when I was in college I had a job
counting cars a lot of people miss hear
me and think that I’m some sort of math
genius that was counting cards and I’m
not in reality this is what I was doing
I was on the side of the freeway working
for the DMV literally counting cars as
they drove by and my assigned lane so
obviously this was super exciting
so my co-workers and I started making up
stories about the drivers my stories
always revolved around the people going
off to do something absolutely amazing
and incredible they are going to end
world hunger or cure cancer or these
school teachers and one of my co-workers
finally got annoyed and said Ashley not
everyone can be a superhero I think this
is kind of a sad statement because my
son who’s five years old is Batman every
single day and his friends are Captain
America and sneak man every single day
and a lot of us grow up and all we want
to do is change the world that is our
entire goal in life and somehow as we
get older that desire and that belief in
our capacity to change the world starts
to diminish we let trauma we let money
we let other elements impact our belief
in our own ability to change the world
when I think of professional superheroes
I think of firefighters and police
officers teachers nurses harvest these
are some of the positions that have the
largest amount of turnover in the entire
country you’ve probably heard a lot
about the teacher shortage right here in
Arizona where thousands of classrooms
are unfilled I got to experience sort of
the why behind this turnover and what I
think is a really good solution to
overcoming it when I went on the
unexpected journey of moving to Arizona
in order to teach I was so excited to
begin my role in changing the world I
didn’t know anyone in the state but I
knew that I could make a difference I’ll
never forget when I got assigned my very
first classroom you 136 and I remember
as I approached the classroom door I saw
that there were a whole bunch of marks
where there had been different teachers
names removed and I started to see that
there was a problem with turnover I was
one of 23 brand-new teachers out of 40
at my school I learned that my students
that I was about to have had had five
teachers quit on them the year prior
five so imagine that five teachers came
into that classroom taught and then left
these students mid-year the trauma the
challenges the pain it was too much
imagine being the parent of one of those
children or imagine being the child
themselves and how that would impact you
I began to realize that there was a lot
more to this changing the world business
than I had originally known
when I first received files on my
students I couldn’t wait it was like
Christmas I got to open up the names of
all these great kids I was going to have
and I couldn’t believe the things that
were written about these children things
in writing that you should never say
about anyone written about 12-year olds
basically saying that these students
right now would have no future in
addition to the low expectations set for
them they were facing many significant
challenges abuse poverty my students
that I had my first year two of them
were in a room in the first month of
school when a friend of theirs was shot
in the head
sixth graders my students were facing
unbelievable challenges and I had no
idea how to handle this I just wanted to
change the world I just wanted to make a
difference and I was very ill equipped
in order to do so additionally at this
time I developed a life-threatening
illness basically all of my organs were
failing and it took over ten years to
diagnose what was wrong with me this was
personally challenging in addition to
the professional challenges and then on
top of that my father passed away pretty
unexpectedly just a few months before I
started teaching I was very overwhelmed
both personally professionally I began
to see that sense of burnout that sense
of feeling like am I going to be a
statistic am I gonna be one of those
people that leaves these kids am I gonna
be number six
and my kids asked me are you are you
going to leave to when are you gonna
leave when are you gonna be done I had a
lot of conflicting emotions exploding
out of my mind I was angry I was sad I
was scared I tried to build up apathy
but that’s not really my style so it
didn’t work very well I spent a lot of
time grieving and just kind of thinking
about all of the things in the world
that were really devastating and that
did nothing for my students it was
justified for me to feel sad about what
was going on and what had been done but
it wasn’t doing anything to change the
situation if this was a Hollywood movie
this is where I’d put on a leather
jacket or play some Tupac or give that
stand on the desk life-altering speech
and everything would be great from there
on out but unfortunately life is not a
movie and so there was no one
solution I realized that if I didn’t
figure out something different to try
that I would become one of those
statistics one of those thousands of
classrooms there was one thing I noticed
when I looked around I saw that the
people who were making a difference for
children and who were changing lives
were the people they weren’t the most
educated they weren’t the smartest they
were the people who are the most
positive and who loves children the most
and that was the one thing that I could
do I didn’t have the best skills I
didn’t have the best intelligence but I
was like I can love my kids so much and
