>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made first in a series of test scores.

Maybe you've seen the report in the last week indicating that Gen Z is becoming the first generation to score lower on standardized tests than their parents.

Kids are struggling to read.

They're struggling with focus.

Those that go to college are arriving less prepared.

And one simple way to say it is there are some kids who aren't okay.

But for author and clinical psychologist Dr.

Ross Greene, the kids who aren't okay are struggling beyond simple test scores.

They're more depressed.

They're struggling with mental health.

They're attending school less often.

In recent years, it's become popular to point to two main factors.

The first is the pandemic.

But green points out that the problems we see today were already taking root before the pandemic, so Covid is not the answer.

And the second is the phones, along with Social media, Australia recently banned social media for everyone under the age of 16.

Most U.S.

states now ban cell phones during the school day, but green says it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on just the phones and social media.

So then what exactly is going on?

Green makes the case in his new book that kids need to feel more involved in the process of addressing their own problems.

They need to be heard.

The approach needs to be more collaborative.

The results could be more durable.

Instead, green writes that schools continue to bring a top down approach, imposing discipline without effective communication with students.

And then many school leaders are surprised when the results are not durable.

Dr.

green is in Rochester today.

He's a guest of The Norman Howard School, but first, he's taking the time to sit down with us to talk about the kids who are not okay on Connections.

Dr.

Ross Greene, clinical psychologist and author, founder of the nonprofit Lives in the balance.

Welcome to the program.

Thanks for being here.

>> Thank you for having me on.

>> And welcome to Katie MacKenzie, who's a speech language pathologist and social-cognitive specialist at The Norman Howard School.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Remind our audience, Katie, what The Norman Howard School is.

>> So Norman Howard is a small New York State approved private school for kids with disabilities here in Monroe County, okay.

>> And, Dr.

Green, why don't you tell us a little bit about what lives in the balance.

>> Is lives in the balance is the nonprofit I founded 17 years ago that provides a lot of free resources on the model I originated, called collaborative and proactive solutions, but also has extended into advocacy work and legislative work so that we can get bills passed.

So we stop harming kids.

>> Well, we're going to talk about that at length this hour.

We're not going to come close to getting everything through the book here, although I'm going to read a few passages that pop to me.

Listeners, if you've got questions, comments, as we talk about what works and what does not work in schools, you can join the program.

The email as always, Connections at wxxi.org.

You can call the program toll free at 8442958442958255263 WXXI.

If you're calling from Rochester, 2639994, you can join the chat.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel.

Dr.

Green, I want to start with just the question of what concerning behavior is.

You talk about this in the book.

You talk about this a lot.

It's something that schools will discuss.

They'll talk about what we had concerning behavior in a class or a student is displaying concerning behavior.

And you say that, you know, there's a lot of pressure on educators.

If we get kind of the the whole kind of formula wrong, how it's diagnosed, how we respond to it.

So number one, what is what does it mean when you hear concerning behavior?

>> When I hear concerning behavior, I hear frustration, response or distress response.

>> On behalf of the students.

>> On behalf of the students.

there is an expectation that has been placed upon them that they're having difficulty meeting, and they are communicating that they're having difficulty meeting it through their concerning behavior.

We've all heard the cliche behavior, all behavior communicates something concerning behavior communicates that there's an expectation a student is having difficulty meeting, okay.

>> And so let me ask a couple questions related to that.

You say that we've put a lot of pressure on educators to get every kid over the same bar every year.

Should we not be doing that?

>> We should not be doing that.

We should have every kid be their own reference point.

Given the developmental variability.

Walking into the classroom, which and every teacher can relate to this every kid is different.

Why would we be trying to get every one of them over the same bar by the end of the school year?

I think most educators could have told you 30 years ago that that was a bad idea.

Right out of the gate.

We are a whole lot more effective when we're meeting kids where they're at, treating each kid as their own reference point and gauging progress based on how far we brought that kid that school year, based on where they started, rather than having some arbitrary bar that they all have to get over.

That's a recipe for things not to go well, okay.

>> And you've also written that, educators are instructed to view concerning behavior as being an issue that can be overcome with passion and perseverance that students are told that if you can just learn to persevere, grind your way through it, you can get to the other side.

You say what is missing is the problem solving component of that.

Explain.

>> When a student is having difficulty meeting an expectation, perseverance is great, but if they aren't able to meet it, perseverance actually doesn't get them very far.

So what we're doing a lot of the time when a student is having difficulty meeting an expectation, is we keep pushing harder.

We wouldn't have to push harder if we were taking the time.

Time is a big issue in schools.

We're spending a lot of it on concerning behavior.

If we were taking the time to figure out what's actually getting in the way for a kid on a particular task and collaborating with them on a solution.

>> So before I jump into a passage I want to read from an outside source, let me just ask Katie from The Norman Howard School.

You're bringing in Dr.

Green for a reason.

You brought him to this community for a reason.

This book clearly has resonated with you.

Why?

>> I think that Norman Howard is a real example of aligning with the with this approach.

