Why Relationship-Building Gives Secondary Teachers Time Back With John Whalen and Doug Overton

00:00
Speaker 1
Foreign.

00:03
Speaker 2
The secondary teachers are typically more content focused and content driven. And I think it's Dan to what you said is because it's a tight window. You have seven periods or eight periods a day. You have 45 minutes to get this lesson in. I gotta make sure I'm teaching to the TEKS or the state requirement. I gotta make sure that my students are prepared. And so that relationship stuff I just don't have time for because I gotta get to my content. But what I found is if you actually invest that time in connections, in relationships, teachers get that time back because your kids are more bought in, they're more willing to listen. Usually the behavior problems are drop quite a bit because of that connection.

00:50
Speaker 3
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02:03
Speaker 3
And you can get started [email protected] leaders. That's ixl.com leadership. You didn't take the principal's chair for the budget meetings and the paperwork. You took it to change kids lives. Kids First Education helps you get that back with coaching and with support that's built specifically for school leaders. This episode is brought to you by Kids First Education. Learn more at KidsFirst LLC Leadership. That's KidsFirst LLC Leaders. Corey talked to Digital Danny 910 times in just five months. And when I asked him about why he hired Digital Danny he said well the first job was to communicate things those high stake messages I needed to share a non renewal of the teacher, a difficult parent situation and I needed those message to land and Digital Danny helped.

03:10
Speaker 3
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03:39
Speaker 1
Welcome to the show, guys.

03:40
Speaker 4
Dan, how are you? We're excited to be here.

03:42
Speaker 2
Thanks so much for having us, Dan.

03:43
Speaker 3
Great. Great.

03:44
Speaker 1
Thanks for joining us this morning. This morning, wherever you are.

03:48
Speaker 4
We're both in Texas right now, although I'm from upstate New York, a little city called Binghamton. But whenever I get the opportunity to spend some time with Doug, I get down here to Texas so we can work together in person.

04:00
Speaker 1
Great place to meet John and Doug. Why don't you start by giving the audience a brief intro of who you are and what you're about. John, do you want to go first?

04:11
Speaker 4
Yeah. Hello, everybody. I'm John Whalen. I was a classroom teacher for 18 years, a district coordinator, a school principal, someone with aspirations to be a superintendent even. But my. My current role now working with Doug, is co founder of Ed Tomorrow. And we support schools and teachers all across the country with all different types of resources for. For real building those thriving school cultures.

04:34
Speaker 2
Yeah. And what's going on, everybody? My name's Doug Overton, the other co founder of Ed Tomorrow. First and foremost, a former teacher. I was a campus leader, a district leader, but just passionate about education all together. I spent the last 10 years traveling up and down the country sharing with educators the importance of connections and relationships and meeting students where they're at.

04:57
Speaker 1
How did you guys first meet? I'm curious.

05:00
Speaker 2
Oh, that's a fun story, John. I mean, Mr. Story always makes me come on.

05:05
Speaker 4
I mean, Ed Tomorrow's been built on just a lot of. Just serendipitous stories. But how Doug and I met, I don't remember initially the first time that were in the same room together, but it was probably 10 years ago. I was working with the co author of the book I wrote on classroom circles with a school district here in Texas, just doing some professional development on what classroom circles were and, you know, different parts of restorative practices even. And Doug was a teacher on that campus. And I didn't realize it at the time because, you know, there's probably a hundred people there. But it wasn't until the following year when were writing the book, Denise and I said, you gotta. You gotta meet this guy, Doug Overton, who's, you know, he's doing a lot with classroom circles on his campus.

05:47
Speaker 4
And so when I was on my way out here, that spring to do some work, I went and visited Doug at his campus. He had already written a little part of for our book, just his own narrative of what he was doing. And we hit it off right away. I said, you know, this guy's got his own unique way of, you know, taking this structure and making it come alive. And we became, you know, we became your professional peers and started doing work together in the summers and started leading professional development sessions when I would come out here to Texas and just kept in touch over the years.

06:19
Speaker 4
And in that little seed of that moment of us being there and Denise suggesting I go check out what he's doing at his campus, you know, ultimately led to that phone call, you know, in 2021, when he called me on the blue, said, I got an idea. And one thing you'll learn about Doug and I is we're both gamblers in a sense, like, we're both risk takers. And I was in my principal role at the time. Just finished the superintendent program. Doug was a campus leader here in Texas and said, I got an idea and I'm willing to move to upstate New York from Dallas, Texas, if you're willing to jump on him with me. You know, it's similar to some of the ideas we had, and I didn't think much about it other than, yeah, let's do it.

06:57
Speaker 4
And we had to both talk our wives into it. And when he moved here, I told him it's going to be a very slow process. And I really love the work I was doing as a school leader. But the moment we had the chance to share, you know, what were so passionate about with the school, I knew right away, I said, this is what I got. I have to focus on this. And submitted my resignation mid year. I finished the year out, but I. We didn't have a plan for what was going to come the following year. I was. We just had a passion that we know we have to do this, and it was a huge risk. I mean, everybody questioned, are you all right? Are you doing. What are you doing? You know, you guys are.