if they leave this year they’ll know I
love them and I believed in them I want
you to think of positivity as a non
inherent character trait that some
babies are born with and some just
aren’t and that’s just how it is and I’m
a positive person or I’m just kind of a
glass half empty person I really want
you to think of it as first a choice and
then a skill and that was the skill I
really wanted to teach my students and
then eventually the future teachers I
was preparing so I began to talk to my
students a lot about positivity and how
we can practice it if you wanted to run
a marathon
you wouldn’t say okay I’m just gonna go
out there and run a marathon but most
people just say okay this new year I’m
gonna be more positive and then they
don’t do anything to back it up there’s
no skill practice and I decided I’m
gonna come up with a systematic way to
teach my students how to feel positive
about themselves about their futures
about their communities
once we started doing this and I started
doing this practice I began to realize
that the things weren’t penetrating the
walls of my heart anymore the
difficulties around me in schools the
life-threatening illness the challenges
that are going on nationwide no longer
we’re getting to me at that level and I
was starting to make a difference I was
starting to impact my students
positively and I could see them building
their own system to protect their hearts
from the negativity that surrounded them
I could see them spreading their
positivity and their love and their
belief out into the community out into
the school out into the state and I
truly began to see the value of
believing in positivity as a as a
solution as a skill that we can all
learn I remember talking to my students
about malleable intelligence and how
they too can grow their brains and I
will never forget one little boy looked
at me and said tears in his eyes so
there’s nothing wrong with my brain I
can learn just like everyone else and it
was devastating to me that he had spent
his entire 12 years on earth thinking
that there was but from there on out
everything changed for him and despite
the fact that I wasn’t really that great
of a teacher at that point my students
academics suddenly began to soar I was
able to stay with my first class of
students for three years sixth grade
seventh grade and eighth grade and I was
able to see them develop their own
leadership and positivity and their own
belief that they could change the world
and all of these kids went on to
graduate high school in a state with one
of the highest dropout rates in the
after a few more years in the classroom
I realized that I wanted to broaden my
reach I never wanted to have another
sixth grader get there and not be able
to read or another child to think that
there was something wrong fundamentally
with their brain and so I wanted to go
to one of the best teacher prep programs
in the nation and I knew that that was a
su I was so excited to begin my work
helping teachers become world changing
teachers I I realized when I first began
doing this with myself and then with
students I needed a systematic way of
teaching people how to think of
positivity as that skill and so this was
sort of the quote that stuck out to me
as the blueprint for that watch your
thoughts they become words watch your
words they become actions watch your
actions they become habits watch your
habits they become character and watch
your character for it becomes your
destiny
and I think this is something that I
challenge you all to think about of
course you cannot have beautiful words
and beautiful actions and world-changing
actions unless you start with your own
thoughts beautiful thoughts have to
start my students and my future teachers
spent time with me every single day
thinking about the positives in others
we would spend almost 30 minutes a day
with my six seventh and eighth graders
just writing down positives about their
peers and I encouraged my future
teachers to take on that same practice
building beautiful thoughts this
fundamentally altered the way that my
students behave towards each other
bullying became almost non-existent when
they saw each other their minds were
trained to jump to those positives and
that value that others were bringing to
the table with my future teachers and
the teachers now that have graduated and
are on their careers it became a reflex
when they saw a student that they had
spent so much time developing positive
thoughts about their minds immediately
jumped to the beautiful things about
them
when we thought about the problems that
are out there and there are many in
education and there are many things we
can’t control we started to train our
brains to think what can be control
let’s make this classroom and then our
school and then our community this
magical place where nothing can touch us
where we’re going to be positive where
we’re going to change the world together
after we harness our thoughts we began
to focus on our words my students and I
worked on having a 5 to 1 positive to
negative ratio and I really encourage
you all to try this having 5 positives
come out of your mouth when you talk to
someone about someone and this may be
the hardest of all about yourself it
needs to be 5 positives for every one
negative it will change your life and it
changed the life of students and future
teachers I would also encourage you to
do what we did and calendar out
opportunities to celebrate those in your
life celebrate people put on your
