S2 Ep25: Captain Underpants is the Gateway Drug to Shakespeare: Igniting a passion for reading through habit-stacking to promote positive outcomes and inspire successful leaders

3:08AM Jan 3, 2022

Speakers:

Shelli Ann Garland

Danny Brassell

Keywords:

reading

people

books

kids

programme

students

parents

called

teachers

swan

shelli

world

chiara

habit

story

important

audible books

class

learning

passionate

Hello, and welcome to A Dash of SaLT. I'm Dr. Shelli Ann and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you stumbled upon this podcast by accident, or you're here because the subject drew you in welcome. Salt is an acronym for society in learning today. This podcast was created as an outlet for inviting fresh discussions on sociology and learning theories that impact your world. Each episode includes a wide range of themes that focus on society in everyday learning, whether formal or informal. So let's get stuck in shall we.

Welcome to A Dash of SaLT. Today I'm joined by Dr. Danny Brassell. He's a former inner city teacher, and is on a mission to bring joy back into education in the workplace by transforming struggling and reluctant readers into more passionate and proficient readers. He encourages everyone that he speaks with how to make reading a lifelong habit, and trains leaders how to communicate their messages through effective and inspirational storytelling. Danny is a highly sought after speaker, trainer and coach known as the Jim Carrey with a PhD. Dr. Brassell has spoken to over 3000 audiences worldwide and has authored 16 books, including his latest leadership begins with motivation. He's the co founder of www.thereadinghabit.com The world's top reading engagement programme. And I'm really delighted to have you on the podcast today to talk to you about education leadership, and your reading engagement programme. TheReadingHabit.com. Welcome Danny.

Thanks so much for having me. Shelli. Thanks for all you do to spread joy around the world.

Well, I'm going to start right off this conversation today by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and why you believe that reading is important.

Well that's funny. Shelli it's ironic because I grew up hating reading my father's librarian when he was a librarian, and I always hated the public library. They always smelled funny to me. The furniture was always uncomfortable. There was always some elderly woman telling me to be quiet. There's always some freaky homeless guy thinks he's a vampire hanging out in the library. I always hated it. And it wasn't until I actually started teaching in the inner city in South Central Los Angeles where I noticed a lot of my students didn't have the things that I had growing up. And I said shame on me. You know, I was really blessed Shelli, I had both of my parents in my home. Growing up, we weren't, we were a very lower middle class. But we never starved to death. We always had food on the table. My parents always read in front of us kids, they read to us, and we had plenty of access to reading materials. And when I saw that not every kid gets that I became very ashamed. And it really became something of a mission for me, especially and you've seen this in the education system. I think schools do an adequate job of teaching kids how to read. But the question I always ask people is, well, what good is it teaching kids how to read if they never want to read, I teach kids wider read because I've never had to tell a kid go watch TV. I've never had to tell a kid go play a video game. And I never want to have to tell a kid go read a book, I want them to choose to do it on their own because they love it. And so really one of my passions is really developing positive habits in students of all ages. You know, now I work a lot with corporate executives. I always tell people, you know, it's never too late, we can always get you there. But I've become very passionate about this. And so that's what I preach all around the world right now is I'm really helping, primarily with my online reading engagement programme, I show parents and teachers ways to get their kids to read more, read better, and most importantly, to love reading it only takes a couple of months if you just follow some very simple steps in the blueprint.

Yeah, it's one thing to you know, just sort of look at reading from a teacher perspective as a tick, tick box exercise, but it's a completely other thing to really ignite that passion, you know, in young people or in it like you said, anyone you know, as grownups, some people you know would have had that. That sort of reading as a as that you know that formal education. Okay, I've ticked that box. I know how to read, but I don't love it. I can't tell you how many times I've I've had conversations with friends and family and colleagues who say you know what, I really hate reading you know, they wouldn't have a book next to their bed. wouldn't be reaching out to something, you know, to read or that kind of thing. And so you know, even reigniting or igniting that passion in an adult who already has read, you know, box checked that kind of thing, lord knows how to read. But you know, igniting that passion. So I'm sure that this is something that's, that's, you know, really not just a niche for young people, but something that, you know, reaches out across the life course. Am I right about that?

Absolutely. I mean, one of the most important things I point out to people is the research is really clear on this, it doesn't matter what you read, what matters is how much you read. It doesn't matter. If you're reading James Joyce, or James and the Giant Peach people who read more, read better. A tip I always tell parents and teachers is the little boy who only reads Captain Underpants is going to be a better reader than the little boy who refuses to read anything. I mean, Captain Underpants is the gateway drug to Shakespeare. But first of all, you got to get the kid hooked on it. And so that's what you know, and I see so many, you know, I was working with some corporate executives last week. And, you know, they're like, Well, I hate classic literature, I'm like, but that's not just reading, just because schools prescribed certain things for people to read doesn't mean that that's what reading is all about. I mean, if you think you know, I don't think Warren Buffett who reads basically eight hours a day, I don't think he's sitting there reading Russian novels, I think he's reading a lot of corporate expense reports and things like that, because that's a very specific reading. And that's what I was recommending to the business leaders last week is only figure out what your area of interest is, and then just really focus your reading on that, because you'll be interested in that I, I have worked with so many 13 year old boys, where there is no way I'm getting this kid to read this textbook. But if I give him a manual on how to fix a Chevy, he'll memorise it from cover to cover, because he's interested in it, you got to listen and pay attention to what I mean, any leader knows this, any good. Leader is a coach and you're trying to figure out your team. And, you know, everybody has their own type of gasoline. Some people are a little bit higher octane than others, but everybody has their own type of gasoline. And then your job is to kind of ease drop and to figure out what what is this person interested in? And how can I use that to lift them up?

