What does a baby's face tell us about children and screens? More than any statistic on AI use.

Dr. Donna Housman, clinical psychologist and founder of Housman Learning, has spent over 35 years studying what children need to grow, learn, and thrive. Her answer starts long before any device enters the room. Emotional intelligence isn't downloadable. It has to be built first, or AI risks becoming a substitute for a child's own thinking.

Brett Roer and Rebecca Bultsma sit down with Dr. Housman to explore why kids are turning to AI as a companion, how to tell curiosity from big feelings, and why funding the adults around a child is prevention, not repair.

In this episode:

• Why EQ has to develop before AI enters a child's life
• What's driving children toward AI as a companion instead of a person
• How to tell curiosity and big feelings apart, and what each one needs
• What the Still Face Experiment reveals about screens and connection
• Who's responsible for protecting a three-year-old in an AI world

Subscribe for more, and share this episode with someone shaping the next generation.

Brett Roer: And we say we want to solve it, but we also don't want to bring it into our schools.

Brett Roer: But I do want adults modeling how and when and why they might use it so that kids hear that stuff from someone who's trained in it. But as a teacher, we know that's not always the case. You don't have control of everything outside the classroom.

Donna Housman: Children develop in relationships. They don't develop in the cloud.

Brett Roer: Welcome everyone to today's episode of the AmpED to 11 Podcast. We have an incredible guest here today, Dr. Donna Housman, and I am so honored to be joined by our incredible co-host, Rebecca Bultsma. Rebecca, share with the world what you've been up to since our last episode.

Rebecca Bultsma: Oh, so many things. So many new AI models to experiment with, so little time, so few tokens to do all the things I wanna do.

Rebecca Bultsma: I hit my rate limits all the time. Uh, but I have just, uh, wrapped up a f- big final research project, uh, specifically on deepfakes in K-12, which was fascinating, and leadership implications. Probably fascinating only to me, but I'm excited to talk about broader, more universally interesting parts of AI in education and childhood development with Donna today.

Brett Roer: I have been traveling this great country more so than I thought I would this summer, but they've all been really incredibly meaningful visits, mostly to school districts.

Brett Roer: Really spending a lot of time and going deep in some very rural school districts and very rural towns, and learning, like, so much about their community, the impact, especially that AI's having, and how some districts are finding ways to really integrate it, and some are really seeking more answers. But the thing that's been most encouraging when we build these AI playbooks around the country is just how much people want to have a voice and to feel seen and heard, not just in AI, but in education in general.

Brett Roer: And if you can use AI to do that, that's a pretty good use case. So excited to share all those learnings in the near future with everybody and keep powering those districts. So thanks, Rebecca. It's been a really good couple weeks. Another thing that I've been really excited to do is introduce Donna Housman, the founder and CEO of Housman Learning, to the AmpED to 11 audience.

Donna Housman: Well, thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here, and I'm really looking forward to this really important and meaningful conversation. You know, I'll tell you a little bit about my journey getting here. I started out as a clinical psychologist working with children that were very depressed, suicidal.

Donna Housman: My first patient as a doctoral student, I was young. I was 23 years old. His name was Billy, and he was referred because he had tried to take his own life. He was four years old And Billy was the first of many. In the first, in many years that followed, there were a stream of children depressed, suicidal, out of control, and underneath every one of these kids was a common thread, and that was an inability to manage big emotions.

Donna Housman: And I founded, many decades ago, an early learning school called Beginnings, where we built and we practiced and we researched and implemented this evidence-based model that was created, which we call Excel. And Excel is an acronym for Emotional, Cognitive, and Social Early Learning. And it was proven through extensive research that it worked very significantly.

Donna Housman: And so that led me to then launch Hausman Learning as it is today, and to bring this to as many children as possible, all children, because we know all children, their first language is that of emotion. And what Hausman Learning really does, it's a, an organization for children from birth all the way up through second and beyond, second grade and beyond.

Brett Roer: Oh, that's incredible.

Brett Roer: You know, before we dig in even further, you know, as someone who has, you know, someone who falls in that age range, I have a six-year-old daughter, and as a former educator, I'd love to hear, like, what's something that is really well-intentioned that maybe an educator might say prior to going through your learning that maybe would be, like, a shift after your learning?

Brett Roer: Like, what, what would that look or sound like as just, like, an anecdotal example for folks out there?

