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"content": "\u003cp>Science high school teacher Furahi Achebe remembers getting a phone call from a former student whom she hadn’t heard from in six months. He told her that doctors found a heart defect; he’d just woken up after life-saving surgery, and he wanted to let her know that he’s doing ok.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This call left her wondering why that student reached out to her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Why would a student think that I am important enough to be on his list to be one of the people that he contacts after a life-saving operation?” Achebe said, recalling how shocked she was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For Achebe, a former chemist who has taught science and digital production to high school students for 12 years in New Haven, Connecticut, moments like the phone call are a reminder of how she’s been able to build lasting connections with students. Achebe recounted the story during the 2026 \u003ca href=\"https://conference.iste.org/2026/program/search/detail_session.php?id=118452181\">International Society for Technology in Education conference\u003c/a>, held at the end of June, during a workshop titled, “Why asking students ‘How Are You?’ wastes a reachable moment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the workshop, she argues that the question “How are you?” is no longer sufficient for interactions between students and teachers. Some experts say the phrase has become a “\u003ca href=\"https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/how-are-you-question-meaning-listening/\">reflexive greeting\u003c/a>” during a casual interaction, but one that doesn’t really make way for deeper conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that when you ask a person ‘How are you?’ they feel a little bit rushed to say fine or okay and move on,” says Achebe. “They don’t actually believe – unless you append something to the beginning or the end – that you’re asking how they really are.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, Achebe says teachers must strive for reachable moments with students, which can then turn into powerful teachable moments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A reachable moment is when a student and an educator of any sort are looking at each other eye to eye and having a casual conversation,” says Achebe. “Those moments empower our teachable moments because they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion\">create the relationship that drives education\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Creating true connections is more critical than ever as more studies have found a decrease in youth well-being in recent years. The\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teens-are-the-loneliest-people-in-the-world-a-new-report-finds-why/2025/08\"> World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection\u003c/a> released a report in 2025 saying one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, with the highest percentage (20%) among 13- to 17-year-olds. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, with some schools implementing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66363/inside-the-latest-global-research-on-school-cellphone-bans\">cell phone bans\u003c/a>, school hours may be the longest stretch of time when some young people are forced to reconnect with their peers and adults without the distraction of personal devices. Achebe encourages teachers to take that opportunity to reteach students how to communicate with others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2409\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg 2409w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-2000x2125.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-160x170.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-768x816.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1445x1536.jpg 1445w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1927x2048.jpg 1927w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2409px) 100vw, 2409px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u003cem>Courtesy of Furahi Achebe\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connection starts at the beginning of the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe suggests creating a Google Form at the start of the school year for students to fill out. She says the form should include the usual questions about nicknames or pronouns, but the form should also try to dig into who the students are and what they value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Suggested questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What brings you joy?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you think is unique about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Who is it that is always in your corner?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can quickly put responses into a spreadsheet or chart, which can then be printed out to be carried around the rest of the year or referred to when walking around the classroom throughout the year. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than making the first day of school about reciting rules and expectations, Achebe suggests thinking of it more as a time to get to know students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think the first day is about getting to know each other, and really deeply expressing who you are,” Achebe says. Achebe refers to these questions as “endorphin-flowing” questions, because it “builds rapport” and allows individuals to feel good about themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Similar questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What are you most grateful for in life?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Name or describe your top three strengths.\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you wish more people knew about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Which accomplishment are you most proud of? \u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to keep reachable moments going with debate questions.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe says at the root of it all, students, just like adults, like to feel seen. So connection needs to happen throughout the year. And the questions that teachers ask don’t always have to be deep.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can watch for specific moments in the classroom — when energy may be falling off — and take the time to ask students more trivial questions or encourage them to dive into debates with each other. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These questions don’t have a right answer, but while low-stakes, they could give a picture of what a student believes and how they think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Which do you prefer, Pepsi or Coke?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Are you Apple or Android?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Would you rather never stop dancing or never be able to stop singing?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“That is rapport building time, that’s connection building time,” Achebe says. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Choice, feedback and reminders throughout the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Finally, building connection isn’t just about questions; it’s also allowing a flow of opinions between student and teacher.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the ways Achebe reminds herself of this ongoing process is through digital signage and messaging throughout her classroom. Achebe is the founder of a company that creates free\u003ca href=\"https://thrivescreens.org/\"> screensavers that teachers can re-use\u003c/a> and download.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe also tries to leave as much room as possible in her classroom for genuine feedback and student choice in assignments. This might mean allowing them to pick which assignment or project to tackle first, giving them choice in topics or how a lab gets done.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She asks students: Was the quiz too hard? Did the reading make sense? Are the instructions clear? These types of choices and questions signal to students that their opinions and perspectives matter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Relationships are] central to what you can get out of a student,” Achebe says. “The most effective way to reach them is to satisfy the human need to be seen, heard and understood.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rather than making the first day of school about reciting rules and expectations, Achebe suggests thinking of it more as a time to get to know students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Achebe says at the root of it all, students, just like adults, like to feel seen. So connection needs to happen throughout the year. And the questions that teachers ask don’t always have to be deep.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Science high school teacher Furahi Achebe remembers getting a phone call from a former student whom she hadn’t heard from in six months. He told her that doctors found a heart defect; he’d just woken up after life-saving surgery, and he wanted to let her know that he’s doing ok.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This call left her wondering why that student reached out to her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Why would a student think that I am important enough to be on his list to be one of the people that he contacts after a life-saving operation?” Achebe said, recalling how shocked she was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For Achebe, a former chemist who has taught science and digital production to high school students for 12 years in New Haven, Connecticut, moments like the phone call are a reminder of how she’s been able to build lasting connections with students. Achebe recounted the story during the 2026 \u003ca href=\"https://conference.iste.org/2026/program/search/detail_session.php?id=118452181\">International Society for Technology in Education conference\u003c/a>, held at the end of June, during a workshop titled, “Why asking students ‘How Are You?’ wastes a reachable moment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the workshop, she argues that the question “How are you?” is no longer sufficient for interactions between students and teachers. Some experts say the phrase has become a “\u003ca href=\"https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/how-are-you-question-meaning-listening/\">reflexive greeting\u003c/a>” during a casual interaction, but one that doesn’t really make way for deeper conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that when you ask a person ‘How are you?’ they feel a little bit rushed to say fine or okay and move on,” says Achebe. “They don’t actually believe – unless you append something to the beginning or the end – that you’re asking how they really are.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, Achebe says teachers must strive for reachable moments with students, which can then turn into powerful teachable moments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A reachable moment is when a student and an educator of any sort are looking at each other eye to eye and having a casual conversation,” says Achebe. “Those moments empower our teachable moments because they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion\">create the relationship that drives education\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Creating true connections is more critical than ever as more studies have found a decrease in youth well-being in recent years. The\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teens-are-the-loneliest-people-in-the-world-a-new-report-finds-why/2025/08\"> World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection\u003c/a> released a report in 2025 saying one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, with the highest percentage (20%) among 13- to 17-year-olds. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, with some schools implementing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66363/inside-the-latest-global-research-on-school-cellphone-bans\">cell phone bans\u003c/a>, school hours may be the longest stretch of time when some young people are forced to reconnect with their peers and adults without the distraction of personal devices. Achebe encourages teachers to take that opportunity to reteach students how to communicate with others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2409\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg 2409w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-2000x2125.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-160x170.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-768x816.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1445x1536.jpg 1445w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1927x2048.jpg 1927w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2409px) 100vw, 2409px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u003cem>Courtesy of Furahi Achebe\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connection starts at the beginning of the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe suggests creating a Google Form at the start of the school year for students to fill out. She says the form should include the usual questions about nicknames or pronouns, but the form should also try to dig into who the students are and what they value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Suggested questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What brings you joy?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you think is unique about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Who is it that is always in your corner?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can quickly put responses into a spreadsheet or chart, which can then be printed out to be carried around the rest of the year or referred to when walking around the classroom throughout the year. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than making the first day of school about reciting rules and expectations, Achebe suggests thinking of it more as a time to get to know students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think the first day is about getting to know each other, and really deeply expressing who you are,” Achebe says. Achebe refers to these questions as “endorphin-flowing” questions, because it “builds rapport” and allows individuals to feel good about themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Similar questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What are you most grateful for in life?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Name or describe your top three strengths.\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you wish more people knew about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Which accomplishment are you most proud of? \u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to keep reachable moments going with debate questions.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe says at the root of it all, students, just like adults, like to feel seen. So connection needs to happen throughout the year. And the questions that teachers ask don’t always have to be deep.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can watch for specific moments in the classroom — when energy may be falling off — and take the time to ask students more trivial questions or encourage them to dive into debates with each other. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These questions don’t have a right answer, but while low-stakes, they could give a picture of what a student believes and how they think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Which do you prefer, Pepsi or Coke?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Are you Apple or Android?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Would you rather never stop dancing or never be able to stop singing?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“That is rapport building time, that’s connection building time,” Achebe says. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Choice, feedback and reminders throughout the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Finally, building connection isn’t just about questions; it’s also allowing a flow of opinions between student and teacher.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the ways Achebe reminds herself of this ongoing process is through digital signage and messaging throughout her classroom. Achebe is the founder of a company that creates free\u003ca href=\"https://thrivescreens.org/\"> screensavers that teachers can re-use\u003c/a> and download.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe also tries to leave as much room as possible in her classroom for genuine feedback and student choice in assignments. This might mean allowing them to pick which assignment or project to tackle first, giving them choice in topics or how a lab gets done.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She asks students: Was the quiz too hard? Did the reading make sense? Are the instructions clear? These types of choices and questions signal to students that their opinions and perspectives matter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Relationships are] central to what you can get out of a student,” Achebe says. “The most effective way to reach them is to satisfy the human need to be seen, heard and understood.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion",
"title": "The Lasting Legacy of Rita Pierson’s ‘Every Kid Needs a Champion’",
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"headTitle": "The Lasting Legacy of Rita Pierson’s ‘Every Kid Needs a Champion’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Rita Pierson, a middle school teacher from Texas, walked onto a stage, wearing a bright red jacket, to deliver an unscripted speech to TED Conference attendees. The video of that speech would become one of the most viewed TED Talks at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In just under eight minutes, she made a simple, unforgettable argument: kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. The talk, titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion\">Every Kid Needs a Champion\u003c/a>, is often the first time people hear someone describe teaching not just as instruction, but as a relationship. The video has become a staple of teacher professional development sessions across the country in staff meetings and college classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a decade later, the message lands in a very different educational climate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/what-new-survey-says-about-teachers-plans-leave-their-jobs\">Teachers report high levels of stress\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/overview-teacher-shortages-2025-factsheet\">staffing shortages are common\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cps.northeastern.edu/news/teacher-burnout-crisis-addressing-compassion-fatigue-and-the-impact-of-praxis-shock/\">burnout remains a major concern\u003c/a>. Exploring her presentation today raises important questions: What does it actually take to be the kind of teacher Pierson described? And is it sustainable?\u003cbr />\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The teacher behind the TED Talk\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before her talk went viral, Rita Pierson was already well known among educators in Texas. She came from a family of teachers and spent decades working in classrooms and advocating for students who often felt overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest, remembers that relationships were at the center of everything her mother did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She helped remind teachers that it’s okay to say ‘I love you.’ It’s okay to let the kids know that they are loved,” Forrest said. “There’s so many kids out there who don’t know that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That idea shows up clearly in the talk. Teachers, she said, have the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\">power to build relationships\u003c/a>, even with students who struggle in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her daughter said Pierson also understood the emotional demands of that kind of work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She reminded me quickly [during] my first year teaching that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted,” Forrest said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Every kid needs a champion | Rita Pierson | TED\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/SFnMTHhKdkw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A message passed from teacher to teacher\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many educators, Pierson’s talk appears during professional development at the start of the school year. That’s how Melissa K. Stanley encountered it when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really resonated with me,” Stanley said. “I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today she trains future teachers of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University, where Pierson’s message is still part of the curriculum. Before her students begin their pre-service teaching placements, Stanley asks them to watch the talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The video helps her introduce students to what educators call \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60112/learning-from-students-families-as-a-step-toward-equity-in-literacy-instruction\">asset-based pedagogy\u003c/a>, an approach that focuses on students’ strengths and experiences rather than what students lack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/new-focus-strength-based-learning\">Studies\u003c/a> have found that students often show stronger engagement, greater belonging and better academic outcomes when teachers build on students’ strengths and experiences rather than focusing primarily on deficits. Instead of asking what students lack, teachers focus on what they bring to the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some future educators, Stanley said, this approach is new and they don’t know where to start. This video helps her pre-service teachers start talking about what it means to build relationships with students so they can start to apply asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re about to step into classrooms for the first time and they’re nervous,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When caring becomes exhausting by design\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The kind of relational teaching Pierson described requires emotional labor. For teachers already juggling large class sizes, administrative demands and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59748/how-perspective-taking-can-improve-classroom-behavior-and-teacher-student-relationships\">behavioral challenges\u003c/a>, that energy can run out quickly. Teacher burnout has been a major concern in recent years and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/27/a-dwindling-number-of-new-u-s-college-graduates-have-a-degree-in-education/\">fewer people are entering the profession\u003c/a>. Surveys consistently show high levels of stress among educators and \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">many teachers leave the profession within their first five years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers like professor \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpc.unc.edu/people/fellows/ganga-bey/\">Ganga Bey at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u003c/a> are looking more closely at the emotional dynamics of teaching and how educators can sustain themselves while still showing up for students. Bey studies how people respond to stress and why similar experiences can affect individuals differently. “Not everyone who is exposed to stress will deal with it in the same way,” Bey said. “Dealing with it has a lot of implications for how that stress will impact people’s health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching provides plenty of opportunities for stressful encounters. Examples may include a heated argument with a student or a classroom moment that spirals unexpectedly. According to Bey, the way teachers interpret those moments can influence how stressful they become physically and emotionally. For instance, if a teacher interprets a student’s outburst as a personal attack, the body may register the encounter as a threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the teacher understands the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66347/ross-greene-what-if-bad-behavior-isnt-the-problem\">behavior as a sign the student is struggling\u003c/a>, the response can shift. “You wouldn’t be treating someone badly like that if you yourself weren’t suffering in some way,” Bey added. That reframing doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behavior. Instead, Bey said it can reduce the intensity of the stress response and make it easier to stay grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bey describes this mindset as part of what she calls a \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">vitalizing identity\u003c/a>, which is a way of understanding yourself and others that emphasizes connection, compassion and shared humanity. At its core, she said, it’s about expanding the boundaries of who we include in our circle of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burnout often occurs, Bey said, when educators consistently place students’ needs above their own without receiving the support they need. “One would hope that because teachers give up so much of themselves that others would pour so much into them to sustain the work that they do. And that does not happen,” she said. Instead, many teachers are left trying to set boundaries that school systems often do not support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Love, to me, is the idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else,” Bey said, and teachers have to include themselves in their own circles of care. In other words, caring for students cannot come at the expense of caring for yourself, which is the lesson Pierson emphasized with her daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson’s continued legacy \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Stanley’s college students, Pierson’s talk often becomes a reference point throughout their training. They return to it when they’re thinking about classroom management, lesson design or how to respond to difficult moments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard—when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/jc95sq/if_i_have_to_sit_through_that_rita_pierson_ted/\">fatigue that comes with repeated views\u003c/a> of the TED Talk during professional development, Pierson’s message continues to resonate with educators. Stanley believes that’s because the talk gives them a license to teach the way they want to. That doesn’t mean the work becomes easy; building relationships with students takes time, patience and emotional effort. But Pierson’s legacy reminds educators that those relationships are not separate from learning. They are what make learning possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many teachers, that idea still feels worth holding onto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Welcome to MindShift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> It’s summertime. School hasn’t started yet. The hallways are still quiet, and the kids are still sleeping in, but teachers? They’re back in school early to attend mandatory professional development sessions. Also known as PD. These might include discussing new protocols, hashing out curriculum and getting inspired for the new school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> If I asked teachers ‘What’s the one piece of PD you just know is coming?’ A lot of them would say the same thing: “Every kid needs a champion.” A TED Talk given by a teacher named Rita Pierson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson:\u003c/strong> Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In our last episode, we talked about how teaching is harder than ever – and how schools tend to focus on supporting kids while overlooking the adults who make learning possible: teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In this episode, we take a look at Rita Pierson’s viral talk and what it tells us about how relationships shape learning. We’ll meet the people who knew Rita best, the educators who carry her philosophy forward, and the researcher studying what happens to our bodies and minds when we lead with love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Every time somebody finds out I teach middle school, they’re like, ‘Oh bless you.’ Like that’s the that’s the first reaction. And I’m like, Yeah, I know, because everybody remembers middle school is such a hard transition\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Beth Jarzabek teaches English in Ludlow, Massachusetts. She works with the kids who struggle the most with reading and writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I have all three grades. So I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Since her students need more support, there’s a stigma about being placed in her class\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Like, ‘Oh, you have to go to Mrs. J’s class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> These are kids who often mask academic frustration with misbehavior. They might act out. They shut down. But Beth sees through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek\u003c/strong>: Their other teachers may not see them the same way I do. So I try to make those connections and and try to be their champion\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> The idea of being a students’ champion comes straight from Rita Pierson. Like many teachers Beth first watched her TED Talk video during professional development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> There were people like, you know, who were kind of rolling their eyes and whatnot. But it resonated with maybe when she talked about the kids that she had that, you know were the kids that were struggling, that the and the fact that she said to them, they put us all together to show everybody else how it’s done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Here’s the clip from Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: One year I came up with a bright idea. I told all my students, you were chosen to be in my class. Because I am the best teacher and you are the best students. They put us all together so we could show everybody else how to do it.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> And I was like, oh, I love that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So Beth decided to bring that same energy into her own classroom, especially for kids who rarely get encouraged by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I started, you know, just trying to be that hype person, you know, when I go when I would go into my neighbor’s classroom, I would be like, Oh, which kids can I steal from you? You know, I’m like, oh, or if a kid got transferred in, I was like, I found out how cool you were, and I told them that I want, wanted you in my classroom. And it gave the kids like a little boost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Or I’ll say to them, you know, like, hey, I’m telling all these people how awesome you are. I’m like, you gotta show them how awesome you are. And they’re like, okay, well, for you, I’ll do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> she’s tapping into something we know from decades of research. A positive relationship with even one caring adult is one of the strongest predictors of: better attendance, stronger academic performance, and improved social-emotional skills\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Several studies find that students with strong teacher relationships can gain the equivalent of up to an extra year of learning — especially those who struggle the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And here’s something else: supportive teacher–student relationships protect teachers too. Studies show that educators who feel connected to their students report significantly lower burnout and higher job satisfaction, even in high-stress environments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I don’t have to be your favorite, but I’m still gonna go to bat with you. You are still going to know that you’re safe with me. You are still going to know that you have a valued place in my classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She reminds herself of that, even on the hardest days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I try to remember when everything is falling apart I’m here for them to be that person in this tumultuous time in their life is really such an honor. Sometimes it’s easier to remember that than others. And there’s definitely days that I I go home and I like I’m under a weighted blanket. But I try to bring myself back to that, you know, what an honor it is to be the safe place for these kids because some of them don’t have it otherwise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Up next, we’ll explore why Rita Pierson’s message still resonates — who she was, how teachers are putting her ideas into practice, and what it takes to care for students without burning out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita Pierson’s TED Talk reached millions of teachers, but behind the scenes, the story of how it even happened is almost as special as the talk itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I joined Ted working two days a week to try and help them figure out whether or not they could make TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I said, Of course you can do TV, it’s SNL for nerds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet Blake , was the head of television for TED in 2013. She was producing a TV special on education — it included John Legend, Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson… big names. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was missing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> Through YouTube and I came across Rita. And the video that was that existed online wasn’t great, but I could see she had this enormous personality and that she was so authentic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> After seeing clips of Rita giving teaching tips, she spent months trying to track her down\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I was getting a bit desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita wasn’t a celebrity educator at the time. She was a longtime teacher and administrator in Houston who came from a family of educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And eventually I was calling different school districts in Houston. And I left a message for her at a school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Then one evening Juliet’s phone rang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I got a call one evening, and she just went, ‘Hello,’ and I went, ‘Rita, Rita Pearson?’ And she went, ‘Sure am.’ And I went, ‘I have been looking you for you for months.’ She said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m producing a show for Ted.’ And she said these magical words that made me fall in love with her immediately. ‘Who’s Ted?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> From there, they talked on the phone almost every night—once Rita got home from teaching. They were trying to figure out what she might talk about for her presentation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> She would talk to me about her mother and her father being educators and the schools that she’d worked in\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita could move seamlessly between heartbreaking stories about students and cracking jokes about the realities of teaching. And slowly, through those late-night phone calls, the TED Talk started to take shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And then she said, I need to write this, don’t I? I said, Yes, this is how it works. You not only have to write it, you have to learn it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But when Rita arrived in New York for rehearsal…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, ‘Honey, I didn’t learn it.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet was panicking… Rita was not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, You sit here and I’ll be on the stage and give me, tell me when I’ve got to wrap up, do this, and I’ll bring it to a close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I just thought, you know what? I just trust this woman to be brilliant. I just know that she’s going to do it and it’s gonna be great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That talk given live and mostly off the cuff and it is the one millions of teachers know today. Rita, on stage, speaking straight from the heart about how relationships are important for learning\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: But one of the things that we never discuss or we rarely discuss is the value and importance of human connection…relationships]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet remembers her as one of the most authentic speakers she’s ever worked with. And Rita’s daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest says this all makes sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> My mother’s never written down a speech in her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> there might be maybe some bullet points, but she always knew exactly what she wanted to say and how she wanted to get it across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: Kristin says her mom’s taught elementary and junior high students for over 40 years. Her entire philosophy came down to one lesson:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It’s okay to say I love you. It’s okay to let the kids know that that that they are loved, because there’s so many kids out there who don’t know that, who don’t inherently know that they are love. And so to explicitly tell kids, I care about you, you know, I’m here for you. I love you, and I’m gonna work my butt off for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin spent 15 years teaching in Houston herself, and she says her mother’s approach shaped her own practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> her work was centered around relationships. It was centered around relationship building and that was the central part of who I got to be as a teacher because I got that from her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But she’s also quick to point out that her mom wasn’t naïve about the realities of teaching. Rita loved her students fiercely, but she knew that caring deeply for students wasn’t enough to protect her from burnout or from a system that often asks too much with too little support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And she reminded me quickly, my first year teaching, that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: When Kristin had an especially hard day in the classroom. Rita would say, “You get 5 minutes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It just means that you know, your sadness, there’s an end point to it. So whatever that five minutes is, it might be a day, it might be a week, it might be a month. But just know that at some point there’s going to be an end to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin says those lessons from her mom took on a very different meaning not long after the TED Talk was filmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> After you know, they shot that TED talk, she she passed about three months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kirstin isn’t in the classroom anymore, but she still works with educators. she brings her mom’s presence with her everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> I think about my mom every day, and it’s been close to 13 years since she was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And even the day she passed, I had to remind myself, okay, you get five minutes. I don’t know if my five minutes is over yet. I really I really don’t know. But I I haven’t stayed in a sad place clearly, but but it’s definitely reminded me to pick myself up, dust myself off, and and what’s the next thing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> More than a decade later, Rita Pierson’s talk is still finding new audiences – not just among teachers, but among the people learning to become teachers. And that’s where Melissa Stanley comes in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I am Dr. Melissa K. Stanley and I am the director of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I teach social studies methods courses to help prepare them to be social studies teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She first saw Rita’s talk back when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> And it really resonated with me and resonated with the way that I taught. I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And once Melissa became a teacher-educator at Central Michigan University. The talk became part of how she teaches. It’s a required video during the semester that her class does their pre-student teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> They’re pretty nervous. And that is the semester that they do their pre-student teaching. It’s is the first real experience that they’ll get with students in going into classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa uses the video to introduce students to asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It’s looking at the whole student and it’s valuing what they bring and building relationships with them when the history of education has traditionally been kind of a deficit approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That means seeing students through their problems rather than their potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Studies show that when teachers take an asset-based approach, valuing students’ cultural strengths, community knowledge, and lived identities, students show stronger academic engagement, better attendance, and improved well-being. And teachers themselves experience more purpose and lower burnout because relationships feel reciprocal rather than adversarial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> That really helps us have conversations and then use it as a gateway into conversations with students about how we adopt an asset bit based pedagogy and how we value the whole student and we value the strengths they bring to the classroom, the diversity they bring to the classroom, and how we work with that to build relationships and then also help them grow and meet their goals and their dreams for their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> for some preservice teachers, this is a brand-new idea. Their own schooling may not have included teachers who championed them. So imagining themselves as that kind of teacher can be hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It generally generates a lot of questions about okay, how do we do this? This is great. I would love to get there. That’s kind of an end goal for me. But what are the steps along the way? What does that look like in practical application?