Social Emotional Learning Topic: Generosity

GENEROSITY: 5 Key Lesson Takeaways

• Generosity is the act of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.

• The culture in a classroom and at home helps to define a child’s spirit of generosity.

• Generosity comes in many forms, from charitable donations to volunteering to helping a stranger during times of need.

• Shifting from an individualistic and competitive environment will help to foster generosity.

• Parenting plays a role in cultivating generosity.  The behavior that we show during the holidays can also be extended to the rest of the year. Let children experience first-hand what it feels like to give their time to a cause.

Children’s Book Recommendations:

This book dives into the importance of sharing with the most needy when the Berenstain Bears realize they have too much stuff and decide to donate these items. The Berenstain Bears do not just donate their material goods, but they also donate their time. 

In this book, Lola finds the perfect present for her friend Lotta, but now she really wants to keep it. Lola will discover the joy of giving. The theme in this book, one can argue, is that giving is better than receiving. 

The main character, August Pullman, an ordinary boy with an uncommon face teaches the significance of acceptance and spreading kindness to everyone, regardless of what they look like, their background, or their differences. 

---

This book narrates the story of George, or the giant in town. As he wanders around and finds a shop selling giant-sized clothing, he decides it is time for a new look. On his way home, George will meet several animals who are in need of his help and his clothes. 

Based on a true story, One Hen tells the story of Kojo, a boy from Ghana who converts a small loan into a successful farm. When Kojo’s father dies, his mother receives a small loan and she shares some of it with her son, enabling Kojo to buy one hen. A year later, Kojo raised twenty-five hens. Soon his farm becomes the largest and most prosperous farm in the region. Kojo is also able to return to his school.

Spencer has too many toys. His parents trip over them and fall over them. Spencer realizes that it is time to donate some of his toys, even though it is hard for him to let go of a few.

When Frankie sees a homeless man roaming through the town, he decides to give him a sweater to keep him warm. When his family learns about Frankie’s act of generosity, they decide to give him a special gift.

---

Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Generosity with Michael Hurley

Jenny Woo [00:00:52] And I'm sitting next to Michael Hurley to talk about generosity. Michael has a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a focus on cognitive neuroscience. Prior, he taught seventh grade in California. He did science and math in the Los Angeles Unified School District. And as well as at a charter school where he wore multiple hats. At the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he studied how to practically implement cognitive and neuroscientific findings within the classroom setting. And I have to say, Michael is an avid and really, really fast runner, and I've seen him in action. In fact, this year, in two thousand and eighteen, he completed the Boston Marathon for the very fourth time. And I'm sure there will be many times to come. Welcome, Michael. Thank you, Jenny. It’s a pleasure to be here. Tell us, what does generosity mean to you? 

Michael Hurley [00:02:00] To me, it's giving what you have to other people, identifying what other people need, and knowing that you can give it to them. And just being kind of a support person to people when they're in need, kind of when you can identify that. Just kind of giving what you have to others. I think it's as simple as that. 

Jenny Woo [00:02:23] So how do you support your students and have that empathy and know what to look for in terms of what people need? 

Michael Hurley [00:02:33] Yeah, I think it boils down to what is your classroom culture? Is your classroom culture like that? 

Michael Hurley [00:02:42] In my classroom, it was always working as a team and not just like teams within the classroom, but the classroom is the team. And so, if one of us falls, everyone's got to pick them back up. So it's not like, oh, so-and-so didn't do very well on a test during a performance task during some activity. It's ok, well, our team didn't do well, so how can we fix this? And that comes with students working with each other in the classroom. And that's something I think you identify in the classroom, is that everyone has different strengths. And I think we all know that everyone has different strengths. Everyone has some weaknesses and then some students are just further along in some areas than others and vice versa. So it's having students identify like, wow, I'm really good at this, okay, but how can I help others? And so, they're generous with their time, with their knowledge. And so, really building that into your classroom culture, I think promotes generosity in the classroom. 

Jenny Woo [00:03:59] Yeah, I really love the culture piece that you're bringing up and really shifting the mindset that it's not an individualistic, competitive environment, but it's really how we do together as a team. Obviously, testing, bell curve, and grades kind of run the opposite of that type of culture. How do you juggle that tension? 

