Next, actress goldie hawn talks about childhood education and stress. Program ssed her promoting positive classroom environment. This is an hour. Local s is the tale of a girl made good. The story begins a few miles away from here in downtown washington, where our guest today won the audience over with byebye birdie at Montgomery Blair high school in Silver Spring, maryland. Four decades later, goldie hawn is one of hollywoods most awarded stars, with some any award nominations that if i listed them all we would not have time to hear her speak. When she is not acting, hanging out with partner kurt russell, spending time with her kids, or gushing over her grandchildren, she is wearing about everybody elses kids. Alarmed after the september 11 terrorist attacks by rising suicide, depression rates among young people, hawn who practices buddhism became interested in brain science. She designed a School Curriculum involving mindfulness training to keep kids focused, manage their emotions, and reduce stress and conflict in their lives. We are honored to have her here at the National Press club here in 2001 to talk about the beginnings of that effort. She has written two books, a memoir, and 10 mindful minutes giving children appier lives. At Publishers Weekly review of the second book called her, a gentle heartfelt approach to mothering and a mission to help children develop healthier ives. Youthful and inexpiring. Worn in washington, d. C. She got her first break when she was 22, for which she was nominated twice for emmy wards. She showed flawless comedic timing, which nearly always guaranteed a laugh or applause from the audience. One of her most memorable lines might even get a laugh today. She said, i dont see why there should be any question about capital punishment. I think everyone at the capital should be punished. Since then, she has acted in more than 30 films, winning an oscar. For Cactus Flower and private benjamin. Her roles have run the gamut from comedic as the jilted exwife with unnaturally bloated lips in First Wives Club to the classic thrillers. Shampoo, bird overboard and he list goes on. You can even hear her voice now in phineas and ferb. Please join me and giving a warm press club welcome to actress goldie hawn. Thank you so much. I am amazed that you found that. It is great to be here. I am so happy to be here again and honored. I get to speak about something very close to my heart. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I would like to welcome my beautiful family, who is sitting over there. Giving me support and love like they have always done. And also our wonderful group, our ceo, and all of you together who are now working on our high School Curriculum, just beginning the process now. What i would like to do first of all first of all, i apologize, i dont have a script because i dont like to look down and read. I like to be able to talk to everyone. Sometimes i might just skip around. I dont know. But what i would like to do first is i would like to introduce you reintroduce you to me. I was born, gee, probably a mile away from here at doctors hospital. I was brought home to a duplex house on a deadend street in takoma park, maryland. That is where i lived for 19 years. I lived in half a house which was a palace to me, and i had a beautiful father who was a musician who played every inaugural in washington from roosevelt on. He was a staple here and came back with some pretty fabulous stories. Being a musician, you not only have a great sense of humor but also a great eye for i guess you could say satire. My mother worked, also. She started a Dancing School. We had our own shop and she ran that. I had two working parents. But i was a happy child. I remember my first day of school, and i went to Silver Spring intermediate school, and in that school we had very challenged children in the basement. They had cerebral palsy. We were integrated with these hildren. The first, had gone to school, i noticed we were having lunch with children who could not move well. I made my best friend that day. His name was barney. He was someone who could hardly speak who smiled all the time. He became my friend all the way through to sixth grade. Owever oh, perfect. At any rate, i then took first grade. We had all of our coloring to do. I color the apples and the bananas, the pears and grapes. I colored them all yellow. My teacher said to me, goldie, why did you color everything yellow . You know that a grape is purple. I looked at her and said, because i like yellow. That was the first inclination i did not follow directions all that well. Then we got into second grade and i was not bringing home a reading book. My mother said why didnt you bring your reading book . I said because i am into purple balls, mom. She said, that is great, the purple balls reading group, what does that mean . I dont know, i just think it is good because im the only one in it. She went to school and found out it was the worst reading group. So as we went along, my mother realized i was not really learning to read that well, so she helped teach me to read. Then we realized at that point i was not really retaining information to well. That did not stop me from exerting my personality. And even though i did not finish my homework or my papers, i signed them all love goldie. At which point my mother decided that maybe she should check my iq. I came out with flying colors, i just want to let you know. But it did not help my reading. It did not help my retention. And i think it was probably an indicator that i was mildly dyslexic. Therefore, i had my challenges. And i had my challenges in school on many levels. One was that i was jewish. I