[Music]
has anyone ever had somebody come up to
them and say wanna fight I’m gonna beat
you up after school well I have and it
scared the bejesus out of me it was late
in September 1986 I was in eighth grade
I had just acquired my first real
boyfriend his name was Darren as you can
see he was pretty dreamy he had he had
awesome hair these beautiful blue eyes a
wicked smile and he was really smart and
funny I thought I was pretty cool
well one day at the lunch table because
that’s mostly where things happen in
middle school is at the lunch table
another classmate came up to me her name
was Tiffany and she said you know
Darren’s mine right we’re gonna fight
after school over him meet me under the
bridge and we’re gonna square off and I
thought oh my goodness I’m four foot
nothing I have no idea how to fight I
don’t have any brothers I have five
sisters and I don’t know what I’m going
to do I
exited school that day and I ran the
whole mile and a half home I holed up in
my room
I had a can of cheese balls and I
contemplated my next move
I thought to myself if I tell my parents
they’re going to call the school you see
my dad as an attorney so I decided that
was probably not my best move so I
decided that I had to handle this on my
own and in that moment I decided I had
to be the mayor of my own life I had to
make some choices about how I was going
to self-advocate how I was going to tell
Tiffany sorry go pick on somebody else
so the next day I waited before school
to leave I purposely took the long way
to school and when I got there I didn’t
see her I avoided all of the hot zones
of any school any child will tell you
about the hallways the locker rooms the
bathrooms anywhere that Tiffany would be
unfortunately I had to go to lunch she
approached me once again at lunch with
her throng a friend snickering and
sneering and saying she wanted
beat me up again I stood up and I said
to her I am NOT going to fight you you
need to find somebody else to pick on
she told me I was high and left
thankfully for the rest of the year and
basically the rest of my life I avoided
Tiffany we were in we were in middle
school together for one more year and
then we’re at the high school and I did
see her but I did avoid her but in that
moment I knew that I had to define what
dignity was for me and at the base of
what bullying harassment and
intimidation is is one human being
trying to strip the dignity of another
human being it can be a child or it can
be an adult if we can teach our students
to hold on to their voice to advocate
for each other and for themselves as
they go through conflicts we are winning
social justice guru Rosalind Wiseman
defines dignity as one’s inherent worth
that no one has the right to take your
voice away from you that no one has the
right to tell you how things are going
to go as I look at the dramatic shift
that has happened with my students in
the last 23 years of being on a
secondary campus I can tell you that our
students are struggling some of them are
crumbling under the tremendous academic
pressure that we have started in
kindergarten I have four daughters of my
own ages 9 9 10 and 11
I still cannot do 5th grade math many
moms and dads have said to me in the
last 2 or 3 months what math is Ava
going to take in sixth grade is she
going to take regular math or honors
math and I think to myself I don’t know
but whatever she takes I’m still not
going to be able to do it I have seen a
dramatic shift in the locus of control
becoming the adults and I can tell you
my theory as to why
in 2000 2002 and for sweeping
legislation came down from our state and
our federal government saying if
bullying is going on if harassment is
going on report report report to the
adults in your life the trusted adults
at home the trusted adults on campus and
so students do they’re really great in
the role of the witness and the report
to us as parents as well as trusted
adults on campus unfortunately as
systemically this has had set them up
for a little bit of failure in that they
don’t know how to take care of small
problems they failed a paper they lost
their first boyfriend they didn’t make
the team the locus of control has become
us as adults they’re constantly looking
to us for the answers I would encourage
you after hearing this tonight that not
only you allow them to have dignity in
the process of the classes that they
take but also in their conflict if we
continue to intervene the coping and
resiliency skills of our students stay
really really low and locally we are
seeing for sure that these coping and
resiliency skills definitely needs to
rise I am part of some Facebook groups
recently there was a thread with over
400 comments about whether or not a
twelve-year-old girl should be able to
ride her bike to a friend’s house now
this girl has a black belt in karate she
has a smart phone and she knows this
friend really well most of the parents
that commented said no no and hell no
when commenting on the thread and so I
as an advocate just said and those of
you that are commenting no tell me why
predation abduction human trafficking
and sexual assault were all listed
certainly those are things that we need
to be aware of and certainly as a
prevention advocate I want to make my
own daughters and all of the students
that ice
service aware of their surroundings
however I cited that in the town of
Gilbert we have one of the lowest crime
rates in the nation so that our kids are
pretty safe and when given training to
be aware they’re going to be ok
if we allow them to take some risks one
parent asked when should I give my
student a smartphone as the threads
started having more comments the median
age was around 12 or 13 years old so
then that parent asked well when should
I start or stop checking text messages
and what’s going on and the median age
again was 12 years old I was absolutely
flabbergasted by the same group of
people saying she can’t leave the
cul-de-sac but we will unleash her to
the worldwide web
with no training and very little
supervision something with that needs to
