Latest / Where We Rise / 27 | "So Much More Than Algebra" | Impacting Our Youth

Transcript

27 | "So Much More Than Algebra" | Impacting Our Youth · Where We Rise

• 0:00
  Khalila McCoy: Hey, I'm Khalila McCoy, and this is the show that brings you stories from people bold enough to reimagine life.
• 0:07
  Khalila McCoy: This is where we rise.
• 0:10
  Khalila McCoy: Hello, everyone.
• 0:12
  Khalila McCoy: I hope your day is going well so far.
• 0:14
  Khalila McCoy: I am so pumped for today's conversation that I am going to get right into it.
• 0:19
  Khalila McCoy: We are currently in our back to school series where we explore how others learn, both literally and figuratively, and how they see the world so we can learn a little bit more ourselves.
• 0:29
  Khalila McCoy: Today, we are hearing from Dr.
• 0:31
  Khalila McCoy: Emily Wassell.
• 0:33
  Khalila McCoy: Dr.
• 0:33
  Khalila McCoy: Emily has been an educator for many years and has worn many hats.
• 0:37
  Khalila McCoy: The joy, the love, and the passion in Dr.
• 0:40
  Khalila McCoy: Emily's voice as she shares about her job, the students she's worked with, and her family is very contagious.
• 0:47
  Khalila McCoy: In this conversation, you'll hear how her journey took her from Colorado to India, from traditional classrooms to juvenile centers, from teaching English to founding a school built entirely around well-being.
• 0:59
  Khalila McCoy: You'll hear how she reimagined what learning could look like and worked to meet her students where they were so they could rise.
• 1:07
  Khalila McCoy: You'll also hear of a mother's deep love for her son and the importance of honoring who our children are.
• 1:14
  Khalila McCoy: So let's jump in because this episode is full of heart insight and a vision for learning that rises far beyond the classroom.
• 1:23
  Khalila McCoy: Okay, Dr.
• 1:25
  Khalila McCoy: Emily, welcome to the show.
• 1:27
  Khalila McCoy: Thank you.
• 1:28
  Khalila McCoy: Happy to be here.
• 1:29
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I am gonna actually start our show a little bit differently today.
• 1:33
  Khalila McCoy: So you and I both come from the world of education, which we will talk about in a minute, but I recently stepped out of the classroom.
• 1:41
  Khalila McCoy: So I'm gonna ask us to start with joy today and ask you what is something that is bringing you joy right now?
• 2:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I have to say my family.
• 2:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I feel really fortunate.
• 2:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I have a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy and a sweet husband.
• 2:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we have really been enjoying each other's company lately.
• 2:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that just brings me so much joy.
• 2:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That's awesome.
• 2:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 2:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: My six-year-old made a fruit salad this morning, and it just lights me up that he they both love me and are happy to talk to me and share with me.
• 2:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I feel really fortunate to have a good relationship with both my boys and my husband.
• 2:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So that lights me up.
• 2:34
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 2:35
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, in preparation for this, I was thinking about my joy, and mine was relationships too.
• 2:39
  Khalila McCoy: I have a five-year-old at home.
• 2:42
  Khalila McCoy: And so you know this, like when you get married and you have kids, like life is just different.
• 2:47
  Khalila McCoy: And when you're in education, it's ongoing, never stopping.
• 2:50
  Khalila McCoy: And I feel like it's easy to let those little relationships kind of slide.
• 2:54
  Khalila McCoy: And I feel like I'm finally getting to a point where I might not be with somebody every day, all day, but my time is really like high quality time that I'm spending with people.
• 3:04
  Khalila McCoy: So that's kind of my joy of feeling that as well.
• 3:08
  Khalila McCoy: Awesome.
• 3:10
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 3:11
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 3:11
  Khalila McCoy: So let's get into the educational world.
• 3:16
  Khalila McCoy: I know that you have been in the educational world for over 25 years, right?
• 3:21
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Khalila McCoy: So obviously that's something else that brings you joy as well.
• 3:25
  Khalila McCoy: So let's kind of go to where you started with education and everything that's led you to where you are now.
• 3:32
  Khalila McCoy: Great, great.
• 3:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, I kind of um, you know, when you're a kid and you play games, I was the oldest of four, I am the oldest of four kids.
• 3:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I would always play school with my brothers and sisters and wanted a whiteboard, love school supplies, you know, all of that.
• 3:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: However, I really thought I wanted to be a politician.
• 3:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I used to tell people, like, I'm gonna be the first female president of the United States.
• 3:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I was very, very excited about politics.
• 4:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I actually went to a school in India for my last two years of high school called the United World College.
• 4:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And while I was there, we had to do community service.
• 4:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I ended up teaching, because it comes naturally, for an orphanage.
• 4:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I remember working with orphans and having this feeling of like politicians don't change the world, teachers do.
• 4:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was really this clarity of if I really want to make an impact in the world, then I can do it through teaching.
• 4:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it really solidified that all along I've been interested in teaching.
• 4:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I um I just wanted to make a bigger impact, which I thought politicians did.
• 4:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was really affirming for me to realize, like, no, it's teachers.
• 4:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Teachers make the real difference in the world.
• 4:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that solidified my choice to stay on the path of teaching.
• 4:55
  Khalila McCoy: So that's really exciting.
• 4:58
  Khalila McCoy: That um your story is very similar to mine.
• 5:00
  Khalila McCoy: I wanted to be a lawyer when I was younger.
• 5:04
  Khalila McCoy: And I went and shadowed a lawyer and realized that world was not for me.
• 5:08
  Khalila McCoy: But it was really about like I wanted to fight for the little guy, I wanted to help somebody.
• 5:12
  Khalila McCoy: I wanted somebody who didn't have a voice, you know, to be that voice for them.
• 5:17
  Khalila McCoy: And then when I found out being a lawyer wasn't for me, I was really distraught.
• 5:20
  Khalila McCoy: And my dad was just like, you know, you're really good with kids.
• 5:23
  Khalila McCoy: You're always with children, you're always helping them.
• 5:25
  Khalila McCoy: And just like you said, like through helping a child, you are making an impact on the future and on the world.
• 5:32
  Khalila McCoy: So that's really cool that you and I have that connection.
• 5:35
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I love that.
• 5:37
  Khalila McCoy: So tell me first of all, why India, like what type of program in your school allowed you to do that?
