Stephanie Krauss, an educator and mom, shares her personal journey from high school dropout to college graduate. She discusses her book Making It,"which aims to prepare students for an uncertain future by focusing on four key "currencies": competencies, credentials, connections, and cash. Krauss emphasizes the need to modernize education, moving beyond just college and career readiness to fostering long, livable lives. She shares her work in Virginia, where she helped shift the focus from over-testing to assessing for learning. Krauss also discusses plans for future projects, including a book for parents on raising kids for the future. The episode highlights the importance of equipping students with the skills and resources to thrive in an ever-changing world.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

adulthood readiness, education revamp, industrial model, critical thinking, teacher preparation, youth readiness, high school dropout, family background, book motivation, future work, financial literacy, social capital, curriculum update, equity issues, parenting practices

SPEAKERS

Stephanie Krauss, Amy Vujaklija, Joi Patterson

If our goal is getting these kids ready for adulthood, do we actually realize how much adulthood is going to change and is changing and will be different for these kids? How Uncharted it is. This

episode was originally released under the podcast titled teaching and learning theory versus practice, this rebooted episode has been migrated to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi I am Dr Amy vea, Director of educator preparation, and I am

Dr Joi Patterson, Chief Diversity Officer, our podcast addresses issues through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion, along with solutions for us to grow as educators.

So join us on our journey to become better teachers and leaders. So let's get into it.

Good morning. Dr, Amy,

hello. Dr, Joi,

how are you today? I

have just been reading a great book, and I want to share it with you.

Okay, we're going to talk about what education system today, how we teach.

Yes, of course.

Well, Amy, this is interesting, because our education system is, like, over 150 years old. I think it's ready for a revamp, and the basic just patient school modeling has been the same. We take roughly about 2030 kids, stuff I'm in a classroom that's taught by one teacher, and our curriculum has changed somewhat, but the essence has stayed the same, so children are still being taught in this standardized, industrial way. So what do you have for me today?

Well, I've been thinking about how many different kinds of interactions people in business have? Mean we have collaborative work, documents, meetings, virtually and in person. We have people who depend on someone else in order to get a product at the door, whether it's a service or it's a machine or it's a car, whatever the case might be, there are other technologies at place that make these happen,

right? So the industry is driving education. Shouldn't the education be driving the industry? Amy and I think

it's a lot of both. I don't know that industry is happy or satisfied with who they're bringing in. There's something to be said for educating students for jobs that aren't there yet. And how are they able to think critically and to anticipate what isn't there right now?

And how do we equip teachers to do that?

And so how do we figure out on the bigger in the bigger scheme of things, what's important? How do we drill it down to specific skills that students need. I think thinking critically is always, uh, touted as a a great asset to any company, any work. But what does that look like, and how do we prepare our teachers to teach that skill in the classroom,

okay, we got someone here that's going to help us with that today, right?

Absolutely. We're going to be talking to Stephanie Krauss, who is a mom with a background in education and social work. Her experiences in teaching and running a school helped her realize that getting young people to graduate does not always mean they are ready for life, and she speaks from that intersection of Education, Human Services and workforce development, and her work focuses on what young people and their families need to survive and thrive now and in the future. She's the senior advisor to jobs for the future and a staff consultant for the youth transition funders group. Welcome to our show. Stephanie, well, Hi,

good morning. I'm glad to be here. Good

morning. Great to see you today. I am so excited to have you today. Amy and I, we were just kind of talking about our antiquated education system and our curriculum and how we stuff 2030 kids in. Industrialized classroom. But before we talk about some of your great work, Stephanie, I do have a personal question for you, and I want to just get to know you better. I was shocked to read that you were a high school dropout. Tell us about your background and how you came to work with youth readiness for real life.