change because at the school level 90%
of my job was fighting Facebook
Instagram snapchat and Twitter I have
seen more images that are funny and more
images that are tragic than I care to
and so when I give Internet safety
presentations I often have parents come
forward after privately and share with
me that the crusade that I’m on is
really important because they have been
personally touched by something that has
happened to their child recently I spoke
in Scottsdale and a mom came up to me
with her daughter and said I had no idea
that a predator was luring and grooming
my daughter for over two years on a
laptop in her room with a webcam and the
only way that I was a prize of this
information was the FBI and the City of
Phoenix police showed up on my doorstep
recently I was also speaking in
Nashville and I asked the audience do
you think our students are more or less
resilient in 2008 teen and a teacher
raised her hand and she was smirking and
sort of laughing and she said well I’m
kind of embarrassed to share this with
you but my son
who goes demander Bell who has a 4.2
grade point average called one day when
it was raining from Target said mom I
really need your help
it’s raining and I need to know should I
buy a poncho or an umbrella she hung up
on her own son and what she said to our
audience was dear God
what have I done I’m a teacher and I
have carefully engineered his class
schedule his sports activities even his
college dorm application to the point
where it’s raining and my child has no
idea what to do as I was having dinner
the other night with a long-lost dear
friend she asked what my TEDx talk was
on and I said well a little bit of
bullying and harassment a little bit of
Internet safety a lot about coping and
resilience and she said with her eyes
really open wide Wow I think you’re
describing me and I said why and she
said I’m so embarrassed to tell you this
but I synced my email with my daughter’s
email last year as a college freshman
and every day I would check her email
and every day I would text her and
remind her of her upcoming assignments
and any social events that she needed to
be reminded of when I asked her what was
in it for you why do you think that you
were doing that she said with tears in
her eyes I just want her to be the best
Khloe’s she can be and I looked at her
and I said I think she’s doing pretty
well she landed an internship this
summer in Los Angeles with Sony and she
has a 4.0 at one of the best
universities in the country one of the
things that I also speak on is the
trajectory of when coping and resilience
isn’t working as a state since 2009 our
teen suicide rate has risen 85 percent
locally since May of 2017
just in chandler-gilbert Mesa and Queen
Creek we have lost 21 student
to suicide that is not because they’re
not great kids from great families with
great resources but some of their
experiences are based on how they cope
and how resilient they are one of the
things I’m really proud of is of the
students that we’ve lost we went to our
state legislatures with representative
Sean Bowie and Mitzi Epstein and we
wrote the Mitchell Warnock at Stateville
1391 to get our teachers more training
our staff more training our
administrators more training on
understanding what is the difference
between typical teen angst and when
someone’s in an acute life crisis that
trajectory moves really quickly when we
have tweens and teens that don’t know
where to go one of the other things that
some of the speakers tonight have
alluded to is we show kids our front
stage and often we forget to teach them
on an ongoing and pervasive basis that
we all have a backstage these carefully
curated photos and social media
platforms really truly swallow our
tweens and teens as they scroll through
I’m not enough I’m not skinny enough I
don’t have that vacation I don’t have
that scholarship etc etc they really
don’t know all of the ingredients that
go in to being a resilient and mature
and socially competent productive
citizen all they see in front of them is
I’m not measuring one of the things that
I loved about the I generation which is
what I affectionately call ijen one in
four Americans are ijen they are super
connected to each other with their
devices that we have paid for that we
have given them one of the things that
we haven’t given them is the training
and supervision and management of the
futuristic tool that it can be one of
the things that we do know about this
generation specifically today
is that millions of them are using this
futuristic tool to march on Washington
to ask for more appropriate gun control
so for all of the people that say that
this generation is disengaged uninvolved
lazy unmotivated unable to talk to a
human being I have to say that today
specifically they are marching as mayors
of their teen huntin and I can’t applaud
them any more for that there is hope for
the ijen one of the things that I talked
mostly about is connection vitamin-c see
because the word connection starts with
C but C s EE because connection starts
here and here and here and one of the
things that this revolutionary tool has
given us is a way to communicate with
each other but true human connection is
looking for three things I want to be
seen I want to be heard I want to be
loved and when kids specifically don’t
feel seen heard and loved they will make
sure that you know about it someway
somehow at the school level often my
frequent fliers the kids that I saw on a
daily basis
we’re after one thing from me a gain in
relationship if they couldn’t get it at
home and they couldn’t get it in the
classroom I was the mean lady that would
come get them and we’d have a one-on-one
conversation they got the connection
they were looking for there’s an
incredible video that I’d love for you
to check out in your free time called
the still face experiment one of my
colleagues
Travis Webb he’s a local trauma
therapist turned me on to this video and
it’s a mom and a baby who is strapped in
a highchair and a Harvard professor dr.
