Resilience and Thriving Through Challenge Summit

Jason Johnson:
Well, welcome everybody, we’re thrilled to have all our participants and our attendees here. Today we’re going to be sharing our Resilience and Thriving Through Change online summit and we’ve got some incredible guests that we’re excited to have. As usual, my name is Jason Johnson. I’m going to stop this share here so that we can… There we go. My name is Jason Johnson. I’m going to be operating as the moderator for this panel that we have and we’re going to discuss some really significant things today as we talk about thriving and we talk about resilience and dealing with the change we’ve all gone through as well as, I think preparing for probably continued change that we’ll have. 

Jason Johnson:
Let me start by introducing our panel guests and then we’ll get into the content today. So we are thrilled to have, and I apologize, I’m probably going to leave a few accomplishments out, so feel free to fill in any blanks that I may miss. We’ll start with Dr. Gail Angus. Dr. Angus has been a career public educator working as a teacher and administrator in both general and special ed environments along with the research and tiered supports. Currently, she’s the chief operating officer of collaborative learning solutions and she works with school districts across the nation with creating conditions for learning. Welcome, Gail. We’re thrilled to have you. Did I miss anything important? 

Gail Angus:
You did awesome. Thank you. 

Jason Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you.

Gail Angus:
I want to know me.

Jason Johnson:
I feel the same. Next we’ve got Dr. Debra Sacks. Dr. Sacks is a career educator. Her work has included teaching high school, continuation high school, adult education and college, as well as serving as a school principal and administrator. Her work has been recognized by the state of California as well as featured on PBS. Currently consults for districts and MTSS, SEL, mindfulness in learning and restorative practices impacting students and educators throughout the country. Welcome Dr. Sacks. 

Debra Sacks:
Thank you, Jason. Good to be here.

Jason Johnson:
Then last but certainly not least, we have Christian Moore who has been our staple on these webinars. Christian Moore is the author of The Resilience Breakthrough book. He’s the founder of the Wide Tribe Program, which is an organization that provides resilience and social emotional learning, SEL curriculum and training for educators, probation officers, therapists and counselors throughout the country. He’s in about 23,000 different organizations right now, all 50 States as well as United Kingdom at an incredible impact on youth throughout the world. Welcome Christian Moore, LCSW, social worker, and great youth advocate. How are you doing? 

Christian Moore:
Man, doing great. I’m excited to be on here, man. Especially with both of these incredible advocates, man. I’m excited about this one.

Jason Johnson:
It’s going to be fun. We’re going to treat this one today as a panel. I’ll throw you some questions and we’re fortunate to have legitimate field experts on these topics with us today. I’ll throw the questions to you and then you can respond based on your experience, your research, your expertise, if that works. 

Gail Angus:
Sounds good. 

Christian Moore:
Let’s do it.

Jason Johnson:
All right. Well, I think the plan today is to talk about thriving and being resilient. I should give a little background on myself by the way. I’m Jason Johnson. I’m a school psychologist. So my background, I came from public ed. I’ve worked in elementary, middle and high schools. I will mostly try to stay out of the way and keep you all talking. But I want to start, so thriving and resilience are big terms. They’re big tent terms that include a lot of things. I think it would be helpful if we could start maybe by getting a working definition of both of those things. Let’s start with thriving. What does it mean, when we talk about thriving, what does that mean to you? How would you describe that? Maybe we could just go down the row as I see it on my screen. Let’s start with Dr. Sacks, then go to Dr. Angus and then go to Christian. Tell us what we’re talking about when we’re describing thriving. 

Debra Sacks:
Yeah. I think thriving is that thing passed learning and growth and building skills, but really being able to sink your teeth into it, sink your teeth into just the way you live and the way you learn and the way you work with other people. I feel like for us, thriving is beyond just existing. It happens when we’re nourished by people around us, our communities of support, I think thriving happens or to thrive happens when you have the systems in place for the thriving to occur. So it’s beyond just learning and building skills. We can do that. But then how do we take it to that next step and how are we nourished by others and through our experiences and how do we keep getting up to continue to thrive? I think it’s that resiliency thing and then it’s that thriving thing and then it’s that flourishing thing. 

Jason Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Angus. 

Gail Angus:
Yeah. Well, Debbie said it. I was looking at my notes and I was going, wow, she’s hitting almost a lot of the same components I was going to address. A lot around starting with making sure that we are teaching, not assuming that everybody has that skills, the knowledge, the expertise to be able to thrive. We got to first be able to provide that for them. It’s not just for our students. We have to make sure that the adults that are working with the students have those same skills and knowledge to be able to thrive themselves. 

Gail Angus:
Then as we’re doing that, making sure there is that connection and that belonging because we need to have that relationship in order to build so that there are those cheerleaders cheering you on so that you can thrive. Thriving is outcome of all of this. There’s all these pieces, and another piece that needs to be there and that’s where that cheerleader, those adults for students or even another adult mentor for adults, either way, that we have that optimism, that hope that’s drawing us through. When we get to the others aside of all of this, the outcome is that we’re thriving. So it’s all these pieces coming together that makes up thriving. 

Christian Moore:
That’s awesome. 

Jason Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you. Christian, yeah.

Christian Moore:
Yeah. When I’m working with a child or an adolescent and I’m trying to assess thriving, one of the first things I pay attention to is, is their self esteem going up or is it going down? If that self esteem is gone down, thriving is gone usually. So I pay really close attention to their self esteem and then their level of confidence. When a child is thriving, we’ll see a lot of confidence in that child. Then they also have the ability to turn out or to try to meet another child’s needs if they’re thriving. That also applies to, Dr. Angus was saying, with adults. Me as an adult, I’m more likely to meet the needs of another person if I’m thriving. That’s so important that way as well. 

