In this episode of The Eduleadership Show, veteran coach and teacher Matt Harr joins me to discuss his approach to building strength and resilience in students.
We discuss:
The “milk and cookies after a varsity loss” story—and what it reveals about how adults respond to student failure
How high expectations can build student confidence—celebrating incremental growth while keeping the grading standard intact and setting the next reachable target
A principal’s walkthrough technique using dots on paper—and how this one move changed Harr’s teaching for 30 years
Straight talk on big money in club sports, travel teams, and feeling a loss
Why we should treat school culture as a long-term consistency project—set clear expectations (tardies, deadlines, effort) and enforce them the same way year after year so students know the rules of the environment
How we can normalize teachers visiting other classrooms to “steal and tweak” effective practices, mirroring how coaches continuously learn from each other
Links:
Visit Matt’s website, MattHarrSpeaker.com
Full Transcript:
Justin Baeder (00:08):
Welcome everyone to the Eduleadership Show. I’m your host, Justin Baeder, and I’m honored to welcome to the program Matt Harr. Matt is an educator, coach, author, and speaker with 35 years of experience building winning cultures in schools and athletics. A five-time state coach of the year with over 400 career wins, he’s coached four generations of students and brings a unique perspective on how leadership and accountability have evolved. He’s the author of Back When Consequences Weren’t Optional and speaks on how culture, not programs, drives performance. His work focuses on helping schools and organizations build environments where accountability, relationships, and high standards thrive. Matt, welcome to the Edge of Leadership Show.
Matt Harr (00:48):
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Justin Baeder (00:51):
Well, I’m excited to talk with you about leadership from a different perspective than we usually take on my shows because you come from a largely coaching background. Take us into, if you would, some of the differences in perspective as you see them on leadership from people who are in that athletics world versus those who are not, because I think there’s some very interesting contrast there.
Matt Harr (01:12):
There is, but there really isn’t when you get into the meat and potatoes of it. I think that when you’re a good coach, you always want to build a good culture because you want your teams to be competitive every year. Everybody can step into a program and say, look how good we are because we had good athletes. But it’s year after year after year after year. And then you also see that with teachers. Your good teachers are teachers that students want every year. They want that teacher. And I think the perspective from the teaching standpoint, I think it’s kind of changed over the years. When I first started teaching, it was definitely just coaches and just teachers. And if you were a coach, you were kind of an outsider, you had your own group and the teachers did too. But as you see now in the real world, it’s interesting to see a lot of the jobs out there are coaching leadership positions.
(02:14):
And so they’ve taken that term and they’ve moved it to businesses, CEOs, we need leaders, we need culture builders, et cetera, et cetera. And I honestly believe if you’re a good coach, you have to be a good teacher because I think the two go hand in hand. Teachers will, if you’re a good teacher, you could be a good coach. And I think they work hand in hand because it’s all about building cultures and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And it does take time. You don’t get a suntan in one day. So when you step into a program or you step into a classroom, you’ve got to earn that respect from your students or your players and then you build on that. And then once they know the expectations, then you start to see that culture kick in. And you’re going to have your good classes as a teacher and you’re going to have your bad classes.
(03:09):
I mean, that’s just the way it goes. But if you’re consistent all the way through just like an athletic team, if you’re 100% consistent, then you see the fruits of show up year after year after year.
Justin Baeder (03:24):
Absolutely. And I think anybody who’s been a part of a team, whether that’s in a school or an athletic team or some other type of team knows the power of culture. But I feel like culture also eludes us a bit because it feels intangible. And I became a principal at a pretty young age. I started when I was 27 and I remember feeling like the culture of my school was a real thing that I was responsible for. But coming in, obviously I wasn’t the one who had created that culture and I didn’t really know how to think about it. And you say in your work that culture is the real driver of performance in schools. How do we think about that knowing that, especially if I’m a new leader, I didn’t create the culture, but now I’m responsible for it and it’s going to greatly determine our results maybe even more than the things that I do directly.
(04:14):
How do you think about those issues?
Matt Harr (04:16):
I think number one, you have to hire good teachers. Now you can take that and you can say, “Well, the state only gives us this much money and teachers are hard to find.” They’re kind of like coaches. Good coaches are hard to find, good teachers are hard to find. Once you find them, I think you can just kind of get out of their way as an administrator. That’s what I always wanted my administrators to do. Just make sure I’m doing the stuff I need to do and let the good teachers teach. Now, when I say good teacher, I think there were better teachers than myself in the hallways. Just I learned from mistakes and I think good leaders do that. But as far as culture goes in the classroom, I think that’s a teacher’s responsibility. I do. I think it’s a teacher to set the standards, be on time.
