Your entire school’s curriculum in the cloud, with training built in!

In this episode, Dr. Suzanne Adinolfi discusses innovative approaches in early childhood education, emphasizing the role of AI in supporting teachers and fostering inclusive, stress-free learning environments. Discover how digital curricula and AI tools like LB are transforming classrooms and empowering educators.

Mark and Dr. Suzanne Adinolfi delve into the transformative role of AI in early childhood education. As the Director of Research and Content Development at Learning Beyond Paper, Dr. Adinolfi brings a wealth of experience to the discussion, exploring how innovative tools can alleviate pressures on teachers and enhance learning environments for children.

key topics

• AI in early childhood education
• Digital curriculum development
• Teacher support and professional development
• Inclusive and adaptive learning strategies
• Parent-school communication and engagement
• Classroom management and behavior support
• Special education and inclusive practices
• Future trends in educational technology

Sound Bites

• "AI keeps track of lesson objectives and standards"
• "When teachers are confident, children learn more"
• "AI can help teachers think outside the box"

Websites Learning Beyond Paper and Learning Beyond the Bell.

Special Ed Risng: specialedrising.com

Rqy's Respite Care Go Fund Me: https://www.gofundme.com/f/join-rays-respite-care-mission

good morning. How are you?

Thank you so much, Mark, for this opportunity. I I'm so excited about it.

I'm happy to have you here, Susan. And this the subject matter is really intriguing to me, so I'm really curious to see the the take that you have with it, And as we know, there's so much going on in education that needs work. So I'm excited to have this conversation. Yeah.

An understatement.

I I did not tell you that I am actually an old I and now I use the term former now that old applies. I'm an

Yeah.

old exceptional student ed teacher. That's how I started my career.

Okay.

And so

I've been in the classroom with preschool children with disabilities and then kindergarten through fifth grade learning disabilities and we called it exceptional student ed at the time, but it was also emotional disturbances, yeah.

Okay, That's a heavy job. Yeah,

It it was some of my best years.

and it's isn't that crazy? Like I mean it's just like some of those best years are the ones where people would think, my god, I would run the other way but they don't get it, you know.

No, they

don't. When every every inch is a mile and it just

Yeah.

really does the heart good.

Yeah, for sure. I mean the reward at the end of the day when you see those little tiny little bits of growth. Like you said, it's a mile, it's it's massive and and worth every second of whatever energy you're putting into it's worth all of it. How many years did you do that?

want to say nine, ten.

Okay.

Then I left and started I worked for the state of Florida's Office of Early Learning for many years.

are you in Florida? Okay.

Yes.

Yeah. I actually grew up in upstate New York, but I've

Come

been in Florida for about forty years now. yeah. Well, it has its

Holy cow. Okay. So you must like it.

perks, especially in the winter.

Yes,

for sure. well I just want to welcome you, Susan, to the show. this is an area that I'm interested in because I've worked in it myself, the early childhood education and the system we talk about here all the time. So to have

more specific discussion about some of the areas that are the problems and some of the fixes that you are working on. so if you wouldn't mind giving us a little background, you gave us a little bit already, but maybe some background to the work that you're doing now and how it became the main focus of your career and your work

maybe if you could just give us little bit of background and then we can move on.

Sure. I am

the director of research and content development at Learning Beyond Paper. And so we're a fully digital curriculum for infants through preschoolers. And most recently we have released an out-of-school time, after school camp.

curriculum for preschoolers through sixth grade. And and those are our products, but there is a lot more behind our story in that

Mm-hmm.

we're created for teachers by teachers. So everyone that wrote lessons, we were all educators at the time and we wanted to make sure that we

took all the considerations under advisement as far as making sure that it was stress free for teachers. We we have

Lots of curriculums out there that are very cumbersome and teachers have to spend more time looking through and planning and making sure that all their T's are crossed and I's dotted and it takes a lot away from the focus on the children. So we wanted to create something that was stress-free, created a calm environment. When teachers are confident, they project that onto their children and their children

need that confidence in the classroom. So we wanted to create lessons that were fun, developmentally appropriate, and worked with the children and not making the teacher have so much extra work to do.