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> They also discuss Rita’s line about joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk:\u003c/strong>Teaching and learning should bring joy.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> But if you’re engaging in this type of teaching and this type of work with students, not every moment is going to be joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk: \u003c/strong>So teachers become great actors and great actresses. And we come to work when we don’t feel like it. And we listen to policy that doesn’t make sense. And we teach anyway. We teach anyway because that’s what we do. ]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> So we have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard, when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa is naming something important. Teachers want to show up for kids the way Rita did, but the reality is that teaching is stressful. And not just the piles of grading or the endless meetings—interpersonal stress can hit teachers particularly hard. It affects their bodies and can leave them feeling emotionally exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ganga Bey is a researcher at the University of North Carolina. She studies how stress affects the body and why stress hits some people harder than others. And one thing she’s interested in is how the way we think about other people changes how stress affects us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Love to me is this idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In simpler terms: seeing other people’s well-being as connected to your own. That can matter a lot in the classroom. Because when a student lashes out, a teacher can interpret that in different ways. They can think: This kid doesn’t respect me. Or: This kid is struggling right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And Ganga says that shift matters physically—not just emotionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> So because of that, I’m literally gonna process that in a less stressful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Now to be clear—this is not the same thing as toxic positivity. This isn’t: ‘Just smile through abuse.’ And it’s not: ‘Teachers should sacrifice themselves for kids.’ In fact, Ganga says one of the biggest problems in education is that teachers are already being asked to give too much of themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Teachers are a particular group of people. Who encounter a tremendous amount of stressors and some of them are avoidable stressors right and part of the way that we organize our society teachers are undervalued um overworked and and live in a largely thankless space\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Teachers are reporting record-high stress levels, elevated rates of depression, and many are leaving the profession within the first five years. Ganga says burnout often happens when teachers keep putting everyone else’s needs ahead of their own for too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I think burnout happens when you have pushed out, pushed through as much as possibly can because you have centered the needs of these children that you have been serving above even your own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So her argument isn’t “love harder.” It’s that teachers have to include themselves in that care too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> It means that when my body is signaling to me that I am tired…we give equal weight to our needs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong>That balance—staying open to students without completely draining yourself—is hard. But Ganga says people like Rita Pierson matter because that care seem possible\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I love to hear about Rita because I know that there are other people out there like that who embody this. And the more that we make them into real human beings and make them accessible, the more than I think we can convince others that it’s worth endeavoring to even be like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Regardless of what the world right now may make us think, that it is worth it for us to pursue a world and a society and hold on to the idea that being loving can be the norm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and the Templeton Foundation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Rita Pierson, a middle school teacher from Texas, walked onto a stage, wearing a bright red jacket, to deliver an unscripted speech to TED Conference attendees. The video of that speech would become one of the most viewed TED Talks at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In just under eight minutes, she made a simple, unforgettable argument: kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. The talk, titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion\">Every Kid Needs a Champion\u003c/a>, is often the first time people hear someone describe teaching not just as instruction, but as a relationship. The video has become a staple of teacher professional development sessions across the country in staff meetings and college classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a decade later, the message lands in a very different educational climate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/what-new-survey-says-about-teachers-plans-leave-their-jobs\">Teachers report high levels of stress\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/overview-teacher-shortages-2025-factsheet\">staffing shortages are common\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cps.northeastern.edu/news/teacher-burnout-crisis-addressing-compassion-fatigue-and-the-impact-of-praxis-shock/\">burnout remains a major concern\u003c/a>. Exploring her presentation today raises important questions: What does it actually take to be the kind of teacher Pierson described? And is it sustainable?\u003cbr />\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The teacher behind the TED Talk\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before her talk went viral, Rita Pierson was already well known among educators in Texas. She came from a family of teachers and spent decades working in classrooms and advocating for students who often felt overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest, remembers that relationships were at the center of everything her mother did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She helped remind teachers that it’s okay to say ‘I love you.’ It’s okay to let the kids know that they are loved,” Forrest said. “There’s so many kids out there who don’t know that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That idea shows up clearly in the talk. Teachers, she said, have the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\">power to build relationships\u003c/a>, even with students who struggle in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her daughter said Pierson also understood the emotional demands of that kind of work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She reminded me quickly [during] my first year teaching that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted,” Forrest said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Every kid needs a champion | Rita Pierson | TED\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/SFnMTHhKdkw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A message passed from teacher to teacher\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many educators, Pierson’s talk appears during professional development at the start of the school year. That’s how Melissa K. Stanley encountered it when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really resonated with me,” Stanley said. “I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today she trains future teachers of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University, where Pierson’s message is still part of the curriculum. Before her students begin their pre-service teaching placements, Stanley asks them to watch the talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The video helps her introduce students to what educators call \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60112/learning-from-students-families-as-a-step-toward-equity-in-literacy-instruction\">asset-based pedagogy\u003c/a>, an approach that focuses on students’ strengths and experiences rather than what students lack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/new-focus-strength-based-learning\">Studies\u003c/a> have found that students often show stronger engagement, greater belonging and better academic outcomes when teachers build on students’ strengths and experiences rather than focusing primarily on deficits. Instead of asking what students lack, teachers focus on what they bring to the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some future educators, Stanley said, this approach is new and they don’t know where to start. This video helps her pre-service teachers start talking about what it means to build relationships with students so they can start to apply asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re about to step into classrooms for the first time and they’re nervous,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When caring becomes exhausting by design\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The kind of relational teaching Pierson described requires emotional labor. For teachers already juggling large class sizes, administrative demands and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59748/how-perspective-taking-can-improve-classroom-behavior-and-teacher-student-relationships\">behavioral challenges\u003c/a>, that energy can run out quickly. Teacher burnout has been a major concern in recent years and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/27/a-dwindling-number-of-new-u-s-college-graduates-have-a-degree-in-education/\">fewer people are entering the profession\u003c/a>. Surveys consistently show high levels of stress among educators and \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">many teachers leave the profession within their first five years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers like professor \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpc.unc.edu/people/fellows/ganga-bey/\">Ganga Bey at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u003c/a> are looking more closely at the emotional dynamics of teaching and how educators can sustain themselves while still showing up for students. Bey studies how people respond to stress and why similar experiences can affect individuals differently. “Not everyone who is exposed to stress will deal with it in the same way,” Bey said. “Dealing with it has a lot of implications for how that stress will impact people’s health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching provides plenty of opportunities for stressful encounters. Examples may include a heated argument with a student or a classroom moment that spirals unexpectedly. According to Bey, the way teachers interpret those moments can influence how stressful they become physically and emotionally. For instance, if a teacher interprets a student’s outburst as a personal attack, the body may register the encounter as a threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the teacher understands the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66347/ross-greene-what-if-bad-behavior-isnt-the-problem\">behavior as a sign the student is struggling\u003c/a>, the response can shift. “You wouldn’t be treating someone badly like that if you yourself weren’t suffering in some way,” Bey added. That reframing doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behavior. Instead, Bey said it can reduce the intensity of the stress response and make it easier to stay grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bey describes this mindset as part of what she calls a \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">vitalizing identity\u003c/a>, which is a way of understanding yourself and others that emphasizes connection, compassion and shared humanity. At its core, she said, it’s about expanding the boundaries of who we include in our circle of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burnout often occurs, Bey said, when educators consistently place students’ needs above their own without receiving the support they need. “One would hope that because teachers give up so much of themselves that others would pour so much into them to sustain the work that they do. And that does not happen,” she said. Instead, many teachers are left trying to set boundaries that school systems often do not support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Love, to me, is the idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else,” Bey said, and teachers have to include themselves in their own circles of care. In other words, caring for students cannot come at the expense of caring for yourself, which is the lesson Pierson emphasized with her daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson’s continued legacy \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Stanley’s college students, Pierson’s talk often becomes a reference point throughout their training. They return to it when they’re thinking about classroom management, lesson design or how to respond to difficult moments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard—when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/jc95sq/if_i_have_to_sit_through_that_rita_pierson_ted/\">fatigue that comes with repeated views\u003c/a> of the TED Talk during professional development, Pierson’s message continues to resonate with educators. Stanley believes that’s because the talk gives them a license to teach the way they want to. That doesn’t mean the work becomes easy; building relationships with students takes time, patience and emotional effort. But Pierson’s legacy reminds educators that those relationships are not separate from learning. They are what make learning possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many teachers, that idea still feels worth holding onto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Welcome to MindShift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> It’s summertime. School hasn’t started yet. The hallways are still quiet, and the kids are still sleeping in, but teachers? They’re back in school early to attend mandatory professional development sessions. Also known as PD. These might include discussing new protocols, hashing out curriculum and getting inspired for the new school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> If I asked teachers ‘What’s the one piece of PD you just know is coming?’ A lot of them would say the same thing: “Every kid needs a champion.” A TED Talk given by a teacher named Rita Pierson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson:\u003c/strong> Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In our last episode, we talked about how teaching is harder than ever – and how schools tend to focus on supporting kids while overlooking the adults who make learning possible: teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In this episode, we take a look at Rita Pierson’s viral talk and what it tells us about how relationships shape learning. We’ll meet the people who knew Rita best, the educators who carry her philosophy forward, and the researcher studying what happens to our bodies and minds when we lead with love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Every time somebody finds out I teach middle school, they’re like, ‘Oh bless you.’ Like that’s the that’s the first reaction. And I’m like, Yeah, I know, because everybody remembers middle school is such a hard transition\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Beth Jarzabek teaches English in Ludlow, Massachusetts. She works with the kids who struggle the most with reading and writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I have all three grades. So I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Since her students need more support, there’s a stigma about being placed in her class\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Like, ‘Oh, you have to go to Mrs. J’s class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> These are kids who often mask academic frustration with misbehavior. They might act out. They shut down. But Beth sees through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek\u003c/strong>: Their other teachers may not see them the same way I do. So I try to make those connections and and try to be their champion\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> The idea of being a students’ champion comes straight from Rita Pierson. Like many teachers Beth first watched her TED Talk video during professional development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> There were people like, you know, who were kind of rolling their eyes and whatnot. But it resonated with maybe when she talked about the kids that she had that, you know were the kids that were struggling, that the and the fact that she said to them, they put us all together to show everybody else how it’s done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Here’s the clip from Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: One year I came up with a bright idea. I told all my students, you were chosen to be in my class. Because I am the best teacher and you are the best students. They put us all together so we could show everybody else how to do it.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> And I was like, oh, I love that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So Beth decided to bring that same energy into her own classroom, especially for kids who rarely get encouraged by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I started, you know, just trying to be that hype person, you know, when I go when I would go into my neighbor’s classroom, I would be like, Oh, which kids can I steal from you? You know, I’m like, oh, or if a kid got transferred in, I was like, I found out how cool you were, and I told them that I want, wanted you in my classroom. And it gave the kids like a little boost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Or I’ll say to them, you know, like, hey, I’m telling all these people how awesome you are. I’m like, you gotta show them how awesome you are. And they’re like, okay, well, for you, I’ll do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> she’s tapping into something we know from decades of research. A positive relationship with even one caring adult is one of the strongest predictors of: better attendance, stronger academic performance, and improved social-emotional skills\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Several studies find that students with strong teacher relationships can gain the equivalent of up to an extra year of learning — especially those who struggle the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And here’s something else: supportive teacher–student relationships protect teachers too. Studies show that educators who feel connected to their students report significantly lower burnout and higher job satisfaction, even in high-stress environments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I don’t have to be your favorite, but I’m still gonna go to bat with you. You are still going to know that you’re safe with me. You are still going to know that you have a valued place in my classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She reminds herself of that, even on the hardest days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I try to remember when everything is falling apart I’m here for them to be that person in this tumultuous time in their life is really such an honor. Sometimes it’s easier to remember that than others. And there’s definitely days that I I go home and I like I’m under a weighted blanket. But I try to bring myself back to that, you know, what an honor it is to be the safe place for these kids because some of them don’t have it otherwise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Up next, we’ll explore why Rita Pierson’s message still resonates — who she was, how teachers are putting her ideas into practice, and what it takes to care for students without burning out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita Pierson’s TED Talk reached millions of teachers, but behind the scenes, the story of how it even happened is almost as special as the talk itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I joined Ted working two days a week to try and help them figure out whether or not they could make TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I said, Of course you can do TV, it’s SNL for nerds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet Blake , was the head of television for TED in 2013. She was producing a TV special on education — it included John Legend, Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson… big names. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was missing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> Through YouTube and I came across Rita. And the video that was that existed online wasn’t great, but I could see she had this enormous personality and that she was so authentic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> After seeing clips of Rita giving teaching tips, she spent months trying to track her down\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I was getting a bit desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita wasn’t a celebrity educator at the time. She was a longtime teacher and administrator in Houston who came from a family of educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And eventually I was calling different school districts in Houston. And I left a message for her at a school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Then one evening Juliet’s phone rang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I got a call one evening, and she just went, ‘Hello,’ and I went, ‘Rita, Rita Pearson?’ And she went, ‘Sure am.’ And I went, ‘I have been looking you for you for months.’ She said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m producing a show for Ted.’ And she said these magical words that made me fall in love with her immediately. ‘Who’s Ted?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> From there, they talked on the phone almost every night—once Rita got home from teaching. They were trying to figure out what she might talk about for her presentation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> She would talk to me about her mother and her father being educators and the schools that she’d worked in\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita could move seamlessly between heartbreaking stories about students and cracking jokes about the realities of teaching. And slowly, through those late-night phone calls, the TED Talk started to take shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And then she said, I need to write this, don’t I? I said, Yes, this is how it works. You not only have to write it, you have to learn it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But when Rita arrived in New York for rehearsal…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, ‘Honey, I didn’t learn it.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet was panicking… Rita was not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, You sit here and I’ll be on the stage and give me, tell me when I’ve got to wrap up, do this, and I’ll bring it to a close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I just thought, you know what? I just trust this woman to be brilliant. I just know that she’s going to do it and it’s gonna be great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That talk given live and mostly off the cuff and it is the one millions of teachers know today. Rita, on stage, speaking straight from the heart about how relationships are important for learning\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: But one of the things that we never discuss or we rarely discuss is the value and importance of human connection…relationships]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet remembers her as one of the most authentic speakers she’s ever worked with. And Rita’s daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest says this all makes sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> My mother’s never written down a speech in her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> there might be maybe some bullet points, but she always knew exactly what she wanted to say and how she wanted to get it across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: Kristin says her mom’s taught elementary and junior high students for over 40 years. Her entire philosophy came down to one lesson:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It’s okay to say I love you. It’s okay to let the kids know that that that they are loved, because there’s so many kids out there who don’t know that, who don’t inherently know that they are love. And so to explicitly tell kids, I care about you, you know, I’m here for you. I love you, and I’m gonna work my butt off for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin spent 15 years teaching in Houston herself, and she says her mother’s approach shaped her own practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> her work was centered around relationships. It was centered around relationship building and that was the central part of who I got to be as a teacher because I got that from her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But she’s also quick to point out that her mom wasn’t naïve about the realities of teaching. Rita loved her students fiercely, but she knew that caring deeply for students wasn’t enough to protect her from burnout or from a system that often asks too much with too little support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And she reminded me quickly, my first year teaching, that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: When Kristin had an especially hard day in the classroom. Rita would say, “You get 5 minutes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It just means that you know, your sadness, there’s an end point to it. So whatever that five minutes is, it might be a day, it might be a week, it might be a month. But just know that at some point there’s going to be an end to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin says those lessons from her mom took on a very different meaning not long after the TED Talk was filmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> After you know, they shot that TED talk, she she passed about three months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kirstin isn’t in the classroom anymore, but she still works with educators. she brings her mom’s presence with her everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> I think about my mom every day, and it’s been close to 13 years since she was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And even the day she passed, I had to remind myself, okay, you get five minutes. I don’t know if my five minutes is over yet. I really I really don’t know. But I I haven’t stayed in a sad place clearly, but but it’s definitely reminded me to pick myself up, dust myself off, and and what’s the next thing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> More than a decade later, Rita Pierson’s talk is still finding new audiences – not just among teachers, but among the people learning to become teachers. And that’s where Melissa Stanley comes in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I am Dr. Melissa K. Stanley and I am the director of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I teach social studies methods courses to help prepare them to be social studies teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She first saw Rita’s talk back when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> And it really resonated with me and resonated with the way that I taught. I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And once Melissa became a teacher-educator at Central Michigan University. The talk became part of how she teaches. It’s a required video during the semester that her class does their pre-student teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> They’re pretty nervous. And that is the semester that they do their pre-student teaching. It’s is the first real experience that they’ll get with students in going into classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa uses the video to introduce students to asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It’s looking at the whole student and it’s valuing what they bring and building relationships with them when the history of education has traditionally been kind of a deficit approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That means seeing students through their problems rather than their potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Studies show that when teachers take an asset-based approach, valuing students’ cultural strengths, community knowledge, and lived identities, students show stronger academic engagement, better attendance, and improved well-being. And teachers themselves experience more purpose and lower burnout because relationships feel reciprocal rather than adversarial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> That really helps us have conversations and then use it as a gateway into conversations with students about how we adopt an asset bit based pedagogy and how we value the whole student and we value the strengths they bring to the classroom, the diversity they bring to the classroom, and how we work with that to build relationships and then also help them grow and meet their goals and their dreams for their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> for some preservice teachers, this is a brand-new idea. Their own schooling may not have included teachers who championed them. So imagining themselves as that kind of teacher can be hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It generally generates a lot of questions about okay, how do we do this? This is great. I would love to get there. That’s kind of an end goal for me. But what are the steps along the way? What does that look like in practical application?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> They also discuss Rita’s line about joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk:\u003c/strong>Teaching and learning should bring joy.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> But if you’re engaging in this type of teaching and this type of work with students, not every moment is going to be joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk: \u003c/strong>So teachers become great actors and great actresses. And we come to work when we don’t feel like it. And we listen to policy that doesn’t make sense. And we teach anyway. We teach anyway because that’s what we do. ]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> So we have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard, when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa is naming something important. Teachers want to show up for kids the way Rita did, but the reality is that teaching is stressful. And not just the piles of grading or the endless meetings—interpersonal stress can hit teachers particularly hard. It affects their bodies and can leave them feeling emotionally exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ganga Bey is a researcher at the University of North Carolina. She studies how stress affects the body and why stress hits some people harder than others. And one thing she’s interested in is how the way we think about other people changes how stress affects us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Love to me is this idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In simpler terms: seeing other people’s well-being as connected to your own. That can matter a lot in the classroom. Because when a student lashes out, a teacher can interpret that in different ways. They can think: This kid doesn’t respect me. Or: This kid is struggling right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And Ganga says that shift matters physically—not just emotionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> So because of that, I’m literally gonna process that in a less stressful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Now to be clear—this is not the same thing as toxic positivity. This isn’t: ‘Just smile through abuse.’ And it’s not: ‘Teachers should sacrifice themselves for kids.’ In fact, Ganga says one of the biggest problems in education is that teachers are already being asked to give too much of themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Teachers are a particular group of people. Who encounter a tremendous amount of stressors and some of them are avoidable stressors right and part of the way that we organize our society teachers are undervalued um overworked and and live in a largely thankless space\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Teachers are reporting record-high stress levels, elevated rates of depression, and many are leaving the profession within the first five years. Ganga says burnout often happens when teachers keep putting everyone else’s needs ahead of their own for too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I think burnout happens when you have pushed out, pushed through as much as possibly can because you have centered the needs of these children that you have been serving above even your own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So her argument isn’t “love harder.” It’s that teachers have to include themselves in that care too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> It means that when my body is signaling to me that I am tired…we give equal weight to our needs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong>That balance—staying open to students without completely draining yourself—is hard. But Ganga says people like Rita Pierson matter because that care seem possible\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I love to hear about Rita because I know that there are other people out there like that who embody this. And the more that we make them into real human beings and make them accessible, the more than I think we can convince others that it’s worth endeavoring to even be like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Regardless of what the world right now may make us think, that it is worth it for us to pursue a world and a society and hold on to the idea that being loving can be the norm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and the Templeton Foundation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OAKLAND, Calif. — It’s a Friday morning at Oakland Unity Middle School, a public charter school nestled between residential buildings in East Oakland, and Austin Razavi is announcing the morning advisory prompt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll give you 10, 15 seconds to think about it,” Razavi said to the group of 15 mixed-grade middle school boys who had arranged desks into a messy circle. “Then each of you share something most people don’t know about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was some shuffling and silence. Several boys asked for more time, then one piped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like to play videos,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then another: “I like to play with my little siblings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then: “A little-known fact about me is that half of my lung is missing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other classrooms on campus, girls-only and all-gender advisories are meeting too; students choose which type they are assigned to. During these trust circles, students can’t opt out of sharing, because this first period sets the tone for the day. Students will rely on each other for support to complete missing assignments by the end of the day, and teachers and administrators like Razavi want students to feel safe being vulnerable with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immediately after sharing time, each boy tells the group about class assignments he needs to finish. Their classmates offer advice, encouragement or just acknowledgement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where growth happens,” said Razavi, a humanities teacher and assistant principal of the school. “Growth happens through risk. That’s where kids feel like they’re in community and an indicator of kids feeling a sense of belonging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts agree that a sense of belonging — meaning that students feel accepted, respected and supported in school — is \u003ca href=\"https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2021/10/21/why-is-it-important-for-students-to-feel-a-sense-of-belonging-at-school-students-choose-to-be-in-environments-that-make-them-feel-a-sense-of-fit-says-associate-professor-deleon-gra/\">crucial for academic success\u003c/a>. This is perhaps even more true for boys, who are more likely than girls to \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ780936\">repeat kindergarten\u003c/a> and lag in \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/gender-achievement-gaps-us-school-districts\">reading and writing skills\u003c/a> and less likely to \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/racial-disparities-in-the-high-school-graduation-gender-gap/\">graduate from high school\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this safety eludes many boys who \u003ca href=\"https://www.srcd.org/news/negative-stereotypes-about-boys-hinder-their-academic-achievement\">get the message early in life\u003c/a> that they’re not good students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something happens over time so by the time they get to high school, boys don’t feel like they belong in academic settings,” said Ioakim Boutakidis, a professor of child and adolescent studies at California State University, Fullerton, and a research fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, a nonprofit research and policy group. “And then that hurts academic belonging, the sense that you’re good enough to be successful in these academic spaces.” (Rise Together, a fund established by American Institute for Boys and Men founder Richard Reeves, is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Oakland Unity Middle School, teachers are trying to break that cycle through the relationship-building program, which is designed to normalize male vulnerability and support boys to be themselves, instead of what they feel is expected of them. Just over 140 sixth, seventh and eighth graders attend the school, nearly all of them from East Oakland — one of the most ethnically diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program, Ever Forward, was founded in 2004 by Ashanti Branch, then a first-year teacher in nearby San Lorenzo, to embrace a philosophy of “radical positivity.” Since 2021, according to Branch, it has led more than 300 workshops, mostly in Northern California, reaching upwards of 30,000 teachers and educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like this school is kind of my second home,” said Unity eighth grader Adrian Polanco, who wants to study business in college. “We always have someone we can look up to, who has our back, which I think is really good and really important for school to have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one claims that social-emotional support for boys alone will help them do better academically, but experts say that programming to boost belonging may be key to closing the academic gender gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warmth and connection matter a lot to boys, even if they don’t always demonstrate these needs by being responsive to questions and expectations the way girls often do, Boutakidis said. Boys may appear not to care about what adults think of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t crave connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This can make it hard for some teachers to connect with boys in the classroom and even read boys’ behavior as so disengaged as to be antagonistic, said Matt Englar-Carlson, a professor of counseling and the co-director of the Center for Boys and Men at Cal State Fullerton. This may be particularly true with adolescent boys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you think what’s happening is disrespect in the classroom, the reality is that it typically isn’t, because they’re not performing for you,” Englar-Carlson said. “They’re performing for their peers around them. He can ridicule you and save face in front of his friends and act like he doesn’t care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once teachers begin to realize when this is happening, they can make adaptations to their teaching, he said, like asking boys questions in a different way. Instead of calling out a male student in front of the class, teachers might come up next to him while walking around the classroom and talk to him softly, at his level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So now it’s actually a private conversation between the two of you,” he said, “and you don’t actually have to call out bad behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashanti Branch learned early the challenges faced by male students. A wrestler and football player while attending East Oakland public schools, he now wears his hair in long braids and has an easy, warm smile and laugh. After graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Branch worked as a civil engineer before going into teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As one of just a few male teachers at San Lorenzo High School about 20 miles south of Oakland, Branch soon discovered that male students vented their anger and frustration at him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw young men who were brilliant, but the way they were acting in front of class was really difficult,” he said. “I would tell them, ‘Young man, you want to fight with me because it looks good with your peers? I’m not here to fight you. I’m not your enemy. You’re a high schooler. I’m an adult with a job. What are we arguing about? I want you to succeed.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He invited some male students to have lunch with him once a week and asked them how he could be a better teacher. What they told him was that their lives were too difficult for school to be a priority. Students described “crashing out” — sudden outbursts of rage and emotion — after dealing with one emotional “land mine” after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A kid getting pushed down the hall, he ignores it, ignores it, and then all of a sudden he turns around and boom,” Branch said, making an explosion gesture with both hands. “And then he gets in trouble, right?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch recalled that as a teacher he was encouraged to leave his own problems “in the glove compartment” before coming to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tried to do that, but I realized I was so fake,” he said. Instead, he was honest with his students about how he was doing. “I would tell them, ‘I had a rough weekend. A lot of drama happened in my life. Today’s not a good day.” He calls this approach “normalizing vulnerability” — an essential step for young men to be themselves as people and as students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch turned the weekly lunches with students into a club, the \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/\">Ever Forward Club\u003c/a>, where young men could gather to process emotions. He spent a decade developing the program and expanding to more schools, eventually leaving his job to build the program and provide professional development for educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of the Ever Forward Club is a project-based tool Branch calls Masks, Emotions and Math. During workshops, Branch guides young men to explore the ways they present themselves to the world while hiding their difficult emotions from view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the club started in 2004, every participating student has graduated from high school and 93 percent have transitioned to college, the military or a trade school, Branch said. He expanded the work to include \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/ever-forward-pd\">professional development\u003c/a> for educators, calling it the \u003ca href=\"https://millionmask.org/\">Million Mask Movement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Farrell, head of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5UpYCERPDmIkvY73HNflc7Lbyo?domain=sacredsf.org\">Stuart Hall High School\u003c/a> — the boys’ segment of a school in San Francisco affiliated with Schools of the Sacred Heart* — recalls an event Branch led at his school ten years ago. Two hundred male high school students sat in a big circle in the school’s gymnasium, Farrell said, and Branch handed out pens and paper. He instructed students to write on one side of the paper how they appear to the world. On the other side, he said, write the stuff the world doesn’t know about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then they crumpled the papers up and threw them at each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a snowball fight,” Farrell said. “We had a perfectly, wonderfully randomized pile of crumpled paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then each boy picked a paper ball, smoothed it out and, one at a time, read what another boy had written.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell recalled boys reading, “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my parents are getting a divorce’’ and “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my grandma’s really sick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not to get woo-woo, but it was like an electric field,” he said. “It was really powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, Branch led a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\">Masks, Emotions and Math\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\"> event\u003c/a> at Oakland Unity Middle School. Since then, teachers at the school have integrated elements of Branch’s work into routine practices, including how the school manages disciplinary issues. That’s also where Razavi got the idea to offer single-sex advisory periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some boys need a space where they can open up to other boys, he said, without the social dynamics that can come with all-gender groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you know that belonging matters, and you know that there’s this very evident drop in sense of belonging over time for boys, then we need to work on making boys feel like they belong,” he said. “And we need to work on that earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighth grader Fierre Hill transferred to Oakland Unity after his old middle school closed. He wants to go to college and study something health-related. He describes the support he gets from his teachers at the school as “warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re able to tell them stuff that you couldn’t tell other people,” he said, “and they just have this different energy that makes you comfortable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get with that,” seventh grader Jubran Sulaiman agreed. “We can all, what’s the word? Express ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesdays, Hill and other students go to the school’s Learning Lab, where they get help completing any work they haven’t turned in. Chris Bibbens Williams is the teacher in charge of the Learning Lab. He said that the Masks, Emotions and Math event that Branch led at the school helped otherwise shy students engage more deeply with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re gonna have some kids who are more confident in talking in front of everyone, but even the kids who weren’t confident, it just seemed like because the space was positive, it was a chance for them to say how they felt in the moment,” he said. “That’s one thing that I love about this school is that we really allow kids to be themselves, and we build those deep relationships.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he isn’t in the Learning Lab, Williams can be found all over campus — playing basketball with students and hanging out with them in the cafeteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”When you build those relationships, kids come to you,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Williams approached an eighth grader who hadn’t been completing his language arts assignments. Was he not doing the work because it was too hard, or because he lacked confidence?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had him come over and read the passage to me,” Williams said, “and I discovered it was truly just him not being confident in his reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Williams sitting with him, the student made his way through the passage and read words he wasn’t familiar with. Since then, Williams has noticed a change in the boy’s confidence level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s attempting more,” he said, “and that’s all I could ask for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact editor Christina Samuels at (212) 678-3635 or samuels@hechingerreport.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OAKLAND, Calif. — It’s a Friday morning at Oakland Unity Middle School, a public charter school nestled between residential buildings in East Oakland, and Austin Razavi is announcing the morning advisory prompt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll give you 10, 15 seconds to think about it,” Razavi said to the group of 15 mixed-grade middle school boys who had arranged desks into a messy circle. “Then each of you share something most people don’t know about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was some shuffling and silence. Several boys asked for more time, then one piped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like to play videos,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then another: “I like to play with my little siblings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then: “A little-known fact about me is that half of my lung is missing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other classrooms on campus, girls-only and all-gender advisories are meeting too; students choose which type they are assigned to. During these trust circles, students can’t opt out of sharing, because this first period sets the tone for the day. Students will rely on each other for support to complete missing assignments by the end of the day, and teachers and administrators like Razavi want students to feel safe being vulnerable with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immediately after sharing time, each boy tells the group about class assignments he needs to finish. Their classmates offer advice, encouragement or just acknowledgement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where growth happens,” said Razavi, a humanities teacher and assistant principal of the school. “Growth happens through risk. That’s where kids feel like they’re in community and an indicator of kids feeling a sense of belonging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts agree that a sense of belonging — meaning that students feel accepted, respected and supported in school — is \u003ca href=\"https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2021/10/21/why-is-it-important-for-students-to-feel-a-sense-of-belonging-at-school-students-choose-to-be-in-environments-that-make-them-feel-a-sense-of-fit-says-associate-professor-deleon-gra/\">crucial for academic success\u003c/a>. This is perhaps even more true for boys, who are more likely than girls to \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ780936\">repeat kindergarten\u003c/a> and lag in \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/gender-achievement-gaps-us-school-districts\">reading and writing skills\u003c/a> and less likely to \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/racial-disparities-in-the-high-school-graduation-gender-gap/\">graduate from high school\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this safety eludes many boys who \u003ca href=\"https://www.srcd.org/news/negative-stereotypes-about-boys-hinder-their-academic-achievement\">get the message early in life\u003c/a> that they’re not good students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something happens over time so by the time they get to high school, boys don’t feel like they belong in academic settings,” said Ioakim Boutakidis, a professor of child and adolescent studies at California State University, Fullerton, and a research fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, a nonprofit research and policy group. “And then that hurts academic belonging, the sense that you’re good enough to be successful in these academic spaces.” (Rise Together, a fund established by American Institute for Boys and Men founder Richard Reeves, is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Oakland Unity Middle School, teachers are trying to break that cycle through the relationship-building program, which is designed to normalize male vulnerability and support boys to be themselves, instead of what they feel is expected of them. Just over 140 sixth, seventh and eighth graders attend the school, nearly all of them from East Oakland — one of the most ethnically diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program, Ever Forward, was founded in 2004 by Ashanti Branch, then a first-year teacher in nearby San Lorenzo, to embrace a philosophy of “radical positivity.” Since 2021, according to Branch, it has led more than 300 workshops, mostly in Northern California, reaching upwards of 30,000 teachers and educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like this school is kind of my second home,” said Unity eighth grader Adrian Polanco, who wants to study business in college. “We always have someone we can look up to, who has our back, which I think is really good and really important for school to have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one claims that social-emotional support for boys alone will help them do better academically, but experts say that programming to boost belonging may be key to closing the academic gender gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warmth and connection matter a lot to boys, even if they don’t always demonstrate these needs by being responsive to questions and expectations the way girls often do, Boutakidis said. Boys may appear not to care about what adults think of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t crave connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This can make it hard for some teachers to connect with boys in the classroom and even read boys’ behavior as so disengaged as to be antagonistic, said Matt Englar-Carlson, a professor of counseling and the co-director of the Center for Boys and Men at Cal State Fullerton. This may be particularly true with adolescent boys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you think what’s happening is disrespect in the classroom, the reality is that it typically isn’t, because they’re not performing for you,” Englar-Carlson said. “They’re performing for their peers around them. He can ridicule you and save face in front of his friends and act like he doesn’t care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once teachers begin to realize when this is happening, they can make adaptations to their teaching, he said, like asking boys questions in a different way. Instead of calling out a male student in front of the class, teachers might come up next to him while walking around the classroom and talk to him softly, at his level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So now it’s actually a private conversation between the two of you,” he said, “and you don’t actually have to call out bad behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashanti Branch learned early the challenges faced by male students. A wrestler and football player while attending East Oakland public schools, he now wears his hair in long braids and has an easy, warm smile and laugh. After graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Branch worked as a civil engineer before going into teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As one of just a few male teachers at San Lorenzo High School about 20 miles south of Oakland, Branch soon discovered that male students vented their anger and frustration at him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw young men who were brilliant, but the way they were acting in front of class was really difficult,” he said. “I would tell them, ‘Young man, you want to fight with me because it looks good with your peers? I’m not here to fight you. I’m not your enemy. You’re a high schooler. I’m an adult with a job. What are we arguing about? I want you to succeed.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He invited some male students to have lunch with him once a week and asked them how he could be a better teacher. What they told him was that their lives were too difficult for school to be a priority. Students described “crashing out” — sudden outbursts of rage and emotion — after dealing with one emotional “land mine” after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A kid getting pushed down the hall, he ignores it, ignores it, and then all of a sudden he turns around and boom,” Branch said, making an explosion gesture with both hands. “And then he gets in trouble, right?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch recalled that as a teacher he was encouraged to leave his own problems “in the glove compartment” before coming to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tried to do that, but I realized I was so fake,” he said. Instead, he was honest with his students about how he was doing. “I would tell them, ‘I had a rough weekend. A lot of drama happened in my life. Today’s not a good day.” He calls this approach “normalizing vulnerability” — an essential step for young men to be themselves as people and as students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch turned the weekly lunches with students into a club, the \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/\">Ever Forward Club\u003c/a>, where young men could gather to process emotions. He spent a decade developing the program and expanding to more schools, eventually leaving his job to build the program and provide professional development for educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of the Ever Forward Club is a project-based tool Branch calls Masks, Emotions and Math. During workshops, Branch guides young men to explore the ways they present themselves to the world while hiding their difficult emotions from view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the club started in 2004, every participating student has graduated from high school and 93 percent have transitioned to college, the military or a trade school, Branch said. He expanded the work to include \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/ever-forward-pd\">professional development\u003c/a> for educators, calling it the \u003ca href=\"https://millionmask.org/\">Million Mask Movement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Farrell, head of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5UpYCERPDmIkvY73HNflc7Lbyo?domain=sacredsf.org\">Stuart Hall High School\u003c/a> — the boys’ segment of a school in San Francisco affiliated with Schools of the Sacred Heart* — recalls an event Branch led at his school ten years ago. Two hundred male high school students sat in a big circle in the school’s gymnasium, Farrell said, and Branch handed out pens and paper. He instructed students to write on one side of the paper how they appear to the world. On the other side, he said, write the stuff the world doesn’t know about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then they crumpled the papers up and threw them at each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a snowball fight,” Farrell said. “We had a perfectly, wonderfully randomized pile of crumpled paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then each boy picked a paper ball, smoothed it out and, one at a time, read what another boy had written.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell recalled boys reading, “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my parents are getting a divorce’’ and “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my grandma’s really sick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not to get woo-woo, but it was like an electric field,” he said. “It was really powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, Branch led a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\">Masks, Emotions and Math\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\"> event\u003c/a> at Oakland Unity Middle School. Since then, teachers at the school have integrated elements of Branch’s work into routine practices, including how the school manages disciplinary issues. That’s also where Razavi got the idea to offer single-sex advisory periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some boys need a space where they can open up to other boys, he said, without the social dynamics that can come with all-gender groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you know that belonging matters, and you know that there’s this very evident drop in sense of belonging over time for boys, then we need to work on making boys feel like they belong,” he said. “And we need to work on that earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighth grader Fierre Hill transferred to Oakland Unity after his old middle school closed. He wants to go to college and study something health-related. He describes the support he gets from his teachers at the school as “warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re able to tell them stuff that you couldn’t tell other people,” he said, “and they just have this different energy that makes you comfortable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get with that,” seventh grader Jubran Sulaiman agreed. “We can all, what’s the word? Express ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesdays, Hill and other students go to the school’s Learning Lab, where they get help completing any work they haven’t turned in. Chris Bibbens Williams is the teacher in charge of the Learning Lab. He said that the Masks, Emotions and Math event that Branch led at the school helped otherwise shy students engage more deeply with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re gonna have some kids who are more confident in talking in front of everyone, but even the kids who weren’t confident, it just seemed like because the space was positive, it was a chance for them to say how they felt in the moment,” he said. “That’s one thing that I love about this school is that we really allow kids to be themselves, and we build those deep relationships.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he isn’t in the Learning Lab, Williams can be found all over campus — playing basketball with students and hanging out with them in the cafeteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”When you build those relationships, kids come to you,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Williams approached an eighth grader who hadn’t been completing his language arts assignments. Was he not doing the work because it was too hard, or because he lacked confidence?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had him come over and read the passage to me,” Williams said, “and I discovered it was truly just him not being confident in his reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Williams sitting with him, the student made his way through the passage and read words he wasn’t familiar with. Since then, Williams has noticed a change in the boy’s confidence level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s attempting more,” he said, “and that’s all I could ask for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact editor Christina Samuels at (212) 678-3635 or samuels@hechingerreport.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In this digital age, kids are surrounded by messages about gender and sexuality. But are parents creating the space for conversation and understanding? Health educator \u003ca href=\"https://www.shafiazaloom.com/\">Shafia Zaloom\u003c/a> has a new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,” that guides parents through different stages of development. Having a more contemporary understanding of sex ed can help parents become the “askable parent” when kids have questions about the world — such as how they want to be treated and how that extends to relationships — so they don’t have to rely so heavily on peers, social media and algorithms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9462844781\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome to the Mind Shift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’re going to get an update on sex ed in the United States., sex ed is no longer about just intercourse and preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Sexuality education is more nuanced and starts earlier in life. And biologically, that makes a lot of sense. But culturally, we may have a lot catching up to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My guest today is Shafia Zaloom. Health educator and author of \u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/a>. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom, welcome to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>You teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and you’re a high school health educator in San Francisco. You also work with schools across the country in states of all political leanings which you describe in your book Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For old timers like me, can you describe the evolution of sex education to sexuality education- What’s the difference and how are they taught differently?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, of course. So when it comes to sex education in particular, that’s mostly information-based and it’s really grounded in sort of medical health, sexual reproductive health, right? So it has to do with preventing unintended pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy. It has to deal with preventing passing of sexually transmitted infections. And it’s very sort of clinical and medical-based. It’s important.\u003cbr>\nBut sexuality education is a lot more holistic and it’s a lot nuanced and it includes a whole lot more. So not just the information, but what do you actually do with it and what’s the meaning we assign to it? It really has to do with… How we relate to ourselves and to the world, how we take care of others, how we treat others because that matters. And that’s really at the heart of comprehensive sexuality education. There’s an ethical aspect to it having to do with decision-making that promotes and encourages relationships grounded in mutual respect, empathy, and dignity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>As a health educator, you must get asked all kinds of questions by students of all ages. What are some of the most frequently asked questions you get from middle schoolers and teens?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>It is such a tremendous range, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years, right? So the questions have been the same for 30 years, and then other questions have sort of evolved and become different. And then there’s brand new stuff. And the brand new staff sometimes changes constantly because it’s within a context of digital spaces. And so it’s just super interesting, you know, for the younger kids from middle school. You know, they’ll just ask basic direct questions. What is this? What is that? How do I know if I like girls or boys? How do know if someone really has a crush on me? How do tell my best friend that I don’t like it when they’re always hugging me? You know questions like that that have sort of transcended time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have some kids now in middle school who are asking about pornography. Which is different because it’s so ubiquitous, it’s still accessible now, that I see more questions that are very specific to certain types of media and what they’re exposed to in media. You know, what is popping the cherry mean? What’s a grundle? What’s gooning? You know, all these different sort of, this different kind of language that exists in digital spaces that they’re expose to. And are sort of wrestling with to make meaning of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then as kids get older in high school, the stakes feel a lot higher. I get a lot like to shave or not to shave. How do I make it not hurt when I lose my virginity? Questions like when is it okay to have sex with someone? How do you know what real trust actually is? Really pretty important and intense questions that also reveal… These aren’t being discussed in other spaces, right? That this is one of the first times someone has asked them, you know, what are you curious about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a lot of times too now, which is different from the past, kids are asking me to legitimize something. I heard that, or is it true that…” kind of questions having to do with what they’re exposed to in media, like “what’s a blue waffle? Can girls pee out of their vaginas?” Like there’s all kinds of different things that they’re exposed to that they are wondering about. Most of the time they’ll just Google, right? And so they get this information and then they have this intuitive response of like, I don’t know if that can actually be right. And then they ask it in class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Uh… That sounds way more complicated than I think the questions were asked in my sex ed class a long time ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom:\u003c/strong>\u003cem> [Laughter]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Um, how do you navigate that world? Or maybe the better question is how are the kids navigating? You mentioned they’re searching online, but it seems like an endless rabbit hole that could lead you to pretty dark places, especially at a very young age, because I saw this study that showed that kids are encountering porn. The average age that they encounter porn is 12, and it happens a lot at school just by clicking through links unassumingly. And so that’s what I wonder, like how do you think they’re navigating the space? You mentioned like parents, but what else are they doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think more parents are trying to talk about these things, and modern parents, and good for them, yay, and we’re trying to get folks to talk about this more, but we’ll check the box around like, okay, I talk to my kids about consent, I talk my kid about STIs, I talk about birth control, things like that, if we’re talking about teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then I have a kid come up to me to say, okay, I know the definition of consent, and my parents keep telling me, you know, I should respect women or I should respect whomever, whatever it may be. But what does that mean exactly? Right, like that’s the followup question that I’m now getting, what does that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so I think that’s important. The Googling, absolutely, a lot of times pornography will come up. It’s a lot harder for kids to avoid coming across porn or sexually explicit material than it is not to these days. And so then that, you know, that’s a whole rabbit hole in of itself. And because we’re not providing, and in fact currently rolling back comprehensive sexuality education courses in schools, you know. Kids are turning to pornography. It’s become the default sex ed of this country. That’s like watching the Fast and the Furious to learn how to drive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so, you know, kids are looking for information from their friends. They’re looking to social media. They’re asking Google. And for parents, if you’re not talking to your kid about sexuality, you’re the only person not talking your kid about sexuality because their friends are, the internet is, you know all these different influencers who are out there. And so that’s why this conversation is so important, not only in learning spaces, but also at home, because parenting adults, a kid’s guardian is the primary sexuality educator in a child’s life. That has been true forever. I don’t know a single professional sexuality educator who doesn’t believe that. And it’s challenging. It’s really hard to keep up, especially if you haven’t had a positive experience with that education yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I think one of the most fascinating aspects of your book is that you lay out a lot of real life scenarios in school in very precise language. For example, I’ve never heard of the term, and I think it’s okay to say, clamper. Oh yeah. It’s probably in a category of behaviors that…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Mm-hmm\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> happened on school campuses or elsewhere outside of the school. Can you describe what that is and how you’ve addressed that in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, for sure. So clamping, depending on what classroom you’re in, and this tends to start sort of young, right? In the case of my book, there’s a field trip and they’re walking upstairs in a museum. There are different terms for it too, euphemisms, like fish in the creek, clamping. You know, a lot of different ways by which kids will reference this behavior. You know the euphemism is supposed to make it humorous, which sort of excuses the. Inappropriate or aggressive behavior behind it. And it’s basically poking someone in the butt and in the butt crack in particular and thinking that that’s really funny. And I don’t know a lot of kids who actually think that is very funny, but this is also happening during a time when they’re negotiating social landscapes, social power and currency, and how we connect to and relate to each other and what kind of influence different kids have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in addressing that, there are two things we need to do, and sometimes there’s a third. If there’s kid who brings that to your attention, because sometimes there is, right? There’s the kid who will say, hey, this is going on. Did you see this? Did you know this? They go to the adult because they’re looking for some sort of help, because intuitively they know that this isn’t something that’s okay. And that kid needs to be recognized, right, because… When it comes to that dynamic, you know, the topic of snitching comes up, it’s really important to be very concrete about the difference between snitching, which is telling on someone on purpose to get them in trouble on purpose, and reporting, which is where you’re sharing information, asking for help trying to support community and righting a wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then you have two other things: You have the kid who actually experienced the clamp or the poke, the unwanted poking, and then you have the kid who actually did it. And so those are two kids, usually the kid who does it, it’s important to remove their audience. When we address these things publicly, it’s important to say something, to stand for what’s right, to hold people accountable to the guidelines you’ve set up in your classroom or amongst each other in your community. But we don’t want to go too far because for adolescents when we go too far in a public setting, they shut down because it feels shameful. And so what we want to do is say something so that people know oh okay the teacher is aware the the caretaking adult knows this is happening and so they’re going to take care of it but they’re also going to honor and respect that kids make mistakes and that we have the opportunity to learn from them so that we can be better people. And that’s what you’re going do in private right? That’s what you’re going to do with discretion, not secrecy. That’s different. But hold kids accountable in a way that honors privacy and the opportunity to become available to the learning and the guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that social learning is going to be critical. So we want to support the kid who experienced it, find out how they felt about it, how things are going, what kind of support they may need. The other kid, we’re doing something similar. And we really want to get behind that behavior to see what need is. They’re trying to meet by engaging in that behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were they looking for connection? Were they are looking for affirmation through attention?, whether it was negative or positive, didn’t really matter for them, like, whatever it may have been, help them understand how their choice in making that, getting that need met actually didn’t serve them or anyone else. And it’s absolutely not acceptable. And so then what are the other options for them when they’re feeling that way to get those needs met, in a way that actually then affirms what they’re trying to figure out, how they’re in the classroom and how they are part of community?