Latest / The Elsa Kurt Show / A Faith Informed Blueprint For K-12 That Builds Better Humans with Amy Tepper & Amy Vaughn

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A Faith Informed Blueprint For K-12 That Builds Better Humans with Amy Tepper & Amy Vaughn · The Elsa Kurt Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Today's guests are two women who somehow survived working in a department with four different AMIs, which honestly feels like the beginning of a sitcom or a psychological experiment.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Dr.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Amy Tepper and Dr.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Amy Vaughn are educators, speech language pathologists, longtime colleagues, and now co-authors of a really timely book called Grounded in Greater, a Faith-informed Approach to K-12 Education and Beyond.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to talk about education, faith, raising grounded kids in a chaotic culture, and what's actually happening inside schools.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, hello there, ladies.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: How are you today?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_05: Hello, we're good.
• 0:38
  unknown: Hello.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: Good, awesome.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_04: So I've got two Amis that I get to talk to.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: And the first question I have to ask you is how did my two AMIs survive in a department with four Amis?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like, was everybody just shouting Amy all the time?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: And everybody was just answering yes.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_05: For about two days, and then we all just started going by our last name.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_05: So uh professionally in academia, we're just known as Pepper and Vaughn.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: It sounds like uh do you guys you need a TV show?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: You need your own TV show.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: That's a perfect name, right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_06: It has been a thing.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_06: We have talked about it before.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's next, right?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_04: After after the book is is all all the promotion for the book is done, then you'll start on your television show that you're gonna have.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe just add more things to your plate.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_04: How about that, right?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so listen, you both have like really incredible academic uh backgrounds, but what I love is that the book feels very human and very grounded.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: No, no pun intended with the word.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: But what what made you want to write this book now?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: And we can kind of volley back and forth, whoever wants to answer first.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_06: I can go ahead and I'll I'll start.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I think we were really called to the work more than anything, based on our own professional experiences, our backgrounds that we have had.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um we just felt that education is just this monolithic institution that would really do well to have some transformative opportunities and ensuring that it actually continues to serve the purpose that it was initially intended for, which is an educated citizenry.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_06: And so our hope in bringing Brown and Greater to the fore was ensuring that we were able to give knowledge and understanding as to how we can create meaningful transformation that is not just grounded in something greater, but also grounded in theory and practicality and efficacious instructional approaches and methods that can really make a difference.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, we hear constantly education is in crisis, right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: But depending on who you ask, everyone blames something different.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um, from your perspective, what is the biggest thing that kids are missing right now?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um I'll take this one to start.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_05: I I think one of the big things that kids miss today is just some general how to be a good human kind of interaction.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_05: And so you know, we we talked, conversation is how this book came to be.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_05: All the kind of hours, hundreds of hours of just talking until finally we said we need to put this in writing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_05: But one of the big pieces is that you know education should give you a well-rounded start in life.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_05: And it seems to me at least that in our current day, um, kids get taught to pass tests, they need to hit certain benchmarks to move forward.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, not every school is equipped the same.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_05: One of the big things that I always remember at the start of our conversations was that um somebody said to me, What's a big deal?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's a public education.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_05: If every public, you know, it's a public education.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: So that means to me that the kids in the inner city with little money in their school district are supposed to perform equally to uh the school districts that have money that they're tripping over, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_05: Equal doesn't mean that it's not just because it has public in front of it, it's it's not necessarily the same, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_05: And so um beyond the basic learning that kids need to do with math and reading and social studies and those kinds of things, how are kids learning from their peers and from adults that they respect or have to deal with at least every day how to be a good human?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that we do we agree that people have gotten away from kind of teaching just good interaction, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: How do you develop grit and determination?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_05: How do you teach somebody to be honest in a situation where maybe honesty or dishonesty is favored?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_05: And so we just started talking about those kinds of things as being really important parts of academic processes that just don't necessarily occur.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_05: And I love that you pointed out about like whose fault is it about this or that, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and that's something we talk about in the book, right?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_05: Parents are like the teachers aren't doing their jobs, and the you know, the um administrators are saying that parents don't understand the constraints that we're under, and the students are like, nobody cares about us.