For that, if I can have your attention, just I want to mention real quick that we have some, I'm just going to pass this back around.  And so you're free to take one. We have one for everybody. We'd love for you to have one. No, I believe there's enough for everybody. And if there isn't, well the last few can arm wrestle. One per customer. Yeah, one per customer. I'll pass these out in a minute. And then next I just wanted to turn over again to Alma. There's a good saying that says sometimes when you don't know, get the hell out the way. Let somebody else who does do it. And so you're going to take over the rest of the afternoon. And I'll come back at the end. Thank you. I also wanted to point to your attention that other things that your school district is doing right now. What is yielding the best results? The reason we want to do that, two reasons. Number one, I've heard a story not long ago that a funder says we will go where the evidence takes us. So if the evidence says that you're doing a really good job, you're really trying to get your students college access, college persistence, and college completions, then funders will go and knock on your door and say, we want a piece of that action. We not only want to know how you're doing it, but we want to scale what you're doing it and doing it. So what if we go into a partnership so that we can develop those types of activities? Is this your story? That's your story. Good. So the last thing there, the form, that word silo, the silo meant that you all are working fast and furious, but within your school district, you're working fast and furious with your partners. You're working fast and furious with your institutions of higher ed. So now, remove that cap or that lens and put on the new one where it says college for all. In alignment with the San Antonio 2020 goals and the Diplomas goals. So now we have our individual goals that goes a step further to support the city of San Antonio, the mayor's goals of the S.A. 2020. Now remember, we go where the evidence takes us. You all represent over 65% of all of the students in San Antonio. If we get it right, these four school districts, we're going to have more than 50% of impact in the city of San Antonio. People will come in and want to visit. They will come to one and really interview you. They're going to give you support. The TV stations will be here interviewing you and saying, how did you move that needle? I don't need that. How are you doing the transformation change? It's not about moving minor improvements. It's about really having huge impact. We don't want to move just a little bit. We want to move really, really into the bigger arena of really making an impact in our community. And the last one, we talked about S.A. 2020 Diplomas. It's an opportunity of you to go back and now when you're writing your framework and your plans for college access, persistence and completion, don't forget to put in those two columns. How are they aligning to the work that we're doing as a whole? So with that said, we're going to start out with group number one, San Antonio ISD. You get it? Hello. My name is Miguel Elizondo. I'm the principal of the New York High School in San Antonio Independence School District. What we're doing in our district is a few years ago when I first got into the district, the push was making sure kids were standing on the X. And it was more of a symbolic meaning because every time that kids graduate, at graduation, they actually stand on an X when their name is called out. So we wanted every kid in our district to stand on the X. And there was a vertical alignment from pre-K all the way through high school. And that was the push. Every kid in SAISD within those boundaries and anybody that comes outside of those boundaries will stand on the X. Are you going to stand on the X? Yes, you are. And so that was a belief that we all had that we all bought into. And so if you see this pamphlet, this is something that we give to our staff. This is something that we give to our parents, to business leaders in our community as well. Now that was the first push because we know that there has to be a start to every end. And for us it's never going to end because we're always going to push for graduation from high school. But we know that that's not where it's going to stop. So you notice here it says, know how to go to beyond the X to Y and Z. So that X is where you're going to stand. And Y is, okay, what am I going to do after high school? Am I going to a four-year university? Am I going to a local community college? Am I going to a trade school? And Ms. Garcia, right? Ms. Garcia gave a perfect story that is very symbolic to me because on my campus I have a large special education population. She talked about a kid telling the superintendent that, well, I'm not going to college. Okay, well, that's fine. You don't have to go to college.  For my kids, all my students, I have the capacity to go to a four-year university. However, we have a lot of students whose learning disabilities do not stop them from learning the trade that they love. And I'll give you a perfect example. Last year we had a young man who went to the National Skills USA competition representing our automotive program. I mean, this kid went to the National Skills USA competition and the kid with a learning disability. He's good at what he does. We had people that came from the Netherlands to come see our career pathway programs and what we offer, and how we do business at a linear high school to make sure that our kids are graduating and being successful. And this young man presented to people from the Netherlands and they almost cried because they couldn't believe that our kids at a linear high school, some who are special ed, some who are left kids, some who have major economic disabilities, financial disabilities are being successful. Because they were just in awe of how much passion and pride our kids have. And it started with us talking to them about the eggs. And it didn't start with me at high school because we all know there's a vertical alignment within clusters. And so it started somewhere. So that was our push, our push now to get to that line. How can we get our kids to be successful outside of high school? You saw our results on ACT on S18. We know that we're struggling with that. So how do we improve that? Well, we start with this again, because we talked to our teachers. We now have to move on from just graduating from high school to college and career readiness. And my campus, what I've done is I've aligned my campus goals to what SA 2020 does. For me, I think it's more important to have short-term goals. So what I did is we created a vision 2015. And in those three years, my department chairs and my staff agreed that we're going to focus on three things only. Number one, quality instruction. We have to improve the instructional practices in the classroom by all staff members. Number two, we're going to work on graduation. And what is graduation until? It includes improving our attendance rate. If kids are in school, they're not going to graduate. We're going to work on a tier two and tier three students that are having issues with behavior and academics. And what we did is we created a graph that showed kids that are having issues with academics only, and then those kids that are having issues with behavior. If kids are having issues with behavior, they're going to struggle in class. If kids are having issues with academics, they're going to miss behavior. So we're trying to come up with a plan. We brought in an address coordinator to help those kids. The third major component that we said we're going to focus on was college and career readiness. And I told John about our career pathways. I don't talk to my kids about only going to college or university. If those kids are studying a career pathway, I want to make sure that those teachers that are teaching in those career pathways are being held accountable. So one of the things that we're going to be working on is that when a kid enters a career pathway at nine or 10th grade, we document who those kids are. And in four years, it's going to be expected that those teachers make sure that at least 90% of the kids that started in ninth grade are being accredited by whatever career pathway they chose. So that those kids are ready, are already certified when they come out of high school. So not only are we working on college readiness, but we're also working on career pathways. Now, what about college readiness? We've already worked out a plan to get many of our pre-AP kids into an SAT class within the school day. I remember when I was in high school, they brought in a special person that come in my senior year and teach me about SAT. You're not going to teach me these huge big words in a semester when I've been talking nothing but Spanish and slang at home. And it's very difficult to go through that process as a student because you're like, what is this? What does that mean? And then the teachers are like frustrated because we're not learning it. So what are we doing? We're putting these kids in SAT classes. They're freshman and sophomore years. And what we want to do is see how that's going to work with our pre-AP