This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated educators talking
education.
Oh, here we are, fully-ledded education talk busted pencils, uh, Johnny Lupinacci, here
with you all.
Dr. Tim Slecker is on his way back from his cross-country educational adventure, with
his daughter.
Lots of good stories coming your way, listener, uh, from Tim when he gets back, but tonight
is Wednesday.
If I'm excited, it's one of my favorite days of the week already, because we're halfway
through the week.
It's almost the end of May.
This is a, this is, this is crazy time in school.
The energy is on all high, like we are ready for summer teachers and students, but we have
our two favorite educators with us tonight from educator amplified teacher, Halley teacher
Joanna.
How you doing?
Oh, good.
Today was my last day of school.
So school is out for summer for teacher Joanna.
Oh, we, I'm doing good too.
I always love coming here, you know, like, like I always say, I feel like actually this
weekend, I saw someone at like a memorial day thing and they're like, Oh my god, they've
just learned that you're on the radio and I was explaining it and I was like, we are
an educational jam band.
Oh, yeah.
That's what we're doing.
I love that educational jam band.
I mean, the, the, the pitches and the slogans are just firing on all cylinders this
week.
Why I'm so excited.
I mean, I'm always excited for educators amplified teacher Halley teacher Joanna, teacher
Joanna.
Congratulations.
It's always a beautiful feeling when we go into summer.
It's the off season, but work really doesn't stop, but we breathe and we get to regulate
in different ways when we're in the off season.
So congratulations for making it another year, another academic year under, you know, under
your belt.
Well, one of the conversations that we've been having and Jess, you can chime in too because
Anja and Jess have really been kind of carrying the show.
It's been really great comments and folks who have called the texts I get about the show,
the people who listen to the podcast.
We love it out there.
If you want to give us a call 85575 T4842, you're welcome to join us today.
But we've been talking about teacher Halley teacher Joanna.
We've been talking about feelings.
Yeah, we'll figure and we've been talking about mostly in response to like, Hey, it's
so important.
And we've been saying, like, you know, facts and feelings.
And then we got on this whole thing Friday about, you know, the indignant message
we're constantly seeing on bumper stickers or flags and say, your feelings.
And Jess and Anja really took that and ran with it.
And they were like, I wish it was feel your feelings, find your feelings.
And they came back yesterday and they were like, we got one for you, Johnny, F with
your feelings, you know, like people say, I F with that.
Not when we were having a good laugh with that.
But seriously, we are talking about what, how often a bus of pencils we're like, we're
analyzing what is going on, but not always, you know, investing our energy and what ought
to be or what can be or what's different.
And I thought, oh, my God, it's perfect.
Teacher Halle, teacher Joanna coming on taught me so much about what they call four domains
of learning that meet the development, the needs of children is like kind of like facts
and feels broken into this really nice graphic they shared with me that taught me about
those things.
So I thought about how lucky our listener would be to have you both on a night and continue
that conversation that Jess and I and Anja have been having about, you know, that's what
your feels like facts and feelings like go figure can we really have a better learning
place.
If we learn how to, you know, have our feels, but also apply facts and the so teacher Halle
teacher Joanna, what are you thinking about with our whole pitch about F with we F with
feelings?
Well, there's a lot of different places to start, but I will say this is something that
Halle and I are just really solid in in terms of and this is why we appreciate the opportunity
even to be on your show once a week because even outside of the show, Halle and I often
talk about we're really solid in what the education processes and what learning is.
And when we're talking about the actual science or you know, I don't know, when we talk about
the learning process, emotion is involved, feelings are involved.
And so they can't be separated and our frustration though with the traditional system was that
it's treated as though they're separate, like there's learning over here and then there's
your feelings over here and get your feelings in line so you can learn and our experience
and journey together was integrating the two.
That's why we would use the phrase that we focused on the integration of well being
and learning because they can't be separated.
So there's kind of that part, right, Halle, where we're just like, you can't take, you
can't take it out, however, the system is structured to have it out though.
And they definitely are like, hey, Johnny, get your stuff together over there and then come
back and learn.
And we had, we developed a system in a program that really acknowledged and taught what
was happening in your body.
So there's that.
There's just one.
It's something we're really clear about, you know, and that's what we love to talk about
rather than power and politics and the things that many of us believe are what education's
about or have been led to believe.
We're clear.
I'm like, the actual process of learning and connection, you can't separate the two out.
