Learning Goal Cycle, Asset Based Learning, and The School of Hope with Cathleen Beachboard

What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. Today, we're gonna dive into something powerful, something that can be life change. We're going to talk all about the power of hope, and how it can change a student's life, and how it can change your life. And today we're joined by Kathleen Beechboro. She's a teacher and author, a researcher. And her research focuses on psychological tools that schools can use to help students and staff increase psychological hope, resiliency, achievement and happiness. And Kathleen, she's going to share so many takeaways in this conversation. So if you think someone would benefit from this, please share the mission on the podcast is all about supporting, encouraging, and lifting others up and amplifying the voices of these amazing guests is just one way that we can do that. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so that new episodes will come directly to you. And as you listen to this episode, hear how hope has directly affected Kathleen's family. Listen as Kathleen talks about strategies that we can use to instill more hope into our students, listen as she talks about things that we can do for ourselves to bring more hope into our own lives. And listen, as she talks about how a few small changes can change our schools, how it can change our classrooms, how it can change our students. This conversation is full of high vibes and just a ton of takeaways. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I am super excited for this episode, we have a special guest. And I want to make sure that you have your notebooks ready because this is something that can transform your classrooms in your school community. I want to welcome Kathleen Beech board to teaching champions podcast Kathleen, welcome my friend. Thanks, Brian. I'm excited to be here. I am excited to have you. I got introduced to you because I listened to you on several other podcasts. And I just listened to all the gems that you are dropping. And it's just such an important message. So I'm glad that the listeners get to hear this. And for those people that don't know or are unfamiliar with your work. Would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself? Sure. So my name is Kathleen Beechworth. I am a teacher, author and researcher. So yes, I'm still in the classroom. I'm not one of those people giving advice, who's not on the frontlines. I'm there. So I studied kids brains. And how I got there is kind of important, because that's part of my journey, as we were talking before the show. And now during the show, I have seven children, five who I adopted out of a case of extreme abuse and neglect. So it was one of the worst cases in the state, you know, they had been physically abused, sexually abused, gone through drug abuse, their parents went to prison. And they were going to be split up. And I didn't want that. So when I heard about the case, I was like, I'll take all of them and my mind because I was a new teacher at the time. So I'm like, Oh, I'm used to you know, 2332 kids in a room five is like a small group, this will. And so I call my husband and we're newly married, and he's like, Are you sure that's like a lot and I was like, now we'll be fine. And so they show up and I know from trauma training in the classroom, okay, you got to form relationships, right? And so they came and as soon as I opened the door, they ran and they started crying and huddled hugging, and I tried to do the question like, Hey, what are you into? What do you like? There was nothing to grab on to nothing. There was no attachment to be made. And I didn't know why. Like I literally stayed up Google searching. How do you fix broken children? And that's when I discovered at through a deep rabbit hole round three in the morning on Google, the power of where we are today and the power of psychological hope. Not hope as in Hey, I hope I get this job. I hope you're okay. Like wishful thinking. That's not what hope is psychological hope that changes the brain for the better and with my own kids. I started measuring measuring hope. Yep, measuring their hope. I started working on their hope. And over the course of time, they were able to attach they were able to form strong relationships. It literally Help them rewire their brain. So the trauma did not define their future. That way, their past didn't control where they were going. And it's because psychological hope rewires the brain. And it provides us the ability to form grit, determination, and the ability to think and evolve and change and grow, and most importantly, thrive. And so through my own kids, I started utilizing this after the pandemic, because I noticed my students came back online with some trauma. And I was like, wait a minute, this is kind of like with my own kids, maybe I should use this in the classroom. And unfortunately, the man who founded hope, which was Dr. Schneider, he died. And he's an amazing man, he has a great book, I will talk about that later. But honestly, all of his hope stuff that he'd worked on, and his associate, Shane Lopez, he also died. And so the research sort of died with them. So my brain, I was going to bring it back. Because all the research on it is amazing. And it's powerful. And it works in the classroom, to help your students who might have trauma who come in, or to help your fellow teacher who might have trauma and stress from all of the trauma that they're getting from the kids. It's a way to change public education. And I know it works, because I'm in the classroom utilizing it every day. That's my basic story. Yes, and that, and I love that you're in the classroom, you practice what you preach. But also you saw it with your own kids firsthand such a amazing story, when you talk about like the trauma that they went through in those early interactions. And would you mind sharing like your oldest, we got to talk a little bit beforehand, you know, when you talk about the power of hope, and where it takes people can mind sharing about your son. So my oldest son, you know, came from that trauma background. And now of like, we