kids and then move it to where we can do something school-wide because it does cost a lot of money. So we have to make sure that we get our grant for our buck and we have to see if it works with them first and then we can fix it to make sure it works for all of our kids. The next thing is the average strategies. We're implementing average strategies across the building to our kids starting with note-taking. It's a simple, simple test that kids have to learn but they don't learn it because we never teach it to them. So we're doing that as well. So those are some of the things that we're doing on our campus. Three items that we're focusing on, similar to what you were talking about earlier, as far as you focus the things you need to work on and then you put all your resources into the things that you're focusing on and then you move from there. So that's what we're doing in Lanier High School as far as aligning what we're doing in our district at our campus with SA 2020. Now I'll pass it over to Dr. Rosales who's going to talk a little bit about the related college access policy because we have a lot of programs in the district that are out there to provide our students the accessibility of college and she works with those programs on a daily basis so she's going to go over that real briefly and we'll talk a little bit about how the things that we're doing are using success for our campuses in our district. Congratulations. So for college access policy we talked about the 40s, transportation, testing, tuition, and text books. So the one concern is of course the college textbooks. College professors like to change books unlike TEA where we have them for 10 or 15 or 20 years, the same book. And they're quite expensive those college textbooks so we're always looking for a funding source for that and transportation of course if they're going to a career and technology class at a college then the school district can be reimbursed by the state but if it's for academics then they cannot. And testing you know we all are in our district we are have every high school is an active place or test center and I think many of us in the room have the same thing because it's much cheaper to test students at your home high school than transport them to the college. So we've been trying to do some things to you know really eliminate every barrier that we can for students so that when they go they don't have to figure out where do I go test. Now I've already taken care of the testing at school. I've already completed a flight Texas at school. I've already submitted all my applications so that when they actually get to the college they're there to have their transition meeting or meet with the counselor but their first experience is not having to run around all over the college to find this room and that room to find the right person to speak to. So I guess if we had to make changes it would be just to eliminate barriers for students. So what successes are we seeing? I know with graduation we said we were going to stand on the X that every kid was going to stand on the X. Our projected data for graduation rates for this school year almost every high school in our district for the exception of two one of which is in here are above 90% graduation rates. For our campus it's going to be at about 85% which compared to about four years ago it's almost a 10% increase. What's most important for me on my campus and we've worked on this since I first got them is the graduation rates for number one our left kid and our graduation rates for our special ed students and those graduation rates for our campus have increased for almost about 15 to 20% in the last three or four years. So we're seeing success. We know where we're at right now. Now we need to do the same thing that we did for graduation rates for the college and career readiness. Thank you. Three four seconds. Wow. That's the way we do it in San Antonio. All right. So number two just to kind of read what you're coming up I'm going to read it a little quickly. It was very well articulated in this group that if the people of authority are not part of this whole decision making and bringing together like policy changes the 14s testing, tuition, transportation and textbooks you know what we can find all we want but unless there's a flexibility and a change in some of those we're going to have a lot of challenges so I'm glad that policy was part of the discussion here and how to get students more students college ready. Sir, if you could say your name and your district and then Thank you. Dennis Alexander with Northside and Kansas School District. In our discussion and talking about what we're already doing we already have a strategic planning process where we make a lot of these kinds of decisions and that strategic planning rolls into our district improving our plans. So we targeted a lot of things in that plan. One of the things we talked about in our group is the fact that we need to talk to students about what the purpose of education is to give them a purpose. Even when we're talking about going to college we need to have them understand that college has a purpose and that going to college is not the ultimate outcome. That we need to talk to them about career. And we need to do more of it than we're currently doing. I think we hear from parents very often that we need to start talking to students about what are you going to do? What are you going to prepare for earlier and earlier instead of just waiting. We need to wait until high school to start talking to students about that. It's really too late. We talked about we need to involve students in something. If we're having them choose a career or if they choose a career north side we have five magnet programs that students can go to. When they choose one of those we find that that's always a good thing. Last night I was at a presentation where students from Alamo Academy stood up in front of a group of parents and both of these young people I say young I'm pretty sure this first to talk is not shaving yet. He went to the academies and is just out and is working for the Air Force. And he said when he went into Alamo Academy he didn't want to go. He did not want to apply and mama made him do it. And so now he's so involved that he is now working for the Air Force and they are paying him to go to college. The other students spoke with too it's at academies if you're familiar with it. She said the same thing. My mama made me do it. I didn't want to do it and now you know you couldn't keep her away. About a month ago I was at our health care's high school. Six seniors got up and reported out and said exactly the same thing. They had no intention of coming to health care's high school that their parents taught them into it. And for every one of these students it was at least two years before they made the decision to go into health care. So the point of that is that many times when you involve students in something there's not a negative side to that. They make a choice, they get some skills and in most cases you're going to find that they're going to latch onto it and continue on. What results, what's yielding the best results? We look at a lot of our numbers and we know what our graduation rates are and all of that but our discussion was that we probably don't know after hearing Greg talk as much as we need to know about our special programs that we're involved with. We discuss the idea that we have Abbott, we have all these partners we do AP credit, we do dual credit but we really don't have the data that tells us are those specific programs impacting and helping kids make the transition to college. So while we know some things we probably need to look into that and find out some additional things. We spend a lot of time in our district at an event we call Data Day where we spend an entire day going through all of our data campuses go through all of their individual data and it gives them a lot of information about where they need to focus about all the special populations and so forth but we do need to look into the fact that one of the students gets a certification at Microsoft or some other certification we don't know the answer to whether that helps transition that student to college or not. We know that it would help them pay for college once they get there. How are we aligning to the 2020 and Diplomas? We have a whole lot of overlap but we probably as a group need to spend a little more time focusing on that and trying to see exactly how we're going to align those. We really ran out of time before we had that discussion to the extent. Thank you. Who do you bring to the Data Day? Everyone. Every principal in the district every central office personnel everyone comes in and in that event everyone receives a binder this thick along with a flash drive that has all the information so you're able to look at it from the district perspective plus at every campus and at every subpopulation level. Thank you. I had a brief comment to that they bring the campuses brings their principal and they bring all of their administrators and if there is room and over the last two years north side's grown too fast we've run out of room we used to be able to bring our ELA and our math or our