• 5:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 5:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So actually, um, United World Colleges were started in an effort to stop world wars.
• 5:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so now there's many of them.
• 5:54
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But when I went, there was, I think there was only 10 or 12 in the world.
• 5:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And basically one or two students represent each country at each of the schools.
• 6:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so I got to represent the United States.
• 6:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um I thought I was gonna end up going to the United World College in the US, which is in New Mexico.
• 6:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: However, I was offered a spot in India, and my parents were not so thrilled, but I was adamant and wanted it ferociously.
• 6:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And my grandmother was the one that really stood up and said, let her go, you gotta let her go.
• 6:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I'm really thankful that I had the chance to do it.
• 6:32
  Khalila McCoy: So you're there, you're realizing that teaching is really where you can make the most impact.
• 6:38
  Khalila McCoy: What happened after that?
• 6:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 6:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So I was excited about teaching, and unfortunately, I did not have a lot of guidance in terms of how to get into college.
• 6:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so I ended up taking what started as a one-year gap year, and then it was a two-year gap year, and then it was a three-year gap year, and it ended up being four years before I actually started college.
• 7:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um I ended up getting into my dream school after those four years and taking the SAT multiple times, and um, neither of my parents were college graduates, and so I had no guidance and didn't know what I was doing, and fumbled my way through it till I got into college.
• 7:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, and in those four years of gap years, I really got to travel.
• 7:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I learned a bunch of languages, I was no pair, I did a bunch of different jobs, which meant by the time I got to college, I was really thankful to be there and really serious about school.
• 7:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, starting college at 21 is a totally different experience than what I imagine it is at 18, right?
• 7:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So I was not, you know, people jokingly called me Cinder Emily because like at 10 o'clock at a party, I'd be like, I gotta go sleep, you guys.
• 7:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I got a class in the morning.
• 7:54
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like I was not there to party, I was there to write.
• 7:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So yeah, and I I loved college and I really had an incredible time there and actually started doing student teaching for my work study.
• 8:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I was able to teach, which was fantastic, and started teaching in college, which was great, and did my undergrad in English with a minor in comparative religion.
• 8:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Then I did my master's and got my master's of arts in teaching right afterwards, and started teaching in public schools.
• 8:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, and I taught in a lot of different schools.
• 8:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I just couldn't really figure out where I wanted to stay.
• 8:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, so I worked in like, I worked in a juvenile correction center, I worked in a low-income school district, I worked in a high-income school school district.
• 8:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I just couldn't find my place.
• 8:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 8:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um at the time I was thinking like, oh, I just want to stay at one school and be there.
• 8:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But now in hindsight, I'm really glad because I was able to experience so many types of schools.
• 9:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 9:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So I worked everywhere from public to private to gifted and talented to, you know, troubled youth, um, and ended up teaching in lots of different places and really getting a much bigger picture of education.
• 9:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I remember I was at one point, I was I was the teacher that I taught English first and foremost, but then they realized I was also good at teaching math and reading.
• 9:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So I became the teacher that was the fix helped with behavior problems.
• 9:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So kids who were on behavior plans ended up getting me multiple times a day.
• 9:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I remember I just wanted to take them on field trips and take them outside and show them the real world.
• 9:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, I was always pushing the limits of what was allowed in the classroom.
• 9:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 9:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, I was a teacher that was scolded for bringing in fruit to my students that didn't have food at home.
• 9:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I once I had a student who was homeless, and when he got an apartment with his mom, I gave them, I had a futon bed from college that I gave to them.
• 10:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I got in trouble because you're not supposed to be meeting up with students after class.
• 10:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um I had a student who was once put up for adoption when she was 14 from her parents.
• 10:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so she would come to me every morning and I ended up, I would give her hugs and I would talk to her and be there with her.
• 10:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I was told, like, no, you're not allowed to give students hugs.
• 10:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I just remember thinking, like, this system needs to change.
• 10:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like these students need hugs, these students need fruit, these students need resources.
• 10:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I had a fellow teacher say, No one's gonna listen to you till you have more letters after your name.
• 10:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So that is what inspired me to go get my PhD.
• 10:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I thought, okay, okay, you want you want letters after your name?
• 10:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I can get letters after my name.
• 10:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So um I did a PhD program, and that's where I found the science of well-being.
• 10:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was it was uh, let's see, 2012 when I was in the PhD program, and the science of well-being was um not trending in the same way that it is today.
• 11:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So I was really fascinated by it and really intrigued by it, and really hoped to integrate all of this science about how people thrive and how we're happy and how to create happy, successful youth into school systems.
• 11:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um for one reason or another, that was not met with much enthusiasm.
• 11:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And at one point, I was uh after I got my PhD, I was continuing to teach.
• 11:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I ended up teaching at a few different universities.
• 11:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I went to Washington, D.C.
• 11:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: and went to the Department of Education, and I asked for a meeting, and I was so excited to talk about the science of well-being and how I could integrate it into school and education.
• 11:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I was basically told, like, education's good.
• 11:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We we have these great textbooks, we have these great tests, like we don't need any touchy-feely well-being, health and happiness stuff.
• 12:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um that is what actually led me to found and create my own school focused on well-being as an outcome measure.
• 12:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So that was a whole nother journey and a huge challenge in figuring out how to run a school.
• 12:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And running that school was really life-changing.
• 12:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It was um for me and the students.
• 12:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And changing the focus to be one of well-being for students meant that we did um about three field trips a week.
• 12:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we did 25 overnight trips a year with those students, showing them the real world and really focusing on their health and happiness, focusing on getting them connected to the environment, um, talking with them about security and safety, emotional resilience, lots of mindfulness, and real life skills.
• 13:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we brought in so many guest experts in from cooking to first aid to you know, first responders who had dealt with overdoses and talking to the students about harm reduction strategies and really trying to share with them in an educational setting all the skills that we need to really thrive in the real world, which is so much beyond the textbooks and the tests, right?
• 13:34
  Khalila McCoy: I agree.
• 13:34
  Khalila McCoy: So yeah, that was so amazing.
• 13:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thank you.
• 13:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thank you.
• 13:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It was really a fantastic journey.
• 13:41
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 13:42
  Khalila McCoy: I mean, there's so much to dissect, but let's talk about the school first.