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And I guess that can also be applicable to other interactions one has with others in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Oh, 100%, yes. And it’s an opportunity to give, to impart a lesson to and to reinforce information, right? That very rarely do any of us, the first time we hear something, especially if we’re a young person, right, are we gonna remember, internalize, and make that a part of our practice? Practice is essential. That’s why kids are in school. And so that kid, it’s also an opportunity to review consent, bodily autonomy, asking permission, what accountability actually means, the value of community, what we’re actually going for in our relationships, who we wanna be. There’s a ton of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But the scenario you describe is really detailed, as are a lot of incidents that are really uncomfortable or challenging. And I think what you do really well is lay out several raw descriptions of conflict you’ve heard about or seen on campus, including the use of slurs. And a lot those instances, when boundaries are crossed, you often end up with a student reply of, I was just joking or I didn’t mean it. So how do you address that seemingly common response to an infraction?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>That’s such a good question. You know, I think, so it’s so important when working with young people in particular that we get, that we recognize the behavior, that we hold them accountable, but that we also guide them to what’s behind the behavior. And I think that’s… The most important piece is when these things come up, because kids are in gender and sexuality school all the time, all day, every day, it’s constantly being modeled for them. They’re being socialized by all these different social institutions all the times, is that we guide them towards those universal values that we think are really important when it comes to relationships with others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what our culture teaches kids, because sex is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It’s something that a lot of people don’t have a lot practice talking about in really positive, productive, constructive ways. And so when it comes to kids, they’ve learned that when we talk about sex, if we veil it in humor, that we can get away with a lot behaviors. That if we didn’t veil them in humor, would definitely not be okay, that would be disrespectful, would be considered rude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this is a way by which sort of the sex stigmatization that has historically been a part of our culture continues and is perpetuated. So when talking with kids, it’s really important first that we not shame and this is the thing, most adults have been socialized to respond to issues of sexuality that would warrant, oh, I was just kidding, it’s not a big deal, I didn’t mean it that way, with some sort of shame, fear avoidance versus care, love, and affirmation. Because that’s the counter narrative, right, the care, love, and affirmation. And a lot of times kids, especially adolescents, are just mirroring and trying on navigating the gauntlet to adulthood of what they see in adult culture. So we have to help them understand. We have to contextualize it for them. We have to get behind the behavior to help understand the feelings that are there and what values we’re actually aspiring to. And the reason why that behavior actually erodes relationships and community versus affirms and builds them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I’m wondering if you can make a connection to being an adult by having these experiences early. How do they manifest in an adult’s life? And by experiences I mean standing up for yourself or communicating what you want or how you need to be treated and like entering into interactions with understanding instead of shame. I mean, you just mentioned many things here. So I guess generally like, you know, if somebody has this kind of experience, how does that project into their lives as an adult?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Well, what we understand and know about social learning is that one, it makes us available to feel socially connected, actually improves and cultivates the capacity for young people to learn effectively. What we also know about learning is that we need practice and it needs to be scaffolded over time in a developmentally appropriate way. And so when we take this on, you know, Freud said that the two most important things in life are work and love. And this is ultimately comprehensive sexuality education. You know, we forget this sometimes because of our history of stigmatizing it, is that this is about cultivating the capacity to love and be loved. And so that requires skills. It requires being attuned to yourself and others. You know, skills are something we have to practice and build over time. And so when you have someone who’s had the benefit of these skills, of this sort of reinforcement, the contextualizing, applying these skills and cultivating these capacities in different contexts across different experiences, you have some one who actually becomes more considerate of others, who’s able to be attuned to others and to themselves to act in ways that are ethical in terms of how we treat each other because that really matters, who can exercise empathy, who can ask for help when they need it, and who have the language and the practice to verbalize what they’re thinking and feeling when they need to ask for that, or when they see that others need it too and offer it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that’s a really important piece. I wanna make sure we don’t only focus on self. We really have to balance how we connect with ourselves as individuals with becoming community-minded and understanding the value of being socially connected and in community with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So what tips do you have for parents who really struggle with their discomfort around talking about sexuality and relationships with their kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I mean, as much as we can is get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, which is such a valuable thing to model, right? That sometimes the hardest conversations are the most important ones to have in a relationship. And there are plenty of scripts and resources out there, some great books for having these conversations with young people across developmental stages in ways that are cognitively congruent. And so I would say it’s really important for a parent to educate themselves to find those resources that align with their values so that they can start early. And it’s never too late, I wanna say that too. And to provide their kid with medically accurate, credible information first and foremost. But the most important piece is actually the values stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to get concrete around it, let’s say you’re in the car with your kid and you let them DJ for the ride. And a song comes on, you can simply drop a question, like, “huh, do you think this is about infatuation or authentic connection? Because I’m not really sure, you know?” It’s just a question like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or you’re watching as a family, you’re a watching a show, or you’re just watching something with your kid, or you heard they’re watching something, so you start to watch it too. And you talk about the characters like real people. And you say like, well, do you think that was wordless consent? Do you think that that was actually like a response that really honored and respected what they wanted or their right to make a decision or I noticed they changed their mind, you know, like that kind of a thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you’re not, you’re not launching, um, and you’re just collecting these beautiful moments that you scaffold over time, and then you can go back and you can sort of embellish and bedazzle and hang all kinds of beautiful things on the scaffolding, but it’s really important to get that foundational piece first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, becoming the askable parent means that we have our eyes and ears open, and for adolescents, a lot of times that’s not on our time, it’s on their time, right, like late at night or whatever else because their circadian rhythms have shifted. And we’re doing a lot values education in particular, you know, we want to make sure they have access to the medically accurate information, but then the values education and how we apply that information to interpersonal dynamics is going to be super important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for kids, even saying, hey, I heard this podcast and there was this woman speaking about sexuality education. Are you getting any of that in school and in what ways? And how’s it been? What do you think about it? Kids love to, they have a keen sense of justice too. Could even say, she said this, do you think that’s true? Have you seen that come up? Do you think that would be valuable information?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those are the ways that I. I think parents can become askable when it comes to their kids. And it doesn’t mean being your kid’s friend. They really need a parent with boundaries and doing the hard stuff. And how do you get comfortable with being uncomfortable? Those sorts of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So I want to ask you, for maybe millennials, Gen Xers who grew up in a different era of sex ed, can you identify some myths about sexuality education that adults should consider unlearning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think this is true of all adults, actually, just because it’s interesting, I think the stigmatizing aspect of sexuality has been perpetuated across its cyclical, right, generational cycles of this, and we really need to move away from that, and that requires people to work on themselves. And earlier you had asked about how can parents become askable parents, right? And get comfortable with this. And part of that’s a parent’s responsibility to do with other people their own age, right. Like your own friends, have conversations about this, practice having this conversation. The myths that are out there are that if we tell kids then they’re gonna go run out and do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no empirical evidence whatsoever. That tells us that’s the case. In fact, the inverse is true. And so, you know, that’s just when we’ve put political ideology above student health and perpetuated stigmatizing ideas around sexuality. All you have to do is look at the Dutch. I mean, they start age-appropriate sexuality education in preschool and kindergarten, and it follows them all up into adulthood. You know, their focus is really on responsibility and joy. Versus like disaster prevention, fear and avoidance. And so, and their young people are far more relational, their STI and unintended pregnancy rates are like some of the lowest in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, it’s really important that we understand…we spend more, we invest more in fire prevention and fire safety, like information and learning with young people than we do on sex ed. And when you give that education to kids, like, okay, here’s how we prevent fires or how we deal with them if there is one or whatever else they don’t go home and start making fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I tell young people that this is what adults believe, that if they acquire a sex education, they’re gonna run out and go start having sex, they look at me like I have three heads. And they’re offended. They’re like, really? And then they get funny and they’re like oh, think of all the other things that they tell us to do when they spend all this time trying to teach us and how we don’t do them. Right? Um, so I think that’s the biggest one is, uh, that if we tell them they’re automatically going to go out and do, um, because all the evidence and there’s tons of it, decades of it tells us that if engage in age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education as it’s meant to be, that all the things we hope for our kids, there’s a higher probability of that happening than the inverse, which people are afraid of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for all that context and guiding us to become the Askable parent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you for having me and your interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom is the author of the recently published book, Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need. She’s a health educator who teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at a high school in San Francisco and consults schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Credits: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In this digital age, kids are surrounded by messages about gender and sexuality. But are parents creating the space for conversation and understanding? Health educator \u003ca href=\"https://www.shafiazaloom.com/\">Shafia Zaloom\u003c/a> has a new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,” that guides parents through different stages of development. Having a more contemporary understanding of sex ed can help parents become the “askable parent” when kids have questions about the world — such as how they want to be treated and how that extends to relationships — so they don’t have to rely so heavily on peers, social media and algorithms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9462844781\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome to the Mind Shift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’re going to get an update on sex ed in the United States., sex ed is no longer about just intercourse and preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Sexuality education is more nuanced and starts earlier in life. And biologically, that makes a lot of sense. But culturally, we may have a lot catching up to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My guest today is Shafia Zaloom. Health educator and author of \u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/a>. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom, welcome to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>You teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and you’re a high school health educator in San Francisco. You also work with schools across the country in states of all political leanings which you describe in your book Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For old timers like me, can you describe the evolution of sex education to sexuality education- What’s the difference and how are they taught differently?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, of course. So when it comes to sex education in particular, that’s mostly information-based and it’s really grounded in sort of medical health, sexual reproductive health, right? So it has to do with preventing unintended pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy. It has to deal with preventing passing of sexually transmitted infections. And it’s very sort of clinical and medical-based. It’s important.\u003cbr>\nBut sexuality education is a lot more holistic and it’s a lot nuanced and it includes a whole lot more. So not just the information, but what do you actually do with it and what’s the meaning we assign to it? It really has to do with… How we relate to ourselves and to the world, how we take care of others, how we treat others because that matters. And that’s really at the heart of comprehensive sexuality education. There’s an ethical aspect to it having to do with decision-making that promotes and encourages relationships grounded in mutual respect, empathy, and dignity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>As a health educator, you must get asked all kinds of questions by students of all ages. What are some of the most frequently asked questions you get from middle schoolers and teens?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>It is such a tremendous range, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years, right? So the questions have been the same for 30 years, and then other questions have sort of evolved and become different. And then there’s brand new stuff. And the brand new staff sometimes changes constantly because it’s within a context of digital spaces. And so it’s just super interesting, you know, for the younger kids from middle school. You know, they’ll just ask basic direct questions. What is this? What is that? How do I know if I like girls or boys? How do know if someone really has a crush on me? How do tell my best friend that I don’t like it when they’re always hugging me? You know questions like that that have sort of transcended time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have some kids now in middle school who are asking about pornography. Which is different because it’s so ubiquitous, it’s still accessible now, that I see more questions that are very specific to certain types of media and what they’re exposed to in media. You know, what is popping the cherry mean? What’s a grundle? What’s gooning? You know, all these different sort of, this different kind of language that exists in digital spaces that they’re expose to. And are sort of wrestling with to make meaning of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then as kids get older in high school, the stakes feel a lot higher. I get a lot like to shave or not to shave. How do I make it not hurt when I lose my virginity? Questions like when is it okay to have sex with someone? How do you know what real trust actually is? Really pretty important and intense questions that also reveal… These aren’t being discussed in other spaces, right? That this is one of the first times someone has asked them, you know, what are you curious about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a lot of times too now, which is different from the past, kids are asking me to legitimize something. I heard that, or is it true that…” kind of questions having to do with what they’re exposed to in media, like “what’s a blue waffle? Can girls pee out of their vaginas?” Like there’s all kinds of different things that they’re exposed to that they are wondering about. Most of the time they’ll just Google, right? And so they get this information and then they have this intuitive response of like, I don’t know if that can actually be right. And then they ask it in class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Uh… That sounds way more complicated than I think the questions were asked in my sex ed class a long time ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom:\u003c/strong>\u003cem> [Laughter]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Um, how do you navigate that world? Or maybe the better question is how are the kids navigating? You mentioned they’re searching online, but it seems like an endless rabbit hole that could lead you to pretty dark places, especially at a very young age, because I saw this study that showed that kids are encountering porn. The average age that they encounter porn is 12, and it happens a lot at school just by clicking through links unassumingly. And so that’s what I wonder, like how do you think they’re navigating the space? You mentioned like parents, but what else are they doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think more parents are trying to talk about these things, and modern parents, and good for them, yay, and we’re trying to get folks to talk about this more, but we’ll check the box around like, okay, I talk to my kids about consent, I talk my kid about STIs, I talk about birth control, things like that, if we’re talking about teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then I have a kid come up to me to say, okay, I know the definition of consent, and my parents keep telling me, you know, I should respect women or I should respect whomever, whatever it may be. But what does that mean exactly? Right, like that’s the followup question that I’m now getting, what does that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so I think that’s important. The Googling, absolutely, a lot of times pornography will come up. It’s a lot harder for kids to avoid coming across porn or sexually explicit material than it is not to these days. And so then that, you know, that’s a whole rabbit hole in of itself. And because we’re not providing, and in fact currently rolling back comprehensive sexuality education courses in schools, you know. Kids are turning to pornography. It’s become the default sex ed of this country. That’s like watching the Fast and the Furious to learn how to drive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so, you know, kids are looking for information from their friends. They’re looking to social media. They’re asking Google. And for parents, if you’re not talking to your kid about sexuality, you’re the only person not talking your kid about sexuality because their friends are, the internet is, you know all these different influencers who are out there. And so that’s why this conversation is so important, not only in learning spaces, but also at home, because parenting adults, a kid’s guardian is the primary sexuality educator in a child’s life. That has been true forever. I don’t know a single professional sexuality educator who doesn’t believe that. And it’s challenging. It’s really hard to keep up, especially if you haven’t had a positive experience with that education yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I think one of the most fascinating aspects of your book is that you lay out a lot of real life scenarios in school in very precise language. For example, I’ve never heard of the term, and I think it’s okay to say, clamper. Oh yeah. It’s probably in a category of behaviors that…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Mm-hmm\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> happened on school campuses or elsewhere outside of the school. Can you describe what that is and how you’ve addressed that in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, for sure. So clamping, depending on what classroom you’re in, and this tends to start sort of young, right? In the case of my book, there’s a field trip and they’re walking upstairs in a museum. There are different terms for it too, euphemisms, like fish in the creek, clamping. You know, a lot of different ways by which kids will reference this behavior. You know the euphemism is supposed to make it humorous, which sort of excuses the. Inappropriate or aggressive behavior behind it. And it’s basically poking someone in the butt and in the butt crack in particular and thinking that that’s really funny. And I don’t know a lot of kids who actually think that is very funny, but this is also happening during a time when they’re negotiating social landscapes, social power and currency, and how we connect to and relate to each other and what kind of influence different kids have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in addressing that, there are two things we need to do, and sometimes there’s a third. If there’s kid who brings that to your attention, because sometimes there is, right? There’s the kid who will say, hey, this is going on. Did you see this? Did you know this? They go to the adult because they’re looking for some sort of help, because intuitively they know that this isn’t something that’s okay. And that kid needs to be recognized, right, because… When it comes to that dynamic, you know, the topic of snitching comes up, it’s really important to be very concrete about the difference between snitching, which is telling on someone on purpose to get them in trouble on purpose, and reporting, which is where you’re sharing information, asking for help trying to support community and righting a wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then you have two other things: You have the kid who actually experienced the clamp or the poke, the unwanted poking, and then you have the kid who actually did it. And so those are two kids, usually the kid who does it, it’s important to remove their audience. When we address these things publicly, it’s important to say something, to stand for what’s right, to hold people accountable to the guidelines you’ve set up in your classroom or amongst each other in your community. But we don’t want to go too far because for adolescents when we go too far in a public setting, they shut down because it feels shameful. And so what we want to do is say something so that people know oh okay the teacher is aware the the caretaking adult knows this is happening and so they’re going to take care of it but they’re also going to honor and respect that kids make mistakes and that we have the opportunity to learn from them so that we can be better people. And that’s what you’re going do in private right? That’s what you’re going to do with discretion, not secrecy. That’s different. But hold kids accountable in a way that honors privacy and the opportunity to become available to the learning and the guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that social learning is going to be critical. So we want to support the kid who experienced it, find out how they felt about it, how things are going, what kind of support they may need. The other kid, we’re doing something similar. And we really want to get behind that behavior to see what need is. They’re trying to meet by engaging in that behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were they looking for connection? Were they are looking for affirmation through attention?, whether it was negative or positive, didn’t really matter for them, like, whatever it may have been, help them understand how their choice in making that, getting that need met actually didn’t serve them or anyone else. And it’s absolutely not acceptable. And so then what are the other options for them when they’re feeling that way to get those needs met, in a way that actually then affirms what they’re trying to figure out, how they’re in the classroom and how they are part of community?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And I guess that can also be applicable to other interactions one has with others in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Oh, 100%, yes. And it’s an opportunity to give, to impart a lesson to and to reinforce information, right? That very rarely do any of us, the first time we hear something, especially if we’re a young person, right, are we gonna remember, internalize, and make that a part of our practice? Practice is essential. That’s why kids are in school. And so that kid, it’s also an opportunity to review consent, bodily autonomy, asking permission, what accountability actually means, the value of community, what we’re actually going for in our relationships, who we wanna be. There’s a ton of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But the scenario you describe is really detailed, as are a lot of incidents that are really uncomfortable or challenging. And I think what you do really well is lay out several raw descriptions of conflict you’ve heard about or seen on campus, including the use of slurs. And a lot those instances, when boundaries are crossed, you often end up with a student reply of, I was just joking or I didn’t mean it. So how do you address that seemingly common response to an infraction?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>That’s such a good question. You know, I think, so it’s so important when working with young people in particular that we get, that we recognize the behavior, that we hold them accountable, but that we also guide them to what’s behind the behavior. And I think that’s… The most important piece is when these things come up, because kids are in gender and sexuality school all the time, all day, every day, it’s constantly being modeled for them. They’re being socialized by all these different social institutions all the times, is that we guide them towards those universal values that we think are really important when it comes to relationships with others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what our culture teaches kids, because sex is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It’s something that a lot of people don’t have a lot practice talking about in really positive, productive, constructive ways. And so when it comes to kids, they’ve learned that when we talk about sex, if we veil it in humor, that we can get away with a lot behaviors. That if we didn’t veil them in humor, would definitely not be okay, that would be disrespectful, would be considered rude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this is a way by which sort of the sex stigmatization that has historically been a part of our culture continues and is perpetuated. So when talking with kids, it’s really important first that we not shame and this is the thing, most adults have been socialized to respond to issues of sexuality that would warrant, oh, I was just kidding, it’s not a big deal, I didn’t mean it that way, with some sort of shame, fear avoidance versus care, love, and affirmation. Because that’s the counter narrative, right, the care, love, and affirmation. And a lot of times kids, especially adolescents, are just mirroring and trying on navigating the gauntlet to adulthood of what they see in adult culture. So we have to help them understand. We have to contextualize it for them. We have to get behind the behavior to help understand the feelings that are there and what values we’re actually aspiring to. And the reason why that behavior actually erodes relationships and community versus affirms and builds them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I’m wondering if you can make a connection to being an adult by having these experiences early. How do they manifest in an adult’s life? And by experiences I mean standing up for yourself or communicating what you want or how you need to be treated and like entering into interactions with understanding instead of shame. I mean, you just mentioned many things here. So I guess generally like, you know, if somebody has this kind of experience, how does that project into their lives as an adult?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Well, what we understand and know about social learning is that one, it makes us available to feel socially connected, actually improves and cultivates the capacity for young people to learn effectively. What we also know about learning is that we need practice and it needs to be scaffolded over time in a developmentally appropriate way. And so when we take this on, you know, Freud said that the two most important things in life are work and love. And this is ultimately comprehensive sexuality education. You know, we forget this sometimes because of our history of stigmatizing it, is that this is about cultivating the capacity to love and be loved. And so that requires skills. It requires being attuned to yourself and others. You know, skills are something we have to practice and build over time. And so when you have someone who’s had the benefit of these skills, of this sort of reinforcement, the contextualizing, applying these skills and cultivating these capacities in different contexts across different experiences, you have some one who actually becomes more considerate of others, who’s able to be attuned to others and to themselves to act in ways that are ethical in terms of how we treat each other because that really matters, who can exercise empathy, who can ask for help when they need it, and who have the language and the practice to verbalize what they’re thinking and feeling when they need to ask for that, or when they see that others need it too and offer it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that’s a really important piece. I wanna make sure we don’t only focus on self. We really have to balance how we connect with ourselves as individuals with becoming community-minded and understanding the value of being socially connected and in community with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So what tips do you have for parents who really struggle with their discomfort around talking about sexuality and relationships with their kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I mean, as much as we can is get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, which is such a valuable thing to model, right? That sometimes the hardest conversations are the most important ones to have in a relationship. And there are plenty of scripts and resources out there, some great books for having these conversations with young people across developmental stages in ways that are cognitively congruent. And so I would say it’s really important for a parent to educate themselves to find those resources that align with their values so that they can start early. And it’s never too late, I wanna say that too. And to provide their kid with medically accurate, credible information first and foremost. But the most important piece is actually the values stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to get concrete around it, let’s say you’re in the car with your kid and you let them DJ for the ride. And a song comes on, you can simply drop a question, like, “huh, do you think this is about infatuation or authentic connection? Because I’m not really sure, you know?” It’s just a question like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or you’re watching as a family, you’re a watching a show, or you’re just watching something with your kid, or you heard they’re watching something, so you start to watch it too. And you talk about the characters like real people. And you say like, well, do you think that was wordless consent? Do you think that that was actually like a response that really honored and respected what they wanted or their right to make a decision or I noticed they changed their mind, you know, like that kind of a thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you’re not, you’re not launching, um, and you’re just collecting these beautiful moments that you scaffold over time, and then you can go back and you can sort of embellish and bedazzle and hang all kinds of beautiful things on the scaffolding, but it’s really important to get that foundational piece first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, becoming the askable parent means that we have our eyes and ears open, and for adolescents, a lot of times that’s not on our time, it’s on their time, right, like late at night or whatever else because their circadian rhythms have shifted. And we’re doing a lot values education in particular, you know, we want to make sure they have access to the medically accurate information, but then the values education and how we apply that information to interpersonal dynamics is going to be super important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for kids, even saying, hey, I heard this podcast and there was this woman speaking about sexuality education. Are you getting any of that in school and in what ways? And how’s it been? What do you think about it? Kids love to, they have a keen sense of justice too. Could even say, she said this, do you think that’s true? Have you seen that come up? Do you think that would be valuable information?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those are the ways that I. I think parents can become askable when it comes to their kids. And it doesn’t mean being your kid’s friend. They really need a parent with boundaries and doing the hard stuff. And how do you get comfortable with being uncomfortable? Those sorts of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So I want to ask you, for maybe millennials, Gen Xers who grew up in a different era of sex ed, can you identify some myths about sexuality education that adults should consider unlearning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think this is true of all adults, actually, just because it’s interesting, I think the stigmatizing aspect of sexuality has been perpetuated across its cyclical, right, generational cycles of this, and we really need to move away from that, and that requires people to work on themselves. And earlier you had asked about how can parents become askable parents, right? And get comfortable with this. And part of that’s a parent’s responsibility to do with other people their own age, right. Like your own friends, have conversations about this, practice having this conversation. The myths that are out there are that if we tell kids then they’re gonna go run out and do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no empirical evidence whatsoever. That tells us that’s the case. In fact, the inverse is true. And so, you know, that’s just when we’ve put political ideology above student health and perpetuated stigmatizing ideas around sexuality. All you have to do is look at the Dutch. I mean, they start age-appropriate sexuality education in preschool and kindergarten, and it follows them all up into adulthood. You know, their focus is really on responsibility and joy. Versus like disaster prevention, fear and avoidance. And so, and their young people are far more relational, their STI and unintended pregnancy rates are like some of the lowest in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, it’s really important that we understand…we spend more, we invest more in fire prevention and fire safety, like information and learning with young people than we do on sex ed. And when you give that education to kids, like, okay, here’s how we prevent fires or how we deal with them if there is one or whatever else they don’t go home and start making fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I tell young people that this is what adults believe, that if they acquire a sex education, they’re gonna run out and go start having sex, they look at me like I have three heads. And they’re offended. They’re like, really? And then they get funny and they’re like oh, think of all the other things that they tell us to do when they spend all this time trying to teach us and how we don’t do them. Right? Um, so I think that’s the biggest one is, uh, that if we tell them they’re automatically going to go out and do, um, because all the evidence and there’s tons of it, decades of it tells us that if engage in age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education as it’s meant to be, that all the things we hope for our kids, there’s a higher probability of that happening than the inverse, which people are afraid of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for all that context and guiding us to become the Askable parent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you for having me and your interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom is the author of the recently published book, Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need. She’s a health educator who teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at a high school in San Francisco and consults schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Credits: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 30 years, Bellevue Elementary in Santa Rosa has relied on AmeriCorps services to support their students that need extra help. But when federal funding was cut, and later reinstated, that programming stalled, leaving some students behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this episode, principal Nina Craig explains how the loss of tutors affected instruction and student relationships, while new AmeriCorps members, Maya Nurse and Elena Zeoli, describe stepping into classrooms with limited time and resources. We learn how even a few missed months of literacy support reduces how many students can be served.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1557384124\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Welcome to Mind Shift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Marlena Jackson Rotondo. It’s almost Winter break at Bellevue Elementary in Santa Rosa, California, and tutoring sessions for the school year have just begun. The schools to AmeriCorps tutors have gone through a crash course of training to prepare for the reading and writing support they’ll provide for the rest of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>AmeriCorps is an independent government agency whose volunteer members provide educational support and services to schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>On this morning, a small group of fourth graders reluctantly file into the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>They’ve been pulled out of their classroom to spend 30 minutes with the tutors, Maya Nurse and Elena Zeoli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maya has the students get straight to work reading a story out loud from a workbook In unison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna start with our choral style of reading today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Ready? Go!