Donna Housman: These children are really out of control. We need to get them to really be in control. And, you know, we're doing time out. We're, we're, you know, trying to tell them that this behavior is bad. It's not okay.

Donna Housman: And what we really do is we really then begin to help the educator begin to understand what their own emotions are, their own feelings are in response to what they're having to deal with, and then help them begin to understand what they can become more aware of in terms of what's triggering them, what they think is going on for the child, so they can start to begin to become more curious about what's causing these children or this child to be out of control.

Donna Housman: Learning about what these reasons are really gives a child more information to be able to, with the guidance and support of the teacher, to begin to start to work out, "Well, just because I'm really angry that I wasn't included in this group discussion with some of my friends, that doesn't mean that I have to act out.

Rebecca Bultsma: Donna, let's talk about the intersection of the work that you're doing with kind of this evolving AI technology a little bit. What have you noticed about your work and where these intersect, and how do they intersect, if at all?

Donna Housman: Well, the-- l- let me start with this, that both are very important. In terms of the work, emotional intelligence is critical, and I'll explain a, a little about that in a moment, and AI also is very important in terms of what it provides as a tool, as information, as knowledge, as efficiency.

Donna Housman: And the other part of it is, is that it's also because it is so available to, to people, it never gets tired, it never goes to sleep, it never gets cranky or irritable, that it is so much always available that when children are really struggling with things, they're turning to the least resistance. They're turning to AI today as a companion, as a friend

Brett Roer: One of the biggest takeaways I've had in doing wisdom collection with, you know, usually young adults like teenagers in some of these rural communities is I ask them questions like that of, you know, have you interacted with AI tools or chatbots in the way you just described, Donna?

Brett Roer: And when you really teased it down to, like, well, why do you think you don't use it and they do? A lot of the times they bring up, like, these might be personal problems that they don't feel comfortable going to their friends, the counselors, their teachers, or a parent. And so, you know, when I share that back with communities, that's really what I focus on is like, I don't-- It doesn't really matter to me how you feel about the students using it, but let's acknowledge that's a very valid reason why someone would use this today, right?

Brett Roer: It's not the best choice. I'm not saying it's the best or worst choice, but I'm saying let's acknowledge at least why, and maybe we work backwards as a community to figure out how do we get them to feel like there is that caring adult they can go to with these really difficult teenage situations. So Donna, it sounds like that's one of the ways that you're trying to mitigate this is making sure that educators have those skills to make the students feel like they're a trusted, caring adult that they can go to for these kind of situations.

Brett Roer: Is that-

Donna Housman: And again, that's not the direction we really want to encourage. We want to be able to put enough protection in there so that AI can be used as a wonderful tool because it is a really amazing tool. But again, not as a substitute for a relationship

Rebecca Bultsma: Donna, I, I'm thinking about a little bit more about how whether or not this is like an AI problem or if it's like a just a shortage of good adult access for kids. But is there an opportunity if, if these tools get more reliable or better guardrails or whatever that looks like That the AI might be a good option as opposed to nothing?

Rebecca Bultsma: I think, I think that the reality of there being a, a responsible, caring adult, uh, for every child when they need one, you know, not to be a pessimist, I just think that's something we've been struggling with as a society for a really, really long time. Um, is there a world in which this can offer us somewhat of a reasonable substitute, uh, as opposed to just giving kids nothing?

Donna Housman: But if child is going to the device with frustration or anger or sadness or fear, that is not going to be able to give the child what they need, because what they're needing is they're bringing these big feelings to a machine when they need to be bringing it to a person, so that the person can be the one to help respond.

Donna Housman: When the child is bringing their emotions to the machine, that's when the adult needs to lean in

Rebecca Bultsma: I have kind of a, a gray area question for you, Donna. Um, in my experience with these models, they're getting really good at doing that, that back and forth. They've been highly trained to read, um, voice cues and tones and things like that.

Rebecca Bultsma: Is it a highly trained, specialized AI tool or a dysregulated human adult?

Donna Housman: Um, I don't think it's an either/or like that. You know, I really think that both really need to be looked at, you know? A- and it's not one or the other. It's really talking about a sequencing, period. And, you know, again, I'm not banning or saying let's ban AI at all.

Brett Roer: Well said. I mean, this is the fun-- I mean, this is the fun part of really interacting with both of you. It's not- There's no easy answers or easy solutions. If there were, we would've probably solved it by now. But, you know, having these deeper conversations and letting our audience hear that, you know, there's really passionate people who've dedicated their life to this type of research and development are trying now to take what is possible with the use of an AI tool and try to scale it.