And because we are so small we have the ability to meet kids where they're at and to really assess what skill levels they're bringing to the table and to be proactive.

As Dr.

Green talks about anticipating where they need support so that they can do well.

In my role, I work with a lot of kids who have social cognitive issues.

So their brains make it hard for them to understand social cues.

And in their prior prior placements, they would often be considered behavior problems.

So our approach at Norman Howard is very different, and we are looking to help them build their competencies so that they can navigate situations, navigate their interactions with other people.

and so we're not viewing it as a behavior problem as much as it's just something that we need to work on.

>> So the flip side to the notion of meeting students where they're at, what Katie just talked about, and which is a a significant sort of theme in this book, Dr.

Green, the flip side is you could you would hear educators say, look I there's certain bars that we've got to clear, I may be required to clear that as part of the job that I'm doing and the job I've been hired to do, but there are certain bars that all people need in society.

And if we simply don't think they can get there, then we may be underestimating what they are capable of.

And so that led me to a piece that I don't know if you're going to find this relevant or not, but I thought this was interesting.

This is written by a college professor.

It's not a K through 12.

Walt Hunter is a professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, and he wrote a piece for The Atlantic recently called Stop meeting Kids Where they're at.

So I just want to read a little bit from that piece, and then you can tell me if you think it's pertinent.

Here's what he writes, quote, at some point over the past 15 years, kids stopped reading, or at least their teachers stopped asking them to read the way they once did.

We live in the age of the real, the story, the sample, the clip, the age of the excerpt, and even in old fashioned literature classes, assignments have been abbreviated so dramatically that high school English teachers are, according to one recent survey, assigning fewer than three books a year.

I've seen the effects of this change up close.

Having taught English in college classrooms since 2007, and I've witnessed the slow erosion of attention firsthand to students on computers in the back of lecture halls than on their phones throughout the classroom, then outsourcing their education to A.I.

We know that tech companies supply the means of distraction, but somehow the blame falls on the young reader.

Whole novels aren't possible to teach, we are told, because students won't or can't read them.

So why assign them?

Just meet them where they're at.

When I walked into my American literature class at Case Western Reserve University last fall, I looked at 32 college students, mostly science majors, and expected an uphill battle.

As my colleague Ross Horowitz has reported, many students no longer arrive at college, even at highly selective elite colleges.

Prepared to read full books.

One third of the high school seniors tested in 2024 were found not to have basic reading skills.

Yet by the end of the semester, as we read the last sentence of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, I regretted ever doubting my students.

I am now convinced that I was wrong to listen to the ostensible wisdom of the day, to meet students where they're at, to water down our reading list and our expectations.

The students I taught last semester turned enthusiastically to Faulkner and spent their time reading about the journey of the Bundren family to bury their mother's body.

Why did they do this?

Because I asked them to, and I told them it would be worth it.

End quote.

What do you make of that?

>> Well, I think that there's a distinction between what are our expectations?

And, the writer seems to be decrying the fact that expectations have been lowered.

That's one thing.

Okay?

Another thing is what you do with kids who aren't having an easy time meeting your expectations.

Those are two different things, right?

if expectations have been lowered, that's one issue.

I think that's what he's talking about.

But he's actually putting it in the under the guise of meeting kids where they're at.

I think they're very different things.

When a kid is struggling, you have no choice but to meet them where they're at because it's going to go a whole lot better if you're meeting them where they're at than if you're not.

If they're struggling to meet your expectations in the first place.

What your expectations are completely different story.

If high school folks were only expecting students to read three novels a year, first of all, most can probably do that.

I tend to worry more about the ones who aren't doing that, and especially the ones who aren't doing that and expressing the frustration that they're having difficulty doing it through concerning behavior, which just begins a cycle of punishment and exclusionary practices that are good for nobody.

I think we're talking about two different things here.

>> All right.

So I'm going to be the student.

And you got to make sure you give me a grade on this one here.

Dr.

green.

What the writer in this piece is talking about is not the same as saying when students are demonstrating that for the moment at least, they can't do the work.

Not that they feel like they'd be too distracted or they'd rather be on their phones, or they haven't been challenged before.

That's not the same as saying no.

We can identify some students who for the moment this is a hurdle they can't clear, and we can't just tell them to keep trying.

We have to find a different way to help them get over it.

>> You said it perfectly.

>> Okay, so two different things.

I take that point and the book, by the way, models how teachers and educators can have different kinds of conversations.

You know, try a plan A versus plan B, or, you know, working through the way we talk to kids.

And I want to read a little bit from that.

Now, if you don't mind there's a there's a lot of that in here.

And I think it's helpful because that this takes it beyond just the theoretical.

You're giving very specific examples of when a child might be struggling at different ages with different things and how they're typically talked to versus how you would like to see them talk to.

And you write about a child who is struggling with having difficulty doing work at school, and you write, not this, but this is what they often hear.

They often they're often told, I've noticed you're having difficulty doing work at school.

You want this instead.

I've noticed you're having difficulty completing the double digit division problems on the worksheet.

