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welcome to the Be Strong show I am your host Michelle Shirley CEO and chief heart
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officer for Be Strong International I am so excited to be back in the studio with
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Community newspapers what an honor and a privilege it is to share all the amazing things happening in South Florida with
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nonprofits with businesses and so we want to encourage you to continue to stay tuned to the Be Strong show we are
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here we are doing amazing things and it's all about you giving you the education you need so that you can know
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how to navigate through South Florida's nonprofit landscape and so much more
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with that said I want to remind you too that we have our annual hearts and Rhythm event coming up at The Rusty
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Pelican March 14th we would love your support for us to achieve our fundraising goal we need you there we
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would love to have you there and The Rusty Pelican is an amazing amazing location for the Ambiance the amazing
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food and of course supporting everything about be strong as we move individuals and families from brokenness to wholeness
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so today I have an amazing guest super beautiful woman who is here with us in
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the studio and without hesitation her name is Miss LaKeisha Wells-Palmer
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she is the executive director Statewide for Teach for America so welcome to the
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show thank you so much Michelle for having me what an amazing introduction yes yes um from the moment I saw you I
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was like oh my God you are so beautiful you're so beautiful yeah I love it and we have to encourage one another you
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know yeah it's really important so with that said I want to get right into it because I know there may be people here
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that are watching that don't know what Teach for America is about but I want to get into really quickly what is
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happening with the teacher shortage oo um that is a
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um not only is it a loaded question it's also a national crisis so Across the Nation um organizations like Teach for
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America or universities districts are struggling with the teacher shortage and so I know it's something that is top of
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mind for most people and a lot of people are coming together trying to create Solutions around it for the State of
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Florida um we started off the school year with 4,000 teacher vacancies wow
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4,000 now it has sense dwindled um because like I said districts um
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legislators everybody is working diligently to make sure that students have a quality teacher in front of them
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on a daily basis but it's definitely something that we really need to drill down into to understand what the core
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root is um the other thing that I would say about uh the teaching field is that
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uh three out of four teachers that come to teaching are coming from an alternative certification pathway
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meaning they didn't go to the College of Education they have may have been a science a biology major or a history
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major they have the content knowledge and they want to give back to students but they might not have gone to
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education to do so and so with that it's an extra layer of additional support that you would have to provide for them
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so not only are we experiencing vacancies folks that are in our new
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generation Gen Zers are not looking at education as the first choice they
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have a different set of motivations they like immediate gratification they don't like to be in a box they don't like
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the 9 to five time but I'm a Gen Xer I'm not going to age myself but I knew
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that I wanted to be a teacher at a very young age and that is just not the mindset of this generation and so um I
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know a lot of folks are looking at what is motivating Gen Z how can we invest them in the future um because eventually
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the students that we are serving are going to be taken care of us so we have to have some level of responsibility but
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um we're focusing on closing the vacancy Gap by um looking at front of the funnel
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recruitment strategies how can we motivate the Next Generation how can we pull from other teaching uh other fields
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to put folks on an education pathway we're also focusing on retaining the teachers that are in the classroom
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because we started to see um folks that have been in the classroom for a long time not be invested in it anymore um
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and they are transitioning other role so we're trying to close it at both sides of the funnel um and again there has
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been a collaborative effort at all layers to be able to do that wow I mean you've said so much there I'm trying to
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think too that now with I think what you said was so important as far as like the
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new generation that's coming behind us that really doesn't see education as something being sexy right right it's
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also been known that the pay isn't great right right and um and then now we're
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seeing like a real um just a lot of issues all across
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these states with students and their behaviors and how they are you know
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outrightly defiant with teachers right and substitutes and so how are you all
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kind of making it more I guess sexy in a way yeah I would say that um to your
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point um one of the things that keeps me up at night is that our students are not well right now just coming out of covid
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academically um we've seen a decline specifically in fourth and e8th grade um
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reading and math we've seen probably the lowest numbers in the nape score um
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since 1970 nationally so they're academically not well social emotionally
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they are not um they did not receive a set of tools or they may have um been in
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situations throughout the co process that um did not allow for them to be able to integrate appropriately so they
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are experiencing those behaviors so being in the teaching field is getting harder so because not only do teachers
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have to focus on the academic aspects they have to look at how can we look at that student as a whole student and be
