Developing Focus, Agency and Confidence

Three base level tools to equip kids for the modern world.

The way humans develop is complicated. The impact that any one person can have over the development of another is also complicated. So a quiet teenager walks into my classroom on day one of school. During the day they start a few friendships, engage with a bunch of learning material and seem generally pretty happy. There’s another kid in the class who is loud and brash, talking to everyone like they’re already friends, including the teacher. Another kid doesn’t really talk to anyone, just sits quietly and does their work. There are endless “qualities” or “skills” that you can try to instill in these varied teens. You can’t prioritise them all because that’s not what prioritisation is. So which do you choose?

My answers are focus, agency and confidence.

Focus

What is focus? In this context, what I mean by focus is the ability to concentrate on something for effectively as long as you want. This is known as attentional focus. If you’re reading a long form web article, chatting to a friend over coffee or trying to mark science essays, and you consistently have the urge to check something on your phone, your focus could use work.

Who is it good for? Everyone, particularly now. Attentional focus for everyone who goes online has taken a huge hit in the last 15 years. I haven’t spoken to anyone who hasn’t noticed this and it does come up in conversation from time to time.

Can you improve it and how? You can. I know this because I have done it. In 2018, I was pretty distractible, checking my phone hundreds of times a day for no reason, with a daily screen time average of around two hours. Life had been that way for years. Unless I was really caught up in a fiction book, I wouldn’t read for more than twenty minutes without becoming distracted - this contrasted deeply with my teenage self who would stay up reading until four in the morning. I recognised this problem, listened to a bunch of Renée DiResta, Cal Newport and Jonathan Haidt, freaked out (particularly when I found out the drop in engagement when a social media company switched its notification dot from red to blue - they promptly switched back again) and did something about it. Now my phone screen is nearly always greyscale, screen time is generally below 20 minutes and my ability to focus for extended periods is back. I have heard similar reports from other people. This, of course, is not evidence. There is evidence (meditation helps, your brain can change, working memory is key, working memory can be improved), but there’s always evidence.

So how does this work in the context of school? Firstly, it’s an explicit goal, written on the wall. The students will learn the basic theory of attentional focus in a few mini-lessons. They’ll know they need to decide to concentrate when the time comes. They’ll investigate the types of thoughts and feelings that arise when they’re close to our limit of attentional focus and how to push through for just a little bit longer so they’re training themselves to focus for a little bit longer. They’ll know what works for them as a circuit breaker once they’ve hit their limit (for example: go for a five minute walk with a partner and play word tennis), so they can come back to the task. They’ll know how the task they are doing affects their ability to concentrate (problem solving drains you faster than doing loads of times tables or something).

Armed with that knowledge and the techniques required to improve their focus, they will go forth and conquer. Decide to concentrate. One thought at a time. Do what they’re thinking. Stay within control. When nervous, focus outwards on actions, not inwards on doubts.

Agency

What is agency? When you’re at the airport and your flight details have changed in a bad way, you’re in the line at the help desk and on the phone to customer service and chatting with the AI bot on the website. When you’re wondering why the onions aren’t browning properly, you research and actually find out. When your science essay sucks and you want to make it a podcast instead, you ask the teacher. Agency is the ability to affect change in one’s own life. It’s not grinding harder, it’s finding the edges that others aren’t looking at. It’s decoupling “no” (rejection) from surprise and dejection. It’s asking your peers for real honest feedback, particularly about what you’re doing poorly. It has a lot of similarities to “problem solving”, but you can pour it on everything.

This article by Cate Hall explains agency very well. She’s a unique and amazing individual, and I’m not expecting my students to be like her, just to, well, be a bit more like her when it comes to “manifest determination to make things happen.”

Who is it good for? Everyone. Agency allows you to enact your will on the world. It includes things like switching jobs to something you enjoy more and reorganising your kitchen for better workflow. These things seem like a lot of effort, but to a more agentic person, they would just be “the thing you do” to make your life better in the future.