were talking, as I found out, Brian was also in the military, because my oldest son is now in the military in the army. He is studying, he's going to college while he's in the military. So he doesn't use the GI Bill. So we can save that for later for higher education. That's the power of hope. And when I say hope, I'm not talking like, again, wishful thinking. It's a mix of agency, which is your motivation. You can measure motivation, yes, goals, which is your ability to set a goal for yourself and your life and different things throughout your day, and pathways that your ability to form a path to your goals. So goals, pathways and agency combined together to form psychological hope. And those three things you can measure, and you can strengthen them. So you find out you're weak in an area, that's not an end all you can strengthen it, how through practices that strengthen that thing. So this is where we were talking about Angela Duckworth. So my oldest, you know, I strengthened his home, he was really low in agency, especially, which is intrinsic motivations, he needed more control over his life. So we started setting a path for his future. And he really wanted to join the military. So one of the things that we looked at is you have to be really physically fit. So we got him in sports. And every sport that he did, helped him with his endurance, his ability to get through different things like he knew he would have to do rucking in the military. And so he would practice these things in football, and soccer and all of his different sports that he joined. And he saw himself progressing towards his goal, he started to see he was a control of where he was going, and what fueled him with success, because he saw every little thing, even those relationships can drive you to the future that you dream of. Ah, so good. And you know, I said it before, but thank you to him for his service. And thank you, to you for what you gave to him. Yeah, now, I'm sorry, I just get so excited when I start talking about hope. Sorry, your audience at home. I think it's awesome. It just shows that passion that you have for it. So I'm a teacher. It's rounding out the going into the end of the year, but say it's the start, you know, the beginning of next year rolls around. Where do I start? Okay, first thing, easiest thing, because I when you read my book, I didn't want this to be another thing for teachers. And I swear to you teachers who are listening to this, this is not another thing. I have taken the things that you're normally going to do. And I've reworked them so you can interweave hope into your everyday daily practices. What Yeah, so the first one that I want to tell you is first measure their hope you are used to giving tests anybody can do this. The hope test is free online at Thrive. li.com backslash HoH you can go in create a free account for you and your classroom. Give the test to your students. That's step one. Step two, once you get the results, find out who those high hopes students are then create a seating chart, a seating chart it's that easy. Yes, it's that easy if you want to interact with increase help create a seating chart where you place the high hope kids in between and intermix with the low hope kids why? Because kids first of all, if you do free seating I know free seedings Amazing, but we tend to congregate with people similar to ourselves. So those high hook kids tend to batch together. And they don't get the benefits of the psychological hope for the low kids. So if you purposely intermix them, here's what's going to happen, that high hope good, it's going to be brought down. No, it won't. Research shows that that high hope kid, they have the capacity to keep themselves up. And they'll be able to raise up the psychological hope, and those other kids in the room. And all you had to do is sit them there. And over the course of six to eight weeks, let student talk happened during your lesson. And it'll do its magic. How easy was that? Yeah, so that's so awesome. Now, how do you make it visible in your classroom too? Because I think, you know, making that learning visible, how do you make hope to and you teach middle school? So how do you make cool now? Oh, high school? All right. So with a little moved up in the world here? How do you make those high school kids visible to them? So one of the easiest things you can do at the beginning of a school year, you know, those days where you're giving all the rules, procedures, and blah, blah, blah, if you want to form a good relationship, person, you have to know what that person desires, what kind of future and unfortunately, school is synonymous with what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, your job shouldn't define your life. It's not, hey, I'm going to go go to school, get a job, then I die. That's a horrible life. One of the first things I do with my students, and it's very easy for any teacher to do is create a Google slideshow that's completely blank for every single kid, assign it in whatever learning management system you have, and it's blank, and then tell them go online. And 40 years from now, what do you hope you've accomplished in your life? Your job is part of it. But what things do you hope you will be? Do you hope you're kind? Do you hope to travel to Europe? Do you hope to have a dog what are your dreams, put them on paper, kind of like a vision board. This is to capture the person you want to become not just your job, that is one part of a person it is not define who you are. And then after they create these boards, they're posted outside of my classroom, I bet I even have pictures of them. The first thing they see when they walk through the door to my classroom, there's 95 of these outside of my door is there in the middle. And the person they want to be why why is that? Why does that help? Because then they remember, why am I going in this classroom, it's to get me to where I want to go. And they see that that is transferable hope my dreams are on the outside of my teachers door, it doesn't matter. If you have a high test score or a low test score. Every kid deserves a place on the wall, every kid. And so when they see that