got teased. We do not call it bullying, but i had a resilience because i had parents who cared. And i knew that i was proud to be jewish. But some kids did not look at it that way. Ut it did not get to me. I was teased because later i was flatchested and skinny. That was ok because my mother said, you just wait. Now, i went along at my school and i was a very sensitive child. But i was building other things, other levels of resilience, other talents. No, i was not going to be a rocket scientist. I was not going to be some of those things parents think their children are going to be, because my parents knew what i could do. I could dance. I enjoyed life. They did not want to be the one to stop me from progressing to feel good about myself, to do the things i could do, and to work at my strengths. Something happened in sixth grade. I went down to the visual aids room. The visual aids room was the most fun place to go. We would go downstairs. We would watch and agricultural ilm. So i sat. The lights go out. I was sitting there, waiting to learn about iowa and farming. And we sat there, and on the screen comes a big black ircle. 9, 8, 7, 6 until it hit zero, and then here was a huge crash. The atom bomb went off. And what i saw changed my life or good. They panned to mothers and children crying. Perfect cue. We were looking at annihilation, blood, panic. I started to shake. I was 11 years old, going on 2. I was so frightened that i cannot stop shaking. Because that was going to be me. I was going to die. I knew that the russians were going to bomb us and that we had no way, and that ducking under a desk and turning your head away from the light was not going to work. So i asked the teacher, can i go home, please . She said, goldie, you never go home for lunch. I said, i know, but my mom told me to. I walked to school everyday. Of course, that is the way it as then. That is the way it was. That is when we used to lie on the grass and look up at the clouds and think about what they look like. Or we would never lock our door because everyone was welcome and we were never afraid. Or we would sit on the stoop instead of burying ourselves into devices and figure out, what do you want to do. I dont know, what do you want to do. I dont know, lets crack open rocks. Lets rake leaves and jump in them. I was a good sleeper, life was good. It was all wonderful. I cant called in from dinner, played until dark. Until this happened. I d i shook and i ran home and called my mother and i said, mom, we are all going to die. We are all going to die. My brain had in printed this horrible scenario, and it stayed there until i ended high chool. I cannot hear a siren without going into panic attacks. My mother came back to the house and called the board of education immediately and said, why are you showing children this . Why is it that you think they can absorb this . They cant. It needs to be told differently. If they are going to duck and cover, do it differently. You have traumatize my daughter. She then explained to me why russia was not really going to do it because of our leadership. As we had people talking. Because the bomb would annihilate everybody and everybody would die, and nobody wants everybody to die. Guess what i had some cognitive theories about that because of my mother. I was able to learn how to understand, but it was a lasting fear and lasting panic attacks. Now, that was the time where we had conflict, a lot of it. Civil rights. We were marching. We had people killing each other. We had assassinations of our great leaders, beloved leaders, one after the other. We had the bay of pigs. We lived through that. Imagine my fear in history class at 11 00 when we did not know if we were going to be hit or not. But we did not have the red and blue problems we have today. Because eisenhower was talking to kennedy. That was a purple situation. And he was really helpful, and he wanted to help. And the decision that was made was the right decision. So we got through it. We got through some of the hardest times, where people had a voice. Kids got up and spoke. We had some tragedy inside of that. But we thought we could make a difference. That is what was great. Laughing. We thought we could make a difference. Just by opening up this conversation, saying things, colleges, speaking out. We had an opinion, a point of view. We mattered. Now we cut to today. Instead of watching four channels, six channels, we have hundreds. We have news that is running on cable, reprocessing the same information. This e being imprinted with information and it is usually information, grabbing eyeballs, it has to be controversial. This is a different world we are living in. And i was noticing this, as time has gone on, looking at what was happening to the fiber of our communities, the fiber f our world. It did not start with taking this off or creating liberation, because that is an internal feeling, not external. When we began this time, leading up to all of these decades i have lived through where we actually felt we mattered, i dont know how much we think we mattered today. And i dont know how much our children feel they matter today. It was 9 11, september 11, i was getting my child off to school. And we saw our twin towers crumble. And we were in shock. This couldnt happen to us. Weve gotten through so much. We won. We spoke out. We mattered. Now what is happening is we are being taken as prisoners of fear, of terrorism, of hatred. Of things we cannot wrap our ands around. Our minds around, destabilizing us, creating uncertainty in our lives and our future. I sat there. We all gathered as a amily. We went together and sat in our rooms together in our