Bryon Demerson:
I had one student in particular, missed passing by one question. I was proud of her. I was super excited for her. She cried in my arms because she felt like she let me down, and it was that moment where I realized that whatever I’m saying is not meeting my purpose. So I had to make some changes.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton, and that was the voice of Bryon Demerson. Bryon is Lead National Faculty in Math at PBLWorks, a nonprofit dedicated to helping teachers and school leaders to design and facilitate quality project-based learning. I met Bryon at the Deeper Learning Conference and was so excited to get him on the podcast for two reasons. First, his path to becoming a project-based teacher is really interesting. And second, well, he teaches math, famously not the first subject most people think of when they think project-based learning. Bryon was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and that’s where our conversation started. Here’s Bryon.

Bryon Demerson:
That’s where I was born and raised. Houston, meaning the Greater Houston area, right? There’s different suburbs around Houston. So I was in the suburb, Pearland, Texas to be exact. That’s where I grew up. High school in Pearland. Went to college at Texas Southern University, which is in Houston, Texas, right next to U of H, and then taught in Alief, Texas, which is another area of Houston, more on the southwest side, a relatively low SES area.

Alec Patton:
So socioeconomic status. Yeah.

Bryon Demerson:
Yes.

Alec Patton:
Now I read that math education was not your initial career choice.

Bryon Demerson:
No, no. I started, well, I was one of those kids that did not know what I really wanted to be growing up. So I got pushed into engineering from my parents, from my mother, just wanted me to be something productive. Then I switched from engineering to pharmacy because I found out that my brother was in pharmacy and how much money they made as a pharmacist. And I realized I didn’t really like science like that. So then I moved back to engineering, just realizing that I like math better than science. And then after that, just that back and forth, I really just had a purpose to want to impact children. So that’s when I changed my major now what, a third or fourth time into becoming a teacher.

Alec Patton:
How did you know that?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah. Well, because at the same time I was teaching in my church, and that’s where I really saw the connection that I was able to have with kids. And really I saw that I was able to have these real life conversations with kids, and that’s where my life purpose kind of became. I really just wanted to have life conversations and help them connect the dots in ways that I wasn’t able to connect the dots as a child from school to life. Math was just out of all the subjects that I could choose to teach, I said I like math the best, and so that’s how I moved into math education in college.

Alec Patton:
So what were you doing in the church? Was it like Sunday school? Was it a youth group?

Bryon Demerson:
I was teaching Sunday school teens to be exact. I started that at the age of 19 and then I was-

Alec Patton:
So you said you were teaching teens and you started at 19.

Bryon Demerson:
Started at 19.

Alec Patton:
Did you just go straight from being a teenager at Sunday school to being a teacher? Was there any-

Bryon Demerson:
No. So great question. I went to Xavier in New Orleans for a year, and in essence, how do you say it, academic probation. I wasn’t cutting it, basically. And so I had to move back home, back to Houston, so from New Orleans back to Houston. So now I’m back home with my parents and going to church and the same youth group that I graduated out of a year ago, I’m back, right? But I’ve graduated from this youth group and the youth leader at that time knew the impact that I had as a teen, just being an influential person. And so he was like, “Man, I just need you to teach. Just try come and teach since you’re already back.” I taught one. He told me to come back the next month. Next you know, you’re teaching every couple of months. And the rest was history after that.

Alec Patton:
So even as a student, people identified you as a positive influence, a positive presence within your church.

Bryon Demerson:
Yes. Even to the point of I was in some different social groups that my parents had us in, like Jack and Jill of America where instead mother’s group, but where young African American men and women teens and kids come together and you’re building these different types of cultural skills, social skills, things of that nature. I was the president of that group, so I was always in a space of just influence, even to the point of my parents developed my brother and I to be just really good public speakers. And so plus, like I said at the time, I had a lot of hands in the church. So that was absorbing a lot of my time “outside of school”.

Alec Patton:
And why didn’t you pursue ministry?

Bryon Demerson:
Great question. That’s a great question. I think that’s a question that still gets thrown around even to this day. And I’ll say that that door is not closed. I just haven’t walked through it or had a desire to walk through it yet. But yeah, that’s just what it was. At the time, from the age of about 23 to about 32, I was actually the youth leader. And obviously my influence was growing within the church, but at the same time, I’m also teaching in the campus now.

Alec Patton:
So you start teaching, where was your first job?

