Why We Need To Focus on Resilience and SEL Now

Christian Moore:
Today I’m really coming with a heavy heart today. I’m feeling a lot of anxiety, a lot of frustration inside a little bit with what’s going on. I think all of us are experiencing pain today, especially our African-American brothers and sisters are experiencing some intense pain. And I just want to acknowledge we are aware it is Blackout Tuesday and all the issues around that and challenges and importance of this advocacy work. I just want to say I’m very proud of all of you. And in the last couple days, I’ve been talking to different groups emphasizing a lot that education is what really combats racism and poverty. And all of you are heroes doing this education work. Its so, so important. And again, I don’t know if any of you have come across, and in my life where I’ve dedicated myself to being an educator and helping to change this world through education because, again, I really believe that’s the area that can really impact poverty the most and racism. 

Christian Moore:
Doctor Martin Luther King said, “The function of education …” and maybe this first prompt, and I’ll pull up my screen there, Jason, but Dr. Martin Luther King said, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education.” I love how he uses those words, “true education,” and I want to share kind of what true education means to me. The last 22 years, I’ve gotten to travel across this country. And I believe I was teaching true education because he talks about how important character is here and I’ve been able to teach social and emotional education and SEL and character education and how we treat one of the underlying things of social and emotional education is to understand our own emotions, behaviors and emotion and behaviors of other people. And how we treat our fellow men and women really, really shows a higher level of character, social and emotional education. And I think that’s definitely what he was meaning by true education. 

Christian Moore:
It must lead out with dignity and respect. I think true education puts dignity and respect for all human beings at the forefront. So I just want to acknowledge where we are today and some of the pain out there that is pretty intense right now at the beginning of this. And the work I’m doing, as I was driving in this morning, I was thinking about this speech I’m going to share today, is really rooted in my childhood and some situations I dealt with growing up that caused me to want to try to create healing in this world and make sure every child has access to social and emotional education and resources. We know, without resources, it’s hard to do a lot in this world, but I think COVID is something that’s shown all of us, when we don’t have resources or we lose some resources, what can happen to us. And I know I have personally felt that in the last few weeks. And with all the privileges I have, if I’m feeling that, many, many, too many people across this country are experiencing some tremendous hopelessness and pain.

Christian Moore:
When I was walking to school as a child, I always tell people that’s one of the things that really got me to be a social worker. I had many, many situations, just when I walk … This is about 15 minutes outside of Baltimore, walking to school, I saw so many things that had a huge, huge impact on my desire to become a social worker one day. And one of them was when my good friend, I walked past his house and saw something from a child’s perspective that I didn’t understand what was going on. And I wasn’t to share [inaudible 00:03:55] the video clip that shows this. And so I’ll take you into my childhood a little bit, then we’ll build from here. Let me pull this up right here. Play this here for everybody. 

Christian Moore:
If everybody can hear that, maybe put a thumbs up or something if you can hear that. If you can hear it, put a thumbs up. If you can’t hear it, maybe put a thumbs down. My audio’s not working. All right. Can we get that audio to work here? (Silence).

Christian Moore:
Sorry, we’ll make sure the audio is working here and then we’ll get this going here. 

Jason Johnson:
[inaudible 00:05:15] I’m not used to your computer audio. I could share it from mine.

Christian Moore:
All right. Can you do that? 

Jason Johnson:
I don’t have the file.

Christian Moore:
Right, right, right, right. Should we skip that? 

Jason Johnson:
Yeah, just skip it. You just have to tell it.

Christian Moore:
All right, all right. So just tell a story. Let me go back to … Hey, Jason, can you just give me back my presentation here, real quick here? [inaudible 00:05:36] should pull it up here. Did that do it? All right. Sorry about that technical difficulty. The audio file there, for some reason, is not playing it, so I’m going to tell the story. 

Christian Moore:
When I was a kid, I was walking to school and I see my friend, all of his furniture is in his front yard. And I’m in elementary school here and I’m trying to figure out, “What the heck?” I didn’t know if they were cleaning the floors or what was going on. Why would all the furniture be in his front yard? And I walked by and I quickly, once I saw his parents, him, his siblings and I saw the concern on their faces, the tear, the anger going on, I quickly realized they’d been kicked out of their house. They’d been evicted. And I remember just trying to help him. He was going through his baseball cards and his football cards and he was trying to find his Joe Theismann football card. And I just remember helping him find that card and just trying to process what I was taking in.

Christian Moore:
And in that moment, I remember, the first time in my life, I really understood … Sorry, talking about it today, how hard it is to have dignity sometimes when you’re dealing with the pain of true poverty. And it’s a very difficult, difficult situation to work through and to deal with. And just the pain in that moment had a huge, huge impact on my life. And the rest of my life, I knew that I wanted to work in the area of trying to give people opportunity. Our organization is called the WhyTry Organization. We believe the answer to the question, why try? is if you try in life, you’ll get three things. You’ll get more opportunity in life, you’ll get more freedom, you’ll get more self-respect, but we have to have opportunities to do that. And that was a moment in my life that was life changing for me. 

Christian Moore:
I want to kind of take you a little back on my own personal journey a little bit and then I’m going to give an overview of kind of how WhyTry started and then were the resilience work was born as it relates to that. So going back to my own story, when I work with children, I always do a quick assessment on their three main environments of home, school, and peers because until I really understand what they’re dealing with in those three environments, it’s hard to intervene. So I want to share with you, first, what I experienced in my home environment. 

Christian Moore:
Again, I grew up always outside of Baltimore. My mom got married really, really young, had me and an older sister. My mom got a divorce. She met a man who had six kids and he had gone through a divorce and they had four more kids together, a total of 12 kids; five brothers, six sisters. My mom was just a little bit overwhelmed with these 12 kids. My mom had social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder. At times, my mom had a fear of leaving the house. My mom had a heart of gold, but was pretty overwhelmed with these 12 kids. My dad was a GS-16 codebreaker at the National Security Agency, but had autism, was totally autistic. And again, he did the best he could, but between my dad’s autism, my mom’s social phobia, as a child, I was diagnosed with ADHD, conduct disorder, severe learning disabilities. I grew up in a home with very few rules, grew up as a street kid. I could stay out until two, three o’clock in the morning on a school night. 

