Enhancing Social-Emotional Learning in the Classroom: Featuring Dr. Robert Marzano

Jason Johnson:
Well, welcome everybody. We are thrilled to be able to host this webinar today on Enhancing Social-Emotional Learning in the Classroom. We’ve got a couple of experts in the field with us that we’re thrilled to have. Let me introduce them and then I like to just get going because I want to hear as much from them as possible. So this is our webinar, hosted by the WhyTry Organization on Enhancing Social Emotional Learning. I’ll be the moderator. My name is Jason Johnson. 

Jason Johnson:
My background is I’m a school psychologist, I came from public ed five years ago over and joined WhyTry Organization, love what I do. And I’m thrilled to be able to introduce our two guests today. First of all, we are so grateful to have Dr. Bob Marzano with us today. Just a little bit of background, I’m going to embarrass him because he’s a humble individual, but just so that people are aware, he’s the co founder and chief academic Officer of Marzano Resources out of Denver. 50 years in the field of education.

Jason Johnson:
He’s worked with educators as a speaker, trainer, authored more than 50 books, 200 articles on topics from everything including instruction, assessment, writing and implementation standards, effective leadership, school intervention, books have included The New Art and Science of Teaching, Leaders of Learning, Making Classroom Assessments Reliable & Valid. More recently, he co-authored with our friend Darrell Scott, Motivating and Inspiring Students, Strategies to Awaken the Learner. Awesome, awesome perspective and we are so thrilled and grateful to have you with us. Thank you Bob for joining us.

Robert Marzano:
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it Jason.

Jason Johnson:
And then joining Dr. Marzano is Christian Moore, our mainstay here, Christian is the founder of the WhyTry Program. He’s a licensed clinical social worker, internationally renowned speaker and passionate advocate for youth, author of the book, The Resilience Breakthrough, founder of the WhyTry Program, one of the top social emotional learning programs in the country. It’s used in over 30,000 schools across the United States. Welcome, Christian.

Christian Moore:
Great to be here. I’m excited about today, I get to be with one of my heroes so this is exciting.

Robert Marzano:
Me too Christian. 

Christian Moore:
Okay.

Jason Johnson:
So to kick us off, this webinar, we want to get two experts in the field together and talk a little bit about tips for social emotional learning. And to get us started, I was just curious if you could tell us a little bit, maybe if we can start with you Bob, and then hear from Christian after. What initially got you interested in bringing SEL into the classroom and what are your thoughts about what it should look like within the classroom? What we should be doing with SEL in the classroom?

Robert Marzano:
Sure. Feel free to give me the hook anytime you want because some answers will be a little long, this might be [crosstalk 00:03:03].

Christian Moore:
No, you take as much time. 

Robert Marzano:
Well, my background is actually cognitive psychology and education. And Jason and Christian, that’s your bailiwick too [inaudible 00:03:18], you said the human mind and how it works. And for me, the study of the human mind, and exactly its strengths and weaknesses is fascinating. And I think all social emotional learning programs come from some basis in a theory that deals with what is the human mind? And so, actually for me, the place to start with a social emotional learning program is what is your theory of the human mind? 

Robert Marzano:
And that’s got to be a fairly robust theory and out of that, all kinds of classroom strategies fall out, strategies for teachers, for their own personal health, just ripples through the curriculum. So at some point, I’ll give you the background where I come from, but I think that that’s the main thing that you really have to have a strong model of what do you mean by this? And I would assert that every social emotional strategy that’s out there is grounded in some explicit or tacit theory about the mind.

Jason Johnson:
Nice, thank you. Christian, how about you?

Christian Moore:
Yeah, for me, I guess in a strange way, social emotional learning was something that was delivered to me in more of a natural way. I struggled so much academically as a special ed student. Literally when I was 17 years old. And so for me, going so long not knowing how to read, struggling with basic math skills, the skills I used to cope with that situation were social and emotional skills and I didn’t understand that at the time, but I look back and I realized I was really using SEL, those out there with my new F game plan where I’d go to every class, sit on the front row, I would negotiate with the teachers, I would do enough extra credit to get a D minus. 

Christian Moore:
Looking back at that, I realized I was accessing social and emotional education to deal with my lack of academic ability. And I realized, we’re going to be interested in really trying to share this with people, I realized that academics get you a seat at the table, but to stay at the table, social emotional learning is so important if you’re going to stay at the table long-term, and impact your relationships with other people, it impacts your motivation, the motivation of other people, it just impacted so many things. 

Christian Moore:
And so when I first became a social worker, I was interested in dropout prevention. And I saw SEL as a solution to help students deal with challenges at home and with peers. I realized, children could master academics during the school years, but for them to thrive in life, SEL is one of the major X factors in helping them be a fully rounded student if you’re looking at the big picture of what enables them to thrive. I remember seeing some data that 80% of success over the lifespan comes from emotional intelligence. 

Christian Moore:
And when I saw that a lot of schools are spending less than 10% of their time giving kids access to evidence-based social emotional education, that’s what got me passionate about doing this work. [inaudible 00:06:42] lost your [crosstalk 00:06:43]. Yeah.

Jason Johnson:
Oh, there we go. How’s that?

Christian Moore:
Good.

Jason Johnson:
I was wondering if maybe both of you could discuss a little bit than what the connection is, the relationship is between SEL and academics, and SEL and motivation. I think a lot of people agree conceptually like, “Yes, social emotional learning is important.” But what is the connection between it and the other stuff we’re doing in schools? Maybe start with you again, Bob.

Robert Marzano:
Okay. And by the way, I should explain because knowing, I just mentioned theory of the human mind. I know this about the human mind, you’re always trying to figure out how things fit in. So I’m in my office at home and my background is a military background. And that’s my son’s a career Navy person. And so we’re a military family. And that’s why those are all his accomplishments. He was a flyer, now he command ships in the Navy. So that’s what that’s all about them. Now, what was the question? No, I remember the question.

Robert Marzano:
What’s the connection with SEL? Sorry, I got to give you the longer answer. The theory I operate from in terms of social emotional learning, and just human motivation in general, it’s a pretty simple one, it really is. Started about 1970s when the term theory of the world in your mind was starting to be bandied around, it was a guy named Frank Smith I believe, at least, he’s the first one who’s writing, who used that term. And basically what he said, he was a reading guy, that was a specialty, I was fascinated he talked about, “Everybody has a theory of the world in their mind.” And that’s what we are. And that theory develops over time, et cetera, et cetera. 

Robert Marzano:
Now, looking into this, so what’s in that theory of the world? Well, a lot of things but inherent in every theory is a system of needs and goals. And you can use, there all kinds of models. I think Maslow still works, I really do. Because he was using it in the 1950s. Real simple, but it’s straightforward. He said, “Our system of needs and goals in a hierarchy fashion starts with physical comfort.” Metaphorically, I could say that every human being at any point in time is asking these questions, am I physically comfortable? 