Christian Moore:
Then they’re producing something, they’re experiencing some type of achievement, especially I’m working with children, adolescents, that they’re achieving something, they’re involved in things that they’re accomplishing things, whether it’s academics or sports, different things. Those children seem to be the ones that are thriving. And then the other thing from [inaudible 00:08:31] observation standpoint, and this might sound like a really simple one, but I think we’ve all seen this a million times, especially working in education is when the child is having fun. When you just see a child having fun and they have high energy having fun, I see a lot of thriving around humor and things like that and having fun. They want to share, they have a huge desire to share things in their lives that they’re excited about. That’s how I [inaudible 00:08:58] observational thriving. But I think that those are the things I quickly assess when a child’s in front of me to try to see where their level of thriving is. 

Jason Johnson:
Awesome. Thank you. The next thing I think would be helpful then, how would you describe the relationship between resilience and thriving then? Resilience has been one of the constant themes throughout this. Maybe we can just go in reverse order of what we just did. We’ll go Christian, Dr. Angus, Dr Sacks. How would you describe that relationship? 

Christian Moore:
Yeah. I see the two work in a conjunction. I know sometimes in definitions people will sparse them out a little bit verbally, but for me, resilience is the ability to have opposition, tremendous opposition and use that opposition as a fuel source. For me, thriving is on the back end of that a little bit where when they’re starting to, they’ve flipped that switch and they’re saying, okay, I’m going to use this suffering, use this pain as a reason to put one foot in front of me. Thriving is when that process has engaged. They’ve literally committed to using the suffering, to using the opposition to push through. That’s the observation of that, where you see them, like I talked about a minute ago, having fun, you’re seeing their confidence go up, you’re seeing their self esteem being impacted by that. So for me, thriving is the manifestation of when you really make that decision, I’m not going to let this opposition, I’m not going to let these changes that I’m going through beat me down. I’m going to use them as a fuel source.

Gail Angus:
Building off of that, I see resiliency as the actions, what we’re doing to get to thriving. If I don’t have that hope, if I don’t have the skills to keep going, picking myself up after I fall, after some hurdle, after a barrier, after COVID, and I don’t see future, which is that resiliency piece, I’m not going to have the thriving. Again, it’s that, I agree with Christian, you can’t separate them. They’re conjoined together. 

Debra Sacks:
I’m going to tag on to what Christian said about just the manifestation, the struggle, the hardship and what you can do with it, even creatively. I think about musicians and I think about songwriters and I think about my own poetry based on emotional experiences and how the creative really comes out. We know that a lot of our famous artists and so forth, and people we admire for the words they say, the pieces of art that they create are very much about, they come through from some personal life experience. I love what you’re saying, Christian, on that. And that resiliency is taking it and just taking that next step, finding that narrow space where I can fit my foot and make a footing and keep going. I think about resiliency is that recovery stage, and I think about thriving as the next step. Resiliency is like we’re planting these seeds and then thriving is we have these ingredients that help this thing grow. I just want to use that analogy. 

Christian Moore:
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I want to throw Jason off, but I know, Jason, this is an area of passion for you understanding the difference between resilience, thriving, grit. You’ve been someone who’s mentored me, Jason, in understanding this. I don’t mean to flip it on you, but I know this is an area of expertise that Jason has. So I would love to hear what Jason has to say about this as well. Because he’s given me huge insights on this over the years. 

Jason Johnson:
Oh man. We had a deal, you weren’t supposed to put me on the spot. 

Christian Moore:
I’m sorry.

Jason Johnson:
No, I appreciate that. You mentioned some interesting terms. One of the terms, grit, comes up a lot and it has some interesting implications with it. At its core, the clinical definition of that is persistence and perseverance while maintaining focus on a goal. Those are elements of resilience. Where resilience, I think really is unique from other attributes like that. It really involves that thrive piece. I think it was Dr. Angus said, they really are conjoined, and that’s accurate. A lot of times when we describe resilience, we’ll talk about the action of bouncing back and bouncing back indicates that there’s a return to form. Like if you think of a resilient material, almost like a silly putty or something out in nature, you could put a dent in it and it will return to form. When I think about thriving, thriving is that process of not just, it goes beyond just enduring and persevering. You can persevere and endorse something, but walk away with really dramatic scars that can impact you forever.

Jason Johnson:
But when we talk about thriving and bouncing back, which is the top level of resilience, that involves getting back to a place and ultimately being in a place where you can be productive. I don’t want to define thrive with the word thrive, but really be productive at a high level sometimes because of that adversity or because of that challenge. That’s one of the unique things about resilience and where I think it’s really tough to separate it from thriving. I think that’s a goal that all of us, that’s one of the things I think attracted us to CLS as an organization, is that common goal to really help kids, even ones that have dealt with really significant challenges. That belief that we can help foster resilience in them so that they can ultimately thrive and still lead really productive lives despite some of the significant challenges that they may have gone through. Well, now you threw me all off, Christian. 

Christian Moore:
I know you’re fine. Sorry. Debbie, I know Debbie is going to say something there as well.

Debra Sacks:
Some people, shout out for Avid. I’m not advertising, I just want to say that I feel like Avid has really at a national level, really worked hard to provide the space for some kids to access all of this and thrive. I want it to be more for everyone at some point. I know we’re getting there, but I just want to do a shout out for those groups and those programs that do it in a little way because they are intentional and they’re all about helping young people thrive. 

Christian Moore:
Amen.

Jason Johnson:
I love that. One of the things I’m curious that I think is on everybody’s mind right now, thriving and resilience, these aren’t new ideas. We’ve always been cognizant of them. With the COVID-19 situation, we now have this shared experience. People have been impacted by health and death situations. People have been impacted by economic situations. People have been impacted just emotionally as a result of having to practice social distancing. This has impacted kids, teachers, administrators, counselors themselves. What should we be considering and focusing on right now during this situation, but in general as we try to help kids thrive because it’s one thing to talk about it as a big picture thing. What are the specific things that as practitioners we could be focusing on or should be focusing on right now to lead us in that direction of resilience and thriving? Let’s start with our CLS friends. What do you think? 