Absolutely. And you know, you have a you have actually a really interesting question on the the front page, if you will, of your your, your the landing platform of your website, and you pose a question and you say, you know, what, do Elon Musk, LeBron James and Pitbull all have in common? And you don't give the answer. And so my question is, you know, what is your answer?

Yes, so the answer is they all read, they read a lot. And people don't realise that I've studied successful people in all fields, from politics, to government to even athletics and entertainment. And I, you know, I know there's plenty of readers that don't necessarily become successful leaders, but I have never read about an effective successful leader. That's not an avid reader, you know, this is what I mean, I could have kissed LeBron James when he was playing for the Miami Heat. They showed him in the locker room before the NBA Finals, and he was reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and I wanted to kiss him because I'm like, That shot just did more for literacy than anything I've done over the course of my career. People need to see that I work with a lot of corporate executives, a lot of people don't know this, over half of the Fortune 500 CEOs in the world are dyslexic. And what people don't understand is dyslexia is a reading disability and all reading disabilities are curable, with some attention paid to them. But one of the characteristics of Dyslexics is there, actually, they process better through their ears, auditory. And so one of the tips I give to those people as well don't try and read just listen to audiobooks, it'll be just as good. You know, if you look at I'm one of these real nerdy people, I've actually read every American government study of the last 100 years and in reading, and they're always these 2000 page documents, and it's always around page 100, where they have this simple statement that says, the research seems to suggest the single best way to improve your reading is to be read aloud to and then they never mentioned it again. Because it sounds so easy. One of my friends and mentors, Jim Trelease, author of the read aloud handbook, he said that if reading allowed, cost $129 every parent in America would rush out and buy it. And if we found out kids didn't like it, they would mandate it in the public school system tomorrow. It sounds so easy and yet is so powerful. I mean, I've actually worked with parents who were illiterate that didn't know how to read themselves, and I taught them Hey, just read picture books and just tell the story with the pictures and it's fast. As the kids become better readers, they start to realise, wait a sec, my parents aren't reading the actual words, but doesn't matter. It's that modelling and that one on one time. And Neil Buchwald has a great line says, children are made readers in the laps of their parents. And so this is really one of the things I'm always trying to impress upon. And I, I've worked with all types of people and you know, people are always going for the expensive Oh, I'll get a private tutor. Send my kid to a centre. I'm like, Jesse Jackson said something really important. He said, children need our presence, not our presence. And that one on one time is so critical. And that's what my programme does online is basically every day for 67 consecutive days, parents get a five to seven minute video from me giving them an ID on how to get their kid excited about reading at home. And then the goal is 20 minutes of reading with their kid that day. So let me explain those two numbers, why they're important. 67 is the first number why does it take 67 days, a lot of people say it takes 21 days to change a habit. And to those people I say show me the research on that. I actually know exactly where the number comes from. It comes from a wonderful book written in 1960 by Dr. Maxwell Maltz called Psycho Cybernetics. Now, Dr. Maltz, was a plastic surgeon. And in the preface of his book, he said he noticed it took most of his patients about 21 days to get used to their new faces. Well, a lot of personal development, self help gurus, a lot of people I respect by the way, started telling people takes 21 days to change a habit. There's no research whatsoever to support that number. And so basically, in 2009, researchers at the University of London did a habit formation study. And in their study, they determined that it took anywhere from 18 to 254 days to change a habit. And the average was 66 days. Now, I don't like the number 66. So I throw in a bonus day, 67 67 days. And here's what's important is it take it depends on the habit you're trying to change. So for example, jelly, if you're trying to drink a glass of water before breakfast every day, that might take 18 days to make that into a habit. But if you want to quit smoking, that's going to take 254 days to change that habit. Here's why this is critical. Let's say you go on a diet, and you follow it religiously for 21 days. But then on day 22, you fall off the waggon, will you blame yourself? Well, research supports on on average, it takes over three times longer than that to change your habits. So I think it's very dangerous to tell people is 21 days, you know, I don't like that. And it's a very false and misleading number. The other number I want everybody to focus on is 20 minutes. And so researchers all around the world, we're trying to figure out positive habits and successful students. And they found a characteristic which shocked them. It was the number of minutes spent reading outside of school, they looked at the low students, the medium students and the high students, the kids in the 20th percentile towards the bottom of the class, the AP students, the failing students, they average less than a minute a day of reading outside of school. That didn't surprise anybody. That's probably why the kids are at the bottom of the class. But this did surprise the researchers, the kids in the middle of the class, the 75th percentile, the C students, your average students, they spend, on average 9.6 minutes a day reading outside of school. And so when I'm doing a live training with parents, this is when the room gets really quiet in the first hand is raised and a parent asked Wait a sec, are you saying if I can get my kid to read 10 minutes a day I can take them from an F to A C? That's exactly what I'm saying. Research is very conclusive on this. But what really blew researchers out of the water was the 90th percentile of students near the top of the class. Do they spend three hours a day reading outside of school? No. Do they spend one hour a day outside of school reading for fun? No, the average was just over 20 minutes a day. This is my goal is to show parents and teachers how to make sure those kids are reading 20 minutes a day outside of school. And here's what's also interesting. Two things. First of all, it's just it counts to be read aloud to just like if you were reading on your own. So one of the tips I'll give parents is if it takes you 10 minutes each way to drive your kids to school to put an audio book on so the kids are listening to you just covered your 20 minutes right there. The second thing is they don't have to be consecutive minutes. So if you only have one minute here, one minute there, you know, I grew up in a home where my mom has never received a piece of mail that she did not feel compelled to read aloud to every single person in the room and she'd read letters to us. She read newspaper articles to us throughout the day. I was constantly being exposed So, Shelli, that's a very long answer to a very short question. But I'm very passionate about this, because it's the simple things. We try to overcomplicate way too many things, and I, I see a lot of people pulling out their hair, and they don't need to be

