Resilience and Student-Centered Learning Summit

Jason Johnson:
That’s all right. Well, welcome everybody to our webinar. My name is Jason Johnson. I am a trainer and Research and Development Director for the WhyTry organization. I’m a school psychologist by trade, and I’ve been asked to moderate this today. And I am thrilled because we’ve got some great guests. I want to get right into what they have to say. So I’m going to give some brief bios and then just ask them a little bit what they’ve been up to, have them give some additional background, but we are thrilled today, to be joined by Erin Gruwell. Erin is a teacher, education activist, founder of The Freedom Writers Foundation. She currently teaches educators around the world, how to implement her innovative lesson plans into their own classrooms. She created The Freedom Writers Methodology and has done some incredible things. Welcome Erin.

Erin Gruwell:
Thank you.

Jason Johnson:
We’re happy to have you. We are also joined by Darrell Scott. Darrell, in response to a school shooting that tragically claimed the life of his daughter, he started an organization called Rachel’s Challenge and he’s on a mission to end school violence, bullying and suicide, by sparking a chain reaction of hope. Got some incredible perspective from Darrell as well. So welcome Darrell. We’re thrilled to have you.

Darrell Scott:
Oh, thanks.

Jason Johnson:
And then, also joined by Christian Moore. Christian is the author of the Resilience Breakthrough. He’s the founder of the WhyTry program, an internationally renowned speaker, licensed clinical social worker, and an advocate for youth. The WhyTry program that he started, currently exists in about 23,000 different organizations throughout the country and throughout the world and he’s done some incredible work as well. So we’ve got three real luminaries, I think, within their field with some important experience and things to say.

Jason Johnson:
Before we get into some of the questions, just so that everybody knows a little bit, I wondered if we could maybe, just hear a little bit, there may be a few that are unfamiliar with some of your stories. If you wouldn’t mind, maybe each of you, we can just go right down the row, go Darrell then Erin then Christian. Have each of you tell just a brief version of who you are, what your organization does and what you’ve been up to recently with that organization, if that works. We’ll start with you, Darrell.

Darrell Scott:
Well, thank you. It’s good to be with everybody. I never intended to be an expert in the educational realm, but my daughter was the first one to be killed in the Columbine tragedy in 1999. And shortly after Rachel was killed, I was asked to speak before Congress at the House Judiciary Committee and that speech got put on the internet and just suddenly went everywhere. And I found myself being asked to speak at very large events all around the country. And for the first year following Rachel’s death, I’d spoken at over 120 universities and colleges with record crowds. These were 20, 30, 40,000 students that would come, from Princeton, to Texas A&M, to all over the country.

Darrell Scott:
We began to realize the impact of my daughter’s story, on the lives of young people. So we created a program called Rachel’s Challenge, which as of today, has reached over 28 million people in live settings, not counting television and books and other avenues. I personally, do a lot of content. I’ve written 15 books too, I’ve co-authored with Dr. Robert Marzano and do a lot of speaking. Christian and I have shared the stage many times around the country at conferences. Erin and I have been together at conferences and incidentally, we met 20 years ago in Rockwall, Texas. Dr. Gene Burton, who was the Superintendent of Schools, brought three of us in to speak and I think this is the first time that the three of us have been reunited for any kind of a meeting since then. So it’s a thrill for me to be with Erin and to be with Christian today.

Erin Gruwell:
We got the band back together.

Darrell Scott:
Yeah. That’s right.

Christian Moore:
And make sure we never break up.

Darrell Scott:
That’s awesome.

Jason Johnson:
Thank you, Darrell. Erin, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Erin Gruwell:
My name is Erin Gruwell and I am, in my mind, an ordinary teacher who was blessed to have the most extraordinary students. My students dove themselves, The Freedom Writers, and it has been this incredible odyssey. We have gone on to take our stories, that at one point, were in a marble journal and bind them into a book and then send those words out into the world, like a message in a bottle. And they published our book in the fall of 1999. Unbeknownst to us, we thought, “Who’s going to want to read about a teacher and some kids and tales and triumphs and tragedies?”

Erin Gruwell:
Our book became the number one book in America at one point, and it spoke to people. It was gritty and it was heartfelt. What we realized when we graduated is that, family is what we make and family is what we choose and we weren’t quite ready to cut the umbilical cord. So even though room 203, my beloved classroom, was no longer my classroom. We were going to make a classroom of our own. 20 years later, we are still very much a family. And how we have evolved as a family is, the original proceeds from our book allowed me to help put The Freedom Writers through college and some of them are getting PhDs.

Erin Gruwell:
I just did a letter of rec for one of my amazing students who is going to medical school. So, The Freedom Writers book was their ticket, their lottery ticket to pursue higher education. Most, the first in their family to graduate, almost all of them, the first to go to college. The book has had a life of its own. We did a 10th anniversary edition, and just this fall, we did our 20th anniversary edition, with 20 new stories that are just riveting and beautiful about what happens now.

Erin Gruwell:
We were blessed to have our story made into a feature film. So I’m sorry for all of those that thought they were going to meet Hilary Swank today. I’m just this nerdy teacher and I’m not anyone who walks red carpets, I’m in a classroom. We also recently, had our story made into a documentary. So for those of you in America, you could stream it for free on pbs.org. And we wanted to make a documentary for free for a reason. I had foster kids, I had kids that moved 40 times before they were 14. So the vision for us was, if someone could have an old school television with rabbit ears and discover our story, that would be a beautiful gift.

Erin Gruwell:
Where we are today, as this pandemic persist, I’m in Long Beach, California. So we’re still on lockdown in my county and my state. So The Freedom Writers and I have hunkered down, we have rallied and we started making free curriculum. We thought, there’s got to be a teacher who is anxious. There’s got to be some kid who needs some substance. So The Freedom Writers and I used our office to come together and pick really robust themes to celebrate and to spotlight, and it’s been amazing. We treat our office like a speakeasy.

Erin Gruwell:
The only alcohol I can give them is Purell when they walk in the door, I lather them up. And, they are making just wonderful, meaningful stuff for anyone and everyone that needs something at a time where it’s difficult. So we’re trying to follow in the footsteps of Darrell and Christian, who I feel like if I’m going to stand on the shoulder of any giant, it’s going to be a Darrell and a Christian. So we’re just humbly trying to do our part to be a light during a really dark time.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Christian, tell us a little bit about yourself and your organization.