Gail Angus:
Well, as you were asking that question, Jason, and you were linking it to COVID, one of the things that we have been talking a lot in our organization around is how this… Well, Nadine, Dr. Nadine Harris Burke. Did I get the… I flip Burke and Harris all the time. Okay, just check in with Debbie to make sure I didn’t flip it. What she had recently put out is, this COVID is going to be adverse childhood event that everybody has now gone through. We know that when there is an adverse childhood event that that already creates some needs for students. Now we have everybody coming back with at least one. As you mentioned, Jason, everybody was impacted differently. Even though we might’ve had the same event that we all just went through, be it an adult, be it a student, be it older, younger, we just went through this, but we’re all being impacted by it differently. 

Gail Angus:
So we can’t assume, Oh well, just because we just went through it, your lived experience of this is exactly like my lived experience. Because we don’t know what else happened and we don’t know what skills they came in with or what support mechanisms were wrapped around them. That all being said, we need to make sure that we are just creating structures, that we’re creating systems that are going to give those protective factors just as a layer there. And that layer, as we’re building it depending on what your walk is in education or supporting education or supporting students, that we also need to look at it, not just as we’re building it for students, we got to also look at this like what are we doing to build it for the adults supporting students? Because if we don’t put the oxygen mask on ourselves, we’re not going to be able to be there for our students. A lot of these pieces that you’re asking about, we got to look at it as a whole system, a whole structure. Some of the pieces-

Jason Johnson:
Do you want me to share the slides you had, Gail?

Gail Angus:
Okay. I was going to say, and some of those pieces are these protective factors. And I was going to throw the baton over to Debbie to describe these protective factors that should be there that we build in intentionally. We think about it and we do them as part of our day.

Jason Johnson:
All right. I liked all the dogs there.

Gail Angus:
Yeah, because we don’t know. We can all experience the same thing and it’s going to impact us different. It really doesn’t matter what the story is, it’s more about what are we going to do to be intentional, to support everybody just so that we are there for them? 

Debra Sacks:
All right. I’m going to talk about the protective factors. Like Dr. Gail Angus mentioned, we can’t know the detail of each other’s trauma necessarily, especially when you’ve got lots of students that you’re working with. We give big shout outs, high fives and thank yous to people working in the mental health industry, to our counselors and therapists and social workers, psychologists, all of you who are really providing huge support for young people. But what we can do is think about implementing intentionally what we call the six protective factors. This image that we have up here for you, feel free to take a photo of it, and then we have a list too. But I would just like to define each one and just ask our participants to really think about how you can be intentional about bringing this to your classrooms, to your campuses, to your school offices, anywhere where we are serving each other and our students. 

Debra Sacks:
The very first one is over on the left, and I want to talk just a little bit about safety. What we know is that trauma on predictability violates our physical, our social and emotional safety. So if you’re thinking about students who have experienced trauma or not, or not, that all of these protective factors can really have an impact on students coming to school and having academic and social success. We want to think about Maslow before Bloom. We want you to think about when it comes to safety, that you understand that some students come to us with some intensity about an experience and so they need that safe, predictable environment. We need it to be very safe for them. So how do we get there? Some basic strategies are floor at the door, provide safety. Every time a student comes by my classroom, into my classroom, even if I teach six periods a day and I have 30 per period, I look at them, I say their name, I speak to their heart. 

Debra Sacks:
We used to say, shake their hands or give them a high five. Now after COVID, there might be some reluctance there, but figure out what it is [inaudible 00:23:25] identify. Maybe that’s our new high five, and just put our hand up. So the high five is not really touching another person anymore. But that’s just one of the strategies that you can think about to really provide that safety for students and for each other. The next thing is predictability. It really does fit into safety, so that when students show up or when your staff shows up or your office mates show up, your setting provides consistent practices and procedures. So it’s easy on the brain. 

Debra Sacks:
You think about a child maybe who has experiences that are unpredictable at home, and it’s hard and it’s difficult and it’s scary perhaps, the one thing they can count on is school being that safe place and they can predict that my teacher will say hi to me. They can predict that we have these regular procedures. It’s calming, it’s familiar, it’s a pattern. So we don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen next because my teacher, she has it together and she’s really organized and that’s easy on my brain. I come to school and I feel I can let my shoulders down a little bit. Some of that predictability comes with our regular class schedules, regular breaks. We say the pledge of allegiance every day. There’s regular routines and practices. Even when we talk about tier one and having expectations for students, what does that look like? How do we teach at school why, so there’s not a question, there’s not an additional stress in my mind?

Debra Sacks:
The third one over on the right is the orange section and we call it having those compassionate, dependable relationships. This is the biggie. This is the biggie. Trauma can leave students feeling isolated or betrayed. It’s difficult sometimes to trust other people when we don’t have that compassionate relationship develop. Some of our students in foster care and lived in group homes or had some adverse kinds of experiences, challenging experiences. Having that relationship with that adult can make a huge difference. Like Christian said earlier, consider humor, it goes a long way. Provide positive notes to kids, pat them on the shoulder or give them the look so that they know that you are there for them. In restorative practices, we call it being in the lip box, having high support. Kids might even think you love them, you care about them. But then also, having those high expectations and you challenge kids. Those are the kinds of relationships our students really, really, really need. 

Debra Sacks:
Then the one last thing I want to talk about in regards to relationships, is that you as an adult remain vulnerable sometimes to restore it when you cross the line. When you’re human and you say the wrong thing, you can’t pull it back, you didn’t self-regulate and you wish that you could just fix it with kids. So be that adult who restores relationships, who sometimes say, can we have a do over? As a teacher, I handled that wrong and I want to say that over again today to you, and I’m sorry the way I handled that perhaps. So relationships are huge, but we also have to be vulnerable. We have to remind ourselves to be a little vulnerable. 

