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Tuesday Talks!
Join me for weekly discussions about ALL things education...from preschool through high school! As a mom, Speech Language Pathologist, and educator, I share my personal experiences related to each week's topic in relatable and informative ways.
My message about education is powerful: Reflecting on what is and making waves to cause change!
Tuesday Talks!
Season 2 Finale!
Send us your thoughts about this week's episode!
We celebrate our Season 2 finale reflecting on 41 weeks of educational insights spanning topics from cell phones in schools to the science of reading, classroom management to student self-accountability.
• Sharing our personal connections, including our May birthdays just days apart
• Highlighting key episodes such as classroom management, building community, and understanding the grading system
• Discussing our popular multi-part series on "letting kids fail" and its impact on child development
• Revealing how our episodes with our own children provide real, unfiltered perspectives
• Exploring our deep dive into literacy through the "Sold a Story" podcast and science of reading experts
• Announcing exciting changes for Season 3 including a shift from livestreams to weekly uploaded videos
• Previewing upcoming topics like continued focus on science of reading with special guests
Thank you to everyone who tuned in this season! We'll be back in August with Season 3. Have a fabulous summer!
Tuesday Talks—Real conversations sparking real change in education.
New episodes every Tuesday!
Links to all episodes ➡️ https://linktr.ee/drtiffanyslp
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Connect with us via email at info@ourwordsmatterllc.com!
Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.
Book Dr. Tiffany as a speaker for your teachers, parent groups and professional development sessions! Our Words Matter Consulting
recording. Hey, hey hey, hey, hey, dr Tiff, how are you? I'm doing good. Coach Val, how are you?
Speaker 2:Well, it's my birthday, birthday girl.
Speaker 1:Birthday girl. I love it. Happy birthday to you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Happy birthday to you, thank you, thank you. I am the big 42 and proud of it.
Speaker 2:Yes, ma'am, you should be, yes, 42. I love it. Excellent, you don't look a day over 29. Absolutely, god bless you. God bless you, friend. Those of you who don't know who might be watching Val and I, we have birthdays that are very close together. We didn't even know that until maybe last year or the year before. Yeah, so we both are May babies and get to celebrate, so I'm glad that we got to honor you today on your birthday.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and Dr Tiffany's was two days ago. So happy belated to you as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, 44. I have to still do the math. I'm like wait, what 44? How did this happen? This went by really fast. The past- 20 years.
Speaker 1:It does Like. I remember just being in high school thinking, man, I ain't never going to reach 25. Right here I am at 42.
Speaker 2:Like what Exactly? I was just telling my son that today he was like I can't wait till I'm 18. I said don't rush it, there's nothing waiting. But like bills and more responsibilities. Like, enjoy, enjoy being a kid.
Speaker 1:Adulting yes, adulting is waiting for you.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, thank you everybody for joining us tonight. Be sure to go ahead and share this episode with a friend, a colleague, a family member, anybody who has any connection to education. They will appreciate everything that we talk about on Tuesday Talks. So go ahead and take a moment to share. And tonight we are actually wrapping up our season two finale, which I cannot even believe that we are on season two, because this was only supposed to be three episodes, three episodes two years ago. Like, yeah, it's supposed to be three episodes. So we have really, I think, developed a good thing here. I get lots of calls and text messages after people watch our live stream to say that was a good episode. I didn't know about that. I'm going to look into this Now. You got me thinking about X, y, z. So that was the whole purpose of us wanting to do this right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Once we realized we had similar goals and similar interests in this area you know, I'm going to give credit where credit is due Tiffany was like, hey, we should do, there was no question, you guys, we should do a three episodes and call it a Tuesday talk. Ok, sure, dr Tiffany, let's go.
Speaker 2:And then here we are and we just had like such a good connection, like we've known each other in the past but didn't know how much our interests overlapped and intertwined, and so it's easy, like it's a labor of love, it's something that I don't have to be pressed to find time to do, like it is just a really enjoyable experience and we have had so many good episodes this season. Forty one episodes, that's 41 weeks. Yeah, that's a big deal. That's not something small. So I like to take a moment to just celebrate that, that for 41 weeks we got on here and showed up not just for ourselves but to really help share our knowledge and our experience, kind of highlight some of the ones that we thought were really great. I mean, they're all amazing, but there's some that hit a little bit harder and deeper than others.
Speaker 2:Our first episode was about cell phones in schools. That was back in August, like what should schools be doing about cell phones? I know there's been some big changes here in the Atlanta metro area for the upcoming school year about cell phones. So what has anything, if anything, has changed down in your area?