they deserve that spot, they're going to work for that spot. Ah, so good. I absolutely love that the high achievers, the ones who the academics don't come as naturally to them, that, that they get to see their spot on the wall and know that they deserve to be there. And I love also how you talk about it's not always about the job. You know, sometimes I think you're up there I have the younger ones. So I'm not sure what with the high school students and stuff like you always talk about the jobs that you know what career you want to go into. But well you're saying is who do you as a person want to be? Yeah, and Brian, you know, for the younger ones, for you, elementary teachers out there, one of the greatest things you can do is do a day where you say, calm as you're gonna be when you're 40, dress up, be 40 year old you and come in and tell the world what you've accomplished, why that's going to fuel their hope, because they're going to feel they're going to set themselves up for success. And yeah, some of them will come as NBA players, but they're also going to be like, I'm an NBA player, I've got a family I've got. I'm also a super nice guy, I've given back to charity. But it's amazing because they're starting to think about who they want to be the person, not the job, because that doesn't define who you are the person and then they start to set goals outside of the job. Because it's those little goals that ultimately project who we're going to become. And so having kids dress up for a dress a day where hey, come to school successful, I want to see what success looks like in your future. And then you as a teacher, when you see your class come in like that, and even invite the parents in. It's motivating because you're getting to know the dreams of your students. And then you can show them how what they're doing in the classroom will help them reach their dreams. Yes off so good. Now, what are some other ways that can spark it? And how say you have a low hope kid? Well, I said that that student that's a high hope individual next to him. But what are some other ways that I can help that low hope kid throughout the school year become higher hope. Okay. Now, here's the cool thing. All the teachers listening, you have objectives for the day, right? Okay, all right. Okay, so here's the most amazing thing. There's this thing, and I talked about it in my book, it's called the learning goal cycle. And the way it works is you put the criteria for success, not the objective. So the objective is, they'll learn to apply blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever your objective is, worded, as I know, I am successful when, and then say, what what that target is, when I reach four out of five, on my math addition sheet, Whoa, you're telling them what success is, then they have a goal to work towards. That's one of the problems we set objectives. But that's not a goal. And so giving them a goal, and then after that, so there's the goal, what if I don't meet the goal, you get feedback from who be the teacher, I don't have time for that. But the students can give feedback. I even have this nice little visual that I'll send you and you can give to everybody on the podcast, because these are free resources. And it's a feedback chart. It contains ESL sentence starters. So if you have the lower kids, it says, I like how you use blank and blank next time try to blank and blank. So the kids swap, they give each other feedback. And then the kid reads the feedback, and sets a goal based off of the learning target that criteria for success. So today, I met three, tomorrow during our warmup time, I'm going to try for four in a row, and they set the goals, it's the student trying to get better. And then all you do is progress, monitor their goals, there's a whole sheet for it. And they can do it. If they you have really young ones, you can use Flipgrid, where they literally set their goals out loud, because I know writing takes forever, especially first grade and second grade. So my goal is blank. And then they can self report. Today I tried and I got four, yay. Because they need to do that. Because that's what hope is goal. Once they meet the goal, guess what they gain hope. And every time they meet a personal goal, they reach a little higher, and they set tougher goals. And that's the proximal development. Most of the time we tell kids, hey, here's an A, here's a B, here's a C, that's not feedback, I'm not doing anything, you're just telling me A, B, C, or D. That's not a target. But when we change it to be a goal, a criteria for success. And then we create the system that fuels them to set goals and work on it. Kind of like standards based grading mixed with hope. It works. And it fuels hope. I've seen kids go, oh, I suck at reading. But because they're getting feedback and not just negative feedback, every feed has to give a glow. Here's one thing you're doing really well you lined your numbers up successfully. And a grow. Oh, next time, try to make sure that you add the numbers in the correct order or you carry your numbers, whatever. But because they get that glow, or this is the cool part. They realize I'm not bad at math. So they realize it's a growing process for everyone from the smartest kid in the room to the kid who needs the most help. Everyone setting goals, even the kid who gets it right. They have to give feedback on how they could get better at it. What Yeah, so I have I have a student right now who's like, oh, man, I have perfect scent. I don't have any sentence fragments good for you. But you could try a variety of sentences. I guess I could, yes. Because the whole goal of learning is to get better. ABC. That's that's antiquated. It's for grades of meat. That's not for kids. Kids should set goals and grow, because that's what causes hope. And so it's evening and you can do it in your classroom. You set that learning target. You let the kids give feedback, they track the feedback, they set a goal, you give them the time during your warm up to work on their goals. warmup time should be kid time, I'm working on my goals, here's what I'm doing. And they create a plan. Like I'm gonna try practice