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>All reading:\u003c/strong> My mother says to me, I choose a pretty paper fan with a picture of leaves and fireflies. I will keep my fan forever. When I grow up I will look at it and remember this night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The tutors stop the students every couple of sentences to ask about vocabulary in the text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> What unexpectedly happened? The wet… they were warned about the weather. They thought the waves were only gonna get to how tall? Do you remember from the first page? Student: mmmm….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The students seem timid, and when they do speak up, it’s very quiet. And sometimes the students don’t answer the questions at all, but Maya and Elena, unfazed by the silence, move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is normal student behavior for the first week of tutoring at Bellevue Elementary, but what isn’t normal is that the first week of tutoring has been delayed this year by more than two months. Tutoring was supposed to start in early fall. Last April, all AmeriCorps funding was terminated by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> This ended an almost three decade long collaboration between Bellevue Elementary and AmeriCorps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These cuts happened immediately and without explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> It was shocking how quickly it happened. Um, uh, literally felt like overnight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> so it kind of felt like the rug was pulled out from us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That’s Nina Craig Bellevue, elementary’s principal of 10 years. Before that, she was a fifth grade teacher and she recalls working with AmeriCorps members then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> As a classroom teacher I remember them coming into my room and working with some of my students and having that partnership as a teacher\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And because the AmeriCorps members were such an integral part of the school community, the cuts were difficult for Bellevue students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> The relationship with the kids that was established and for the kids to all of a sudden have these people gone that are such a vital part of our school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> was really sad and really hard to explain, because they really do become a part of our school culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> Through lawsuits. AmeriCorps funding cuts were reversed in June of last year, but by that time, schools like Bellevue Elementary were already behind for the next school year’s cycle of tutoring. Some schools across the district opted not to continue with tutoring and mentoring support from AmeriCorps members for the next school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is because they had to make decisions about their funding and without the certainty of AmeriCorps services, they had to go without. And because programming was delayed, Bellevue students didn’t start tutoring until December instead of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> there hasn’t been any tutoring offered for our third through sixth grade students until now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> So without AmeriCorps, those students aren’t receiving any type of tutoring or intervention. And unless the teacher’s able to carve out time within their day to provide that,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> AmeriCorps members provide one of Bellevue elementary’s only forms of tier two support. That’s targeted support in a small group setting. In this case, it helps students who are struggling with reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> In years past, we’ve had literacy paraprofessionals that could support our tier two. Um, however, with budget cuts, this is our first year without having them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> And so, um, we have one instructional aide. For the entire school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> But yeah, we’re very limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The two AmeriCorps tutors contribute greatly to Bellevue’s tier two manpower, but it’s still not enough. The school reduced the kindergarten day by one and a half hours so that kindergarten teachers could provide extra support for Bellevue’s first and second grade classrooms. On short notice, and with no wiggle room in their budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Bellevue Elementary had to make some hard choices. We’ll find out how they’re doing right after this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>***Midroll Break***\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I visited Bellevue Elementary back in December, I spoke with Fonzi, a fourth grader, receiving small group literacy tutoring for 30 minutes per day, four days per week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi: \u003c/strong>Dog Man and then I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fonzi’s telling me about the books he likes to read at home.,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What was that one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What’s that one about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> It’s um, there’s like different books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi:\u003c/strong> There’s, um, a Titanic book that, um, sunk in the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> So you read about different survival stories? Whoa, that’s pretty cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> He feels like there’s less reading time when he’s in his classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> The things that are different is, um, we don’t like read a lot of books,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But when he’s in his tutoring sessions, reading time, one of his favorite things to do, is extended\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> At AR time, we um, read, we read books for 15 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi is part of a small group of fourth grade students who have been identified as needing extra support with reading. During a normal year, there’s enough time for two groups of students to cycle through tutoring support from AmeriCorps members. But this year, since tutoring at Bellevue started late, AmeriCorps members only have time to help half of the students that they normally would.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> At sites like Bellevue, the AmeriCorps tutors have become a staple in the school community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> There’s so many ways AmeriCorps impacts because of the tutoring, the recess playtime, the mentoring. It’s so much connection. You guys probably know more of the kids’ names than I do, um, at this point. And you just started\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And for Maya and Elena who are just starting their careers, the program offers them a glimpse into their professional future\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I know I want to do a job where I’m helping people and so I thought this was a great opportunity to, yeah, like, get some real life experience where I’m like serving others and I’m thinking of maybe doing something with social work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The opportunity to work with students in a school setting also offered Maya something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I’ve never worked with kids, and so I was kind of like, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I don’t know if I..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> …If I can do this, at first, you know, I was a little timid, but then you kind of just jump in and, um, you start connecting with the kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I spoke with the tutoring pair back in December, Elena was already feeling optimistic about her future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So far this job I feel extremely passionate about, which is, it’s just really nice waking up in the morning and I, I wake up early, like I wake up before my alarm clock ’cause I’m just excited to come to the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> A couple months later, Maya and Elena felt comfortable in their roles,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I just like know what I’m doing a little more. I kinda have a sense of like, we have a daily routine. I have really like good relationships with students now, so I’m like so excited to see them every day and they’re excited to see me and yeah, it’s great. It’s really good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And the AmeriCorps tutors have also noticed improvements in their students as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> One of my students in sixth grade, in one of his tests, he was and like the 26th percentile for reading in like November. And now he is like in the 42nd percentile and I’m like, whoa, that’s so like rewarding and exciting that he’s like doing so much better and able to do that on his own now, like do it more on his own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But the reality of having to work within the school’s limited resources has also sunk in for Maya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Sometimes also it’s like really hard to see like how some students struggle so much in school or like, you know, and I can only do so much and help them so much in that 30 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> yeah, just doing the best you can every day with what you have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> Cat was going to wait the cat, and then this could change to hundreds of bugs in one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> He called his keys and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I walked into the tutoring classroom in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> It felt like a transformed space with students who were relaxed and eager to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Elena had also noticed a difference in her students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> I feel like they’re a lot more confident in answering questions and what to write down. So I feel like that’s. That’s like the biggest difference I’ve seen is like their confidence in what they’re writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> So the door, what’s the door? Who does he know? What’s the door? It’s D, the OOR. Yeah. I thought it was E-D-O-O-O-R-H. What? All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi has also gained confidence in his reading abilities since December. He told me he’s reading three to four books a day and even tackling some chapter books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> When I first came in and reading groups, um, we started reading books and stuff and I kind of got into it and I started reading books every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The benefits of extra reading support provided by the AmeriCorps tutors at school has extended into Fonzie’s home life as well. He and his siblings made up a reading game that they like to play at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> We guess, like, the book that they have. They don’t show the covers. And we, guess, and then if we get it right, the people that have the book that the people say, they’re eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Even though there won’t be enough time to bring in another group of fourth graders for tutoring this school year, Elena and Maya look forward to the rest of their time with the students that they are able to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Thank you to Bellevue Elementary’s faculty and staff who contributed their time to make this episode possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, Nimah Gobir, and Ki Sung. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is head of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is KQED’s, editor-in-chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Mindshift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED, some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio artists. San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Welcome to Mind Shift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Marlena Jackson Rotondo. It’s almost Winter break at Bellevue Elementary in Santa Rosa, California, and tutoring sessions for the school year have just begun. The schools to AmeriCorps tutors have gone through a crash course of training to prepare for the reading and writing support they’ll provide for the rest of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>AmeriCorps is an independent government agency whose volunteer members provide educational support and services to schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>On this morning, a small group of fourth graders reluctantly file into the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>They’ve been pulled out of their classroom to spend 30 minutes with the tutors, Maya Nurse and Elena Zeoli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maya has the students get straight to work reading a story out loud from a workbook In unison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna start with our choral style of reading today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Ready? Go!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>All reading:\u003c/strong> My mother says to me, I choose a pretty paper fan with a picture of leaves and fireflies. I will keep my fan forever. When I grow up I will look at it and remember this night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The tutors stop the students every couple of sentences to ask about vocabulary in the text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> What unexpectedly happened? The wet… they were warned about the weather. They thought the waves were only gonna get to how tall? Do you remember from the first page? Student: mmmm….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The students seem timid, and when they do speak up, it’s very quiet. And sometimes the students don’t answer the questions at all, but Maya and Elena, unfazed by the silence, move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is normal student behavior for the first week of tutoring at Bellevue Elementary, but what isn’t normal is that the first week of tutoring has been delayed this year by more than two months. Tutoring was supposed to start in early fall. Last April, all AmeriCorps funding was terminated by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> This ended an almost three decade long collaboration between Bellevue Elementary and AmeriCorps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These cuts happened immediately and without explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> It was shocking how quickly it happened. Um, uh, literally felt like overnight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> so it kind of felt like the rug was pulled out from us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That’s Nina Craig Bellevue, elementary’s principal of 10 years. Before that, she was a fifth grade teacher and she recalls working with AmeriCorps members then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> As a classroom teacher I remember them coming into my room and working with some of my students and having that partnership as a teacher\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And because the AmeriCorps members were such an integral part of the school community, the cuts were difficult for Bellevue students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> The relationship with the kids that was established and for the kids to all of a sudden have these people gone that are such a vital part of our school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> was really sad and really hard to explain, because they really do become a part of our school culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> Through lawsuits. AmeriCorps funding cuts were reversed in June of last year, but by that time, schools like Bellevue Elementary were already behind for the next school year’s cycle of tutoring. Some schools across the district opted not to continue with tutoring and mentoring support from AmeriCorps members for the next school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is because they had to make decisions about their funding and without the certainty of AmeriCorps services, they had to go without. And because programming was delayed, Bellevue students didn’t start tutoring until December instead of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> there hasn’t been any tutoring offered for our third through sixth grade students until now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> So without AmeriCorps, those students aren’t receiving any type of tutoring or intervention. And unless the teacher’s able to carve out time within their day to provide that,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> AmeriCorps members provide one of Bellevue elementary’s only forms of tier two support. That’s targeted support in a small group setting. In this case, it helps students who are struggling with reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> In years past, we’ve had literacy paraprofessionals that could support our tier two. Um, however, with budget cuts, this is our first year without having them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> And so, um, we have one instructional aide. For the entire school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> But yeah, we’re very limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The two AmeriCorps tutors contribute greatly to Bellevue’s tier two manpower, but it’s still not enough. The school reduced the kindergarten day by one and a half hours so that kindergarten teachers could provide extra support for Bellevue’s first and second grade classrooms. On short notice, and with no wiggle room in their budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Bellevue Elementary had to make some hard choices. We’ll find out how they’re doing right after this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>***Midroll Break***\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I visited Bellevue Elementary back in December, I spoke with Fonzi, a fourth grader, receiving small group literacy tutoring for 30 minutes per day, four days per week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi: \u003c/strong>Dog Man and then I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fonzi’s telling me about the books he likes to read at home.,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What was that one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What’s that one about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> It’s um, there’s like different books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi:\u003c/strong> There’s, um, a Titanic book that, um, sunk in the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> So you read about different survival stories? Whoa, that’s pretty cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> He feels like there’s less reading time when he’s in his classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> The things that are different is, um, we don’t like read a lot of books,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But when he’s in his tutoring sessions, reading time, one of his favorite things to do, is extended\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> At AR time, we um, read, we read books for 15 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi is part of a small group of fourth grade students who have been identified as needing extra support with reading. During a normal year, there’s enough time for two groups of students to cycle through tutoring support from AmeriCorps members. But this year, since tutoring at Bellevue started late, AmeriCorps members only have time to help half of the students that they normally would.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> At sites like Bellevue, the AmeriCorps tutors have become a staple in the school community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> There’s so many ways AmeriCorps impacts because of the tutoring, the recess playtime, the mentoring. It’s so much connection. You guys probably know more of the kids’ names than I do, um, at this point. And you just started\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And for Maya and Elena who are just starting their careers, the program offers them a glimpse into their professional future\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I know I want to do a job where I’m helping people and so I thought this was a great opportunity to, yeah, like, get some real life experience where I’m like serving others and I’m thinking of maybe doing something with social work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The opportunity to work with students in a school setting also offered Maya something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I’ve never worked with kids, and so I was kind of like, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I don’t know if I..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> …If I can do this, at first, you know, I was a little timid, but then you kind of just jump in and, um, you start connecting with the kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I spoke with the tutoring pair back in December, Elena was already feeling optimistic about her future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So far this job I feel extremely passionate about, which is, it’s just really nice waking up in the morning and I, I wake up early, like I wake up before my alarm clock ’cause I’m just excited to come to the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> A couple months later, Maya and Elena felt comfortable in their roles,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I just like know what I’m doing a little more. I kinda have a sense of like, we have a daily routine. I have really like good relationships with students now, so I’m like so excited to see them every day and they’re excited to see me and yeah, it’s great. It’s really good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And the AmeriCorps tutors have also noticed improvements in their students as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> One of my students in sixth grade, in one of his tests, he was and like the 26th percentile for reading in like November. And now he is like in the 42nd percentile and I’m like, whoa, that’s so like rewarding and exciting that he’s like doing so much better and able to do that on his own now, like do it more on his own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But the reality of having to work within the school’s limited resources has also sunk in for Maya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Sometimes also it’s like really hard to see like how some students struggle so much in school or like, you know, and I can only do so much and help them so much in that 30 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> yeah, just doing the best you can every day with what you have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> Cat was going to wait the cat, and then this could change to hundreds of bugs in one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> He called his keys and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I walked into the tutoring classroom in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> It felt like a transformed space with students who were relaxed and eager to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Elena had also noticed a difference in her students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> I feel like they’re a lot more confident in answering questions and what to write down. So I feel like that’s. That’s like the biggest difference I’ve seen is like their confidence in what they’re writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> So the door, what’s the door? Who does he know? What’s the door? It’s D, the OOR. Yeah. I thought it was E-D-O-O-O-R-H. What? All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi has also gained confidence in his reading abilities since December. He told me he’s reading three to four books a day and even tackling some chapter books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> When I first came in and reading groups, um, we started reading books and stuff and I kind of got into it and I started reading books every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The benefits of extra reading support provided by the AmeriCorps tutors at school has extended into Fonzie’s home life as well. He and his siblings made up a reading game that they like to play at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> We guess, like, the book that they have. They don’t show the covers. And we, guess, and then if we get it right, the people that have the book that the people say, they’re eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Even though there won’t be enough time to bring in another group of fourth graders for tutoring this school year, Elena and Maya look forward to the rest of their time with the students that they are able to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Thank you to Bellevue Elementary’s faculty and staff who contributed their time to make this episode possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, Nimah Gobir, and Ki Sung. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is head of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is KQED’s, editor-in-chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Mindshift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED, some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio artists. San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>Remember to pick up paper towels on your way home from work! Oh, summer camp sign ups are at 6. Ooh, should you include your boss in that upcoming meeting this week?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do you lighten your mental load — those seemingly never-ending tasks you’re constantly keeping track of in your brain?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a question that sociologist Leah Ruppanner explores in her new book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which comes out today. It offers evidence-based tools to reduce what she calls “emotional thinking work,” so we can use that energy in a more meaningful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruppanner, a professor at The University of Melbourne in Australia who has spent decades studying gender, work and family, has found that just being able to acknowledge and measure the mental load can slim it down. “Once we see it, we can’t unsee it. We can start to address it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While everyone has a mental load to some extent — women carry the greatest burden, she says. In \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.13057\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>one study of survey data\u003c/u>\u003c/a> with over 3,000 parents in the United States, she and other researchers found that women were responsible for over 70% of the domestic mental load, including keeping track of everyone’s schedules or remembering to delegate tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Ruppanner unpacks some of the assumptions that keep a woman’s mental load heavy, and what it takes to reclaim your headspace. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1900x1069+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5a%2Fd4%2F8a13595443ebaf2d8e2dc985ff43%2F260420-lk-drained-16x9.jpg\" alt=\"Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner.\">\u003cfigcaption>\u003cem>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/em>, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner. \u003ccite> (Headshot courtesy of the author, Collage by NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Let’s start with mental load and gender. What are some of the pervasive cultural myths that you wish would go away? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest lies we sell each other is that women are better multitaskers than men, that their brains are just more efficient at keeping track of all these competing things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>The research doesn’t show that\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. What it shows is that \u003cem>none\u003c/em> of us can multitask. What multitaskers are good at doing is task switching, which burns through some of your cognitive capacity and drains some of your energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another myth we tell each other is that women are really good household managers and men are terrible at this. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/egm16/BehsonRobbins.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>[research has shown]\u003c/u>\u003c/a> that men who engage in the primary care of children and take care of the household, they’re healthier, they’re happier, they’re more balanced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these social norms just position [women] to take on the work. Then we set each other up to reinforce these gender roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124119852395\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>ran a study\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> testing the stereotype that “men can’t see the mess.” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With colleagues at University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University, we showed [male and female participants] a messy room and a clean room. And we asked them: Can you rate the messiness of this room?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that men and women rate it as equally clean and equally messy. So this idea that “men can’t see the mess or dirt” is nonsense. Let’s stop saying that to each other and believing it. Men can see the socks on the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You say that one of the most effective ways to lighten the mental load is to figure out what’s exactly on the list. How do you do that? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have this new website where if you want to actually measure your mental load, you can take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>free assessment \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and see what you’re carrying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Your book also offers a tool called the \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20Life%20organization,in%20the%20future\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>Mental Load Audit\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>. \u003cstrong>The idea is to sort the tasks in your head into eight categories so you can see where your energy is going. Can you tell us about some of those buckets? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is life organization. This is staying on top of the planning and the tasks. The second one is emotional support. This is checking in on family, friends and coworkers to make sure they’re doing OK. Another is individual upkeep, like, did I make that doctor’s appointment? Do I need to get my hair cut?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You can find all eight categories in your book, \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiyQcB4R5O8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>and also online\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>. Once you’ve categorized your mental load, what do you do next? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Start thinking about whether these things are drains [to your energy] or credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day you wake up with a certain amount of capacity, and every day you spend it. You cannot, every day, pull your mental load into deficit. You need to have some energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, for some that will be about reducing some of the mental load. But for others, that will be about figuring out the things that bring you joy, that are replenishing. Then start thinking about how you align your mental spending that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do we prioritize the tasks that matter most? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get clear on who’s on your starting lineup. One of the mothers [I interviewed] said, “I’m weighing the requests from my book club, the Parent-Teacher Association and my parents. I can’t say no to any of them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you have a moment to go, “Who’s really critical right now?” It becomes easier to say no. Then you can filter what decisions are worth the investment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You share another way to lighten your mental load: outsource some of your responsibilities. This tends to cost money — for example, hiring a house cleaner or child care. Are there other ways to offload our tasks without breaking the bank? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can technology do it? Maybe artificial intelligence can do the meal planning. Or there are apps that can read your emails and put [events] into a shared calendar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the other things I talk about in the book is getting a “good is good enough” mentality, and starting to think about when our standards are too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like, if you are worried about the way the forks go in the dishwasher, part of your mental load is being spent monitoring that. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So what is the ultimate goal here, once you’ve succeeded in lightening the load? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To say: I have enough mental load energy to figure out where I’m going, and I can create new, interesting worlds, or lives that I love to live, where I’m thriving, where I’m happy, where I’m passionate, where I’m excited, and not waking up depleted or burnt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Take the \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>\u003cu>Mental Load Measurement\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>, a short quiz developed by Ruppanner, to measure where your mental load is heaviest — and get suggestions on how to lighten it. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\"Men can't see the mess.\" \"Women are better at chores.\" These myths position women to take on more emotional thinking, says researcher Leah Ruppanner. She shares what works to reclaim your headspace.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Remember to pick up paper towels on your way home from work! Oh, summer camp sign ups are at 6. Ooh, should you include your boss in that upcoming meeting this week?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do you lighten your mental load — those seemingly never-ending tasks you’re constantly keeping track of in your brain?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a question that sociologist Leah Ruppanner explores in her new book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which comes out today. It offers evidence-based tools to reduce what she calls “emotional thinking work,” so we can use that energy in a more meaningful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruppanner, a professor at The University of Melbourne in Australia who has spent decades studying gender, work and family, has found that just being able to acknowledge and measure the mental load can slim it down. “Once we see it, we can’t unsee it. We can start to address it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While everyone has a mental load to some extent — women carry the greatest burden, she says. In \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.13057\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>one study of survey data\u003c/u>\u003c/a> with over 3,000 parents in the United States, she and other researchers found that women were responsible for over 70% of the domestic mental load, including keeping track of everyone’s schedules or remembering to delegate tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Ruppanner unpacks some of the assumptions that keep a woman’s mental load heavy, and what it takes to reclaim your headspace. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1900x1069+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5a%2Fd4%2F8a13595443ebaf2d8e2dc985ff43%2F260420-lk-drained-16x9.jpg\" alt=\"Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner.\">\u003cfigcaption>\u003cem>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/em>, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner. \u003ccite> (Headshot courtesy of the author, Collage by NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Let’s start with mental load and gender. What are some of the pervasive cultural myths that you wish would go away? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest lies we sell each other is that women are better multitaskers than men, that their brains are just more efficient at keeping track of all these competing things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>The research doesn’t show that\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. What it shows is that \u003cem>none\u003c/em> of us can multitask. What multitaskers are good at doing is task switching, which burns through some of your cognitive capacity and drains some of your energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another myth we tell each other is that women are really good household managers and men are terrible at this. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/egm16/BehsonRobbins.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>[research has shown]\u003c/u>\u003c/a> that men who engage in the primary care of children and take care of the household, they’re healthier, they’re happier, they’re more balanced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these social norms just position [women] to take on the work. Then we set each other up to reinforce these gender roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124119852395\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>ran a study\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> testing the stereotype that “men can’t see the mess.” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With colleagues at University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University, we showed [male and female participants] a messy room and a clean room. And we asked them: Can you rate the messiness of this room?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that men and women rate it as equally clean and equally messy. So this idea that “men can’t see the mess or dirt” is nonsense. Let’s stop saying that to each other and believing it. Men can see the socks on the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You say that one of the most effective ways to lighten the mental load is to figure out what’s exactly on the list. How do you do that? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have this new website where if you want to actually measure your mental load, you can take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>free assessment \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and see what you’re carrying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Your book also offers a tool called the \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20Life%20organization,in%20the%20future\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>Mental Load Audit\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>. \u003cstrong>The idea is to sort the tasks in your head into eight categories so you can see where your energy is going. Can you tell us about some of those buckets? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is life organization. This is staying on top of the planning and the tasks. The second one is emotional support. This is checking in on family, friends and coworkers to make sure they’re doing OK. Another is individual upkeep, like, did I make that doctor’s appointment? Do I need to get my hair cut?