Welcome. My name is emma pengelly, im a Senior Program officer at the Walton Family foundation. Tonight sponsor. At walton we believe the most important thing you can do to give you and people of opportunities succeed is to make sure they have highquality education. Tonight you hear from dianne die tavenner, a career educator who is done the thing that both of us were educators always wanted to do, always here when you start to becomeho a teacher, bud the school that you want to send your childhe to. Her son is a senior who will graduate from her school this year. Which is Pretty Amazing think about it, diane started with one school and is built 11 of the most innovative Public Schools in the country. She serves 4400 students just within her schools, and also the way that her work has spread across the country with curriculum and teachers is really quite remarkable. She has sorry. In her book she shares her journey as an educator, a mother and daughter of one of americas most Innovative Public School networks. She give us the roadmap to prepare our children to succeed in college and to thrive in todays workplace and to lead secured and fulfilled life. Welcome, diane. Thank you for coming. [applause] diane is joined by Angela Duckworth who is the founder and ceo of the Character Lab which importantly with the end of getting the site into the hands of the people who are shepherding the next generation of parentsts and educators in a way that makes meaningful differences. She has advised the white house. Shes advised the world bank, the nba, nfl, fortune 500 ceos. When the worlds greatest humans when the rock johnson wants to talk, he calls angela. Im incredibly excited to hear this conversation. Please welcome them again here thank you allsa for being here. [applause] thank you. Thank you for a warm introduction. Diane and i, we are both seem familiar faces and t also new friends. The plan for the next hour or so is that we get to have a conversation, and then we get to have a conversation and there are notes, like a card in the book and yes, thank you for the demonstration. If the question occurs to you during our conversation, then at about, at about 7 15 or so, maybe 710 i met with stiff things go. We will collect them from the audience almost and then will be able to take as many of those questions as we have time for. So thanks for listening to our conversation but it really do want it to be inclusive. Im going to start out by asking diane about the story of, start up with the story of writing this book. Why in your very busy life it you carve out the time to write what i think is a fabulous book . Thank you. Thanks so much. Well, for many, many years people told i should write a book. I think when you start a school its a hard and crazy, people think you should write the the stories demonstrate up a lotes f the maid into the but because they are maybe worthy. But that was never enough to get me to write a book. What really gotth me to write a book was i spent the last number of years in a lot of towns and cities across the country talking to a lot of parents and a lot of teachers and a lot of educators. And what i heard was a very common conversation about people having the same vision for their kids and being really frustrated that it wasnt happening for them and their communities. Y were alone in that. I wanted to have this conversation with everyone and a good friend of mine who is an author finally said to me a book is a conversation its a six hour conversation what can you do in a six hour conversation. And then the title im sure you are very intentional about calling it prepared. What does it mean to be prepared and what does it mean for a kid to grow up and lead a fulfilled life. That thing i heard from parents and i think this is the thing i believe as a mom at the end of the day what i want is my child to be happy i want him to have a good life and friends and family i dont want him to live in my basement. But i dont need for him to be the most powerful word while the person in the world. To me that is what fulfillment is. Living your life with purpose and meaning in people and relationships. We really believe that that is our job as a k12 Education System in america is to prepare kids so they can enter adulthood equipped, to lead a fulfilled life. Not everybody, how many of you would self identify as an educator. The other half we are doing things that could be considered education. You may know they have a education. I had been asking this question. What is your answer. Is happy to you something that is successful. Could you be happy and had terrible test scores. How you think about those as a mother or an educator. Its almost counterintuitive. I thing a lot of people chase success and think once they are successful they can pursue fulfillment. I think you see a lot of people going hard and crazy after a specific amount of money or position or place in life and then thinking after that thats when i can live my happy good life. What we have learned from both a the science and our experience is the way to chase that success is through perfect suing fulfillment. This is the weird paradoxical moment. If you go and look at successful people and how they got there. You can be happy and fulfilled along the way what that requires is that we think about success not in such a narrow way. The benefit of that is its a win lose not a win lose game in our society. If theyre not competing for the same few positions and in fact they are pursuing what makes them happy and per purposeful. Theres plenty of space for that in our world. I am a former math teacher so im always rounding up. When i go home tonight what message can i communicate to my kids in a way what you say it makes total sense. I think for a lot of young people it is an either or. Either im specific to all of my energy with the best College Possible or i should be wondering about social justice in the world in the environment. Its very hard for us to think of them together. How does this play out in our schools. Right there in between. I think our kids like all kids in the country right now are getting these really intense messages that their job is to get into the best