Christian Moore:
All right, all right. Well, I was a special education student, and I had a hard time answering a simple question growing up. And that was the answer to the question WhyTry. A kid with my background, I knew pretty young in life that it was the smart kids, or being able to go to college to thrive and have opportunity, freedom, self-respect and I didn’t see a lot of that early in my life. And long, long story short, I had some incredible teachers like Darrell and Erin reach out to me. They helped me see who I could be, who I could really become. And, I was able to get through college with a sixth grade math level, seventh grade reading and writing level. My joke is I speak, usually they’d bring us a speaker in because of success. I speak because I’m one of the world-renowned leading experts in fear and failure. I attended the university of adversity.

Christian Moore:
And, as I was finishing up college, one day a school psychologist was showing me that the vast majority of children that I was going to work with, I studied social work and stuff. And she showed me that most of the kids I’m working with are visual learners. So I had spent eight years in college learning how to do cognitive talk therapy interventions, when I learned that the majority of these kids were visual learners. I took evidence-based mental health practices and just started delivering it in a visual delivery system. So everything we do, the child visually sees it, they hear it in music, they physically do it, and tried to really make mental health relevant to give, especially kids from more at-risk backgrounds. And then that became the start of the WhyTry organization. And then, I spent 20 years trying to help kids understand where was the attributes of resilience: hard work, determination, perseverance.

Christian Moore:
But we wanted to figure out where does resilience come from, from within? Where does the inner motivation come from to put one foot in front of another? And that’s the book, The Resilience Breakthrough, and I’ve just spent the last 20 years running around this country, teaching resilience, and teaching social and emotional education to students across America, and it’s been an amazing rush up until when COVID hit. All of us, we’ve not been able to travel as much. It’s impacted all of our lives, and we’re all in the same storm right now, where we all need resilience. We’re all in different boats, but we’re in that same storm. And I’m excited to be on here with Erin and Darrell, and talk about how we can get everybody flowing down that river, and we can support each other, and we can help to make this comeback for individuals in this great country. So, that’s my story, in the Reader’s Digest version.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you, Christian. It’s pretty inspiring. I’m sitting here doing the math in my head. It’s informal math. But the three of you and your organizations have literally impacted millions of kids’ lives, millions and millions of kids lives. And so, I think there’s a lot of people that are interested in the perspective that you bring. I think right now, Christian, I might throw to you, I know you had a couple questions that you wanted to present for Darrell and Erin’s perspective on. Is that accurate, Christian?

Christian Moore:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep.

Jason Johnson:
And I’m going to throw to you and let you start the dialogue going.

Christian Moore:
All right, all right. Awesome, awesome. One of the things as a mental health worker, as a therapist, I’m always trying to figure out how to create change in people’s lives. And the thing I learned from both of you that has had an immense impact on me personally in my career, is you both help people really be able to see themselves, and see their potential, and put up a new mirror, a new way of them seeing themselves. And, I would love to hear both of you talk about why you decided to approach change from that standpoint, in helping people… You didn’t get people out of their crisis. You didn’t… I always say there’s no teacher, counselor, or social worker who could have got rid of some of my parents’ mental illness or my learning disabilities.

Christian Moore:
And, you guys work within the framework of where children are. And I’d love for you to share a little bit about why you took that approach, and how we can keep doing that in this world today as we go back to school and in this online world a little bit, where people see their real potential from where they are. And you want to start, Erin with that a little bit?

Erin Gruwell:
Sure. You know, I started this journey as an English teacher. And, my journey started after some really trying times in Los Angeles. We had just had a riot. And then the city that I chose to teach in, there was about 126 homicides. My students participated in those riots. My students buried friends and fathers. And so when I began as an English teacher, what I sadly discovered was my students didn’t like reading, they didn’t like writing, they didn’t like school, and they didn’t like me. And that was a very rude awakening, because I was the overachiever. I was the one that probably drove my teachers crazy, raising my hand, and volunteering, and staying after school.

Erin Gruwell:
So, what I had to do is I had to pivot, as we’re all doing now. I realized my assumptions are not the reality. So I need to go where my students are at, to understand why they push away rather than pull closer. Why they don’t want to read. Why they don’t want to use school as a way to equalize a very unfair playing field. So, very early on, I realized I need to be flexible. I got to know who my students are. I have to understand all of those social, emotional needs, as well as those mental health needs, like you mentioned, Christian. And so, very early on, I realized I was also a student. I’m a student now for all of us that were old fashioned teachers, standing in front of a chalkboard or whiteboard. Now we’re Zooming. Now we’re doing Google Hangouts. Now we’re using technology. It is terrifying. It was terrifying then, my first days in the 90s, it is terrifying now.

Erin Gruwell:
But I think when you’re opened and willing to adapt, to humbly serve whoever you are serving, you have to go to where they’re at. And so ironically, I think then, my students were a Phoenix rising from the ashes. I think all of us now are going to have to be that same Phoenix rising from the ashes if we’re going to have success with our kids, because I love to hold them close. I want to see them. And it’s hard in this pandemic that hashtag alone together, to not be able to reach through a screen, those nuances, those glances, those looks. And in a classroom, you have that.

Erin Gruwell:
My students were not subtle. They did not have a poker face. So they would flip me off, they would call me names. But it was instantaneous. And I fed off that energy then, and I’m learning how to feed off that energy now. And I think all of us on this webinar today are learning to adapt to a new normal that is anything but. But I love that we’re all committed to adapting to this new normal.

Christian Moore:
That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that. And I love what you said about the need to pivot. You know, as a brand new teacher, you had to pivot, and you’re pivoting again. Right now, we’re all in this pivot. I think that that’s a skill that I think even for students, as they enter into the workplace in a few years, I know as a business owner, as an organization, if we can pivot, we’re more likely to thrive. Human beings that can pivot, their resilience is tied to that ability to pivot. So I love what you shared there. Darrell, [crosstalk 00:17:16].

Darrell Scott:
You know, Erin was talking about remaining a learner, remaining a student. I think that’s the key to true success in life. I’m 71 years old and I still read as though I’ve never read before. I read old authors, I read new authors and I learn a lot. I learn a lot when I’m with you, Christian. And I’ve learned a lot from Erin.