Speaker 1:Well, you know that was at a time in my life where a chapter was ending and now I'm in a new one, a new one. So as far as what, I've seen nothing. The school systems where I am kind of already had systems in place to deal with cell phones. The school I was at in particular. They had been taking up cell phones. This was a middle school. They had been taking up cell phones at the beginning of the day for quite some time already. So the students already knew that was an expectation. They were used to it. Of course you have the students. Who's always going to try to sneak in. I've seen them have to deal with that some, but for the most part it was business as usual for them for this year.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love it. We had a two-part series on classroom management and relationship building and that was a talk that I know you gave in a workshop and you had a really cool acronym. Do you remember what it was? I think it was real, it was.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. So if you know anything about my background in education, I've been a math teacher for 18 and a half years and I've always been given kudos and accolades for my classroom management. I rarely have to write students up. I've just, by the grace of God, been able to use what I've learned, like psychology and relationships, and been able to take care of what I need to in the class. So eventually I was asked to present some of the things best practices that I do to other teachers, and my acronym that I came up with was to be real, r-e-a-l, and so it stands for be relational, be engaging, be authentic and be linguistic, and linguistic just means like learn how to communicate with them, and so that was a really fun episode for me to share that with our audience, with you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was that acronym, we really broke it down. So if you didn't check that one out and you were getting prepared, you know, ending one school year, bookmark that one, come back to it, because I think you'll find it handy to start off the school year with those things in mind as well. Episode four was a check-in with parent and teachers, but episode five was something that hit really home for me. We talked about the early signs that your child needs help with school, and a lot of times we you know schools are reactive, not as proactive as we would like them to be, and sometimes parents can be that way too, more reactive than proactive. And so I really liked that one, because it gave some tips and strategies to teachers and parents to really be aware of some of those signs and then what to do.
Speaker 2:So making sure that you're not waiting too far into the school year to talk with your kid's teacher about some of the things that you're seeing we even talked about in the next episode, like understanding procrastination, helping kids, you know, overcome it. If you feel like that's something that's hindering your child from getting work done, getting assignments turned in, being ready for tests, brainstorm with your kid's teacher, ask them for some, some help, some guidance on that, and so that was a really, really fun episode. I thought gave some real strategies, and that was something we want to do with this show is make sure we give strategies to teachers and parents so that they could use with their kids. Now building community. We did a two-part series on that and I know that was really close to your heart, right Building community in your classroom.
Speaker 1:It was because, like as adults, we know that communities help us. Whether you're a parent and you need to, you feel like you need to be in community with other parents who have kids around your same age, the age of your kids or just any facet of life.
Speaker 1:And so it's just as important within a classroom of students as just many microcosm of communities of adults in the world. And so I loved how we were able to, in that two-part series, just share some of the things that teachers can do in the classroom, because when you build a community, you guys, it also helps with classroom management. And then how important it is for parents to be aware of how is community building happening in your classroom also because, again, like we know schools and kids, it kind of eliminates some of the bullying and isolation and things like that that kids can feel. So I do know that some of my favorite episodes that we have done have been with our own personal kids.
Speaker 1:So we made sure we did tons of those just checking in with them at the beginning of the school year After a few weeks, in asking them how's it going. You know what has been going on. Because, if you didn't know, in season one we had them on and y'all one of their things major things was like the bathrooms are horrible and I promise they stayed on that for such a long time. So in this season. We did check back in with them and ask them and, uh, I don't think it changed.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it changed at all.
Speaker 2:But we did talk about setting goals for themselves too for the school year, and then had them back on again and talk about where they were at with some of those goals. And then we had them on again right to talk about summer plans later on in the season too. So I think it's so fun to have them on, because we don't rehearse or like practice anything with them beforehand's like hey, y'all, you're gonna be on this next episode, so we have zero idea you get raw and uncut when you see those boys okay ultimately.
Speaker 2:So we walk the walk like we are not just talking about these topics, as some you know, outside idea. We are putting them to action with our own kids and, ironically, the experience that we have with our own kids is what helps us come up with a lot of these topics. What we have with our kids, what we've experienced at their schools, in schools that we've worked in, so it really is, it's fun to have them on it's also informs, I think, a lot of other parents too to see.
Speaker 1:Like, oh, you know what?