Bryon Demerson:
Olle Middle School in Alief, Texas, eighth grade math.

Alec Patton:
Okay. What was that first year like?

Bryon Demerson:
Man, that first year, it was exciting. I remember stepping on the scene the fall of 2011 as a student teacher, so I had to complete a semester of student teaching there. I had great mentorship, and that’s where I developed my rhythm and my flow and my cadence in an educational classroom. So that first year was all about that, just learning how to strategically deliver and walk kids through the learning process. And then that campus Olle that I was student teaching on, they hired me as soon as I graduated. So now January of 2012, I’m a graduated student, now an official employee. And it was good.
It was the same first year struggles that anybody else go through of, “I should have taught that better. Should have done that right. I could have managed that particular situation better in terms of classroom management.” But the thing that I always had going for me that was a kind of an early win was my ability to build relationships with students, deep, deep connections with students.

Alec Patton:
And do you think that came from the church, that relationship building?

Bryon Demerson:
Absolutely, absolutely. Again, everything about my educational journey started from my work in ministry. Everything in my educational journey started from my work in ministry. Learning how to have conversations with students, I have to help students understand that their decisions are not death sentences. It’s a decision that you can grow from, learn from, and evolve from. A lot of that came from being in the church and mentoring students within the church. So then when I moved into the classroom, having those same types of conversations of, “Okay, this is what you did. Let’s learn. Let’s grow from it.”
Every day is a new day and we can overcome what we’ve done the previous day and we can build on what we’ve done the next day, if in fact what we did was productive. Another important thing, I was co-teaching my first year, so I wasn’t thrust into this heavy lifted role as a teacher. We were co-teaching an intervention class. So my first year I was able to scaffold my own learning and learn from somebody that had been doing it for upwards of 10 years that first year.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And at this point, had you heard the phrase project-based learning, did it mean anything to you?

Bryon Demerson:
No. I didn’t even know what it was. When I first got onto that campus, that campus was on the brink of a government takeover. So it was all about the state test, test prep, test questions. That was the world that I got thrown into. So I had no clue what project-based learning was. What I did know was I knew what a STAR test, which was the Texas State Assessment was. I knew exactly what that was, just STAR prep and state prep. That was a lot of my world initially. So teaching kids in a real life manner and all of that initially, that was not my thought process.

Alec Patton:
You mentioned your own academic struggles. What were those?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah, I was the kid that had C was good enough for me growing up. I didn’t have that desire to go and get As and Bs. Truth be told, I didn’t understand the purpose of school. I was the kid that if I understood it in a class, well, I have to go do the homework, and I didn’t have a whole lot of resilience as a student up through grade school and then my early part of college. If it was too difficult for me, I kind of run from it. If it’s too difficult for me, I drop the class or I just wouldn’t do it. And so that’s how my GPA was so low, both in high school and in college. So I was around about a 27 in high school when I graduated, and then in college initially, and I was on academic probation twice before I got my mind right.
And I wasn’t connecting the dots and the impact that these habits were going to have on my life moving forward. I just wanted to help kids understand that you are building habits that’ll be hard to break if we continue to build these habits if they’re not productive. So I just wanted to help kids understand chapter seven and eight while they were on their chapter one. Because I’ve been through the chapter seven and eight with some of the things that they were doing, and that’s all I wanted to do was just let them know, “You can rewrite what you’re doing, but I have to let you know that some of the things that you’re doing is not going to go well for you down the line. And I’d be wrong if I didn’t tell you that.”

Alec Patton:
So somewhere you went from, “C is good enough for me, and I’m running away when things get too challenging,” to, “I am going to make a choice to become a teacher,” which is the opposite of running away from challenge.

Bryon Demerson:
Right. Yeah.

Alec Patton:
What happened? Where was the pivot point for you?

Bryon Demerson:
You get tired of failing. You get tired of failing, you get tired of losing, and everybody has their breaking point. And that was about two and a half years into college where I’m like, “Man, what am I doing? What am I really, really, really, really doing? Because this isn’t it. I’m better than this. I’m tired of this and I can be better.” And I made that decision. I didn’t want to lose anymore. I did not want to lose anymore. And so if that involved rerouting my surroundings, people I was around, if that involved me sacrificing, at that point, I was willing to do it just because I don’t like losing.
And that’s really what drives me a lot is just my desire to be great because I know what losing feels like. And so from then, literally that next semester in college, I made the dean’s list. It wasn’t this drastic change, it was just a decision. I made the dean’s list and then the semester after that, I made the president’s list. And then the semester after that, I changed my major to education and made the dean’s list for the next five semesters just off a decision of being tired of losing.

