The WAY to WOW Shows
Developing Strong Bonds with Your Children
February 23, 2021
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[0:01] who are you and where are you going [Music] what do you want together we'll find the ideal path on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel the very first time i spoke to cassandra carter i knew she was someone we could learn from she belies that ridiculous notion that people who are deeply immersed in technology have no people skills cassandra deeply connects with people

[0:37] from the first moment you meet her and she has some tremendous insights into how we can work better so that our children can learn especially in these crazy times that we've been going through stay tuned and listen to what cassandra has to say [Music] so i'm pleased to have on the way to wow show cassandra carter who's a native of roosevelt long island

[1:12] new york uh one of my favorite places long island um and she has been an information technology person for 17 years in all facets of the field but then in 2019 she had the opportunity to get into teaching and i'm going to read this because i candidly had never heard this before so she's teaching i t in a bose a boce i guess it's pronounced a board of cooperative educational service classroom to high school students with

[1:48] special needs and i guess because she'd been in technology other parts of technology her career it was with some trepidation uh that she approached becoming a teacher and then cassandra found that this was really her metier so then covet 19 hit and she had to pivot from teaching i.t in the classroom to teaching online and so she started a company called complex simple and she's providing it training to high school and special needs students and helping to become comptia certified

[2:26] so cassandra welcome to the way to wow show thanks so much for joining us thank you so much for having me my pleasure so first of all i just i hope clarify for for for me and also the viewers what is what is a is it pronounced bosey boces yes boces uh is a um it's a an organization a part of the educational system that teaches uh children with special needs or um people who have adhd or you know whatever have you any kind of

[3:02] special needs it teaches them a trade so they it's a wonderful program um they teach uh uh carpentry one of their biggest programs is cosmetology um they teach automotive a whole list of things that they teach and i happen to have been approached to teach the kids uh its specialists to become an i.t specialist and so is this program designed to help them live more independently is that uh yes but also uh in ways to have more opportunities open to them a lot of them get their

[3:38] high school diploma and such and really that's really it and so um with everything changing now especially with kobe um the program that i was hired to teach would get these my students would get them certified by comptia comptia is is the it industry standard so if they were to get their certification in comptia be it it fundamentals a plus or network plus or even security plus they would be certified uh to to work in the work field by comptia

[4:14] and they will be able to take that certification just about anywhere uh uh to any company that's looking to hire uh specifically people who have that that particular certification i see and is this a nationwide program or is this something just in new york now boces from what i understand is is uh pretty much uh nationwide um they may call it something different some places might but for the for the most part especially in new york it's it's boces boces i see so um how has it been transitioning from

[4:49] teaching in the classroom to teaching out online how how has that gone for you well for the most part most of my my learning has been online i received my associate's degree in the conventional uh classroom uh but anytime after that even with me trying to obtain my bachelor's it's always been online so for me learning online was was nothing and being taught online was nothing uh but for the kids it's been kind of bittersweet for some of them some of them have actually um soared like uh like their grades have

[5:25] been great um everything has been great you know but some of them need that one-on-one personal touch uh a teacher that they can be in contact with to say listen i have a problem with this can you help me with that you know that kind of thing so my my my my students um uh my private students that became my private students from the classroom so the parents really enjoyed the work that i had done with their with their kids and then they contracted with me to do private work for them so it's been depending on the student has been kind of kind of different the experience is

[6:01] different so what can you be more specific with some of the ch and are you working exclusively with special needs uh students no uh it just so happens that that the my first set of students that i had came from my classroom that i was in they have special needs but i work with with the uh kids that uh want to get into the field of i.t um and especially high school students they really they want something nit they just don't know what uh and the field of information technology is very broad i mean you have

[6:36] help desk you have technical support you have networks you have security you have coding you have website design there's just so many it's so broad it's a very broad field and a lot of kids really don't know how to maneuver and navigate through the information to find out which is the best avenue for them to take so can can you be more specific in some of the the challenges that some of your students have had to overcome in the classroom or online online online online um

[7:12] a lot of them especially with zoom zoom has a lot of bells and whistles and with a lot of some of my students uh it's a bit too distracting they're easily distracted so a lot of them elect to go to something like google classroom or something like that was not like too many bells and whistles um definitely the um the time the time structure the i have a great niece who uh has odd and one of the issues that i found with the special needs that they they

[7:47] have to have structure they have to have a set time that something begins a set time that it ends some of them need to actually be told when they're going to transition like my niece she has a problem with okay we're we're done with math now now we're going to do science she needs to be told that ahead of time so that mentally she can transition so a lot of my kids were having problems with that as well so for a parent who's whose child is you know going to an online school what are some of the things that they

[8:23] can do to help their child be more successful i think all parents are concerned about that i i know i i certainly was my daughter went to online school for a while and it really was not a good um a good experience for her as much as she enjoys being online playing you know video games or watching videos or whatever and my wife and i were candidly at a loss as to how to help her i think a lot of parents are struggling with this so what can we do well um number one i i'm not a parent but i do acknowledge the fact that uh

[8:58] it's especially with colby it has been very difficult for a lot of parents you know because a lot of them if they're fortunate enough to work from home they have to work from home and then tend to the child and you know child education whereas before the child was in school and they didn't you know they could take to whatever it is they had to tend to my advice to a lot of parents is to talk to their kids about what about whatever issues they seem to be having with online learning the uh the thing about about this generation is getting them to open up about the things that affect