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able to support them um emotionally and socially and so that's one of the things that has made it hard and then when you
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have to do that extra layer of work with the pay that we have I would say that Florida is right in the middle of of of
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pay there's a lot of work that we can do I will say that there has been a lot of work done on increasing the teacher pay
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for entering teachers we have to do a little bit of balance in rewarding those teachers that have been in the field for
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a long time going back to the point of retention um but in this this year's legislature there is a lot um of uh
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policies going through the focus on um grappling with the teacher shortage but then also looking at um salary as a
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symptom of one of the things that are not pulling it in um Jers want to be um
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they are enticed by uh social justice so one of the things that we are focusing on when we recruit J zers is that
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education is a social justice issue and you will be creating change in the lives of students just in a different way and
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so that is one of the things that we are investing them in based on what they're motivated by um at Teach for America we
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support them in having like transition packages support packages um which makes
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them um it gives them a package that is more enticing as to uh another organization that might reach out to
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them so we're really looking at research that says this is what jenz likes focusing our recruitment strategies on
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um those um those mechanisms to get them into the door but then also being able
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to support and develop them in a way that they are going to be um satisfied with the education as a career pathway
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and want to stay in the education field that's so good that's so good with all of the influx of these changes to
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recruit I love what you said about the fact that there were and are teachers
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who have been in the system 15 years 20 years they went through that covid
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period which was a TR a really tough transition for them as well right what are they saying how are they feeling
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about this because I'm sure that they are so vested in their profession yes
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what's their take on what's Happening and do you see any opportunities for like mentorship absolutely yeah I would
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say that the our veteran teacher are saying one we want to be paid more like we've been we are and TR we've been here
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we've done that we have a record of results we want to be able to be rewarded for what we are trickling down
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to students they are also really really passionate about their growth trajectory so how can I get professional
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development if I have been a teacher for double digit years to potentially go on to be a coach or potentially go on to be
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a school leader they really want the districts to not only support them in their short-term development and getting
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students to where they need to be but also into their long-term development how can I have a a five six seven year
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Runway at this district and continue to grow my capabilities to be in the leadership role um and so I would say
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that is one of the things that they are really focused on they also look at um reaching back to the newer teachers or
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the novice teachers as a way of building their own leadership and so um we like at Teach for America we like to pair our
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novice teachers with veteran teachers that have been in the classroom um for years because
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they are the ones that are going to teach you the lay of the land they're going to teach you the mistakes that what not to make and so whenever we um
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partner with the school and bring our Teach for America teachers into the um School Community we make them a part of
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the community they have to be a fabric of that being adopting the vision principles mindsets of what that school
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environment is and looking at that broader school network as a school community that they are a part of in
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addition to the Teach for America Network wow and you have when I think about that I think that's such an
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amazing business model because it it it also helps the younger teacher that's
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coming in to recognize longterm this is what I should
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be doing if I'm thinking about Legacy right it gives them something to look at like I can see myself being in the
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classroom for 12 years now if I have had this relationship with Miss Richardson
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right yeah so and and and and and I think the key is pairing them with someone who has that
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right really selecting and making sure that that right that Mentor is you can still see that you know while things
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might be hard you know they are so deeply passionate they are so the same
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from when they started year one right um I think is contagious you all because of
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that model I feel like that's what's led into your Alumni network like you have a Hu like talk about that cuz that to me
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was like mindblowing okay yeah so um typically people look at teach for America for what I call the middle of
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our pipeline trajectory we actually have a beginning middle and end U we have our ignite fellows um those are the
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individuals we recruit and their freshmen in their sophomore year they focus on high impact tutoring we get
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those are the G years that we get really riled up um in being invested in education give them a soft touch on how
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they can impact kids and we're going to cultivate them to be the next generation of leaders our traditional model are the
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folks that we recruit in their senior year to come in and serve a 2-year experience most them in the State of
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Florida stay beyond that we have a 86% retention rate and so we really focus on it being a lifetime trajectory um once
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they finish the two-year program they move on to what I call the lifetime investment in education which is our
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alumni body um across the State of Florida we have about 2,000 Alum um specifically in South Florida we have
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about half of those Alum that are matriculating growing learning developing in their capabilities here um