problems. I'm gonna use manipulatives let them think about it. Because we tell kids what to do all day. And that's part of the problem. They think there's only one way to do something they need to create their own path. And that's pathways for hope. Yes, so good. And I know we're both big on resilience and building that resilience up. What do we do for you know, they're in this cycle, and they need to develop that resilience muscle. But they come to that hiccup where you know that that progress has plateaued out their motivation is starting to drop a little bit. What can we do for those guys? To get them back on track? So for the kids who when they hit that, that thing that like that's Stuck point. This is when anybody needs a pep talk. I loved Kid President, sometimes people just it's the reality. Because even teachers like we talk about hope with kids, guess what teachers need hope to. And after you've had a bad day in you, you've dealt with an angry parent or you've dealt with, you know, a bad a student who's just being angry and mad at the world. And it's not your fault. It's because something that happened the night before. And you're, you're taking all that in, you think it's you, and then you want to quit. That's fine. And so guess what? This is where well being your personal well being, you need to enter weave hope into your day. And it's the same thing with kids in a weave hope into the day. How's that possible? Okay, hear me out. Any person can choose to be hopeful? Hmm. Very easily. Like me, I choose to start my day with hope, one for teachers. This is just to show you how this would work with students. I choose to start my day with a dad joke. What it makes me laugh. I like to start my day with a smile. And I do the same thing in my classroom. That day, intentionally good. You can do that you can't control everything. But you can interweave those intentional moments. So today, for example, the dad joke was I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, then it dawned on me that it was great. And so it makes you cringe. It's great. But interweaving those moments into a teaching day, I have a time on my calendar, my Outlook calendar that says coffee break, it literally says that IEP meetings that happen everything else. No, that is my 10 minutes of a psychological reset mine. And the principal knows that that's my, that's my space, and the other teachers should have protected time as well. Because that protected time is what's going to help you reset and you do something to fuel yourself. For me, it's coffee for my co teacher because I do collaborative ESL, I'm in the trenches. So, you know, I'm there with the kids who need me the most, but the kids who need you the most sometimes have the silliest are strangest behaviors at times, because behaviors are a form of communication that they might not have yet. And so ultimately, interweaving those things to keep yourself and your fellow teachers stable and sane is important. Like Aeroplan, this is another thing and this is a great thing. Brian, I'd recommend you do this with your students. All teachers right now, do this with your students do with your fellow colleagues who you care about, hopefully you care about all of them to deal with all of them. I have on Edutopia. There's a self care plan that I put out during the pandemic, and this self care plan everyone should do. So you're gonna have a bad day. I mean, yes, we do fire drills for fires, tornado drills for tornadoes, guess what, you're more likely to have a bad mental health thing. And so the greatest thing you can do is create a plan for what you're going to do during your worst day, on your best day, why? You're setting yourself up for success. That's what hope is, you're setting a goal for that bad day on how to make it better. And so with the students, you say, hey, for the little guys, what do you do when you feel really upset that makes you feel better, and they might say, I like to color I play with Play Doh. For the older students. Surprisingly, it's kind of the same thing I like to color. But I'm going to tell you, here's the power of this kid has their own coping mechanisms. And if they have none, on my website, once again, free resource, you can teach them grounding techniques, like the 54321 technique, it uses your five senses to get in the moment. So you don't go into an amygdala response where your fight flight freeze, fawn and flop. So here's the power of doing this. I had a student who had to take their state test and they have to have it to graduate. Okay, right. And her boyfriend broke up with her right before the test. What are you going to do? And for me, because her boyfriend was up with her, I had a plan written by her on how to help her. She really liked horses, and she liked coloring. So right before the test, I printed out some horse coloring sheets. I gave her some crayons. And in the back of the room, she didn't do the warm up. She sat in colored. And then she was crying. She stopped crying. It brought her back into the moment. She took the test and she passed. And she even came to me afterwards. She said, there is no way I would have passed that because guess what that test doesn't care if you have a bad day. And so I was able to help her on her worst day using her best day. And every kid's plan is different. And every teacher's plan is different. My co teacher she was having a bad morning because her husband was away and everything was going crazy and her diabetes was acting up. So I know she loves cats. So I printed out a whole bunch of cats and surrounded her desk. And when she came to work, she laughed and she was like, This is why I love you and I was like no This is what you need it. It's simple things. It's little acts that can just save us and keep us hopeful. Yes, I love that. And I that's one of the things when I was reading your book that was read throughout that I really appreciate what you talked about, you know, giving the students a toolkit, you know, giving them helping them discover that self care plan that they can refer to, when there have not wait until they're having that bad moment. equip them. So when that bad moment arises, they know what