Christian Moore:
So my older peers, when you were young and you could stay out late, you’d run around with the older kids. The older kids quickly introduced me to the urban pharmaceutical industry. They would put all the drugs on me because I was a cute little white kid with curly hair and dimples. Oftentimes, when the police would roll up on us, they taught me to be the diversion. They’re like, “Christian, if the police come towards us, you run towards them,” and these older kids knew I wasn’t likely to be checked. And so at a very, very early age, I became highly, highly aware of social injustice issues in the United States. It’s definitely went and inspired me to become a social worker and do some of the work I’m doing around the world.

Christian Moore:
Well, one night, I was out late a night and a car pulls up and the windows on the car slowly, slowly, rolled down. And in the neighborhood I grew up in, when that happens, you take off to run. And I took off to run and I heard a voice. And the voice I heard was the voice of this woman right here who I endearingly call Mama Jackson. Let me pull up her picture here for you. So see if you could figure out who I am in the picture there. It’s when I started putting Dippity Do in my hair, I could get the curl out of my hair. That’s my buddy, Sean. I’d go and hang out with Sean until five, six o’clock at night. There, on your right, is Sean.

Christian Moore:
And Mama Jackson knew what all good moms know. Who your children hang out with is going to have a tremendous impact on their future. So she made sure Sean came in the house pretty early. And she knew what I was out there doing and she’s like, “Look, Christian. Don’t you ever set foot on our property again. I’m going to make sure you’re not in any of Sean’s classes,” and I remember thinking to myself, “Dang, I know I’m bad, but I’m not that bad. I can never go to school with him ever again?” And luckily, Sean started explaining to his mom the reality of my home life. He’s like, “Look, mom. I go over to Christian’s house, they hardly have any pictures in their house. There’s a lot of yelling, fighting, hitting. There’s not a lot of food to eat in his house sometimes,” and he kind of explains a little bit what my home life is like. 

Christian Moore:
And a couple days later, I’m walking to school and Mama Jackson comes flying out of her house in this blue bathrobe. And she’s like, “I’ll tell you what. If you’ll start going to school every day, I want to see report cards. If you start answering to me, you can come eat in our house any time you want.” Now, Mama Jackson’s a seriously, seriously good cook. That’s why I’m in top physical condition right now, but it was pretty much an informal foster care situation. She took over and started raising me. Well, long, long story short, I wish I had time to tell you the whole story, but the Reader’s Digest version, she gave me the tools to graduate from college with a sixth grade math level, a seventh grade reading and writing level. I know maybe the educators out there know the statistics of that are pretty small. Kids with learning disabilities, a very small percentage are able to get a master’s degree, to go to school. 

Christian Moore:
So I was very, very blessed to have Mama Jackson come into my life. I wish she was here right now and we could get her voice out there. We’re looking at getting her on our podcast soon and we’re going to do some different things to get Mama Jackson’s voice out there, especially with what’s going on in the world right now, and we need to get her voice out there. Mama Jackson, about two years ago, received the National Rosa Parks Award. I don’t know if I have … See if that picture … Yep, there it is. This gentleman right here, his name is Dr. Virgil Wood, on the left of Dr. Martin Luther King there with kind of the glasses there. He read my book, The Resilience Breakthrough, learned what we were doing and Dr. Virgil Wood was like, “Look, Christian, you never would’ve had the opportunity to do this work, to impact millions of children, without Mama Jackson in your life,” which he was 100% right about. 

Christian Moore:
And to honor her about two years ago in Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Wood there awarded her one of the National Rosa Parks Awards. So that was one of the highlights of all three of our lives. It was an incredible, incredible moment. And so to say I was blessed to have Mama Jackson come into my life is an understatement and I definitely have a debt to pay because of all she did for me and all the doors she opened up. And it’s been an honor to help carry her voice out to millions of youth and families across this country and to pass on what she did to me to help me to so many, so many people. So that’s the great Mama Jackson and the great Dr. Virgil Wood. Dr. Wood helped plan the March on Washington with Dr. King. He represented the State of Virginia in that march and he’s become an incredible mentor and hero of mine, as well. 

Christian Moore:
So long story short, professor comes [inaudible 00:13:52] in college. I graduate from high school about 19 and a half, almost 20 years old. And I apply to a local community college. I get accepted. And I wish I had time to tell you the whole story, but basically through some professors advocating for me and, literally, some miracles, I find myself getting the opportunity to go to graduate school and a professor says, “Look, Christian …” you pretty much are saying you’re the dumbest person to make it this far in our university, but he said, “Look, if you can tell us, just write down on a piece of paper, how did you make it this far in your school with your background, what you overcame in your life?” 

Christian Moore:
And I wrote down a couple principles on a piece of paper here. Actually, let me see if I can pull this up here. It may go back out over here. Sorry about that. So I wrote down some principles. And of course, these principles now are visual and I want to share some of these principles with you. I wrote down I had to stop crashing. I had to realize my decisions had consequences. When I was 28 years old, at that time, I had made over $6 an hour, but I just started to, 28 years old, I think I got a job I’ll never forget. It was $7.25 an hour or something. I thought I’d hit the lottery. And a lot of kids with learning disabilities, the average income for kids with my background, is $12 thousand a year. And that’s why earlier, when I was talking about education being the way out of poverty, I’ve personally, personally experienced that and that’s why I’m so passionate about it. 

Christian Moore:
But again, most of my life, I really didn’t understand that behavior, A plus behavior B equaled consequence C. I had to realize that my decisions had consequences. And the goal here is to get on that track, that red track to opportunity, freedom, self-respect. The loop kind of represents the problems that you keep doing over and over again. And when I was a kid growing up, when my head hit the pillow at night, I knew I was in that loop because I felt frustrated, confused, angry, scared. I felt like giving up all the time. And so to get on that other track to opportunity, freedom, self-respect, I had to tear off my labels. 

Christian Moore:
I had many of these labels right here growing up; failure, druggie, learning disabled, dumb, lazy, rebellious, attitude problem, gang member, ungovernable, juvenile delinquent, troublemaker. You can see, I mean, right now in America, there’s no shortage of putting labels on each other. One way we can dehumanize people and not advocate for people or open up door for people is if we can put those labels on people. And we’ve got to really fight putting labels on people. I know that’s something I struggle with, we all struggle with, but we’ve got to help tear off these labels. And we started realizing, when we could show children how to tear off those labels, their motivation went up tremendously. 

Christian Moore:
And we even showed children how they can take the labels or the disrespect that other people give them and they can create resilience out of that. We teach something called street resilience, which I’ll share with you in a few minutes. But to walk around with a label, it definitely is a motivation killer, but we can learn how to take disrespect, how to take hate and rise above it and do some powerful things. And we’re seeing incredible examples when that happens. I mean, right now, turn on the news and you’ll see powerful, powerful examples of people screaming to tear off those labels. And our identity, when people attack our identity, that’s when that fight kicks in, is to be attacked in a way that disrespects us. It’s a natural human behavior to want to fight back and to get those labels off and have people see you for who you are and be able to hold that dignity is so, so important. 

