The Tom Schimmer Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Tom shimmer podcast. Happy Monday, everyone hope everyone had a great weekend. We have the most glorious weekend. Weather-wise here in Vancouver and nicest weekend we’ve had in 2021, for sure. Weather wise, getting outside in the warmth was wonderful. And all of that vitamin D of course will do wonders for our immune systems. That’s just what the doctor ordered.

I hope you Have the same kind of weather this weekend. If you didn’t. I Hope it’s on its way soon. I was good for the soul. Now here in Vancouver, of course we don’t take the weather for granted. We know that we Can have these glorious weekends in April and we could have rain in early may. And it just, you know, it’s just one of those things that we have to always brace ourselves for if you will, but it was a fabulous weekend and just really, really re-energized as a result of this weather, for sure. Thanks for listening. And again, this weekend, as I always say a big welcome to any new listeners joining in for the first time you are listening and subscribing to the podcast is appreciated.

And again, please, don’t be shy about spreading the word on social media or with your colleagues. And if you feel up to leaving a rating or a review on apple podcasts, that would be much appreciated as well. Today. My guest is LaVonna Roth. She’s the founder and lead presenter at Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. It’s an inspiring conversation, and you’re going to find out if you don’t know already what the acronym S.H.I.N.E. stands for in assessment corner this week, we’re going to finish off the examination on homework today. We’re going to focus on whether homework should contribute to a student’s proficiency grade, and I’ll leave you with six questions. You can write, ask yourself About your homework routines. So that’s today’s plan. Let’s get to it. LaVonna Roth is coming up, but first I want To open when this week with the story of father Phil and why he was responsible for my entering education as a profession.

Now, growing up, I was a sports fanatic. I loved everything about sports. I played it. I watched it almost to a fault as an adult. Now I’m still all about sports. It’s my escape, NFL NBA, major league baseball, NHL, and even soccer, both domestically with the MLS and internationally as well. I follow it all when I’m on the road, which I hope to again, one day it’s, it’s how I love to spend my free time. I’m a full season ticket holder for the Vancouver Whitecaps, our MLS club here in Vancouver. I’m a member of actually a member of the supporters club called the south siders. And while I’m not really an active member, like I’m not on the board or anything like that, my tickets are in the supporters section. And I’m all about the cheering, the singing, the chanting and everything about what’s positive with soccer culture. I love it. I have a quarter season ticket package for the Vancouver Canucks. That’s our NHL team here in Vancouver. Now a quarter season because I am, or at least I was pre pandemic. I was on the road a lot.

And so I would miss a lot of games and hockey tickets are really expensive in a Canadian market. So a quarter season ticket was just fine. I’ll give you an example. My full season tickets for or soccer are half of what my quarter season tickets are for hockey. So hockey can be expensive in the Canadian market. That’s for sure. Now my love of sports began with soccer when I was six.

And you know, that’s normally how it begins with most young children. Now, I was very tall for my age. You know, I, as an adult, I’m six foot two, which isn’t super tall, but as a kid, I was literally towering over everyone. So I ended up as a goalie in soccer, you know, put the big kid in net right now today.

That’s not so bad because with youth soccer, there are a lot of small sided games now. So goalies see a lot of action. But when I was young, it was 11 on 11 on a full-size field. Sometimes the ball would be at the other end of the field for 30 minutes. I mean, it was brutal. And sometimes quite honestly it was boring.

No, I grew up in north Vancouver. And so, so north Vancouver is at the foot of the north shore mountains in, in the Metro Vancouver area. It’s the rainiest part of Metro Vancouver by far so often. My dad would come down to my goal area with an umbrella to keep me from getting, you know, completely drenched from the rain.

Because when that biblical rain hits north Vancouver, you start looking for two by fours and animal pairings. I can tell you that now I started playing baseball when I was eight. Baseball was my absolute favorite sport growing up. And as you heard me say a few weeks ago with the start of the major league baseball season, I still love baseball. I was a really good pitcher and I could hit too.

I was a really good player when I was, when I wasn’t pitching, I played first base and I had a really good run as a baseball player when I was young, when I was 14, for example, pro probably, you know, a great moment in sports history. For me, when I was 14, I actually pitched a perfect game to win our league championship.

It was a seven inning game. I faced 21 batters and I struck out 20 of them and we won the game nine, nothing, you know, I wasn’t a flame thrower. I wasn’t like this person that could, you know, at my peak, I probably hit, you know, mid to upper eighties, which was pretty, pretty good speed for that era, but today’s standards. So, you know, every seems like every prospect throws over 90 miles an hour easy, but my coaches taught me how to pitch and that’s what I really appreciated. And they taught me the difference between being a pitcher and a thrower. And when I learned to, you know, spot my pitches and when I learned how to pitch, you know, keeping batters off balance, you know, throwing a, a two oh curve ball or a three, one change. Yup. That’s when I got really good, you know, I had baseball for me. I had some nibbles to play at the college level a little bit, and I did have a couple of tryouts and, and with professional clubs, but that really wasn’t the, the route that I chose. And to be honest, I wasn’t good enough to do anything serious in bass. Now football is how I became a teacher. Now, ironically football was probably my least favorite sport to play when I was growing up, but it was why I attended Boise state university on a football scholarship. Now, before you get too excited about my football scholarship, okay. I was a punter. Okay. So how’s that for a little disappointment, you know, my ability to kick it went all the way back to my soccer days. So of course, as a goalie, I would often punt the ball out of the 18 yard area. So it, it was a rather unique skillset and long story short, I ended up at Boise state university. I was recruited in Canada to play quarterback because I played quarterback in high school, but I wasn’t close to good enough to play a quarterback at Boise state. I had a decent career at Boise state. I was drafted into the Canadian football league. I played one year with the Ottawa rough riders and the CFL. Wasn’t a great season.

The next year in 1990, I was released from my contract and I went back to finish my teaching career. So I, I put my athletic career in the rear view mirror after that. Now there’s another story behind all of that, but I’ll save that for another podcast. It was a very critical life lesson for me during that entire experience. Now, little fun fact about my career at Boise state, September 13th, 1986 was our home opener. And that was the very first game on the blue turf at Boise state. So I still have the poster, the commemorative poster on my wall in my office football was how I became a teacher, of course, because I got my teaching degree state, but basketball is why I didn’t play basketball until I was in grade seven.

But by that time, you know, I was a pretty good athlete and I picked up pretty quickly. So I get to high school and my high school was grades eight through 12, shout out to Windsor high school, a Windsor secondary school and school district 44 in north Vancouver. So I go to high school and I’m in the eighth grade and we come together to form our grade eight basketball team.

So this is 19 80, 19 81. Now we ended up winning the Metro Vancouver city championships and we’re feeling pretty good. You know, we’re just new to high school and, and kind of living this experience. And we knew we had a special team because obviously we, you know, we’d just come off the championship. This is a group of guys that had come together from various elementary schools and we kind of put it all together in that grade eight a year.

So the next year we get a new coach. We get a coach who was a counselor who transferred from Handsworth secondary school to take the job at my high school. So he became a counselor and he was basketball coach. His name was Phil Langley and who had been, go on to be known as father Phil. Phil was a fantastic coach. So in grade nine, we played in the grade 10 league at the grade 10 level. And we were competitive and we held our own with most of the teams around the city and even some of the best teams that were going. But the one year difference for us physically and mentally, and all of that was, was huge. But Phil was teaching us how to win. Now, my grade 10 year basketball wise, things changed tremendously. When David Loggins transferred to our school, David was a year older. And when I was in grade 10, we actually played at the senior varsity level. He was a year older and he was six 11. So we had a big man who was of course of age, because at that time, senior varsity was grades 11 and 12. So we had a big man who was age and for grade 10 kids, myself included all of whom were starters and all who could shoot. We ended up that season one game away from making the provincial tournament. We lost a play in game two to make that tournament, but we knew we were onto something special.

In my grade 11 year, it was magical and we didn’t win the provincial title, but we spent money any weeks as the number one ranked team in the province and had six weeks prior to the close of the season, had beat the team that went on to win the championship by 30 points, we got upset. We were, you know, in the second round we had foul trouble, lots of excuses, let it go, Tom. It was 37 years ago, but who’s counting right senior year, my grade 12 year, we weren’t as good. Of course, without David, David went on to play basketball at the university of Wyoming, we made the tournament, but we didn’t make it out of the second round. And it just kinda fizzled from there.

But Phil Langley, our coach was like a second father to me. Well, to all of us, hence we gave him the nickname, father, Phil, you know, like many teachers, boys. I had a complicated relationship with my dad. You know, it’s nothing worth putting in an after-school special or anything like that. And my parents were really supportive of me and I look back now and I realize that a lot of it was my fault and it kind of stemmed from some emotional immaturity at the time.