Thanks for asking. It is it is definitely a colorful background, for sure. I grew up in a small town in New Jersey, and it was right in central New Jersey, which, if you know anybody from that state, there is a belief that there is North Jersey and South Jersey, but nobody claims the center. And that's where I'm from, this sort of missing middle right? And in our family, there are five of us, and my older brother had dropped out of high school. And you know, the thing about small towns is folks have strong opinions, and because there's not a lot of places to go, you know what their opinions are, and people know you and your family. And what my experience taught me was that they also felt like they knew what my future should be, and there was a really strong and pervasive sense that I was a talented kid with high potential, and also Wasn't it a shame that I was going to drop out like my brother. And the thing that is so interesting about that to me is that even though I was in honors classes and sports programs and all kinds of things I can remember distinctly in middle school, making the shift and deciding that it just wasn't worth the fight. And why was I trying so hard anyhow, if the future was already decided? And so eighth grade was actually the most pivotal year for me, and not necessarily in a positive way, but it was the last full year of school in the K 12 system that I finished, which is kind of hilarious, because I've spent most of my professional career talking about high school, running a high school, and weighing in on the things that we need to do to Make high school more aligned to how kids learn. But I actually did not really go to high school, and so I was what they call chronically truant, and then a small town where even the police know you and your family, no one really did anything about it. And so local pizza shop gave me a job, and I was the pizza girl in town, and I helped teach swimming and raise my brothers, and was there to give you pizza. So I did not officially drop out and get my GED until I had decided to go to college. I was just out. I wasn't in school. I was working. And then a part of my story is that I actually had an opportunity to get sober, and I was, I was 15, and was sent to Florida. My dad didn't live with us at the time, but he had health insurance, and so I one of the things that I reflect on a lot is that I actually had to leave school in order to really fall in love with it in the way that I love learning now. And it was not through a high school that I ended up in college. It was actually through a rehab that I ended up in college. And it seems like what you imagine, you've created something of what you imagine high school should be for students. It's a little bit more nuanced than that, but a little bit, I think, what I've reflected on in terms of my family is that my older brother, who I mentioned, he never went back and got a GED, but he is an extraordinary artist. He's a comedian, he's a podcaster, he's a writer, he's written a book, he's played with famous bands. I mean, you give this guy any form of art, and he'll just blow it out of the park. He's an athlete, and he managed somehow to succeed and be okay without any of these academic credentials. And then I was next, and I got the GED I started at community college, and then a little baby college that no one had really heard of, and then a state school, and then an elite private school, you know, all the way through a couple of graduate degrees. And then my three brothers after sort of kept stacking very different situations. The one brother right after me almost got kicked out of school, and the wrestling coach really saved him. And so he reconnected, really through high school sports, but he was extraordinary, extraordinarily smart. He's actually back. He's he taught. He was a teacher for many years, internationally and domestically. Left and went to Yale to get a law degree to go into education, law and advocacy and civil law, but the wrestling coach was a history teacher, and so Nick became a history teacher and a wrestling coach, and then Mark, who comes after him, graduated from high school, went to college, dropped out of college, and he dropped out because he fell in love with journalism through an internship, but he was a political science major, and his scholarship wouldn't transfer. And so it was this crisis of cost and what to do with his life. And then David, the baby, went through high school, did phenomenal, graduated and got into Harvard. And so I share all of that to say, I think what my own personal story tells me, and then what has been affirmed with all of the students I've worked with over the year, is that whatever the high school experience is, as kind of evidenced by my sibling set, it needs to better reflect and customize around what it is we need and what it is we're interested in, and what resources it actually takes for what's ahead, and my family is an example that it really only worked well for one in five, but Somehow we all did okay, the journey just looked really different across the five of us. You

are speaking stories that people can relate to. You are evidence of and your family is evidence of these different journeys. Tell us about your motivation for putting a book out there. You wrote the book Making it what today's kids need for tomorrow's world. Why? So,

