Grow Your Flow & Glow - Teacher Podcast

Kurt Walker

Welcome to Grow Your Flow & Glow, a podcast where educator and Assistant Principal Kurt Walker explores the real heartbeat of learning: belonging, self-regulation and those powerful moments when students lose themselves in their work. Through practical examples, honest reflections and research that actually makes sense in a classroom, Kurt helps teachers understand how to build environments where students feel capable, motivated and deeply connected to their learning. Simple ideas. Real stories. Better learning. Every episode.

  1. Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - Why External Rewards Undermine the Motivation They're Meant to Build — and What Actually Works Instead

    Apr 22 ·  Bonus

    Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - Why External Rewards Undermine the Motivation They're Meant to Build — and What Actually Works Instead

    Send us Fan Mail In this delayed release episode, Kurt openly talks about that one student going unnoticed and the busy teacher trying to deliver her best within the system. He talks frankly about an uncomfortable teaching experience and student experience, which thankfully has a warm GLOW  ending.  She wasn't defiant. She wasn't disengaged. She was sitting under a table, drawing animals, in a classroom that had spent two years rewarding her for sitting still — and had never once asked what she loved. This episode is about what happens when we design for control instead of connection. And what becomes possible when we stop. Connect with me and join the conversation by contacting me on  Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    30 min
  2. Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - Adding a Layer to the Play - What Twenty Five Years of Watching Children Learn Taught Me About Flow & What the Research Confirms

    Apr 12 ·  Bonus

    Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - Adding a Layer to the Play - What Twenty Five Years of Watching Children Learn Taught Me About Flow & What the Research Confirms

    Send us Fan Mail It starts in a sandpit. A child building something important. A question dropped in like a layer — not an interruption. And flow happening without anyone announcing it. In this episode, Kurt traces the pedagogical move he learned in early childhood education — joining the play before adding the teaching — and follows it all the way through to a practical flow architecture for primary classrooms: trivia challenge to group research to real audience presentation. He brings in the Shernoff research that confirms what thirty years of observation already showed him, names the single condition that predicts student flow more than any other, and says something honest about what leading a school can cost a teacher who cares about this work. If you've ever watched your students genuinely absorbed — and felt something shift in yourself — this episode is about that moment and how to design for it deliberately. Connect with me and join the conversation by contacting me on LinkedIn.  Share theories and understandings, viewpoints and perspectives - I want to know what shaped you as an educator. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    22 min
  3. Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - The Fight to Belong: The why behind the THRIVE framework...

    Apr 4 ·  Bonus

    Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - The Fight to Belong: The why behind the THRIVE framework...

    Send us Fan Mail The student who fights you and the student who disappears into silence are doing the same thing. They are both telling you they don't yet belong here fully enough to risk genuine learning. In this episode, Kurt draws on thirty years of observation — from the babies room in long day care to Year 6 in primary school — to make the case that every disruptive behaviour, every act of resistance, and every quiet withdrawal in a classroom comes from the same place: a need to be seen, heard, recognised, and to belong. He shares the story of a student who fought every morning — and what slowly happened when the fight stopped being rewarded. And he introduces the philosophical argument that Becoming only happens through Belonging — and that both can be designed for. Connect with me and join the conversation by contacting me on LinkedIn.  Share theories and understandings, viewpoints and perspectives - I want to know what shaped you as an educator. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    32 min
  4. Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - What Year 4 Taught Me About Flow

    Mar 29 ·  Bonus

    Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - What Year 4 Taught Me About Flow

    Send us Fan Mail In 2024, I asked thirty Year 4 students what was stopping them from focusing. They didn't mention the work. They didn't mention each other's behaviour. They listed assemblies, Harmony Day, incursions, bell times — and their own friends. Then they told me exactly what to do about it. This episode is about what happens when you let students diagnose the conditions of their own learning, what Flow Theory says about why they were right, and what one honest conversation in a three-way conference revealed about the tension every student navigates between belonging to their friends and becoming their best learning self. Connect with me and join the conversation by contacting me on LinkedIn.  Share theories and understandings, viewpoints and perspectives - I want to know what shaped you as an educator. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    32 min
  5. Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - The Weight of Hope

    Mar 21 ·  Bonus

    Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - The Weight of Hope

    Send us Fan Mail 'Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - Episode 2'  Reflecting on the Early Years Learning Framework and its critiques - Belonging sounds warm. But belonging always involves power. And in a school where families have moved countries so their children can succeed, the hidden curriculum of belonging is one of the most complex things any teacher navigates. This episode is about what students have to set aside to feel safe enough to learn. And what one classroom looks like when the teacher refuses to accept those terms. Connect with me and join the conversation by contacting me on LinkedIn.  Share theories and understandings, viewpoints and perspectives - I want to know what shaped you as an educator. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    29 min
  6. Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - The EYLF's philosophical intent