In math.

Very specific.

So let's start with that.

Why?

What's the difference between those two things there?

>> Well, because if you're not being specific you're asking them about 37 different things at once.

If you say work at school, those are 37 different tasks, right?

This is micro.

It's one task at a time because as you read in this way of doing things, your number one source of information on what's making it hard for a kid to meet an expectation is the kid.

So you actually want the kid to talk to you.

If you start to global, the kid's not going to talk to you.

So much better to be specific.

>> Katie, will they talk to you if you do it that way?

>> In my experience, they definitely will.

>> They'll open up.

>> Yeah.

And it's often really reassuring to them that they're finally with an adult that's interested in what they have to say about what's happening, because a lot of us have theorized for a long time about why kids are doing what they're doing without really just taking it to the student and saying, hey, what's going on?

What's up?

>> So related to this, let me read two other examples that start to get in the direction of where maybe some of the traditional, probably some of the traditional criticism or assumption about this approach would be and Dr.

Green, you've heard it all over the years, I know, but here are two examples.

So you write a teacher might or an educator might say this to a student, I saw you hit Billy on the playground while you guys were playing Foursquare.

Can you think of what you should have done instead?

You say instead, here's what they should say.

I've noticed that you and Billy are having difficulty agreeing on the rules of the Foursquare game during recess.

What's up?

Here's the critic, probably a more conservative critic in my head, reading that saying, no way, doctor green student puts hands on another.

They need to be told unacceptable.

I don't care what the reason is, you are not to touch or hit and I don't need to sit down and have a come to Jesus about it.

I need you to know what the rules are.

You need structure and discipline.

So tell tell me what you would say to a critic who voices that kind of concern.

>> They already know what the rules are.

>> The child does.

>> Of course, they have been probably punished hundreds of times for putting their hands on other kids.

That proves to us that the punishment didn't get the job done and the rewards didn't get the job done, either.

That's what we do when we're focused on a kids behavior, which goes to the difference in wording that you were talking about.

I don't talk with kids about their frustration, responses.

I talk with them about the problems that are causing them to become frustrated in the first place.

that's a very different conversation, by the way.

One, kids are much more receptive to participating in, but the fallacy is that the kid doesn't know that it's not okay to put their hands on somebody.

The fallacy is that they've never learned that lesson before, or never suffered the consequences of doing it before.

This is proof that that approach isn't working with a lot of kids, and we need to do something instead.

Instead of continuing to do the same thing.

>> I'm going to grab a phone call from Lisa in just a second.

Our first one here.

But Katie, in general, do you agree with that approach that you just heard from Dr.

Green 100%?

Okay, tell me a little bit more about the idea that when a child acts out, even physically, that they don't need to simply be disciplined because they need to be understood more, because they do know that it's wrong, or they do know that it is not allowed to put hands on.

>> Well, I think that, you know, kids know that it's wrong, but there's clearly something is happening within the context of that situation, within the context of the other person in the situation.

I think we have to get a little bit more curious with kids about, you know, get into some more gray area with with kids and help them problem solve.

Because until we do that, we're going to continue to see those same behaviors when they are overwhelmed by an expectation they can't meet.

so in my experience, it's been very effective.

>> So, let me grab the perspective on the parents role here.

Let me grab Lisa in Rochester.

Who wants to jump in here?

Hey, Lisa.

Go ahead.

>> Hi.

I don't disagree with a lot of what I'm hearing.

I understand that you have to, in a way, meet children where they are, but I would suggest that by the time a kid gets to school, the die is already cast.

You know who they are?

respect for authority is established at a really early age.

And I think when I look around, you know, I'm going to be 70.

I'll live the life.

So I think that parents really need to parent.

And the problem is that I think more parenting classes should be available.

I think when you I taught for 20 years and I saw other teachers teaching, and I'm pleased to report that I had wonderful students.

I was in high school and my approach was to set out a set of rules that were fair, and I thought they were fair.

And in all of my 20 years, I think maybe one student said to me you're not being fair.

I think in 20 years one student said that.

So I think parents have to establish clear set of rules, enforce them, because when a kid starts out with respect for authority, when a kid starts out knowing that the adults around them are there to protect them and are on their side, I think that that carries over to school.

I think.

I mean, I understand if parents don't do that and you have difficult kids in school, then sure you have to find a solution.

But I think parents should be taught better how to parent.

I guess that would be my comment.

>> Okay Lisa.

Thank you, Dr.

Green, what do you think?

>> I think that what Lisa said is true.

Parents play a very important role in the lives of their children.

It is seductive for schools to point outside the building.

>> for the difficulties a child is having inside the building.

Two things that got my head turned around on that.

Number one, the vast majority of parents I've worked with over the last 35 years who had a child who was difficult in the home, had other children in the home who were well behaved.

So we got to be careful about pointing fingers.

Right?

secondly, there are a lot of kids in our schools who are going home to situations that are not exactly ideal, who are very well-behaved in school and are in fact doing very well in school.

