“Do you have any homework?”
“Nope. Did it in school.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep, I’m positive! I have nothing to do.”
If this sort of conversation leaves you with an uneasy feeling, it probably should! It takes years for most kids to gain a realistic understanding of what it means to be a “student” and your hunch that something’s missing is probably valid.
There are many skills to master as a student, and no instruction book on the topic. Many kids pick them up naturally, but many others don’t. This can be especially confusing when you have a gut feeling that your child hasn’t mastered the skills they need but their ability to compensate is so strong that it masks the challenges. This is fine for a while, but as school becomes more complex, problems can begin to mount.
Here I have some insights for you that should give you some clarity. Consider it a mini-instruction book. After 20+ years of working with students, I find myself asking the same key questions over and over in order to help ensure a child is “on the right track.” I’ll share these with you as well as some tips on how to ask in a way best empowers your child.
We fall backwards an hour on Sunday November 1. Here are some actionable tips that will help smooth the transition.
Video transcript:
Hello, this is Seth with SethPerler.com, and I’m here to tell you about audience and purpose. So hello, my author friends and students who are learning to write. Whenever you start a paper, it doesn’t matter if it’s fiction or nonfiction, but whenever you start a paper, there are certain things that you want to do to be getting the paper, to make sure that you have the right foundation or, else your paper is not going to be effective. You may get an A on the paper and I don’t care about grades. I do not care. What I care about is that you are a human being who has important things to tell and it and if your paper stinks and you know that you played the game and got an A, then I don’t care. That doesn’t impress me at all. What impresses me is if you start to build these things in and you can tell your stories effectively. I don’t care if you get an F, if you actually told your story effectively and grew as an author, that’s what I care about. You may not think of yourself as an author, but you are. You can tell your story. I don’t care if you feel like a horrible writer, a lot of people feel like that. It doesn’t matter, trust me. This is an art to be developed. I’m going to teach you some things right now. So when you are starting to write, whether it’s nonfiction or fiction, you want to use the writing process. When you’re starting to write one of the things you’re going to do when you begin your writing is you’re going to plan your writing. That’s also called prewriting. You can prewrite/plan, that might include brainstorming, idea generation, talking to people about the ideas about what you’re writing, making an outline, making the buckets for the parts of your paper. Planning is very important. People often do not spend enough time planning and then their paper goes in a million different directions. It’s the number one thing people neglect to spend enough time on and it’s the number one most important part of the writing process. It is the first part of the writing process. So when you’re writing a paper you want to plan your paper. And then you’re going to draft, revise, edit, and publish your paper and then you’re done. The first thing you’re doing is your planning. Again, when you plan you’re going to be making the buckets, okay. So here’s a bucket. Let’s say that this bucket represents a paragraph, perhaps it’s an introduction, perhaps it’s a conclusion, perhaps it’s a body paragraph, perhaps it’s the chapter, whatever it is. A bucket contains certain ideas that go together. Again, a lot of people’s writing goes in a million different directions. You don’t want your writing to go to a million different directions. You want to have it organized so that the ideas are in containers so that the reader can take what’s within the container and digest it and makes sense of what you’re really trying to say. Now when you are planning your paper, they’re two very very very very important things that I think all authors or writers need to very carefully consider before they start writing. Some people know these things automatically, some people really have to think about it. Those are audience and purpose. Audience: So first, let’s start with the audience. You need to think about who you are speaking to. If you’re writing a paper for a teacher, your audience is the teacher. If you’re writing a paper for a teacher, though, but you’re really writing it for peers that are your age and you’re writing it for them, perhaps you’re writing it for, let’s say, 40-year-old people who are interested in water skiing. That’s your audience. Perhaps it’s teenagers who are interested in rock and roll. Or perhaps it’s elementary school students who want to learn an instrument. Whatever your audience is, you need to really think about who are these people. My suggestion to you is to write out who the audience is. Be as thorough as you can. Just bomb it out in a big paragraph or a bulleted list. Who are you talking to? One of those audiences is going to really be the most important one. What I want you to do when you’re writing is to imagine that you’re speaking to that person, or type of person. So really imagine that person the whole time you’re writing, your imagining that person in the audience. And believe me, the more you focus in on one person as your writing, that you were speaking to them as your writing, the better your paper will be on every single level. Number one, in your plan you must clearly know who the heck your audience is. Who are you speaking to? Purpose: Number two on your plan, you also have to clearly know the purpose of your paper. Students very often do not take the time to identify their purpose. Their teacher tells them the purpose. They think they