 Hi, Shanna. How are you? Hey, Lanter. I'm great. How are you? Fantastic. I'm absolutely delighted to be here and sharing these amazing stories of inspiration that stand on the promise of public school education. You know, for as long as I can remember, Shanna, questions have been a part of my DNA. If you ask Harriet Sanford, they go back to second grade. That being said, I recently had a great opportunity to go home and be a part of an Albany City School District function. And I had a conversation with a school teacher of mine that illustrates that point. He happened to be my social studies teacher and my basketball coach. And so we talked about a situation of a basketball game where we're beating a team pretty handily, 18-nothing, two minutes into the game. We're feeling pretty good about it. And coach calls time out. I can't think, why would coach call time out at 18-nothing? We're doing really well. But unbeknownst to us, he's actually getting beat up by the parents of the other team. There's no sportsmanship. We're not playing, you know, we're not playing fairly according to them. And so he tells us that we're not going to press anymore. And as he said to me, and you're a Lander fashion, you ask a question. Why, coach? It's not fair to us. We practice all the time. Let us stay in it. Why can't we do it? And he stops and pauses for a moment. And I asked him. I said, coach, did you yell at me? Did you get mad at me? What did you do? And he said, no, actually, I took this as an opportunity, an opportunity to teach you something that we hadn't talked about, which was sportsmanship. And so for the rest of that game, we needed to say took the press off and we ended up winning that game pretty handily. But it was ironic to me that that's the story he remembered about me asking questions. And I guess you could say I was more curious than afraid. And it's always been a part of my DNA. Yeah, I love that story. And there's a couple of things I hear in that story that really stand out to me. And the first thing is empathy. His coach used kind of this practical empathy by putting himself in your position. And I think that's why he could listen to you in typical Lander fashion. Because he had that empathy. And the second thing is this idea of allowing you the space to ask questions. Yes. And that's a big deal because it's hard to do when you're a teacher and much more of your coach, which tells me that he valued the relationship. And that that seems to be what has made him a big influence for you. But I want to go back to this phrase that you use that I love more curious than afraid. I love that. And for me, when I think about everything that's going on outside these walls, the things that are happening in schools, I think that's great advice. I think we can take that idea to be more curious than afraid and apply that to everything. I think we're going to apply it to our our leadership. I think we can apply it to our teaching. Yes. I think we can apply it to, you know, our our families. I agree. Yeah, that's, you know, I think more curious than afraid. I'm going to hold on to that one. Fair enough. Can I get a couple of dollars on the book signing? Well, please carry on. Well, speaking of the book, that I think is what I was trying to show in the book is how do we make that accessible for people? How do we show teachers a way that they can do practical empathy, much like your coach did? How can they use questions to form relationships with students, have students form those relationships together? But more importantly, form those relationships across their colleagues. Because to me, when you are more curious and afraid, you become something that I like to call a warrior of hope. And a warrior of hope doesn't go into battle against other people. They go into battle against all the forces that are arrayed against public education. And that's what we need now. And I think the way that we can be warriors of hope is to be more curious than afraid. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, look, we're excited about this day of inspiration, and we appreciate it, and we thank all of you for sharing in your stories and standing on the promise of education. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I've been teaching conflict resolution in an elementary school here in DC for about five years, when one day I suddenly realized I was doing it all wrong. Now, some of my students were using their conflict resolution skills in their real lives, but a lot of them weren't. Sometimes kids would go straight from my classroom, where we were practicing conflict resolution. They'd go out to recess and get into fights. I couldn't understand it. One day after a particularly heated recess conflict, some kids were sent to my classroom to work it out. We sat down and we shared what had happened. And when they were finished, I said, so why didn't you use your conflict resolution skills? And they all looked at me like I was crazy. Miss Ryden, I was too angry. I couldn't think. Miss Ryden, I was so mad. I couldn't remember anything you said. I was shocked. How could kids know how to work out conflicts one minute and not know the next? I decided there had to be something wrong with the way I was teaching. So I decided to read more books and more curricula about conflict resolution to see because I thought somebody must have solved this problem by now. But everything I read pretty much said the same thing. Step one, calm down. Step two, and there was nothing under step one. How do you calm down and how do you teach kids how to calm down? I didn't know. So I decided to do some research on that. And what I discovered led me to two things that profoundly changed my teaching and my life. Those two things were neuroscience and mindfulness. Now, I know very little about neuroscience, but here's something I do know. There's a part of your brain called the amygdala. And the amygdala's job is to keep you safe and protect you from harm. When the amygdala senses that you're under attack, it takes over your brain. It shuts down the part of your brain that thinks. It shuts down the part of your brain that remembers. It puts your brain into fight or flight mode. And in fight or flight mode, you can't think. You can't remember all you can do is react. So when I read that, I remembered those students in my classroom telling me, Ms. Raiden, I was so angry I couldn't think. Ms. Raiden, I was so angry I couldn't remember. I realized they were describing exactly what was happening in their brains. So that was the answer to my question. But then I wondered, well, what do you do about that? How do you calm the amygdala so that you can use your thinking and remembering parts of your brain? It turned out the best answer was mindfulness. Simple calming breathing strategies were the best way to calm the amygdala so that your brain can think and you can respond wisely. So great, I had my answers. Now I had a bigger problem. How do you teach