The WAY to WOW Shows
Helping Children Thrive
June 22, 2021
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[0:01] who are you and where are you going what do you want together we'll find the ideal path on the way to wow show with your host kevin bell i don't know about you but especially as a parent one of my biggest concerns is how all of what's gone on for the last year or so has affected my daughter so this week on the way to wow show i've asked to have kevin savad a friend of mine who's been involved with education and

[0:38] child development for over three decades come and talk to us about what are the areas of concern that we should be looking at and and how can we deal with those so i think you'll really find something worthwhile that you can use on a practical basis in fact even if you don't have children if you're around children or young people teenagers i suspect what kevin's going to say will be very very useful to you but before before i sit down with kevin i want to

[1:13] introduce you to the newest member of our production team madison and she's going to mix up a cocktail for us so what have you got on uh taff here huh well i would like to first start off with thank you for having me um i'm super happy to be able to make us both a drink um i picked this one because of the segment that you have been listening to you know everybody like kind of talk about education and what i find is you know education's really anywhere that you look if you just listen and one thing i really love to do when i bartend is educate people about the history of the drinks so today i've chosen the negroni okay

[1:50] i'm gonna tell you a little story about that real quick great so the negroni was said to be invented in florence italy by a guy named camillo negroni i really hope i'm pronouncing that correctly sounds right camille negroni right a little yeah he uh you know it was kind of an accident so his favorite bar there was in cassone in florence and so he demanded the bartender you know spice up his favorite drink which was the americana okay so he did create a little bit of a substitution with that so in the americano it traditionally has soda water i guess

[2:25] you know mr negroni was having a very rough day because he wanted that a little stronger he wanted a little bit more of a kick so instead he substituted it with gin and that fateful substitution led to one of the most popular stirred drinks in history okay great so fun how do we make one so uh we're gonna have a little bit of sweet vermouth uh campari and i love the botanist jen it's kind of my favorite absolutely so what we're going to do is this is actually going to be stirred and not poured so i'm just going to take these and i'm just going to get a little bit of ice okay yeah oh sorry all right

[3:06] oh okay yeah it's just water ice is having some fun with me today yeah you know all right here's some good pieces as long as it doesn't rebel too much we'll let it right all right okay okay top it off a little bit more we want a little bit more okay good so it's pretty simple from here so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna start off with my favorite gen the botanist you know what i mean yes so i'm going to just put an ounce of the botanist in each we want to build the drink starting with like the heaviest ingredients

[3:41] okay and then i'm going to put this down and then i'm going to go in with a little sweet vermouth okay it's about three quarters of a an ounce of the sweet from you yeah do we need the next bottle actually yes i would like a refill please thank you here you are mad mozelle thank you very much i don't know what the italian equivalent of man was right

[4:16] me either yeah you know i'm deficient in my italian the american way is just my own uh yeah yeah well just say it slowly enough and loud enough and people will understand exactly and then we're going to top that off with a little campari and you know the measurements don't have to be super exact especially because these uh just kind of whatever fits um okay so then i'm gonna take my lovely orange here and a little peeler and we're gonna you know we're gonna do the

[4:51] nice twist of that orange peel okay because i feel like it kind of just makes it and you know because this drink is traditionally a little bitter i actually like because i mean you could like swap the gin for a bourbon i mean what i love about this is it's very versatile okay so you know with with me uh i really like to put a little bit of orange juice to kind of break up that bitterness oh okay yeah for sure but it's it is traditionally you know supposed to be bitter and supposed to kind of wake you up a little bit yeah i mean from what i've learned from other bartenders a lot of cocktails especially in the you know early part of

[5:28] the 20th century were had that bitter um you know taste to them and um it's i think bitter is healthy so so see we're making a healthy cocktail that's how i like to think of it right right right exactly so you're negroni oh thank you absolutely cheers huh cheers be ready um right yeah very kind of good spicy yeah well welcome to the team thank you so much lovely to be here i'm gonna go talk to kevin

[6:10] so my guest for this episode of the way to wow show is kevin sved and kevin and i have known each other for a long long time although actually in a completely different context than what we're going to be talking about today and uh it's been a long time since i've seen you so it's it's nice to see you again and glad to hear that you and your family are doing well up in uh sort of the south bay area south san francisco bay area so good glad to have you on the show kevin i'm going to read a short bio about you so people um you know know who you are and and and then we'll we'll

[6:45] just chat for a few minutes thanks for having me here kevin it's great to see you too for 30 years kevin savette has been an educator and someone who has striven to help children reach their potential he started his career in youth services and as a teacher later kevin co-founded one of the earliest charter school networks in los angeles the accelerated school which time magazine named school of the year in 2001. currently he's the chief executive officer of navigator schools a group of three charter schools in the