(05:05):
There’s certain things that no late papers. Now we have extenuating circumstances, we get it. But I mean, students need that. The kids haven’t changed over 35 years. It’s the environment that’s changed that they live in. And I think that you have to change that environment a little bit and that you have to rely on parents to do that too. So ultimately, I think it’s the coach on an athletic program, or I think it’s the teacher in the classroom. If it’s not working, the teachers should make sure that they’re not given the administrators a reason to come in every day to look at their class. If they are, then you need some training or you need a pat on the back or whatever it might be. That’s why I’m not an administrator. To be honest with you, I just love to be around students. So I never took that route.
(05:53):
I didn’t want to be an AD. I didn’t want to be an administrator. I wanted to be around kids and I wanted to be around players. So I think ultimately it’s the teacher’s job to start that culture and then the principal to hire the people and build around it.
Justin Baeder (06:08):
Mike, if we could for a minute about high expectations in the classroom, because I think the perennial wisdom for teachers is students will rise to your expectations. You have to have high expectations for them. You have to hold the line. And yet, I think especially starting around 2020, but there were some earlier currents in that direction. We started to hear alternatives to high expectations that weren’t pitched as low expectations, but the whole world had some extenuating circumstances for a while when we were in the pandemic. We had virtual and we had just lots of reason to think that these were extraordinary circumstances and yet things did not quickly go back to normal. And I would say did not quickly go back to high expectations and accountability for students. And I’m starting to see now a broad realization that, okay, yes, actually we do need to reassert the importance of those high expectations because what we have always thought was true.
(07:05):
Kids do rise to high expectations and if the expectations are not high, then we’re just not going to get the same results. What’s your take on all that?
Matt Harr (07:13):
Yeah. And I agree with you. I think we have to set those expectations high and then it makes the students feel better once they reach those. And then the ones that don’t quite reach it, at least if they’re trying and they’re working hard and you see that effort, then you’re accomplishing something in class. I just think that too many parents nowadays want, I don’t know, they want to break and they have excuses. And like I said, I don’t think the kids have changed a lot and I’m not hammering the parents. The parents are more involved now than they were 35 years ago and that’s a good thing in some cases. The high expectations, that’s where you set them and then that’s where I think the administrators also kick in. I think administrators come in and say, “Okay, no, this is the way it’s going to be.
(08:09):
This is how he or she runs this class and we’re not going to interfere with that because they’ve built a good culture. We have kids that are succeeding,” whatever those expectations are. There might be no tardies for the whole semester. We don’t want kids late, no late work, none of that. Because I asked my class the other day, I go, “Can you name a profession out there where you don’t have to, you could be late every day and you don’t have to turn your documentation in. You can be late with all your documentation.” And this was two days ago, I asked them and I have kids in there that talk all the time, raise their hands all the time. Nobody raised their hands. They can’t think of a profession that does that. And so I think you start with the little things and then move up.
(08:56):
It’s kind of like it’s no different than coaching going back to what we talked about before. You start with the basics and then you move up and say, “Okay, this is going to be hard.” And sometimes you got to give the teacher a break. A teacher needs to be able to say, “This isn’t working. This project is not working. Let’s move to another project and let’s do it. “ I mean, that shows I think the students that you have a little bit of grace maybe, but the simple standards you’ve got to uphold and then of course raise the bar as you go. And if you have the support of your administration, when the parents come in and they complain, I think that’s where you start to build the culture.
Justin Baeder (09:34):
Yeah. You said something that I think is really crucial there that often we think of the other way around. You said when students are held to a high standard and meet it, they feel good. And I feel like sometimes we focus on the opposite where we think, okay, if I have a high expectation and the students don’t meet it, they’re going to feel bad. And you’re emphasizing if we have a high expectation and they do meet it, well, that’s how we raise the bar. That’s how we get them in that kind of positive virtuous cycle of raising the bar, meeting that higher bar and doing better and better.
Matt Harr (10:05):
Yeah. And it goes back to relationships in the classroom. You have to build those relationships. If a kid’s used to getting 60% on tests and they get a 69%, you may still consider it a D, but that’s where the culture kicks in. You go up and pat the kid on the back and say, it might not be the hardest test all year, but you can stretch the truth a little bit and say, “Hey, this is the toughest test we’ve taken all year and look at your score.” Once they believe you’re there, then you’ve got that relationship with them. You’re not their buddy, but you’re their friend.
Justin Baeder (10:43):
And you’re not giving them an A, right?