college and certainly i am a believer in college as an opportunity for every child. I do not want to in in a way suggest that im not supportive of that. In a stacked ranked list. That the rest of the world has decided its the best college. This is where i think the two things get married together where harvard, and stanford they are both great places. We know personally and there at the top of this list. Theyre not the right fit for the vast majority of kids. If they define their success by entrants in the places that are the right fit. They really have a very specific culture and orientation that is only a fit for certain kids. Versus 2000 other institutions in the country that have very specific offerings that would be much better matches and for all sorts of different kids. Really but they should be doing as is figuring out to their one of the things that worries me the most is how people who are going to college and pain 80,000 a year. Think about that. I really expensive car. If her to go do that right now. Could be very discriminating. Is that cart good enough for my amount of money. I think my advice is that is a lot of money and this is your most precious child you should be asking them really hard questions. I think the institutions that some of those at the top maybe dont. If i were at summit and i was not 49 years old. What messages would i be hearing. How to get purpose into there. A couple of ways. The first way is just what our kids are doing every day engaging and project based learning and this is a way of learning math and science and history and english in a really engaging problem oriented self discovery way. It starts with the big question that is actually relevant. And asked them to go deep in it and explore it and figure it out. I will give you an example. One project my son is doing right now is a government project they take on and they pick a legislature they become that person they figure out who that person is they then figure out a piece of legislation they think that legislature would propose. And then there can a try to get their other fellow legislatures to build a coalition to actually pass it. This is really hard challenging stuff. You have to really know yourself and your value and your beliefs. And you are discovering who you are along the way thats a later stage advanced project. They had spent years getting to that place. People who think that this generation doesnt care could not be more wrong. They have a lot of thoughts about the types of laws we should be passing. There is a whole part of our program with having them to explore in pursue interest. This is a lot of trial and error and failure. We carve out time for them to do deep dives. To explore different things. And really think and reflect. What did i not like. Is that something now i know is not good foot dash make fit. If you do that over and over a year after year. You really start to know who you are. I no longer teach high school. There are plenty of 18 to 22 yearolds wandering the planet because they dont know where they are going because we didnt prepare them. I love what you said about having kids to be exposed to new things. I never thought of being a being a literary agent. And then exploring in exploring them and then pursuing them. What does it look like how does it how do they do that. What if on the second day dont want to be a gynecologist anymore are you allowed to switch maybe i will tell you through a couple of different stories one student who is actually in the book is a really good example of where this just clicks. Hes a freshman at summit. He gets us opportunity in his first exposition to do filmmaking. Its a deep dive for eight weeks over the course of the year. He does need to stick it out for the course of the year which i think you will probably appreciate even if a second beer ultimate think some kids do that and they discover its not their thing the next year he goes into the next level of filmmaking. This is putting lightbulbs in for him. He is ready to design his own experience. We work with him. And all sorts of deeper experience. I like that. It doesnt always work that way. We have lots of kids we are in the hub of technology. We sent a lot of kids to do short experiences and local technology companies. When a group of them that went and did not. I lent learned i dont want to be a software engineer. I dont like it that much. I dont like the solidarity of it. I dont get into the flow of the way other people do. When they would come together in these meetings and there was this other role that they would bring all the people together. He was really interested in that role. We unpacked it of what he didnt like he didnt like being alone ten hours of coding all at one time. He liked the translating. The understanding. He started to understand about himself what he wanted. He started to discover the pieces of him that he will ultimately want to put together. Both the parents and educators in the room. If theyre not lucky enough to be here at this time is the beginning part of that exposure is it open ended. If your student said horseback riding or are you giving them a menu of many wonderful options. I think where we really injured this is the Extracurricular Activities that we are helping our kids engage in. I think the exposed part should be as much multiplechoice as possible. They are creating kids who are the best college application. That is how they are get a standout. It has closed off all of these opportunities to really be exposed. I would suggest the best way to get to expertise is having this multiplechoice opportunity you dont have to start when youre three in order to be excellent even actually start later if you hit on the thing that really is your particular area of passion. I would encourage us to think about there is limitations to this how can you expose your kids and feel comfortable that their learning as much. When they dont like something as when they do like something. Its actually a hugely valuable piece of information. I think we both believe this. When you commit to something you have to see it through to the end of that time were not quitting midseason but once that happens i think making