math and science coordinators and what I would add to what Dennis said is that if we don't walk away with more questions then that binder gives us answers to we're not looking hard enough. So that is the goal that the data is this deep and rich but the campus plans and district plans that come out of it need to be centered on what else do we need to know and how are we going to get it and then how are we going to improve basically. I also add that we have this particular team because we wanted to stay tuned to the framework's idea there was a lot of detail information we were getting into all the programs and approaches to engagement students and et cetera and we really challenged them to pull up and looked at all their activities from about 30,000 feet and had a big picture brought it down to key guiding principles and elements of their framework and that focus so directly on all the unique aspects or their various approaches and so some of the things that they were able to do was to kind of look at the first aspect of college learning is that framework from instructional and operational breakdown and within there were various aspects or issues that they considered as it related to the access policy and also moving forward to their college completion college completion policy and so I think within pushing to get to the focus there I think that a number of you may not realize how directly your policies are the way that even major students from the earliest ages have great impact on college completion and student culture and so I know that they feel a little less comfortable talking about that and they really have to applaud them for the way they embrace that concept and begin connecting what they're doing to those overarching concepts in their framework. Thank you. One minute and 40 seconds that means that I'm going to take advantage of it. One thing that us poor facilitators since we're working in the individual groups it would be good if just by the race of your hand how many of you are in an administrative role like this administrative role alright how many of you have everything you ever wanted to know and are involved with curriculum instruction curriculum instruction alright the other one is how many of you delve and love data and analyzing and research alright and then the last one the last one is everything you ever wanted to know about counseling counseling is your own group alright so those four groups those four groups you will have some you will have a role later on activity number three we're going to be divided into those four different groups and we'll share with you in just a little bit so now we have the next group and the next group is number three I'm Brenda Bernal I'm a college readiness specialist for Hardendale Independent School District just to have you all know this is my initiation we talked about a lot of things we talked about our goals and we're enthusiastic about raising those goals that we have but just to touch on what are we doing I'm going to give you just a few ideas for college readiness activities primarily we want to educate our students not only on curriculum but we need to educate them on college readiness I think it's important for them because you'd be surprised how many students don't know what an applied Texas is you'd be surprised how many of those students sit and take an SAT and don't know what's going to be on the SAT and so we need to start educating them not only on curriculum but also on college readiness we emphasize parent meetings we're trying to emphasize parent meetings presentations trying to get to the elementary middle school or PTA meetings giving them a presentation on college readiness and what our goal is as a district we want to stress that college readiness and college career are both pretty much the same thing and the reason for that is because in the past whenever careers were mentioned they were taboo and now we need to make them all one we need to make college readiness and college career one because in order for them to have a career they have to pass a certificate and on that certificate it's important for them to read and write and so for college readiness it's important for us to keep them out of remedial courses so those are our emphasis on college readiness positive we need to be we need to make it a positive testing culture you know our kids hate taking exams and we all know why so we need to change that culture and make it positive we need to let them know what's on those exams how it helps them, where they go with those and change that whole initiative educating our parents giving them field trips we've been doing field trips for the middle school and just seeing the excitement on their basis has been wonderful because they've never been on a university campus so those are things that we're doing we have avid programs in middle school that we just started and in high school this is their second year so those are other things we started tail gates for the middle schools our universities have stepped up and come and represented their universities and so we set up tail gates and we get them in there and the parents love it because they're getting information on those tail gates and we're starting them early we had some universities that have joined us in this mission and I'd like to mention those universities because I think it's important we have Trinity University, UTSA and Texas A&M college station those are the universities that have pretty much stepped up and helped us with those now our best results of course, we have to brag our best results are from the school test scene we had 95% and y'all heard that this morning our college reading this culture that we're trying to spread from pre-K to the 12th grade we want that to become a part of every single one of our schools and the principals and getting the getting the principals from the principals all the way down to the cafeteria and the custodians feeling the culture of college readiness we feel is important also how do we align it well, our culture is the best representation that's our representation from our campuses we have a college enrollment second in the city and we're very proud of that and we're wanting to hold on to that and make it even better what do we have to work on we have everything going toward the application process now what we want to work on is completion getting these kids to complete the college and university level thank you we have five minutes which is brand new director number four my name is Elizabeth and I'm the director for advanced academic for Southwest ISD and I take today's action marks the end of my fifth month with the district so we started out we actually have a framework that we're working on in trying to figure out how to make this a district wide initiative because we knew we needed to start early with elementary school we have the metaphors I've used recently and I apologize with the thousand points of light the problem with the thousand points of light is that if it doesn't make a picture it isn't a good initiative and so we're looking for that way to pull all those points of light together because we're doing a lot of stuff that doesn't make any difference and is it impacting all of the students that we want to so as we started our conversation what we realized our framework was missing and that we've been grappling with and Northside I think pointed this out really well for us is that comprehensive guidance and counseling program that touches every student that we know is intentional that's incorporating what we want it to but we also realized about adding that piece to the framework that we have that but it's well-defined but then what we know we need to do is create a guidance both philosophy but also initiative that clearly includes and well-defined roles for all parts of the system because we know that parents that students in peer tutoring with each other that counselors that teachers are the ones that see the students every day and this isn't to take away from the role of counselor but it's also making sure that teachers understand what we're trying to do what the power that they have with students and how they can help students decide what that future is where the resources are so that they can help us not only with the students but to create that culture helping parents and also helping partners know what they can do and frequently I think I heard Greg talk about this we have a lot of resources but we don't use them very well we don't coordinate that very well so really clearly defining the roles that the partners play for us and we think then we actually said what would it look like we looked at one thing that we know that we're starting with and we looked at the idea of the PSAT we just recently taken on the college board pathway and we're really fortunate to be able to open up a Go Center at an elementary school and so Katrina shared with us that when she's and Katrina as in my commitment was that we would draft some sort of a curriculum for elementary schools to use that she would test this out that we'd make some sort of agreement on what we felt by K through 5 this college knowledge because we're talking about being aware and so I'm here to scan before you and