Any Change Can Start with One Conversation

As a new school year begins, you may already be facing the students others have labeled “difficult,” “defiant,” or “too much.”

Here’s the truth: these are the very students who need you, and their teachers, the most. When you help them, you help an entire classroom thrive. And you, with your solution-focused lens, are exactly what they need.

The beauty of the solution-focused approach is this: change doesn’t depend on you having the answers.

In fact, it works best when you don’t.

Change happens because you dare to ask the right questions.

Each time you listen intently to a student, teacher, or parent, without diving into problem details, and then ask, “What are your best hopes for our conversation today?” you invite them to step into their own solutions. Because the answer is theirs, there is no resistance, and next steps feel natural.

Once you know what they want, ask questions that help them picture a future where it’s happening:

• “So, you want to make a friend. What will I notice you doing this afternoon that shows you’re beginning to make a friend?”

• “You want to pass your geometry test like you did before. What did you do then that helped you succeed?”

• “You want your teacher to stop calling you out. What might you do in class so there’s no reason to call you out?”

Of course, sometimes hopes sound impossible, “for my parents to get back together,” “to be taller,” “for my grandmother to be well.” Thank them anyway, then gently ask, “What difference would that make for you?”

Keep listening and asking “...and what difference would that make?” until they share something you can see and is reachable. You will get there… just keep asking.

It sounds simple, and it is. That’s the power. You have to start somewhere to master any skill, and this is where it begins.

So this week, choose one struggling student. Ask those two beginning questions and let their answers lead you.

That answer may be the spark that changes everything.