Darrell Scott:
Every conference that I speak at, I encourage them to watch the movie Freedom Writers. And I talk about Erin, and I talk about you, Christian and WhyTry. I talk about both organizations. And I’m serious when I tell them, but I tell them that I’ve watched two movies over five times in my life, only two movies. And one of those was What About Bob, and they all laugh. And the other one is Freedom Writers. And I actually just finished watching Freedom Writers two days ago for the about the 10th time, because I’m doing some professional development materials and I’m using some of the things from Erin’s teaching style and the theme is own creating curiosity in the classroom.

Darrell Scott:
And incidentally, I want to just throw in a commercial for all three of us, because all of us have been working hard with our teams on developing things online that people can use free of charge. So go to all three of the websites, download the things that Erin and her group are doing. We have a program called 180 Connections that in this time when kids are not connected, they can use with their parents or with you as a teacher. So it’s a free download. It’s called 180 Connections, go to rachelschallenge.org. And also get the things that Christian is making available and that Erin are making available.

Darrell Scott:
After Rachel died, I spoke before Congress, as I mentioned earlier, and I suddenly got swamped with requests primarily from schools. And I never had an intention of starting an organization. It just happened. And I knew that I had to play catch up because I was 50 years old. And I determined that if I was going to be in the educational arena, I needed to learn as much as I possibly could. So I literally went out and began to buy books, and I have over 200 teacher training manuals. I have your books, Christian. I have Erin’s books. I have Dr. Marzano’s books, and I devoured those books over the last 20 years. And still am learning.

Darrell Scott:
But one of the things that we experience when we go into schools is we did a survey in 2011, with 20,000 students. We got 10,000 of those back. And we asked several questions. And one of the questions we asked them was, do you feel safe in your school? And out of 10,000, only 3000 some odd students felt safe. Then we did a survey after we were there, and I may not have the numbers exact, but over 6,000 said they felt safe after Rachel’s Challenge came to their school.

Darrell Scott:
But I thought about that because all we did was send one stranger into their auditorium to speak for one hour in an assembly. And then we did a 90 minute training. And then we did an evening event with parents. That’s all we did. And suddenly the number of students that felt safe in their school, doubled. So I began to think if we can do that in one day, what’s the key? What is it that we’re doing that suddenly changes the whole mindset of a child? And can teachers do that in the classroom? And the answer is yes.

Darrell Scott:
And Erin Gruwell proved that in her classroom. I mean, we learned a lot of her techniques just from watching the movie. She did an exercise called Cross the Line or Stand up to the Line. And we have incorporated that into a program we have called Chain Reaction. So for me, the whole emphasis became, how can we meet Maslow’s hierarchy at the root level, the need for security, identity and belonging. When Dr. Marzano and I wrote a book called Awaken the Learner, there’s a picture of a tree on the cover, and at the bottom of that tree are the roots. And we always instruct teachers, don’t start with the fruit. Don’t start with the trunk or the limbs, start with the root. Your first job is to make those children feel safe and secure and connected.

Darrell Scott:
And I’ll never forget. At one of our conferences, Erin was a speaker and she and I were talking. She may not remember this, but I was asking her about her first encounters. And she said, “Darrell, it took me three months before I could teach them anything, because I was learning about them. It took me three months to build a bridge of security, identity, belonging.” And later I spent some time with Ron Clark, who’s a great teacher. Has a school, a private school in Georgia. And Ron told me exactly what Erin told me. He said “It took me three months to build a bridge between me and the students.” And they both were working with the hardest to reach students possible. So I salute them for that.

Darrell Scott:
So we have focused on connection, on how to bring people together. And one of the things that we see is prevention of suicide in large numbers. We have over a 150 students a year. That’s an average of three a week that contact us, telling us they were planning to commit suicide. And because Rachel’s story came and people began to treat them with kindness, they begin to connect with each other, they changed their mind about suicide.

Darrell Scott:
The last thing I’ll say is that 140 something children have died in school shootings. Since my daughter, who was the first one to die at Columbine, 140 something students have died. That’s a tragedy and it’s covered the news time and time again. But, something that’s not on the news that often is the fact that for every one student that’s been killed in a school shooting, there’s over 400 students that have committed suicide. It’s up into the hundreds of thousands since Columbine. That’s where we put a lot of our focus is on helping kids connect so that they feel they belong, they feel secure, and that they have identity in the classroom.

Christian Moore:
I love that. That need for identity in the classroom is so important. I love what you’re sharing about belonging and you shared a little bit of a personal story.

Christian Moore:
I was talking to my youngest son, who’s 13. He’s in a middle school that has some challenges. I wanted him to be in a middle school that would be a little bit challenging, that would have a little bit more experiences and diversity from different things. He said to me the other day and this hit me like a ton of bricks. He goes, “You know, dad, I miss all my friends. I miss being in school.” But, he goes, “I’ll be honest. I feel safer at home.” I worry because he knows the work I do. I go into schools after a lot of crises and stuff.

Christian Moore:
I think I’ve overexposed him maybe to some things. But when he said that to me, that “the benefit of this is I feel I’m safe. I was in a safer situation being at home.” That broke my heart. I was like, wow, here I am speaking out and doing all this national work around this and I overlooked where he was. He just came out of the blue to me.

Christian Moore:
That feeling of belonging, especially around suicide issues are so important. I’m talking to lots of students lately about what it’s like to be in an in-group and an out-group. I know, Erin, you’ve done some of the greatest work I’ve ever seen to help kids not feel like they’re part of an out-group and to help everybody be seen as one and create equality in the classrooms. I’d love to hear some of your feelings about that, Erin. I know you’re continuing to do work to create equality and stuff. What are some of your feelings about what Darrell is saying about creating that belonging and that safety in the classroom?

Erin Gruwell:
That’s a great question. I think for a lot of the educators in this chat room, we are drawn to this profession as a calling. I think it’s bigger than ourselves. I think when you’re in college, you learn about Graham vs. Board of Education, that separate is not equal and you believe that. Then you go to schools often that are underserved and you realize schools are not always equal. There isn’t equity. There is oftentimes traces of educational apartheid even within our own country.

Erin Gruwell:
I went to a school that was pretty homogenous in an upper class area. I always felt safe. But when I chose the high school that I taught at, what was a rude awakening was not only the separation within the community, but the self-segregation in classrooms and at the school. And so I had to really understand how do you bring people together when they felt marginalized, when they felt ostracized, when they’re on the fringe.

