Welcome to the Montessori Family Life webinar series. I'm Lorna McGrath and I'm your host. I'm so glad that you have joined us today. If you are returning, welcome back. If you're new and I saw a bunch of new people sign up for this week's session, welcome. We're glad you found us. We have an exciting topic today that we'll get going with in just a minute. So Cheryl Allen is with me today. She works with me at the Montessori Foundation. We work together on the Montessori Family Alliance. And so I'm very glad, Cheryl, you're here today.  And so she knows Tracy better than I do. So I'm gonna turn it over to you, Cheryl. Well, I'm so glad to have Tracy join us. Tracy is a professor at Harvard since 2014 and the author of many books. I asked her specifically to join us because I took neuroscience of learning with her, which was just enough for me to know that I don't know enough to share. We thought it would be a lot to learn. So she wrote a book called Neuromiths, Debunking False Ideas About the Brain. And as I said, one of many, but this one I think is really helpful to us as teachers and parents because we get a lot of information that isn't maybe 100% accurate. And she wrote this because the president, I think, of the International Mind, Brain and Education Group said this is the most helpful thing to do is give people the correct information because it's hard for all of us because of the way our brain works to take new information that might, we might acknowledge that it's true, but it's hard for us to replace the information that we've had for a long time in the way that we act on a regular basis. So thank you so much for joining us and sharing because we hear Neuromiths all the time. Thank you, Cheryl. And it's great to be here with all of you. I would just love to reiterate what Lorena said at the beginning. If you do have, many times people come to talks like this because they do have burning questions in the back of their mind or things that they've been told during our class with Cheryl, there was a teacher who mentioned, this is crazy, I just got this from my kid's school and it was riddled with a bunch of Neuromiths, things about learning styles or boys and girls or people who might be right or left-handed or things that have to do with 10% of their brain or that they have lizard or reptilian brains. A lot of information that gets strewn around in the popular press have been used, maybe metaphorically to sort of help people understand the brain but people take them literally. And this is a real problem that we have in education. Specifically, the main reason I wrote the book on Neuromiths as Cheryl alluded to is that the International Mind-Brain Education Society was putting out a lot of great information for teachers and parents about high quality information. This is really how your brain learns. This is what we should be doing. But what they were realizing is they were still coming up with roadblocks to implementation, mainly because people were hanging on to some of these mythical beliefs that just sort of clashed with their general understanding of information. And so the president at the time, Daniel Ancer, she said to me that it's the one thing we could do to improve education right now would be to just clear the stage, get rid of all of these neuromithical beliefs about the brain and how it learns. And then it would give us a clean stage to work with and people would be able to approach and take on the good information without these mental conflicts that we often have because we've heard some things for so long, we believe that they've got to be true. And if they're not, this conflict is very hard. We also see research that shows teaching people about neuromiths does not make them go away. So basically being faced with the evidence is one thing, but you have to have your own mental buy-in. And a lot of that has to do with these deep down, deep seated experiences or values. For example, if somebody in the audience has been told since the fourth grade, oh, you're a visual learner, it's really hard for you to let go of that idea that there are no such thing as learning styles. Your brain really wants to receive information from all of its senses in order to understand the world. And so talking through it is part of the idea and also helping you identify where is it that that comes from in your own life? Why is it that you believe that? So that you can begin to let that go and buy into some of the more high quality information. The main reason that we really care about neuromiths is that every single one of them does harm. And I believe that one of the first rules of educators and parents very much like physicians is to do no harm. We need to have good information and we need to protect those around us. And we need to help kids. We know that some terrible consequences of neuromiths is that kids even by the early age of second grade already have self-categorized. I am good at math. I'm a bad reader. They already decide, self-images based on things that they're hearing from us. So what we need to do is to sort of help them have a better understanding of how their brain really works and also the possibilities of what their brains can do and just sort of loving this idea of neuroplasticity and how we can always make those changes. There is no such thing as a fixed state of intelligence and that we can always get better. All of those things are part of this idea of getting rid of neuromiths. And so that would be sort of my introductory remarks.  If there are things that you're wondering, is this really a myth or not? For example, I've heard women are better at multitasking. Well, guess what? Multitasking is a myth. There is no such thing as multitasking. Your brain can only do one heavy cognitive load thing at a time. So if you wanna dig into that, we can talk about that. Other ideas about people being right-brained or left-brained or other things are maybe explaining a little bit further of this idea of learning styles. Any of those kinds of myths, I'd love to dig deeper but I'd really like to take your lead. So for those of you in the audience, if you do have specific questions, I'd love to jump off on that. If not, I have 70 myths I can share with you but I prefer to just sort of go from your starting point if possible. So, Cheryl, do you have any favorite myths that you wanna talk about? Well, I will say one that I just encountered that I feel like, I thought in Montessori, we don't encounter very much but a former student just posted something on Facebook about how bad she was at math to which I needed to respond. You should not be friends with your teachers if you wanna be a very strong mathematical mind. You need to remember that. She was like, okay. I think that that whole idea, one of the really fascinating things now about this field of mind-brain health and education is that we're now nurturing ideas that we had maybe from education or from psychology and now we now have support from neuroscience. For example, Carol Dweck has been talking about growth versus fixed mindsets since the 90s but it wasn't until she actually laid into the idea of how neuroplastic your brain is that it is possible.  So why wouldn't you be able to talk yourself out of this fixed state of I'm bad at math? And so basically getting support from neuroscience has really short up some of the psychological theories that we've had and also sort of worked their way into life. One of the best things that parents can do is to help their kids feel that they have possibilities, that they can do and be whatever they want. You might have heard Lerner in the old days we used to say, nature versus nurture, that was what you were. We don't say that anymore. We now talk about nature via nurture plus free will because we know that it's via nurture because only a small percentage, about 10% of your genes are actually potentiated by the environment you live in, by the schools you go to, by the family you live in. So this means that all the good genes you get aren't even getting an even chance of being used and becoming who you are. It's really a lot to do with the environments that we put kids in. But we also add on this piece of free will because there is choice in big studies on resiliency and looking at kids who have terrible nature and terrible nurture, lousy home life, lousy possibilities but they still come out on top and you wonder where did they get that sense of resilience? Where does that come from? And that mainly comes from usually a single caregiver that makes that kid believe in himself and tell him you have a choice. You don't have to be stuck here. You can be more than that. You don't have to have the math brain you think you were born with. You can change that. So the idea of free will means that you get to choose in part what you are. And so that's a really powerful combination. Nature via nurture plus free will is a new way to sort of look at the potential that individuals have. And so that's a big piece here. I'm not sure if there's any questions coming up that we need to be looking at right now or... There's a comment Tracy. Our people just put in, she put in a myth. At least that's what she thinks it's a myth. I think it probably is too, but you'll tell us. She said, we are all wired differently. And I would say, is that a myth or is that not a myth? Well, that's really telling of all myths. Most myths have some grain of truth to them which is why they end up having a life of their own. But this over generalization of the statement is what really turns things into myths. We know that there are no two brains that are identical. Because the thing that really changes your brain, even if you have, for example, if we say, your brains are as similar as faces. Well, everybody has two eyes and two nose and one mouth. And okay, so there you go, you have similar parts but we don't have identical faces. And even if you had identical twins, your brains are not identical. And why would that be? Because we don't have exactly the same life experiences and life experiences slightly change the neural networks in the brain. And one side of it, your brains would be different. There are no two identical brains, but having said that brains are much more alike than they are different. And so this is why in neuroscience, you can talk about typical patterns of how someone learns to read. Because over looking at multiple studies of multiple people and multiple cultures, you see certain neural networks are always in play. And so we can talk about, we can generalize about curriculum, for example, what could or should be taught because of those types of things. But we know that not everybody's gonna take in that information in the same way. So to a certain extent, the idea that we're wired differently is absolutely true. But at the same time, in general, the typical neural networks for learning to read, for example, or to do math problems is similar. So those are not so drastically different. So both things are true there. And that's why you have this gray area that you have to sort of tip-toe around to make sure that you're clear on what we mean by that.  