Matt Harr (10:45):
Right. Yeah. You’re not that- I’m
Justin Baeder (10:46):
Not lowering the bar
Matt Harr (10:47):
Just to make
Justin Baeder (10:48):
Them
Matt Harr (10:48):
Think. No. No. You’re just saying, “Okay, next time let’s get to 75. Let’s get you up into that proficient area.”
Justin Baeder (10:54):
I wonder if we could talk, Matt, about what you’re seeing in terms of parent expectations in both athletics and academics, because I think athletics has had some interesting things happen where we have travel teams, we have a lot more private non-school teams in some parts of the country. We have different expectations around playing time. We have different expectations around college prospects and scholarships and all that. So the athletic world has continued to evolve and have its own shifting pressures and yet the academic world has become one of pressure not so much on students as on teachers. If the student does not get the top grade, then the teacher did something wrong. I’m just curious what you see happening with parents on both the athletics and the academic sides and what they expect of their kids and their kids, teachers and coaches.
Matt Harr (11:40):
Boy, it’s probably a good thing this is only a 45 minute presentation or the show because parents have changed over time. I just witnessed our crosstown rival at the big school I was at before we had only lost to them once in 15 years and they beat us and I wasn’t coaching and I’m more of old school. The next practice is going to be really, really hard. Well, to give you an example that I think encompasses teaching and athletics, the next morning the parents brought in cookies and milk for the players.
Justin Baeder (12:20):
How old are the players here? We’re talking-
Matt Harr (12:22):
We’re talking high school.
Justin Baeder (12:23):
Okay.
Matt Harr (12:24):
Varsity. Yeah. And they brought in cookies and milk and I was like, I heard that and I couldn’t believe it. And I heard it from the janitor in the school that takes care of the gym because he would always watch his practice and he goes, “You would’ve ran them to death.” And now the parents are bringing in cookies and decorating locker rooms and buses and God bless them. I mean, they’re trying, but the kids need to learn how to fail in an environment That makes them tougher. And I think the same thing goes with the classroom. We get a lot more parents coming in, but it seems a lot more geared at, what are you doing as a teacher? How come my kid’s getting an 88% and not a 90? Can’t we just bump that up to a 90%? And that’s changed. I think as far as the parents go in the school district, you’re exactly right.
(13:24):
It comes down to the teachers and in athletics it does too, but you kind of get that thick skin. My wife and I have a rule when we’re in the grocery store that if we see a parent, we actually use the code word and I’ve coached so long, I can’t remember if the parent hates us or likes us because you don’t know if you cut their kid or not or you gave- I changed today today. Yeah. So we go down the other aisle and we have a lot of fun with it, but it’s the truth. I think the parents don’t understand, but they’re kind of building a divide with the kids and the teachers, especially by coming in. Now, if you want to help or you want to say, “What can my kid do to get better?” That’s different than coming in and saying, “Why did my kid get an 89%?
(14:12):
They’re straight A’s all the way across. What are you doing different that the other teachers aren’t?” But then you can take that all the way back to culture and the administration come in and say, “Okay, let’s try to regulate this. “ That’s where you guys come in as principals.
Justin Baeder (14:29):
It said that failure is a gift to students. I’ve heard that phrase, the gift of failure. And I think in athletics, because it’s directly competitive, somebody has to lose every game, there’s not been this prolonged protection from failure, but I think for a lot of parents and students, preventing all failure permanently is the goal. So a lot of kids get to college or get to life after high school and have not really experienced any kind of failure. What do you see as the role of failure and how as a coach you help your players respond productively to that? Because certainly we don’t want to lose a game, we don’t want to fail. But I also think there are a lot of cases where it’s better to fail as a kid for practice, for the life experience that it brings than to go through life being kind of protected from failure, buffed from failure.
(15:20):
We’ve talked about like helicopter parents and snowplow parents who never want their kids to experience failure. How do you think about all those issues?You
Matt Harr (15:27):
Brought up club sports and they’re taking over. I know in volleyball for sure out here I’m in the west and Idaho and baseball’s really taken over with some of the clubs. And the first thing I say to my players, the very first practice I always go in, I look around our gym at the small school I’m at and I go, I don’t see any banners in this gym for the Magic Valley All Star Club or I don’t see this because I think that’s what club sports are doing to athletics. There’s no consequences. If you lose, you have three more games that weekend. I mean in high school, very few teams win their last game. You get to state, you might win a third place trophy, you might win a constellation trophy, but everybody’s gearing for that state championship. NCAA tournament, all those, I mean very few teams win their last game.