Christian Moore:
So that’s kind of the goal of this one here. And every question that the teacher or the counselor talks to the child about, the student about, is written around the visual metaphor. And the reason why all these metaphors are visual is a school psychologist showed me that most of the children I work with are visual learners. And I thought, “Well, why don’t we take the most evidence-based mental health practice dealing with behavioral issues? Why don’t we take brief solution focus therapy, reality therapy, strength-based counseling, and deliver that in a visual delivery system so that child visually sees it, they hear it in music, and then they physically do it?” And I’ll give you an example of those in just one moment, but let me just flash these pictures here. 

Christian Moore:
This next picture here is … I had to learn how to control my defense mechanisms. We all know a defense mechanism is a bulletproof vest for our feelings. It’s what we do to protect ourselves in a pressure or a difficult situation and we feel like we’re being attacked or disrespected. So when I was in school, the teacher would say, “Christian, turn to page 130 and read out loud.” I didn’t know how to read. I didn’t want to lose my dignity of all the kids laughing at me because I don’t know how to read, so I’d say F you to the teacher or punch the kid next to me because I’d much rather be sent to the principal’s office for acting out behaviorally than having 30 kids fall out of their chair laughing at me because I don’t know how to read.

Christian Moore:
Now, I realize, why was that? It’s because I didn’t understand my own emotions, let alone another human being’s emotions. And it’s a powerful, powerful way to, when we understand our defense mechanisms and why we do what we do and why other people do what they do, that puts us in a position to really intervene and try to create some change in this world. And it’s powerful. A lot of classroom teachers see huge, huge changes in their classroom and every student in the classroom understands their own behaviors and the behaviors of others. Teachers can spend far more time teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

Christian Moore:
The next picture here is what we call the motivation formula. The storms of like, at the top of that, you see this dam. At the top of the dam there, you can see the word challenges and this storm is coming through. And the storm represents the pain, the opposition. And the ability to take that pain, that opposition, and channel it through these dams can create opportunity. Most of the problems of my life, most of the challenges I’ve dealt with, they’ve never disappeared. They don’t go away. It’s just, every day, finding ways to try to create productive outcomes with that pain, with that hurt. And that’s kind of the goal of this picture right here, is to get people to be able to focus their self-talk on what they have control over and to be able to tap into character and heart. Oftentimes, it’s going to be a relationship that’s going to motivate us to do the harder thing, to go through the motions, to push through. 

Christian Moore:
For me, it’s out of love for my children. It’s them needing me and me needing them that I’m able to tap into that character and heart. Having a passion, purpose, or interest. Making sure that all children have access to evidence-based social and emotional education. That’s a passion, purpose, or interest there on that third dam. And then that last dam is getting plugged into a support system, getting plugged into connections where we know we’re all social creatures. We need that human connection. And so water can flood and do damage or water can be channeled through dams and create electricity. Our problems are going to be either the worst thing to ever happen to us or they could be channeled into a resource. And children that have the understanding on how to do that have a huge advantage in life to thrive. 

Christian Moore:
This next picture is a tribute to my home State of Maryland. They call this the crab effect in sociology, but if you put a bunch of live crabs in a pot, if you don’t put a lid on the pot, why can’t the crabs get out of the pot? And the kids will look at this picture and say, “Well, duh, Mr. Moore. The other crabs are reaching up and pulling them down.” So I’ll say, “Hey, your friends you’re skipping school with, you’re doing drugs with, fighting with, all they’re doing is they’re pulling you down and keeping you in the pot.” Misery loves company. If I’m hurting, I want other people to hurt. That’s just something kind of natural in human behavior. 

Christian Moore:
And I’ll tell the kids a little magic trick with this picture. I’ll say, “If you blink your eyes twice, instead of these crabs pulling each other into the pot, the crabs can be helping each other out of the pot they can be pulling each other out of the pot.” We know positive connection, positive peer pressure, positive supports are one of the most powerful, powerful things in the world to create change. But when you’re being pulled down into that pot, it’s very easy to lash out, when you’re feeling disrespected, to lash out with anger, frustration when you’re being pulled into that pot.

Christian Moore:
And this lesson here creates some unbelievable discussions with students on what are the things in their environment that they don’t have control over that are holding them back. It can be economic issues, it could be the challenges in their neighborhood, in their community. And we talk about, hey, what are things we can do to help each other get out of this pot? Because we’re all interdependent on each other. What are the reasons for staying in this pot is one of the questions. If I’m in a gang, that gang provides me protection, money, prestige. It gives me dignity from where I’m standing. It gives me opportunities from where I’m standing. And so there’s a payoff sometimes when you’re seeing people make bad decisions. It’s not to be malicious about it. They’re in a situation where they see a payoff in the difficulty that they’re in or that they have no other options. 

Christian Moore:
What will my future be like when I get out of this pot? What are the tools I can use to get out? And then warning, if you try to get out of this pot, you will be attacked. And I know the more good I try to do in this world, the more hope I try to share, there’s still people that are going to be out there attacking. I mean, that’s just the human condition. Try to create change in this world, you will be attacked. And I tell some of my friends, I start to say, “Hey, if you’re not being attacked, you’re not speaking out loud enough. If you’re not being attacked, you’re not creating the change in this world that this world needs.” And so sometimes the bravery that it takes to climb out of this pot is no joke and it starts with being willing to be responsible for each other and say, “Hey, we’re going to work together as a team, man.” When all boats rise, when the water rises for everybody, all the boats rise up. And I think that’s a powerful, powerful thing that this metaphor can also teach and emphasize. 

Christian Moore:
Again, with each one of these metaphors, we want them to visually see it, hear it, and use it, and physically do it. And then we have a lot of art activities. Some art activities you can do with this one is, this one is my favorite, you can 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. Create a collage about that. Write poetry about that. Create a song about it.” We have lots and lots of activities that we use to reinforce this. It could be create a media clip about this. So just letting students use media. We know this current generation spends eight to 12 hours a day engaged with media. Having to be able to use media to reinforce this is very powerful. 