Well, first of all, you should be treating them all differently anyways, but the nice of that, you can typically have a general structure to courses which everybody's gonna follow, but understand that different people are taking in that information in slightly different ways because of their prior experiences. In fact, one of the only constants in understanding intelligence is that what you know influences what you can know in the future. So the more life experiences you have, the more connections you can potentially have to other things. And so prior experiences is huge. And this is also very big for Montessori schools, right? When people talk about chronological age of a person, all three-year-olds should start school at this time or do whatever, or seven-year-olds should be able to do whatever, that's kind of crazy. We know that ages, chronological ages, are very distinct from cognitive stages of development, but neither of those is as important as prior experience. The experiences a person has really influences what they can potentially do in the future. And so it's not your age that matters, it's really your experiences that matter when it comes down to learning. I think education, I think of that partially as vocabulary, like that seems very clear to me when somebody knows the vocabulary of something, they can learn, they can learn more about it. That's how I, when I first encountered that, I thought, oh, that makes sense. This is where I see it. Yeah. And that's a huge part of humanness. This is why we always make this parallel. We've always used language as a proxy for intelligence, because knowing the names of things, labeling things. This is when it gets into your mind, this is mental schema, how do you, the more dogs I know, the better I understand the word dog. Well, when we talk about this in terms of human growth or individual growth, the more different kinds of people I know, the better I whittle away at my own self. I know who I am by knowing the other. So knowing a great number of different types of people, people who eat things that are different or speak in a different way or whatever, that helps me understand myself better. Just as, in parallel, by being able to label something, what you call a dog then now grows in your own understanding because you know more dogs. You don't just know the stuffed dog, a German shepherd and a poodle or different ways of understanding help you grow your general base for new learning in the future. Wow. Tracy, we've got quite a few people that wanna talk here. Great. We have someone who has said, is there a good way to trick your brain to think positively? I heard we are wired to have negativity bias. Well, that's another neuro myth that it's very beneficial to air on the side of caution, which can look negative. For example, an innate bias that humans have is that we understand and interact with others more successfully who look exactly like us. Why? Because the face we are used to interpreting is our own. So basically, we are able to read emotional cues far more successfully on faces that look like ours than if they don't look like ours. And so in habituated practice, what there's a horrible study, a wonderful horrible study that shows that if we look at cultural neuroscience, you find that young female white women typically misinterpret older male black faces in their intent. Mainly because it's better be safe and sorry and I'm going to be afraid before I'm going to be empathetic or helpful. And so it's also a shorter circuit in the brain. Fear is a really short neural circuit in the brain. It's really easy to do. And it's mainly because it helps us in survival. It's better to be safe than sorry. So people typically air on the side of these quick generalizations and our biases that are baked in, that's a shorter path of thinking than to labor over something and take it apart and understand this is in part, I don't want to get political, but this is why politicians who make you fearful of things get you to do things faster than politicians who try to make you empathetic towards others. So people make quick decisions based on fear more than anything else. Now you asked about negative versus positive thinking. One of the very interesting ideas here is that while your brain goes into what's called default mode, like when you're not thinking about anything in particular, you generally link ideas together. Well, when you go into a negative spiral, that's called rumination and that's very negative and that's very bad, right? However, you don't have to go there with your negative thinking.  The other thing is to give yourself exposure to counter ideas or things that don't go against that. Habituated ways of thinking positively are just as easy to cultivate, but they are part of, again, habituation means that you do this repeatedly so that your natural go-to place is not to the negative, your natural go-to place could be the positive, but you do have to habituate this way of entertaining your own thoughts, not allowing yourself to be pulled down by yourself in that sense. This is also another reason why COVID was really powerful and because people were isolated and in that they spent a lot more time with their own headspace than they did with others. One of the most successful therapeutic things to come out of COVID, believe it or not, is something called talk space that had to do with just letting people talk to other people, which was pretty fascinating and it was so good for mental health because the minute people started to try to express something to somebody else, it wasn't that bad. Once it's out there in the world, it's a lot less of a downer than just ping-ponging in the negative space of your head. This is why we say, talk it out with somebody, let somebody else hear it. It's very interesting that even just by getting kids, nudging them to talk about things. And no, no, I don't want to talk about it. No, but let me know because I want to help. I see you look pretty sad today. What could trigger that? And the second they hear themselves say something so silly as, oh, I don't know, I was just a little bored and then all of a sudden they realize, well, that's not a reason to be down. All of a sudden they hear a different voice when they try to explain it to the other. So we know that this human dynamic, this interaction is really huge for mental health. And so there is no necessarily a greater tendency to go to the negative, except for that self-preservation angle to it. So there might be a little tip there, but you can habituate a more positive way of interacting with the world for sure. All right, thank you. Erin says, does neuroplasticity influence emotional growth as well as academic learning? And she has a second question, which is, does this overlap to the emotional experience and development? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and in multi-directions, right? Neuroplasticity is everything. Your brain cannot not learn.  You're always losing connections as well, things that are inefficient, you lose them, but you're continually growing and making new connections between ideas. These are physical things you can actually measure in the development of your brain. So that's one side of it. You are always neuroplasticity is the explanation for all learning that occurs. And that is both emotional as well as cognitive learning. Okay, so self-understanding or information about your own emotive state is also carried there. But another huge piece coming out of mind, brain health and education, is that there is no cognition without emotion.  You're perceiving your world and those sensory perceptions go up the base of the brain. And the first thing that your brain does is check for memory systems. Do I already know something about this? And this includes emotional memories as well as at this cognitive level or semantic understanding of things, right?  So it's trying to figure out the shortcut way. Well, if I already know something about the new information, I'll latch it onto that. And if not, I'll have to forge a new neural connection. But basically all that is to say that there's no way that anything you do can be solely cognitive or solely emotional. It's always passing through both almost simultaneously. And so basically there is no cognition without emotion but also emotions are generally processed cognitively. And so both things are influential. I think another thing that your listener might be interested in knowing is that emotions and feelings are not the same thing. Emotions are a physical state of the body based on chemicals that your brain will say, fear and it'll shoot out certain chemicals and basically those neurotransmitters make you react in a certain way. But feelings are your psychological conditioning to how you react to the emotion. And so this is really great for really young kids. You can always tell them, you know, Tommy, I know right now it looks like you're really angry because Pedro took your ball. Okay, so here's cause and effect and as Cheryl says, I name that emotion, right? But then you tell them, now what do you want to do about it? Because now you have a choice. How do you, how are you going to feel about that? Are you going to continue to be angry and take a slug at him? Or are you going to say, well, I don't know, I feel sorry for him that he has to take the ball instead of ask nicely or something like that. Basically your feelings are things that are habituated responses to the emotional state. And so we as teachers and parents have a really big role to play in helping kids more positively identify emotional states and then how do I leverage that into my new social context? How do I interact with the other based on my feeling about that and being told it's okay. You know what, you're always going to have that emotion. That's just how your brain is going to do it. But you get to choose how you're going to react and that's your feelings. That's a really big lesson for even three year olds to take away and especially for adults to take away is that you are not slave to that emotional state. You can actually do something about it differently. And it's great to understand that your brain is not going to let you get away with not having emotions. You're going to have them. That's life. You know, you're not going to get rid of those but you have to decide now what you're going to do with that emotive state. I love that. I know when we have students come to the peace table to discuss a problem. That's a great time for us to say, hey, this is like, I get it. You're mad. That's your emotion. And how are you going to act about that? About your feelings? That's a very big, that's a big choice they get to make. And when we talk about, you know, back in the 80s and 90s, we would talk about emotional intelligence. Now we talk about social emotional. It's only that it's basically boils down to that is understanding how at all, you know, how your brain is triggering those things based on sensory perception. What's happening in the world? How do I interpret that? The emotion that can be created by that, by the chemicals I'm putting up, then my choice about feelings is really the most powerful element of that. It is. Lorna, you always talk to our class about your pause button. That's right. You have a pause button right here. Most of us don't push it in time.  