So don’t read too much into the idea that I had a complicated relationship with my dad. It’s not that big a deal, but yeah, look, it was just complicated. Phil was just a different voice with yeah. Different approach. And I respected him tremendously. He pushed us. He was tough. He was supportive. He was cerebral. Like I had great coaches in all of them, my sports who taught me so many things about the sport and, and just how to handle adversity and things like that. But Phil was on another level now knew as players that his counseling background gave him this. Plus he was the adult, but it gave him this kind of psychological edge on him. Yes. But we didn’t care because we trusted him.

He was honest. If we got too cocky, he was with us when our confidence was shaken. I’ll never, never forget a game. We played in my grade 10 year against Abbotsford, secondary. Cool. And it was a packed gym. You know, we’re in the 10th grade, David Loggins was in grade 11. It was packed gym Friday night.

Abbotsford was the number one ranked team in the province by a long shot. These, you know, to a great 10 boy. These were men. We were playing against them. We’re monsters. We got worked so hard in the first half. That it’s the only time I ever had thoughts about not, not going out after halftime. I have never been so physically, mentally and emotionally intimidated athletically in my life ever in that, that moment. That’s the only time I ever thought I don’t really want to play the second half. That was not good. But father Phil was there helping us see the big picture, helping us understand that this game was going to help us down the road. And it did the following season.

You know, he was always there. The stress of school, being a teenager, inspiring us to be our best selves. That was father Phil. And that’s what I wanted to be for young athletes. So that’s why I became a teacher. I became a teacher because I wanted to coach. Now you learned to love the profession. Of course, after I entered it and my career has gone in a direction, I never would have imagined in 1991. But I wanted to, in those early days, I wanted to be for young athletes, cleats for young people. What father Phil was for me. I admired him. I appreciated him. I wasn’t always happy with him. We had our moments, but he was everything to me as an athlete. And as a young man, he nurtured without coddling us. He pushed us without breaking us. He always saw the big picture and how today’s hard work led to tomorrow’s greatness. He is singularly responsible for me going into education. My one regret, I never told him, I don’t know no. What I have been for athletes, I’ve coached her for students. I’ve taught or for educators I’ve worked with our legacy is for others to decide.

But if I’ve had even half the impact on others that Phil had on me, then I will, when this is all over, be able to look myself in the eye and say, you did it. So this is my tribute to father Phil, a man whose legacy lives on in me, a man who put his arm around me when I needed it.

A man who also put his forearm in my chest. Yes, literally when I needed to toughen up, man, it was a different time back then as a man who taught me during the insane conditioning drills that you’ll pass out before you die. So don’t worry about it. So it’s not exactly 2021 coaching tactics. But again, as I said, it’s a different time.

And honestly I wouldn’t trade it for anything. So here’s to father Phil and all of you father fills out there. This is where I want you to at me pay tribute to your father. Phil, I’d love to hear from you. Who’s that for you, who inspired you to be an educator? It doesn’t have to be a coach, maybe a teacher who knows, but at me, if you’ve got someone in mind, I would love that. Let’s remember why we do this job. Let’s remember who it’s all about. Let’s remember that our legacy will live on whether we know it or not. Within those we impact through the course of our careers. Joining me today for the interview is LaVonna Roth. She is the founder and lead speaker at Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.

She’s an author. She’s a speaker who provides professional development and services for educators literally around the world at Luvata describes her passion as being to empower educators, to find the greatness within their students, and also the greatness within ourselves as educators so that we can radically change the traditional approach to education in order to best serve our students through the lens of brain research, through the lens of social emotional needs and through the, the, the idea of the lens of the whole child. So I’m really excited to have LaVonna joining me today. So LaVonna, thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Any time, Tom, great to see you and thanks for having me. Yeah. It’s great to reconnect. I remember our connection at a conference a number of years ago, and just remember being very impressed by your keynote presentation and just, you know, when I started the podcast, I knew you were someone I wanted to have on. So as I said to you, you’ve been on the list for a long time. So I’m glad we were able to find time to make this happen. So yeah, it’s, it’s great to have you, so let’s begin with, but before we dig into how we can ignite everyone’s S.H.I.N.E., let’s begin with the LaVonna Roth story. Let’s, let’s talk about the highlights of your career as an educator, or you began teaching in 1996 at the Hilary city school district in Columbus, Ohio. So take us through the evolution of your career. Let’s talk about, you know, how do you go from starting teaching in 1996 to ending up here as a internationally recognized expert and speaker and leader in the area of social, emotional learning and, and the whole child. Yes. So, wow. You’re taking me back. I’m feeling old with the 1996, Tom, do you have to really say that? No. Sorry. No, no, it’s all good. Hey, you know, age is just the thing. So yeah, I started, I started out in 1996 and heal your city schools. And I was teaching seventh and eighth grade and it was a crazy moment of being a brand new teacher. And I have a degree in deaf education, but I also am certified for elementary and that went up through eighth grade.

And so a first year of teaching and I’m at a school that I ended up teaching five preps. So anyone who does dairy knows that’s typically not, but not only was I teaching five different preps, but I was also on a cart. I didn’t have my own room. And we were in a two story building. So between classes that were only three minutes apart, I would have to get my cart down, the crowded hallway, up the elevator, all the good stuff, including something I’m science labs. So, you know, years later I went to my principal who I truly admire, but I went to him and I said, what were you thinking? Doing that to a first-year teacher? You know? And so I made it, I totally made it, kept going and loved it. And I taught five years in Ohio and then the beautiful weather of Florida Jeremy down. So I came down here and I had crazy part of this was I only had one day to get a job when I flew down. And so I ended up getting a second grade position. And when I talk about going through culture shock grade, yes, the second grade, I was like, what do you mean? You don’t know how to tie your shoes, sweetheart. You have snot running down your face and the tissues are right there. You know? So all of those moments that I ended up falling and falling in love with them, but I knew in that moment that I was meant for older.

So I did, I ended up teaching fifth grade for a few years after that went back to middle school. And then I had the opportunity to step out and I was actually getting ready to interview as an assistant principal. My second master’s is in educational leadership. And I had a moment of someone saying, Hey, why don’t you try this? And I thought, well, you know what, if I’m going to, before I commit to be going into administration, maybe I should step out and just try some other things. So that’s led to a totally different paths for me, anywhere from working for a university and doing sales recruitment for them, for educators to get their master’s or doctorate degree to working as regional manager of the Southeast for them and managing reps in five states to then working for a company that is no longer in existence, I was laid off and I saw the company like a month and a half into me being there. Everyone in marketing was laid off, which was a huge flag to me. And then I ended up being part of the layoff and hit sheer panic. You know, it’s, it’s nice to have a dual income, but sometimes you also need the dual income.

And I have years and years and years of student loans. So fast forward through that, I ended up getting another job and I was treated extremely poorly. I was screamed at and cussed out one minute. And then the next minute they would say, God, put your own life for a reason. We’re so blessed to have you. And I found out it was the eighth person in 10 months in that position.

And so I could tell you story after story, but bottom line is I ended up leaving there and jumping on my own. And so that was something I never planned on. I never planned on being a speaker. I actually have a very shy side to me that I’ve had to build confidence around. And so I would be petrified just to sit in a small group and like, say my name and all of that. So it overcome that. And now, you know, we are, like you said, it’s been here. We are fast forwarding to 2021. And it, technically, Tommy didn’t even know this, but today that we’re recording this, this is the 13th anniversary of me being in business like today. So it’s, you know, it’s a huge celebration and nothing I ever planned on. So here we are speaking consulting, doing all things around the world and books came along the way along all through that. Oh, Fan is such an interesting story. You made me think of so many different things. Your, your comment about second grade reminds me of what I often say to secondary teachers is, you know, just go spend a day in a first grade or second grade or third grade classroom, because you are going to gain a new appreciation for being a secondary teacher, because you’ll be thankful. You won’t know. I mean, it’s, it’s such impressive work. And I think so often, you know, in, in the system, there’s, there’s a kind of a diminishing of the work because the students are younger. There’s there’s, there can be this dismissiveness and the work that happens at the elementary level, especially the youngest grade levels is incredibly monumental. The other thing you said, which I find very interesting when I speak to a lot of speakers and I would include myself in this category. And in terms of the level of shyness or the level of people probably don’t understand that, you know, as a speaker, when you’re, when you’re speaking in front of an audience you’re in complete control. And when you’re in a social situation, you often don’t have control over that situation. So a lot of people can’t understand how someone like yourself who could speak in front of thousands of people would be inherently shy or inherently reserved in a social situation.