Edward tronic asked the mom to play with
her baby in a very natural way they’re
pointing they’re giggling they’re
laughing she’s tickling and then the
professor says I’d like you to turn your
back to the baby
turn back around and I would like you
not to interact with your child
immediately the baby is frustrated
immediately she screams and rise in her
seats these are our kids that are
looking for that connection from us what
may look to you like unmotivated
lethargic defiant tantruming children
are really human beings looking for that
vitamin C to take on the world to take
on the nation seems a little bit
daunting to me but I do know from my
experiences whether it was Tiffany who
is trying to beat me up or Darrin who
dumped me for a much more voluptuous
classmate that in between their every
training I do every audience that I
speak to somewhere in between there my
my resolve strengthens and if we have
the ability to just sprinkle a little
bit of dust on our community I know we
can make a difference you’re probably
wondering what happened to Darrin and
this is not the part where we get back
together unfortunately but a few years
after I graduated I was driving down a
dusty road and there was Darrin walking
down the side of the road and I thought
that’s really weird what is he doing
walking down the side of the road so I
pulled over he got in we chatted he
shared with me that he had been
struggling with drugs and alcohol for
Darrin the numbing agent of not getting
the connection he needed in the way that
he needed it was drugs and alcohol I
took him home we had dinner he stayed
with me for a couple of days because his
parents were really upset with him and I
didn’t see him again at the end of the
story unfortunately a year later Darrin
died in a tragic car accident and
unfortunately for me I didn’t have an
opportunity to say goodbye but what I do
have an opportunity to do is to carry
his voice forward in that coping and
resilience are not just a one-and-done
assembly they are skill to be honed to
be practiced
each and every day be the mayor of your
town our town and every town thank you
[Applause] [Music]
has anyone ever had somebody come up to
them and say wanna fight I’m gonna beat
you up after school well I have and it
scared the bejesus out of me it was late
in September 1986 I was in eighth grade
I had just acquired my first real
boyfriend his name was Darren as you can
see he was pretty dreamy he had he had
awesome hair these beautiful blue eyes a
wicked smile and he was really smart and
funny I thought I was pretty cool
well one day at the lunch table because
that’s mostly where things happen in
middle school is at the lunch table
another classmate came up to me her name
was Tiffany and she said you know
Darren’s mine right we’re gonna fight
after school over him meet me under the
bridge and we’re gonna square off and I
thought oh my goodness I’m four foot
nothing I have no idea how to fight I
don’t have any brothers I have five
sisters and I don’t know what I’m going
to do I
exited school that day and I ran the
whole mile and a half home I holed up in
my room
I had a can of cheese balls and I
contemplated my next move
I thought to myself if I tell my parents
they’re going to call the school you see
my dad as an attorney so I decided that
was probably not my best move so I
decided that I had to handle this on my
own and in that moment I decided I had
to be the mayor of my own life I had to
make some choices about how I was going
to self-advocate how I was going to tell
Tiffany sorry go pick on somebody else
so the next day I waited before school
to leave I purposely took the long way
to school and when I got there I didn’t
see her I avoided all of the hot zones
of any school any child will tell you
about the hallways the locker rooms the
bathrooms anywhere that Tiffany would be
unfortunately I had to go to lunch she
approached me once again at lunch with
her throng a friend snickering and
sneering and saying she wanted
beat me up again I stood up and I said
to her I am NOT going to fight you you
need to find somebody else to pick on
she told me I was high and left
thankfully for the rest of the year and
basically the rest of my life I avoided
Tiffany we were in we were in middle
school together for one more year and
then we’re at the high school and I did
see her but I did avoid her but in that
moment I knew that I had to define what
dignity was for me and at the base of
what bullying harassment and
intimidation is is one human being
trying to strip the dignity of another
human being it can be a child or it can
be an adult if we can teach our students
to hold on to their voice to advocate
for each other and for themselves as
they go through conflicts we are winning
social justice guru Rosalind Wiseman
defines dignity as one’s inherent worth
that no one has the right to take your
voice away from you that no one has the
right to tell you how things are going
to go as I look at the dramatic shift
that has happened with my students in
the last 23 years of being on a
secondary campus I can tell you that our
students are struggling some of them are
crumbling under the tremendous academic
pressure that we have started in
kindergarten I have four daughters of my
own ages 9 9 10 and 11
I still cannot do 5th grade math many
moms and dads have said to me in the
last 2 or 3 months what math is Ava
going to take in sixth grade is she
going to take regular math or honors
math and I think to myself I don’t know