Robert Marzano:
And if we’re not, if it’s too hot or too cold, or we’re in pain or something, then all of our attention goes there. But if we’re comfortable, you go to the next level which is physical safety. And you think, “Well, why isn’t safety first?” And it’s really because we live in a world where we are safe. You go back enough thousands of years and we were walking out of the cave and there were saber-toothed tigers around, that was number one probably. Am I safe here? We didn’t even think about it because we live in a safe world. 

Robert Marzano:
Unless we’re flying and we hit turbulence. No kidding. I said I have three million, Christian and I we’re talking about travel. I literally have three million miles in the air over a four year period. I’ve always been a nervous flier. Even though I know the statistics and I know it’s safe. I’ll probably get killed in the taxicab as opposed to this plane, but still, we have turbulence, that’s all I can think about. And what I’m focusing on that, you make predictions, you see things, you create this future but what could possibly happen?

Robert Marzano:
So that’s why it’s number two. Now it starts getting into things that are much more social. The third level for him was a sense of belonging. Wherever you are, you feel like people, they want you to be there, you belong with this group. A level up from that is a steam. I might feel like I belong in a group, but where am I in the pecking order of this group? And then he ended with self-actualization, he had five levels initially. And self-actualization, it’s defined a lot of way, but the one that makes most sense to me, the definition is that when you’re self-actualized, you’re doing things that you feel make you more of who you are. 

Robert Marzano:
Now, that’s not even addressing well, how do you get the real me concept? And then he later added one, this is about 10 years after he started, and he called the transcendence said, “The highest level of human satisfaction, if you will, is transcendence.” Other people call it connection to something greater than self, that you feel like, what you’re doing is so important, it actually overrides everything else. You feel like you’re doing something that’s really, really important. You could be physically uncomfortable, you could be tired, you could be hungry, you could feel like people are mad at you, and just overrides all that stuff. 

Robert Marzano:
Now, how does that relate to motivation? Well, if you have this internal world, and it has all of those levels, all of which you’ve defined as to what it means to be self-actualized to you or what it means to be accepted by the group, that’s what your motivation is. If you feel like, “Oh gee, I’m not a …” This group is really important and they don’t like me, that’s my motivation right there. And it’s going to override the teacher’s lesson on fractions. So you play this out long enough, and you start to select, “Oh my gosh, being a human being is mechanistic from point to point and it really can be.”

Robert Marzano:
When we’re not being real thoughtful, we’re not aware of ourselves and this is where social emotional learning comes in for me, being aware of the human condition and these things, these needs and things you just probably are hardwired with that then we are mechanistic, we really are. We operate from this needs not being met, so this is what I’m going to attend to. And that’s where academics would come into. My grandkids now, two of them are in middle school, and you know how important being part of a group is in middle school, and that will override academics, and probably the vast majority of middle school kids. 

Robert Marzano:
If it’s not cool to be an academic, that’s going to be something that they don’t put as much energy into maybe, as they would be part of their group. So I think the basic understanding of how human beings operate, I think it’s really important. It starts to explain things and it never gets old. I’m 74 and I and I’m still learning about these mechanisms that I have based on my interpretation of, “Gee, what self-actualization means? Or connection to something greater?” So what’s really exciting about it, I think that the curriculum of the self is a lifelong curriculum, and you can do all that without … You automatically get into things like, “Well, what are the big things that are worth sacrificing yourself for? Your goal in life.”

Robert Marzano:
You could get into tricky things like your perceptions of religion, eternity, no eternity. But you don’t even have to go into those things, just the awareness. In a K-12, just the awareness that, “Wait a minute, this is the way human beings work, human beings operate, and how does that apply to your life?” So motivation, that’s a sub-component of this whole system whether academics are important is a sub-component of the whole system like that.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome.

Robert Marzano:
[crosstalk 00:14:26] short answer. Sorry.

Jason Johnson:
That’s a great answer. I think it’ll lead in really nicely to some of the next things that we’ll want to discuss. Christian, what are your thoughts on connecting SEL to academics and to motivation?

Christian Moore:
Yeah, I think me and Bob, just maybe our life experiences are a little different. A minute ago Bob, you’re sharing that you see the world as a safe world if you compare it to caveman time period. I totally agree with that. I know in my childhood when I was really struggling academically, I was not feeling safe. So I grew up in a world where I didn’t feel safe in the world. And then I compare my academic experience, when I felt I was in a safe position, I was around a tribe, a community that was there for me, I thrived academically. 

Christian Moore:
So when I look back at my learning disabilities, and my challenge, not that learning disabilities ever jump off your shoulder, but in my childhood, when I had very, very intense academic problems, I know things like homework feeling safe, in the community, things weren’t feeling safe. And that had a huge, huge impact on my anxiety. We know that depression, hopelessness, anxiety, all those things cause the brain to downshift which causes learning to be inhibited and then everybody knows through my ninth grade year, if those who don’t know this story, I had spray painted my name on a water tower behind my school, and they shipped me out 2,000 miles across the United States, here in the Rocky Mountains here in Utah.

Christian Moore:
And I went to school with a lot of kids that were not worried about their safety. And it’s interesting that new school I went to, most of those kids have the opportunity to go to a major university, and my friends in the DC Baltimore area, way less of those kids have the opportunity to go to college, and I don’t have research to show that you probably know more about this stuff than me Bob. But think being in a position where you feel safe to express yourself, to put your motions in perspective, really put you in a position to thrive. 

Christian Moore:
Often students can’t change the challenges that they’re facing with at home, in their school, in their community. But one thing I love about SEL is it puts kids in a position to thrive if things don’t change at home, if things don’t change around them. So for many kids, as a social worker when I work with people, oftentimes, I can’t get rid of the problem. And I spent eight years in college $65,000 to learn all these skills to help children thrive. But oftentimes, I couldn’t get rid of the problem, I had to realize, “I have to give them the skills to cope with the reality of maybe the challenges at school, the challenges at home.”

Christian Moore:
And so I think it has a huge impact on academics, and even today at 50 years old, even where I’m environment speaking, if I don’t feel safe as a speaker, I feel highly judged, or I feel my anxiety is high, I don’t do near of a good job, I do a much better job and I perform at a higher level intellectually, emotionally, when I’m in that safe place a little bit. So I’m a huge advocate of feeling safe. I don’t know if you have anything you want to comment about that back Bob.