know the purpose, and they’re just doing what they’re told. You and your own gut need to figure out: What is your purpose? What do you want the reader to do, think, be? What effect do you want your writing to have on them? What’s the purpose of your writing? So I have a book here, just a random book. This author wrote, Brainstorm – the Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. His audience was probably more or less parents, to explain the teenage brain to parents. And probably also wants teachers to read it and other people. But his purpose is to teach me, or whoever is the reader, whoever’s they audience, to teach about the power and the purpose of the teenage brain. So he really clearly thought about how he wants to educate his reader. You might want to entertain, your purpose might be to entertain, it might be to make them laugh, change their mind about something, take social action, or behave differently, or help themself, or whatever it is. You need to really think about why you are writing this. You have an audience who you want to affect, how do you want to affect them? And that’s your purpose. And so there we go people, this is part of your plan. You really need to consider your audience in your purpose before you start making the buckets of information which and usually end up in your paragraphs or sections of your paper. You want to really have this very clear. I hope you have an awesome day. I’ll see you soon. Take care. Please CLICK below to share.
Video transcript:
Hello people, I’m here to talk to you about elements of story. My name is Seth Perler from SethPerler.com. Check out my website if you like what I’m doing and share. Thanks! Elements of story. I’m going to teach you everything you need to know really quickly. I’m going to speak kind of fast, but this is going to be a primer that’s really going to help you with your writing. Elements of the story. First of all, we’re talking about the story, we’re talking about fiction generally, not non-fiction, unless you’re doing a biography or something like that. But basically, elements of a story usually refers to fiction writing, and there are five elements of a story: character, setting, theme, plot, and point of view. That’s it. Five elements of story, again: character, setting, theme, plot, and point of view. Think about elements that make up a stone or something. There are these different elements, different pieces, so every single story in the world has five elements. If you know this and you internalized this and you pseudo memorize it, but you apply it, this will help you with all of your story writing for the rest of your life. You, my friend, are the authors of the future. You have big things to write and big stories to tell. So, what are we doing here again? We have characters. Every single story in the world has to have characters. Yes, every story. Every one has to have a setting, plot, theme, and point of view. Elements of story, the five elements are character, setting, plot, theme, and point of view. Now, what do you need to know about each one? I like to distill things into their simplest elements and into the simplest pieces into the simplest way. Character: When you’re building a character and you’re writing a character and you’re developing new characters for your story, here are the things that I tell people. One of the things is that your character should be exaggerated. They should have exaggerated characteristics. Think about one of your favorite books, or movies, or TV shows, or something that has really impacted your life and had an effect on you. If you think about one of the characters in it, they are exaggerated their characteristics are exaggerated. So if they’re smart, they’re really smart. If they’re spiritual, they’re really spiritual. If they’re mystical, they’re really mystical. If they’re odd, they’re really odd. If they’re a scared character, they’re really scared. So generally speaking, when you’re building a character, you want to exaggerate their most important characteristics. Okay, because what’s going to happen when you exaggerate characteristics in your writing is that’s going to allow the reader really formulate their own clear imagery of your character, and that’s what you want to do as a writer. You want to help them to have the best imagery they can develop with her own mind and their own brain based on your suggestions from what you’re writing. So that’s part of it. You want to exaggerate their characteristics. The other thing about great characters is you want to be thinking about people you actually know. So every time I’m writing any story of any sort, I’m putting usually one person, I’m usually matching them as the character. So let’s say that I have a character named Anthony. I might be thinking of somebody I know name Todd and having that person’s attributes or characteristics put on to Anthony. Of course, they may not seem like in any other way. Maybe one is a medieval character and one is a friend of mine in modern-day, but when I’m thinking other characteristics, I’m taking Todd and exaggerating his characteristics to put on to Anthony’s. I really recommend using people that you know. It brings up a really strong sense of authenticity to the characters that you’re building in your story. So that’s enough about characters, that’s enough to get you started moving with developing characters in a conscious way. Setting: Next we have setting. There are two things to the setting: time and place. When and where. Setting has two things: when and where. So when your building settings, you want to think about when. A lot of people don’t do this and they just start writing their story and they’re not really thinking about if it’s in modern-day, if it’s medieval, if it’s futuristic, etc. So within the setting, you really want to pick your time period as carefully as possible. This may require research if you’re not going into the past. Either way, you’re going to really want to consciously think about what