but whatever she takes I’m still not
going to be able to do it I have seen a
dramatic shift in the locus of control
becoming the adults and I can tell you
my theory as to why
in 2000 2002 and for sweeping
legislation came down from our state and
our federal government saying if
bullying is going on if harassment is
going on report report report to the
adults in your life the trusted adults
at home the trusted adults on campus and
so students do they’re really great in
the role of the witness and the report
to us as parents as well as trusted
adults on campus unfortunately as
systemically this has had set them up
for a little bit of failure in that they
don’t know how to take care of small
problems they failed a paper they lost
their first boyfriend they didn’t make
the team the locus of control has become
us as adults they’re constantly looking
to us for the answers I would encourage
you after hearing this tonight that not
only you allow them to have dignity in
the process of the classes that they
take but also in their conflict if we
continue to intervene the coping and
resiliency skills of our students stay
really really low and locally we are
seeing for sure that these coping and
resiliency skills definitely needs to
rise I am part of some Facebook groups
recently there was a thread with over
400 comments about whether or not a
twelve-year-old girl should be able to
ride her bike to a friend’s house now
this girl has a black belt in karate she
has a smart phone and she knows this
friend really well most of the parents
that commented said no no and hell no
when commenting on the thread and so I
as an advocate just said and those of
you that are commenting no tell me why
predation abduction human trafficking
and sexual assault were all listed
certainly those are things that we need
to be aware of and certainly as a
prevention advocate I want to make my
own daughters and all of the students
that ice
service aware of their surroundings
however I cited that in the town of
Gilbert we have one of the lowest crime
rates in the nation so that our kids are
pretty safe and when given training to
be aware they’re going to be ok
if we allow them to take some risks one
parent asked when should I give my
student a smartphone as the threads
started having more comments the median
age was around 12 or 13 years old so
then that parent asked well when should
I start or stop checking text messages
and what’s going on and the median age
again was 12 years old I was absolutely
flabbergasted by the same group of
people saying she can’t leave the
cul-de-sac but we will unleash her to
the worldwide web
with no training and very little
supervision something with that needs to
change because at the school level 90%
of my job was fighting Facebook
Instagram snapchat and Twitter I have
seen more images that are funny and more
images that are tragic than I care to
and so when I give Internet safety
presentations I often have parents come
forward after privately and share with
me that the crusade that I’m on is
really important because they have been
personally touched by something that has
happened to their child recently I spoke
in Scottsdale and a mom came up to me
with her daughter and said I had no idea
that a predator was luring and grooming
my daughter for over two years on a
laptop in her room with a webcam and the
only way that I was a prize of this
information was the FBI and the City of
Phoenix police showed up on my doorstep
recently I was also speaking in
Nashville and I asked the audience do
you think our students are more or less
resilient in 2008 teen and a teacher
raised her hand and she was smirking and
sort of laughing and she said well I’m
kind of embarrassed to share this with
you but my son
who goes demander Bell who has a 4.2
grade point average called one day when
it was raining from Target said mom I
really need your help
it’s raining and I need to know should I
buy a poncho or an umbrella she hung up
on her own son and what she said to our
audience was dear God
what have I done I’m a teacher and I
have carefully engineered his class
schedule his sports activities even his
college dorm application to the point
where it’s raining and my child has no
idea what to do as I was having dinner
the other night with a long-lost dear
friend she asked what my TEDx talk was
on and I said well a little bit of
bullying and harassment a little bit of
Internet safety a lot about coping and
resilience and she said with her eyes
really open wide Wow I think you’re
describing me and I said why and she
said I’m so embarrassed to tell you this
but I synced my email with my daughter’s
email last year as a college freshman
and every day I would check her email
and every day I would text her and
remind her of her upcoming assignments
and any social events that she needed to
be reminded of when I asked her what was
in it for you why do you think that you
were doing that she said with tears in
her eyes I just want her to be the best
Khloe’s she can be and I looked at her
and I said I think she’s doing pretty
well she landed an internship this
summer in Los Angeles with Sony and she
has a 4.0 at one of the best
universities in the country one of the
things that I also speak on is the
trajectory of when coping and resilience
isn’t working as a state since 2009 our
teen suicide rate has risen 85 percent
locally since May of 2017
just in chandler-gilbert Mesa and Queen
Creek we have lost 21 student