You know, it's interesting because out in the world in other areas of employment, people have one job. Teachers have multiple jobs within this one title of a job, So the massive part of it is actually managing and teaching your children, that's the most critical, that's the core and the reason that you're there. But

the preparation, the understanding of their curriculum, making sure you are presenting it correctly, with all these people watching you and judging you constantly. So when you say calm and relax, teachers are teaching, but they always have this the auspice of all this stuff hanging over them like a cloud.

And so the pressure

Absolutely.

on them is constant and it's only worse and worse now. So my gosh, because I tell people too, I'm like young people that are getting into it, like use AI because you know what? It's gonna save you so much time. Because all of that time that you're using to prepare could be going into, as you say, even just resting enough to have the energy to approach your day. I'll get off my soaps now.

Yeah, I completely agree. No,

it's funny that you mentioned AI though, Mark, because

We know that in this early childhood birth through pre-K arena, that teachers are a little reticent to use AI. I

I move.

think there's a belief that it's going to create a situation where they work themselves out of a job if AI is too too good, which of course will never happen. And I I completely agree with the fact that

That AI is very powerful in this situation. So one of the things that we did at Learning Beyond Paper is that we created, we're calling it a virtual classroom coach. Its

Mm-hmm.

name is ELBY and it is

AI that we poured into and we made sure it was developmentally appropriate and we made sure that concept development was in there, but it keeps track. It knows exactly what

lesson we're on, what the objectives are, what the state standards are for each lesson, and then it helps teachers modify or accommodate in real time. So it really is this powerful piece of the puzzle where if I don't know what to do in this moment in time, then I can just ask ELBY and he will generate seven to ten strategies that will help me help the

children in the classroom.

Right. Yeah,

and I think that new teachers perhaps think it's cheating or something like that, And that's like no,

know.

if you had if you had a mentor

Who was with you all the time. That mentor would be doing

All the time.

the same job, basically, and advising you. And you would welcome it because it would just take so much of the weight off of your day. and that's all this is. Ultimately you have the power to control whatever information you're putting out there, So talk

Yes, yes.

about that a little bit.

so the information through AI.

exactly. how we can use the information through AI just so people understand that it's a tool as opposed to something that's gonna take over my job.

Well, it's a tool that I wish I had had when I was first coming into

Mm-hmm.

education. And so there are so many things that you cannot plan for in any given day that happen in the classroom. And then there are some things that you're pretty sure you're gonna encounter, but AI, in this case ELBY,

Takes

care of those things. So if I am not quite sure how to deal with a child's behavior at this time or tactile defensiveness in a play-doh activity or any of those things, it's almost as if I have that personal coach. So I have that mentor, I have that person with all this experience. And in ELBY'S case, it's we we poured in all the resources.

Resources that are NACI and 0 to 3, and all of the gold standards in early childhood education, that's what ELBY pulls from. And when that happens, it kind of takes that pressure off the teacher. And when

Mm-hmm.

I am in the classroom and I don't have that pressure because I know that I can just ask AI or ELBY, then I am free to have fun with my.

kids. I'm free to smile a little bit more. I'm free to be confident in my delivery and and share that confidence with the children. So when when that happens they tend to be more engaged and when they're more engaged they learn more. It's just a a wonderful cycle and I cannot speak highly enough of

Yeah. I see the benefits of it myself. I I mean I use it here. This helps me through preparation for the podcast too. It gets me information faster, gets me questions that I want to ask. And then I but you can always go in and you can mine that information and you can alter it and you can take what you need from it. And you can do further deeper research if you're feeling like, okay, maybe that doesn't seem right. Whatever. You have the opportunity. It's not beyond you. It's still in your control.