Brett Roer: And Donna, actually I'd love if you could share a little more about that journey that you've had with Housman Learning, right? You said you s- it starts with Billy. It starts with a single school. Maybe share with people over the past 30-plus years where that growth has now taken you and, you know, kind of where you're looking to do next

Donna Housman: We see what's happening. It's been proven multiple times with very significant outcomes. Because, you know, it's one thing to say something is working and it's working well, and it's another thing to research it really heavily to make sure the numbers are showing it, and you have the numbers as the foundation to really be able to show that this is working, and to continue to track children when they're learning and, and involved in this, this program, and that is what we're doing.

Donna Housman: It works with all children. You know, the school we had, we had children from all over the world at the school. They were speaking 11 different languages. And we had some cultures that were saying, "Emotions? No, emotions are a weakness. You know, that's a soft skill. You know, what are you doing here?" And so we would share with them, we would explain, and then, you know, they listened.

Donna Housman: But then when they started to see the changes in their children, they were in, and they really then want to see, "Okay, what is this? I'm seeing, you know, my interactions and with my children at home are so much easier. We're talking about things. It's not just, you know, getting into tantrums or slamming doors or walking away.

Donna Housman: And so, you know, we're in Palm Beach and, you know, with the Early Learning Coalition there, and, you know, they are very excited about what they're seeing in terms of the changes, not just in terms of the children, but one of the things that most of the programs were in love about it is that we really focus on the educator and on the leader.

Donna Housman: Um, and they are really learning how to become much more aware of their own emotions, what sets them off, and how to respond in different ways that are better for them and the people they are in a relationship with, and whether it's at school or they're also talking about how their relationships at home have improved dramatically because they're learning different kinds of ways to communicate.

Donna Housman: Those are the responses that happen when the brain gets overwhelmed with emotion, becomes really dysregulated. The brain no longer can think, reason, or learn, and it sets out certain stress hormones that put us into this one of three-way reaction. It's called the fight-flight-freeze response that I'm sure you've heard a million times, and that's typically what happens.

Donna Housman: And oftentimes we tell the children, "We're going to help you become the boss of your own emotions." And if you've ever told a child that, and instead of their emotions being the boss of them, kids can't wait to get involved in this. "You're gonna help me become the boss of my emotions?" And they're engaged, and they wanna learn, and they wanna talk about their emotions, and they are s- excited that adults wanna hear about how they're feeling and wanna help them with this huge backpack that they carry into school every day filled with big emotions.

Donna Housman: That leaves a child feeling not only great that they were able to solve the problem, but they're feeling a sense of agency and self-control, and they're no longer dependent upon the adult, the teacher, the parent to say, "You go do this. You go do that." They're starting to learn how to do it on their own, and this is going to be critical in all aspects of their life.

Rebecca Bultsma: Especially when even as adults, these AI tools can be very persuasive, these algorithms, and we need to be able to think independently of what we're being told or fed by these machines. So I appreciate the work you're doing. I think this is that idea of developing autonomy and agency and self-regulation will be so critical as we increasingly interact with these machines that are so, um, persuasive and good at reading things and telling us what we wanna hear, um, or, you know, maybe what we don't wanna hear, but we don't know it.

Donna Housman: And, and, and that's the hope that if we can start now in feeding these children and, and supporting these children and the adult in helping, as you're saying, Rebecca, to develop these so critical skills that will be critical in their interaction with AI as well, then, you know, that is what really needs to happen so that it really then becomes part of the architecture of the brain for life.

Donna Housman: And it's no longer... You know, we can, we can teach kids later on, you know, and we-- and as adults, we can learn things, but we know that it's different when you have to unlearn something first and then relearn something that it's not as easy as it is if you start in terms of at the beginning as a prevention instead of as a repair.

Donna Housman: And that has been something that's been with me my whole life.

Brett Roer: Who are some of those people that come to mind, you know, when we, when we ask a question like that to you, Donna?

Donna Housman: Yeah. And, and that is a really interesting and important question because there have been so many people from different areas that have impacted me in my thinking, in, in, in my world, in my life.