house, all the children came back home. I could not think of what to do. So i went upstairs and i got my knitting basket. And for a week, i cried, watch television, and i knit the american flag. I did not have a pattern. I just did it as i felt it, as we moved through that week and into the next. And while i knit this flag, i wept for our children. Because i knew they were going to inherit a world that would hange forever. Their little worlds were going to change forever, just as our world was changing forever. We had uncertainty. We do not know what was going on. The difference is is when i was afraid, i dealt with that ear. Today i dont know how to deal with this fear. All i could think of is, what are our children going to do, what are they going to inherit. Theyre watching the news over and again. Their brains are being processed, processing is consistent falling, falling, falling. They dont know this is not happening a thousand times. Is anybody looking at the development of our childrens brains . Is anyone looking at that . So there was this sense of purpose i had. My career is wonderful. The idea i get to be here today to talk about my movies is great. Yeah, i was in service doing that. I feel i was Great Service doing that. If something happened to me 12 years ago, and i asked myself, now what are you going to do, goldie . What are you going to do . So i went to vancouver. We sat there, and i was there because my son wanted to play hockey, and we were going to elp. For his dream. And i would sit quietly in my room and i realized all the studies i had done on the brain i am fascinated with the brain all of the understanding of contemplative practice, all of the understanding of social, emotional, positive psychology. And i thought to myself, why are we teaching this in the classroom . By the way, the phrase social emotional learning, i had no idea what that was. All i knew was our children needed help. A needed tools for the 21st century and it was not going to be learning math better, it was not learning to read better. It was learning to cope in this world with the toolbox they need to have to move forward, to be socially responsible, to be empathetic, to clear their minds, to understand how to reduce stress, because our children experience stress. And we dont think they do . H, yeah. I started looking into statistics about where children are today, discovering in 2007 we had 8 million children on sychotropic drugs. That was 2007. I cannot get the stats today. I can tell you its a lot more. I am not here to say the drugs are bad. They have helped seriously impaired children and people with mental issues. But we have a Mental Health crisis in this country, the likes of which i have never seen. And we are asking now in our educational system to succeed. We want to bring these little widgets inside of a classroom and make them get as, and we want them to innovate and create and write and change the world. How are we going to change the world when our children are in silent distress . Can you think when your brain is in frenzy . Can you make the right decisions when you are panicked, when you are in confusion, when you dont understand . And what we are doing is imprinting these great goals on our children, when in fact we are not really looking at the state of mind that our kids are in right now. If we have these children on drugs, by the way, these drugs continue to it is a 9 billion industry right now. In which case, has anyone ever asked, is there a longitudinal study done . Do we know the effects of these drugs on these children for a lifelong a lifetime . Have we checked out the developing brain . Does it impair the developing brain . Doesnt mean they might be addicted after 20 years . Are we creating an addicted society . These are dramatic things i am saying, but i do ask the question. And i know through practice and understanding of how to work childrens minds and do what their brains, we can fix that. But we have to pay attention. It is time now to pay attention. So what i did is i created the Hawn Foundation to develop a program called mindup. It is a program that is basically something i thought, if i can change one shot at this point in history, it would be a victory. And we created a Small Program that had four things. One is just a little about the brain. Because i said, why dont children know about the brain . Why arent we teaching them the greatest tool they have . We know enough. It should not sit in petri dishes of universities. We should be able to put that into classrooms. Our children need to know the amazing thing they have, better than any computer, to be able to develop, grow, to become good, strong, healthy minded eople. So what we did was we pulled together nurse scientists, positive cientists, psychologists, teachers, we pulled together contemplative practitioners. And i will say this this had nothing to do with buddhism. Im jewish. This has to do with calming the mind. This has to do with understanding that every brain needs a break and every child needs a break. We have taken away recess. We have taken away sports. We have taken away these children are so stressed in their classrooms, we demand so uch from them. And we are dealing now with children of all balances and socioeconomic status. So anyway, we created this program called mindup. Actually, i was there, dr. Kim, she is our researcher from the university of british columbia, the School Superintendent was amazing, because topdown is the way to go. She researched it. She came back and said, in 20 years i have never seen Research Like this in my life. 12 weeks, these children became 83 more optimistic, and we all know enough to mystic child