Debra Sacks:
This next one, number four, in the dark blue is our voice, choice and the opportunity to collaborate. These are all protective factors, and really focusing on kids that have experienced trauma. But again, all kids. If you think that you might have some students that have a pretty good life home experience and they don’t have as many challenges, but COVID has challenged all of us. So I want you to think about layering this on top of your work at your school. So giving students voice, choice, and that opportunity to collaborate. Young people have important insights about their own learning. They also have the most to gain if they have success at your school. I like programs like restorative justice centers. I love student leadership. I love student council and clubs that unite kids and get them youth centers that promote this kind of voice and choice and opportunity to collaborate. I just want everyone to have that same experience. 

Debra Sacks:
The next one is that skill building part. So this layer of protective factor, making sure that we are intentional about teaching SEL competencies, that we maybe build a circle on a regular basis because in that circle and community building and a practice that we do regularly becomes predictable. And we teach students when we have a talking piece or a virtual talking piece, that students [inaudible 00:28:59] self-manage because it’s not my turn to talk yet. Social awareness and listening to other students in the circle, relationship skills, self awareness and responsible decision making. And they say so much about preventing bullying is to have students grow their empathy. If we think about these competencies and we allow students to hear each other’s stories, to learn from each others, to see how they’re more alike than they’re different, we’re really building a more empathetic population. 

Debra Sacks:
Then the last one is cultural responsiveness. So thinking about our ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of our culture as well as people from other cultures. So just thinking about what we offer kids, our response to students, our tolerance and understanding and willingness to learn about other cultures can really have a profound effect on how students feel at school. With all of these, I think we can protect and help our students thrive in the situation we’re in right now and every day. So this is for all. These factors are for all.

Jason Johnson:
Thank you so much. That’s a really great, really extensive list. I think we’re going to try to talk a little bit more about maybe what this specifically looks like in online settings. We were all thrown for a loop when we suddenly had to pivot and convert our delivery to almost primarily online. I think we’ll talk a little bit about that upcoming. Christian, before we throw you, I want to give you a second part that maybe you can lead into because I’m curious your take on what we should be considering, these protective factors. Then maybe, Christian, you could lead us into a discussion. I know you’re the expert on the practical strategies piece. Maybe you could lead us into a discussion on some things that we could be doing on some practical strategies to line up with these protective factors. 

Christian Moore:
Yeah. All right. No, that’s perfect. That’s perfect. Now, I love all these protective factors we just went through. If I was just going to add a couple to it, I would just add the importance that kids see opportunities, see choices, when they see those choices, that is a huge, huge motivator for these kids. And then of course, positive peer group is a big one. That flexibility and adaptivity. Right now, we have to adapt to so much change. I want to come back to change to maybe towards the end and talk about some specific ways we can celebrate change Then the ability to control our own emotions, one’s emotions and understand other people’s emotions. Those are huge protective factors to know why I do what I do emotionally, why other people do what they do. 

Christian Moore:
But going back to what you were just asking about, Jason, direct practice approach. What I’m going to share right now, I really want to emphasize, this is for adults and kids. This is so important. One thing I noticed is relates to COVID. If I do the same thing most of the day, I could easily hyper focus on something to the extreme and I might spend eight hours doing the same thing. I’m watching my kids play video games for eight hours because that’s the real world. So any behavior that I’m doing nonstop or consistent, my depression goes up and my fear, my anxiety goes up if I keep doing the same thing. I’m a huge proponent of specific state changes during the day. It’s like this summer I’m going to encourage my kids, my two children that they have to do seven different things during the day, every day. These seven things, I want them to spend 15 to 30 minutes doing these seven state changes. 

Christian Moore:
The first thing is they got to do something social that we’ve already talked about this times. Dr. Sacks just went into depth on this, but that connection with someone else or they need them, that mutual interdependence is so important. One thing I’m telling my kids, we were just talking about maybe doing the high five, and not touching, but that’s physical touch is so, so important. Human beings do not have physical touch. They can crash very quick. So one thing I’m encouraging people to do is what I call the inner heel foot touch. Where they just touch the bottom of their shoes or the inside of their foot. 

Christian Moore:
They touch that way because that might sound really simple, but I’m telling you man, to walk into a room… [inaudible 00:33:52] to a funeral the other day where no one could touch, and when I was leaving the funeral, I saw a couple of friends and I said, “Hey, can we just tap foot feet?” And just be able to tap feet with a couple of friends at a funeral was a big, big deal. Physical touch is as important as being around someone verbally and socially interacting with them. So big advocate of the foot touch. With shoes and five layers of socks on. So I want to be clear on that. That connection is number one. 

Christian Moore:
Number two, so I just want to get seven different state changes where I’m doing something different seven times. Exercise is huge. I’m trying to walk 12,000 steps a day, and then try to eat a little more nutritious, food and exercise are so important. Then the third one is learn something in an area that interests you, which is so important, man. There are some fun things we can do to do that. Not just through media, different things, but just something that you’re passionate about, something you don’t know about. I really recommend studying something that you don’t like or has a different view or perspective than you. Something is so opposite or something that you find yourself being critical of. 

Christian Moore:
Go to school on it and go, why does the other worldview differ so much from mine? Why do people see the world through this lens? I think this is a really, really good time to try to get opposite perspectives. Go to school on opposite view, learn something new that interests you and I’m telling you, that can take up some time. I have some interesting things doing that with my children, having them something they don’t like or they judged really hard. I’m like, well, study it for an hour and let’s have a conversation about why do they have the opposite view than me? 

Christian Moore:
Then number four is do something fun. Just do something entertaining. One thing I’ve been taking on is, it’s pretty funny because I weigh like 270 pounds and I’m riding around. I took over one of my kids’ scooters, an electric scooter and the in the evening and I’m driving all over. The neighbors are laughing at me and stuff, but it’s been like, I look forward, that’s the highlight of my day, is my 30 minutes on my electric scooter cruising around town and stuff. And my kid, Carson, who the scooter was for Christmas, he said, “Dad, it’s yours, man. It’s all you.” So just something fun during the day. That 30 minutes for me is huge. And it could be just watching a show, following a comedian, riding a bike, a scooter, watching all the Rocky movies, learning how to cook, Zooming with friends, it’s limitless. But just remember all these. I’m just looking 15, 30 minutes. 