time your story is taking place. And now the other thing is place. You’re usually going to have multiple settings in a story. One way is to give the audience just enough information where your brain can create your whole world in your head of what it looks like but doesn’t give you too much. Then you have other authors who give so much description, and that can work too. Either way can work. But either way, you’re going to really want to think about, “what are the places that are important?” Don’t have 5 million settings in a short story. Really pick places that matter, really think about that consciously. So you’re going to have character and setting. Plot: I’m going to do another video on the ‘plot mountain’. But for the plot, all you really need to think about in terms of knowing elements of story, is the problem and the solution. A good plot has to have a problem. The main character has some problem, and the main character has to dig deep in order to overcome the problem. This is common in every single story. Every good story has a character, and there’s a problem, and the character has to dig deep. You can look at the hero’s journey, Joseph Campbell, if you want to. I’ll put a link to that. But the character has to really dig deep it to overcome that problem. That is what we human beings relate to in a story. If your character doesn’t have to really overcome anything, you may be having a great time writing a story, but it’s not going to connect on a deep level with your audience. Theme: Theme is just the moral or the lesson. A lot of students get caught up on theme, and they start thinking about it in the wrong way. When I say, “What’s your theme? What’s the moral of your story? What’s the lesson.” They think that they’re supposed to have one main lesson and that the reader is somehow going to pick up on that. Don’t do that. When you’re thinking about the theme and the lessons that you want your story to teach, you can have one lesson or you can have a hundred lessons, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you do have a conception of what you are trying to teach with your story of some of the themes, but what you need to know is that the reader is going to read into it in completely different ways. They may or may not get your intended theme. They make it completely other things. You don’t have to worry about what they get out of it, you have to worry about what you put into it. What are you trying to teach? What are the most important themes or lessons or morals you would be teaching? Don’t get boxed into thinking, “Oh, there’s one theme and the reader has to get it.” Don’t get too perfectionistic about it, be more general. What is important to you to teach? What life lessons have you learned that you can apply to what this character is going through? Point of view: Next is a point of view. Who’s telling the story? Generally, first-person, third-person is it isn’t more, ‘I’m telling my own story’ and you’re using ‘I’ statements a lot, or is it more of a narrator that’s more all-knowing and is telling a story from that sort of a perspective. Point of view is very simple. You just need to pick if you’re telling it or somebody else is telling it or a narrator is telling it. That one is really easy. Again- characters. You got to have a setting. You got to have a plot, a theme, and a point of view. Now you have elements of story. I’m going to go over the ‘plot mountain’ in another video and then I’m going to go over two other things in another video which is audience and purpose. Once you understand those things, audience, purpose, the ‘plot mountain,’ the elements of story, and the writing process (I’ll put this all in my post), then you really have a basis for writing. I don’t care if you’re in middle school, high school, college, graduate school. If you can put these pieces that I’m showing you right here together, you have the basis for any type of writing you can do. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not a good writer, you can’t be a writer, etc. Writing is an art and you are the artist, you have stories to tell, you have things to teach people and things to give people. People don’t understand how incredibly powerful they are. You have so much to give to the planet and the people and your story needs to be told. So writing is magic. I hope you have an awesome day. I will see you soon. Take care. Please CLICK below to share.Video transcript:
Everybody except except for early. Com. I’m here today to talk to you about habit changing how in the world do we change our habits? So I should know. I’m an education coach. I work with students elementary school middle school high school college generally middle school and high school student and what I always say to my students is that the hardest thing to do really is to change the Habit so I can teach my students all about all different kinds of ways that they can manage School negotiate School advocate for themselves all these things, but if we don’t change the habits, it doesn’t matter they can hear lectures from their parents let their parents were lecturing you about who knows with a lecture you about that. You’ve heard it a million times lot of time. That doesn’t mean that it changes is a habit even if you know, it’s a habit you want to change you know that you have ineffective study habits homework habits turning things inhabit self care habits, just because you know that you should eat differently or study regularly or have better routine. Doesn’t mean that the Habit changes so changing. The Habit is a really hard thing and changing the Habit has to do really with changing the brain. We have to change the way that the neurons in the brain are connected to each other and communicating with you with each other and we have to build new strong Pathways in order to build a new habit have its do not just come we build them over a long. Of time. So I’m going to rest for a minute and help you out with figuring out. How in the world. Are you actually