Alec Patton:
So when you’re a student, winning means making the dean’s list, and you start doing that. And then flash forward to you becoming a teacher and winning means raising student test scores and you’re doing that. And then PBL enters your life.

Bryon Demerson:
Come on.

Alec Patton:
How did that happen?

Bryon Demerson:
About five years in, it just got boring to me. I got tired of being told every year that the state test is the Super Bowl of the year. It’s not. Realistically speaking, it’s just not. And so I got exhausted and tired and bored of just preparing kids for a test every year, plus that’s not why I got into teaching. So all these things were happening. At the same time, I was teaching ELL students whose journey is much different than ours. So to expect students to pass a test when they just arrived in America a year ago, that’s just not even a fair realization. They were overcoming struggles and being resilient and trying to learn every day.
And I had one student in particular missed passing by one question. We measured growth over from seventh grade to eighth grade. She had grown so many points from one year to another, she missed it by one question. I was proud of her. I was super excited for her. She cried in my arms because she felt like she let me down. And it was that moment where I realized that whatever I’m saying is not meeting my purpose. So I had to make some changes. And I knew for a fact that I had to approach teaching altogether different.
That at the same time I was going through some financial struggles, some other life struggles personally. And so I had students in my class dealing with some of the same struggles as children that I was dealing with as an adult. So how can I prepare them for life beyond the classroom? Because again, passing a test isn’t it. They’re dealing with real life. And so they needed to be able to develop the same skills that I was having to use in real time, skills like resilience, skills like persistence, skills like handling adversity, emotional intelligence.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. Feel free not to answer this if you don’t want to go into it.

Bryon Demerson:
Come on.

Alec Patton:
But what was going on for you?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah, man, I got broke. Just mismanaging money.

Alec Patton:
That’s embarrassing for a math teacher.

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah, it’s real though, right? It’s real.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Bryon Demerson:
And I’m glad to answer it because it’s the reality that I and a lot of other people go through, but you have to tighten those reins. You have to tighten reins, and now you have to make some strategic decisions moving forward. So when we talk about critical thinking, we got to make those critical thinking decisions. When we talk about overcoming adversity, this isn’t the time to call mama, although I could have, I wasn’t. Right, this isn’t the time to call dad. This is the time to stand on your feet as a man and figure out how you’re going to navigate this and know that you can navigate this. And so as I did that, my moral imperative just kind of deepened because I was like, “Wow, I have students in this low socioeconomic community dealing with the same things that I’m currently dealing with right now.”

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Bryon Demerson:
And it’s beyond my intellect. This is real life critical thinking, problem solving, adversity, creativity, ingenuity, resilience. These types of things are skills that I had to lean on. I had to figure out how to develop students to be able to develop those same skills. At the same time, my campus was building a STEM program where teachers are teaching through project-based learning, and they asked me to do it. I didn’t know what it was, but I just agreed to do it because remember, I just needed something different to do anyways. And so all these experiences are happening at the same time that created this perfect storm that changed the complete trajectory of my educational journey.

Alec Patton:
I got to ask one question about your personal psychology.

Bryon Demerson:
Come on.

Alec Patton:
I feel like with all that turmoil, I got a bunch of personal stuff going on, I got a bunch of financial things. I would just be like, “Hey, I know how to teach the test. I’m good at it. Let’s at least keep this one thing that I’m good at the same.” With all that stuff going on, it seems like the most wild choice to me to be like, “I’m just going to take a big leap in my professional life right now.”

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah. But at the same time, I had tears on my shirt from this girl that was crying in my arms.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Bryon Demerson:
You see, that was what was driving me. Even if project-based learning didn’t exist, I was going to find something that didn’t revolve in me having to message that I’m preparing you for a test. So something was going to change. I still to this day remember those tears on my arms. I vividly remember that conversation that I had with her and how disappointed she thought she was whenever I was so excited for the growth that all of them had showed, especially her. So something had to change in my message. So yes, I was dealing with a whole lot of life issues, but one issue that I was going to solve was the issue of these kids in my class are not going to feel like their educational success is revolving around one state test. That’s not happening. I just was blessed that PBL walked into my life right at that moment and I was able to walk right into that.

Alec Patton:
And so that was through the STEM program?