learns better. Happy child is a better learner. A child who has hope has a better chance of learning and retaining information. A frenzied mind cannot. If we think were going to teach our children with this, we are we sent to germany and our children were more able to manage their home burns hor mones. What does that say for health care . Stress. Managing their think about that. Hat about these kids saying, mom, relax. Its just traffic. We have taught children and i have created this disturbance because people will say this will never go to your you will never be able to take three brain breaks in a day in the classroom. This is a program that has worked. We are now in six countries. It is the most important thing in my life to see that one day that we adopt these principles in every classroom in america. If we dont give our children the chance we are going to be in trouble. Worldannot face this new we are living and without these tools. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] you. Ank we have a lot of questions on a lot of topics. How can you succeed in promoting self reflection when every kid seems attached to his iphone or other devices . You have any recommendations for dealing with the Constant Electronics . I am writing a book now. What we are doing is talking about the internet and these devices. The thing is called disconnect. What we are learning is the internet is not all bad. It is rewiring the brain in certain ways that is very important. Haveince the invention grown so much in term of brain activity. Is the are missing social and emotional aspect of it. Were are losing our connection to each other. You quiet thehen mind and that is what we call it. We do not call it meditation in the classroom. , we dou quiet the mind it three times a day for two minutes with the children learn is that it quiets down the system. It has different areas and it in it. That is a very reactive, basic substance. When you breathe and focus and you sit there and get calm it is similar to allowing yourself to relax and become. Calm. They note that when the quiet the amygdala which we call a bulldog barking when you get him back in the doghouse, they know what happens in or logically neurologically. It is all about how we all understand how we can manage our brains. They know when that lights up they can think, they can make decisions, they can analyze, they can learn and remember. This training is taken off in a number of schools across the country. What could educators take away from these approaches as they , not only the overachieving students you talk about people who personal lives outside of school. Programk if this is a they ask if this is going to be a program in the city or for at risk and that is what people think. That our children of affluence are just as much at rich at risk. The affluent children are the one who sell medicaid. Self medicate. These are these things that we look at and say this is an aspect of how we learn to manage what ever our fears are because it is all done i uncertainty and fear and these are very human issues. Withhas nothing to do where you are and what station in life you were at. You are at. It helps everyone including our teachers. Of audience was a practicing child psychologist says where do you start the programs innovators goals and how do you persuade School Districts to get on board . The pudding. Is in and you show the results you get the kind of activity that you are getting, i think what is happening is it is becoming instead of a push, it is becoming a poll. Pull. We are throwing our hands up and saying what we can we do what can we do . Thatt to a School District is ready and you say to them that we can help manage the children. We can help them become more selfmanagable. We can reduce bullying i creating a commute a classroom,n the understanding optimism versus pessimism, these kinds of things which sound very crazy. Did you know that the research of just gratitude itself and this is a Research Study that was done, as pulled people out of the pressed states the pressed depressed states. The brain starts to relearn a different things. You wire it and fire it together. When you habitually a positive experience such as gratitude, it starts to change how you fire. It changes how your brain thinks. Brains like to do habituation things. That is what we do with our children. I am running on here. Students today take more high stake tests as ever. Is this concerning and if so what should be done about it . I think that testing is an interesting thing. We feel different about it. Testing is up for grabs. Doesnt matter if i get a high grade on the test . Is that emotional iq is an indicator of a much more successful life than a very high iq where we can have a rocket scientists but they dont necessary live necessarily live in integrated life. I think there are problems with testing but it is just like the internet, it is progress. I dont think testing is going to end. How do we move around it . It is here forever. The choices are have we learned how to reduce stress during tests . I am going to reach in my toolbox and figure out how to get around feeling that i am not smart enough. That is the way we do it. We have to keep creating more tools to exist. Describes you as having said that children are profoundly unhappy. What led to that observation . That is a written word and we dont always go by that. I dont think i said that. What i do think is that the children deserve to be happy. They have every right to be happy. I think it is our job as the grownups, as the guiding lights to people to nurture what is one day going to be 100 of our population. Into the best state of mind it