Christian Moore:
This is a simple problem solving model. We write in whatever problem they’re dealing with and then we have some of the steps to work through to get over this hurdle. And one of my favorite quotes is, “You only lose if you give up.” To mess up, to make mistakes, to trip on these hurdles is human, but you only use if you give up. If you learn from your mistakes, you get back up. That’s what matters. And then we just walk them through these steps. They have to identify the problem, create options, get help, take action, believe change is possible. That’s a huge one, number five there, believe in change. On a scale from one to 10, circle where you are in believing that change will happen.

Christian Moore:
And this is one of the most fascinating things when I do these lessons. If I’m in a room with 15, 20 kids and they don’t believe change is possible, their desire to focus on academics, to put effort into life is really, really low. There’s a huge need for human beings to believe that things can change, that things in our world, in society, that things will not stay stuck, that there can be progress, there can be growth, there can be change. And when people have change, when they see change is possible and things can improve, there’s tremendous opportunity. They’ll put tremendous effort in. They’ll put tremendous hope in. If they don’t see change, it’s really easy to shut down, to give up, and that’s so important that they’re able to see change is possible.

Christian Moore:
And then number six is jump back up. And then the next one here, this is kind of interesting, this is a maze. I spent most of my time at school drawing mazes. You see these kids doodling all over. I was drawing mazes on my desk. I was drawing mazes for other kids during class just because I was struggling so much, academically. And it takes these kids about 20 minutes to get through this maze. As the students go through the maze, I’ll explain to them, to get through this maze, you have to have the desire to do it. You’ve got to put the time in. You’ve got to put the effort in. It’s hard work, you know. 

Christian Moore:
Often, I ask students when I speak in school assemblies, I’m speaking to thousands of kids, I’ll say, “What will take you further in life, hard work or being smart?” And you see all the kids yell, “Being smart, being smart will take me further in America than hard work.” And I’ll often say to them, “No, it’s hard work.” I tell them, “You guys are academically smart. You’re plenty smart. Someone like me who really struggles academically, for me to make it in this world, I had to really, really apply hard work.” And so hard work will take you much further than just academic smarts, but many of these kids are socialized the opposite of this almost their entire lives. 

Christian Moore:
And so we want them to understand that that X factor is really their hard work, so they have to apply desire, time, and effort. And then when you apply desire, time, and effort, you experience the accomplishment zone. When they get to the end of the word effort there, the T there, I’ll snag the maze from them. They’re like, “Come on, Mr. Moore. Give me my maze back. I’ve been working on this maze for 20 minutes.” And I’ll say, “Why do you want to finish this maze so bad?” They’re like, “Well, I’ve been working on it.” And I’ll say, “What you’re experiencing right now is the accomplishment zone. That’s the same feeling you’ll experience after you get your high school diploma. That’s the same feeling you’ll see when a team wins the NBA championship or they win the World Series in baseball. They’re going crazy. They’re hugging each other. It’s because, to win the World Series, they have to have the desire to do it. They have to put the time in. They have to put the effort in to experience that accomplishment zone.”

Christian Moore:
And then they have to lift society’s laws and rules. And this is interesting when someone, as child … again, I was diagnosed with contact disorder. Sometimes it’s very hard for me to follow structure and rules. I’m mad. There’s no one who hates rules more than me, but the reality is there’s some rules I have to follow. Otherwise, man, I can’t even deal in this world or deal in this society. And I’ll put down at the top there, we’ll have the kids fill up all the laws and rules that they hate and then I’ll put all those rules down and we’ll put all the things that they don’t like as far as rules. 

Christian Moore:
And I’ll say, “Do you notice anything strange about this weightlifter?” And they’ll say, “Well, he’s kind of buff on one side. He’s weak on the other side. And I’ll say, “Hey, have you ever lifted weights before?” They’re like, “Yeah.” I’ll say, “While you’re pushing up on the weights, what’s the weight doing?” They’re like, “Well, the weight’s going up.” I’ll say, “As the weight’s going up, it’s also coming back down and you’re pushing against it. It tears the cells, it tears the fibers and the muscle and those muscles rebuild and get stronger and stronger.” And I’ll say, “The laws and rules are the weight that you’re lifting over there. The balloon represents skipping school, using drugs, giving up, shutting down. There’s no resistance from that balloon. You have to lift that weight to become stronger.” And it’s just kind of a true principle.

Christian Moore:
And these kids afterwards will say, “Man, the reason why I’m failing all my classes, the reason why I got locked up, the reason why I’m in this situation is I’m not lifting that weight. I’m not lifting that resistance.” To verbally try to explain the importance of that is very, very difficult, but when it’s in a metaphor, it’s really powerful for them to understand that, “Man, the reality is I have to lift that resistance to become stronger.” 

Christian Moore:
Now, remember, on each one of these, we could spend two hours. You’re getting the reader’s Reader’s Digest version here. They’ve got to get plugged into a support system. Often, we work with youth that have one or less of these support systems; a parent or a caregiver, positive friend, teacher/counselor, school official, positive mentor, something that inspires and motivates them to do good. We want to plug into at least three of those support systems and we know they’re much, much more likely to thrive again. Human beings, we need connectedness. That’s the lifeblood of being human, is connection with other human beings. 

Christian Moore:
And then the last pictures kind of sums it up. Often, when they first work with me, students, they’re standing here right next to this wall. They’re maybe dealing with failure, drugs, anger. Who cares? Just di family, academic problems. And they have a hard time answering that question, why try? But our goal is, as they learn how to stop crashing, tear off their labels, learn how to control their defense mechanisms and so on, they can get on top of this wall right here and see opportunity, freedom, self-respect. And the greatest thing in the world is to see that switch, that light bulb that comes on when these kids have those tools to deal with the difficulty at home, at school, in their neighborhood, and they have some of those tools to really work through a lot of those challenges. 

Christian Moore:
And again, we reinforce these visual metaphors with music, physical activities. I’ll give you an example. Here’s a song that goes with tearing off labels. Oh, it’s not going to play the audio, is it? All right. Well, I’m just going to sing it for you live. No, no. You’re fine. 

Jason Johnson:
[inaudible 00:31:52] videos I can share from my computer. 

Christian Moore:
All right. 

Jason Johnson:
[inaudible 00:31:54]

Christian Moore:
You don’t have any of the music video ones? You couldn’t share? Yeah, I don’t think we … Jason might be able to share. We’re going to see if he can share. You don’t have the labels song or anything on there that you can share? Yeah. So our goal here is, again, so the student visually sees it, they hear it in music, they listen to it. Now, sometimes they like our music, sometimes they don’t like our music. If they don’t like our music, I’ll have them bring in their own music, as long as it reinforces the visual metaphor. And then we have questions that tie into the music. We have music videos and then we have lots of body kinsthetic physical activities to reinforce them. 

