Unlocking Social Emotional Learning with Lana Penley [#150]

Social emotional learning can be so much more than just a curriculum. It can be a school culture, a way of life, and something that the grownups and the kids do together at school or at home. Tune in as I chat with social emotional learning expert and author, Lana Penley, whose school burned down, and hear her story about how social emotional learning helped them rise from the ashes of that shared trauma. Welcome to educate and rejuvenate the podcast, episode 150, unlocking social emotional learning with Lana Penley. Welcome to educate and rejuvenate, the podcast to help you revitalize your teaching, renew your spirit, and reignite your passion for life. I’m your host, Kelsey Sorensen, a former teacher, current homeschool mom, published author, and certified life coach. Whether you are a teacher in a traditional classroom, homeschool from your kitchen table, or anywhere in between, I am on a mission to help you not only survive as an educator, but thrive. Get ready to up level your skills with incredible insights from guest experts and discover the missing piece, rejuvenating yourself.Are you ready to both educate and rejuvenate? Let’s go. I have had so much fun these past couple weeks on lives with all of you, as we’ve been doing the book launch for Educate and Rejuvenate the book. And there were surprises. It went even longer than we expected because of the glitch, which honestly, just made it even more fun. We got to extend the fun even longer. And we also, the past few weeks on the podcast, I shared the full framework, the 3 step framework, basically the cliff notes version of my new book. So if you did not listen to that last 3 part series, where I went through the full three steps of the educate and rejuvenate coaching framework. Observe yourself, choose your direction, and align yourself. Make sure you go back and listen to those episodes. And also, if you didn’t know, what we’ve been doing all this time with those episodes, and what we’ve been chatting about at the Book Club Lives, and in the Educate and Redeemate book, is adult social emotional learning, right? And it’s so important because, well, for one, I don’t think most of us listening as children, when we were children, I don’t think we got a ton of social emotional learning. Like, it wasn’t the buzzword or the thing that it is today, right? But also, when we do the work ourselves, when we dive in and we get to know ourselves, we get to know our thoughts, our nervous system, our feelings, and get to know ourselves at a deeper level, and apply these coaching tools, we’re much more able to teach it to the children too. Because we can’t teach what we don’t fully live and understand wholeheartedly ourselves. Right? So it’s important that we do that work on ourselves. That is why I wrote the book, educate and rejuvenate, that dives even deeper into the coaching framework than I was able to do just in a podcast format. And I hope that you’ve grabbed your copy, or if not, it’s still available. Go and grab it. You’ll get the workbook. You’ll get the app bonuses. Still so much fun stuff. We’ll be diving deep into ourselves in the live book club over the next few months. So if you join if you grab your copy now, you’ll be able to join us at the live book club. If you’re listening now through the end of 2024, you’ll be able to hop into any of the calls, whatever ones work for you. You’ll also get replays if you can’t come. And if the book club is over, you’ll just get the replays for the past book club that you can watch. So it’ll be a great time. But as you do this work on yourself, you might want to start teaching it to the kids more too. And that’s why I brought on today’s guest, Lana Penley. She is a fellow Teacher Goals author who also published a book this month. And I was so thrilled to hear the strategies that she shared when we talked on this episode, because I hadn’t read her book yet at that point. And I really learned that we have so much in common in the work. It’s so aligned. And how she agrees that it starts with us, but then she has this full strategy to help you teach it to your kids, and create an entire school culture around social and emotional learning. So if you love my book, you’re going to want to definitely check out this episode to listen to it through the end. If you enjoy it, make sure to grab her book as well because they really do complement each other and go so well together. It’s not like you pick 1, it’s really they go together. Right? So let me introduce Lana before we dive into the interview. So Lana Penley is a renowned speaker, celebrated author, and esteemed former principal, stands at the forefront of social emotional learning. As the dynamic CEO and co founder of Unlocking SEL, Social Emotional Learning, she brings 25 years of experience sharing her groundbreaking mindfulness based approaches and solidifying her status as a prominent voice in social emotional learning. Her book, Unlocking SEL, the 5 Keys to Transform Schools Through Social and Emotional Learning, is a game changer in the field, offering a vital resource for educators and learners alike. Lana’s prowess extends beyond