So it's, it's integral to what we do in school and in our profession as, as educators.
Yeah, I would add to, you know, I think about this kind of like the language that we use
within schools, you know, I think people can hear feelings and be like, oh, here we go.
The liberals want to talk about their feelings or whatever, you know what I mean?
And I think something that, Joanne and I are really solid on and that when you talk to
Joanne about being like, right, understand this four domains, is that like, this isn't
just some like little thing, you know, like off over there that we want to talk about.
That's taboo.
We really are talking about like the science of stress is more of what we're talking about
of like, how does stress influence, how we learn, how to stress influence or how is
stress affected in particular environments and how can we look at that?
You know, even down to, I remember talking with students being like in our system, right?
Some feelings that people would talk about would be like, oh, they have anxiety and depression.
Now, I can't deal with that.
You know, or like people will get really nervous because those are big words.
And so how do we possibly handle it versus being like, guess what?
Everyone has experienced the feeling of being anxious and feeling depressed.
So how do we kind of normalize some of this?
So it doesn't have to be so, I keep saying the word taboo that we're just like, that's
the human experience.
We're all humans.
We're all here together seven hours a day, five days a week.
So let's acknowledge it.
It's actually, it was actually harder to separate the two than to integrate.
When I lived my life before I really knew about how the brain works and, you know, how
the stress impacts learning, you know, I, I thought they were separate.
And that is actually much more difficult than just integrating it because then you just
have a flow.
When you realize that aggression is really a fight response, a fight stress response.
You know, and when you realize that someone taking off and running or hiding is a flight
response, a flight stress response.
So that being disengaged is a free step stress response.
That's different than just being like, how he wants to fight.
And Johnny's lazy.
Yeah.
They're just like, staff, you know, like, just don't take it personal anymore.
So it's like, so it's interesting because you're like, let's feel our feelings and, and
yet as an educator, I wasn't all up in my feelings when I looked at it as the science
of stress.
Do you know what I mean?
Like I didn't, you know, like you could like, it's kind of give a degree of separation
to be able to be there as an adult who's regulated versus an adult who's dysregulated.
And so yeah, it's kind of interesting.
I don't know.
What do you think about when we say all this, Johnny?
We're like, we know what we're we are solid on this, but we're like, do you understand
what we're talking about?
Well, we've been talking about it.
I'm going to kick it to Jess.
Jess, you want to chime in a little bit?
How does what teacher Halle and teacher join our share and kind of resonate with this
talk we've been having?
I'd love to.
So on a couple of counts, you're absolutely right that our feelings are an integral part
of who we are.
And especially when we're talking about those feelings like stress and anxiety and depression,
those are affecting us more than just, you know, what we're conscious of that we're feeling
those big feelings.
Those are having really deep effects on our bodies.
So not to get too far into this, but my my my other interest is is neurology.
And we know that, you know, the science of this is telling us our feelings are us.
There is no separating our feelings from us.
And when we learn to actually dig into our feelings, dig into our stressors, dig into
what's making us uncomfortable, that gives us a lot of power to then change our situation
and make ourselves better.
Yeah, it couldn't be said better.
And we have the, you know, the right folks here having this conversation.
That's what it's all about.
So if you'd like to call in and join the conversation, 8557524842, hello, Sherry.
We got a message from Sherry saying hello this evening.
Great to have you out there.
Listening.
I'm just thinking like in response to what you were saying is yes, because I will share
like we've been talking about this, but then also this weekend, you know, I've been,
I get called to sometimes respond on legislation or reports that come out and, you know, and
I couldn't agree more.
I love hearing us in everyday language, say we can't separate, separate out reason and
emotion.
Those two things are woven together and as a culture, especially in schools, we've created
that separation, like you either have to be all rational and reasoning or in emotions.
And it's bad to be in emotions, so spend all of your energy and time.
And that's an impossibility.
It also sets us all up to fail, right?
Because if we do function really well, ignoring our emotional side, it's there.
We're just ignoring it.
We're dysregulated more often and we have no capacity.
We never learn to self-regulate or to co-regulate with others.
We just end up tantrum in all over the place, which is why we have so many mantrums on
our hand right now all over.
So, you know, I'm excited we're having this conversation.
We're going to come back to this because I got called on to respond to why I thought there
was an increase in weapon-related incidents in our schools across the country.
And I bet you're not shocked on my response, but I'm thinking a lot about what you all
are talking about here, about fight, flight, or freeze, and behavior as a form of communication.