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_05: How do we get everybody together, all the stakeholders together around some really good, just human interaction kinds of things and build those pieces, right?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_05: Because those are soft skill kinds of things I think people talk about that don't necessarily get addressed in K-12 education consistently.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: My goodness, are you hitting it all right on the head?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: That is all so true.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_04: There's such a tremendous disconnect between parents and administrators and teaching and disconnect between parents and kids.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: And wow, and you know, and I'm sure we'll we'll get into it too, of course, uh, some of the things that are also causing that disconnect.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_04: But I want to go back a little bit to the the title itself.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: Grounded in Greater.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: First of all, such a great title right off the bat.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, what does that phrase mean to each of you individually?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: And how did you even come up with the name?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_04: Like, what was the was there an aha moment?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_06: I had an aha moment.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_06: We had been talking hundreds of hours, like Vaughn had mentioned.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_06: And yeah, I remember I was sitting out on my deck and I thought to myself, what is the hook?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_06: You know, in order for me to write anything, I'm I'm actually a terrible writer in that I need to start at the very beginning and work my way through.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_06: And I needed the hook.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_06: Like, what is going to bring all of you know the pieces that we are consistently talking about and wanting to, you know, create some meaningful change related to helping and supporting our communities, the families, business owners, you know, the parents and children.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: And honestly, it was like out of nowhere, it just hit the 10 commandments.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_06: Now, I don't know if it was, you know, the Lord Almighty, you know, planting a seed.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_06: But as soon as I hit on the 10 commandments, it was like it it all made sense.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_06: And so that's really how that came to be.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I think for me, grounding in greater just makes sense.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like we spin our wheels in that we meet some basic tier requirements, but what if we were grounded in greater?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_05: What if actually getting to humankind and treating their soul while we treat their brain would make a difference, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_05: What if we could reframe this idea of faith, right?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_05: A faith-informed approach.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, our faith isn't a hope for a society that can do better, be better, be more connected, care about their neighbors, want the want everybody to succeed and move forward, whatever that may look like for each individual person.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_05: So for me, it's it's legitimately about truly grounding yourself into a process that should lead to greater outcomes.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe somebody still scores the same on their math equivalency test, right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_05: But will they gain the introspective ability to see their human worth and value and apply that out into society somewhere at some point?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_04: The word grounded, of course, the greater is, you know, that's its own topic right there, of course.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but being grounded in something greater, uh it's a it's almost something that's tangible.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: When you read that saying, that phrase, that title, um you I feel like you automatically feel yourself getting grounded, you know, just planted in a good, good place.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: So I just I love that so, so much.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_04: And um, you know, one of the things that I I really appreciate is that your approach doesn't feel angry and it doesn't uh have like a you know strong political vibe, uh, you know, just for the sake of politics.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's more like how do we help humans flourish?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: And and you know, you you bring that out as you both are talking that that where this is coming from, it's coming from a a wealth of goodwill and good intention and uh resources and tools and everything to bring us back to that.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I and I think that's so important.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um was as part of your planning process for the book, um, was that part of the conversation?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like, here's what we're not gonna do with this book.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: You know, did you have that mindset of we're gonna we're gonna stay in this very, very specific lane?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_06: Um, yeah, I think if anything, my writing was probably more inflammatory initially.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_06: Um I gotta be honest, I'm a little angry about the state of education today.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_06: I know we can do better, we need to do better, we should be doing better.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_06: And yeah, because education has become very politically charged, it's become very polarized, it's um very difficult to um, as a more conservative individual, to exist in a space where you see indoctrination happening every day and you see that uh young minds are being molded from a very biased perspective.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_06: And so yeah, I was angry.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_06: And even in the early readings, you know, I mean, the readers might enjoy some of that more inflammatory language that I brought to the table, but I knew I had to tone it down and out of respect for you know wanting to help to support that transformation, I knew that I had to, you know, bring the tone down to a place where people would be more open to the idea of the messages coming through.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_06: Because truly, I don't think that it comes across that we are politically bent or motivated one way or another, but I I do think we do um try and give a fair sort of side-by-side approach to how how does this align with folks who are more liberally minded?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_06: How could this align with folks who are more conservative in their mindset?