writing. She is a dynamic speaker, captivating audiences at numerous events. Her unique blend of engaging storytelling, wit and genuine emotional connection, and her knack for delivering practical insights make her sessions unforgettable. Lana embodies the essence of mindfulness, advocating for its principles, and living them, thereby providing profound insights into nurturing, thriving educational environments. Lana Penley’s dedication to social emotional learning transcends a mere academic theory, manifesting as a deep, heartfelt commitment. Her contributions go beyond participation in educational conversations. She is a visionary reshaping the educational landscape. Lana Penley emerges as the quintessential mentor and leader for those on a quest of motivation and guidance in the world of social emotional learning. Wow! She’s amazing, right? So you definitely want to tune into this interview, listen all the way through to the end, and let’s get started. Alright, Lana, we are so excited to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for your time and being here with us. You’re welcome. I’m excited to be with you today and talk all things SEL. Yes. It’s such an important topic. But for those who might be listening who maybe aren’t familiar, like, what wait. What is SEL? Like, what is it and why is it important? Well, SEL stands for social and emotional learning. You probably have heard of a lot lately. It’s been it’s sort of a buzzword in education has been for many years. Some people even say sell. But, yes, stands for social and emotional learning about helping students develop the skills they need to both be successful in school and in life. And it’s not just for students, so I bet we’ll talk about that some today. Oh, I’m sure we will. And I feel like a lot of what I do is kind of, like, a lot of adult SEL, actually. But, yeah, the reason the reason why I asked is because we do have some homeschool parents listening, and we also have some brand new teachers. So I always like to start with wait list. Make sure everybody knows what it is we’re talking about. Absolutely. So what are some common misconceptions about social emotional learning, and how do you address them? Well, that’s a really that’s a really great question. Some I would just think, really, when you think about misconceptions about SEL, I think there’s a couple of things that come up, and I answer quite frequently. Mhmm. For example, is SEL let’s just start. We’re talking about the adults. Is SEL just for students? And that is a really misguided thing people don’t quite understand. And the reason I can say that is because that’s what I used to think too, that, yeah, let’s just deliver this message to the students that everything will get better. And what we learned in in our story, in our example was it wasn’t until we really started supporting the adults, including themselves in our own work, that we will be able to make some shifts school wide. So that’s definitely one of the ones. And then the second big thing I think about is some people think SEL is the specific framework that is delivered to the student, like the curriculum. Mhmm. So that is the SEL program. I call that the anchor curriculum, whether that’s zones of regulation or mind up or any of the other really good curriculums out there. But what we quickly find out is that is one important component of building SEL school wide. It isn’t a it is important, but it’s only one of the really important things. So those are kind of the first two that come to mind. Yeah. I think that’s such a great point. And, honestly, we’re probably preaching to the choir a little bit because a lot of people who listen to the podcast, like, oh, yeah. I know this stuff is important. That’s why they’re here. But it’s so important that we not only we do it ourselves and we teach it to the kids. Like, it’s both. Right? It’s like stuff. We need one and the other. So when we’re doing all this work on ourselves that a lot of you who are listening to the podcast are doing, we then wanna teach it to our students. We wanna pass it to that next generation. And even if those students are your own children or both, like, a lot of us are teachers and moms. So oh, I just love everything you have to say about that. And we didn’t have it in school. Right? Most of us didn’t have any of this. So it’s new to us too. I mean, maybe little things here and there just because the teacher was, you know, a great teacher, but it wasn’t as, you know, much of a buzzword, like you were saying, as it is now. And I’m so glad that it is. I think it’s one of those things where it’s like, this is a good trend. I’m glad. I’m glad we’re doing this. Right? And I, and it should be here to stay. So how does social emotional learning, I feel like a big thing people think sometimes is, like, oh, another thing I need to add into my school day and they’re not gonna test this. It’s not gonna reflect on if I, like, get to keep my job or, you know, whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The progress, the data, everything. But how does social emotional learning actually impact the academic performance in schools? So speaking of that, when when we’re thinking about SEL, let let’s kinda unpack that just for a moment if we could. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So it’s about managing emotions, making good decisions, understanding ourselves better, getting along with others better. And so all of that helps us really be able to both focus more on our studies and be able to participate in class and just frankly be a better classmate. And so all of that together creates the conditions where then academic performance can now I was not necessarily a believer in that. I I I came to this a little late. I was your typical principal of race test scores the old fashioned way. Right? Uh-huh. Let’s drill it as much as we could. And it took a little bit of a crisis, which we can talk about in a little bit to kind of help me have an awakening with this. But I was worried that what would happen to our academics when we began to dedicate a part of our day to social and emotional learning. But surprise, surprise, they went up too. Right? When we focus, when we work on ourselves, when we’re doing a parallel path with the adults, we’re creating conditions where things can thrive. Just like little seeds planted in the ground that can then bloom better, It’s that same thing. And I’ve seen it again and again with schools all over the country that are implementing social emotional learning. So it is feel good. It it is help us just have a better experience, but it doesn’t stop there. It also creates the this goal of increased academic performance also. Yeah. So when you think about when you feel better, you do better. Right? So it just really makes sense. Like Yes. When you kinda take a step back from that hustle culture, that go go go of we need to do the next thing. No. We don’t have time for that soft stuff. But, really, that’s the important stuff. And that’s what they’re going to like, when they’re going to get a job, it’s not as much about, like, oh, what do you know? A lot of that can be trained, but it’s, like, how you interact with people and how Mhmm. You can work together as a team. And so much of that is and, again, regulate your emotions so you can handle stressful situations well on the job. And so it’s just so important. And I love how you talk about that parallel path with both the teachers, the students doing it together. Yeah. That was interesting. Another thing that that we didn’t start out doing, we started out kind of dosing, if you will, a student SEL curriculum to students. Yeah. And it was quickly, obviously, to me, this is not the path forward. We there’s a lot more missing pieces. And so I it just really hit me. And here’s just a quick story. We were teaching the lesson of gratitude. Okay? Mhmm. So I go into the classrooms and I’m watching this lesson on gratitude. And it was so flat. It was like, name a time you’ve been grateful in your life. It was just so real and so flat. And I just I remember going back to the office, like, what is wrong? Why are we teaching it like that? And we were teaching this school wide, this the same lesson. And I had an an inkling and I you know, you get those little, like, things wonderings. So at our next staff meeting, I talked about gratitude in my life that I had experienced it. And then a moment I had extended it. And then at the tables, we invited the staff to talk about a time in their life they had experienced gratitude and what it felt like in their bodies to have that. And then I said, now I want us to go back and teach that exact same lesson next week in our SEL block. It was so different. Oh, I love that so much. Yes. I mean, we can’t expect teachers to teach something that they haven’t thought about in 30 years themselves. We have to till the soil there. And so that is this reminder to me and to all of us that this is something we all need to be working with. And that’s what I talk about that parallel path. I love that. And I love how you did it with your staff. They did it with their kids. And you didn’t just make, oh, let’s all write it down, but you shared with each other kinda creating that community bond and feeling it in your bodies, like, embodying that. Like, that is so, so powerful. Oh, I love this so much. Down in a staff meeting and allowing adults to talk with each other about non kids stuff. Imagine. It’s a crazy idea. I know. So crazy. I know. I bet your staff were just like, wait. What is going on right now? Like What am I doing? At the beginning, the first person is probably, like, tiptoeing in. Like, is this okay? Like, what are we doing? Happening? But I love it so much. And now once you make that normal, then it becomes part of the school culture. And how powerful is that? Absolutely. So whether it was kindness, gratitude, perspective, regulation, brain science, all of that stuff just became, as you said, part of the culture, part of the air we were breathing, which shifted everything. And it wasn’t just me. It was the it was the teachers leaning into this and this wonderful way about wanting to be a part of something special. So I wanted to treat them as special, and I wanted them to treat theirs their students as special and the students to treat me and the teachers, like, everybody just kinda elevating and leveling