The other thing I love about it is it helps us keep parents in the loop as well. So if we do an amazing activity and a child is especially

aware of what's going on, especially engaged, really liked it. Then I just ask ELBY in this case if he will write a short note home and give a synopsis of the activity and then maybe provide some other things that the parents can do at home to extend that activity or extend that skill. And that puts

a wonderful way for the teachers to allow that home school connection which we are always trying to find not in just in special education but in all education.

Exactly, exactly. It's it's something that I'm always working on with my clients. It's all the homeschool connection. I'm so grateful that the teachers I've never had one that said no allows me into the conversation to help kind of bridge the gap. because it doesn't automatically happen. Now we've jumped right into ELBY and AI and that was not my intention to jump right into it because but it's

Exactly.

like it's the thing. So there's so much to go through here and I'm excited to be speaking with you about this stuff. So

Let's just step back for a second because you you say you have a bunch of teachers or former teachers that that put this together, correct? And

Yes.

when did you realize that the the model needed work? Was you know when do when did you decide that this was the the approach that was the better approach to the traditional way we approached early childhood education?

I

think that teachers and people who work with teachers have known for quite some time that what we have out there at this time there it just doesn't work.

There's binders full of information and I have to put part A together with part B, and then I have to make sure I'm pulling cards and doing all of these things. And these teachers in early childhood in that birth through five arena

There's just not a lot of time in the day for them to do that. And a lot of them don't have paid planning time. So they're taking this stuff home at night, they're working late into the evening, they're using their weekends, and that kind of makes for a grumpy teacher, which nobody wants. And

Lord. No.

so we have known this for a while, and good teachers have

have pulled pieces of good curriculums and used and put their own spin on things, but it's asking a lot and it shows up in burnout in the classroom. We lose a lot of teachers in that birth through five

population they start in with wide eyes hoping that they're gonna change the world and they find out that it's just so hard to do and we didn't want that to happen we wanted to take those wide eyed teachers and give them all the tools that they needed and so

I was not in on the very ground floor of Learning Beyond Paper, but one of my friends from the division of early learning at the state of Florida

We used to work together and she called and she said, If you had your dream curriculum, what would the components be? And off the top of my head, I said there'd be three non-negotiables. And so first of all, it would be teacher friendly. And it would also have include the teacher language. So when we have brand new teachers in the classroom, all of the language that we use as seasoned teachers,

the concept development questions, the language modeling, all of that takes a little bit of skill and time to accumulate. And so I said I would love for that to be baked in. So brand new teachers can pick it up and use that until they until they can make it their own. If teachers have been in the classroom for 20 years and they have that, then good.

and the other thing would be we'd always take into consideration the social emotional aspects of learning because for me I I think the research is very clear. It's the foundation of everything that we do in the classroom. And sometimes

I agree.

it gets lost, and that is just so crazy that we worry about so many other things in and and forsake that social emotional component. So with

The curriculum, there's actually a social emotional piece built into every lesson so that not only the teachers can address it, but they can also see why that's important. We explain that for them.

the social emotional part, is everything. Having a child who is happier, a child who is trusting, more confident, that's a child who's gonna learn. Right? If they're in is open for

That's right. Brain is open for business. Yeah.

business. And you're right, we don't I talk about it on here a lot too because

The the whole human side of this gets lost, For the functionality of what the process needs to be to get somebody from point A to point B. But everybody's journey is different, Everybody walks that walk in a different way. How do we connect with the child when they're going through something in order to be able to get them to the place we want to get them to?

Granted, there's not there's only a limited amount of number of hours in the day, So how was what you're doing helped to get us from point A to point B smoother in that transition?

Well,

I think that what we do is we lay it all out for the teachers from the very beginning. So all they have to do is pull up their tablet and the lesson is there. The lesson not only has the objectives, but it has everything I need. So if I'm going to take notes on what the children say or I'm going to need a pen for dictation, I have that already there. It's all there for

For me.