07:30
Speaker 4
You have a plan, but you don't have a job moving forward. You know, we had a contract or two, and it just. It's been a little over four years, and here we are today and just. I can't even begin to explain that. The journey that we've been blessed to be on and what we've learned from it, and hopefully what we've been able to share with folks has been great, but that's in a little Nutshell, Doug and it was our story that, you know, and it's just so fun to think back and reminisce on all of it, too, with just how everything panned out. It's just when you take those risks, right, and you just throw it out there and go at it, and you just, you don't know where it's going to take you then.

08:01
Speaker 4
To end up in a place that you never imagined is. It's been a really neat experience.

08:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Dan And I think just to add to that story is just the origin of knowing that I'm in east of Dallas and Mesquite, Texas, and I am a believer of this work and passionate about building connections and building relationships. And I, I've kind of looked around the area and didn't see, like, a whole lot of people kind of leading in this way. And then all of a sudden, I meet this random guy named John Whalen, polar opposite. He's from upstate New York, I'm from east of Dallas. And it's like, wow, he's doing the same thing all those miles away. And I think I was just like, I can connect with this guy. He's someone that sees education through the lens that I do, has a heart for kids in the way that I do. And it was just immediate.

08:52
Speaker 2
I was like, man, if he's doing that, New York, I'm doing that here. How do we, how do we bring this together and let other people experience the power of connections?

09:00
Speaker 1
And how did you bring that together? How did you turn that instant personal connection into a professional one that influenced, as you mentioned in our intro call, culture is infrastructure. How did you build those connections on campuses?

09:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think, you know, it started with personal experience, right? As leaders of schools and as leaders of districts. That was in the fabric or the DNA of everything that we did. And I think people naturally gravitated towards that as, oh, you're maybe coming about this from a different perspective. And there's plenty of, like, phenomenal relationship builders in education, but John and I just had this special knack to connect with kids, and I think there's a gravitational pull to that. And when we realized how do we support other teachers with some of these same concepts, some of these same ideas.

09:56
Speaker 2
And it was right about the time that Covid hit, and were always working with teachers directly, and when the whole social distancing thing happened, we had to think about what is another way to get resources to teachers if we can't be directly in the classroom with them? And that's when we created the first five. We sent just a daily email to any teacher that we knew and said, hey, try out some of these tools to do with your students. Maybe, maybe it's a quote, maybe it's a fun video that we just saw. Maybe it's just a set of questions that you can build relationships around. And every single morning, we would sit out and we would send that email. And from that really stemmed the whole trajectory of what Ed Tomorrow truly became.

10:42
Speaker 4
And what I loved about it, too, is when. When Doug, when Doug called me, said, you know, and he shared this thought and this idea of possibly moving to the Northeast where I was. He said, you know, I built this resource that the secondary teachers that I support are really buying into. And at that moment, he had my attention. Because I was a middle school math teacher, I ran on a bell schedule 40 minutes a day. I also taught second grade where I had, you know, my students for most of the day.

11:07
Speaker 2
But I.

11:08
Speaker 4
What I really felt I understood well was that pretty stark difference between an elementary or a primary school setting and a secondary setting because of the schedule. And what I loved about this idea that Doug shared first was the enthusiasm he was hearing from his peers that were like, hey, I like this. I need this. We want this every day. Because it's taking the planning for this off our plate. Because we knew they had probably a ton of other things I know my teachers did that I supported, but. But what I loved about it was its own little system, in a sense, what Doug had built. Correct me, Doug, if I'm wrong, but it was a set of eight different ways at that point, or however many.

11:48
Speaker 4
I can't remember the number of periods he just sent to those teachers every day and said, here are just different ways to keep connection and just community in the spotlight with consistency each day in just moments. And for me, as a leader at the time, I knew the importance of that. I knew the importance of how can I help my. The people that I support and lead with a system that makes sense to them, that doesn't add enough on the plate. And Doug had. Had figured that out. And I think, Doug, that's the key. You know, it's.

12:16
Speaker 1
It's.

12:16
Speaker 4
Doug mentioned we're both amazing with. With kids. Like, we. We travel the country and get to model a lot of different ways to. To. To connect with kids. But as we began to think of it in a role of how do we support teachers with this, we had to build in a way that made sense to them. But Also in a way where it felt like, hey, I can do this and trust it and still not feel like I'm losing that really precious time that I have to get to whatever my goals are.

12:39
Speaker 1
Hey, so how do you get buy in with kids?

12:42
Speaker 4
You want to start? Doug, you want me? I mean, yeah.

12:45
Speaker 2
To me the biggest thing is relevancy. And I think it's so important to have a pulse on what's going on in today's generation of kids. And I'll be honest with you, Dan, like, I think today's generation ticks a bit differently than maybe generations in the past. But I think if you don't have a pulse on relevancy, you are going to miss the mark. And that's why we really pride ourselves when we have content creators that build these relationship activities. They build the first five every day. It has to come from teachers currently in a school building because they have a pulse on this generation. They know what ticks. And so, you know, if John and I, back in the day, were building the first five and were doing Fresh Prince of Bel Air references, well, were 80s kids and 90s kids.