you and I, in our discussions, you know that, you know, I'm really passionate about educational stratification and the, you know, access in the struggles that that that, you know, young people, adults, any type of learner goes through a lot of times to, to be able to enhance their learning and to be able to encourage learning and reading and that kind of thing, you started talking about audio books, it has piqued my thought process, and I want to bring this up, because I well, I used to be, I used to be an avid reader, I really loved reading on my own, you know, like, like you said, something that I really loved reading, I'd pick it up and just, you know, blow through it very quickly. But then when I started my PhD, and you and I both know, that academic books, educational books, and, you know, peer reviewed journal, journal articles, and those types of things are not available on audio, I had a hard time I couldn't find, I've never been able to really find any. Um, and so all of my reading, reading, you know, was really taken up by, you know, reading academic books, reading, you know, books for my research, and that kind of thing. And what happened to fall by the wayside was I was exhausted, and I just didn't feel compelled to read what I was passionate about reading, which were my side books. And so, living and working and studying in Ireland, you know, I often had a long commute back and forth to university campus. And so what I decided to do is I downloaded audible, and I started downloading books, you know, that I thought, I'd really like to listen to this on my, on the train ride or on the bus. And, you know, that's actually how I took in my extra reading time. Because I didn't want to feel guilty about taking away from that, you know, important academic reading that I was, that I had to do from a research, but I still missed, you know, reading for enjoyment and reading for, you know, being passionate about the, you know, the other things that like you'd walk in, who can resist walking past, you know, the front window of a bookstore and seeing all the new bestsellers on, you know, in the front, and you're thinking to yourself, oh, gosh, I'd love to read that. And I used to be riddled with guilt so much about, you know, you can't do that right now, because you're working on your PhD. But that, but but audible books was, you know, what really helped me to say, you know, this is my guilty pleasure, this is what I can do. And I'm not reading it, I'm being read to, and I, you know, I absolutely love how how audible books have changed over the years to they're so they're so fresh and, and, you know, they really bring a lot of life to books as well. So I think that's really important that you did talk about that fact that it isn't, you know, it can be about being read to, and that just always feeling like you have your nose in a book. And I've often suggested that to students that I've worked with, and to, you know, a friends and family and that kind of thing to who have said I don't like reading is have suggested to them, if you just listen to this book, you'll be so like, you know, enthralled by it. Um, but I also think that it's really good for students who are young people or learners who struggle with reading for reasons like you said, dyslexia and that kind of thing. You know, how might a child or a parent or a caregiver or a teacher have a child that that has like a reading deficiency, you know, due to social or class disadvantage, something like that, overcome that those barriers and succeed, you know, maybe they don't have access to books, or to an audible, you know, listening to the phone or that kind of thing? What would you suggest would be, you know, for anybody who, you know, is involved with a child or learner with a deficiency to help them to succeed?