Erin Gruwell:
It was difficult when you’re dealing with any kind of -ism, whether it’s racism, sexism, you have to be very direct and very intentional. You have to be willing to have courageous conversations. And that had to happen instantaneously before I could bring Shakespeare to life, I had to bring Tupac to life. I want to do a special shout out as I’m talking about poetry, Darrell Scott is one of my favorite poets. I just love your poetry, Darrell. And if people didn’t understand that you were one of the best sages from any stage, you’re also an incredible poet. I want to do a shout out to all of your poetry.

Erin Gruwell:
I realized my students didn’t care about [inaudible 00:27:44]. They didn’t care about dead white guys in tights who wore togas from countries they couldn’t identify on a map. What I realized very early on is education has to be relevant. It has to be something that is not only organic, but it speaks to kids when it’s not driven by a grade or a bell or whistle and stats. It’s also got to be about stories and young people are story tellers. Rachel Scott is a story teller. Christian Moore, you were a storyteller before you even realized you had a voice.

Erin Gruwell:
What I needed to do then, and I still do now in every classroom, is how do you give a voice to the voiceless? How can education bring hope to people who feel hopeless? I think that’s the beauty of what we’re doing today is giving both voice and hope at a time when people don’t feel that they are seen or heard or matter. I think collectively all of us just want people to know that we see them, we hear them, and they do indeed matter.

Christian Moore:
Oh, that’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that note. Both of you are… Darrell used the word chain reaction in Rachel’s challenge and the work you’re doing with that, that chain reaction. I know both of you have been able to build on that. Do you want to share a little bit with the chain reaction, how you kind of create that healing with that?

Darrell Scott:
You know, I’m doing this professional development piece right now and I’m writing about how I met Miep Gies, the lady who hid Anne Frank. My wife and I got to spend a full day with her in Amsterdam shortly before she died at the age of a hundred. The reason we got to meet with her was a chain reaction that got started way back when Erin began to talk to her students about the Holocaust.

Darrell Scott:
If you watch the movie Freedom Writers, they don’t know what the Holocaust is about. That’s where she begins to realize, and you see her turning from teaching them to learning from them. One kid raises his hand and he says, “That thing you were mentioning earlier, the Holocaust, what’s that about?” Because of those kids asking her questions, she ends up using a powerful approach. Curiosity is something that’s needed in the classroom. That’s the PDU that I’m doing right now is on creating curiosity in the classroom.

Darrell Scott:
Curiosity is made up of several elements and curiosity leads to interest. Interest and curiosity are not the same thing. Curiosity is like the bait or the lure, interest is like the hook, but attention is like the catch. You can’t get to attention without curiosity and interest. Too many teachers want to grab the attention and demand it from students before they earn their curiosity and their interest. Erin was a master, is a master at creating curiosity, beginning with the unexpected, elements of mystery, doing things that kids don’t expect her to do. She grabbed their curiosity and their interest, then she held their attention. So almost lost my train of thought there, where I was headed. Oh, chain reactions.

Darrell Scott:
So because of her creating curiosity in her students, they ended up raising funds to bring Miep Gies to the classroom, to meet with them and with Erin. Erin and Miep became good friends. My wife and I were setting after I met Erin and you the first time, we’re sitting in the movie theater, watching the movie Freedom Writers and Miep Gies comes into her classroom and I told Sandy, “She’s still alive.” I thought this lady was dead. And it’s because of Erin and our relationship that I ended up meeting with Miep Gies and got to spend a day with her, which all of us have met some incredible people. I’ve spent time with three of the four last presidents in the oval office. I’ve spent time with kings and leaders, and all of you have. All of us have, but when people ask me, who is the most incredible person you’ve ever met, I always say Miep Gies, because this lady put her life on the line.

Darrell Scott:
So the chain reaction Erin, that you started and your classroom ended up giving me the joy of meeting the most wonderful person that I would have never met without that chain reaction. But that the word chain that came from a writing my daughter did before she was killed at Columbine and her codes of life. The teacher said you can write an essay on anything you choose. She wrote about starting a chain reaction of kindness and compassion that would ripple around the world.

Darrell Scott:
A few years after she died, I was in Sydney, Australia, speaking in the Olympic Center to 14,000 teenagers that they had bused in from all the schools around and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that Rachel’s desire to start a chain reaction that would ripple around the world had become a reality. Today we’re in countries all over the world with her chain reactions of kindness and compassion and students celebrate those by writing down acts of kindness on pieces of paper, they turn those pieces of paper into chain links, and they do celebrations at the end of the school year, all across the country. There’s hundreds of those, they’re called Rachel’s Rallies and they celebrate acts of kindness.

Darrell Scott:
So one thing practical that teachers can do is encourage their students to write down acts of kindness that they experience, that they do or that they observe because your endorphins kick in, your happiness glands kick in when you do an act of kindness, when you see an act of kindness, or when you receive an act of kindness. Chain reactions.

Christian Moore:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And I love what you were saying about curiosity in the classroom. So many teachers are asking me now, I’ve seen 20, 30% of kids checking out online, and there’s many reasons for that, we have the digital divide. We have all kinds of, of challenges around that. But that, I think curiosity and what you’re talking about Darrell will have a huge impact if we’re able to help keep these kids engaged in the fall and stuff. Erin, I’d love to hear, I know one of your passions is student centered learning. Start where the child is, make it relevant to these kids, student centered learning. And I’d love to hear you talk about student centered learning what that means to you in combination with Darrell’s talking about with that curiosity, using curiosity to engage these students.

Erin Gruwell:
Absolutely. Well, I love that that Darrell gives me credit for bringing Miep Gies over, but I have to give credit where credit is due and that was my students. My students had never read a book before, as Darrell knows. And so I thought that The Diary of Anne Frank, it would be perfect, because of a sentiment that was said to me, after we played the lying game. The last question I had asked, which they captured beautifully in the feature film was how many of you have lost someone to senseless gang violence? And the response was too many to count, or “I’ve been to more funerals than birthday parties.”Or, “I feel like I come from an undeclared war.” And that stayed with me.

Erin Gruwell:
I started thinking about Anne Frank, how this was a perseverance of the human spirit, that at the end of her diary, she wrote in spite of everything, “I still believe that people are truly good at heart.” So I wanted my students to have that belief in humanity, even when it’s inhumane. So I wanted to have them read The Diary of Anne Frank was my first choice. And there was this simplicity of someone who was a secretary who saved these eight individuals in an attic during the war. She snuck in everyday. She snuck in paper and pens and food and hope. And my students found out at the time she was 87 … Darrell met her at a 100, but at 87, they came up with this idea that rather than writing a boring book report, that they wanted to write her letters, to make these letters so enticing that she would hop on a plane and fly across the globe and come and meet 150 gangsters. It’s that simple. It is not that simple.