13:31
Speaker 2
And so we, it was relevant to us, but maybe it wasn't relevant to our kids today. And so that relevancy piece is so important to get by in. Oftentimes our kids, they come into our classrooms and there's a wall up. I call it a ten foot wall. And how can teachers across the country work with our students to turn that 10 foot wall and maybe a 9 foot wall or maybe an 8 foot wall. It doesn't happen overnight. Happens with the consistency, happens with buy in. But that relevancy piece is huge.

14:00
Speaker 4
And I think too on top of that relevancy, on my end, one of the first things I thought of was how do you get kids to buy in? I think it really has to start with authenticity. Kids are the greatest detectors of something that's being real versus something that's trying to be something other than who they are. And when you can go into a classroom, and I don't care if it's a second grade classroom or a 12th grade or 11th grade classroom, but you can go in and for that moment let that student just see a little bit of who you are as the human versus who you are as the teacher, I think really great things happen.

14:37
Speaker 4
But in order to do that, I think a lot of us, and myself included, for many years, I had to teach myself how to be in the moment, to be authentic, to share the right amount of things right with kids because I'm not going to share every experience I do, but I want them to know a little bit of who I am so that they, you know, I always used to say this, that my students, I always felt that my students initially when I taught middle school thought that, you know, I was like plugged into a machine at night and then unplugged in the morning and out I came teaching mathematics. And what I found, when they found what I was interested in, they mean especially middle school because that's my background mostly.

15:12
Speaker 4
But they won't tell you initially, but they're interested in who you are. They want to know a little bit about you because they're spending this time. They may not ask it, but the more I just shared that I'm interested what my interests were sports to. I love sneakers. You know, if I see a kid with a wrestling shirt on, I'm going to own this. I might be like, oh, you know, I, I grew up loving wrestling too. But those little incremental just sharing of who we are as humans often opens the door up in the classroom. And I, and I. Somebody's telling me the saying ten plus years ago. And I never forgot it. But it's. Kids buy into you before they buy into what you're selling. And when I was that math teacher, I'm selling two things. I'm selling the content.

15:47
Speaker 4
And, you know, dividing fractions is not an easy sell, you know, for sixth graders because it's not that interesting to many of them. But I'm also selling this. How do I step in to conflict when it does happen? Because it's going to happen in every classroom in a way where I may have this. The student willing to step in and work with me through the issues that are popping up so that we can keep the small things small. And that took me about 10 years of my career to really figure out how to do it. But at the end of the day, that's what this all came down to is the authenticity when the students got to see who I was and learn a bit about me. And also on the other end, it led to that buy in.

16:23
Speaker 4
And so exactly what Doug said, if we can find what they're interested in but also participate in it. I always ask. I, I learned so much about, we just did the other day when I was working with kids about, you know, what is this new. You know, I forget what they're even called the, off the top of my head. But it's like the, whatever the, the new things Are when I have awareness of what they are, I can ask questions, and I'm part of the conversation. I'm not just somebody speaking content. And so those, I think, are on my end, at least, that authenticity is so important.

16:51
Speaker 1
So I guess the question is, how do you scale that?

16:55
Speaker 4
Break it down a little more for me. Like, scale it and what. Oh, let's Doug go at it? Yeah, yeah. No, I. I think my.

17:01
Speaker 2
My big thing, Dan, is when you think about scaling being authentic, it's meeting people where. Where they're at, and we got to meet kids where they're at, but we also have to meet adults where they're at. You know, we send out some things where, you know, it may require a little bit of being outside your comfort zone, like greeting kids at the door, being goofy with them, even like, answering the questions and placing yourself out there. And some teachers aren't ready for that. And I think if you continue to kind of slam that down their throat, there's going to be resistance that comes up. How do you slow down?

17:35
Speaker 2
How do you meet people where they're at and say, hey, Dan, you might not be comfortable of doing a goofy greeting at the door, but would you be willing to throw a quote on the board and just let people answer that question? Or maybe you don't even want to throw a quote. Try a video. It's ready for you. It's proof for you. And then those teachers that maybe have a bit of hesitancy, they start to see, oh, my kids are actually connecting. This is not that hard. It's not that bad. I can do this. I can put a quote on the board. And then we always say, it's like once they're trying one or two pieces and they get comfortable, they. You can start to build that confidence going forward.

18:13
Speaker 2
One of my favorite quotes in the world is, life begins outside your comfort zone. And it. Some of these relationship tactics can be awkward, and I hate awkwardness. I really do, but it pushes me, and I always find so much fruit once I do it and once I show that authentic self and that. And even if my kid's like, Mr. Overton, you're. You're goofy. Like, yeah, I am goofy, and I'm awkward sometimes. And that's okay. That's. That's my natural self. But just being real with them. But meeting kids where they're at. But I think we got to meet adults where they're at as well, and.