Well, two things. Shelli, that's a great question. First of all, I always tell people get help. There's no, I wouldn't. I'm a big believer in an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it's a whole lot easier to address any kind of issue when the child is six years old, as opposed to waiting till they're 14 years old. Don't let that problem grow. There's all kinds of services. And I'm certain that they have them in Ireland as well, throughout the United States. There's all kinds of services that students can receive for extra assistance, and that's all it is, is extra assistance. I always tell people hey, there's nothing wrong with you, everybody, ever. You know what? When I was a kid, I stuttered. I got extra assistance on my speech. And, you know, I was speaking in India and a little boy showed me that he was missing one of his arms. He's like, Well, how do I succeed? And I said, hey, when I was your age, everybody called me since Stupid because I didn't speak right, you know? And then I got a lot of extra help. And eventually, I turned into a swan. And what I told him I'm like, Isn't it interesting all those people that used to say I was stupid because I couldn't speak very well. Now I get paid extraordinary amounts of money to go around the world to do what to speak. And he brightened up, I'm like, you know, always take your this is something I've always told students every, anytime you have a perceived weakness, turn it into your strength. So that's the first thing I would I would suggest to anybody that has either a child that's struggling or you yourself are struggling, I've worked with lots of wonderful adult literacy programmes to help people because I think a lot of people with reading disabilities have just fallen through the cracks. And I don't want to point fingers at everybody, I understand that schools are overburdened, it's tough when you have a class of 35 students to be able to have the individual attention on every student. But what happens is we lose some students that way. The second thing, and this is a big one, there's this great here in the United States, I think they have these in Ireland, too. And almost every community, they get these buildings and in these buildings are rows and rows of books. And all you have to do is to apply for a card, and they'll let you take these books home. They're called public libraries. And so I can't stand it when I hear people say they have no access. And now look at what we've got. Now, Shelli is right now there's some poor kids somewhere in the world, maybe on a dirt floor barefoot, didn't eat breakfast. But if that kid has a laptop, and an internet connection, they have the exact same access as the founder of Google, the world just got a whole lot smaller. And I get very excited when I look at the possibilities. I mean, I've done a lot of work in India with my programme. And it's just fascinating what kids with limited resources will do. And I actually, in many ways, I kind of admire that I think that everybody has to kind of go through adversity, I was giving you the example of me growing up, I didn't take advantage of all the resources that were available to me. And I look at a lot of kids that have nothing and how much they make out and you know, it's one of the things my favourite genre to read are biographies. I always point out to kids, I'm like, there's a couple of things that are interesting in biographies. Usually, the most successful people started off poor. And what made them successful. They filled their heads with really rich books, and they surround themselves with people that lift them up. They didn't make poor choices. So that's the first thing. I always tell people. The second thing is, and this always cracks me up. I'm like the second thing about biographies. If you look at most successful people, almost all of them dropped out of school, which drives me nuts. I'm like, What are schools doing wrong? Why are we missing out? And it's because we try to do one kind of curriculum? And I'm like, that's not the answer the answer. So whenever I hear a politician say they have the answers to education, I mean, Shelli you and I have a lot of background in education. And I don't think either of us could actually give you an answer on how to solve educational problems. I mean, not with a straight face. I think we're asking the wrong question. Often they often people say, Well, what is the solution? And I always say that's not the right question. The right question is what are the solutions? Because if you have 36 kids in your class, odds are you have 36 different learning styles. And what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another when people ask me, Well, Danny, do you support public schools or charter schools? I say yes. You know, some public schools are great. Some charter schools are great private schools are great home schools, great vocational schools, great magnet schools are great, you know, it just depends. Everybody's a little bit. I mean, I, if it was up to me, I would invest much more heavily in vocational training, because there's a lot of kids that really don't want to go to college. And I always point out to people, well, the American education system, the goal is not to produce college graduates is to produce taxpaying citizens, you know, and if you want to find a trade, like become a mechanic or a plumber, that's great. Let's figure out a programme. And believe me, if you're a plumber or mechanic, you need to learn how to read to but at least they're reading something that they actually want to read. I mean, when was the last time in your field? Somebody said, Hey, Shelly, I need you to read this. This French romance novel, you know, for work, it's very important nobody but yet, that's what we're force fed in school. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with French romance novels. I think that's great. But what I like and what you like are two different things and they might not I have actually I've never actually done research on this but I if you look struggling and reluctant readers, four out of five of them are boys. And one of the things I believe it's my hypothesis is if you look at in the United States 96% of kindergarten through second grade, teachers are female. And I think what's happening is most females are reading books that they like, well, those books aren't necessarily the books that the boys like. There's a great I don't remember which of the diary of the Wimpy Kid books which I love. Jeff Kenny's fantastic, but in one of the books the mother decides to do, the mother decides to do a mother book club for all the neighbourhood kids and so she she asked all the boys to bring books and then she brings books and the books the mom has brought our like Anna Green Gables Little House on the Prairie, Sarah Plain and Tall Little Women. And the books the boys have brought our like, how to cheat it video games, dinosaurs, the book of bodily functions, you know, boys and girls are different. I mean, and so I mean, I don't I haven't done research on that. I would love to do research on that. But even without doing the research, I think there's a common sense approach here is, you know, when I find I had a little boy, I taught second, I've taught all grade levels jelly. When I was teaching second grade. I had a little boy Chiara and Chiara, his first grade teacher told me kid I don't know nothing like Thank you. Well, Chiara, who don't know nothing. came into my classroom one day, and he's like, Hey, Mr. Sal. You see Barkley last night, he had 18 points and 16 boards and like, Thank you Chiara. From that day forward. Every day after lunch, I'd sit here on my lap, and we would read the LA Times sports page together. And guess what, Shelly by the end of the year, Chiara was one of my best readers, and all that kid read about was sports. You know, now, I think he's going to have to broaden his reading, which is fine. But think of reading like eating, you know, it's your palate, you know, you're not going to, it takes a while to develop your palate to develop a broader taste for things the same thing with reading. And the other thing I always tell people, like, when you're reading, you should, you should look at books, the way you look at a piece of food. I mean, if you if you take a bite or something like Oh, man, that's nasty. Maybe gets better. Oh, gosh, it's nasty. Put it down. Like, if you don't like the first chapter of a book, put it down, there's over 4 million books written last year, some of them are pretty good. Don't waste your time on bad ones. And so I, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna address something you had said, which I love Shelli, which is what you did, when you started listening to Audible books, when you were like commuting and things you did what I call, I'm into habit formation. And I always tell people, the easiest way to develop a habit is what's called habit stacking. And so what you did is you took an activity you already do, and you combined it with an activity you wanted to do. So like, for example, one of the things I'll suggest to parents is if the kids are brushing their teeth every day for two minutes before, before they go to school, and at the end of the day, well, you know, have read aloud to them during those two minutes, it becomes a habit stack. I'm always trying to exercise more. And I love the TV show billions. And so I've made it. So the only way I get to watch the TV show is when I'm on my exercise bike. And so there's a habit stack. And so it's basically I'm looking at it as a reward. That's what you did. You looked at Oh, I'm looking at his reward. When I when I was at university, I'd always had to pay $800 for all the textbooks. And I always bought one John Grisham novel, and everybody's like, Well, why did you buy the John Grisham novel? And I'd say, if I'm going to spend $800 on a bunch of books, I want to spend at least $6 on one book that I actually want to read.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, you know, what you you talked about so much, there's so many, you know, nuggets of wisdom and in your experience that you've just shared with us there. And, you know, one of the things that I was listening to was, needs and wants, and what sometimes what we have to do, and sometimes what we want to do, and you talked a little bit about also about, you know, everybody being a little bit different, and people learn differently. And, of course, you know, my passion for universal design for learning and, you know, bringing that as part of the learning experience that teachers should be able to allow their learners to take on board what they like to do, because they can learn so much from that, yeah, there's a little bit of that give and take where there's some things that you have to, you know, there's some things you have to learn or some some things that you have to teach, but then also if you allow them that freedom and that choice to take on board what they like to do, or what they like to read as part of that learning process of what they have to do and combine them together, it really can make, you know, a sort of a wonderful balance there on. And the one of the other things that you said, and I jotted it down while we were talking because I just You gave me that vision of a swan and you said, um, you know that that idea that, that you you know, though you were that stuttering boy, you know, there was that Swan underneath who was this amazing articulate speaker now. And it made me think about that no matter what someone's disability or their disadvantages, that everyone has an inner Swan that's lurking just underneath the surface. And so, you know, I think that's a that's a, you know, a really a call for encouragement and, and a call to action to say, you know, look for that inner Swan and it within yourself, but then also, as teachers and educators, we should be looking for that inner Swan in all of our you know, just like the young man, you're just talking about Chiara. You know, what, maybe the first grade teacher, you know, kind of came looking at that glass half empty. Well, here's Chiara when he came on board with you. And you were looking at the glass half full. And that meant that Swan began to emerge, because he did. He was getting to do something that he was passionate about. So I think, you know, that was really a beautiful vision that that you just presented there about the swan. So thank you so much for that. Appreciate it.