tell you that our graders take a look at the FAFSA forms and work on filling that out so that by the time they get to us in high school they're going to have at least some familiarity with it we'll understand it in depth, no but exposing them to that that early and our Go Center also includes a parent component so that means parents we're going to start thinking about that early so we think we've got something there so as we're talking about that we're starting to identify the vocabulary that we know that we want to have that directly relates to this idea of future career future college we've got we're and me happening so as they moved in from elementary school we're trying to reinforce some of those executive skills that they bring forward from leader and me but we're looking for something else we've taken a look at no excuses university I have to tell you there's nothing new in that he's taken and combined some of the things that we all know and he's the first one to tell you you don't have to buy what I'm selling you just have to decide what your focus is going to be and do it which is a really fabulous message so once they're aware at elementary school we're working at getting them prepared at middle school we've really taken a look at our curriculum and we're implementing a systemic curriculum we decided on spring board 6 through 12 in math and ELA for all students because we want all students to be college prepared so now we're starting to face the idea of implementation with fidelity for all students with that but then how we differentiate for some of our upper level students and so we're starting to take a look at some of that as we move up the line to high school of course we start with ready step at eighth grade we've also started a data initiative and there are two things that are happening with that we're trying to look at data differently with students and one of the commitments that we've made is to create what we're calling the assessment our star is not our star to provide principles with a concept of the fact that students are not defined by their star or their EOC score and we frequently look at them that way when they're not defined by their special pop coding there are a lot of other things that we want to look at so we're looking at creating an assessment piece and a one pager my goal is to make a one pager that we can share with principals and teachers and students to give them the vocabulary of assessment so they understand why they take the PSAT I was shocked to find out that teachers didn't realize nationals we had some teachers that didn't realize national mirrors came from PSAT that's a problem to me but it's an easily solved one and it's free all we have to do is talk about that and then helping them understand what the progression of those tests are and what that data tells us because we do get a lot of data back from college boards we are looking at as we talked about college we actually talked about post secondary so we're looking at the idea that a student could choose to go to a five week program a ten month program a one year program, a two year program a four year program but that we don't decide that that we leave all those we make sure that we talk to students we make sure that they're prepared we make sure that the parents understand what their options are that's why we want all students filling out the FAFSA we want all students to apply to Texas because if they don't choose to use it immediately after graduation they've been for it once and if chances are they'll be able to do it again when they need to so then I think we were asked to talk about what we think the successes are so we're aiming at better college knowledge making sure that students understand what they need to understand to be able to not only arrive but to survive and thrive in that environment we want them to be prepared to make the choices that they want to we want them to complete we want all points of our system to know when and how to intervene so if a student isn't meeting some of the benchmarks that we've set or isn't completing some of the things that we've set we want all of the state college and our system to know how to help out we're also looking at better vertical collaboration between we have a high percentage of students that go to the Alamo Colleges especially in Palo Alto so we're talking about possible collaboration with the advisors there especially in the summertime to help some of the summer melt but also to help them get past what we think could be an obstacle with the new requirements for the Primab and OLA because there are several hours of modules that they have to complete so we're looking to work with them better so we think we'll have more students enter so that we're meeting some of the 2020 goals and I think that was it I think everybody was going to watch it did I have time left you should have did oh my goodness thank you alright so there's a lot of activities one of the things that Elizabeth brought up to the attention of all of us that if you notice we're still speaking to each other this is what we do this is what my school does this is how we are addressing pretty soon this is what we're going to say when people ask us this is what we do in San Antonio all of us coming together to work we're focusing on some goals that the mayor has bravely and boldly given us what we call the higher level goals and we have different initiatives in place that we're trying to align the work that we do so right now that's why today's activity is about what is really moving that educational needle in the direction that we need to go and it's obvious that there's so much learning that can happen amongst each other you know real quickly not too long ago a superintendent tells me you know I learned something about professional development I said really what did you learn I said well I learned that two school districts down the road from where I went I ran into them in California and I told them man you guys are doing great work he had to go to California to find out but that's what they do alright we don't even know what's happening across the street so this is the type of activity when we start talking about collective impact it's about what activities are becoming now what we call schools of excellence so we can go learn from each other they become demonstration schools where we not only have there's no more called we don't call them best practices anymore they have to be proven practices what does your data say that proves that it's a best practice best practice is slut prove it that it's a best practice that's where we start digging really deep into the conversations about what is the data telling us that we can mark it off as something that's good for all students so now we're going to go into activity number two and explain a little bit about what we're going to be doing so you're going to be getting up off of your seats one more time in activity number two in your template, we have a template that's called the luminous template that you will be completing goals or goals the key area is the focus metric strategies and timelines I want you to know again that the key academic college-reading concepts have to do with what is already research-based the focus has to be on cognitive strategy skills, content knowledge and academic behaviors and the last thing is that we know that these are related college-rex's concepts embedded with college knowledge and navigation skills students, parents, community members anyone that touches students we should say touches students anybody that works with students don't touch students anybody that works with a student has to understand the navigation skills do you know even now with everything that's available students are showing up in universities and colleges on the first day of school and say where's my schedule what do you mean where's your schedule where's my schedule like in high school you're going on to do the schedule in college I know, they climbed out of a rock somewhere the other thing I wanted to tell you is that you know, we were talking about schools in the state of Texas there's approximately 1200 school districts 900 of them are small in rule alright, small in rule do you think master teachers work in small in rule school districts the answer is yes those are far in view but they do, that's what we can go and learn if we already know that 900 school districts approximately 900 school districts in state of Texas are small in rule then policy has to be different in those school districts the way we service them the way we recruit teachers the way the pre-service colleges and universities work so again, it's a whole village that takes us to educate each other about what we're doing in our school system so part two after you finish reviewing and filling out the template with the metrics strategies we're going to use the post-it folder this one here each of you will have one of these we're going to write down your school district we're going to have goal metrics now, a metric means that you can measure it it's not like it has to have a number or percentage and you know what more than likely the metrics is something that's public information because it's free you're going to have