But it’s actually quite common amongst many of us who do this work, who, who have these two sides to our personality. And I think part of it is that when we get on stage, we know what we’re going to say. We were in control of the clicker. We have the microphone and we we’ve got our presentation and we’re ready to roll, but it’s, it’s a kind of interesting dynamic that happens in between. Have you noticed that as well, amongst amongst many of the people who are in this world of speaking and offering, Yes. Almost everybody I’ve talked to says the exact same thing. And so I think control is a part of it for me. I know of another part of it is the fact that when I step on the stage or I’m working with a group, it is no longer about me. It’s about the message, right? So in a social aspect, you know, all eyes are on you cause they’re talking about you. Whereas when you know, you’re speaking, it’s not about me. It’s about the message that they’re delivered to make an impact, support educators in every level that we can. And because I can make that switch, it’s also why, when I’m being introduced to a group, you know, whether it’s speaking on the stage or, you know, working in a, a school or just whatever, wherever I am, I usually ask, please don’t introduce me unless you absolutely have to. And if you have to, then literally I want you to say, and here’s our keynote speaker, LaVonna Roth as a minimal, right? Because the moment I’m about to go out, you just flipped the lens to me. And this isn’t about me. And I always say to them deli, but people want to know. And I’m like, and that’s the people who already want to know they’ve already Googled. So they already know what they want to know.

True. It it’s just, it is. I just find it very interesting when I, when I speak to so many speakers and authors. And the other thing you said before we move on, the other thing you said is that people often think there’s this grand scheme of, you know, in 20 years, I’m going to be this world renowned speaker that ignites the S.H.I.N.E. all around the world.

And that’s never the case. It sort of unfolds kind of in an organic way. And then suddenly 13 years into your business. Here you are. And it never seems to when you talk, when I talked to so many people, it never seems to unfold that way. Okay. Enough about them. Let’s talk about LaVonna. Let’s make it about you.

Put the focus back on you. Let’s, let’s start with the big ideas of, of Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. for listeners who may not be familiar with your work. Let’s start with the big ideas here. What does Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. mean? And why do you believe that it’s an essential part of a school’s culture where not only students feel inspired to achieve at their highest level, but educators feel inspired as well. So what are the big ideas of Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.? So we look at it as in the overall umbrella is really culture, you know, but then there’s so many segways underneath that with what’s hap what happens. And we specifically coined the term human focused culture. So a lot of what we want to see happen in schools, whether it’s with staff showing up, you know, reducing attrition, making sure that they have what they need from a personal perspective, so that it shows up professionally to what actually happens with the learning in a classroom. And so if you use the human focus culture, like everything we do comes from the fact that we are humans. And we look at the brain research side of things, that’s a key piece to all of this. So underneath it, it’s using brain research. It is understanding people and how we operate and taking them through the acronym of S.H.I.N.E., which I’m sure we’ll get to later. It is all about that whole child, that whole person. And so we approach everything through that lens because what you’re really doing is you’re creating psychological safety.

And so as we look through the lens of psychological safety, then that puts the brain into a state of learning. It puts into a space that they feel not only included, but all the way up to the highest level of psychological safety, which they feel that they can challenge things to really look at the status quo is this what’s best for kids. This is what’s best for teachers best for leadership, best for families. And you can really dive and explore that. So what does S.H.I.N.E. stand for that of course is an acronym. And so let’s go through what that acronym means. And then I’ll have a follow-up question for you On that. Okay. Yes. No, some S.H.I.N.E. is, do you mind if I back up tell a little bit as how we need to be?

Yeah, absolutely. Take your time. All right. So I was someone who did not do well in elementary, and then we got our I’m sorry. I did very well in elementary, got to middle school grades, start to decline that in a high school IDs enough. So my report card and I got into college, I was put on probation to be kicked out because of my grades.

And so I, along the way, started feeling very stupid. I felt that I wasn’t smart. And so the word was not originally S.H.I.N.E.. It was originally smart. And I was going after an education, how we define smart, because my viewpoint is that we are phenomenal at putting kids into the box and that box and education, at least here in the U S is reading, writing, math and science. And that’s the core focus of what we look at, which thus why the whole child often gets lost in that mix, social, emotional, learning, everything. But when we look at this, I had started out in brain research and I had this passion in me for not only me, but my experience is my daughter went through in school students that felt stupid.

And I thought, I’m totally going to go after this word smart. And somebody said to me, LaVonna, you will never change the definition of smart, not an education. Well, if anyone knows me by my personality went, watch me. And then of course the other part, you know, the, the lack of confidence at times went, what if they’re right?

And so I had to take a step back and really look at that. And I’m grateful to that person now, because what really stepped into my head was the word S.H.I.N.E.. And so I thought it is really how we S.H.I.N.E.. And I was looking at, I wanted an acronym because I wanted the acronym to be a framework that people can work within.

So if you think about Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E., like Ignite Your personal S.H.I.N.E., which also your professional S.H.I.N.E., when we look at it, the S’s all about self. So really what we’re focusing on are what are your strengths, gifts, skills, and talents. So we’re really focusing on the things that either you were born with, or you’ve learned to develop at a high level, we’re moving away from the view of what you can’t do, because then that’s what a lot of us beat ourselves up. We play this comparison game. And if you see me on video, you’re seeing, I’m doing these little mirrors, which is my hand up. It’s like a little mirror cupped toward me because I sign. So, you know, when I think that we start doing all these comparisons from social media, from the person teaching next door, the administrator leading across the county, whatever it may be. And so we start playing it. Well, what we forget is that we call it a lion of greatness, you know, like a lion L I O N like a line of greatness. And that’s standing in that. It’s not just about strengths though. So it’s not about just your mindset and taking care of you and the strength.

It’s the H and S.H.I.N.E. also, which is hard. And for that, that’s about passion. Like, what do you love to do? I don’t love to teach science. I’ve taught it right. Feed out of strength of it because my strengths come from teaching and knowing strategies and ways to do that. But it’s not my passion. And so what we really look for is how do we find it?

So people rise in their happiness, they rise and wanting to be where they are. They rise to their best self and often offer their best self then to those that they are taking care of or in a classroom, a school district, whatever that may look like. And we want them to rise in that. So, but that comes from passion, right?

So finding the best way now I have so far talked about from the point of an adult, right? But I want you to imagine from the view of a kid, if I can learn totally doable, if I can learn how to teach to the strengths of a child, to find out what they’ve learned. But I also tap into the passions they have.

So our lessons, for example, explore both of these areas. So how do I tap into the passion of the kids and bring that to the learning? And that’s when you start to see the brain research of what I was doing before my books were based on a strategies, how to engage kids, they did that. Couldn’t figure out the piece that was missing.

And it’s now what we call SEL social, emotional learning. So we pull all of that into this. And so to me, it’s, you can’t have high level achievement. If you have not put the brain into a state of learning, which means social, emotional learning has to be addressed, right. That is right there. That’s, that’s a piece of what’s happening.

Then we get to let her, I, I is inspire. So we know life is going to throw curve balls, right? So you think grit, perseverance, resiliency. How do you inspire yourself? How do you inspire others? And this is a piece that sometimes in a school, it can be exhausting trying to inspire others, but it’s also a critical piece that is often missing.

So how do you inspire you? How do you inspire others? When we get to N and as navigate, in other words, what are you gonna do with everything I just talked about? So it’s putting into action plan and putting into play to create the human focus culture, by pulling everything we talked about into what you do. So that is really the key piece.

And that’s the piece where the work comes in the story of the journey. What do you want this to look like? And when we get to E for exceptional, it’s because you are becoming an exceptional person, you were meant to be not anybody else stop trying to be others, be you be exceptional with who you are. So exceptional leader, exceptional teacher, except exceptional spouse, exceptional family member, friend, whatever it is, it’s you settling into who you are so that you Ignite Your right. So am I right to look at S.H.I.N.E. as both an acronym, but also as a kind of continuum that, that as I go through the process of, of developing self, my passion inspiring, you know, I start to navigate and become, is it, is it, is that fair to look at it that way as well? Absolutely. And I love that you picked up on that, Tom, because when I first was creating this, I saw exceptional as the result, and then it hit me. We never arrive. Right. We’re always learning. We’re always figure ourselves out. We’re always changing things because we’re human and we love novelty as much as we love structure.

We also love non-structure. Right. And I don’t even bring that out there. So when we look at this, it’s important to understand that it’s a process. It’s exactly you are spot on. Okay. Okay. Because it seems to me that at any given moment, I can, I can present exceptional doesn’t mean arrival. It means this is the best of who I am in this moment.

And that can always be malleable that can always continue to grow. I can always become a more advanced, a better version of myself, but at the same time, it is who I am and, and learning to accept that and thrive in that space. Even if I circle back and start to find more passion and to expand myself, I love that.

