Growth Spurts, Success Cycle, and Inspiring Young Writers With Shannon Anderson

What's going on everybody? I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and host of the teaching champions podcast. And today on the show, we're joined by Shannon Anderson. She's an award winning children's book author, a national speaker. She taught for 25 years from first grade to the college level. And she was named one of the 10 teachers who ordered and inspired for the today's show in 2019. Her book I love strawberries was named the top rated 2022 picture book by Good Housekeeping magazine. And in this conversation, listen, as Shannon talks about ways that we can help our students understand a growth mindset, how we should teach them about the success cycle language that we can use to help our students become more resilient. Listen to the ways that we can help our students get fired up and find meaning in their writing. And there's so much more. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Shannon Anderson, as much as I did. I am super excited for this episode. Because we have someone that's absolutely amazing. Here, we have Shannon Anderson Shannon, welcome to the teaching champions podcast. Thank you so much. I am so excited about this episode, because I view it as one of my weak points as a teacher is the writing aspect. So I brought in our writing guru for us to drop some great knowledge. But for those of the listeners that don't know who you are, in your background, Shannon, would you mind giving us a little brief explanation of your journey and who you are? Sure. So I was a teacher for 25 years. And when I was a kid, I absolutely loved books, I loved reading them, I as soon as I knew how to start writing, I was writing and diaries all the time. And when I was in high school, my job was actually working in the public library in the children's section, the whole downstairs was the children's area. And that was me when the children's librarian left it for each day. So I got to be down there until they closed at eight. And I loved matching kids to the perfect book or getting to read a book for everyone out in circulation before anyone else got a chance to check it out. And I just always kind of had this dream that it would be so cool to have one of my books on that shelf someday. And I wrote in my senior year diary that I was going to be an elementary teacher and write children's books on the weekends and in the summers, you know, all that extra time that teachers have. And so I started out with the first half of my dream as a teacher, and loved it. And then I started about halfway through teaching about 12 years in I kind of started dipping my toe in the water learning about writing books for kids. So I was starting to tap into that second part of my dream. And my daughter, my youngest daughter had something called amblyopia where she had to wear an eyepatch. And she had to wear it for three years. And of course, she didn't enjoy that. And she felt like she was the only one that had to do that, because we didn't know of anyone else in our town that wore a patch. And so my first book actually was I am not a pirate. And it was about Maddie having to wear that eyepatch, and just, you know, trying to help other kids maybe who have to wear one, to not feel alone, and to see how she got through it with a sense of humor. And, you know, once I wrote that book, I was kind of hooked and I wanted to learn more, and I wanted to write more, and I wanted to help more kids. And so I just kind of kept going until I got to the point where I had enough books coming out that it was really hard to keep up with all of the work to still be a good teacher, and all of the work with the writing and marketing aspects of being an author. So I figured 25 years was kind of a good milestone. year and I decided it was time to pursue the second half of my dream and to try to write and speak and do the author visits full time that is so special that you're a high school senior. And you're down there in the children's section of the library matching kids the book books that you write in your journal that you want to teach and be an author, and that you've accomplished that. I think that's amazing. And I was looking at your book, I am not a pirate and the absolutely beautiful. And I think it's so special to raise awareness for kids especially, so that they don't feel by themselves. And I noticed like, so the eyepatch that your daughter had, or at least in the book, you decorated it up that you sold something special? Did you have several different eye patches that were all decorated? And everything we did, we had several different eye patches, we had a teddy bear hard mermaid to make it more fun. Yeah, I love that. That is so awesome. Now, you've gone into the professional space of being an author going out and presenting, giving presentations. What is the purpose behind your writing, like what fuels your drive to write, you know, it started out as wanting to help kids not feel alone and to maybe understand things in their world. A lot of my writing experience comes from my classroom and my family. You know, like I said, my youngest daughter, I also have written a middle grade novel about my oldest daughter and how she was able to conquer some of her anxieties. But like Penelope perfect is about a perfectionist. And I had students like that who were so hard on themselves. And I wanted to be able to show through a character how you know, this Penelope, you know, learn how to go with the flow a little bit more to still do her best and, and try but not to get to the point of stress and anxiety, where she was being so hard on herself, she was missing out on things or like coasting Casey, I've had students like that, who may be in fact very gifted, but were under achieving, or, you know, they, they would say that they're bored. But really it was, you know, all about, you know, either the approach that they were learning or the way that they were able to show their learning, or the way they were able to incorporate some of