Speaker 2:let me ask my kid about that. Let me check in with my kid about that too. Um, our 10th episode was all about student self-accountability and making sure that we know that kids need to really be accountable for what is going on in schools, and I think that was that huge. We gave a lot of their plan, their goals, so that you're not always the one that is guiding them in every single thing that they do. They need to learn that autonomy as well. One of the really good ones we talked about with episode 12 was was the grading system. I know so many families who really rely heavily on grades because why not Report cards, progress reports, like we need those things to show us how our kids are doing in school. But we learned that, like, some of those grades are not all that you think that they are what do you think?
Speaker 1:about that episode well, some of those grades are just as puffed up as a little balloon as they want to be. Um. We do this the way the system has been set up. We depend on grades and um. At this point, you guys, it was a frustration for me because we were told that we couldn't give lower than 50 or 60. Like there's so much manipulation happening in the grades and within the grading system that honestly, it sets kids up for like mediocrity and, for some of them, failure. It makes it tougher later and in that episode we even talked about some college students' responses to having to go through those types of grading systems and how it made it harder for them later and they wish it had been different. So definitely go check out that episode as well.
Speaker 2:Right, If your kids are coming home with some grades that you're like hmm, I don't know that you actually know this material to this grade you might want to do some digging, just look into it.
Speaker 2:If you dig into it and you see like, okay, this does measure up, he does actually know. But just know that there are some pros and cons to our standard grading A through F system and it's not always easy to understand for parents. So just make sure you're looking into that and asking some questions. And I shared in that episode that my son goes to a school where they don't do grades. He's never been to a school where you got a grade on a paper, a grade on a report card.
Speaker 2:They do narrative-based reports, observations, and a lot of friends and family are like well, how do you know what he knows? And then I asked the question back to them how do you know what your kid knows with their report card? You think you know and they might be able to say that to me. And there it is Okay, and they might be able to say that to me too. Well, you think you know, cause you have the narrative. But we're all in this together where we gotta be observing our own kids and making sense of what school says to us.
Speaker 2:Gone are the days where every single word from the school is just taken as truth and unfortunately that's just the world that we're living in. But do some digging. That was a really good episode. And then we talked about developing study habits. The question of homework is it relevant anymore? I feel like we had a good both sides of the coin type discussion for that homework episode because, again, the schools that my kid has gone to, they don't do homework and I know some parents are like they have to do homework. How are they going to remember what they've been taught in school? They need to practice. But then there are some families at home doing homework for four hours after school and then it's like where's the benefit here? Everybody's frustrated and mad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely From the educator standpoint. You guys, yes, they do need to practice. That practice doesn't have to be done at a certain time, in a certain setting, in a certain place, and so I would also just thinking about it, reviewing it now. The thought that came to my head was well, what are they doing during the school day to not have adequate time to practice and need so much time outside of school? So just some things to think about. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. Up next, we talked about another one near and dear to my heart getting your child evaluated for special education. This was episode 16 back in November. That is the time that you have, by that time, gotten a couple of report cards, got some progress reports. By then, your kid's teacher or you know that something is not progressing the way it should and that is the time when you need to start getting the ball rolling on special evaluations. And during that episode we talked about why you can't wait until April and May to say, oh you know what? Look at this whole school year he didn't get, she didn't get what they were supposed to be getting for the school year. Now I want them to test that you're behind the eight ball at that point. So go ahead in that timeframe, right before the Thanksgiving holiday, to go ahead and start thinking about if that's the next step that you want to take. But definitely check out episode 16 if you've been thinking that that's the issue during the school year, so that you can get some strategies on how to approach that topic with the school as well.
Speaker 2:And then I got to do a course. I shared a webinar, part of a webinar that I did on charting the course through kindergarten, and it was again. I love early childhood. I know, Val, you're more like the older kids. I like the little ones that dig right up their nose and want to show it to you.
Speaker 2:Those are my people, but we talked a lot about what the expectations are for kindergarten. It has changed. Was there anything eye opening that you remember from that episode, val?
Speaker 1:For me it kind of started the ball rolling on his not being able to read proficiently by the third grade, when they need to read because statistically, if they can't, then they're most likely not to graduate from high school. And so making sure your kids like the things that your kids need to know, just to prepare them to go to school, my kids had it, I had it, so it wasn't anything I ever really had to think about. So this that was kind of the eye-opening part for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally I agree. So if you have a kid that's going to be starting in kindergarten this upcoming school year, that'll be a really good one for you to check out or share with a friend. You guys, I have only been a classroom educator.