Robert Marzano:
Actually it was the emotional part of social emotional learning. I think the biggest contribution neuroscience has given to education is the power of emotions to influence how we think. And that was my … I come out of the cognitive psych world, or they didn’t even talk about emotions. It was like this thing that happened, had nothing to do with anything cognitive. Now we know quite the contrary it has a lot to do with it. I remember the thing that really got me thinking about that, I read a book, who’s the name I forgot of the book and the author, but at 74, that’s okay. 

Robert Marzano:
If I remember to put my shirt on, I feel good about myself. But it really hit me because the book, the title wasn’t this, but the theme of the book was thinking under strong emotions. And basically, the message was that whenever you have strong emotions, particularly negative ones which would be fear and anger, you actually think differently than you do when you don’t have those strong emotions. And I actually, your focus narrows, you can’t consider as many alternatives. You tend to come to a conclusion really quickly, I’ve got to do X or Y. And I thought, “Oh, my gosh, I wish somebody had told me that about 40 years ago. It explained my whole life.”

Robert Marzano:
Everything I could think of where it didn’t turn out well in terms of interactions with somebody is because of a strong emotion, either fear on my part or anger on my part, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, what a finding.” And so I think that as I said, I started with saying, “I think the more we as human beings know and student K-12 students know about themselves, the more they … First of all, we let themselves off the hook in terms of you know you’re going to screw up, welcome to the human race. It just happens. I guess we are programmed to do things, and then mitigate some of that stuff really.

Robert Marzano:
Now, years too late. I know if I’m angry or frightened, the best thing for me to do is just shut up and not doing anything. If I’m interacting with people, if I’m frightened because there’s an immediate danger, well, then you get away from that danger. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, it’s so powerful.” It’s so simple, but so powerful.

Christian Moore:
Yeah, knowing you in Darrell’s book, you talk about mindfulness. And when those strong emotions kick in and to be able to observe, I know at 50, I tried to observe the anger, the fear, and you try not to react so quick. Now, those that work with me know I really struggle at that. But to be able to use mindfulness to observe the emotion, I think I’m excited to see how much mindfulness is being tied to social emotional learning and stuff. I don’t know if you want to … I know you wrote a little bit about that in the book. I don’t know if you want comment about that at all.

Robert Marzano:
Well, mindfulness, again, gets defined in different way. In the book Darrell and I wrote, and in certainly for me, and Darrell is much smarter than I am. So he’s got a more elaborate perspective on it. But mindfulness, it starts with a realization of this automatic thinking that we have, and really, this hierarchy of goals, and my theory of the world. And we’ve written some other books about that. My wife and I, she’s retired now, but she was a psychotherapist in private practice for years and years and years, and just one of the best in Denver, she’s really good. 

Robert Marzano:
We wrote a book called Managing the Inner World of Teaching and it really was about social emotional learning, as the described now, but it was about this inner world, what is the inner world, and we give a number of strategies, but the central strategy was what do you do when you know you are experiencing strong emotions? Particularly anger or fear. And at that moment in time, just to stop and be aware of that and that usually occurs as a result of your reaction to some person, some event or some, I forgot the third one, person, event. There’s the third one, whatever that is.

Robert Marzano:
The person, event. I want to say action, but it’s not. And so I meet somebody I haven’t, a colleague that I haven’t seen for years, and I noticed I have a strong emotion and it’s anger. The real deep mindfulness is realizing that I have made an interpretation of this person and that’s another characteristic of the human mind. We’re always interpreting persons, events, and whatever the third thing is as they come into our lives, and we categorize, and so if I could realize that I just interpreted this person, and I’ve interpreted him, I put him in the category as someone who doesn’t like me. That’s my interpretation, but now, that triggers my fear or my anger and I am going to react to that. 

Robert Marzano:
And our reactions are based on what some people call scripts, that we develop scripts throughout life, and they’re necessary. And most scripts are important, but innocuous. We have a script for how we get ready in the morning, and how we go to work and come home from work and how we plan dinner and how we clean up after dinner, and do the dishes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But we also have scripts in terms of interacting with people and events in whom we’ve already categorized. So if I’ve categorized let’s say it was you Chris, and I categorize a colleague, but you don’t like me, that’s my interpretation and I will pull up my script for interacting with someone from my past who’s an important person, but doesn’t like me.

Robert Marzano:
And usually those scripts are going to be something that don’t have a good outcome. If you say a good outcome would be where all participants benefit from it, and more likely than not, it’s the script and will probably include something to diminish you, your importance or get even or something like that. And for me, strategies like that, mindfulness is the awareness, “Oh my gosh, here’s what I’m doing.” And then, that here’s my reaction and then changing the reaction, changing the behavior that you automatically were going to execute, saying nothing about the anger and what’s nice about it is you can still be angry or frightened or whatever it is, but you don’t have to act the way. You we’re going to give him your interpretation in the script that you were going to pull up.

Christian Moore:
I love what you’re sharing about scripts. I mess up all the time. I’ll make a mistake. One of my goals is, and I think this is a goal of many, many people. One of my goals every day is to start over and almost try to be a new person next day as it relates to trying to be a better person. So I almost want to have a sign on me that says, “Hey, give me a second chance to start over. I’m not the same person I was yesterday because I’m trying to learn every day, and start new each day.” If that makes sense. 

Christian Moore:
But we give each other those scripts, we put people in boxes and stuff, and I wish we could give people a chance to start over every day. But someone would have to really hear me or listen to me in a deeper way to understand what I’m trying to start over every day. And one thing I’m excited, Jason’s been working a lot on resilient listening, to listen at a higher level so that if we could really see each other, hear each other, it gives us a chance to start over and I think that’s a high social emotional skill is the one, give another human being grace, and then to really hear another human being. I don’t know Jason, if you want to share anything on that as it relates to resilient listening, I think that’s a powerful thing you’re sharing.

Jason Johnson:
Yeah, I’m geeking out listening to Bob talk about this. When you talk about the scripts, when we work with kids, helping them work with through their defense mechanisms, the metaphor I’ll use sometimes is emotional muscle memory. We have physical muscle memory which occurs where our body learns how to do something without thinking about it, but then we call that fluency in academics, but that exists emotionally as well and I think it’s that script you were describing. So when I’m in a pressure situation, I do the thing that I’ve gotten used to doing, created that emotional habit. 

Jason Johnson:
And thinking about that resilient listening that Christian said, we’re working on, I think we even have scripts, and emotional muscle memory that involves how we interact with others. And so the resilient listening piece really involves taking elements of empathy, compassionate and deep listening, and really trying to almost go a step beyond mindfulness, mindfulness is the awareness of what’s going on in my body. Now, if I can develop an awareness of what you’re experiencing while we interact, and if I can hear that interpret it accurately and recognize that your words may not even be the perfect reflection of what’s … Or the perfect articulation of what’s going on with you.