Bryon Demerson:
And that was through the STEM program. So yeah, we had teachers, we had content as well as CTE teachers. So the CTE teachers were going to be continuing with their CTE instruction, and then the content teachers were going to be teaching through project-based learning, facilitating projects. And that was how we built the STEM program. And then so we had students, it was anybody is welcome. It was application-based, but also not based on intellect or grades. And the whole purpose was really any kids that wanted to learn “differently”. We encouraged them to be a part of the program and we were going to be teaching differently. And that differently was through project-based learning.
Now granted, I’m still teaching the same standards that I was teaching the previous year and that every other teacher is teaching. It’s just that I’m teaching it by implementing one project in the fall and one project in the spring. So that was the caveat, right? You had to learn how to build your capacity to design and implement a project-based learning unit in the fall and one in the spring. And then we’re going to have what was called a STEM showcase where kids were going to showcase their final products.

Alec Patton:
Cool.

Bryon Demerson:
Once a semester.

Alec Patton:
You’re doing a project in the fall, this is where it’s all starting off.

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Tell me about that.

Bryon Demerson:
Oh, man. It was interesting. It was how can we raise money in awareness for breast cancer? That was a driving question, and I’m laughing about it because I look at the project as this was my starter project and it is always going to be my baby, but I love how it evolved. But that was initially what it was. And it was kids learning the same linear relationships, proportional thinking, linear equations, but they were learning that for the purpose of billboard locations, so the cafeteria might be worth more money or cost more money than the hallway because there’s more traffic, right? The gym might cost more money than outside. So things like that. And so they had to go through and discover, “Okay, how much is it going to cost to put this billboard here? And then what message am I promoting? And then how much money can I possibly get raised?”

Alec Patton:
So this was like a simulation? They weren’t-

Bryon Demerson:
it’s a simulation, right. It wasn’t a real life. Right, right. It was a simulation. And again, that was my first project that I was doing. Didn’t know much about project-based learning design, but as kind of basic as that project was, the creativity that existed, and I saw the collaboration and I saw the ingenuity and I saw the adversity and I said, “This is it.” I said, “This, I’m watching it happen. I’m seeing kids having to use these very skills that I purpose to want to be able to develop within them.”

Alec Patton:
All right. So let’s go back to the morning before you launched this project.

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
What was your biggest fear at that point?

Bryon Demerson:
None. Transparently speaking, at that point, I didn’t have any fear because I had already been building students’ capacity to collaborate. So as far as their collaborating, I knew that they could do that. As far as just my ability to facilitate, I knew they can do that. The project I was in this element of I didn’t know and you have to realize just a couple months prior in my own life, I was living in a space of I didn’t know. So I was teaching at that moment in a place of no fear. I was as curious about the project as the kids were in doing the project.

Alec Patton:
Is there anything you should have been scared about?

Bryon Demerson:
Nah. I say this all the time. The best project is the one that you do, not one that you plan. I tell teachers now, whenever I’m helping them facilitate projects, my first project was not that great, and I’m vulnerable about that. I’m very vocal about that because I want to encourage them just to do it.

Alec Patton:
Because this project sounds good. What was not great about this project?

Bryon Demerson:
I could have made it more authentic. I loved it. Don’t get it twisted. I love the project. It was too simulated. We’re not hanging billboards inside of a school. That’s just the bottom line, right? But in that moment, I was designing the best of what I knew. The more you know about project-based learning, and the more you design, the better you get at it. And that’s why I’m so vocal about that first project all the time, because I need teachers to understand your first project might not be the “gold standard project”, but guess what, you did it. And now we can build on it and grow from it and figure out how to add and move it more towards gold standard over a period of time. The iterations of that project, what it became years after became a more real-life thing.

Alec Patton:
And how did that project develop?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah, so the next year I moved it from a billboard to students had to call a breast cancer foundation. So they did some research to call this breast cancer foundation and then figure out what are their needs? Do they receive money? How do they receive money, X, Y, Z? Then they had to set a goal for how much money they wanted to raise and donate. So then they had to go through the business process of what am I going to sell? Again, that’s going to your proportional reasoning, and then what do I have to sell it for to make a profit? And so now they were presenting this plan for raising money to donate to a particular organization. And so then I just brought in some different types of entrepreneurs, some different types of experts in that space to listen to their presentations.
And so that was the second iteration. The third iteration of it, I had a particular group of girls, amazing group of girls. It was one of those day one, we just hit it off. Just the connection and the rapport amongst teachers and students was extremely high. They were on the LGBT side, they were really into that space. So again, using knowledge of students, I said, “Okay, how can I flip this to make it something beyond just breast cancer?” And so literally for them, I opened the gates up to anything including LGBTQ awareness and autism and suicide and bullying. And so now kids can advocate for any cause, not just breast cancer awareness. And that’s how I evolved it.