to pay for it then you're going to have to come up with a budget to do it so indicators can be measured or what we call new metrics that are readily available the data state the national clearing house you have to get a certain fee but if it's all working then that's something you can look at your AIS reports, your PINS data you can look at how many students through your average daily attendance all of these other information that you're going to look at then we're going to identify number two and let me tell you why these are going to be important remember we talked about really this is what's happening in my school now this is what's happening in my school district now I'm going to start talking about strategies that brings us all together and where can we vote on them because we're going to paint these squares and those strategies we're going to measure them across as the collective cohort of school districts that we're going to work towards them this ends on the 2020 goals and the development goals so do you see how we went high excuse me, we went real high this is what I do, this is what our school district is thinking of doing and now we're going to align it to be very strategic that's why it's cost strategic but we're going to have the way we're going to measure it here's the overarching goals that we both lead alignment and this is our school district looking together this is like us going back to your superintendent your presidents of your colleges and saying we've got too big what we call quick wins, it might be hard but it's something that we're going to do immediately as a priority that we're going to all work on it together to start really talking about San Antonio is working as a collaborative to really get to those goals now remember this is not individual this is collective these are things that we can do together for instance, is it important for students to know about college, the common language we heard that how do we do that, is that a goal how do we measure that a hundred percent of our kids know the language, well if we can measure it then you're really likely that might be a real good goal to have but then check it off, let's go to the next one so you see those are the conversations we need to have a hundred percent of my students will take SAT can you measure that? yes is it doable? yes can you give us some strategies can you go to that? yes so those are the types of conversations we're going to have but that means that your school district is going to kind of save we're going to do that as a collective to move it as a work IST cohort to move that needle so if you notice here we're going to have that and during session three this is our activity number two we're going to activity number three we're going to put these around the room and you're going to have five dots and I'll go in the instructions but we're not going to vote on which are our priorities because each of them are different and we're going to say let's put it together we'll bring it back again maybe tomorrow there's an activity there we're going to put together and kind of give you an outline of what your vote said y'all gave it a thumbs up so for right now what we're going to do is move for college readiness we're going to talk about a goal we're going to talk about the metrics and two strategies that we're going to do we should work it across but this is what our goal is right here because that's what we're going to vote on these two strategies that we're going to work on together raise your hand if you have a question clarifications or need information here's an example that I'm insured with you this is an example but expanding the AP courses getting more students in college dual credit getting quality teachers etc so your packet has those examples I just wanted to show you that this is what we're going to work on we have approximately we have 90 minutes for this activity but we have to have a final product so this is 1 hour we have 1 hour we have an hour to do this activity so 45 minutes we have it clean then we have the 15 minutes to come back and report on the activity number three we're going to go ahead and vote on those priorities any questions alright let's go to your time screen


Thank you so much, Arundhati, for joining us on this, for this conversation. I mean, there's so much, so much to talk about, but I would like to begin by talking about the fact that your second novel is now in, going to be in 49 languages. You're always in your work related to real-life events on the ground and very disturbing happenings around you, and yet you immerse yourself in very, very high-quality fiction. I mean, do you think that's a very rare thing for a writer, difficult? You know, I mean, I think that people make this mistake to think that fiction is somehow untrue. Actually, good fiction has to be true. And I'm not talking about true in terms of facts and figures, but true as in music is true, you know? As you know that when you hit the right note, it is a true note. So it's an imaginary garden, surely, but it's full, it's tap roots of all the plants in it come from a place which is true, you know? And so I don't know why people sort of seem to, seem to suggest that you have fiction that has to be purely imaginary and then you have non-fiction. Whereas, for me, the line is an osmotic one. And none of what I write in the Ministry of Atmos Happiness would have been even ethical if I was just imagining massacres and lynchings and brutalization. You know, these are the things that are caste or gender or all of it. You know, it is the substance of the air we breathe and, you know, a... Coming to the substance of the air that we breathe today. Sorry, I mean, just if I may say it. No, please.  But the air is true, you know? Yeah. Actually, that's a very, very robust point. If you look at the journey that you have made and say your environments have made since the God of Small Things and the Ministry of Atmos Happiness, you see a whole arc which goes this way or goes below the Earth. I don't know how. So where are we today? In a very dangerous place, you know, in a very, very dangerous place, because we, you know, when the massacre in Gujarat happened, I certainly was one of those people who made the mistake of believing that if you just describe what happened and if you sort of bring it out in all sorts of ways, whether it's in your outrage, whether it's in your writing, whether it's in court, whatever, you know, that would be enough to create a climate where it couldn't happen again. But in fact, you actually came up against a terrifying scenario in which there were people who said, so what? Or they deserved it. And, you know, it became, in some ways, the massacre became an election campaign. It became something to be proud of. And today we have a prime minister who was chief minister at the time who has refused ever to admit any wrongdoing or neglect. And so, you know, whether this path to power came despite the massacre or because of it is something which is a very troubling point, you know, it's a very troubling point because you're not talking about, you know, on the one hand, you're not sure there's individual accountability and certain people murdered, certain other people, certain people raped, certain other people, certain people burnt, certain other people, yes. But what sort of a society is it in which this kind of thing is not abhorrent, you know? So it sets off a very complex current. And today, of course, we've seen a situation in which you have a whole cultural configuration, a nationalist configuration, a Hindu nationalist configuration who has ridden to power on a manifesto of hatred. But now what you're seeing is, you know, when you put that kind of hatred down on the table and you think that you can control it and say, oh, it's just between Hindus and Muslims, no, it's an idea, it's a way of thinking. And then that way of thinking can infect relationships between castes, between classes, between genders, between ethnicities. And so, you know, this is a country where everybody is a minority in some way or the other. And once you light those fires, they may burn for a thousand years. You know, you made a very interesting point earlier and now that we've seen this kind of hatred which has been legitimized, in a way, through a political campaign, which is communal hatred. But we've also lived with centuries of caste violence, which is like an everyday thing which we tolerate in one sense as a society, state sort of abolished untouchability in the constitution, but within a abolished caste. There are all these kind of, and there are these symbols which still anger people when the Dalit man decides to become a bridegroom on a horse or decides to take the name of Singh in Gujarat, you know, because the Rajput name and all sorts of things. You know, the thing about caste is, you know, that when it comes to caste, the real violence is more than just the flogging and the killing, you know, because caste itself as a social structure is a form of violence and it can only be kept in place by the continuous threat of violence, the continuous threat. So it's an abomination that I frankly don't know how it has passed under the international radar of all kinds of