(16:20):
Yeah, the kids are used to it and club sports are really, if I sat down with a club coach, I’d say, “What is your purpose? What are you trying to do? “ And he or she may say, “Well, I want these kids to have a good shot at a scholarship.” Well, we’ve been around long enough to know that the colleges are going to find the good kids. It’s not hard to see a really good athlete. So you’re doing that, but the parents are paying you tons of money and there’s always another game. There’s always another game. I think that’s a real downer for me in the coaching world. How that reflects on teaching is the same way in a different, I don’t know, atmosphere, so to speak. With parents coming in, they want the best for their kids, but they don’t see the failure part.
(17:12):
Your kid goes home at night and they lose a big game or they play terrible. Mom and dad can certainly have a big part in that, but if they do bad on a test and it might cost them an A in the class, it seems like there has to be somebody to blame. And if they’re a straight A student, they want to blame the teacher and they should just say, “This is life.” And you’ve got six teachers at the high school level and they’re all going to teach you different and you need to make adjustments to those teachers because that’s the way the real life is. You’re not going to have the same boss might, but it’s highly unlikely you’re going to have the same boss for your whole career. So that’s kind of how I feel. And it goes back to club sports too.
(17:56):
I could talk four hours on that.
Justin Baeder (17:59):
Well, let me just follow up on that. Do you feel like with club sports there’s not the same concern with failure because there are so many games because it’s not like our school versus your school, there’s not that same rivalry. What do you think is different about the travel teams and club sports?
Matt Harr (18:17):
Well, number one, there’s a lot of money. I mean, our club sport coaches, I don’t blame them for ... There’s some good coaches out there that really have the right perspective, but they’re making 10, 15, $20,000 just to coach a club sport team whereas your normal high school coach where I’m at makes 5,000 and we work a lot harder. They could say whatever they want, but when we have a summer program, we’re watching film, we’re scouting, we’re doing the stats, we’re doing ... But club sports, they’re not scouting. They might go watch a game. And I think that it bugs me because there’s no consequence and they have so much money that those kids want those pretty backpacks. They want the nice uniforms. And I’ve had parents tell me, “We don’t care if we win a state title, we just want our kid to go division one.” And I’m thinking only 1% of the high school athletes in this country are going to go division one, and it’s probably lower than that.
(19:23):
And so you spent all this money that probably would’ve paid for two years of college on club sports and when you’re done, you’re done. You might get third place in the bronze bracket and they may get a medal. They get a medal for everything just for being there anymore. Participation medals is another, that’s a whole nother chapter, but it’s likely a kid that walks into school if we gave them all join A’s right now and the syllabus, that bugs me in school when teachers have the students in high school. I’m saying not middle school or elementary, but when teachers say, “Take your syllabus home and have your parents sign it. “ And I go, “Well, how many of you had a summer job at McDonald’s or wherever? Did that boss make you go home and sign, have your parents sign?” No. I go, “They’re adults now.
(20:17):
You got to treat them like young adults.” And I don’t think club sports do that. I think they’re in it for the money and if they win, then they get the glory. Or if they have one kid that goes on and plays division one, he’s the poster child of the program, but it all encompasses how we raise our kids and culture.
Justin Baeder (20:33):
And that raises the issue of what does the kid take away from it? Because one of the things I’ve been really stunned by with a lot of club sports is the rings. You get the big ring or you get the big trophy or the medal or the, as you said, the backpack, the tangible things that we can basically buy for our kids that sit in their bedroom forever, that’s one set of things they take out of that experience. Are we overlooking the internal things, like the character formation that’s supposed to be happening through athletics?
Matt Harr (21:04):
I think so. I think it’s there in the kids, the potential’s there and whether it’s the teachers, the coaches, the parents and it goes back and I hate to keep repeating myself, but when they fail, they learn from it. I mean, it’s going to help them out. I’ve told probably every other year my teams that, “Hey, I love every one of you as a basketball player.” Or no, I’m sorry. I love all you guys as a person. I wouldn’t have a problem if any of you dated my daughter, but right now I don’t like very many of you as a basketball player, and that’s pretty harsh. And they can go home and tell their parents and they say, “Well, you better get better and start working hard because that’s all I really ask is that if we work hard and we do things right, then it’s going to pay off down the road if you communicate too in marriage.