So I want to pick up on something, you said, you talked about brain based and brain research, because I think, you know, when, when people first, if they’re not familiar with your work, it would be very easy for people to look at, oh, Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. sounds pretty fluffy. And you, I know, spend a lot of time making sure people understand that there is a neuroscience background to, to the development of, of the acronym that this isn’t, this isn’t fluff. So can you make that connection for us? What maybe a deeper connection between the, the, the science of the brain and the, and the S.H.I.N.E. acronym, if you will. Yes. And so I think, thankfully, I think we’ve made headway on this. I think in the past it was like, Ooh, it’s Lulu stuff. It’s that fluff stuff now. And oh, here we go. Again, all touchy, feely, well, we’re human. So yes. You know, and I think, I think we’re finally, that’s where social, emotional learning SEL has gotten its name and we’re making the grounds on this. And so like, when you look back at the brain, I hinted at some of this already, but you know, is the brain in a state of learning. And so you can sit here and say that, oh, am I going to suck it up, buttercup? Like, let’s go, you, you just need to toughen up. You just need to grow thick skin. That’s nice to say, but that’s not entirely what’s happening with the person they can put on the front, which means they now put up a wall and you now reduce psychological safety at that point. And so we all come with our own stories, right. We all come with our own experiences and all of that affects how we look at things. And so just because I, for example, may have grown up in a situation that was tough. And I learned how to go through that.

It doesn’t mean it’s the best way to go through it. It doesn’t mean it’s the right way to go through it. And just because I figured out a skillset, it doesn’t mean the other person has. Right. So when we think about looking at it from the brain perspective, there’s a, it’s very complex. It really is. But we can simplify that when you look at S.H.I.N.E., but again, the core components in there are really about the best way you can actually probably say, this is confidence, right? You can replace the word, S.H.I.N.E. for confidence. That’s what it’s about. And confidence does this. Like it is up and down, it’s all over the place. And you know, you’re never, always confident in every situation.

It’s, that’s something else to keep in mind. And that’s just how the brain operates. We say are in it, we’re in our comfort zone. And we step out of the comfort zone. And if we’re successful, it gets bigger. And if we’re not, we step back in and then hopefully we’ve created an opportunity that the brain is willing to take risks because we’ve created the culture that allows that.

So you take another risk. Now we innovate where more agile and things that happens like a pandemic. There’s a lot that comes into it. We build that resiliency and we keep broadening this out. And so all of that, you know, it will stem from the brain understanding that it’s okay to do this, and it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to mess up.

And we always say like, you’re going to mess up. Right. You’re human. So it’s not about the actual mistake, right? It’s about what you do with the mistake that matters. So I’ll say it again. It’s about what you do with the mistake, Right? Absolutely. I love, love, love that you used the word confidence because I’m making so many connections to the work that I do in assessment and grading where my colleagues and I talk about how assessment is not just this clinical exercise in number crunching, or gathering evidence, that there is a human being on the other end of the assessment experience. And that assessment should always support and build hope and efficacy. Right? Hope being the about expectation, you know, my expectations of success and efficacy being the belief that I can get there and making sure that nothing we do in our work around assessment, which can be as pressure packed for students as anything they experienced in school.

I mean, maybe the social environment is pressure packed, but assessment is up there. And I just love the focus on confidence because there’s so much, so much overlap to the idea of making sure that whatever assessment strategies you utilize, let’s make sure that it maintains and builds student confidence about their eventual success. And that creates that psychological safety space for them to continue to take risks and push their learning.

So I just, as you were talking there, I was making so many connections to, to the sort of sphere of, of my work in the area of assessment and grading, where it’s a hard conversation to have sometimes when you talk assessment, cause it can feel very clinical. And yet we have to, we can never lose sight of the fact that that student is on the other end of that.

I want to talk first about teachers because one of the interesting things I found is that I think that the default, when, when I, when I first heard about you and your work and Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E., I immediately went to the place of students. But you, you put an interesting twist on it for me, which is that this can also be a framework for teachers.

So we know that, you know, teaching is such a selfless profession, that teachers are often in positions where they just give of themselves. And so it can be challenging for teachers to kind of focus on themselves like themselves and their heart and their passions and, and that, and so forth. So, you know, during COVID of course staff morale has been just taking a beating and we’ve become very aware of where teachers are in terms of their collective morale and even individually their morale as well.

So you say that the Ignite, Your S.H.I.N.E. Framework can have a positive impact on staff morale. So T tell us how that happens. Tell us how we can use the framework to help maintain and then grow the morale of teachers and educators. Yeah. So I’m grateful that you made that connection from students to teachers and it’s, you know, it’s leaders includes like, we love to work with the whole staff because it’s really a philosophy that you’re beginning to understand a framework, and now you can move the whole school through that or district. And it’s it’s parents, it’s families, it’s bottom line. It’s it’s any human being. And we work with corporations on Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.. So we work with teams, you know, CEO suites and the C-suites and all that. So it’s, it’s really for a human because that’s what the bottom line is that it comes down to. And again, I appreciate you bringing up the confidence thing. Cause that’s the biggest thing that we, we talk about is that when your confidence, you can confident you can get through so many of these things.

So when we look at teachers, we look at morale, a lot has been impacted. I, if you think about it from the brain perspective, the brain for majority of humans at this point has been in a very heightened, cortisol, stressful state, which means it’s in a state of survival, not in a state of thriving. And so our brain cares about one thing and that is surviving.

So it wants to survive to thrive. And if it’s in survival mode, you can’t think of the level you want to think. So that frontal lobes, the very front of the brain here, right behind the forehead, all of that goes into a state of fear and the amygdala, which is in the limbic system and deepen the brain there at the Migdal is always on alert.

And they’re teeny tiny that they’re almonds size, almond shape, and there’s two of them in the brain and they’re always watching for our survival. So when we think about teachers who are now adapting to an entire environment, that is many cases has been virtual. They have all the tools to learn. No pandemic manual was handed to them or their leaders like to no one.

And now bottom line is everybody’s in a state of survival because it’s not only that they’re fearing for their own life. They don’t know what this will do to them personally, or their loved ones. And so we create this whole heightened, which when we now ask an educator to show up every day and be smiling and cheerful and, you know, knock it out of the ballpark and teaching the crazy part is as most teachers knew it, right, they will rise to the challenge. They’re, they’re incredible. Educators are just, they blow my mind at how they make things happen, but it doesn’t mean that over a period of time, like we’re having right now that that doesn’t create major issues going forward. So one of the things we’ve been doing is we’ve been doing running faculty meetings for schools.

And we come in from that perspective of morale and survival. And we do an activity that essentially reminds them that they’ve had challenges before. And all we’re doing is reminding the brain, but to this activity, reminding the brain that wait a minute, we have been here before we survived. We did. Okay. Not a pandemic, it’s a different situation, but you’ve been here before, as far as the challenges, the emotions. And so once we make that connection, we see a lot of relief. They share on the chat cause we’ve been doing it, virtually sharing the chat, the, how they feel. And you just see the shift in energy happen. And that’s, what’s important for stuffs too, or for administrators to remember that they themselves doing their sign, but the morale within the school, you can only sustain that level for so long before we have to give people a dip and allow them to then literally S.H.I.N.E., right. To bring them back up and build up that confidence, to get back to some normalcy, reduce the brain and how it’s feeling.

So there’s a lot that goes into it, but it’s definitely possible. I, I, I, I’m very curious about this idea of you coming in and running a faculty meeting because obviously that’s a very short period of time. So can you give us a sense of what that might look like if listeners out there are interested in, Hey, that’s a great idea.

I would love to have LaVonna or someone from her team come in and facilitate a faculty meeting for us. So we can start to have this well, walk us through what that would look like. What, what, what’s the structure of it? What are the activities? How, how do you in a very short period of time begin to engineer that conversation?

Yes. So we have, you know, a lot of administrators that we’re already connected with. So we have shared with them, you know how to do this, but it always reach out to us. We, we would love to make it happen. It’s 45 minutes in length because we know that, you know, faculty means, and to me, when, if you can put it in an email, put an email and allow a moment to have a faculty meeting of, of, of connection and bonding. One of the things that we’ve, we’ve lost during the pandemic, or feel that we have lost is that connection. But we do this virtually and what we’re doing is we create extremely interactive. And the way we design the activities too, is actually creates a high level connection. As a matter of fact, Tom, I’d be willing to challenge that the connection we create a resume is that’s the platform we prefer to use in this case. So when it comes to zoom that we can create our level of connection and then we are in PR. And so the design is around. Just again, the challenge with this, we give a moment in breakout rooms. That is where the depth of the connection actually happens. Come back out. We debrief some of the things and realizations of a Haas that have occurred from that, which creates more connection. But now as the large faculty, then we, we go through the letters of S.H.I.N.E. and we talk about the different components and what that looks like for you personally, what it was like for you professionally in your role. And then we bring it to a close, with a fun little activity that I do that most people have never seen before that involves a science experiment of all things. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. So that’s a bit of a teaser. Absolutely. So I I’m really, that really is a, you know, an interesting, you know, twist or take on, on the work and that you’re coming in at a time where, you know, the issue of morale is clearly on everybody’s minds and, and, you know, morale is tough to maintain regardless of there being a pandemic, but you add in the stresses that teachers have had over the last, you know, calendar 12 months or more with the pandemic, it’s just, you know, I don’t, I don’t think people can, a lot of people outside of education, don’t truly appreciate how relentlessly taxing this has been on educators and, and trying to, and yet, as you say, doing incredible work with students through different platforms and different opportunities, we all had a bit of a shock and awe last spring, but boy, the work I’m seeing teachers doing, I’m sure you’re seeing the same thing is incredibly inspiring despite all of the obstacles and challenges that they face with the pandemic. You talked a little bit about. Yeah, go ahead. Nice. Would say that for sure. A hundred percent, but also what we’ve been doing a lot of work with administrators lately because you know, we know it’s the trickle down effect. And so the teachers have been taking care of the students. Administrators are taking care of the teachers, but who’s taking care of the administrators. Right. And so I think it’s important for them to, and this is what I love about that faculty meeting too, is that I tell them like our team is here to take care of you.