I think the reason why is that over the years, it was so much more than my story and my sibling story, I went on to teach and to run a school and to run an education nonprofit, and spent the last eight years working nationally, and I remember I taught fifth grade and a couple just a couple years ago I was back. I taught fifth grade in Phoenix, Arizona, and I had to go back for a conference, so I had been out of the classroom and in national work for a while, and I met up with two of my former students who were now moms, and they brought their babies, their kids with them, and There's no way to feel like dated until your babies are bringing their babies, and then Funny, funny, quick moment, because I know it's mostly educators or educators in training who are listening to this. I told them when we sat down, I said, you know, you can call me Stephanie now. And they both went, Okay, Miss K so I'm just kind of imprinted, but the point is that one of the students had really struggled in my classroom, and she was doing great, and the other student had been my best student, and she had really struggled, and she had ended up dropping out of school, and the other had ended up finishing, and I was left to kind of wonder, God, what was it? And I we spent the whole breakfast kind of explain, like exploring that question. And it was easy, because not only was I their teacher, but because I had dropped out also. And so what had happened after fifth grade and in their family and all of these other kind of factors that went into life? And you know, fifth grade was just a moment in time for them. And so the book really Amy was knowing my story and Maria in Brooklyn, and then the story of students in the school that I ran in St Louis who had been pushed or pulled out just because life was really, really hard and they wanted to come back and finish their degree. Well, I left that part of my life, and spent the past eight years in these national conversations with researchers and policy makers and architects of how we do school and how we do summer programs and how we do workforce. And at some point. I realized that the people who were still with Maria and Brooklyn and kids like my brothers and I don't have time or even know that these conversations are happening. I know I didn't. It is so busy to be on the front lines, and so after years of learning and listening to the science and the research of what's happening really with learning and work and how kids grow and develop and the brain and all of these pieces, I felt morally obligated to write a love letter back to the front lines, which is what I hoped that this would be so making it was designed to be on the shorter side. It was designed to be really accessible in the language. My hope is that it feels like sitting down drinking coffee or tea with me, and like having a long conversation or series of meetups and conversations, but that the research is really rich, and then as mom and we talked about this when we first connected as moms, as grand moms, I've got an eight and a 10 year old, and this stuff really matters to me as a mom too, and my household became a home school this year. So the book was also designed, not only for educators, coaches and counselors, but for parents too, and any caretaker of kids, yeah,

and I want to delve into that some more, and also specifically what the book is about. So I want to talk about money, or maybe we don't want to talk about money, because the book is so much more than about currency, right? And I know, for me, I don't know about other households, there's two subjects that are difficult to talk about. Death is a hard conversation in my family to talk about, even though it's inevitable, it's a difficult one, and planning for that and money is a difficult one. Sure, we love to talk about it in kind of an arbitrary way. Who doesn't like to talk about currency, right? But when you're really talking about it on a personal level, this is sometimes very difficult to talk about. I don't know about you guys, but it's been difficult in my family and many families that I know. And so we'll also talk, I want to get your perspective later on about equity issues and why these conversations are so difficult, but so I read the book, and I wish I had it when I was homeschooling my children, many moons ago. I wish I had it then. And those were the kinds of things that I was looking for, things that you could apply to real life. So my daughter is a third grade teacher now, and she's a mom of three, so I passed the book on to my daughter, Amy, still has her book. I have to get another copy. So when you wrote this and you're writing it from a perspective of a mom and an educator who was this book intended for and what is the overarching goal.

So making it was written for anyone raising or working with kids, and the primary piece that sort of tipped me over and said, Okay, now it's time to start writing was that I spend a lot of time doing work that deals with the future of work, so how the world of work is changing, how the economy is changing, how communities themselves are changing. And in schools of education, we don't learn any of that. And in school professional development, we don't learn any of that. One of my dearest mentors, unfortunately, he he passed away a few years Grant Wiggins, who the author of schooling by design, Understanding by Design. You know, I always hear him in my in my head, saying, avid New Jersey bagel shop or pizza shop. Stephanie plan, what is the end? What is the end? We have in mind. And so what I realized was, God, if our goal is getting these kids ready for adulthood, do we actually realize how much adulthood is going to change and is changing and will be different for these kids? How Uncharted it is, and how can I get that information of one of the things that you both probably picked up on in the book, as I talk about, we have this kind of outdated contract in our brains of how the world works, and it is inequitable. It was designed to take farm kids and turn them into factory workers, but it has held for a really long time, and it is, you go to school, you graduate, you go to college, you graduate, you get a job, you get a better job, you get some promotions, you retire with some money in the bank. And you make things better for your kids, and that's how we move forward. Parents, coaches, counselors, teachers, are still with the very best intentions, talking about, well, what college are you going to go to? Or let's finish the four years, or four year school is better than others, and there were a million new pieces of information, including one thing I talk about the book, in the book on the chapter about credentials, is we've got hundreds of 1000s of new post secondary credentials available every year. Some are great, some are god awful and just crooks. And then there's a lot in between, but only half of them are actually being awarded by colleges and universities at this point. And so I wanted to provide that updated picture and roadmap I could have never imagined a pandemic would hit. I mean, maybe I could have, I don't know, but then this pandemic hit in the middle of writing and finishing the book. And I had hoped that parents would pick up on all the reasons why this was relevant for them, and then suddenly all the parents knew why this was relevant for them, because they were living it.

Joi mentioned, and you started touching on another one of the C's in your book. You talk about the four currencies. Can you share with us a little about these currencies? Yeah,

of course. Amy, so I want to go back to this, like, outdated contract. So the way that so many of us as educators, coaches, counselors and parents operate is we've got to get our kid into college. We got to get them through school, and we got to make sure like they get through high school and get them into a good college, and then it'll be okay. They'll be on that escalator, moving up. And so again, not only is that pretty flawed, particularly if we're taking a posture of committing to things like racial equity or becoming anti racist understanding, that's a different conversation. I mean, it's the same conversation, but there's more, deeper treatment that we would need to give to it. But the question is, okay, so then, how does the world after high school operate, if it's not that escalator, or if it's not actually the ladder, the economic ladder that we think about with American Opportunity, how does it function? And so what I sort of put out there in the book is actually after high school, kids enter this very chaotic and confusing opportunity marketplace. And there are think about this like a big farmers market, and you've got all kinds of vendors and their marketing jobs and their marketing post secondary education opportunities, whether it's a college and a four year degree or certificate or training program, and all of those opportunities cost. There's a price to them, and one of the things that I talk about is, particularly for those of us who've worked in low income communities or grown up in low income communities, what we often hear is, Well, if we can just get them to graduation, just get them the skills that they need, they'll be okay. And that's actually that's not true, and it just perpetuates inequity, because there is a role for social capital. Not only what do you know and how can you show it, but who do you know and how does that help you get the in, that gets the interview, that gets whatever else, and then straight up cash life after high school is very expensive, very expensive. And if the goal of if our job as educators and parents is to prepare our kids for life in adulthood and after high school, we have to name that so the four currencies that you need for this crazy, chaotic opportunity marketplace are competencies. So there are things that matter, that you need to be able to know and do credentials. They still count. People want you to prove what you know and can do, even if the two don't match, even if I can give you this credential. And it doesn't actually mean I know all the things connected to the careers that it reflects, but it still matters. People are still asking for it. Connections, who you know, the relationships that you have, and then cash.

I want to speak to the who you know, an 18 year old, myself, 1920 year old, I wanted to say. I can do this on my own. I can just use my credential to get this job. That is not true. Just getting the interview is important, making connections, going to those professional developments, those those networking opportunities, being introduced to someone who can then recognize your name and your face. That's not cheating. I thought it was whenever I was young and whenever I was first out of college. I thought, well, that's cheating if I use who I know to get that interview. And the older I get and the more and very different opportunities I've had, that's okay. Getting the interview is one step keeping the job. That's when you show your skills. That's when those credentials are very important, like you said. But what do you say to those 1819, those young college graduates or the people out of high school who want to do it themselves? How can we stress the importance of those relationships? So

I think there are a couple different answers to that. One is, I want to go back to this point around racial equity, because there's when we think about having wealth and resources in the US to get ahead and to get by. We often just think of money in the bank, but some of that social connections that really results and economic resources and wealth, social wealth is inherited, and that is always going to stray toward white and wealthy folks. And the reason why is that we know from the evidence and from the history that they are the ones who are most likely to have already benefited from economic advantage and opportunity, and so the way that social capital works is, mom. Do we know anybody who went to such and such school? Or I want to be a ex, I want to be a lawyer like who do we know? Who could, who could take me in, who could sponsor me and say, Oh, I've known her since she was five. And so there is this social bank account that young people have, and for young people of color, for young people who are poor, for young people who are otherwise at the margins the bank account because of our nation's history, is going to be less

right. They don't have that kind of capital right?

No, no. And if they do, it's an extraordinary sort of isolated, outlier experience. So one piece is on the part of us as educators, and then the other part is the advice to young people. So I think for the for those young people who have powerful friendships and family members and what I call lifelines, but are kind of don't have that arsenal of high economic payoff relationships we can design for that we can create opportunities.

So Stephanie, you talked about today's kids are growing up in the midst of rapid change. By the time they reach adulthood, things are going to look pretty differently. So I'm interested in how schools can be more innovative and teach what is necessary to meet future demands. Every time my son, who works for Facebook, he comes to my university, he talks about how antiquated things are, and he actually gets a little chuckle out of this, because it's funny to him that we're not operating and what he considers his real world. And so the question is about kind of what young people need to succeed in school, and what do they need to be ready for, for real life. So how do we get these four currencies, which we don't really teach in school. How do we get these four currencies of competencies? So we teach competencies, but the connection the credentials and cash, how do we get this to be part of the curriculum? Or do you see this as being something individual, and this the family's responsibility?

I think that's a good question. Joi, so maybe the easiest way to break that down would be, I think about this from an education perspective, getting into the weeds, thinking about the work that you both do, pre service issue and in service issue. Issue and a leadership issue. We have started the important work across the country in many different districts and schools of updating graduation requirements, that was the first big piece, and reviewing curriculums and deciding that things like having a whole child perspective, committing to social, emotional learning, alongside academic learning, trauma informed or healing centered education, that those things mattered too often. They still live on the sidelines, but they are happening. I think that we've updated the student experience, but we've done little to update the educators, professional training and development experience. And so I actually think that at an in service and pre service level, and when I say that, I mean colleges of education and then education associations and professional development that happens in schools, we need to be training and supporting and practicing same thing that we expect from our kids in adult learning, it's learning, developing, strengthening our own knowledge and skills about what is new and different and what it requires, and how we facilitate the learning and development of knowledge and skills for kids. So I would encourage schools of education to actually revisit and look back at their own curriculum for education, degree programs for field experience and education, and thinking about when, where and how they're addressing things like competencies that young people need. Youth Development, the science of learning, adolescent development, there are kind of a number of things that we could highlight or dig into more and then ensuring that that is kind of cultivated as a through line across the education experience. I think same for professional development. How do we prioritize updating, preparing kids for work in the world of work is more than the responsibility of career and technical education teachers or college access and career planning curriculums. It's what we are holistically preparing kids for next, and so being really specific in the professional development offerings, so many teachers, myself included, had no idea of what kinds of careers and types of jobs in the world of work or any of these pieces in the adult space were and how they operate outside of our own lived experience being educators and trying to make it in the World. And then I think, from a leadership perspective, there are some really significant policy and structural changes that we can be working on. And I'll give two specific examples. One is that if there are high in high school environments, really re envisioning and reinvigorating or invigorating for the first time, this case may be financial literacy and financial planning for young people and really ensuring that they have a good handle on how cash works and what they do when they need it, whether it's scholarships or benefits or cash on Hand, and how they spend it well, and that public schools can also be very the things that can build social capital and opportunity that yield financial scholarships and future opportunity, sports, music, theater, those pieces can actually be super expensive. You might remember, there's a section of the book that talks about the high cost of a free public education and reflects on my conversation with my friend and principal in Virginia about between booster fees and uniform costs and travel and equipment and other pieces, We don't realize that those extras are actually the vital social capital, social relationships, building opportunities. But often kids are priced out of them. They need to have an after school job, or their parents can't afford it if they're younger. Well, I

have to interject here. I have a freshman who has this curriculum during an advisory period. So all the students in the high school have an advisory period. But he came home and said, I don't even know how to write a check. I'm like, Well, why do you need to know how to write a check right now? Maybe they will get. That when you're a sophomore or you're a junior or maybe a senior, but I worry that maybe they won't.

I was just going to say Amy. I think that that's a really valid worry in the state of Missouri, when I was running a high school, the only financial literacy requirement was a multiple choice exam, and you just studied to pass it, and you only needed to pass it. You didn't even have to get a certain number of the questions right and and those questions didn't reflect the financial stresses and realities that these kids are experiencing at home and already anticipating that they're going to come up against as they move

forward. So you're listening to Dr Amy and Dr Joi, and we are talking to Stephanie Malia cross. She is the author of making it what today's kids need for tomorrow's world. And we're exploring the four currencies today's kids need to make it for tomorrow's world. We're talking about competencies, connections, credentials and cash. And so as you were talking Stephanie, I was in my head trying to do that curriculum mapping, which is what we do, of how does it fit in two places in higher ed, one of the things that Governor State University, we're committed to is financial literacy. So we recently have a new president, Dr Cheryl Green, and this is the commitment of hers financial literacy, which is so important for college students who are now receiving credit cards right and on their way to either being very successful or in debt in terms of their economic future. And so financial literacy is really important at Governor state. And so I'm looking at these four currencies and how that plays in to our financial literacy for all college students, but also in our education curriculum as we are preparing teachers. How do we embed some of these standards, and I'm going to call them standards at this point. Now, how do we incorporate some of these standards into the curriculum. So we're we'll be thinking about how we do that alignment.

Joi, in addition to that, we started talking to you, Stephanie about building social capital as an equity issue for our children, and again, with re envisioning curriculum, we're talking about financial literacy. We don't want our students to be in debt. But how might we also re envision curriculum so that it includes building this currency, building social capital. What can we tell our educators? What do they do? Well,

I think one part is being nimble. So if you're listening, you heard a text snag here and and I'm going to tie it to what we're talking to. Amy and Joi have been extremely nimble, as we have been losing signal, and I've been going in between phone and zoom and different Wi Fi cards and Wi Fi service. And I think that kind of pivoting we've moved. So let me make this connection here for a second, the shift we had to make to operate did it, and we have not done it perfectly, but, man, there are significantly more resources, ideas and insights into how we learn online and in a virtual environment, and we were forced into that position. It happened way too quickly, and everything has been reactive. Curriculum design decisions have been reactive. The role of social relationships, social health, social wealth, could be the most important thing that kids need in the future, given how work and the world operate, we don't have to be reactive. We don't need a generation of kids to graduate, shift into adulthood, and lack the very vital abilities to regulate, reflect, connect with each other, build communities, support each other, these pieces that are inherently social, to then say, Oh God, this is a crisis. We need to figure it out. And so my encouragement would be that we find all of the different ways to be generative in planning curriculum and instruction and design of schooling with social, health and wealth connections in mind. And I think that you were talking about curriculum. You can do that very easily. So if you're doing a curriculum map, or you're doing a scope and sequence, or you're building a lesson plan, there's nothing to say that you can't integrate the currencies right there into the map and into the plan. How does this align when we think about credentials, it's the academic standards. How is this keeping students moving forward on the trajectory toward graduation, toward the degree? Is this going to keep them on pace for learning, or get them to where they need to go to keep moving forward? And then competencies? We didn't get to dig in really deeply to those, but those are our ways of being and doing in the world. That's things like the ability to focus and organize and be creative and think critically. And so we can examine lessons and projects and experiences and think about how those are either teaching the competencies strengthening them, or actually like testing kids ability to use them in real situations, and then the connections can go right with it. Where are the opportunities for them to connect with people who will support them? Where are the opportunities to connect them with people who will help them to navigate a new situation? Where are the opportunities to connect them with people or programs who will actually expose them to something new entirely? So I would say that this really is by design. Okay,

so Stephanie, you regularly conduct webinars where you get candid, really about you readiness and also racial equity. So talk to us about who that audience is, but also, how do we turn those webinars into real change? Do you work with schools to Modify and Expand your curriculum I do so

some of the work that has been most fulfilling in my recent experience has been work that I've done in Virginia, and that has been statewide, all the way to school and classroom level, and really I've just been along for the ride, because Virginia educators were ready to modernize, and they had hit a moment. Frankly, they had hit a pain point about seven years ago where the state of Virginia had unintentionally shifted to really over testing their students in an extreme way. So in the chat, in the era of No Child Left Behind, we were looking at a mandated 17 standardized tests, and that was considered by most people now as over testing. We saw the ways in which so much just wrapped around testing. Virginia required 32 tests, and so I came into the state to help facilitate a summit that was about something very, very specific and narrow seven years ago. And that was, how do we move away from always needing to use standardized tests, which I had a friend who called it sort of like the post mortem of academic learning, you know, like you can't go back. It's what you've learned at the end. To really thinking about, how do you assess for learning, and what would that shift require? So during that time, we heard from the state superintendent who had actually a really compelling vision for what learning and public education could be, which was so much more than testing, and so I have been working with them. Over the last seven years, we launched a campaign that turned into a full rebrand of the Department of Education called Virginia is for learners, so the Office of Tourism agreed to let that live right next to Virginia is for lovers. So it will live in perpetuity. And the most exciting piece was shifting from summits and speaking engagements to a coalition of universities and membership organizations and district leaders, who were all deeply committed to updating what the education experience would need to be to prepare kids for this world and for the future. And so I had the really fortunate opportunity of helping to get that coalition started, and eventually it became an actual partnership that had funding to spur innovation, to change what was happening in schools of education and on the ground in the 132 school districts in Virginia. That partnership is called the Commonwealth learning partnership, and it has just taught me so much and so in terms of my own. And work. Yes, I am, you know, I am available for the speaking in the summits, and I want to get into the good frontline restructuring work that says, Okay, our kids and our educators deserve more than this, and how every I think that, particularly this year, people know this isn't the way it's supposed to be, and especially in such a time of pressure and stress and strain that the pandemic put in. The question is, is it worth risking my life to learn this thing or teach this thing? Is this what really matters? And I would say, if we're going to be putting our lives on the line, we should only be focusing on what really matters,

and those relationships with our students and with our colleagues, those are the things that matter,

and they're the things that last right and will continue to pay off in the end, and I would be remiss not to say, and also, the world is unfair and unjust, and it does require, we can't live off of those relationships. Those are what feed us, our soul, our spirit, that create opportunities. And if our job as educators is to truly prepare, then we also need to grapple with the real, legitimate, less fun, just resource this, just cash, the validating and the value making things that our society says is important. Whether or not it's really important is questionable, but it's how the world works

with this virtual experience that students and teachers, parents, colleagues have had to experience, and yes, it has had its pros, and it's definitely a lot of negatives. We've computer glitches, Wi Fi connections. Teachers are not seeing the faces of their students, but what we have experienced, Dr Joi and I is this increased ability to connect with educators across the nation, but it's an intentional piece. We have to be intentional about building those relationships and looking at that science of learning and development and how important those connections can be with that part of a student's learning and what their learning outcomes could and should be.

And Stephanie, you talked about what's most important. You have three little ones, right?

I have two little ones.

Little ones. I gave you a hird child. You have two little ones. So I'm wondering, on a very personal level, how has this work impacted your children?

So I have two biological children, Justice and Harrison. They are 10 and eight, and they are Hawaiian and Jewish and white. And I'm going to, I'm bringing this up for a reason, because I think that we just keep talking about what it takes to make it changes, depending on who you are and what family you're in and where you're growing up. And then I have my two God children, who are 14 and 12. I'm making that sound because, God, they're getting so old, and they are Black, and they live, they have lived away from us for the last year because of the pandemic, but typically they live with us in the summer, and together. I consider these are my kids, and I think that they're who the book is dedicated to. And in the notes to each of them. When I sent them books, I said that I wanted them, and I say something like this in the actual dedication, not only to make it, but to thrive. And I think this is an important part of the book that's worth naming, and that is making it deals with the world as it is, not as it should be, and that is a world that is still unfair and unjust and often in work spaces, education and youth development, we deal either with surviving and suffering or thriving and flourishing, but we miss the middle, which is, let me just give you a good handle on how to do life, the way that life is working right now and the way that life will likely work moving forward. And my my Godson is 14 mm. And I'm watching the news and the world and thinking about what it means for him to be a 14 year old Black boy in America right now, and every day that he gets older, the risks and threats to his life and the difference in the way that the world experiences him from his God brothers gets farther and farther apart. And so I think that all of that to say that where I have landed is that I have become obsessed not with achievement and opportunity gaps, but with livability and longevity gaps. How do we shift from college and career readiness as the goal of parents and educators to long and livable lives as the goal of parents and educators? The research in the book showed me that our kids with the right resources and support, should live to be 100 as the rule. And 100 years, during this time of disruption and volatility, changes to the environment, changes to our communities, changes to the economy, and that the world views and experiences kids different depending on who they are and where they come from. And so as a mom, it is, how do I equip my kids, the four of them, for the world as it is, and support them in creating a better world? And can I help them co create that world too? And that my prayer for them is that they would each, all four of them have have long, livable, rich lives.

And I like how your book describes success in many ways. And being successful is different for all of us, and it doesn't. It's not always packaged in a college degree, as we know from your siblings, right, who are very success, and they found that success in very, very different routes. So I like how we can find ourselves being successful on different journeys, and how making it can really help us. I see making it having many additions in the future. What is your next project? You have to be thinking about your next project. What's your next project? I

am, I'll give you a little sneak peek. So I'm, I'm going in between two. The the one that's winning in this particular moment is directed toward parents, and really just specifically for parents on how do you raise kids for such an uncharted future, and what are the what are the parenting practices and principles? What do we need to know about helping them to navigate with a specific focus on adolescents? I think we've learned recently that adolescents, brains and bodies are developing as quickly and as much as little ones. Those are the two big periods of growth and development. And so a book on parent, a book for parents, not certainly not an expert in parenting, I'm right there with them, but a book for parents is in there. And then a book actually written for young people, sort of a guide to what you need to know in adulthood, similar to making it in a lot of ways. But do they have an accurate picture of this world they're about to launch into and how it operates and works and being able to write directly to them. So those are the two things I'm playing with.

Very, very important. I can see that book specifically for middle schoolers. I love it.

Well, I can't wait to read both of them, because it sounds like they both have such great potential and definitely a willing and ready audience. Well,

thanks. I hope so. I hope that the people who decide which books will live and which books will never see the light of day that they agree with you. Amy,

it's been a pleasure talking to you today, we are so excited for our listeners to hear you, to get the book, to get as excited as we are about this journey that we're

on, it's been great to sit down with you both, and I look forward to Many other conversations to come.

Absolutely

thank you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. Visit our website at G, O, v, s, t.edu/teaching, and leading podcast to see the show notes from this episode.

We. Appreciate Governor State University's work behind the scenes to make publishing possible. Stay tuned for more episodes with Dr Amy and Dr Joi.