Episode 18 - School Leadership and Student Agency with Dr. Whitney Hegseth

New Podcast Episode: School Leadership and Student Agency with Dr. Whitney Hegseth

What does it take to build a school where children feel respected, capable, and genuinely empowered to learn?

In this new episode of the Builders of a Better World podcast, Ashlieya welcomes Dr. Whitney Hegseth for a thoughtful conversation about school leadership, student agency, instructional supports, and the systems that shape children’s everyday experiences in the classroom.

Dr. Hegseth is an educator, researcher, and author whose work explores how leaders can create educational environments that elevate students. Together, she and Ashlieya examine what happens when school systems operate from the belief that children are not only inherently good, but also deeply capable.

What this episode explores

Dr. Hegseth shares insights from her forthcoming book, Just Talk to Us Normally: A Leader’s Guide to Organizing Schools That Elevate Students. Drawing from her research in Montessori and International Baccalaureate elementary schools in both the United States and Canada, she offers a powerful look at the ways culture is created—and changed—inside schools.

In this conversation, Ashlieya and Dr. Hegseth discuss:

• How school leaders shape culture through the systems, routines, expectations, and instructional supports they choose

• Why adaptability, alignment, and specificity all matter when leaders are trying to create meaningful change

• What Montessori and International Baccalaureate schools can teach us about independence, international mindedness, and student capability

• How comparison, when used intentionally, can expand our sense of what is possible for students and educators

• Why children benefit when adults speak to them with respect rather than treating them as incapable

• How educators are often asked to serve as teachers, counselors, advocates, social-service providers, and more—often without the structural support they need

• Why schools have become part of America’s social safety net, and what that means for teachers, children, and families

• How local control can create challenges, but can also give school leaders room to make meaningful, values-driven decisions

“Just talk to us normally.”

One of the most moving moments in the episode comes from the origin of Dr. Hegseth’s book title.

While conducting research with elementary students, Dr. Hegseth invited children to watch and respond to classroom videos from different educational contexts. One nine-year-old student noticed that an adult in one video was speaking to children as though they were babies. Her response was simple, direct, and profound:

“Just talk to us normally. We’re not babies anymore.”

That moment captures a central message of this episode: young people notice more than adults often realize. They are capable of insight, independence, observation, and growth—particularly when the adults and systems around them make room for those capacities to develop.

A conversation for educators—and everyone who leads

Although this episode draws examples from Montessori and IB schools, its lessons extend far beyond those educational settings.

Whether you are a school administrator, teacher, parent, coach, youth-program leader, nonprofit director, workplace manager, or someone who simply cares about helping people thrive, this conversation invites an important question:

What assumptions are embedded in the systems we create—and do those systems communicate that people are capable?

Dr. Hegseth reminds us that culture does not emerge by accident. It is built through decisions: how we organize environments, how we communicate expectations, how much autonomy we allow, and what we believe people can do.

Listen now

If this episode resonates with you, please share it with an educator, school leader, parent, or community member who believes children deserve learning environments rooted in respect, support, and possibility.

And as you listen, consider this: Where might a child—or an adult—in your community be better supported by more intentional systems, structures, and belief in their capability?

Listen now to “School Leadership and Student Agency with Dr. Whitney Hegseth” on the Build a Better World Podcast. Listen on your favorite podcast player or ad-free below.

And be sure to subscribe and share this episode with an educator or leader in your life.

To connect with Dr. Whitney Hegseth or purchase her book:

• Dr. Whitney Hegseth website: https://www.whegseth.com/

• Just Talk to Us Normally: A Leader's Guide to Organizing Schools That Elevate Students on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Just-talk-normally-organizing-students/dp/0197833012/

• Just Talk to Us Normally: A Leader's Guide to Organizing Schools That Elevate Students on VitalSource: https://www.vitalsource.com/products/just-talk-to-us-normally-whitney-m-hegseth-v9780197833025

• Just Talk to Us Normally: A Leader's Guide to Organizing Schools That Elevate Students on Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/just-talk-to-us-normally-9780197833018

18 - School Leadership and Student Agency with Dr. Whitney HegsethBuilders of a Better World

32:12

Transcript:

Welcome to Builders of a Better World Podcast, a space for depth, clarity, and honest conversation, where presence matters more than performance.

Ashlieya: I'm really trying to call in more people like you for the show. So this is a real gift to me, like genuinely.

Whitney: Good, good.

Ashlieya: I don't mean to seem like a fangirl or a nerd. I'm not sandbagging you, but anyway. I really genuinely have so much interest in what you've done. And I like to read stuff.

Whitney: Yeah. Well thank you. Well, the book is way better than the other stuff, I hope. But the other stuff is for the academics, which is what I was kind of forced to do, you know? 

Ashlieya: I have two master's degrees. I'm like, yeah—

Whitney: Yeah. 

Ashlieya: You know, pursuing my own, like—

Whitney: Right. So you get—the longer you dwell in that space, it's like, “We're going to use five syllables instead of two, and we're going to put a colon in every title because we can.” 

Ashlieya: And there's the philosophical understanding, you know, good old Socrates: the more you know, the less you know.

It applies to academics just as much. It applies to research just as much. It applies to science just as much. You know, you need to cover something and you're like, “Everything that was true is no longer true.”

Whitney: I know. 

Ashlieya: How did this happen?

Whitney: This is what I was telling my husband. I was like, “You know what I'm realizing is that in trying to get word out about my book, people are gonna ask me about education writ large, and with all my training, it's like, I feel like I can't open my mouth on education, even though it's been my entire career.”

Ashlieya: Sure. Yes, that's fair. I completely understand that.

That's so great. Okay, so we're gonna jump right back in. Great.

[speaking to producer]. Such a pro. 

Welcome back, Builders of a Better World Podcast.

We're gonna jump right back into our continuation of our conversation with Whitney. We're going to jump right back in discussing what we—where we land—la, la, la. 

The tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips. She sells seashells by the seashore. 

Whitney: My four-year-old was in theater camp this summer, and so he was doing, “Mama made me mash my M&M's.” Oh, my.

Ashlieya: Love it.

Welcome back to Builders of a Better World podcast. We're jumping right in and continuing our conversation with Whitney. Love her so much.

Okay. So you're work examines whether educational infrastructure is adaptable, aligned, and sufficiently specified, yes?

Whitney: Yes.

Ashlieya: Which of those qualities is most often missing? And how may each become maladaptive if missing too much?

Whitney: Wow. That's a great question. 

Ashlieya: Thank you.

Whitney: So I think I need to back up a little bit and do maybe not a deep dive, but a medium dive into this book, and how this book marries what I have loved within anthropology and what I have loved within educational leadership and policy.

At the same time, I'm talking about two things. I'm talking about, first, how leaders change culture. And I'm leaning on previous sociologists and anthropologists when talking about—when we change culture, one way to do that is you start off by offering up a really explicit ideology. So, this very explicit set of guidelines around how to think, feel, act, what to believe. We see that sometimes in religion, for example.

And then, with time, those ideologies become tradition, which is to say they start to become our habits. But if someone were to ask us about that, we could still say, “Oh yeah, I got it from this ideology.” You know, they would still be able to know the source of where they got it.

But then with more time, it becomes what is called common sense in anthropology. And by that I mean things that are so taken for granted, we don't even think to question them.

And so I trace that in two different educational systems in my book, both Montessori and IB—International Baccalaureate—at the elementary level.

Ashlieya: International Baccalaureate, for those that are listening, is religious-based. It would be more Catholic. Is that how you would describe it—

Whitney: It's not religious-based, actually.

Ashlieya: Yes, correct me. Yeah.

Whitney: So a lot of people, when they think about Montessori, they think about it in the preschool range, and then when they think about International Baccalaureate, or IB, they think about it at the high-school level. I actually am studying both at the elementary level.

But IB—there are a lot of different ways to classify both of these systems—but what I focus on in the book is IB, in the way it's trying to change culture, is to foster and cultivate international mindedness in its students. And Montessori, the way it's trying to change culture, is to foster and cultivate independence in its students.

And so I'm talking about that culture change in both of those systems. At the same time, getting back to what you brought up, I am talking about the fact that there's no one way to change culture. There are a lot of different ways to do this work, and there are a lot of decisions to be made, and there's no one right way.

But the decisions you make have very real implications for the work and challenges of leaders, for the beliefs and practices of teachers, and for the experiences and assumptions that students have over their own capabilities and roles in the classroom.

So, at the same time that we're looking at this culture change, we're looking at decisions that leaders in IB and Montessori are making around how adaptable their instructional supports are, how aligned their instructional supports are, and how specified their instructional supports are. And they're all important. It's like picking a favorite child, but I will say the adaptability one kind of sets the groundwork for those other decision points.

So, to talk about the book: Montessori, when it's accredited—it's interesting because both of these systems operate around the world. And so they've been successful at spreading all around the world, and yet they've done it in very different ways.

The accredited Montessori system says, “You will not adapt this. This can look the same whether it's in Mongolia, whether it's in the U.S., whether it's in France.” Whereas IB says it's more moderate. It's like, “No, this can and should respond to the local context. There are some things we want consistent, but there are some things that necessarily need to change.”

Ashlieya: Sure.

Whitney: And so, for the IB story that I tell in this book, because of that decision, I'm looking at two IB schools in depth in this book. There's one in the U.S. and one in Canada.

And one consistent guideline in IB is that one way to foster international mindedness is to learn a different language. So you have to do that from the age of seven onward. But how you do it is up to you.

And so my school in the U.S. had a full-blown English-Mandarin dual-immersion program, and did it in a very racially and socioeconomically diverse school setting.

Ashlieya: Okay.

Whitney: And so the first page of my book talks about the school leader saying, “Brown boy speaking Chinese, you can write your ticket,” which is to say that's really gonna help them, you know, in future life.

Ashlieya: Sure.

Whitney: But then the IB school in Canada, they had French classes a couple days a week. It was not this full-blown dual-immersion program, you know, which is also fine.

For all of us today, because of that moderate adaptability permitted by the IB school—or by the IB system—I then trace the story of this school in the U.S. that has this full-blown dual-immersion program that became very aligned and very specified.

And because of that, it really changed teachers' beliefs around who could do this dual-immersion program, and really changed children's common sense around, “Of course, I'm fluent in these two very different languages.”

And so it started with the adaptability. That was my long-winded way of answering your question.

Ashlieya: And now, the ideology at that specific school or system is: any student can do this.

Whitney: Right. And I will—you know, we talked earlier about how you do research, and I will say, I mean, this is my own bias, but I think I did research in some pretty cool ways.

When I was in a master's program, I learned about this method that other folks have done—which other anthropologists have done this. It's a mouthful—it’s called video-cued multivocal ethnography.

And what that means is, you go into a classroom, you videotape a quote-unquote typical day, and then you edit it down to 20 minutes that's somewhat representative of that day. And that is not the data, but rather, you then show that video to people in different places.

So the folks who originally did this method videotaped preschools in the U.S., China, and Japan, and then showed those videos to teachers in each of those country contexts. And by showing those videos, you really surface people's assumptions of what teaching and learning should look like.

So when they did it, for example, Japanese teachers were looking at the video of the U.S. preschool, and they were shocked and appalled that class size was as small as it was.

And we really value small class size in U.S. educational policy. But in Japan—and in Montessori, both, actually—they see it almost as a crime because if you have such a small class size, adults can constantly intervene in children's work, and children never have the opportunity to teach themselves or their peers, and they don't learn confidence and resilience as well.

Ashlieya: Interesting. So the viewpoint there is that it compromises a semblance of autonomy.

Whitney: Mmm hmm.

And so all that to say, a method that I used in this research, in this book, is that I dwelled in four schools—two Montessori and two IB schools, one each in Canada and the U.S. And I volunteered as a teacher's assistant for several months, you know, building up trust and rapport, and then eventually did those videos and edited it down, and then showed those videos not just to teachers and school leaders, but also to children.

And so when children were commenting on and seeing what teaching and learning looked like in other places, it really surfaced their assumptions of what they were capable of in the classroom.

Ashlieya: Yeah.

Whitney: And so in the case of my U.S. kiddos, you know, my Montessori kids and my IB kids were in schools five minutes down the road from one another. And the IB kiddos were looking at the Montessori videos, seeing all sorts of independent behavior, and they were like, “We could never do that. If our teacher left for the day, we wouldn't know what to do.”

But they took for granted that they were fluent in Mandarin.

And then the Montessori kiddos, who were so good at directing their own learning, looked at the IB video of them speaking in English and in Mandarin both, and they're like, “We could never do that.”

Ashlieya: Oh my gosh.

Whitney: And I'm here to say that you can. You actually can do all of that, and it's up to the leaders to make those decisions, to cultivate that new common sense around your role and capability in the classroom.

Ashlieya: Oh, I love that. That was so valuable. Oh my gosh, there were so many excellent things I can say in my response about how brilliant that is.

Whitney: Well, thank you for permitting me to go off on that tangent.

Ashlieya: Please, no, I have one that's going to be nowhere near as valuable, but it's coming to my head.

Just the understanding of how powerful words are, because again, for those, you know, those listening, it's very important to self-define things and really take a look at things in context.

We speak about comparison relative to self-development and happiness, and we say, you know, things like comparison can be really counterintuitive to that which we need to be happy. And here's the situation where comparing is valuable. It is an integral component in being able to adequately discover the aspects of research, but also to be able to, as you're saying, like, for these teachers, for these systems, as well as for these kids, to be able to understand that there's a very different life out there, right?

And there's more to existence outside of what you're currently experiencing, and understanding that can open a capacity in ways that—I mean, it can go to—we can talk about solo travel, we can talk about all these different things that can expand our minds, the banister effect, just the understanding that, you know, something can be considered possible even though it was once considered impossible.

I mean, comparison, right? Who knew? In a different context, it's like a gift.

Whitney: Right. In so many spaces, it is a dirty word because it often leads to competition and all these negative things, but I'm here to show that it actually can be a really wise practice.

Ashlieya: Yes.

Whitney: Because if done with intention, it helps you hold up a mirror.

Ashlieya: There you go. That's the way. Thank you. Yes, exactly. Exactly. For your systems, for your leadership, for you as being in the orientation of a student or someone learning something. I mean, it's extremely powerful. I love that.

Thank you so much. That was really, really excellent.

I like this. Again, it's another one of those questions where it could be a fine line, but I'm genuinely interested in your opinion on it. I forgive the way it's very generally phrased, but I really feel like this could be applied to contexts and situations at home, as well as as a coach of students or kids, if you're in any sort of recreational environment. It could be applied to a classroom setting as well.

When a child is struggling in any area—it could be emotional regulation, it could be learning a specific skill set, it could be participation, it could be a variety of things—what question helps us discern whether the needed intervention belongs to something inside the child versus inside the environment surrounding the child? What questions can we ask to help make that discernment a bit more clear?

Whitney: Yeah. Well, I actually am gonna steal from my parenting life and another author of a different book.

Ashlieya: Great.

Whitney: I have three wonderful little boys who are keeping me tired and busy and happy. And they're also challenging me, of course.

And so a book I'm reading as a parent is a book called Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. And something that struck me when I started reading the book was she also—she and I are both starting our books operating under the same premise, which is children are inherently good.

Ashlieya: I love that.

Whitney: Right? And I would add capable. I'm sure she would tack that on too. She probably likes that.

And so I think it is, you know, it is so nuanced and such a challenge, and I personally, as a parent, I'm always doubting myself in the decisions I make around whether this is something that needs to come from the child versus the supports around the child.

But I will say that no matter what, I do try to operate under the assumption of, “You are good inside, and this behavior is a window into something that's going on with you, and we need to figure out what that is to decide how to move forward.”

Ashlieya: Yes. I love that. I have nothing else to say on that.

Whitney: I can't take credit for it. It's all Becky Kennedy.

Ashlieya: Brilliant. Brilliant. Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. You heard it from us. There’s—yes, that's absolutely fantastic.

So the book—we will keep talking about the book, because the title is great, I think. I mean, I'm not a publisher, but it is being published, so I'm not the only one to find it absolutely brilliant. Did you select the title yourself?

Whitney: So I so appreciate that you like the title. It was hard-won in some senses, in that it took me a long time to arrive at it. But in other senses, it was really easy, because those words are not mine. They are the words of a nine-year-old girl who was in my Canada Montessori school and who was one of the focus-group participants looking at a video.

And what's interesting about this little girl and some of her contemporaries is they were watching this video, and some of them had some diagnoses that marginalize us in educational spaces. So some of them were dealing with autism or ADHD, but when watching this video of teaching and learning in a different context, they were laser-focused, and they were picking up on things that adults were just totally glossing over.

And one thing that a group of little girls were noticing in a video they watched was that a teacher in a different setting was talking to the children as if they were babies. And what was really wonderful is that this nine-year-old girl was saying, “Just talk to us normally. We're not babies anymore.”

And so it was wonderful, number one, that she was noticing this. Also terrifying. Also wonderful that, at the age of nine, she was in a school—and obviously family too, and broader culture—but I would argue in a school that was really teaching her to feel capable, and like she did not need to be talked to in that way.

Ashlieya: Oh my gosh, I love that. I'm so glad I asked that question. That was a better answer than I could even have anticipated.

Whitney: I know. Well, and I just came across, you know… any iteration of a title I had before that was terrible, let me tell you. So I'm glad I went back to what the children said.

Ashlieya: Once again, the book, Just Talk to Us Normally: A Leader's Guide to Organizing Schools That Elevate Students. I'm super excited to read this.

We've already established that the book is for anyone in a leadership position looking to better instill their skills and being able to communicate and set environments that perpetuate a healthy learning environment in some capacity. Would you say that that's true?

Whitney: Yes.

Ashlieya: Very good. Is there anything else you would want us to know about what the book entails or what someone could expect in reading your book?

Whitney: I think something that I would like to say is I've referenced both IB and Montessori a lot in the examples I'm drawing on from this book, but I make very clear from the get-go: in some senses, yes, this book is about Montessori and IB, but it's not actually about Montessori and IB. 

Ashlieya: Those are the examples.

Whitney: Right. And the reason I pick those examples as someone who has studied and taught and dwelt in educational spaces for almost two decades now, is because they are very countercultural. So they are both, in different ways, trying to challenge the status quo of schooling and of teaching children, and they've done so successfully across the world and across time.

And so I think they're really useful examples to make the reader then challenge their assumptions of, “What could this look like?” So even though I'm talking about these systems, and I hope people in these systems read it, I also really hope that folks in public schools and any other type of school setting, or any other space where you're interacting with kiddos, read it as well.

Ashlieya: Absolutely. And we know, I mean, conceptually, as humans, our brain digests information through story, right?

Whitney: Right.

Ashlieya: That's a big part of how most things are structured in the world of a lot of different curriculums, is through story. So that makes so much sense to me.

I'm really looking forward to reading it, genuinely. I'm gonna be one of those presale purchasers on Amazon as soon as we finish this episode, let me tell you. And you should absolutely do the same. The link is in the comments and descriptions of the show, so please, please, please purchase your copy of this book, because it is gonna be excellent.

No matter who you are, a good leader is constantly educating and growing and expanding, and we can always relate to things as long as we're seeking to appreciate them. You'll glean insight into anything as long as you want to.

Whitney: I think that's true, and that's actually a second thing I want to say, at the risk of saying this book is something that everyone could read—which is not true—but I talk a lot about young children because those are the people I like the best, and I'm operating on research based in elementary schools.

But this idea of infrastructure and these instructional supports that we're leveraging and aligning to effect the change we want to affect—that could apply to higher ed. It could apply to other sectors, right? Many of us in leadership positions deal with infrastructure and how to systemically improve whatever we're trying to improve.

Ashlieya: Like social-emotional literacy-based skills in all areas of education, even down to the administrative assistants at the front desk, which are just as important—just as important—in contributing to the totality of the environment with energy and vibe and a good morning and, you know, enjoying their life just a little bit more, or at least able to have a semblance of emotional regulation…

Whitney: Right. Right.

Ashlieya: …if they don’t. I'm sorry. It's like, yeah, I've had so many experiences where I just—I wish school was a warmer, more celebrated, more encouraging place to be. And it seems like you do too.

Whitney: Right. Well, and I will, you know, just to say, because children are my favorite people, but a close second is the educational leaders who are trying to affect change for them.

And there's a lot of things that are wrong with education right now in our country. But one thing I'll say is that—a couple of things. One is that education's tricky because everybody has been schooled. And so everyone thinks they can have an opinion around what teaching and learning should look like.

Ashlieya: Absolutely.

Whitney: But really, to teach is very complex work. It's very difficult to do. And we are in a society where we really disrespect our teachers.

We are also in a society where we ask schools to do a lot of other social services that the people within them are not equipped or trained to do.

Ashlieya: Yes.

Whitney: Whereas in other country contexts, you know, there's a lot more support that's happening outside of the school, so that when kids show up to school, we're not worried about if they ate breakfast. We're not worried about if they have stable housing.

Ashlieya: Right.

Whitney: You know, in addition to just trying to teach them fractions. And so, just to defend the educators, they are—you know, they're being asked to do an impossible task. And the system is disturbing them too.

Ashlieya: For fear of asking a question that we're just going to have to edit out, but I'm going to ask you because it's coming to my mind. Like, do you have—and this doesn't need to be a political answer, in my head it doesn't—but do you have an understanding as to why the U.S. would oversee—I'm sorry—not look at all of those things?

Like, why is it that we seemingly don't mind that the environments are as they are, that teachers are underpaid, that there are systems in place that are just asking, as you're saying, because it's absolutely true—you know, I'm used to contracting with impoverished school districts. That's a big part of who I've worked with over the years.

And they drop their kids off as early as they possibly can, and they're fed breakfasts and all the things; they're kept there as late as they possibly can. I mean, it's so much more than just, “We are responsible for ensuring the development of your kids' academic career.”

There's so many other facets. There's a counseling element, the whole social-emotional learning, this whole aspect of things. I mean, there's behavior modifications that teachers are attempting to instill in these students, and they don't have the degree to back up what they're being faced with.

Other countries seemingly have attention on that and are doing it differently. Why do you think, as a society in the U.S., it's been so overlooked in that way?

Whitney: Oh gosh, yeah, this is a question where, you know, the longer I dwell in this space, the more I feel like I'm not the one equipped to answer this, but I will try.

One of my dear teachers when I was in grad school, his name was David Cohen, and he was a historian of schooling, and he really taught me to appreciate that a few things have been baked into the bones of our society in terms of what we think about school.

One is that we really privilege local control of schooling.

Ashlieya: Right, you mentioned that.

Whitney: Another one is, you know, this is a very individualistic society. This is a very capitalistic society. And also, it's a very large, diverse society where a given state might be the size of a country somewhere else in the world.

Ashlieya: Very true, which can in some way give an explanation to local control, but not entirely.

Whitney: Right. Right, exactly. Yeah.

And so in a country like Singapore, for example, it is small enough and socialist enough where the labor market can be in communication with the education system and can get a sense of, “Well, in X amount of years, we're going to need these types of jobs. And so what does that mean for the school experiences that need to happen now to make that all work?”

But we don't, for a lot of different reasons—we don't have that type of control, and I feel like people wouldn't want that type of control in the U.S. society.

And at the same time, again, we have this individualist culture where if there's a problem—quote-unquote—if a kid is a quote-unquote “problem kid,” it's their fault. And no one's thinking about how this society has not been set up to support them.

And truthfully, I don't think this society has been set up to support their family either. Like, look at family leave and how nonexistent it is here versus in other countries.

So we, as a society, don't have a social safety net. And so schools have to be that social safety net, even though teachers are not counselors, and they're not lawyers. They're teachers, but they're being asked to be all sorts of other things.

Ashlieya: Right. Exactly. I mean, man, that's such an excellent point.

And Singapore is such a brilliant example of one of those countries where, if you do know anything about their laws or their government, it can be seen as a much more rigid system that does, seemingly, have this sort of extensive—you could say control or dominance—over the citizens that reside within.

I love Singapore. I've been there many times. It's clean, it's beautiful, it's so well maintained. It's illegal to chew gum, but it's fine. You know, like, you're like, “It's fine.”

And some people hear that and go, “Oh my gosh,” and they're so put off by this idea that there would be something so specific, and yet you go there and you're like, “But it's lovely.”

Whitney: Right, right.

Ashlieya: It's lovely. The way that they address their homelessness, you know, the way that they structure—you know, different—I mean, the way they support the people that live there. But to your point, it is a smaller population, and it's been something that they’ve had for a while. This is not something new. Whereas we would be looking at making very extreme changes at a very large scale, right? And it's intimidating for some people.

Whitney: But one thing that I talk about in the book is, as—you know, I think I'm a socialist at heart, truthfully.

Ashlieya: Oh hey, you're in good company.

Whitney: So I don't like the local control of schooling, but since we're here, that actually is good news for the leaders reading my book. Because especially now in the Trump administration, we are swinging that way even more.

And so, with local control of schooling, this is a moment where educational leaders can make their own decisions and can think about their instructional supports to work toward what they want and need to work toward.

Ashlieya: Yes.

Whitney: And I'm not saying it's easy. It's very difficult work, but we actually are situated in a culture where it's not coming from a centralized source.

Ashlieya: That's fantastic. So everyone can read your book and purchase my emotional literacy curriculum. 

Whitney: There we go. 

Ashlieya: And we can change the systems that are housing and fostering and implementing this beautiful impression and influence on our young students, and build a better world.

Whitney: That's the hope.

Ashlieya: Let’s do it. Love it so much. This is delightful. I have so many questions. I cannot wait to have you back. I want to have you back.

Whitney: I can’t wait to be back.

Ashlieya: I want to read your book and do all my super nerdy highlighting and Post-it notes and all the things, and you're gonna come back. I have so many questions that we didn't get to today. I would have so much more for you in the future.

I would love for you to read my book. 

Whitney: I would love to. Oh my gosh, yes.

Ashlieya: —and give me your opinions. That'd be such an honor.

Whitney: I'm sure you've said it on this podcast, but when does it come out?

Ashlieya: So right now we're just going through all the editing, and we’re being super meticulous about it. We don't know yet.

Whitney: Okay. And I'll wait for it. I'm patient.

Ashlieya: I was wondering about—thank you.

I was wondering how much, because I've gotten a lot of feedback about publishers, because I do want to, like, get published properly. And I feel like my status as a doctoral student would make a difference. So I might wait until I'm full-on immersed in a proper program so I can claim that with the integrity of it being full truth, right? And hope to be taken just a bit more seriously, because they do care about education, and that eighth level is something to someone.

Whitney: Right. I know. I don't agree with it, but you’re not wrong.

Ashlieya: So I'll do whatever I have to do so that no one can say that I don't have an area of expertise or, you know, I have no claim or no authority to speak on a subject.

I will do anything I can to earn the privilege to instill the social change I would really like to see in communities, even just in this area, let alone throughout this massive, massive, brilliantly beautiful country. I love living here. I love it so much. I just want people to thrive as happy, healthy humans.

And as much as we've talked about children, I always say, let's not give up on the adults. There are always programs, there are always efforts, there's always resources so that we can build our best selves in order to build the best world.

Thank you so much for listening today. If there's something that you have an interest in learning more about pertaining to Dr. Whitney and anything that we discussed today, if you have any future questions that you would like to have answered on a future episode, please, please, please put them in the comments, and I will gladly see that the next time she comes, that we get them addressed for you.

Always like, comment, share, subscribe, and let us know how you felt about today's episode. Is there an area in which you feel a child could be better supported through better systematic structures and influence and intention?

Thank you so much, and let's build a better world.

Thank you for joining us here at the Builders of a Better World podcast. Please share, subscribe, comment, and be sure to pass this episode along for anyone who may need it. See you next time.