18:45
Speaker 4
Offering a lot of different. You know, I. I think one of the things, even as a leader, when you get to support the staff that you're leading. It's, it's just, it's life. Everybody has different needs and different things they either want support with or different expertises they could offer, you know, other people in the building and, you know, when you want to look at you know, the connection piece and the culture piece. For each person, they have a different comfort level. You know, walking in, some are, it's very natural for some, it's just, they need just some guidance or, hey, help me do this in a way that makes sense. And one thing we realize is sometimes quantity of ideas is really helpful to get people who are either hesitant or stuck a starting spot.

19:25
Speaker 4
Because if you give them a lot of different supports or ideas in ours or always these connection things, if I've got nine or ten things to pick from and I'm a little wary, I'm not sure I'm. I can probably find one that I can at least dip my toe in the water with even if I do that every day for a number of days. And I think that's what a great system offers people to do too. It's not just top down like you're going to follow step 1, 2, 3 and 4 exactly as is, but it's more of.

19:51
Speaker 4
Here's a great concept that I think at the end of the day all of us understand and should buy into is that, you know, the more we, the connect that we're going to get all these great benefits from better learning to better understanding of each other and who we are. And if we give that kind of value system or those ideas, but then give them a lot of different ways to start stepping into it and people can find something that works for them, then as Doug said, the door opens where you get, oh, I'm really good now at maybe connecting with my kids through questions, but now let me try doing some focus or some mindfulness stuff with students, which is still something I would like. I, I'm nervous to do.

20:27
Speaker 4
But I, I think, yeah, the, those things can work really well when you also offer a range of activities so people can find their own comfort zone. And what we've heard over and over again is once they do all right, I'm willing to try this now. I'm willing to try that. And that's where the light bulbs come on and that growth outside the comfort zone. Doug has said that since the day I've really gotten to know him. And it's usually in the back of my head I usually say it once or twice a week just as a, whether it's trying to go to the gym more or less, you know, have, have more courageous conversations. It's that self talk beforehand, like, all right, growth begins outside my comfort zone. Let me step into that.

21:03
Speaker 1
Well, and it's one thing working in a classroom with the same group of kids all day like you mentioned, but can be a different beast altogether when you're switching kids every block. Did you notice any difference in pitching it to secondary?

21:18
Speaker 2
Yes, secondary. Dan's always been my jam. And you know, I was, I, I worked at a school that east of Dallas Mesquite, Texas. It was a John horn High School, 9 through 12, 3300 secondary students. And when you think about the secondary level, I think it just, you have to present it in a way that makes sense to secondary minded educators. And oftentimes, and I do not want to put anyone in a box, but oftentimes we found when you compare secondary teachers to primary teachers, the secondary teachers are typically more content focused and content driven. And I think it's Dan to what you said is because it's a tight window, you have seven periods or eight periods a day. You have 45 minutes to get this lesson in. I gotta make sure I'm teaching to the teks or the state requirement.

22:08
Speaker 2
I gotta make sure that my students are prepared. And so that relationship stuff I just don't have time for because I gotta get to my content. But what I found is if you actually invest that time in connections, in relationships, teachers get that time back because your kids are more bought in, they're more willing to listen. The usually the behavior problems are dropped quite a bit because of that connection. And so if that's a way to get a teacher to a secondary teacher to kind of see the light, it's like you actually get this time back if you're willing to invest two minutes, one minute before the, as the bell starts of just building that connection piece. And then I think the other big thing is it has to be relevant to secondary teachers.

22:58
Speaker 2
And so if you start presenting glitter jars and characters that seem that they're built for primary teachers, I have found, and I can say this because I was one of them, I would immediately roll my eyes and say there's no way I'm going to do that stuff with my kids. And it's real, if you present primary material, two secondary kids, your kids are not going to enjoy that either. And so what I've loved in building the first Five is that everything is built to direct grade bands. So we have three different versions. We have the first five junior which is pre K to second grade. We had the first five primary which is built for third graders all the way up to fifth graders.

23:41
Speaker 2
And then we have our first five secondary, that's that sixth grade to 12th grade and everything inside that secondary edition and is strictly built for the secondary lens for the secondary students. And again that goes back to more buy in from the students and more buy in from the teachers.

23:58
Speaker 1
Did you ever think about splitting up the middle school as a niche?

24:02
Speaker 2
We get that question a lot actually. And it's definitely been something that's been on our mind. And we'll show videos and usually they're either like primary videos or the high school videos. And when you're doing that district wide, you'll have your middle school audience be like, well, I don't see my kids represented in here. I don't see a video for middle school. And I think in the future to even break that down a step further and say this is just for middle school, but I will say is as a company and working across the country, when you say middle school, that means something different to everyone. And so for some, middle school is just seventh and eighth grade. For others it's sixth, seventh, eighth. We have five through eight campuses.

24:40
Speaker 2
And so finding that sweet spot is always a challenge when you're working more globally with schools. And so we found that secondary first five can perfectly be used in the fifth or sixth grade class. That same kind of connection activity can be used at the secondary level. But something like the first five primary or the first five junior for our youngest learners has that completely different feel to it, you know.

25:06
Speaker 4
And as someone that was a principal of a fourth, eighth campus, that's where my principal role was. And I love that because I spent most of my career teaching sixth through eighth. But as I mentioned earlier, I taught second grade, so I was in an elementary building also and I'm elementary certified as an educator. One thing I learned about those, that gap, I would even say fourth to eighth, you know, there's so much difference right in the student experience and what's interesting to them. And when we first started creating these resources and you know, Doug had this idea, Doug and I started building them and we only built one batch of materials each day that we sent out and it was nine different things.

25:44
Speaker 4
And it was really, we'd have to, we tried to stagger it, some of it being more geared towards those first and second, third Grade kids, some of it geared towards high school. And the initial and immediate feedback we got was exactly what Doug said. Some of the secondary folks like yeah, this doesn't, when I look at this, it doesn't speak enough to me that it's something for, you know, teenage kids or middle school kids. And that's when we started building the different editions. And what I've heard from a lot of those teachers in the fourth even, I'd say even all the way through the eighth grade band of students is they'll dance between both our secondary edition and sometimes our primary edition. Which is cool because when we send them out we just, we share it freely. We just say here's.

26:23
Speaker 4
Here are three editions and our 30 different ideas for today. Go grab them and use them is you will best make use for your situation. And I think what a lot of those middle school teachers will do that are really understand the first five and are in is they'll look at both of them because some days they might find something that works well in our primary edition. And, but often when Doug and I are, and I'll speak for me Doug at least when I'm out walking campuses, I tend to see more of the middle school kids using the secondary edition stuff. Again with the choice of all the different things. I, I can't think of a time where I went in there and I thought oh, this is a little bit above a seventh grader's head or sixth graders had.

27:02
Speaker 4
It's, it's a big piece of it. This was Doug driven is sometimes just the aesthetics of the piece that the, that the educator displays on the board that just gets that initial hook with students. I can ask the same question with images like you know, toys and playgrounds, also with the same image that's a kind of a really modern look or you know, something that's got a, an abstract picture behind her. It's kind of flashy. For middle or high school kids it's the same question. It's just setting that stage so that they're interested in it is what you'll often see when you look at the different, you know, age level materials that we build.

27:39
Speaker 3
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28:23
Speaker 1
Careers.

28:26
Speaker 3
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29:30
Speaker 3
However you want to advance. ODP Business Solutions has 30 years of experience helping districts like yours get ahead. Visit ODPbusiness.comeducation to learn more. That's ODPbusiness.com education as a school leader Time is your greatest resource, and there is a real sense of urgency when it comes to getting students what they need right now. That's why I love IXL's universal screener. In 20 minutes or less, you can identify students in need of intervention. And IXL's Learning Adaptive Platform makes differentiating instruction easy. As students learn, IXL adjusts to the right level of difficulty for each individual student. Get started [email protected] leaders. That's ixl.com leaders. Somewhere under the emails, the compliance and the crises, there's a reason you got into education. It was for the students. The Kids. Kids first education exists to help school and district leaders put that reason back at center.

30:49
Speaker 3
It's led by educators who've done the work that have partnered with teams across the nation on coaching, leadership development and professional learning. And it's all built around what's best for your students. It's practical, it's personal, and it sticks. 98% Of educators that Kids first works with says they left ready to use what they learned that week. Principals Admin District Leaders let's put Kids first together. You could partner with Kids first at Kids First LLC Leaders. That's Kids First LLC Leaders. Of all the principals who use digital, Danny, the one who uses him the most, lost a Teacher in the first week of school. It was an abrupt resignation and students and staff thought about quitting or leaving the school. In response, this principal had to address his staff Monday morning. The wrong tone in any direction would have made the situation worse.

31:58
Speaker 3
Too soft and it sounds like nothing happened. Too hot and it sounds like you're blaming the teacher who left. What he needed wasn't a rider. He needed someone who'd sat in that same exact seat for hundreds of reps to help him land the right move. Teaching as a calling connection over compliance and then crafting the right words. The principal followed up with a speech and a memo to the staff that week. And it worked. If you also have high stakes messages that you need to land digital, Danny can help. He was built for this. And you can get started with him@my principalcoach.com ruckus. That's my principalcoach.com/ruckus.

32:59
Speaker 1
Well, I want to make sure we break down the basics of the tool too. What would a person expect when they sign up for the tool?

33:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so I would love to share a little bit about the first five itself and how it works. And it comes in the form, Dan, of a daily email. So any educator out there can go to edtomorrow.com and they can sign up for the first five. And you would actually receive a daily email every school day, Monday through Friday. And when you get that email, there's a little link that says today's first five. And you click on that first five and you are given those grade band options and to choose ways to connect and build relationships with your students. And so the first five, each edition is chock full with different ideas, ways to greet your kids at the door. How kids can check in to identify how they're feeling is a mindfulness activity.

33:54
Speaker 2
It's a brand new quote, a brand new video, a set of questions and ways to do quick connects with their students. And it's all right at your fingertips. The whole goal dance when we built this is we know there's so much on our teachers plates and we didn't want planning for connections and relationships to be getting in the way of that such important work. And so we said, what if we just built it for you? We'll give it away. It's absolutely free. Check it out and use these tools to connect with your kids. And so it's a daily email. You click on that button and you are, there's no login required. You can just immediately access those activities to start to build relationships with You.

34:34
Speaker 4
And each edition of the first five falls into like three main categories of ideas. It's either connection, it's care. And by care we mean, you know, how do I, how can I practice ways of caring for others, you know, in this classroom, but also even self care, like through things like check ins or you know, or just kind of mindful focus practices. And then the last one, we always call these the three C's. So it's connection. These three C's. When we built this was, you know, what are the most important things that build thriving classrooms and build communities. And it was like we really, we spent a lot of. You should see the board. We still have a picture of the board where we sketch this all out.

35:10
Speaker 4
When I was a principal and Doug was a campus leader is we thought it's gotta be focused on connection and that care idea and not just learning about what it is, but experiencing it. That's what I love about the first five. They're experiential pieces and they're easy plug and play. But we give this the, almost the prompts and the ideas in the classrooms take it where they take it. And then the last C is character. You know, just you know, character building through either like great wisdom of a quo or. And this is, was Doug's, you know, thoughts as he built it or a video that this shows something really great that somebody's doing.

35:43
Speaker 4
And oftentimes, you know, in a secondary edition or high school editions, we try to find great videos that show teenagers doing, you know, just really great things for others or for their community or for their schools. And then same thing with the primary, we try to find stories that, you know, third grader, second grader could watch and make sense of. And so that resource you get each day is really built with those three big themes consistently as well each day. The connection, the care and the character.

36:13
Speaker 4
And I think that's another piece too is as a leader, I found that the more I can help build a system that helped our educators understand the why and the how and the when do It in the simplest way that people are willing to take a step and try it and give you honest feedback on it. And I think just by creating that consistent thing each day, that ritual almost of here are quick activities that take a minute, two minutes, three minutes. We've built everything with the idea that no longer than five, but most things should take a minute or two. I think that system and that consistency also helps us as educators or even leaders because we have a lot of leaders that use our stuff with staff too, to kick off meetings, which is a great way to model as well.

36:55
Speaker 4
But when they see that, it begins to make sense to them through their experience, they're starting to see the value versus me coming in and say, if we do A, B and C, we should be able to increase our relationships. Whereas these little practices they see over a month or two, we've had so many, especially secondary folks and veteran teachers write us by October or November each year and say, I've known my students so much more this year than any year in my career, and the one thing I've fall back on, I'm just paraphrasing here, is that I take a minute or two each day with just grabbing one of your resources and just running with it quick before we jump into, you know, whatever our objective of the day is.

37:32
Speaker 2
And John, that's what it's all about. Like when we get those emails and we just see teachers saying just thank you for the resource, it just fills our bucket. It truly makes us feel, you know, like we're making a difference and that's what we set out to do. It wasn't to do anything other than how can we support teachers, how can we support kids, how can we help make an impact in this world? So we know there's a broken world we live in, lots of issues and lots of problems, but if we can bring a little bit of light, a little bit of joy, a little bit of fun inside the classroom, we know how stressful the classroom is, we know how burnt out our teachers feel.

38:06
Speaker 2
And so if we can say, hey, try this resource, laugh, connect, make a joke with your kids. It's all here for you. You don't have to do a thing. We love receiving that feedback. It truly does. Just brings joy to our heart.

38:20
Speaker 1
Beautiful. Well, it's a great way to teach community values.

38:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. And a lot of this, you know, like, stems from, you know, the art of community and, you know, restorative practices of bringing people together in a shared space and a shared voice. And it's not like, I'm the teacher, you're the kid, you'll listen to me. But it's like, hey, let's get to know each other together. I'm going to speak a little bit. Dan, I want you to speak. John, I want you to speak. And we'll all collectively build community. And we believe that a thriving school community, if you can build that, the recipe for success.

38:56
Speaker 1
Well, That's a great note to transition on. If you could put one message on all school marquees across the globe for a single day, what would that message be?

39:06
Speaker 4
I'll, I'll start mine. And you know, I, I really like that question. And you know, people that know me well love, they know that I love to talk and probably over explain things at times. But when I think of that question, what would that be on the marquee? When I think of that question, I think of not just the students seeing it and the staff seeing it, but also the community seeing it. Right? In trying to reflect on where we are at this point in time, I have three words on it. Everything starts here. Everything in life starts, if you really think of it in a big picture way, when you walk into that school, whether it's for that student, for that community, or for everybody moving forward for investing in our future, everything starts in our school buildings.

39:47
Speaker 4
And just to remember that when it comes to the hard conversations that we need to have and we're going to be having, you know, is technology, is here, it is going to cause us to adapt what school looked like 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. But to always keep in mind that idea that everything starts here. And how can we as the stewards of the world, the adults, the teachers, remember that as we build a plan to help our kids figure out that path, to help them A, be their best selves, but B, be those best stewards for their community down the road when we're very old and in that idea. So everything starts here. I think everything I believe in fits.

40:27
Speaker 3
Into that, has a sacred trust, no doubt.

40:32
Speaker 2
And I just want to add to that, John, just because you got my mind running. But when you think about the depth of everything starts here. There's not a job on planet Earth that it doesn't start with going through a teacher's classroom first. I mean, you have to be a learner first. And so the school building, welcoming the next generation with open arms, the next lawyer, the next doctor, the next person that's going to, you know, take us to Mars or whatever it might be, that it's right here in our school buildings and we got to build those places. And so I, I, I love that. I, I think it's phenomenal. My, mine's pretty similar, Dan. And when you ask that question, I would say this place is filled with imperfect people. We're all going to make mistakes, but you are welcome here.

41:18
Speaker 2
And I think, you know, sometimes we had to Put on our best self and we have to be the certain way. And middle school years are weird and you're going through all this stuff. But what if were more honest as leaders are like, hey, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. But you know what, Dan, you're welcome here. John, you're welcome here. Doug, you're welcome here. If we all walked into that, I think our collective guard could be let down a little more.

41:43
Speaker 4
I love it.

41:44
Speaker 1
So you're building your dream school from the ground up. You're not limited by any resources. What would be your three guiding principles in building your dream school?

41:54
Speaker 4
I did this practice probably 12 years ago. Doug and I, when you sit in a room with us and we probably drives our wives crazy is we're such just dreamers and imagineers and we don't let the reasons why you can't do something stop us. Doug's even better at this than me. It's we've always. And I think it's why we've been successful because people thought were crazy. Like, are you going to give away this first five thing? Like, well, we don't have any money. We don't have customers other than one. Like, let's give it away. And people love it. There might be interested in who Ed tomorrow is.

42:25
Speaker 1
Right.

42:27
Speaker 4
So to me, the whole idea of building a school from scratch has always been such a romantic idea for me because I see the challenges. I think every educator, every leader, every parent even would say that our system's dated, that the school system is a bit dated versus where we are today. And so I began imagining years ago and thinking, oh, if I could build a building and what if we combined math and social studies for 10 weeks a year in language arts and science? We did a lot of project based stuff. And you know, in hindsight, it's a lot of what some of IB does, you know, with their, you know, with some of their ways they build their learning, you know, through a lot of project based. I, you know, that's always been an idea of mine.

43:06
Speaker 4
And even with our relational piece for us, I think if you could build something from the ground up, we could have a amazing system just roaring year one, you know, with building it. So when you ask what are the three things or you know, or the values or the things that are going to help me imagine that school, I think of three things. You know, for some people, their only limitations are imagination. And I think the imagination has to be actually the number one thing has to be the number one thing for building that.

43:34
Speaker 4
Because if you told me four years ago, even when we started ed tomorrow, that I could go on to some website and say, write me my 12th grade term paper like a C plus English 12th grade student, which was me, and in 12 seconds it will spit out a five page paper, I would have never believed you. The rate at which things are changing now, we have to have. You know, I love the, the whole idea of a what ruckus maker is right. You have to have someone willing to just almost not discard everything, Keep the great, you know, the foundation over there. But you have to have someone with an imagination to be like what's, what could we imagine is different? Because kids buy into ideas. The biggest challenge was us as adults.

44:16
Speaker 4
So I think the number one thing would have to be we start with imagination. And then once we have ideas, I think where a lot of great ideas fall and where I've been so blessed to work with Doug is too many people have great ideas, but what do you do with them when you're done? You have to find the right people to collaborate with. And so I think the second thing is that I would focus on building that school from the ground up is it would be rooted in collaboration, in working together as educators, working with our kids, working with their voices and ideas to build what this school looks like. And then for the collaboration to happen, there has to be connection.

44:49
Speaker 4
When you look at what the workforce is looking for in the future, the academics that I went to school to learn in the 90s are still important. I can reference a lot of this on my phone in 20 seconds, which would have taken me days in the library back in the 90s. I, I have access to a lot of information. I was a kid and our kids know that. So the most important thing that industry is looking for people that have great human skills. You know, your interpersonal skills, your problem solving, your empathy skills. And so all that I think begins with connection. So my big three are imagination, collaboration, and connection. And I think if we build that, we would find the right people to be part of that school.

45:27
Speaker 4
And I think that the line out the door for people wanting to be part of it would be very long.

45:31
Speaker 1
Dan?

45:32
Speaker 2
Yeah. Dan and I, my, mine's pretty similar. You know, it's funny, we have practically lived together for the last five years building this company. And so there's some parallels and there's some, lots of similarities there. For me, I would say, number one, surround yourself with relationship first people to build A full school of people that were fighting for kids, that care about kids. Sadly, I've been too many schools to know that's not always the case. And so how can you build an entire school with relationship first people? I think that's such an important piece to building that dream. School number two is be adaptable. What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow, and quite frankly, probably won't work tomorrow. And so how can we constantly be adapting to meet today's needs? Generations, you name it.

46:20
Speaker 2
And the third thing is we gotta be around people that are willing to collaborate. I don't have all the answers, but if you surround yourself with people that think differently that maybe come from a different background or a different understanding, allow the parents to have a piece in collaboration, allow the students to have a piece of collaboration, and we kind of go in full circle. But when you think about community, that's the ultimate form of collaboration. Working with all different stakeholders to build the best school possible. So surround yourself with relationships, be adaptable and collaborate.

46:57
Speaker 1
Love it. And of everything we discussed today, guys, what's the one thing you want a ruckus maker to remember?

47:04
Speaker 4
Yeah, this actually goes right off what Doug said. And you know, Doug hit on the head too. We've, when we started working together, we would co present hundreds of times. We've done it, you know, five hours a day, six hours a day, working with staff. And we've just. We know each other almost too much, you know, in a sense that, you know, like our families feel like family when we're together. And so, you know, to work off of what Doug said, if I had to leave that one message based on what we shared today. And I really want to say this through a leadership lens because it's what I'm certain many of the leaders that listen to this know already, but it's a reminder of it.

47:35
Speaker 4
And it's one of the biggest lessons I got initially as a leader, trying to look at maybe some different ways of leading. It was this. It was. If you want to start a ruckus, which to me is driving a great change that needs to be happening. Right. If you want to, like, if you want to start a ruckus, it can be really uncomfortable at first. New ideas often aren't accepted happily. You know, change is hard and difficult and that if you have a new idea that goes maybe outside of the comfort or the norm, there can often feel like there's a target on your back or of just frustration or, you know, here's somebody coming to you know, rock the boat with everything. And I had to. And what I had to learn is I had to be ready for that.

48:12
Speaker 4
But ultimately, the one thing to remember is this. If you believe so much in the ruckus that's driving you or that passion.

48:19
Speaker 3
Right.

48:20
Speaker 4
I think those two words are almost interchangeable in this field. But if you can believe, if that is driving you in a way that it's just what your values are. And that's how I think why Doug and I, like, we have the same values. When he called me, it was the same. He's like, I know we built, we share all these opinions. But if you let that ruckus drive you in a way that you know, it's going to help our students lives long term and collectively their communities, then trust that passion. And when it's beginning to bubble, and then as Doug said, surround yourself with people that aren't going to just follow in line, but also share some of that passion in that and use that imagination, that collaboration to do it.

48:57
Speaker 4
And so just to be ready for, because the, you know, implementation dip, anything you try new, any new idea, it's going to get worse a little bit before it gets better. And just to remember that, because that's usually what makes us a lot out of a stop when we look at great solutions, but the daunting task of jumping into them.

49:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. John and I would follow that by saying ruckus makers, don't be afraid to take a risk. Remember, life begins outside your comfort zone, even when the rest of the world thinks you're crazy. So take that risk.

49:25
Speaker 4
Yeah.

49:26
Speaker 1
Fantastic. Well, thank you guys. I really enjoyed our conversation today.

49:31
Speaker 2
Yeah, this is phenomenal. Dan just enjoyed just having the conversation and talking through and trying to make a difference in education. Thank you so much for having us on. It was a true pleasure.

49:40
Speaker 4
And keep up the great work. The quality of stuff we hear on this and I even recall listening to podcasts back when I was a principal and looking for new ideas because I was new at it. And this was the podcast that I subscribed to. I looked yesterday just to like, oh, I know. I, you know, I used to listen to a few, but this is the first one I ever subscribed to. So it's a really cool moment for me to be on this, number one for a reason, with other leaders. It is. Well, love it. Yes. So what a great resource and service that this provides leaders. Because leadership can be a really lonely job, as we all know. And this just.

50:15
Speaker 4
New ideas are what you know, I think catapult a lot of us in leadership and it's just really grateful and thankful that you invited us to be on today.

50:24
Speaker 1
You're most welcome. Thanks for taking the time. It's been a pleasure.

50:27
Speaker 4
Thanks, Dan.

50:28
Speaker 2
Right. Take care, Dan.

50:32
Speaker 1
Hey Ruckus Maker. Thanks again for pressing play. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. One thing John and Doug taught me is that connection, care and character influence everything. Everything starts there. This matters because Ruckus Makers do school different. And if education ain't a bit disruptive, then what are the students really learning? This is how Ruckus Makers create a campus experience we're showing up for now. Before you go, if today's episode sparked an idea or shifted your thinking, then you'll love the Ruckus Maker Mastermind, a private community of innovative school leaders who meet weekly to grow, reflect and disrupt the status quo. Create the campus experience your staff and students deserve. Applications are now open and check out my Principal Coach. It's an AI powered leadership tool available 24 7, trained on 10 years of mastermind coaching experience.

51:29
Speaker 1
It's like having a Ruckus Maker mentor who in your pocket. Try your seven day free trial at my principal coach.com thanks again. Have a great day.

  Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/