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: I think for me it was important that we not situate ourselves in any specific um faith or value or political lean in any way, shape, or form, because the reality of the world is that we all have to exist together.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_05: And so my personal beliefs and values about religion or politics, the two things you're never supposed to talk about, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, those things are maybe not important.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_05: What's maybe more important is that we get people on board, right?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_05: Join the journey that says it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you sit on, what neighborhood you live in, what church or place of worship you go to, we all are together, we're connected in this universe.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_05: And together we can take different perspectives from different backgrounds, beliefs, values, and tie them all together to improve our communities.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_05: And that starts with making sure our kids have solid foundations in those kinds of things.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: Clearly, a lot of parents feel like they're they're competing.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think we all feel like we're competing with the screens and the social media and the algorithms and the culture and all of that 24 hours a day.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's just such a constant thing.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um, do you think because of all that, and it's probably kind of a redundant question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_04: I want your take on it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, are kids, you know, really growing up so tremendously differently than say we we were, how we were raised, and and how is that affecting uh everything that they do, their interactions and and everything from your perspective, what you see daily?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think things are drastically different.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think they were headed this direction before COVID, but I think COVID kind of sealed the deal on so many um changes about just engagement in general.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I have kids they're in their mid to late 20s, and um, my son was still in college when COVID hit.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: And to this day, he will get online with all of his friends and they do games and do all sorts of stuff virtually.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, rarely does he ever get together with a big group of people and just have conversations face to face.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that this distance, like we're a little bit away from you, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it makes people feel safer, maybe that they can um maybe say something they wouldn't if they were at arm's length with somebody.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_05: There's just something different about the environment when you're this close to somebody and talking.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_05: You can feel their feels and see their emotions and their, you know, you can see the wheel spinning that I think you miss when you're online.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_05: Both of us teach online.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_05: And, you know, that disconnect of hundreds of miles, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_05: Or even five miles is a big thing.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that really does impact students of today, the the next generation for sure.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely agree.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's not just the level of student disengagement or the disengagement of the youth, but I think when the pandemic hit, it led to disengagement of parents and the screens became a quick and easy pacifier, something so that the parents could get done what they needed to get done working from home.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_06: Um and really the children, they had a lot of there was a lack of guidance, lack of socialization opportunities.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_06: We're both speech language pathologists.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I was a school-based practitioner for 18 years, and we have more kids now who are coming up, who are being identified as having communication impairment, who have developmental delays, and a good bit of it is because they had lack of socialization opportunities, play opportunities, time to communicate both verbally and nonverbally in the same space with one another.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_06: And it's troubling.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_06: I think when we were growing up, I mean, we are products of the 70s, so you know, we're getting up there in age, but Gen X, very different, tend to be a little bit more feral, um, had a little less supervision.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_06: Parents were both working outside the home, we were latching kids, and so we really had to learn survival through the adversity of not having someone around.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_06: And so we were to be independent and self-sufficient.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_06: We learned that it was okay to make mistakes, that failure wasn't the end of everything, but that it was another opportunity to try.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_06: And I think we have a heightened level of sensitivity in these later generations who are not willing to take the risk in their learning because they don't want to fail.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_06: And instead of parents providing the level of support and engagement necessary to give them those tools, what ends up happening is we have helicopter parents and snowplow parents.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_06: And instead, they try and pave the way for their children instead of allowing them to maybe not succeed the first time in a very safe way.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, you know, it's so wild to have like the two extremes of the, you know, the parenting style that is, like you said, that basically wraps their child in the in virtual bubble wrap to protect them, you know, from all of life's bumps and bruises.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then you have the other, the far extreme other end of that, of the apathy, the non-involvement.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, and it's it's what's lacking, of course, is the balance and and the grounding, of course, and and being grounded somewhere and in something that is unchangeable, that is constant.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, and and this is a a world that they, you know, I I feel, and I'm sure and I know you do as well, I feel so much for the youth of today because they're facing challenges that we didn't deal with.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_04: You know, our our our biggest fears, you know, Gen Gen X right here.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean, you know, ex everything that you said is 100% accurate.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_04: And to touch on what you were saying about, you know, during the the pandemic and all of that, um, for you guys as as uh speech pathologists, like the masks uh had to be such a huge issue, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: Because they can't see the movement of your mouth.