You literally show up for the faculty meeting, you have to do nothing else. Let us run it, let you connect and bond with your own staff. Right. That’s, that’s, that’s a great point. Now beyond the hiring you for the faculty meeting, I want to just go on a bit of a tangent here for leaders. So principals, even assistant principals, or even we can think about superintendents, et cetera, but let’s, let’s talk about the school principal. What else can they do with a level of intentionality that really starts to direct attention toward teachers and their own S.H.I.N.E.? How do we, how do we, how do we as a school leader, what can we do to be purposeful about, about that work?

So one of us is going to be knowing your stuff. You know, we hear that just like we say to teachers, you should know your students and we know their names not said, but if we go deeper than that, it’s do you actually know the strengths of your teachers? And do you remind them of that when they need it? Do you look at it when you’re switching?

Like whether it’s content areas or switching grade levels, are you looking at the letters of S.H.I.N.E.? Does it actually make sense? Because the moment you put a teacher into a situation that is not a passion of theirs, they will make it happen for awhile. Like that’s again, what teachers do. But when you’re happening is if I put my hand up high and again, I know some are listening to this, I put my hand up high and I think we start to go down a slope. That’s what’s happening to that teacher. It’s the same thing. When we have a teacher who says yes to everything, they are a stellar teacher that the S you know, the, the star in the school, when we have some of them, what we ended up doing, we burn them out because we give them so much. So instead, if you look at the strengths across your staff, for example, look at their passions. Now that’s different the way you do content that they’re in what grade level they’re in the committees they’re serving on the project. That they’re a part of a committees, like all of that now, because it’s take a different view as to how that’s done. And so when we do that, people start to live in that excitement and they have that energy, and right there is a shift with culture. And then we get, if you think that I mainly touch on SNH, but again, it’s that I, the inspirations of how are you creating this?

And when the number one thing is I would encourage leaders to do is ask your staff, just ask them so many times, we think we have to, you know, administrate, I see it in Facebook groups that I’m in, you know, like I’ve spent $3,000 trying to, you know, give out Starbucks gift cards and trying to do this and that.

When has anyone ever taken the moment, just ask them, like, what is it that they want, because maybe they could care less about that. And maybe what they want is actually something you could do for free, or it takes a second of your time. And, but we, a lot of times don’t have these discussions to really get to know our staff, to make these decisions. Yeah, it’s interesting, as I, as you’re talking there, I’m thinking about school leaders, you know, really investing in, in understanding the strengths and the passions of their teachers. And it seems to me that that almost creates a kind of inertia where if we continue to highlight for others, what their strengths are and help them find their passions, they themselves become inspired, which allows them to navigate and therefore manifest the exceptional side of themselves. I’m sort of seeing that, that almost, if you were to take the acronym and correct me if I’m wrong, but, but I’m seeing principals investing disproportionately in the S and the H and therefore being able to sort of produce this kind of momentum for people.

Is that, is that a fair way to look at It? Yes. Yes. Cause you’re, you’re showing that you care, you know, you’re uplifting your people. You’re putting them in the sweet spot. We call it the S.H.I.N.E. spot, but the sweet spot of, you know, where they best live. And it’s it’s, and it’s important for educators to also understand that it’s not just about in the school building.

That’s also what they’re doing personally, you know, are they embedding those moments then? Yeah. You, you Feel free to make up as many words as you want listeners, as you navigate the Ignite, Your S.H.I.N.E. website. You’ll notice that there’s a lot of different words instead of workshops, they’re called fun shops. And I love that. So you feel free to make up as many words as you want.

Let’s pivot now to students and you, I believe you subscribe as I do that. Social emotional learning is most impactful and long lasting when it’s taught within the context of the intended learning outcomes or the standards and not treated as this separate silos. So how do teachers use the Ignite, Your S.H.I.N.E. framework to teach and promote social emotional competencies within the intended standards?

So let’s try angulate that you’ve got the Ignite, Your S.H.I.N.E. framework. We’ve got social, emotional competencies, and we’ve got the standards in the intended learning, help us bring those three things together to talk about what teachers would do to bring that, bring that about it in their classrooms. I love this question, Tom, you can just speak in right to my heart, which you stared as your heart to that. So many times what’s happening right now is, oh my goodness. I have all this SEL to teach. I already had this too much to teach in this teeny tiny amount of time. And now I’ve got to add SEL N, Nope. That’s why we created a fun shop. I’m glad you pointed that out.

A fun note because we believe in having fun interaction. I mean, you can’t talk like, talk about the brain and then not model it. Right. So it’s all blended together, but we created a fun shop called content and SEL unite because we shouldn’t be seeing them as separate things. What really is happening is that we blend it. And it’s so easy.

You think about like a history, historical character, any historical figure I should say. And in your talking about what they did, whether it was right or wrong in history, you’re talking about what they did that has an incredible opportunity to pull in SEL, right. Then, you know, why did they make that decision? What else could they have done?

Who did it impact positively or negatively? Like some of the questions we’ve already done, but we’ve never looked at it through the lens of SEL, but then even adding in other things, especially self-awareness having students think and reflect about it for themselves. I think about a character in a book, you know, what do you think they should do next? And now we have a read what they did, but what do we think they should do next will be some decisions. And based upon the decisions that you listed, would they be ones like these good ones, great ones, not ones we should do. It’s still a choice to do, but no, not a good one. You’re getting kids to reflect on themselves how they would handle it. You’re getting them to reflect on, okay. That is a choice, but is it a good choice, right? Oh, it’s it. Yeah. I just, I find so often that we, we, and maybe it’s a natural tendency for teachers to silo things, but I think there’s just so many opportunities to infuse and naturally, you know, blend competencies in inside of a context, because as you mentioned, you look at history or if you look at writing and, and or you look at, and even science decisions, scientific decisions or pivots that happened in science, where we gain new knowledge, there’s, there’s always a human side to that. There’s always a humanity that, that makes the decision, or there’s a human side that ha that has to endure the residual effects of different decisions.

And I think bringing that brings learning to life, it makes it, it makes the human side of learning more tangible and more real as opposed to it being just something clinical that I read about in a book. So I really, I really subscribed to that, that notion as well. And I certainly appreciate that. Okay. So as we sort of finish up here with the framework, I, I’m hoping you can walk us through each aspect and let’s maybe get a little bit more granular with the framework as far as teachers and, and what are some things they can do. So we know that for example, the, the focus on self is to focus on strengths. So I guess what I’m getting at is asking you to get some, give us some specific sort of strategies or approaches that would allow us to address each one of the, the, the letters, if you will, in, in the acronym, the self, the heart inspire navigate exceptional. So in terms of what teachers can do positively and to permanently impact all of their S.H.I.N.E.s, if you will, what does that look like in a classroom?

What are some specific things teachers would be doing to address each of those areas? I would definitely encourage anyone. Who’s listening to go to IgniteYourSHINE.com and click on our, our learning library, because we have free lessons in there. And there are lessons that can be it’s two, two, well, one’s an overview of what S.H.I.N.E. is and are videos of me that you show to students.

And so I’m talking to the students, sharing with them information, and then there’s, hands-on lessons that go with them. And it’s two per letter that we have plus an like culminating one at the end. And we also have ones in there that are meant for virtually for teachers. And we have some for parents slash caretakers to be able to implement too.

And so one of the things that when we think about strengths that we encourage you to do is to have this conversations around strengths, you know, so it can be a personal reflection, too. It can be, well, I see my five classmates here and I know so-and-so, they are phenomenal at this. I noticed their strength and they have a chance to start sharing the great things about each other, which is going to bring the class together. And they’re going to realize, wait a minute, I didn’t know. You saw that about me. Wow, you, you do know that. So we start building this collaboration. So it, again, it goes back to some of those discussions you’re going to have, but it’s getting kids to realize this too, not just the teacher sharing it, but students having an opportunity. So we have in there, for example, one of the lessons is an all about me quiz. And so they answer questions and then they end up being put into one of four light sources. So it sounds like a label. And I’m very persistent, I guess, would be the best word that this isn’t about labeling kids.

