“With confidence, you’ve won before you’ve started.” Marcus Garvey – A Group Conversation On Confidence

Transcript

Dan Fouts: 0:00 

Hello, Steve and Dan Fouts here. We’re educators with a combined 50 years of  teaching experience, who have created the Teach Different podcasts to model how to have unforgettable classroom conversations using a super simple 3-step  method with quotes from the world’s great thinkers. Our conversation method works with any subject area or levels, including diverse learners and English language learners, teachers, administrators, and social emotional learning specialists. All are welcome. If you’re looking for a unique way to think deeply, connect with others, talk about things that really matter, and bring a great tool back to your classroom, then you’ve come to the right place. Welcome.  

Welcome everybody to the Teach Different conversation this Saturday.  It’s great to have you here. We have an interesting conversation ahead using a quote from Marcus Garvey.  I’ll share his quote in a minute. Let’s first go over a few ground rules for the conversation. When you first speak, please say your first name, what kind of connection you have to education, where you’re from, and so on. If you teach, share what level and subject, and then move from there.  If you’re not speaking, make sure you’re on mute to avoid distortion.

We’re going to take you through our 3-step conversation method that many of you are familiar with. We start with a quote, we look at the claim of the quote, then we meander to the counterclaim, and end with an essential question.  That way you have a good experience modeled for you. If you want to use this with your students in class, you’ll have a much clearer picture of how it might play out. We’ll repeat the quote a couple of times. Since this is a podcast, we want to make sure our listeners have the quote at the center of their thinking.

My name is Dan, and I’m a suburban high school social studies teacher. I’ve been teaching advanced placement government, American Studies, U.S. history since 1993, and more recently, a philosophy elective. 

Steve Fouts: 2:43 

I’m going to call myself an urban educator. For most of my career I taught middle school and high school social studies and math. I have an eclectic approach to conversations that can actually be very helpful in math classes, if you can use them in the right way. 

Dan Fouts: 3:11 

Great. Our quote today is, “with confidence, you’ve won before you started.”  “With confidence, you’ve won before you’ve started?” 

Karina: 3:29 – Claim

I’m Karina from Colorado. I was a high school English teacher for five years and I’ve also taught both college and middle school English. I’m currently a stay at home mom. I do some freelance and volunteer writing on the side. 

Confidence is really a key factor in any endeavor.  He sees confidence as an essential trait. 

Steve Fouts: 4:06 

Confidence is almost everything you need. You’ve won before you’ve started. When I first saw this quote, I was thinking that he was putting confidence on such a pedestal, that it’s more important than the game you’re playing. My first thought was that it’s so important that you wonder what your goals or aspirations should be if you have that internal confidence. You’ve already achieved things in your life. I’ve never thought of confidence being that important. 

Dan Fouts: 5:23 

Yeah, I had a similar reaction, Steve. It doesn’t even matter what the task is, as long as you’re confident in what you’re doing, then what you actually do is second to that. I’m in a high school environment, so I’m putting this in front of 16 to 18 year olds.  I’m wondering what they would say.  I would ask them if they agree with this. What are some examples?  Where you could agree and say, it is about your confidence? That’s the most important thing, not what you do. I’ll put this out to the group. What do you think a high school student would say to support the claim of this quote? What would they bring up? 

Steve Fouts: 6:07 

Or, any age student? Confidence is something all kids have. I don’t want to say  they’re struggling with it at a younger age, but a lot of them are. That’s the reality. What would they say? 

Karina: 6:22 

I feel like most students would probably agree. I want to assume that the motivation for whatever you’re doing in the objective happens with reason. This is essential, because I can go confidently in the wrong direction. Humility is also essential, because if confidence isn’t balanced with humility, then we can easily overlook a lot of things and have blind spots.

Steve Fouts: 7:00 

Yeah, humility. You’re already starting to sow the seeds of the  counterclaim. I think there are a lot of things that could be said that would be in opposition to this quote, and just as valid. Think about confidence in math, for instance. You want to talk about something on a continuum?  What do we, as teachers, say when kids run into a roadblock?  We say, you persevere. You need to keep trying. You’re not always going to get it on the first try. Many students suffer from a lack of confidence. I’m wondering if this quote would be helpful for a math student. They can tell themselves, I’m confident in math, and don’t care what I get on the test.  Maybe they don’t have to work so hard. I don’t know how they would react to that. 

Dan Fouts: 8:21 

Do you mean as a way to just get over the hump of being insecure about their skills in math?  Are you saying that will get them to believe they’ve won already? They’re confident that they can do something before they even do the math problem. 