Erin Gruwell:
Yet what I thought is, their writing will be more relevant because they can envision this woman reading their letters. At the time, we did not have computers. At the time my students didn’t have gadgets. And so they wrote, and yes, there was grammar mistakes and spelling errors, but they envisioned her reading and so it was so eloquent and exquisite and because of their words, these cries for help, she came and when she came, their lives were never the same. So there was a lot of great risks my students took to bring stories to life and we would read things and then we would envision, how do we visit it? So there was a silly saying, one of my students said that like… They call me Ms. G then and now. One of them said, “If Ms. G says we’re going to the moon, somebody better call NASA.” So we have learned to put NASA on speed dial.

Erin Gruwell:
But we met Miep Gies and then they wanted to go to Anne Frank’s attic. And not just on any day but August 4th, which was the day that she was captured. And Darrell knows this, but I’d love to share this with our audience. We were fundraising and getting ready to go to Europe, to walk up those stairs leading into Anna Frank’s attic. It was the spring semester of their first year of college. So they were all in a college class together learning about the sites we were going to visit collectively.

Erin Gruwell:
And our class was held hostage because we gathered around a television set and we watched what happened in Columbine. Darrell, I never knew that what I watched with my students live in real time would blossom into a friendship that you would be my mentor, that I would learn from you and admire you so.

Erin Gruwell:
And also, I don’t think you realize one of my chaperones on this trip was my father, who was portrayed in the feature film. But my father passed away before the film came out, which is a real tragedy. My dad was so excited about having actors play him and he was very cocky. He wanted Jack Nicholson to play him. He wanted Robert Redford to play him and I always have to say, “Dad, it’s not that kind of a movie.” But he never got to see that come to fruition. And so every time I am in the presence of Darrell Scott, I am in the presence of greatness.

Erin Gruwell:
And you are so fatherly to me that I can only imagine the kind of father you are to your children. So for me to have watched what the world watched, made the trip to Anne Frank’s attic that much more meaningful, that much more tangible. That often we don’t have to go to other countries and other places to bring education to life. We can do it in our own homes, our own schools, in our own backyards.

Erin Gruwell:
So, meeting you and knowing that we were a spark for you to have this incredible friendship with Miep Gies is such an honor and a gift that really needs to be bestowed on my students because they made it happen. They created the idea, they brought it to life. They had skin in the game and they saw it through fruition.

Erin Gruwell:
And that’s what you now do to students and kids and classrooms and communities and every continent. And so I honor you that, Darrell. You are like a father to me, but you are a beacon of light to so many people.

Darrell Scott:
Thank you Erin.

Christian Moore:
Wow. It’s emotional. I’m just feeling some emotions right now. It’s okay to acknowledge our emotions, man. That’s right. I scream as a therapist, man. That’s powerful, powerful stuff. I mean, that’s one of the greatest examples of the more kids deal with the real human condition, you think academics in combination with the real human condition and the real pain.

Christian Moore:
And I tell kids all the time, it’s okay to have negative emotions. We all experience a gamut of emotions. To have a negative emotion is normal as breathing. And a lot of examples you guys gave are people who I consider have street resilience. They took difficulty, they took disrespect and they said, “I’m going to hang in and I’m going to be a greater person because of this suffering, because of this pain.” And you both have devoted their lives to helping people understand that human condition and the importance of that in a student centered learning.

Christian Moore:
Is there anything either one of you want to say about student centered learning? I’m passionate. One thing I see with everybody as we are going online more, we are going to be able to access more media, more music. One thing that I love that you were doing in the classroom, Erin, was using music and relevant stuff to this current generation.

Christian Moore:
It was incredible. It had a huge impact on my career. And so going forward with the reality of where the world is. Maybe even broader, how do you guys see education changing and what role do you see in how we can replicate what you both have already done? What I’ve done in classrooms? How can we take that into this new world?

Erin Gruwell:
Can I continue my love affair for both Darrell and Christian? I think with what I have learned is just you got to adapt. So I knew Shakespeare. I needed to learn rap. I had to come up with creative games and make them tactile and kinesthetic. In today as the crisis is persisting, my students may have learned to find things that are interactive online. We have to. There is an economic divide tragically where many kids currently don’t have access to Wi-Fi, to computers.

Erin Gruwell:
I run a program called Freedom Writer Teachers and a very dear teacher, Debra Fernandez, told me a few days ago, we are on week eight in California of staying at home, sheltering in place, schools being shut down through the end of the year. Week eight. Her kids still don’t have computers. Many of them are foster kids. Many of them are economically challenged.

Erin Gruwell:
So what Freedom Writers and I have learned to do is to figure out when kids are not in school, what are they doing? So one of thing, I’d love to do a little shout out to Darrell because I love this episode so much, is my students talked me into creating a podcast. And I love that I went in kicking and screaming and I loved the first episode we did. You’ll love this, Darrell. We actually interviewed a holocaust survivor who was actually in our feature film. She just turned 96. So I asked Freedom Writer Teachers to listen. But I also asked my step mom to listen.

Erin Gruwell:
So I sent her the episode, we wanted to know if it was the right length and was interesting. She called me, I was at a school and I could physically hear her banging on the computer. And she said, “There’s something wrong. I can hear it. I just can’t see it.” And I said, “Well, because it’s a podcast, you’re not supposed to see it, but you can listen.” So, some of the older audience maybe don’t listen to podcasts, but kids do. But my producer is brilliant. I cry every day. He never cries at all.

Erin Gruwell:
The one podcast that brought him to his knees, the one podcast that made him weep was Darrell Scott. Darrell, it is indescribable. You have this cadence that is so soothing, I almost feel like if I had insomnia, you would be like a lullaby. You would rock me to sleep, but the way in which you speak unbeknownst to you, is therapeutic. It makes you just feel safe and sound and sane because you are a poet, the way you weave words together. And so the podcast that we did on our Freedom Writer protest of Darrell Scott is unbelievable. Christian, I would love to have you be my guest, because I don’t want you to loll me to sleep like Darrell has that beautiful cadence, but your story is so gritty and relevant and real.

Christian Moore:
I appreciate that.