their interests or passions even. So I started out kind of trying to do that. And then when I started learning more and more about growth mindset, that's when now I've written three books on that. That is something that I wish I had known more about when I was a kid. Because understanding the way our brain works, all the neuroplasticity, and all of the, you know how our reticular activating system, I mean, all these things that I had no clue about when I was a kid, that if we set goals, and if we go for them, and if we realize that the efforts and the practice that we put in and all of our learning is actually helping our brain, whether we think it is or not, it's wired that way to, to grow as we're learning the things that we want to learn. And so being able to empower kids by teaching them that I think, is a great way to help them feel more confident, and a great way to kind of conquer all of those. Well, you know, how they will compare themselves to others, you know, someone else will catch on to something quicker. And they think that that maybe means that they're not smart, or they're they're not able to do that thing. But really, it's all about the the amount of experience maybe they have or exposure they've had to it or their background knowledge or lack thereof. All of those are the factors is has nothing to do with if they're smart or not. And so giving kids the tools and the understanding of how their brain works, can help them learn things with confidence and just to accomplish the goals that they set for themselves. No, I love that. And I completely agree like giving them that language. I love how you bring that through characters, people that they can relate to. I was talking a couple episodes ago I had on Glenn Jorgensen, and she was an Olympic gold medalist. And it was interesting to hear her journey because it's all about growth mindset. And she talked about how she didn't even she wasn't even given a division one college scholarship to swim. But yet she ends up years later, becoming a gold medalist, which is absolutely amazing. So it's important for our kids to see that it's a process. And then, you know, we talked about in class, that if you want to be a good reader, you got to read if you want to be a good, you know, instrument that you got to practice that. And also I've seen some things that you put out about making those mistakes and celebrating those mistakes. Yeah, now, can you I know you talk to parents a lot about growth mindset, and as part of your presentations, what are some things that we can bring into our classroom as far as talking to who are students about growth mindset? There are a couple of things. I actually just did a parent session in Michigan last week for a group of parents. And a couple of the things that I like to share to share are the success cycle. So this is something that I wrote about in my book, mindset power. And so what the success cycle is, is when you try something, and then you have that fail, so fail stands for first attempt and learning. Or maybe it's even the second or third attempt, it doesn't matter. But the failing part, if we can look at that, if we can kind of inspect it, and we can decide, you know, like, what did go wrong here? Why didn't this work out? And how can I tweak that in some way. And so we've tried something we it didn't work out, and then we learn something from that. And then we change or improve something before we try again. So there are the four pieces to that cycle. And a lot of times, if we can even get kids to try fail, and then try again. You know, that's great. But if they're not learning from what that mistake was, and changing something, well, I know, you know, the saying, If you keep doing the same thing, you're going to keep getting the same results. So the whole point is, we have to make new mistakes, new and different mistakes, and then learn from those before we try again. So I often when I'm talking to parents or kids will, will use the analogy of a free throw shot, you know, you go to, you know, maybe that's the first time you've ever tried making a free throw shot, and it's totally an air ball and it it doesn't even hit the net or anything. And so you're thinking, okay, so that was a fail. But what I learned is I didn't give it enough power. So maybe I need to push off more with my legs or my arms. And so I'm going to try again doing that. And so then you start the cycle over. And this time, you give it all you got with your legs and your arms, and you accidentally hoist it all the way over the backboard. And you're like, oh, okay, that was too much power. So it was another fail. But now you learned, okay, so this time, that was too much. So the way I'm going to go at it again, is I'm going to tweak that not as much power as before, but more than the first time, and then you do it again. And of course, the more you do it, the more times you're going to have success. And even you know, knowing that and no matter how many times you go through the cycle, even NBA players aren't going to make it every single time. And that's important for kids to understand. It doesn't make it perfect. It just makes it better, and you have better chances. But I also tell kids, you know what about the kid who it's his first time going and making a free throw shot, and just out of luck, he sinks it. Now let's take the kid who just got a lucky shot his first time. And the kid who has been through the success cycle 50 times and maybe is only starting to make more shots. Which of those is more likely to make the next shot. I mean, even though this first kid has 100% accuracy, because he made that one, he doesn't really know much about his shot, or how he made it. So it's the one who made the more mistakes that has more learning and his going to be better at it. And so that's why in my book, yeah, you failed. I talked about celebrating our failures, because it means you tried, but also because those mistakes help us learn even better. So by making those mistakes, you know, we're making those neural pathways stronger. And