Alec Patton:
That’s awesome. So now at a certain point, you leave the school and you come to PBLWorks.

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
When did that happen?

Bryon Demerson:
So that happened summer of 2023. I became so excited about the things that I was seeing. I just wanted to share this with any and every teacher. Because I felt so free as a teacher. It is so fun to wake up every day and don’t know what you’re about to see, but know that you might see something that’s so spectacular. So I just wanted to share that with other teachers. So I started speaking at different conferences around the state, just kind of showing what we were doing as a STEM program, but also showing the things that I was doing as a math teacher. And when I saw the reaction from other math teachers, that’s what changed the game.
And when I saw them being inspired and being equipped and hearing stories of them going and trying some of the things that I was telling them about, that’s where my love for adult learning really started to grow. I became a math coach at another school, continued to speak at different conferences, and then this opportunity to become a national faculty, particularly developing math, came open. And I had to move into this space because my life purpose became building those vulnerable relationships with teachers and seeing theirs light up just the same way that my life purpose was for the kids.

Alec Patton:
And so what are you working on right now?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah, so we have over the past two years, PBLWorks has moved into this PBL teach space where we are developing full flash curriculum units from lesson one up to lesson whatever, 18, 19 with teacher-facing resources, student-facing resources, steps for implementation, possible pitfalls, coaching tips, strategies. And I’ve been blessed to be able to support teachers in the implementation of these units. So think about it, just moving the ball forward for that new teacher. Imagine me starting off with that project where kids are raising money and not starting off with the billboard project. That’s what we’re able to do, implement these projects in real time.

Alec Patton:
Well, it’s like your first year of teaching back in 2012 with the co-teaching?

Bryon Demerson:
Exactly. That’s exactly what it is. So we’re able to move the ball forward with teachers. Now they can say, “Oh, that’s what a gold standard project is.” They can continue to implement that project and kind of reiterate it. Or they can say, “I want to design a brand new project.” Now they can become those designers. I’ve had about 40 or 50 teachers in Boston this year that I’ve been working with and it’s been beautiful to watch their development as teachers, from teachers that were in love with control to teachers that were I didn’t think it would go this well to teachers are saying, “Okay, now I see how this works. I want to add this, add this. I want to give kids more time on this. I’m going to increase voice and choice here.” So to watch the development from August until now, it’s been spectacular to watch. The student learning has been great, but hearing these teachers transform their own mindsets, that’s been the biggest win.

Alec Patton:
So why can’t you be in love with control if you’re a PBL teacher?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah, they don’t go together. The whole point of project-based learning is student discovery. You are presenting kids with a challenge. You are not presenting kids with a solution. And so one thing that teachers have to understand is know the distinction between wrong and different. Those are not the same thing. So you have to understand that we do have to be able to provide framework through a rubric, but when I present a kid with a challenge, I have to understand that the way they approach that challenge and provide a solution might be different than the solution that I thought of whenever I was designing the project and you got to be okay with that. And that’s actually the beauty in it. But if you’re in love with control, you’re not going to create those lanes for kids to discover and take that project into a world that you never even imagined.

Alec Patton:
All right. I want to return briefly to your financial challenges. Is there a project you think could have helped you out when you were a kid?

Bryon Demerson:
Oh, that’s a good question. Any projects that just dealt with expenses versus revenue. That’s the essence of life, right? You have expenses, rent, car, gas, whatever. You have revenue, your paycheck, investments, whatever it is, right? And that’s the essence of what it is. If you notice the through line of all my projects, it’s all about expenses versus revenue. And so even the next project that I did where kids were developing an ice cream business using their understanding of measurement and volume and things of that nature, it still was expenses versus revenue. See, I was teaching in an environment where kids needed to learn these things. I had kids making decisions with and for their parents, so you need to learn this now. You can’t know this at the age of 20 and 25 like I didn’t and I had to learn it. And so projects like that would’ve been very, very beneficial.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. All right. What are the objections that you know you’re going hear from teachers every time or almost every time you come in with a new group to do PBL with them?