mindfulness? I didn't know. I wasn't a meditator then and I didn't know much about mindfulness and what I did know made me think that it wasn't for me. It seemed a little weird. It seemed like something I couldn't do. But I became so convinced that this was what was missing from what I was teaching, that this was what my students needed. So I decided to find out more. I spent a summer taking a course, reading books, and most importantly, starting my own mindfulness practice. And it turned out I actually really liked it. It wasn't so weird and it was really helping me. So I was really excited to share it with my students. So when school started up, I was ready. I had some simple lessons and a little bell and I was ready to teach mindfulness. Now my colleagues thought I was crazy. This was several years ago before mindfulness had become kind of a buzzword. And so I was doing something that was a little weird. But I was used to that. I was the peace teacher. So I decided to do it anyway. And much to my delight, my students loved mindfulness. They took to it right away. I would teach them simple practices, like take five breathing. Take five breathing. You just trace your hand and when you trace up, you breathe in. And when you trace down, you breathe out. In and out and in and out. And by the time you've finished tracing your hand, you've taken five deep breaths. You've probably calmed your amygdala and you're ready to respond wisely to whatever's happening. We started noticing kids using take five breathing and some of the other mindfulness strategies on the playground. I saw kids use it during tests. I've seen kids use it during Little League baseball games. They really took to these practices and they teach them to their parents. Knowing the little bit that I know about neuroscience and mindfulness really changed the way I was teaching conflict resolution. Now, instead of focusing on how to de-escalate a conflict, now we focus on how to prevent a conflict from escalating in the first place. The kids are learning how to recognize their angry feelings when they're small. And then they understand what's happening in their brains and they have tools, mindfulness tools to help them to calm their amygdala. Then they can use their conflict resolution skills. So what I've learned about mindfulness has really changed everything at my school. After a few months, we were able to close down our refocus room. This was the place where kids got sent when they got in trouble at recess because nobody was going there anymore. After a year or two, what I had started as a little experiment in my class became a school-wide program. Now, all 900 of our students in pre-K through fifth grade take a weekly 45-minute peace class. And in peace class, they learn mindfulness, conflict resolution, and other social and emotional skills. All of our teachers now are leading daily mindful moments. We even have fifth graders who are mindful mentors who go into classrooms and lead mindful moments with the younger students. We even changed our school rules. Now our school rules are speak mindfully, act mindfully, and move mindfully. The school culture changed dramatically, all because of these little tools. People started to hear about what we were doing at Lafayette Elementary and people would come and visit and ask me, well, how can I do what you're doing? So with the help of some wonderful partners, Cheryl Dodwell and Gillian Diesner, we wrote a curriculum. And now that curriculum is being used in eight different public schools here in D.C. and in schools all around the country. Educators and parents and administrators are really starting to see what we've seen at Lafayette, what my principal, Dr. Kerry Brokard, has seen at Lafayette. That we have to take care of our children's hearts as much as their minds. In the world that we're living in right now, that's more important than ever. I think that the most important thing that we're teaching in peace class is kindness. And I believe that kindness is a skill that can be taught. It's a habit that can be developed. And mindfulness is a wonderful way to help children to increase their capacity for compassion and empathy. We do this through simple but powerful compassion practices. We call this heartfulness. These practices where we think about somebody that we care about, we think about ourselves, we think about people that we're in conflict with, and we think kind of thoughts about them. Now it might sound silly to you. It might sound like somebody said to me the other day, it's a little too kumbaya. But I've seen the power of these practices with my students. And they're backed up by research. There's a lot of scientific research showing that people who regularly participate in compassion practices are happier and much more likely to be kind. So in today's world, what could be more important than teaching kids to be calm and peaceful and kind? So I'd like to close with a compassion practice. And if you're willing, I'd like you to join me. Don't freak out. I can't tell what's happening in your mind. So I don't know if you're doing it or not. So you're good. But if you are willing to try it, just sit up a little straighter in your chair, close your eyes or just look down into your lap. And if you really want to go for it, you can put your hands over your heart. And just think of a child. It could be your own child, one of your students, a child who's made a difference in your life. And just hold that child in your heart and in your mind. And I'm going to say some words out loud. And if you want to, you can think them in your mind. May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live in peace. And now let's just extend some kindness to ourselves. Just take a moment to remember why you're here today, to think of the important work that you're doing every day for our children. May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live in peace. Finally, let's extend some kindness to all children, all of the children in our public schools, all of the children around the world who are not lucky enough to have public schools. Let's hold all children in our hearts. May all children be safe. May all children be happy. May all children be healthy. May all children live in peace. Thank you. Had graduated about 10 years ago, so I was surprised when she sent me a message on Facebook, asked if she could come by my classroom during my planning period, said she needed to talk about some stuff. You've always been like a Dumbledore to me, she said. This is, this is not remotely true. I'm much more like Hagrid, but she came. And for an hour, I listened to her talk about her parents' divorce and their ill health, about her depression, about her epilepsy bubbling back up and keeping her from holding down a job. I said, Julia, look, there's this Whitman point in which he talks about all the bad stuff that's surrounding him in the world, the endless trains of the faithless and cities filled with the foolish and himself feeling foolish and faithless. And he asks what good he is amid all of this stuff. And then he answers his own question, answer, you are here that life exists and identity. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. So, Julia, you've got a verse to contribute to. Even if life is treating you rough, you've got a verse to contribute. She snorted in disbelief, kept her eyes down on her shaking hands, and so I had a hunch and I followed it. I asked her if she'd been thinking about harming herself and she looked me dead in the face and said every day. And I looked her back and said, Julia, I have had to bury 10 students in 18 years of teaching. Ryan and Blake and Mason and Sean and Jess and Laney and Callie and Paris and Jared and Brianna, you cannot be number 11. Promise me that. And she squeaked out a promise and she's kept it. Checked herself into a facility, gotten her meds straightened out. She's doing better. As public educators, we make lots of promises to our students, to master content and to think critically and to do well on tests. But there's one promise, a tacit promise that gets overlooked in all of those metrics and that is the promise of safety, of physical and emotional safety. Sometimes they need us to stand, to paraphrase Faulkner. The teacher can be one of the props, the pillars that help our students prevail in this world because they're our students. Even after they graduate, they're still ours. When they're sincere, when they're obnoxious, when the world treats them badly like it did my student Rob. Rob a six foot, two tall muscular black kid who prior to his 11th grade year had been in and out of alternative schools, but this year, he's really busting his butt to keep his line, keep himself in line. He would ask his PE teacher if he could leave Jim during my planning period so he could come into my classroom to work. He couldn't do homework at home because he was working till 11 at Burger King to help his parents out with bills. I'd step out of my room to go run something to the office or make some copies and I'd come back and there would be Rob. Book open, reading Huck Finn or Frederick Douglass. Over Christmas break, a friend of his called Rob and asked him for a ride to work. Rob pulls up, friend gets in and pulls out a pistol, tells him to drive to someone else's house and so a ride to work turned into accessory to armed robbery. 14 years. It's worth noting that a couple of years prior to this, a white student of mine with a well connected dad got high on bath salts and assaulted a police officer and got an ankle monitor for a month and this reminded me as I'm reminded so often of Langston Hughes' poem written in the form of a letter to one of his teachers, which he tells this teacher, I learned from you and I guess you learned from me although you're older and white and somewhat more free. So here I am older and white and freer and I take Langston Hughes' advice and I start writing Rob letters and we get a good back and forth going and in those letters I drop copies of poems. Langston Hughes, William Wordsworth, Edward Hirsch, Tupac Shakur. Did you hear about the rose that grew from the crack in the concrete proving nature's laws wrong? It learned to walk without having feet. Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams it learned to breathe fresh air. Long lived that rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared. At some point someone snuck a cell phone into Rob and he texted two people while he was in. His mom and me sent me a picture of his GD certificate and when he was released after two years for good behavior he went home and took a long shower changed some clothes and then in his words came home to the school and there were hugs and there were tears and then my co-workers rallied my beautiful colleagues and we called our friends and we called connections and we called parents and we found that man a job two days after he got out of prison. He learned to breathe fresh air and long lived that rose that grew from concrete when almost no one else cared. So this is what we've got to do teachers. We've got to take the things that we teach and weave them inextricably into the lives of whom we teach. Art teachers. Show your students the divinity that is creating something. Science teachers. Look at the human cell how complete it is and remind your students that they are constructed of that same perfection. History teachers. Tell your classes that for every great name that you study there are thousands of the nameless the anonymous fighters and dreamers and protesters that made those great names possible. Math teachers. I don't know but I trust y'all to do it. Don't ask me to do that. I trust y'all to do it because they're ours. They're ours. That's why we affix that possessive pronoun to the front of their names. They're ours. Our students lives exist. Their identities. The powerful play goes on and they will contribute a verse. We just need to give them the space to write it. Thank you. Once he got a hold on you he would hold you tight and never let you go. A few years ago I was at an NEA awards and excellence teaching gala and one of my fellow wardees who's here today Dr. Melissa Collins brought me her father coach Collins. Now coach Collins was a high school football coach from Memphis Tennessee and since I had family out in Memphis I said let me let me engage him and ask him a couple of questions and so I asked him about his career and if he ever coached a young guy who was an offensive lineman right around maybe in the 70s and coach Collins took maybe a second that's all and said oh yeah you're Parker's boy. I said oh my goodness. Within a second he saw my father's face in mind and his quote of him was once he got a hold of you he never let you go. What was surprising was that he remembered it that quickly quite honestly but what wasn't surprising was how he described my father. My father was tenacious and it's that tenacity that led him to be the only person in his whole family to leave Memphis Tennessee with a bachelor's degree and later a master's degree and when he got that degree it was almost like he was making a promise to the family that he hadn't seen before namely us. Education was a centerpiece in our experience as children and with his promise and my mother's example that's what fueled me to become an educator but it's about the promise. So here's what I'd like you to do and I'm glad that Linda really queued this up for me. I'd like you to think about another child today so I want you to think and get a child in your head for the duration of this talk. Here's the deal it could be yourself when you were younger it could be someone that you know it could be someone that you taught but I have two rules. One rule they must be black or brown. Second rule they must be in your remembering 10 or younger. So I'm going to give you about 10 seconds or so to get that child in your mind. Now hopefully the child is in your mind and I want you to imagine a look of terror on that child's face. That was the look that I made as a child when in seventh grade my teacher was so angry with me that he almost left an entire bruised ring around my arm as he pulled me to the principal's office. I made a promise in my heart at that time to never ever make a kid feel that way when I became an adult. Now imagine that child with the look of joy on their face. That was me in the 10th grade in Ms. Dew's class. Always amazing. I remember writing a journal article describing Thanksgiving in my house and before that time I always kept my writings to myself but she read it and she affirmed me and I was so happy. That was one of the first times that I was perceived as an asset in a classroom and not a threat. So I remember that and I made a promise in my soul that I would always live to make people feel like that. And so today I want to talk to you about your heart. I want to talk to you about your soul. I want to talk to you about your impact and how the promises we make and the actions we take can either connect all three of those or disintegrate them. It's all about the promise and the promise is the declarative statement that you either make in your heart you scream in your soul or you state through your actions. It is the mark that you leave in this world and the standard by which people judge who you are. That's what a promise is. As I reflect back on my whole life in education I'm so happy about all the promises that I kept. I remember the faces of kids when I told them after seven years of education where they were educated below their capacity that we were going to put them in gifted and talented education. I can remember their faces right now as I'm talking to you. But I also remember the promises that I broke. I remember angrily yelling at Raquel in sixth grade who would not stop talking. I was literally near rage. I remember that feeling of looking at her feeling my rage and almost being near out of control. I broke that promise of safety. I remember the times where I thought that the only language arts content that I needed to learn was to pass the practice exam and so I would stay up I passed the exam but then I wouldn't prepare the right way for the kids that are right in front of me. That's a promise broken. I remember times in class where I would ask a difficult question and then when they showed confusion I would rephrase the question and take all the difficulty out. I would ask and answer my own questions and do the thinking for kids thinking that I wanted the smooth class and the happy kid but the results didn't match my intent. That's a broken promise. I have broken promises and if we are all honest we might have them too. So I want you to examine that today as we go through this talk because the way to restore promises is not hashtags and blogs and school improvement plans all that's nice but the best change is changed actions. Actions matter and so I want to talk to you about three concrete things we can do to restore promises that have been broken to black and brown kids throughout this country. That is my focus. First let's commit in our heart to being anti-racist. So in 1954 Brown versus Board Education we said we are all about integration. 2018 we were as segregated as we were in 1954. Our words have not matched our outcomes. Now today everyone wants to talk about equity. Everyone is an equity champion yet the gap remains the same. Words, actions, when you commit to being anti-racist you're not just talking about what you're for you're talking about what you're against. You're against separating and excluding kids from education that they need on a daily basis. You're against not giving black and brown kids high quality resources access to complex texts and tasks every day in every glass when you commit to being anti-racist it's a heart commitment. You say we're not going to say these kids can't or these kids won't we'll take the these out and we'll say these are our kids. The great author James Baldwin said for they are all our children we will either profit buy or pay for what they become. So the first thing we do to restore the promise is to become and commit to being anti-racist. Not just equitable not just inclusive against racist practice. Then we anchor our soul in reflection. A great philosopher said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I think the unexamined lesson plan isn't worth teaching. There are too many lesson plans that are not thought about with our kids' needs at heart. We got to stop that. We have to reflect and be honest. We can't say that we didn't mean to but the outcomes still remain the same. We can't say that we have had color blind intentions and yet still see color coded results. So we have to reflect honestly across racial lines. We have to talk to our students and not be defensive when they answer. We have to accept that the community trusts us with their kids no matter who they are or how they come to us and that particular outcome is on us. It is so very critical that we strengthen our reflection with studying the works of all these authors in the literature around equity in classrooms and anti-racism. It's out there. What needs to stop happening is that people of color need to be the spokesman to help us stop being discriminated against. It's all of our work. We have to do our work. And as a teacher in the 21st century with all of this information at our fingertips, it is not enough for us not to know anymore. We must know. And as a person who I love to watch, young LeVance Ann says, do your work. So we have to anchor our soul in reflection, honest reflection. So first, we commit to being anti-racist in our practice. Then we anchor our soul in reflection. And lastly, we take the action to be who we needed when we were kids. Think about that. When you were in school, who did you need when you were hurting? Who did you need when you were unsure of how you were going to make it out? Are you that person to kids of color? Are you that person to the kid that you're thinking about right now? Have you been? Because the impact of that is long lasting. Do you remember what you said when you went into education that you would do? Do you remember what you said when you had your own school, your own foundation? What you said you'd do? Have you forgotten it? You can claim it back. Just do what you did before, but do it better. Always act in the interest of kids no matter what. Their future is on us. About two years ago, my six-year-old son and my daughter, Layla and Joshua, they were playing right in the ocean, right out near the sea, kind of on the shore, coming back and forth. It was such a picturesque day. It was beautiful. My wife was there. We were just having a great time. And so as I was watching them and reflecting on how how blessed we were, I looked at the skyline and I saw people all over the place just having fun, going out deep, some coming