Steve Fouts: 8:41 

Could I teach that to them? Could I convince them of that? That’s why I’m asking the question. It’s a tough one. Karina, you were saying you need to accomplish certain things in life, abilities, skills, and objectives. For some things you may not have confidence, but they’re still important, and you shouldn’t give up on them. I don’t know if I’m understanding the way you were looking at it, Karina, but you made me think how would a student react?

Karina: 9:23 

As an English teacher, I would have the students create a  really robust definition of what confidence is.  Is confidence the courage to begin something, and the belief that you can accomplish it? Or, is confidence just an attitude of being willing to try and fail along the road to success?  If confidence is only a matter of success, then I think most students would probably disagree. But if confidence is an attitude of a work ethic, then most of them would probably jump on board. 

Steve Fouts: 10:07 

I like that, and that’s what you find yourself doing in step one of these conversations.  When you’re dealing with the claim, you end up going back to  the quote, and picking out any big words. Confidence becomes a mini conversation in and of itself that really needs to be clarified. That’s going to reveal a lot about how they think about confidence. 

Karina: 10:39 

Like a conversation starter for an essay, for example. For them to create a really clear thesis, they would have to have that definition. 

Nishq: 10:48 

Can you guys hear me? 

Steve Fouts: 10:52 

Yeah, hey Nishq. 

Nishq: 10:53 

I’m Nishq Mody in hospital administration at the University of Chicago. Our primary interaction, in terms of education, is with medical students, residents, and fellows. That’s our primary educational focus. I just wanted to add that I think the distinction is really important. I think that’s spot on. Originally you asked how kids would come at this. For me, the phrase that captures it, at least from my high school self, is fake it ‘til you make it. That relates to confidence. Are we talking about real genuine confidence, or are we talking about faking it?  I think it was really important, or at least it was in my high school, to project confidence in how you carry yourself. That relates both to a sense of self-worth, and peer-to-peer interactions. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. Some degree of confidence is required, even for them to get out of bed to go to school, or to deal with daily activities.  We’re not saying you need to climb a mountain, just get through the day. I think that would resonate with some students. 

Dan Fouts: 12:46 

Yeah. That was really good, Nishq.  Fake it ‘til you make it.  You took an idea right out of my head. I was going to share an experience of a speech teacher at my school. I went up to him and said, my social studies students are having a really hard time with public speaking. You’re a speech teacher, what are your tricks? That’s exactly what he said. He said, I go up to them and I say, just fake it. Believe that you’re going to have an  amazing speech and act like you’re completely comfortable and confident. If you do that by habit, you’ll actually transform yourself into somebody with that quality. I thought that was really interesting. If you’re confident, even if it’s a fake confidence at the beginning to get your courage up, well, then you’ve won before you’ve had your speech, and  the rest is gravy. Now, that’s not going to sustain you forever.  You still have to put together a really good speech, but it gets you into the door where you’re projecting that what you’re saying is valuable. 

Steve Fouts: 14:04

Karina used the word attitude. Is confidence an attitude or is it some type of achievement?  What builds confidence? Is it something internal, or does it need external verification?  Fake it ‘til you make it suggests that you don’t need  external verification. You can create that. 

Karina: 14:34 

A piggyback conversation, like Steve was saying, could be about feelings.  Are feelings who we are?  Sometimes you might feel confident and sometimes you might not, but you can choose confidence. That outward choice can become an inward thing.  Students aren’t always going to feel that way, and I think that applies to a lot of different things. We don’t always feel like serving people, but  once we begin to serve, we start to have the happy feelings of wow, service is  worthwhile, and it really benefits the other person. But, it doesn’t always  start that way. 

Nishq: 15:31 

I really like the idea that you can choose confidence. I think confidence is often perceived as something innate. You either have it or you don’t. I think that’s an interesting concept, that you can choose it and that you can build it within yourself.  That would be an interesting conversation. How do you go about doing that? 

Steve Fouts: 16:00 – Counterclaim

Right. Let’s get into the counterclaim, step two. You used the word humility,  Karina. What is dangerous about a quote like this in your way of saying it? I put  this to Karina, but it goes to the group. What’s another perspective on life that might call this into question?

Karina: 16:33 

I think part of humility is knowing who you are, and who you’re not. Being  comfortable with your strengths and weaknesses, and not elevating yourself  above what you are. I’m willing to listen to other perspectives.  I think having a quiet humility is not always perceived as confidence, but it could be. I think they can go together easily. A real, true, genuine confidence that most people would want would be a quiet one. It would be paired with humility anyway. 