calendar tell someone how much you love
them tell them how valuable they are
tell them that you love and support them
no child and really no adult can hear I
love you enough
once we were able to harness our
thoughts and our words actions just soon
began to immediately follow and I can
tell you that my students held the
second largest canned food drive in the
state of Arizona in an environment where
every single child in the class had to
use the food bank themselves to support
their community when there was natural
disasters and when there were school
shootings there are the kids outside of
my door before I got there and I got
there really early saying how can we
help what are we gonna do to make this
positive change in the world they
believed so strongly in their own
capacity to change the world that I
could step aside and let them facilitate
I have also had the opportunity to work
with many many future teachers over 900
through my work at ASU that have gone
out there and changed the world and what
I see them doing fills my heart with
pride I see them starting clubs to help
students with behavior needs I see them
leading sports I see them teaching their
students to use those skills that they
learn in the classroom for community
service and not just for a standardized
test and I’m so filled with pride at the
work that they’re doing and that all
starts with those positive thoughts
words and actions my future teacher is
holder genre Fair every year that serves
over 200 students we are very very
fortunate that we have been able to
harness our thoughts and our words and
the actions just seemed to follow right
away
I have been able to work with the
leadership at ASU and in the Tollison
Elementary School District with
like-minded leaders and we have been
able to build this army of teachers
that’s going out there and changing the
world despite any challenges that they
face they’ve built up that positivity in
themselves and they’re staying in the
classroom they’re winning Teacher of the
Year or treasure hunter of the year and
their first couple years of teaching
they’re being marked as highly efficient
teachers in their first couple years of
teaching and I think that the key to
this is their belief in the power of
positivity and their belief that every
child can succeed
I know that all of us when we think
about our own capacity to change the
world there can be some challenges and I
want you to know that if you get to that
point where you are like oh man I don’t
know if I have that key to changing the
world inside of myself I want you to
know that someone out there is counting
your car thinking about you and thinking
about all of the amazing things that you
can do to change the world thank you [Applause]
counting cars a lot of people miss hear
me and think that I’m some sort of math
genius that was counting cards and I’m
not in reality this is what I was doing
I was on the side of the freeway working
for the DMV literally counting cars as
they drove by and my assigned lane so
obviously this was super exciting
so my co-workers and I started making up
stories about the drivers my stories
always revolved around the people going
off to do something absolutely amazing
and incredible they are going to end
world hunger or cure cancer or these
school teachers and one of my co-workers
finally got annoyed and said Ashley not
everyone can be a superhero I think this
is kind of a sad statement because my
son who’s five years old is Batman every
single day and his friends are Captain
America and sneak man every single day
and a lot of us grow up and all we want
to do is change the world that is our
entire goal in life and somehow as we
get older that desire and that belief in
our capacity to change the world starts
to diminish we let trauma we let money
we let other elements impact our belief
in our own ability to change the world
when I think of professional superheroes
I think of firefighters and police
officers teachers nurses harvest these
are some of the positions that have the
largest amount of turnover in the entire
country you’ve probably heard a lot
about the teacher shortage right here in
Arizona where thousands of classrooms
are unfilled I got to experience sort of
the why behind this turnover and what I
think is a really good solution to
overcoming it when I went on the
unexpected journey of moving to Arizona
in order to teach I was so excited to
begin my role in changing the world I
didn’t know anyone in the state but I
knew that I could make a difference I’ll
never forget when I got assigned my very
first classroom you 136 and I remember
as I approached the classroom door I saw
that there were a whole bunch of marks
where there had been different teachers
names removed and I started to see that
there was a problem with turnover I was
one of 23 brand-new teachers out of 40
at my school I learned that my students
that I was about to have had had five
teachers quit on them the year prior
five so imagine that five teachers came
into that classroom taught and then left
these students mid-year the trauma the
challenges the pain it was too much
imagine being the parent of one of those
children or imagine being the child
themselves and how that would impact you
I began to realize that there was a lot
more to this changing the world business
than I had originally known
when I first received files on my
students I couldn’t wait it was like
Christmas I got to open up the names of
all these great kids I was going to have