• 13:46
  Khalila McCoy: How did you so tell me some about three field trips a week?
• 13:51
  Khalila McCoy: Where are some of the places you guys went?
• 13:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Oh, it was it was incredible.
• 13:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So one day a week was PE, and I took them outdoor every single week for a full-day outdoor field trip.
• 14:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was incredible for me to see neurodivergent learners, you know, kids who didn't want to learn just connect with nature and their bodies.
• 14:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, if you've taught, you understand that there's a time where teenagers kind of are not there academically.
• 14:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, a few years ago they knew the content, all of a sudden puberty hits and they are just not academically focused at all.
• 14:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Not at all.
• 14:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, exactly.
• 14:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 14:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So it was a real gift to be able to take them outdoors.
• 14:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that meant in the winter we were skiing, in the summer we were hiking, we did swimming field trips, we did um, you know, you name it, everything you could think of bike trips, um, but lots and lots of time outdoors with them, which was, I think, really nourishing for their souls to just connect with nature, put their fingers in the dirt.
• 14:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It counted as class to be, you know, swimming in waterfalls or um, and we made it academic.
• 15:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, we would stop and journal and talk and process and you know, we would go to hot springs and talk about the water and mineral content and where the water came from and how hot springs work.
• 15:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So it was always integrated into academic concepts, but really
• 15:21
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I was gonna ask you that because I know the teachers listening are like, wait, how are you getting that content in?
• 15:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was, you know, we would be studying geology and get to go hike through canyons.
• 15:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So the other amazing thing was I really tapped into lots of community resources.
• 15:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So, for example, we had an incredible geologist take us to sites and hike with us and be pointing out everything from fossils and you know, the layering of the soils and different, you know, time periods that the different soils had come from and how water flows worked, and it was really an incredible opportunity.
• 16:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So that was PE, and that was once a week.
• 16:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then we did a lot of community service.
• 16:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we partnered with lots of local organizations and a lot of elderly.
• 16:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we would do anything from, you know, sometimes we would just talk with elders in our community.
• 16:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Sometimes we would go and do yard work for them, like when the seasons were changing and they needed leaves raked.
• 16:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So it was a lot of work and a lot of community service, which in the end was something that was really empowering to all of our teens to really feel needed and feel capable.
• 16:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then we did field trips that were really focused on, you know, depending.
• 16:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We did a block system.
• 16:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So each month basically was one unit that we would focus on in the afternoons.
• 16:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And in the mornings, this is not the field trips, but just the week, we would do a unit.
• 16:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then in the morning, we would focus on the core subjects.
• 17:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So, you know, English and math and science and um and so in our field trips, we would like, for example, one time we did a civics unit.
• 17:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And in that civics unit, they ended up having to take a citizenship test at the end of the block and understand all the about our government and how our government worked.
• 17:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then we visited a bunch of local people who worked for the government.
• 17:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we would go on field trips to the post office or to the fire department or the police department.
• 17:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, we met with a local DA and got to talk about how the court systems worked.
• 17:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So it was really a chance to use our community as a classroom and take the students out into the real world and teach them things about, you know, what do you do when you have to have jury duty?
• 17:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Or how do you, you know, what what should you know from your local fire department?
• 17:57
  Khalila McCoy: And that's what a lot of adults don't know exactly.
• 18:01
  Khalila McCoy: Just because that's not normally part of the curriculum.
• 18:04
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 18:04
  Khalila McCoy: And you're making educational education come alive and making it purposeful and meaningful at the same time.
• 18:10
  Khalila McCoy: Exactly.
• 18:11
  Khalila McCoy: Exactly.
• 18:11
  Khalila McCoy: That's so exciting.
• 18:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, it was.
• 18:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It was really um a gift to be able to have that time with those students.
• 18:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then we also focused on field trips.
• 18:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we were in rural Colorado and we would do field trips towards cities.
• 18:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we would take them to the city and learn about how to be safe in the city.
• 18:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I would take them to the ballet or the opera, museums, you know, we would go for dance lessons.
• 18:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So the the field trips were really focused on exposing them to culture.
• 18:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we even did lessons in etiquette, and I took them to really fancy restaurants, and we would have to learn how to dress nice and tie a tie and iron your clothes and show up at a nice restaurant and have manners and which fork do you use?
• 18:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it really felt um empowering to give those teens those skills.
• 19:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So what age group was this?
• 19:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So it was from seventh grade through twelfth.
• 19:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So secondary.
• 19:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 19:09
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Nice.
• 19:09
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And about how large was your school?
• 19:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We were really small.
• 19:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So at the the largest, we were 28.
• 19:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So it was.
• 19:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That's wonderful.
• 19:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 19:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 19:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It was really, really great.
• 19:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You really get to make a one-on-one connection with those kids and it makes it easier to go out on the field trips and things like that.
• 19:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 19:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I really um I was able to really love the students in a way that, you know, is almost going back to Plato and Socrates, right?
• 19:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: This idea of love in the classroom.
• 19:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And in a way that, you know, I'm married, I have kids, I respected all those boundaries, and yet could tell them that I love them and tell them that I cared about them.
• 19:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And developing that relationship with students, you know, we had we had some students who were with us for six years.
• 19:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And being able to see them come in and then grow.
• 20:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Grow and flourish was really, really a joy.
• 20:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: From the side of being the founder of the school and opening it, what type of things did you have to do and prepare for everything, right?
• 20:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: From from grant writing to um you know managing supplies to explaining to the community what we were doing, to um really figuring out how to meet each student's needs while still upholding academic excellence.
• 20:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that that was always a challenge of, you know, I wanted them to read, I wanted them to write, I wanted them to do be able to complete an SAT and understand grammar rules and understand, you know, algebra and geometry while at the same time tending to those softer skills.
• 20:54
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so always trying to strike a balance as far as where do we fit everything in was always a challenge.
• 21:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then I think the biggest challenge came with COVID.
• 21:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that was really um a huge challenge for the school, right?
• 21:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Because how do you do field trips when you're not supposed to even see each other?
• 21:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 21:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we we we were really lucky that we still did field trips through COVID.
• 21:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Okay.
• 21:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, it was just a lot of outdoor learning.
• 21:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we would still go on hikes and still we even did ski trips.
• 21:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like we would be, in some cases, the only students out there.