Donna Housman: And he was my mentor, he was my friend, and, you know, he was so important in my life, and he was also on the board of the school. He's now gone, but he was the person who taught me how to sit with a child instead of solving a child And that really resonated s- so much with me, through me. Because if we think about what that says, being able to sit with someone when they're distressed, when they're upset, when they're angry, instead of trying to quickly solve it or, or move on or say, you know, "What do you have to be upset about?

Donna Housman: He was saying, "No, you gotta get rid of this, you gotta get rid of that." But he was also very instrumental because he understood that in doing research, you have to learn about the person. He was not the type of researcher that just looked at numbers or graphs. He really wanted to understand the person, and he had his grad students who were collecting data during the time really engage with the students so they had a sense of what the numbers were going to mean.

Rebecca Bultsma: I have.

Rebecca Bultsma: That one's fascinat- fascinating.

Donna Housman: Isn't it fascinating?

Rebecca Bultsma: Do

Donna Housman: you wanna say a bit-

Rebecca Bultsma: I think about it a lot, actually. Well, if, if I'm thinking about the correct one, it was, uh, you know, children looking to their mothers for regulation, and they had, was it the mothers or the caregiver stay completely, um, stone-faced and not give the child emotional cues, and it caused all this confusion.

Rebecca Bultsma: Is this the experiment that

Donna Housman: we're talking- Yes, you have it pretty much correct, but let me just add a couple of things. It was a baby and a mom, and the baby, you know, they were engaging, they were interacting, and then the mother was told to turn her face away, okay? So she turned away for about 60 seconds, okay?

Donna Housman: You will never again believe a screen is the company for a lonely child.

Rebecca Bultsma: Yeah. It also makes me think of distracted parents who are present but have their face in their own screens, um, when their children need their attention, and what that does to emotional regulation for a child, and how they attempt to engage.

Rebecca Bultsma: And then eventually, like I, I believe in that experiment too. There was some discussion around the more that happens, how kids then cope with, you know, how they just give up or how they find other ways to comfort themselves and they stop relying on the parents.

Donna Housman: Exactly. And, and that's not an unusual, if this were to happen for longer periods of time, because we're talking about a minute here, and most ruptures can, you know, happen, you know, in, in a short order.

Donna Housman: And typically what happens is they, you know, they start to turn away. They start seeking out other means to get their needs met. And, you know, sometimes it can lead them down not a great road of getting their needs met through things that can make them feel better, whether it may be alcohol or drugs or whatever it may be.

Donna Housman: And, and that's not what we want to have happen.

Brett Roer: And when we talk about dynamics with their parents, this one student athlete, she said something like I love my mom and she's my best friend, but it is so hard to have a conversation with her when she's looking at her phone. And we were talking about like, I mean, that's the parent workshops we really need to be talking about is how to be a more present parent.

Brett Roer: I think if there was data or statistics like the one you just brought up about, you know, very young babies and how that leads to these outcomes, I think if parents heard just that, I think that would just be like such a stop you in your tracks have to make you reflect on your practices, and then I guess whatever tools you would need to start.

Donna Housman: It, and, and that's such an important point, Brett, because parents are so important. Again, as I said earlier, parents are children's number one teacher.

Donna Housman: First teacher, I should say. And the other thing about being a parent is that it's probably the hardest job we'll ever do in our lives. There's no manual how to be a parent, and so typically what we do is either we, you know, adopt what we had as children growing up, or w- we do the reverse, and neither may be the best thing for our relationship with our chil- children.

Donna Housman: And we don't have, you know, any kind of training, if you will, and, and these things that we're talking about. And so parents do need what you're talking about, Brett. They do need that support. They do need that information. They do ne- need that knowledge because they are seeking, and, and they are hurting as well.

Brett Roer: I would love to pivot, and maybe you could highlight what's a district out there or an organization that's right, that's recognizing how important this work is, you know, at the birth to e- early elementary stage that you've either partnered with or you've just seen that you really would love to highlight at this time?

Donna Housman: Okay. Th- the first system of schools in person that comes to mind is the Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County that I mentioned a moment ago. And we have been there, we started with them over a year ago, and the lead CEO of that Early Learning Coalition, her name's Aruna Gilbert, and she is amazing.

Donna Housman: And most systems just really pick one, and they're hoping that the rest sort themselves out. But Aruna is involved in all three, and she sees this program as being so instrumental in terms of making a real difference, again, not just in one of the, of the, you know, groups of people I was just talking about, but in all of them.

Brett Roer: You're, you're laying out the blueprint for success, and so kudos to the West Palm Beach Office of Early Education.