I find that we tend to focus on home when things are not going well at school.

I think we need to take a close look at those mentalities.

Schools are on the hook for solving the problems that kids are having in the building.

If we point our finger outside the building to something over which we have very little control, that is in effect saying we can't do anything to help this kid.

And that's never true.

Schools have the kid six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year.

You can do that, kid a whole lot of good in that time.

Even if the kid is going home to something that isn't exactly ideal.

>> Katie, can you elaborate on that to the perspective of your school that says you're going to work with kids from a lot of different backgrounds and families and you know, when they're with you, they're with you?

What would you say to Lisa?

>> Well, one of the biggest things that The Norman Howard School is our our community and the way that, I mean, that's just driven into everything we're doing with our students, they're very much a part of a community.

Our students often come with a lot of armor because they've been through a lot in their home districts that, you know, where they haven't been successful.

And so it's really an interesting thing to see them begin to relax when they know that they're going to get the support that they need.

and it's interesting to see parents start to relax when they don't feel like they have to fight for everything.

and that's really cool to see that.

But once they do that and they're starting to feel more confident they're getting their sports, as we said they're becoming better at interacting with their peers.

They they feel like a sense of belonging.

They feel part of a community.

And I think that that's a huge part of why our students find a lot of success at our school.

>> Are you ready to hear from a graduate?

I got an email.

You want to hear this?

Okay.

This is from xAI says I went to Norman Howard starting in sixth grade, gradually transitioned into public school by 10th and 11th.

I graduated in 99, he says.

I don't know what it's like there now, but if the individual teachers as well as counselors and administrators are still taking the time and patience to talk and listen to students, to coax them out of lockers and from under furniture and down from trees when they were having a rough time, as they did with me.

In addition to all the classroom modifications of large print alternative note styles, tests taking, test taking methods, et cetera., then I'm sure they're still doing it right.

>> That's that's really great.

>> That's from Sy.

Yeah.

>> Sounds like Norman Howard is meeting kids where they're at.

>> There's an endorsement for by the way.

I'm just going to I'm going to keep going back to this idea that I read this piece in the Atlantic thinking, I think it might contradict this book.

And it turns out they're not mutually exclusive.

there's different.

And what we're talking about when you hear meet kids where they're at are the kids who are are really struggling and authentic ways for different reasons, for a wide range of reasons.

But it's not as simple as saying, just grind it out, just try harder.

Right.

so that's.

>> And by the way, meeting kids where they're at works better for everybody.

Let's say you have a kid who's bored stiff in the third grade and needs work that is harder.

We're going to tell that kid to grind it out with work that's boring.

Or are we going to give them work that's more challenging?

>> That's an interesting point.

>> This cuts across every student.

It works better to meet kids where they're at than to not.

>> let's go to David, who's calling us from San Francisco.

Hi, Dave.

Go ahead.

>> Oh, yeah.

Thanks.

I just wanted to raise the.

In literature.

There are hundreds of different books that deal with this issue of you know, that kids who are deprived, acting up and being punished essentially by the, you know, the powers that be.

I thought first of Huck Finn but, if you ever read W.C.

fields autobiography, I think he was orphaned by the age of eight, and he was living on the streets of Philadelphia selling newspapers.

And apparently he caught tuberculosis at an early age and simply worked through the tuberculosis.

He wouldn't he wouldn't die.

And you know, West Side Story, there are many, many examples of kids that are, you know, causing problems.

And I was just going to say the cost of living and, and kids who are not able to feel like they're human beings because they can't keep up with the cost of living may be a big part of this.

>> Dave, thank you very much.

Dr.

green.

What do you think?

>> Well, the part that I'm most resonating with is the fact that a disproportionate percentage of kids who are struggling are of lower socioeconomic status.

Not that there aren't kids of higher socioeconomic status who are struggling, but kids of higher socioeconomic status often have resources that others don't have outside of school.

Perhaps the resources to pay for a different school, the resources to find help.

so we do have that divide.

I was Huck Finn in the school play back in sixth grade.

apparently my costume told us that he was of somewhat lower socioeconomic status.

The big question is, did he get the help he needed?

Did people figure out what he was struggling with?

did people meet him where he was at?

>> So now let me read one other section here, and there's an email that I got from a listener that I think will dovetail with this part here.

So again, in the section where you're urging what is a typical response to a student versus what you think is a more effective approach?

Here's an example.

You say, we might say to a student, I've noticed you're having difficulty getting to school on time because you don't really want to be here.

What can we do?

So you want to be here more?

You prefer this?

I've noticed you're having difficulty getting to school on time.

What's up?

And you go on to say this about the difference between just straight down discipline versus meeting kids with a rep.

You write imposing solutions on kids heightens the likelihood of frustration responses.

That's because most of us, kids included, don't love having solutions imposed.

I take that point, but let me read an email from a listener named Andrew who has this to say.

He says that even the best proposal for a Rochester school was the military academy proposal.

That's because kids who grow up with a lot of poverty tend to have very little structure.