• 21:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, like I told you, we would do the front range trip, which was the one where we did, you know, ballet and theater and all of that.
• 21:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that year I didn't want to take it from those kids.
• 21:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I was like, how do I do this?
• 21:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: How do I give them a cultural experience?
• 21:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, in lockdown.
• 21:52
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 21:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I actually found this tiny hot spring that I was able to reserve the whole place.
• 21:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so we showed up and had.
• 21:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: This whole it used to be a like a camp.
• 22:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So there was a dining hall and there was a kitchen we could use, and the students had to plan all the meals and cook all the meals.
• 22:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And each student led different activities, and um we had a dance, and we we were able to really have a great time.
• 22:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we were really fortunate that we just test by then tests had come out.
• 22:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we tested every student before they we left for the field trip.
• 22:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then we were able to just have a nice time together.
• 22:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, so managing COVID was was maddening, really, if I'm totally honest.
• 22:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So which is very understandable.
• 22:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 22:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 22:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Not to mention the politics and the, you know, it was it was challenging.
• 22:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 22:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Tell me a little bit about like your staff for this.
• 22:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Was it kind of hard to find people?
• 22:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Because this is not, you know, when you go into teaching, obviously you want to reach the kids and things like that, but what you learn in college doesn't really set you up for this style of teaching.
• 23:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So were you looking for a certain type of person when you were hiring?
• 23:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then there do you have a specialized training for those teachers?
• 23:09
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 23:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I mean, it was interesting now that I reflect back.
• 23:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, we started with a lot of part-time teachers.
• 23:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, a teacher would come in and teach Spanish, or a teacher would come in to teach cooking, or a teacher would come in for for PE or little parts.
• 23:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um and then I had success with some teachers and not success with some teachers, right?
• 23:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So that was another challenge of hiring and letting go and um finding the right people who really understood the whole concept.
• 23:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think one of the bigger, you know, I think the challenge that a lot of teachers face is that in some cases, you are you're representing more than just your subject, right?
• 23:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You are in some cases the moral compass for these students.
• 24:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You are the safe place for these students, and living with them, hiking with them, traveling with them, you it made me a better person, right?
• 24:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I really had to step up.
• 24:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I saw in my staff the staff who really rose to the occasion and were willing to really be amazing.
• 24:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And in some cases, there were staff that you know, when when you're teaching students about their well-being and their health and they're, you know, doing meditation with them in the mornings and and teaching them about health and nutrition, um, you can't be smoking cigarettes on the side.
• 24:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: If you're teaching this, you know, teaching content about the dangers of tobacco and nicotine, you can't actually be smoking on the side.
• 24:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so that was kind of a challenge to find teachers who were really willing to also commit to their own well-being.
• 24:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But I was very fortunate that I did.
• 24:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I ended up finding some really amazing people who really rose to the occasion and were able to step into those leadership roles in a powerful way.
• 25:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And the other thing that made the school really different was, you know, as I'm sure you know, there as a teacher, you're often asked to keep who you are out of the classroom and just show up as a teacher.
• 25:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And one of the things that we did was we said, there is nothing that is not school appropriate if it's brought by the students.
• 25:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So of course, I kept boundaries of lots of things are definitely school inappropriate.
• 25:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: However, if a student came to me and asked, you know, what is Xanax or what is this, or when did you lose your virginity, right?
• 25:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: All those, I had a policy of being honest with students.
• 25:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that was really powerful because it meant that they came to me with the real problems.
• 25:54
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that um was in some ways really eye-opening to see what young people are actually dealing with, you know.
• 26:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 26:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, I'll never forget there was a moment where a bunch of us girls, we were on a hot trip.
• 26:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We had the girls in the sauna, the girls were saunning, and they started talking about like, who have you kissed and when did you?
• 26:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then they started asking about dick pics.
• 26:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I had this moment of shock, right?
• 26:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I'm in this room with 13 to 17 year old girls.
• 26:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 26:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I asked, they asked me, you know, how old were you when you got your first dick pic?
• 26:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I said, Okay, full disclosure here, I've never gotten one.
• 26:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And they were like, What?
• 26:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You've never gotten one?
• 26:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, that's just, I guess, how old I am, right?
• 26:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I asked the girls, I said, how many of you have received one?
• 26:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And every single girl in that room had received one.
• 26:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: My goodness.
• 26:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And at 13.
• 26:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 26:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it just broke my heart.
• 26:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It just completely broke my heart.
• 26:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I had to say, like, that is not okay.
• 26:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That is not, you know, ever should never be tolerated.
• 27:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That is not something that you from a stranger, especially, that is just such a violation.
• 27:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, and then when I was speaking with the boys later, we had this whole discussion about like, if you ever feel tempted, I want you to send a picture of a cute puppy.
• 27:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I promise it will work better every time, you know.
• 27:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So um being able to be real with students and really try to understand the real problems they're facing.
• 27:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 27:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Was so much more than algebra, right?
• 27:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It was so much more than comma splices.
• 27:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I went into creating the school thinking like, ah, student well-being, students need more time outside, they need healthier foods, they need to talk about nutrition.
• 27:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I had no idea what teens were really dealing with, which was um so much more than parents realize, right?
• 27:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 27:54
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What would you say is one of the biggest challenges that you've learned that kids are dealing with?
• 28:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um technology, right?
• 28:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Social media.
• 28:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: The the idea that these young girls who are, and I'm speaking particularly for the girls and the boys, but particularly the girls.
• 28:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Umcial media can really crush their confidence.
• 28:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, they look at all these beautiful people who have everything, and they start to really have that negative inner voice that I think a lot of us have as teenagers.
• 28:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I always told them, like, you're all ugly ducklings that are gonna turn into these beautiful swans.
• 28:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that's just puberty.
• 28:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's just how it works, you know.
• 28:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 28:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But it's really different with social media.
• 28:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, I remember at one point the students invited me to be on Snapchat with them.
• 28:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And when I realized that Snapchat shows your location and I could see who was hanging out with who and who was not included, and I just realized so much technology is really crushing for young people.
• 29:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And one of the things that we frequently did was we would take their phones on field trips.
• 29:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was incredible to see after 24 hours of not having their phones, they were kids again and playing in the dirt and not caring.
• 29:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, when they knew that nobody had a phone, they weren't worried about someone taking a picture of them and then having dirt on them or them playing in the leaves, right?