our brain is getting trained on what works. So if kids can understand that it helps them when they have those failure experiences, which in my classroom we call growth spurts. So instead of mistakes, we call them growth spurts, because we grow from them. And to see that they are a good thing rather than something to be ashamed of or embarrassed of, or to feel like that means you're not smart or not succeeding. Ah, I love that that is so good right there. And I love how giving them that language talking about that success cycle. You know, you try you fail, then you reflect you make new mistakes, you make adjustments. And then you know, it's a repeated process. And I love how you talked about right there that? What about the student or the athlete that goes out there and makes it on their first time? Who's going to be better in the long run? The person who's done it, the success cycle 50 times or that one lucky shot? Because, you know, I look at it too, as there's students that school comes super easy, and they don't know what failure is. They don't know what that success cycle is. They go all the way up through. They graduate with high honors. They get to college, and all of us Sudden they are hit with this failure, and they don't know how to handle it. So I, you know, I think this success cycle and giving them that, you know, giving them that visual that vocabulary, something that they can identify with is so, so big, not just for the kids that are constantly struggling, but for those high achievers, too. Yeah. And another thing that I like to tell parents and teachers, is, you know, if you're familiar with Carol Dweck, work with all of her experiments that she did on praise. That is huge, too. Because in her experiments, you know, she, she has sets of kids do the same task, but half of them are praised based on their efforts, and how hard they worked, how many strategies they tried, versus the other half being praised for being smart, or you must be so bright. And the kids who were praised for being bright or just innate ability that they have no control over, when they were faced with, you know, the decision to take on a different task, they chose the easier task because they wanted to keep that label of being smart. Versus the kids who were praised for their effort, wanted to keep putting out that good effort, because they wanted to continue to be praised for being a hard worker. And so they were actually choosing harder tasks and challenging themselves. And so, that is such a small thing, but a big thing. Because when I, when I learned about all of that, it changed how I parented it changed how I taught in my classroom, because, you know, we don't mean any harm when we say, Oh, you're so smart, or look at my little Smarties, you know, and we don't mean any harm by that. But in their minds, they're thinking, Okay, I'm being valued, because she thinks I'm smart, I need to keep that. And so I'm going to do anything I can to keep that label to be continued to be valued for that. And so that's another thing, just a little tweak that we can make, when we're getting ready to give praise, which is great, yes, we should praise our kids. But just making sure that it is geared toward the effort that got them that result and not just some fluke thing, or innate ability or talent that they may have been born with. Absolutely. And you know, if you step in, so my worlds, the second grade world, and you run into it all the time, it soon as kid finds some success, you know, I had a little guy come up to me today, in fact, talking about how, you know, I'm really smart. I, you know, I did this, and he does a fantastic job. But like you said, If I don't take that and say, Well, you definitely are smart. But that's because you put in that effort because you will work and so hard, tying that effort into it. And you know, that's huge. And a couple other things that I love, you know, talking about mistakes, talked about Sara Blakely in the past before. I'm the owner of Spanx and how her father really hammered home, you know, I want you to fail. And that's what I care about. I care about you going out there and failing. And I was listening to another business leader in this female, she runs a huge corporation. And she says to make it so even adults hiding mistakes, not wanting to take chances. She said to eliminate that. What she does is on Fridays, she has a mistake party. And you know, she takes her top executives, and they get together. And they share a mistake that they made that week. And by doing that, it takes that pressure off of them where they feel getting almost to your book about perfection, where they don't have to be perfect anymore. Yeah, I love that. No, I love I love that mistake party and I love growth spurts. I'm gonna steal that. Being a writer, and you said that you have loved writing since you were young, young child, I think it is so important. How can we get our students to really create an atmosphere within the classroom where they embrace writing, and they get fired up about it? Part of it. I mean, for me, since I loved writing, you know, is one of those things, when we have that thing we love, it kind of oozes out of us. And so my kids, I think kind of by contagion would see, you know that writing is a fun thing. And you know, we're going to do this. But I think part of it is providing real writing experiences, making sure that they're not just, you know, the exercises that come with the book, or that they're a prompt each week or something like that, that it's something that's authentic that they're writing about that is not always, you know, just a story or just a reading response thing that they're writing, that it could be, you know, a letter it could be helping to like I had my students help write grants for cool things that we wanted to get for our classroom. We wrote grants for a little free library For our school for a buddy bench for the playground for a stage for my classroom. And so we were writing things that had a purpose that had authentic audiences. And so