That is very different than go to this kit and pull these things and make sure that you have all of this. And we really did think through everything. One of my favorite things that we have done is from the very beginning, and our scope and sequence is built from the ground up instead of what usually happens is that scopes and sequences go from maybe

pre-K and then they step down. But we took each skill from the very beginning of where that skill first starts and we built up from there with that developmental progression. So teachers can actually see where the children are headed with each skill. But the other thing that we did is that we talked to the teachers in the curriculum.

say choose a time when the baby is calm and has had their alert and has their needs met. We don't want you just plugging in curriculum to a day and chasing children with it and saying, come on, sit down, let's do this now. But

Mm-hmm.

work with the children. So I think that that is one of the main differences in the curriculum that we have, that we work with the children, that the curriculum is flexible.

Enough for the teachers to move around a bit and say, this didn't work with this child, but let me slip this in. And we provided learning supports along the way. So we talked to the teacher in the middle of the lesson. If you have a child who is not wanting to engage with this, ask him this question or take this opportunity.

to have him help you set out these materials or we wanted to make sure again that professional development is almost baked into what we're doing

Yeah.

and and saying to the teachers. It's the the

That's amazing.

closest thing that we could do besides standing in the classroom with them.

Right. But professional development that's ongoing constantly on a daily basis as opposed to having to go to wherever, get a three or four hour lecture on you and then come back and try to apply it and remember anything or say just screw it, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Exactly.

Yeah. Wow. I mean this is

incredible to me because the opportunity that you have to actually attend to at an individual child because you're able to see the process and the progress that they're making, that's it's a total game changer. My gosh.

It's a game changer. Yeah. Yeah.

How is this being received? is this something that can actually become the the new norm?

I would hope it would become the new norm, just because my heart will always be for what's best for children.

And I would love for more people to take the stress off of the teacher's shoulders because I think that's what's best for children. When teachers can walk in knowing I need to look this over really quick, I need to put these materials out. And if I get stuck along the way, this curriculum will probably help me with it. If not, I've got this little AI coach that can help me with it.

Then

And that

creates a whole different feeling when I'm in the classroom. And children are emotion detectors, I think. and

Yeah. Yeah.

so they sense that stress, they pick up on my not being sure of how this is landing. And

gosh, absolutely.

And when we do that. So we're only five years old as a curriculum, which is we're just a baby.

and we're learning and

We're trying new things along the way. That's how our after school curriculum came about, because people who were using our birth through pre-K curriculum were like, but we have children that come in in the afternoon and we don't know what to do with them. And now our teachers are kind of spoiled because they've got all of this good information. So what are we gonna do with them?

Now they see all that. Right.

And and it's hard to

be that teacher who has pre K through sixth graders in one giant room at the end of a long school day for everyone. And we

Gosh.

I think we we hit a sweet spot. We just put that out a few months ago and already we're hearing great things like our behaviors are down in the classroom. the children are engaged. They're not wanting to leave and go home. They want to stay with the program. And so

Mm-hmm.

that I think is something that especially does my teacher heart good because

Mm-hmm.

I think

children have a lot to do during the school day. they're they're asked to sit for long periods of time. They are

made to just be engaged at all times and sit crisscross applesauce sometimes and there's a lot that we put

Yeah. Nice.

on children during those hours and when they get off of that and come into an after school program we want to engage them but we want to also

Help them take a breath. And I think that's what we're doing. Yeah.

gosh.

So again, it was it was a challenge to build that information into something that could be user-friendly for the the entire continuum of experience and education.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, you want somebody to be able to come in and pick up the the mantle immediately. Right. because I I've already said that yes, teachers still are able to control what's going on. But what do you think the future if this is the future

As far as teachers kind of relying on this so much that they almost forget how to create and and lose that own their own creativity, how do you maintain their creativity within this program?