But it’s about is creating a green segments that then allow discussions. So for example, if the, for light sources are, it’s a traffic light, it’s a light house buyer, or I’m going blank on oh, son, like the sun up in the sky. And so when they take this, they find out and we have just arbitrarily sat down.

This was not like some third-party research thing, but we sat down and said, okay, if you’re a son, when we think about a son, we think of compassionate, warm, friendly, caring of others. And so what ends up happening is they ended up being one of the Fort light sources when all reality, they’re actually all of them, right?

What ends up happening is they find some similarities and they sit with groups and we’ve done this a variety of ways. When I work in schools, the way I have the teachers do it too, to go through this, as they go to the corner of the room that has to do with our light source. And they have to create a statue that represents the meaning of who they are.

But what we’re really doing is we’re, we’re noticing similarities between students, which is really cool when students do this, because they may have someone in the group that they didn’t like, and now you’ve created a whole similarity for them to discuss any. But then we also facilitate discussions amongst all four light sources of how really we are all of them. And Hey, just because I’m not great at this. What’s awesome as you are. So would you be able to support me and help me when I need it? And I’d be happy to do the same for you with my strengths. That’s an example of one. Yeah. That’s, You know, it’s interesting because you’re, you’re so spot on with the idea of labels and labels can certainly be limiting and restricting and not trying to label, but at the same time, there is something to naming and noticing myself and knowing kind of where my strengths lie and that’s not to restrict me, but it’s more to understand me and understand, you know, what, what I would be w what I’m about and who I am as an individual, and that level of awareness or metacognition, not just who I am as a person, but who I am as a learner is such a valuable skill for all of us, nevermind a student. It’s a skill for adults to have as well, because I’m sure, you know, as I, as I do, there are many adults who don’t have an, a level of awareness that might be good for them to develop a little bit and in our society, that’s for sure. Lavonne, I really, really have enjoyed our, you know, talking about, I just, you can’t come away from this conversation without feeling good. You, you just, you have a way of, of energizing the conversation. And certainly I, I appreciate and tremendously respect the work that you’re doing. And I think, you know, obviously at some point we’re gonna, I’m gonna find an excuse to have your back and continue to dig deep into the work and, and have listeners, you know, share maybe at a deeper level. Just some of the things that, that, that you’re finding and uncovering in your own research and your own work and your own sort of experiences with, with schools.

But we’re going to finish up with a segment that I call three questions where we’re going to take, even though this has been very light and not light as a, not serious, but it’s a, it’s an uplifting conversation. We’re going to have a little fun now, which is, I’m going to ask you three questions and I have a bonus question after.

So there’s actually going to be four. We had three questions. That’ll be kind of these fun lighthearted questions. I do this with every interviewee during, during the interviews. And it’s just a chance for listeners to get to know LaVonna a little bit on a personal level, nothing too intrusive, but certainly fun to kind of get your perspective on these arbitrary, random, meaningless questions that I’m about to ask you. So here’s the first one, the first one is a choice. Would you rather be able to breathe under water or fly through the air? Whether they are hands down, hands down, because I love to travel and I loved it. Like I love flying in a plane because I can see the world from a different perspective and see so much more.

And so as much as I love dolphins, it’d be cool to breathe under water and swim with them. But no, absolutely. Just to be able to feel that freedom of flying. Yeah. I think I would probably choose the same second one. Would you rather be fluent in all languages or be a master of every musical instrument? Fluent in all languages.

Yeah. Which is a challenge. I play the piano flute and Piccolo. So it’s funny when you say musical instruments, but yeah, I don’t actually really talk about that much because I don’t have a piano anymore or a flute or a Piccolo, but I can still play. Like I know my sister has a flute and so I have a chance to play her as every now and then, but no fluent in all languages. I actually, when I was about to be kicked out of college for my grades, I was in a desperate situation. And I pulled the university catalog because I always want to learn sign language. When I T when I worked at McDonald’s and then, which was my first job either, I encountered a man who would come in and point to the pictures because he was deaf and we couldn’t communicate.

And then I call it art college. I had a job and that deaf couple came in, couldn’t communicate. So I wanted to learn sign language. So I looked it up. But in order to take Sally, what you had to go into deaf education. So that’s when I became a teacher for the deaf and I learned to sign and I love, I hate barriers. I hate barriers. Being able to communicate and connect with humans. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I love that. That’s, that’s very impressive. All of it, learning to Sign, playing the instruments. I am. I, are you someone who coming back after a long day of workshopping and dinner, you walk into the hotel lounge and you, you sort of saunter up to the piano and start to play. Are you one that just impromptu plays or are you, do you feel like you’re a little bit out of practice Out of practice? And I never, even though I did competitions recitals, I hate playing for people. We had a piano at one point and my husband was just like, how come you won’t play in front of me?

And I’m like, because it’s a de-stressor for me. And when I have people listening, it’s stresses me out. It’s no rubber meeting relax. Right? So you have all this talent that you don’t want to share with people, but I understand that that’s fine. That’s right. Well, maybe one day we’ll get you to play piano. I don’t know how maybe you can record yourself and we’ll put it on the podcast.

I don’t know. Well, we’ll figure that out. Down the road. All right. Last one, not last one. I’ve got two more for you, but the last would you rather question is, would you rather be known as a one hit wonder as a novelist? Like you wrote a novel, you’re a one hit wonder, or would you rather be a one hit wonder with a song,a song, a song. Okay. Yes. Songs tap into our memory emotions. We connect with them. They can change the state that we’re in with the brain. It can change our mood. You know? So for me, I’d rather, yes. I’d rather have a song to have an opportunity to impact others. Yeah. And I think that the other part of songs is that people tend to listen to songs.

Thousands of times, you know, a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, I talked about a happiness booster and the happiness booster for me is music. It’s an instant mood changer for me. So whenever I’m feeling my thoughts or going down a negative path, or I’m feeling a little defeatist with work or whatever music instantly is, it’s an instant mood maker.

And I think that people read a book, maybe once, maybe then it sits on a shelf. Whereas your one hit wonder is going to be, I still listen to songs from when I was a child that I remember. And the, the example I gave on the podcast a couple of weeks ago was Fleetwood Mac’s rumors. I got that album for my 10th birthday, and I still love that album. And I still listen to it. And that’s, that’s, you know, it’s 43 years ago. So I mean, that music is so enduring, I guess it’s long lasting. So here’s the bonus question, listeners. You probably don’t know this. Some of you will, most of you probably don’t LaVonna is a diehard hockey fan.

And that of course warms every Canadian’s heart. It LaVonna is a die hard, a Tampa bay lightning fan. I believe you’re a season ticket holder. If I’m not mistaken. I see you at the games on Instagram all the time. You’re not a season ticket holder. No. Okay. But you do go to the games quite frequently. So where did that come from?

Where did, how did you become such a big hockey fan? So I wasn’t, but when you live with a husband who is, ah, okay. The influence of the spouse. Yes. It’s by default. So it, my husband is a huge hockey fan, huge hockey fan. And then my bonus son, which is his biological son, but my bonus son played ice hockey.

And so when I came into the picture, he was already playing travel hockey. And so I learned like hockey with that. And then you get into the city and our city, I live in Tampa. And so it’s all about the lightening, you know? And so you see people, it doesn’t matter whether we were in season off season, it doesn’t matter everyone’s wearing it.

And then I started going to the games, which says a lot for me, Tom. Cause I just want you to know, I hate to be cold. It’s why I moved to Florida, but you can bundle up and go feel the energy and watch the players and just how stellar they are. Because the reason I didn’t like hockey and I hate to say it.

I didn’t like it before. It was because I didn’t like the fights. Right? Like I don’t like people hurting other people. I now understands the culture of the game and understand why they do it to rev up energy. And so now I have an appreciation, not still for the fights, but I have an appreciation for it. And just learning more like I it’s fun.

And the games, there’s nothing like a hockey game. Like yeah, the action is constant. So you can’t get bored. It’s one of those interesting things when people ask me about hockey, of course, because being Canadian, it’s, you know, it’s a requirement by laws. I said to you earlier, it’s a, non-blood, it’s one of those sports where I tell people until you go to a game live, you’re going to have a hard time. Like if you’re new to the sport, don’t watch it on TV until you’ve been to a live game because once you’ve watched it live, you’ll be able to understand more what you’re seeing on TV. It’s, it’s, you know, in some sports, if it’s not sort of, if it’s not part of your culture, whereas, you know, for other sports, like you grew up watching football, or you grew up watching baseball, or you grew up, you know, watching basketball, you kind of have an instinct about it, but if hockey is not on your radar, really try to get to a game live. And then, then you’ll kind of understand the ebb and flow.