[7:21] south san francisco bay area of california so you know kevin i want to kind of jump right into what we were talking about on the phone uh last week and that is it's been a it's been a really tough year year and a half for for children um especially with respect to their learning and so you know i what are what are some of the challenges that that you've seen kids facing that you know maybe you know some of us are really not aware of they're not on our radar i'd first start by saying

[7:57] that the impacts and challenges within our our children um are definitely vary from household to household there's a lot of correlation on the negative impacts or the challenges in poverty as well as children of color not to say that you know upper class you know white children aren't also experiencing challenging impacts but there there's definitely a disproportionate level of harm that our children of color on

[8:33] average have experienced and some of that again correlates with with poverty and some of the stresses of the covid crisis within their local communities um you know rates for infection were higher among uh latino and african-american subgroups so again those those carry over to the households and to the children um i would say some of the some of the challenges that that you know go across um all all of our children are some of the social impacts because it's it's difficult

[9:08] to really experience learning um in a social environment through zoom and again that more so challenging for kids whose home environments environments may be made it more difficult to focus um some kids you know had really great uh home office type setups uh whereas others you know we're we're in more cramped households with other background noises and activities going on that made it harder for them to focus some of our students are just more socially um

[9:45] that that's like their their kind of super superpower is being is is is being in a social environment and so being isolated uh was particularly challenging for those students my youngest son for example who was in a senior year in high school he's very social it was a very difficult transition for him whereas other students who are more um let's say um internal focused or um the work the exact word i'm slipping is flipping my mind kevin uh introverted or shy introverted yeah thank you yeah uh

[10:21] children who are more introverted actually thrived um in in a more distance learning environment and then looking at the learning loss or the the the lower academic progress than we're expected uh then that we usually expect to see within a calendar year and academic year we've definitely noticed a drop and um so it's going to be a learning gap that's going to take time to recover and bring students up to close that

[10:56] achievement gap so um you you've i think you've at least partially answered my next question but i'll i'll ask it anyway and that is it it seems to me just looking at the situation for my own daughter there are some there have been some short-term impacts that i think you know even now when she's you know back in live classes have you know pretty much worked themselves out but i think there are some longer term impacts as well that you know i wonder you know will they ever be worked out and

[11:32] you mentioned you know a couple of those are there other short and or medium long term impacts that you know especially parents but but you know people who who are dealing with uh you know children younger people we should be aware of of these impacts and and so that we understand the context in which you know children are living their lives now i think kevin that um we need to have a lot of grace and patience uh for each other as adults as well especially like you

[12:07] mentioned for our children that the it is unprecedented i mean maybe 100 years ago we we had something similar happening but the students reacclimating to the social stresses of school um of in-person school like it brings up things that um they haven't had to deal with necessarily like you know cyber bullying in zoom rooms is a lot different than being bullied on the playground um and so not so there are there are some

[12:42] anxieties that children may be experiencing going back into into school i would say also um again when it comes to academic achievement levels um that it's really important that parents are supportive of their children and accept like what what is what is the current reality as it relates to you know academic performance may not be on par with where they hoped or expected them to be and that it may take time to to recover and so you know patience and grace

[13:17] um you know love and understanding i would say are key for all of us as parents always but especially in this kind of time where we're dealing with kind of the transition back into on-site learning and you know i was i was struck by one of the things you said earlier which is that um for a lot of introverted children they actually did better in the online environment um than they would might typically do in the classroom what are your thoughts about now taking those children

[13:55] back into the in classroom environment would you expect them to have more difficulties adjusting back whereas the peop that the children who are you know more social more naturally outgoing they might have less less difficulties you know as again as we gauge how best to help our children i think it can help to have our expectations um you know somewhat put put in in balance what are you what are your thoughts on that yeah i think that's a great insight kevin in that some of our

[14:30] children who did thrive more in the distance learning environment are going to need more support and patience and encouragement to engage in social interactions and i'd say you know from a school standpoint it's important like one thing that we've done at navigator schools and i know many schools acros across the nation have done is they really emphasize their social emotional learning and the programs and support for social emotional learning so we've done this online in distance learning that we call the strong start we take some time for breathing

[15:05] exercises we really start the day with a kind of community learning in space and that's not something that we were doing consistently pre-pandemic it is something that we're going to carry forward knowing that social emotional learning is critical for all of our children um and so parents what parents can do is one is ask their local school principal or the the school districts um or their private school whatever school they may go to what are

[15:40] you doing differently to support students with social emotional learning knowing that that's going to be really critical for students as they um get back into school on site so that would be one thing i think kevin they could do another is to make sure that you know i think one of the beauties of the of the pandemic i mean it's hard to say it in that way but i say one of the things that that has been beautiful to see is more parent child uh communication and connection um again some households it's been very strained because it's been quite difficult but in many cases

