Larry Ferlazzo - Routledge EOE Author of the Month: April

 Our Exclusive Interview with Larry:

 1. What motivated you to write Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners and how does it complete/round out your trilogy of books on self-motivation?
There has been a virtual explosion of new research on student motivation over the past few years -- most if it reinforcing the content of my first two books, but also new studies that opened up some intriguing areas that I've been applying in my classes, particularly around the issues of "flow" and "transfer of learning." So, my teaching colleagues and I have had a couple of years to try-out new motivational strategies and thought readers would be interested in our experiences.

In addition, there has been an increasing interest in Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and, dangerously, some have jumped on it as a strategy to supposedly help improve schools on the "cheap" -- what I call a "Let Them Eat Character" perspective that also looks at low-income students through a lens of "deficits" instead of "assets." I felt like this book could offer effective, and ethical, SEL instructional strategies that could provide a counter-point to that narrative which can be destructive to our schools, our students, and their families.

2. What is the most important thing you would like readers to take away from your book?
That intrinsic trumps extrinsic motivation for just about everything, and that focusing on methods to help our students develop their intrinsic desires will making teaching and learning easier, more enjoyable and more effective for everybody. 

3. What are grit, flow, and transfer, and why are those terms getting a lot of buzz these days?
More and more, people are realizing that "transfer" -- the term used to describe applying what one has learned in a particular situation to another in a different context - is really the main purpose of schooling. And, many are recognizing that schools don't do a very good job at it.

Flow is a term originally coined by professor and researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is the highest level of intrinsic motivation – the “optimal experience.” Flow is what people feel when they are enjoying doing an activity so much that they are “being carried away in a current,” says Csikszentmihalyi, and they lose track of time. Research has found that, apart from when they are doing paid work like flipping burgers, students feel a sense of flow less oftentimes in the classroom than at any other time.

I think that these kinds of research findings are finally making their way into the education establishment, and it's pretty frightening. Fortunately, there are many things that teachers can do in their day-to-day lessons to both increase transfer and maximize the odds of their students getting into "flow."

Of the three words you mention, "grit" is probably the one most well-known, and basically means perseverance in the face of obstacles. Unfortunately, the concept is being used by some, including New York Times columnist David Brooks, to advance the myth that this character trait is what low-income people and schools need, not additional resources or a change in our society's wealth inequality. I believe that lessons and support of "grit" have a place in the classroom (and in my books). I also believe they have to kept in their place, and we need to acknowledge the grit that many of our students and their families show in their everyday lives, as well as recognizing that grit is just one piece of a much more complex puzzle.

4. You are a teacher and you know firsthand how busy educators are—how did you structure your book so that it will be easy for teachers to use?
All my books, including this one, deals with practical challenges that my colleagues and I regularly face in the classroom. I teach in Sacramento's largest inner-city high school, and I think many teachers face some of the same challenges as we do. 

The chapters deal with those specific challenges, and all include immediate strategies that teachers can use tomorrow with little or no preparation, along with simple lesson plans that can be taught in a class period or two. The lessons meet Common Core Standards, and they provide "grist" that can be referred back to regularly throughout the year.

5. You use LeBron James in one of your lessons. Are you a Cleveland Cavaliers fan or a Sacramento Kings fan? Seriously, though, to what extent do you think teachers should incorporate student interests in their lessons?
I grew-up in New York, and have been a life-long Knicks fan no matter where I have lived, though this season has been a rough one.

Relevance is one of the four key elements needed to help students develop intrinsic motivation, so having a relationship where I know their interests, hopes and dreams is critical to my work as a teacher. If I have a student who is balking at writing a persuasive essay about which natural disaster is the worst to experience, but I know he is a Raiders fan, I have a choice of either getting in a power struggle which I will never win or providing him with the opportunity to write a persuasive essay about why the Raiders are the best NFL team. Knowing those interests enables me, and my students, to keep our eyes "on the prize."

6. What inspired you to become an educator?
I was a community organizer for nineteen years prior to becoming a teacher twelve years ago. During my organizing career, I saw the incredible positive change that people experienced in their lives when they learned that their dreams mattered, that they had the power to make change, that little could stop them if they connected with others through listening and building relationships -- by sharing their stories and by developing a new interpretation of them.

People were learning these lessons in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and even seventies. And I thought to myself, "How much better would it be if people learned these things at a younger age?"

So I became a high school teacher.

7. What was the proudest moment of your education career so far?
The year the last Hmong refugee camp closed in Thailand, most high school age Hmong refugees who came to Sacramento attended our school. For several periods each day, I had an entire class of students who had never been to school before. It was an exhilarating and once-in-a-teacher's lifetime opportunity. Seeing so many of these students grow, attend college and develop careers has, without a doubt, has brought me an incredible amount of joy.

8. What’s the biggest change you’ve noticed in teaching (or in students/student culture) in the past ten years?
Thanks to a strong state teacher's union and a progressive state government, here in California we've been somewhat insulated from much of that damaging actions done in the name of "accountability" in so many other states. I cringe when I hear from colleagues around the country about the destruction done to learning and teaching by high-stakes standardizing testing.

9. What’s your favorite time of the school year?
Nothing beats the excitement of the beginning of the school year and optimism most teachers and students feel. Though it obviously fades a bit as the year goes on, I've been pretty fortunate to teach at a wonderful school with great students and colleagues.

10. And finally, please tell us your favorite thing about education in one word.
"Tomorrow." If it's a good day, then odds are it could be even better tomorrow. And if it's a bad day, odds are that it will be a better one the next day.