Jason Johnson:
But if we can kind of connect around that mutual understanding, that will make me a more empathic individual that’s really trying to act in your best interest, rather than just respond in kind or think about what’s intellectually the “right thing to say next” and I think that that provides a nice basis for really trying to help facilitate growth and navigation of adversity. If any of that makes sense, I probably just rambled on too much.

Robert Marzano:
No, no, it was great Jason.

Jason Johnson:
I’m curious, I’ve heard you both discuss. So you both have used a couple interesting terms that we use a lot, but I think they do matter within the framework of a classroom, school and social emotional learning. The word that you use Bob was self-actualization, and the word that Christian used was thrive. And I think those are both goals that every educator has. We want to help our kids thrive, and we want to help our kids self-actualize. The question I have and it’s kind of two part. 

Jason Johnson:
First of all, obviously, 2020 has just been a strange year all the way around. We had challenges before 2020 hit, 2020 has magnified these challenges. So I’m curious specifically what your thoughts are about some of the challenges we have right now, specifically as it pertains to social and emotional challenges with the kids we’re working with and then what can the average educator, if I’m a teacher, an elementary teacher, or a middle school teacher, how do I implement this? We’re talking about some important high level themes. So what does that look like for me as a teacher trying to implement … Trying to help a kid thrive or self-actualize within the stewardship of my classroom or office? That’s a lot if you need me to repeat any of it, let me know, but I want to throw to you first Bob, and give me some of your thoughts on that.

Robert Marzano:
Well, again, I’m going to back to a theory, that theory of the world in your head type of thing and these levels of needs, and that theory of the world over time, it includes big generalizations that you create about life and people. It includes all these categories of things which that’s a whole subject in itself. We have big categories, you can’t get away from categorization. Einstein talked about it, human mind has to categorize or everything would be new, but categorization is the basis of all bias. It’s the basis of racism.

Robert Marzano:
By definition, it’s when you take a group of people and you say, “They belong to this category. And then this category has these characteristics.” You can’t get away from it. The human mind naturally does. Most the time, it’s innocuous, but all the time, as soon as I say I’m 74, that will create people to say, “74? Okay, I know about this guy, he can’t do this, this, this, and this, and he’s right about remembering to put a shirt on.” Funny jokes about that stuff. But it really is the basis of racism, it’s the basis of bias. It’s the basis of hating one group versus another. We just assume that all those characteristics are there. 

Robert Marzano:
That was a little tangent, but for me, that’s such a powerful word, “Oh, my God.” And the problem is, you can’t get away from it. It’s a natural, they’re called default influences. I see something, a person, an event, the task, I had influences. Automatically, they have this characteristic, this characteristic. And so that’s one of the most important aspects of mindfulness. What’s my interpretation of this person, or thing or event because of the category that I have him or her in? But I’m still not addressing your question.

Robert Marzano:
The theory of the mind of the world also has the future, and a psychologist named Hazel Markus years ago had talked about future possible selves, and Nurius I think was her partner, N-U-R-I-U-S I believe. And remember, I’m a guy who can’t remember to put a shirt on. So you take everything I say with the greatest [inaudible 00:32:09] in terms of citations. And they said that as a part of this human theory of the world, we do have a view of ourselves in the future. And it’s very, very important and that helps when you’re really young, and you start developing this future possible self, but in her study, she found that students who came from advantaged backgrounds tended to have these more grandiose future possible selves, scenarios that they create.

Robert Marzano:
I can do this, and I can do this, and I can do this. But students who came from backgrounds where they didn’t have all the resources, didn’t have all that extra attention and after school activities, over time, their grandiose ideas. I don’t mean grandiose negatively, it got less and less and less because they got older and start saying, “Well, wait a minute. I can’t get there because I need this, this, this and this.” I’m going to get to the COVID thing pretty soon. It’s close. I think one of the thing that’s happened now with COVID, this hasn’t happened ever. 

Robert Marzano:
I know the last pandemic was 100 years ago, but 100 years ago wasn’t the society we have right now. It didn’t shut the world down like this you shut the world down because we can see what’s going on all over the world. So if you think about everybody, adults, 74 year olds, 50 year olds, five year olds, four year olds, their notion of the future has now had a monkey wrench thrown into it. When you start shattering that, “Wait a minute, is that possible anymore?” That is really scary Earth-shaking stuff that shakes you at its core. And it’s very hard to get rid of this.

Robert Marzano:
In this world which is we just live with that. I grew up at the time when the … I grew up in the ’50s and then it was the bomb. I remember practicing duck and cover because of the atomic bombs, no kidding. And that was part of my childhood. Everybody was building fallout shelters. My dad never got out of high school. We did okay, but not that much money so we couldn’t build a fallout shelter other people could. And I remember just living with that thinking and it was really living with a future that was … The pictures and they were real pictures in your head about what the future can be. That is catastrophic to your thinking on a day to day basis, it really is.

Robert Marzano:
I always say give people my age a little slack when you realize we’re used to ducking under the desk so we won’t get fried by an atomic bomb. So I think that’s going on, maybe not as dramatic as a bomb, but boy, probably is consequential. What is this doing to their view of the future? Remember physical safety? Number two. It’s basic. It’s got to be there. That would create just behavior that it could be very erratic and unexplainable unless you get back to what their whole futures, they’re really wondering about it.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you. Christian, what are you seeing as far as the challenges related to … Well, social emotional challenges right now. What are you hearing? I know you have the ear of educators throughout the country.

Christian Moore:
Yeah, it’s interesting. For 20 years I screamed about the importance of human connection and relationships are the biggest X Factor and all this stuff. But I think that debate is over right now. I think that we know for sure that we’re social creatures, and a few speeches I’ve given since COVID hit, it’s been nice, I haven’t had any pushback on that. Everybody gets it now because every demographic of society in the last few months have experienced loneliness, it’s an epidemic. To feel lonely is very common right now and people with massive support systems are feeling lonely. 

Christian Moore:
So for students that have less social contact, that’s a big thing. The other thing I’m seeing a lot of students is many kids have expressed to me they don’t feel this will end because you’ve got to remember, when we’re older, I’m sure Bob can tell you, each year goes by in five minutes. The older you get, it seems like time speeds up. But a kid in middle school is just sitting here going, “When is this going to end?” Or a sixth grader. They’re just like, “This just keeps going on and on.” I think it’s important to help them understand that this is temporary and that change will happen.

Christian Moore:
I’m talking to kids a lot, my own kids and when I speak to kids, I’m telling them, “Look man, the one thing in this world we know always happens is change.” Even though this seems like we’re just the whole world just stopped, things will change and I think it’s important that we communicate the temporariness of this knock on wood, hopefully, I got to be careful saying. I’m aware there’s still a few problems that need to be solved, but also I want to emphasize that seeing their parents and teachers in stress is really having an impact on kids. 