an active choice of whether you go forward is very appropriate. One of the things i love about this book and its really a great book. I read it twice. I loved the stories and youre your vulnerable and honest about your own not ideal childhood. What you are describing happens there. Tell me about your childhood. One of the reasons i became an educator is because a lot of what we are talking about was i happening in my home as a child. So school was the one place where i have the chance to get this. In that significant number of kids that we have the privilege of serving that is true for them as well. Despite the best entrance intentions its just not the circumstances. It really marked and it was really physically and emotionally unsafe. I think what schools dont know and understand and arent necessarily equipped to deal with is when youre coming from a home that is chaotic like that into the School Setting here not youre not really ready to learn. You are bringing a lot with you into the space that is really difficult to convey. I felt very misunderstood as a learner and not really seen no one was ill intended but that was just the reality of it. So what my school thought of me is certainly not the person sitting here tonight. What kind of student were you . I grew up in lake tahoe which at that time was a very small amount town. It sounds ridiculous. I learned how to build the fire. I built a fire starting at age four. I was tested for special ed and elementary school. What you know about about the science is that when your mind is in that state is really hard to learn. Once in school you are labeled as a delayed reader or not smart. Thats how the school organizes around you then. See mac i will pick up that thread but just so we can get the full story of when you were young. When i met diane it was around a conference table a lot of people work for them. They were very nice to bill and melinda gates. I remember walking out of there and had two thoughts. That was the best Fried Chicken i have ever had. You are the most impressive person there. I came up to you and said i want to meet you. I want to be here. It seems to me if i just knew that i wouldve thought she probably went to andover. At what point did you start thinking potentially a smart capable person. I will be honest with you to this day when i walk on campuses i now had this honor of getting to go back and lectured at harvard and stanford i still have imposter syndrome. It stays that long. A couple of things happened in my life. One might mom finally divorced my dad when i was about eight and that was helpful. Two, for all of the challenges she was dealing with. Was a fierce advocate i give her a ton of credit for that for making sure in her own way she was able to advocate for that. Eventually the self per reception. And really being so confused by it. I dont know if i every really have seen it myself like that. Ive kept this quote in my classrooms in drawers forever aerodynamically the bumblebee should not be able to fly. Im sitting on your biography and you for a moment. I wont forget to go back. On page 49 during a particular moment in the gestation. There was a bit of a crisis. I underlined this i dont make promises i cant keep you say more about whats going on. I felt angry, undermined and unsupported. I also felt determined dont tell me i cant do something i thought. I will prove you wrong. I enter lined that. I have heard that exact language from some many of the people i study. Can you even guess where this comes from because its not the typical response to the challenge. When confronted with the real crisis they are not having the all show you. Where does this come from for you. A couple of things i think. I got really lucky that there were a few key people and moments in my life this is why every summit summit student has a mentor i got really lucky in that regard i think. I got out my town i went to college and i studied psychology. Its funny. I learned some how i learned what was going on in me and then that was kind of how i figured out how to become myself. I started getting really angry quite frankly. The deck is so stacked against kids like me, women, and lets be clear im super fortunate i look like this. I am not a person of color. People of color have it a hundred times harder than you. I just angry. The values have me this isnt right. Its not smart in our society. This is our job as an Education System. Is a good segue back to schools and education. At summit do you have anything you would say when you walk into summit can you give us a sense of what is different about summit and if you want to do that through the day in the life. I think what is interesting as a lot of times they walk into a school and take it to be a good thing. Kids are like really orderly. They seem to be studiously doing their work. Thats not what how much of tennessee at summit. This is what i am really looking for. The kids are going to be really nice to you when you walk in the door. Do you need something. If you asked them a question about what they are doing. They will start to talk to you. When you Start Talking to them they will tell you. How does that connect to who you are and what theyre doing. Every student you encounter is going to do that. Intimate that is a hallmark. They might literally be on the floor with headphones and. That is the most important thing. My kids go to Public Schools. If i could sprinkle fairy dust on the other schools. Would it be what you just described. You get three. We are teaching in a project based way. It has organized itself to really believe in when you have that as a belief. The third one as they have is they have a mentor someone who is on campus and onsite. They know about them and tease them. I will ask the question. Every kid has a mentor that you run out of grownups. Every mentor works with about 18 to 20 kids and the beauty of it is. It was about the relationship. They actually become a very big community. One of the most beautiful outcomes is the actual way. The kids had even graduated in their mentor groups. They come from totally different backgrounds. Exactly. They are truly a family. That is how they have come together. The