Erin Gruwell:
So, I love that we started making podcast. I do want to do a sweet shout out to Miep Gies. We took the woman who portrayed her in the feature film. Her name is Pat Carroll, and she’s actually an actress. If you are a Disney aficionado, she actually plays Ursula in The Little Mermaid. Pat Carroll invited us into her home. For Darrell, we went to Rachel’s Challenge, the headquarters. For Pat Carroll, she’s in her mid nineties, and we went to her home at Cape Cod. It was like walking into a Disney set. Everything in her living room was Ursula, and she has this booming laugh.

Erin Gruwell:
What I loved about not only bringing Ursula to life from The Little Mermaid is her commitment to bringing Miep Gies to life, this ordinary person who did extraordinary things. So, I think my practical piece of advice is to listen to Darrell Scott’s voice. Listen to that podcast. It’s so beautiful. Pick up his poetry. Make your own chain of an act of kindness in your own living room, your own home, if you’re not back at your school. I think all of us need to be reminded of how ordinary people can do extraordinary things. So, we can listen, we can watch, but most importantly we can do. I guess my homework assignment for all of you after this webinar is to have a discussion with somebody, a good old fashioned talk. Put away the computer and have a conversation. That’s what Darrell makes me want to do every time, and that’s what you make me want to do as well, Christian, is just talk.

Darrell Scott:
[inaudible 00:48:41] I have a question for you.

Erin Gruwell:
Sure.

Darrell Scott:
This is for old people like me. Didn’t she also have a apart in the Mary Tyler Moore Show?

Erin Gruwell:
She did. Oh, my gosh, and she mentioned that. She has this boisterous laugh. Like I said, she’s in her mid nineties, and I took my two colleagues, young men. She flirted with them the entire time. She shamelessly said that she was a cougar, and she just laughed and told stories. I talked about you as well, Darrell. I just wanted her to know that her character that she portrayed in the film was also someone that you deeply admired. So, I love that where you make people cry, Pat Carroll made people laugh. I think having both extremes of emotions is really powerful because when you’re making people cry, it’s like a baptism. It’s like that cleansing that we need, and with that cleansing is the call to action. So, I thank you for that. At least every time I’m with you, I feel like I need to do more and be more.

Christian Moore:
That’s awesome. I get to meet lots of teachers that have been through both of your trainings that have literally transformed their education, how they teach, and then they will go back and share it with other teachers and stuff. I know from talking to both of you, I know you’re going to be sharing some of that stuff online and giving a lot more resources around that. And then I would love to come on your podcast, and you’re welcome to come drop onto our podcast, the Resilience Breakthrough podcast. And we’re going to be having Darrell as one of our guests, we hope to have on there soon as well but do podcasts and different stuff we’re able to communicate these things. I know Darrell has several things on his website he was alluding to earlier that’s free.

Christian Moore:
Erin does, and I’m excited about, I want to kind of… I know we’re getting a little close to the end of time, but a lot of kids are communicating to me, “Hey, Christian. Not only am I going through a lot, I’m hurting. My parents are going through a lot. My family is hurting tremendous.” You’re seeing over almost now 40 million people out of work. The impact that has on children is massive, and these kids are I’m teaching… It’s hard to talk about.

Christian Moore:
Now, these kids are more concerned about their parents then themselves right now. We have a parenting guide on resilience that we’re offering for free. Go to WhyTry.org. You get our parenting guide for free. Over, I think, now it’s almost approaching 20,000 people have downloaded this parenting guide. I just know there’s a huge hunger for families. I’d just love to hear what both of you have to say about how helping the whole family a little bit.

Darrell Scott:
When Erin was talking about student centered learning, focusing on the child, that goes back to… I did a lot of study on the origin of American education. It started with Horace Mann who created the first public schools that were called common schools. He also created teacher training schools called normal schools. A lot of those normal schools are today state colleges. Back then Erin mentioned that teaching, to her, was a calling, and the first year of their three-year training in those normal schools they tried to eliminate every person who didn’t have the calling. They believed that if you weren’t called to teach, you had no business in the classroom. So, they would break down training into segments.

Darrell Scott:
For example, I’m addressing this in the piece that I’m working on currently, they would break down curiosity and interest as being emotional elements of the human soul, the psyche. But the attention was a part of the will. The will is different from the emotions. And they pointed out that you’re out to capture the will of the child because once you capture their will to learn, then you don’t have to teach them. You just simply guide them. They’ll teach themselves. They’ll learn. But first you have to create the desire to learn. You have to awaken that through curiosity and interest. So they always emphasize, first of all, go after the emotional level of a child so that you can eventually reach the intellectual side of a child.

Darrell Scott:
Horace Mann spent two years traveling all over Europe, learning from two great educators. The first one was Johann Pestalozzi, a Swiss educator who took in 81 orphans from off the streets. Their parents had been murdered by the French government for not signing the Constitution. He took them to an old convent on the edge of town, and he had them for only six months. But he created a philosophy of education that was called the Heart, the Head, and the Hands. The Heart, Head, and Hands. The three H’s.

Darrell Scott:
John Dewey came along in the 1920s and systemized education and turned it into the three R’s. Reading, writing, arithmetic. But it started with the Heart, Head and Hands, and the focus was on the person. Then the focus shifted with the three R’s to the process. In the 1970s, it began to shift to performance. I jokingly say the initials there are ASS. Academics and SAT Scores. So we’ve gone from the three H’s to the ASS.

Darrell Scott:
I believe that coming out of this crisis that we’re in currently, we really need to reexamine our philosophy of education because the great teachers, Erin Gruwell, Ron Clark, you can name so many of them, the great teachers always reach for the heart first, and then they reach for the head and then the children give them their head and hands. So it’s starting with the heart that’s so crucial.

Darrell Scott:
So the piece that we have to offer, you can go online at rachelschallenge.org, is 180 Connections. We have some other things as well, but that 180 Connections is a powerful program that can be used by parents in the home. It’s very simple to use. It’s simply discussion questions about yourself, whether you’re a teacher or a parent that can draw the children in to ask questions and then themselves be able to give feedback and teaching.

Christian Moore:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Great. Erin.

Erin Gruwell:
I think for me it was knowing what my student needed at the moment. I think right now we just have to address fears. I love how you talk about failures and that it’s okay to be afraid and fall, but fall forward and that a caring adult could be there to catch them. I think what I’m sensing now from students is the ambiguity and the anxiety, and all of those triggers can lead to deep mental health issues if there isn’t someone to do talk therapy.