to suicide that is not because they’re
not great kids from great families with
great resources but some of their
experiences are based on how they cope
and how resilient they are one of the
things I’m really proud of is of the
students that we’ve lost we went to our
state legislatures with representative
Sean Bowie and Mitzi Epstein and we
wrote the Mitchell Warnock at Stateville
1391 to get our teachers more training
our staff more training our
administrators more training on
understanding what is the difference
between typical teen angst and when
someone’s in an acute life crisis that
trajectory moves really quickly when we
have tweens and teens that don’t know
where to go one of the other things that
some of the speakers tonight have
alluded to is we show kids our front
stage and often we forget to teach them
on an ongoing and pervasive basis that
we all have a backstage these carefully
curated photos and social media
platforms really truly swallow our
tweens and teens as they scroll through
I’m not enough I’m not skinny enough I
don’t have that vacation I don’t have
that scholarship etc etc they really
don’t know all of the ingredients that
go in to being a resilient and mature
and socially competent productive
citizen all they see in front of them is
I’m not measuring one of the things that
I loved about the I generation which is
what I affectionately call ijen one in
four Americans are ijen they are super
connected to each other with their
devices that we have paid for that we
have given them one of the things that
we haven’t given them is the training
and supervision and management of the
futuristic tool that it can be one of
the things that we do know about this
generation specifically today
is that millions of them are using this
futuristic tool to march on Washington
to ask for more appropriate gun control
so for all of the people that say that
this generation is disengaged uninvolved
lazy unmotivated unable to talk to a
human being I have to say that today
specifically they are marching as mayors
of their teen huntin and I can’t applaud
them any more for that there is hope for
the ijen one of the things that I talked
mostly about is connection vitamin-c see
because the word connection starts with
C but C s EE because connection starts
here and here and here and one of the
things that this revolutionary tool has
given us is a way to communicate with
each other but true human connection is
looking for three things I want to be
seen I want to be heard I want to be
loved and when kids specifically don’t
feel seen heard and loved they will make
sure that you know about it someway
somehow at the school level often my
frequent fliers the kids that I saw on a
daily basis
we’re after one thing from me a gain in
relationship if they couldn’t get it at
home and they couldn’t get it in the
classroom I was the mean lady that would
come get them and we’d have a one-on-one
conversation they got the connection
they were looking for there’s an
incredible video that I’d love for you
to check out in your free time called
the still face experiment one of my
colleagues
Travis Webb he’s a local trauma
therapist turned me on to this video and
it’s a mom and a baby who is strapped in
a highchair and a Harvard professor dr.
Edward tronic asked the mom to play with
her baby in a very natural way they’re
pointing they’re giggling they’re
laughing she’s tickling and then the
professor says I’d like you to turn your
back to the baby
turn back around and I would like you
not to interact with your child
immediately the baby is frustrated
immediately she screams and rise in her
seats these are our kids that are
looking for that connection from us what
may look to you like unmotivated
lethargic defiant tantruming children
are really human beings looking for that
vitamin C to take on the world to take
on the nation seems a little bit
daunting to me but I do know from my
experiences whether it was Tiffany who
is trying to beat me up or Darrin who
dumped me for a much more voluptuous
classmate that in between their every
training I do every audience that I
speak to somewhere in between there my
my resolve strengthens and if we have
the ability to just sprinkle a little
bit of dust on our community I know we
can make a difference you’re probably
wondering what happened to Darrin and
this is not the part where we get back
together unfortunately but a few years
after I graduated I was driving down a
dusty road and there was Darrin walking
down the side of the road and I thought
that’s really weird what is he doing
walking down the side of the road so I
pulled over he got in we chatted he
shared with me that he had been
struggling with drugs and alcohol for
Darrin the numbing agent of not getting
the connection he needed in the way that
he needed it was drugs and alcohol I
took him home we had dinner he stayed
with me for a couple of days because his
parents were really upset with him and I
didn’t see him again at the end of the
story unfortunately a year later Darrin
died in a tragic car accident and
unfortunately for me I didn’t have an
opportunity to say goodbye but what I do
have an opportunity to do is to carry
his voice forward in that coping and
resilience are not just a one-and-done
assembly they are skill to be honed to
be practiced
each and every day be the mayor of your
town our town and every town thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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