Busted pencils, we're here with educators amplified, Jess is on the board with us tonight.
Give us a call or join us, keep the conversation going when we get back.
And we are back Busted pencils fully-led at education talk Wednesday, special day, educators
amplified in the house, got to hang out with both teacher Joanna and teacher Halley
in person a couple of weeks back, guess where at the Monaco Brewing Company, Busted pencils
is sponsored by the Monaco Brewing Company, who sued the state of Wisconsin to end its
parasitic voucher system that hurts public schools.
Monaco Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time.
Check out Monaco BrewingCompany.com to see where you can buy their progressive beer.
And you can buy more than just progressive beer, you can hang out with good people, get
a soda, you can have a glass of wine, you can just kick it and talk about good politics.
Or like Jess was contributing yesterday, what did you call that, which said conversation
for the sake of heaven, which was like we can disagree and still respect one another.
So it's a Jewish tendon called Machloka Pisham Shemaim, which literally means argument
for the sake of heaven, literally means in the name of heaven, but it's for the sake of
heaven.
And it's this idea that you can argue with someone very, very deeply and still respect
them and still have this healthy basis for how to disagree and how everyone can come
out of that better than they came in.
I think my Italian family somehow inherited some of that tradition in terms of man, we
all always beef and argue with each other.
We got each other's back, we love each other at the end of the day.
We kind of land on similar common grounds, it's sort of like little micro democracies.
I love that, but here we are now, we are chopping it up and I'll share in this story.
So I talked to a reporter last week, teacher Joanna and teacher Halley.
A great journalist doing good work on legislation and a report came out and my state of Washington
and a few of these popped up around the country and we're all too familiar with like AYP
and like reports that get kicked up the level from our schools.
But one of the things that came out is there was an increase in and incidents related to
you bringing a weapon to school and it was like, okay, well, it's kind of okay.
Here we go.
We already know it's far too easy to have access to a firearm in this country.
We got into the big kind of cultural discussion around that, but what I kind of came back to
was like, I'm not shocked by this number, by this increase, although it's sad, I don't think
we should just accept it or normalize it, but all behavior as a form of communication
was kind of conversation that the journalist and I had and she said, can you tell me more
about that? What do you mean?
And we really got into like the nuances of why might, like what are children in our community
feeling or experiencing to the point where they feel and we looked at the numbers,
the majority of children in this country feel unsafe at school.
And I wonder if they feel unsafe in general.
That's kind of a big blanket, but I'm just thinking about we can't speak for children,
but here we have teacher Joanna, teacher Halley, Jess and Anya and I have been chopping this
up and thinking, like all behaviors, a form of communication. We have these numbers,
okay. Number is always kind of illuminate certain things and hide other things, but they're
telling us that more incidents than the past few years related to bringing a firearm to school
or having a violent related incident associated with a weapon when I put little quotes up
wrong because we know it can be broken down. We've all been there. We're like, we'll keep you
using Johnny. We'll say little Johnny brought a knife to school and I think Anya shared a story
about how someone forgot they had it in their jacket or they wanted to bring it because
you know, it meant a lot to them and you know, we've all been there where there's like
expulsions or suspensions or zero tolerance policies, but just thinking back to this two
educators I look up to, we've all been there. What are your thoughts on this increased number
and this idea of behaviors, a form of communication? Like what are what are kids telling us?
Well, do you want to start? No, go for it. I have a quick thought and that is just
that you know, logic cannot shut down emotion, but emotion can shut down logic.
And so that's how our brain works, right? Hallie, that's our flip our lid. It's how literally
how the brain works and connect and disconnect those those pieces. So that was the first thing I
thought about was that like I said, logic cannot shut down emotion, but emotion can shut down logic.
And so when students are feeling unsafe, you know, right, they're not thinking logically or
rationally and definitely adolescents just the way their brains are developed at that point
aren't thinking long term either. It's very immediate. So there's that and then I also just think
about the the the chronic toxic stress that we are all in. So the kids carry their own.