Christian Moore:
So for example, the one with the cans there that I was sharing with you … I’ll pull it up right here. One of the physical activities with this one is we’ll take a can of, I would say, lima beans because we can throw them away and we’ll cut the bottom of the lid of the can off and then, with kind of a clean-edge can opener, we’ll fill up the inside of the can with Starbursts and then we’ll Krazy Glue the lid back on the can. We’ll put a blank label on the whole can. Then one side of the can, we’ll have the students put all their strengths and then we’ll have them put their negative labels. 

Christian Moore:
And then we’ll have them literally rip off their negative labels and it’s powerful. They’ll rip them into a thousand pieces, stomp them into the floor. And then we’ll hand them a can opener and say, “Be really careful jumping on this can. There’s tomato paste in here. Don’t spill it on the floor.” They’ll open up the can really carefully and then, on the inside of the can, is the Starbursts. And we’ll say, “The Starbursts represent the real you. Our outward actions and behaviors put these labels on us, but this isn’t the real you.” So they physically experience something, they visually see it, and then they hear it in music. And we follow that formula with all 10 visual metaphors. 

Christian Moore:
And I know, on Thursday, they’re going to be going through these lesson plans a little bit more in depth on Thursday, but I want to kind of transition. Can we not pull up any of the music on that? Okay. So what I’m going to do now is … I spent the last 22 years, basically, teaching these specific social and emotional skills. And we would look at students’ GPA and test scores before they go through these skills and their GPA and test scores after they go through these skills. And we saw some tremendous success. We succeeded with a lot of these students, but there’s also a group of students that we notice we could teach social and emotional education, we could teach these skills all day long, and we didn’t see a ton of change. And we’re like, “All right. Where’s the inner motivation come from to tear off these labels, to stop crashing on that roller coaster ride, to get out of that loop, to be able to control your defense mechanisms?”

Christian Moore:
And when I was in college and a lot of my professors and therapists I would talk to over the years about, they would say things to me like, “You can’t just hand someone inner motivation to push through opposition or to push through a challenge.” They would basically say to me, “All you can do is teach children life skills. The inner motivation has to come from within.” And over the years, I was kind of frustrated and I thought, “Man, if we could figure out …” and I saw all the research that the impact that resiliency has on a child and on a family’s life. I thought, “Man, if resiliency is one of the biggest X factors that enables a family, a child to thrive, why are we not spending more time teaching them how to thrive in the reality of the environment they’re in?” 

Christian Moore:
For example, no teacher, counselor, social worker could get rid of my parents’ mental illness, my learning disabilities, the neighborhood I grew up in, the challenges I had, again, in the neighborhood, at school. And I was really lucky. I remember Mama Jackson sitting out in front of my elementary school sometimes. She had some warm food on a plate and she said, “Look, Christian. I can’t get rid of these challenges around you. I love you so much. I wish there was ways I could get rid of your problems in schools, your academic problems, your problems at home, but listen, Christian. You have to use these problems as a reason to turn in your homework.” And she started showing me how to be resilient in the reality of what I was dealing with, but I didn’t have a way to communicate that for many, many years. 

Christian Moore:
And then I was doing work from Baltimore to Detroit, all across this country, LA, and I kept noticing I kept meeting with many, many students who had many, many more challenges than I had growing up and major opposition. And I noticed these kids, the same things kept coming up over and over. I would ask these kids, “okay, you had every reason to drop out of school, to turn to the streets, to turn to violence, to give up. Why are you not doing that? Why did you decide to do what you’re doing?” And they kept talking about similar things over, and over, and over again, so I kind of started paying attention to that. And then I start really asking myself, “What if we could figure out where resilience comes from within?” I had read lots of books on resilience. They would tell me the attributes of resilience; hard work, determination, perseverance. But I wanted to know, where does resilience come from, internally? 

Christian Moore:
And let me pull this up right here. And again, I kept seeing, where resilience comes from internally, I kept seeing kind of four things pop up; something called relational resilience, street resilience, resource resilience, and rock bottom resilience. And then I wrote a book on these four sources of resilience and how to access these four sources of resilience. When we went to get the book published, I told the publisher I want to name the book Resilience: The Second Greatest Principle in the World. And they pointed out to me that no one really cares what the second greatest principle in the world is. Everybody wants to know what the greatest principle in the world … 

Christian Moore:
It’s been funny. I’ve been out speaking across the country the last couple years. It’s always fun to ask people what do they think the greatest principle in the world is and it’s been interesting to me. Believe it or not, in all 50 states, literally in front of hundreds of thousands of people, I’ve heard the same answer. The greatest thing pretty much anybody learns in their lifetime is love. Now, The Beatles got it right when they said, “All we need is love.” There may have been a teachers before the Beatles, I am highly aware, but that love is so, so powerful.

Christian Moore:
In the world of resilience, we realize that it’s so important that people are exposed to unconditional love. A human being is much, much more likely to bounce back in unconditional environment. We have conditional love where I’ll love you if dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. I’ll love you if you have my world view, you jump through my hoops, you have the interests I have, you have the perspectives I have, but we’ve really got to create a world, especially if we create a more resilient world, we have to let people know they have value and worth in the reality of where they’re standing. And that’s one of the things that’s so important with love. So I believe, if I was going to die tomorrow, if someone said to me, “What’s the last advice you’d give your two boys, Cooper and Carson?” I would tell my kids that the most powerful thing I ever learned is love and particularly unconditional love. And again, human beings are much, much more likely to bounce back in an unconditional environment. 

Christian Moore:
And then, I mean, I would tell them the second most powerful thing I’ve ever learned is the ability to bounce back, the ability to be resilient. In the book, we define resilience as the ability to bounce back … Sorry. Here, let me go back up here one more time here. All right. Hold on. So the ability to bounce back when you have every reason to give up, but you continue to put one foot in front of another. So the ability to bounce back, meaning you have every reason to shut down, but you fight on. 

Christian Moore:
Resilient people have both tapped and untapped reserves, enabling them to overcome and thrive as they face setbacks, challenges, and fears of daily life. Those untapped reserves are so, so important. I had two skills growing up. I could talk nonstop. I could draw really good. I got busted several times for doing graffiti, especially graffiti on water towers. And so it’s interesting. Today I make a living through combining art and mental health and nonstop talking. When I was a kid, they sent me to the principal’s office every minute for nonstop talking, but again, today I’m able to make a living through that. 