going to change a habit? There we go. what the most important thing concept when it comes to changing a habit is that It has to be chunk into bite-size pieces. My dad always used to say how do you eat an elephant? And you eat an elephant one bite at a time. It’s the only way you can eat an elephant. So a lot of times changing habit. What we do is we say, I’m going to change all this I’m going to get straight A’s or I’m going to work out 5 days a week and I’m going to do all this stuff. I’m going to meditate every day. Whatever it is. We want to change a habit and we make it this it feels like a giant thing to change and very quickly we can just give up stop changing the Habit. It just becomes overwhelming and unrealistic. So we have to get the pieces chunked. Into bite-size pieces. This is called chunking. Okay. There are only two ways to Chuck only two ways in the world to chunk something. So in order to eat at elephant, we either need to chunk by time or by 10 a.m. We need to junk either by time or buy task in order to chunk something by time. We need to make something to a very manageable amount of time. For example. I have a student who her goal is to study everyday for a test. Right? So she is not in the habit of studying for the test though. So is she thinks that she’s going to study for an hour a day for this test for 5 days. Let’s say that’s very unrealistic and she’s setting yourself up for failure. However, if she starts now and starts to say I will study for 1 minute a day or 5 minutes a day or 3 minutes or 10 minutes a day, whatever it is that feels small enough to her that feels bite-size enough. She has to junk it into pieces of time that feel manageable because a lot of times will chunk it into two larger chunks and just give up and it doesn’t work. Okay in the habit never changes, so you have to get realistic about getting it into small enough amount of time. For example, when I started to meditate I just meditated for 5 minutes a day until I got the Habit then I could say it was very easy to get up to 15 minutes once to have it was their first so You can jump by time. The other way you can shank when you’re trying to build a new habit. Whatever they have. It is in. This could be a fitness Tabata could be the homework habits. Whatever doesn’t matter by task and I’m going to use homework for this one of your Chunky by task. Let’s say you have math homework to do. Let’s say you have 25 problems to do perhaps you junk your task into 5 columns. You say I will do 5 problems at a time where you trying to tasks into 10 problems of the 25 or you chunk your task into just the math homework. I will just do the math homework right now. I don’t care what you trying to tasks into. Let’s say that you have to clean your bedroom chunking it into tasks like doing clothing first and then vacuum the floor and then taking the trash out whatever you can do one task at a time because your whole room might take you a whole weekend to do so realistically chunk it into things that feel manageable or you’re going to set route stop up for failure and I want you to set yourself. Prayer for success to all about how it feels does it feel overwhelming or does it feel doable so you’re going to junk into a by time and by task? No. Is it abstract or is it concrete? You want your you want your tasks to feel as concrete as possible the more abstract than the Habit changing is the less likely you are to do it. So you have to get it concrete. So let’s they were chunking by time. If you use a digital timer to time yourself, that’s very concrete because if you say I’m going to study this for three minutes a day or I’m going to do push-ups for 1 minute a day or whatever it is. And you have ewe time tasks. Can you set that timer? That’s concrete one because you’re holding a concrete timer in your hand too because it makes three because it actually shows how many seconds remain etcetera. So that is very concrete when we imagined. Let’s a writing a paper for a class that’s very abstract. It’s very hard to get started on writing a paper because it’s not chunked you have to junk it into drafting planning the paper drafting revising editing turning it in. Need to junk it into small bite-sized pieces that are concrete if it’s abstract music like I got a paper due next Friday that’s very abstract. It’s very difficult to know where to start. So the more you can get things concrete the better your chunking is going to work. Now when you’re worrying about what habit you want to change you also want to think about one big habitat a Time. Hey, don’t think about changing 50 habits. Cuz again, you will set yourself up for failure and I want you to set yourself up for Success. So you want to pick one thing. Generally you want to pick the thing that’s going to have the biggest impact on your life. And if you can just focus on that for about a month at a time, that’s really the way to change a habit pick one big thing to focus on one month of the time. It takes about a month to build a new habit. Now my experience with my students who start with executive function, if you’re a student who struggles with this type of stuff is it really take 6 to 8 weeks to build a new habit if school starts in September by November you’re going to have it really as sort of a habit where you don’t have to think about it and that’s where you want to get to forget the lectures for Know what you need to do. It’s a matter of you having a useful way to approach changing the habit and actually doing that. It’s got to be chunks and small enough to be bite-size new junk in the two ways to buy timing by task. You have to make it as concrete as humanly possible the more concrete your plan for changing your habit is the more likely you are to change to have it and you just pick one of the things at a time to really focus on for about a month at a time the one that’s going to have the biggest impact on your life with that. I hope you have an awesome day and awesome weekend. I’ll see you soon. Take care.