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like I've I always wondered about that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um, for the youngest generations, the ones that are just learning to speak and these, you know, communication skills, um, that's probably right where the biggest issues are coming in.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: Those those kids who are uh, you know, what seven, eight in that range, somewhere around there, those are probably the ones that are struggling the most, yes?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_06: Masks were absolutely terrible.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, there's nothing more that needs to be said.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_06: It was just absolutely awful.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: We we tried as a profession to have clear masks, those steamed up, clogged up, got awful.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and also for all of the people that we serve, because we do lifespan work.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_05: So even with like the adults with TDIs and our elderly with strokes, having those masks were just horrible.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_06: For individuals with hearing impairments, the mask would muffle.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_06: You know, if you had benefit of you know, some residual hearing that was supportive with hearing aids, it was like the masks just made it virtually impossible to make sense of what was being shared.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: Elsa, you made a comment about two different perspectives of parents, the helicopter parents or snowplow parents, and then ones with with um, you know, so over-engaged and then not engaged.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: And I think there's a little bit more of a nuance there that just because somebody's a helicopter or snowplow parent, right?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_05: They're they're paving the way, it doesn't mean that they're actually engaged with their child.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_05: They're engaged with everything outside of that child, right?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_06: They're right.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_05: Instead of just sitting down and talking to their children, maybe some of those folks are so busy managing the outside forces that they they would just sit down and talk.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, what a phenomenal point.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_05: So I think that all all of the things are possible.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_05: And and in any given moment or time, right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_05: A parent might act or engage one way and then another way.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_05: I certainly know as my children went through school that I was mama bear some days and even called mama bear once.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and other tech oopsie, and then other times stepping way back and just letting my kids like talk to them, try to prepare them, but then kind of removing myself for those opportunities of failure.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: You you can learn through failure.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: And the biggest thing is to learn that you survive, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_05: I have a colleague that has a teacher that says, but I didn't die, right?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like risk.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_04: That's so our that's so our motto.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: Our our generation's motto right there is like, but did you die?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_04: You're fine.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, you're good.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: You're good.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: No blood, no broken bones, you're fine.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_04: Dust it off, right?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, got it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: Only one broken bone, that's still good.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my goodness.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, but that that also brings up a great point.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: Let's talk about that resiliency that's that seems to be lacking so much that we were, you know, talking a little bit about.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, let's talk about how faith plays a role in in resiliency.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_04: Do you resiliency?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: I say that five times fast, Elsa.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, do you find that um at the especially with young people dealing with like anxiety, identity confusion, loneliness and pressure, um, talk a little bit about how faith can play a role, resilience for them.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_06: I know for me, I like to focus less on things like identity, which has become very popular over the past few years.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_06: And I really like to remind my students more than anything to think about your purpose and why you're here and why you're doing the things you're doing and what's motivating, what drives you to want to aspire to be, whether it's a therapeutic practitioner, whether it's, you know, to be a business owner later in life, whether it's to enter into higher education yourself as an academic.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's really about purpose.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_06: And if you have purpose, that will keep you going.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_06: That is the ultimate motivator, and that is what gives you the grit, the resilience, the perseverance, determination necessary to meet your goals.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not saying everybody has to have the same understanding or definition of what is success.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_06: It for me, it's not millions of dollars, although retirement at some point would be lovely.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but I do know, sorry, Mark, I do know that if you define success in a way that resonates with your heart, with your soul, with where your passions lie, that you can make all things possible.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: If I could stand up and applaud at that without ripping everything apart, I would be standing and applauding for that right now.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: That was just such a phenomenal statement right there.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't even give you a chance to talk.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_04: Vaughn, I feel funny referring to you by your last name, but I'm doing it.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_05: Just go right ahead.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think resilience and grit, I think we need to talk more about them because I think there's a misunderstanding that resilience and grit auto-ends in this cookie cutter life.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_05: And resilience and grit for different people can and can get you to different places, right?