up a little bit. And that’s what SEL helped us to do. I don’t think we’d have been able to get there without that. Yeah. I love that. And it’s about everybody lifting each other and supporting each other. And because it’s not just about you and your feelings. It’s about all of us and all of our feelings and coming together. I I I just love that you did that, and it’s all making me so excited to read your book, get my hands on it. So all of you heard me in the introduction share about the awesome book that Lana wrote. It’s called Unlocking SEL. And I just can’t wait to read it, but she’s going to give us a little a little snippet of it here or just kind of the concept behind it, I would say, here on the podcast. The 5 keys you told me you have 5 keys to transforming schools through SEL that are outlined in your book. So, obviously, they’ll get so much more when they read the book. But tell us a little a little bit about it here so they can start today and they can also be like, oh, yeah. I wanna learn even more in that book. Well, the funny thing is, as we were doing this, Kelsey, we were looking for a book and we couldn’t find anything that put it all together. There would be bits and pieces about different parts. And I said we had to meatball it together. So we had to pull this and this and this and kind of package it. And so I don’t remember where I heard this somewhere, but if you wanna read a book and you can’t find that book, it’s not been written, then write that book. And I was like, oh, I wish I would have said that. It didn’t come from me, but it it stuck with me. And I heard that in my mind, like, write that book. Write that book. And, you know, at the time, I had imposter syndrome as we all do. I can’t write a book. Nobody wants to read a book for me. And then it was like, nope. Why not me? And this can help other schools. Because we also made some mistakes, and I talk about those in the book too. But I wanted it to be this comprehensive guide. That’s why I call it a blueprint, the SEL blueprint. I love that. As soon as they saw it, it was like, oh, that’s such a good title, subtitle cover. Like, love it. Yes. And by someone who’s done it, who’s been on the ground in the work of k twelve schools. But and then a clear and actionable guide for how to build a positive school culture. And I organized it around these 5 key principles, and that wasn’t easy either. How do you chunk this into work that is manageable? Because as we know, it’s complex. There’s a lot of moving parts and pieces for this. But I wanted it to be grounded in research, but then practical and easy to implement. So that’s kind of the needle I wanted to thread there. So came up with these 5 keys, and it started with building a strong foundation. So what is SCL? Why do we do it? Why is it important? What’s the vision for it? So laying that strong foundation just like you do when you build a house. What is the foundational work? Then this is what’s gonna blow people’s mind. The next key is co centering adult SEL. What? Yes. I love this. I love it so much. We have to do that. We have to do a better job in the educational landscape of supporting our educators. If we don’t do that, student SEO will absolutely fall flat. And I’ve seen it over and over and over. And so co centering, we are skilled enough that we can hold them both. You know, I I talk to people, and I know we’re used to saying center the kids. That is important. But I say we can do both and we’ve gotta do both. We’ve gotta do both. Then that third key is when we bring the strategies into the classroom. So what does specific SCL look like? And I give some not just theory, but specific things that they can do in the classroom, like intentional breathing, like building a peace corner, like a soft start, some really specific strategies. Then I go into, okay, now we’re building our teachers and our classrooms. Now how do we scale this school wide? We don’t want one off great classrooms. And too many schools around the country, I see that they have a few really excellent classrooms. But the school as a whole is not excelling, and that can be that can be hard to deal with, especially if you’re that outstanding teacher. Mhmm. You’re like, wow. If I only had a school like this, could you imagine? And then finally, how do we design a cycle of success? So how do we keep the mojo going? How do we not switch initiatives every year or 2? We build this bridge, and we stay on that bridge until we are just creating this amazing school. So those are the 5 steps, and each chapter has teacher tips and principal points. It’s not a book just for teachers, and it’s not a book just for principals. It’s for everyone and parents too and communities too. So as you can see, I’m very excited just talking about it. Excited just hearing about it. So I love it so much, and I actually honestly feel like anybody who’s reading my book would also wanna read your book. I feel like they really go super well together. Mine really dives deep into the grown ups doing the work on themselves, and then yours really bridges back up. And, like, how do we now teach it in the classroom as well? So I I can’t And I can just tell from our conversations. We have so much in common about what we believe school should be like. Right? So I can’t wait to read yours too. I wanna hear, because we were talking about how your book sounds so wonderful. Like, as an author, I love to hear what inspired you to write this book in the 1st place. And I know you just mentioned that there was, like, a fire or something kinda crazy that inspired this whole situation. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah. Sure. So I had my first principal job in 2008 in Portland, Oregon. And I remember walking into my first job, finished principal school. I was ready to go all about knew about good instruction and really believe the principal’s role was to raise test scores. And I was at an underperforming school, and that’s what I was hired to do, turn around the school, if you will. And then in my 2nd year, we had a crisis of a school fire. So literally, our school burned down during the school day. And those of us in education, and you know how that goes with, like, the alarm goes off and all the kids line up and everybody just marches right out. And that’s not at all what it was like in that situation, we walked out in the hall and literally there was smoke everywhere. And I knew, oh my gosh, what’s going on? We are really having a school fire. And so as you can imagine, everybody escaped, but we were so significantly impacted by trauma. And this was a neighborhood that was already impacted by poverty. So it was just so much to put on our school, and we were removed from our school from our neighborhood for 3 years while they rebuilt the school. And I remember thinking after we had the big relief, like, everybody survived. Everybody’s okay. Like, I don’t feel good about how I was showing up as a principal. I didn’t feel good about taking things away and just focusing on academics and putting a laser like focus on raising test scores. Is that’s what was kind of drilled in my head. And I just knew that’s not the person I wanted to be or the school I wanted to lead. And I just just said, I wanna do it differently. And if I can’t be myself and be a principal, maybe this isn’t the job for me. I literally remember thinking that. And I should, put a plug in here. I got deep into therapy following the crisis Mhmm. Of what had happened because I had my own stuff to deal with around that. And then I began to, like, float this idea with our staff, and it was a lot of like minded people there. Like, yeah. Yeah. This is a reset time. Let’s do this differently. Yeah. Let’s focus on the heart. And at that time, people were just beginning to talk about SEL. In fact, you could Google it and hardly anything would even come up. That’s so crazy. It really is. Our community was in pieces. And so how do we bring the community back together? And it forced us to focus on that. And that’s what we did. Social and emotional learning, we went all in about healing, about creating a a kind community. And fast forward, I was there for 12 years, which is forever in any kind of principal tenure, much less at a title one school. Mhmm. But I just totally fell in love with that community and was able to have an entire staff that had this like minded passion and this dual path of all of us really creating something really special. And that’s what we did. We reduced referrals by 75%, suspensions by 50% and became the highest performing title one school math and reading in all of Portland. And now this was over time. It took us some time, but it was just really amazing what can happen through social emotional learning and through the use of mindfulness. That’s that’s how we did it. Mindfulness is so important. And social emotional learning, all of it. And that story is just so powerful. Like, the fact that you went through this community trauma, really, like everybody going through this. And it’s kind of like, you know, to connect it to the bigger picture of who might be listening to the, like, collective trauma of COVID and that we all experience with that too. When that happens, it’s like we can keep doing things the same way or, like you said, let’s do it differently. Is that there was a way you said it, like, a few times. Like, I wanna do something different or do it a different way. Yeah. And that’s this concept called resiliency balance, which I had never heard of that. Now I bet there’s people out there listening who have been through something that was really significant in their life. Like, you kinda divide your life before between what happened before then and then what happened afterwards. And that was that moment for me. And I upon some of my my reading came across this idea of resiliency bounce, and that is sometimes when we undergo something really significantly impactful, it can bounce us forward to places we would never been able to go for before. And it bounces us. And we begin to think of it like that. We can be a better school even having gone through what we did than we ever would have been before. We had Yeah. A new way of thinking and guess exactly what you said. I don’t want schools to have to go through that before they have this little awakening up. Yeah. Because COVID was enough for schools. Like, that was their own little mini fire and stress. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And it’s crazy how, like, these terrible things are sometimes what lead us to doing that healing, doing that inner work, you know, implementing social emotional learning as your whole school community, and how it can be that breaking point that actually you end up being so grateful that it happened. And I’ve talked about this a lot with experiences I’ve had with my postpartum anxiety I had that was really bad. And it’s kind of like, I’m glad that it happened because otherwise, I wouldn’t have learned all these tools. I wouldn’t have worked with a therapist and a life coach and cert like, I mean, it even took my business in a whole different direction because then shortly after COVID happened, and then it was like, oh, wow. They everybody’s all stressed out. How can we come together? And it’s just so powerful when we can do that and when we can come together. And even here today, how you and I are just sharing on the podcast, how powerful this social emotional learning can be and doing it yourself and with your whole school community and with the kids. Absolutely. And what a difference that that can make, and it is so critical. And I hope more and more schools will start leaning into this. In fact, I when I go to these schools, I can’t even believe schools aren’t using social emotional learning. Right. And it’s still not happening. And adult SEL is still not happening in many of our schools. So this is this is the time for all of us to really lean into that. Yeah. I do feel like a lot of schools, they’re just like, oh, here’s our SEL curriculum. Teach it to the kids. And, yeah, it’s not that, like, full picture that you mentioned with the adults, with the kids together. That makes it so much more so much more powerful, both in the teaching, because you can teach something better when you’ve done it yourself. And Just like anything. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I always tell it, it’s sort of like we’re asking teachers to teach a language. Let’s say we want you to teach Spanish, and we don’t we’d know whether you even can speak Spanish or not, but we want you to do that. And that SEL is a little bit like that if we’re not providing teachers with resources and how to and doing our own work around this and expecting them to teach regulation to students. It’s too big of a jump. Yeah. Too much of an ask. Now I’m sure our listeners are like, okay. I wanna make sure I implement it. And maybe they’re doing, like, that curriculum way, but they’re like, no. I wanna do this, like, super powerful the way that we’ve been talking about today. How do you recommend that schools start their social emotional learning journey this coming school year? Well, hopefully, your school is on board. So there’s kind of, like, 2 different ways. You know? For sure. For sure. It it’s always a little tricky. In your head. Yeah. Well, this is not gonna surprise people, but some schools I go in to work with them, and the teachers are like, yes. We get this, and the admin is sitting in the back with their arms folded. Oh, yeah. And being an admin myself, that is not okay. So I’ll go over there. I’m like, we’re gonna need you. You’re gonna have to be part of this. I’m gonna need you to lean forward because that is really critical that an admin is onboard supporting. And just like our teachers, our admins are worn out and they’re having to do so many things. But so school wide is is is the hope we have, is that people are on board with this and there are implementing that. However, I say don’t wait. Yeah. If that’s not happening, move forward with your classroom and create this little special place that people are noticing is shifted and changed, and they wanna be a part of it. Mhmm. So just implementing mindful breathing, which is what we did school wide every day, can make a huge difference in the classroom. And people like, what’s going on in that room? Students are more regulated. They’re really focused. There’s a different feel in there and get those shifts and get other people on board with you until hopefully you can buy a whole school buy in with that. And I love that you mentioned that getting that whole school buy in is obviously the ideal. But if you’re a teacher in a classroom, you might you don’t have control over whether there’s a full school buy in. So I love that it’s like, don’t let that circumstance stop you. Make your classroom that special place no matter what, and and it can just make such a difference. Or even if you’re a parent at home, like, recently, I love when I see that what I’ve been teaching my kids, like, they use it in a moment. Like, with my 4 year old the other day, he was, like, really just having a rough time not wanting to get in his jammies. Yeah. And just so I go down and, like, my husband was kind of getting on him a little bit. I’m like, let let me go down. You know? And so I go downstairs and I just I’m just like, hey. Come here. Let me give you a hug. And we just kinda co regulate and breathe together. And then he’s like, mommy, I wanna do a meditation. And I was like, oh, wow. Thank you. Oh my gosh. That was the day of such a great