Christian Moore:
Then number five, expose yourself to something inspiring just for your soul, just for your heart. I just watched a movie with Bethany Hamilton on Netflix, Unstoppable. So just something inspirational. I tell my kids, it has to be something that you walk away, you feel better than when you turned on the show. You have to walk away feeling better. Then number six is acknowledge that change is a part of life. The one thing we know for sure is change is going to happen. It’s interesting, it is a been a metaphor. My whole life I’ve heard this metaphor as a negative, and that’s “You never want to be the stick in the river, go wherever the river takes you.” But after COVID, I’m going to flip that. I think that is a really important skill to have after COVID, is the ability to be the stick in the river and go where it takes you. Because I don’t have any influence on institutions, government, all these people making decisions. I can only work within, I don’t have any control over a virus. All of these things, we’re all in this river together. We’re in different boats. 

Christian Moore:
But what I’m realizing is one of the best ways I can handle change is to literally, literally accept it and try to be that stick in the river, go where the river takes me. Now, when I see something, a good spot to get out of the river and be more productive, I’ll do that. But I don’t know where that river is going to take me. Just celebrating the excitement in the adventure of just riding down this river and not trying to control, because I want control of my organization, I want to take control of things so that I can be most productive, most effective. But so many things are out of our control right now, which has been a negative metaphor. Never be the stick in the river, I disagree right now. You need to be the stick in the river. So flipping that metaphor on its head there. 

Christian Moore:
Then last is, I tell my kids, you got to do something for someone else. They got to do something for each other. They got to do something for their mom. They’ve got to do something for their neighbor, their dog, Bandit. They have to turn outward and do something for someone else. Those are the seven things that I’m trying to do every day, that’s how I stay sane. I’ve gotten lots of feedback from people who’ve done these seven things. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, my day just went a hundred times better. I was able to cope with change better. I was able to thrive.” And they are simple things. Each one of those things breaks down what makes us human, what brings fulfillment to a human. I’m not going into depth on it because of time here, but I promise you, if you do those seven things every day, your days are going to go a lot better, you’re going to feel a lot happier. 

Christian Moore:
I really encouraged that for adults and for children. If you want to add two or three of your own things on there, feel free, but just make sure you do those seven things every day. If I miss two of them, I notice. I’m like, Oh, I didn’t do that or I didn’t do something fun today or I didn’t exercise today or I didn’t learn something new today. Or I didn’t try to understand a different worldview than my own. Most people have never had this much time. So I think we were in a unique position to learn things we never learned before. All right, I’ll be quiet. I get excited about it. 

Debra Sacks:
So, is that an upcoming book? Because that sounds really great. 

Christian Moore:
I should say that in a book. The feedback I have, maybe this is another book. I’ll start doing some essays on our website or something on it. Well, I have to try to do. But no, it needs to come out there because I’m someone who I take medication for anxiety. I’ve a major anxiety disorder. I battle anxiety 24/7. That war, anxiety never leaves me. So I have to do those seven things to cope myself. Again, we’ve gotten literally hundreds of kids to start doing it. And I’ve had great feedback from parents when they get their kids to do those seven things, I see that in my own family, it lowers a lot of tension, frustration inside the house if we’re able to do those seven things. 

Jason Johnson:
Yeah. We’ll get that list emailed out, of the seven things a lot of people are asking for. We’ll definitely get that out. What are some things we can be doing now? A lot of questions have come up about specific strategies to this either blended model or distance learning model. What are some specific things we could do now? Specifically, people asked about the voice choice and accountability. What does that look like in your opinions in a virtual setting? 

Debra Sacks:
I’ll go.

Jason Johnson:
Please, please.

Debra Sacks:
In the virtual setting, we’re going to be seeing kids write on a screen. So how do we make sure that students have an opportunity to help build what that might look like? Even the littles, what are those opportunities where we might ask them to help build in regular times and schedules and how can we provide them smaller group, smaller chat rooms to talk? Or that we meet with just smaller groups so that students who are maybe affected by trauma or otherwise, they feel comfortable and safe being in those smaller settings. 

Debra Sacks:
So giving them an opportunity to help determine what it might look like, to determine what are some of the expectations that they have and that we can all agree on for the online environment? So instead of school-wide expectations, these are our online expectations. Then us being vulnerable too. Allowing students to have some voice in choice. And then just starting small, for us we’re a little bit anxious about this online new environment for meeting and greeting and teaching young people. I think there’s a variety of things we could do. We just have to be creative and we just have to start small and try something for students to have some choice and [inaudible 00:43:19].

Jason Johnson:
Thank you. Great insight. Dr. Angus. 

Gail Angus:
Well, I want to tap into what Debbie is saying and maybe give some specific strategies that if we remain in distance learning or in a hybrid similar to what we would want to do in a classroom and give opportunities like, Oh, elbow partners or do knee to knee or triads. When we do these opportunities to collaborate, to give every child a voice in that, we can look at a platform that we’re using. Right now we’re in Zoom. And within Zoom, you could do breakout sessions and the teacher can jump into each one of those breakout sessions just to make sure that the students are having engaging conversation along with what they were saying. So just like you would have done, walking around your classroom, you jump in and out of the breakout sessions, you can manually pick what you’re grouping just like you could do in the classroom, um, or you can just randomly do it and mix it up every once in a while. 

Gail Angus:
That’s the way to get the opportunity for students to have that voice. I noticed in a question that Alejandro asked in earlier and he said, “Well, how do you do this in a distance learning, how do you get the protective factors in play before the beginning of the year and make sure things are happening?” I was looking at that question and I thought through it and it aligns still with voice and choice. But I would say, how do we as educators sit down and say, okay, what are my expectations in my class? What are those procedures? All those things that you need to do anyway, finding them out and you need to have those defined out. Can we reach out to our students and our families prior to the first day of school? 