[16:18] we have seen a lot more collaboration between schools and t uh schools and parents teachers and parents and parents and children as it relates to to academic learning goals and i think that that's something we hope to build on and keep keep as we move forward so i think families staying engaged and connected while maybe not having to do quite as much when kids are back in school as when k when the learning is all happening at home i think but i think there is a way to build on that

[16:53] uh to support our children you you mentioned um that as as a school you're doing some exercises to begin the the school day breathing exercises and things things are are these things that parents might want to consider you know doing with their children maybe in the morning before they go to school or maybe even in the car right before they drop them off looking for some something maybe small and short that they can do to help support that that that emotional learning even if it's just for a moment or two should we should we be looking for those

[17:28] to do something like that i think that's a great idea kevin um yeah turn down the music or put on something different than uh you know news radio and do some mindfulness and breathing on the way in uh i think that's a great suggestion you know we're going to be into summer vacation here pretty soon um and and it seems to me that um that prevent the prevention that presents parents with uh an opportunity maybe it presents schools with an opportunity as

[18:03] well to potentially either make up some of that lost ground that you were talking about or or deal with some of these more complex emotional issues that we may be facing what what would what are your thoughts about how we can use the summer uh to best help children um you know kind of get back into whatever a new normal life is going to be for them that's a great question uh kevin so here at navigator schools we are doing our kind of typical summer program for students that are scoring

[18:38] kind of on the lower levels of academic proficiencies i know a lot of school districts and charter school networks are having challenges recruiting teachers to work this summer because like it's been exhausting i mean we think oh teachers working from home that's easy actually no a lot of like planning for zoom meetings being on zoom helping teaching reading through zoom with kindergartners and first graders it's exhausting and now you know many schools throughout the state are back in action hybrid program am pm and distance

[19:13] learning so teachers need a break and i'd say for many of our students like last summer they kind of lost out on a lot of fun activities last summer no travel no camping a lot of summer camp programs were restricted or closed so i would say as much of a normal summer with a lot of reading fun reading but to me like i think kids need that too and we're looking at the following summer the summer of 2022 as really gearing up to to have more

[19:48] of the learning loss mitigation strategies there as well like because again this is probably not going to be something that we're going to close in one year so we're looking at that as well as beefing up our intervention strategies for the coming school year so a lot of summer reading and and and and a lot of fun it sounds like uh for for kids any any other sort of concluding thoughts you can share with us uh you know philosophy in 10 words or less that'll we can kind of stick in the back of our brains to have with us as we as we sort of pursue uh helping our

[20:24] children i guess the only thing that really comes to mind kevin that i have have been said is um while i know this is in the mental uh color um how important it is to think of ourselves as integrated human beings and particularly in education the integration of the social emotional learning side with the intellectual and mental side um and that's been just so profound in this as we deal with the the pandemic and how important it is that we remember the integration of the

[21:01] social emotional learning with the academic and intellectual learning as well well and and you know what that's it's it's it's always great when one of the guests reminds me that although we tend to talk about life in terms of these three pillars indeed they are meant overall to be an integrated whole physical mental and spiritual right and i think as you so rightly put out as you so rightly said having grace with uh with our children and when and with our other family members and other people we meet brings kind of that spiritual aspect

[21:38] into it and and going out and having some fun brings brings in the physical so indeed all of the all of the pillars and all of the realms uh you know looks like we've got to keep those in mind as we go forward absolutely well said kevin thank you so kevin thank you so much for coming on with us today coming on the way to wow show and sharing your thoughts your insights from a long long career dedicated to helping children we i really appreciate it very very much and i i wish you and your your family a you know a smooth wrap up to the school

[22:14] year and a wonderful summer filled with fun thank you so much kevin the best wishes to you and your family as well it was a pleasure to be here so that's our show for this week i think it's really nice to hear from someone whose expertise comes from being in the trenches for decades and decades kevin really has a clear clear sense of what's going on with our children and i think with with parents teachers etc as well i loved how he said we should treat each other with with grace going

[22:49] forward it's easy to put the blame on teachers or children or parents or whatever it's been a tough tough time for people and i think we can all use a little bit of break for this summer i think kevin's advice makes a lot of sense let's let's let's let's read let's immerse ourselves in good fun books get out and have a fun time and just let the cares of the past time maybe slide off our shoulders a little bit enjoy life as we work our way to wow

[23:25] if you've got a thought about how we can make the show better someone you'd like to see maybe you think you ought to be a guest on the way to wow show let us know drop us a comment go to our website whatever works for you courage at all times my friends marie darling you are still my belle [Music]

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