Video transcript:
Side note: fyi, I use the word guru metaphorically and humorously; not to be offensive. I actually have a great deal or respect for real gurus of all types who have dedicated themselves to serving others.
Video transcript:
Hello, everyone, except except for ODOT cam. I’m here today to talk to you about Guru syndrome. You do not want to get Guru syndrome is very dangerous and romance and how to avoid a face syndrome is something that I see a lot of parents and a lot of kids fall into and that is this belief that they’ve been told by some Guru by some expert buy some professional buy some Authority that there is a way to do something in that that’s the way that your kid has to do it this way. Well, if you’re the student, I don’t give your middle school high school or college or parent or teacher want you to really Beware of the syndrome. Now, sometimes a guru or authority will tell you something that works perfectly for you. I say if that happens I’ll get back to you. The productivity industry and Technology. They’re all tired tography, whatever. They’re all types of various Wheels where you will see somebody who says I have a system use my system and everything will be okay and for a lot of people the system may work for the kids that I work with which is probably similar to you who tend to have issues with with cut executive function and a startling pool with organization time management priorities getting things turned in on time all all those things. These this is often don’t work. So I want you to be cautious whenever some Guru tells you this is the way I’m even his ass teacher saying this is the way you need to use the planner or even if it or even if it’s the in administrator or if you’re working with in it with a coach and education coach type person in there saying this is the way you have to use your notebook if it’s not working for you is not working for you. The rule it is that you have to have system that are reliable in that work for you if your system is not working for you for your learning style for your thinking style for your brain. And if it’s not reliable, then it’s breaking the rule in. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what they told you now, obviously there’s your heart you have to apply the the trial but what I do with my client is I help them find systems that work for their bring. I don’t tell any of my students. This is the way this is how we’re going to do. This is the only way I tell them whatever way works for you that fine. Let’s find the way that work for you. So I want you to have a way that works through the years and years to come that you can respond. Stop by there is the status quo. There is the there are these old beliefs held by different systems about how things were and they will often tell you how you need to do things. But these things often don’t work for you. So I’m going to mention two of them right here the classic 3-ring binder. Okay, so lot of middle schools and high schools will do binder check and they for students use 3-ring binders, even though kids without with executive function issues do not do well at 3 remind me at 9 to 95% My kids do not do well with reminders because it’s way too many details to manage pieces of paper that are often meaning list. So that this stuff expect these kids to track loads of busy work paper that will never be used to guess. I don’t actually grade them on it and tell them you need to use it and then it’s implied was organized people use 3-ring binders and love them and that his truth. They feel good with three ring binders and it helps them stay overnight and it gives them a sense of control over those kids does the system keeps pushing a 3-ring binders that the planners schools will often give students planner supposed to look like hundreds of these planners that are we get a time with the month on the front with the student handbook and it was a periodic table multiplication tables and junk in the back of it and They’re so sick. And it’s all students with executive function struggles need is a planner that is just a planner to plan. I usually get the monthly ones with just 10 pages and teach them how to plan not all this clutter. So those are two things that that are can really throw people off. I’m going to talk about two more things right now one is the best you do need a reliable system for plan for managing this half that you have to do for the homework in the studying and many of my students really don’t know how to actually Stop by and we’ll rush through the homework. If doing the homework. So you do need a reliable system to track your score that is in fact true. So you do need a reliable system, but it doesn’t have to be this is the way that we plan you need to find a system for you. I have one student right now that’s using on Google keep which doesn’t have any dates on it, but he’s using it to track and manage to score. So I’m totally fine with that. I don’t care that use online planners like Google Calendar or I I don’t care which one they use as long as it’s working some of my students use to pay per player. I don’t care as long as the work. So you need to find a system that works for you do need a planet. Now. You also do need an organizational system for the massive amounts of papers that teachers pass out for some reason. Feel the need to pass out loads and loads and loads and loads of photocopy papers and and things and I see a lot