Well

Would hope that again the intention was that we baked in all of those. we call it PD, but I think it's the more you take a look at what's in there, the more that becomes part of your repertoire. So you are asking those thinking questions, you're extending those lessons, you are creating more of what's going.

on we welcome the teachers to do that that's something that we want to see more of and we i think at least for me the reader's digest condensed version of that would be use this to get your fire started

Okay.

and

and then just burn just

Hmm.

just go out there and burn and so we want we want the teachers to have a starting place but we also would like them to follow their students lead and again we use the curriculum to talk to them and say notice if the child is doing this thing they might want to do and when

you do that I think you're you're expanding the teacher's idea of what can be possible and also what's going on rather than just saying put this out let's see if this sinks does it sink it doesn't sink yes put that under the doesn't sink and then you're you're putting the spark back in I would hope that these lessons both

the early childhood and the after school, I would hope that they would ignite passion and remind teachers that learning is fun and

Yeah.

sometimes you can even get wrapped up in the learning and fun yourself if you allow it.

Yeah, no, I agree, and that's why the job is so rewarding when you can do that, To be kind of come one with your class, one with your student. Yeah.

Yeah, those were my favorite. Yeah.

yeah,

I'm curious if you work universal design into your curriculum that you're using.

Universal

design, first of all, for me personally,

it makes so much sense. how can you not use universal design when it just makes life easier for everyone? And so I think that we have done that both consciously and subconsciously and woven that throughout the curriculum. In those learning supports, in setting up the classroom, our teacher guide just is like a an early childhood.

intro 101 course.

It tells me why it's important to set up the classroom like this, why it's important to have these materials, why it's important to have jobs for students in the classroom, how important that schedule is, how to implement a visual schedule in the classroom. So all of those things. And when we talk about universal design, I don't know, I just mentioned a visual schedule. We ask that

all teachers have a visual schedule in the classroom. Now we know that some children need a visual schedule and that that is what helps move them through the day and they cannot move through the day without that component. So

But then there are children that again, it's whipped cream on the Sunday. It's just, it's a good practice to have. So universal design, I think we've put it in intentionally, but also it just makes sense. And because the curriculum makes sense, it just unfolds naturally as well.

Mm. Yeah, I agree. anything to make the student more comfortable in the classroom,

Y y

why just th why is that not a requirement? Well I mean, yeah.

Why isn't it like Right.

Why is that the the front and center the first thing that we're talking about? in order for that child to be able to say, Okay, I'm not like so and so, but this is how I learn and find the ways to present the information to me and I can give it back the way I can give it back,

Exactly.

It's a game changer.

And that's we try to do that of that very thing that you said. I'm not I I don't learn like everybody else, but I learned this way, and we gave the teachers the flexibility to figure out how the students learn and deliver materials and lessons

Absolutely.

in a way that

allows that. For very many years I have I watched as other professionals told me what to expect from the children in my classroom. They're never going to do this or they're always going to have a hard time with this.

Yeah.

And I learned that the children

make their own trajectories and I should not limit by what some of the professionals say. they've surprised me over and over and over again. And so if I remain vigilant and I remain flexible and I expect great things,

That's the recipe for children far exceeding the expectations of what should have been or what was put on them. And I I hope that that's what our curriculum does. I really do. I hope that it gives teachers that feeling that

My kids can do anything. I just need to really be vigilant about where they are, what they're doing, what floats their boat, how I can get them interested and rift off of that.

Right,

exactly. I want to get it a little into the the special ed area and self-regulation, things like that, but

the AI suggestions, because we talked about, with the teachers, you're not gonna think of everything.

Right. So when you have these things that are suggested, because I find it too, I'll be researching something or or whatever it is I'm doing and I'll get something that comes up and I'll go, I didn't think in that direction. But what it starts to do is it starts to train me to then in the future continue to think in that direction. So

Instead of limiting us or having this be like a thing that we're relying on and we kinda dumb ourselves down and just rely on this, it's actually I feel, for me personally, and this is what I hope it's doing for others, is that it's expanding my reach as far as what I'm capable of thinking about and thinking out of the box, and being more creative and inventive of myself, or at least considering those things. Do you find that to be a part of what's going on?

Absolutely.