Cause it’s hard to follow the puck for sure. But I just love the, I love the Instagram posts where you’re at the lightening lightning games. And certainly all of us hockey fans are envious of, of the Stanley cup championship and, and the run that the lightning have been on. And, and we talked before we hit record that Tampa is on a roll now with the super bowl, the Stanley cup almost had the world series. And certainly some would argue a ill time to pitching change during the world series probably cost the world series, but this could be quite the run for Tampa, if that was, if that was all, all going on. So really just impressed. So now, now I know more about the, the, the hockey fandom and where that’s come from.

So I’m happy you’ve joined the club. One final question for you. One final question for you, LaVonna. It’s a question I ask all interviewees as, as we close out the interview and it’s a theme of success and happiness as, as I run through the podcast and think and ask everybody the same question. And the question is if a random person stopped you on the street and asked you, what is your definition of success? How would you respond to them? I think success is different for everyone, but a phrase that I might use would be content contentment with a nudge. So I think a lot of times we can be afraid to go after success. You know, it’s, it’s that fear that settles in that lack of confidence in that moment.

But if you can take a risk and then feel the contentment from that, the happiness that’s another word would definitely pop in my head, that contentment though from it, but to nudge yourself to go again, because what really happens is that we’re not content as humans with staying in the same place. You know, we want to grow, that’s a need, a desire that we have. And so if you’re content and I’ll have that nudge, right, you’re feeling success, your content again, feel that nudge, but don’t just feel it, do something with it. Right? Yeah. And I love that listeners you’ll remember, you know, Muhammad Khalifa who I had on last week also talked about the difference between contentment and complacency, right? The idea that you don’t want to be complacent, but you want to be content with who you are. I absolutely love that framing of, of success around contentment with a nudge is you just have a way of crafting that little extra. I love that the idea of being content, but you want to keep growing and you want to keep pushing yourself in all the, all the right ways and all the positive ways. So I really do appreciate that listeners you can follow and really should follow LaVonna on Twitter. Her Twitter handle is @LaVonnaRoth, just as it sounds in his spelled. You also should follow IgniteYourSHINEnow. So at IgniteYourSHINEnow, and Instagram is the Instagram account to follow there as well.

Lavonna is also on LinkedIn LaVonna Roth on LinkedIn. You can, you can tap in there and also the Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. website. So it’s IgniteYourSHINE.com and it’s a fabulous website LaVonna. I just want to say that it’s really, really, user-friendly really great graphics. The optics of it are, are fantastic. And there’s a tremendous amount of great information on the website.

So listeners would really encourage you to have well, so LaVonna, I can’t thank you enough for joining me today. Thanks so much. Thank you, Tom. And I also want to say thank you to you because you’re making an impact with all you’re doing with this podcast that you’re reaching. So you’re very much appreciated and valued. Thank you so much.

I appreciate that In assessment corner this week, I want to finish my exploration of homework. Now look, finish might be a little optimistic here. I’m I’m under no illusion that a two 10 to 15 minute segments on a podcast is going to tie a bow on the homework dilemma. But you know what I mean by that, we’re going to just sort of finish off our thinking around that.

And you’ll recall last week we talked about what role homework plays in learning. And I shared with you the Kathy Vatterrodt quote about the value of research being in the broad strokes at paints, not in the minutia and that we have to think about, you know, do those results in the research makes sense for our population of students, et cetera. I also shared some thoughts from Harris Cooper, from duke university, who is arguably considered one of the thought leaders. When it comes to homework, I shared with you, the quote homework for young students should be shortly to success without much struggle. Occasionally involve parents. And when possible use out of school activities that kids enjoy such as their sports teams or high interest reading. So again, we talked about expanding the possibilities of what homework could be.

Cooper also said that there is some validity to the 10 minute rule. As in the grade level number multiplied by 10 minutes gives you a ballpark number of the number of minutes that students should be spending on homework in total, not per subject, but in total. So grade one multiplied by 10 that’s, 10 minutes, total per evening, you know, and that includes, you know, high interest reading activities, et cetera, a grade six, of course, that would be an hour. And if you’re in the 12th grade, senior year, that’s two hours. But again, that’s the total for all subjects. Not, not just per subject. I often talk about Harris Cooper’s work and Kathy<inaudible> as well in workshops because so many participants haven’t heard of them and haven’t sort of looked at their research and, you know, I wonder sometimes why is it that we’re so unfamiliar with those folks doing the research? I, I have my suspicions and I suspect that it’s at least partly because the researchers don’t succumb to ranting through hyperbole, which in this day and age, as you’ve heard me say many times on the podcast seems to be the way of going about the business.

So if you don’t rant and rave and you don’t take extreme positions, you kind of go unnoticed. Unfortunately, you know, we also talked about John Hattie’s effect size 0.29. It’s not huge, but it’s not nothing. So the idea being that homework can help, but it’s not the main driver of learning. The bottom line is homework can play a role in enhancing a learners learning, but there needs to be some thoughtfulness behind it. Okay. So that leads to the second question I posed last week, which we’re going to pick up on this week, which is the question of should homework contribute in any way to a student’s achievement grade. Now the short answer to that question is no most of the time, the answer is no for two reasons.

First we know some students need longer to learn and often homework is assigned after one lesson. The idea that we would teach a lesson once and ask the students then to work independently, to show a level of proficiency without any feedback or supplemental support or more practice seems overly optimist. We’re good teachers. Many of you are great teachers, but let’s not get crazy here.

We’re not that good where we can teach a lesson once and 30 to 35 diverse learners will all reach an exemplary level of understanding with no feedback, no intervention. So some students need longer to learn is the first reason, the second reason homework really shouldn’t contribute to a student’s grade. Most of the time time is you don’t know who did the work. If what students do outside of school is going to contribute in any small, medium, or large way to their grade. We have to at least have some assurance. I mean, you can’t know for sure, but you have to have some assurance that what the students have demonstrated is actually their demonstration of learning. I mean, that was always my litmus test. When I first began this journey early on in this assessment journey, as I was transforming my own classroom, I used to always ask myself, you know, how easy is this to copy? That was the test. Now I love what my friend and colleague Eileen Devco has to say in her book, bringing homework into focus. And her, her notion is not to start with the question of whether or not to grade, but to think about what type of type of work it is.

So here’s what Eileen had to say. Quote, when it comes to grading homework, we’re asking the wrong question. The question is not whether to grade work completed outside of the classroom, but instead, what type of work is it is the work formative and intended to provide further experiences for students to apply the content or skills is the work summative and assigned after students have had ample opportunity to practice and quote.

I think that’s the important thing to think about. Notice that last phrase, ample opportunity to practice. That’s a really important distinction to make the distinction between homework as practice and homework as extension. You know, when we assign homework or homework kind of evolves out of, out of student learning as practice, that’s usually when we’re talking about skill development, we’re often building foundational skills, foundational understanding. I mean, we’re going to go deeper than that, but we need to build that foundation from which we will go deeper. It usually comes, you know, very early in the progression that homework has practice. And, and this is where we want to think about not grading that work, but really prioritizing feedback and next steps and learning.

Now there are times where student demonstrations that are produced at home actually will count toward a student’s grade. So again, there’s home work and then there’s work done at home. This is where you’re, you’re, you know, you’re engaging students in deeper learning there, you may be connecting multiple standards with this kind of project or research paper, or what have you.

They, you know, whatever they’re working on often, there’s a level of authenticity or real world application or original thinking involved in what the students are producing at home. And so if the students have had ample time to practice, and if they have familiarity with the material and the, and the topic at hand, then, then maybe you decide to grade that you have to judge that whether or not that’s something that, you know, you would grade or something that you would contribute as long as they’ve had that ample opportunity. So you, as the teacher, of course, you’re going to use your judgment to decide whether or not there has been enough opportunity to practice. And therefore, this is something that represents original thinking and therefore it’s something that could contribute to their report card.

Great. Write some. Now the other issue that often comes up for teachers, and we’ll just talk about this on a slight tangent here is that, you know, teachers say, I don’t really assign homework, but when students don’t complete the tasks in class and I give them a reasonable amount of time to finish it and they don’t make good use of class time, then they have to finish that for homework. Yeah. So work that’s finished at home because of a misuse of classroom time, but that’s a totally different issue that we’re talking about there that’s, that’s on the students if they haven’t made ample use of the time available. So again, just making sure that what you’re asking them to complete is, you know, reasonable and, and all of that. So I want to sort of close out this segment by offering you six questions that you can ask of your homework practices. And this, these are six questions that come out of the book grading from the inside out. And when the section where I talk about repurposing homework, I just want to share with you six questions that I think can guide your decisions around homework.

