(upbeat music) We continue meeting terrific educators, and also folks who were not formally educators, but they were educating people down at the New Jersey Education Association Convention.

Alicia de Lorenzo is a speaker, executive coach and therapist.

She was a keynote speaker at the convention.

Jacqui, what should people be expecting in the interview that I did with Alicia, which really is very powerful?

- Yes, Alicia, a educator for 20 years, but also a licensed therapist.

And deciding after implementing some special techniques and things within her school when she was an educator, to help her fellow teachers and support staff professionals in her own school deal with burnout, the mental health issues that our teachers face, to make them better educators so that they can implement that and put that forth onto the children that they are teaching.

So, you know, she saw a need for this after seeing what happened at her school.

She put teaching in, you know, the one sense of the way that we would think about teaching on hold, to really go around to over a hundred schools now in New Jersey that she's visited, to work with the educators, like I said, and help them with their mental health, and implement some special practices within the school, that in turn is really, she's seeing firsthand being so profound on the students that they're teaching.

- You know, Jacqui, there's a quote that she shared, said, I want...

This is interesting.

This is from Alicia.

"I want educators to know that they're valued.

As so many are, quote, 'tired and underappreciated.'"

I mean, you know, I have this, I'm not gonna get into this whole leadership thing, but there's Abraham Maslow, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs if you research it, he was a great researcher and psychologist who came up with a theory that we all have these needs, these human needs, food, shelter, safety, but as you move up this hierarchy of needs, it's being appreciated, being acknowledged, being seen, being recognized.

Not overrated, Jacqui.

- Yeah, not at all.

And she saw the need for that.

She also says, "Teachers are my people."

And she's just thriving in that way.

And that was all part of her keynote address there at the New Jersey Education Association's convention this year.

And I know it was a really powerful message that she left with those educators, and those support professionals within our New Jersey community of teachers, those folks that are really our unsung heroes in so many ways.

And we know how important it is to support, and continue to support our educators and the work that they're doing.

- I promise I won't get on my soapbox on this either.

Do your kid a favor, do our school system a favor, do our teachers a favor and just say thank you.

Just let them know you appreciate what they're doing with our kids, even if you don't agree or like everything a teacher does.

That teacher, the vast, vast, vast majority of them are all in for our kids.

Underpaid, underappreciated, pretty tired.

Hey, for Jacqui, myself, you're gonna take a look at an interview we did down in Atlantic City with Alicia Di Lorenzo, a terrific educator, both formally as a teacher, and now as a motivational speaker and therapist.

Let's check it out.

- Hi everyone, Steve Adubato, and more importantly, Alisha De Lorenzo, a speaker, not a speaker, a great speaker, one of the keynote speakers here at the NJEA Convention, executive coach and therapist.

Good to see you.

- Thank you, good to see you too.

- Now, there's a reason why you're here.

One of the big themes, we just talked to the president of the NJEA, Sean Spiller, about the mental health, the wellbeing of our educators.

- Yeah.

- That's where you come in.

Talk about it.

- Yeah.

Yeah, so I've been in education for a long time, almost 20 years I was in education, but I'm also a licensed therapist.

So I got to see both sides of the table, not only for young people, but for our adults.

And this has been going on.

It's been a long time that our students' and our teachers' mental health has been challenged.

And quite honestly, for a long time, people didn't wanna talk about it.

They said, like, "We can't talk about this in education.

It's not the place for it."

And I think in this moment right now, we're saying that we can't not talk about it.

You know, the things that teachers are being faced with and the challenges- - Name them.

Sorry for interrupting.

Name the most challenging, difficult aspects of being an educator.

Listen, people choose to be educators.

The educators we talked to here love what they do, - [Alisha] Yeah.

- But that doesn't mean there aren't real pressures that are challenging on so many levels.

Talk about them.

- Yeah, there's so many challenges right now.

I think, like, to name that the system is quite broken.

That there's a sense that teachers don't have the freedom and the agency to really, like, take the kids, and what kids need in this moment, and really address that, because everyone has a voice, everyone has an opinion, everyone's pointing a finger.

So it really stifles that creativity, the relationships that teachers can have and build, which is some of the most trusting relationships that kids have in their lives, is like, that first, you know, relationship with someone who really sees them and gets them and, you know, values them.

Not that that's not coming from home, but like, teachers are the next best place where that's coming from.

And for what's happening right now to stifle that ability for teachers to show up fully for students, I think is, you know, something that we have to really be aware of.

- Do you think on some level teachers have become targets for some with a quote, unquote "political," and not so much an educational agenda?

I know that's a loaded question, but please.

- Yeah.

You know, education's always been political, but I definitely think that teachers right now have targets on their back because of, you know, the position that they're in.

There's some mandates here, right?

That they're being told are mandatory and the law now for them to teach.

And then if they do that, there's this risk socially and within the community to say, "You know, I don't agree with that mandate, and I'm gonna take it out on you."

- Mandates having to do with the LGBTQ community, mandates having to do what parents know, get to know, and don't know, and under what circumstances, mandates about teaching about race.

- Yeah.

Yeah, curriculum mandates.

Yeah.

- And do teachers come to you?

'Cause my understanding is you do a lot of traveling all around the state, around the nation talking about this.

- [Alisha] Yes.

- How do people find you?

- Yeah, so it's really been pretty organic.

I did some work in my district that was really transformative.