Christian Moore:
All right. And then I’m going to actually, here, because of time … Here, let me skip forward a little bit to … I’m going to share something with you that I call the battery. So in our model for resilience, the first thing I teach people is … people always ask me when I’m traveling and stuff, they’ll say, “What’s the number one … Chris, we don’t have a lot of time. What’s the most important ingredient a person has to have to be resilient?” And my answer always surprises them. I always say to them, “The number one thing that a person has to have to be resilient … Resilience is the ability to bounce back. You have to have something to bounce back from. You have to have suffering.” 

Christian Moore:
And all know, between everything going on in this world right now, COVID, demonstration, George Floyd being killed, with everything that is going on in this world, there is no shortage of suffering. And so the first thing a person has to have to be resilient, we have the have the suffering. And then the second thing we have to do is be able to flip the switch. We have to be able to ask ourselves, “How can I use that suffering as a reason to put one foot in front of another? How can I use that suffering as a fuel source?” And so, for me, this morning when I got out of bed, seeing all the suffering in this world, seeing the news, seeing the anger, I’m either going to get more angry with that, which I am getting, to be honest, but I have to use that anger in ways that build people, to help people, to help create healing in this world and open up doors for more people so we have less of this.

Christian Moore:
And so we have to have a challenge. Then we have to be able to flip the switch by asking ourselves, “How do I use this challenge as a fuel source?” And then the third thing we have to be able to do … because the minute we have suffering and we have opposition, we’re going to have negative emotions. And one thing that we’re doing is we’re teaching children as young as third grade, the minute they feel sad, angry, or nervous … Nothing is wrong with them. Human beings, to have a negative emotion is as normal as drinking a glass of water. It’s just as normal as breathing in oxygen. And so how we teach is I use the metaphor of a battery. I’ll say, “Look, you charge a battery. Was it just a positive connection?” They’ll say no. I’ll say, “Can you charge a battery with just a negative connection?” They’ll say no. What enables the battery to charge is the combination between the positive and the negative. 

Christian Moore:
For example, just hearing my story here this morning, you probably picked up on, if me being in this room right now is dependent upon happiness, peace, motivation, optimism, love, trust, and acceptance, I didn’t have a lot of that growing up. It wasn’t until Mama Jackson came into my life that I truly understood love, I truly understood acceptance. I’m in this room right now, I have the opportunities to do what I do because I had incredible help, people showing me what to do with my guilt, my shame, my regret, my depression, my anxiety, my frustration. It’s the ability to tap into both of these human states, these positive, negative emotions. 

Christian Moore:
Now, psychology realizes … they’re trying to put an emphasis that we don’t get so caught up with an emotion as positive or negative. It’s just a human condition. We experience, every day, it’s over around 40 thousand different emotions during the day. And some of those emotions are going to give us peace, some of those motions are going to be really, really difficult emotions to cope with and deal with. But we’re realizing today, in 2020, that all emotion is energy and people have a huge resilience advantage if they can tap into both positive and negative emotions.

Christian Moore:
I mean, think about it. If you have to wait for positive emotions to show up before you put one foot in front of another, before you push through a barrier, you push through opposition, man, that could be a long wait, especially for someone like me who has spent most of my life experiencing sadness, depression, anxiety, fear. I would never have been able to thrive on this planet, anyway, if someone didn’t show me how to create productive outcomes with my negative emotions and to be able to maximize the positive emotions, as well. Both of those things are so, so important.

Christian Moore:
On my tombstone, I always tell people my tombstone, I want a quote that says, “There’s no law in the universe that says you cannot take a negative motion and create a productive outcome with it.” And it’s so empowering when you see children and families that have felt like something’s wrong with them or they deal with tremendous guilt and shame and anxiety because they’re like, “Oh, I’m not behaving exactly how people want me to behave. I’m dealing with these intense emotions,” and then when we normalize them and we say, “Hey, it’s just part of being human.” It’s interesting. It’s actually what makes you human. If you’re around someone that’s happy all the time, that life is going perfect and they show no vulnerability … to show real emotion is to be vulnerable. And I know there’s times in my life I’d been around people and you can’t get close to them because there’s no vulnerability. They’re just showing that everything’s perfect. They have no problems in their lives. And so you don’t see the humanity in them. 

Christian Moore:
Our humanity actually comes out in our mistakes, in what we do that’s wrong, in not being perfect, in feeling sad, hurt, depressed, angry. That’s the human condition. And people who have the ability to take that human condition and create productive outcomes with it, again, that’s a very high level of social and emotional education, but it’s something that can be taught. What we’re so excited about is you don’t have to be born with this. It’s easier for us to teach this concept to a third grader that nothing is wrong with them if they have negative emotions than it is for us to teach it to most adults. So it’s very empowering when these kids go, “Wow, I feel sad right now, I feel lonely, I feel hurt, but I’m going to create a productive outcome with these emotions.” 

Christian Moore:
And again, that’s one of the places I really believe where humanity is born. It’s what makes us human. We would be a robot, we would be a machine if we only had positive emotions all the time. The birthplace of humanity is in our flaws and I think that’s … right now, what’s going on in this world is so important that we understand that and that we’re able to forgive one another and give people second chances and third chances to bounce back and to make things … 

Christian Moore:
So what I’ll probably do here, I’m going to go for probably about five more minutes and then we’ll open up a few questions here, but I just want to give you the big picture here of the four sources. So going back to the model. The first thing you have to have is you have to have suffering. The second thing you have to do is flip the switch, ask yourself, “How can I use this suffering as a resource, as my best friend?” And then, of course, if you have suffering, you’re going to have negative emotions. It’s the ability to create a productive outcome with those negative emotions. Now, to tell someone to create a productive outcome with those negative emotions would be really setting them up for a lot of frustration, for failure, if we don’t give them the specific inner motivation.

Christian Moore:
And we know motivation comes from action. When action goes into place, when we start doing something, then motivation kicks in. Then that resilience kicks in. So that action that we want people to take to really get that motivation to kick in that resilience is … the first thing we want them to tap into is something called relational resilience. There’s a picture of my two boys, Cooper and Carson. If I never, ever got invited to speak again, I would do whatever I had to do to support these kids. I’d go work four different jobs. I would do what I had to do because they need me and I need them. That’s one of the first places that resilience is born from within. 

Christian Moore:
Your greatest motivation to not give up is the knowledge that others need you and you need them, that interdependency. I’ve had the opportunity to work in many prisons and I’ll say to them, “Write down how many people need you and you need them.” And most inmates will write down one or less, very few people. When we ask educators that question, it’s not hard for them to write down five people, eight people, 10 people. And I really believe, as I’ve studied people who are really thriving, is they have these support systems. These support systems are huge to help us be able to push through and not give up. And the more people that need you and you need them and you have that interdependence, we know motivation and that internal desire to be resilient has increased.

