Teacher Saves World!

Laurie & Matt take a look at those wise sayings that help us through troubling and stressful times, turning to a specific one for this week's essential question, "Is the Serenity Prayer What We Need Right Now?"

Written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1932, the Serenity Prayer became widely known when 12-step programs adopted it in the 1940s. Here is a commonly used variation:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

We have all collected wise sayings over the years, stuffed in our pockets for when life has us on the ropes and we need a thoughtful phrase to bring clarity and calm. With school set to begin, and a pandemic still raging, it's as if the world's schools are all being staffed with first year teachers. It's a new setting, with new demands, and new and scary unknowns that are keeping us up at night. It's times like these when we need to be reminded that there are things in our control (our attitude, our perception, our actions and words), and those outside of our control (the actions and decisions of others, the COVID-19 virus, wi-fi reliability), and focus our energies where our control lies. It's when we lack the "wisdom to know the difference" and get worked up over things outside of our control that we become stressed and out of balance.

When we "accept the things I cannot change," serenity is truly granted, our best selves can operate efficiently and powerfully, just as our children and students need us to.

To see the video Matt mentions of him jumping off of the cliff with his son at South Point on the Big Island of Hawaii, go to https://youtu.be/rFoKkTQ_5V8

Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review! It really helps us become more visible and grow the coalition of caring adults dedicated to the health and wellness of our teens.

Get your copy of Matt's book Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt conduct their first interview for this episode, bringing in an expert to help answer the question, "How Can Teachers Manage Time Better?" That expert is Serena Pariser, a rock star educator and author of two books for teachers, the most recent of which is called Real Talk About Time Management: 35 Best Practices for Educators, which she co-authored with Edward F. DeRoche. On her first book, Real Talk About Classroom Management, 50 Best Practices That Work and Show You Believe in Your Students, she was the sole author.

In a strange era when time has seemingly distorted, and veteran teachers are experiencing an anxiety they haven't felt since their first year in the classroom, Serena translates time management techniques and tips for the online, distance-learning environment most teachers will be facing when school resumes in he fall. The interview follows the structure of the book, with Serena first addressing how to adopt a "Time Management Mindset." The conversation then moves onto time management strategies for "Planning," "At School, " and "At Home."

Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review! It really helps us become more visible and grow the coalition of caring adults dedicated to the health and wellness of our teens.

To find out more about Serena and to purchase her books:

www.serenapariser.com

facebook.com/serenapariser

twitter.com/serenapariser

Get your copy of Matt's book Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt discuss the concept of "self-care" in the workplace to improve performance. Laurie plays principal on this episode, and she says three words would be in her head everyday if she were a principal: eat, move, sleep. Drawing inspiration from Tom Rath's practical book EAT MOVE SLEEP, Laurie proposes a straightforward approach to making sure we're ready for the day. While Laurie & Matt take different sides on the alarm clock debate (Matt needs one, while Laurie could do without), they both generally agree on the high priority that should be placed on taking care of ourselves, while admitting that we all have some vices that are hard to kick.

Get your copy of Matt's book Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt tackle a topic most teachers, parents, AND teens were hoping they wouldn't have to this fall. With COVID-19 cases still not under control in most parts of the United States, distance learning looks to be the method of schooling most likely to be implemented in school districts across the nation. So, "How Can We Engage Our Teens with More Distance Learning?" is this episode's essential question.

Laurie & Matt come up with five ideas to hopefully engage students in their learning, despite many of the usual motivating factors like athletics, the arts, and social interaction being absent. Here's what they came up with:

1. Synchronous Learning. This will most likely be a site by site decision, but simulating the rhythm of the school day as much as possible, with scheduled attendance in Zoom (or other, similar platforms) classrooms is necessary to get our teens in motion. This will also be an assist to parents, and teens themselves, as a schedule with attendance obligates them to their school commitments.

2. Build Community. Even though we won't be together to play our silly games or physically connect, taking the time to have students interact and get to know each other cannot be skipped.