Gail Angus:
So instead of that letter going out that we write, Hey, this is my expectations, and I go over it at the beginning of the first day, what would it look like if it went out prior to and the students know in regards to safety and predictability before they show up on that first day, Hey, this is what it’s going to look like? Could it be emailed? Could it be snail mailed? Could I make arrangements with each family to jump onto a some Zoom platform or virtual platform where I have that conversation with the family and the student and introduce myself, this is what you can expect from me, this is what I expect from you? And then also give that opportunity to hear from the students like, what are your likes? That would give them some voice and then I can build those things in to give them choice. 

Gail Angus:
Also, just like we had assignments where it’s not like, everybody has to do a book report and giving that example. But it could be, okay, I need to understand if they know this skill or this knowledge. But Debbie mentioned earlier she’s really good in poetry. If they made me write poetry, I’d be like going, Oh my gosh, save me. I’d rather do it in a different format, and Christian might like to do it in more like, well let me just talk about it and give a speech. But can I as a teacher understand, do they have the basic concepts and looking at that. That’s a choice thing. Before our little ones, it could be as simple as I need them to practice writing their name and giving them the choice of like, do you want to do it with shaving cream or do you want to practice writing it in sand or do you want to pick the red crown or the green crown? We always could give voice and choice no matter what age level it is. We just need to be creative in how we do that. 

Christian Moore:
Yeah. Can I add something there? It is right along what you were saying there, Dr. Angus, is generation Z, they’re spending literally eight to 12 hours a day engaged with media. So if I was a teacher right now dealing with this, I would hire every one of those students indirectly as media experts because this is their world. They operate eight to 12 hours in this world today. I’ve seen a couple of my children’s teachers do amazing things where they’ll say, “Hey, here’s the topic. Here’s the information.” Because they can access the information on their phones on any topic. And they say, “Here’s the information, I want you to coach as the teacher.” The best teachers I see doing this, getting the students to co-teach it with them. They’ll say, “Here’s an assignment. With you, I want you to use humor. I want you to make it visual. I want you to create a dance around it. I want you to do so.” You’re almost taken literally on. 

Christian Moore:
Not that I’ve ever seen TikTok, I’m just kidding. But on TikTok, there’s millions of examples on this. On TikTok, they’ll use hundreds of different ways to communicate a message. Kids are watching this all day long. So you can take a classroom lesson and instantly by giving those students choice and voice, what’s hard is years ago we tried to put, 20 years ago when we tried to put experiential learning in the classroom, it was almost impossible to get teachers. Sometimes you to do experiential learning because they lose control of the classroom for a few minutes. One thing we want to get permission is it’s okay to lose a little bit of control and bring in tons of interesting media and 10 different ways of looking at a subject matter. 

Christian Moore:
So I just want to encourage that demand. If I was a teacher, hire those students to partnership with you in creating material for the class. Again, I’ve seen teachers do this and it’s been incredibly empowered. Those kids, my kids, are like, “I can’t wait to do that class.” Because they literally feel like they’re co-teaching the class with the teacher. I know that’s easier for the kids probably eight years of age and older to do this. Eight and younger might be a little harder to do this and that’s what Dr. Angus was referring to. We got to make it fun for the younger kids, but pretty much eight years of age and older, very easy for them to do that. 

Jason Johnson:
I love that. One of my favorite things I like to do, I’m really passionate about music. My favorite exercise, and I did this pre COVID. But during the pandemic I think it’s even more valuable, is I’ll ask that my students to help me make a playlist for our group or for our class because they’re the media experts on what’s relevant. Within the world of WhyTry, relevance is a huge pillar within our curriculum. The content and the message, whatever you’re delivering has to be relevant and media is constantly changing from age group to age group. It’s a great way to bring in elements of relevance. So with my older kids, I’ll actually ask them to build playlists around topics that we’re discussing. So if we’re talking about an SEL skill from our curriculum, if we’re talking about decisions and consequences, I will have them bring me their songs and I have to be really open-minded to music that I may not love. But it’s a great way to understand youth culture as well. 

Jason Johnson:
Suddenly they have a collaborative piece in what we’re talking about. For the younger kiddos, that may not be quite as high in executive functioning, it may just be a list of songs that they love, that are really fun. Baby Shark was a popular one or whatever. But again, from a relevant standpoint, they now have a piece of the content that we’re discussing. Right now in virtual settings, you can play music as you come into whatever your message is going to be. And if that is built on a playlist that they created, we’ve now turned the virtual classroom into their own virtual classroom. That they have a voice in through music, that they have a choice in through selecting the pieces. Obviously appropriateness and content matters. But you can navigate that. That’s the world we have to navigate anyway. 

Christian Moore:
Yeah. And if you want an example that we, and I know that wasn’t Jason’s goal, but since I’m the owner of WhyTry, well, we have a whole multimedia curriculum. If you want to see how to do this, just go to whytry.org and we have a whole curriculum that does exactly what Jason is talking about there. Jason, do you want to share, should we share some, just show them real quick a couple of examples of how we do that online [crosstalk 00:52:09]?

Jason Johnson:
Yeah, yeah. I just put up a picture of the wall.

Christian Moore:
Maybe I’m not seeing, [inaudible 00:52:14] I got to go over to the next thing here. Is it up right now the wall? 

Jason Johnson:
Yeah, I got a picture of the wall up. 

Christian Moore:
Yeah, I see it. I see it. Just going back to the protective factors that we were just talking about a few minutes ago, one of the things I think is really important is that people see their options. When you’re standing next to that wall and all you see is failure, anger, fighting, who cares? [inaudible 00:52:37] you know the answer to the question, why try? You don’t see a lot of options there. And when you’re in that situation, it’s really easy to give up, shut down. But our goal is as they get some of the social emotional skills, then get on top of that wall and they can see opportunity, freedom, self-respect. That’s the answer to the question why try? We want them to be able to see that big picture view on top of that wall. Our goal is to give them the strategies where they visually see it, they hear it and use it and they physically experience it. And we do that with each lesson plan, like what we were just referring to a few minutes ago.