to do you as a teacher, have an idea of what to do. Now, you also talk about like, learned helplessness a little bit. And I think that's a big thing, when when we're talking about hope and instilling hope. How do I combat that learned helplessness in the classroom? Okay, so basically, with learned helplessness, I believe that I can't do it. I have a mindset. It's like growth mindset and a fixed mindset. I have a mindset that it's impossible. There is no way. I can give you an example from my own childhood. So I have dyslexia and as a child, I had a teacher told me, I would never learn to read a stop sign. I'm going to tell you for three whole years, I sort of gave up because I was what's called twice exceptional. I was gifted, but I was also special education. So I believe that I wouldn't learn to read I thought reading was a magical ability that only some people had. And I didn't really try. I gained coping skills like, Oh, I forgot my glasses at home. Can you read this to me, and the teachers would. And it was awesome, because I was smart enough to figure out the ways to combat the system where I wouldn't have to read. But I have learned helplessness. And there are kids who are doing things and they're getting by with and they're really intelligent, but they believe they can't. Now, how do you combat that? You have to show me in some way that there's hope that I can. What do you mean? Okay, so if I say I'm bad at math, the thing that I mentioned with the glows and the grows, that's when you would pull out that glow and grow column and say, Wait a minute, you said you're bad at math, right? Let's look at all these gloves. I want you to read the past five to me. Oh, I'm good at lining up numbers. I'm really good at multiplication. I'm really, okay. So yeah. So could you be bad at math? If you have things that it says you're good at? And that's when they go? Oh, well, I just feel like I suck. Well, no, there's the evidence. And it takes that evidence longer to sink in with those kids with learned helplessness. And even teachers learn helplessness, the ones who are literally just waiting to retire, and they're just in the classroom, you have to wake them up, there's a reason they got into teaching in the first place. And it was not the fame or the money was to make a difference. And to let them know, they still make that difference. And one of the ways we can do that is showing them they've made a difference. Find a kid be like, hey, this teacher down the hall, who's who's kind of given up, you did they make a difference for you have that kid write him a letter, it will ignite that flame. That's what we live for. Same thing with the kids, remind them, hey, you know what you might for me, I remember the teacher who woke me up. She said, You have such beautiful stories that you tell me, I just need you to write them. And I believe you have the ability to get there. And she said, I believe you. Sometimes that's where our relationship comes in. I might have learned helplessness. But I've just enough hope to form a relationship with you. Every time you say believe in, here's my strength. And you tell me the strength. You're helping me realize I'm strong here. And I'm weak here. But I can use my strength for my weakness. And that's powerful. And it works. And so when a kid has a problem, and they say, I'm just helpless, I can't do this, the first thing you should do is not focusing on the problem, because otherwise they're going to stay stuck. What you do is say, Okay, you have a problem, write it down. Great. Get it all out just like a therapy session. Now list all your strengths, strengths. I'm not good at anything. Yes, you are. I want you to list as many as you can think of, then, instead of focusing on the problem, ask them divergent thinking this will help fuel their hope. How can you use your strength for your problem? For my teacher, she pointed it out to me, you tell beautiful stories, use your stories to learn to read. And I did. And it was successful. And she inspired me. Just like teachers today, remind kids of their strength and ask them how they can use that for the problems they're facing. Don't focus on the problem. Focus on the person. Yes, I love that, you know, focusing on their assets, their strengths. And you talk about something that I think is so powerful is we can see strengths and others others that sometimes they don't see in themselves yet, especially when they're younger when they're growing up. You know, I can do with the seven year olds or I coach basketball for long On time, and the high school varsity athletes, all they saw themselves sometimes were, as you know, this big athlete, but there were so many skills and so much personality traits and so many gifts that they had that extended far beyond the basketball court. So it took, you know, reminding them pointing it out to him, because they didn't see it always at first. That and that's right, it's because they're focusing on the problem. But when you focus once again, on the person, and you should remind them, hey, you're more than your problem, because people tend to define themselves based off of their catastrophes. And so finding them, you are not this moment, you are beyond this, you are stronger than this, you've overcome things greater than this. And then that fuels them, you can use the hope from the past, sometimes, hey, what a hard thing Have you overcome even to get a person out of that moment? Oh, you've done that? Well, that's harder than this. And that can fuel your future hope. So there's a lot of different tools we can use. This is not a program, this is a process. And if you start and if you do anything, even just the seating chart, and you let it grow, you are doing a service to change a child's brain for the better their growth, mindset, their grit, their determination, you're helping your fellow teachers get reignited with that spark they need. And it's mace. Yes, so good. And, you know, something that I do with my students I heard you talking about a little bit is, you know, we try and point out the past successes, you know, so we're towards the end of the school year now, at the beginning of the school