of it it with my students is pretty meaningless. Honestly have to have a reliable systems for organized in the papers that do matter in your educational career. Okay, so you have to have these do I will put the stuff the goober Syndrome again will stay here is an organizational system use mine. This is the one that works. No one that works for you. Listen to your intuition ask yourself which one will work with other systems are both added another video in actually, I have another article from from way back that talks about all the different system that you need to be managing in your life and it brings it all into one simple so that you can grab that but basically Don’t just listen to Somebody. Stay distance away. If it doesn’t feel right you listen to your guy and don’t go with it make something up that works for you, finally. This is helpful to you. If you enjoy this at this gave you some good ideas. Go ahead and share it with somebody. I don’t care what you do it on Facebook email. It’s so many like, but I’d appreciate it if you share my work someday. I’ll see you soon.Video transcript:
Hey everybody. What’s up? This is stuff of stuff Pro., I’m glad you’re here today. I want to take a quick look at school culture. What makes an awesome school culture. I am in a lot of schools for a lot of IEP 504 RTI meeting all kinds of things. So I get to a lot of different schools. I get to see and feel a lot of different School cultures and the second you walk into school. You can feel the culture today. I went to an IEP meeting and walked out of there and I was so impressed. I love it when I walk out of these meetings and I just feel so I just appreciate teachers so much and in the schools in the school culture, and I do think that 99% of X School culture is a top-down thing. Unfortunately where the principal really tends to set the tone for the culture tends to And in this case is just great people who really provided a great environment for teachers could feel like they can be their best which is what teachers want to do. They want to be empowered. They want to feel like they can really shine they want to serve kids. So and of course as you know, the teachers often will get burnout. In fact over 50% of all teachers hit by year five. That’s an extraordinary way high percentage of people getting burned out and leaving the profession that we need in there to serve our kids how many I’m going to talk a little bit about school culture and some of the things that I see in schools that schools are doing right to make the school culture of positive awesome place. So first of all, I see they’re sort of these three basic different vibe set that the culture tends to provide. First of all, they can have this happy Vibe were people you can tell that the teachers feel happy at peace safe. They feel like they belong there part of this this place. Then you can see these other schools were people seem to feel very overwhelmed and suffocated. They feel like they’re being watched too much monitor too much. It’s too stringent to type too much too restrictive and they just feel like there’s a lot of pressure you can see that and then there is the other type where people feel like they’ve been thrown to the sharks that let go there abandoned their neglected. There is just like going to go do your job. You may not have the resources the time the money whatever to be at the teacher you want to be a go figure it out. So they’re sort of these three One that very healthy one that can feel very stifling and suffocating and tight and rigid and one that feels too loose and let go and and like it you’re not even noticed. Okay. So these are the three Basics that I see now some of the things that that I see at schools that have a great culture again, right when I walk into school. I can feel what the culture is like and you can tell there’s some schools that really put kids first. That means that the teachers are free to have real conversations. They don’t have to just follow the rules. They can say wait. This world doesn’t fit this kid or this world doesn’t fit my class in this case and they’re able to openly expressed that they’re able to think for them self and think what is best for this kid. Not just follow the rules with blinders on and say okay. This is how we do it. This is how we’ve always done it. So this is the way I will do it. To question the rules and and think to put the put the kids first. Also a great school culture is a place that really holds the space for people and the rest of this is going to talk a lot about how we hold a space but it holds a space where people can feel safe where people can feel like they can shine where people can feel like they can serve his and where kids feel like they can shine and they can grow. How do we do that? Well in order to hold a space people have to feel emotionally safe. The teachers must feel emotionally safe. Like they can be who they are. They can use their strengths to serve kid. They can say what they think they are safe. They’re not going to be Sean. They’re not going to be put down there not going to be stifled by Administration people will Empower them to feel sick now when the teachers and Staff feel safe emotionally safe. Guess what the kid that I feel more emotionally safe the teachers can then hold a space for the kids to feel safe. Like they can be themselves and express. People need to their needs to be spaced held where people can feel