And then and much of it is from the adults around them. Where was I just the other day? Oh,
my daughter's graduation party was this weekend and you know, like what just a person was talking
and they were like, you know, the whole like, thank God, my kids don't have to deal with this because
this world is well, well, well, well, but there's kids around hearing this and I'm like, they
they really do hear this message of like, things are really bad and I feel bad for you guys. Like
they hear that. Those are just off the cough thoughts, but I could probably get deeper into why
they're feeling this way in school. But I'm curious what Hallie would add either on her own and
or responding to what I say. Well, similar to what you were saying. My thoughts were floating
around as Johnny was talking about, I mean, you know, when you're working with students and some
things will just stick out to you know, how like your memory will just remember things. And I'll
never forget during the shutdown of the times of COVID when you know, a student and I may have
already shared this, but it was just, you know, she's like, I don't know why or like, you know,
she was a senior too. So she's like, what am I? Why graduate? What are we doing here? And like
listing off like seven really large traumas, you know, right? With like COVID and Black Lives Matter
movement was going on and global warming and climate change is what I mean, you know, so like
and on and on and on and on and it's just like that was in 2020. You know, so now we're in 2024
and in my scope of watching that world of education, I haven't seen really or heard of any
educational systems that have responded to those things. It is just a reaction. And so right,
students, then I viewed as like it just builds and builds and builds and kind of with what Joanna
was saying, whether, you know, this girl I was talking to was a senior or you know, but during COVID,
these students were in eighth grade. So right, they've had for whatever I don't care how old a
child is, they can feel that impact, you know, they can feel those vibes and those emotions, whether
they comprehend the negativity or whether they comprehend the toxicity or not, it's there. And so,
yeah, I just really think about how I am like, why aren't people talking about the neuroscience
when we have these conversations, you know, or I just so like, okay, great, there's another
data point, you know, about weapons or about dangerous things have, you know, children either
having access to or bringing or showing. And I'm like, and we're just like, why, you know, but why
aren't we like, why are we never like, let's pause and look at what is modern science that's at our
fingertips that could really help us right now. I love that teacher Halli. So let's pause.
So just stay out there, stay with us. We're going to be diving more into that. I love what
teacher Joanna and teacher Halli are sharing here. We're going to pause and we'll be back with you
after the break.
And I think Jess is doing a break in Benjamin for us and I thrown us a little change up in music.
Oh, this is Link the Park. A little out of my, again, remember, a little out of my, I talked about
a generational gap in my, my music. So, you know, thanks for the shift and the change. Love it.
We are back from the break, though. And if you'd like to give us a call 8557524842 here with educators
amplified mind blown. Of course, it makes sense, you know, like teacher Halli and teacher Joanna
have said, educators amplified have been about this. It's not just a little thing over there.
You know, they've been really working closely with the neuroscience, with the learning theory,
with the science of what's going on to help us better educate kids and kids to learn and
recognizing the whole development, the whole child and the diversity of ways in which children's
needs are met together in a learning community or a classroom. And again, how hard that is often
to do in schools, because schools just seem so resistant to actually, you know, cultivating or
supporting spaces where teachers can both learn about that and practice it. And boom, mind blown,
you know, we have those moments where it all just comes into focus. When teacher Joanna was
sharing that statement about logic and emotion. And you talked about, I think you said, like flip
your lid and you had like a language. Yeah, you had a language. Can we go back to that statement
because, oh, mind blown, that logic and emotion. Can you share that again? Yeah, I was going to say,
that was one of my favorite things to talk about with students. So I'll do my little spiel because
I love so much. Some of you can see me, but I'm going to do my, I know that I'm on the radio. So
let's see how good I can explain this. You know, something that Joanna and I always loved was
to write neuroscience is like big, hard, intricate, layered things. And so we really tried to be like,
how can we make it, you know, tangible, accessible to students and even adults that we were working
with. And so one thing that we would talk about is the concept of flipping your lid. And so if you
make a fist with your thumb inside your forefingers, that's essentially like your brain. And so if
you're looking at like the front part of your knuckle, like the finger part, like the pad in front,
not where a ring would go, but right below it, that would be like your prefrontal cortex part of
your brain, which is like right behind your forehead. So if I, you know, could peel back my forehead,
you'd see my prefrontal cortex. And then your little thumb that's tucked inside that's like
your amygdala. So the prefrontal cortex is where you have, um, that's where your logic is,
that's your reasoning. That's, that's like the part of your brain that's like, I think I'm going
to do this. And then thinks like, is this a good idea or is this a bad idea? You know, like that
consequential thinking. Fun fact, it doesn't fully develop as far as I know until you're 28. So
the fact that kids are doing impulsive things is like so like duh. So like right, bringing more
weapons to school, you're like, yeah, they're prefrontal cortex is in third album or fully there.
But then, and then that amygdala, so your thumb is like just that reptilian brain, that like fight
flight or freeze, just pure emotion. And so when you're in situations and so how we would talk
about is when we want students to feel regulated, it's like your brain is that fist where your
prefrontal cortex is connected to that amygdala and you're making decisions together with your
emotions from the amygdala and from your logic from your developing prefrontal cortex. And that's
how you strengthen it. Well, when overwhelming amounts of stress, which depends on the student
or depends on the person's experience, you literally flip your lid. So it's almost like if you
just flung your fingers, four fingers up and it's almost like you're showing the number four,
but you still see your amygdala, that's your logic leaving in your amygdala, your emotion taking
over. And so that's what we would talk about, like that's that fight flight or freeze, that that's
when those feelings feel, you know, I have a seven-year-old at home. So that's when I talk about that's
your big emotions and like that's when it's just overwhelming and it's a lot. And then we would talk
about how oftentimes you hear about mindfulness and breathing and how important that is and people
are like, la-di-da, like whatever. But scientifically, like literally biologically, the only way for
your amygdala and that prefrontal cortex to connect back together is through oxygen. And right? How do
we get oxygen? We get it through breathing. So that's why we do the deep breathing and teach those
things in schools when we can because literally that is just brain science. And so to me, when kids,
you know, when we would be sitting and we would be talking about these concepts, I mean, right,
it just clicks. Like kids are like, yeah, okay, you know, and it and it isn't like, you know, like
so now let's practice the four-part breath square breathing or whatever it's called, you know,
it's more they're like, okay, now I know this background information. And in those moments,
if I can find a way to breathe, how breathe? You know, like it wasn't just like because someone taught
me the four-part square breath or I'm totally butchering it, but you get it. Students had that power,
that onus, that like just that knowledge that really allows them to be like, okay, and that's my
brain. That's everyone's brain. So yeah, that there's many less than from teacher Halley about
well done teacher Halley unless you're out there and you want to join 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2. Wow,
again, the phrase, the the the knowledge, the wisdom that teacher join on teacher Halley are
sharing tonight and they're teaching on fire. I love it. Yes, you put in the well, we got Jim from
Appleton, text, zero tolerance rules are intolerable. First of offense, our first offense is when
teaching begins. Jim, I couldn't agree with you more in that conversation. So to loop back in the
conversation with the reporter we were talking about incidents and when we were looking at the numbers
of how many incidents were also dealt with. And we got into the discussion of like dealt with,
you know, meant responded in the form of expulsion or suspension or consequence. And again, I was saying
all forms of all behaviors, a form of communication. So I applaud schools that respond are but are
empathetic and firm. And zero tolerance rules, I think like I agree with you Jim from Appleton. Zero
tolerance, like if we're punishing kids for making mistakes without working on that teaching part or
where that like first offense is where the teaching begins where we learn why the why and the what
and we help get to that like teacher housing. They're supposed to be kids. I'm terrible with the
neuroscience. So I'm going to say the front part of my fist, right, that isn't well 28 years old,
right. So again, reality check for our schools. We need to have it. It's not anything goes. You
can't bring a weapon to school. No, why? And I applaud when we do we do consequences that are not
punitive, but they're disciplinary and disciplinary. I don't mean ruin a kid's life, punish them,
harm them, make them cruel, find out why and let's learn together. Teacher, join a hop in there.
Well, that's where we haven't caught up. And that's where that's where when I started, I said,
Hallie and I were really clear on this and we designed systems around this because right,
when kids don't know how to read, we teach them how to read. When kids don't know math, we teach
them how to do math. When kids don't quote unquote behave, we punish and exclude. So just hear
right there, but that's how the systems designed. And so there are a lot of people like myself and
Hallie and others who are working on that. How is it teaching side, you know, and how is it just
part of things and not again viewed as separate because it's it's not separate from yourself.
It's connected, but can you hear and how I explain that like school, like I said, we think these
are the things we teach and they're really subject concrete oriented. And then the things that we
assume are actually the very complex, integrated, you know, internal aspects of ourselves. And so
right, when it gets to safety in school, yes, there are like these hard external things,
but really my experience with students and I'm closing out my 28th year here is that safety
in school, when kids don't feel safe in school, it's their it's psychological safety.
And they're operating from their stress response, things that they would share with us,
or that would come up in, you know, some of the surveys and things where reasons that kids didn't
feel safe in school were things like just generally feeling that uncomfortable awkwardness you feel
as an adolescent, bullying and harassment, not feeling accepted, feeling misunderstood.
Do you hear like those were all even feelings, right? Where it was like, I don't feel liked,
I don't feel accepted, I don't feel comfortable. I experience, you know, maybe bullying harassment,
I experience racism, who knows. But that was largely, you know, where kids were coming from,
and how they would describe their feelings of not feeling that safe. And so on one hand, I'm like,
okay, sad. On the other, I'm like, oh, but this is doable. Like, hello, we're regulated,
educated adults. We can, it professionals in teaching, we can help with this.
I know, it just makes me feel like you saying that just makes me think about how so much of our
system is set up on like an adult brain. You know, or like, not literally the adult, but like,
a fully developed brain, maybe is what I'm trying to say. As opposed to really just recognizing,
like, literally brain developmentally, where children are at, because that even made me think about
how we would tell students how, from zero to three years old, how much you can literally see
physically, how much a human grows and changes. You know, from that zero to three, and people talk
about the quote unquote, terrible twos, but really it's just like, their, their brain, their body is
growing so rapidly that like, it's just like trying to catch up. But the, the same kind of rapid
growth happens in teens too. But yet, it's more, I mean, there is the puberty and you can see that,
but it's a little bit slower, but you're like, you don't see it as quickly from zero to three,
but so much is happening in their brains. And yet in schools, we're like, all right, so we'll like
jump jump into this, but it will just be on the academics, like, we're like, go with them with
the brain growth, but just in math and reading, not unlike, right, like acknowledging that like a huge
part of being an adolescent is feeling left out, is feeling misunderstood, is feeling awkward,
you know, but like, yeah, yes. But yet we're just like, well, we got to prepare you for when you're
an adult, you know, we got to treat you like you're one already. And that's how you're going to
own it, because we're going to punish you as though you were fully developed in all four. You talk
about the four domains of learning, like we're just going to, we're going to hold you accountable for
even though your child and the science is telling us you're not developed in these ways yet.
And we're supposed to teach you and help you develop. We're going to hold you accountable as though
you were plus 28 plus years old and fully supported in physical intellectual social and emotional
needs. You know, the other thing that comes up and it's come up a little bit like tangent to our
discussion, and we brought it up a few times. And I know that both you teach your Hallean teacher
Joanne, I'll refer to this. So I'm hoping it's going to probably take us up to the break. And then
when we come back, we could talk a little bit more about it, but there's this thing emotional
intelligence. Since we've been talking about fields and all this up, yeah, I can tell.
No, I think people have referred to it before. It's EQ or emotional. I would love for us to
just have a little mini lesson as we're effing with our fields and talking about fields and facts
and feelings. And you know, you gave us a powerful lesson on logic and emotion and, you know,
flip your, flip your lid. And I love that. Leave us tonight. We'll come back and we'll be talking
about EQ, emotional intelligence with two expert educators who talk about that all the time.
Teacher Halle, teacher Joanne, if you want to call in and join us 8557524842 busted pencils when we
come back.
You raised myself and let go of what I've done.
What I've done, forgive me what I've done.
Oh, yeah, we are back. And the time is flying by. Busted pencil is fully-led education talk with
educators amplified with us on Wednesday. Teacher Halle, teacher Joanna, dropping that wisdom
as we talk about feelings and everything. And I took us into the break talking about emotional
intelligence in EQ. And we've brought it up a couple of times in the last few shows. So I thought,
hey, we got our experts in house. Talk to us a little bit about this thing emotional intelligence.
Say what? Well, I was going to start, you know what, Halle, I was like, we can do this how we do
this. I'll tee up the big concept and you break some details, babe. What I was thinking when
Johnny was talking about like emotional intelligence, I just thought of the bigger idea that right,
we are socialized to believe that there are good emotions and bad emotions. That's a huge thing
that we're right, like don't cry, stop being mad. You know, so we are socialized to believe that
there are good emotions and bad emotions. However, when you get into understanding or learning
about emotional literacy and all this, you just understand that we have emotions and they just
are what they are. And that all emotions serve us. They serve us in some way. They serve a
purpose or they wouldn't be here. And that everyone's feelings are legitimate. So that's a different
premise, right? Then just there's good ways to feel and bad ways to feel. So we're in the land
of like there's just feelings. And when you can kind of understand what they are and how they're
serving you and how they work, it's pretty helpful. And when you can look at other people and acknowledge
that I'm not in their brain, but whatever they're feeling because they're a human, I can view as
legitimate. Then again, you're not getting, I don't know, offended, hurt, harmed. I don't know.