outrage for so long. But it is, you know, it is obviously complex and simple at the same time because it's not, in a way casteism and racism is the same thing, but it's not just white people, you know, oppressing black people, but a system in which society is divided into an infinite, not an infinite, but a finite hierarchy, I mean, levels of hierarchy. Each one is then wired into that sense of a vertical hierarchy, you know. So it's not only those at the very top, but all the way down the line that has been indoctrinated to think in these ways, you know. But caste, the violence of caste is not just the violence of the flogging, the killings, the lynching, you know, the violence of caste is in its daily implementation, in its belief that certain people are entitled to less than other people in the way democracy and elections and constituencies are configured. And within caste, of course, the whole notion of untouchability is so abhorrent, you know, that you have, of course, that overall segregation and exclusions. And then the fact that you can actually think of fellow humans as being so impure as to be untouchable, which is legitimized by some sections of the scriptures, you know, so. Yeah, so that's the one difference between caste and race, that race created by the human mind and caste is, they pretended that it is sanctioned in some divine way, you know, which makes it so hard to even overcome because it is imbued with religious belief. Yeah. So we had the manual scavenging act passed only in 2013, I don't know why it was not passed soon after independence because we have article 374 which says that our law should have got constitutionalized soon after we became independent and that's what Ambedkar said that, you know, we are giving ourselves political independence but not economic and social equality.  Anandati, today, I mean, coming back to the here and now, we've had this spate of attempted arrest and some arrests actually, we have had raids on the homes of lawyers and activists and academics. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has stepped in the day before yesterday which was very, very welcome and one thing about that entire, the drama of the last three days was, you know, Professor Satya Narayan's comment and his, whatever it was, daughter's comment that, you know, the police kept asking me that why are you not wearing a saree and why don't you have a sindhu in your head. So I mean, how do you see this panning out? I mean, this regime, which has probably taken authoritarian fascism to its testing limit under the constitutional framework. Well, it's gone outside the constitutional framework already, you know, but see the way I see things right now, I mean, that's what I was trying to say yesterday at the press conference and is that there are, you know, there are, you also know from your experience in Gujarat that the dangerous time came and the Gujarat massacre happened at a time when the ruling party there was losing popularity, losing election. These are very dangerous times, you know. So that is the situation right now. Surveys have shown actual data analysis of real voting in the elections have shown a serious drop in approval and popularity. So two things have to be done to regain that. One is that you've got to consolidate your own constituency. And the other is that you have to obviously divide the opposition and you have to divert attention away from the reasons why your popularity is dropping. These are the things that we are witnessing right now. So obviously, you know, while the communal pot is kept on the boil, you have a situation in which, you know, the disaster of demonetization, which everybody felt, but now the figures are out. The Reserve Bank has said that 99.3% of the money has come back. The papers are reporting the cash economy is larger than it ever was. Other newspapers like The Guardian have reported that it likely caused a 1% shrinkage in the GDP that 1.5 million jobs were lost. So this is something that's affecting everybody and particularly the poorest people, you know. And the betrayal of a person who comes to power, an organization that comes to power promising 15 lakhs in everyone's bank account and then does demonetization is an outrage, you know, that. Then the whole business of corruption, which is the basis on which the UPF fell with those 40 days of agitation and so on. Look at the Raphael deal now, you know. I mean, the allegations are unimaginable corruption. So the demand is by all opposition parties that there should be a joint parliamentary probe, is that going to happen? God knows. If you look at things like obviously the distress in the agricultural sector, you look at farmer suicides, all of that is creating anger, which people don't have to look to newspapers to understand because it's happening to them. It's happening to them. You know, the TV channels don't have to tell them. Now the only thing to do is to say, oh, but all this distress is in order for the great Hindu Russia to come, which is a very, it's not a foolish move, it's something that can sell, you know, it could. But if you look at what is happening, I mean, during the UPF government, you had the huge attack on Adivasis in Bastar. But now the attack is on Dalits too, always disguised as action against Maoists. You know, earlier it was only Adivasis who were called Maoists. Now it's also Dalits, which is an insult to assertions of Dalit pride, Dalit leadership, you know, making them out to be people who are just manipulated by this handful of urban naxals or whatever they want to call them, you know. And so, but at the same time, you know, there is going to be a great wooing of that constituency because that is 150 years old, you know, that, you know, Garwapsi starting, it started in the 1870s, you know. So in some ways, if you look back at Gauraksh, Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan, Garwapsi, all these things, they have 150 year old history, you know. So we are living in those times and I don't, I mean, I have a sense that people's mood is shifting, but I mean, that means the most dangerous times because whether this, you know, trying to drag people back into that cauldron of hatred, whether it's going to be, you know, we've seen now the police have, because of the investigation into the assassination murder of Gauri Lankesh, you've seen those organizations being exposed, but how many more of them are there? God knows, you know. How many more of them are plotting things and where are they plotting? Where is the fireball going to fall?  I don't know. So complicated, difficult times, challenging times, but also I think people are showing incredible humor and courage and stepping up to the plate in ways which is wonderful, you know. And do you feel worried and scared personally at any time because you've had to bear the most wild attacks at different points of time in the last 10 years?  So I don't mind the insults at all, you know. Your home state recently went through a terrible, terrible flood. And this morning, I saw a tweet by the state finance minister of Kerala saying that the Chief Minister's Relief Fund had crossed 1,000 crores, you know, of Indian donations when you have a very, very petty central government not allowing foreign aid to come in, despite the fact that NDA1 had around crossed to come in for the Gujarat earthquake in 2001. How did you feel when that happened and this kind of discourse, which is tremendous resilience from within and outside Kedela, lot of support from the rest of India? Well, I felt, I mean, you know, obviously, it's not perfect what has happened there because I know, I mean, from personal friends that they have been caste issues, you know, I know, like, people in my own hometown where Dalit families have a separate relief camp and, you know, money's not getting there and so on. But on the whole, on the whole, I felt, I felt like from hearing stories and from hearing, yeah, you felt like, yeah, that's the kind of place I'd like to belong to, you know, and that's the kind of place we could all belong to if only, if only there was a slightly more long-term idea of how things should be because it could be a wonderful place. This, if people were, if it was the kind of place that a society that people wanted to belong to, people in the Northeast, people in Kashmir, you know, you, it's not impossible to have a revolutionary vision of a society because it doesn't have to get there. It has to be there, you know. It's not, there is no society that is just anywhere in the world but are we yearning for justice? Are we moving towards justice or are we moving in the opposite direction? If you have a sense that people are trying, that people have a vision, that people want to move towards egalitarianism, you know, then the imperfections and the flaws are one thing but if you're seeing everyone in power leaning in the opposite direction, you see the elites, you see the majoritarianism and it's all leaning in the opposite direction, then what hope is there, you know? A few words on the opposition today, the political opposition. I mean, we know that from the ground we feel that the mood is changing, people are looking up, people are fighting back at various levels. The political opposition today seems to be in better shape than it was a few months ago and they seem to be talking about alliances to make sure that this regime doesn't come back to power. How do you see that? Well, I see that, you know, one thing is an alliance which is based on agreement and, you know, a common minimum program and so on. Another thing is an alliance, you see what I see now is a situation where on every side it's a battle for survival. The VJP is going to fight for survival because people know that if they lose, it's not just that they'll be out of power but they could be in serious trouble, you know? I mean, there are a lot of things building up which are disturbing and extremely worrying. For example, the death of Justice Lawyer, the very questionable death of Justice Lawyer, you know? Where is that going to end? I mean, I know the courts have thrown it out for now but I don't think it's going to go away, you know? Now, on the side of the opposition, I think if you take the Congress or you take Samajwadi or you take the BSP, I think they are fighting for their own survival, for their existence.  