Brett Roer: Really exciting time. What advice would you have for a system like New York City as they're rolling out these new initiatives to make sure they're thinking strategically and, you know, getting it right the first time so we're not causing things, I think you said before, right? We're not, we're not gonna have to be reactive, but we can be, like, proactive in, in getting this right.

Brett Roer: What would your advice be?

Donna Housman: Well, first of all, I think what New York is doing is, hats off to them. I think it is so important, so needed, so necessary, and so wonderful. And, and two, 2-year-olds really is exactly where the public money belongs. You know, you know, if they could do it younger, fine, but it, 2 year old is, is fine right now.

Donna Housman: You know, when I'm listening to, to the adults, you know, they're talking about what they're needing. They're ta-- and, and, and what they're asking for. And today, you know, 65% of elementary school teachers are saying that they need more classroom management training. Again, back to how children are really so, you know, out of control today.

Donna Housman: And, and it's not the same-- You know, sometimes people think, "Well, you know, I'll take a kindergarten teacher," or, "I'll take a first or second or third grade teacher, and they, they know how to work with young children. We'll put them in with these little ones." It's not the same thing. You need someone who learns about developmentally what's happening with children because their development within these first five, six years is happening so rapidly and changing so quickly.

Rebecca Bultsma: Donna, I ju- our podcast is really, um, we try to really give solutions and support to people who are trying to navigate the AI and education intersection here. What advice do you have for this age group specifically, uh, parents of this age group, teachers of this age group about AI? We're encountering a lot in classrooms of debates about whether or not AI or even technology even belongs in the classroom, especially at this age, but even all the way up.

Donna Housman: The reality is AI isn't going away, so that is a given. It's here. And the reality is that children develop in relationships. They don't develop in the cloud, and that's real. Children are relational, all right? AI provides the efficiency, but children are relational, so we need to be aware and looking at both.

Donna Housman: And I say to the parent, uh, and, and, and I, and I hear their struggle, and I understand it because we're all struggling with this. And I say, "You know- The device is fine as long as it's being used to help support a child's curiosity. And again, if a child is wondering, you know, how does a butterfly fly? Or, you know, what are the differences between, you know, a fish that fish-- that swims in the water and a bear that, you know, goes through the forest?

Donna Housman: It's what we do with them that's really important, and you're gonna help me, you know, learn what I can do that's going to be better and make me feel better and better for others too.

Brett Roer: That was th- excellent question and great response. I think even to take it a step further, you know, sometimes teachers especially, parents especially, like If we could almost turn that into what that feels like in current day practice.

Brett Roer: So like I'm thinking of like when I was recently on vacation with my family, and my daughter had so many amazing questions about like evolution. Like, you hear like a guide is explaining something, and like you watch her like-- And then like an hour later she's like, "So what is that? Like, how does that work?"

Brett Roer: Like are you scared about like evolution and death, and that's a fear that like we need to talk through? Or is it like you're authentically curious? 'Cause I've seen that go both directions. So maybe like how would you give someone like common sense advice if something like that were to come up? When to-- what to mitigate, what to, what to navigate as a human, like as a parent or a teacher, and then when do you like bring in a tool to address the curiosity?

Donna Housman: And to really support their critical thinking about that, and then to kinda even go further and tease apart, well, what's beneath this question? Is the question really about wanting to understand more about, you know, the universe, or is the question really about it-it's something that's so unfamiliar that it's scaring you?

Brett Roer: That's, yeah, thank you for explaining that a little more for our f- for our, to give more tangible evidence and, like, that's, I think, what folks need to succeed because these questions are so big and they're getting great advice from so many places. I think just that next step is so helpful, so appreciate that.

Brett Roer: Donna, we're gonna give you the reins here. You are now, you are now following in Rebecca's footsteps, and you get to ask the questions. Rebecca, we always hem and haw over who gets to go first, so Donna, you can choose who you'd like to answer it first as well.

Rebecca Bultsma: No But I, you know, like a lot of my work more centers on high school, college age, uh, kind of, uh, kids and students and a lot of school leaders, not necessarily elementary. I have very strong feelings about, um, what types of access kids under 15 should have to AI in general. And so, um, I, I've never had a conversation connecting AI to children under five.

Brett Roer: Donna, are you also, just to make sure to clarify the question for Becca, are you saying, like, giving a child a, like a three-year-old child, like, a screen and saying, like, "Have at it," or saying, like, even engaging, like, a parent or a teacher with it?

Brett Roer: Like, just what, what scenario are you thinking when

Donna Housman: you say that? Well, in, in fact, you're talking about, you know, developing policies, for example. Yeah. Great. Yeah. All right? You're devi- you're developing a policy. What kinds of protections, just thinking out loud, would you feel were important to put in place for a three-year-old?

Rebecca Bultsma: And,

Donna Housman: and yet three-year-olds, you know, preschools are now under the auspice of the public school system. So any kind of policies the public school system are gonna be putting into place, they're going to be also thinking about all the children.

Brett Roer: Hmm.

Donna Housman: You know, the K through 12, but they're gonna be thinking about the pre- preschool kids, too.

Donna Housman: And so they're gonna have to think about protections to be putting in place for all kids, because all kids are having access to it. It's not just the older kids. Little kids are-- I mean, today, what, the, you know, some of the statistics, one in four children own a, a cell phone under eight years of age. You know, I think 45% of toddlers have a tablet.

Brett Roer: Yeah, I'm gonna share, so, you know, because my children are a little bit younger, I think about this very deeply. So two things. One thing that similar-- like, that statistic is, I think both me and Rebecca's eyes went up, but also I'm, like, not surprised because in the past two weeks, one of the things I saw that really jarred me was the hotel I was staying at, you know, it was like 105 degrees in Texas.

Brett Roer: Decided to go for a walk anyway, and I'm just right across the street from this giant Walmart. So I'm like, I forgot something. I'm like, "Let me go in there and, you know, continue my walk, buy this, and come right back on my walk." I see, like, a fa- a very young family, and they have, like, a two-year-old in, like, a booster seat, you know, and they're pushing the cart.

Brett Roer: I'm like, "Oh, that's cute." And then, like, once we, like, go a little further, they have, like, a screen literally, like, you know, that's all the kid's looking at, where they could be looking at all the, you know, like, all the stimulation around them or that could be an opportunity to ask questions to the kid, and I was like, that jarred me a lot.

Brett Roer: But then immediately if I ask them, like, if they have young children especially or if they have grandchildren, like, "Hey, are your kids on, like, devices or tablets at that age?" And they're like, "Oh, of course." So I'm like, "Okay. So do you assume, like, your kids, like the students you have, are probably at home on these things?"

Brett Roer: They're like, "Yep." I'm like, "So maybe we should think about, like, things you might wanna model for them on how to use these." And again, then they'll be like, "Well, I don't want them on it." I'm like, "Neither do I, but you've just acknowledged they are. And so, like, at some point, maybe we could think about ways that, like, if they are on it and you can't stop that, what do you want them to, like, notice, or what could you model from the front of the classroom?"

Brett Roer: To Rebecca's point, it'd be great if everyone gets trained at the adult level so they're making wiser choices when they're putting that in kids' hands. But as a teacher, we know that's not always the case. You don't have control of everything outside the classroom, so why don't we bring some of those best practices into the classroom?

Brett Roer: And that sounds like something, in addition to the emotional regulation part, you might be able to support with the work you're doing at Housman Learning. Y-

Donna Housman: you're spot on. I mean, that's exactly, you know, what is so really important is, you know, a- and you s- and, and what you were talking about, Brett, one of the things you said is to help children really begin to understand the how and the why and, and, and the what.

Donna Housman: And it's not that we don't, we wanna deprive our children of being able to explore areas that could be really exciting and interesting, but we wanna make sure they're bringing the right things, and that they want-- we wanna make sure that they're continuing to develop and grow and become the best they can be in terms of who they are, you know, apart and separate from a ma- a machine.

Brett Roer: There's one other thing I've been doing, uh, because again, I've been, a lot of the places I'm going in different parts of the country start school already, and so we've been talking about like what are some engaging ways if you want to, and again, I wanna preface, like I tell people, "You don't have to do any of these things I'm telling you.

Brett Roer: Like, it's your community, it's your values. But if you're asking, like here's some advice." And so one of them is regardless of the grade level in elementary school, I said, if you wanna have a very fun, creative way to get students to try something that's very low risk and you can align it to standards, I was like, tell the kids like, "I wanna know how you see me.