3. Teacher-Student Connection. Teachers need to find ways to get to know their students personally, their interests, likes and dislikes, and their goals and dreams.

4. Build Relevance. Leveraging the information learned about individual students allows teachers to more specifically tailor the relevance of curriculum to students' lives. The more relevant the work is, the more motivated the student is.

5. Make it Personal. The more that teachers can bring students into the work, allowing them to make choices or infuse their values and interests into the assignments, the more they light up. This won't be possible for everything, but we should make an effort to do it more than we normally do.

In the opening, Matt mentions he's discovered a new band that has him wanting to move to Dublin, Ireland. The band is Fontaines D.C., and you can check them out here: https://www.fontainesdc.com/

Get your copy of Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt complete their journey through Matt's upcoming book, TRAJECTORY: The 10 Challenges of High School that Shape a Teenager's Future*, by exploring challenges 6-10. They are:

6. Deal with Discomfort

7. Learn

8. Produce

9. Compete

10. Handle Responsibility

In total, the 10 challenges comprise the Hero's Journey that is high school, arguably the four most important years in a person's life. In four short years, immature 8th graders need to be transformed into college freshmen ready to handle the independence of dorm life. To do this, all teens are sent on a quest that has ten challenges purposefully designed to develop aspects of their character that are proven to be useful for success in adulthood. Parents and teachers of teenagers are the mentors for the journey, because journey success is impossible to achieve alone. Harry Potter has no chance to defeat Voldemort without Dumbledore. Written as a guidebook for mentors of teenagers making their way through high school, TRAJECTORY: The 10 Challenges of High School that Shape a Teenager's Future provides not only insight into how the challenges present themselves, but also specific, actionable steps that parents and teachers of teenagers can take to help their teens on their quest.

Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review! It really helps us become more visible and grow the coalition of caring adults dedicated to the health and wellness of our teens.

*About a week after publishing, Matt had the brilliant idea to change the title and cover of his book. The content remains the same. The new title is Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life for Parents & Teachers. Catchy, huh? Listen to episode #32 for the full story.

Get your copy of Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt shift their "If I Were Principal" segment from their regular episodes to stand alone content in their bonus episodes. After Matt admits that he had erroneously been calling the segment If I WAS Principal" (Microsoft Word's grammar correction showing him the error of his way), he goes on to make a suggestion to improve students' organizational skills. Wistfully remembering the bygone days of every student being given an agenda planner, Matt suggests that technology's encroachment into education has led us to believe that explicit teaching of organizational skills has evaporated because everything is "searchable." Laurie & Matt then discuss ways that we could help our students get a handle on the flood of important information coming their way on a daily basis, and why it's a vital skill to develop heading into adulthood when being late may mean the lights get turned off.

Get your copy of Matt's book Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt preview Matt's book, TRAJECTORY: The 10 Challenges of High School that Shape a Teenager's Future*, which is due out in early August 2020. In his first book, Matt details how high school is an intentionally designed Hero's Journey that all teenagers go through, with 10 challenges aimed at developing vital aspects of their character before heading out on their own into the wilderness of adulthood. Matt argues that high school represents the most important four years of a person's life. All that lies between a dweeby 8th grader and a soldier entering boot camp is high school, which should be evidence enough to make his case.

In this first of a two part series, Laurie & Matt discuss the first five challenges, giving a brief glimpse at the book's contents and structure. The first five challenges are:

1. Get Healthy

2. Grow Up

3. See the Future

4. Master the System

5. Embrace Criticism

Intended as a guidebook for parents and teachers of teenagers, TRAJECTORY provides insight into what teenagers face in high school, as well as providing specific actionable steps we can all take to help our teens on their quest to become capable, confident adults. All heroes require the assistance of a mentor on their journey, and that's the role parents and teachers play in their lives. It's exhausting, often thankless work, but it's crucial if our teens have a chance of finishing the journey successfully.