So the alliance is also, their alliances are based on a kind of need to survive, which is a good thing, which is a good thing. I believe that, you know, I mean, I'm speaking from my experience of Kerala, for example, as opposed to West Bengal. You know, the fact that no party has been able to consolidate itself for 40 years like the CPM did in West Bengal. It's a very good thing, you know? I think even if you're like me, who has not that much faith in, you know, the goodness of governments when they come, I mean, parties or the state when it comes to power, I see myself as a person who's decided to be in an oppositional space. I have criticized them all, the CPM, the Congress, everyone. So from my experience in Kerala, you know, the fact that that state has never had a government coming back to power twice in a row. Unlike, say, the consolidation of power in West Bengal by the CPM for so many years, it creates a kind of rot, you know? It creates an arrogance, it creates a violence. So even, whereas in Kerala, the CPM and the Congress have never been given that opportunity by people, you know? Which is great.  I refuse to think like a state, right? So whoever comes to power, obviously one will be oppositional to them. But I think that today, we do have to keep switching them around. We do have to never allow them to grow roots. I'm quite happy with coalitions. I'm quite happy with uncertainty, compromise, debate.  So even let's say it had been a great success. The point is that that kind of thing is dangerous. I mean, what do people who want to invest in India think? That anything can happen at any time, right?  We moved from the big mobs to the micro mobs to the lynching mobs, and this kind of micro-fascism, which is also going to be administered by Aadhar, right? Everyone's data centralized, and everyone can be managed through their data. And similarly, demonetization, it was like taking a cricket bat and breaking everybody's spine, you know?  So it was a kite that was flown. Can I do this? And will people react or will they not? Nobody reacted. It was early days, so nobody reacted. People had faith, which was a terrible thing. We should have reacted. We should have reacted. Equally, these arrests, it's kite flying. It's like, let me do this and see, let us do this and see what will happen, you know? It's a testing ground, you know, to take the temperature of people. And so while we must know that they already knew how we would react in terms of, of course there would be protests and they would wait them out. But so I believe that the opposition is going to be fighting for its survival as is the government, as never before. You sort of rightly flagged a couple of things in connection that this is going to be a very challenging time. It's going to pull out our reserves in terms of creativity, resistance.  Three or four things which have really struck me is that you have something like the law commission today saying that simultaneous polls is probably not a good idea. That sedition is something that should be really looked into again. We should not have 124A on our statute books. It should not be seen as questioning. The government should not be seen as sedition which has been reiterated today. You have a debate going on as to whether there should be a cap on election expenditure and election, all the opposition party is saying yes, there should be and only the BJP is saying that there should be no limit. And then you have demonetization and what it has meant. Then you have a kind of crony capitalism which we know the way the government is favoring certain capitalists. Not all capitalists even. So they have access to unlimited money in terms of elections. Well, that is the interesting thing that you had demonetization. You have this very, very complicated goods and services tax which has taken the stuffing out of small businesses. And at the same time you have the BJP emerging as by far, by far, by far the richest political party. It has introduced the secret electoral bonds so that political funding becomes very, very mysterious. You have, while small businesses and jobs and the GDP drops, you have certain favorite corporations who have multiplied their wealth manifold and certain favorite businessmen who have escaped with thousands of crores of money. So I mean, it's a no-brainer that people who have that much wealth are going to say that there should not be a cap on election expenditure because they can just bulldoze their way through with money. They have the money, they have the EVMs, they have the voter lists. So you're up and they have a great section of the media which has been extremely culpable in doing things. You know, for example, the media houses that played again and again and again the faked videos of the young students in JNU, Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya. Today, Umar Khalid has survived an assassination attempt. Kanhaiya was beaten up. I mean, they are legally culpable, surely. And in fact, the investigation by the magistrate into that video, which was shown again and again by Zee, was found to be doctored. That's what I'm saying. It was shown by Zee, it was shown by Times Now, I think it was shown by, I think. But whoever showed it, I mean, should they not apologize?  His whole life, you know?  But who's to say that it won't happen five days down the line? Shouldn't they be clarifying that this is not true? He didn't say these things. He's not a terrorist. He wasn't trained by ISIS. You know, he's just a student. You know, that's the way interesting what you said because there's labels that they use and misuse. That they first create and they misuse and particularly misuse social media with and all these electronic media channels like Tukre Tukre Gang, Urban Naxals, stuff like that. They're deliberately used to malign and to, like you said, consolidate their own constituencies. Tukre Tukre Gang should be the people who are trying to divide this country up into, you know, majorities and minorities and good Indians and bad Indians and so on. I mean, they're the ones who are gonna end up dismembering the place, no? You know, Trump came to power in America and Modi had come to power here before that. And one of the things I keep telling people and we had these discussions over is that, you know, though you have America being this, we know what the American state is, the foreign policy, the war machine, all of that, but you saw huge protests both after he came to power and even when the Supreme Court of America about two months ago passed a horrendous judgment on migrants and their families, you had cities erupting in protest. We here have a man who of course represents what he did in 2002, but also symbolizes an organization like the Rashtra Swamseh Vaksan which will be 100 years old in 2025, which has actually attempted to restructure Indian society and state to achieve its game of a Hindu Rashtra, you know? And it's not, it's called itself a cultural organization but it's uncapped foreign funding, all of that. And its tentacles are in society which are now being reflected on trolls and social media. So in that sense, it's a much more dangerous scenario here than even in America. That's true, of course. You know, the institutions of American democracy are very, very troubled by Trump.  So you have those problems, whatever government comes to power next, if it isn't them, even if it isn't them, the institutions are all compromised, you know? So what is happening is a much deeper problem than elections can solve right now, you know? Much deeper, I mean, the compromising of all educational institutions, of textbooks, of what the young are being taught, you know? I mean, even people who believe in that ideology, they also tend to believe in sending their children to America. But we are going to lose any vestige of collective intelligence, you know? With this kind of teaching. Yes, yes. Romila Thapar and other historians say that, you know, India has always been a civilization where the Shraman has battled the Brahman for centuries.  