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You can find all eight categories in your book, \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiyQcB4R5O8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>and also online\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>. Once you’ve categorized your mental load, what do you do next? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Start thinking about whether these things are drains [to your energy] or credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day you wake up with a certain amount of capacity, and every day you spend it. You cannot, every day, pull your mental load into deficit. You need to have some energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, for some that will be about reducing some of the mental load. But for others, that will be about figuring out the things that bring you joy, that are replenishing. Then start thinking about how you align your mental spending that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do we prioritize the tasks that matter most? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get clear on who’s on your starting lineup. One of the mothers [I interviewed] said, “I’m weighing the requests from my book club, the Parent-Teacher Association and my parents. I can’t say no to any of them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you have a moment to go, “Who’s really critical right now?” It becomes easier to say no. Then you can filter what decisions are worth the investment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You share another way to lighten your mental load: outsource some of your responsibilities. This tends to cost money — for example, hiring a house cleaner or child care. Are there other ways to offload our tasks without breaking the bank? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can technology do it? Maybe artificial intelligence can do the meal planning. Or there are apps that can read your emails and put [events] into a shared calendar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the other things I talk about in the book is getting a “good is good enough” mentality, and starting to think about when our standards are too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like, if you are worried about the way the forks go in the dishwasher, part of your mental load is being spent monitoring that. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So what is the ultimate goal here, once you’ve succeeded in lightening the load? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To say: I have enough mental load energy to figure out where I’m going, and I can create new, interesting worlds, or lives that I love to live, where I’m thriving, where I’m happy, where I’m passionate, where I’m excited, and not waking up depleted or burnt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Take the \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>\u003cu>Mental Load Measurement\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>, a short quiz developed by Ruppanner, to measure where your mental load is heaviest — and get suggestions on how to lighten it. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>There are times in life that call for you to give a good pep talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe your partner just lost their job. Maybe your kid has back-to-school jitters. Or maybe you’re at karaoke and nervous about your performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To spark courage and motivation, you’ll need to show your loved one — or yourself — that “you’re on their side, you’ve got their back and they can do this,” says writer and comedian \u003ca href=\"https://joshlinden.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Josh Linden\u003c/a>, co-author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/756684/tiny-pep-talks-by-paula-skaggs-and-josh-linden/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Tiny Pep Talks: Bite-Size Encouragement for Life’s Annoying, Stressful, and Flat-Out Lousy Moments\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some people, that might feel too hard or too high stakes. What if you say the wrong thing? How do you get someone to \u003cem>actually\u003c/em> change their outlook?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Linden and comedian, writer and co-author \u003ca href=\"https://www.paulakskaggs.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paula Skaggs\u003c/a> share their ingredients for a great pep talk. Use them to devise your own words of inspiration for life’s bigger moments — and smaller ones too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Be specific. What does your loved one really need at the moment?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Your sister is about to walk down the aisle. She’s nervous. Instead of saying something vague and cliché — like, “You can do this!” — pause and figure out what’s really going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make sure you’re listening to what they need and tailoring the pep talk to the specific anxiety they have,” Linden says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s say she’s feeling shy about saying her vows in front of everyone. So you might say: \u003cem>Hey, I’ve read your vows, and they are so beautiful. The groom is going to love them, and I know they’ll move everyone in the crowd too. Do you want to practice them one more time before you walk down the aisle? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Don’t save your pep talks for the big stuff.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>People often have more support and encouragement for life’s bigger challenges, like running a marathon or starting therapy, than they do for the smaller ones, Skaggs says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So be a cheerleader for your loved ones in those everyday moments, she says. If your friend mentions they’re giving a presentation at work next week and are feeling excited but also a little anxious, send them a morale-boosting text message that week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might write: \u003cem>You’re going to be great at your presentation. You’re such a great public speaker, and you’ve been rocking it at your job lately. Sending good vibes your way!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Little pep talks like these show that you care, and they can be just as meaningful as giving a pep talk on a larger issue, Skaggs says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A pep talk doesn’t have to include advice.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Let’s say your friend calls and tells you that their partner has just broken up with them. They are crying and very upset. What should you say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assess the situation. If it’s clear they’re not looking for solutions, your pep talk might take the form of “encouragement and bearing witness to the challenges they’re going through,” Linden says. You might try \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974786825/want-to-listen-better-turn-down-your-thoughts-and-tune-in-to-others\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">being an active listener\u003c/a> and doing some \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1196978605/life-kit-all-guides-feed-draft-02-06-2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">grounding exercises\u003c/a> together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Don’t feel the need to say “something revolutionary that the person has never heard of before,” Skaggs says. Sometimes, it can be comforting to just “remind them of the thing they already know to be true.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might say: \u003cem>I know that what you are going through is really hard and it hurts a lot right now, but I’m here for you.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Keep it simple.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“A pep talk doesn’t have to be something formal that you spend a ton of time and thought on,” Skaggs says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s perfectly OK to write the words, “Don’t give up!” on a sticky note and stick it on the desk of a colleague who’s trying to finish up a big project. Or send a text message saying, “You’re doing great!” to a mom friend who just gave birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when it comes to giving \u003cem>yourself\u003c/em> a pep talk, remember that “you don’t have to nail it right off the bat,” Skaggs says. “Give yourself the same amount of grace, encouragement and forgiveness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Need to say a few words of encouragement? The authors of the book \u003cem>Tiny Pep Talks\u003c/em> explain how to deliver a message that motivates and inspires — whether it's for a loved one or for yourself.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>There are times in life that call for you to give a good pep talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe your partner just lost their job. Maybe your kid has back-to-school jitters. Or maybe you’re at karaoke and nervous about your performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To spark courage and motivation, you’ll need to show your loved one — or yourself — that “you’re on their side, you’ve got their back and they can do this,” says writer and comedian \u003ca href=\"https://joshlinden.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Josh Linden\u003c/a>, co-author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/756684/tiny-pep-talks-by-paula-skaggs-and-josh-linden/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Tiny Pep Talks: Bite-Size Encouragement for Life’s Annoying, Stressful, and Flat-Out Lousy Moments\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some people, that might feel too hard or too high stakes. What if you say the wrong thing? How do you get someone to \u003cem>actually\u003c/em> change their outlook?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Linden and comedian, writer and co-author \u003ca href=\"https://www.paulakskaggs.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paula Skaggs\u003c/a> share their ingredients for a great pep talk. Use them to devise your own words of inspiration for life’s bigger moments — and smaller ones too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Be specific. What does your loved one really need at the moment?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Your sister is about to walk down the aisle. She’s nervous. Instead of saying something vague and cliché — like, “You can do this!” — pause and figure out what’s really going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make sure you’re listening to what they need and tailoring the pep talk to the specific anxiety they have,” Linden says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s say she’s feeling shy about saying her vows in front of everyone. So you might say: \u003cem>Hey, I’ve read your vows, and they are so beautiful. The groom is going to love them, and I know they’ll move everyone in the crowd too. Do you want to practice them one more time before you walk down the aisle? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Don’t save your pep talks for the big stuff.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>People often have more support and encouragement for life’s bigger challenges, like running a marathon or starting therapy, than they do for the smaller ones, Skaggs says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So be a cheerleader for your loved ones in those everyday moments, she says. If your friend mentions they’re giving a presentation at work next week and are feeling excited but also a little anxious, send them a morale-boosting text message that week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might write: \u003cem>You’re going to be great at your presentation. You’re such a great public speaker, and you’ve been rocking it at your job lately. Sending good vibes your way!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Little pep talks like these show that you care, and they can be just as meaningful as giving a pep talk on a larger issue, Skaggs says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A pep talk doesn’t have to include advice.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Let’s say your friend calls and tells you that their partner has just broken up with them. They are crying and very upset. What should you say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assess the situation. If it’s clear they’re not looking for solutions, your pep talk might take the form of “encouragement and bearing witness to the challenges they’re going through,” Linden says. You might try \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974786825/want-to-listen-better-turn-down-your-thoughts-and-tune-in-to-others\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">being an active listener\u003c/a> and doing some \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1196978605/life-kit-all-guides-feed-draft-02-06-2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">grounding exercises\u003c/a> together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Don’t feel the need to say “something revolutionary that the person has never heard of before,” Skaggs says. Sometimes, it can be comforting to just “remind them of the thing they already know to be true.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might say: \u003cem>I know that what you are going through is really hard and it hurts a lot right now, but I’m here for you.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Keep it simple.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“A pep talk doesn’t have to be something formal that you spend a ton of time and thought on,” Skaggs says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s perfectly OK to write the words, “Don’t give up!” on a sticky note and stick it on the desk of a colleague who’s trying to finish up a big project. Or send a text message saying, “You’re doing great!” to a mom friend who just gave birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when it comes to giving \u003cem>yourself\u003c/em> a pep talk, remember that “you don’t have to nail it right off the bat,” Skaggs says. “Give yourself the same amount of grace, encouragement and forgiveness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>(Note: This is the second piece in a two-part series on absenteeism in schools. Read the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-7-insights-chronic-absenteeism/\">\u003cem>first part\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, on seven insights from researchers.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chronic absenteeism, when students miss 10 percent or more of the school year, is 50 percent higher across the nation than before the pandemic. Researchers say it’s difficult for schools to address the problem because it is both so intense, with students missing huge chunks of the school year, and so extensive, affecting both rich and poor students and even high achievers. And the reasons vary widely, from asthma and bullying to transportation problems and the feeling that school is boring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard to know where and when to target resources,” said Sam Hollon, a data analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, which hosted a symposium on the problem in May. “Who do you help when every student potentially can be a candidate for help?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/they-crossed-the-border-for-better-schools-now-some-families-are-leaving-the-us/\">immigration enforcement\u003c/a> is exacerbating the problem. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ai25-1202.pdf\">June draft paper\u003c/a> by Stanford University professor Thomas Dee calculated that recent raids coincided with a 22 percent increase in daily student absences with particularly large increases in absenteeism among the youngest students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Talking about the problem isn’t enough. Researchers say they want to study more schools that are making headway. It remains unclear if there are broadly applicable fixes or if each school or even each student needs individual solutions. Some underlying root causes for skipping school are more complex than others, requiring psychotherapy or housing assistance, which schools can’t provide. Here are a few examples of how very different communities are tackling the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Providence: Bus stops and weekend food bags\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Principal W. Jackson Reilly of Nathanael Greene Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, said that when he arrived in April 2023, half of his 900 students in grades six to eight were chronically absent, up from 30 percent of students before the pandemic. Thirty percent of his teachers were also chronically absent. Achievement scores were in the state’s bottom 1 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reilly managed to slash his chronic absenteeism rate in half to 25 percent this past 2024-25 year. That’s still high. One in four students missed more than 18 days of school a year. But, it’s better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He began by identifying 150 kids who were just over the threshold for chronic absenteeism, those who missed between 18 and 35 days, hoping that these kids would be easier to lure back to school than those who were more disengaged. Reilly and a group of administrators and guidance counselors each took 10 to 15 students and showed their families how much school they had missed and how low their grades were. His team asked, “What do you need in order for your kid to be coming to school?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two most common replies: transportation and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many students lived only a mile away, too close to school to qualify for bus service. Yet the walk deterred many, especially if it was raining or snowing. Yellow buses often passed these children’s homes as they were transporting children who lived farther out, and Reilly convinced the district to add stops for these chronically absent children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ninety percent of his students come from families who are poor enough to qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program and 80 percent are Hispanic. Although many children were fed breakfast and lunch at school, their families admitted that their kids would get so hungry over the weekend that they didn’t want to wake up and come to school on Mondays. Reilly partnered with a food pantry and sent bags of meat and pasta home with students on Fridays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual attention also helped. At the start of each school day, Reilly and his team check in with their assigned students. Kids who show up get five “green bucks” to spend on snacks and prizes. Administrators call the homes of those who didn’t come to school. “If they did not answer the phone, we’d make a home visit,” said Reilly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most dramatic overhaul was scheduling. Reilly scrapped individual schedules for students and assigned four teachers to every 104 students. The kids now move in pods of 26 that take all their classes together, rotating through the same four teachers throughout the day. The classrooms are right near each other, creating a smaller community within the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s all about relationship building,” said Reilly. When students look forward to seeing their classmates and teachers, he said, they’re more motivated to come to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers say fostering relationships is effective. Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit organization that advises schools on how to boost attendance rates, said it’s still a battle to persuade school leaders (and school board members) that making school a more welcoming place is more productive than punishing kids and families for skipping school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reilly said his school now posts the lowest student and teacher chronic absenteeism rates in Providence. And he said his school is the highest performing middle school in the city and among the highest statewide in reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>New York City: Catching the butterflies\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A cluster of New York City high schools are taking a more data-driven approach, guided by New Visions, a consulting organization that supports 71 city high schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After some experimentation, New Visions staff saw strong improvement in attendance in one subgroup of students who were on the cusp of missing 10 percent of school days, but had not yet crossed the chronic absenteeism threshold. These are students who might miss a day or two every week or every other week but were relatively engaged at school. Jonathan Green, a New Visions school improvement coach who is spearheading this effort, calls them “butterflies.” “They would flutter in and out every week,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green suggested that someone at school meet weekly with these butterflies and show them their attendance data, set goals for the coming week and explain how their attendance was leading to better grades. The intervention took two to five minutes. “There were marked changes in attendance,” said Green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Visions built a website where school administrators could print out two-page documents for each student so the data, including monthly attendance and tardiness, appeared in an easy-to-digest format. The quick meetings took place for eight to 10 weeks during the final grading period for the semester. “That’s when there’s the most opportunity to turn those potentially failing grades into passing grades,” said Green. “We were finding these sweet spots within the school calendar to do this very high resource, high-energy intensive weekly check-in. It’s not something that anyone can easily scale across a school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff had to figure out the bell schedule for each child and intercept them between classes. One succeeded in holding their entire caseload of students below the chronic absenteeism threshold. Not everyone thought it was a good idea: Some school administrators questioned why so much effort should go into students who weren’t yet chronically absent rather than students in greater trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dramatic results help answer that question. Among schools in the Bronx that volunteered to participate in the butterfly intervention, chronic absenteeism rates dropped 15 percentage points from 47 percent in 2021 to 32 percent in 2025, still high. But other Bronx high schools in the New Visions network that didn’t try this butterfly intervention still had a chronic absenteeism rate of 46 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green said this solution wouldn’t work for other high schoolers. Some have trouble organizing their study time, he said, and need more intensive help from teachers. “Two- to five-minute check-ins aren’t going to help them,” said Green.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Indianapolis: Biscuits and gravy\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The leader of an Indiana charter school told me he used a system of rewards and punishments that reduced the chronic absenteeism rate among his kindergarten through eighth graders from 64 percent in 2021-22 to 10 percent in 2024-25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan Habayeb, the chief operating officer of Adelante Schools, said he used federal funds for the school breakfast and lunch program to create a \u003ca href=\"https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2023/12/29/patachou-for-school-lunch-heres-what-these-students-get-to-eat/71758197007/\">made-from-scratch restaurant-style cafeteria\u003c/a>. “Fun fact: On homemade biscuit and gravy days, we saw the lowest rates of tardies,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers recommend avoiding punishment because it doesn’t bring students back to school. But Habayeb said he adheres strictly to state law that requires schools to report 10 absences to the state Department of Child Services and to file a report with the county prosecutor. Habayeb told me his school accounted for a fifth of truancy referrals to the county prosecutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school created an automated warning system after five absences rather than waiting for the critical 10-day loss. And Habayeb said he dispatched the safety and attendance officer in a van to have “real conversations with families rather than being buried in paperwork.” Meanwhile, students who did show up received a constant stream of rewards, from locker decorations to T-shirts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parent education was also important. During mandatory family orientations, the school illustrated how regular attendance matters for even young children. “We shared what a child might miss during a three-day stretch in a unit on ‘Charlotte’s Web’ — showing how easily a student could leave with a completely different understanding of the book,” said Habayeb. “This helped shift perspectives and brought urgency to the issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Kansas City: Candy and notes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>School leaders in Kansas City, Kansas, shared some tips that have worked for them during a webinar earlier this month hosted by Attendance Works. One elementary school reduced its chronic absenteeism from 55 percent in 2021 to 38 percent in 2024 by assigning all 300 students to an adult in the building, encouraging them to build an “authentic” relationship. Teachers were given a list of ideas but were free to do what seemed natural. One teacher left candy and notes on their assigned students’ desks. A preschooler proudly pasted his note, which said he was a “genius,” on the front door of his house. “The smiles kids have on their faces are amazing,” said Zaneta Boles, the principal of Silver City Elementary School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students do miss school, Boles said educators try to take a “non-blaming approach” so that families are more likely to divulge what is going on. That helps the school refer them to other community agencies for assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Albuquerque: A shining example regroups \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Alamosa Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was once a shining example of a school that persuaded more families to send their kids to class. Chronic absenteeism fell as low as 1 in 4 students in 2018, when \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/students-cant-learn-dont-show-school/\">The Hechinger Report wrote about the school\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Alamosa has not been immune from the surge of absenteeism that has plagued schools around the nation. Chronic absenteeism spiked to 64 percent of students during the 2021-22 school year, when Covid variants were still circulating. And it remained shockingly high with 38 percent of students missing more than 10 percent of the 2024-25 school year — exactly matching the 50 percent increase in chronic absenteeism across the country since 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were on a roll. Then life happened,” said Daphne Strader, Albuquerque Public Schools’ director of coordinated school health, who works to reduce absenteeism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Strader said Alamosa and other Albuquerque schools have made some successful changes to how they’re tackling the problem. But the volume of absenteeism remains overwhelming. “There’s so many kids who have needs,” Starder said. “We need more staff on board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Strader said attendance interventions had been “too siloed” and they’re focusing more on the “whole child.” She’s encouraging schools to integrate attendance efforts with other initiatives to boost academic achievement and improve student behavior. “Students are hungry, they’re dysregulated, they don’t have grit,” said Strader, and all of these issues are contributing to absenteeism. But she also concedes that some students have more severe needs, and it’s unclear who in the system can address them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her biggest advice for schools is to focus on relationships. “Relationships drive everything,” said Strader. “One of the major consequences of the pandemic was the isolation. If I feel a sense of belonging, I’m more likely to come to school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-schools-tackle-absenteeism/\"> \u003cem>how schools are tackling absenteeism\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\"> \u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>(Note: This is the second piece in a two-part series on absenteeism in schools. Read the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-7-insights-chronic-absenteeism/\">\u003cem>first part\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, on seven insights from researchers.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chronic absenteeism, when students miss 10 percent or more of the school year, is 50 percent higher across the nation than before the pandemic. Researchers say it’s difficult for schools to address the problem because it is both so intense, with students missing huge chunks of the school year, and so extensive, affecting both rich and poor students and even high achievers. And the reasons vary widely, from asthma and bullying to transportation problems and the feeling that school is boring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard to know where and when to target resources,” said Sam Hollon, a data analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, which hosted a symposium on the problem in May. “Who do you help when every student potentially can be a candidate for help?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/they-crossed-the-border-for-better-schools-now-some-families-are-leaving-the-us/\">immigration enforcement\u003c/a> is exacerbating the problem. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ai25-1202.pdf\">June draft paper\u003c/a> by Stanford University professor Thomas Dee calculated that recent raids coincided with a 22 percent increase in daily student absences with particularly large increases in absenteeism among the youngest students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Talking about the problem isn’t enough. Researchers say they want to study more schools that are making headway. It remains unclear if there are broadly applicable fixes or if each school or even each student needs individual solutions. Some underlying root causes for skipping school are more complex than others, requiring psychotherapy or housing assistance, which schools can’t provide. Here are a few examples of how very different communities are tackling the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Providence: Bus stops and weekend food bags\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Principal W. Jackson Reilly of Nathanael Greene Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, said that when he arrived in April 2023, half of his 900 students in grades six to eight were chronically absent, up from 30 percent of students before the pandemic. Thirty percent of his teachers were also chronically absent. Achievement scores were in the state’s bottom 1 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reilly managed to slash his chronic absenteeism rate in half to 25 percent this past 2024-25 year. That’s still high. One in four students missed more than 18 days of school a year. But, it’s better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He began by identifying 150 kids who were just over the threshold for chronic absenteeism, those who missed between 18 and 35 days, hoping that these kids would be easier to lure back to school than those who were more disengaged. Reilly and a group of administrators and guidance counselors each took 10 to 15 students and showed their families how much school they had missed and how low their grades were. His team asked, “What do you need in order for your kid to be coming to school?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two most common replies: transportation and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many students lived only a mile away, too close to school to qualify for bus service. Yet the walk deterred many, especially if it was raining or snowing. Yellow buses often passed these children’s homes as they were transporting children who lived farther out, and Reilly convinced the district to add stops for these chronically absent children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ninety percent of his students come from families who are poor enough to qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program and 80 percent are Hispanic. Although many children were fed breakfast and lunch at school, their families admitted that their kids would get so hungry over the weekend that they didn’t want to wake up and come to school on Mondays. Reilly partnered with a food pantry and sent bags of meat and pasta home with students on Fridays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual attention also helped. At the start of each school day, Reilly and his team check in with their assigned students. Kids who show up get five “green bucks” to spend on snacks and prizes. Administrators call the homes of those who didn’t come to school. “If they did not answer the phone, we’d make a home visit,” said Reilly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most dramatic overhaul was scheduling. Reilly scrapped individual schedules for students and assigned four teachers to every 104 students. The kids now move in pods of 26 that take all their classes together, rotating through the same four teachers throughout the day. The classrooms are right near each other, creating a smaller community within the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s all about relationship building,” said Reilly. When students look forward to seeing their classmates and teachers, he said, they’re more motivated to come to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers say fostering relationships is effective. Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit organization that advises schools on how to boost attendance rates, said it’s still a battle to persuade school leaders (and school board members) that making school a more welcoming place is more productive than punishing kids and families for skipping school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reilly said his school now posts the lowest student and teacher chronic absenteeism rates in Providence. And he said his school is the highest performing middle school in the city and among the highest statewide in reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>New York City: Catching the butterflies\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A cluster of New York City high schools are taking a more data-driven approach, guided by New Visions, a consulting organization that supports 71 city high schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After some experimentation, New Visions staff saw strong improvement in attendance in one subgroup of students who were on the cusp of missing 10 percent of school days, but had not yet crossed the chronic absenteeism threshold. These are students who might miss a day or two every week or every other week but were relatively engaged at school. Jonathan Green, a New Visions school improvement coach who is spearheading this effort, calls them “butterflies.” “They would flutter in and out every week,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green suggested that someone at school meet weekly with these butterflies and show them their attendance data, set goals for the coming week and explain how their attendance was leading to better grades. The intervention took two to five minutes. “There were marked changes in attendance,” said Green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Visions built a website where school administrators could print out two-page documents for each student so the data, including monthly attendance and tardiness, appeared in an easy-to-digest format. The quick meetings took place for eight to 10 weeks during the final grading period for the semester. “That’s when there’s the most opportunity to turn those potentially failing grades into passing grades,” said Green. “We were finding these sweet spots within the school calendar to do this very high resource, high-energy intensive weekly check-in. It’s not something that anyone can easily scale across a school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff had to figure out the bell schedule for each child and intercept them between classes. One succeeded in holding their entire caseload of students below the chronic absenteeism threshold. Not everyone thought it was a good idea: Some school administrators questioned why so much effort should go into students who weren’t yet chronically absent rather than students in greater trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dramatic results help answer that question. Among schools in the Bronx that volunteered to participate in the butterfly intervention, chronic absenteeism rates dropped 15 percentage points from 47 percent in 2021 to 32 percent in 2025, still high. But other Bronx high schools in the New Visions network that didn’t try this butterfly intervention still had a chronic absenteeism rate of 46 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green said this solution wouldn’t work for other high schoolers. Some have trouble organizing their study time, he said, and need more intensive help from teachers. “Two- to five-minute check-ins aren’t going to help them,” said Green.