Bryon Demerson:
Yeah. Easy. It’s going to be time.

Alec Patton:
What do you mean time? What about it?

Bryon Demerson:
Time like I have so much of my curriculum that I have to get through. So time’s one thing. Second thing is going to be supporting our diverse learners. So thinking about the scaffolds. And then the third thing is kids’ ability to collaborate and kids’ ability to take ownership, right? Because we are empowering students, so how do you empower students that previous to my class never had to be empowered? And then the fourth thing, big one, are kids going to still get the math? Are kids going to still understand the math? And so I can choose all those real quick.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, let’s do it.

Bryon Demerson:
Time, the pacing is going to be nearly the same. When you look at the unit, if you look at the three learning standards or four learning standards within this, and you look at your pacing guide, it’s going to be the same in 19 days. And so we’ve done a lot of, in essence, substituting to really make sure that it made sense in that regard, right? The second thing I’m going to go to, are kids going to understand the math because it’s going to go with the time as well. Well, we have to rethink what does it mean for kids to understand math? What does understanding the math actually mean?
And one of my colleagues, Talana said this all the time, part of understanding the math is kids talking about the math. They can’t talk about the math if all they’re doing is algorithms. So kids communicating, kids talking, kids showing their work on boards, kids talking about the what ifs. That’s how you can really see if somebody understands the math. And that’s where project-based learning and project-based teaching practices allow them to be able to do. So that’s time. That’s kids understanding math. The third thing is scaffolds and supporting all of our diverse learners. And it’s my responsibility to provide the templates, the scaffolds, and the resources necessary for all kids to achieve at high levels. It’s the same thing you would’ve to do in traditional instruction anyways.
But here’s the caveat. I’m going to provide these scaffolds in my project, but I’m not saying every kid must use these. I’m going to empower these kids to know where these resources are, how to get to them and how to use them if need be, right? If you see somebody on training wheels at the age of 20, you’re going to be having questions. That’s a scaffold, right? And so I need to help you realize when to use the scaffold, how to use it and when to not need it anymore. And that’s a real powerful life skill for kids to understand. Those scaffolds are built within the project, and that’s what project-based learning does. It helps kids be able to understand how to use something if they need it.

Alec Patton:
That’s the thing I say all the time to students and teachers is this is an invitation, not a requirement.

Bryon Demerson:
Exactly.

Alec Patton:
If this is useful to you, use it.

Bryon Demerson:
That’s it. That’s it. And that’s part of sharing power with students, right? I need to help you understand what you need if you need it, and then understand how to use it. But you have to be able to have the ownership to go get it and seek it. You got to teach kids how to be seekers of knowledge and not just receivers of knowledge. I have to be able to push kids just on their brink of uncomfortability, right? And so sometimes it’s me telling you, “You don’t need this anymore. Go struggle a little bit.” Right? I need to push you away from this because I have to grow you, right? Think about it like in the weightlifting, get that extra rep in, right? I got to be able to help you get that extra one or two reps because that’s where the growth happens.
And the last thing is building the culture. You have to build a collaborative culture. Day one, build a collaborative culture. My colleague Talana has something called the Ultimate Classroom where kids learn how to build learning agreements. What agreements do you wish you had in the classroom? And how can we design those in this classroom? And then what is my profile as a learner and what learning works best for me? And so developing and building that culture early is very important. Some things that I did like say those STEM challenges that I did early on, a lot of those things were just to build that collaborative culture.
Learning how to talk to people and setting those standards, learning how to critically think, I’m not here to solve your issue, you were presented with a micro challenge, work together to go solve the challenge and be okay with being wrong in solving that challenge and reflecting on was this the best idea. And listen to other people’s ideas and learn from other people. And that’s how you empower students to be seekers of knowledge without them being so reliant on you. That’s the ultimate shared power thing. Again, I couldn’t call my mama. I had to learn how to be reliant on other things besides her.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. That’s an awesome spot to end. Bryon, thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

Bryon Demerson:
Man, Alec, I appreciate this. This was powerful. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for this, Alec.

Alec Patton:
Appreciate it. Thank you so much. High Tech High Unboxed is hosted by me, Alec Patton, with editing by Stan Alcorn. Our theme music is by Brother Herschel. Huge thanks to Bryon Demerson for this conversation. You can find links to Bryon’s work at PBLWorks and find out more about the Deeper Learning Conference in the show notes. Thanks for listening.