Christian Moore:
It blows me out of the water how many students have said to me, I’m worried about my teacher, my own kids have come home and said, “I can tell my teacher was hurting today.” And I’ve never heard this level of compassion. I’ve been doing this work in education now in over 22 years and I’ve never seen this many students really cared deeply about their teachers at 11. I want teachers to really hear that. I want educators to hear this. These kids are noticing your pain and what you’re going through and they’re … For years, I would see the teachers have empathy for the students. But I’ve seen that flip flop right now. 

Christian Moore:
Now, being someone who’s an expert in resilience, I want to be very careful when I say this, I don’t want anybody to have suffering pain. But I really think one of the good things will come out of this is we’ll have a more resilient generation. And there’s some debate around that, this is just me speaking theoretically. I’m here with Bob, there’s been no research on this Bob, this is only Christian Moore’s theory. But I think that we will see more resilience. I think on the back end of this, we’ll see some beautiful things. I think right now, of course, it is very difficult, but I think we’ll definitely see some change. 

Christian Moore:
On a positive note, also I think students are learning what level they need other people and I think it’s really interesting is students right now are talking to me about, “Hey, I need structure.” When I wake up and I had nothing to do all day, they’re going crazy. When they have nothing to do, they’re frustrated. Human beings need to feel productive. And I know Darrell has talked to me a lot about that, the need to be productive. I know you understand a lot about that too Bob, for us to produce something, to be engaged in something is so important. I don’t know if you want to share anything about that Bob about the need for us to produce or what [crosstalk 00:39:51] 

Robert Marzano:
Yeah, actually order and productivity. Years ago, did a book with colleagues on classroom management. Characteristic on a scour of the research and start with that, and then try to elaborate on it. We found a number of studies where they had asked students what would you prefer from the teacher. What kind of leadership style or management style going all the way from real laissez-faire, anything goes to really structure and they said they want structure even though they might not like it at the time, they did want the structure. The productivity, so I think that that is a trigger.

Robert Marzano:
I think that’s just an innate human characteristic to create things. Just a friend of mine is an expert on animal life and she pointed out when she said that, “If you look at …” And there are some animals exceedingly intelligent, but she said, “We’re the only ones who actually create things, create things like cities and we change our environment. Sometimes to the detriment of the environment.” That’s a whole other topic right there. But so we create things. I think human beings, they’re hardwired to want to produce, want to create something. And I think that it gets to that level of self-actualization to manipulate the environment, hopefully, for the good. 

Robert Marzano:
But we manipulate our environment to make life more tolerable, or to make life go in the direction that we think is the right direction. And implicit and all that, humanity is a little dangerous too because we still are myopic in terms of our own world, this 50 years or this 100 years. And when I go back to the 1950s, if we could have looked ahead to the 2020, the stuff that we have now, it’s just unimagined at that time, and the stuff we predicted didn’t happen. So The Jetsons, you guys didn’t know The Jetsons do you?

Christian Moore:
I know The Jetsons.

Jason Johnson:
The Jetsons.

Robert Marzano:
Yeah, that was the view of the world, The Jetsons. I remember, ever read the book 1984? 

Jason Johnson:
Yeah. 

Robert Marzano:
Yeah, well obviously, that didn’t happen. But I think that was written in the ’40s, I might be wrong, but when it was written, the projection was the world’s going to change that much. I think we’re up, I’m babbling.

Jason Johnson:
I’m curious. I want to make sure that we preserve time because this is the thing that everybody’s really hungry for right now. What can we do as educators or therapists or individuals working in juvenile justice that are working with kids? What are some tips that you have for structuring our classrooms or offices, keeping in mind that many of our classrooms right now are now virtual classrooms? What are some tips for structuring our classrooms in our schools and offices to be places where we can effectively build social emotional learning into the structure, into the environment?

Robert Marzano:
You get this one first Christian.

Christian Moore:
One of my favorite stories is Hewlett-Packard where he says one of the things is that they respect people where they’re standing. I think in an organization, I say respect people where they’re standing is respect people with their mental health issues, what’s unique about them, what’s silly about them, what drives you crazy about them is just letting people be who they are, where they’re currently standing in their battle between their ears. The greatest battle we fight is between our two ears. 

Christian Moore:
And I think one of the things I hope that comes out of this COVID thing and some of the social justice stuff that’s going on is that we respect people where they’re standing. For me, the greatest social emotional environment would be and it’s funny. We don’t even have, I’m working on some workshops on this, but it’s an environment where we really seek understanding over agreement. Any room I walk into, whether it’s a classroom, office, any place I’m at where someone can disagree with me, but at the same time puts effort, they care enough about me to understand where I’m coming from. That’s a place where I think social emotional … You thrive socially and emotionally and that creates a safe place. 

Christian Moore:
I’m hoping one of the things that comes out of everything happening in the world right now is a high priority to do that. Another thing I think is important in virtual setting relates to schools is if possible, I think educators really need to ask parents if they can, what does that child need? And I know quite a few teachers who are doing that and they’re reaching out to the parents and then that way when they go online, they already have a feel. I know that’s a lot of work, a lot of email and a lot of stuff.

Christian Moore:
I’ve seen some teachers create some templates where they send it out to the parents and then there’s even a checklist, they’ll say, “Is your child dealing with anxiety? Are they motivated? Are they not motivated?” So there’s just a checklist, and the teacher can quickly glimpse at that, but they’ve sent it out to the parents. And so I think online, that’s an important thing to do. I think the other thing that’s really important online in a virtual setting is students need to know the teacher misses and cares about them as an individual. And then create opportunities for students to connect with one another I think is so important in a virtual setting, to do social emotional education that way as well.

Christian Moore:
But yeah, I just think environment, we got to really look at are we creating an environment where people have to see through the same lens that we see through I think, we want to create an environment that people can look at the same issue from three or four different views, different lenses, different perspectives. I think seeing things from multiple paradigms right now are so important because we know black and white thinking one or two things is going to create tremendous tension in this world right now. And we got to be able to see things from more than two different perspectives. And I think that would have a huge impact on an environment and helping people thrive.

Jason Johnson:
Thank you, Bob.

Robert Marzano:
Sure. If we weren’t virtual, what Darrell and I wrote called Motivating & Inspiring Students, we just use the hierarchy. We say in your classroom what’s the first level? Physical comfort. Make sure you got an environment that’s physically comfortable. Virtually, you can’t do that, you have no control over that. Second level, physically safe. It’s virtual, we can’t account for that. But everything above that, you can account virtually. Next level was a sense of belonging. So all those things that you can do to help students feel like they belong in this group, Jason you’re the teacher, and Christina and I are your students, and we have number of other students on a Zoom meeting, you can still, “Hey Bob, how you doing? What’s happening? Christian, good to see ya. Hey, I missed you last time. I heard you were sick.”