Christian Moore:
The next one here is, got the one on labels there. Yeah, on tearing off labels. This one here probably is one that we find the students request the most and it’s because when they walk around with labels, they’re carrying tons of emotional pain. You have lots of labels, there’s a lot label, a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. And we’ll partnership with them and helping them tear off their labels. That’s very motivational for them. This one will focus, the [inaudible 00:53:40] above this is that we’ll be able to focus on their strengths, what’s good about them, what they’ve accomplished, their goals, their dreams and then we talk to them about how to, especially what we refer to in our street resilience and our resilience work is people are going to disrespect you. People are going to attack you. People are going to put you down and you have to use that disrespect as a reason to prove people wrong, to not give up, to push through. That’s the goal of that one, is to help them tear off those labels that people put on them. 

Christian Moore:
Then the next one here is climbing out of the pot here. This is just having that positive peer group. If you put a bunch of live crabs in a pot, if you don’t put the lid on the pot, the crabs can’t get out because the other crabs are reaching out and pulling them down. And I’ll say, Hey, your friends are skipping school, or if you’re doing drugs, or fighting gang bang, all they’re doing is they’re pulling you down, they’re keeping you in the pot. 

Christian Moore:
Now, if you blink twice, I’m going to do a magic trick. It’s the first one I do a magic trick in a webinar here. But if you look at this picture and you blink twice, instead of the crabs pointing each other down into the pot, they can be pushing each other out of that pot. And we know that positive peer group is a huge protective factor. If you’re around people that you have positive connections and relationships with, it makes a huge, huge impact. And you can see written around the visual metaphor, are all the questions you can ask the student related to the crab. You’re warning, if you try to get out of this pot, you will be attacked. What are the reasons for staying in the pot? What would my future be like if I got out of the pot? 

Christian Moore:
Then each one of these visual pictures, again, the student visually sees it, they hear it in music, they listen to, and then we have lots of art activities, physical activities. I’ll say, draw me a picture of what life would be like if you stayed in this pot, draw me a picture of what life would be like if you got out of this pot. Write poetry about that, create music around that, create a skit around that. So we use as much of the arts as we possibly can to reinforce this and this can all be done online. Then the next picture here is, which we’ve been talking a lot about, is getting plugged in to support system. We know that students have got to get plugged into at least three of these support systems. If you don’t have three of these support systems here, they’re much more likely to drop out of school, disengage, not be motivated. They got to get plugged into a parent or caregiver, a positive friend, teacher, counselor, school official, a positive mentor, something that inspires or motivates them to do good. 

Christian Moore:
One of the things we really emphasize with this one is the ability to surrender the one up relationship. That’s where we let all students know they have value and worth whether they succeed or whether they fail. So our goal is to get plugged into at least two or three of these support systems. I think this is going to be so, so important as we’re working through COVID and dealing with this and being able to look at ways to do this online and we have whole, you’ll see we’ll have whole lesson plans on how to surrender this one up relationship online and get connected. And we talked about a few of those a few minutes ago. But again, each one of these visual pictures is reinforced with music, physical activities, video clips, all kinds of stuff, multimedia stuff that can all be done online to reinforce the visual metaphors. These are just one, we have many more visuals we can share with you and stuff. But yeah, the easiest way to access this is just at whytry.org, is the easiest way to access these visuals. [crosstalk 00:57:08].

Jason Johnson:
[crosstalk 00:57:08]. We’re coming up on time. This time always flies. So what I am interested in doing is I’m going to give you all the same question and you can respond to it. But I think a great place, and we hope this conversation continues obviously, but what I would be interested in hearing from all of you and I think it might be helpful to our attendees here, I’m going to ask you to look into your crystal ball a little bit and what should we be focusing on? What one or two things should we be focusing on coming into the upcoming school year? And then any message of hope that you have for educators? This has been a tough year and some districts are just wrapping up. Some have a couple more weeks. But what message of hope do you have to our educators and our counselors going into next year as part of this? Let’s go Dr. Angus, Dr. Sacks, and then we’ll finish with Christian. 

Gail Angus:
The first thing that comes to my mind is relationships. I think everything when we talked about protective factors, when we talk about the future, when we talk about resiliency, when we talk about thriving, it all comes down to relationships. If I don’t feel connected and belonging, that somebody cares about me, somebody is going to help me, I’m not going to want to move forward. And that’s going to give that sense of hope for the students. So what can we do to build that relationship? Then as an educator, I know that the more I was connected to my students, the more it made me want to be there. So even on those toughest days, it was like, okay, what could I do differently? So the more I connect with others, that gives me my own hope as well. 

Gail Angus:
I feel like we need to give permission to teachers, to administrators, to educators out there, to everybody that supports education, about what can we do first about building these relationships? Then we will have opportunities to work with students, to learn the alphabet, to learn geometry, to learn economics. All of that will land on this really strong foundation that’s there. So we really need to make those connections and make sure everybody feels belonging, cared for. Like Debbie said earlier, in our organization, we say often you have to Maslow before you Bloom. So any educator out there recognizes that statement. But if we’re not going to Maslow, we’re not going to build that safety and build those relationships and that connection and having all of those needs met first, it won’t matter. You can have the most spectacular lesson plans and nobody’s there to engage with it. 

Jason Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you. Dr Sacks. 

Debra Sacks:
Okay. So I want us to just remember what it’s like to be a kid and to think back as an elementary child, a high school child, even a college student, and that the connection to the environment and that you felt like you belonged before there’s the skill building. So I hope that we go back and start the new school year with a reminder about how it’s so significant that we develop relationships, that we create this safe environment and that we make sure students feel like they belong. Here’s the thing, statistically we’re hearing all kinds of stuff. Some kids may not show up, maybe only 40%, maybe only 50%. But for those who do show up, we can’t send everybody or refer everybody to tier two support into tier three. So we have to be intentional about making sure we protect and help these children in tier one, which means all students. 