back, saw the lifeguards everywhere. It was a beautiful scene. When I came back to look at my two children, only one came back. That was my daughter. So Joshua was missing. And in that moment, my wife and I froze because we knew that he didn't know how to swim. And so we tried to run after him. We went up and down. My wife frantically asked people near her, can you pray? Because we don't know where he is. Those seven minutes felt like a month. When we finally found him with a lifeguard, he was shaking and we were shaking. Now imagine an entire group of kids that look like my son that have been out to see in public education for their whole lifetime. Given only the equivalent educationally of a life jacket and they see they have to manage after they leave us. While educators look the other way, while they drift further and further away from standards, from the capacity to create their own choices and for the desire and the ability to be human. Imagine that. When we commit to being anti-racist, reflecting earnestly and sincerely, and being who we needed when we were young, we not only hold on to them so tight that we never let them go, we not only find them safe with a lifeguard, we actually bring them home. Time sure does fly. I wore a similar cap and gown as I walked across my high school graduation stage a few years ago. Decades would be better. Time flies for organizations, not just for people. Can you believe that the NEA Foundation turns 50 next year? Fifty. In honor of this milestone, the Foundation is building a community yearbook and we want all of you, your stories, your photos and quotes in it. Here, take a look. With a small donation as little as 50 dollars, although we hope you give more, you can honor an educator, celebrate a son or daughter, or highlight the positive impact public education has had in your life. Let's take a look at some of the heartfelt yearbook entries so far. And look, if I can do it, you can do it too. A yearbook post is one quick and easy way we can all help to keep the promise of public education. Okay, your turn to do some work. In your programs, look at page 15 and open the envelope. Pull out and activate only one of your glow sticks and you do that by bending it and shaking it. Okay, bend and shake. Okay, I can see him lighten up. Now, I want you to imagine that you are getting ready to submit your own photos. I'm going to show you some side-by-side images and ask you to vote by raising your glow sticks. You guys got it? Okay, here's the first pair. What do you pick? A, raise those glow sticks if you pick A. Okay, or B, raise those glow sticks. Ah, looks like more people chose soccer. We have more soccer fans in this audience than we do lacrosse fans. Here are your next two choices. I know. A or B. Oh, that's a toss-up, guys. Okay, I'm going to let that one. I'm not going in to wait into that one. Okay, next set. I almost hate to ask A or B. Oh, B. I think you get the idea. Now it's your turn. I can't wait to see what you post. Save your glow sticks because I'll be back. Please don't judge us. You see a lot of us were the victims of the ones that love us. Some of us had wayward fathers and uneducated mothers. Many of us committed crimes with our cousins for the sake of our brothers, but we're just the victims of the ones that love us. Please don't judge us. We learned that this world doesn't make exceptions for kids. We've seen too many rough childhoods. Those children without examples of what success really is and when you look at the circumstances, it's clear they were never expected to live. They were just names and pictures posted upon papers and they barred them all up, threw them in the garbage or other garbage that they would call us and then lock them up with lopsided laws that they would call just and swear that they did it for their country and what they call love. They never understood this all started as babies, bottles and pampers. We were the sons of fathers as absent. Some followed examples. If she was a daughter of a mother that suffered, she may not know what love is. It's a vicious cycle. So many of us get caught in its clutches and so many of us will soon have kids that are destined to suffer and it hurts. Looking in the eyes of those kids, harsh destiny touches. Staring out the back of a squad car when they arrest them and cuff them. Fresh out of frying pan into an oven that heat on 400 where raising a fire that aids our destruction or raising a world where it's all or is nothing. A lot of us were raised by women who always wanted marriage, but they never could trust it. You see, they were always victims of the ones that love them, but please don't judge them. They're coming from places where they're not particularly partial to their placement. From the bottom, like basements, hopes high as the attic underneath gray skies where the sun is absent. We used to go to church and ask the pastor why I have joy when we've never had it. The only thing we've ever had were overcrowded classes with teachers who never could imagine us passing, whole world looking down on us, feeling so stuck, feeling messed up. Could you imagine being from a place where you can see where you're going to be before you even grow up? The examples are plain and clear, even more plain and clear that we hated here, but we call it home and we'll fight any of those that call it wrong because this is the only thing we've ever had to call our own to a child making it from this. The only thing he or she should ever be called as strong because this world doesn't make exceptions for kids. We've seen too many rough childhoods of those children without examples of what success really is. And when you look at the circumstances, it's clear that we were never expected to live. We were just names and pictures posted upon papers and they bought us all up, threw us in the garbage and all the garbage and lock us up with lopsided laws that they would call justice, scarting all those rough childhoods from rough vile hoods like us. All those victims are the ones that love them. As teachers, when you look them in the eyes, please don't judge them. Peace. It's been said that any fool can be happy, but it takes tremendous heart to make something beautiful out of the stuff that makes us weep. Pain is the name of the young poet who asked us not to judge him as he heartfully shared his pain, stuff that makes us weep. And although I'm here to present from an academic perspective about the essential importance of arts education, dance, music, theater, visual arts, media arts and poetry, I'd be reminiscent if I did not share with you that ensuring access to the arts is just as much a matter of heart as it is academics, maybe even more so. As my 13-year-old daughter reminds me, we can't even say heart without the art bit. So while we shouldn't judge pain, we should examine our own hearts when it comes to our commitment to ensure that arts education is available to provide students opportunities to make beauty from their pain and transform their lives. 