heard that’s supposed to be a diagram of the human ear. I know I know you’re impressed. I know I know that diagram there. So people need to feel heard. They need to feel like it’s important to be heard. They need to feel like the administration will listen to them not criticize them not try to make them conform but that they will actually listen and hear and that they care about what people say so they have to hold a space that people feel emotionally safe that they can feel like they’re heard these healthy cultures also are places where the teachers are happy and they’re having fun. You see the staff laugh together talk together support each other. There’s some schools. I walk into in there such a seriousness about the staff and just as ripping this gripping as you can walk into a school and see a go go ahead and walk into a couple schools in the notice if I see people just kind of like they’re uncomfortable will win the staff looks uncomfortable. How do you think the kids feel but when the teachers are having fun in their happy and they feel like they’re in again the using the word a place where they belong where they matter where they’re heard where they’re emotionally safe. These happy people. They can really help the kids feel happier and have the kids help the kids have more fun. Able to question old systems in in a great school culture again people can feel heard they feel like they can speak they can question the old systems for example letter grade teachers can talk openly about whether or not they even agree with letter grades or should they have portfolio system or should they use rubrics or none of the above? Should they develop a new system that meets the needs they can actually have these discussions. We can talk about standardized tests and the opt-out movements and they can openly talk about how they feel about standardized tests. Now, it’s affecting them and how it’s affecting the kids a lot of schools that people don’t feel safe to talk about the old system. They just feel like okay. This is the way it is. I can’t question it. I just have to comply with the way the situation is regardless of how my heart feels about this stuff. So you want people to be able to question and have dialogue in the school culture. Is there free Going to do that one last. Schools that where we’re really has that feel of safety and holding space and people happy. There’s also clarity about the school culture people know what the mission is. I’ve been in several schools that don’t even know what their mission is and I won the first things that I do it when I’m researching a school for a family that I work with is I look up the school mission last week. I actually called the school because I was looking at some parents are trying to decide what school to send the child to and I asked about the mission and the person on the phone wasn’t even aware of the web page. I was talking about that said the mission I was baffled help him this person not even know what the mission is, but the sad thing is is that this is not uncommon schools off and don’t even stopped off and doesn’t even know what the mission is the principal the administration to leadership doesn’t talk about the mission. It’s it’s not really important. They’re so concerned about Scores and data and testing and looking good and getting budget things and whatever their minds are are consumed with their not consumed with they get they lose sight of this is how the school decided to serve kid based on these principles and that they kind of forget about it. So bad the schools that are really strong that there is Clarity people seem to be on the same page whether or not they can even articulate the mission perfectly. There was a Vibe where you can tell people are on the same page but culture is established. Is that safety is there Finally in these places where people are happy. They’re having fun. There is space health for people to be free to be who they are to shine to bring their best to serve kids. There is a culture of praise. The teachers are praising the kid the parents are praising the teachers the teachers are Paisley parents. They feel like they’re on the same team consequently in schools were the culture is not good. There is like this budding like like parents and teachers don’t feel like they’re on the same team. But when I go into schools that are really healthy like you can tell people feel like they’re on the same team. The principals are openly praising teachers not I’m not talking about 5, I’m talking about people who are noticing the hard work heart the effort that goes into what it takes to educate our kids people are. Praising people are complimenting people are noticing the positive energy is taken to to focus on what’s good. What’s growth with positive in these places. So anyhow, that’s part of my Spiel on on what creates a great school culture. This is not scientific or anything. These are just things that I see a lot and some things I really wanted to share because to me it’s not rocket science. I think the leadership has to lead not manage. Lead and when the leadership leads and provides a safe place for people to grow and serve kids then people can really have an awesome culture. I hope you have an awesome week. I will see you soon. And if you like what I’m doing, please subscribe right here in the YouTube channel, and if you like this video, please share it with somebody you care about you off.