Christian Moore:
The next place that resilience comes from is something called street resilience. And that’s when you have every reason to shut down. You’re dealing with disrespect, you’re dealing with … Pull it up here. You take the pain of disrespect, social inequality and mistakes and use it as fuel to propel you forward. And it can be any type of disrespect. Human beings will disrespect each other and we’re seeing this right now over what community we’re from, over skin color, over age, weight, height, your teeth aren’t white enough. I mean, I could go on for hours. There’s no shortage of things that we do to each other to disrespect each other. And the ability to use that disrespect as a fuel source is very, very powerful.

Christian Moore:
And social inequality. My whole life, I was told college is not an option for me. When I went trying to make it in the workplace, they said, “Hey, Christian, you don’t even know how to type on a computer.” You saw some of the technical issues today. I apologize about the technical issues, but they’re like, “Hey, Christian, you struggle with basic technology. You struggle with basic things. You’ll never make it in the workplace.” But I had to fight through that. I had to say, “Okay, you told me I’m not good enough to go to college. I’m going to use that as a fuel source to learn a lot about education and what creates change.”

Christian Moore:
And the mistakes. I’ve made huge mistakes in my life. The ability to make a mistake and then use that mistake to learn from it, make amends. I’m a huge fan of restorative justice and to use that as an ability to bounce back and not give up is so, so important. And again, street resilience is all over America right now. Street resilience is … Turn on the news and you will see no shortage of street resilience. It’s so powerful. You see what people are doing to support communities and to really connect and show people what to do with that anger and that pain. And we’ve got to continue to create change in this world because it’s only through that opportunity, having choices, that it’s much easier to create opportunity. We have to have far more choices for people. 

Christian Moore:
You convert the pain to the energy and create productive outcomes, you direct your hurt and anger towards a cause rather than an individual. Mothers Against Drunk Drivers is a powerful, powerful example of that. Another example of taking that anger, that hurt towards a cause is seeing the many police chiefs now who are starting to do that across the country, who are saying, “Hey, I’m going to walk with you. I’m going to demonstrate with you,” and taking that hurt and anger and putting it into a demonstration where the police officers and the leaders in the police departments are walking hand in hand, arm in arm with their fellow American citizens. That’s a powerful, powerful example of that statement. You direct your hurt and anger towards a cause. And I think it’s one of the things that makes America great. The ability to do this, when we do this, it’s so powerful when we can come together. 

Christian Moore:
You have the ability to reframe your limitations, transform them into strengths. Powerful, powerful example of doing this is, we know, Nelson Mandela, who was in the prison camp for 27 years, his main job is breaking up rock. He becomes the President of South Africa and we all know the rest of that story, the healing he creates. He forgives several of his guards, becomes friends with them. The prosecuting attorney that seeked the death penalty against Mandela and Mandela, he’s the President of South Africa, invites him to his house and he apologizes to him. He said, “Yes, I made mistakes, but this is what I was upset about. This was the change I wanted to see in the world,” and they met for a couple of hours. 

Christian Moore:
When he walked out of Mandela’s house, the national media of South Africa was there and they said, “What do you think of Mandela now?” And he said, this is a direct quote, he said, “He’s the most saintly man I’ve ever met,” and that’s the power of being able to have power, but use that power in ways that bring people up and don’t hurt them. And I think Mandela’s such a powerful, powerful example of healing and how we can lift people in difficult, difficult times. 

Christian Moore:
There’s a powerful example of street resilience. Rosa Parks refusing to sit on the back of the bus and demonstrating was such a, such a powerful example of change. And, yeah, it’s hard to talk about this stuff right now. This is heavy stuff with what we’re dealing with in the world. It’s crazy. I’ve been teaching this stuff for years and it’s all coming to life right now, isn’t it, Jason? All this stuff … it’s interesting. I’m going to be a little transparent here and emotional because I’ve been teaching this stuff for the last three years and I haven’t had a chance to teach this part for about two and a half, almost three months. And I’ll be honest, until right now, I’m going through this, I’m like, “Holy cow, man.” We’ve been talking about this stuff for years, but I’m going to call myself out because I’ve been teaching this, I have awareness of this, but being a part of the majority, until the majority speaks out, we’re not taking care of the minority. And the majority has a responsibility. 

Christian Moore:
I want to pause here. I have more of a responsibility to speak out and to create change because the change is going to come with the majority stepping up. And that’s the reality. The majority has to support the minority because that’s where change is. And I have more of a responsibility to do that. And just looking at this picture of Rosa Parks reminds me of my responsibility and the many areas I need to repent and be brave and deal with these issues. 

Christian Moore:
I already told this story. The professor said to me, “Christian, if you get a college degree, my degree is worth less.” Actually, I just learned he teaches out of two college textbooks [inaudible 00:56:08] or of our WhyTry material and some of the work we’ve done is in college textbooks. So he actually has to lecture on my theories now. So that’s an example of street resilience. You could say, “Christian, you’re kind of being arrogant right now or cocky.” I would say, no, what I’m being is street resilience. You told me I’m not even good enough to be on this college campus. Now I’m in the textbooks, but to get into those textbooks, I had to stand up. I had to take a stand. I had to push through. I had to push through where people were telling me, “No, you don’t belong. No, you don’t deserve this.” And we have to make sure kids are empowered to do this.

Christian Moore:
Abraham Lincoln. Powerful, powerful example. Ran for public office seven times and failed. And we know the rest of what he did in history. Cesar Chavez, what he did for migrant farm workers, unionizing and the stuff. And we can go on and on. The last two here I want to highlight is something called resource and rock bottom resilience. And [inaudible 00:57:06] your resilience can be increased by tapping into the resources available to you. Now, this guy’s fishing on a river. He didn’t put the river there. And for him to catch those fish, he’s accessing resources. He’s accessing the fly rod. He has the rubber suit on there to keep from getting cold. He has resources that enable him to thrive. And I know, in my own life, when I don’t have resources, I can thrive. 