year, I'd write some of the math problems that we will be doing by the end, you know, when they come in after first grade, they're doing single, you know, single digit addition, subtraction, will throw up their numbers in the 1000s. And in multiplication and division, and they'll just look, you know, why died or hold up a big chapter book, they're just looking at. So when we get to this point of the year, and they're doing that, I try and go back and say remember when remember when you just looked at me about this, and really point out, you know, focusing on, like you said, what we overcame the trials, the tribulations, and it's not just the students, it's the adults, sometimes the, I was just gonna say sometimes it's the adults in the building, that need to be reminded how strong they are, because they don't realize we don't realize some of the trials that we've overcome. And you know, one of the ways to help and fix that, as a teacher, it's something it's practice I've used for years, and it will fuel your hope. Because you can control everything that happens in your day, but you can put those glimmers in. So the end of the school day, something I do every day, religiously, and I actually just did it less than an hour ago on my phone is as I'm driving home from work, I have a 30 minute commute, I picked three students who went above and beyond, and I call home, whether I get the voicemail, the actual parent have to basically call back and get it translated doesn't matter. I call three. And I do it every day. And I make sure that I reflect on who is someone who displayed strength power, something amazing today that I need to tell the parent about and because I do this every day, how am I ending my day intentionally. And it reminds me of the power that I have as an educator to influence these kids. And it spreads hope to the kids, because even high schoolers they come home and they're like, oh my gosh, you called my house. My mom gave me a new iPhone because she says I'm amazing. Now, I love you. And I'm like, okay, but you did that. And then they're like, I did do that. Like, it's not just younger students who need that, that praise and affirmation. We as teachers need to do that ourselves and say, Hey, I'm grateful for this kid who did blank. This kid did when they did blank and ending your day like that. It's positive. It will create when you go home, you won't sit and think about this, this and this because you're intentionally setting your day up to be a positive end every day. I love that. I love that. And you know, easy question. I know the answer. How's that make you feel when you raise it? Honestly, it's another reason why I started doing emails too. So I try to do the phone calls for my students. But I leave three emails during the day to think of three colleagues who did something awesome for me, whether it's, Hey, you brought my copies to me, and I couldn't get there in time or another colleague who like hey, I really didn't want to read the names at graduation. Thank you so much, Phil. And that happened. And you know, just the people who support you and being their cheerleaders, because we don't always get that praise and affirmation, but we can be cheerleading each other. We can spend them in our own building. We can do that and be the change agents. Yes. 100%. You know, I was listening preparing for this podcast episode and I heard you talk about the opening. I got those three emails with gratitude in the notes every single day so that you could send those out. And it made me think because I've heard a basketball coach by the name of Bob Starkey. He talked out and that really resonated with me. I heard him talk about every single day, he sends out whether it's a printed letter to somebody special in his life, I heard Jon Acuff talked about, I believe, he had a phone with a list of like, 100 people close to him, that, you know, when he has five minutes of downtime, he'll open that up, and he'll shoot that. But I heard you mention this before. And it made me really think because, you know, I took those and I try and do it, I haven't been consistent, but I try and send out to those, you know, people that I don't see on a regular basis. But when I think about school culture, when I think about the people in my life that I see every single day, that I don't always say, you know, those thank yous are really point out the great things that they do, and I heard you talk about and I was like, That's so good. And so impactful inside the school. And what are the other things you can do? So you mentioned like, you know, cheerleading your own kids, you probably give out awards in your classroom, right? How can kid at the end of it, say, hey, I want you to write a thank you note to someone who helped you get here. And they're like, someone who helped me get there. Yeah, it can be anyone you think, who helped you become a success. And then they're gonna be like, Hi, I want to thank the music teacher, janitor, Bob, for my high five doesn't matter what right? Let them write it, and then spread those out, send them home, if it's too apparent, and you're gonna see that one ripple effect. It's, it's amazing. It's like throwing a rock in water, you're going to spread that. And you're going to spread that positive gratitude and affirmation, which fuels hope, because it reminds you you control the things that you do, you have the ability to change the world through the small actions you take. Yes, so good. Now switching over to the staff, and we've kind of intermingled it together, which is so good for that person, that sitting there in the school. And you know, I look at it, we can finish the school year, one or two ways. Obviously, there's excitement, we got summer vacation coming up. But also burnouts happened a lot by this time of year, and can go one of two ways, we can either be joyous and celebrate the path that we've come through, or that negativity bias, we can get into all the things that are wrong, all the stressors, you know, when when we hear people speaking negatively, we can allow that to seep in, for that person that sitting there and wants to be more hopeful will be a tip to finish the year strong. Okay, so