Well, less eloquent way I said it Shelli is when I, when I used to teach my kindergarteners, I used to tell them like I hope to God, this isn't the best year of your life. I hope it's next year. And the year after that. I mean that I always tell kids, the windshield is a whole lot bigger than the rearview mirror. I mean, I went to high school with guys that are still talking about how we played high school football together, oh my gosh, like move forward, you need to do a lot better than that. I and I just believe that everybody has it within them. That your your book, your story is still being written. And there's just so many example. I mean, one of the people I admire the most like is Nelson Mandela. And if you look at Mandela, I mean, gosh, the guy spent most of his best years in prison. And it wasn't until he was older, that he had he affected this incredible change. I mean, doesn't matter if you're and then you know, there's plenty of people that affect change and other different parts of their life. But that just fascinates me watching people. How many people are we losing? Because they didn't have that one word of encouragement. I mean, that's what I always viewed my role. As I remember with the kindergarteners, we were looking at our our class photo one day and I'm like, hey, I want you all to have this class photo. And you know, 20 years from now, you'll be able to say, well, there's, you know, there's Chiara Chiara used to always be late for class. And now he's the president of a bank, you know, and there, there's a Keisha, look, Keisha, she used to pick her nose. And now she's a Grammy Award winning singer. And one of my one of my little boys, Anthony, he raised his hand. He's like, Yeah, and there's Mr. Purcell. He used to be our teacher, now he's dead. from the, from the mouths of babes. Absolutely.

Absolutely, but that fresh perspective that you you can, that's never expected. Um, so I really think that we've, we've spent a lot of time here talking about kind of that relationship between reading and success. And, and, you know, you've really covered a lot of that, you know, in such a beautiful and eloquent way. Um, one of the things I'd like to kind of ask you about is, you know, how is educational leadership different from your standard professional leadership?