So there has always been this deeply questioning and anti-establishment tradition, which has questioned the hierarchy of caste, hierarchy of injustice, all along. And it's not a foreign concept. And therefore, pluralism and diversity within the Constitution is very much rooted in the soil here, much as it's been tried to be crushed. So yet we have modernity and the way, like you're saying, we are going back. We have, you know, everything is unique about this place, including its unique brand of fascism, you know? And of course, you know, questions have been raised for millennia. But the fact is that, you know, right now, not right now, for a long time, what has happened is that history has been turned into mythology. And mythology has been turned into history, you know? So you have a situation where, a bizarre situation, where you have people going into the forest where indigenous people live and have lived for centuries before Hinduism existed. And they are doing ghar vapsi. Okay, they are telling Adivasis that they are returning home to the Hindu fold. And yet at the same time, those same people, the Hindu evangelists will claim that they are Aryans who came from outside, who are the descendants of Alexander, you know? So you can say anything at any point. And so you do see the, you do see the fact that in many, many areas, you know, in many, many Adivasis communities and rural communities, their deities are the demons of Hinduism, right? Including Ravan in the south, you know? And including the conquest of the Vedians. So, and it keeps coming up.  So I think, you know... Unique brand of fascism you were talking about. Yes, unique everything. I mean, unique beauties, unique complexities, unique pluralism. It cannot have been otherwise, you know? Because what we also take for granted is when we say India, India, what do we mean by it? You know, the borders of this nation state were drawn by the British. Otherwise, they were the ones who tried to homogenize it. Otherwise, it wasn't. We were not all bound together in this. In fact, a lot of the violence of Hindutva is to try and create that majority community that never existed. To try and forcibly create a majority that never ever thought of itself as a majority, early on.  So would you just, I mean, just the question of violence?  And, you know, I'm just reading it now because it's going to be part of a compilation. And it's really interesting, you know, because it raises those questions that are very moved today, you know, questions of consent and violence and all of that. But in a very different way, in the sense that, of course, the main point I was making was that you can't restage the rape of a living woman without her consent. Because Phulandevi was saying that, you know, it's like, keep latching her in the halls and all that. But the other more interesting thing I think is that, you know, Phulandevi was India's most famous bandit. She was in the chumble at the time and everyone else was being caught by the police. They couldn't find her, they couldn't catch her, they had never seen her. And she led a gang of dacoits who, and eventually she surrendered, she was never caught. It cheated her afterwards in the terms of that surrender. But the film turns this most famous bandit into history's most famous victim of rape, you know? And starting from the beginning, like in her own telling, you know, she became a bandit because when she was very young, I think 10 years old or something, her father's brother stole her father's land.  Now the film sort of suggests that she was raped by him and then she became a bandit because of that. No, she became a bandit, like all men become bandits because she was fighting for land, you know? And then according to her own version, she was furious with that husband, not because he raped her, but because he sent her home and said, what am I gonna do? So when she became a bandit, she returns to punish him and his wife, you know, for humiliating her. So what I mean is that so many rapes are added, there's such a lascivious attitude, masquerading as concern and family, very old trick.  So all these are forms of violence, you know? Making you retreat, making you fearful, turning every achievement into a humiliation and then you're rewarded for your wisdom hold. So I was pleased to read that essay too out of so long that was my introduction to Arun Dati. Yeah, actually that was, it wasn't the first essay I wrote. I'm such one I remember, I'm sure there was one before. There was just one about making movies and things. But that one, yeah, it was... And then of course one kept following you very closely. Thank you so much, Arun Dati. It's been a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.


Hey, Psych2Goers! Welcome back to another video. Before we start, we would like to thank you all for the support that you've given us. Psych2Go's mission is to make psychology and mental health more accessible to everyone, and you help us do that, so thank you. Now, back to the video. Have you ever met someone who is very sure of themselves? These are people who exude a certain degree of comfort or assuredness, who have the ability to instill a sense of security and comfort in others. But what's their secret? Well, it just may be their self-confidence. The word confidence comes from the Latin root confidere, which means to have full trust in. These people have trust in themselves and in their abilities. Confidence can inspire change in action in others. It provides an element of clarity in the most unclear situations. So, how do you become more confident? Here are six daily habits that confident people have. Number one, keep your promises. Broken promises can cause a lot of painful emotions, but broken promises made with yourself can be the most harmful. Perhaps you promised yourself to be healthier, but put off working out or avoid eating well. You might say, I'll just do it tomorrow. But tomorrow can carry forward a day, a week, or even a year. Failing to meet personal commitments can lessen the value of your words and diminish your self-worth.  So, it's important to learn to hold yourself accountable for what you say. When that happens, you can start rebuilding your self-esteem and self-confidence. Number two, say and do what you mean. Do you say and do what you mean and mean what you say? Confident people act and speak with integrity. Their words match their actions and vice versa. They have clear morals and priorities and understand when to compromise and when to say no. A study from the University of California, San Francisco found that the more difficult you have in saying no, the more likely you are to develop burnout or depression. So, to act based on your values and not what you believe others might think of you is a step to becoming more confident. Number three, stop running away from your fears. Are you always anxious? One of the most useful habits confident people have developed is their ability to overcome their fears. While fear is an essential part of life and can be useful to ensure survival, too much of it produces anxiety. Confident people have learned that fear can be a tool to push you to acts of greatness or change.  When you learn to embrace your fears and move past them, you are on the road to becoming more confident. Number four, don't compare yourself to others.  President Theodore Roosevelt once said, comparison is the thief of joy. When you constantly look at other people and their success, you end up focusing on your own imperfections and flaws. You don't allow yourself to see the vastness of your potential and all the good qualities you hold. This habit can easily demotivate you and harm your self-esteem and self-confidence. Number five, assertively state your case. Do you tend to put up with others' wants and needs before your own? If so, your self-esteem and self-worth may be suffering. In a world filled with noise and many different opinions, it's hard to make your voice heard. As a result, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you have to please everyone. Confident people know and honor this. It's why they make it a habit to speak with conviction and assertion because they understand that their ideas will not be noticed otherwise. Learn how to communicate your ideas and needs respectfully and honestly and people will listen. And number six, don't be afraid to be wrong. Are you afraid to be proven wrong? Do you tend to argue with others until they concede? Confident people are confident in their abilities as well as their faults. They understand that they cannot achieve or know everything and they're comfortable with that. Instead of seeing failure as a personal snub, they see it as an opportunity for growth. So to be able to admit that you're wrong sometimes and to use it as an opportunity to learn is a step towards building confidence. Do you follow any of the habits we've mentioned? Let us know in the comments below. If you found this video insightful, be sure to like it and share it with those who might benefit from it. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button and notification bell icon to get notified whenever Psych2Go posts a new video. The references and studies used in this video are added in the description below. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video.