Debra Sacks:
So starting with SEL, agreeing that we’re going to build our community before we expect to work on the academics. It’s a balance, I know it and I know kids come craving to learn that next skill, to be in that geometry class or that next course. But I think really creating that sense of belonging because that’s what we’re wired for from the beginning of time, we want to belong. My hope is just that we agree as schools and as districts and those members that we will work to build community with students first. The research is clear. 

Jason Johnson:
Love it. Thank you so much. Christian.

Christian Moore:
Man, I love what you were just saying there, Debbie, about students feeling like they belong. That’s so, so neat. So, so important. We have so many kids that just felt like this is a trout. All the schools across the country. Kids would just tell me, Hey, I don’t feel like part of the in group. One thing I hope that really comes out of COVID, and I’m already hearing them, you’re hearing this with adults, you’re hearing people all around the world talk about this. Nobody wants to go back to not celebrating the differences between us. Hewlett Packard has an incredible, incredible thing they do in their organization. I put this in my book where they celebrate, everybody has their own quirks, their own personality things. They have things that are different about them. 

Christian Moore:
It could be a disability, it could be maybe some mental health issues, maybe anxiety, depression. But to settle a break to see each other’s weaknesses and their mistakes as their strength, that’s a question I want everybody to ask themselves. Like you see teachers, I’ve talked to so many teachers who beat themselves up because they were like, Oh man, I wish I could have done this for the students. I could have done that for the students. But all any of us can do is maximize where we’re currently standing. And it’s so important that we give ourselves grace in our imperfections, that we forgive ourselves when we didn’t do everything perfectly. I just saw USA, they had a thing saying, “A big percentage of teachers maybe don’t want to come back because they were frustrated about different things.” I want to encourage teachers that we got to really, really never forget, man. You guys are the most resilient people on the planet. 

Christian Moore:
A whole industry just flipped on its head and administrators, educators, teachers showed an incredible amount of resilience. Students showed an incredible amount of resilience. So resilience, people always ask me, are you born with resilience or do you have it? And I think COVID has proven, we all are born with resilience. Resilience is within all of us. I think it’s so important that we… I guess a question that I know as a therapist going forward in my therapy practice, I’m going be asking people, when people start telling me their mistakes or what they’re most frustrated with themselves, the question I’m going to ask back is, how can that be converted into the most beautiful thing in your life? The biggest things that are eating you alive, they’re chewing you up. Those are the things you’re thinking about before you go to bed at night and you’re like, Oh, I wish I could have done this different. I could have done that different. This was wrong with me. Just natural as human beings, we do that. 

Christian Moore:
But the question is, how do we turn that into the most beautiful thing about ourselves? I think that’s what we have to be doing if we’re going to really change things coming out of COVID and getting rid of an in group and an out group. And that this world, that’s just how this world has been for a long, long time. I’m telling people all over the world, they’re tired of it. They want more inclusiveness. I’m hearing that everywhere, then you’re seeing in social media where people don’t see inclusiveness, they’re speaking out like never before. I’ve never seen people, I’ve been screaming about social justice and inclusiveness for the last 20 years. Sometimes I feel like I’m on a small island. I’m just some crazy social worker screaming about these issues. 

Christian Moore:
Now I’m hearing business leaders, last week I’ve talked to business leaders, political leaders and they’re like, “Man, we got create more equality, man. We’ve got to treat everybody the same.” I’m like, finally people are catching the vision of this. But education is the heartbeat. That’s where the center of this has got to come out of. We’re going to change this world. Every major change is through education. Education is the way out and we got to do that. I just want to end with, we have two free incredible things that are free for everybody out there and accessing parents is so, so important. Giving parents resources is huge right now. We have a free parenting guide on resilience. If you go to whytry.org, you can access our parenting guide. Then we also have a podcast called The Resilience Breakthrough Podcast, it’s free. 

Christian Moore:
We just interviewed judge Teskey, who’s incredible judge, does some of the most innovative work advocating for children across this country. Do not miss that podcast. We’ve had lots of people today say that podcast was really powerful for them. So just go to our website, the homepage, you’ll be able to see the podcast and the free parenting guide. Both of those things are free and are having a huge impact for people. So please, please access that podcast and the parenting guide. I just want to thank everybody for tuning in. I appreciate everybody out there. And these two, I wish I could talk to Debbie and Gail. And by the way, we are going to do a podcast together. The three of us could be on a podcast, Debbie, Gail, will be with me on a podcast here and in a week. So it should be out in about a week and a half, two weeks. There’ll be a podcast with them and we’re excited about that as well. But thank you everybody out there. 

Jason Johnson:
Yeah. Thank you so much. Hey, give our panelists a big virtual round of applause. As I look in my crystal ball, I’m going to do a thing. This is the school psych in me, I apologize. I think SEL is going to be so, so, so, so vital coming into the fall next year. Reach out and lean on your counselors and your school psychs and your peer educators that are behavior experts. They’re going to need to be your best friends coming into it. We’re going to have kids that haven’t been in a classroom for six months that are now coming into a classroom situation and SEL is going to be vital lobby to your districts. Make sure that SEL is being taken care of and make sure that your counselors and psychs and support staff are going to be taken care of because these kids are going to need them and you as educators can partner up with them and we’re going to do some great things. 

Jason Johnson:
I want to conclude by thanking all of our attendees. Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing. These kids are lucky to have you in their lives. And thanks for participating on this webinar. This was really fun. Thank you, Dr. Sacks. Thank you Dr. Angus. Thank you, Christian. You guys are the best. I’m going to put up a slide of resources and I’ll leave that up for a few minutes so you can see. It’ll have some contact information, there we go, as well as information on how you can access some of the resources. We’re going to put those seven points Christian mentioned together and email out. Then we did record this. So if you want to share this with some of your staff or administrators, we’ll get you emailed out.