25 years ago, I witnessed firsthand the transformative power of arts education. I just finished graduate school with a master's degree in education specialized in risk and prevention, and I had this inner passion and drive to make a profound positive impact on the world, and specifically the lives of students. After taking numerous theory-based classes and interning at a middle school, I thought, and this is a true story, I thought I was ready to single-handedly solve every underlying issue that would cause a youth to engage in risky behavior and prevent the behavior from occurring in the first place. I see lots of heads nodding in agreement. So I set out to develop and implement programs that would help prevent adolescent youth from engaging in behavior that would raise the risk of them not completing school, entering the juvenile justice system, and not being able to lead a fulfilled purpose-driven life. After graduate school, I started working for an organization called Georgia Cities and Schools. It's now called Georgia Communities and Schools, the state office of a national dropout prevention program. And my boss at the time, Don Arno, had her doctorate in education administration, she had a master's degree in math, but Don also had a master's degree in music. Georgia Cities and Schools had hired Don to develop a technical assistance and training program for the newly established Governor of Georgia's Alternative Schools program. And these schools were created for youth who weren't experiencing success in the traditional school environment, youth who had received many suspensions, youth close to dropping out of school and youth transitioning into or out of the juvenile justice system. As a part of the strategy that Don developed, we selected pilot sites across the state, and Don asked me to find artists to work with students in these schools. And I remember thinking clear as day, like it was yesterday, artist, where on earth would I find an artist to work in these schools and why? I called a family friend, Andrea, who was an actress, and explained to her my predicament, and she said, oh, I do that. I teach theater to students in a school setting. And we hired her on the spot. I traveled with Don doing site visits in small rural schools all across the state of Georgia. We observed Andrea and the students in the classroom. We interviewed the students about their experiences working with an artist. And I saw firsthand how students who were not experiencing success again in the traditional classroom environment discovered a love for learning and a love for life. And I was completely blown away by the impact that the arts had on the lives of the vulnerable young boys and girls who attended these schools. And I thought to myself, and again, I remember this like it was yesterday, I thought to myself, if arts education had such an enormous impact on vulnerable students, that I would dedicate my life to ensuring that all students have an opportunity to participate in the arts and to ignite a love for learning and ultimately greater success in life. Since my first observation of the power of arts education about 25 years ago, there have been so many research studies documenting its impact on students. According to a summary of research from many prominent studies included in the National Dropout Prevention Center's 2017 publication, The Arts in Dropout Prevention, The Power to Engage, Arts Education's associated with lower dropout rates as well as better academic outcomes, particularly for vulnerable students. But why? What is it about the arts? Researchers have found that studying the arts promotes academic self-efficacy, a belief in one's ability to succeed. In fact, we know the arts are often the place where students experience success for the first time. And studying the arts also promotes school engagement. Simply put, the arts make school a place kids want to be. And I'm sure you're aware that according to the National Dropout Prevention Center, both academic self-efficacy and school engagement are predictors of persistence to graduation. A longitudinal study funded by my agency, The National Endowment for the Arts, also confirmed that arts education predicts better graduation rates regardless of a student's socioeconomic status. And after analyzing data of 22,000 students over 12 years, researchers found that students with low socioeconomic status who were deeply engaged in the arts demonstrated better academic outcomes than students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds who had less arts involvement. So when I first read this, I was blown away because the research is telling us that the arts can level the playing field between students from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds. We also know from research on arts education that there are certain outcomes for students that are unique to the arts. And in fact, The National Dropout Prevention Center notes, an arts education has been shown to raise students' ability to critique themselves, their willingness to experiment, their ability to reflect, to learn from mistakes, and to maintain a positive self-concept. Are you thinking about our young poet Payne right now? I sure am. Both federal and state governments have acknowledged the importance of including the arts and the educational experiences of all students. In fact, they have made a promise to students across the country that they should receive an arts education. The arts were defined as a core subject and no child left behind. And the arts are included as part of the definition of a well-rounded education in the Every Student Succeeds Act. And I don't know if you know this, but 100% of states have adopted content standards in the visual performing arts, dictating what students should know and be able to do. And 86% of states have adopted policies mandating arts instruction. Unfortunately, however, the current promise for all students to receive an arts education remains a promise unfulfilled. Despite robust federal and state policies for arts education, we know from U.S. Department of Education data that students who attend school in our country's low-income communities have less access to arts education and don't have the same opportunities to take classes in the arts. And given what we know about the benefits of the arts on students, especially our most vulnerable students, not having access to an arts education is not only a promise that hasn't been kept for some students, it's fundamentally an issue of equity and ultimately an issue of civil rights. But there are steps that you can take to move us towards the promise for arts education for all students. A new publication, what school leaders can do to increase arts education, published by the Arts Education Partnership in Collaboration with the National Association of Elementary School Principles, highlights three no-cost to low-cost strategies school leaders have found effective that are likely applicable in a variety of grade levels. So the first, establish a school-wide commitment to arts learning. The second, create an arts-rich learning environment. And the third, examine the use of time and resources. I encourage you to read this publication, to access the full list of steps that you can take and to learn more. As America's Chief Fundor of the Arts in America, the National Endowment for the Arts is also taking really important steps to keep the promise of arts education for all students. So in addition to arts education grants, the agency awards for student learning and the arts professional development for educators and for systems change and communities of all sizes across the country, as well as our investments in national and state arts education initiatives. This year, the National Endowment for the Arts launched the statewide data infrastructure project for arts education. In partnership with Education Commission of the States, we will create a suite of tools and resources to help every state in the country extract, analyze, and report on arts education data and from data systems that states already have in place and from data that they already collect. Armed with useful data, we know policymakers can track the impact of state policies to boost arts education. School district leaders can direct resources to schools that lack robust arts education programs. School leaders can identify and address inequities in student participation in the arts. And parents and students can find schools or programs whose arts offerings best suit their interests and needs. So over the course of our time together, I've shared with you key research and data about arts education. I've shared information on the federal and state policy landscape and I've shared ideas of what you can do and what the federal government is doing to fulfill the promise of arts education for all students. But however, I want each one of you to feel like I felt 25 years ago when I was in those rural classrooms in Georgia and witnessed the transformational power of arts education. So I'd like to end this presentation where we started because the impact of arts education isn't just about academic thriving. For too many young people, it's literally about surviving. So no, we shouldn't judge the young poet paying for all of those promises unfulfilled to him. But we should do everything we can to fulfill the promise of arts education for all students like him. I'm gonna let a young poet named Anaya close out for me. I want her art to speak to your hearts in a way that all the data in the world simply can't. And as you listen, know that just as those beats of your heart are essential to your life, so is art essential to the lives of our students. The arts don't only transform lives, the arts save lives too. Anaya. If tonight is the last night you plan on breathing. If the weight of the world is so heavy on your shoulders, the only place you see to lay down this burden is a grave. If you are so tired of existence, you want to put yourself into an eternal rest. I'm sorry I couldn't make this life more livable for you, but before you go, can I ask you one thing? When you pick up the pen to write the suicide note, write a poem instead about all the things you love and all the things that love you, write a poem, turn the pain into prose and see how quickly the end becomes a new beginning. Write a poem like your life depends on it because sometimes it does. I too have known nights on bathroom floors with blood and tears spilling so quickly. I'm not sure which one I'll run out of first. No, praying to God, I stopped believing in a long time ago that if they were real, they would help me. No, looking death in the face and inviting him home for dinner like a long lost friend I couldn't wait to get reacquainted with, but I have also known salvation. Know that if the words of your demons can end your life, then words of hope can save it no matter how deep of a hole you've dug yourself into. Even when holding onto life feels like grasping for air, your lungs can't even keep inside of them. Reach your hand out for a lifeline and I'll give you a pen and tell you that poetry is the pathway to survival that you never could have seen coming and ain't I a testament to that because I am still standing after depression has brought me to my knees after I have asked God more times to end my life than I have thanked him for giving me it and ain't that a blessing to survive even when your own body has tried to kill you and it gets hard sometimes because I can't even remember how to be a person much less a poet, but being a poet isn't always about pretty prose some days. It is just about being alive. Hell, most days it is just about being alive here in this place where I've seen so many resurrected I almost call it holy call it magic so let me spell bind you survival put down your razor don't spill blood spill ink write a poem across your wrists and thighs and show everyone your scars in your story and tell them this is survival this is hope this is life through language and never forget how hard it was to get here to turn your back on your demons but if the pen is mightier than the sword then it is mightier than any mental illness that has tried to kill you so tonight don't you write me a suicide note put a period where there should be a comma write me a survivor story and I promise I'll see you tomorrow thank you here is the story of a boy aged two a doctor has just diagnosed him with autism telling his mother he is so low functioning she should immediately investigate institutions for him in that moment his story had become a single story autism here's a story of a boy aged three he wanders to a toy keyboard and within minutes he is playing nursery rhymes by memory and by ear he cannot speak but this does not matter his story is a musician's story here is a story of a boy aged seven he is asked to leave his general education PE class despite the presence of an aide supporting him the teacher feels like he cannot follow instructions well enough the school simply sees him as a child who cannot process language but this little boy does not see this when he doesn't understand the words swirling around him he doesn't cry he merely finds another child who does understand and he stands next to that child and he copies his movements nobody else sees the resiliency the survival skills the problem-solving skills this little boy is teaching himself his story is only autism here's the story of a boy aged eight he loves to watch youtube videos of live music concerts one day at a friend's house he sees a guitar and he picks it up and he will not put it down he is sent home with it and a week later he is playing and singing john mayer songs his story is a musician's story here's the story of a boy age nine he is excited for his first strings concert at school but he doesn't understand why his father is seated right next to him when no other child has a parent seated right next to them he doesn't know that he is only allowed to perform if a parent sits right next to him he does not know that despite the lack of any behavior issues all year his strings teacher firmly believes performing in front of a crowd will cause this boy to panic he doesn't know that his teacher only sees his story as what she believes the story of autism to be here's the story of a boy age 10 somebody gives his parents a drum kit much to their chagrin he sits down at this drum kit and without a single drum's lesson and within 30 minutes he is drumming a green day song his parents now see his story as a musician's story here's the story of a boy also age 10 he attends his school's talent show and he wonders why he isn't performing he doesn't know that the children in the special education autism class were not invited to audition he doesn't know that the school presumed that children in a self-contained special education autism class could not possibly have talents worthy of an elementary school talent show he doesn't know his story is only autism here's the story of a boy age 11 he stands on a stage in front of thousands of people guitar in hand he walks up to the mic and he says to the crowd you all ready to have a good time as the crowd roars in response he strums his guitar and he rocks their world three years later he is on a stage on Broadway in front of Andrew Lloyd Webber this stage does not cause him to panic he plucks his bass and he sings Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix his story is a musician's story here's the story of a boy age 12 and these seven IEP meetings it took to get his secondary school to put a social skills intervention during study hall so he does not have to choose between the music electives he needs and the social skill supports he also needs to navigate a world that is ill prepared for him his story is within inches of remaining only autism here's the story of a boy age 13 the first middle schooler in his secondary school to be both in the highest level high school guitar ensemble an all self-contained special education academic classes of a boy age 15 who has a 30 song set list he can play from memory who played over 40 times in his community and his school in just one year his story is autism his story is a musician's story his is not a single story it is the perfect illustration of profound disability and incredible ability it is of a school system that could not see ability in some areas of life because of disability in other areas of life too often we see the stories of children with disability as a story of their most single most limiting characteristic we do not see their stories of strength the danger of a single story for the education of children with disabilities is we design their education around what they can't do at the expense of developing what they can do right now i understand like i i'm talking to educators i know this is an intentional right in this boy's story every single educator only wanted what was best for him their only goal was to help him truly but by defining ability through this really narrow lens it led them to unintentional bias and unnecessary limitations the role of public education is supposed to be to produce productive citizens for our society but now we have so many numerous academic requirements and burdensome standardized tests that public education has been reduced to the single story of academic ability left behind are those students for whom academics is not their strength left behind are the auto mechanics left behind are the artists left behind are the plumbers left behind are the musicians left behind is the story of a holistic well-rounded education that produces productive citizens but mostly mostly left behind are children with disabilities especially autism for whom it is nearly impossible to demonstrate competency in this environment there are one in 59 school age children with autism most of whom are in public schools that is a lot of children to leave behind we need to fix this we need a public education system that balances academics with flexibility and room to pursue areas of strength whether that be more academics or arts or career and technical ed we need to teach kids with disabilities the skills to compensate for their disability while still allowing them to access education in areas of ability and interest we need a public education system that is flexible in its requirements with multiple paths to a high school diploma now i realize this all requires a paradigm shift in education and that is hard i get that but in the long run it will actually save us money by giving all of our children the proper tools to become productive citizens we reduce the number of adults with disabilities requiring social services we reduce the number of adults with disabilities a third of them in our jails we reduce the number of adults with disabilities isolated and alone we reduce the number of students getting burdensome debt for college that they may not need or want we increase our economic security we do the right thing for everybody we owe it to our students to foster their strengths and see their abilities we owe it to our students to believe they have multiple stories i owe it to my son jake you see my son is a little boy in that story he is both a brilliant musician and a child with sometimes profound autism his teachers tell me that his musical ability his perfect pitch his stage presence his memory for music can open the door to many careers one of his teachers likened some of his ability to Mozart and yet he is still the boy who has been pressured to drop music electives in favor of academic remedial courses on top of academics courses useless to his future he is still the boy who in many states including until two weeks ago in virginia cannot get a high school diploma that allows him to access federal student aid for music school because even though he passes grade level classes he cannot pass a state standardized test in biology or algebra or english let me repeat my Mozart in many states cannot access aid to go to music school because he cannot pass a state standardized test and this bleak future is faced by many students with and without disabilities numerous academic heavy curricula numerous standardized tests mean we're leaving many students behind because their interests lie elsewhere instead of providing all of our students multiple paths to success we are providing them a narrow path to failure the promise of public education is supposed to believe to believe that every child every child can write their own story and the role of public education is to believe and help and give those kids the skills to write their own stories after all why would you want to stop Mozart from becoming Mozart ladies and gentlemen i present to you jake seismor musician with autism greetings um this is here comes the sound by the beat-alls