Christian Moore:
I know, recently, when COVID hit and I didn’t have access to US economy, I, myself, instantly could not thrive and I needed tremendous … I had some people help me out economically. And I’m saying, with all the resources I have and all the privilege I have, the fact that I needed help from an outside resource so that I could thrive, you can see what’s going on in this country is unbelievable right now. With over 40 million people out of work, it’s so important that we have resources. You cannot be resilient in a vacuum. And that’s why I was saying earlier that why I love education is we know education combats racism and poverty more than anything in the world and that’s why everybody out there is my hero because I believe we’re all doing the most important work to bring resource resilience to our students, to our communities. It all starts with education. 

Christian Moore:
You fight resignation with spontaneity. You recognize that your resources include talents, relationships, physical assets and so on. You realize that you have undeveloped talents and untapped capabilities that can also develop. And one of my favorite examples of resource resilience is this gentleman, Kyle Maynard, born with no arms, no legs. He wrested in high school and college. He recently hiked to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. He put rubber balls on the end of these stubs and crawled, literally, to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Just a powerful, powerful example of resource resiliencce. 

Christian Moore:
Because of time, we’re going to skip again. Hellen Keller, powerful example. I don’t do what I do in isolation. I have a huge support team. I have a huge group of people that help me access my internal and external resources. And then the last place … and again, these are some of the emotions that we can tap into around all four of these sources of resilience. We have these emotions. And then the last one is rock bottom resilience and that’s when you have every reason to give up, to shut down. When you’re at your lowest point, you believe in your ability to change your circumstances and combat hopelessness. And again, when you don’t believe change is possible and you do not believe you can impact your circumstances, we know it’s extremely easy to lose that hope. And we know, when that hope is lost, we see some very, very intense stuff and there is no doubt we are seeing this all across America right now. You put one foot in front of another when you have every reason to give up, but you fight on.

Christian Moore:
You refuse to be defined by the negative labels you’ve been given, whether it by yourself or others. You’re able to believe in potential unforeseen options, even during your most difficult times. And the big thing here with this one, again, goes back to what I was saying earlier, is the ability to say to yourself, “How do I use this suffering? How do I use this pain as a fuel source?” when you’re in that rock bottom moment. And so our goal is that, when we looked at thousands of children who are bouncing back, we notice that they’re usually tapping into at least two of these four sources. Now, ideally, we want them to access all four of these sources of resilience, but minimum, at least two of these sources. And once you realize, once you learn these internal sources of resilience, you’ll see them everywhere in society. When you start studying people … I encourage people, “Read biographies,” and you’ll go, “Oh, my gosh.” And that biography, that’s a great example of relational resilience. In that biography, you see the street resilience. 

Christian Moore:
You’ll just see this coming out all over the place, these four sources of resilience. And what we’re starting to realize is the earlier we can get this inner motivation and we can get this resilience to children in combination with evidence-based social and emotional education, some of the skills like what WhyTry teaches, in combination with their basic needs, having access to basic resources, healthcare, economic resources to be able to work through poverty. It’s the combination of resources, like that resource resilience, in combination with social and emotional education, in combination with knowing where the internal resilience comes from. Those are the three things that have to be brought together to transform a lot of what’s going on in this world today. 

Christian Moore:
And I know this is what I’m going to be working on for the rest of my life. This is what gets me out of bed. This is the most unbelievable experience to be able to see what happens in people’s lives when they have access to the information. We’re all educators because we know education is the way out. Educate makes the difference, but education still has to have access to resources and we have to have access to evidence-based social and emotional education in combination with these economic resources that too many of our communities are dealing with poverty. If we want to lower violence, we have to lower poverty first. And I think that’s so, so important. 

Christian Moore:
I’ve gone seven million miles around this planet, so I’m someone who’s uniquely met millions of people. I’ve been to all 50 states. I’m in a small percentage of people that have literally been to every major community pretty much in this country many, many times. And where I see the hurt, the pain, the violence, it’s all rooted in poverty. We know poverty has got to be dealt with. And I think one of the great things that can come out of COVID is we’re going to finally look poverty in the eye and deal with this because … I’m not saying it’s the cause of everything, but we can solve a lot of pain if we can take on poverty and, again, education is the most powerful thing I know of that will combat racism and poverty. 

Christian Moore:
So all of us, man, we’ve got to keep fighting this fight. I know it’s a very difficult time right now, but education is the way out. You guys are my heroes. I highly recommend, please access on our website. We have the resilience breakthrough … On our website, if you go to WhyTry.org, you can access our resilience parenting guide for parents. Please, please check out that. It’s a free parenting guide for parents that teach all this stuff I’m talking about inside the home, where the parents can do activities with kids as experiential activities. All the things I’ve been talking about are activities, experiential activities, incredible ways for families to come together and learn resilience. And that’s free on our website. Over 20 thousand families right now are using this. It’s growing quickly.

Christian Moore:
The other thing I want to really emphasize is please check out our podcast, The Resilience Breakthrough Podcast. You can go to WhyTry.org and they’re on the homepage. You’ll see a connection to our podcast. It’s on all the podcast sites there. Just The Resilience Breakthrough Podcast. We have 10 episodes now, nine or 10 episodes, and please check that out. It’s al focused on resilience and everything we’re talking about here and we’re going to be continuing to do more webinars, more information to get this out, but hey, we’re excited. We need you a part of the team. None of us can solve these issues by ourselves. We all have to come together and make sure every child across this country gets access because, in 2020, we’re not confused on what skills and resources children and families need to thrive.

Christian Moore:
The great injustice right now, I believe, is that millions of kids and families are getting these tools and millions are not getting these tools. And that is the social justice issue of our time. Thank you for your time.

Jason Johnson:
Hey, thank you so much, Christian. That was awesome. Really, really great information. Turn your audio down just a little. Really great information. I think you could all sense Christian’s passion. We had a lot of information in there, so we didn’t really have time for questions. Bring your questions Thursday. On Thursday, we’re going to have some kind of field experts and administrators, school counselor, teacher that are field experts on this material that are going to bring some information on really kind of how you can apply this. And bring your questions on Thursday and they’ll be happy to answer those. Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing. We had a couple people mention speaking up on behalf of indigenous people, Native Americans. Thank you for advocating for them. Totally agree. These are all populations that can’t have enough advocacy on behalf of them. 

Jason Johnson:
And so thank you all for doing what you’re doing. This has been, I think, a hard week, a hard couple weeks for a lot of people. And thank goodness for great educators that are out there doing this really important work. You’re making a difference in these kids’ lives and education is going to be so important going forward. 

Jason Johnson:
So I’m going to put up a slide with some resources that you can take a look at. And then, please, let us know, reach out to us if you have any questions. And we look forward to hearing back from you on Thursday. Thanks so much, you guys. You’re awesome. You are absolutely an inspiration to us.