Erin Gruwell:
A lot of my educational roots were very therapeutic. Writing was cathartic. We would write. I would find stories and storytellers that looked like them and talked like them and came from where they came from. I think one of the most important thing that we’ve tried to do just now when the world stopped was how do we address that? So when Freedom Writers started showing up one by one to make videos and look right at the camera and talk to kids in corners.

Erin Gruwell:
We chose themes that were aspirational, but at the root of that had great depth of sadness. So we chose hope, but we address hopelessness. We chose kindness, but we looked at bullying. We looked at what is acceptance when you’re a victim of intolerance and racism and discrimination.

Erin Gruwell:
I think a lot of it was keeping it real. My students used to always say that to my face, “Keep it real, Miss G.” Because kids have a really good BS detector, and they know when there’s fluff. They know when you’re putting on a facade. I think now more than ever, there’s so many resources, I think, we’ve talked about on this particular webinar for you to seek. Whether it’s Christian’s material and WhyTry or Rachel’s Challenge, or even the Freedom Writers, we all approach it from empathy, from compassion to understand those that we’re serving first and foremost. I think whether you are a parent who’s joining us or an educator or a student who snuck through … Which I hope there’s some students on this webinar as well … I hope you can see that we just want to be the bridge. We want to be the bridge to where you are in your struggles and how do we help lift you by any means necessary.

Erin Gruwell:
This webinar was put together as guerrilla tactics. How do we reach into your home, into your computer, into your soul to remind you that you are not alone? We care. Deeply so. I hope that after this webinar that you explore, that you dive a little deeper, you reach out, and you ask for help. And that with all of these wonderful organizations, we’re here to be that beacon for all of you. I’m so humbled because I’m a teacher, and I’m with all these giants in this call. I’m going to do my research and my homework after this. I want to know everything that Rachel’s Challenge is creating for the here and now. I want to know everything that Christian Moore and WhyTry is creating in the here now, because I want to pay it forward. So if I’m a teacher and I’m going to do my homework, I hope that each and every one of you do as well.

Christian Moore:
Thanks so much for sharing that. I just want to summarize big picture of what I’m hearing here as we’re winding this down … We call these in WhyTry the three R’s. I’ve definitely been influenced by both of you in these three R’s. The first R is the relationship and what both of you do to help children understand their relationship, to understand themselves and the world around them and how to see people in a nonjudgmental way and to stop the bullying, to create kindness to prevent the horrible thing that happened in Columbine. That relationship piece is so important.

Christian Moore:
And we know people are motivated when they feel like they’re winning in a relationship. They don’t feel one down in the relationship and we call that surrendering the one up relationship. And that means you let a child know they have value and worth whether they succeed or whether they fail. So the first R is that relationship. And then the second R, which both of you are incredible at doing, is relevancy. We got to make sure what we’re doing is relevant to this kid, it speaks to their world. Especially the children you took and who were living in a very complicated situation, dealing with tremendous challenges.

Christian Moore:
And you’ve made it relevant to their world, whether you’re transitioning from Tupac to some incredible stories in history. And that that relevancy piece is so important. I think we’re going to see with this generation Z they know a lot about media relevancy. And I think we can get a lot of expertise from them down the road. And then the third R is resilience. And I think one thing that we’re realizing, before COVID, I’ve told literally hundreds of thousands of people resilience is already within you. Our challenge every day is to pull this resilience out. And all of us can be resilient if we focus on relational results.

Christian Moore:
We go through the motions. We don’t give up because another person needs you and you need them. And both of your work is an incredible example of relational resilience, where we fight through a challenge. We fight through a problem because another human being needs us. Now, when I ask inmates write down four or five people that you’re completely dependent on them and they’re dependent on you, most inmates will write down one or less. When I ask a teacher that question, they can write down 10 or more.

Christian Moore:
And human beings are motivated by other human beings. And that relational resilience is something that you can be taught, you can grow it. And then street resilience, Erin, so many of your students felt disrespect. And you showed them how to take that hate, how to take that disrespect, and say I’m going to become greater because of it. I’m going to rise above that. And then people have access to resources to bounce back. And we know education is one of the greatest resources. Education is the way out of poverty, it’s the way out of so many of these challenges.

Christian Moore:
And then rock bottom resilience is that ability to put one foot in front of another when we have every reason to give up. And you guys are all great examples of those three Rs and where resilience comes from within. And you’re both of my heroes. I look forward to collaborating with you guys more in the future. I know Jason said we may have a few questions. Jason, do you still have time for a few questions?

Jason Johnson:
Yeah, I think we’ve still got a little bit of time. So the main questions that we’ve had come up have revolved around two things. One has been questions about how do we create that sense of community in this current virtual setting that we’re in. And then, two, there’s been a lot of questions about equity. In fact, we even had one of our friends, Miranda Beard, a former National School Board Association president popped in with a question and asked our insight on trying to help school districts equalize the playing field for all the kids. We talked a little bit about some of the technology divide that’s out there.

Jason Johnson:
So if you have any thoughts on creating community specifically right now and also trying to equalize the playing field for all kids. I think those would be the ones that a lot of people have had interest in. So any of you that have thoughts on that?

Darrell Scott:
One of the things I would encourage with our 180 Connections, it has to do with simple questions about your life. For example, if it’s a teacher asking her students, it would be something like, when I was your age I wanted to be an astronaut. But I found out that I get seasick really easy and I’d be up there puking my guts out flying around Newton, and Buton, and all those places. And I’m so glad that instead I’m your teacher. What would you like to be when you’re an old person like me? It’s simple questions that can bring people together, even if they’re on the internet, even if they’re talking remotely to each other. So I think questions are a big plus, but sometimes they don’t know what to ask. So we’re providing a lot of that for them, simple questions that will connect them during this time when they can’t be together.

Erin Gruwell:
In that same vein that Darrell talked about, creating things in the moment that are relevant. What The Freedom Writers realized is for a lot of people, if they haven’t read the book, they are a caricature in the film. So we wanted to put a face and a name to a story. There’s this beautiful touching scene in the feature film where a young boy’s reading out of his journal about being homeless. In the feature film, that young boy is Latino. In reality, it was my student, [Nurata 01:05:00] who’s African American. So when we started this online curriculum during the pandemic, one of the first calls I made was to Nurata and said kids are going to be facing an existential crisis in real time.