Dan Fouts: 17:13 

So in that sense, Karina, we’re kind of back to the claim. If you define confidence as humility, then with confidence you have won before you started. You are humble, and you understand your strengths and weaknesses. 

Nishq: 17:28 

In medicine, one of the challenges we have is a stereotype, the god complex, among doctors. You’re trying to balance that against the maxim, do no harm. I think confidence is often misinterpreted as the most confident person in the room is the one who’s speaking up, the one who’s dominating the conversation, the one who is front and center. The person at the back who is quietly absorbing information, but not directly controlling, is somehow not confident. They’re meek and mild. Those are assumptions that are being made that aren’t necessarily true.

I guess it depends at what level you’re having this conversation. Let’s say you’re having this conversation at the high school level, then that’s probably the dominant consensus.  Even among our residents, that’s the case. These are all type A personalities who are highly competitive throughout their lives. They’re all in the top 99th percentile. Getting them to realize that you can  have confidence without answering every question, without dominating the room, without being the lead, is a challenge. I think that it goes back to what you were saying about defining confidence.

Karina: 19:16 

Well, I think another can of worms could be how we define winning. 

Dan Fouts: 19:29 

Yeah. What is winning? That’s a great point. If you’re moving to the counterclaim, I can imagine getting into a discussion where kids would say, I don’t go in with any expectations. I don’t go in confident or humble. I just do stuff. If I do stuff and  I’m successful, then I feel confident that I can do it again. So, confidence is more of a reward. 

Karina: 20:03 

That sounds pretty accurate to the adolescent mind.

Dan Fouts: 20:06 

They won’t think maybe that it’s a mindset as much as it’s a reward. 

Steve Fouts: 20:13 

That’s what I was going to  bring up as well. Is confidence a condition of success or is it a result of success? Most adolescents are going to think confidence comes from winning; it’s not something you can invent. 

Dan Fouts: 20:36 

But, there are also kids in class who think they have all the answers, who don’t think they have to do any work. They’re ultimately confident. Other students might look at them and say, you’ve spoken up the last ten times, can we settle it down a little bit?  There’s that end. 

Karina: 20:59 

Part of this would be having kids contribute to a definition. It might take an entire 30 minutes for kids to come to a definition as to what confidence really is. Then, you can tackle which stand you’re going to take. 

Steve Fouts: 21:22

Ask the kids to share some personal experiences of when they felt supremely confident, or what makes them feel confident. When did you not have any confidence? How did you react to that? Did you end up winning later or did you quit?  It would be good to hear some of their experiences about how they interacted with confidence. 

Dan Fouts: 21:55

I would say those things, Steve, as I gave them the Google Form that they would fill out in advance of this conversation documenting all of their personal experiences. I’d want that spreadsheet in front of me, so when there’s a quiet moment I can say, Sarah, you mentioned a fascinating example of something that happened to you last year, could you share that?  I think that would get the conversation going. As Karina said, you could spend a lot of time on the definition of a word before moving forward with this. 

Nishq: 22:35 

You brought up the idea of winning. What does winning mean? I think that is important for kids. The two are tied together. Winning has a specific connotation. There’s this idea that you can succeed in yourself and be confident in yourself and that’s separate from the world around you.  You may not be able to control your success or elements of your success, but how do you respond to losing. I think that’s the flip side, confidence in terms of how you respond to losing. So,  sort of distinct from success. You may be in an environment where you can’t win. How do you deal with loss, as it relates to your inner confidence or your ability to manage that loss? 

Dan Fouts: 23:48 

Athletes would really connect with that angle. I think that’s great.

Steve Fouts: 23:52 

Failure is another word that will naturally come out of a conversation like this. What does failure mean and how do you react to it? 

Dan Fouts: 24:01 – Essential Question

Well, this has been really good. I feel like we’ve opened up the proverbial can of  worms here with a lot of different ideas on where to go with this and how you could, as Karina said, spend time defining a word as a part of this larger conversation about confidence. In terms of an essential question to end this  conversation, here’s one that might be a good wrap up, Does a confident mindset guarantee success? 

Dan Fouts: 24:36 

Thanks, everybody. We hope you’re walking away feeling energized with a great  conversation to bring back to your classroom. If you see value in this 3-step  method, please reach out to Teach Different. We offer workshops and online Zoom trainings for schools. We’d love to connect. Email us at support@teachdifferent.com. In the meantime, don’t forget to teach different with conversations and make a difference every day.