I'm sure your guest means well, but what a kids needs most is a set of boundaries, a structure, a series of expectations with well-defined penalties.

And if they don't have those things, it's chaos.

Structure is good for kids.

>> Structure is great.

We're not we're not dismissing structure.

I'm not dismissing boundaries.

I'm not dismissing having expectations.

Those are completely different.

I am saying that simply penalizing kids when they're struggling, generally speaking, does not get the job done.

So I don't agree with the military school analogy.

I understand that that's been good for some kids.

Once again, the kids who are struggling the most are the ones who have already been penalized the most, already been given hundreds of detentions, suspensions, perhaps expelled.

In some states, they've already been hit at school with a two foot piece of plywood.

A lot.

If that approach was getting the job done, we'd be seeing it.

What we're seeing is what's called the school to prison pipeline.

those are the kids who've been over punished.

>> Do you think there are some kids who don't have enough structure and really do benefit from more structure?

>> Absolutely.

And if a kid needs more structure, then we need to meet them where they're at.

>> Okay.

Andrew, thank you for the email.

I appreciate that.

We're talking to Dr.

Ross Greene, whose book his newest book is, The Kids Who Aren't okay, the urgent Case for Reimagining Support, belonging and Hope in schools.

He's in Rochester as a guest of The Norman Howard School today, and we're glad to be talking to him about not only his book, but the themes that every school has to encounter and deal with and decide how they want, how they want to approach students and discipline and helping students who are, you know, on any given day, not able to meet certain expectations.

What does that mean?

So we'll come right back.

We'll take more of your feedback if you have it.

audience here.

It's 844295 talk.

( 844)295-8255.

Email the program Connections at WXXI.

On the other side, I just want to briefly talk about what Dr.

Green thinks about.

Maybe there's been a lot of talk, certainly in recent years, that the biggest problem is just kids are all tech addicted.

If we just take tech out of schools, take phones out of their hands, everyone gets better.

We're going to talk about that idea next.

Coming up in our second hour, a new 390 page report looks at the problem of homelessness in Rochester and has recommended ideas for what to do about it.

Obviously, homelessness is not a new problem.

People have been trying to solve this for a long time.

So what's new in the report, and what is the president of City Council think?

What about school board member and Father Tracy Advocacy Center executive director?

Beatriz LeBron?

Are there solutions here?

We'll talk about it.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bobjohnsonautogroup.com.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson there is an event tonight.

We've been talking to Dr.

Ross Greene about his book, The Kids Who Aren't Okay and related themes.

If you want to learn more tonight.

What's going on tonight?

Katie?

>> So at The Norman Howard School, doctor Ross Greene will be presenting at 630.

We think there are still some tickets available, so if you're free, come on by.

>> Coming by the at The Norman Howard School.

Yes.

Where is it?

>> Oh goodness.

We are on Winton 275 Pinnacle Road in Henrietta.

>> All right.

So the event tonight, 630 you said yes.

Okay, doctor Ian, where does this book take you?

You're all over the place with this thing, aren't you?

I mean, you're speaking to schools and educators all over the country.

>> World.

>> All over the world.

>> But the important thing is the work.

A lot of schools recognize that what they're doing now isn't working very well.

They're seeing lots of teachers quitting.

>> Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

>> because of the what we've done to teachers, quite frankly, legislatively.

one of the things I talk about in the book is what high stakes testing did to both kids and educators, what zero tolerance policies did to both kids and educators, a lot of educators, and I said this in the book, have said to me, they've taken all the humanity out of my job.

We've always relied on educators to be among the most important socialization agents in our society.

Why would we take the humanity out of the job?

Why would academics be the only metric?

Academics have never been the only metric, but they've become the only metric.

And I don't think that's been good for educators or kids.

>> Whether it's Common Core or any other big sweeping piece of policy.

There's this idea that we need American kids to meet certain standards, to know certain things, and to set these expectations for kids.

Why is that a bad baseline?

>> It's not a bad baseline.

It's good to say here the expectations.

We want kids to be meeting, how we handle it when kids aren't is where the rubber meets the road.

Simply insisting harder, simply consequence ING kids when they're concerning behavior tells us yet again that they're having difficulty meeting our expectations, failing schools because they have a high percentage of kids who aren't getting over the bar.

These never made any sense and don't now.

So this book and my work with schools is a call to action, a call to say, let's take a close look at what we've done, especially over the last 30 years in our schools.

Think about where we've ended up and think about what we want to change, to make things better than they are now.

For both kids and educators.

>> So I mentioned at the outset here that you have urged people not to simply sum up the problems in education with, well, the pandemic said everything back.

It set students back socially, it set students back academically.

We're still recovering.

You say it did those things.

It accelerated problems that were already growing.

It did not create new problems from whole cloth.

So it would be a mistake to say, well, the problem is Covid.

Okay.

Granted, the other thing that people say is, well, the problem is the phones and, you know, sort of one of your fellow travelers, Jonathan Heise Ghetts certainly a lot of attention and the work that he's doing on phones and social media, and I'd like to listen to a clip if we could.