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and so I look at the alumni as our key lover because they have been in the classroom in the education system for 6
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12 15 some OD years so teachers are wonderful we need them now to impact 100
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200 kids but can you think about a school principal that might be impacting thousands of kids or a school board
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member that's a Teach for America Alum and they're impacting a whole District or someone working at the doe impacting
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a whole Consortium and so those are the types of systems level leaders in education that we are focusing on
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developing our alumni into and I get really excited talking about the alumni story um because I just look at them as
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they are going to be those that are the the leaders that are making the critical decisions that are going to shape our
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educational landscape so true so true I was just going to mention that I don't know if you're watching but her your
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passion your faith your lighting up I mean this is so you this is So Divine
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for you to be in this seat right now at this critical time time and I'm so happy that you um knowing your backstory moved
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to Miami to take on right to take on this role so I want you to share about
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why your passion for education and what that looks like for you okay I when I think about why I wanted to be in
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education I look at like look back and I look forward like um I I grew up in a
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very real Town South Carolina my mother had me as a teenager and so um we were
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growing up at the same time and I just was innately good at school but you know
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I didn't have that accountability system and so there were teachers that saw
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something in me that I didn't see in myself I just remember in third grade my
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um third grade teacher Miss Hopper there were a set of students that were move being pulled out of the classroom and
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going to a special class so I remember sitting on her lap and yes back in the 80s you could do that you could do that
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not today not today and I was like well miss Hooper why are these kids going out she was like those are our gifted and
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talented students they go out they get an extra set of you know um learning at
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a higher level and I was like well I want to go and she was like okay well we'll get you tested and that was my
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first entry point in being able to have a more elevated um um experience so it
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was people like Miss Hooper that believed in me it was teachers like Miss Williams that pulled on me and so I think back to that and I wanted to be
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that for my students especially in mathematics so I um was my I swar in math I made
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straight A in math all through so I was like I'm going to go to college and major in it which was not probably the
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best because it was hard um because in college when you're studying math you understand the why behind it um and so I
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just remember my real analysis class doing one math problem that had three chalk boards that I had to fill three
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chalk boards but I want um my favorite thing about math is like when when kids
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face light up because um math is scary especially for students of color and you you never really find people that are
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excited about math so I wanted to take my joy my achievement for Math and give that to my kids especially kids my
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students especially my students that um were afraid of it and so I want
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everybody in this nation to have the opportunity to have a Miss Hopper Miss Wells Miss Miss Richardson but I also
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thank for and I think about my three boys I have three School AG boys that go to school here in Miami day and um there
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are STK statistics about black males um especially black males that cannot read at a third grade level and so I look at
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my boys and I was like you this this education system has to be set up to prepare you to be to have a bright
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future your peers and other students that might not have the same level of access or opportunity um to have a a
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education that's going to allow for them to make true choice about their future so that's a little bit about my why I
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know that I am here for education I never thought about being in any other
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field um this is my 23rd year in education so I wow look at the face I
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started these faces my I started at 10: but um I can't see anything else in my
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pathway for my future um except for being able to ensure that education is for first and for foremost for all folks
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yeah and I just I love that story I think it's not strange that if you were
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to ask people a lot of times who was influential in their life besides a
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family member the next thing that typically would come up is a teacher y y
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right and so I think we have to put emphasis on how important teachers really are and make sure that the entire
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landscape really provides for them because they are the foundation of
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everything really that we do we cannot do much without an Education Without
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learning without starting from you know the beginning and getting those Basics on how to learn um that is so incredible
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I'm just so excited um that you're here with us I want to um in a few minutes
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we're going to play social Yaks but I want to ask you where do you see this
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landscape being in the next 5 to 10 years because I feel like there are so
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many options now for school for the types of schools that are being set up um and there was a big thing when
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you know Charter Schools came out and you know you already have private schools and so what do you see happening
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um in the educational landscape as a whole I do feel like at this point everybody that's working on educational
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uh system barriers are focused on the right things literacy is at the top of everyone's mind because we know that
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there are specific key educational Milestones that will support kids and having a good trajectory
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if they Master those so they're focused on the right things making sure kids are grade level in reading and math making