and I couldn’t believe the things that
were written about these children things
in writing that you should never say
about anyone written about 12-year olds
basically saying that these students
right now would have no future in
addition to the low expectations set for
them they were facing many significant
challenges abuse poverty my students
that I had my first year two of them
were in a room in the first month of
school when a friend of theirs was shot
in the head
sixth graders my students were facing
unbelievable challenges and I had no
idea how to handle this I just wanted to
change the world I just wanted to make a
difference and I was very ill equipped
in order to do so additionally at this
time I developed a life-threatening
illness basically all of my organs were
failing and it took over ten years to
diagnose what was wrong with me this was
personally challenging in addition to
the professional challenges and then on
top of that my father passed away pretty
unexpectedly just a few months before I
started teaching I was very overwhelmed
both personally professionally I began
to see that sense of burnout that sense
of feeling like am I going to be a
statistic am I gonna be one of those
people that leaves these kids am I gonna
be number six
and my kids asked me are you are you
going to leave to when are you gonna
leave when are you gonna be done I had a
lot of conflicting emotions exploding
out of my mind I was angry I was sad I
was scared I tried to build up apathy
but that’s not really my style so it
didn’t work very well I spent a lot of
time grieving and just kind of thinking
about all of the things in the world
that were really devastating and that
did nothing for my students it was
justified for me to feel sad about what
was going on and what had been done but
it wasn’t doing anything to change the
situation if this was a Hollywood movie
this is where I’d put on a leather
jacket or play some Tupac or give that
stand on the desk life-altering speech
and everything would be great from there
on out but unfortunately life is not a
movie and so there was no one
solution I realized that if I didn’t
figure out something different to try
that I would become one of those
statistics one of those thousands of
classrooms there was one thing I noticed
when I looked around I saw that the
people who were making a difference for
children and who were changing lives
were the people they weren’t the most
educated they weren’t the smartest they
were the people who are the most
positive and who loves children the most
and that was the one thing that I could
do I didn’t have the best skills I
didn’t have the best intelligence but I
was like I can love my kids so much and
if they leave this year they’ll know I
love them and I believed in them I want
you to think of positivity as a non
inherent character trait that some
babies are born with and some just
aren’t and that’s just how it is and I’m
a positive person or I’m just kind of a
glass half empty person I really want
you to think of it as first a choice and
then a skill and that was the skill I
really wanted to teach my students and
then eventually the future teachers I
was preparing so I began to talk to my
students a lot about positivity and how
we can practice it if you wanted to run
a marathon
you wouldn’t say okay I’m just gonna go
out there and run a marathon but most
people just say okay this new year I’m
gonna be more positive and then they
don’t do anything to back it up there’s
no skill practice and I decided I’m
gonna come up with a systematic way to
teach my students how to feel positive
about themselves about their futures
about their communities
once we started doing this and I started
doing this practice I began to realize
that the things weren’t penetrating the
walls of my heart anymore the
difficulties around me in schools the
life-threatening illness the challenges
that are going on nationwide no longer
we’re getting to me at that level and I
was starting to make a difference I was
starting to impact my students
positively and I could see them building
their own system to protect their hearts
from the negativity that surrounded them
I could see them spreading their
positivity and their love and their
belief out into the community out into
the school out into the state and I
truly began to see the value of
believing in positivity as a as a
solution as a skill that we can all
learn I remember talking to my students
about malleable intelligence and how
they too can grow their brains and I
will never forget one little boy looked
at me and said tears in his eyes so
there’s nothing wrong with my brain I
can learn just like everyone else and it
was devastating to me that he had spent
his entire 12 years on earth thinking
that there was but from there on out
everything changed for him and despite
the fact that I wasn’t really that great
of a teacher at that point my students
academics suddenly began to soar I was
able to stay with my first class of
students for three years sixth grade
seventh grade and eighth grade and I was
able to see them develop their own
leadership and positivity and their own
belief that they could change the world
and all of these kids went on to
graduate high school in a state with one
of the highest dropout rates in the
after a few more years in the classroom
I realized that I wanted to broaden my
reach I never wanted to have another
sixth grader get there and not be able
to read or another child to think that