Laurie & Matt debuted a revised format this week. In the interest of sustainability and the increased workload of school looming, they've decided to focus the regular episodes on the essential question conversation, moving the "If I Were Principal" and "That's the Beauty of it All" segments into the bonus content episodes that post every other Thursday. Today's episode, however, features one last beauty, this one supplied by a former student, Blake Martin, titled "What Success Means to Me."

*About a week after publishing, Matt had the brilliant idea to change the title and cover of his book. The content remains the same. The new title is Helping Teens Succeed in High School & Life for Parents & Teachers. Catchy, huh? Listen to episode #32 for the full story.

Get your copy of Trajectory at amazon.com/author/mattsavesworld

To connect with Laurie & Matt and find out more:

Visit their website: TeacherSavesWorld.com

Email them: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/teachrsaveswrld

Instagram: instagram.com/teachersavesworld/

Facebook: facebook.com/teachersavesworld/

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich of VirtualCampfire.net

Laurie & Matt center this episode around the essential question, "What is Stereotype Threat?" Pulling from Claude M. Steele's book Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, the very real and damaging cancer that is stereotype threat is discussed. Described as a diffuse threat, like a snake loose in the room, stereotype threat menaces any member of a minority when they are in a position to potentially confirm a negative stereotype through one false move or misstep. Originally observed and studied in minority groups' under performance in school, stereotype threat is found to reach into every corner of society.

As is always their aim, Laurie & Matt want to make sure that discussions turn into action. To that end, they offer evidence-based solutions for mitigating the affects of stereotype threat in schools, including:

1. Growth mindset lessons- helping minority students understand that intelligence is malleable

2. Self-affirmation exercises- brief writing assignments about personally held values

3. Increasing minority group representation

4. Valuing diversity

5. Being a "warm demander," increasing teacher credibility, and adopting an autonomy supportive teaching style

Episode #19 of Teacher Saves World!, titled "What Are the Most Important Teacher Qualities?" goes into greater detail with #5 in the list of interventions above.

The essential question conversation is book ended by Laurie's idea for lots of murals in the "If I Were Principal" opening segment, and Matt's admiration for the new generation of gadflys in the closing "That's the Beauty of it All."

Show music provided by Brian Karmelich and VirtualCampfire.net. For more details, visit TeacherSavesWorld.com, and connect with Laurie & Matt on twitter, facebook, and instagram by searching for Teacher Saves World!

Laurie & Matt share their Top 5 Concerns with Hybrid School Schedules, from a list they generated that had closer to 75 items. Hybrid school schedules are being widely discussed as a compromise to the battle being waged over whether to reopen fully or to continue with distance learning. This very difficult decision being considered by school districts worldwide, is trying to take into account both public health concerns surrounding the continued presence and spread of COVID-19, and the less talked about but likely greater threat to the health, wellness, and development of our teenagers if schools fail to resume. Our economy is holding its breath too, as children in school is an important piece of its recovery.

Laurie and Matt explored this topic from the perspective of hybrid schedule's impact on students, as well as teachers and parents. Education, health and wellness, and social justice were all filters used for their discussion. Creating a Top 5 list wasn't easy, and like everything else in the world these days it will likely evolve, daily, but here's where we stand at the moment:

1. Academic inequalities will be amplified

2. Stress on teachers to maximize limited in-person instruction while simultaneously servicing students through distance learning

3. High school becoming academics only, leading to severe drop in motivation

4. Stress on parents leaving teenagers home alone on a regular basis while they go back to work

5. Continuing decline of teenagers' health and wellness because of increased screen time, reduced activity levels, and lack of structured time

Show music courtesy of Brian Karmelich and VirtualCampfire.net. For more details, visit TeacherSavesWorld.com, and connect with us on twitter, facebook, and instagram by searching for Teacher Saves World!

Laurie & Matt summon their powers of prognostication with this episode's essential question, "Will COVID-19 Change High School Forever?" Matt gets the show going by calling for a message amplification in "If I Was Principal," and Laurie closes it out with a lovefest for her colleagues in "That's the Beauty of it All." Show music courtesy Brian Karmelich and VirtualCampfire.net. Visit TeacherSavesWorld.com for more details.