that's another thing that I think is super important is that we as teachers are not the only audience for their writing. So it's not just you're writing this thing for your teacher for Mrs. Anderson to grade, because that makes you an audience of one. But instead having ways that that writing is purposeful, like if you're doing opinion writing or persuasive writing, have them really try to make a change in the school or with their parents or within the classroom, that they're able to share and show the power of their words like right there, have them have audiences like parents coming in, or when there's a chance to do some kind of, you know, like, I used to do a spoken word poetry little recital, or regular poetry recitals, have them write scripts of things, and then they act them out. And then they get to show either the video that is the product of that or a live audience. But every time they're doing some kind of writing that there is more of an audience than me, or just another student in the classroom, I would sometimes invite older kids like the fifth graders, we would have them come down and they would get to share something with them or sharing with the kindergarteners like, I remember one year we wrote about, so in Indiana, we have lots of cicadas, at the beginning of the school year, the locusts, you know, that are chirping in the trees, and all those little shells that they like to pick up off the trees. And they were so engrossed in that, that I said, Well, let's, let's research these, let's write about them. And I said, I bet that there when you were younger, you probably wondered, you know about these things that came up out of the ground that were underground for years. And I would show them videos of them emerging out of their shells, because you often don't catch that part, you just see the shell. And so they got so excited. And we're writing about that. And I said, Well, now, you can give this as a gift to kindergarteners and teach them about it. Think about when you were in kindergarten, you probably wondered and would have loved to have someone come alongside you and teach you about these interesting bugs. And so you know, just having things like that you don't have to look very far for an audience. But if you can provide that that's kind of the reason we write isn't it? I mean, to communicate something, whether it's you talk about the purposes for writing, it's to entertain. So who could we entertain, or to persuade someone or to inform to teach? And so who could we teach or persuade or inform, and if it is something that is to entertain, you know, maybe it could be a product like a book, one of my favorite projects of the year was, I had my students write a story. And it took us like a month long, because we went from really diving into learning about our characters, and developing a plot. And then I would send off that character illustration to be made into a stuffed animal, so that at the end, they would not only have a hardcover book, but they would have this tangible character. And then we were able to invite people in and they could see their books and their characters that they created. But that month that we worked on that story, they worked so hard, incorporating all the things that we learned all year about good writing, all the little mini lessons on, you know, ways we can spice up our writing with figurative language or ways we can use dialogue ways we can make things more interesting, use those strong verbs, all of the things, this was like this great combination. So it was hard work. But there wasn't a day that I could ever skip writing block, not even for a convocation during that month, because they were so pumped about having this end project that was going to be their book, they were really authors. And if you can make your kids feel like real writers, and then it means something that it's a meaningful, you know, communication and you're sending your words out into the world. They're excited about it, they buy in and they want to do it. That's fantastic. And I know that having that stuffed animal that character that they had in their story, the unraveling or you know, the unveiling, maybe I should say, of that character had to be so special for those students. Yeah, they love that was my favorite day of the year was like Christmas. They each got to, you know, like pull out their, you know, character from the box and see this thing that was just, you know, something in their imagination that they created. That's now this tangible thing that they're holding. And so just that's empowering for kids. Absolutely. Now, when you're in the classroom, because you were cranking out stories while you were still teaching. Would you share any of like your roster As with the students while Yeah, they were my beta readers. Absolutely, yes, I shared everything I was working on with them. And if they were laughing in the right places, or if there were spots that they were like, Hmm, you know, I knew that that part wasn't very clear yet. And, and they loved being a part of that process, especially if it was something that, you know, I shared that I then gotten a contract for, like we had this deal that if I ever got a contract, while it was during the school year, I had to do a cartwheel in front of the class. So I would, and they just thought that was the coolest thing. And they would all come to my book, launch parties. And it was just this big celebration of, you know, look, if I can do this, you're doing the same thing. You know, we're all writers here. And so I even there was one student in particular, I remember her name was Aubrey, and she loved writing and what she kept saying how she wanted to be an author, like when we did our career projects, that's what she presented on was that she wanted to be an author. And so when I had my book, come out, go the extra smile, she i Let her write the foreword for that book, so she could become a published author. And so that was just a really cool thing to get to have, you know, one of my students become a published