moment. It felt so good because we’ve done it together, like, a few times. But Yes. And, honestly, it was when I was doing one, and he’d come up and be like, mommy, what are you doing? I’m like, I’ve been doing a meditation. Wanna come do it with me? Yeah. You know? Yep. Yeah. It’s funny. We we taught our kids about the amygdala hijack, which I’m sure you you you know about. You know, when we flipped our lid and we did the whole hand sign, and I remember a parent, like, oh my gosh. Thanks a lot for teaching that to my kid because now they tell me when I’ve had an amygdala hijack. I’m like, that’s awesome. Yes. Right? You can’t help, but and we definitely involved our families with this. Yeah. We would align our families with whatever it was we were teaching and our and our SEL lessons, and we would also bring that into our PTA and make sure we were all speaking that same language. That’s another critical component to layer on there. For sure. So once they get started with their social emotional learning, what are some practical tips for keeping those initiatives going long term? Because it can be easy at the beginning when you have the momentum, you’re excited, they’ve just listened to this podcast, or they’ve just read your book. And they’re like, yeah. I’m doing this. But what about when things get harder? When it’s like, oh, testing is coming up? The principal is like, oh, what about those test scores? Whatever. How can we keep it going long term? Well, I think that, you know, that’s a well, I talk about that a lot in that 5th key, the cycle of success. How do we keep it going? But there’s really these 2 components. There’s the everyday thing that we’re working on. So every day we’re working on the mindful breathing Mhmm. Every single day. So it’s sort of like push ups for your brain. That’s what I call it. So we have to do that every single day. And so what we find is that makes everything get a little bit easier because the students are building their regulation muscles. So rather than falling apart as the year goes on, you see the opposite. You’re like, wait, I’ve got kindergartners that can’t even sit still that now can meditate for 2 minutes, and I’ve seen it over and over and over, and that changes everything. So there’s that, just knowing over time that building on each other. Yeah. And then continuing to care for ourselves. We can’t hit that enough. I mean, we could have done a whole show on that and the importance of the adult caring for themselves to help us kind of be there fully present and bringing our own health and wellness view to everything that we do to help us go the distance of the year and be there with this, like, grateful and joyful spirit, not like exhausted and worn out. So I would say those 2 components daily with our classroom and then also on our own, doing what we can to care for ourselves and our colleagues. 100% to all of that. I love it so much. And, also, like, kind of what you were talking about with just, like, the little bit things every day, that’s what helps you keep the momentum. And it doesn’t have to take a long time. It’s kind of like with my kids. I don’t know why. They have a hard time brushing their teeth. They just every day, it’s a complaint as if it’s not, like, something we do every single day twice a day. It’s a surprise. I have to brush my teeth to brush my teeth. I’m like yes. Yeah. But my daughter, she’s I was like, we had a talk to them. Like, she’s like, well, what if we just do it for a longer time less often? I’m like, we can’t do that. Like, it’s the shorter bits of time. Like Yes. Yes. You know, over time that is more powerful than, like, oh, I’m gonna brush my teeth 2 hours once a month. Like, that’d be terrible. Right? That’s right. Just the little steps. The little It’s not every day that cares for the teeth. Right? We don’t just ignore them and do it, like, once a week. Yeah. It’s a great analogy of the importance of every day right there. I know. It’s funny how with my kids, just all these random things come up all the time, you know. And I’m like, oh, this ties into social, emotional learning too. This is social and emotional learning right there. Okay. So what message do you hope that readers take away when they read your book, unlocking social emotional learning? So the big the big takeaway, let me let me think about that for a second. I’d like to tell you the big takeaway and then share an analogy if I could. That that maybe will help Let’s do that. Yep. Kind of frame this whole thing. Perfect. I get the takeaway is school change is possible. I mean, it’s hard. Right? Or else we’d have schools all over the country that are just transforming night and day, all the time. Right. However, SCL, through the lens of mindfulness, can work. I’ve seen it work, and I’ve seen it work in other places. And we can change schools to more positive, healthier, and happier places for students and staff. It’s possible. We can reimagine what is possible in schools. That’s my and I am an optimist, and I believe it can happen. So that’s the first thing I wanna say. I wanna leave people with a hopeful sense. And then secondly, if I could let that kinda sit in a context of an analogy that I’ve heard somewhere and then really implement it or think about it when I think it’s social and emotional learning. Because it can be hard sometimes to get our our head around what it is really. Yeah. And that have you ever heard of the Lake River waterfall analogy? Have you ever heard of that? I haven’t. So I can’t wait to hear it. So you think of 3 bodies of water in regards to med education. So most of the schools that I see now, not all, but most are, like, in a river. They’re churned up. There’s, like, the white water. There’s a lot of churning happening. And it seems our collective system wants to ignore that churn and just keep teaching. Teach, teach, teach. Do this. And you’re like, I’m in the middle of a churn right now. It is very dysregulated. I see that in most places. So it is hard to get to learning regardless of what instructional strategies we’re using or curriculum we’re using because we’re in a churn. Mhmm. And what we’re trying to do is keep kids from going over the waterfall. Oh, over the waterfall. And our teachers are exhausted. Our principals are exhausted because they’re living in the churn. All of the energy is going towards that. It’s after the fact energy. And what I’m saying is we need to move to a wellness model and move upstream where we are creating a calm and beautiful and welcoming and inviting lake because that is where really good community and learning takes place. So not a little lake and all the energy is over here, but a big lake where we have much less kids even get into a churn, much less go over a waterfall. So that was the analogy. I’ve heard it used in something else, and I’m like, oh, that’s a good analogy for SME. Great analogy. Well, thank you. And that’s why our teachers are exhausted. They’re churning. Doing the churn. That churn and that’s such a good way to think about it. I often use the word hustle, but I love that churn because it’s, like, thinking about nature even and how we’re so out of touch with because we’re still in this, like, sterile day to day environment. And I don’t it’s just so powerful to think about it in, like, that kind of more nature like analogy. So I I love that. Build a larger lake. That’s what we’re doing. Yeah. Wellness model, not a sickness model. Yeah. Yes. I know. And I so often is, like, you know, we ignore it until we’re sick. Yeah. And then instead of the people who are listening now, maybe you don’t have to have a school crisis before you start implementing this social emotional learning. You can start doing it now and prevent it from happening in the first place. Absolutely. Prevent it. And over time, the lake gets bigger and the churn reduces, and you feel a little lighter with the healthier and happier place. Yes. I mean, even just felt lighter really listening to me explain that analogy. I’m like, oh, I love that. Like, they just even visualizing that lake and Mhmm. Yeah. I love it. Okay. So hopefully by now, everybody who’s listening, if you’re still here, that means you definitely want to grab a copy of Lana’s book Yes, please. Unlocking social emotional learning. Can you tell us a little bit more about where our listeners can grab your book and any extra bonuses or things they get when they do as well? Alright. Well, first of all, thank you for listening to us. And, Kelsey, I’ve loved talking with you. It’s so natural and easy to to chat with you and your like minded passion that you have for kiddos. But head over to my website, unlocking scl.com, and you’ll see we have a free SEL cheat sheet. So that would be a bonus you could go get right now today. It’s a really a 4 page cheat sheet all about some tips that you can implement SEL into your classroom right now. So that would be the first thing. Get some tips and strategies right away. And if you’re ready to dive deeper, I do have an SEL jump start mini course that I’ve just created. So I’ve had some teachers that do not wanna wait on their school. And so go in and take that right away. And, again, that’s on the website, SEL jump start. You just go to unlocking s e l forward slash jump start. And for a little mini course. And I’m on Facebook and Instagram too at unlocking s e l. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time, Lana, and being here on the show today. I had so much fun chatting with you, and I agree. We’re we could just keep talking, like, all day for sure. We should just, like we should do that sometime. Alright. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It takes everything you learn here on the podcast and that I teach our members inside the educate and rejuvenate club into a guidebook you can refer to again and again. One of our early readers said it was like clarity for her brain. Plus, it’s not only a book. With your purchase, you’ll get a full PDF guide with exercises and links to videos and more so that you can not only consume, but apply everything that you learn. If you’re ready to make educate and rejuvenate, not just a podcast you passively listen to, but a lifestyle that you put into action, it’s time to grab your copy on Amazon today, or head to educate and rejuvenate.com/book to read the first chapter and the introduction today. | 00:00:00.160 – 00:40:19.032