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sure that they are in school and making sure that if there is an infraction there are other ways for kids to
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continue to matriculate and not be out of school so we're focused on the right things at the short term um and making
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sure we're wrapping around kids for other supports in the long term um we
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really have to pull ourselves up and think about how we're shifting education into 21st century um strategies if you
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think about when you were in school when I was in school it's pretty much the same way the system has been the same
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for the whole whole time um and so now we got to think about um how are we going to embed AI into education what
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are other innovations that are going to support teachers in getting students to outcome so I feel like in the near in
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the next 5 to 10 years we'll start to see differentiated ways where students can show how they are mastering content
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um above a test they're going to forward to standards based instruction and things of nature so I am I have hope
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about how we are going to change the educational trory longterm and short term because I feel like we're all kind
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of collectively focused on the right things and we're going to move the needle in the right direction um will it
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be perfect absolutely not but I think that we'll begin to look at um Innovations and be best practices that
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we can pull from to continue to elevate um opportunities for students and
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educators forward so good so good I would love to talk more about this but we're going we're coming down to the
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wire and um it's so interesting to me cuz actually when I thought about this morning even driving here my mom was a
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teacher she was a teacher in the islands so I was like no wonder I do this with the kids it's almost like the gifting
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that kind of pass through through generations and you don't realize that you're doing it and it didn't hit me until today like she was a teacher right
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and we're talking about this so um really cool to see how um you know even
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the GIF things that we've passed on to us we don't recognize how much teaching is a part of our everyday lives um I
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think when we're even in the schools we're teaching heart skills um and we still need you know the facilitators and
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the educational support from the system to come in and bring that fill those gaps yeah where kids are emotionally um
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just really struggling and they're they're needing help to navigate through certain traumas yeah you all are definitely teachers you're teachers of
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the heart like we just teach a different we're teachers of the head Amer you all are teachers of the heart
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so everybody um like you said is is responsible and needed to be able to grow our students yeah sounds good all
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right so we're going to switch quickly to the part where we play social Yaks
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you can look this up online we are selling it on Amazon and on our website
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it's an amazing tool if you want to get to know someone better if you want to
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encourage empathy and vulnerability we do it with corporate ations we do it
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with other nonprofits um we've had a really great time with this game and stay tuned for so much more to come with
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that so we will start the first part of the game is breaking the ice so I'm going to have you pick the first card
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okay read it aloud to the audience and then they're going to get to know a little bit more about you oh what's one
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thing that can instantly make your day better okay the one thing that I know
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instantly makes my day better is um um I have a six-year-old you know when boys
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get older they don't you know they don't want to hug and so my not my six-year-old he I
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am what you call I am the best cuddle buddy in the house and so what makes my day bright every morning is him coming
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into my room and like for five minutes we just sit and cuddle and I'm just like you are Mom hey I was like and I always
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say are is that Mommy's little cuddle buddy and he was like yes it's me and he walking so that's I have to start my
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that way and so that just um sets me up on a high note um and if there's a he
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misses the day sometimes if he's grouchy right but for the most part he that is how I wake up every morning W that is so
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cute well let me encourage you so I have a 12-year-old and we may not say cuddle
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buddy but as soon as I come home he is he's like I I want to hug oh yeah we
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stand there for a few minutes until he lets go okay and he's 12 so this could
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go this could go long and so be encouraged um and I love it because eventually you know when I think about
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him he's going to move out and be on his own and I won't be able to get those hugs right so my 17-year-old just gives
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me a side hug I like but you want my baby right right right right life
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changes all right so we are going to go to the next level cuz we're short getting short on time here get social
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that is our yak all right level all right ooo um this one is what
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was your favorite game or toy growing up oh um this is definitely going to age me
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but my favorite game that I would spent hours on the computer playing was Oregan Trail oh my goodness love Oregon Trail
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and I was I W determined determined to beat it I wanted if my folks went into
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famine we were going to buy food it really taught you like survivalist like because you in the
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you're in the buggy you be like oh the buggy uh the the wheel broke the let me use my little money it really I wish
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they had an organ tra my goodness I wonder if it still exists now you're going to make me go and look that up
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because that was such a cool game they probably still have it I remember like trying to go and then you got to go this
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far and then the tires break or somebody says they're hungry your axle yeah your
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axle yeah it's not the TIR yeah your axle oh my goodness yes but yeah it not
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only did it teach you about history it taught you how to be a surviv iist in on the
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land literally literally through your computer so cool all right so we're
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going to dig a little bit deeper I'm going to help you pass it to you there okay we're going deeper y'all ooh
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describe your family in a sentence all right um my family is joyful
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complicated while being loving yeah yeah we we know we love each other we might
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have our differences but we always come together in Joy like there's never anything that we can't navigate together
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um but again we all have our entry points yeah so good so good a that's so
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great all right so the purpose of this game is as you begin to share which of course in a natural in another setting
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we' have played this longer um you know you're opening yourself up to people who
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you may not know or maybe with family members or you're playing with friends the last part of the game which is used
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wisdom is where you're going to read the card and I'm going to share something about you and so it kind of seals you
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back up yeah so I'm going to pass definitely was not playing this right see no one does okay we're going to do a
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tutorial on playing social yes I'm just kidding okay
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okay what is one thing that you believe I should be grateful for and
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why um I would say I think you should be
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grateful for the fact that Miss Hopper right M saw something in you that
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was so special to today you are creating oh my
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goodness you are creating like millions of mish Hoppers oh if you really think
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about it um and I don't know when you might have recognized like I'm on to
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something here like but I see it from the moment that I met you and the way you talked about Teach for
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America um I think you should just be I think the gratefulness just comes from
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knowing that you were divinely just set up all along right it was the right time for
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you to ask that question it was the right time for Miss Hopper to be there it was the right time for you to go to
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that school and realized like oh my goodness I'm majoring in math which I have I mean I've barely meet people that
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say that they have a degree in math so I think you are just way cool way cool um
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but that that's what I think you should be grateful for that you are creating so many Mish Hoppers and you're changing so
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many kids' lives and you know one day I hope you get to see when you when you're older you get to see um the fruit of of
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your labor I'm hoping for fingers crossed fingers crossed really good stuff um oh my goodness I would love to spend
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more time but of course we have a timed show uh I want you to share about Teach
27:06
for America and anything that you think um someone needs to know as we close out
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I think something important that you said was getting those younger folks to really get involved and so even if you
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want to talk about that whatever you feel is on your heart um I think it's important because you might have parents
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whose kids are now entering into that field or they may want to switch uh careers yeah so feel free to share well
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we are always looking for amazing teachers um we are a national nonprofit we've been providing almost um 1,500
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excellent teachers to um Miami day for over 20 years so we're excited to be
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able to bring that back into the funnel um what my we need Community Support we
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are stronger together and the only way that our kids are going to get what they need is by way of all of us putting our
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minds together to be able to create viable solutions for them so I encourage you to do something that is going to
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directly benefit or impact a student in your life um because they're going to always remember that um if you want to
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get into the work of recruiting teachers tell them about the teacher shortage tell them that Teach for America uh tap
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other organizations Miami dat um County Start programs those are options that
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people can come into the teaching field we need great teachers um and there are wonderful support systems that are going
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to be able to um move them along um if you like to um support the cause in
28:35
anyway give your time talent and treasure we need to elevate The Narrative of the importance of bringing
28:40
high quality teacher candidates to South Florida we need people that have marketing skills business strategy so
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there are multiple ways that you can give um if you want to learn more about Teach for America please look at us at
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teachforamerica.org we always need uh supporters in the partnership in the
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realm in the revenue realm um and we just want to be able to support and impact as many students as we possibly
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can across um Miami days so I appreciate you allowing me to share a little bit
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more yes I love that I love that I love what you all are doing um I can remember
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my favorite teacher Miss Hernandez she was just she was a Hispanic woman she came in um we would when we had field
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days she was I was just like this woman is so beautiful and fun and smart and funk
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Feld days right and I want to be like her she was just so cool we would sing songs to memorize things um things like
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that so I remember her so anyway I would say um definitely reach out to miss
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Lisha Wells Palmer she is the executive director Statewide for the Florida
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region and you know definitely visit their website give give to them today and support their cause with that said I
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want to leave with you this um think about ways that you could be a Hopper it doesn't have to necessarily always be in
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a teacher field per se but you can coach someone you can mentor someone you can give someone a phone call and let them
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know how much you care for them how much you're willing to support them we all need that we all need Community we're
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here for you we love you have a great day and that ends our
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show see you soon