author. But yeah, if you just show them that this is for real, this is for life. I mean, I used to have these guest experts, I called them come in every other week. And they would come in and talk about a career or a hobby that they were passionate about. And we had four questions that we always ask them, you know, why did you pick that career? or hobby? What's the best part about it? What are the challenges because I wanted to get the growth mindset stuff in there. And then also, I would say, you know, like, what kind of training did you have to do? But then we would kind of asked questions about the things that we were learning in school like, Well, do you ever have to? I don't know, like, I would always bring in a vet. Do you ever have to, like, do math? Or do you just get to pet puppies and kitties all day? You know, and of course, they're like, oh, I have to know math really well, or I could hurt an animal when I'm giving medication or when I have to, you know, sedate them for surgery. And, you know, my husband's a police officer, I would have, you know, I would ask, do you ever have to do writing? Or do you just get to drive around really fast in your car after the bad guys and, and he's like, Oh, I do way more writing than I ever imagined. Because I'm writing up reports. And I'm writing press releases, and all of those things. And so letting kids see, you know, through mentors, that this writing and the math and all the things that we do in the classroom, are for our real life, they're not just for us, as a student, we're going to be using this, you know, forever, and especially the growth mindset stuff, I mean, anything that we're going to do in art, and, you know, any thought we have any action we take is, you know, something that we need to understand and our brains and how our brains are going to take that and go with that so that we can become successful in things that we try. I love that. And I'm just thinking about that young lady that wants to be a published author, and you let her do the foreword to your book. That is that's so special. And they had to mean so much to her family. That's phenomenal. Now, being as creative as you are, where do you get all your inspiration from? And do you have habits? I'm sorry, do you also have habits as well? Oh, yes. Oh, they have you know, I've read all the habits books, you know, the tiny habits and atomic habits and you know, all of those absolutely effective habits. Yes, I am a habit person. And one of my things that I do that was a game changer for me, especially going from as you know, being a teacher. Like in the day while you're teaching you have a lesson plan book and you've got pretty much like every 15 minutes of your day planned. And when I walked into the world, you know, two years ago have no plan book. And now you know the day is mine to figure out with how much of it am I going to use writing how much am I going to spend doing author visits and how much am I presenting at conferences and and doing the other things in life. And so one thing that I started doing was something called today's to do and so it's a list of the things that I need to do that day. But the key is to make it out the day before and so the night before you figure out those four or five big things that you want to make sure you accomplish and that you really feel like if you got those four or five things done that you would feel like you were productive and that you did accomplish a lot that day. That's important because then that was kind of like on my need to do side and then I had kind of a want to do side which is kind of tongue in cheek because some of the things on the want to do side might be getting groceries which I don't really want to do, right but they can become a very easy procrastination technique. If I go to that side and go get groceries, instead of working on something I really need to do that I might be avoiding because it's either hard or time consuming, or I don't know how to get started. And so that really changed things for me because I always was a list maker. But my list was never ending, like I would have legal pads full of things that I wanted to accomplish. And as I would accomplish them, I'd cross them off. But I would just keep adding to this list of pages and pages of things to do. And so I never felt like I was accomplishing something because the list never ended. And so when I started doing that the day before, and had those 445 things that I felt like if I get those five things done tomorrow, I'm going to really feel like wow, that was I got those done. And then I won't feel guilty when I moved to the want to do list, and I go get groceries or I go watch a movie with my daughter, or whatever I might do. I don't have the guilt with it, I can enjoy it. And before I wasn't like anytime I would do something that I felt like, wasn't something I should be doing, I would have this whole guilt complex and feel like, and I couldn't even enjoy it because I felt like oh, I should be doing all of these things on this list instead of this. And so that really changed things. For me, it helped me prioritize and focus. I don't know if you've ever watched that YouTube video, eat the frog. So it was kind of like having that. So the whole essence of the eat the frog thing is if you make a list of things to do, and you put eat the frog at the top of your list, like the thing you really don't want to do, like no one wants to eat a frog. But if you get it over with first, then the other things come easier. And so it's kind of that idea. You know, like if you can get those things done, and not all of them are things that I don't want to do, some of them are things I do want to do, they just are gonna take some time. But if you can get through those things, then the other things, you're going to enjoy more. And so that helps me to kind of prioritize my time and to feel like, okay, I blacked out a couple of hours of creative time to work on this particular picture book, or this revision for this other book that I'm working on. And then I could feel