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Indianapolis: Biscuits and gravy\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The leader of an Indiana charter school told me he used a system of rewards and punishments that reduced the chronic absenteeism rate among his kindergarten through eighth graders from 64 percent in 2021-22 to 10 percent in 2024-25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan Habayeb, the chief operating officer of Adelante Schools, said he used federal funds for the school breakfast and lunch program to create a \u003ca href=\"https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2023/12/29/patachou-for-school-lunch-heres-what-these-students-get-to-eat/71758197007/\">made-from-scratch restaurant-style cafeteria\u003c/a>. “Fun fact: On homemade biscuit and gravy days, we saw the lowest rates of tardies,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers recommend avoiding punishment because it doesn’t bring students back to school. But Habayeb said he adheres strictly to state law that requires schools to report 10 absences to the state Department of Child Services and to file a report with the county prosecutor. Habayeb told me his school accounted for a fifth of truancy referrals to the county prosecutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school created an automated warning system after five absences rather than waiting for the critical 10-day loss. And Habayeb said he dispatched the safety and attendance officer in a van to have “real conversations with families rather than being buried in paperwork.” Meanwhile, students who did show up received a constant stream of rewards, from locker decorations to T-shirts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parent education was also important. During mandatory family orientations, the school illustrated how regular attendance matters for even young children. “We shared what a child might miss during a three-day stretch in a unit on ‘Charlotte’s Web’ — showing how easily a student could leave with a completely different understanding of the book,” said Habayeb. “This helped shift perspectives and brought urgency to the issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Kansas City: Candy and notes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>School leaders in Kansas City, Kansas, shared some tips that have worked for them during a webinar earlier this month hosted by Attendance Works. One elementary school reduced its chronic absenteeism from 55 percent in 2021 to 38 percent in 2024 by assigning all 300 students to an adult in the building, encouraging them to build an “authentic” relationship. Teachers were given a list of ideas but were free to do what seemed natural. One teacher left candy and notes on their assigned students’ desks. A preschooler proudly pasted his note, which said he was a “genius,” on the front door of his house. “The smiles kids have on their faces are amazing,” said Zaneta Boles, the principal of Silver City Elementary School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students do miss school, Boles said educators try to take a “non-blaming approach” so that families are more likely to divulge what is going on. That helps the school refer them to other community agencies for assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Albuquerque: A shining example regroups \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Alamosa Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was once a shining example of a school that persuaded more families to send their kids to class. Chronic absenteeism fell as low as 1 in 4 students in 2018, when \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/students-cant-learn-dont-show-school/\">The Hechinger Report wrote about the school\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Alamosa has not been immune from the surge of absenteeism that has plagued schools around the nation. Chronic absenteeism spiked to 64 percent of students during the 2021-22 school year, when Covid variants were still circulating. And it remained shockingly high with 38 percent of students missing more than 10 percent of the 2024-25 school year — exactly matching the 50 percent increase in chronic absenteeism across the country since 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were on a roll. Then life happened,” said Daphne Strader, Albuquerque Public Schools’ director of coordinated school health, who works to reduce absenteeism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Strader said Alamosa and other Albuquerque schools have made some successful changes to how they’re tackling the problem. But the volume of absenteeism remains overwhelming. “There’s so many kids who have needs,” Starder said. “We need more staff on board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Strader said attendance interventions had been “too siloed” and they’re focusing more on the “whole child.” She’s encouraging schools to integrate attendance efforts with other initiatives to boost academic achievement and improve student behavior. “Students are hungry, they’re dysregulated, they don’t have grit,” said Strader, and all of these issues are contributing to absenteeism. But she also concedes that some students have more severe needs, and it’s unclear who in the system can address them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her biggest advice for schools is to focus on relationships. “Relationships drive everything,” said Strader. “One of the major consequences of the pandemic was the isolation. If I feel a sense of belonging, I’m more likely to come to school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-schools-tackle-absenteeism/\"> \u003cem>how schools are tackling absenteeism\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\"> \u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It can be tough to maintain our relationships with old friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We move cross-country. We have kids. Or maybe one person is better at staying in touch than the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the challenges, Nina Badzin, host of the podcast \u003ca href=\"https://ninabadzin.com/podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, argues we should fight to keep old friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important to have friends who have known you through different stages. It’s a good life skill for happiness,” says Badzin, who has hosted nearly 150 episodes on adult friendships, on topics ranging from defining close friends to dealing with rejection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The key is to focus less on them and more on you. “Don’t keep score,” she says. “And learn to develop a benefit of the doubt. Assume the best of your friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Badzin talked to Life Kit about how to cultivate a mindset that can help you nurture old friendships — and the art of staying in touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How would you define an old friend?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I think a lot of us [define old friends as the ones we made in] childhood, or somebody we were friends with in college who we’re still friends with now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having been in the trenches together also makes us feel like old friends. It could be a job where you together had a difficult boss, and you’re still friends 10 years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F01%2F74%2Fb24930184b528eb4353c334b2d14%2Flk-bista-old-friends-14.jpg\" alt=\"'It's important to have friends who have known you through different stages,' says Nina Badzin, host of the podcast Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. 'It's a good life skill for happiness to be able to maintain friendships.'\">\u003cfigcaption>“It’s important to have friends who have known you through different stages,” says Nina Badzin, host of the podcast \u003cem>Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship\u003c/em>. “It’s a good life skill for happiness to be able to maintain friendships.” \u003ccite> (Photo illustration by Tsering Bista/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Why do some friendships survive for decades and others fade away?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The thing that gets in the way of old friendships is a perceived lack of equality and effort. It’s hard not to expect other people to do friendship exactly the way we do or the way it was always done.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Is there value in telling a friend, “I would really like to be loved or cared for this way.” \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Yes, absolutely. For example, you could say, “I love the time we spend together and I don’t mind that I make a lot of the plans, because it’s important to me to see my friends. But I would like to know if you really want these invitations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That said, I don’t think you should bring up every friend’s aggravation. It goes back to assuming the best and knowing that people do friendship differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s talk more about assuming the best intentions.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There is a quote I love by a former guest of mine, Ruchi Koval, a relationship coach. She said there are people who never disappoint us, and those people are called acquaintances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An old friend especially is going to have disappointed us at some time, and we will have disappointed that person. So any long-standing friendship needs to have forgiveness in it. And forgiveness requires humility to assume the best.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What does it mean if someone doesn’t have any old friends?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you haven’t been able to maintain friendships, it’s probably a sign that something is off in your mindset about friendships. Maybe you have unreasonable expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t say this to make people feel terrible. I say it with optimism. This is something you can change. You can have friends in your life now who you make an effort with so that 10 years from now you can consider that person an old friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>If you only see or talk to an old, out-of-town friend once a year or once every five years, are you still friends? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Yes, but I would not let five or 10 years go by [without talking to them] if you can help it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important. If all you can manage right now is a FaceTime with your long-distance friends, I would do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Sometimes those can feel like work. \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It is a lot like exercise. Very few people regret having gone on a walk. Yes, we would love to just sit and watch TV, but once you’ve gone on that walk, most people come back and they’re like, “OK, I’m glad I did that.” A phone call with a friend is a lot like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F52%2F90%2F13ef1e5c4c518f2e87a2a135f1d7%2Flk-bista-old-friends-20.jpg\" alt=\"'Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important,' says Badzin. 'If all you can manage right now is a FaceTime with your long-distance friends, I would do that.'\">\u003cfigcaption>“Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important,” says Badzin. “If all you can manage right now is a FaceTime with your long-distance friends, I would do that.” \u003ccite> (Photo illustration by Tsering Bista/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How important is in-person connection to old friendships?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you’ve been talking on the phone and texting with an old long-distance friend for a decade, you would want to get on a plane at some point and see that person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we’re talking about in-town friends, it’s important to get together in person. I love getting together with people in someone’s house much more than a restaurant. It’s so loud. You can only talk to the person right next to you. And after 20 or 30 minutes, you’re caught up and you kind of see your friend on the other side of the table and wonder what she’s up to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re at someone’s house, you can move around. It’s more natural to talk to one person — then after a little bit, talk to another person. People love being invited over.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How can we give our friends the grace and the space to change?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Most of us want to be able to develop and change our mind about things. There’s not a lot of hope in the world if we have to keep the same opinions and interests we had from the time when we were in our 20s or 30s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Give your friends space to try different ways of living. Nobody likes to [be around] someone who says, for example, “I thought you said you would never be one of those people who does CrossFit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is one of the biggest gifts you can give to a friend. If we could give others as much space as we give ourselves, it would go a long way.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>It sounds like it’s important to fight for your friendships.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>All you can do is control how much effort you put in and then assume the best of the people who are important to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The digital story was edited by Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It can be tough to maintain our relationships with old friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We move cross-country. We have kids. Or maybe one person is better at staying in touch than the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the challenges, Nina Badzin, host of the podcast \u003ca href=\"https://ninabadzin.com/podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, argues we should fight to keep old friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important to have friends who have known you through different stages. It’s a good life skill for happiness,” says Badzin, who has hosted nearly 150 episodes on adult friendships, on topics ranging from defining close friends to dealing with rejection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The key is to focus less on them and more on you. “Don’t keep score,” she says. “And learn to develop a benefit of the doubt. Assume the best of your friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Badzin talked to Life Kit about how to cultivate a mindset that can help you nurture old friendships — and the art of staying in touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How would you define an old friend?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I think a lot of us [define old friends as the ones we made in] childhood, or somebody we were friends with in college who we’re still friends with now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having been in the trenches together also makes us feel like old friends. It could be a job where you together had a difficult boss, and you’re still friends 10 years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F01%2F74%2Fb24930184b528eb4353c334b2d14%2Flk-bista-old-friends-14.jpg\" alt=\"'It's important to have friends who have known you through different stages,' says Nina Badzin, host of the podcast Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. 'It's a good life skill for happiness to be able to maintain friendships.'\">\u003cfigcaption>“It’s important to have friends who have known you through different stages,” says Nina Badzin, host of the podcast \u003cem>Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship\u003c/em>. “It’s a good life skill for happiness to be able to maintain friendships.” \u003ccite> (Photo illustration by Tsering Bista/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Why do some friendships survive for decades and others fade away?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The thing that gets in the way of old friendships is a perceived lack of equality and effort. It’s hard not to expect other people to do friendship exactly the way we do or the way it was always done.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Is there value in telling a friend, “I would really like to be loved or cared for this way.” \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Yes, absolutely. For example, you could say, “I love the time we spend together and I don’t mind that I make a lot of the plans, because it’s important to me to see my friends. But I would like to know if you really want these invitations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That said, I don’t think you should bring up every friend’s aggravation. It goes back to assuming the best and knowing that people do friendship differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s talk more about assuming the best intentions.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There is a quote I love by a former guest of mine, Ruchi Koval, a relationship coach. She said there are people who never disappoint us, and those people are called acquaintances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An old friend especially is going to have disappointed us at some time, and we will have disappointed that person. So any long-standing friendship needs to have forgiveness in it. And forgiveness requires humility to assume the best.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What does it mean if someone doesn’t have any old friends?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you haven’t been able to maintain friendships, it’s probably a sign that something is off in your mindset about friendships. Maybe you have unreasonable expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t say this to make people feel terrible. I say it with optimism. This is something you can change. You can have friends in your life now who you make an effort with so that 10 years from now you can consider that person an old friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>If you only see or talk to an old, out-of-town friend once a year or once every five years, are you still friends? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Yes, but I would not let five or 10 years go by [without talking to them] if you can help it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important. If all you can manage right now is a FaceTime with your long-distance friends, I would do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Sometimes those can feel like work. \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It is a lot like exercise. Very few people regret having gone on a walk. Yes, we would love to just sit and watch TV, but once you’ve gone on that walk, most people come back and they’re like, “OK, I’m glad I did that.” A phone call with a friend is a lot like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F52%2F90%2F13ef1e5c4c518f2e87a2a135f1d7%2Flk-bista-old-friends-20.jpg\" alt=\"'Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important,' says Badzin. 'If all you can manage right now is a FaceTime with your long-distance friends, I would do that.'\">\u003cfigcaption>“Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important,” says Badzin. “If all you can manage right now is a FaceTime with your long-distance friends, I would do that.” \u003ccite> (Photo illustration by Tsering Bista/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How important is in-person connection to old friendships?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you’ve been talking on the phone and texting with an old long-distance friend for a decade, you would want to get on a plane at some point and see that person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we’re talking about in-town friends, it’s important to get together in person. I love getting together with people in someone’s house much more than a restaurant. It’s so loud. You can only talk to the person right next to you. And after 20 or 30 minutes, you’re caught up and you kind of see your friend on the other side of the table and wonder what she’s up to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re at someone’s house, you can move around. It’s more natural to talk to one person — then after a little bit, talk to another person. People love being invited over.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How can we give our friends the grace and the space to change?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Most of us want to be able to develop and change our mind about things. There’s not a lot of hope in the world if we have to keep the same opinions and interests we had from the time when we were in our 20s or 30s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Give your friends space to try different ways of living. Nobody likes to [be around] someone who says, for example, “I thought you said you would never be one of those people who does CrossFit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is one of the biggest gifts you can give to a friend. If we could give others as much space as we give ourselves, it would go a long way.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>It sounds like it’s important to fight for your friendships.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>All you can do is control how much effort you put in and then assume the best of the people who are important to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The digital story was edited by Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For many teachers, building relationships is a priority in the classroom – they put in time and effort to incorporate strategies\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\"> into lesson plans\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63861/how-to-build-mutually-respectful-relationships-with-students-from-day-1\"> daily routines\u003c/a> to forge bonds with their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what happens when there’s a breakdown in communication or a relationship degrades over time due to conflict or disagreements?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Developing a relationship is one skill; repairing that relationship when it becomes fractured is another, according to author and high school history teacher Dave Stuart. He says teachers will inevitably need to fix a relationship with a student, and developing the skills to do that is essential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think enough teachers understand that you will, unintentionally, despite your best efforts, cause relational damage,” he said. “The reality is that you’re going to cause offense, even if you don’t mean to, and so … you gotta get good at trying to identify when that happens and do something about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stuart wrote the book “\u003ca href=\"https://davestuartjr.com/wtl/\">The Will to Learn: How to Cultivate Student Motivation Without Losing Your Own\u003c/a>,” which delves into ways of instilling self-motivation in students. At the root of that motivation is having good relationships in the classroom. Since learning is hard enough, he wants to remove relational friction from that equation, likening relationship repair to weeding in the garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know weeds are going to grow in a garden, so you just need to be aware of that if you want to have a good garden, and regularly scan for weeds and pull them out where they exist,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Repair comes down to three simple steps.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Be aware of when repair is necessary\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When a student’s affect changes, it can often be the first sign of a fractured relationship, according to Stuart. Some examples are if a student who was typically outgoing with you has become more withdrawn, or a student who often greeted you at the start of class no longer does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers must be aware of and notice changes in their student’s demeanor or emotional state.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Address it directly and talk to the student\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next step is to address the potential conflict by talking to the student directly, according to Stuart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The student can be pulled aside briefly in the hallway or during independent work, he suggests. The teacher can point out the change in the student and ask, “Is there anything going on that I should be aware of?” and “Have I done anything that resulted in this change?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acknowledging there might be an issue can help in repairing the relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just bringing this up is … the lion’s share of working towards repair,” said Stuart. “I find that in many cases, addressing the change and asking if I’ve done anything will help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Take accountability and talk about what you can do better next time\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The third step is for teachers to acknowledge if they have done something to cause the damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Teachers, we’re not perfect,” Stuart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be self-aware and reflect on whether something was said too harshly or said in a way that caused embarrassment. According to Stuart, it sounds like, “Yesterday, I corrected that task behavior I saw you doing, but I just don’t feel good about the way I did that, and I want to say that I’m sorry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stuart says these three steps require minimal work and can result in a more enjoyable learning environment for both the teacher and the student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m never trying to be … best friends or be the best teacher ever to my students, but I’m just trying to facilitate an enjoyable, productive experience,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okwl3ZoTKUk\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Establish-Maintain-Restore\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://characterstrong.com/clay-cook/\">Clay Cook\u003c/a> says most educators believe in the power of relationships, but traditionally, schools don’t have a common language or dedicated practices for cultivating those connections intentionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This led Cook to design a school-based support called “establish-maintain-restore” (EMR), a framework and practice educators can adopt and implement in the classroom. Cook is the chief development officer with Character Strong, an organization training teachers in EMR, which promotes healthy relationships through establishing connections, maintaining those connections and restoring the connection if there’s been damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Science indicates that any relationship — whether it’s a couple, one with an employer, or a teacher and their students — often gets worse over time, especially when the parties involved are not working to maintain that relationship, said Cook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Misunderstanding, conflict, disagreements … those things can harm a relationship,” said Cook. “And because of that, there’s a need to be intentional on the back end to be able to fix and repair that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Cook, the EMR method encourages teachers to engage in intentional relationship reflection. Teachers fill out reflection forms to determine which students are in “establish,” meaning the relationship still needs to be formed. Students in “maintain” means a relationship exists but needs to be fostered. And those in “restore” means the teacher needs to repair relationships with those students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook says these four skillful communication techniques can help during the repair conversation:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Letting Go\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Young people often think adults hold grudges after doing something and that those things are held against them, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And when you look, a lot of adults \u003cem>do\u003c/em> hold on to what students have said or done in their environment, and they aren’t letting it go,” said Cook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the letting go conversation needs to be authentic and genuine for the student to believe what you are saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Taking ownership\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Young people respond well when adults take ownership, said Cook. Teachers who admit their part in causing the conflict or disagreement show that “they’re not in a soapbox, that it takes two people for any interaction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said it’s not about taking sole blame or placing blame on one person versus another.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Win-win\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cook said it’s also important to collaborate on how to improve the relationship during repair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re… going to say, ‘Hey, whatever happened, it didn’t work for either side. I think we can put our brains together and come up with a way in which we don’t repeat [this conflict] in the future,'” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This way, the student can share their feelings and ideas on how to move forward and be part of the solution. Teachers can also follow up with their perspectives and offer solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Separating the deed from the doer\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cook says many young people think that adults don’t care for them or define who they are by their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In separating “the deed” from “the doer,” the teacher is letting the students know that they have intrinsic value and redeemable qualities and that their behavior does not define who they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to still hold students accountable for the behavior, but we don’t want the student to lose sight of … who they are,” Cook said. He added, in education, it’s not just about forging bonds with one another, but also about the \u003cem>quality\u003c/em> of those connections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think educators who work towards identifying those concrete practices and then figuring out how … we fit them in based on the time we interface with students are going to see the [positive] outcomes,” said Cook.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For many teachers, building relationships is a priority in the classroom – they put in time and effort to incorporate strategies\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\"> into lesson plans\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63861/how-to-build-mutually-respectful-relationships-with-students-from-day-1\"> daily routines\u003c/a> to forge bonds with their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what happens when there’s a breakdown in communication or a relationship degrades over time due to conflict or disagreements?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Developing a relationship is one skill; repairing that relationship when it becomes fractured is another, according to author and high school history teacher Dave Stuart. He says teachers will inevitably need to fix a relationship with a student, and developing the skills to do that is essential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think enough teachers understand that you will, unintentionally, despite your best efforts, cause relational damage,” he said. “The reality is that you’re going to cause offense, even if you don’t mean to, and so … you gotta get good at trying to identify when that happens and do something about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stuart wrote the book “\u003ca href=\"https://davestuartjr.com/wtl/\">The Will to Learn: How to Cultivate Student Motivation Without Losing Your Own\u003c/a>,” which delves into ways of instilling self-motivation in students. At the root of that motivation is having good relationships in the classroom. Since learning is hard enough, he wants to remove relational friction from that equation, likening relationship repair to weeding in the garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know weeds are going to grow in a garden, so you just need to be aware of that if you want to have a good garden, and regularly scan for weeds and pull them out where they exist,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Repair comes down to three simple steps.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Be aware of when repair is necessary\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When a student’s affect changes, it can often be the first sign of a fractured relationship, according to Stuart. Some examples are if a student who was typically outgoing with you has become more withdrawn, or a student who often greeted you at the start of class no longer does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers must be aware of and notice changes in their student’s demeanor or emotional state.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Address it directly and talk to the student\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next step is to address the potential conflict by talking to the student directly, according to Stuart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The student can be pulled aside briefly in the hallway or during independent work, he suggests. The teacher can point out the change in the student and ask, “Is there anything going on that I should be aware of?” and “Have I done anything that resulted in this change?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acknowledging there might be an issue can help in repairing the relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just bringing this up is … the lion’s share of working towards repair,” said Stuart. “I find that in many cases, addressing the change and asking if I’ve done anything will help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Take accountability and talk about what you can do better next time\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The third step is for teachers to acknowledge if they have done something to cause the damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Teachers, we’re not perfect,” Stuart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be self-aware and reflect on whether something was said too harshly or said in a way that caused embarrassment. According to Stuart, it sounds like, “Yesterday, I corrected that task behavior I saw you doing, but I just don’t feel good about the way I did that, and I want to say that I’m sorry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stuart says these three steps require minimal work and can result in a more enjoyable learning environment for both the teacher and the student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m never trying to be … best friends or be the best teacher ever to my students, but I’m just trying to facilitate an enjoyable, productive experience,” he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/okwl3ZoTKUk'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/okwl3ZoTKUk'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>Establish-Maintain-Restore\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://characterstrong.com/clay-cook/\">Clay Cook\u003c/a> says most educators believe in the power of relationships, but traditionally, schools don’t have a common language or dedicated practices for cultivating those connections intentionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This led Cook to design a school-based support called “establish-maintain-restore” (EMR), a framework and practice educators can adopt and implement in the classroom. Cook is the chief development officer with Character Strong, an organization training teachers in EMR, which promotes healthy relationships through establishing connections, maintaining those connections and restoring the connection if there’s been damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Science indicates that any relationship — whether it’s a couple, one with an employer, or a teacher and their students — often gets worse over time, especially when the parties involved are not working to maintain that relationship, said Cook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Misunderstanding, conflict, disagreements … those things can harm a relationship,” said Cook. “And because of that, there’s a need to be intentional on the back end to be able to fix and repair that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Cook, the EMR method encourages teachers to engage in intentional relationship reflection. Teachers fill out reflection forms to determine which students are in “establish,” meaning the relationship still needs to be formed. Students in “maintain” means a relationship exists but needs to be fostered. And those in “restore” means the teacher needs to repair relationships with those students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook says these four skillful communication techniques can help during the repair conversation:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Letting Go\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Young people often think adults hold grudges after doing something and that those things are held against them, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And when you look, a lot of adults \u003cem>do\u003c/em> hold on to what students have said or done in their environment, and they aren’t letting it go,” said Cook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the letting go conversation needs to be authentic and genuine for the student to believe what you are saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Taking ownership\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Young people respond well when adults take ownership, said Cook. Teachers who admit their part in causing the conflict or disagreement show that “they’re not in a soapbox, that it takes two people for any interaction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said it’s not about taking sole blame or placing blame on one person versus another.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Win-win\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cook said it’s also important to collaborate on how to improve the relationship during repair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re… going to say, ‘Hey, whatever happened, it didn’t work for either side. I think we can put our brains together and come up with a way in which we don’t repeat [this conflict] in the future,'” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This way, the student can share their feelings and ideas on how to move forward and be part of the solution. Teachers can also follow up with their perspectives and offer solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Separating the deed from the doer\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cook says many young people think that adults don’t care for them or define who they are by their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In separating “the deed” from “the doer,” the teacher is letting the students know that they have intrinsic value and redeemable qualities and that their behavior does not define who they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to still hold students accountable for the behavior, but we don’t want the student to lose sight of … who they are,” Cook said. He added, in education, it’s not just about forging bonds with one another, but also about the \u003cem>quality\u003c/em> of those connections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“How many of you have been teachers?” \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://pll.harvard.edu/instructor/karen-l-mapp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Karen Mapp\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> asked an audience at the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://web.cvent.com/event/eebbe1af-9e83-42bd-a491-ee5652c090a3\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">2024 National Community Schools and Family Engagement Conference\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Nearly every hand went into the air. But then came her next question: “How many of you in your pre-service training to be a teacher or an educator had a full course on family engagement?” Only one hand went up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most educators do not have models for what good family engagement looks like, said Mapp, director of the Education Policy and Management master’s program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She defines family engagement as a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/sde/publications/fe_definition_and_guiding_principles_handout.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">full and equal partnership between schools, communities and students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Research shows that family engagement \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://education.jhu.edu/news/study-shows-home-visits-improved-school-attendance/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">benefits not only students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> but also \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/23/03/case-strong-family-and-community-engagement-schools\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">teachers and families\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “When we engage with each other, our deficit-based mindsets about each other disappear,” Mapp said. Most schools think that they are engaging families when they are just involving them, but Mapp said that involvement only requires one-way communication. “Your families are your students’ first teachers. We need to treat them with that respect,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mapp developed the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.dualcapacity.