• 29:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so taking away technology, let them be kids again.
• 29:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think that's what's really heartbreaking for me is to see how technology has kind of pushed maturity and adulthood on some of these young people just far too soon.
• 29:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: They're not ready.
• 29:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 29:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Exactly.
• 29:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yep, exactly.
• 29:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What was the family support like?
• 29:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, mixed.
• 29:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Some of the families completely loved it.
• 29:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And some of them were like, shouldn't you be doing tests?
• 29:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Shouldn't they be sitting and doing more, you know, more classical education?
• 29:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um the interesting thing was seeing the results, right?
• 30:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So now I look at those students and where they're at in the world, and many of them got full-right scholarships.
• 30:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, we had students start their own businesses right after high school.
• 30:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And they are I I admire them.
• 30:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I look up to them.
• 30:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: They're they're incredible young people who spent time figuring out who they were rather than trying to impress other people.
• 30:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um yeah, time will tell the real benefits, but it's it's been a joy to I still am connected with many of them and keep in touch, and that really feels like like such a gift.
• 30:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So is the school still running?
• 30:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: No, actually, so that's a whole nother story, but I'm happy to share.
• 30:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So um I have I have a really amazing son.
• 30:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He's now 13.
• 30:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But when he was 11 and 12, he started um being bullied mercilessly.
• 31:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And he is neurodivergent, he's got red hair, he's he's a very different kid.
• 31:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Brilliant, funny, but not like his peers.
• 31:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Okay.
• 31:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we kind of reached a point where we said, we need he's, of course, I teach English and math.
• 31:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: My husband teach taught art and PE.
• 31:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, so that was a whole nother layer teaching.
• 31:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: My husband was also one of the staff members.
• 31:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um needs.
• 31:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, which was great.
• 31:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But our son was not into it.
• 31:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was like part of the reason I really created the school was for him.
• 31:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I thought, like, this will be great.
• 31:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: This is just what he needs.
• 31:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And he said, Mom, I just want science.
• 31:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I want robotics, I want chemistry, I want chemistry labs, I want physics.
• 31:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we were not successful in finding great science teachers that really fit the bill.
• 31:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So um my husband and I made a really hard decision of putting our kids' needs first.
• 32:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think um years of working with teens really brought to my attention the critical need to tend to teens at a young age.
• 32:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so at 12, when he started showing signs of depression and really being really unhappy, we knew something had to change.
• 32:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so I went to the board and said, I'm done, I'm resigning.
• 32:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You're welcome to find a new director, you know.
• 32:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, but I put in my letter of resignation.
• 32:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And the board tried hard, but couldn't find anyone else to run the school.
• 32:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so yeah, so it was bittersweet.
• 32:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: The school ended up shutting down.
• 32:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And my family and I, we took, we sold everything, sold our house, sold our car, quit our jobs, um, got rid of like 90% of our possessions.
• 32:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And the other big awareness I had from running the school was that there's a really small window where teens still want to be with you and still want to connect with you as parents.
• 33:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, and they're embarrassed by you by about 15, right?
• 33:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: 14, 15.
• 33:09
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's like, oh mom, rolling the eyes.
• 33:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 33:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So when he was 12, soon to be 13, it was like, oh no, like he's he's not gonna want us around much longer.
• 33:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 33:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 33:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, my husband and I had always talked about traveling the world one day being a bucket list goal.
• 33:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we did it.
• 33:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We we gave up everything.
• 33:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And for five months, my youngest, my then he was five, so it was five, twelve, my husband and I.
• 33:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, the four of us traveled the world for five months.
• 33:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we went to 11 different countries looking for the right school for my son.
• 33:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And he found it, and it was in Italy, and that's how we ended up moving to Italy was he found his dream school, which was focused on science and technology.
• 33:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And he's now happier than he's ever been.
• 34:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So that is amazing.
• 34:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 34:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 34:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We feel like what are some of the places that you visited?
• 34:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we started in the US and we went all over in the US and looked at lots of places in the US.
• 34:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, and you know, I think one of the biggest challenges we faced, especially having been a teacher for a long time, was that places that had really amazing, incredible schools were out of our price range, right?
• 34:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We couldn't afford a lot of the good schools in the US.
• 34:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And even the people will argue, like, well, there's public schools, but we couldn't afford to live in those neighborhoods.
• 34:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we couldn't afford houses in those communities.
• 34:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And the places where we could afford to live didn't have the schools that we were looking for and the resources we wanted.
• 34:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we started traveling and went to Mexico, Costa Rica, uh, the net then we went to Europe and did the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Germany.
• 35:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um then we went to Turkey and India and Hungary.
• 35:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Okay.
• 35:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And yeah, so it was it was an incredible life-changing opportunity for us.
• 35:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we really bonded as a family and had a great time together and were able to just be together.
• 35:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um I think all those years of, you know, I ended up running the school almost seven, seven, eight years of running the school.
• 35:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And during that time, you know, I was working 60 hours a week.
• 35:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I was not spending time with my kids.
• 35:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, when they did see me, I was stressed.
• 35:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I was, you know, grading papers into all hours of the night, or writing grants, or dealing with board meetings, or I was just not present.
• 35:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that hurt, you know, that it's like, oh, I'm I'm here to care for students, and yet my own children are not getting enough of me.
• 36:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So those five months of traveling were really, really super rewarding to just slow down, play in the sand, you know, be on the beach together, go for a hike together.
• 36:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um and the irony of the whole situation was that we we ended up for those five months of traveling with airfare with everything cost us 25,000.
• 36:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And our life in America was more than 5,000 a month, right?
• 36:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: When you counted the mortgage and the cars and the health insurance, like all of it was more.
• 36:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we somehow traveled the world for less than we were.
• 36:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, that's surprising.
• 36:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You wouldn't think that.
• 36:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 36:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 36:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It was, it was.
• 36:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um really slowing down and being together really felt like a huge, huge, huge gift.
• 36:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So yeah, which connects really well.
• 36:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I understand your joy a little bit more that you shared earlier.
• 36:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 36:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Exactly.
• 36:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: When you were traveling to the different places looking at schools, how did you know like where to stop and what neighborhoods or what schools to look at?
• 37:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Good question.
• 37:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 37:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We were looking for, we were very specific with what my oldest son needed, right?