Speaker 1:So this job is not that it got me out of the classroom. It gave me an opportunity to do some traveling, to do some professional learning for other teachers, which is something that I had been trying to get into at the end of my few years and as of right now, I still am enjoying it. I am still glad that I made the decision and I would not take it back.
Speaker 2:I love it. So definitely check out episode 18 back from December, where Val shared a lot about what even got her to the point of wanting to switch, and then what she's doing in this new gig as well, because she might be coming to a school district near you pretty soon and let me tell you, do not want to miss out for sure. And then we got prepped for the holidays.
Speaker 1:That was a fun episode yeah, I loved all the games and stuff that, um, you know, we found like while we reached, and some of the games are also things that we do with our own families as well, and so, um, I'll tell you my favorite, my favorite, are the minute to win it games, um, and especially the one where you, you tie the tissue box around you and you got the balls in there. You gotta shake it with, you know. Anyway, uh, I love that kind of stuff for the holidays. It brings family together. It gives you a chance to create um experiences together so that you can, you know, continue to build those relationships with your loved ones.
Speaker 2:Right, especially when you have, maybe, middle schoolers who want to be in their room on their phone or their computer, high schoolers who just want to, you know, be around their friends.
Speaker 2:The part of you know we talk about education on this show, but that's not just what happens at school.
Speaker 2:That is also education that happens at home, and it doesn't have to look like a piece of paper and a pencil. It could be family time that you all are spending together so that you can model good problem solving strategies for your kid in case there's friction in the family, or if you want to get your kids together, who normally are like arguing and biting each other's head off, to come together and plot out some obstacle course for the house. Like it's a way to do it so that you are building up on the conversation skills, the relation building skills, and then conflict resolution, if that's something that needs to be tapped into at your house. So definitely check that one out if you want some different ideas on that as well. And then we embarked on a multi-part series on letting kids fail. It started off as just a two-part series and then, um, we found a book uh, the gift of failure by Jessica Leahy. And then we did an even deeper dive and tell me, like why.
Speaker 2:I know that resonated with both of us, but just to refresh everybody, like, why did that resonate with you so much?
Speaker 1:Um, one, because I've leaned towards doing this with my kids since they were little like that was just something kind of risks, especially in a math class, and so a lot of the struggle that I had with students was not really the math itself, it was getting over the hump of. It's okay to be wrong, it's okay for things to not go the way you want them to go or the way you feel like they should go. You just need to like regroup and you know, either try it again, because it's something that you're really trying to attain, or don't, because you realize it's not. But parents tend to want we want the best for our kids and so because of that, parents kind of take that overboard and they try to protect their kids from things that would actually allow their kids to learn. So it intrigued me one from just my personal experience with my own kids and seeing how confident it helped them be, and then two from the classroom the confidence that the students lacked because they weren't used to messing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a really good. It was like five episodes that all kind of centered around that. Three of them were from the book. One of them we talked about an episode I'm sorry, an article from the Washington Post about what happens when a whole generation never grows up. Like that directly ties back to us not letting our kids fail, because we're always catching them, always swooping in to save the day, setting them up to be the generation that never grows up, tries things out, takes risks, bounce back from failure and develops that resiliency. So that was a really good series of episodes that we did kind of all centered on that.
Speaker 2:And if you haven't checked out that book the Gift of Failure by Jessica Leahy definitely check out episodes 25, 26, and 27, because we dove deep into all the chapters of that book and, true to form, the things that we come up with as topics to discuss on the show show up in our lives with our own kids. So we're like, oh my gosh, we're reading this book to do for Tuesday Talks and let me tell you how I just found myself swooping in to save the day and I had to say take a couple steps back, tiffany, this isn't your issue to fix. Let him deal with the consequences of the actions that he took. So, even in that, we're correcting ourselves along the way, because, no, we're not going to get it right the first time. Every time it's impossible. Yeah, and then what came up next?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I had a big event. Outside of being a an educator, I have been traversing through this terrain of teen mentorship something that I do in the classroom and decided to put more emphasis on it and create, build a company around it. At the beginning of March it was called His Daughter's Dominion, a two-hour mini conference that is set to grow and just get bigger and better and greater, but the focus of the conference was about giving girls a chance to reflect on who they are talking about, their identity and how that directly ties to your ability to create, manifest your hopes and your dreams that you have, and how to be yourself in the process and understand how to have fun as well. It doesn't always have to be drudgery and grinding, but to show the kids how to walk in their purpose. The event was amazing and just thank you to everyone who was involved, especially Tiffany, because you gave me so much encouragement and so much support from across the screen and I really appreciate it, but we had a blast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't wait for the next one. I think it's going to be great. I'm going to try to make it down south for us. I could be there in person. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:After that episode we had quite a few about screen time, the pay gap in education, summer plans with kids.