adult is not the center of that. It really is a community. See mike if you had questions maybe now would be a good time to drop them down in a few minutes if we could go up and down. I was curious about your son rick and i wondered we got a little bit of this. What is the update. He is a senior at Summit Denali which is one of our schools. He is a long running summit student. When he entered sixth grade and fifth grade his teacher actually recommended that we test him for special education. He might have some processing challenges some sort of classic things like that. He was really struggling. In a fairly traditional education setting. I was worried i did not know he was ever going to be able to write a coherent paragraph. I can find those injuries where i am beside myself thinking how does an english teacher send literally not son literally not know how to write. So fastforward. His exposition or his pursuit as one he has practiced for himself. So our kids can do that. He likes to make maps. He is obsessed with Current Events in the world. He has this theory he has a theory of politics and power. And he is spending his expositions this year doing research on that. It is so interesting you ask me about my view of myself. To make do think you are smart now. I would never do that. He is really passionate and confident. And to determine. He is not can it go to a traditional university. He has spent a lot of time looking and researching. And hes really excited about a new university. As in the a greek goddess. Its four years old. Its designed to be completely different its very project basis. They live the next six semesters in a different world city. Their professors live around the world. I think we have the questions and we will turn it back over to emma. We will see how many we can get answered by diane. Before we go to book signing. My apologies if we dont get to your question. We had two here i think we can tackle together. How do they support and listen to parents. That is a good and important question. The way i would think about this and i really didnt do think of the combined question is i do think that we as educators and professionals i think over the last couple of years they have taken a beating in a lot of ways and the reality is i believe deeply in teachers and educators. I think it is our job to create and design experiences for all kids that are based in the science. I think we need to be given the respect to do that. I think when we do that design we have to thoughtfully include the parents in that design in whatever form they are able to engage with us. For some parents this will be very active engagement and for others it will be minimal engagement and i think it cant disadvantage the students either way. I know it sounds really hard to do. I think that is our challenge. Back to the college question i support the idea that every child should find the best college for them. There is a real difference in opportunities how do you reconcile this and think about it when you when it comes to opening up pathways. I think that that one of the reasons that people will pay the price tag for those top 50 colleges and they wealth put everything into trying to get them here are buying into a network in a brand that goes on to you. If you are doing that and is not benthic to you. There is as many stories as people that have gone to not the top 50 but one of the other 2000. I really know who they are. They know what they care about. Successful on their terms. In the life they want. I dont see harvard and samford anytime soon. Theyre actively working to constrain we are actually get to pursue fulfillment collectively as a society i think we will put some pressure on them if they are so great. They should serve more people. Two connected questions when you provide a child with agency. What happens when they make bad choices or waste time. We honestly dont keep kids from making bad choices or wasting time. Thats part of the learning process. You have to understand in order to not do that eventually you have to know how to give them a freedom to make mistakes and learn from that and move forward. Understanding the skills that they need to build and grow. And then actually having a curriculum. It is having some tolerance for their those moments when they do waste time. I dont know how many of you in this room literally work through your workday without ever getting distracted. I dont know how many of us as adults are perfect. I do think there is some realism around this as well i think we embrace. I think the best answer to that. Knowing it yourself. They feel good about that. And they know who they are. To influence them. The other dangerous experimentations. I thought of one thing you not only have the book what you have the website. I get a lot maybe not the specific o question but a lot of these kinds of questions you have. Preparedforsuccess. Org and the other thing is when you come to a Summit School you see students who shake your hand, tell you, ask you if you need help. Being intentional as a parent about picking a school because developmentally during adolescence how much a biologically people are attuned to peers as opposed to parents, it is hard to describe but they show care with their friends are doing or saying or wearing and thinking so as a parent you are like got a 14yearold, what can i do. That is why parents should be very intentional and thoughtful about helping their students be in a school where those. Influences are going to be positive. You say this, right for that kid. Not every school is right for every kid but dont just be like my kids have to go to school. It really matters those kinds of choices. How do you support a student who finds school and athletics easy . They are used to be successful and dont fail. What do you do . Trick them on the way to the finish line . I think i dont know. I cant think of a human being where there isnt something that could be challenging to them, one of the behaviors of our selfdirected learner is challenge seeking. We have a lot of kids, it comes naturally and they do well in school and what we teach them is selfdirected learners seek out a challenge. And it is about my