John Hattie is Emeritus Laureate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. He is one of the world’s best known and most widely read education experts and his Visible Learning series of books have been translated into 29 different languages and have sold over 1 million copies.
Kyle Hattie is a Year 6 Teacher working in a primary school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Over his 10-year career, he has taught at many year levels, from Prep to Year 6 in both Australia and New Zealand. Kyle has held various leadership titles and has a passion for understanding how students become learners.
Together in 10 Steps to Develop Great Learners, the Hatties offer a 10-step plan to nurturing curiosity and intellectual ambition and providing a home environment that encourages and values learning. Today, they’re both on the blog to answer a few questions about their new book! Read on …
John Hattie
You are a father and son combination. What was Kyle like as a son, and what was John like as a Dad?
John: Kyle was the easiest as he could entertain himself for hours as a toddler, was calm until he was 5 when he discovered his “rights” and temper, often was the broker of brotherly dilemmas, won gold medals at the Underwater Hockey World games (proving heredity does exist?), and a quick study (within a few practices could beat me at crib and sudoku).
Kyle: Dad was great. Always spent time, in between working and reading, reading us books and playing games. He did work a lot and was travelling a lot. But always had time to help me with my school homework, even if he did not agree with the projects that I was given. Dad and I always had a bit of a rivalry when it come to games. He’d teach me a game like crib or Scrabble and obliterate me in the first game, and let me know it. So I made it my mission to beat him. Which usually didn’t take very long. But it was always fun.
What was John’s worst parenting act, Kyle? What was Kyle’s worst child act, John?
John: Kyle was well-loved by his teachers in primary school but he went to school for lunch, girls, and sport. One night about 11 years old, he said ‘Dad, I am a fraud at school’. Why did I not have the conversation earlier? Ouch.
Kyle: Dad’s worst parenting act has to be the bungy cord incident. I was never one for staying in bed with I was younger. Dad says I would be out of bed by 4 am and ready to play and be occupied. Mum and Dad got over this very quickly. One morning when I got out of bed I tried to open my door but when I pulled it open the door seemed to pull back. No matter how hard I tried it just slammed shut again. I thought Dad was standing there pulling the door closed. But no he had taken a bungy cord and trapped me in my room. I was not a happy chappie.
What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?
John: 12 = Painter and paper hanger, 18 = anything to get out of the rural town, 30 = keep enjoying academia
Kyle: 12 = builder, 18 = teacher, 30 = teacher and educational coach
What’s the best book you remember reading?
John: Robert Caro’s books on Lyndon Johnson
Kyle: Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
Kyle Hattie
Please tell us about your latest book!
10 Steps to Develop Great Learners is based on a synthesis of research on how to help parents become their child’s ‘first learner’, emphasising the ways of thinking about developing great learners, how to work with teachers and schools, and the skills to learn together. It combines John’s research and Kyle’s experiences as parent and teacher and the major focus on the ways parents need to think about their actions and involvement to develop great learners.
What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?
The fun, mistakes, skills and thinking about how to be a parent developing great learners. We want parents to realise it is more how they think than what they do; children want parents who show they listen, help them move forwards, and see mistakes as opportunities to learn. This is the essence of love and caring, as well as growing and developing.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Find the story and tell the story. Always have some members of your audience sitting on your shoulder as you write. Edit by reading aloud into a mirror. Write every day, even a sentence. Find a critic and make them your best friend.
What’s your next dual venture?
We are working on a new book on what it means to be a learner in schools, how to identify which learning strategies are optimal and when, and how to build the teaching of learning alongside the regular teaching of ideas.
What terrifies you the most?
John: Writing a book and no one reads it. Not being open to new ideas and critiques of current ideas. The world running out of peas and roast parsnips.
Kyle: Being stuck doing the same thing and not learning anything new. Also, bees.
What does your wife say about the book, John and Kyle?
You now need to write the book on parenting of 30-year olds, the manual for learning to be a grandparent, why as a grandparent you should not serve your grandchildren ice cream for breakfast, and let us write the book on bringing up John and Kyle.
—10 Steps to Develop Great Learners: Visible Learning for Parents by John Hattie and Kyle Hattie (Routledge) is out now.
10 Steps to Develop Great Learners
Visible Learning for Parents
What can concerned parents and carers do to ensure their children, of all ages, develop great learning habits which will help them achieve their maximum at school and in life? This is probably one of the most important questions any parent can ask and now John Hattie, one of the most respected and renowned Education researchers in the world draws on his globally famous visible learning research to provide some answers.
Writing this book with his own son Kyle, himself a respected teacher, the Hatties offer a 10-step plan to nurturing...
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