Can you improve it and how? You can. I know this because I have done it. As with everything, it starts with practice - but there is a hack. Once you have an intuitive understanding of what agency is, you can ask yourself the question “what would a person do in my situation if they were ten times more agentic than me?” Your brain will supply a range of fantastic options and the thing you end up doing will likely be much more agentic than it would have been.

At school, there are systemic and narrow choices which can be made to improve agency. Including Student Directed Inquiry by itself means students’ agency will be developed. They will be spending a chunk of time each day working on topics and in ways that suit them. They will have significant autonomy and the skills to use that autonomy productively. On a micro level, the default answer to a student query starting with “Can I…” is yes.

We will do a couple of lessons about what agency is, but the main way we teach it is actually giving them the space to be agentic: they can choose whether to write an essay or make a podcast, they have SDI time to work on their own project and they are choosing their subjects as they progress through high school.

Confidence

What is confidence?

The specific type of confidence I want to instill is “confidence to act in the face of the important unknown”. It ties in closely with agency - as you become more agentic, you gain evidence of the effectiveness of your actions, which gives you confidence to be more agentic, thus gaining further evidence…

Who is it good for? Everyone.

Can you improve it and how? You can. Confidence isn't a fixed trait but rather a psychological response that can be trained through repeated exposure to uncertainty and subsequent success. If they do the thing, they will realise that the can do the thing.

The key is structured risk-taking. Start with small, achievable challenges where success is likely but not guaranteed. As students succeed, incrementally increase the difficulty. This creates what psychologists call a "success spiral" - each small win builds evidence of capability that the brain uses to predict future success.

So how does this work in the context of school? First, we explicitly teach students about the science of confidence - that it's not an inherent quality but a skill developed through practice. We create classroom environments where mistakes are treated as valuable data points rather than failures. Initially, students will keep "evidence journals" documenting their successes, creating a personal reservoir of proof they can draw upon when doubt creeps in. I suspect this won’t last long, hopefully just long enough that they have a habit of reflecting on past feelings of uncertainty, taking action, and achieving success.

Practical applications include gradually increasing complexity in problem-solving tasks, using peer teaching (explaining concepts builds confidence and understanding), and implementing regular reflection cycles. When a student says "I can't do this," we reframe it as "I can't do this yet" and break down the task into manageable steps. This trains them to approach uncertainty with a problem-solving mindset rather than avoidance.

In daily practice, this might manifest itself as Boss Questions. These are basically visible questions that appear impossibly difficult at the start of the lesson or unit and by the end are trivially easy. They show the student that they’re growing in a way the student feels.

For the quiet student and the brash student, confidence development looks different. The quiet student might need more structured opportunities to speak in small groups before addressing the whole class, while the outspoken student might need challenges that test the limits of their actual knowledge versus their social comfort. Both learn that confidence isn't about personality but about building genuine capability and the courage to attempt things without guarantees of success.

When students develop true confidence - not bravado or false certainty, but comfort with uncertainty - they become capable of tackling the complex, open-ended problems that define both modern education and the world beyond it.

What are you not choosing?

If I’m honing in on these three qualities, what are the important things left out? What about critical thinking, problem solving and creativity? Well, firstly, I’ve chosen three things that are at the base. They are necessary and (almost) sufficient for nearly everything else useful that you want to develop. If a student needs to think creatively, how will they do it with only focus, agency and confidence? If they ask the question “how would a 10x agentic person do this?” they’ll come up with something like “I could research different creative techniques, try multiple approaches, ask for feedback from others, and refine my ideas through iteration." Their focus enables them to stay with the process, their agency propels them to pursue new pathways, and their confidence allows them to share and refine imperfect work.

Critical thinking and problem solving similarly emerge from these foundational qualities. A focused student can examine arguments thoroughly without distraction, an agentic student actively seeks out alternative viewpoints, and a confident student isn't afraid to challenge established ideas - even their own. These three qualities create the ground from which all other educational outcomes can grow. Rather than trying to develop everything at once, we can nurture these core attributes and watch as our students naturally develop the complex range of skills they'll need for their futures.

What do you think?

Is this missing something? Do you think my proposed solutions are unworkable? Do you love the idea? Want to know more about agency? Leave a comment, message me directly or leave anonymous feedback!