internal bar, what is challenging, what is interesting and sparking that and getting them to go after it. What do you look for when you hire educators . A lot of the things we are trying to develop in our kids, what about the orientation towards learning comes from the hard work and not just something im born with or not born with that im good at or not good at and develop things, that is really critical. The summit is different, a lot of other places who want to do different things. And the technical subjects not that people dont care about biology or math, the interest and passion is important and it is not in and of itself, but other people get excited about it. Those are the pieces. What do you say, giving some of what they get at summit and what might you caution a parent about the mindset they bring in. I am seeing a kid with headphones. I definitely think there are more schools orienting toward a projectbased curriculum. I would certainly be looking for that. Then i think the second thing i would be looking for is orientation around sort of compliance type environment versus a more Ownership Agency type environment. Does the school talk about kids being orderly and i am not opposed to order but are they more focused on telling kids show up at this time, do this assignment, figuring out and driving their own experiences. To the extent that you can find that, that is what i would look for. Why is it so hard for schools to do what they are doing, what is needed for these practices . One of the hardest parts of this is middle and high schools for certain are organized where teachers are independent contractors. The University Level is like this as well. We organize around this and say this is the piece that i do. And all those pieces together making it coherent for you and for flip of that, think about the experience of the student and make that coherent and make that make sense. We have to collaborate and Work Together to have a coherent experience for the kids and that is the hardest part because schools, the way time is organized and jobs are organized, they are not designed to do that, theresfor adults to do that, the adults who do that, at 9 00 at night, that is the biggest hurdle quite frankly. How do the ideas about summit intersect. I will my notes. I think there are some notes in there. Here is what i would say. It is grounded in the amazing work of people like angela and other incredible researchers and we are so grateful to them. We actually do something. That is you read our goal setting thing. Last week you told us that and we will do it. There really is this relationship so i would say i didnt make up any of this stuff. They call a summit innovative, i dont know if it is innovative, we brought it together in a coherent model. We didnt do this. So much of what we are talking about intersects with so many amazing researchers. I will let her tell you specific ways grit shows up even though it is slightly different. This might be the last question. Can you read the things i marked off. Starts with whatever it takes on page 241 and this captures the essence of that question. Whatever it takes. You will find the words or acronyms posted in conversations among teachers and students. Those are the stories we tell ourselves and one another. W it is more than a phrase. It is our culture, a mindset that drives our decisions. It is how we approach our work and what has driven us year after year. Everything we have done involve over time, whatever it takes dozens mean we do everything for kids or accept the way things are at work longer and harder to overcome. It doesnt mean when we get stuck we lower our standards. To live whatever it takes we find a way. We believe there is always a way to open up. [applause] i want to thank you for sitting with us, hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as i did and i will be on your website learning as much as i can so thank you for your time. Is there a signing after words . If we could have a few minutes for diane and angela, hello, and the other note is if you want to have a book club or Discussion Group with either your school or your Parent Network and would like copies of the book we would be happy to arrange for that so just find me and we can find ways to continue the conversation. Thank you again, thank you all. [applause] faith and religion in middle america, here is a portion of the program. I went up to the floor and there was a whole floor filled with pianos and organs from all the closeup churches in that county alone and that was a couple months after my own Church Closed and being a writer and a narcissist i thought i should write about this because timelinewise we are nearing the end of 2015, to the beginning of 2016. Caucuses are starting to happen and there is a sociological theory of places, everybody has three places, work, your family and what is the thirdplace . For so many people for so long that thirdplace was church and what i notice was i wasnt going to go like a 60yearold, i went to have brunch instead which is my new religion. That is the thesis of the book. Kidding. When you have a whole community in the centerpiece of the church and the church is closed or nobody goes to that church because they are driving 50 miles away or people dont go there, what fills the void . I was asking that about my own life and about the heartland, all those churches were closing what was filling the void so i wrote an article for a place called specific standard and in the beginning of 2016 before the caucuses arguing the loss of faith in america was changing us and changing us politically. This is a very journalisty town so you might understand what i say next when i say so many journalists have so many embarrassing takes in our past, so many we dont want to talk about it. This was my one good take and because i think i was onto something. To watch the rest of this Program Visit our website, booktv. Org. Search for liz lens or the title of her book god land using the box at the top of the page. [inaudible conversations] good evening and welcome to politics and prose. My name is cody walker and i will introduce tonights speaker. If anyone could silence their cell phones