So, yeah. We have one of our TA's last year. Daniel Batchelor had this saying, she always has a sticky note up on her computer. It says, does this need to be said by me right now? That's a good pause button for adults as well. It certainly is. All right. Teria, I think it's Teria. I hope I'm saying that right. She says, is this myth, when we are seriously stressed, we turn to our reptilian brain? There's no such thing as a reptilian brain. In 1978, McLean had this idea, let me use a metaphor about reptile brains and hired a thinking versus hired a thinking to help people understand. The signaling that goes up the base of the brain and then checks with memory systems and then goes almost immediately, believe it or not, it's front or low, back and reconfirms in memory systems. There is no reptilian brain.  Well, if you want to speak about this metaphorically, you can get away with it, but I hate it because many teachers that I've worked with actually believe that we evolved from snakes and it's like there's just a complete disconnect by using that kind of a metaphor. Now, what's important in what you're saying though is that stress, I want to make a big distinction between stress and anxiety. Stress is typically something that is caused by the outside world on you. I am stressed by what my boss just said to me. I am stressed because this one bully at school is there or whatever, something in the outside world that affects me. When that festers and it doesn't get attended to immediately, we begin to do that negative rumination and that turns into anxiety and that is caused by us. We make ourselves anxious and that is far more destructive. It's a different kind of a balance. You might have similar neurochemical exchanges, but they're in a different neural pathway, different order. And so cutting those things off, heading those things off is very, very important. I also am against this reptilian brain metaphor because it's kind of like the teenage brain idea that your frontal lobes aren't connected. It sort of releases you from responsibility.  That's how you are. Well, no, guess what?  And so I really am distressed by those kinds of references because they're just not true. They were meant metaphorically initially, but they got misinterpreted in the popular press and also by teacher training programs, which are really unfortunately, they kind of dummy down the information and thinking that teachers can't handle it, which is far from the truth. Teachers can very much handle information, good quality information about the brain, but we tend to use these really kind of cheesy metaphorical references that can actually confuse people. And also they change the implications of the information. For example, if you are slave to your reptile brain, well, sorry, that's the way my life is. I can't do anything about it.  That's just not true. Basically, the neural networks can be refined that you can actually have much more control than you think you can be released from when you use those metaphors. So I would get away from that, Teri, if it's possible. But your bigger point about stress is definitely important. Stress is generally triggered from the outside, that we allow it to manifest into that anxious state by just sort of going in circles. One of the best ways out of that, as we mentioned before, is just talking it out. Getting it out of your own head and into the world, it actually frames problems in a different way. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Back to for a second, too. You would say that some places try to dummy down the information. I always want to share that I think especially for children who have learning differences, which frankly is all of us, but who may have more pronounced ones that they notice. In my experience, learning about the brain is really helpful to them because they think, oh, I can change this and I didn't do anything wrong. And those are huge for them to make growth. Yep, I can agree more. I'm writing a book right now. It's based on a little more than a year's research on what do kids want to know about their own brains? And we asked kids in many countries around the world, what do they want to know about their own brains? And what's fascinating is that what you're getting at right now is this idea that many of them have a sense of loss of control, which is fascinating. They say, I want to know why my brain makes me want to hang out with people that I know are bad for me.  And you think to yourself, oh my gosh, these people have the kids have no understanding that they are in charge of their brain. They get to decide all these things. But what they feel like is a separate entity that controls them. And getting them out of that understanding, helping them understand that they are their brains. They get to make choices. They are the ones who are in church is a huge advancement in their understanding about motivational things, things that are in their environment that they actually have more control over than you'd think. Another thing that we found with this particular book is that the things that kids want to know about their own brains are identical to what teachers and parents want to know about their own brains. It's basically nobody knows very much about their own brains. And just a little bit of understanding there changes their entire understanding of themselves and their possibilities. For example, Cheryl, you were talking about kids who might have additional needs. For example, a kid who's dyslexic. Understanding that dyslexia occurs more or less in the fifth month of gestation and that you are born with a different kind of connections and that you can overcome. We typically teach reading in one way which is not conducive to the way that a dyslexic would like to learn to read. However, you can learn to read if we do something else. And so understanding, okay, it's not my fault. It's not on me, but there is something I can do is really a very positive thing to understand. And so many, many kids are liberated by understanding that. And it's something that we don't talk about enough within school structures. Absolutely right. Absolutely agree. So we had some really good questions and insights from you, Tracy. Is there anybody else we have a little bit more time today? So if there's anybody else out there who has a question or a myth that they would like to Tracy to dispel for you. I'm gonna jump and talk about the most prevalent myth that we really have to get rid of because it's just crazy. It's learning styles that some people are more visual or more auditory or more kinesthetic. This idea of those kinds of learning styles is pretty problematic, very, very problematic actually. And mainly because Paschler's research in 2008 showed that school districts spend a whole lot of money. They invest in learning styles, inventories, and they teach teachers how to teach different learning styles and whatever. The benefit of differentiating instruction is huge. It's really good to differentiate instruction for individual learners, but categorizing them, blocking them off and saying that you perceive the world best through a visual field versus through auditory, it's actually very damaging. And mainly because if I were to tell Lorena in the fourth grade, oh, look, the test says that you're a very visual learner. What does Lorena do for the rest of her life? Sorry, Lorena. Lorena spends every single time she's faced with a new learning situation, she looks for something visual as a cue. She thinks that's how she learns better. So actually, she actually does become better at visual cues because that's what she's habituating her brain to do, but that's not what your brain would like. Naturally, your brain would love to get as much information from as many of the senses as possible when it learns. This is one of the things I love about Montessori Learning that when you do literacy, it's not just the sounds or the visual symbol to the sounds, it's the feel or the shape of a letter and sandpaper or whatever, you have additional sensory networks that go to the same piece of information and that reinforcement benefits learning. And so telling people that they have learning styles is a real crime. I would really hope you guys get away from that. And I know that if anybody's schools do that or universities even do that, denounce them because it's a waste of money when we need money for so many more important things than that. That's my soapbox. Well, and I think if your school can't get away from it, then there's something to be said for presenting things verbally and visually and kinesthetically, but not telling the students that they only learn visually. If you need to, sometimes in our school systems we need to take information, take what they're giving us and then tweak it. I feel like that might be a tweak that would be beneficial. Definitely beneficial, multi-modality learning. This is why, for example, Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence tried to, at the core of his theory was to remind people that there are multiple ways to show your gifts. It's not that you're either smart or not smart because of math or language, that there's multiple ways. He would have had more, had there been the evidence for other ways of knowing, but this idea of multiple or a myriad of ways of knowing the world are definitely beneficial. Teaching and learning about the world in that way are definitely things that benefit all learners. The more varied ways you have input into your brain, the easier it will be to find it, retrieve it, and use it in the future. So if you, maybe one thing will stick with you more visually, another thing more auditorially, but try, I mean, that is something that teachers should know is that they need to have multi-modality experiences but not to pigeonhole people into one or another as their primary source of information. Absolutely. We have one more question that came up from Jacob. Is there perhaps any myth about foreign language learning? That's one of my favorites. I've written a book called raising multilingual children because I raised my three children. I spoke English at home. My husband spoke Spanish. Most of their life that we, the first six years of their life we were in French speaking Geneva, but they went to German schools and since then they've learned other languages, Japanese, Italian. These, there's a lot of myths about language and mainly because language is an easy target. It's a very visible aspect. So if a kid has a problem in math, people jump out and say, oh, it's probably because, you know, you're trying to do math in French. That's why he's confused. Well, not really. And so there's a ton of myths of multilingualism related to languages. One of the biggest myths is that children can learn foreign languages faster than adults. Believe it or not, adults are better at learning foreign languages if and when they spend the same amount of time on the task. The only aspect of language that they're behind on is pronunciation. They know, they learn vocabulary, grammatical structures. They learn everything else about foreign languages. It's easier for an adult because they have the scaffolding of other languages whereas kids are much better at pronunciation because there's a myriad of factors there. But if you look, I put on in the chat, thelearningsciences.com, that's our website. If you look at the resources, you'll see that there's a whole video on myths of multilingualism there, Jacob, that might be beneficial to have a look at.  