could be and create some kind of reservoir of joy. A question asks if you have found challenges in schools in any particular reasons re gions . Not had too many complaints about that which i think is pretty amazing. We are a sciencebased program here. We are going to learn about all kinds of things about the brain. It is a conversation that we have between the brain and are exterior life. In terms of i really havent. Researchy of your linked the increasing violence in schools with the stresses and fears that young people are feeling these days . Say that again. Have you seen any scientific link between violence in schools and stress among children . There is definitely scientific link. It is where you need to rise up and asked the question what are we doing . Our kids are very stressed. Dear actually creates anger. When you were afraid of something, eventually it that beer is not resolved, it will turn to anger. I think our children are acting out. I think a lot of the School Shootings and the things we have i cantthrough see this level of fear and andtration and ugliness illness Mental Illness that seems to be rampant now. The loose and of course, guns are relatively easy to get. I dont want to get in that. I think the goodness of our hearts to be able to make that decision. Hopefully those people will be able to take charge for us. Asthe other hand, as far these children are concerned. We are seeing a lot of scientific problems. We have seen potential psychosis. What is interesting is that some of art are these children troubled . Have they gone off their meds . Or are they getting too many meds. This is where it gets scary. Scientificre is answers. Have you met with federal officials with participating with this program . It is not part of my visit to washington, d. C. I think the government needs the service in the right way. I think there will be a time where we will move forward with being speaking more about this. I have an opportunity today to speak to some people that are decisionmakers who could understand the dilemma. Our Education System needs to change and i think there are ways to create a good argument through understanding that the private sector we cannot depend on the private sector. Millions of dollars are going out to help and understand the problem to try to get more Mental Health in the schools. On and on in terms of mindfulness and programs. It is not going to make it. Scaling is very difficult. Plea will be my how do we scale this on our own . We need help from the government. This is not being dependent on the government. We are disturbance makers. We did we create the disturbance and that is the only way to grow. I would like to say that i am here to speak about this and hopefully someone will be listening. [applause] given the success of the dance channels series have you considered combining your acting and work with this initiative on television . I have had my head down for 11 years. Ground,y, boots on the head down, looking at research, understanding the value of what we are doing. We are now in six countries. We are basically the only wey in certain areas are giving more drugs to children than any other country. 50 of our children in the south are living below or at poverty level. How could a child go to school and think when they only have one meal a day . We have some serious challenges here. Do,erms of bringing what i my instincts come up. Now what we are doing is creating animation in terms of helping children understand how their brains work. We are creating real animation. How we wrap this around our education, how we apply it to the various things we are doing in schools. We are doing that. Is there a channel to be doing this absolutely. I have gone to different channels earlier but i wasnt ready yet. Sometimes it takes time to incubate a program to make it fly. Our program is flying. I thought i was doing Foundation Work and i thought, i havent brought in some of the things i do. That is what we are doing now. Does the curriculum work well for children who have atypical brains . This with had talented babies challenge radius. Babies. We have done no Quantitative Research on that. We have worked with them. I have a story about a little boy duet autism. Nervous and he was starting to become symptomatic. He started shaking his hands and could not stop shaking his hands and reacting. One of the little boys said if we could sit in a circle and do our brain break because i think he needs it. Children were very as static aesthetic. They did the reading, did their focusing, the child was able to take his test after he stopped taking. They all supported him. It worked. Mindll us more about where up is in practice and where can people find out more information . You can find out on our website. It is the mind up program. We are ready and willing to do this. It is exciting to get the calls. We have trainers who are ready to go. We also have a website that is coming out which is an e learning portal. What was the other question . Where is it . Statesre in 50 different 15 different states. It keeps growing. Haveve canada we hundreds of thousands of children doing this program around the world. It is not enough. We could fill the whole hour with talk about the foundation but there are questions on other topics as well. We will start with one from a 10yearold in audience who wants to know what character do you play in any is an firm finneas and ferb . The grandmother. She was the one that sat in the window. I dont know if i will do a repeat on that show. But shea sweet old lady really was a nasty woman. [laughter] i know you must have a Favorite Movie or is it like children where you cannot choose