Leaders of Today: From Teens to Titans

Friendship can be one of the greatest challenges as a young teen

Coach Lee Hopkins helps people take their social connections to the next level. Whether you want to feel more included at work, meet an activity buddy, or make a close friend to share your deepest thoughts with, he can help. He owns a social connections coaching company called Patterns of Possibility where he helps his clients find fulfilling social connections and meaningful relationships with a simple 3-step process.

 

Have you ever wondered why students say they're friends, but don't act like they're friends with each other in middle school and potentially high school? Have you also seen students struggle with how to engage, and how to be friends with each other? I learned so much from Coach Lee about friendships and if you're like me as a parent and or teacher, you see a lot of friendship challenges in schools with teenagers.

Coach Lee presents different perspectives on friendship. We talk a little bit about consent. We talk about why it's important to release control in our classrooms, to draw kids in, not push them away. 

Coach Lee is the owner of Patterns of Possibilities and a Friendship Coach. I loved how he shares that it seemed like everybody else knew what they were doing in making friends, and I was the only one who didn't. You're not the only one who doesn't know. We're all just trying to figure it out.

Coach Lee helps me understand how some friends can be so mean to each other. He gives advice on how as an educator you might be able to mediate for a teen who doesn’t understand why people don’t want to be friends with them, from his personal experience.

As a young teen Coach Lee did not know college was a possibility for him, and we explore why he felt that way, and how college allowed him to redefine the rules he felt constricted him from being himself. He shares a couple of terms with me as a parent and educator to understand rules and boundaries. Your needs, negotiables, and never. 

Giving students the understanding of how these terms can help them navigate consent and how to bring that into the home and classroom to give the tools to young teens and young adults to use as needed. 

You can find Coach Lee at 

 

Website: https://www.patternsofpossibility.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patternsofpossibility

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@patternsofpossibility 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patternsofpossibility/

 

Tools to help us authentically listen to our school and family communities

Meet Jess Fuller, she has been in education for almost 14 years and spent the last five with Reschool, which is a Colorado-based nonprofit that was founded on the idea that our education systems can be more equitable and accessible when we co-create with families and young people and partner with them to co-create ideas.

Student and family voice is at the heart of Reschool, and all the concepts that Reschool has tried over the last decade have been rooted in our partnerships with families and young people. 

Do you wonder what it's like to walk in the shoes of the students in your classroom? Do you wish there was a way for you to feel the feelings that they're experiencing or to experience their life so that you can have more empathy for them? What about engaging your community? Do you have an authentic way to engage the communities that you're working with?

I am so excited for you to listen to this interview with Jess Fuller from Colorado Reschool. She shares so many valuable tips and the tools that her organization, Reschool has created for communities to engage with each other. There's so much value in really authentically listening to each other. 

In our conversation, Jess shares about some of the programs that have emerged from Reschool like the Learner Advocate Network - which explores the idea of what if every family had a navigator or an advocate that came alongside them and supported them in making the decisions that are best for them, their kids, and their family? 

We also talk about the Design Lab, a set of tools and resources that support anyone in taking a community-anchored approach to system change and guiding them through how to co-create ideas with the community. She also shares about The Learning Communities Initiative, where we bring young people together and we resource them with learning dollars, which allows them to decide together as a peer group how they spend those dollars. Finally, we talk about the game Revolve, which is a great tool to experience what it is like to be a teenager.

You can connect with Jess

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-fuller-b8244b11/

Twitter: @ReSchool_CO

Facebook: @RESCHOOL Colorado

How do we define learning? Kaitlyn talks about her expereince with anxiety and seat time

Kaitlyn is a 20-year-old psychology major with a minor in criminal justice at Western New England University. She was an EMT for 2 years before college, she tutors at-risk middle schoolers. She lives with her boyfriend and her service dog, Evie. Her favorite topics in psychology are serial killers, neuroscience, and behavior analysis, and her favorite things outside of school include hanging out with her friends, learning new food recipes, and playing Nintendo Switch with her boyfriend.  

Do you find yourself judging your students the very first day they walk into the classroom? I recently began thinking about how I did as one of my classroom management techniques. I needed to be able to assess what a student was going to do in my classroom, and I had to do it pretty quickly.