[9:33] them and they want to sing they want to know they have to feel that someone cares so by the parent asking them how are you doing in school is there anything uh that that we could do as your parents to help you navigate through uh you know through online the parent may need to get a tutor or of some kind of someone like myself to help them you know with with you know whatever struggles their child is going through because just as they're going through the struggles their child is also going through struggles too especially the social part they don't

[10:08] have their friends around them to talk to them and laugh with them and tell them jokes and hold listen look at what i saw online like they don't have that anymore so now there's a social component that these kids are now without and so that's one of the things that they can definitely do to help their child uh succeed is to get them talking get them talking and letting them know listen i know this is hard and i'm trying i'm going to do my best to help you out but you have to tell me what i need to do you need to tell me what you want you need to tell me how you feel that's definitely one major way they could help

[10:43] so my guess is you don't have a lot of difficulty getting kids talk to you you're you you have a certain way about you that it strikes right that's what i'm told absolutely yeah so so um i i would say you know that is not at the top of my skill set getting my daughter to talk to me so can aside from from asking her questions can you suggest some other ways that i could um engage with my daughter and and and likewise other parents who

[11:19] like me you know struggle with this um that would encourage her to to open up to to start talking well another good way is to if you can i realize some parents can't because they're working but if any if there are any classes that you're able to sit with her and what and do with her and and kind of feel like what she's going through and kind of be in her world because with kids these days from what i've been told i had 25 kids in um two classes a.m class in a pm class

[11:56] and they want to talk they they need they want to talk they want to engage the thing is there's a disconnect now i'm 47 years old my kids were in their teens and so there was a there was at first a disconnect there but then the thing is trying to find out what we had in common and i t was what we all had in common so i never uh put up that role that i'm the teacher even though they knew um they gave me that respect i'm the teacher you're the student that's just how it is but it was me also getting to know and

[12:31] learn a lot of them i had some kids in my class that were transgender i had some kids in my class that were uh that were gay i had some kids in my class that um were um pansexual and these are things in terminology that i was not familiar with so they had to teach me so it wasn't just me teaching them i.t i was teaching them i.t and and how to navigate in the world from an iit perspective and a career perspective but they were teaching me how to engage with them and so i think as adults older adults we kind

[13:07] of forget that because we weren't raised in that kind of you know era whereas these kids uh we they need to have they need to have space to say what they need to say to us and be who they are and know that we love them and accept them for who and what they are so for the parent who finds him or herself functionally estranged from their children [Music] what what advice could you give them

[13:43] um to help them re-engage and reconnect vulnerability vulnerability it is the key to any relationship because when you're a parent again i'm not a parent but when you're a parent and you have a child and you're trying to trying to um connect with them a lot of kids think of their parents as larger than life it's like they're they're the powers that be quote unquote and it's sometimes they have you know there's the language barrier there's the age barrier um there's certain certain ways that my

[14:19] kids would convey or talk to me that in some ways i would feel was kind of disrespectful they use a lot of profanity but i realized that that was from the environment that they come from and i was teaching them something different i was teaching them a way a different way to express themselves other than the other than the environment that it came from so even though but even though they would let some f-bombs go and all that other stuff they would say to me you know what this card i'm sorry i i'm sorry i know you don't like it and i'm sorry i'm not and i'll i'll do better but it was never that kind of thing

[14:55] where it was like listen i told you about that cursive don't curse at me you know it wasn't like that it was just that okay i understand where you're coming from i understand that's your environment your family uses profanity your friends use profanity so you use profanity however i want to teach you a different way how to do that and so it's conversational as opposed to being disappointed discipline disciplinary so conversational rather than confrontational yes exactly because as soon as you start with the confrontation they automatically shut down because they get enough especially kids with special needs they're always being

[15:30] given the impression that they don't matter they've been given the impression that um you know the school district doesn't care about them the school district some school districts don't uh and they kind of throw them off to the side because they feel like listen this person has a learning disability how far in life do they really think they're going to go and it's unfortunate but some people think that way but these kids the kids that i taught were some very very very bright kids they just need someone to care and guide them in the right direction so cassandra

[16:06] for for parents and for children who who want to connect better give us your you know 30-second blast of of of wisdom um that that they can use as an action item to start working in toward that toward that goal communication communication is very very key understanding that uh the parent has a way that they communicate the child has a way or the young adult has a way that they communicate

[16:41] understanding and asking questions about how they communicate and actually listening uh to to hear what they're saying not listening to respond that helps a great deal like i said these kids did they want to talk they want to engage they just want to hear and feel and know that you're hearing what they're saying not to respond to what they're saying but to really hear what they're saying well i i hope i don't embarrass you by saying that you have encapsulated such tremendous wisdom

[17:16] in relationships between parent and child i know you've mentioned several times you're not a parent although it sounds like you were um a few years ago but i guess sometimes it takes that person who's not immediately involved directly in the the challenge right to to have to be able to step back and see it i i can't begin to tell you how much i appreciate you spending the time with us today to help myself and all of the parents out so thank you so much you're very welcome thank you for having me thanks for joining us this week wasn't cassandra carter

[17:51] amazing such deep insights with such humility i i hope you'll all take on board her advice to communicate with your kids and listen for understanding not not just to come up with a good response and by the way i think we could do that with our spouses our friends our co-workers probably everybody could use a dose of that from us courage at all times my friends marie you are still my bell

[18:31] [Music] you