I absolutely. I would hope and again we've only introduced our AI

I want to say two years ago. In fact, our AI is what led me to leave the state Office of Early Learning and come full time to Learning Beyond Paper. Because a former special educator, I thought it was going to be a game changer for the classroom. I really I believe that strongly in the power that it has to

Thank you.

help teachers think outside the box to elevate their vision to help them know exactly what they can they can do today but also think about hey that worked yesterday i remember elby told me to do such and such yesterday i wonder if something like this would work in this situation so again i feel like we're scaffolding with ai

We're providing the food for today, but we're also asking you to create new recipes tomorrow.

Mm-hmm.

And hopefully that is how it's being used and I wish more people would be open to using it.

Yeah.

Certainly it has helped me and my work tremendously.

Yeah, I think it's just a matter of familiarity. I think it's gonna be a bit of a long sell for a while.

Hey.

you know, but I think ultimately it it should become more com I would hope anyway, it would become more common because it is it is a a helpful tool. before you use AI, you had your digital curriculum that you help that you created, how is it coming together? What's the what's the difference from where it was and what it is now and the benefits that you're seeing? And how is AI enhancing that?

Yeah.

think AI ELBY specifically is enhancing

what goes on in in the in real time in any given program. So all of the good components were already there and they remain. But ELBY helps them go deeper. It helps them create it helps them

accommodate it helps them modify it helps them change things up in the classroom so that the children are benefiting the most and

Mm-hmm.

I would hope that the teachers are also getting more under their belt as they go along and

Right.

I

We're actually one of the things that I would love to do in the future is do some

impact studies from ELBY, just how that works. If if you're not using ELBY and now you're using ELBY maybe five times a week, what does that look like? How does that change practice? How does that open new horizons in the classroom for you? So we

Yeah.

know that the people that are using ELBY are giving us good feedback. are saying, I never thought of this, or he gave me six things instead of just one thing. And I got to

figure out which one worked the best for the children. So how can that not be a fantastic tool for teachers who we can't think of everything all the time.

Right. Exactly. That's the point. That's the point.

But I and there are so many

things. I mean, we're keeping little fingers out of electric sockets. We're trying

Yeah.

to strengthen vocabulary, we're making social emotional connections, we're making sure that we're honoring children's voice in the classroom. All of those things are happening simultaneously. So if I get a little extra help from something, then I'm calling in that card every time.

I mean I don't think that teachers really understand Going into the job,

All the things that need to be considered. I mean, it is in the array of things is overwhelming and I don't think anybody would take the job if they really knew all that they had a balance as they walk through a room. Right?

It's it's so true. Yeah. It is so

true. And you know that's funny because I remember those first student teaching experiences that had.

I loved it and got energized through the day, but when I left and got in my car, I turned the radio off. I just it just wow needed

Yeah.

a little bit of time because you are hyper-vigilant the entire day and you're sort of on stage the entire day. It

More late.

it takes a lot to keep children involved and engaged and feeling good about everything that's happening and helping to

regulate

their emotions and and all the things. So it

All the things. You're an entertainer.

You're right. Yes, exactly. And I've felt like that many days. And so I jokingly say that all my patience were used up in the classroom that I I have no patience left now. But I think

Exactly. Let it all

that

left it on the floor. Yeah.

I think there's a little truth to that you leave it all there. You just give and give and give, you you make sure all the systems are working and again AI

will if they can help me in any way, I'm gonna say I'm gonna take that help wherever it comes from, if it's good for babies or children and then I want that. and I will include that in my repertoire.

Yeah, and for teachers, finding that balance too. Something outside of work that's completely different. Because for me, that was what I found. as long as I had something completely different to do, I could get refreshed and come back into the classroom and have that newness every day. Or for the most part, you know, unless administration was getting down on you and then all of a sudden it's always

the Yeah,

A whole different story.

that always ruins everything. Let's delve into a little bit of the special education part.

we want to talk about inclusion a little bit, So what does it kind of look like in reality inclusion in with your program especially? How does it help foster inclusion?