Speaker 2:I think one that kind of hit us on this trajectory that we want to explore even more in the upcoming season was literacy.
Speaker 2:We kicked it off by talking about a high school graduate in Tennessee who sued the school district because the student graduated high school with a 3.4 GPA and could not read, and we talked about what could happen, what could have happened that allowed that to be you know, a true event and the kid actually, you know the family won the lawsuit against the school district.
Speaker 2:We had some special guests on, and then we took a deep dive into a podcast, sold a story, and that was eye-opening. I had listened to it a year or so earlier and my jaw was just dropped open because I could not even believe that that's something that would be happening in the late, you know, the 2018 to the present, like no way this is happening in schools, and then realizing, well, this is no wonder why kids are having such a hard time reading. So if you have a friend, a family member or your own kid who's struggling with reading, definitely go back. Check out episodes 35, 36, 37. And then we had a great guest that Val introduced me to to talk about the science of reading.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So a friend of mine, ambria King, came on as an expert special guest for us on the science of reading. She is literally a walking science of reading resource. I just remember when we were recording the episode with her, tiffany and I were just sitting here in awe like, oh my gosh, she knows so much and she's so fluent in her knowledge. And not just that. What we liked best was that she was able to explain it in layman's terms, explain it in a way that if you had no idea what it was when you first turned on the episode, you had an understanding of what it is. And then, on top of that, she gave amazing strategies simple, straightforward strategies that parents can use at home and you know. So, if we go like this streamline of talking about how parents can be involved, kids getting ready for kindergarten, all of these things, I feel like her strategies was like a rounding out and summarizing all of that, building up from the season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is one thing I really like about our show is that we don't just talk the talk Like. We are giving you strategies to use in your classroom, to use at home, that aren't going to require you to go out and spend a bunch of money on resources, because it's impossible to buy all the things unless you're rich, which if you are, congratulations go out and buy all the things. But if you're not and you're busy and you don't have time to buy all the things unless you're rich which if you are, congratulations go out and buy all the things. But if you're not and you're busy and you don't have time to buy all the things and sit down and do them with your kids every night, then some practical ways. We always share those in almost every episode. Then we really talked about AI in education, because that's a big thing now that these kids have access to chat, gpt and helping them, you know, really realizing how to not use it responsibly. But then also like how can schools bring that in in a responsible way too? Because to just ignore it does not mean it's going to go away. To not talk about it in schools does not mean kids are not going to access it. So we really got to start incorporating that and we had a great guest on Melissa D White to share her expertise in that area as well. So definitely take a listen to that one.
Speaker 2:And then the last week episode was listening to understand or being told what to do. Like, what are kids getting from us? Talking, talking, talking. Because I find myself talking to my son and I'm like, okay, I'm talking too much. Let me back up. Is he listening to really understand what I'm saying, or is he just listening, waiting for me to finish yapping and then just tell him what it is he needs to do? So we really took a deep dive into that one as well. And then here we are. I'm in this episode for season two. We're going to take a break for the summer because, you know, we are busy mamas, we got stuff to do and we want to dedicate our full self to the show and not be, you know, splintered between trying to enjoy the summer like everybody else and planning out these shows. So we are going to be back on in August. Take some time to go back through the episodes, share them with a friend.
Speaker 2:We have some changes coming up for our third season which I can't even believe would be season three. Just to give you a little sneak peek, we are going to keep talking about the science of reading and have other special guests on, because that is huge. And in Georgia our governor just passed a bill banning the cued reading strategies that we talked about in the episodes where we deep dive into the podcast, sold the story. So that's going to be really cool. And then we're going to switch up our method a little bit. We're going to end our live streams and we're going to have videos uploaded every week and then you get to pick which day you tune in on all the same platforms, but now you'll get to pick, and it won't be just one day that we're on live. You'll get to choose during the week when you want to listen. So got some fun things planned. I'm excited.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited it seems surreal season three. I know we're going to keep three episodes to season three. How do we get there Exactly?
Speaker 2:Long time ago, but we're going to keep the party going. So thank you so much for tuning in this season. If you were here every week or you pick and choose. Thank you for just taking time out to just hear our take on things and to share your opinion on things too. So we will see you all back in August. Have a fabulous summer.
Speaker 1:Bye guys.