like that was a good use of that time, because I planned it that way. And so that has really helped me. Excellent now going into, like that creative side now. Do you keep a list? Or for your book ideas? How do you come up with them? Where do you get that inspiration from they come from life, I mean, sometimes it's things that happen here at home or with my family. And when I was in the classroom, there was all kinds of inspiration, right. And I have notebooks upon notebooks of ideas. And if you look inside some of those, there are napkins and post it notes and all kinds of things where I've jotted down, you know, like just an idea hits me. And I might be listening to like an inspirational podcast on my morning run. And just something the way someone said a phrase, or a couple of words together just sounded really cool. Or it just sparked an idea of something that I could put to the kid level, then I will write that down when I get home. And I have so many things like that, that are just, you know, little seeds that are kind of planted. And as I start gathering more of those seeds that kind of go together, it might end up being a book sometime. Or sometimes, you know, I will have an idea that that I'm kind of for separating on. And I mentioned earlier, the reticular activating system, when you're focused on something, your brain automatically starts to notice things that go with that. And so if I'm really focused on an idea that I want to write about this thing, then I start to notice when there are things around me things, I'm hearing things I'm watching that go with that, that might feed that that might help that. And so that also is is good for inspiration. But I constantly write things down because I always forget, like two days later, I'll be like, what was that idea? I had? I know it was like something that I could use, but I just I write them down wherever I can. Yeah, no, I'm trying to become more creative or dive into that field. And then I think I'm think the book is called Idea flow. And the author was talking about, you know, he carries a notebook with him. And as soon as it comes out, he writes it down in his notebook and he was talking about, he was on Jon Acuff show. I don't know if you're familiar with Jon Acuff, but he was on his podcast, and he said that John told them that he does the same thing. And, you know, they taped the show. And then this author said two weeks later, Jon Acuff came and talked it. He's, this guy teaches at a prestigious college. So Jon Acuff is there and he talks to the college stuff Students and he takes out of his notebook. And within two weeks he had written down like 100 new ideas and everything. So they are because they come and if we don't capture them on paper, yeah, they go. Yeah, I have notebooks in my car console on my nightstand. I even my husband got me those Aqua Notes that you have in the shower. It's waterproof. The best ideas, you know, come when you're in the shower. I love it. All right. Awesome. Now, two of my favorite questions I ask everybody is first, do you have a favorite podcast? Or what's something that you like to listen to? Besides yours? Thank you. Well, I like to listen to a lot of motivational type podcasts. So you know, like the School of Greatness, Lewis, Howes, Brendon, Burchard, Ed, my lead those kinds of podcasts I love, I devour those. But then I also listen to a lot of podcasts that are about writing, like the author visit podcast and picture book looks is one of my favorites. Because they get the author, the illustrator and the editor all on one interview, and you really get the behind the scenes peek at, you know, why did the editor acquire this manuscript? And, you know, what were the the back and forth in the editing process? And why did the illustrator do the things that she or he did? And just how that book was born? Like how it all came together? That's such a great insider's look, because oftentimes, you know, you'll only hear from one of them, you'll hear that editor interview, or you'll hear the the author talk about it, but you never get to hear all of them together. And that collaborative process. And so that's one of my favorite author podcast, just listened to. That sounds like a super cool podcast right there. Check that out. And I think you might like with the growth mindset, um, there's a podcast called Finding mastery. Okay, and, and it's a gentleman by the name, I believe, Michael Gervais. And he interviews these super high achievers from every walk of life, whether it's from the being a doctor, to extreme, like sports, and business people, and just how they've overcome adversity and different strategies that they've used. So I think you might like that one. Yeah, I think so. And now, how about what about books? I know, you read all the habit books. But good recommendations. Yeah, I devour books, especially now that I figured out so I was a big audible user, because I travel a lot. And so I listen to books all the time when I'm driving, or when I'm making dinner. But then I discovered the OverDrive app from the library where I can get even more books, you know, and get them for free for three weeks. And so now I'm just like, so into listening to books, I was trying to think the one I just listened to is called think, again, by Adam Grant. And I'm currently reading like, the physical book on my, on my nightstand is inner size. And it's all about exercising your brain. So I know this is like so nerdy. I've read, I've listened to that book. So I'm right there with you. Yeah, yeah, I love that kind of stuff. And so anything where I can learn about learning, and in some way translate that to help teachers, help kids to learn and to be able to share with kids themselves when I'm doing, you know, author visits and getting to talk to them about, I mean, I feel like I get to be a cheerleader for reading and writing and learning when I come to schools. And so anytime I can come up with something new that that will get them excited about learning and to understand it better. You know, I love to tell