What's actually happening though is if you're brought up bilingual from birth, some of the hubs for language, for example, Broca's area is larger in the posterior area, just slightly larger.  And this is why the social cues to understand how to disentangle those things is so important. So I'd love to talk to you more about that one because it's one of my favorites. And so I would love to share Cheryl if possible. My email is just my name. It's tracy.tukahama at Gmail. Anybody who does have loose end questions or they did want to get more clarity or more resources on any specific myth, we have whole folders of evidence against each of these different things. So in case you need that as ammunition to go back to your school to say, let's stop doing the learning style inventory. Here's all my evidence. I'm happy to support you in that. And so I thank you for the great questions. And if there are other ones, I'm happy to stick around. But otherwise do follow up with me individually. Cheryl, did you see any other questions that need to be answered right away? No, and we are just about out of time. Tracy, I want to thank you for coming in, spending time with us today. Man, I got to get rid of some of these myths that I've got going on. I have work to do here. The last one, Lorna, that I hope that is not in your repertoire, but I do want to mention is the myth of gender and abilities that boys are better at math and girls are better at language. I hope nobody in your audience thinks that, but that's one of the bigger ones that has really, that does harm. It does a lot of harm in society. So I hope you guys don't find that one. All right, thank you so much. I just want to let folks know that first of all, I want to say the title of Tracy's book again, just because you need to know that look in the chat area. And Cheryl just happens to have a copy of it to show us. So it's neuro myths, debunking false ideas about the brain. So you might want to pick a copy of that up for your personal resources and library or for your school's teachers library as well. That would be an important one, of course, because teachers are with your children a lot. And so let's get the information out to them as well. Bye for now. Thank you. Tracy. Thanks a lot, Cheryl.


are you know we're trying to work through this that's one thing and then the second thing is like as a town comes I mean you raise the question that this is something we need to figure out is a town but I didn't hear from the council whether this is something we are going to discuss as part of an agenda or where and when will it be discussed thank you and I put it on my list uh but Paul do you want to have a comment just on the first one yeah no I think the points you're making are really important um and there's um you know we do we do have an ADA transition plan we've had there's been a consulting firm that's looking at all of our buildings and things that are out there and you know I know that's come in as a first draft um which I have not really studied it yet um and on the second point our communications manager is looking at our website and a lot of it is not just functional things on the website it's how we do things and you know this will resonate with Alyssa because we often will put pictures up on the website instead of documents that a machine can read for people things like that and we have to retrain our staff to be able to do things that make mistakes that I do which is take pictures of a PDF as opposed to having something that could be read by machines and you know it's you know she's identified that because as we redo our website we're trying to make it a friendly not just for ADA purposes but also mobile first because most people access our website through their phones so um so those things are all you know being worked on um but I think you know and and these and this is something you know doing the you know just taking in consideration when you're redoing your website make it accessible just like you do with any other building so that's what we're that's our intention thank you Darcy yeah I just wanted to bring up um the public comment that was made today uh that was sent to the town council by Laura Drucker um I have a couple of things to say about it one is um or a couple of questions for the time manager one is do you envision that that part of the $80,000 that's being set aside for the community safety process um do you do you think that some of that money could be set aside for stipends for people who otherwise might not be able to participate in the process so somebody needs to be available in your courses um so that's one question is could could that that those funds be used um to pay a stipend to people who you know would could really contribute to the process but wouldn't otherwise be able to do it because they just can't afford it and secondly um you know from the very beginning we have talked about um preserving our public comment that comes in in writing and putting it somewhere so that it's archived so that the public can see the written public comments that come in by email and so those I have those two questions of like can we get a system going to preserve our public comments um and can we use funds for stipends so on the stipend front we have not done paid people to serve on committees other than the council and school committee so that would be a new thing and I think it would have we would if the if the town decided to do that we'd want to look at the broader implications and why this committee not another committee you know and I but I understand the need and the um and how people take on expenses um that being said there's there you know so it's something to consider but we don't have a policy for doing that and we don't know what the ramifications and why would you choose this committee versus you know a different you know agricultural committee or something it's like we want to make sure that um we're fair about it you know but I you know we don't want to exclude folks from serving either so um I don't have a good answer for you on that other than just we've never done it before which is not a great answer that was a huge issue and point made by the Black Lives Matter people who came to our meetings repeatedly um so and the other issue about them how I mean quite a certain the other issue and I we all received yours comment the question is whether or not every email we receive is public comment and and so there have been from time to time that we have assembled around a certain topic uh comments that we received by email what we have not done is consistently gathered emails like we received today that said if I could be a public comment I would make this comment and um I think we need to come up with a way in which we differentiate because um the issue of publishing all emails though they are a matter of public record is a whole lot different than publishing what somebody might be giving us because it was meant to be public comment I think it requires a much bigger discussion oh well I would like us to have it yes yes I'm hearing you Andy yeah and as we uh explore that question I think we have to get back to the point that we've had a long-standing policy and the council and the select board had a long-standing policy that it's not appropriate to respond to public comment because it raises something to an agenda item for if it gets discussed by the body that was not published as an agenda item and therefore we don't we don't take a public comment that we hear early in a meeting and discuss it during the meeting itself and so I I'm a little bit uncomfortable with saying that somebody sends an email saying I wanted to make this as a public comment that I'm not going to be able to be there and then we have a different approach to that than we would to a public comment that was offered during public comment period right I think that's a different I think that's a much more in-depth agenda item for a future discussion um so are there any other comments on the town managers report at this time Dorothy I had marked down things that I wanted to follow up on and one was providing some kind of child care for town staff and I think that's a great idea I think the town staff probably works hard all the time but it's certainly been working extraordinarily hard since the town council started and then double hard under under covid what are some of the thoughts that you have for how you would do that so LSE is examining that the school department is working working with the school department they're looking at their three after school programs that that are offered that are that are not working now because and not so repurposing the people who used to do that work and again using some care response to be able to offer child care during the day for people who otherwise might not have child care if we have the capacity and the interest we'd like love to be able to open that up to the entire community because it's not just town employees who need need help it's a lot of people who need help we're looking at the middle school as being a location for that we also have looked at the bank center as a potential location for that it's something that LSE has been working very closely looking at very working very hard on and looking at the state guidelines the governor has made the guidance a little bit easier to comply with for able to be able to provide that kind of service so yes we're looking at that very actively maybe Jo you have your hand up yeah I hear the middle school mentioned for something like that and the mother and me of a middle schooler starts freaking out I've got a student who really wants to go to school so I would encourage and highly recommend that whatever happens does not affect how many students in the middle school can attend middle school in person when we finally get to be able to go in person because having a child care program that the middle school parents would then have to say to their children oh you can't go two days a week or one day