Episode 4: Nurturing the Whole Child

In today's episode, we will discuss the significance of nurturing the whole child. We'll explore how the Whole Child approach redefines a successful learner by operating from five key tenets. The goal is to ensure that children are healthy, safe, challenged, supported, and engaged. As a result of this work, students will be knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically inspired and prepared for the world beyond schooling.

Transcript

Meaghan Paramore (00:02.222)
you

Meaghan Paramore (00:14.882)
Welcome to It Means More, the stories behind Dothan C. Schools, where we explore the extraordinary dedication and innovation happening in our classrooms and communities every day. I'm Megan Dorsey, Public Relations Officer for Dothan C. Schools, and today I'm joined with my guest co-host, James Williams, Principal of Dothan Preparatory Academy, and we're discussing nurturing the whole child, understanding how Dothan C. Schools addresses the holistic development of students academically, emotionally, and socially.

In today's episode, we will discuss the significance of nurturing the whole child. We'll explore how the whole child approach redefines a successful learner by operating from five key tenets. The goal is to ensure that children are healthy, safe, challenged, supported, and engaged. As a result of this work, students will be knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically inspired, and prepared for the world beyond schooling.

Today we have with us Terry Dubose, Executive Director of the Southeast Alabama Child Advocacy Center. And our next guest is Dr. Greg Benner, the Helen and Pat O'Sullivan Professor in the College of Education at the University of Alabama. Welcome to both of our guests. We're so excited to have you here. Thank you for having us. Great to be here. All right. So Dr. Benner, we will start with you. Please introduce the concept of the whole child education and its significance.

Happy to do that. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here with y'all. The whole concept is we want youth to reach their full potential. Their full potential as scholars and their full potential of people. Many of us probably have read the book, you know, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Some of us probably have that on our bookshelf. might need to dust it off and stuff, but it's a classic. Our goal really is to prepare, help youth.

reach their full potential, not only as scholars, but as people as well. That means developing emotional intelligence. That means developing the skills for life, college and career readiness. It means helping them develop excellence as a scholar. But everything we do about the whole child approach is really centered on that North Star, that North Star of whole children. We navigate toward it. We think about it. We build systems to elevate the lives of our children. And just think, when you think about it, what if?

Meaghan Paramore (02:35.584)
Every child in Dothan City Schools was whole. What if we develop children that are reaching their full potential? Think about the impacts of that, the impacts economically for our city, the impacts on families, the impact on just good citizenship and developing a wonderful, thriving city. So that's, think, what everyone wants, don't we all? We all want that. And the whole child approach is a means by which we accomplish what we all want. We make the dream work together.

Thank you. Now Dr. Benner-Farther, will you please explain how Dothan City Schools will prioritize the well-being of every student every day? Yes, sir. Happy to do that too. Yeah, we are, we, I don't know if, probably nobody around here likes sports, right? We all love, we all love football, especially this time of year.

And you know, it takes teamwork to make the dream work, doesn't it? And I kind of mentioned that dream work just a minute ago, but that's what we're doing right now is we're really linking arms with one another inside our schools and as a school district team, linking arms with one another, building great teamwork, creating great alignment. Why? Because by working well together,

not in isolation, sometimes we call that silos, and systems, school systems, organizations gravitate kind of like entropy. We kind of gravitate toward silos and don't stay on the same page with one another. So Whole Child, simply put, is a way for us to stay on the same page. Just like a good football team coming to the line of scrimmage, all 11 players know exactly what they're doing. They're working.

in alignment with one another. And when they do that, they can have success and avoid things like false starts, confusion, all of that kind of stuff. And little by little, we move together. We have success together and success builds upon itself, which is a wonderful thing. A quick win becomes another win and another win. So again, we're moving toward that beautiful thing that we all want, which is our children thriving. Right.

Meaghan Paramore (04:42.092)
And let me ask you this, and this might be a good segue into Mr. Williams next question, but the whole child initiative isn't just for DotaC schools, it's for the community. And I guess, you know, this is a great segue into, you know, our next question, Mr. Williams, what do you think? All right, so Terry, discuss with us, if you would please, how emotional and social support services

contribute to student success. Absolutely. I think the traditional model of education is that children come to school to learn. And so there wasn't a focus on what was going on in the home, whether or not they had a good breakfast, whether they had somewhere to sleep last night. And I think bringing in this whole child concept is really going to honor the fact that these are

little human beings that have lives that we may not know everything about. We have a lot of kids in this community that are dealing with pretty traumatic situations on a very regular basis. And so I think acknowledging that and honoring that and supporting that is necessary to create these.