it's the end of the year. And one of the ways that you because remember, hope is in the future, you're always reaching for it, you're always growing for it. So you this year, it might have been a hard year for you, it might have been rough. And you know, that does happen. There are teaching years where you're like, oh, my gosh, who gave me this class, and it happens. But the thing is, remember, you were given that class for reason, you exist for a reason. Now, here's the thing, there are environments that sometimes we feel like, Oh, I'm stuck this, it's because of this, this, we want to blame a lot of things. But as soon as you take ownership of a problem, you control the outcomes. So if you're in a culture and you feel like you know, there's a lot of things wrong with it, make a change. And one of the easiest changes that I recommend is planning for the future year. And so if you feel like you weren't used enough, you don't feel like you're valued. Well, you know what, the thing that you should do is go to your principal, go to your leadership team and say, You know what, I think every teacher should write down what they're really good at. And then we should send it out to the whole staff, why a staff strengths directory is one of the quickest ways you can change the school culture. Why? Because we bring in people for as professional developers, who like they're not even in the classroom, no offense, if you're a professional developer, but like, honestly, the strength of a school is the school. And so you have strength, whoever you are, wherever you're sitting, you exist, you've changed lives. I know, you might feel like you haven't, but you have. And so you need to wake up and realize you are a value. And sometimes you have to let people know your value. So go to your principal, go to this and say, You know what, let's send out a Google form for next year. And have every teacher write, what PDS they've had, what they're good at what they liked to do, and let some collect all that and then share it out. Oh, that teacher down the halls Google certified, guess what? I'm going to do PD with them. Principals will get more PD, you will get more people interacting because guess what, Brian? I bet during the day, you can't hang out with a whole bunch of your teachers. You can't. We have to teach. But if we get to know each other through the strengths that we have We're gonna make each other stronger. And this is a simple way where you can say, hey, I'm not hopeful now, but this is something I can do to change next year. It is a game changer. I did it with the staff that I'm at right now at the high school. And we have people doing PD with each other, interacting with each other. Oh, you're really good at because we got a new learning management system with this learning management system. Can you help me with blank? Oh, you can so costumes are in so can you help with this show? That's what it's done. It's created people. So you know, you have a network, you're not alone. And you need to remember that your fellow teachers are amazing, because they are in the classroom. And yeah, they have bad days, but they exist. And they have gifts and talents and abilities. It's time we start utilizing you want to do great peds principles, have peds done by your people, for your people, by the things they want to learn your staff is your strength, utilize it, and you'll have a great school. Yes, and I love that like recognizing the gifts that everybody has. Because sometimes we get in the schools and we might know people that say hi or a little bit about them. But we get we get caught up in our own pockets, our own grade levels, our own own areas. And we don't know, the gifts always that other people have. So you create that spreadsheet and going, you know, if I didn't know how to use those Google Forms, and you do, and I come to you, our bond is gonna grow. Yes. And you'll have teachers say, I'm really good at this. And that's your resource. You don't have to go somewhere else or on Teachers Pay Teachers use teacher down the hallway. It's amazing. And on top of that, you know, just as a principal, being able to say, hey, teachers, what amazing things are you doing in your classroom, and then highlighting that that's what you should do every week on your parent phone calls. Hey, in Mr. Martin's class, they're doing this really cool thing. And they did like a blank. That's what should be happening. Highlight the success that teachers feel like they're having. And if we feel good, because then we feel appreciated. It's a cycle. Awesome. There are a lot of bad things in the world. But you know what, when you start looking for the good, you'll realize there's more good than bad? Yes, yes. When you start looking for the good, you'll realize there's more good than bad. So good my friend now your book, the school hopes so good, I read it. So this was just a little tidbit little snack of what you know everything that's in your book. If you enjoyed this conversation, everyone go out, I'll leave the book in the show notes. Now, two of my favorite questions, my friend and I can't wait to hear your answer on this our favorite book or any book recommendations that you have. And if there's any podcasts that you listen to that you'd like to recommend, um, for the book, I'm kind of biased. I know he's, he's no longer with us. But Dr. Schneider the founder of hope, if you read his the psychology of hope it's written not for a psychologist. So hey, Brian, you could read it, I can I read it. And it's written for the average person to explain what hope is. It talks about parents, hey, parents, here's the way you can start feeling hope at a young age at home. So you can make sure your kid ends up successful because life satisfaction future academic attainment, academic achievement, it's predicted more by hope than how smart you are. Why? Yeah, that's what science shows. And on top of that, it's a game changer. So reading the psychology of hope. It's got tidbits, tips, tricks, things outside of what I said, for education. And it goes through the psychological development of hope through the years, and how you can take kids to it. And it's