Michael Hurley [00:04:26] Yeah, so for testing in general, the tests are coming up and when I worked at a charter school, you know, that’s pretty much how you get to stay open is how well you're doing on your tests. And it's just, whether I agree with it or not, it's a fact of life in a charter school. You have to prove that you're doing right by students. And how do you prove that? It's through the test scores, unfortunately. So, you know, in the classroom, we’d work as a team. How are we going to tackle this test? You know, having students work on problems and bringing up how different people have different ways of finding a solution and kind of working together like, wow, okay, that's a great idea, how about you go work with so-and-so and show them that? Because I think they would really respond to that. So just really still using the team aspect. And yeah, of course, we have tested and, you know, some students are gonna do better than others. But really, it's taking it as you know, I think working on a charter really strengthens that team aspect because your charter is at risk of closing down. So, everyone has to work together. You're all on the same team. So I think just kind of that spirit if like, okay, guys, we're all in this together and we've really got to do well. So, how can we do that? And so everyone's out helping each other. You know, we're just trying to do the best, but we all have to do it. It can't just be a couple of us. So, you know, in that respect, testing kind of strengthened us in away. 

Jenny Woo [00:06:09] So interesting. Yeah, yeah. I'm hearing a greater mission, a vision that everyone buys in and shares. Can you give us an example of what happened in your classroom in terms of working around a mission? 

Michael Hurley [00:06:24] Yeah, sure. So one of the years I was at my charter school in California, we had a student get really sick. I mean, it started out with just kind of, you know, having to go to the nurse every day. And no one really knew it was wrong, but it turned out he had a pretty serious illness and he had to leave school and he had to go through, you know, various medical treatments. And so, yeah, he was out of the classroom for two, three months. And we honestly didn't know if he was going to come back. And we did not know what the severity was. It was just this very serious thing. 

Michael Hurley [00:07:05] And it was, you know a student in our class and the treatments, we know, were expensive and we know that's always a hardship. So the students in my class, kind of going around “we're all in this together,” they wanted to do something for him. So we kind of sat down as a class and we're kind of shooting around ideas like, oh, what can we do? Kids always have ideas for fundraisers like, oh, look, what can we do as a fundraiser. So we're thinking like, oh, a bake sale. Or, you know, maybe we could do some sort of activity that people paid to come to do. 

Michael Hurley [00:07:42] So shooting all these ideas around we kind of thought like, well, why don't we do a little bit of all of them? So we came up with the Tournament of Champions, and our school mascot was called the champion. 

Michael Hurley [00:07:56] So, it was like a trophy, an anthropomorphic trophy. We were called the champions, so it was perfect. It was called the Tournament of Champions. And so it was for five days. Actually, it was for four days. The fifth day was a student and teacher softball game. So it's kind of like the culmination. But so for four days, we invited students to come and participate in different activities and they would come in teams of three. And each team of three would pay three dollars to get into the tournament. And we got donations for gift cards and things like that. We thought like, oh, we'll get a bunch of kids out here, they'll all compete. We had a three-point shooting contest. You know, how many three points can you make in a minute with your team of three? We had a Home Run Derby, we had a Super Smash Bros tournament. And we thought we'd just get, you know, maybe 30 teams or something, out of the whole school. We were a pretty big school, we were twelve hundred students. So, we thought maybe we would get like 30 teams. We got, I would say, close to a hundred teams coming out for the entire week and they were all donating their three dollars. But the great thing was that we'd have students come up and they would just hand us 20 dollars and say, I want to donate this to the fundraiser. We had whole classrooms just raising money within their own classroom and delivering it to my class. So I’d get a knock on my door and they would say hi, you know, little second grade classrooms, first-grade classrooms. And they've got the envelope that's almost as big as them. We want to donate this to your classroom. I think that spirit of generosity just really ran through the entire school. 

Michael Hurley [00:09:47] You know, and I think in part, it's because you're a charter school and, you know like I said, you're all in it together. 

Michael Hurley [00:09:53] It was great at the end of the week, we had collected, I'd say, over five hundred dollars just from students, not even from teachers or anything. And we were able to, at the student softball game, our student was actually able to come out just for like 10 or 20 minutes. He couldn't be out for very long. But the doctor said, okay, you can go for 10 or 20 minutes. And so he goes out there and his mother is out there, and we're able to present him with all the money we had fundraised. And, you know, and it was a great thing for the students and it was all run by them. They had given up their lunch, they gave up their recess, you know, just to plan to actually run the events. And it was great to see that students would take that initiative and be so generous with their time for their fellow classmates. And students across the school are just being generous with money they had. And it was just kids giving. I know when I was a kid, like having a dollar was the greatest thing. You could buy so much with that dollar. And kids reaching into their own pockets to donate to this, you know, you were getting change from students. 