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dual Capacity-Building Framework\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which outlines how to support family engagement strategies, policies and programs, including building trust, being culturally responsive and fostering collaboration. At the community schools conference, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.rvaschools.net/leadership/leadership-team\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shadae Harris\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Chief Engagement Officer at Richmond Public Schools, shared how she successfully used this framework \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63951/3-strategies-for-encouraging-dads-involvement-in-schools\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to improve family engagement\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> around student attendance. After the COVID-19 pandemic, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63984/as-chronic-absenteeism-soars-in-schools-most-parents-arent-sure-what-it-is\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">chronic absenteeism\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> rates in Richmond averaged nearly \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.12onyourside.com/2023/11/22/rps-seeing-increased-attendance-engagement-among-students-this-year/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">40% – an all time high\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Using the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for guidance, Harris prioritized learning more about the district’s local history, building relationships with families based on mutual trust, and tracking metrics, such as home visits and phone calls. Harris said that when she moved from viewing “engagement as an add-on to something that was deeply rooted in teaching and learning” it led to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64107/how-postcards-to-parents-can-help-schools-get-kids-back-to-class\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">better attendance\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at most Richmond Public Schools. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The basic elements of this framework can be a roadmap for schools to improve family engagement and achieve goals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Honor history\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Dual Capacity-Building Framework \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dualcapacity.org/framework-in-depth/the-challenge\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">identifies obstacles\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that get in the way of authentic family engagement, including educators’ deficit mindsets and families’ negative past experiences with schools. Harris, originally from Boston, Massachusetts, saw these challenges playing out in her district. To address them, she spent time learning local history so she could better understand the community beyond its negative narratives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harris learned about \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://venturerichmond.com/live-downtown/historic-neighborhoods/jackson-ward/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jackson Ward\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a thriving Black neighborhood known as the “Harlem of the South.” This community was home to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/maggie-lena-walker\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maggie Walker\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the first Black female president to charter a bank. While Harris started with the “beauty and brilliance” of the people in Richmond, she also recognized the historical harms done to those communities. For example, a highway was built through Jackson Ward that broke up its thriving middle class Black community. She noted that the people affected are grandparents of the students currently in school and that it makes sense that families have lingering distrust in institutions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Learning local history isn’t about fixing past wrongs, Harris said. It’s about honoring history and acknowledging harm, which builds “community credibility” and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63920/building-parent-teacher-relationships-can-be-hard-positive-phone-calls-home-can-help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lays the groundwork for families to begin to trust schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"HARGSE4I2016-V000600\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/GAeovqwgfZ8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Prioritize relationships\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Practices that are \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dualcapacity.org/framework-in-depth/essential-conditions\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">culturally responsive, collaborative and built on mutual trust\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are key to strengthening family engagement, according to Mapp. Harris put this into practice by assigning family liaison staff members to become “experts” in the district’s neighborhoods. “Communities already have very intricate systems of communication,” Harris said, but schools aren’t always tapped into them. By leveraging existing community assets, Harris and her colleagues adopted a strength-based perspective in their engagement efforts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Harris hired family liaisons, she considered what structural barriers might prevent her from hiring people from the communities they would be serving. She found that the qualifications required for the roles, such as having a bachelor’s degree, were restrictive and deterred the candidates she wanted from applying. She revised the application so that it invited applicants to talk about their relationships and connections within the community. Additionally, she extended the position from an eight-month term to a year-round role. “The summer is pivotal, and I’m going to pay you for it,” Harris recalled saying. “You have to value the position.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With the family liaisons in place and trust built in the community, families felt more comfortable sharing their challenges. Harris discovered that thousands of parents were living in motels. While the \u003ca href=\"https://nche.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ehcy_profile.pdf\">Mckinney-Vento Act\u003c/a> is in place to support families experiencing homelessness, families living in motels were exempt from these services. Harris secured a grant to provide direct financial assistance to those parents. To date Harris and staff at Richmond Public Schools have helped to secure housing for 130 families. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Quantify outreach and tell the story\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Harris, measuring the district’s engagement was critical to track progress and make necessary adjustments. She designed an engagement dashboard to monitor key metrics, such as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51967/can-inviting-teachers-over-to-your-home-improve-how-kids-learn\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">home visits\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and successful phone calls. The dashboard also allowed staff to record important notes about who they reached and whether the phone call was productive or not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We were able to see these causal connections,” Harris explained. For example, 52% of students at Fairfield Court Elementary School were chronically absent in the years following the pandemic. After home visits, that number went down to 9%. According to Harris, increased learning time from students actually showing up to school is a powerful result of strong family engagement. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Over the past two years, we’ve increased almost 90,000 academic hours,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Richmond Public Schools’ story illustrates how the Dual Capacity-Building Framework helped one school district, but its application can and should vary according to community needs, according to Mapp. “You have to be intentional,” she said. “Family engagement is a strategy, not a goal.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“How many of you have been teachers?” \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://pll.harvard.edu/instructor/karen-l-mapp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Karen Mapp\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> asked an audience at the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://web.cvent.com/event/eebbe1af-9e83-42bd-a491-ee5652c090a3\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">2024 National Community Schools and Family Engagement Conference\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Nearly every hand went into the air. But then came her next question: “How many of you in your pre-service training to be a teacher or an educator had a full course on family engagement?” Only one hand went up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most educators do not have models for what good family engagement looks like, said Mapp, director of the Education Policy and Management master’s program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She defines family engagement as a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/sde/publications/fe_definition_and_guiding_principles_handout.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">full and equal partnership between schools, communities and students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Research shows that family engagement \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://education.jhu.edu/news/study-shows-home-visits-improved-school-attendance/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">benefits not only students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> but also \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/23/03/case-strong-family-and-community-engagement-schools\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">teachers and families\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “When we engage with each other, our deficit-based mindsets about each other disappear,” Mapp said. Most schools think that they are engaging families when they are just involving them, but Mapp said that involvement only requires one-way communication. “Your families are your students’ first teachers. We need to treat them with that respect,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mapp developed the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.dualcapacity.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dual Capacity-Building Framework\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which outlines how to support family engagement strategies, policies and programs, including building trust, being culturally responsive and fostering collaboration. At the community schools conference, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.rvaschools.net/leadership/leadership-team\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shadae Harris\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Chief Engagement Officer at Richmond Public Schools, shared how she successfully used this framework \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63951/3-strategies-for-encouraging-dads-involvement-in-schools\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to improve family engagement\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> around student attendance. After the COVID-19 pandemic, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63984/as-chronic-absenteeism-soars-in-schools-most-parents-arent-sure-what-it-is\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">chronic absenteeism\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> rates in Richmond averaged nearly \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.12onyourside.com/2023/11/22/rps-seeing-increased-attendance-engagement-among-students-this-year/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">40% – an all time high\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Using the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for guidance, Harris prioritized learning more about the district’s local history, building relationships with families based on mutual trust, and tracking metrics, such as home visits and phone calls. Harris said that when she moved from viewing “engagement as an add-on to something that was deeply rooted in teaching and learning” it led to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64107/how-postcards-to-parents-can-help-schools-get-kids-back-to-class\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">better attendance\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at most Richmond Public Schools. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The basic elements of this framework can be a roadmap for schools to improve family engagement and achieve goals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Honor history\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Dual Capacity-Building Framework \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dualcapacity.org/framework-in-depth/the-challenge\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">identifies obstacles\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that get in the way of authentic family engagement, including educators’ deficit mindsets and families’ negative past experiences with schools. Harris, originally from Boston, Massachusetts, saw these challenges playing out in her district. To address them, she spent time learning local history so she could better understand the community beyond its negative narratives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harris learned about \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://venturerichmond.com/live-downtown/historic-neighborhoods/jackson-ward/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jackson Ward\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a thriving Black neighborhood known as the “Harlem of the South.” This community was home to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/maggie-lena-walker\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maggie Walker\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the first Black female president to charter a bank. While Harris started with the “beauty and brilliance” of the people in Richmond, she also recognized the historical harms done to those communities. For example, a highway was built through Jackson Ward that broke up its thriving middle class Black community. She noted that the people affected are grandparents of the students currently in school and that it makes sense that families have lingering distrust in institutions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Learning local history isn’t about fixing past wrongs, Harris said. It’s about honoring history and acknowledging harm, which builds “community credibility” and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63920/building-parent-teacher-relationships-can-be-hard-positive-phone-calls-home-can-help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lays the groundwork for families to begin to trust schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"HARGSE4I2016-V000600\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/GAeovqwgfZ8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Prioritize relationships\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Practices that are \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dualcapacity.org/framework-in-depth/essential-conditions\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">culturally responsive, collaborative and built on mutual trust\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are key to strengthening family engagement, according to Mapp. Harris put this into practice by assigning family liaison staff members to become “experts” in the district’s neighborhoods. “Communities already have very intricate systems of communication,” Harris said, but schools aren’t always tapped into them. By leveraging existing community assets, Harris and her colleagues adopted a strength-based perspective in their engagement efforts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Harris hired family liaisons, she considered what structural barriers might prevent her from hiring people from the communities they would be serving. She found that the qualifications required for the roles, such as having a bachelor’s degree, were restrictive and deterred the candidates she wanted from applying. She revised the application so that it invited applicants to talk about their relationships and connections within the community. Additionally, she extended the position from an eight-month term to a year-round role. “The summer is pivotal, and I’m going to pay you for it,” Harris recalled saying. “You have to value the position.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With the family liaisons in place and trust built in the community, families felt more comfortable sharing their challenges. Harris discovered that thousands of parents were living in motels. While the \u003ca href=\"https://nche.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ehcy_profile.pdf\">Mckinney-Vento Act\u003c/a> is in place to support families experiencing homelessness, families living in motels were exempt from these services. Harris secured a grant to provide direct financial assistance to those parents. To date Harris and staff at Richmond Public Schools have helped to secure housing for 130 families. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Quantify outreach and tell the story\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Harris, measuring the district’s engagement was critical to track progress and make necessary adjustments. She designed an engagement dashboard to monitor key metrics, such as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51967/can-inviting-teachers-over-to-your-home-improve-how-kids-learn\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">home visits\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and successful phone calls. The dashboard also allowed staff to record important notes about who they reached and whether the phone call was productive or not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We were able to see these causal connections,” Harris explained. For example, 52% of students at Fairfield Court Elementary School were chronically absent in the years following the pandemic. After home visits, that number went down to 9%. According to Harris, increased learning time from students actually showing up to school is a powerful result of strong family engagement. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Over the past two years, we’ve increased almost 90,000 academic hours,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Richmond Public Schools’ story illustrates how the Dual Capacity-Building Framework helped one school district, but its application can and should vary according to community needs, according to Mapp. “You have to be intentional,” she said. “Family engagement is a strategy, not a goal.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Excerpted from \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://us.corwin.com/books/creating-dynamic-classroom-279006\">Real Talk About Classroom Management: 57 Best Practices That Work and Show You Believe in Your Students, Second Edition\u003c/a>\u003cem> (Revised and Updated Edition) by Serena Pariser. Copyright (c) 2024 by \u003ca href=\"https://us.corwin.com/\">Corwin Press, Inc.\u003c/a> All rights reserved.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Does Amazon sell respect? It seems like some teachers have it from their students and some do not. How do those successful teachers do it? Let me start by saying if the students respect and like you as a person, your job will be a lot easier. Unlike a boss who doesn’t like an employee, you can’t fire a student. You can spend your entire year trying to fix a fractured relationship that is broken due to lack of respect. Here are some guidelines to help \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\">earn the respect of your students\u003c/a> (not an easy task):\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First: You are part of the class. It’s not you versus the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-63863 alignright\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Pariser_Real_Talk_Class_Management_2e.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Pariser_Real_Talk_Class_Management_2e.jpg 630w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Pariser_Real_Talk_Class_Management_2e-160x229.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 205px) 100vw, 205px\">Is your goal to get the kids to listen to you or to help \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60088/using-a-strengths-based-approach-to-help-students-realize-their-potential\">each of them succeed\u003c/a>? Think hard about this. Do you have the same goals in mind? Now, you may be thinking, “Yes, but how do I help them succeed if they don’t even listen when I am talking?” You’re not the only one who’s been on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58702/is-it-ok-for-teachers-to-cry-in-class\">verge of tears\u003c/a>. I soon learned that when there is a battle in the classroom (you versus them), they can and will overpower you. They outnumber you. Scary thought, right? The secret is that you can’t let them know that. That’s the difference between an unsuccessful teacher and a successful one. Successful teachers know this and work with their students. Unsuccessful teachers seem to fall into the trap of testing their power, using a loud voice to try to overpower. Power struggles rarely work in the long run. It leads to intimidation, which isn’t an ideal learning environment. Yes, I’ve been overpowered. I’ve had students walk out of my classroom, curse in my face and laugh when I discipline them. It’s not a pleasant situation when a student or whole class shows disrespect. It’s also hard to earn respect back once it’s lost. However, once the students trust — yes, trust — that you have their interests in mind, they will let their guard down and get ready for the educational journey. They will want you to lead them. They will ask you what they are going to learn today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They will give up the fight because they realize you are both on the same side. How do you do this? You don’t tell them, you show them that you have their interests in mind by using the following tips.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Focus on your goal.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Know that whatever you focus on is what will thrive in the classroom. If you focus on negative behaviors, that is what will thrive. If you focus on classroom rules, students will learn those rules, but when will they learn content? My advice is to always have your lesson prepared. Focus on the learning. Show students that learning is always the first priority. That is your job. If you want them to take seriously their job as a student, do your job by being prepared to teach. If you focus on your lesson plan, you will feel confident and the rest will follow suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let students know you believe in their success.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tell your students that you believe in their success. Do you think they will rise to the occasion if you challenge them? Here’s a secret: If you believe in them and tell them so, they will believe in themselves. If you don’t believe that your students will succeed, they won’t believe either. For example, say\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nathan, I really want you to do well today. How can I help you with that?” instead of, “Nathan, you have an F in my class, don’t you want to get a good grade? Why can’t you behave?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both statements show Nathan that he is accountable for his behavior. The first statement, however, shows him you believe in his success and it is his choice how he behaves. You are rooting for him, yet he has agency. The second statement puts a student on the defensive, which rarely works. Be smart with your words and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59748/how-perspective-taking-can-improve-classroom-behavior-and-teacher-student-relationships\"> work on the relationship\u003c/a>. The way you communicate makes a big difference in how your words are received by the students.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Be the teacher you are.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This seems like a simple statement, but I have always found it profound. Be your best self inside your classroom. What excites you that you can use in the classroom to accelerate learning? Use your personality strengths in your teaching. Do you love acting? Then use it in your teaching. Are you a great artist but feel insecure teaching math? Draw out some math problems! Do you love playing the piano? Why don’t you play to the students as they are working? Your strengths are one of the biggest assets to your classroom. I love being silly and playful in life, but for many years I tried to run a very serious classroom because I was afraid of doing anything different as a new teacher. Once I brought my silly side to the learning, my students’ test scores jumped, the students were happier, and I was a happier teacher. We know there are still serious times in the classroom, but we also know when we can laugh together. Weave your personality into the lesson. If you are a golf-loving science teacher, why not bring in your nine irons on the day you teach force? If you do this, you are much more likely to be a better and “real”—as the students like to say—teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Work on your weaknesses.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In addition to using your strengths to become a “real” person in the students’ eyes, you have to be willing to work on your weaknesses if that is what the students need. Let them know you learned how to do this specifically for them. You are a student as well. Think of yourself as a caretaker. This is the work you have to do outside of school hours (or during your prep if you’re super efficient). This is what your students need. Say two inexperienced teachers are discussing groupwork. One teacher says, “Groupwork is just not my thing. It’s easier to just have them work independently.” The second teacher says, “I know groupwork is better for the students but I also know this is my weak spot. I’m going to learn how to do it.” Which teacher do you think the students will respect more and will have more prepared, engaging lessons?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Use discipline sparingly.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you discipline, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/61570/how-do-children-learn-right-from-wrong\">do so for a specific purpose and tell students why.\u003c/a> They will respect your authority and admire that you rarely have to use your power. Anger or disappointment can be effective only if used very rarely. Anger used often is completely ineffective. Discipline once, within the first two months of school, and only after you have taught \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59777/want-more-meaningful-classroom-management-here-are-8-questions-teachers-can-ask-themselves\">the structures of your classroom\u003c/a>. This establishes boundaries. Students need you to be stern when they cross your boundaries. For example, you could address your class with, “Do you remember the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58616/how-student-led-vision-statements-for-can-nurture-school-community\">classroom agreements\u003c/a> we discussed? Do we need something added to address side conversations? I want to make sure we’re on the same page. If there’s a misunderstanding, I can certainly address that. I know you’re not trying to be malicious, but you are in fact breaking an agreement.” Learn to pick and choose your battles. I always asked myself, Is this affecting the learning of the whole class? If the answer is yes, it is your job to correct the behavior. If the answer is no, do not stop the classroom for just one student. It’s not fair to the other students, unless you are using it as a teachable moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283749466_The_Key_to_Classroom_Management\">one metastudy\u003c/a>, teachers who have strong relationships with their students have 31 percent fewer behavioral issues in their classrooms. This statistic has a huge impact on the amount of learning that goes on in the classroom and the amount of quality teaching that happens, as well as on your general well-being. Building a mutually respectful relationship with a student starts the minute they know you know their name and you use it often when speaking with them. Strong relationships with students don’t happen by chance. They happen through the way we decide, consciously or unconsciously, to interact with students from Day 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-63862\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Serena-Pariser-160x209.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Serena-Pariser-160x209.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Serena-Pariser-800x1044.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Serena-Pariser-768x1002.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Serena-Pariser.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/SerenaPariser\">Serena Pariser\u003c/a> is the best-selling author of several professional books for educators. She taught English language arts for many years, primarily in San Diego, California, and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Pariser has experience working with most grades and was honored as Teacher of the Year at Gompers Preparatory Academy in San Diego. She served as assistant director of field experience at the University of San Diego, where she taught graduate and undergraduate classes for teachers in training. In addition, Pariser was selected to be a national evaluator for Schools of Character.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Excerpted from \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://us.corwin.com/books/creating-dynamic-classroom-279006\">Real Talk About Classroom Management: 57 Best Practices That Work and Show You Believe in Your Students, Second Edition\u003c/a>\u003cem> (Revised and Updated Edition) by Serena Pariser. Copyright (c) 2024 by \u003ca href=\"https://us.corwin.com/\">Corwin Press, Inc.\u003c/a> All rights reserved.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Does Amazon sell respect? It seems like some teachers have it from their students and some do not. How do those successful teachers do it? Let me start by saying if the students respect and like you as a person, your job will be a lot easier. Unlike a boss who doesn’t like an employee, you can’t fire a student. You can spend your entire year trying to fix a fractured relationship that is broken due to lack of respect. Here are some guidelines to help \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\">earn the respect of your students\u003c/a> (not an easy task):\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First: You are part of the class. It’s not you versus the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-63863 alignright\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Pariser_Real_Talk_Class_Management_2e.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Pariser_Real_Talk_Class_Management_2e.jpg 630w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/05/Pariser_Real_Talk_Class_Management_2e-160x229.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 205px) 100vw, 205px\">Is your goal to get the kids to listen to you or to help \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60088/using-a-strengths-based-approach-to-help-students-realize-their-potential\">each of them succeed\u003c/a>? Think hard about this. Do you have the same goals in mind? Now, you may be thinking, “Yes, but how do I help them succeed if they don’t even listen when I am talking?” You’re not the only one who’s been on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58702/is-it-ok-for-teachers-to-cry-in-class\">verge of tears\u003c/a>. I soon learned that when there is a battle in the classroom (you versus them), they can and will overpower you. They outnumber you. Scary thought, right? The secret is that you can’t let them know that. That’s the difference between an unsuccessful teacher and a successful one. Successful teachers know this and work with their students. Unsuccessful teachers seem to fall into the trap of testing their power, using a loud voice to try to overpower. Power struggles rarely work in the long run. It leads to intimidation, which isn’t an ideal learning environment. Yes, I’ve been overpowered. I’ve had students walk out of my classroom, curse in my face and laugh when I discipline them. It’s not a pleasant situation when a student or whole class shows disrespect. It’s also hard to earn respect back once it’s lost. However, once the students trust — yes, trust — that you have their interests in mind, they will let their guard down and get ready for the educational journey. They will want you to lead them. They will ask you what they are going to learn today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They will give up the fight because they realize you are both on the same side. How do you do this? You don’t tell them, you show them that you have their interests in mind by using the following tips.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Focus on your goal.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Know that whatever you focus on is what will thrive in the classroom. If you focus on negative behaviors, that is what will thrive. If you focus on classroom rules, students will learn those rules, but when will they learn content? My advice is to always have your lesson prepared. Focus on the learning. Show students that learning is always the first priority. That is your job. If you want them to take seriously their job as a student, do your job by being prepared to teach. If you focus on your lesson plan, you will feel confident and the rest will follow suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let students know you believe in their success.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tell your students that you believe in their success. Do you think they will rise to the occasion if you challenge them? Here’s a secret: If you believe in them and tell them so, they will believe in themselves. If you don’t believe that your students will succeed, they won’t believe either. For example, say\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nathan, I really want you to do well today. How can I help you with that?” instead of, “Nathan, you have an F in my class, don’t you want to get a good grade? Why can’t you behave?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both statements show Nathan that he is accountable for his behavior. The first statement, however, shows him you believe in his success and it is his choice how he behaves. You are rooting for him, yet he has agency. The second statement puts a student on the defensive, which rarely works. Be smart with your words and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59748/how-perspective-taking-can-improve-classroom-behavior-and-teacher-student-relationships\"> work on the relationship\u003c/a>. The way you communicate makes a big difference in how your words are received by the students.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Be the teacher you are.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This seems like a simple statement, but I have always found it profound. Be your best self inside your classroom. What excites you that you can use in the classroom to accelerate learning? Use your personality strengths in your teaching. Do you love acting? Then use it in your teaching. Are you a great artist but feel insecure teaching math? Draw out some math problems! Do you love playing the piano? Why don’t you play to the students as they are working? Your strengths are one of the biggest assets to your classroom. I love being silly and playful in life, but for many years I tried to run a very serious classroom because I was afraid of doing anything different as a new teacher. Once I brought my silly side to the learning, my students’ test scores jumped, the students were happier, and I was a happier teacher. We know there are still serious times in the classroom, but we also know when we can laugh together. Weave your personality into the lesson. If you are a golf-loving science teacher, why not bring in your nine irons on the day you teach force? If you do this, you are much more likely to be a better and “real”—as the students like to say—teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Work on your weaknesses.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In addition to using your strengths to become a “real” person in the students’ eyes, you have to be willing to work on your weaknesses if that is what the students need. Let them know you learned how to do this specifically for them. You are a student as well. Think of yourself as a caretaker. This is the work you have to do outside of school hours (or during your prep if you’re super efficient). This is what your students need. Say two inexperienced teachers are discussing groupwork. One teacher says, “Groupwork is just not my thing. It’s easier to just have them work independently.” The second teacher says, “I know groupwork is better for the students but I also know this is my weak spot. I’m going to learn how to do it.” Which teacher do you think the students will respect more and will have more prepared, engaging lessons?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Use discipline sparingly.\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you discipline, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/61570/how-do-children-learn-right-from-wrong\">do so for a specific purpose and tell students why.\u003c/a> They will respect your authority and admire that you rarely have to use your power. Anger or disappointment can be effective only if used very rarely. Anger used often is completely ineffective. Discipline once, within the first two months of school, and only after you have taught \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59777/want-more-meaningful-classroom-management-here-are-8-questions-teachers-can-ask-themselves\">the structures of your classroom\u003c/a>. This establishes boundaries. Students need you to be stern when they cross your boundaries. For example, you could address your class with, “Do you remember the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58616/how-student-led-vision-statements-for-can-nurture-school-community\">classroom agreements\u003c/a> we discussed? Do we need something added to address side conversations? I want to make sure we’re on the same page. If there’s a misunderstanding, I can certainly address that. I know you’re not trying to be malicious, but you are in fact breaking an agreement.” Learn to pick and choose your battles. I always asked myself, Is this affecting the learning of the whole class? If the answer is yes, it is your job to correct the behavior. If the answer is no, do not stop the classroom for just one student. It’s not fair to the other students, unless you are using it as a teachable moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283749466_The_Key_to_Classroom_Management\">one metastudy\u003c/a>, teachers who have strong relationships with their students have 31 percent fewer behavioral issues in their classrooms. This statistic has a huge impact on the amount of learning that goes on in the classroom and the amount of quality teaching that happens, as well as on your general well-being. Building a mutually respectful relationship with a student starts the minute they know you know their name and you use it often when speaking with them. Strong relationships with students don’t happen by chance. They happen through the way we decide, consciously or unconsciously, to interact with students from Day 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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