It was taking an integrative approach to education that didn't just focus on academics, but focused on all the other things that young people are bringing to the table that gets in the way of their academics.

Their mental health, that trauma.

- Is that positive disruption?

- We'll get there.

- Or is that- That's not that.

- That's not that yet.

- Okay, go ahead.

- But it is, in a sense.

So the work that we did in my district was really transformative, and we saw great outcomes with students.

A decrease in discipline over 60%, academic growth in some classrooms, three years of academic growth in one year.

And- - Your school district.

- Yeah, from- - Where was that?

- It was in Asbury Park school district at that time.

- Not an easy district.

- Not an easy district.

- Real challenges.

Urban community.

- Absolutely.

And my first four years of teaching were in Bergen County, in some of the, you know, most privileged communities, affluent, and here's the thing.

It didn't matter what the zip code was, kids were still facing incredible challenges.

They were faced with lots of mental health, you know, issues and stressors, that were getting in the way of their learning.

And if we're not gonna address that, right?

Then we really can't get to the learning piece of it.

But to get back to the question about how do people find me- - You started doing it in your district, - In my district.

- And then word got out, - Yep.

- "Hey, we need her?"

- Yeah, so school boards took me on a tour of the state, every county, to talk about what we were doing.

And Asbury was happy for me to share that story, because we were just seeing a real difference, a real change in this approach.

And went to every county and started talking about this work that we did, telling that story.

And then inevitably people were asking, "Well, like, can we work with you?"

And I was not able to while I was teaching, but eventually I looked at my calendar and booked a year out and schools across the state, a year out, I was booked for an entire year.

And that's when I decided, this is bigger than one district.

- You went all in.

- I went all in.

- Full time.

- Yeah, a hundred percent.

This is so much bigger.

- Why?

So hold on, I was gonna ask you about rewarding, but this gets my attention, 'cause disruption is always a fascinating word to me.

But then you put positive.

Positive disruption.

- Yeah.

- [Steve] Define it.

- Positive disruption.

It's the thing that you do uniquely different, just a little bit different, and get better results.

- For example?

- For example, there's teachers that are getting better engagement right now, in the midst of all the chaos, and they're doing just something uniquely different.

How they do that thing where they greet their students, they look 'em in the eye, they ask about, you know, their family, or a connection that they know, that one thing that they're doing that's uniquely different.

They have the same access and the same resources as their colleagues do.

They're in the same environment, with the same stressors, and that they're still getting better engagement.

How do they do that?

That's the question.

And in education, we don't look to those people who are positively disrupting.

Oftentimes those people, and I was a positive disruptor, if you cannot tell, I- - Without even coming up with the name.

Before you had a name for it, - Yeah.

- You were a positive disruptor.

- Already, absolutely.

Disrupting a system, disrupting the status quo, by just something uniquely different that we're doing, that oftentimes we don't even know is that uniquely different.

- Hold on a second.

I'm a student of and a teacher of leadership.

- [Alisha] Yes.

- And to me, you have a lot of names for what you do, but you're a leadership coach as well, obviously.

- Sure.

- So I'll often say, and I won't get on my soapbox, I promise you.

I'll often say, you know, we have to, we can't be on autopilot.

Do what you do every day, the way you do it.

That's what we do.

- That's right.

- This positive disruption forces you not to be on autopilot and go, "Hey, wait a minute.

How can I positively..." You help fill in the blanks.

- Yeah.

You know, if you are a positive deviant, right?

If you are a person who's doing that thing that's uniquely different, you might not even realize it.

But what it forces us to do is look at those people differently.

What do we do when there's a problem?

We have a negativity bias.

We look at the problem, we don't look at the people who are successful.

We're not looking at, oh, but how did, you know, Ms. Johnson, or, you know, Mr... How are they getting that out of their students during this time, and their peers are suffering?

So we don't often look at the solution, we look at the problem.

And this forces us to see it differently.

It forces us to say, "But wait a second.

There's wisdom right now, right here.

People have found a way amongst us to do it differently and get better results.

How do we learn from them?"

That's not happening in education.

- Where's your passion come from?

- Ah.

- I mean, don't tell me you're Italian American, 'cause we already talked, but, you know.

Is there a thing about our people that way?

They're very overtly passionate.

(Alisha and Steve laugh) - I think you can find a lot of people.

- This is not on the agenda, I assure you.

This is not what we were gonna talk about.

Is there something there in your family?

I did this right away with my family.

- You did, you did, you went right there.

- I did.

Family?

- You know, when I look back on my experience of life, I don't, I was very supported by my family, but I didn't get these foundations.

The justice, the foundation of justice that so drives me.

I mean, it fuels me.

They didn't necessarily come, but I was supported by my family.

For me, teachers were the people in my life who showed me things beyond what my family showed me.

And they heard me in a way that maybe was difficult for my family to hear from me.

- Are teachers your people?

- Teachers are my people.

- You found your people.

- I mean, they are my people.

I talk on big stages now outside of education, but teachers are my people.

- How much do you love it?

- Ugh.

This is, I was asked a question 10 years ago in grad school.

And the question was, "If you could do one thing and know that you wouldn't fail, what would you do?"

And my response, without hesitation, was, "Change the face of education."

That was a decade ago.

- That's what you're doing every day.

- It feels that way.

- Alisha De Lorenzo, check out, we've had her information up.

Find out more.

Executive coach, therapist, a great speaker, and an educator.

- And an educator.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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- Hello, I’m Donald Payne, Jr.

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