Michael Hurley [00:11:11] And, you know, it was just amazing to see the school rally around one of our fellow students and just being so generous. 

Jenny Woo [00:11:22] Yeah. I'm so impressed by the extensiveness of this movement you created. Students, teachers coming all together because of the spirit of generosity. I want to shift this more to the home environment. And, you know, I can't help but ask, I'm curious, how did you learn about generosity yourself? 

Michael Hurley [00:11:45] Yeah. So may surprisingly or may not be surprising, both of my parents are teachers. And so, I honestly think that where I learned generosity is from them. Watching my dad go out and dedicate himself to his school. He ran, not surprisingly, he ran a track team at our elementary school. But, you know, every Saturday we're out there, six-thirty in the morning. We’d run and then he would build things for the school. We are a track team, but we don’t have a real track, it is an elementary school. He builds a long jump pit. We went out there and did that. One of our fellow students, while I was in elementary school, passed away. Our school didn't have a marquee or anything, so he came up with the idea for a marquee and he built this beautiful garden plot around it in brick. He got a plaque ordered and all of us kids were out there digging the foundation for this marquee. We laid the brick. We mixed the cement. We put in the plaque. He had all of us out there doing that. And so, I think that's definitely where I got it from. That’s how I grew up, watching someone dedicate themselves to other people, and being so generous with their time and their money. But like having a great time while doing it, like none of us kids were out there, like oh, this is such hard work, we're giving up so much. It was fun, actually and we found that in the work. And so I would say, yeah, that's definitely a part of where I learned that from. 

Jenny Woo [00:13:35] Yeah, what a beautiful story. So now knowing what you know, having taught, still teaching, and also the amazing role models you’ve had in your life, what are some parting words that you can leave us, parents, with in terms of actionable things we can do on a daily basis to embed the spirit of generosity? 

Michael Hurley [00:13:59] I think the theme through all of this is really setting an example.  

Michael Hurley [00:14:04] You know, actually going out there and showing your children or students what it means to be generous and just kind of like building that. And like I said in the beginning, I think it's all about culture, and it's the culture of your classroom, the culture of your home, wherever you are. It's really about building generosity into that. So, you know, going out and dedicating your time, it doesn't even have to be something large. It could be as little as having your students help a neighbor, helping a grandparent. But, you know, this is really about setting that example. So it's kind of built-in and it's what you grow up knowing and doing. And I think it'll just come naturally after that. 

Jenny Woo [00:14:57] Yeah, I really like this natural thing. I think a lot of the times we tend to associate generosity with Thanksgiving, we need to cook the meals or Christmas, let's have a toy drive, right. It's those big one time a year types of things. Or go visit a nursing home, you know, but it really comes on a daily basis and it has to be authentic. That's what I got from your message. It's not something that you check off the list like we've been generous today, right. But it's really a mindset of who we are. 

Michael Hurley [00:15:35] Definitely. It doesn't have to be something big. And I think the thing, too, is if it's like some grand gesture every Christmas or something, it's absolutely wonderful, but if that's the only time that it happens, it just becomes like this once in a while kind of thing. So I think that really building with the little things at home, finding ways to be generous every day, and really set that example. That's what’s going to take you a lot further. 

Jenny Woo [00:16:06] Great! And with that thank you so much for being here, Michael.

Michael Hurley [00:16:10] Thank you. Again, it's been a pleasure. And I appreciate you inviting me. 

Jenny Woo [00:16:13] And thank you for tuning in to 52 essential conversations. 

Social Emotional Learning Topic: Compassion

COMPASSION: 5 Key Lesson Takeaways

• Compassion is making the effort to suffer alongside others.

• Practicing compassion can promote self-growth while helping others and our communities.

• Don’t forget to be compassionate with yourself.

• Compassion isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s hard to seek out that discomfort.

Children’s Book Recommendations:

“A little girl who is saddened by the news she sees on TV. She asks her parents what she can do to make the world a better place. Inspired and perhaps impressed by his daughter’s question, the father takes her on a walk through the city, greeting everyone he sees with a kind smile and a tip of his hat. The little girl is inspired by her parents’ gentle regard for the world and invites the boy next door to come outside and walk the dog with her. Simply put, the kind things we do matter no matter how big or small.”