The problem was those evaluations and judgments were based on little evidence and very little information. Kaitlyn shares in this episode that she's often judged as a lazy student. I'm curious if you would judge her as a lazy student after listening to her interview. What arbitrary expectations do we still hold onto in the system of education for students?

I was amazed at the reasons why Kaitlyn was not successful according to the system she was in. She has a 3.8 GPA in a challenging major, but she almost didn't graduate high school, not because of work, and not because of grades. Listening to her story made me wonder about what we're doing in the system of education.

Kaitlyn talks about how she does not believe she is brave, and yet she was an EMT who helped people in serious need for two years. She has several accommodations that her college provides her with so that she can be successful as she struggles with anxiety. She lives off campus with her service dog, and she is allowed to miss class provided she contacts her professors about the material she missed. 

She wasn’t sure she would be able to share he story with us, but she did a great job and I think we even had a little fun!

What is a highly sensitive person and how does that show up in my classroom?

I wonder if you've considered the stress an average person puts on their nervous system with stimuli like social media or any notifications, and now add being in a highly stimulated environment of a classroom. It's really enough to make anyone need a break, but did you know that one in five of us is considered highly sensitive and that these stimuli have an even greater impact on our reactions? Knowing that about ourselves and our students is really key to helping all students succeed. 

Do you practice mindfulness? Do you take the time? Have you considered using it in your classroom setting? I wonder if we might get better results from our students, especially our highly sensitive students if we did a little brain training implementing some mindfulness into our classroom practice. 

What are some things to look for in students or adults who are highly sensitive? This Is something that Nikolai and I talk about. She is an incredible resource and there is so much that you'll learn by listening to her in our conversation.

Nikolai shares what a highly sensitive person is, and what some of the challenges are that they face so that in our classroom educators can be more aware and empathetic when students exhibit highly sensitive behaviors. Highly sensitive students can often be our over achievers, and Nikolai tells us why that tends to be the case.

Authentic Assessment and listening to student voices

Batsheva Frankel, MAT, a veteran educator of over 25 years, is the producer and host of the popular, entertaining podcast Overthrowing Education. As an educational consultant with her company New Lens Ed., Batsheva gives workshops, courses, coaching, and consulting for educators at universities, conferences, schools, and other organizations internationally in person and online. She also teaches courses on podcasting for teens nd designs active, student-centered curricula for institutions throughout the US. Batsheva has turned her popular Lenses of Questioning workshops into an online course, now available at NewLensEd.com. In 2017, Behrman House published her book, The Jewish Educator’s Companion.

Have you been able to tap into your student's interests? How about if you've had a student who's expressed to you that they just don't feel like they are creative? How do you handle those situations? In my conversation with Batsheva, we explore how we might engage, and challenge those beliefs about students and really how to tap into their interests.

Batsheva is one of the most experienced educators I've had the pleasure to speak with her experience and ideas around authentic learning and authentic assessments are really exciting, 

She talks about how she is helping schools dealing with chatGPT and AI to make it positive and exciting.

We talk about learning who the student is and how teachers can allow them to express themselves in their work and learning

Batsheva talks about how she uses student voices when she creates authentic assessments. She shares some examples and you will really love them. We then explore how these experiences are memorable to students.

We talk about one of Batsheva's favorite topics, the importance of taking grades out of the equation for students.

Batsheva is a great resource and you can check her out at the following social links:

Overthrowing Education Podcast Website

New Lens ed Website

Twitter

LinkedIn

Student shares why he wasn’t sure he was a leader

Have you ever wondered how a student might respond if we ask them to give us some time to think about changes that we wanna implement in the school? Do you think they would say, no, I don't want you to take your time? I wanna do school right now, or do you think they might have some understanding? In this conversation with Izaiah, I explore that question with him about the response to Covid.

 

The answer was really surprising to me when he said, I wish we had just taken some time. It was really fascinating. I don't think we give students enough credit, and we also talk about why students might be afraid to take on the title of leader or take on a leadership role. He's not the first student that has expressed this concern to me, but it was really interesting to hear his perspective.

 

The reason I interviewed Izaiah was that when I knew him as a student, I saw him as a leader, and I remember trying to convince him to join Peer Leadership at the time initially, he didn't see himself in that role, but he also experienced covid in high school.

 

We talk about what COVID was like for him as a student, and how some of the experiences were actually good for him. We talk about how he was able to connect or not with his teachers, and what his advice to those in charge would have been if he had been in the driver's seat during COVID. 