Okay. So the first question I would ask of any homework assignment, if that’s the, what you’re doing, if you’re assigning something for homework is ask yourself, is it truly learning centered? Now I know that sounds basic and fundamental, but I can tell you that in the past, I know I’ve been guilty of assigning busywork for homework, because I wanted to make sure that parents had the illusion of rigor because even early in my career, back in the early nineties, I even equated rigor to volume. How much homework students were were getting was how rigorous my classroom was. And that clearly is not the case rigorous about cognitive complexity. So it’s not volume. We want to make sure that the homework is focused on the learning. That’s probably the easiest one for teachers to accomplish of all of them, but it’s still something to think about. You know, there are times where we assign busy work, but make sure that what you’re asking students to do at home is truly learning centered on what the learning goals were for that day or for that week or whatever. Second question I would ask is, is it necessary again? I think there’s some credibility that teachers gain with their students.

When, at times you say to them, listen, we are exactly where we need to be going into tomorrow. So there is no extra practice tonight. We’re good. Because a couple of days later you might, you have to go back to them and say, okay, after today’s lesson, listen, you know, we need to do a little practice tonight because we’re not quite ready for what tomorrow has in store.

So let’s, let’s sort of do a little bit of practice, right. And that can help students see that, that there’s, you know, relevance to, to what it is they’re doing. I think, you know, with homework, you’re, you’re either deepening the understanding from today, or you’re having them do some advanced learning that has some utility in tomorrow’s lessons.

Right. And, and that could be one of the answers students need to the question, why are we doing this? Why, why are we learning this sometimes not the only reason, but sometimes they ask that question because they don’t see the big picture. It just feels like you’re making them do something because you’re the teacher. So open their eyes to that.

Right. Is it learning centered? Is it necessary? The third question is, is it reasonable? Okay. Now for me, what I learned throughout the course of my career is that the policy that should override all policies is the policy of reasonableness and making sure that we are, you know, with the homework context, we’re thinking about a reasonable amount.

And remember last week we talked about how teachers aren’t great at predicting how long homework is going to take. And, and therefore students get overwhelmed because teachers think it’s not going to take very much time and, and it ends up taking a lot longer. So make sure you check in with your students to find out, you know, was that a reasonable expectation?

Is it a reasonable amount? Is it a reasonable, you know, expectation going into tomorrow? We want to make sure as Harris Cooper says, homework can be impactful and positive. As long as it doesn’t end up being too much, too much, you know, sort of ends up eliminating all of the potential positives that come that come from students doing extra practice at home.

Question four is it of high quality. Again, we want deep, rich, thoughtful, you know, things have kids synthesize, have them tie into their extracurricular activities, have them do things that are quite relevant. We don’t, we don’t want that busy work. Okay. That to me is just the, those days are over the packets. You know, here’s your, I’m going to make you do things in the evening. Again, we have to go back to the question of why. Okay. That is a fundamental question with homework. Why am I assigning this? Think about Aileen depth, because what type of work is this? Is it formative? Is it intended to be formative? Is it summative?

If it is, have they had ample opportunity to practice? I don’t think you ever go wrong in assessment when you emphasize quality over quantity. So when a homework with homework, think about quality question number five is, are the students ready? Some students aren’t completing their homework and not able to demonstrate an understanding because they’re not ready to work independently. Right?

And it creates a little desperation. And so this is why students started copying each other, especially if you’re going to score it. If, if there’s an overtone of, of scoring and checking and compliance, you’re going to create a desk, a desperate kind of moment for many students, you know, some students need longer to learn. We said that earlier, Father Phil | LaVonna Roth | Homework (2)therefore there are going to be students, especially if they’re not familiar with the learning, there are going to be students who can’t do it. They’re not ready to work independently. Now, as soon as you take grading and scoring off the table with homework, suddenly we don’t care if they get help from others, if they don’t know, they get support from their friends or they get support from their families or their older sibling or whatever, it doesn’t matter because learning is the goal, right? Not, not acquiring points or, or reaching proficiency levels, but we have to coach the students a little bit on this one because, you know, I told my students back in the day, I want you to ask your friends. I want you to seek help from your families. But here’s the question I want you to ask them.

Don’t ask them, what’d you get for number one, ask them, how do you do number one, right? How do I procedurally what’s the thinking here? So that kind of approach, right? I think it’s important to kind of coach them a little bit to say, look at this as a learning opportunity for you. So make it a learning opportunity and, and allow others to kind of help you learn, because eventually I’m going to ask you to do this independently and show me that you’ve reached proficiency. So you might feel like copying other students is a short-term win, but it might bring about a long-term loss, so to speak. So we want to make sure we coach them on that. So encourage them to do the homework together, you know, and in this era, do it on FaceTime or zoom or, or Microsoft teams or whatever, like do it together, work together, talk together, engineer those conversations, give them the opportunity to do that, but just make sure that they’re ready to work independently. And if they’re not just encourage them to, to work with others. And then the last question is where the, where the students involved at all in any small, medium, or large way involved in choosing what was for homework, right? So this is an opportunity for you to differentiate for readiness, whether there’s, you know, an authentic opportunity for real agency or, or whether you can just tailor, you know, the assignment a little bit for where they’re at, just allowing them the opportunity to have some direction or guidance, or at least, you know, to shape a little bit about what’s for homework. We’ll, we’ll definitely go a long way. Again, I’m not saying that you have to ask all six questions each time, but what I would do is consider all six more holistically as you kind of shape what the homework routine is in your classroom.

So is it learning centered? Is it necessary? Is it a reasonable amount? Is it of high quality are the, and it’s ready to work independently. And were they involved at all in choosing what was for homework or having some direction? Yes, homework can be effective, but that effectiveness is not automatic. It’s not about just assigning homework. The effectiveness comes with the quality of what you’re asking students to do and to think about.

So you have to be very purposeful about what you’re asking them to do, make some relevant connections for them into their life outside of school. Again, make sure you’re reasonable about the time you’re asking students to continue learning at home, consider the amount of support available, you know, make sure that we understand that again, as we said last week, often homework tests, the socioeconomic status and the level of education of the parents and families and those who are at home to support the kids and the teenagers, et cetera. So be mindful of that and make sure that it’s a reasonable expectation. Combine number three, combine the research with your experience and pay close attention to how students respond so that you can create a meaningful learning experience for all of them.

So pay attention to how they respond to the homework, pay attention to all of that. So make sure on our end, we’re thinking about high quality work and demonstrations of learning and deeper, rich learning experiences. And at the same time, just pay attention to their reactions, their emotions, their facial expressions, their body language, all of that is going to tell you a ton about how your, how effective your routine is at this moment. And honestly, steer clear of it, of using homework as any kind of leverage or consequence or carrot so that the conflating of practice with punishment is avoided. Okay. We need to avoid that. We can’t have students equating the extension of learning or the deepening of learning at home with a kind of consequence for inappropriate behavior.

Like if you don’t stop that, I’m going to double your homework tonight. That’s turning a potentially positive learning experience into a big negative, and, and that’s going to have a completely different impact on students and their mindset around working at home is going to feel adversarial with their teacher. So be careful about that, right? Homework should only be about learning.

So we know homework can positively impact students and positively impact their growth and, and journey along their learning progressions to reach proficiency. But it’s not as simple as assigning it. We have to be incredibly purposeful and very thoughtful about what we ask learners to do on their own time at home and making sure that whatever we do, what we’re asking them to do is high quality, deep, rich learning experiences. Okay. A few announcements before we close out today, just a reminder about the achieve Institute, which is the Institute focused on promising practices and instruction, assessment, and grading. That’s going to be virtual this August 16 through 18, and that features myself, Cassandra Arkins, Nicole<inaudible> and Katie white. Now in support of that event, this coming April 27th at 12:00 PM Eastern time. So that’s 9:00 AM Pacific time. We’re going to be hosting a one hour free webinar that’s with again, myself, Cassandra, Nicole, Katie, a free webinars called designing assessments that empower the whole student really centered around talking about meeting the challenges of classroom assessments today and kind of leading into that event. So that’s free, I’ll put links in the show notes for both the free webinar, as well as the conference coming this August. So again, you can also go to solution, tree.com to get details for that event as well. Now, the reminder also of the Google survey for the summer series, I’m just getting ready to close that out a little bit and I’ll have to start organizing the topics for the summer, but thank you to those of you who’ve responded so far. Just follow the link in the show notes. If you haven’t contributed already would love to hear from you about what topics we should be covering this summer. Remember to follow the podcast, Twitter accounts. That’s at Tom shimmer pod. You can follow me on Twitter as well. That’s at Tom shimmer shimmer education on Facebook, Tom shimmer podcast on Instagram. You can connect through all those different ways and don’t forget about the YouTube channel as well. Tom shimmer podcast on YouTube, and please email your questions for assessment corner or any suggestions you have for the podcast. That’s Tom shimmer pod@gmail.com. Next week, my guest will be Catlin. Tucker Catlin is an expert on blended learning. So that’ll be our topic next week.

Please subscribe, follow rate, review the podcast, especially on apple podcasts, Of course. And as always, if you like, what you hear, please spread the word about the podcast friends and your colleagues have a great week. Everyone.