a week anymore because we're offering child care to so-and-so would be yet another devastating blow to that so I assume you're not going to compromise any of that and that Mike would never do that but I'm going to put a plug out there to make sure that it does not get compromised no the superintendent would have to make the decision where it would be located and clearly he knows the interest of educating our students is top priority listen I'm sorry a brief item for a possible future discussion and maybe it makes more sense for it to be at CRC rather than at full town council but I'm still not sure that if it falls under CRC one of the things the town manager mentioned in his report is he said I am reviewing the request to delay slash decrease fees for liquor license holders license fees are due November 1st and so we have a board of license commissioners they work with the town manager town staff and we've talked a lot about how to support local businesses and so it feels a little weird that town council is completely disconnected from that given that we talk a good game about supporting local businesses and so you know we have a time frame coming right up and so decisions are just going to have to be made but I feel like it's something that as we're continuing to sort out the role of town council town council committees and the very strong executive authority we have in the charter and now the separate board of license commissioners where it is that that information gets fed in so that our community we're representing them when it comes to the sort of topic so again town manager is going to have to probably go ahead and make a decision because renewals are due November 1st but it feels like something that some town committee probably not TSO even though it's a way town services perhaps CRC because of its focus on economic development is the kind of place where it feels like it should have a stopping off point at some point in the process but yet as always without slowing things down I was just thinking of something very nice I wanted to share at the end of our meeting of a wonderful experience I had walking on the silvio-cante path which I've never been on before which is down by muddy bridge and it's completely handicapped accessible raised wooden walkway and there were also some families with children on it and that immediately made my mind jump to maybe the town can put together a pamphlet of activities such as that using the resources in the town that are particularly suitable for parents who happen to be homeschooling taking care of their kids or whatever it is you know that whatever combo you call it at this time I think that you know you've got the people in the staff that could put that together very quickly Andy? Yeah just getting back to Paul quickly on the question of liquor licenses is it am I correct that that would be made up by CARES Act money or would that be a loss of revenue for the town if we relinquished some fees? I think it's not able to be made up by CARES Act at this point we can't use CARES Act we've been requesting that to be able to replace lost revenue with CARES Act funds they have not allowed us to do that we've been holding on I mean every city in town has been hoping that that's what the federal legislature would allow us to do because they have not. So it would be a reduction in revenue yes yes can I just this kind of meshes into the agenda item called down councilor comments and I think what's really nice is we've actually had some time to have some comments tonight among us and I appreciate that on my list now of future agenda items I have added sponsors can they vote on items they sponsor when they are in their committees another agenda item that's been out there for a while is liaisons and this has come up over particularly the Amherst housing trust third one is TAC and what TAC has done is raised the question of does every committee in the town understand their relationship to the council do we know what their relationship is to the council and should there be a discussion about that um another one that's on my mind is we've learned some things during this period of COVID particularly because of the use of technology at some point we will transition back to the town room and what are the lessons we need to take with us for example I wonder if we need to provide a way that people can make public comment but not have to be in the room which more people have been able to make public comment and still go on and take care of their kids so at some point I want us to discuss what have we learned and what do we want to change another one is the accessibility question which was brought up by Shalini another was the issue of stipends for committees that's been brought up particularly as it is public safety another one has been the whole issue of public comment and what constitutes written versus whatever and then the other thing I just want to mention two things that are in the charter that I need to mention and that is the following executive minutes were approved and released during the town council executive session on September 21st 2020 the executive committee June 17th 2019 August 26th 2019 September 23rd 2019 August 31 2020 minutes of August 19 2019 were approved and retained for future town council review and release all approved and released executive session minutes are available at www.amherstma.gov slash town council the other thing I want to mention is that I have automatically referred the east west rail resolution to GOL that came as a request to us I chose to sponsor the resolution and then we have worked on it and it's now at GOL I think those are the main things I needed to mention to you as president are there other councilor comments and future agenda items Dorothy a future agenda item a lot of work has to go through before it's ready is the question of having the whole town go with their own broadband system many towns in this area are doing it and as I've mentioned a couple of times that would certainly be related to social equity because there's just many many things it would have to be worked out but buildings would be wired as part of this process and all houses would be wired the town would then have to figure out the fee structure and then perhaps the people who owned apartment buildings would be the ones who would pay the fee at least in some areas so it's a big topic but it's related to the fact that we have people many people in the same house or apartment trying to go to school go to work and do all of those things all of them on the internet and we're not equal in this way in my house we can have three people working in other houses you can't and some people don't have any connectivity at all and that is very unfair we can't have a fair town until we get this straightened out so this is a topic that I would like to have worked up and if anyone who is interested in working on it with me I would love to hear from you and Lynn will tell us where it goes Darcy yeah I would I have the issues that I brought up at the last meeting I attended which is that I think we need to talk about when we we would talk about when we should talk about raising our salaries so that so that this job is accessible to a wider range of people and number two I was glad to see that crc brought up an issue that I was wanted to bring up and they brought it up on their own which is looking at relooking at the process for appointing members of the planning board which was in their report and so I'm interested to see what the next step is with that thank you and show me um I don't know this is the perfect place a time to not share it but I had sent um okay I'd spoken to a few people of color in our community and they had raised the question of renaming some of our streets locally uh on the based on uh some of the black leaders in our community and for example Baker Street or so naming it after some of the local heroes who were and heroes who were black and um if that's something the town council should do because I feel it you know in this time of despair that might be something that is doable and it might create um you know have some positive impact Julius Lester so we're not going to get into debates or topics up we have to be on an agenda are there any other comments at this time so that is councilor comments and also future agenda items and we have taken care of the item that was 48 hours which was the resolution there's no executive session and Andy I want you to note we are adjourning at 9 43 have a nice evening yay good night everyone


Hi everyone, my name is Jason Klein. I'm the Director of P20 Initiatives at Northern Illinois University and I am lucky today to be here with this group of seniors in high school. This is like a follow-up to our last Career Pathways user group meeting that was held at the beginning of December 2020 and in that meeting we saw great presentation and you can watch that video. We'll link to it here in the show notes and maybe even on the screen. Because it's YouTube, we can do that. We'll go ahead and direct you to that presentation or the blog post itself to learn more about what's going on. But right now we want to take advantage of this time to dive in and talk with these students about their kind of college and career planning processes where they're at and what they're thinking. And hopefully all of us in all of our schools can kind of learn from their experiences to do the things that are going well for them and to fine-tune our current practices to make them even better. So let's start with introductions. Who wants to jump in first? I can go first. My name is Evie Wilson. Like you said, I am a senior at Geneseo High School there. I'm very involved in different sports. I'm in gymnastics, track and cheer. I'm also a member of band. After I graduate high school, I plan on going to college. I'm still searching for different colleges, but I'm interested in studying business. I'm not sure exactly what in business yet, but that is my main interest. Cool. Awesome. Thanks. Who's next? I'm Evie Major Curse and I go to Geneseo High School. I am involved in cross-country and track and then in National Honor Society and Athletic Leadership Group. I do not know where I'm going to go to college yet, but I have about six colleges in mind and I'm thinking about studying pharmacy with a focus in biochemistry. Awesome. Next. My name is Morgan Sims. I'm also a senior at Geneseo High School. I've been involved in volleyball, basketball and track. I'm also involved in NHS and late crew and after high school, I'm going to go to Iowa State University and study architecture with a minor in sustainability. Cool. Allison, I'm involved in track, tennis, National Honor Society, late crew and Athletic Leadership Group. I have my colleges narrowed down to about three and I don't know yet what I'm going to major in, but I'm still researching. So I think this is really important for everybody watching. We're sitting here in December just before winter break