 

Izaiah describes himself as a hands-on learner and we talk about what types of classes and subjects he found to be enjoyable as a student. He shares about science is really good for him, but also when his English classes would do plays and how he liked making presentations. 

 

We explore how certain teachers in your experience supported him to be the best that he can be and how being a leader was a bit of a challenge for him initially. When I asked him why he shared with leadership, it's a lot of responsibility, trust and everyone looks up to you and just more eyes on you at once, and that's why he was hesitant to do it at first, but then he started to learn the main focus isn't to put focus on you. It is to get you out there so you can help people. People can trust you and like you have a better relationship with people you might not have spoken to in your regular day-to-day class in high school. 

 

I asked him to give advice to teachers, he shared try to get to know your students a little better. I loved that when I asked him about a lesson or words of wisdom he answered, “Just be friends with everyone at the moment. Don't worry about arguing or disliking other students due to the fact that you don't know what they've been through. Try to get to know students that don't talk that much. Try to get to know the students that may have special learning disabilities and they might need a little extra help.”

Thinking about how we navigate our classroom managment.

In this bonus episode, I wanna talk about the idea of a teacher holding their classroom as if they were holding it in the palm of their hand versus a tight fist.

As brand new teachers, we are in the process of holding our hand so tight around that classroom. We imagine that in order to manage that classroom, we have to be in control, and control a lot of times looks like holding our hand in that fist.

I've recently had several conversations. Guests about that idea of classroom management, making a fist in terms of how I keep my classroom in control, and I've started to wonder if it's a benefit.

We're often told don't smile until Thanksgiving. You don't want to let them know that you have a heart. I wonder if that's really good advice there's this underlying message that you are in charge. You are in control, and I'm not sure that's the message we wanna give.

When I speak with Shane Lawrence in the near future, he mentioned that as a new teacher, he also felt like he had to hold his hand in a fist. With more experience the less he held his hand so tight and started to open it up and open palm with his students, allowing them to engage with empowerment and the student voice in the classroom.

Do I wanna push people away with control? It gives you this false sense of comfortability and lack of vulnerability. But in the end, you're really putting barriers up for yourself and for those around you. And as a teacher, the last thing that we should wanna do is to put a barrier between us and the students.

If you have a classroom and you control it with a closed fist, you will not have the kind of relationships we want. I also think of Ross's interview. And his experience of being bullied and feeling so alone, he was connected to teachers that had open hands, but I don't think enough of us understand how important opening our hands and empowering our students.

This whole podcast is geared toward student voice.

How do we engage student voice?

How do we empower students to use their voice?

If you chose to engage and talk with your students. You are absolutely tapping into a valuable resource, our students are an incredible resource. I don't think we use them as a resource enough.

I encourage you to try. Try one lesson. Operating with a hand that's open. If nothing else, recognize the lack of energy that you have to put in holding onto your fist and the energy that comes out from those students. What a beautiful place that could be.

Developing student voice as we develop into confident leaders

Meet Shane Lawrence, he has been teaching for 17 years, mostly within the arts. Over that time, he has taught Drama, ELA, Social Studies, Photography, Computers, Film, Art, & Digital Media. His biggest passion is teaching Film Studies and Production. Outside of work, he is a husband, a dad of two young ones, a cyclist (as time allows), and someone with too many hobbies and interests. 

 

I wonder if you've considered asking students what they wanna do in your classroom. Do you think you're afraid of what might happen? If we ask them, you actually might be surprised at what their answers are. I like to think of it as if I just use my ideas. I'm only one brain if I include my students now I'm working with 20 Brains or however many students you have. 

 

In my conversation with Shane, we explore our feelings about being a first-year teacher versus a veteran teacher, and how that's really changed who we are and how we operate. How have you developed as an educator? How has your role changed? What do you think we could do to support new teachers so that they can see the value and not be so afraid of student voice? This interview with Shane really made me think about being a new teacher and some of those fears and lack of confidence. That new teachers face, and how that really impacts our ability to engage and empower students.

 

Shane shares how he knows student voice can be terrifying basically because of our training as new teachers, that you are the authority in the room. As he has grown as a teacher however, the understanding of what the student's role in the classroom is has helped him identify what he believes student voice is, it has to do with just empowering students to be more than just receptacles, more than just the people who come in and do the things that you assign them.