• 37:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He was looking for um an open-minded community that would value his neurodiversity.
• 37:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So, really looking at schools that have resources for neurodiverse students narrowed it down.
• 37:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We also realized that the IB program is really good for him.
• 37:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we were looking specifically at IB schools, and he loved science.
• 37:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, he he asked for Bunsen burners for Christmas, and it was like, no, no, we're not having a home Bunsen burner.
• 37:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You're a little dangerous.
• 37:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Exactly, exactly.
• 37:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's like, you need a chemistry teacher.
• 37:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We're not doing this at home.
• 37:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like, let's find a place that has good science resources.
• 37:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So every school we looked at, we would always want to go and look at the science department and the science labs and see what they had.
• 38:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um and then, you know, our health.
• 38:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: After focusing so much on student well-being, it was really important to us that we would be able to also be healthy as a family.
• 38:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So a place that's walkable, a place that feels safe, um a place that doesn't feel um, you know, there's some equity.
• 38:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We wanted diversity, we wanted equity, we wanted there to be um people of different ethnic backgrounds, people of different language backgrounds, people with different religions, people um you know, to expose our kids to more than what they had seen in rural Colorado.
• 38:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 38:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So what is it like in Italy where you are?
• 38:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We're really happy.
• 38:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We're really, really happy.
• 38:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We're um we're not far from Venice.
• 38:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we get to Venice is like 30 minutes away, which is kind of a dream anytime we get off the train and we're in these amazing places.
• 39:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we don't have a car.
• 39:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We use public transportation and trains and buses, and we walk a lot.
• 39:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And life is a lot slower.
• 39:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right, you sounds wonderful.
• 39:13
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Cafe.
• 39:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, I go to the piazza.
• 39:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So we're really, really enjoying the shift.
• 39:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, are you learning Italian?
• 39:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes, yes.
• 39:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Okay, nice piano, piano, slowly, slowly, yeah.
• 39:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um I I understand more than I can say, which is kind of the natural way of things.
• 39:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And how long have you been there now?
• 39:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um since August 2025.
• 39:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 39:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 39:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And he's enjoying his schooling there.
• 39:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, he's happier than that.
• 39:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But he has friends, he's um really, really loves life.
• 39:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um there's eccentricity is really um appreciated in Europe.
• 39:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Okay.
• 39:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So he, you know, when he dressed up in America in like a fancy outfit, he was bullied and teased.
• 39:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And here he can go out as fancy as he wants, and there's always men that are more dressed up than him.
• 40:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So he really appreciates that there's um eccentric people around.
• 40:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes.
• 40:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 40:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That sounds wonderful.
• 40:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I'm so excited for your family and for your son.
• 40:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And thank you.
• 40:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That's amazing that you, you know, that's a sacrifice for your family, but you were able to do that and willing to do that for your child.
• 40:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think that yeah, that's very admirable.
• 40:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, I I get teary because I feel like um he knows I love him.
• 40:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, he knows that like the school was my baby, was my dream.
• 40:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I always wanted to create a school.
• 40:41
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And then when I realized that he was struggling, we let it go for him and to really put his needs first.
• 40:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think, you know, you asked before about like what is the biggest thing that that teens struggle with.
• 40:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think um I think a lot of people are concerned with, you know, gun violence or or drugs or or all these other, you know, alcohol abuse, all these violence.
• 41:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But to me, one of the biggest dangers out there is bullying.
• 41:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, you know, before we made this huge move, we were really afraid for him because of how bad the bullying was.
• 41:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so for him to now be free of that just feels like oh, I can breathe.
• 41:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I feel really so thankful that he's and you get to see who he really is.
• 41:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And exactly.
• 41:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I'm sure you'd accept the Michelle more Yeah, completely understanding what you guys did for him is going to, you know, build that relationship stronger and stronger every day.
• 41:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 41:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, and as you know, as a parent, like at the end of the day, there's nothing you wouldn't do for your kid.
• 41:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think that's true of every parent out there.
• 41:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But I think tragically, a lot of parents don't realize when teens actually need them the most, right?
• 42:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And a lot of teens aren't willing to share their struggles, right?
• 42:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so um having been there and having worked with so many teens through their struggles and realizing like, oh, these aren't 17, 18-year-old struggles, these are like 12 and 13-year-olds struggling.
• 42:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think that's something that at least in my generation was not the case.
• 42:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like I was still very much a child at 12.
• 42:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I wasn't a young adult.
• 42:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think with technology, like I said, there's this maturity that's happening even younger.
• 42:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Mm-hmm.
• 42:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: A lot of kids, like you said, aren't really talking to their parents.
• 42:43
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And you know how our school system, it's it's, you know, as teachers, we're encouraged not to have those conversations with kids and not to help them unless you're the guidance counselor, and I'm sure they even have limits.
• 42:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What would you suggest to either parents or teachers?
• 42:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like what are some signs that we might notice or things like that that we should be more aware of?
• 43:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I know you talked about social media.
• 43:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What are some other things?
• 43:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 43:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um I think just as a society, we may need more time to slow down.
• 43:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Right.
• 43:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, you know, the benefits of boredom, the benefits of reading.
• 43:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like I am a huge, huge, huge advocate of reading.
• 43:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And if your teen is not reading, they're struggling, period.
• 43:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, I would always talk to students about how reading gives you the chance to try anything in the world without the actual risk, you know, that reading is this doorway into all kinds of things.
• 43:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so the students that are interested in sex or interested in drugs or interested in joining a gang, like there's a book about that.
• 43:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Let's find a book of someone who actually did that.
• 43:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And you can read all about it from the Safety of your own bedroom, right?
• 44:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um I think that giving students literature rather than technology is a way to really keep them safe and keep expanding their horizons and opening their eyes to the real world while not opening them up to the dangers that really exist in the real world.
• 44:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um and I think another critical thing is mindfulness and time to breathe and time to slow down.
• 44:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think our busy lives are such that as parents, we're really busy.
• 44:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, there's there's so much going on.
• 44:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And little things like having dinner as a family, no media, no phones at the table, no TV on, no music on, everybody sit down and have a meal together is really, really, really valuable because sometimes I think often teens need to talk to someone and there just isn't time.
• 45:03
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And they're not gonna interrupt you while you're on the phone and making dinner and listening to music and watching TV to share something that's really emotional and hard for them.