    Mar 21 ·  Bonus

    Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5 - The EYLF's philosophical intent

    Send us Fan Mail "Plot Twist: It's Series 1.5" Kurt promised Series 2. Kurt did not deliver Series 2. What he delivered instead is arguably better — a deep dive into the research that unravelled one framework and grew a better one. In this honest, occasionally self-deprecating opening episode, he introduces Being, Belonging and Becoming, the concept of Becoming by Design, and a new framework called THRIVE that he's pretty confident isn't named after a corporate wellness program. Series 1.5 begins. Connect with me and join the conversation by contacting me on LinkedIn.  Share theories and understandings, viewpoints and perspectives - I want to know what shaped you as an educator. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    19 min
  7. Season 1 - The Grand Finale: When Flow Meets the Storm

    Mar 8

    Season 1 - The Grand Finale: When Flow Meets the Storm

    Send us Fan Mail Want to immerse yourself in a deep, reflective professional (or personal) development journey after this episode? Subscribe here. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Seven episodes. Seven conversations about purpose, learning, leadership and the quiet ripple effects teachers create every day. But this episode is different. Behind every classroom door… behind every lesson… behind every leader trying to hold it all together… there are moments where the plates start to wobble. In the Season One Finale of Grow Your Flow & Glow, Kurt pulls back the curtain and reflects on the reality of teaching, leadership and life when the pace of the profession begins to collide with the limits of our energy. From the philosophy of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow, to the deeply human challenge of staying present, purposeful and well in a demanding profession, this episode explores a powerful question: How do we keep our flow when the current gets rough? Expect honest reflections, powerful stories from the classroom, and a reminder that the work we do as educators sends ripples far beyond the walls of our schools. This isn’t just the end of a podcast season. It’s the beginning of the next chapter. And if you are noticing the warning signs of burnout or are a leader who is noticing  an unhealthy culture of burnout amongst your staff - Check out this fantastic read by Brad Gaynor - From Burnout to Breakthrough - https://www.routledge.com/From-Burnout-to-Breakthrough-The-Leadership-Reset/Gaynor/p/book/9781041132066 Because the message of Grow Your Flow & Glow is only just beginning to spread. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    46 min
  8. The Ripple Effect — Why Adult Regulation Shapes Learning Culture

    Feb 7

    The Ripple Effect — Why Adult Regulation Shapes Learning Culture

    Send us Fan Mail Want to immerse yourself in a deep, reflective professional (or personal) development journey after this episode? Subscribe here. Want to help keep this work going? Your support helps Kurt and his small research team continue creating meaningful, practical content for educators. Or perhaps you simply want to buy him a coffee to say thanks for the chat. You can do that here. After a busy first week back face to face  with students and his Stage 3 team, Kurt squeezes out another episode that is filled with a message all teachers need to listen to— Behaviour doesn’t happen in isolation. It moves through classrooms, staffrooms, and systems — often faster than we realise. In this episode, Kurt reflects on a moment early in his career that changed how he understand behaviour, leadership, and learning culture. Not through rules or consequences, but through regulation — his included. We explore The Ripple Effect: the idea that adult tone, timing, consistency, and repair quietly shape how safe it feels to learn. Drawing on classroom experience, Flow theory, and behaviour research, this episode unpacks why students respond less to what we say and more to how we are — especially under pressure. We look at: why adults set the emotional ceiling of classroomshow predictability supports regulation more than controlwhy repair is not weakness, but leadershipand how chronic disruption impacts not just students, but teacher wellbeing and retentionThis is not an episode about blame or perfection. It’s a professional reflection on how nervous systems interact, how calm is borrowed, and how learning cultures are built — ripple by ripple — over time. If you’ve ever walked away from a lesson knowing it was “managed” but not meaningful, this conversation is for you. Take the next step — connect with Kurt on LinkedIn and be part of the ongoing conversation.

    22 min
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About

Welcome to Grow Your Flow & Glow, a podcast where educator and Assistant Principal Kurt Walker explores the real heartbeat of learning: belonging, self-regulation and those powerful moments when students lose themselves in their work. Through practical examples, honest reflections and research that actually makes sense in a classroom, Kurt helps teachers understand how to build environments where students feel capable, motivated and deeply connected to their learning. Simple ideas. Real stories. Better learning. Every episode.

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