“This book is an absolute winner for fostering discussions around compassion and understanding. When a boy comes across an ant on the sidewalk and lifts his shoe to squish it, the ant quickly speaks up to make the case for why his life should be spared. The ant pleads for the boy to imagine how he’d feel if they switched positions. Their humorous dialogue shows a great contrast in how each sees the world. The book ends by asking, “What do you think that kid should do?” and inviting kids to share how they would respond.”

“This is not a book with a happy ending that comes packaged up in a nice, neat bow. It’s heartbreaking, but so powerful and poignant for upper elementary, middle grade, and perhaps some adult readers, too. It teaches important lessons about kindness and thoughtfulness, and is great for fostering open-ended discussions with older children about things like acceptance, bullying, consequences, making a good first impression, taking responsibility for your actions, feelings, and compassion”

“One of today’s most inspiring world leaders was once an ordinary child named Lhamo Thondup. In a small village in Tibet, his mother was his first great teacher of compassion. In everyday moments from his childhood, young readers begin to see that important lessons are all around us, and that they, too, can grow to truly understand them. In an increasingly confusing world, The Seed of Compassion offers guidance and encouragement on how we all might bring more kindness to it.”

“In a city full of hurried people, only young Will notices the bird lying hurt on the ground. With the help of his sympathetic mother, he gently wraps the injured bird and takes it home. Wistful and uplifting in true Bob Graham fashion, here is a tale of possibility — and of the souls who never doubt its power.”

---

Recommended Videos:

---

Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Compassion with Andy Riemer

Jenny Woo: Welcome to 52 Essential Conversations to Inspire Children for Life. I'm Jenny Woo and today, we have Andy Riemer with us to talk about compassion. Andy holds a Master's Degree in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has done research in Asian-American masculinity development and worked for many different places. For example, the Classroom Champions, which brings social-emotional learning skills into the classroom through Olympic mentorship. Before starting work in the fields of child-development and mental wellness, guess what? He has also been a professional soccer player for the LA Galaxy. He is now the founder and CEO of SHLD, which stands for Self Healing and Loving Dialog, which leverages social media to make mental health resources more accessible to young people, especially those with marginalized identities. Welcome, Andy. 

Andy Riemer: Thanks so much, Jenny. 

Jenny Woo: Tell us, what does compassion mean to you? 

Andy Riemer: I really love the word compassion. 

Andy Riemer: I think of the roots of the word and how the roots of the word mean to suffer with. I think that really encapsulates how it is, even maybe a step beyond empathy. The empathy of being able to take a person's perspective and be in that person's shoes. Then compassion goes that step further and says, “How do we take action with that person?”, “How can we understand that suffering or pain or hardship and then take a step further and suffer and go alongside them?” 

Jenny Woo: I love what it stands for. So tell us, based on your research or experience, how do you inspire people to willingly go on this journey of suffering with others? 

Andy Riemer: Absolutely. That's the million-dollar question because it requires a certain amount of discomfort that is not something that people often seek out. It seems almost illogical and contradictory. But through learning in the discomfort, we grow as a person and we grow as a society and as a community and in our friendships and relationships. 

Andy Riemer: It's helping and supporting people that are wanting to take that step into the suffering, into that discomfort, and being that foundation for them and then allowing them the time and reflection to see how that discomfort ended up being a very positive thing. 

Jenny Woo: Tell me more about the reflection piece, whether it's you're in the midst of suffering with or as you mentioned at the end, reflecting back, what questions should they be asking or how do you get them to recognize that this is a good thing? 

Andy Riemer: Absolutely. Of the articles that I have read, it's interesting that when people practice compassion and mindfulness, they're using a very similar part of the brain. It's very interesting to notice that a big part of suffering, is also taking compassion to yourself and practicing self-care. 

Andy Riemer: But to come back around, when we encourage ourselves to lean into that discomfort, we have to be aware of what we are bringing into this conversation. However much we try, it's going to be impossible to truly feel what another person is feeling and being aware of our own story and our own bias that we bring into this suffering with an action that we want to take. I think it's important to remember to listen to the other person and to not make assumptions and be aware of our own biases that we bring in so that we can be the most helpful for the other person. 

Jenny Woo: Yeah, it reminds me of this mentality that we're in it together. That's actually something we talked about in terms of generosity which is really, we're a team. We're in this together. Let's solve the problems not just for the benefit of one, but for us as a team and we'll grow from that. How do you, in terms of compassion, sort of engage people and recognize that discomfort? And this team, working together, suffering together is sort of the new norm because, you know, a lot of the social norms and cultural norms are very individualistic, right? So how do you change that mindset? 

Andy Riemer: It's a really interesting question when we talk about generosity. 

Andy Riemer: In the betterment of the whole community, that is a potential that we're heading towards in regards to social media and just being constantly around a community, a much larger community than we could even ever imagine. We're no longer kind of secluded into the people that we meet face-to-face on a day-to-day basis. But instead, we're seeing how actions have this ripple-effect at a global, community-level also, just in our neighborhood and at an immediate community level. That's a real potential. The research is showing that there are both positives and negatives in regards to social media for sure. But, young kids often find social media to be a wholly positive thing. A large aspect of it is this sense of belongingness and community. Something else that it reminds me of is the word altruism, where it's the act of doing good. I think that compassion is the combination of altruism and generosity with empathy. Being able to both want to do good for the betterment of the whole, yourself, and the person across from you but also being able to take that person's point of view and being able to listen to them as well. 

Jenny Woo: Yeah. That actually ties in nicely to SHLD, what your mission is. Share with us what young people can do to take advantage of the resources that you provide. 

Andy Riemer: Absolutely. We're still building this out. 

Andy Riemer: But from the conversations that I've had with several experts around the country, as well as locally here at Harvard, especially with Dr. Emily Weinstein, I've learned how social media is. Even the media often portrays us as this negative thing. It's more of a seesaw. There’s Doctor Emily's most recent metaphor of that, “There are several things that can wave positively or negatively on a young person in regards to how they use social media.” The way that SHLD envisions being a part of the conversation that kids are having on these networks is by having kids wanting to have these conversations around mental health. Well, we see that with the extreme popularity of 13 Reasons Why or the popularity of celebrities that come out and speak about mental health, such as Logic's Grammy-nominated hit last year, or Dwayne The Rock Johnson coming out and speaking out about their own mental health struggles and successes. With more of these stories that are coming out, an aspect of the conversation that we want to add to is, OK, we're talking about mental health, but what are some concrete skills and conversations that you can have around mental health that will be a positive movement for you as an individual and your peers?

Jenny Woo: Very cool. What can parents do to align with that mission and to help their children build those types of positive skills? 

Andy Riemer: Absolutely. Being both an active listener as well as engaging with the media that their kids watch helps. There is a real positive to watching the same television shows, regardless of the quality of how you feel about it. Being able to watch the movies that they watch and even maybe follow the same people that they follow on social media so that you have this basis for conversations. This is the empathy part, being able to be in the student or the child's shoes, and trying to understand. The kids that are growing up now are social media natives. They're using social media in ways that even I, as a digital native, don't understand and don't necessarily align with. But if we're able to listen with them and have dialogs and discussions around this, that's a really good starting point of, OK. We hear this, which may be positive, maybe problematic, but this is a good place to start having these conversations from 

Jenny Woo: Yeah great. 

Jenny Woo: From a place of inquiry, I want to leave you with a parting question. I can't help but ask. How did you learn about compassion? What was your journey like? 

Andy Riemer: Absolutely. I learned compassion from my mom. I think most strongly she is constantly thinking about others. It's very clear in the actions that she takes in her professional life, as well as in her personal life, that she tries very hard to think about how others feel and then takes action from there. Also, I learned it from a time that was particularly developmentally impactful for me which was when I was 16. I saw on Facebook one morning, that a friend of mine had died from suicide. I took the time to look through her posts, my posts, and our friends to see if there's anything that anyone could have done to prevent this from happening. That led me down this path of mental health and social-emotional development of trying to understand how we can be the most supportive and encouraging to our fellow person, but also to our young people and to those with whom that may not feel like they belong. How can we encourage this compassion? And so, it's been a journey. From the beginning, I've had a great role model, Lansing, my mom. From that foundation, I've been trying to grow in learning on how to be more compassionate, to be more aware of my own biases, and then being able to be reflective in my practice of OK, when I'm trying to do a particular action in a compassionate manner. How is this landing on the other person? Is this really making an impact or, you know, trying to listen on how the other person is reacting with that? 

Jenny Woo: Thank you so much for being here, Andy. 

Andy Riemer: Thank you so much. And I really appreciate it. 

Jenny Woo: And thank you for tuning in to 52 Essential Conversations.

Social Emotional Learning Topic: Standing Up

STANDING UP: 5 Key Lesson Takeaways

1. Standing up means to defend something that is being attacked because you believe in it.

2. Standing up for what you believe in is an essential life skill. Parents can help their children reflect on the things that they agree and disagree with and why.

3. All students have a voice, and this gives them a sense of agency.

4. When standing up, we must also acknowledge differences.

5. Parents can foster a safe space for children to feel comfortable vocalizing their opinions.

Children’s Book Recommendations:

This book tells the story of Ruby Bridges, an African American girl who is sent to an all-white school in Louisiana. For many months, she bravely walks into her classroom despite passing through a crowd of angry parents.This book captures Ruby’s courage and perseverance.

This book tells the story of Sally McCabe, a girl who decides it is time to stand up for what she believes in after witnessing several bullying incidents at her school. At first, few listen to Sally, but her bravery encourages other students to speak out against these injustices.

“Danny is a real-life superhero in training, learning about his most important superpower of all: ‘the power to choose.’ In this boo, you decide how Danny’s school day will end by making choices for him.”

In this book, Lotty Raccoon is bullied by Grant Grizzly when no adult is around. Despite following the advice given to her by her parents, Grant Grizzly, does not stop bothering her. As a result, Lotty Raccoon decides to form the Bully Blockers Club, which intends to encourage other children who are also being bullied by Grant Grizzly to speak up.

The story of one girl who inspires a community to stand up to bullying. Inspired by real events, this book explores the feelings of helplessness and anger that arise in the wake of seeing a classmate treated badly, and shows how a single act of kindness can lead to an entire community joining in to help.

---

Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Standing Up with Tony DelaRosa

Jenny Woo [00:00:51] I'm sitting next to Tony DelaRosa. Hello, hello. And today we will be talking about the topic of standing up. Tony is California by chance and Cambridge by choice. He is a proud Filipino-American educator, writer, entrepreneur, spoken word poet, and budding sriracha chef. He is a co-founder of Indy Pulse, a citywide youth spoken word organization in Indianapolis, and founder and executive director of Boston Pulse Poetry, which is located in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. His work has been featured well, in so many places. But just to name a few, most recently, in the Harvard Ed. magazine, the Asian American Policy Review, CNN, and NPR. Welcome, Tony. Hello. I'm glad to be here. So tell us, what did standing up mean to you?

 Tony DelaRosa [00:01:57] Standing up means one, to speak your truth in moments where you can be challenged by it when you feel like the truth is being compromised. Those are moments where I feel like standing up is very important and vital. When I work with youth, I always tell them that one of my core values, every time I teach, every year I teach, is speaking your truth, and standing up because we need more people to do that. It’s difficult, extremely difficult, especially in a time and an era such as this era, in this reductionist era.   

Jenny Woo [00:02:31] How do you encourage children to speak the truth and even a step back to recognize what is the truth?

 Tony DelaRosa [00:02:43] Yeah, so as an educator for the last six years, informally, and formally, I try to expose different perspectives on one fact and one event. That way they didn't comprise their own truths because there are many different truths depending on the angle and that's the difficult part because when I work with youth that kids will say, well, my parents said blank and blank and blank. So that's true. And then my pastor or my or the priest said, blank, blank, and blank. So they're combining all these truths and I'm telling them a different truth. And then the principal saw it and then their friends were telling them different truths. So they're balancing, juggling all of these truths in their daily lives any given day. And how can they decide which truth they decide? They decide based on how things play out in their lives, how things affect them. So that's one thing I noticed, that truth is very complex.

Jenny Woo [00:03:44] How do you help them to reconcile the complexities of truth, especially when it's sort of juxtaposing or contradictory to each other?