and of the four of you, you all know you want to go to college. There's only one of you who've said, well, this is where I'm going and two of you are pretty specific about what you want to study. Then we've got a third person who's got a very clear general idea of what to study and then a fourth person who's still figuring that out and that's okay because we know people go to college and figure that out. One of our goals statewide in Illinois among all educators is to make sure that college is as cost effective as possible. Whatever college looks like for different high school students and that you don't spend like three years thinking you want to study something and then discover you hate that and now you spend three more years in college to get your degree and you spent six years in college and whereas maybe you could have spent four point a half or five and saved a lot of money and so that's a really interesting thing for us to be thinking about as we talk about this. So for those of you who, well, for all of you, I mean, Allison, even as you're trying to wrestle with what you're thinking you want to do, I'm sure there's some things that you know you don't want to do. So how and when and tell us the stories, did you guys become interested in this specific career areas you're you're thinking about or if you've got a great story about a career area that you've kind of eliminated, how did you do that? So we want to hear those stories. I think that the first time actually we started using the career connections website, I connected with a lady named Sarah Brack and she was obviously an alumni from Geneseo High School. And that year was sophomore year. So I was super interested in science and I really thought that that was going to be where I was going with my life. I loved all things to do with plants. So she told me all these botany classes I would take and different areas of research I would do. And as she got talking about it, I realized this is not at all what I'm interested in. So it wasn't, I guess it didn't encourage me to go a certain way with my interests, but it did show me what I'm not as interested in. So I mean, being able to eliminate that and then also I worked at my dad's office this summer and he's an optometrist and I'm always being nudged by different people like, oh, are you going to take over his practice? You know, is that interesting? And getting that job experience, obviously I wasn't checking people's eyes, but I was still in the environment and that is something also that I can eliminate. So just having these different experiences with obviously they're very different things, but that has kind of showed me where I want to go. Before we go on to someone else, can you tell us what it was about those experiences that helped you go, oh, I know I don't want to do botany or optometrism? Well, Sarah was talking about a lot of labs that you would have to do in college and I have enjoyed some labs that I've been involved in in high school, but I just didn't think that's what I wanted to spend my time doing and I wasn't very interested in that sort of thing. And then when I was working with my dad, it was fun to get to know his staff and you know, I was working with my dad. So it was cool to be in the family business, but I just realized being cooped up in an office and just doing one thing all day is that's not where I wanted to go with my career path. Cool. Who else? I took kind of a different approach than Evie is I talked to, I was thinking about doing math and science, but I didn't know what kind of math and science. So engineering was the first place that I leaned and I started talking to people on the website and some of them gave me really help information. I was like, wow, this would be so fun to do. And then I started talking to people who do specialized pharmacy. And then I talked to them, I was like, no, that is what I want to do. And so I just got all this feedback about the different kinds of like, I just thought when I thought of pharmacy, I just thought of those people at Walgreens and Walmart who just stand there counting medicine. And I was like, that's just not what I want. And then I talked to people who are in labs and invent new medicines. And I was like, that's what I want to do. How did you go though from talking about engineering related stuff to having those initial conversations about pharmacy in the first place? I don't really remember how I just was looking at different math and science things. And I talked to my chemistry teacher about a little bit of it. And she was like, Oh, I would take it back and I would go into pharmacy school if I could. I was like, Oh, that's different. And so I just looked into it and started talking to people. Cool. That's awesome. That's awesome. Who else? Mine's kind of the same thing as Avery. I had like a general idea of what I wanted to do. So I reached out to a bunch of different people. I was I've always been interested in design. So I was thinking like general design, interior design, what can I do with this? So I reached out and I was like, no, that's like not really what I see myself doing in the future. I don't think I'd be happy in that field. So then one of the interior designers already thought to direct me to architecture. So I started emailing a couple different architects and one of them happened to go to Iowa State. And I still have an email chain with that person. So it's really helpful just to like put fear feelers out for everything and then figure out what you want to go from there. That's awesome. Alison, did you have anything you wanted to add on this one? So I've emailed like maybe a total of 30 people and about half of them I emailed because their career choices interested me. And the other half I emailed them because their college interested me. So it was actually really cool to get feedback from both different types of people. Like some of them told me about college experiences that I needed to know because I have no idea. I don't have any older siblings. So the whole college thing is crazy to me. And then the other half were about careers. And I still don't have it narrow down, but if I want to look back at those emails and read all the information they sent me, I have it at my fingertips. So it's not that big of a deal to like research more into something that I found interesting because I have all of that right there. Alison, we're all 30 of those people through the school alumni website. Scroll through all, however, 2000, whatever, how many there are. But I scroll through all of them and wrote down every single name that I was interested in. And it took me a long time. It was kind of my quarantine project. It was actually really fun. That's really cool. That's really cool. So for all of you, the school website was actually a real important centerpiece of kind of your discoveries. And it is really interesting.  And I knew of your school when I was in high school too. But that there are so many people that have gone into so many different careers and all over the world, I think that's pretty powerful. And one of the things we even talked about with Mr. Mackie is that for schools that are much smaller than yours because, you know, Illinois is such an interesting state. We have high schools with literally as few, excuse me, as 50 students and as many as 5,000 students. And if I'm in a real small school, those small schools can organize something similarly like around the athletic conference or in a county. So to try and still get that benefit that you guys already have. Are there any other stories about the website before we go on that you guys want to talk about? I didn't anticipate that all four of you would necessarily say, oh yeah, no, this totally helped me. I've talked to all these people through it. So that's awesome. Anything else on the website? I guess I could share one more thing. This is actually a positive experience that I had with it, not that the other one wasn't, but it kind of led me a little bit towards what I want to go into. I was actually filtering, because on the website you can filter their graduation year, what they measured in, what college they went to and stuff. So I'm actually looking at Illinois Wesleyan University as a very real possibility to go to for college. And so I filtered that and I found a lot of people on there who went to Wesleyan and actually found this girl, her name's Emily, and she was a cheerleader and she obviously went to GHS and she did cheer in college. So it was really encouraging to find someone who had the same interests as me and she is in business development. So that was awesome that she really has a lot going on that I also want to pursue. So I actually called her and we had a conversation about the college and different things she's involved with there and she kind of gave me a rundown of what her job is like and the kinds of things that interest her that led her to business marketing and then more business development too. So it was really helpful to hear from her and then just also having the back of my mind that she was in the same spot that I was at one point. So just talking to someone who has been through everything that I have, it was reassuring. So this is really interesting. I'm glad you brought up the cheerleading piece because I was wondering this when you guys were introducing yourselves.  And then when you brought up Wesleyan, part of the reason I'm like, oh, I got to ask about this is I know a parent in the community who just announced that his son who's a senior in high school is going to be playing football at Wesleyan starting next year. And so that was posted to Facebook this weekend and whatever. To what degree though, are your current interests in those extracurricular activities? Are those things you want to continue? Are those things that are factoring into your your choices of post-secondary institutions of colleges and universities? I'm just curious to know if that's been a factor at all for any of you. And if so, what activity or activities are those factors that you're considering? Well for Wesleyan, actually for any college I was looking at going to, I wasn't thinking about doing any sports for them, but I got in contact with the coach there and he was really interested in having me do track and field and be a pool valter for them because I think they only have one other valter on their women's team. So of course I'm a first child. I don't know who else mentioned that, but a lot of us are here. And I was just kind of worried about the time commitment and different things that involved in college because, you know, I had my fun in high school with different things but should I just focus on academics? But after talking to the coach and talking to Emily through the career connections, I realized that it'll be another outlet for me to make friends and automatically just have a group there. So I think now that I've talked to some different people and actually gotten evidence about how great it is and how many people