No, that's great question, Shelli. Well, I mean, you know, that's what cracks me up when I hear business leaders giving their input on education, like, well, you know, in a business, people do what you first of all in business, you get to pick your workforce. Schools are very different. We don't get to pick and choose. We take we're Ellis Island, we accept the huddled masses and it's our job to accommodate based on that so that's a major difference. an educational leader. You know, I one of the in one of my presentations, I talk about what it's like being a public school teacher, I'm like, Okay, let's say and teach and the kids two plus two and I go, well, two plus two equals good. raise his hand teach, I gotta go to the bathroom. Okay, man. Well, here's your bathroom class. There you go. Okay, kids. Two plus two equals secretaries at the door. Hey, Mr. Purcell, you got a late attendance sheet. You keep on getting late attendance sheet, you're going to get a late paycheck. I'm like, Okay, here's my attendance sheet. Okay, kids, two plus two. equals intercom comes on party notes and teachers right there, man hang up. Okay, okay, kids, two plus two equals Spanish speaking parent comes in my Romanian was on set keyboard. Okay, what's necessary to get here, okay, kids, two plus two equals three, I have just lost my mind in 30 seconds because look at everything I just had to deal with, I had to deal with a little kid, a bureaucrat, unintelligible intercom speak in a foreign language, I'm like, you know, education is not easy I can, I can spot an educator a mile away, they're the people walking down the streets like this talking to themselves, you know, educational leaders, they're getting it from everywhere, you know, they're getting it, you know, they have to, they have to be able to accommodate based on the kids, they have to work with their, their faculty, they have to work with the staff, they have to work with the parents, they have to work with their leadership among fellow administrators in the upper upper echelons. And I'm not It's not to belittle what a business leader does in any way, because they have their own sets of challenges. But I think it's really important to distinguish those unique challenges all the time.

Yeah. And that, the added, you know, Eshelon, that you that you didn't mention, that educational leaders also have to deal with on top of everything else that you stacked up, there was also governmental policies. And how we must make sure that we are, you know, within the the frames of the guidelines of whatever the government tells us, is how, you know, children and adults and learners of all ages have to be educated properly in that formal way. So it Yeah, it's just mind boggling. Yeah. And that multitasking, and that constant juggling. So, again, a very, very good visual that you've given on that, on that, and I could see, you know, that that definitely does, you know, make it very different from that professional leadership. So what does what role does reading play in leadership and in educational leadership, then?

Well, I don't think if you're if you're not reading, you're not you're not advancing to me. To me, happiness is progress. And I read voraciously. I have one of the top book clubs online called lazy readers calm if people want to subscribe. It's a free subscription. Once a month for the rest of your life. I updated with 10 new book recommendations, three or four adult level three or four young adult level and three or four children's level books all under 250 pages so you have something you can read when you're stuck in a boring meeting. It's really one of the things I'm always a tip actually, I've just given this to the executives last week, is if you want to really look intelligent. Before I go to parties, I go to the bookstore and I go to the children's section and I read children's picture biographies of famous people. I mean, I'm like, Oh, here's one on Elon Musk. Let me read about Elon. Oh, here's one on Jeff Bezos, let me read some stuff about Jeff Bezos. And everybody is marvelled by your knowledge and I just got it from a 32 page picture book, I think we, we often discount the importance of those picture books. And actually, I've read a lot of picture books and it got me so interested in a person or a company or a place that I actually did further reading. One example is Jackie Robinson, I didn't really know a lot about Jackie Robinson, I knew that, you know, famous baseball players, numbers retired and, but I didn't realise how important I honestly don't know if Martin Luther King even exists without Jackie Robinson, Jackie Robinson opened up so many doors for the civil rights movement. And I've read now about nine books about him. He's fascinating, fascinating person, I wouldn't have even attempted the adult level book before I'd started the kids picture book. So I always go there. I mean, this really, all I'm ever trying to do is I'm just trying to establish positive habits. So one of the things I tell people is turn off the TV news and read a funny children's book, you'll be much better off in life you should be I believe that you are what you read. So read good stuff, read things that lift you up, not depress you. You know, I I was so excited to talk to you Shelli because I knew you were doing so much work at Trinity in Ireland. And about a year ago, I teamed up with a wonderful Irishman named pyramid huttner And dear maid created an incredible programme called Cyber Smarties, which basically is a social media platform for kids ages six to 12 in Ireland. And so the only way you can you can participate is if you're a kid, it's checked. It's double checked by the police department and by the school that it's only the kids on there. And so basically the way it works is let's say I write a message to you, Shelly, I think you aren't pretty well it won't let me send the message. Instead you get videos showing you better ways to communicate with people. I'm working with Dr. Ahmed, we now have the reading programme on there to establish better reading habits and kids reading is To, to satiate a curiosity, a constant curiosity to learn, how do I become better? How do I make the world a better place,

we've had this opportunity to be able to travel. And we know that many Americans, and many people in other parts of the world don't often have that, that, that opportunity to travel, maybe outside of their country, or in the case of in America, a lot of times, you know, not even outside of their own state. And being able to, to travel really broaden so that you know, can broaden that global perspective and those global ideas, that global worldview and broaden that. But when that isn't something that can come easily, you know, we revert back to what you were saying, you know, reading, reading can really do that, if you if you're interested in picking up, you know, in reading something that is that was written in another country, or written by a foreign author. And, you know, you can, you know, hear the stories that they weave in, in their books and in their writing, you know, based on the perspectives of their countries. And so, you know, I think that's really important to think about as well, because again, it is all about access. And sometimes, you know, we don't always have access to be able to be blessed to travel outside the country, our own country, and that kind of thing. So I love that. And actually, it made me start thinking more about, I know that you are very passionate about storytelling as a way of communication. And and that's something that I'm also very passionate about to and so can you share your thoughts further, a little bit on why you are, you know, why you are passionate about storytelling, his way of communication? And why you believe it's an important component of leadership?