productive, contributing citizens, but it's also the right thing to do. We can no longer expect that our kids are just going to put everything to the side and come in and learn. we're, you know, that expression, trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Like, that's kind of what I think of with this. And so to see things like weekend feeding programs for kids, so they don't have to worry about...

if they're gonna have anything between Friday and Monday. You know, that's a game changer. If we can provide some security, some comfort, some consistency to these kids in the classroom, but also outside the classroom, then we are greatly increasing their chances to be successful in life. And let me ask, and this is a good round table question, especially a good question for you, Mr. Williams, because we're talking about now the community being a part of the growth of a child. So,

Meaghan Paramore (06:44.974)
How can community members, how the listeners out there that's, you know, listening to this podcast and want to know how can I get involved? I don't have a student or a grandchild in the system, but I want to contribute to the development of our students. you know, Mr. Williams, as a principal at a school, what do you think is the best way for community members to contribute?

because you always talk about it takes a village. And then, know, Terry, as a community organization, what is your input? And let's just go around the table and talk to Benner, you know, you can input as well about how our listeners, our community members can be involved in development. Well, I'll begin. One thing that I think is remarkable around Dothan City Schools is the Bright Key Program. And Dothan, being principal of Dothan Prep, we are starting the Bright Key Program this year, but

from my experience in other schools with Bright Key, that's a great opportunity for parents, for community volunteers, grandparents, different organizations to be hands-on in the lives of children and become part of the heartbeat of our school. So I would strongly encourage the listeners to reach out to our local schools to see if there's a Bright Key program, because at Bright Key coordinators, she or he is the person that orchestrates the mentoring program.

orchestrates volunteers. If the school does not have a Bright Key program, I'm sure that the principals around this district would love to have community members to adopt their schools and just be boots on the ground, hands, feet, ears, and eyes, and just being involved in the lives of our children. I think that's part of what makes a child whole is having a great support system and knowing that people care who don't necessarily have to care about them. I love that. I love that. Terry, what do you have to add?

I would add to that community education and awareness about trauma, about how it impacts children, about what it may look like. I think it's so easy to write a child off and say that they just have bad behavior or they just don't care about school or they have ADHD when educating yourselves about trauma and understanding that one of the primary struggles for a child

Meaghan Paramore (09:07.938)
who's dealing with trauma is forming relationships. They don't trust people because they've been shown that that's going to cause problems in their lives. So just learning as much as you can about why somebody may be having the challenges that they're having. And so I think we've heard this around conversations about adverse childhood experiences, but rather than saying or thinking about a child, what's wrong with you, switch that to what's happened to you, what's going on.

just doing better for our kids and showing up and understanding. And I 100 % agree that it is the responsibility of a community as a whole to support and nurture our children. Dr. Bitter, what do you think everything that they're saying, how does that add to the work that we're trying to do here? It's beautiful. Change and improvement happens from the inside out. This is work from the soul, y'all. It is the most important work we could be doing.

you know, is serving one another and elevating our children, our beautiful children, and bringing about their success and being pretty relentless with it, never giving up. And we have a couple folks here with big, big hearts and a lot of love in their hearts, and that's what we need. But I was going to make a comment, too, you know, one of the things that we did is we asked people of all walks of life here in Dothan, you know, we said, hey, what were the most important behaviors, you know, we should teach our youth and also show to one another as adults. We've gone around and talked with a lot of people.

And I think you remember this too, the behaviors that bubbled up from folks all walks of life here in Dothan said, safety matters, know, safety first. We should teach how to be safe. And then we should also teach respect. And respect is, we should model it for our youth and then also teach our youth how to show respect. So, and same with safety. Well, I think to answer your question, I think that's one of the most important things probably we can all do, no matter what your role is. And a lot of us wear a few different hats, you know, we're a...

parent, or a service provider, or maybe we're running a business, whatever our walk of life is, I think now's a good moment to say, how can we show safety at home? How can we show respect at home or within our organization? How can we model these important behaviors that really matter to our community with our youth? Live them and teach them. You know what I mean? And walk it. Don't just talk it, but walk it. And children will rise to that challenge. If we teach them, we show them,

Meaghan Paramore (11:31.79)
They will then model the behaviors that we, they will show the behaviors we model. So I think that's a really important thing because that's something we can do across the whole community, kind of like putting fluoride in the water. So everybody gets it. And imagine a child born in Dothan getting that from day one all the way through to not only graduation, employment, and know, college, whatever they're going to, whatever they're going to do next from cradle to career, if you will.