Tony DelaRosa [00:03:56] So with truth, what I try to do is I try to provide my own angle on it as well. Teachers, educators are told not to be biased or give their own opinion in the classroom. That is a train of thought. That's a notion in education. But I am against that. I think that there's a false truth of not being political in the classroom, right. I’m in the train of thought that politics is everywhere, between the things you eat, especially as a Filipino-American. Like when I grew up, I understood politics right away when I brought in Filipino food

Tony DelaRosa [00:04:39] and the kids did not hang out with me because of the vinegar smell or the funky smells that they thought were funky, but I thought they were beautiful and delicious. So politics are everywhere from the minuscule to the macro-level as well. So I just try to give them my own version. I can't control their truths, but I can give them my own perspective on my own truth and just modeling my own truth and getting to that point. And, you know, the truth can show a little bit of suffering. So I showed my own suffering. I tell them like, well, in this situation, the truth behind this situation with my Filipino experience when I was younger, that it sucked. When I was eating, the kids did not approach me. I lost friends for doing that. And that's a certain type of truth as well that they need to hear. I'm a different person now. I feel like more people think of me as a happy-go-lucky person, a person that people go to all the time. But I wasn't that person when I was younger because I had to unpack truths. I had to sit with them and understand them and be able to just confront them myself and say, like, you know what, that is a part of me, whether I like it or not.

Jenny Woo [00:05:51] Yeah, that's such a great point. I think as parents, it reminds me that we tend to overemphasize this type of conformation, conforming to the truth with our children, the social norms, right. If our children ask us certain questions that it's actually a really good teachable moment of why is this the truth, why is this the norm? But yet we just sweep it aside and say this is the way it is. So I really love that you're really sharing this journey of transformation of thought process. And I think we could do that more as parents. I am also curious, for example, for the children who haven't quite been given the opportunity to stand up for themselves and to have that voice, how do they show up behaviorally in the classrooms that you've taught?

TonyDelaRosa [00:06:45] This is specifically when I think about not having a voice or having a voice, right. Students all have a voice in some form. So I just want to be clear in terms of adults not giving them a voice. We don't give them a voice, but we give them platforms for that, right. So then the spaces write for this voice to flourish. And that's what I try to do. As a spoken word educator, I try to bring in as many in any space that I am running for spoken word. I try to create a space where even the most silenced can say a little bit, like one word. They can speak up so they can feel comfortable and feel safe, as safe as it can be. Because, you know, I can't promise safety in any space. But I can encourage their courage. I can encourage us to be as safe as possible based on norms that we set, community agreements that we set together, and trying to make it as inclusive as possible.

Jenny Woo [00:07:44] What can parents do at home to foster this brave space?

Tony DelaRosa [00:07:49] I would say one, is letting the students create and co-create community agreements within the family, right. So I grew up in an Asian-American family and I'm stereotyping here, I’m generalizing, but there's a notion that Asian-American families are very strict and I lived in that strict environment. It doesn't go to say that your parents would not have listened to you if you would have spoken up, right? If I would've spoken up, I wish I would've spoken up, and had that space to say, hey, you know what? What you're saying, what we're saying, I don't agree with.  Just having that conversation and having that space, that norm that you set with your child, I think that's important. And then, as Jenny was saying earlier, being able to reflect on why you don't agree on things. I think that's a simple system that you can create in the household and in a classroom, anywhere you go just to unpack what they're thinking because there's so much that is living in the body, in the mind, the soul that we don't see all the time, right?  Like the iceberg. You see that iceberg on the surface, but underneath, there are so many bugaboos living there, whether they're positive or negative, we want to hear them both, right? So just being able to get that space and say, hey, let's check-in real quick. Do you agree with what I just told you about anything? Yes or no? Why? Right.

Jenny Woo [00:09:20] Yeah, and it also reminds me of the theme of identity, building your identity, finding out the identities around you, and then how you connect with others. Tell me more about how that ties into having a voice, the courage of that, and courage of standing up.

Tony DelaRosa [00:09:40] Yes! So I feel like being able to stand up is like one of the destinations right? That it's tough because I know there's so many different rocks and barriers and loops to jump over before you even get to a point where you can feel like you're comfortable and standing up or just be where you can do that. And I think that one helps when you look and examine your own identity and are a master of your own identity to a certain extent, right? With the program that I run, Boston Pulse, which is the youth organization that I run here in Boston, my first part of the curriculum is all based on identity. What is your identity? Where I'm from, place, name, the roots of your heritage, right. And being able to dissect your identity, understand the truths in your identity helps you. One, navigate the world in a better space that helps you process things that are happening that are difficult, right. When events come up, for example, if you're having a fight with your parents, for example, you know what is your truth, how you can deal with it, right, as a student now. And it's not just using poetry, right? You're able to articulate. The kids are able to articulate what they need. And a problem is that youth sometimes don't even know how to articulate what they want or need because they don't have opportunities to do so. So, yeah, I think that's one way to help out. To really just ask. Like, start with identity, start fostering, start learning about your history, right. There's a phrase that I love and that I learned here from one of my Harvard teachers/mentors. No history, no self, no history, no self. When you know your history, you really know yourself, right?  If you don't know your history, you don't know yourself. And that's really important. That's a phrase I will stick with me forever.