Brett Roer: Let's draw a class picture of, you know, Mr. Roer together." And you know, as long as you make it like a fun, safe space, you could be like, "How would you describe my hair?" And they'd be like, "You're bald." Okay. You know, "What color would you use to describe my skin? Like, what adjectives would you use? What would you compare it to?

Brett Roer: Like, what did we forget to tell it?" You know, like, "Where do you want me to be?" Like, "Oh, you want me to be in front of a classroom? How would you describe our classroom?" And like getting them to realize like this is like descriptive storytelling and, and adjectives or whatever grade level you're at, and showing them like there's no harm in this.

Brett Roer: There's no risk. You're not putting PII in. You don't have to say the person's name. You're just describing and teaching them those skills. And I've gotten pushback from other people that's like, well, but it's good that students like, you know, find motor skills and occupational therapies would say like, you know, have them do the manipulation.

Brett Roer: Like start with that. Have them draw a picture of you and then do this or vice versa. Now you draw it and like what's good about using AI if we wanted to make something for someone like a card, and what's more valuable about doing it by hand or where does it mix together? Like, you know, getting them to think about like that's the society we're in today.

Brett Roer: It's just a different use of it, and you can then show what they learned and demonstrated like communication-wise. So that's something I've been trying to get people to realize.

Donna Housman: And, and what you're talking about is so critical 'cause you're talking about creativity, and you're talking about fostering creativity within the child, and that's what we wanna do.

Donna Housman: I mean, and what we're talking about are so many of the skills that are critical for a profile of graduate, and skills that companies today are looking for in terms of bringing in executive leadership. These are the skills that our society is really going and does need. You know, there was a point where, you know, we were working with Ken Burns on the possibility of doing a documentary on the school, and, you know, we had to go through all of these different, you know, a- approvals and permissions and, and with parents.

Brett Roer: Way to bury the lead there.

Brett Roer: That's like the most-- I mean, like if Ken Burns said that to me, I'd get that probably tattooed on my forehead and just lead with that in every conversation. Donna, that's incredible a- and a really poignant way to maybe conclude today. But I did learn one really amazing podcast skill that I just was on a podcast this morning, and they ended it with, "Donna, what's, what's one question we didn't ask you that you think is really important our audience knows the answer to?"

Brett Roer: Can, can I ask maybe Rebecca for a final thought?

Rebecca Bultsma: There's different versions of it in research. But just having good relationships, you know, with our spiritual selves, our inner self, and whatever sort of our broader, uh, belief system is. Having good relationships with ourselves as individuals, good relationships within society, and good relationships with, uh, nature.

Rebecca Bultsma: And if you know me, I'm not very fun. So what I'm reading is, uh, a book called "The History of the World." It's from the BBC. It's, like, this thick. But I, I'm curious about it because I'm-- there's been so many societies before us who have had different forms of technology, and I, I just wanna know, like, what's the same, what's different?

Rebecca Bultsma: Their societies, what was the be-all, end-all, and what-- how did it all turn out thousands and thousands of years ago, and what makes us different, and are we different? But what makes us all the same is that relational fabric that connects us. Uh, we all have the same relationships with society and whatever our, um, higher spiritual belief system is, and with ourselves and with nature, and that's what unites us across the history of the world.

Donna Housman: And can I say that I, I totally agree with that, and I would just like to add something in terms of, you know, you had said, Brett, you wanted me to respond to the prize as well.

Donna Housman: Because if we take the relationships that you so beautifully out- mind here in terms of it being the prize. In order to support those relationships, what comes to mind for me is communication. Being able to communicate. And oftentimes when we talk about communication, people think we're talking about talking.

Donna Housman: And so that communication, those skills, and communicating about anything and everything is what is critical in terms of relationships. Positive, successful relationships.

Brett Roer: Let's put, let's put all those together and make it one giant prize 'cause that's, that sounds like an amazing win for society, so thank you both for...

Brett Roer: Donna, if you could just share with everyone where they can learn more about you, your work, where they can find that Ken Burns quote that you should have on every single thing you've ever made- ... and, uh, how they can be engaged in this, in this incredible work you've dedicated your life to.

Donna Housman: Uh, easily go to our website, housmanlearning.com, and Housman is spelled H-O-U-S-M-A-N.

Donna Housman: And you will find lots of information, and if you're interested in learning more, there are, you know, there's information on the website who to contact, and we would love to speak with you and, and learn more about you and, and what they may be curious about.

Brett Roer: Amazing. Well, again, Donna, thank you so much for joining us.