them, did you know that the brain you woke up from this with this morning is different than the one you have right now? And they're like, No, I'm like, Yes. And so just explaining how every time we talk or do something or move a muscle that we have changed our brain, we've changed the way the neurons are connecting and, and then you've kind of got them, they're like, whoa, you know, they haven't thought about that before. And so that kind of gets in in that you can start talking about those things. Oh, I love that so much. Now, if a school district or person wanted to connect with you, or if they wanted to bring you into their school to present, what would be the best way to contact you, probably a lot of people contact me through my website because there's a contact tab on there. And my website's Shannon is teaching.com So pretty easy. Awesome. And I know on Instagram that you put up a lot of phenomenal pictures and everything that is that that creative side comes out to so I absolutely love your feet. And if you could have the listeners walk away with one thing today, Whoa, boy, there's just so much. Um, I, you know, I guess we never got into this, but one thing I'll share is something that helped me to kind of understand. I guess my purpose like my drive was, have you heard of IKI? Guy? No, I haven't. Okay, so eKey guy is a Japanese term, and it roughly translated as purpose for living. And so when I was trying to figure out, you know, when I left teaching, I kind of felt like, even though I still feel like in my heart, I'm a teacher, because I'm still teaching just in different ways. And in classrooms all over instead of my own, I felt like I lost a little bit of my identity. And it was kind of scary. And especially because I left teaching during the pandemic, it was not an easy time. And so, icky guy is looking at these four things. So you're looking at what you're good at, and what you love to do, and what the world needs and what you can be valued for. So if you can find the intersectionality of those four things, that is a powerful way to figure out like, what you should be spending your time on what you should be focusing on. And that helped me to hone in because I was scrambling to pick up anything and everything I was tutoring, I was taking work for hire I was, you know, doing my regular books and trying to find visits to go to and things. But I really was able to hone in on what meant the most to me when I figured out my own iki guy. So I think that would be something that I would encourage people to, you can search for that you can go to YouTube and watch TED talks on it. But that is something that really spoke to me when I when I learned about that. That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. And I think you know, the older we get, sometimes the more important that is, and sometimes we can, I don't know, they you know, you get a little bit older and you feel a little bit more lost than in the past. So finding that is important. And I definitely think that you found that just seeing everything that you do the wisdom that that you're sharing, how you're making kids feel visible, how you're dropping different strategies on how to become a better writer fueling that love for reading, showing them what growth mindset is all about is so special. And you know, you do so many wonderful things. And thank you. I truly appreciate your time and sharing all this with us today. Well, right back at you because you are a very positive force. And I always appreciate seeing you on social media and hearing your podcast. So you're making a difference. I appreciate you. Thank you there, Shannon. Thank you. This conversation was so good. Shannon is such an amazing person. Now this is the teaching champions take where I share three of my favorite gems from this conversation. And the first gem that I loved is how Shannon talked about the success cycle, that we should be teaching students that failure and making mistakes is actually a good thing. Because they give us feedback. And they let us know how we can do something better. So teaching our students that after we fail at something, to reflect on it, to learn from it and make adjustments, and then try again. And repeat that cycle over and over again. Students need to hear about this, and then something that they need to hear about often. The second gem that I loved is how Shannon talked about that we really have to be conscious of the praise that we give our students. Yes, we want it to be positive. Yes, we want to acknowledge their accomplishments. But even more importantly, we want to acknowledge the effort, the resilience, the grit in our language and how we phrase things can have a tremendous effect. And that's not just on the short term, that effect can last into long term as well. The third gem that I loved is when Shannon discussed the importance of making our students feel like real authors, letting them have opportunities to have their writing be meaningful to have it connect with the world. Now these were just a few of my favorite takeaways from this amazing conversation. Hit me up on social media and let me know what were some of your favorite takeaways. And I just want to give a big thank you to Shannon for dropping by so much amazing takeaways. A big thank you to you as well for being here for listening for being part of the teaching champions community we support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone would benefit from this message, please share. It's all about just trying to help each other out and inspire one another. Awesome. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so that every new episode can come right to you. And always remember, it doesn't matter if you come from rural America, to urban America, to Canada, to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission, and we're always better together. Keep being amazing, my friends, and as you go out into the week, May step into your strength may step into shine. And let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody