Leadership Lessons for Little Learners

Imagine if you had learned to self-regulate emotions and set boundaries at the age of four. Join Molly, Dr. Eve, and Ysenia Higuere, Preschool Teacher at Verrado Heritage Elementary, as they explore how to teach leadership lessons to preschoolers in ways that are meaningful and manageable.

Transcript

11.21.23 EL Leadership Lessons for Little Learners

Molly: [00:00:00] From Leader in Me Studios. I'm Molly Garcia. This is The Empowering Teacher for early learning. 

Molly: How many times do we catch ourselves saying, “Wow, if I would have learned these 7 Habits at an earlier age, life would have looked different for me.” Now, imagine if we had also learned how to self-regulate our emotions and to set boundaries as a four year old. Are you skeptical? It can be done and it's being done!

Molly: Our early-learning educators are teaching leadership to students every single day. And in this episode, we're talking to Ysenia Higuere, a preschool teacher at Verado Heritage Elementary School in Arizona, about how we can teach leadership lessons to our preschool leaders in ways that are meaningful and manageable.

Molly: But first, we're going to learn about neuroproliferation with FranklinCovey Education's Director of Research, Dr. Eve Miller. Okay, Eve, so have you ever caught yourself saying, “If only I had this earlier”?

Eve: Every single day, Molly. Yes.[00:01:00] 

Molly: Well, I know I have for sure. It also brings me back to research. What does it say about how early learners develop those skills that support them in leading themselves?

Eve: Oh, bottom line, building early learners’ self leadership can change their lives. So, inside of the brain of early learners, something remarkable is happening called neuroproliferation, which is a technical way of referencing the rapid growth of neural connections in the brain. So get this, in the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second.

Molly: Okay. I'm holding on to every second.

Eve: And all these millions and billions of neural connections are creating a communication network that prepares us for a lifetime of learning and healthy development.

Molly: So do we keep all these billions of neural connections our entire life?

Eve: Ah, good question. No, we don't keep them all. And in fact, we can think of these billions [00:02:00] of connections as an overgrown apple tree. So while the potential is there for tons of apples, the most effective way to keep the tree healthy and get great apples is to prune away unneeded and smaller branches.

Eve: Now in the brain, this process is determined through learning. The deep learning children do when they are young, it builds strong limbs and branches. Other initial connections that don't form that deep connection, that deep learning, they're just really pruned away.

Molly: And this is why teaching students skills at this age is so critical, right? 

Eve: That's right. Yes. And the skills that we gain when we are young, they grow and mature as we use them in our lives. And as we interconnect them with other related skills to create more complex skills. For really foundational skills, like self leadership, where the use of the skill impacts so many other aspects of our growth and development learning it early on literally changes the architecture of the [00:03:00] brain because we build so much learning and these other skills on top of it.

Molly: And that, Eve, is life changing.

Eve: It, it really is. And I do want to be very clear that it is truly never too late to learn. It just takes more effort to make these connections stick in the brain, the older we get. So, it is important to learn it early if it's possible.

Molly: Eve, this research is so powerful and it is so aligned to where we're going for this episode, because today we're going to be talking to Ysenia Higuere about how we can teach those leadership lessons in ways that are both meaningful and manageable.

Molly: Welcome to The Empowering Teacher Podcast for early learning.

Ysenia: Thank you for having me.

Molly: Let's start with something you probably have some experience hearing, Yesenia—the statement, “There's no way preschoolers can do that.”

Molly: When you hear that, how do you respond?

Ysenia: My response is simple: how will they learn to do it if we don't expose them to it? We definitely need to have them practice it. We have to model it and [00:04:00] believe in it and believe in their capabilities.

Molly: Yeah, and so why do you think some educators might struggle with that idea of teaching young learners to lead?

Ysenia: As early childhood educators, it's our job to try to help them understand and believe in themselves. 

Ysenia: If you really look at it when they come into the classroom, they have to unpack, they have to put their folders away, they have to put their water bottles away and sit down and so those are all things for them beginning to have that independence, that self reliance, so it's already included in there.

Ysenia: We just have to add that vocabulary to it 

Molly: And this is what I wanted to ask you to share with our listeners, because you're human and you're going to have those moments of, oh, how can my students use this, how can this look different? So when you have that mindset for that quick minute, what helps push you past that thinking?

Ysenia: We know that every child is a leader, that their our future leaders. And, we have to be the ones to believe in them to help [00:05:00] them get to that point and know that they are leaders.

Molly: What are some of those go-to practical routines or strategies that help you teach leadership in the classroom? And then, of course, if it happens to be a chant or a song, we're all about that. So share that with us as well.

Ysenia: Okay. I guess I would have to say expose them to the tools and the vocabulary would be the first thing. Instead of saying, “Oh, you're, you are doing great,” and say, “Oh, you're being a great leader,” right? We wanna incorporate that vocabulary especially when they're so young. 

Ysenia: We're talking about being a leader in the classroom. What does that look like? When we're calling all our friends to the carpet and you have a couple of stragglers.

Ysenia: And we see the couple that are sitting and they're waiting patiently, make sure, to use that vocabulary,  [singing] “Timmy is being such a great leader.” And so then, of course, they're like, she's singing about Timmy and he's being such a great leader.

Ysenia: What are we going to do? We're going to be leaders. So then they come. to the carpet and because they all want me to sing, [singin] “Oh, so-and-so you're [00:06:00] being such a great leader.” So that's the vocabulary, right? Where you're including that vocabulary in there. 

Ysenia: Another great way is our classroom jobs. A lot of us preschool teachers, we have them already. Instead of calling them classroom jobs, leadership roles, and those are things that we have a leadership role for every student. I do it weekly. I have 24 different leadership roles that they can do from Breathing Helper to the Calendar Leader.

Ysenia: A third 1 that I would really recommend is those preschool portfolios. instead of the teacher just picking out a few wonderful cutesy pieces, that we, we're like, oh, this is so cute.

Ysenia: We're going to allow them to pick something, and I do it all year long. So sometimes they're barely learning to write, they're at the writing center and they know how to write “mom,” and they have so much pride. And I always talk about their leadership binders.

Ysenia: Oh, I really want my mom to see this. Can you put it in my leadership [00:07:00] binder and allow them to take charge, right? They're a leader in their education. Let's allow them to share that. And shift our mindset again as a teacher. I'm like, oh, but I wanted to be cute. You know what?

Ysenia: Let that go. Let them have a charge of their little leadership binder. And it's amazing because they know we have so much pride in it and we're so proud of it. They're so proud of it. And of course, when they show it to their parents, they're beyond like thrilled about it. So it's great having them have those choices, even as preschool kids.

Molly: So I'm hearing: incorporate vocabulary, bring the language of leadership into the classroom very authentically and naturally. The second is, really engage in leadership roles where they get to discover how they get to lead in the classroom. And in a minute here, you're going to have to go back to that whole Breathing Leader. Like I want to know a little bit more about that.

Molly: But the third, I hear you talking about choice, that student ownership piece that they get to choose what they want to bring into their leadership portfolio to choose as leadership.

Molly: Okay. Now take us back, friend, to that [00:08:00] Breathing Leader.

Molly: What is a Breathing Leader?

Ysenia: So, a Breathing Leader in the morning for our morning meeting comes up and they get to pick what type of breathing we will do in the morning. So like this morning she came up and I said, “Okay, this is our Breathing Leader. What breathing would you like to do?” And so right now they're really into the heart breathing.

Ysenia: We do a little heart and we're breathing in and then we open it up and we breathe out and we do that in and out and it's really nice because the entire class is following our leader up here. And then I tell the kids if you're having an off day or if you get mad or sad make sure we're doing our breathing and follow with the breathing leader.

Ysenia: And then even I will take a break sometimes to just model again. We want to model it and show that I do the breathing. And so they really resonate and they take that in. And that's a big part of it.

Molly: I love it. And they're owning that space as well. I can see Yesenia, but for our listeners, she's taking her hands and making the heart motion and [00:09:00] then they're breathing out and the heart comes apart and then breathe in and the heart comes back together. So I will be using that as well as a breathing strategy.

Molly: Now you had mentioned a song or a chant. What is an example of a song or a chant that could help praise leadership?

Ysenia: It's our affirmation. We do it right in the morning. It's the first thing to get them going. And so once we come to carpet, we say, “I am brave. I am smart. I'm a leader from the start.” 

Molly: I love that. Yes. Okay. So speaking of the results of I am brave, I am smart, I'm a leader from the start, what results should teachers expect as a result of implementing these strategies?

Ysenia: Confident young learners. When they're confident, they believe they can do anything and they'll accomplish it. So an example would be, when I'm at the carpet and they nurse, you know, calls me, and I run to the phone and they're, all the kids are at the carpet, and they're looking at books and some of the kids start getting up or, wanting to throw the book in the [00:10:00] air or something like that.

Ysenia: And the little ones like, oh, we need to be good leaders. Even if Miss Y is not watching we need to make green choices and follow the rules. And they show that they don't need me there to continue to be a leader for their peers. And usually they're like, oh, yeah, I want to be a good leader, and so they'll, listen.

Ysenia: Yeah, we as early educators, we build that foundation to which everything is built upon. So, incorporating these strategies, they'll allow them to be great leaders.

Molly: You know what I'm hearing as you're explaining what results we're going to get? I am brave. I am smart. I'm a leader from the start. Ah, Ysenia, thank you for jumping into this conversation with us about the impact teaching leadership to our littles has in our classroom. And of course, a big thank you to our listeners.

Molly: Keep shining. You've got this.