there was something wrong fundamentally
with their brain and so I wanted to go
to one of the best teacher prep programs
in the nation and I knew that that was a
su I was so excited to begin my work
helping teachers become world changing
teachers I I realized when I first began
doing this with myself and then with
students I needed a systematic way of
teaching people how to think of
positivity as that skill and so this was
sort of the quote that stuck out to me
as the blueprint for that watch your
thoughts they become words watch your
words they become actions watch your
actions they become habits watch your
habits they become character and watch
your character for it becomes your
destiny
and I think this is something that I
challenge you all to think about of
course you cannot have beautiful words
and beautiful actions and world-changing
actions unless you start with your own
thoughts beautiful thoughts have to
start my students and my future teachers
spent time with me every single day
thinking about the positives in others
we would spend almost 30 minutes a day
with my six seventh and eighth graders
just writing down positives about their
peers and I encouraged my future
teachers to take on that same practice
building beautiful thoughts this
fundamentally altered the way that my
students behave towards each other
bullying became almost non-existent when
they saw each other their minds were
trained to jump to those positives and
that value that others were bringing to
the table with my future teachers and
the teachers now that have graduated and
are on their careers it became a reflex
when they saw a student that they had
spent so much time developing positive
thoughts about their minds immediately
jumped to the beautiful things about
them
when we thought about the problems that
are out there and there are many in
education and there are many things we
can’t control we started to train our
brains to think what can be control
let’s make this classroom and then our
school and then our community this
magical place where nothing can touch us
where we’re going to be positive where
we’re going to change the world together
after we harness our thoughts we began
to focus on our words my students and I
worked on having a 5 to 1 positive to
negative ratio and I really encourage
you all to try this having 5 positives
come out of your mouth when you talk to
someone about someone and this may be
the hardest of all about yourself it
needs to be 5 positives for every one
negative it will change your life and it
changed the life of students and future
teachers I would also encourage you to
do what we did and calendar out
opportunities to celebrate those in your
life celebrate people put on your
calendar tell someone how much you love
them tell them how valuable they are
tell them that you love and support them
no child and really no adult can hear I
love you enough
once we were able to harness our
thoughts and our words actions just soon
began to immediately follow and I can
tell you that my students held the
second largest canned food drive in the
state of Arizona in an environment where
every single child in the class had to
use the food bank themselves to support
their community when there was natural
disasters and when there were school
shootings there are the kids outside of
my door before I got there and I got
there really early saying how can we
help what are we gonna do to make this
positive change in the world they
believed so strongly in their own
capacity to change the world that I
could step aside and let them facilitate
I have also had the opportunity to work
with many many future teachers over 900
through my work at ASU that have gone
out there and changed the world and what
I see them doing fills my heart with
pride I see them starting clubs to help
students with behavior needs I see them
leading sports I see them teaching their
students to use those skills that they
learn in the classroom for community
service and not just for a standardized
test and I’m so filled with pride at the
work that they’re doing and that all
starts with those positive thoughts
words and actions my future teacher is
holder genre Fair every year that serves
over 200 students we are very very
fortunate that we have been able to
harness our thoughts and our words and
the actions just seemed to follow right
away
I have been able to work with the
leadership at ASU and in the Tollison
Elementary School District with
like-minded leaders and we have been
able to build this army of teachers
that’s going out there and changing the
world despite any challenges that they
face they’ve built up that positivity in
themselves and they’re staying in the
classroom they’re winning Teacher of the
Year or treasure hunter of the year and
their first couple years of teaching
they’re being marked as highly efficient
teachers in their first couple years of
teaching and I think that the key to
this is their belief in the power of
positivity and their belief that every
child can succeed
I know that all of us when we think
about our own capacity to change the
world there can be some challenges and I
want you to know that if you get to that
point where you are like oh man I don’t
know if I have that key to changing the
world inside of myself I want you to
know that someone out there is counting
your car thinking about you and thinking
about all of the amazing things that you
can do to change the world thank you [Applause]
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