you meet, I think that it's definitely a real possibility for me to continue my track and field career or cheerleading in college. Cool. Anybody else on that? So I was looking into running cross-country in college and so I've talked to a few smaller schools and that's, I've set on going to a small school for four years and then transferring to a big school for my last two years of pharmacy school if that was what I was going to do. And so I talked to a few small schools and their coaches and some of the girls on the teams and then one of my cross-country coaches, like you just need to talk to the coach from Drake, like you would fit in so well there. And I was like, that's such a big school for me to like go to. And so I talked to the coach and he was like, I'd be so interested in meeting you. And so I was like questioning if that was like a big school is what I wanted to do, especially sports wise. That's a lot of commitment. And so through the connection website, one of my coaches that I've had a few years ago was on there. And so I talked to her about her experience because she went to Iowa State as a track runner. And so it's just nice to talk to her about her experience and how much time commitment it really is to go to a big school. And so I mean, it's really played a factor in what I'm doing, but I still don't know exactly which choice I'm going to take with it. Cool. That's really interesting too, because Drake is obviously home to one of the most renowned college track and field events of the year. And so that's pretty cool. That's pretty special just to even be considering that. Either the other two, do you want to share anything about those activities and what you're thinking for post high school? Well, I'm up planning on playing sports in colleges because Iowa State is such a big school, but FCA is a big deal to me. So I was really looking for like the religious student leadership group. So I'm going to get involved in Salt at Iowa State. And I found a church on campus. I'm really excited to go to. So the career connections page actually helped me with that too, because I reached out to alumni of Iowa State and NSCO and asked them about the salt organization. So it was really helpful for that too. Wow, you guys are really maximizing this tool. I mean, it's so important. We heard we heard it mentioned that when you're in whatever the activity is, it starts to build a smaller community for you, even at a small school, that can be important when people are coming from all over the place. And you do kind of have a building group of friends or at least acquaintances right away. And so you're all taking advantage of that. Alison, I don't want to cut you out of this. Did you have anything you wanted to add? I don't know if I'm going to play sports in college. I'm leaning towards no right now, but I want to go to a college that will have a lot of activities and clubs that I can participate because making friends and involved is important to me. And this is kind of unrelated, but I do want to go to a college big enough that we'll have all of my major options, because I know that some colleges have less majors. And I need to, if I don't know what I'm doing, I need to have all of the options ready in case I need to switch around. So I know, but yeah. No, that is very good, very good advice. And so while our primary audience today is teachers and counselors and administrators in schools, I mean, if a student was watching this, that would be great advice for a student because you can certainly backslide a little bit unintentionally when you transfer if something was going to count at one place to get rid of a requirement, but it's not going to somewhere else.  So smart thinking. So we've heard about, from Mr. Mankey, we heard about software English, and at least one of you mentioned that. Are there other classes where you actually did something in class that was directly related to careers, or was that not the case for you? I would say that the software English was about the only project and experience that we've had with the career connections. It was like the introduction to the platform. We were the first students to see it. And then from there was basically just you are introduced to it, you understand how to use it, and then use it whenever you feel like you need to. So I know I've taken advantage of it all of the time. I make phone calls and I email multiple people and I use it consistently since sophomore year, but that was the only project we've done in school with it. So here's a question I'm going to ask the four of you that none of you was prepared for. And so I apologize about that. But thinking about some of your classmates, I mean clearly all of you are very self-directed. You're on top of this and taking advantage of this tool to do things in your own time and in your own ways. You don't need someone telling you, hey, don't forget about that tool. Hey, go do this. Without using anybody's names that you're in school with, but think about some other people that you go to school with who may not be approaching this. What kinds of activities do you think we as teachers or principals or counselors could be doing to help classmates who aren't using it independently like you guys are that you think would be helpful? I think, oh, sorry, you can go. You can go, Evie. Okay. Well, like you said, it's an incredible resource and we're very lucky to have it in our school. But I think that maybe in different classes, I think it was good to do it in English class, but I know that as our juniors and seniors, there's classes like managing lifestyles and just classes that are directed more towards your last couple of years of high school that could probably incorporate a little bit more to the college sphere and like different careers and stuff like that just because, I mean, of course, we want to learn how to take care of a kid or to cook food and, you know, we'll learn all those different things, but me, for me, I want to be focused on what's coming directly after high school and what I have to worry about right out of the gate. So I think that'd be helpful. Evie. So one of our requirements at our high school, and I don't know how it works at other high schools, is to take a consumer education class to graduate. That's a law in the whole state, so every high school senior has to have taken that at some point in high school. That doesn't mean the class is the same everywhere, but go ahead. So I took an economics class this year for my consumer education class, and one of the things I wish we would really focus on is the budgeting part of college because we're talking about budgeting for the real world, but we're not taking into account that some of us might have college loans and school loans afterwards, and so just making us aware of our college loans, which then forces us to think about what colleges we're going to do and what we're going to do after we get out of high school because it's, I feel like most of the stuff we're focusing on are things that will help us once we have a job and we're settled down, but like, we're missing the piece that's in between the high school and the getting the job and settling down. And I think that's the big focus that I feel like I'm missing. Yeah, that's really important. And so for administrators in particular who are watching this, if you're not familiar with the PACE framework, that's what the PACE framework seeks to address is to ensure that no student in the state says what Avery just said, which I think what Avery just said is what most students in most schools would say. I think that's that's a pretty common thing to say. And so part of that is that financial literacy. And part of that is understanding and some of you are still deciding between schools. If these two schools can both get me to where I want to go, and this one costs this much money and this one costs this much money, you know, it doesn't always mean that this one is the better option. But that should be a factor that you're considering in making that decision.  And if you've got this much difference in loans or whatever the case is of money you've already spent, then you don't have that available for something else. So again, not the only factor, but it is a factor for people to consider. And so that's a great point. Anyone else? We have a pretty extensive, like vocational class list, I guess, at the high school. And I feel like they could really take advantage of the career connections website just because all of the alumni who graduated from Geneseo can be in the career connection. So someone who went to a two year technical school to become a welder, they're going to be in the career connections website. So those kids should be taking advantage of it to see if that's really what they want to do or if they want to do a different two year technical school or maybe the four year is what they want to end up doing. So I feel like it doesn't necessarily have to be in the consumer ed or a standard classroom. I think the vocational classes could use it too. Yeah, it's absolutely something that should be used across the day. Now, we've heard about the working in the optometry office, but we haven't heard about either other work experiences, or we know you guys are super involved in a wide range of extracurricular experiences. I guess I'd like to know what you think about whether or not either your work experiences that you may or may not have had or your extracurricular experiences, how they've helped prepare you for careers or helping make decisions around careers. Has there been anything where you feel like they've had an impact on you for that? Okay, so I'm a volleyball coach for a local club. And I also work at one of the golf courses in Geneseo. So having two jobs at the same time has really taught me time management. And with the volleyball coaching position, I've learned how to be a good teacher. And I've learned how to communicate with people who don't necessarily know the same things that I do. And then at the golf course, it's teaching me independence because normally I'm in the clubhouse by myself. And I have to be responsible for everything that's happening. So I've learned a lot from the two jobs that I've had. Great. Those are great examples of what we're calling the essential skills. Thanks for sharing those. Other comments about either work or co-curricular, extracurricular activities that you feel like are helping you with either making decisions about careers, what you like, or as we've already heard, maybe what you don't like, or skills that you're developing from those experiences? I was a lifeguard when obviously the pools were open and everything. And I really enjoyed it. I'm good at taking directions and following out orders and everything. But we always had a manager obviously on the deck and everything, making sure everybody was okay. And I realized that I think any job that I have, I want to be able to keep on moving up there in the ranks. So I mean, like I said, I liked