They're getting those kind of supports from every adult in their life. Imagine the possibilities of that if we show these things. The other thing, and y'all did such a good job on this yesterday, we have some super strategies. And these super strategies are things that the educators and those that work with our children in Dothan, they tell us these things work. For example, doing a warm welcome and a warm goodbye with our youth. our goal is that every child gets four warm welcomes.

I across all Dothan City Schools, four warm welcomes and four warm goodbyes, because you want to go where everybody knows your name. They're always glad you came. I know we all know that. We want to forget the 80s. But you know, that's an important thing, though, isn't it? When you feel welcomed and you feel connected and there's folks there that love you and care about you, you're going to show up. You're going to be at school. You're going to be in that environment. That's something we can do at home. That's something we can do in an after-school program. That's something we can do in a summer program. And doesn't cost anything.

So we're not looking for expensive things. So this is a couple of thoughts that I think we could, whatever your role in Dothan, start when you see these videos that are coming out about warm welcomes, warm goodbyes, don't just say, that's a good video. Walk it. Now sit down with your family and say, how can we do that better? And involve the youth. They can do that too. So I think now's our moment to get going and do it and live this good stuff. And whatever your faith, whatever your walk of life, we can all agree that this is good. It's good to warm welcome a child. Awesome.

Mr. Williams, I have another question for you because you are in a way walking the walk and talking the talk at your own school. So, you know, these strategies, you know, how are you how are y'all embracing it? I would love to hear from your perspective as a principal. So all of our students enter our school campus through the cafeteria. So our morning arrival.

Meaghan Paramore (13:47.554)
Well, let me back up. started buses, our carpool and it starts with welcome to Dothan Prep. Good morning, high five. I'm glad to have you here this morning. Hope you had a good night. Let's make today great. And that's continued at the cafeteria when they're picking up breakfast. Most of the time I'm in there myself giving out high fives, telling the children, I'm glad you made it to school. Let's go make today great. We're happy for you. We're excited about you being here. And the kids were shocked at first to see so many adults with so many smiling faces.

early in the morning, but now it's caught on to the place to where they're fist bumping me and high-fiving others. They're even greeting one another. And it has really revolutionized the climate and culture of our school this year that we get a chance to see children actually engage in the process and love on their teachers as well as love on their friends and support staff. And it's just...

It's just nice and especially on Fridays, you can see the excitement for school being open, but you can also hear, have a good weekend, Mr. Williams. See you later, Ms. Randall. See you Monday, those kinds of things. And it has really, really made us smile at Dothan Prep to see the change. What are you looking forward to? Well, I'm looking forward to even like now, I guess say looking forward to, but I'm witnessing this change firsthand at Dothan Prep. And then...

looking forward, like we started positive referrals this two weeks ago and to watch a seventh and eighth grade child get excited over a sheet of paper and hearing their name called for doing something positive is really mind blowing to me. But it is so rewarding to them that I'm really looking forward to as we continue to implement those super strategies, I'm looking forward to how it's going to actually change.

our schooling and produce better students, I'm able to use the anchor charts and the pillars that we have and go into the cafeteria now and say, all right, boys and girls, the expectation when you're in line is zero. The expectation once you sit down is one. And I'm able to say zero or one. And it corrects everybody simultaneously without me having to ask, why are you doing this? What should you be doing? It's setting the expectation.

Meaghan Paramore (16:06.432)
and then modeling the expectation. And so it's really changing the way things happen. Today we had field day. Field day is a wild day at any school. And so my students were coming through the hallway today and I heard my teachers say, boys and girls were in the hallway, the expectations are the same, zero. And they're coming in from outside hot and sweaty, but they come into the hallway and they go to zero. And once they hit the gym, they go wild again. That would have never happened.

prior to us implementing the whole child initiative. It's given us a lot of quick positive results. So I'm really excited about what's gonna happen as it continues across the system and the kids continue to be fed into DPA. And it's gonna make the students that we feed to Carver 9 and to Dothan High School, they're gonna benefit from this work as well.

I can't tell you how much I love that because I think traditional discipline was a few things or is a few things. It's quick, it's effective, and it's consistent, but we don't have anything on the other side. So these warm hellos and goodbyes, a lot of times you may have a child acting out because they're seeking attention because that's the only way they get it. And so to have these inconsistent positive reinforcements,

kind of changes their perspective as well. They're no longer seeking attention, they're receiving it and it's complimentary. So I think that can be so transformative. Well, and it is, and I will even say, even if a child gets a discipline referral, and the whole child has even revolutionized my personal practices because when they come into the office now, and even if there's a discipline referral, my conversation is this, all right, let's pause, let's look at the behavior matrix.

and let's see which expectation gave you permission to do with this referral seat. So I put the ownership back on them. So you were out of your seat without permission. So which one of those pillars and which matrix expectation gives you permission to be out of your seat? Of course, they say neither one of them or none of them. So then explain to me what you should have done and what I can expect you to do in the future. So now I'm not having to process referrals from a punitive

Meaghan Paramore (18:20.994)
viewpoint, I'm able to use the behavior matrix and the referral as a conversation. And my referrals at Dothan Prep have gone down compared to last year this time tremendously. Wow. And this is just the beginning too. We just kicked this off. And Dr. Bitter to hear that we've already made at Dothan Prep, which is a very large school, made these tremendous leaps and bounds. mean, that is awesome to hear.

And I'm very proud to hear about all of these things. Next question. All right. So I guess our next question to Dr. Benner would be reflect on the importance of nurturing the whole child for long-term success. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just want to give thanks to you all for all your great efforts and being whole child champions. And for those listening out there, this is the time, y'all.

I this is the time, you if you've been kind of on the fence or undecided about Dothan City Schools or not knowing exactly, you know, to invest in Dothan City Schools, now's that moment, y'all. I mean, it is. This is a special time and the future is bright. And I'm not just saying that. What we're talking about today is real. And we're going to, we are producing real results. you know, we heard from Mr. Williams, we can talk with a lot of principals. If they were all in this room, they'd be saying the same things. Discipline's dropping down.

Attendance is going up. Now we're waiting on some of our achievement data, but preliminary data show that students are engaged a lot more in school and they're participating a lot more. And of course, that's the bottom line, is are we really producing those academic results? And I promise you all we'll get there, which is an amazing thing. So this is the moment. I think what I'm excited about too is, you know, what if we develop the greatest educational system in the world? I know that seems like a radical thought.

But what if we were able to do that right here in Dothan, Alabama, y'all? And I think we're trending the right way. We may not be where we want to go, but we're trending the right way. And maybe we'll be known for, wow, I can't wait to move my family to Dothan because I know that they are all about whole children. I want to raise my children there. I want to start my business there. I want to be plugged into the community. And I think that's the reputation that we're heading towards. So I guess what I would just like to

Meaghan Paramore (20:39.704)
put that out there. This is a day to celebrate. It's also a day to kind of, for lack of a better term, to invest. I mean, to put our foot on the gas a little bit and say, we're in this. And this is grassroots. So this is not a top-down thing. This is about us moms, us dads. It's about the custodian. It's about the bus driver. It's about those out there that are just barely making it and just hanging on right now. This is about you. You know, it's about

It's about everyone in this community saying, look, we want this. This is the right thing to do. And when you give like this and serve and elevate the lives of children, you know, it comes back to you tenfold. You feel better. You feel joyful. You feel happier. You walk with a little more spring in your step, right, Mr. Williams? You feel better. So there's a lot that comes back to you when you do this. So we're heading the right way. And I know we could have a lot of educators on here talking specific kids and...

know, great things that are happening in their lives, but they want this just as much as we do. If they were here and their voices were heard, they'd say, we love Whole Child. You we love being part of this. And sometimes we hear from them with other Whole Child initiatives going on. They say, we want to lead though, you know, so we just don't want to be part of it. We want to help lead it. That'll be something next we start working on is really building youth leaders. And I'm talking them teaching our culture.

them making a difference and serving out in the community, having impacts. again, if we give them opportunities, they'll rise to the challenge and they'll do amazing things. So this is a great day to be in Dothan, Alabama. Awesome. All right. So Ms. Terry, this question would be for you. Why is it important for our schools and our community to do the work to address the needs of our students? Well, I think we talked about that earlier when we said

Our tendency or our default is to work in silos and all work independently and achieve our own organization's goals. But that's not at the benefit of the kids. Often that's at the benefit of the individual organizations. These children are our community and if we pour into them and if we walk along beside them, in effect we're creating a generation of resilient human beings.

Meaghan Paramore (22:56.856)
who have emotional regulation, who can understand and handle disappointments, who can support and encourage each other. And for so long there was this idea that we needed self-control and we needed self-regulation, which we do, but I think we forget that co-regulation has to be the first step to that. And to me, that's what this whole child initiative is about.

I'm gonna stand beside you and I'm gonna support you. And that isn't just the job of our educators, that is the job of all members of our community because the long-term impacts of not doing it are just too great. I love it. And now I always have the same question that I go around the table with when we close up an episode, but because it is our theme, you know, so I'm gonna go around the room and ask, what does your work mean to you? Mr. Williams, we'll start with you.

That's a wonderful question. My work to me is about the children. You can't be in education for the income. That's a saying that says you're in it for the outcome because there are days when the salary does not match the amount of investment. But my work to me is a calling for one. And to see children lives being changed and the child that

was given up on, or a child that had low self-esteem, or a child that was just at the end of their ropes. And you see them six months later, and there's some renewed hopes, a renewed joy. That's my work. To see a family, because we educate children, but we educate families. To see families that go through hard times, and we coach them through those hard times, because we really co-parent with parents. And so we go through these struggles and battles together with them. That's my work.

to take teachers, because teachers are humans and they have their struggles and we go through these things as families and we pull the best out of students and out of teachers. That's my work. I think my work in Dalton City Schools is all about investing into other people, helping them to become holistic, helping them to become healed, helping them to see the bright light at the end of the tunnel, all while knowing that what we're doing today, even once I'm off this earth,

Meaghan Paramore (25:18.54)
What I'm doing today will live as long as there's one child, one teacher, one life that I touched. The work that I do will never die. That's my work today. I will say. That's great. Terri, what does your work mean to you? gosh. So much. I really feel very honored to be able to do the things that I get to do and to meet the people that I meet. But I think one of my favorite things is oftentimes we meet

children and families in some of their worst days. Expectations may be low for what the rest of their life is going to look like because of those worst days, but being able to stand beside them and along with this team that we work with, pour into them and nurture them and advocate and support for them and watching them come out on the other side with as much hope and optimism and excitement for the future as any child.

It's just life changing and I'm so excited to get to be a part of that every day. love it. Dr. Binner, because you work a lot. So what does your work mean to you? I'm going to say just one word, everything. It means everything to me. And I feel like you were saying Mr. Williams, it's a calling. It really is. I didn't know when I was younger.

Growing up, like a lot of us, change ideas on what we're going to be someday. I had no idea. I just feel like this was something that I needed to do, like a calling, you know? But one thing I get a lot of joy from is I know we're still coming out of the pandemic and recovering from it, aren't we? And a lot of us feel like we need support. We need to function better. We need to have life breathed into us again in some ways. And I think when I think of this work, when I think a whole child, I think it's a lot like putting on that oxygen mask, you know, on the plane.

And when we put on that oxygen mask and have that life breathed into us, now we can have a larger impact on those around us and including those, our loved ones in our own home and then those that we serve in our job or whatever we're doing professionally. We can have a large impact on those around us. So that brings me joy when I hear teachers and Mr. Williams and others say, boy, this has changed things and I feel better. When I feel better, I can support others.

Meaghan Paramore (27:36.45)
to feel better. So that brings me a lot of joy. It brings me a lot of joy also to see children feel understood. And one of those seven habits of highly effective people is to seek first to understand, then to be understood. It makes me joyful and happy when I see youth feel like this is an environment that understands me and what I need and understands my strengths and who I am. And we all want that. We all want that in our schools. We want that in the environments we work.

to feel understood and appreciated, valued, and see the good in us. And I love Whole Child because it allows us to do that. allows us to see the good, the personalities, the strengths in each of our children, and then to elevate that. Also, it brings me lot of joy to build systems. It's been a tricky thing over the years, hasn't it? A lot of things have come and gone in schools. A lot of school reform, a lot of reports, a lot of politics, and all of it's been top-down. But Whole Child's changed from the inside out.

That's real change. You know, if you reflect on your life, real changes in your own life happen inside your heart. And then when your heart changes, things happen all around you because you've changed something in here. So the same is true with whole child. School systems change from the inside out. And folks, this is working and we're going to keep it going and going and going. And suddenly it goes across a whole community and after school programs, summer learning, businesses, families. And now we're all row in the same direction, so to speak. We're all.

lined and linking arms. that brings me joy and motivates me to keep pushing on. Incredible and I appreciate everything that everyone at this table is doing because I guess you could say what it means to me is I love telling these stories. Hearing these stories from what's going on and the work that's doing and you all are doing meaningful work not only in your school but your community and in the state. I mean we're doing some great things.

So we want to thank our guests for joining us today. Today we have learned about Doulton City Schools Whole Child Initiative that is being implemented into the culture of Doulton City Schools as well as the community that supports us. All right and we also like to invite you to get involved, each of our listeners, whether it is by supporting our schools, shaping your own stories, or simply spreading the word about the incredible work that's happening in Doulton City Schools.

Meaghan Paramore (29:57.474)
Join us on our mission to make education more meaningful for every student. Next time on It Means More, we'll be discussing building tomorrow's leaders and focusing on how Dothan City Schools prepares students for leadership and success in the future. Until then, remember that at Dothan City Schools, it always means more.