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: So uh what your learning aptitudes are, what your proficiencies in uh handling just everyday things, all of those, all of the pieces and parts of somebody come into play with that, right?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: And for for some kids, resilience and grit might just be making it to school every day because they slept in their bathtub because they're afraid of stray bullets, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_05: And for another kid, resilience and grit might be that they have to figure out how to eat lunch because they have a lot of food allergies that aren't considered, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_05: And those two things don't look equally the same, right?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_05: Those are very different issues going on for those kids.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: But the reality is for those specific kids, their issues that they have to overcome are real.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: And they're they're um you can write them down and you can measure the outcomes and you can do all of those things.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so I think when we think about resilience and grit, we can't just say you will show resilience and grit if you get all A's on your on your brains this time, right?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe it's just about showing up.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe it's about realizing like does somebody tell these kids right but you didn't die you wrote a book but you didn't die right you did a thing but you didn't die.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe maybe that should just be the banner for all the kids like give it a try.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: And you may is that the title of your next book Wink Wink.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah okay if you write the forward done right there you go perfect.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's a plan it's a plan I love that um so talk to me a little bit about what you think teachers need most right now.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_04: Because obviously we hear a lot about about students and parents but teachers you guys you just educators have to be so exhausted right now.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_04: So what what do you guys need at this point?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_04: What what would that look like for you?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_06: That's a loaded question right I think the first thing that comes to mind I think for any educator is just respect.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah I say this with belief that respect is the highest form of love that you can extend to another human being you don't necessarily have to agree with them.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_06: You don't have to share the same faith you don't have to share the same interests with them but as another human being trying to give back to the world trying to empower others with knowledge and skills to be successful so that they can act with integrity in the world so that they can be lifelong learners so that they can contribute and be engaged citizens.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_06: I think ultimately for me with educators it comes down to respect.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah that's been lost over the years unfortunately yeah I would agree I think um a shared vision would be part of that respect yeah right um realizing that you're not supposed to solve the world's woes alone right it's not the teacher's responsibility to write every shift that's been tipped and if people came alongside if one parent like I'm in a class right now I'm taking some extra courses and one of the assignments was that you have to share your gratitude with somebody that you know and love and somebody that you barely know every day.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_04: Like you are supposed to just let the person know why you're grateful that they exist right I think the teachers just kind of get beat up all the time and then parents get beat up all everybody gets beat up all the time how about we just flip that around instead of complaints we give some gratitude and a little bit of love right oh yeah yeah absolutely it turns defensiveness and hostility like on a dime most of the time sometimes it doesn't obviously of course but generally it does and if you approach someone or something who is clearly having a bad day or just not having it with you and you you show a little kindness and a little compassion um it it it diffuses so much and we do forget that like we we're so reactive now defensive and reactive that um we we forget that everybody's going through something in life talk to me a little bit about because I love I love asking co-authors I've never co-authored uh with anyone before so I love asking this um co-authors did you agree this is impossible but maybe not did you agree on everything in the process of writing this book or were there moments where you had to lovingly of course um tell each other no I feel like there was one with the toning it down but were there I think you know by the time we got to writing this book in truth we had talked about it until it was written in our heads and so to put it on paper that there were chapters and things in the book that I kind of took you know the lead on and then Tepper took the lead and did other pieces and parts of the book and then combined right we had to like maybe put a little bit of paint on the edges like all the dots right um but we worked at her kitchen table day after day right we just sat and worked on it together and if I got stuck we talked it up because I'm a verbal processor so much to her chagrin.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I think you know I don't think we had any honestly I don't think there was ever a point where it was like I'm not doing this this is ridiculous.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_05: We're not gonna see eye to eye we legitimately come from different faith backgrounds but share this common ground of these are the things that we need people to understand about what makes humans human right we have opportunity and option to choose integrity to choose hope to choose faith to do all these things and I think because it's so so uniquely grounded in that space there was no issue.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_06: There really wasn't honestly I think back and I think you know me toning it down with my language I like words.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah I like to use the fancy words and the lingo and you know professional terminology and so yes taking a step back from that I I did the best that I could but we divided out the book really into where are the areas that we are most comfortable talking about.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_06: And ultimately I think it came together beautifully Vaughn was responsible we have in the book vignettes with every chapter that really speak to sort of aligning with this blueprint that we lay out this one-to-one schools and communities together and Vaughn was responsible for every single one of those whether she wrote the chapter or not I put that on her and then it was my responsibility to do discussion questions at the end of each chapter as well as extension activities if you really want to challenge yourself to something more.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_06: But otherwise we really didn't work well together.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_06: It was a really nice collaboration.