• 45:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: They need that space and they need that calm.
• 45:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so creating spaces in our homes of quiet and calm and space is a real challenge for adults, right?
• 45:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I I completely recognize that.
• 45:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like we we lead very busy lives.
• 45:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We have emails to get to and work to do and dinner to make.
• 45:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so making time that is tech free and making time that is calm and still is critically important.
• 45:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um the the the third thing that I would say that is um teens need mentors, right?
• 45:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And and I recognize with my own son, there are things that he may not want to tell me, right?
• 45:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I find that what I do now, I'm now a college coach and I work with teens from all over the world, helping them to, you know, take this whole college process and college journey.
• 46:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And teens often just need someone else to talk to other than their parents.
• 46:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it's not that they're keeping secrets from their parents, like it'll eventually come back to their parents, but they just need a sounding board to say it for the first time.
• 46:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so having those intergenerational, like it can be a grandma, it can be a neighbor, there needs to be another trusted adult in your child's life other than parents.
• 46:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And like you said, I think in many cases it is teachers, but teachers are put in this really bizarre situation where they may be the most trusted adult in that teen's life, and yet they're never alone with the teen, right?
• 46:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: They're not supposed to talk about things.
• 46:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so the teen may really, really want to tell a teacher something, but they don't have the time or space to.
• 46:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So creating mentorships for your teen where, you know, I think I think right now globally, we have a loneliness epidemic of we're all so connected on social media, but we're not authentically connected to real people.
• 47:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so, you know, we have these teenagers struggling upset and alone.
• 47:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We have these elderly people alone, sad and depressed, and creating those mentorship partners.
• 47:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um and and, you know, it's it's yes, of course, it is important that we can find adults that we can trust, adults that are trustworthy, but there's a lot of lonely, trustworthy adults out there who would love to connect with young people and have someone to talk to or play games with or um just be able to listen, which is I think what teens really need.
• 47:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 47:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Wow.
• 47:54
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That was really great advice and everything that you've shared.
• 47:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I'm very much in awe of you.
• 47:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I don't know, I'm gonna go talk to my husband.
• 48:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We might need to go travel the world and move to Italy too.
• 48:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like it just sounds amazing.
• 48:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thank you.
• 48:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thank you.
• 48:09
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It really um, yeah, it was you know, life is short and being with your kids and connecting with your kids is it's a miracle.
• 48:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it's a it's such a a joy to be able to really be there with them and be present with them.
• 48:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, you know, the irony of like, I'm working really hard so that I can support you so that we can it's like, no, they just want to play with you.
• 48:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like they don't care, you know.
• 48:38
  Dr. Emily Wassell: My six-year-old does not care if he has clothes that have holes and are dirty.
• 48:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He doesn't care that, you know, he just wants to play with me.
• 48:45
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He wants a hike, he wants to play with me.
• 48:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He wants to be with you.
• 48:48
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, all the other stuff doesn't matter, you know.
• 48:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And especially traveling, it was like he went from a room full of toys to like a tiny little backpack with a few Legos.
• 48:59
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He was totally out.
• 49:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That's fine, I'm sure.
• 49:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 49:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 49:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: When we were in um Mexico, this man, but that was the other thing.
• 49:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Traveling, we met so many wonderful people.
• 49:09
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And people told us, like, aren't you scared?
• 49:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: No, families are respected around the world.
• 49:14
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like families are loved and appreciated, and we felt so safe everywhere we went.
• 49:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And uh this man Guillermo, in in when we were in Mexico, gave us this seed pod that had fallen from the tree.
• 49:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Okay, and it it works like a little canoe, it would float in the water.
• 49:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And he said it was actually um even like the Incans used to play, it was a toy that even the Incans would play with, like it's this ancient kids' toy of this seed pod that looks like a boat.
• 49:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And my boys took those seed pods all over the world.
• 49:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's like they were so excited about that little boat, like over all the other plastic electronic, like any other toy didn't matter.
• 49:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But we took that, we took that little seed pod with us.
• 49:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We still have it here in Italy, so it came the whole way.
• 50:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 50:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: One of the reasons why I wanted to make this podcast was just I feel like the world is so divisive now, and um there's not a lot of unity seen.
• 50:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I really want people to see like we are all just, you know, trying to do our best.
• 50:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We're all living and we need to respect each other and be kind.
• 50:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: With all the traveling that you've done, what is something that you've seen that kind of just everywhere you go?
• 50:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's like, yep, that's just that's humans.
• 50:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That's how we are, it's who we are.
• 50:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 50:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I would, I would go back to play and space for play.
• 50:37
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And it was, you know, whether we were on the beaches in Mexico or the beaches in India, where wherever we went, we would see people playing and kids playing and making time to play and to be outdoors and connect with each other and the land was something that we all share.
• 50:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um my family loves food.
• 51:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We are definite foodies, and it was such a joy to try all the different foods in all the places we went.
• 51:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And um, you know, there were definitely differences, right?
• 51:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think uh for my boys in particular, seeing people of different religions was really eye-opening.
• 51:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: They didn't didn't understand that, you know, when we when they saw people in burkas or they saw, you know, sadhus in India, they're like, what are they doing?
• 51:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Why do they, why do they sing like that?
• 51:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What are they, you know?
• 51:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um and so having discussions about how all of us live here and and this idea that there is something bigger than us, right?
• 51:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And we all just call it different things, and how we each celebrate that and how we each identify that.
• 51:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, and my oldest, who's who's very scientific, was like, well, I think it's probably dark matter.
• 51:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I think it's think it's the universe.
• 51:53
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I was like, great, you can call it whatever you want.
• 51:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like as long as you're ready to humble yourself and recognize that there's other things bigger than us, and that um, you know, I think we really were so fortunate to just connect with so many people and smile with so many people and learn words in different languages and you know, try food from different places and art, you know, there's there was amazing art everywhere we went, from, you know, street art to galleries in Florence, right?
• 52:27
  Dr. Emily Wassell: That that there's something about the human spirit that connects to this joy for being alive.
• 52:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that was really, really a gift to share that with my kids and to really um slow down and appreciate it.
• 52:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 52:44
  Dr. Emily Wassell: For people who aren't ready for that move or who can't, you know, get out and do as much with their teens.