Well, that's a great question, Shelly. I mean, people remember stories, that's basically, I mean, all companies know this, they create a story, you don't just get the brand, you actually have to have the whole story behind it. I train speakers all the time, actually, after this podcast, I'm training a speaker on her TED Talk. And really, if a person is trying to craft their story, the the first tip I always give to every speaker is, well, when you start your speech, you should start by telling everybody your failures, and not your successes, because not everybody in your audience has succeeded. But they've all failed. And they're going to love you for being vulnerable, and exposing those types of things. But by telling a story, it's kind of like when I was teaching, my little ones, I noticed, oh, this is the value of music. A lot of people, they can't remember things. But if you put it to a song, you know, the kids, the kids don't know the alphabet. So in. So what I'll do is I'll take Twinkle, twinkle, little star, and I'll set the alphabet to it, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and now it's actually a habit stack. And the kids remembering it. It's the same thing with stories. I, some people collect automobiles, some collect trading cards, I collect stories, I can't get enough of stories. When I was a middle school teacher, I was the only teacher in the history of my school not to have a single tardy student. And the reason was because I always started class by reading a Paul Harvey story now, I grew up listening to Paul Harvey on the radio, he'd come on every day at 1215. He'd say, I'm Paul Harvey, with the rest of the story. And he tell you this five minute story the whole time you're trying to guess who he's talking about, or what company's talking about or whatever. And I would tell those stories to my students. And what I realised Shelley is, you know, these are great stories, but a lot of the kids don't even understand like these people anymore, because it's people that are, you know, Henry Ford's not as big of a deal as Elon Musk is today. And so I'm like, oh, I need to write an updated version. And so this was the that's actually the impetus when I wrote the leadership begins with motivation book was I think people would like cool little stories that are a little bit more updated. So here's one. I was just reading to a class the other day. So on the morning of January 17 1977, Gary Gilmore in a plain t shirt strapped into a chair with a bag over his head, awaited a firing squad of five law enforcement officers to execute him at the state prison in Draper, Utah. convicted of murdering a gas station employ and motel manager in Utah the year before Gilmore would be the first person in the United States to be executed in nearly a decade. Shortly before his execution. Prison officials asked Gilmore if he had any last words. Neither he nor anyone else that day would know the impact of those words. over 10 years later, in 1988 Dan Wheaton, an advertising executive who co founded the Wieden and Kennedy agency in Portland, Oregon, made something of a morbid pitch to a story When fashion company, he recalled the inmates final words and used a slight variation for his pitch and seemingly everyone hated his idea for the company's new slogan. Just trust me on this one. Wheaton implored the company's co founder and the co founder, his company, and the public have not looked back since. The co founders name was Phil Knight. The struggling brand he co founded was a shoe company called Nike, and advertising executive Dan Wheaton slightly altered death row inmate Gary's Gilmore's final words. Let's do it into the phrase, just do it. The phrase has become Nike signature slogan helping to turn a niche brand into a global multibillion dollar giant and etching the phrase and dello indelibly into consumers minds around the globe. People remember stories, I get chills with stories like that I'm always trying to find okay, what's the story. And the whole point is I think most people are are beaten down nowadays. And the reason they're beaten down is they're reading the news, they're looking on their social media, it's all this negative stuff. I'm like, You know what, you gotta be very careful. i One of my friends and mentors, Charlie, tremendous Jones, you always said, You're the same today, as you will be in five years, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read. So I always implore people, be very wise, surround yourself with people who lift you up. And make sure to fill your mind with things that are really, really positive. And so this is what I think good leaders are doing all the time. You know, why? Why am I going to be reading about all the failures, you're just setting yourself up for failure? You know, read about the success stories. I always criticise ESPN. I'm like, Well, you criticise the guys for doing this when they score a touchdown and showing off. But you're the one that showed the highlight. Why don't you show the highlight of the guide helping the other guy up from the field, send the better message. An example I given reading, is Pizza Hut has this wonderful programme called book it where kids read books and they get rewarded with pizza. Well, if I ever meet the head of that programme, I'm going to make a suggestion, I would do it exactly the opposite way. Every time a kid came into Pizza Hut and had a slice of pizza, I would reward them with the book. So you're sending a very different message there. Yeah, these are the mess. And these are the little things. It's little thing. So this is the importance of storytelling is how can I how can I get people to listen to my message? How do I grab them? I was working with a woman the other day and she had stage fright. I said embrace it. You know, it's not easy standing in front of a big group of people just embrace it. Don't worry about it. It's great to be nervous. You know, some people look too polished, you know, you see the used car salesman sounds too polished, you know, people like vulnerability. They like real people. You know. So those are my tips for storytelling. And I have a whole process I go through with people on how to how to tell their story, whether it be 45 minutes or 45 Seconds How to tell a really good story.

Yeah, story stories are beautiful. And you know, the experiences that people have in their lives and how it changes shapes, their mindsets going forward. And not only just experiencing them those themselves, but when they tell it to other people, it becomes very freeing for them but also becomes very inspirational to those who are are hearing the story or reading the story. You know, we're really thoroughly and deeply embedded in this new digital and social media media age, with texting and Tik Tok and Instagram reels and you know, a plethora of other social media outlets. So what do you suggest that we do to get people to read more? In spite of all of that?