wonderful. Like, I love it, everyone should get a copy of the psychology of hope. It's one of my favorites. And then as far as podcasts, I love Brene. Brown, honestly, she's amazing her, like get on her podcast, because the thing that she does with vulnerability and leaders and learning and how any leader, you're a leader from where you are, if you choose to lead, like so many people are like, hey, or when are you leaving the classroom? That seems to be a thing, right? You probably have had the same thing. When are you going to get your admin, I don't want that. I want to leave for where I am in the classroom. I'm not leaving the classroom. I'm going to continue to research. I'm going to do amazing thing on kids brains. But I'm going to stay here because I'm needed here. And I'm loved here and I'm making a difference. And that's the thing to remember. Teachers, you are valuable and you can be leaders from where you are. Yes, I think that's an important reminder for everyone. Now, if someone wanted to get in contact with you if they wanted to get some PD from you, or bring you into their school to talk on what will be the best way to connect probably through my website, the School of hope.org and you can just email me to at Kathleen beechworth@gmail.com And I would love to connect and Just connect you to some free resources. It's, I'm a mom, I have seven kids, I'm not out to make money, what I'm out to do is spread this message. So if you need help, and you're an underprivileged school, you're like, I really don't have a lot of money, please reach out. Like I said, I'm an I'm in this to be a game changer. And I want to help you become a game changer. Awesome. And if there's one thing that you could have the listeners walk away with today, what would that be? To know that hope is measurable, and it's malleable, within 90 minutes of an intervention, that means you do anything, even the seating chart, within 90 minutes, you're changing someone's psychological support that they have for the rest of their lives, 90 minutes. You can't say that necessarily about math interventions, or reading interventions. But we can say that about hope interventions, according to other research, as powerful, that's very powerful. My friends, Kathleen, I think everyone that's listening knows, just can feel like your passion, your energy, how strongly you feel about this. And so important, it's a message that needs to be spread. It's something that you live, I look at your story, you adopted five kids from trauma, and now you have two of them, that are making a difference in the world, as far as you know, they've left high school. And that's a large part of, you know, what you gave to them and the blessings that you're given your students, and the message that you share. You're just an amazing person. So thank you so much for this time. Thanks, Brian. And it's been awesome. Your podcast is just as powerful. And I hope more people listen to it, because the tips you're spreading. They're awesome. Yeah, thank you, my friend. This conversation was so much fun. Kathleen brings that unbelievable energy. And you just hear that passion in her voice when she talks about the hope and the power that it has. And I think that comes from her firsthand knowledge of it, and how it transformed her own children. Now, this is a teaching champion state where I share three of my favorite takeaways. And the first gem that I love was when Kathleen talked about how you start the day, and being intentional about infusing hope throughout it. And she mentioned that she loves dad jokes, and she intentionally starts her day with one. But you also talked about making sure that you interweave moments of intentionality throughout your day. Because there's a lot of things throughout the day that we can't control. But if we focus on the things that we can, if we're deliberate if we're intentional, about what we do, about infusing moments of hope into our day about infusing moments of joy into our day, we're gonna make it a better day for us. And we're going to keep ourselves and healthier mental space. In the second gym that I love, is how Kathleen said, one of the best things that we can do is point out our students strikes. Because a lot of times we get so zeroed in on the deficits because we want to try and make our students stronger in those areas. And we end up failing to really highlight their strengths to them. And I think a question that all of us need to ask is when do we feel more empowered? When do we feel more motivated, when we're constantly being reminded about our weaknesses, or remind reminded about our strengths? In an honest truth is, a lot of our students, they don't know their strengths. And they might not see it yet. So that one person taking time to point it out to them, to remind them of it, to make opportunities for those students to work off of their strengths, and to have their strengths celebrated. That person can change that student's life. And the third gem that I loved is when Kathleen talked about looking for the good in the day. If we want more hope in our lives, if we want to be more inspired and encouraged. We have to welcome those into our life. And we have to be intentional about seeing them. And as Kathleen said, when you start looking for the good, you realize that there's more good than bad. Hit me up on social media at be Martin real on Twitter or teaching champions podcast on Instagram, and let me know what were some of your favorite gems from this conversation. And if you want to get a copy of Kathleen's book, I'm going to leave it in the show notes. And she said that if you purchase one off of the publishers website and you use the Hold author 40 When you purchase it, you're gonna get 40% off. A big thank you to Kathleen for sharing so many gems. And a big thank you to all of you for being here for being part of the teaching champions community, we support we encourage we lift each other up. And always remember, doesn't matter whether you're 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 edge ground to the week may step into your strength, may you step into shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody