Ti-Fen (0s): Hi, everyone. Welcome to Compass Teachers show I’m. Your host Ti-Fen. My job is to interview Teachers around the world and Tease out there, teaching cactus education, research, or tools they use. Hopefully this show can offer us ideas for you to experiment in your classrooms. This episode, we will be exploring Social, Emotional Learning with Brain Science.
We are really, really excited to have a wonderful Andrea Samadi joining us today. Andrea is a former middle school teacher who began working with the success and social, emotional learning principals with students in the late 1990s, Andrea’s book Level Up a brain-based strategy to skyrocket students success and achievement using the latest research to help others increase their learning potential.
She is also the founder of Achieveit360 which offers programs, grounded in brain-based research and practical neuroscience, helps parents, teachers, coaches and employees to optimize learning, well-being and achievement at home, school or the workplace. Without further ado. Please enjoy my conversation with Andrea. Hello, Andrea. Welcome to our show.
Andrea (1m 38s): Hi Ti-Fen. Thank you so much for having me.
Ti-Fen (1m 43s): So first of all, I think it would be great to know Andrea your journey first. So I know that you’ve started to work on integrating social, emotional learning very early, and I’m curious how social emotional learning came to you.
Andrea (2m 3s): Definitely. It actually began when I left the classroom as a teacher, I did not last very long as a classroom teacher. I taught behavioral students in Toronto and my students were very bad and I burned out very quickly because I have no strategies in place at all to manage my students, let alone teach what was required for them.
So I left the classroom and I went to work for a motivational speaker. Some people may have heard of him. His name was Bob Proctor. He was a done very well for teaching Success principles, to adults and mindset and around growth. And he was actually challenged to work with 12 teenagers. And it was pretty a pretty recent after I left the classroom and I thought, well, I’m going to go work for this speaker.
And it was just kind of interesting how it all happened. It was through a chance meeting through my next door neighbor that I met and came across this speaker. And I thought, you know, I resigned from teaching and I went and I started to learn these principles. One of his, his most famous book was called. You are born rich, and it’s not just rich, financially, but rich in potential. And he talks about the fact that most of us have potential within ourselves that we don’t use.
And I read this book when I was in the classroom, I was in a staff meeting and I was reading it behind my binder. And I was thinking, wow, there’s so much that I want to do. And so I ended up going to work for him and then this amazing opportunity when he was challenged to work with 12 teenagers. And it was one of those things that it was like a moment of truth for me, because I was trying to discover, what am I supposed to do with myself with my life?
I’m teaching didn’t work out the way I thought it was going to be. It was very stressful. I thought I’m going a different path. This path didn’t make my dad very happy. You know, my mom’s supportive, whatever path I went, but my dad was like, what are you doing? You know, you’re going to regret this decision to break your teaching contract. You’ll regret one day, you’re not going to have benefits. And all of these things came into my head, but here I was and I was sitting in the audience and the speaker was challenged to work with these 12 kids, 12 teenagers.
And it was with this, topic’s like a setting goals, having a better attitude, how to have a growth mindset, how to respond instead of react in situations. And these are all skills that we now know to be called social and emotional skills. But back then they weren’t called that. At least I didn’t ha didn’t know what they were. They were like soft skills and they weren’t important in the classroom at the time. But what I watched with these 12 kids and, you know, here I am a former teacher sitting there going, what am I supposed to be doing with my life?
And there were these 12 kids that took these concepts and it like completely transformed their lives. And I’m talking to, in a matter of months that these kids were working with the speaker and in the speaker at the time, wasn’t very personable with children. He was more like a, he stood in front of adults, but he was challenged to work with these kids. And so he kind of have to do it. And I was watching him from the point of view of, wow. Imagine if these skills we’re being taught by an educator, first of all, someone that’s been trained to work children.
And, and then the impact he had these kids, some of them went from See grades in their academics to eighth grade’s with their sports. Some of them were, not performing well with our sports. And they went to the starting lineups. And, and then just the fact that they were standing on stage speaking in front of a group of 8,000 people. And I remember we were at the Louisiana Superdome in new Orleans and you had these kids’ on stage. And you know, when you’re a teenager, that’s probably the most difficult thing is public speaking.
And these kids were all up on stage and the audience full of adults were taking notes of what they were saying. And so that’s really where it happened. I, I noticed these are things that are, that are so powerful that change, these kids’ lives. And I knew right then it like hit me like a brick in my stomach teeth. And it was like, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t know how, but these are skills that, that I recognized really changed. These kids’ lives.
And that’s where it all began for me.
Ti-Fen (7m 6s): Wow. That’s really amazing. So all that, the academic improvement I’m curious about behavior change that impressed you the most , like before and after.
Andrea (7m 25s): Yeah, definitely. And now we’re talking about a matter of months. So normally these changes don’t take place that quickly. If we were to go and implement these concepts into a classroom, into a school, it’s going to take time to recognize. But the fact that these kids had direct take like laser target lessons, I was a part of writing some of the lessons back then, and we were writing one lesson a week and these kids would get the lesson directly with the speaker and then implement the ideas.
So some of the, obviously some of the most important things were self-confidence. And so when you’re a teenager, it’s re the self-confidence the self-awareness, these are all skills that we’re coming into as we’re growing and going through life and learning who we are. And these children got like a fast track course on, you know, who are you? What are you, what are your goals in life? If you were to ask a teenager, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?
You, you would probably get like a stumble. They wouldn’t. No. And I remember the speaker asked me that in my late twenties, what do you want to do with your life? And I just remember going, well, I don’t know, but I know it’s not what I was doing then. And when you find what you want to do with your life, it’s like so peaceful and Amazing. It’s like all the bells in this go off and you’re like, this is it. You know, you recognize it. And so these kids got that type of targeted instruction on introspection, looking at themselves, What, what do they want to develop?
Maybe they, they need to develop some skills. If they want to have a career in a certain industry and they don’t have the skills they need, then they have the awareness that they needed to go build those skills. So that was the main thing that I saw. It wasn’t really, these kids came from great homes. They were, there were not any behavior issue or issues with these kids. Not like the kids that I taught in, in the classroom. I don’t know if they would have improved that quickly.
Cause you know, there’s so many different factors. It’s like, you know, their home lives and all of that, that these kids came from a very, you know, target parents that were goal setters themselves. So they have like a step ahead already, but it just was amazing how fast they learned and took these skills and, and filled the gaps that they had with, with what they were learning.
Ti-Fen (10m 6s): And the other thing I really love about your works. You put out so many resource they’re to bridge the gap between science and learning and especially brain-based science. Like how did you meet neuroscience and like having another field of passion to bridge the gap?
Andrea (10m 29s): You know, that’s a really good question because it was a huge opportunity that could of been lost Ti-Fen. It, it happened when my program was chosen in Arizona for a grant, some grant funding was here and I submitted an application to have my program chosen and it was awarded five schools. We’re going to work with my book and, and curriculum. And then one of the schools said, I can’t use the program is it is I don’t like it.
You need to write me another book. And I could of said, Oh, you know, forget it. You just don’t get to do the program. This is the way it is. And you know, not taken the criticism and used it to understand why, you know, what, what don’t you like about it? What can I improve? And so I went in to the school administrator and he said, this is why I need you to write me at a different book. He wanted me to go from talking about in the beginning.
I was because of what I have learned from the speaker. I only knew about the mind and how it related to Success, but he said, I need you to talk about how the Brain translates for Success. And so he started taking all these books off his bookshelf that he wanted me to read. And it was overwhelming in the beginning. I thought, is this I can really do. I didn’t know. I only know one area and suddenly now I have to understand how the brain works.
But I was lucky because at the time I was in a training program with John Ashraf and he had a neuroscience researcher attached to his program named Mark Waldman. And so I actually took some of the grant funding that I got and I hired Mark Waldman to teach me the basics of neuroscience. And that’s what sure. I took everything to do with the mind out. I sat with this educator, he circled everything that needed to come out. And I wrote the book for schools in mind who are learning the basics of neuros.
Ti-Fen (12m 23s): So would you mind telling us what the science has found out about the relationship with, SEL?
Yeah,
Andrea (12m 55s): Definitely. So when I first started to study neuroscience with Mark Waldmann and hired him to, you know, have him teach me this back then everyone was talking about the three parts of the brain and it was like the reptilian brain, the limbic brain and the neocortex. And that’s how everyone was talking about my emotions in the beginning, like emotions or in the limbic part of the brain. And that is like the old way of thinking now.
And the new way, at least now we talk about how the brain deals with networks. So it’s like Brain network theory. So our emotions are all over our brain and how emotions impact learning when there’s something that you’re learning in your emotionally invested in it, it actually solidifies the memory. And so I had to go back actually, when I got this question from you, I had to go back and look at some of my other interviews like with Mary Helen in more Dino yang, she’s an expert on learning in the brain, especially when it comes to emotions and Learning.
She wrote the book, emotions, Learning the Brain, and she talks about how we feel. Therefore we Learn in the very beginning of our book and I could spend the rest of my life following her work. And I would learn something new from her every day. But so, so what happens with, with learning in the brain? So it’s, it’s evolved. Neuroscience has evolved since I started beginning of learning about the brain and the three parts of the brain. And now everybody’s talking about these networks or regions of the brain light up with something like a certain emotion.
And it’s not surprising that most of the significant emotion centers lie below our cortex, which separates us from other animals. But at least for the past hundred years, neuroscience has noted a link between let’s just say, somebody damaged a part of their brain, the left part of their brain. It has links to certain moods like depression. And if you have damage to the right, it can be associated with a broad array of positive emotions.
So there’s lots now that they’re discovering about how emotions connect to learning in the brain, but it’s now all dealing with these networks. Instead of like in the past, you would say the amygdala was an important part of the brain. And the MIG doula is where we have our fight flight and freeze. And they used to say, well, students in the classroom, if they’re not feeling safe, they’re going to be frozen and they can’t Learn. And that’s the old way of thinking, because we now know that there’s so much more involved with these neural networks, that things like mindfulness in the classroom can make a student feel safe and calm down the whole network of their brain,
Ti-Fen (16m 1s): According to CASEL, social, emotional learning competencies and to our listeners. And there is, if you don’t know these competencies, you can check out the conversation I had with our past guests, Elizabeth and Wendy, I will have this episode link in the show notes as well. But today I want to take on our conversation around self awareness in these, in self-management. So Andrea, you used to say that based on the research, when students perceive that their teacher knows them, both academically and personally they’re are better positioned to take ownership of the learning.
I’m curious what happens to their brains that they have this kind of perception and this impacts their attitude in learning.
Andrea (16m 53s): Yeah, definitely. Well, it’s, it goes back to the old way that we used to think about the Brain of the three parts of the brain. And knowing that the limbic area, a student has to feel safe in class. And if you don’t feel safe, if you cannot learn, and if your classroom has the feeling of calmness and safety, it reduces those students that might be coming in with other issues like ACEs, adverse childhood experiences that affect them.
That probably every one of my students had, they were coming in and it was really difficult to get them to Learn cause they couldn’t sit still because they’ve had a whole bunch of other situations happen to them before they got to me. So the first thing is it’s all about safety and in the classroom in Dr. Dan Siegel has written many books on this topic with Tina, umm, you know, making sure your environment is predictable and structured to have posters of whatever rules you want written.
And then you verbally say to them out loud, doctor Laurie Dessa Tel is another one who does amazing work with schools. She taught me the idea of an amygdala for a state station. And I was when I was first a working with some of my schools with a level of material. And I would, I created an a Magilla for a state station for these high school students. Cause that would be in there, I’d be in the classroom and I would be teaching this to them and always something would happen. Some sort of bite would happen in the teacher was like, you know, don’t talk when miss Samadi he’s talking and someone would get kicked out.
And I’m like, instead of that, could we just have the student go to the amygdala for a state of station where there was like some lotions or something calming for them to do to just break whatever was happening. Cause usually it’s just something silly and it’s not worth kicking the Student out of the whole class to in this whole thing happens. They go down and they lose all these points. They get in trouble. So just having a place for student to calm themselves is another strategy.
And then also research shows a slower calmer voice helps reduce the stress in the classroom and increased positivity to students Brain. So there’s a lot we can do from the teacher side of, of it as well. These are things I definitely did not know when I was a classroom teacher because I was always yelling at my students and you know, sit down and stop that. I still remember their names because I yelled at him out so many times and my screaming voice definitely escalated their behavior and made them worse.
So all these strategies or things that I wish they had taught me in teacher training class, but none of them were there at the time. So,
Ti-Fen (19m 46s): Well I think these are really, really practical tips to using in the classroom. It’s really a pretty easy to implement, like just to control your voice in, have a safe place for kids to calm down. Now let’s talk about self-aware awareness. One that when the competency and self-awareness is the ability to see ourselves clearly understand who we are, how we fit in to the world and Andrea, your podcasts podcast, you get a lots of great tips for being more self-aware and I will, I will also link in the podcast episode to the show notes so people can find out.
Now let’s assume we incorporate the team’s usage testing to our lives. How can we help our students to practice self-awareness any active thinks we can do in the classroom? Definitely. So,
Andrea (20m 48s): So being a self-aware or you know yourself, like self-awareness no thyself. So the first thing I would suggest is to be able to identify your emotions, whether they’re positive or negative, like no, what frustrates you? What overwhelms you? So you are aware of those types of scenarios so that you name it like, Oh, doing math overwhelms me so that we can go step by, step in, break down a math problem and not get overwhelmed.
We have probably still will, but you know, just by scaffolding and breaking it down, taking it a smaller steps, it makes it less frustrating for you to no. What makes you happy as well? Marc Brackett from the Yale center of emotional intelligence, he has an app called the emotion meter and you can measure, you are on your own emotions and he wrote the book permission to feel. And I think this is the most important for step to being self-aware is just knowing yourself what frustrates you, what makes you happy and having strategies to be able to self-regulate when you get out of your, your emotions, take over, know how to bring yourself back.
That’s one step. Another one would be knowing like how to deal with the emotions. Like, like when you get stressed out like a, a, a student should have a strategy for like knowing how to calm your brain when you’re stressed. And for me, I use exercise. It’s like if a fight didn’t exercise in the morning, there’s no way I could deal with the stressors that come up and stay calm. I know I would probably lose it if I had not had my exercise or being outdoors.
And so you have to have your students knowing how to bring their balance back. Maybe they need to get up in the middle of the class and go get a drink of water or go to the amygdala for a state station that everyone should have a strategy for how they deal with their stress to bring them back. And another one would be being clear on your values and beliefs. And I think this is something that develops over a whole lifetime. If you were to ask me when I was in sixth grade, you know, what are your values and beliefs?
I would be like, what, what, what do you mean by that? You know, but over time as we are, self-awareness develops, I think it is from what I’ve learned from Mark Waldman, it’s age 30, that we, that we really have this level of self-awareness that develops over time. We get to know who we are. And over time we can finally know who we are and know what are our values are on our beliefs. And then we can start challenging our beliefs. Like why do I believe that? Is that a belief that works for me now?
Like I know some of my beliefs from a, you know, when I was in my late twenties, I’ve completely blown them up. Like I, I would never have eaten butter at all. Butter is like something that I would say, Oh, butter makes you fat because its high in fat. And now I have learned that putting butter in SA in my coffee is something that keeps me lean. But I would, if you have told me that in my late twenties, I would be like, no way, I’m not touching them.
And I got that from interviewing some of these people that talk about intermittent fasting and the importance of like healthy fats, don’t make you fat. What makes you fat? Is that the breads and in the carbs, they’re the things that make you that, but you know, it’s changing some of your beliefs as you go through life. You, you start to question like, why do I believe that? Is that really true? And that’s like, another part of self-awareness is just knowing and challenging yourself and seeing what works for you.
Maybe like maybe back in the day, I like like to a certain exercise, I used to do a certain thing and you know, maybe like 20 years later and no, I don’t like that thing anymore. I want to change it and have a different belief. So you’ve just got to be challenging yourself. Always. Is that working for me or not? And that self-awareness
Ti-Fen (25m 8s): Right. And Andrea, you just mentioned about the strategies, the importance of strategies to deal with the emotions. And I think that is congruence with self-management and so ability to match our motions and behaviors in court, in to the demands of the situation. So what kind of way you would suggest that teacher to help students to figure out how they can manage themselves?
Andrea (25m 42s): I would definitely. And I think about for students in the classroom, I think have them sitting at their desks, you know, it’s, it’s just the way that schools are and I’m not sure where, what schools are like, where were you are? But you know, it’s not a lot of getting up and walking around and I know my daughter needs to get up and walk around. So when we have the pandemic here and there we’re being homeschooled and they had to sit at their desk, she would stand up and go and pet the cat.
And when she got frustrated with her school and so all these things I learned, If wow, if she was in the classroom, there’s no cat to pet, you know, how did he take that out now and learn how to calm or self-sooth herself when she’s stressed out. So just knowing to identify feelings, first of all, like, Oh, this problem is frustrating me. Like be able to name the emotion and, and then, you know, maybe the teacher could come and start to find strategies to scaffold one.
The students are having a problem, but instead of keeping it inside, like I hear a lot of students will not say, Oh, I’m frustrated because they don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of the class. Like they don’t know, but just to start saying like, everybody doesn’t have to be perfect. We can sometimes not know the answer and it’s okay. And then the teacher models that, and they say sometimes when they don’t know something like maybe when they have to use zoom or maybe zoom, they have no idea how to use zoom or how to use certain technology.
And then just sharing that with the students. And then the students realize, Oh wow, the teachers have, or things that they don’t no as well. And so just identifying, when did we get stressed out and what are ways that we can calm ourselves down with the resources we have before in a classroom? How can we help our students work through the problem? Maybe get up, maybe have a, a, an amygdala for a state station where they could walk to. I think my daughter would do really well in the classroom that had maybe a pillow instead of a cat, the cat’s in schools, but may be a nice soft pillow.
She could go and touch or do something like that to just calm herself down. When she gets frustrated. Those types of things I think would work really well in the elementary
Ti-Fen (28m 8s): <inaudible> and given that our brains develop differently in a different age, this is the approach or go East self-awareness and self-regulation the for, for different age groups.
Andrea (28m 31s): Definitely. And as a, as I was looking at that question, I, I did some research on it because I just know self-awareness is something that we developed through a whole lifetime. And from what I’ve been told from Mark Waldman, who I studied with at age 30, we should have a good idea of who we are, but I found something in national geographic that really talks about that. It begins when we’re an infant, where are you see a mirror? And that’s like, Level one of self-awareness. Oh, I see myself. There is a person in it, Level two, as you get older, Oh, you recognize that person is me a level three.
That persons going to be with me forever Level for someone else can see that person in me. And then we start to develop like, who is that person? What are my beliefs and values? What am I needs? What are my feelings? What makes me happy? What makes me sad? So, yeah, it absolutely evolves over time. The self-awareness and I think we could see it. Like I looked at some television shows that were popular when I was doing this work with students in the high school level, in the classroom.
And there was a show that was on Netflix. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it was called stranger things. It was like the scary show on Netflix that, well, there’s this character in stranger things. His name was Jonathan and he was in high school and he used to carry around his, his camera with him. He was really into photography. And my question to the students were, was Jonathan self aware or not? And the students were all able to pick up that.
Jonathan was self-aware and there was this other character, Stephen that had no idea who he was, was not self-aware. He was always getting into fights and arguments. And so I can give them an example of a TV show that they all had watched and pick out a character and say, well, Jonathan knew himself that he liked photography. He was pretty sure of who he was like, if someone came up to him and took his camera and smashed it to the ground, that would really bother him. He was really, really into his photography.
Whereas someone like Steven had no idea what he was passionate about. So that kind of helps students to, to see, well, who am I, what, what’s my purpose in this world, which are all trying to figure out as we were in high school and even beyond until we figure it out and there’s that aha moment, Oh, this is what I meant to do. And then that’s what you dedicate your life to doing.
Ti-Fen (31m 10s): Mm that’s a really great activity to do a talk about something the, on the, of the kids, most of the kids are watching and discuss the Emotional development or emotional expression in the TV show. So Andrea, our last question about the brain based research, there are so many research or papers out there. How did you find the practical resource in this giant pool of knowledge? Like, is there any particular journal Website or organization you tap into constantly?
Andrea (31m 51s): Yes, definitely. And there’s no way I could of done this without Mark Robert Waldman. So he was the first person that I started to learn about the Brain from. And you know, you got you, if you had seen me, Tufin when he was teaching this to me, I I’m coming from no knowledge about the Brain and my face. He would probably have looked at me and thought, there’s no way she’s understanding this. But with time you, you really get to understand from, you know, putting your head down and trying to understand something.
Anybody can understand it. And then when the educator said, I want you to write Level Up. And he, you know, he’s like, he didn’t name it Level Up, but he said, I want you to write a brain-based book. And he started all these books off his shelf. I started to study Dave or David. Sousas how the brain learns. So how the brain learns to read, to write the special ed brain, how the brain does math and these books when you open them.
And I’m not a neuroscience. So I did not study neuroscience in school. I just, every weekend would read these books and start to figure it out on my own. And then such a way that I would want to explain it to other people in an easy way. And so it’s just taking the time to go through and see what interests you. So it started with the Mark Waldman and, and now I’ve actually joined his certification program because there were so many times I would have to contact him and say, Oh, you know, I don’t understand this.
Can you make sure I have this correct? Cause I want to present it. And I don’t want to say anything wrong. Right? You don’t want to be standing in front of an audience and you’re, you’re quoting something that’s not accurate. And so I used to have to pay him for every session. And so when I joined his certification program, now I have access to everything that he teaches for forever. And I can get him whenever I need him, but I’m in the beginning. It wasn’t like that. And there’s lots of certification programs that you can do.
People are out there and that you can see who, you know, would meet your needs, but that’s really where it started. And then through Mark Waldman, he taught me that you have to go to a reputable sources for studies that you’re citing like pub med.gov. You cannot just go to YouTube or Google and then start saying, well, here’s how stress impacts the Brain from like an article. Or you might find you have to have a study. And so within his program, he taught us how to find studies, how to quote studies.
How do you know if you are presenting something or how to quote the research properly from pub med and be sure that your citing accurate information and not just pseudoscience, which has not been proven in a study.
Ti-Fen (34m 49s): So Andrea, in the past few years, any books that influenced your core values or thinking a lot.
Andrea (35m 0s): Yeah, definitely. One is, is the one I’ve already mentioned. It was Bob Proctor’s. You were born rich and it’s not rich in finances. That’s, that’s not the meaning that I put behind it. It’s that we all are born rich and potential. And it’s a up to us to use this potential, like UT found. I know that it’s not easy to create these podcasts to reach out, to edit, but you have some desire in you that makes you do this.
That makes you contact people that makes you follow through and edit and release and that’s your potential. And so for me, it was a Amazing to see, like I can recognize the potential in other people. And then I just look at people and I’m like, wow, that person is gonna Skyrocket. They are going to flow it up. I can just recognize it in, in people really through starting to have a look at that book. And so that’s where it helps me to see that the, you know, I can really do the things that I want to do.
And you know, you might have these voices in your head sometimes to say, well, who are you to do this? And they all go away. And when you start to make an impact in the world with whatever you’re doing and you start to see that there’s something more than, than you it’s how are you helping other people with, with your talents and abilities? So that I’d say that was like the first book. And then the second book, it’s always on my desk, it’s the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
And I don’t know if you heard of the four agreements or, you know, if you just Google four agreements, the first agreement is being impeccable with your word. And I don’t know where that came from for me. I’ve always like, if I say, Oh, I’m going to go to the gym today, or I say, I’m going to do something. I do it. It’s like be impeccable with what you say is just how can people trust you if you’re giving, you know, Oh, I’ll get that emailed to you, or I will send that to you and you never send it.
It’s like a, so it’s like an agreement with myself that when I say something, I’d do it. Another thing is, don’t take anything personally. And that’s a big one because remember if I had taken that administrators, a criticism personally like, Oh, he doesn’t like my book. And, and then I went home and cried and then cold on my friends and said, What that guy he’s, he’s a moron. He doesn’t like you, my stuff. And, or, you know, I could of said, well, it’s not about me.
What can I learn from it? So that was a big lesson. Like, don’t take anything personally, or we can miss huge opportunities in life. Another one don’t make assumptions. Like, you know, you could assume something was completely wrong and lose friendships over it, or it’s just not worth making assumptions. And then the last one is always do your best. And I’m sure you are the same TFN with your interviews. You researched extremely well.
The questions you get to know people ahead of time. Do you want to put your best effort in to everything to make an impact on the world? And so the I’d say that the four agreements and born rich from two books that have influenced my thinking
Ti-Fen (38m 25s): Amazing. And Andrea, I know that you were a teacher in Canada, but now you are Based in the US so kind of explore post you both education system in these countries. So if you have a super power, super woman power to change the education, given what you observed, what would it be?
Andrea (38m 53s): Well, definitely. I think like, I’ve, I’ve put a lot of thought into this because you know, you go into teaching and you think that you’re going to make this incredible impact. And then what happened with me was I didn’t even last a year. And so I just really like my, I give all of my respect to those in the classroom, because it is really difficult, especially since the pandemic and people all over the world have already made such an impact with where things are going at our schools. But the change that I know a lot of us want to see would be, we want, we want stuff to happen faster, but that would mean that belief systems need to change.
Like I’m talking about, you know, having my daughter able to stand up and go pet a cushion in an amygdala first aid station, you know, think about when I was a teacher, there is no way we would have done anything like that. You know, it’s like changing beliefs takes time. And so I don’t know if the impact or the change that I see is going to happen in my lifetime, but I just hope that this is a beginning for the next generation to have a better in the classroom with being, having this understanding of our brain, how our brains work, how our teachers’ brains work.
Umm, you know, knowing that, that if I was stressed and yelling at my students, it increased the student cortisol and made them behave poorly. So just that understanding, that changes teacher training. And so there’s a lot of like moving pieces that I see in the us. And I know that the changes going to probably takes some time, but I do see that a lot of these are starting to impact schools in different pockets. Different schools are starting to implement this and it starts at the teacher training level and it starts at just starting one idea at a time in a school, in a district.
And, and then that’s really how it begins. And then the publisher is on that side because I did also, when I left the classroom, I did go into the publishing industry and I got to see how the curriculum is made from the top publishers in Canada and the us and these little neuroscience tips could be put into the curriculum. So let’s just say you’ve got a math sheet and the students are working on the math problem. There could be like a little breakout box that says, you know, if you’re overwhelmed or fee feeling frustrated to take some deep breaths, something like that from the curriculum side.
So there’s a lot of different places and ideas. And, and I just think that the, the people are doing a lot of great things all over the country in the world and that eventually the change will happen, but I’m not sure when yeah, it’s a, it’s, it’s a slow process. Andrea last spend the least. So if our listeners to want to know more about your work, how they can, how can they find you online?
Yeah. My website is Achievement three sixty.com and they can go there and they can click on the links. They can learn about the program Level Up. They can learn about the podcast and really where we began and where we’re going, because we’re always looking at improving and doing different things with neuroscience as we’re learning more over here. And thank you so much for Andrea. You put so much great work out there. Thank you. Thank you so much for all your doing.
Compass Teachers 