You know, I again, I always think that we should embrace things. I mean, technology is here to stay, folks. You know, one of the first tips I give to parents is I'll have a lot of parents that say, Oh, I can't afford to put reading materials in my home and I hit a hole. Oh, but you can you can. President Bush Senior 30 years ago signed a very important law in the United States. It said every television set in America has to have closed captioning. Like here's the tip, turn on the Closed Captioning on the TV. And parents will ask me Wait a sec. If the shows in English and the subtitles are in English, what good does that do? I'm like, well, that's a fair point. Let me make a point. How often have you ever watched a show with subtitles and not looked at the subtitles? That's very difficult to do. And brain is directed towards that text. And people as I research actually supports this, look at tests reading test scores around the world. The more kids watch TV, the lower their reading scores are in every single country in the world except for one. The country that watches the most TV in the world also has the highest reading scores in the world. It's Finland. People ask, well, how can that be Danny? I'm like, well, because Finland makes really bad TV shows. And so what they do is they import all these old American sitcoms like Happy Days and Welcome Back Kotter and Brady Bunch, and they subtitle them all the time, the kids are reading constantly, easy tip for anybody out there to implement. You know, I, again, I think we should embrace technology. I'm an old school, I'm old. At this point, you chop off my head, and you count the rings. My wife and I are very different. I like actual physical books. My wife loves her Kindle. And so when people ask me, Well, what do you say Danny, electronic or, or physical? And I say, Yes, you know, again, I'm a physical book guy. But my wife is from Singapore. And whenever we travel to Singapore, she laughs as I pack 20 books in my bag, and she packs a Kindle, which weighs less than a pound that has access to the entire world library. Second of all, we both like reading in bed, but it drives my wife crazy, because I always have to have my lamp on to read. She doesn't need that her Kindle illuminates itself. So she doesn't need that. And then third, again, I'm getting really old. It's very difficult sometimes for me to read the print in some of these books. Well, my wife never has to worry about that. Because with Kindle, you can always adjust the font size to make it bigger. And so again, I think there's pros and cons to everything in life. And too often we look at the cons too often. We listen to the excuse makers, too often we listen to the people that gripe, I mean, I've been a leader of many different nonprofits, companies, schools, and when people want to give me an excuse, I always give them the excuse that they should give. I'm like next time you need an excuse, just say this. Peru has a new dictator. And they look at me, they're like, what's that got to do with anything? I'm like, well, one excuse is as good as another, isn't it? You know? Don't waste my time. Don't waste your time. You know, let's just get it done. The people say, Oh, I don't have time to read. And I loved it. When you said that earlier. Shelley, you figured out a great way to incorporate reading into your day. I mean, when people tell me they have no time to read, am I Yeah, it was time to read after you watch the game on TV, have a couple of beers go out shopping, I mean, who has time to read? You know, a friend of mine is a time management expert. I always give them a hard time. I'm like, There's no such thing as time management. There's only priority management. I mean, I read a study from 100 years ago, that said that they only had 24 hours in their day, 100 years ago. Also, there's a great book by Greg McKeown called essentialism, you don't have to read it, because I already read it. In that book. There was one line that changed my life, Shelli. He said in Greek, the word priority can only be used in the singular. And that changed my life. Because now every day I give myself one priority that I have to get done, I can get more done. But I have to get the priority done. You'll be amazed how much more you get done when you give yourself one priority, because I'm a guy who loves lists. And so I'll have 20 things on my list every day. And if I've finished 19 of them, I still consider the day of failure because I didn't finish all 20 Or number 20 was the one I really should have been focused on. But I put it at the very end, you know, give yourself one priority.

I have, I have actually student teachers, or training teachers who have asked me they get really frustrated, especially when I start talking about Universal Design for Learning. And how you know that, you know, we're really catering to that idea of, you know, giving every student a pair of shoes that fits them, not just every student a pair of shoes. Right? Well, and yeah, and you know, but that, that when just now when you were talking about priority, and just make that one priority, when they asked me, you know, I have 32 students in my classroom, you know, how do I teach 32 students in my classroom, and I will tell them one student at a time, right, that's all you have to worry about is and when you when you talk about that priority, that's exactly what that is, is that if you focus on one student at a time, they're all going to get exactly what they need from you. So we're coming to the end of our amazing conversation that we've had together. And I want to ask you, Danny, you know, any final words of wisdom for the listeners,

I actually will leave you with the same refrain that I always tell my students whether I'm teaching my little ones or my older ones, as they exit my class every day. They always have to hear me say Remember kids, education is valuable, but execution is priceless. Knowledge is not power. Only applied knowledge is power. No one wants the right thing to do. And doing the right thing are two very different things. So go out, do the right thing and make this world a better place.

Amazing day Thank you so much for being my guest today. You've really inspired and encouraged me. And I'm sure that you encouraged all of my listeners, as well. So thank you so much.

Thanks for all you do, Shelly, God bless.

I hope that you've enjoyed this discussion on A Dash of SaLT, a space where you'll always find fresh and current discussions on society and learning today. Season with just the right touch of experts in education, and a dash of sociological imagination. Please be sure to like and share this episode. And don't forget to subscribe to A Dash of SaLT on pod bean so that you don't miss the next episode. Thanks so much and we'll chat again soon.