I think the program helps foster inclusion by simply taking note of different children on different days. nobody is gonna learn the same exact way on the same exact day. And we kind of built that philosophy into the lessons. And so we give the teacher opportunities to

Help children experience whatever lesson it is in different ways. We honor learning styles. We make sure that all the senses are being involved to the highest extent possible. We make sure that we're giving children feedback, that we're observing what they're doing. And again, we talk to the teachers through the curriculum and we say, observe the students and note which ones

Are doing whatever it is that they're doing during this activity, then provide this for them. So we want to make sure that it's not a one-size-fits-all curriculum by any stretch of the imagination. Those curriculums never work and those lessons fall flat every time. That's when you have behaviors that you don't want to see in the classroom. That's because

Okay. Yeah.

children are not engaged and it you're

not speaking to them, you're not speaking their language. So when you do speak their language, when the lesson specifically tells you what to look for and how, if this is what you see, this is what you do, when when it provides that for you, then the chances of high engagement skyrocket. And so we want to make sure that children are participating and and getting

something out of it. So I think the concept of partial participation is also woven in to the structure of the curriculum. You may not be able to do all of this, but can but I bet you can do a piece of this. And so we again use the curriculum to talk to the teachers and get that point across. We always want the children to shine and we want the children to feel like

they get it. And

Yeah.

when they do, then we know that brain research tells us that their brain is open for business. And

Mm-hmm.

we want we want their brain open for business.

And classroom management is so critical, it's such a a huge part of the day and not everybody's got the the skill to create a good classroom and manage a classroom. They might be a good teacher, but now I have to manage these people too. And that's real you know, they don't know they don't necessarily

Yeah.

jive for everybody. A lot of people need help with that. So it sounds like this is a way to help create

better manager in the classroom, which then allows for behaviors to, as you say, decrease and more classroom participation and attention to what's going on in the classroom.

That was a natural byproduct of being created by educators.

Mm-hmm.

I think that educators with a lot of experience know how very critical that classroom management piece is. And often classes or professional learning sessions or communities of practice or whatever teachers are doing to expand their knowledge.

don't address that need for good classroom management. So I think that the writers understood that inherently and it came out in the curriculum.

Cool.

it's a real a goalmind for for a lot of teachers. That it's just not a natural thing, you know. And it it is if you don't have your classroom management under control, then everything else goes out the window anyway, you know. So you're always chasing Yeah, you're

Exactly. It doesn't matter how good the lesson is. Yeah.

chasing behaviors all day and then nothing gets done, And then it's the imbalance of the kids that are having the difficulty and causing the behaviors and the kids that are like there and ready to learn. I mean it's just it's it's horrible.

I had another expression for it, but I'll hold on to it.

it's a kind of show.

I bet I know that expression. Yes.

Yes. I don't want to leave us without talking about the parent partnership, when we

emailed each other, that was a big part of your your work too, is the component of the parent-school connection, We talked about at the beginning. So can you talk a little bit about that and what your work is doing to help foster a better communication and helping the student become their best self because the parents are better able to be involved and understand. Because a lot of the times, you know, you can tell parents, but like in my brain, I know what I know what I'm thinking, I know what I'm talking about. And I try to explain to the parents, just try do

this, right? Well just try to do that and then I don't know I I didn't know this. So how am I supposed to practice like behavior management things like that? So if you could speak to that.

Well,

I think that it's important to know that parents and teachers speak different languages sometimes. in education, the educators have developed their own kind of education ease. And we just assume that the entire world knows what we're talking about when we when we say something.

Exactly.

And I think it's important to

Just keep that at the forefront all the time. Talk in plain language, help the parents understand. So one of the things we do is we have a a weekly parent connection that goes home or family connection that goes home so that we're letting the parents know exactly what's going on in the classroom and what lessons their children are learning and what skills and why that's important. And so

when parents see that, then they don't have a great need to have a bunch of dittos for their refrigerator front. they they see that we're working on these skills, that this is what's happening. Also, again, I'm gonna pull Elby back in because I love

how he can make this so much easier. Like we talked before, if a child needs something extra or I notice something during this lesson, then I can ask ELBY to put that into a letter for the parent. In short bullets, they don't need a dissertation. They

Right.

just need to know this this is the activity that we did. This is what your child

liked about it, maybe this is something that you can talk about at home. So when we give parents the insight or this is what happened in the classroom today. This is what your child was thinking or this is what your child really loved, then here are some ways for you to talk about that at home. Especially for special education. For me when I first got into the classroom, it was very important that

I share notes home every day. And that was the old days where I'd have to sit at nap time and make sure. But

Mm-hmm.