Anyway, that's my tea up, hally of the big picture. Then you often get into the details about
shape of emotions or the flower or things like that. Well, I just always felt it was important to
like, let's literally talk about like we all can feel them. But do we ever just meaning like
feel our emotions? But do we ever just like talk about them and understand them? And as I was doing
some research or even students would do research and emotions and you find out that like humans
can experience something around like 34,000 emotions. You're like, what? We can be like, that's
pretty overwhelming. And so we would really talk about, so I call it the emotional flower, which
doesn't give, you know, you know, the respect credit to whoever, right? It's like research this.
I know I sound very official right now, but it's this rapper plush Nick. If you just google
emotional flower and try to spell plush Nick, you'll see this like really beautiful rainbow flower
that, you know, just talks about like these layers of emotions and the more intense they are,
they're in the middle, the less intense they are, they're more outward of the pedals is what I
say. And so it would just be interesting to just talk about it with students. And I think you could
even do this with elementary age students, you know, like we would talk about like anger is a
really popular emotion. More intense anger is rage, right? So then we can all think of times of
that less intense anger is annoyance. You know, and you just start practicing like, oh yeah,
that does make sense. Like, after annoyance, I start getting mad, you know, and so when I start
feeling annoyed, can I check in with myself to not let it increase, you know, is how we would talk.
And then right humans are so cool because then two emotions together can make another one. So
my favorite thing to talk about with teenagers, you know, because they're in relationship,
whatever is, you know, trust and love or trust and joy together makes love. And I'd be like,
so to all of you who say, you can't trust Boo Boo, you are not in love with him. You know,
that's what we would talk, you know, just like, and you know, being able, we have those relationships,
but just right, being able to just play with that, I guess, you know, with kids you can play with
with with teenagers, you can play with the concept of like, let's really think about these emotions.
And you know, we all experience them. We all have some kind of touch point to them,
but how can we just talk about it in a way that doesn't make people feel like, oh, I feel sad.
Well, everybody feels sad, you know, and so yeah, look it up though. It's really good stuff. And I'm
like, I think all students, all people would really benefit from just having this basic understanding
of our 34,000 emotions, but that image shows around like 32 or something. And you're like, okay,
yeah, I've got lots of emotions. And so yeah, that's how we would talk about it. And then students
would really run with it. And they would learn more. They would teach other people. And yeah,
when they were confused, they'd ask to see the flower. They'd be like, let me see it. I want to be able to
pick. I want to be able to look.
Well, this is like, this is like real-time conversation. And it reminds of the movie Inside Out.
You've seen that movie? Inside Out? Yeah, it was coming this summer. I mean, to be honest, I'm,
I probably, I was probably way after that 28 year old fully developed.
All right. I was probably really slow on that too. But emotional intelligence EQ,
I was really late too. And that's a free pass that I get for my identity and a privilege that I have,
which is actually not really a helpful thing. But I think men in general get this pass where we're
like, we're taught not to deal with our emotions, not f with our feels. But it's so important. And
wow, like that movie Inside Out, I'm like, admitting way too late in the life that I began developing
my a better understanding of EQ, but my kids were like, oh, yeah, this makes sense. And then I was
like, yeah, it doesn't, but wait, maybe it doesn't. So like the logic and emotion stuff started to
balance out, hey, this has been an amazing conversation. I am so stoked to get to have educators
amplified on here every Wednesday listener. Check us out. You know what else you can do is you can
check out good conversation with other educators or people who aren't even educators, but care a
whole lot about education at the Monaco Brewing Company. Busted pencils is sponsored by the
Monaco Brewing Company who sued the state of Wisconsin to end its parasitic voucher system that
hurts public schools. Monaco Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again. One beer at a time.
Check out Monaco Brewing Company dot com to see where you can buy their progressive beer. Wow,
tonight, my alone, I can tell my EQ, my emotional intelligence has grown learnings from teacher Joanna
and teacher Halley here tonight. Listener, I hope you've had that same kind of experience.
Thank you teacher Joanna and teacher Halley. Thank you, Jess. What a show. Awesome week. Let's go.
The
teacher Joanna.