Erin Gruwell:
Will their parents pay rent, put food in the fridge, or will these kids be homeless? So sit down in front of me and bring that story that you wrote when you were 14 years old to life. And then look right at the camera and tell your story. Read your story, but then tell your story and then remind them that it gets better because you’re now an adult. So we didn’t know how long we would be on lockdown in California. We’ve been indoors since mid March. We’re going to be out of school through mid-June here in California. So in earnest, we thought we’ll do a couple of things, we’ll have a couple of freedom writers, and we settled on 12.

Erin Gruwell:
We thought we’ll do 12 themes. And nearly 30 freedom writers have come to put faces and names to stories that are challenging. But exactly what Gerald said, it’s about connections. It’s about things that are relevant when Tony, who is beautiful, and is on the cover of our book, got hope as his theme. What was really important for him was to say, I’m that kid that suffers from depression, but I have this technique. I have this trick, it’s called alive at midnight. And so for me to be hopeful, you have to understand what it feels like to be hopeless, but I’d make it to midnight every night and I start over.

Erin Gruwell:
And so what we try to do is not sugarcoat the realities of those fears kids are feeling. We try to speak directly to parents who are home, trying to understand how can we be teachers in our homes. And then we really tried to honor the communities in which we are part of and also to give a week to our brethren who are educators to know we’re all in this together. Seek out the truth seekers, the Christian Moore’s, the Darrell Scott’s, the Rachel’s Challenges, the WhyTrys and the Freedom Writers. And then pay it forward. Pay it forward in some way. Christian, Darrell, and myself, we are not fixated on grades right now. We are not fixated on numerical scores and SATs. We want kids to feel safe and sane, healthy and hopeful.

Erin Gruwell:
And so our plea to all of you is to check on their mental health needs. To nurture their social, emotional ways of learning. And find those people you hold dear and hold them dear. I wish I could reach to the screen and give my dear friend Darrell Scott a huge hug. So instead, I get to hug his books of poetry instead. I get to watch him on videos. I get to hear his voice. So my hope for all of you, is that for an hour and a few extra minutes, that we could be some light, that we could be the folks on the other side, who know it’s still hard and challenging, but it can and will and does get better.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you, Erin. What a great message of hope and that’s probably a great place to end on. It looks like we lost Christian. He maybe having some tech issues. He may jump on here. But I think we’re up on time. Probably time to wrap it up. So to answer a couple other questions that have come up, several people have asked, is this being recorded? Yes, it’s being recorded and we’ll get a YouTube link out to everybody, hopefully by this weekend, so that you can share this if there’s been some information that you would like to share with some people.

Jason Johnson:
But I wanted to go down the line and just have you all… A lot of people have asked about the resources that have been mentioned. I’m going to put a slide up at the end that have links to the sites that have these resources. But if we could just go down the line and, and have Darrell and then Erin, and then Christian, let people know where they can access some of these resources that you’ve referenced. And then I think we’ll wrap it up. This has been fantastic. Thanks so much. Go ahead, Darrell.

Darrell Scott:
You know, this has been a meeting of a mutual admiration society, but it’s been very sincere. Because I really love these two people. Christian and Erin are two of my dearest friends. And you can go to our site at rachelschallenge.org, R-A-C-H-E-L-S challlenge.org and find our materials there.

Erin Gruwell:
For me, you can go to our website, which is the freedomwritersfoundation.org, and access any of our programs. You can also visit us on any of our social media feeds, also Freedom Writers Foundation. And please listen to Darrell Scott. Oh, he is just exquisite. So I think I’m going to do that tonight. I’ve had some trouble sleeping as of late, I’ve been anxious like the rest of us. So you’re going to be my lullaby tonight, my sweet Darrell Scott, because your voice just makes me feel calm.

Christian Moore:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Hey, Erin, I can relate to that when I’m having a tough time on the road, or I just went through a difficulty, a good friend of mine passed away. I reach out to Darrell and I feel a hundred times better. That soothing voice, but it’s that love, you can feel that unconditional love and it’s one of most healing things in the world. So I never take that for granted either.

Christian Moore:
The best way to access us is just a whytry.org, W-H-Y-T-R-Y, whytry.org. If you go to whytry.org, there on the homepage, you can see the free parenting guide to help families learn resilience. And again, we’ve gotten a great response from that. I’m excited about the podcast of the Resilience Breakthrough podcast. You can pull up there, you can get it on Anchor, Amazon as well. And we’ve been interview some incredible, incredible people. And I’ll be interviewing both Erin and Darrell here soon, hopefully we’ll get them on.

Christian Moore:
But the response has been actually incredible, incredible response. So we try to keep the… Our podcast is very raw. It’s real. And we get into it in depth. And so we’ve gotten tremendous response, it’s been very healing for a lot of people. So please check out the Resilience Breakthrough podcast. And again, I want to thank, and Darrell and Erin, I know they both give a lot of stuff away, they’re very, very generous people over the years.

Christian Moore:
And we’re looking at doing some more things together with us and Bob Marzano, some other people we’re hoping to do… And Darrell could probably speak to that a little more, but we’re looking at coming together and doing more stuff in the future. All of us have the same mission and it’s to help children heal and help children thrive. And we might approach things slightly different, but the underlying thing is hope, opportunity for these children who are hurting in this country right now. We don’t know yet what the trauma, the wounds are going to be coming out of COVID. And I know all three of us are very interested in being a part of the healing of that. And whatever we can do to support you guys, we’re here for you and all of you educators are our heroes.

Christian Moore:
And I love what Erin was saying, that we’re all in the same family, we’re all the same community. And we’ve had to pivot in the most difficult time in my lifetime. And I’m pretty proud, we as school psychologists, social workers, administrators, teachers, this whole family. I won’t leave anybody out. The cafeteria staff, the bus drivers, everybody in education is a hero. And we’re going to have to do some amazing things in the fall. And you guys are all my heroes. I love all of humanity and appreciate Jason Johnson being on with us. Jason’s an incredible school psychologist, and he’s a hero as well. So you guys are all heroes. Thank you for all you do.

Jason Johnson:
Thanks everybody. Appreciate that. I’m going to go ahead and share a screen of resources now, and let’s just give a big virtual round of applause to our guests. This was fantastic. It was really enlightening, really inspiring. So thanks everybody. Let me share that screen. And hope you all have a great weekend. Thanks Darrell. Thanks Erin. Thanks Christian. You guys are the best.