following the direction and being one of the underdogs, just a regular lifeguard. But I kind of like the idea of being able to someday move up into like a management position and kind of be the boss and just kind of have that kind of responsibility over different employees or people. Any other comments about this? I just started a job a couple weeks ago at a supportive living place for elderly people. And it's okay. And like COVID makes everything kind of sad there, places like that. But I think that it just taught like it's taught me so far that I just want to do something that I can help people. And I always just love doing things for other people. And so I think that that was just my main focus in a career as well. And so just solidified what I thought that I wanted to do anyway. Yeah, that's, well, and that's a great example of having a job. And actually all the jobs you guys have talked about are certainly things that either are helping someone or helping them bring some joy to themselves. But we're right now, having your energy there is really helpful. So yeah, that's great. Alison, did you want to say something? Have any work experience? Well, I guess you could count in middle school I was a peer tutor, and I did get paid for that. So I guess we can count that. And I did enjoy helping my peers. So I guess that's the quality. I know that I don't want to sit at a desk all day in my job. I know that. And also a side note is that I think a lot of seniors right now are experiencing problems with job shadowing because of COVID. Like it's a lot harder to get hands on experience in work fields that people are interested in. And I know that's definitely put a halt to my I had stuff planned that I was going to try and shadow, but that didn't work because of COVID. So just side note again. Yeah, so that's going to continue to be important as you guys move through your your post-secondary, your college experiences. You know, another year from now, hopefully things will look a lot different. And you may have to be taking advantage of things like winter break to do some more of that than you would have otherwise maybe done. That's a really great point that you bring that up, Alison, and and are kind of thinking that through all the way that far in advance to know, yeah, here's the implications of that. Did someone else want to say something before I move on? Okay, so what what is the most important thing to you, whether you've selected what you think you want to do or haven't in kind of in your selection process and preparing for a career? What what are the things that that are most critical to you and whatever they are? There's no judgment here is that you want to make a lot of money? Is it you want to have a lot of time off? Like, what are the things you don't want to sit in a windowless office all day? What are the things that are critical to you? I know for me, this might seem kind of childish, but it when I'm thinking about picking a career for the rest of my life, it reminds me of this movie called the B movie and this B has to pick a job he wants to do for the rest of his life. And it's just kind of overwhelming.  What am I going to do if I don't? So I just want to make sure that before I get into a career that maybe there's enough option and flexibility within the career itself that I can move around if it's not if the first thing I try is not something I love that I can use my experience and my knowledge to move to a different part of that kind of career. But I just want to be passionate about what I do and to find something that I really love. Avery said that she wants to help people and sometimes putting people before myself is my downfall, but I think it could also be a really good quality for my future work. And so yeah, I really just want to help people and be passionate about what I do. Connecting to whatever you said. I kind of have a broad field, I guess, with like the focus in biochemistry. So I did have something to fall back on if I was I hated pharmacy and I just didn't enjoy it. But another thing is I just want to do something that I know is going to make me happy. Like I don't want to come home from work and hate my job and hate everything. Like I just want to be like, oh my gosh, guess what happened today and be so passionate about it that like it won't feel like I'm doing it like for the money than doing it because I love it. So that was why I picked it because I am a science math geek when it comes to school. I agree completely with with Avery I want to be passionate about what I do. I want to come home at the end of the day and not feel like all my energy was drained out of me. I want to be exhausted but in a good way. But I also want to help people and I want what I do to have a lasting impact. So I feel like with architecture, I mean, I'm going to design buildings. So like they're going to be around for a long time. But I want people to like feel like love and like like they have a home and what I'm designing and stuff. I want it to be a safe space. Allison, any comments? Okay. Yeah, I want to do something significant and meaningful. And I also want to effectively combine my interests. You know, like I need to take into account what I'm interested in and go that in high school and then mold that into something. So that way it goes a little better for me. So just a couple of quick things on this before we wrap up with with one last question. First of all, it used to be, I mean, certainly when my parents were going to school and and they both ended up becoming teachers. But at that time, people had typically had one to three jobs in their career. And they were typically in the same career. In the, I know this is going to make me sound real old to you guys. But in the late 1990s, when I was a middle school teacher at the time, hilarious, right? They're in their mid mid thirties now. They I was like six though, let's just be super clear about that. The the predictions at that time were that students adolescents middle school and high school students that would have eight to 10 jobs and in their career. And so and they may cross careers. Now my own experience, I mentioned I was a teacher as a principal. But for 10 years, I was in charge of technology and communications and still did stuff with instruction. And when I started in that job, I was pretty technology literate, but I didn't know the stuff I needed to know about servers or networks. And and I had to learn all that real quickly, or there wasn't going to be internet for for 7000 students and 1200 staff members and so on and so forth. And so you can make those pivots in your career. And I think that's something actually that you need to prepare for is making those pivots. So I would say, with a pharmacy degree, or if you go directly on for a master's or professional degree, when you're done with that last degree, you're probably not done learning in a significant way. And again, listening to all four of you, you're all well prepared for that. But that's a reality that that high school students should be thinking about. And we as as your teachers have to be thinking about whoa, whoa, whoa. If it doesn't necessarily matter if they know this, they need to know how to learn more importantly than than knowing this set of facts. So with that said, based on what you know now, and I'm sure your answer to this question would be different a year from now and different five years from now. And certainly your your COVID junior and senior year experiences may have an impact on your answers. But based on what you know now, what advice would you give to teachers and school leaders, not just at your school, but in any school, about how best to prepare students for at least where you're at right now to make those decisions, to feel good about those decisions, including even if it's knowing what they don't want to do as as we've heard about to what what would be your advice to us to wrap us up here. I think it would be just to keep talking to us about different jobs. Like, I feel like we know like the basic of life doctor, nurse, and engineer, but there's so much more careers than I ever even thought there were.  So like, I just want information just to keep being fed to me, even if I get tired of listening to it. I agree completely. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. I feel like teachers have such a great opportunity. I mean, they see us all the time to tell us like, this is what you can be doing with the material that I'm teaching, like these are the careers that you can go in in the math department or the history department. And with only doing one project about it, we're kind of limited to like our experience and expectations about what finding a career and finding a college means. So like everyone said, I feel like we just need to know everything, like, feed us all the information, because you're doing that anyway. So like, you have the time, it would just be helpful to know more, I guess. I think I absolutely agree with those statements, but one thing that I wish I heard a little bit earlier on than my parents telling me is that you don't have to have everything figured out. Like, a lot of kids change their major, and I think I know what I'm doing, and we all think we know what we're going to go into, but a lot of college students change their majors and completely change their paths. So just having that reassurance that you're not going to have everything figured out, and you shouldn't have everything figured out yet. Hearing that a little sooner from people who I respect, of course I respect my parents, but, you know, my teachers and people who have been through it, that probably would have given me a little bit more calm in approaching this sort of thing. I think also having teachers share their experiences about how they got to what they got to also helps, because my chemistry teacher talks about how she hates math, but then majored in chemistry, and I was like, well, there's a lot of math and chemistry, but it helps lead you to where you want to go, and you're like, well, I can get into a chemistry major without enjoying math and still enjoying the chemistry part of it. Awesome. Any other thoughts from you guys before we wrap up? Well, I'll just leave you with this and anybody watching. One of the things, one of the themes for me during this school year has been that the more responsibility we can hand over to young people, it's pretty clear to me the better off we're all going to be, you guys get some things that we certainly didn't understand when we were your age, and I think all four of you have shown us that in this video, so I want to thank you for not only your time today for doing that, but just how you're moving about the world generally. And thank you guys so much for joining me today and for sharing all these thoughts, and thank you to all of your teachers, administrators, counselors, the support staff there, you guys are doing a great job in Geneseo. It is awesome what's going on. So thanks again.