Robert Marzano:
Sense of esteem within the community. You can do it virtually, what have you done? Everybody think of something you’ve done you’re really proud of over the last since we met, what is it? Self-actualization, the low harder, but given the times, if you can set up a situation where students are working on something, a goal that they really want to accomplish that is personal to them and it doesn’t have to be related to math or science, or whatever it is, it’s nice if it is. Set a goal, these are hard times. Set a goal for yourself. Let’s share that and we’ll share how we’re doing with each other. 

Robert Marzano:
And there are models for doing that, setting goals and making plans, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s the self-factor and the highest level connects to something greater than self. And for me, you can translate that into inspiration. Information that is inspirational, stories that are inspirational because you see, for me, inspiration occurs when … I’m sorry, I got to explain this a little bit. Remember the theory of the world in our head? Okay, we’ve got all these generalizations too that we’ve created. I haven’t talked much about those. 

Robert Marzano:
But we also have these things, these ideals, the way we would like things to be, but we’re not sure that they are. Those are ideals, it would they be really nice if people were like this, or the world was like this. And now this isn’t my idea. I stole it from somebody much smarter whose name I forget again, but if you see a movie and that movie moves you, it’s probably because it represents an ideal that you have. Not many people have seen this anymore. Remember the movie Rudy? Remember Rudy? And for those haven’t done it, Rent Rudy, okay? It’s a true story. It is great. 

Robert Marzano:
It’s about a young man, not very athletic, wanted to be a Notre Dame football player. And actually got on the team as a walk-on and was just in the practice squad, but to be official player for Notre Dame, you had to play at least one game. Got to a senior year the last game and he wasn’t going to suit up. Now, he eventually got to play and I always cry at that … I’m [inaudible 00:50:20] a commercial. That’s one of those categories. That characteristic is true. And I remember thinking, “So why does that always get me?” 

Robert Marzano:
And one answer would be, “Well, if you try real hard, you accomplish these.” That’s not it. I already know that. What really gets me is this part. When he was not selected to suit up, last game of the season his senior year, he wasn’t going to be made official a Notre Dame football player and this is apparently true. I’ve heard him interviewed, the real Rudy Ruettiger. The team, they knocked at the coach’s door, and one by one, they come in with their jerseys. They say, “Here coach, here’s my jersey, let Rudy suit up in my place.”

Robert Marzano:
And the ideal that that represents to me is that if you really, really try, people will show up to help you, people you wouldn’t even expect. Now for me, we all have those ideals, and just stories, clips from Rudy, stories about people’s personal lives, stories about the amazing things that have happened in teacher’s lives to share those things. Derrick Joe and I have a mutual friend … Christian and I have a mutual friend, that’s Darrell Scott. And Darrell created an activity, he calls it 180 connections, and it’s just great. It’s just great. The schools I work with, we always recommend it. 180 connections, 180 because there’s 180 days in most in the school year in general. And you start every day with a question that is asked in Homeroom. 

Robert Marzano:
This can be done in elementary up through high school, probably in college if you wanted to. And they’re just questions designed to get to know each other a little better. And a lot of them are just fun. What was your favorite pet? But then there are things like what was your biggest failure, et cetera, et cetera. And it works. I’ve seen it. It creates the connectedness at a much higher level and the teacher engages in it too. Teachers answer all the questions. But I’m also surprised at the it’s a great source of inspiration because students will share things that are just downright inspiring.

Robert Marzano:
Bring in guest speakers, coaches have used my favorite coach was John Wooden, you got to look him up too, he was at UCLA basketball coach. And I think they won 12 NCAA championships, I think it was 12, something like that, it was in the double digits. And he use quotes all the time. And if you see his players interviewed, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, people like that, they still refer to him as coach, but he had all these sayings, these quotes, and he would talk about them, and he just lived that life about have higher ideals. I think those are. Yeah, it’s stuff that can be done. It’s very powerful.

Christian Moore:
Hey Jason, I just wanted to add one last thing here. It just hit me on we’re talking about here in the online setting too is I think it’s important to create some flexibility especially with students like me with ADHD, learning disabilities, sometimes even having an opportunity for them to maybe have two or three days to turn something in. I know that’s not traditional in education. But I think right now with all the stressors, I’ve seen a couple situations where kids are doing the work, but they get distracted right now more than any other time because they’re at home, they can access to video games, different things. 

Christian Moore:
But if they can literally have some flexibility were possible, we can have pass-fail situations where a kid doesn’t just get any credit, there can be some pass-fail opportunities. And we know right now some students are caring for their siblings, I just was talking to some kids, we know they’re sharing, they have four kids sharing one computer. And if there’s not that flexibility, then kids won’t get assignments done, different things and stuff. And so I just think that flexibility is so, so important. And I love what you’re sharing about that motivation examples of where that internal motivation comes from Rudy and all those different people. 

Christian Moore:
There’s a movie out, a documentary right now. Bethany Hamilton whose arm got bit off by the shark there. That documentary right now is an incredible documentary. Do you remember the name of that?

Jason Johnson:
Was it Soul Surfer? I can’t [crosstalk 00:54:59]

Christian Moore:
It is Soul Surfer. Yeah, Soul Surfer. Yeah, it’s an incredible documentary film right now. But where do you want to go Jas?

Jason Johnson:
No, that’s good. I love what you’re saying especially in a virtual setting, that’s one of the things when we go in and try to teach practical strategies, it’s interesting. The pandemic, this virtual setting has forced the grownups to step into a world that the kids historically have been a little bit more comfortable with, namely the world of technology. But a lot of the same concepts I think still apply. Before the pandemic hit, we would talk about creating safe space classrooms, trauma-informed classrooms, we would talk about things like connection, flexibility, voice and choice. And now the trick is learning how to do this virtually. But I think you’ve touched on some key things. 

Jason Johnson:
When a person can feel heard, when a kid can feel heard and seen, that’s really important. And so it might look a little different in a virtual setting, but simple things like using their names, but also giving them space to share about their life. But even, I’ve seen some great teachers and educators that have elevated some of their students to be like the tech expert of the virtual classroom. We’re helping teachers put together like music playlist, appropriate music playlists where the kids submit songs that are meaningful to them that line up thematically with some of the social emotional concepts that they’re teaching. 