a favorite . Do you have a Favorite Movie experience . I have so many wonderful experiences making movies. It is very hard to choose one. I think i have that a lot of great experiences and kurt was great to work with. We had a new baby. He was eight months old. It was a dream to make that movie. Irms of the other part expresst sugarland was one of the most exciting films i ever did. I played a different kind of character. Being up on a person is great and i loved it. I get it. You get to do something different. Character. Ery tragic she was entertaining but she had it was a serious movie. You and kuht we see rt on the screen together again . [laughter] probably not. Because unless it was some really interesting thing and a small role probably not. When people have been together for so long and we have been together for 30 years [applause] peoples a love for those that there is no mystique about them anymore. I guess if i was going to do a role, it would be more interesting to see me with another guy. [laughter] and he, another girl another girl. What other guy would you pick . You guys rented my head but i do not say it. Guys ran it my head but i did not say it. Do you think the roles for women is progressing . That is a loaded question. Hollywood women. I think women are running studios, doing all kinds of things. Are women getting stronger . Absolutely. They are taking action roles. These are tough women. They look pretty sexy while they are doing it. Is in some ways we are in an area of entertainment. People like to see young people kissing onscreen. It is a young mans business. Age,woman is of a certain it is very difficult. If a man is of a certain age, it is not that difficult. In terms of women moving forward, i think women have done pretty well. They come and go. It is still a very male oriented business. They make movies for boys. That is where the money comes in. A lot of the movies for women are still looked at and tempered. We all took a cut in salary. A movie withthink three women of a certain age was actually going to do anything. We had a nice backhand on it. That is a little degrading. We did the second movie, there were some challenges about actually getting a raise. If we were men, we mightve gotten a substantial raise. There are some challenges. Your daughter being one of them what advice do you have two young women in hollywood today . Daughter. Mind up. I will say this about myself rather than giving advice and i dont give advice to kate. She is strong and smart. My job is done. For young girls, i really had a backup job. Ands going to come home open a Dancing School because i had a trade. I was a dancer. It is to i was and still am. That is how i define myself. My idea was i had a backup. Always have a backup plan. You are waiting for people to look at you and go you are fabulous. It is a narcissistic place to be. Why do tend why do you depend on people to love you so much if you dont love yourself . Get a back up system. Figure out what else you are going to do in life because you never know. It is the same thing with a career that goes on and on and one day that career stops. Who are you now . What are you going to do in your life . Need toe the things we ask ourselves early in life so that these things that do not work out sometimes, it is ok. We have a bunch of questions about laughing laughin. That was longer than i expected. Did you ever ask them if you could come back and play a serious, focused character instead of a kooky blonde . No. [laughter] is there one movie line that you wish you never uttered . You must be joking. Do you know how many years ago that is . [laughter] story. A funny it was the trap door. I would stand on the trap door and the line was funny. He did not look jewish. I do not want to say it because go down into the trap door because what they do is eliminate the square and you have to do this. She said do it and dont be scared, it is going to be fine. Pretend you are stoned. Thing, that was her thing. What does that do . It was horrible. I said the line. George tricked me and he did not pull the trap door. I did not know if the trap door i couldnt get off of it because if i did this my leg would go up here he was tricking me. When you ask about a line, that is probably the one i were never the most. Do you still dance . I do dance. I dance in my workout room with my daughter. I do a lot of exercise so i cross train. This is i said ridiculous, i have to start dance class again. Backl start when i go because there is nothing like the joy that you get from using from moving to music. In the days when i was completely strong and centered, it was unbelievable. One of the times after my baby was born, kate, i went to i went back to class and my center of gravity was so off. I was having difficulty having my balance. I ran out of their weeping. I cant dance anymore. Thinkk after a while you i am not able to do this. I am going back to dance class. We will invite you back to them straight that. To demonstrate that. We have a couple housekeeping matters to take care of. I want to remind you of our upcoming speakers. This thursday we have senator judd gregg. He will unveil a new investor bill of rights on november 11. Ceo of a president and the trawls swabbed of trawls swabbed charles schwab. We are the feminist activist and the founder of ms. Magazine. Secondly, i would like to present our guest with the National Press club coffee mug. Inc. You so much. One must question. The questioner wants to know what are you on betting . I do what im told. But i will tell you what i am betting. I bet that in 20 years, every america willoom in be to child the brain works to children. [applause]