 

He has gone from holding my lesson plans tightly in my hand to hold it out in an open palm.

 

We talk about how the title teacher may be a source of the problem, maybe we need to coin a new word or a new term for that person who stands in front of the room, and what we call our students.  

 

I ask him about the transformation into less of an authoritarian role. When he started to realize he didn't need to be hanging onto this so tight and he is always willing to see if he can make ideas from students work. Why would you shy away from that? This is making things better, so let's do that. he tells my students all the time, if this doesn't work, Stop. We'll back it up. We'll try something different. Or if you have something different that you would like to do, let me know and we'll see if we can incorporate that. 

 

I love the idea of how if you don't activate that student voice, if you don't engage with them and empower them, then you really are missing out on something that could be better and different in a good way. 

I ask Shane to give advice to a new teacher, and he says, “Chop your lesson plans in half.” What are the things your kids need to learn? Is what you're proposing, is that the only way? Or can you make it more flexible? Don’t pretend to give them choice, they will figure it out. And then when you actually decide that you want to give them choices, they're not gonna feel empowered to share. So if you can instead give them real choices, show them that you are a professional and that you can do things in more than one way.

You can find his Podcast here https://unpro.podbean.com

Bullies impact us in long lasting ways - how does bullying follow you as an adult

In this episode we meet Ross L, Ross is a powerlifting coach, life coach, podcaster, content creator, father, partner, and aspiring public speaker to name a few things.  After having lived a life of limits and circumstances, Ross now seeks life-expanding challenges on a regular base.  Especially challenges that allow him to connect with and support others in their journeys to break free from self-limiting beliefs.  If we can pause for a moment to recognize the learning opportunities in all of life's events, we can move forward empowered to create the experiences we most desire.  Cultivating an internal sense of belonging to move forward with.  The journey of life is full of great joy when one has a sense of belonging! 

 

We revisit his experiences in school, where he was the target of bullying. He internalized the statements that others made about him as his self-talk for most of his life. 

The phrase we tell young children “Stick and Stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you,” was something he heard, but instead of helping it invalidated his experiences and what was going on for him because it did hurt. 

The impact was in many areas of his life including relationships, at 28 he realized the patterns and started therapy and working on himself to have a better relationship with himself.

Our peers really impact our self-talk but how do we challenge that self-talk? At the young ages of elementary school, we should be focusing more on identity and validating who each individual person is, and teaching compassion and kindness. 

We talk a little about school and Dana Martin's book, Radical Unschooling, and the idea of connection over correction which removes that authoritarian paradigm and puts us all on the same level playing field. In the classroom, teachers are afraid to accept responsibility or apologize. Ross noted that in the classes where the teacher allowed flexibility, there was more connection and collaboration. 

We discussed how many of our responses come from a place of our own experiences and hurt. I asked Ross to give some advice to teachers about bullying. He believes the foundation answer to that question of why our kids continue to get bullied is because, as adults, we set the example and we continue to bully.  All behaviors are learned. We teach them how to behave by how we lead. He reminds us there's no such thing as a bad kid or a misbehaved kid, only a kid who's lacking belonging and significance. Paying attention to behavior and understanding that the kid is trying to express something through this behavior. He also says we should see the bullies, see the bad behavior, and see them for the actions and the communication that they are trying to share with us.

Connect with Ross here:

Instagram: @ross.leppala

Facebook: Ross Leppala

Spotify: Project UnchainED

Youtube: Project UnchainED  - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSKZWCi0TIXIb3ScM5CM00w

 

 

Let’s celebrate how we all learn differently

In this bonus episode, I challenge the ideas about student behavior. I examine how I may have contributed to the struggles students had in my classroom. I explore the idea that students can benefit from talking about the ways we all learn differently.

I am excited to revisit the conversations I had with Kela and how she shared the difference between giving 100% as a student and what I the teacher expected 100% to look like. I revisit the learning I gained from talking with Kiana about her son Tristan's behavior. I also examine the information that Maggie and Ellery shared in their interviews with me, as well as the zoom they attended to share their ideas with other educators.

There is a lot packed into this episode and I am excited to promote the Student-Driven Solution Program that all schools should develop! A sustainable program that empowers your students to be part of the solutions and takes the work off the teacher and administrator plates. It is a win-win for all involved. You should click here to connect with me on how you too can bring the Student-Driven Solutions Program to your school today!