Jenny Woo [00:11:40] You basically ran the Indy Pulse, co-founded that, and now at Boston Pulse.

What is your vision for the next steps and accomplishments that you've had?

 Tony DelaRosa [00:11:51] Yeah. Yeah. So right now from Indy Pulse and Boston Pulse, what we have been doing is like citywide slams for middle school mostly because that is a gap in the cities. There's a lot of programming for high school students so I feel like they're there on that cusp to graduate. There are actual programs for high schools to get scholarships, one being the First Wave in Madison, Wisconsin,  a one of a kind program. But we focus primarily on middle schools here in Boston. And we have been doing a number of things, getting students on stages, right. That's one thing because one part of our program is public speaking. Spoken word poetry, if you dissect it, too, if you dissect the words, spoken and then the word and it would teach poetry and analyze poetry, to write poetry, to perform it. And part of the performance is public speaking. So that helps with the standing up aspect and speaking the truth. So first, the process goes as we expose students to spoken word poets, either live performances here in Boston because there are amazing poets in Boston and in the region and we want students to know that so they have mentors and there are a number of resources online which we'll get to.

Tony DelaRosa [00:13:09] But yeah, we expose them to the poetry. Then I model my own poetry,  and of course, I have to model my own poetry because they don't get to hear from a Filipino-American poet and their story very often, right? I teach mostly black and brown students from the Caribbean. So when they hear a Filipino poet, it's interesting. They can see the intersection between me and theirs, but also feel like, oh, wow, this is different, and I like learning about this difference. So that's a good way to also teach it to honor the differences that we have in every shared space.

Jenny Woo [00:13:43] I love the aspects of vulnerability and relatability through Boston Pulse and Indy Pulse. I was just thinking, as you're talking, I really wish I had this. I think this is the new speech and debate. That's what I'm saying. Right! I mean, I did speech and debate and I can tell you, I think I did cross-examination.

Jenny Woo [00:14:06] I was literally reciting reading over pages and pages of evidence, not knowing exactly what they mean. And more importantly, how does that impact me? So, I love it. What's the website?

Tony DelaRosa [00:14:21] So right now we are founded on our umbrella organization Indy Pulse. So if you go to Indy Pulse dot org, you'll see a tab that says Boston Pulse there. And we're going to be creating our own web site very soon. In the future, you'll see it as Boston Pulse poetry dot org. But for now, you can go to Indy Pulse dot org so you can see where we started off and where we're going. 

Jenny Woo [00:14:43] Love it! Are there additional programs and resources you’d like to provide to us?

Tony DelaRosa [00:14:50] Yeah, yeah, there's plenty. So I want to honor, I don't want to leave this podcast without honoring the people who helped us build our own community here in Boston. So one, first being MassLEAP Massachusetts. I'm going to bludgeon this one, Massachusetts Literacy Education, Arts Performance Collective. Yes, they have been like the older sister of our organization here and they work with mostly high school and they run the Louder than a Bomb spoken word poetry festival. There's anywhere you can go. There's also Get Lit poetry, which is in L.A., tons of resources online and featured on the Oprah show, right. There's also SlamFind, which is on YouTube. SlamFind is a video of where they have spoken word videos. And there are newer forms, right? And we want youth to see that they're more culturally relevant, I believe, at least in my experience, watching SlamFind, I see more poets that are coming from my background. For example, in terms of cultural relevance, like low income, first-gen, black and brown POC backgrounds, right. SlamFind is a good place for that. Be More in Baltimore. There are Young Chicago Authors and they're also like the founders of Louder than a Bomb. Shout out to Kevin Coval out there. And yeah, if you just type in spoken word, you'll find a number of resources. We’re a new topic, a new study that's happening. And I know we’re the first wave in Madison, Wisconsin. But as an educator, I want to start more programs like that because I know that youth need a space for that and they can really flourish and make even a career out of this, telling the truth and standing up, right. And it will help their society.

Jenny Woo [00:16:41] Yeah. What a great career. Thank you so much, Tony, for being here. And thank you for tuning in to 52 Essential Conversations.