I think we've got this clip.

Right.

Guys, this is Peter Thiel and Peter Thiel has made his billions of dollars in tech.

He was one of the first big outside investors in Facebook.

Palantir, a lot of these things.

And and he was talking to the financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin.

And they were talking about the way technology affects kids.

And at one point, you're going to hear the audience gasp when Peter Thiel describes his own rules and his own household for his kids.

Remember, he's made billions of dollars helping sell tech to people, including kids.

But the standards in his own house.

I want to listen to that.

>> The surgeon general was here in Aspen.

and I think you've probably seen in the last couple of weeks that he came out and genuinely believes that social media and the Facebooks of the world really have done a real disservice to young people in the country.

And I just wonder what you think of that as somebody who invested early in Facebook.

>> man, there's, I think, you know, I can't say that he's 100% wrong.

the place where I always push back on is that I feel it's it's too easy to turn tech or the social media companies into the scapegoat for all of our problems.

There is some kind of an interesting critique one can make of the tech companies.

and, and if you ask how many of the executives in those companies, how much screen time do they let their kids use?

And there's probably sort of an interesting critique one could make.

>> What do you do?

>> not very much.

And I think that's very.

>> What's not very much.

>> An hour and a half a week.

>> Hour and a half a week.

>> Something like that.

>> How old are how old are your kids?

>> Three and a half.

Five years.

>> Three and a half and five years old.

Okay.

>> But but but and I think that that is sort of if I had to do the, if I, if I were to make the anti-tech argument, it's that there are probably a lot of people in tech who do something quite similar for their own families.

>> So I've seen this clip shared a lot in the last week, because there are a lot of critics of tech who say Peter Thiel just gave away the game here, that even at five years old, the average American five year old is on screens way more than 90 minutes in a week, probably more than 90 minutes in a day.

And that if tech if the people creating the tech are telling you that they're that scared of it to not let their own kids use it, that we can see that it's destroying the minds, the mental health of Americans, the attention span of America's kids.

And Jonathan Haidt would agree.

He certainly made a lot of progress.

Convincing people of that.

I don't know if you how strongly you agree or disagree, but you don't make that the central thesis here.

And I want to talk about why that is.

But go ahead.

>> Well, number one, the reason I don't make it my central thesis is because the vast majority of what is said about social media and its effect on kids is correlational.

There aren't that many causal statements that can be made about social media and its effect on kids mental health.

>> I mean, height definitely disagrees.

Do you think he's wrong on that?

>> I do so do a lot of other people who have been quite critical of him, and I truth is, I think he's making a very important point.

I just don't think that the research.

>> Overstates the evidence.

>> No question about it.

Okay.

but that aside.

Yeah, right.

The most definitive thing based on my reading that can be said about social media and kids mental health is that it's the kids who are way overusing it, whose mental health is most adversely affected.

That said, I would be the first to agree.

There's stuff in social media that is bad for kids, brains for kids in general, some specific to females, some specific to males.

But the issue is a little bit more nuanced.

Every parent has to come to their own conclusions about the effects, just like lots of other things.

By the way, some parents would say, I don't have a huge problem with my kids smoking marijuana.

I just don't want them to overdo it.

Interesting.

That's a little nuanced, right?

I don't mind my kid being in social media.

Good luck with me trying to prevent that from happening in the first place.

I just don't want them overdoing it.

The nuance comes in when we would say, yeah, but there's also kids whose only social life because of who they are, because of difficulties with social skills, like Katie works with.

Right?

Social media is their lifeline in that respect.

Social media is good, so I'm just not big on blanket statements.

Peter Thiel great, right?

Whatever he wants to do, they're his kids, right?

It's when it becomes extreme that life becomes particularly interesting.

My main point, though, is that if all we're focused on is social media, we will miss the biggest part of the picture.

>> You're a clinical psychologist.

Australia banned social media for under the age of 16.

Do you think that's a good idea?

>> We'll see how that goes.

There are a lot of school systems.

You know, I'm a collaborative guy, right?

I'd rather involve kids in the solution.

I find that solution.

>> So that's a top down as opposed to collaborative.

Right?

Okay.

>> I find that we're more effective when we are engaging kids in the solution than we're uttering mandates.

Right?

Or issuing mandates.

Right.

We'll see how it goes.

In Australia, a lot of schools in North America that are involving kids in the process of solving those problems.

And I have a feeling that those solutions are going to go a whole lot better than mandates.

>> This is a city.

Rochester is a city, especially in the city school district itself, that has done a lot of restorative practices.

you know, we've talked over the years about the idea of instead of top down discipline, can we circle up, can we work through this in general?

How do you feel about restorative practices?

>> I like restorative practices very much.

I find that they come restorative practices and collaborative and proactive solutions come from very similar places in the heart.

Neither model is big on punitive, exclusionary disciplinary practices.

But here's what I would say.

If all we're doing is something restorative, if all we're doing is making amends for a student's behavior, we're still not solving the problems that caused that behavior in the first place.

For me, that's where the rubber meets the road.

>> Okay.

Why do you think critics and again, I say this because having hosted this program for a dozen years and trying to get to the root of where schools are trying to change and where discipline is going, the criticism I often hear is of a flavor similar to Andrew's email, and everyone is certainly allowed their view, but it's typically this is too soft.

This is not, you know, it is not firm enough.

It is it is going to let kids run the show.

It's going to it's going to lose control.

It's going to be chaos.

Why do you think that criticism that you've heard, I'm sure as well, is, is there.

>> Because we have this soft, hard dichotomy that actually makes no sense.

Right.

apparently hard means punishing soft apparently means letting kids do whatever they want.

I'm not doing either of those things.

There's no punishment in the CPS model.

There's no letting kids do whatever they want in the CPS model, there's solving problems with kids to help them overcome the hurdles that they're having difficulty getting over on their own.

That's not soft.

That's not hard.

I will say this when you're solving problems collaboratively and proactively with kids, the adult is working hard.

The kid is working hard.

The inmates are not running the asylum.

Nobody's getting off the hook.

We still have expectations.

That soft, hard dichotomy drives me nuts because it's too simple.

>> Can it go too far in that other direction, though?

Can it lose structure and control?

Can it become chaos if it's not done well?

>> Structure.

First of all, control is a delusion.

We don't have control, right?

>> In a classroom.

>> You have kids who are behaving and kids who are not.

You don't have control over each individual kid, right?

They were moving in a direction they minute they popped into this world.

Right?

You can have influence.

You can push them in a positive direction.

You can, especially when you have expectations that they're having trouble meeting.

You can hear their voice, find out what's getting in the way, solve it.

Nothing soft or hard about that.

So while yes, when people misinterpret this model, the direction they go in is this is soft because it's not about punishment.

There's there's no soft or hard in this.

There's this is very practical.

This is what schools and kids need right now in the year 2026 and have needed for a very long time.

>> Katie, you're nodding.

I want you to elaborate on that.

>> Well, when you think about the plan B, which is part of this model, it's collaborative.

So you're sitting with the student and you're coming up the plan to solve the problem has to fit the needs and the expectations of the adult and the student.

I think that's really pretty smart, you know, to help kids learn how to solve problems with other people.

rather than just imposing sanctions on a thing that they're doing and that they've been doing probably for a very long time, and continuing to get in trouble for it's like we're taking them through a process of thought.

>> Let me, Kim, I'm going to grab your phone call and then I've got a bunch of email to work through in the last ten minutes.

But one other thing before I get Kim's email and Kim's phone call and more of your emails for the teachers who might say Dr.

Green.

Katie, I love the ideas.

Do you know how little time I have?

Do you know how many tests I have to conduct and teach to?

Do you know the requirements there?

You want me to meet students where they are?

That requires communication, that requires more time getting to know somebody, trying to get them to open up, feel comfortable enough to trust to do that.

And that's an investment that I'm not sure I can do for all of the students in my classroom.

I'm sure you've heard that, Dr.. >> Green, and that is a shame.

Somehow.

Norman Howard School is doing it.

I think Norman Howard School is replicable in our public schools.

If public school teachers didn't have these onerous burdens being placed upon them, one thing's for sure whoever designed the school's schedule didn't design it around problem solving with kids.

It was completely about academics.

We never gave thought to the fact that some kids were going to have difficulty meeting those academic expectations, and that we were going to need to take the time to solve those problems with them.

So I get it.

Teachers are right, as things are presently configured, they may not have time, but let me just say one more thing.

We discovered at some point in the last decade that adolescents need more sleep.

A lot of high schools have changed their starting time to later.

A lot of schools that have implemented this model have carved out time in every school day to solve problems with kids.

Those schools and those kids are thriving.

Time is not the issue.

The issue is commitment.

>> I am not a historian, but I would think it is possible that the people who designed the model of the school day, it's not that they weren't thinking about the kids who would struggle, it's that maybe society's view at the time was, yeah, some kids will struggle and they'll get left behind, and there's just going to be a, you know, that's the way of the world.

>> Because I've spent my life working with the kids who got left behind because I worked with the ones who were way over punished and got lost along the way.

I've seen the disadvantages of over punishing, and I've seen the price we all pay in our society when we leave kids behind, especially since they didn't have to get left behind in the first place.

I should mention from a purely economic perspective, those are the most expensive kids in our society.

>> Kim on the phone next.

let's see here.

Yep.

Go ahead.

Kim.

>> Hi there.

this is my lucky day because I'm a public school teacher.

On my way to a doctor's appointment.

So I just caught the show, and I wanted to give a shout out to Dr.

Green because you're.

I don't know if it was one of your first books.

The explosive child was so helpful to me.

when I started my career in special education, and I've transitioned to a first grade teacher.

And I do want to say you have teachers here that are totally embracing and trying to do what you're saying.

But I do feel like we're caught in a system of, most of the power is not given to us.

So we're we're given a lot of responsibilities, but none of the power to change sort of things within the public education system that do make it difficult.

with the time and those kind of things, we want to do.

>> I feel your pain.

The good news is the things, the structures in your school that make it hard for you to meet kids where they're at and solve problems with them.

Those structures can be changed with a little commitment and a little intentionality.

This book is not just about sort of a practical how to.

It is also, as I said earlier, a call to action.

There are things we need to change in our schools that aren't working well for kids and educators.

They can be changed under the current circumstances.

Things are really hard.

Those things can be changed.

>> All right.

We don't really do lightning rounds, but I'm going to go fast on email because I have a lot here.

So here we go.

Linda says.

When I was going to school for my master's in education, Urban Teachers of Tomorrow program, we were told that the group most likely to drop out of school were and are males who are not challenged enough in school.

Boys who got bored and are not challenged.

Is that still true?

That's from Linda.

I don't know.

>> I don't know that that is true.

But I do know that that's a case for meeting kids where they're at.

So long as we're in the lightning round.

>> Okay, so the answer to that one.

But that's exactly what Dr.

Green Linda said earlier, which which is we're talking a lot about struggling kids and understandably so.

But it does go in another direction.

If kids do feel unchallenged, it's.

absolutely it's a problem.

Yeah.

Thomas is saying, I came in late to this discussion.

What I'm hearing is play to the individual strengths of the student.

Is that true?

>> Sure.

That's part of it.

But their strengths may not be the reason they're struggling.

Things they're struggling with are the reason they're struggling.

We still have to figure out what those things are and solve those problems with kids.

That's not always about strengths.

Sometimes that's about things they're not so good at.

>> Okay, Rick says, Evan, I think your guests are pointing out the key ingredient in educational success, saying, meet students where they are at is, for me, another way of communicating to students.

I see you and I care about you.

I recall something I read years ago, Martin Luther King Junior attended a conference with John Gardner, the Hew secretary at the time, I believe, and there was a poster that said, first teach them to read.

King turned to Gardner and said, first, teach them you care.

Meeting students where they're at is showing them that you care.

How's that for?

That's from Rick there.

Dr.

green, what do you think?

>> I love it, and while we want to believe that every student is capable of everything, that is not always going to be true.

And if a student has a positive relationship with their teachers, feel safe and comfortable in a school, I think that's the best recipe for having academics follow.

If academics don't follow, at least this kid have had a positive school experience, and that's going to serve them well in the real world.

>> All right.

Here's an email from a listener I don't have the full name says as the parent of an explosive child who did not respond well to conventional methods of discipline, I found Dr.

Green's encouragement to view these behaviors as an indicator of an overwhelmed, as opposed to a purposely oppositional child to be very reassuring.

I had a steep learning curve as a parent to a wonderful little boy who was temperamentally very different from me.

I learned to be as best I could the parent that he needed, and we worked together to figure out what would work.

I'm delighted to say that he's become a wonderfully empathetic individual who's able to bridge disagreements among his friends, and to see a way forward when others are stuck along the way.

I've come to the conclusion that our educational system is age based, but as humans, we do not always develop at the same pace.

It is sad to think that some kids would have a very different experience and be far more successful in the classroom if they were simply six months or 12 months older when they encountered a task.

Thank you Dr.

Green for your thoughtful and caring attention to those children who struggle and the adults who struggle alongside them.

>> You just made my day and well done.

>> That is a really remarkable comment there.

And Charlie just says Dr.

Green should go to the Rochester City School District and you'd be surprised to see the incredible effort, the compassion, the empathy, he says.

My former colleagues, he's a retired teacher, are putting forth, especially at my old high school, East High, he says.

I taught from 92 to 2024, and I watched firsthand how education change from student oriented to teacher oriented.

And so he says it.

A lot of these approaches, you know, putting kids first is does it matters?

Kids need to know that you're someone who actually will fight for them.

and, Charlie, we appreciate your email, Charlie.

It goes on longer than that.

We don't have time to get through all of it, but I'm.

I'm sure you'd be happy to walk through the Rochester City School District and meet the.

>> In a heartbeat and let, let let there are some amazing teachers out there who are working their butts off for kids.

This book is not a critique of them.

This is a book intended to make their jobs better.

>> Dr.

green, where do people find more about lives in the balance?

>> At the lives in the balance website?

Lives lives in the balance.

>> Lives in the balance.

Org.

The newest book, The Kids Who Aren't Okay the Urgent Case for Reimagining, Support, belonging, and Hope in schools.

It's available everywhere.

Books are sold, probably on the website as well.

And okay, well, it's available wherever books are.

I know that, and Dr.

Green is available tonight at 630.

You can meet him at The Norman Howard School and Katie MacKenzie.

I think there's still a few tickets available.

People can pop by and see you tonight.

>> Yes, I believe so.

>> 630 there.

Thank you for coming in from The Norman Howard School.

Thank you, Dr.

Green.

Thank you for being generous with your time.

We appreciate you very much.

>> My absolute pleasure.

>> More Connections coming up in just a moment.

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