(22:03):
Marriage is on all teaches and Kareem. We all know that. They need to learn how to deal with failure and the only way they can do that is let the environment teach them. I mean, you can’t make a kid fail. A teacher can’t, a coach can’t, but when those times come up in a game, my assistant coaches say, You have to call a timeout. We’re going downhill fast. And if it’s a game that really doesn’t matter a lot, I’m going to say, no, I’m not calling timeout. These kids need to work their way through it and understand how they can pull it together as a team and get through this bad valley that we’re in. We’re not going to call it timeout every time something goes bad. And I think parents think they can do that sometimes in school. Now there’s times I wish I had 15 timeouts in a game, but that’s a whole nother story too.
Justin Baeder (22:58):
In your 35 plus years of experience working with students, with players, with parents, with administrators, what do you want administrators to know about what kids need and what teachers need to hold the line on high expectations, to respond productively to failure, to push back against maybe that snowplow parenting that’s out there? What do you want administrators to know?
Matt Harr (23:23):
I think that I want administrators to trust me. As a teacher
Justin Baeder (23:27):
And as a coach.
Matt Harr (23:27):
As a teacher and a coach and know that I’m going to make mistakes and it doesn’t matter if you have one year experience or 35 years experience. Sometimes it’s better to be one year have a young teacher that’s really ambitious versus somebody that’s getting ready to retire and it’s like, “Hey, I can get away with anything now because you can’t fire me. You could, but good people won’t do that. Good teachers.” I’ve been lucky. I have 35 years of great principals and great ADs. I never had one that I could point at and say, “This person was even subpart being a principal.” They pretty much let me go in the classroom. And then if something came up, “Hey, your grades are behind the little things,” then they would remind me and don’t take it personal if you’re a teacher, but administrators, I think they just need to let you teach.
(24:22):
The best evaluation I ever got was a principal and by the way, I think principals should be able to walk in the classroom anytime. I don’t think you should schedule your evaluations. I think principals should be able to walk in. That’s their job. But the best one I ever got was I was lecturing and I don’t lecture over 20 to 30 minutes, but a principal came in and sat down and put a dot everywhere I walked in the room. That’s all he did. And I thought he was writing. I thought I was in trouble. I thought I was going to lose my job and I go, “What is he writing and everything? I’m just teaching photosynthesis.” And he put it out and he walked out of the room and five minutes later when the bell rang, he gave me the sheet of paper. He goes, “This is all I wanted to do.
(25:06):
“ And he goes, “You never walked by these kids over here that are always in trouble, you’re troubled kids. You’re always walking by the students that have all the answers.” And he goes, “I’m not putting this in your file. I just thought you should know. “ And that was the best to this day and that was 30 years ago, to this day I make sure I walk around the whole class when I lecture. So there’s little things that principals can do to help build that culture within a classroom and let the principals talk. I love them when they come in and talk and they get into the lesson, but there’s so much, and you probably know this more than me, there’s so much pressure on principals and paperwork and stuff like that, that it’d be nice to see the principals participating in the classroom discussion when they can.
(25:54):
I don’t blame them for not doing it, but I wish they had more time to just step in the classroom impromptu and, “Hey, what are we learning today?” And talk to the kids. And then that kind of puts everybody together, if that makes sense. They’re all one big family, not a team, but a family.
Justin Baeder (26:14):
Very well said. Very well said. And we should just fully disclose I’m not paying you to mention my book. Now we’re talking 21 days to high performance instructional leadership, which is on classroom walkthroughs. But yeah, I could not agree more that we’ve got to get administrators into classrooms. That’s where the good stuff happens.
Matt Harr (26:30):
Right. And the improp two ones are the best ones.
Justin Baeder (26:34):
Absolutely.
Matt Harr (26:35):
And teachers too. I think teachers should be able to walk into other teachers’ rooms. I learned a lot just walking down the hall listening to a teacher. I’d stop outside their room and go, “Geez, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I never even thought about that. “ And then I take it back and make it better, make it fit my system. Coaches are the best at doing that. We all steal each other’s stuff. My theory is there’s always somebody out there that’s better than you. Find out what it is, what they’re doing, and then make it yours and tweak it any way you can, whether it’s teaching or coaching.
Justin Baeder (27:05):
Well, Matt, I know you’re on LinkedIn. Your book is on Amazon. If people want to visit your website, where can they go to find you online?
Matt Harr (27:13):
Justin Baeder (27:16):
Good deal.
Matt Harr (27:17):
Yep.
Justin Baeder (27:17):
Well, it has been a pleasure, Matt. Thank you so much for your time and for joining me on the Edge of Leadership Show.
Matt Harr (27:22):
All right. Appreciate it and good luck down the road with everything you’re doing.
Justin Baeder (27:27):
Thank you.
