are conveying your position, your vision as well, based on the questions that you're asking. If you get a teacher who says, oh, that's a great question, oh, that's probably something you're looking for and they're starting to find out. This is a school where they want to be. You want to show them that you're the special school part of the movement they want to be a part of.

Ryan Steuer:

So go grab a copy of the Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni. It's parable. It's a very quick read. If you've read any of his other books, it's a great one. Your leadership team will probably be the next, once you really like it and you start to look at your. So lead humbly with hunger. Go, get after it and be people smart. Next week we're going to talk about how to build an ideal leadership profile. Go lead inspired. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. I appreciate you. I'm honored that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high-quality, visionary leaders are listening. So they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.

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