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah we should we should right as long as we definitely should you know what I that doesn't after you know having this opportunity to sit and talk to you both and listen to you that doesn't none of that surprises me in the least I would have been shocked if you said otherwise uh you just have this uh wonderful collaborative friendship where you you can see the respect and caring between each other and it's it's so lovely to witness that you know it could it it's just it's almost like getting this um preview of what you're gonna be reading in the book.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_04: Like you're gonna be reading something written by two people who who just embody this this greater good mindset because you live it and you operate in it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that is obviously something that that is just going to pour right off the pages in that book and and it gives it you know it gives it more um validity in in my mind to me it feels like yeah like after listening to you and talking to you you know it's like I know when I read this book I'm gonna go yeah no I that the I I will I buy this not only did I buy this book I buy what it's saying you know so I love that it's uh it's amazing um tell me when readers finish this book what do you hope stays with them uh long after they put it down oh that's a great question I think my hope is that they move forward with a lot of the aspects that we wrote about committing to whether it's purpose hope integrity compassion gratitude I think it's seeing it not just as a blueprint for how we can transform education into something that is you know wonderful for every student but more of a blueprint for life that this is a book about having a life well lived yeah yeah I think I I would hope that people realize they're just part of the puzzle and they don't have to stand alone that this is about community involvement and engagement and stakeholders.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's not just pointing a finger at teachers or administrators or students who are not performing up to their capabilities but this is really um more than that right um there's a part that Tepper uh writes about this power of one right setting goals individuals setting goals to achieve every week and if you have three goals and you hit all three of those goals you have a power of one you're a whole number right if you get two out of three it's you know 66% 0.66 something like that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_05: I don't have my language I'm a speech nervous I do not so um but I really think like if if somebody has one takeaway right how do you make yourself whole kids set goals that you can achieve right and help your students set goals they can achieve achieve help your kids do the same and also I want to set goals with Tepper that she can achieve and I want her to help me set goals that I can achieve because you can't get through life by yourself but you can set your own trajectory you can set your own path and setting goals is one of the things that becomes really important I think.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah you know I I feel like this is of course a book that anyone can pick up and read whatever you know lane of life you're in anyone can pick up this book and read and get value out of it.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: Who specifically did you have in mind for your audience?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_05: Like who is it that you when you wrote this book you said these are the people that need to be reached my guess would be parents and teachers but it is broader than that or is that like the biggest lane for me it was really about bringing in community stakeholders so many small we raised our kids in a small town um we lived outside in the greater Cleveland area moved further away came kind of back um and I think that uh you know people are hungry in the business world in in the marketplace to have employees that can work at any level from entry level on up and it just became very clear to me while we were talking about all these things that there's a disconnect between the people who want to employ a high school graduate right and the process for that student to get to graduation.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_05: And so how do we um bring into this picture not just the PTA mom who's got time to be at a meeting right but the guy who owns a grocery store and he needs people to bag groceries in the evening when they're not at football practice or wherever they might be.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_05: And so really getting the commitment to a community if we if we take this little idea of what can a school do and apply it to what can a community do, that doesn't just change the lives of the students and the teachers and the parents it really changes everyone right we can talk about it with seniors who have lost purpose right or removed from society or pushed aside and if we could get them involved in a school district they they have value and histories and they built the communities they live in and all of those things right so how do we get people to understand that to get to 86 with a rich history and all of the things they actually started at 16 right where you are and here's how they live their life so for me it was way bigger than the schools it was always about getting the stakeholders involved tell everybody where they can find this book Amazon Amazon.com you look up ground it here I I've even got it grounded in clear look it's a gorgeous book you look up Amy Tepper or Amy Vaughn it'll it'll pop right up there for you.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: I love it and of course everyone watching and listening the link will be in the show notes so you'll be able to just click right on it go right to it buy it buy it for yourself buy it for a friend buy it for your school buy it for your boss buy it for everyone it's that simple that sounds like a great idea right right it's I mean you know it it's always gift season there's no specific time to buy gifts it's always gift season birthdays everything under the sun um I I can't thank you both enough for sharing this time with me I appreciate it so much I loved listening to you both and my hope for you besides more books besides tremendous success with this one of course my hope for you two is that you are thinking about doing some uh book tours and talks and things like that because you are so enjoyable to listen to and I just picture you both on a stage with a with a moderator asking you questions with a with an audience in front of you.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_04: So you know I keep putting these poor women I keep putting more things onto their plate like you don't already have enough but I I just have to tell you that these are things as we're talking I could so easily see you both doing because you just have such a a wonderful wealth of information of course but such a wonderful way of conveying it.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you very very very much.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much and we would be thrilled to talk to anybody about the book and coming to talk to them.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_05: We would really like to help communities and schools who are interested in um reading our book and seeing the value and figuring out how to get it rolled out into their school systems and into their communities for sure.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you all for watching or listening whichever the case is and we look forward to seeing you all in the next episode so take care.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a story worth sharing now it's time to tell it well whether you're an author entrepreneur influencer or podcast guest stepping in front of the camera or microphone can feel overwhelming.
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