• 52:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, you know, we talked about slowing down and playing with them and listening and talking with them.
• 52:57
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What are some other things that you would suggest?
• 53:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like it sounds like you do a lot of cultural experience and even in your school, like just getting outdoors, are those are the things that you would say kind of really matter to a child's development?
• 53:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yes, completely.
• 53:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like I've I've worked, like I said for years, I when I worked in the juvenile detention center, those kids did not get the outdoors, right?
• 53:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: They had like lockdown cells.
• 53:22
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, when I worked in public schools with quote unquote troubled kids who would be sent to me, you know, on all kinds of medications, unhappy outbursts, all of that.
• 53:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And what I've seen is that when you take teens outdoors and you give them like, here's a mountain to climb, here's a river to swim in, here's a park to play in, um, something shifts and something changes.
• 53:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so taking teens especially into natural places, um, at first, they're like, What are we doing here?
• 53:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, I don't have Wi-Fi.
• 53:58
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Where am I supposed to charge my phone?
• 54:00
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like they give you pushback, but allowing them to just be in nature and spend time slowing down, looking at the flowers, looking at the animals, like whatever it is, um, something really magical happens.
• 54:15
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And I think that all of us need to connect to the land, right?
• 54:21
  Dr. Emily Wassell: In in well-being science, we talk about green spaces and blue spaces increasing our happiness.
• 54:26
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And that's either like looking at bodies of water or having parks nearby or having forests nearby.
• 54:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And when I think about equity, I think that's one of the real injustices is that there are people who don't have natural spaces available to them.
• 54:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And so in those cases, even like planting some seeds and having some little flowers growing on a balcony, right?
• 54:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Like finding ways to bring nature back to teens can really help them to slow down and connect with the part of them that's really human in there.
• 55:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah.
• 55:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Great.
• 55:04
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, I want to thank you, Dr.
• 55:06
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Emily, for your time today.
• 55:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um, you've given us a lot to reflect on and think about.
• 55:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And before you go, if there was just one thing that you would really want us to remember from our conversation, what is something that you would encourage somebody to remember as they continue to rise?
• 55:25
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Yeah, I think the I think human contact.
• 55:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I think we all need hugs.
• 55:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Every kid needs another hug.
• 55:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: You know, hug your kids hard every day.
• 55:35
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Um if you're a teacher in a classroom and you're listening to this and you say, Well, I can't hug my kids, give them fist bumps, give them high fives, like that human contact, that human, that being seen, that being felt is so critical.
• 55:50
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, now that I work with teens online and I'm only seeing them on the screen, I still make a point of really trying to connect with them and let them know that I see them and I hear them.
• 56:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And, you know, yes, I'm helping with SAT prep and getting into college, but more than that, I see them for who they really are and make time to connect.
• 56:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: So yeah, just take time to really connect with our youth because they need it.
• 56:19
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, thank you again.
• 56:20
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thank you for everything you shared and thank you for your passion for kids and everything that you're doing and have done to help them grow and the advice that you're sharing.
• 56:29
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thank you so much.
• 56:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Thanks for doing your podcast.
• 56:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I really appreciate it.
• 56:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: As a teacher, listening to this conversation made my heart so happy.
• 56:40
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I love talking to other educators who have a passion to truly change students' lives.
• 56:46
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I love teaching students math and reading, but even in elementary school, it's the connections that I love the most and helping children make sense of the world around them.
• 56:56
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I love it when a kid tells me that they don't need to learn geometry because they'll never use it in life.
• 57:01
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Let's talk about that.
• 57:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I love how a simple picture book can make them think about a situation that happened a week ago and they want to dive into it.
• 57:10
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Making space for logic, questioning, creativity, connection, and humanity is so important.
• 57:16
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I love that Dr.
• 57:18
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Emily had a school that allowed for that and much more at such a critical age.
• 57:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Dr.
• 57:24
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Emily's story is a reminder that education is not just curriculum, it is connection, it is curiosity.
• 57:31
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's seeing the whole human in front of you and giving them the tools to thrive in the world, not just to pass a test.
• 57:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Remember, learning is not just academic.
• 57:42
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It's emotional, it's relational, it's rooted in safety and the courage to see others as whole human beings.
• 57:49
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Hearing what Dr.
• 57:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Emily and her husband did to find that perfect place for their son was so inspiring.
• 57:55
  Dr. Emily Wassell: It reminded me that parenting is really a series of choices, some big, some small, all rooted in wanting our kids to feel safe, seen, and supported.
• 58:05
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I did talk to DJ about selling our house and moving to Italy.
• 58:08
  Dr. Emily Wassell: We are going to stay put for now.
• 58:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: But just like Dr.
• 58:12
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Emily and so many of you parents out there, we are constantly in conversation about what we can do to give Miles a life full of opportunities and a life that helps him blossom into the man he's meant to be.
• 58:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: He's only five, y'all, and I cannot imagine those teenage years.
• 58:28
  Dr. Emily Wassell: What will the world even look like then?
• 58:30
  Dr. Emily Wassell: How will he grow?
• 58:32
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Who will he become?
• 58:33
  Dr. Emily Wassell: To those of you who are currently raising teenagers, bless you, truly.
• 58:39
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I hope this conversation gives you ideas or just a moment of validation that you are doing what is right for your child.
• 58:47
  Dr. Emily Wassell: And hey, shout out to all those people out there who are mentors for our young people.
• 58:51
  Dr. Emily Wassell: As Dr.
• 58:52
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Emily shared, it's not just the teachers, it's the coaches, the elderly, the super cool aunts and uncles, the neighbors, and anyone who chooses to be a safe place for a child.
• 59:02
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Being that kind of presence is one of the most rewarding acts of love.
• 59:07
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Well, I hope you enjoyed our time today as much as I did.
• 59:11
  Dr. Emily Wassell: Conversations like this fill me up, and I'm grateful you chose to spend part of your day here with me.
• 59:17
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I look forward to our next episode together where we will continue our back to school series.
• 59:23
  Dr. Emily Wassell: As you move through the rest of your day, I hope you take a moment to listen a little louder to yourself, to the people you love, and to the things that connect us in ways we sometimes forget to notice.
• 59:34
  Dr. Emily Wassell: I'll meet you back here next time.
• 59:36
  Dr. Emily Wassell: See ya bye.