I had children that had communication disorders or delays. And how could parents talk to them about what happened during the day or carry on that connection between school and home if I didn't give them those resources? If they just have no idea what happened. How was school? Uh-huh. Good or just not even good. Sometimes they don't even say that.

But when

Right.

I walk them through the activity that we did and when I let them know how their child participated in it, then they get to have those conversations at home. And I think that that is like a secret ingredient to helping children just go further and further. And

I want that in everybody's classroom. So that is one of the reasons I came because of ELBY, because I see what ELBY can do for children in the classroom. Children with special needs, children with communication delays, children with behavior disorders, all of that.

that connection between home and school

makes a huge difference as you know. And so

for sure.

when ELBY can do that, and ELBY can do that in 36 languages, which

Yeah.

just really takes the onus off of me to brush up on 36 other languages. It's always been difficult for me to figure out ways to engage with parents who spoke different languages. And I in

the old days I'd have to like go to dictionaries in in different languages and try to figure it out and I'm sure God I'm I'm sure that those notes home were very interesting. Lord knows.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What is she saying? But we use like we use

Google Translate and things like that too, but it's still that's extra time consuming, for the teacher.

Yeah, yes.

you wanna be able to get that message clear to everybody. Everybody deserves to have the same information exactly the same way. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

And I think manageable bites for parents is really important, So like bullet points, things like that, manageable bites, things that they can say, okay, I'm not overwhelmed by like this two paragraphs of what I need to do. Here I can see exactly what I need to do and follow that. So it's something that they can consume a lot easier, It doesn't doesn't hurt their

No dissertation.

Yeah, doesn't hurt their stomach. I

love this conversation and there's so much I just I want you to be able to tell us how people can access this, where do they reach you, all the things to get this out into the general public so people know about it and administrators and districts and things like that can start maybe hopefully picking up on it.

Absolutely.

Learning Beyond Paper.com will get you to our website. You can also find information at learningbeyondhebell.com. And both of those sites will tell you exactly what you need to know about the curriculum. But most of all, I guess I just want to say

We really have a heart for teachers because teachers are the people on the front line that are making sure that the environment that the children are in is conducive to learning and dreaming and just making a difference in this world. And without the teachers

in the classroom or with without teachers who are not stressed and who are not worried and who are not inundated by fifty two things in their lesson plans then I I don't think the children could reach

as high a level as they can with those teachers who are calm and intentional and plugged in and and just expect great things and can take a deep breath with the kids. And so

Yeah.

that is what we're about at Learning Beyond Paper. And we would love the opportunity to have you give us a try.

it could be a thing that actually saves teachers that keeps people in their job, I should say. because the burnout and people are looking at it today and go, Why would I go into teaching? why would I do that? Especially with the outside world constantly berating teachers and faulting teachers for everything, why do I want to be a part of that? It takes the joy out of it.

It's hard.

Yeah, yeah. So this could be a game changer. Yeah,

It is hard. It should be joyful, yeah.

yeah. Well, you are joyful and you're so positive and I just really appreciate your time and the work that you're doing and your team is doing and and just keep it up and and thank you so much for being here today and sharing.

Thank you for the work you do. Special Ed Rising. I I became a fan. So I'm now listening to your podcasts, Mark. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I'm so honored. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Well, we'll probably update in the future because I wanna see how things are going and what's going on with you in in advance.

Exactly.

And also like there's a component for parents, as far as ELBY goes and things like that and parents being able to utilize AI and we can maybe talk come back and talk about that and and how that

Love it. I

would love to come back.

Okay, wonderful.

Susan, thank you so much again and have a wonderful day.

Thank you.