Jason Johnson:
And then they bring that, using technology into their virtual classroom. And those have been some cool strategies that we’ve worked on with people as well to try to create that sense of belonging and that sense of community in a virtual setting that I think a lot of the educators have been really nervous or unsure of themselves how to do so. Great insights. We’re coming up on the end. So I have a couple things I want to get to. And we may go a couple minutes over. But hopefully that’s all right. 

Jason Johnson:
I am curious, one of the things we hear from a lot from both, teachers, counselors, but also from administrators. We see it on both end. So one of the things we heard from teachers and counselors is I believe in SEL, I believe in the power of this, but I don’t know how to create buy-in at my school. So that’s one challenge that gets expressed to us. And then we’ll also hear from administrators the same sentiment. I personally really believe in the power of SEL, but we’re trying to change the culture and the commitment to that within our school. 

Jason Johnson:
Do you have any tips or strategies for trying to create broader buy-in towards the importance of SEL? Because SEL needs to be taught deliberately. It needs to be taught the way we teach academics. So it doesn’t just happen naturally and for that to happen, there needs to be a collective buy-in amongst the staff and the faculty there. What tips do you have for creating broader buy-in for this?

Robert Marzano:
I’ll start with that. But it is my background. I say go to the research, it’s growing, it really is. There’s a publication, I think just called the handbook for research on social emotional learning. It’s about five years old now. But it’s very compelling, it really is and since then, there’s been more study saying that it consistently demonstrates that it does have a link to academics, even when you don’t change any of that. Now, it’s not massive. It’s not like, “Do SEL and your SAT scores are going to go up, you’re going to go from 10th percentile to the 90th percentile in the state.” That’s a curricular issue. But its consistency over multiple grade levels and subject areas and situations, I think it’s pretty impressive. So anyway, get the handbook.

Jason Johnson:
Could you name that book again? A couple people asked if you could …

Robert Marzano:
I think this is called the Handbook for Research on Social and Emotional Learning. I actually did a chapter on the assessment part of it and I’m not recommending it because of that. I was honored to have a chance to get to contribute to it. But it’s really, it’s super impressive. I think it’s as simple as that, the Handbook for Research on Social and Emotional. The editors, gosh, Roger Weinstein, was it Weinstein? Who was one of the founders of Castle and he was one of the editors. And I’m blanking on the other ones, but they’re a very distinguished academic group that put this together. It’s well respected.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Christian, what are your thoughts for creating buy-in?

Christian Moore:
Yeah, one thing we have found at WhyTry that’s really effective is creating a social and emotional leadership team where you have three or four teachers, three or four students that get together every other week or even once a week, and they literally put initiatives in the school that impacted my pick, resilience or empathy or whatever the topic is. And they really focus. And I have someone specifically working on it, anything else, it tends to die that one thing we’ve seen over and over again is once that team is put together, and there’s some momentum, other teachers will get excited about it and say, “Oh wow, we want to do this.”

Christian Moore:
I’ve even seen in the past couple years school administrators literally spend the first two weeks of school teaching social emotional education. So they’ll say, “Okay, we’re going to start with it if that’s the foundation, if that’s what causes people to thrive over the lifespan.” But let’s make sure they have those skills, we’re not going to assume they come to school with these skills, we’re going to make sure they have them. And then it’s been interesting to me to watch teachers that had no interest in it, when they see the impact on the students, it creates a momentum. 

Christian Moore:
The other thing is just keep track of and Bob could probably speak to this a lot more than I can, but keep track of the different data, how is it impacting every student understands resilience and different skills, how does it impact GPA, test scores, and all this stuff, there’s just a lot of school districts over the years we’ll go into, we’ll take the students they’re most concerned with, put them through WhyTry through the resilience and then again, we’ll look at their GPA and test scores before and after they do this and many schools will say, “You know what? All of our students need these skills.” 

Christian Moore:
But oftentimes I’ll go in under the umbrella of the at risk kids or the kids with learning disabilities, or the five or 6% of kids that are holding the school hostage will help those kids. And then they’ll realize all students need this, but tracking the data, do you have anything you want to say about that Bob? I know you know a lot more about that than me on that.

Robert Marzano:
No, basically I say the data supports it. And I’m a big fan of schools tracking their own data or districts doing that. So I think just looking at the data, honestly it builds this very strong case for, “Hey, this is something that’s really important.” Now remember, it’s being judged through this filter of does it increase scores on state tests at the end of the year? And that’s not its purpose, but it still does. Now then when you move to are these skills that are lifetime skills wins hands down? Well, of course. 

Robert Marzano:
Boy, I can’t even think of a time when parents or community has said, “We don’t want our students to be resilient, and we don’t want them to be responsible. And we don’t want them to be self-aware and mindful.” Emphasizing that part too, but as long as you’re going from the paradigm of scores have to go up, it still does that, it still supports that.

Christian Moore:
Yeah. This next thing I think it’s gonna be really important after COVID, but that’s just doing surveys to see how students are doing emotionally over the past couple years. And I’ve probably seen now 30 of these were and it’s a good thing that we’re starting to do surveys to see how our students are doing as it relates to anxiety, depression, suicide, ideation, all these different things. And I’ll tell you, every single one of these that I’ve seen where the administrators do a survey, the community, the parents approve, and they’re like, “Okay, let’s see how our students are doing.”

Christian Moore:
Every one of these, they’ve been shell shocked at where students are emotionally. And I think man, that was before COVID right now on the backend of COVID is going to be really important to see where these students are. And I think that’s going to be really important to deal with chronic depression, suicide, anxiety issues just I think school mental health needs to be a high priority right now. But it’s going to be huge here in the next six months, the next year. And so I think be thinking about ways we can see how all students are doing and then the other one I want to emphasize is use and Jason referred to it is use relevancy as multimedia tools to engage these students. Music, visuals, art. 

Christian Moore:
Another thing that’s really powerful is having older students teach the younger students social emotional skills. We’ve seen that be really effective because we all know when you teach something, you learn it. So we’ll teach social emotional skills to the seniors and they might teach it to sixth graders to the junior high and that’s something that’s really effective. And again, just having that common language where it’s okay to give people permission, it’s okay. It’s as normal is breathing to feel negative emotions, to feel sad, to feel hurt, to feel angry, that’s just part of being human is actually the birthplace of humanity. 

Christian Moore:
What makes us human and not a robot or machine is that we have negative emotions. I think a school-wide approach where we normalize, it’s okay to feel sad, it’s okay to talk about it, it’s okay to get help. And we have a generation sometimes that getting help, they see that as a weakness, and we have to really emphasize that it’s okay to ask for help. And that’s going to be really important on the backend of COVID here, right now and on the backend that we really normalize mental health issues.

Christian Moore:
Every single human has an internal battle going on, and we just need to put that on top of the table. And I really believe that combination of social emotional education, and academics, those two things have to be treated as equals. And again, we’re still spending probably 80% of our time in education, focused on academics, I understand why, but we have to bring that balance, and have both of those start to be treated as equals. And I think that’s what’s going to take. We see too much where America on all these skills, we’re low and I think we can jump up very quick if we become a country that really prioritizes social emotional education, and how we treat each other. We have to treat each other with dignity and we’ve got to start really putting on respect for people with all different types of views, backgrounds. That’s what makes this country great. 

Christian Moore:
And I think social emotional education is a place we can really work on a lot of the issues that we see going on right now, around the different racial issues and equality issues. We have to start seeing each other as equals and social emotional education is a great place to deliver some of that.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome, thank you. I think we’re about out of time. I want to end on one thing though, just a short answer. But I want to throw out to you because 2020, it’s been a rough year, and a lot of people are really stressed out. And I think a lot of people are just looking for any sources of hope because none of us know when this is going to end, how long this is going to last. So I would love to hear from both of you. Just what’s giving you hope right now what? What makes you feel hopeful? What are you seeing that’s giving you hope right now? I’m going to put you both on the spot. Bob, would you be willing to go first then we hear from Christian?

Robert Marzano:
Sure. Well, it’s going to sound stupid, but you really do. After 50 years in the profession being 74, you do see phases in life. I just have great hope for the human beings. We’re very resilient, brilliant by nature. Well, I think we are. And actually our country I think is too. I don’t want to get political here. But I think the fact that we vote so frequently, we can change leadership, and I’ve seen the country go this way, but then it corrects and it goes this way, and it corrects, and goes. So even in the bad times, it’s something I didn’t like, there was a relatively quick change and all of that seems to work to get into a better end.

Robert Marzano:
For me, it’s much better than it was in the 1950s. No kidding. I lived through that whole era. The opportunity to work with African-American men and women who were leaders in their school, superintendents and principals who weren’t even allowed to go to those schools or school districts when they were kids. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s got to be so rewarding to see.” So I’ve just seen massive change, and there’s still things that we’re not … So obviously, socially and social justice, there’s a lot of things we need to do, but I just see, “Oh my God, we really do. In this country, people have a good heart, and they’re trying to make things better. They really are.”

Robert Marzano:
And we’ve come a long way, we really have and I think that we’re going to come out of this with knowing things, things not to do, that didn’t work and we’re going to know, “Hey, we got to do more of this.” So I really believe there’ll be blessings from this even though it doesn’t look like it now.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you so much. Christian, what’s giving you hope right now?

Christian Moore:
What’s giving me hope is it seems that we’re starting to really realize and this is throughout the world that we really are one. What happens here impacts the other side of the world, what happens on the other side of the world impacts us here, that we’re all interconnected. I live right by a bunch of aspen trees, there’s 10s of, probably millions of these aspen trees, but they all share the same root system. And I think we’re starting to realize that the human condition is if I’m resilient, that resilience can be passed on to someone else, someone else’s resilience can be passed on to me.

Christian Moore:
And we’re far more similar than we are different. Oftentimes, when I speak to students, I go to communities where there’s high gang issues and stuff, and I’ll take kids from every different culture, backgrounds, socioeconomic status and I’ll say, “Hey look, when your head hits the pillow at night …” Before your head is still at night, you say goodnight to your mom, you get something to eat, you have to drink water. If we made a list right now of all the ways we’re similar, and all the ways we’re different. The similarities are far greater and I’ve been talking about this for years.

Christian Moore:
There’s people that roll their eyes and go, “That’s just crazy bleeding heart social worker.” But now, everything’s proving that. Science is proving that. The need for one another is proving that. That I think right now, hopefully on the back end of this, we’ll see that we need each other in a very powerful way. And we’re interdependent on someone. And if we have so much, I was just seeing if I can find it. The Brookings Institute was sharing, here. There’s sharing that the gap between high and low achieving students will become larger especially when we look at resource allocation between poor middle class and the wealthy families.

Christian Moore:
How much time the student can spend with a parent and educator tutoring and accessing resources, I think now what we’re realizing is people who have access to some resources have a tremendous responsibility to make sure other people have access to resource because if we don’t do that, it hurts the people with the resources. And I think that’s been a debate for a long time. I think that debate is becoming less and less right now because we’re so interdependent on one another and I think and I know there’s times in my life when I’m doing great, I have resources where I’m like, “Hey, it doesn’t matter what’s happening on my right, or what’s happening on my left.”

Christian Moore:
And I know I’ve had to call myself the repentance on that. And I think all of us need to realize that our differences are minute. I want to end with that.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome, thank you so much. Hey, this has been wonderful. Give a big virtual round of applause to our panelists today. Christian Moore and Bob Marzano, thank you so much. [crosstalk 01:12:57] really nice comments in the chat tool, people have been really enriched with what you shared today. Any parting thoughts before we end it?

Christian Moore:
I do want to say being on here with Bob was an amazing experience. Years ago, I’ve been speaking for 20 years, probably 15, 16 years ago, I was at a conference, heard him speak and wanted to go up and meet him, there were so many people trying to meet him and he was signing books and stuff, I couldn’t get near him and he’s someone who inspired me. I know he sacrificed, went on the road and just observing him even before I got to know him a little bit, I knew who he was. And he’s an incredible human being and his legacy is going to go on and on and on. And it was one of the highlights of my career being with the great Dr. Bob Marzano today.

Christian Moore:
So seriously an honor man, and thanks for fighting the fight and the sacrifice that you and your family. I know you’re a military family, and your son, everybody’s sacrificed tremendously in your family. But also, you’re a hero. You went to war improving America’s education system. And I don’t get to talk to you very often. I want to honor, I know you’re you said at the beginning of this, your family is a military family, but you guys are fighting for our country, and also for students and for education. So I just want to thank your whole family for their sacrifice, for your son’s sacrifice, your wife a therapist, is definitely a warrior as well to fight for individuals as well. And so Bob, your family, your life work and your family’s life work is truly commendable. Thank you so much Bob. 

Robert Marzano:
Well, right back at you. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you so much. And last but certainly not least, thank you to all our educators and therapists and friends in the juvenile justice world that showed up and are doing everything they can to help these kids. We love you guys. We love you all. Thank you for what you’re doing and keep fighting the good fight. I’m going to put up a slide with some information on how to get ahold of Bob or Christian. 

Jason Johnson:
You can find out more about our organizations, the websites shown here. Marzanoresources.com or whytry.org. The WhyTry Program is a social emotional learning program and a resilience program. So we’d love to visit more with you about that. And then Bob’s just got some incredible resources available on his website. So thank you all to everybody for being here.