NLO Leadership Podcast
Insights and encouragements from the NLO executives
NLO Leadership Podcast
Judgment Free Zone
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In this episode, Mary, Pete and Sasho discuss the important cultural mindset of the Judgment Free Zone.
Welcome back to the Inalo Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Tony, here with Mary, Pete, and Sasho. Today we're going to talk about something that is very important to everybody around this table and everybody in this organization. I hear this again and again as we go through professional developments and just side conversations with leaders and teachers. And that is this that Buckeye is seen and meant to be a judgment-free zone. So let's just kind of sort of dig into it a little bit. I want to understand more of the heart, the experience, that kind of stuff. Because that'll help. So we start looking at it. Like what, how does what how do we phrase that? Is it judgment-free zone? Is that how we say it? Is there a different way to say it? So I know you've experienced obviously it sounds like kids being judged, prejudged.
SPEAKER_01Well, they come to us with so much. Yeah. And there's never really, most of them, there's never really been that person for them that hasn't judged them, that has loved them unconditionally. Um, a lot of times the parent isn't present, and that's usually where we experience that unconditional love as children, is from our parents. Yeah. And so it's just so important. And and and with the the culture these days and with social media and how everybody seems to be judging everybody else and calling everybody else out. Um, I just think it's so important not to take an isolated incident. I used to say to P all the time, thank God, people aren't judging me on who I was at 16 years old. Wow.
SPEAKER_02That's so true.
SPEAKER_01Because we're all works in progress, we're all human beings, we all make mistakes, we all have our worst moments. But if all you ever do to somebody is focus on their worst moments, it's so all that does is tear a person down. So it's so important when students come in here that we're willing to bust down the barriers that they currently have without judgment. I I'm not sure how else to put that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, it it's it's also um with the judgment, it's the what Mary just said about you know, society now with social media that all we do is judge people. But the second you try to judge me, you're a horrible person. But I can judge the heck out of everybody else in the world, but don't judge me. Because that's unacceptable. Yeah. And that's that's definitely not a judgment-free zone because you're choosing to judge everybody, but then don't judge me. And what we have seen down through the years is these students are coming to us, and all they've been is judged by authority. Yeah. From their parents. I mean, Mary, I'll I'll tell the story of that one student you were enrolling, and you came to me and said, You've got to finish this enrollment. I can't deal with this anymore. She was red in the face. And what happened was as Mary was doing the enrollment, the father kept referring to the son as an idiot. And and and I don't know what's wrong with this idiot. My other two children are just fine, but what's wrong with this? I don't know what's wrong with him. He's an idiot.
SPEAKER_01I kept trying to guide the enrollment away so that he wouldn't feel that he needed to make those comments, but he just wasn't couldn't come off of it.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't happening. And and literally, that particular student, the next time he came in, Mary and I sat down with him and said, Look, number one, you're not an idiot. Number one. Number two, you're gonna graduate from here. Because the father also said, He's never gonna graduate. You know, but we're gonna try this. Okay. And the other thing we said to him was, you come in here, we'll give you all the help you want, leave your father at home. Don't bring him here anymore because this is the safe place for you. And and that's what we're trying to create. And you know, when you get to teachers, teachers, how many times have we heard them say that students say to us, I'm not my brother, I'm not my sister. But I feel sorry for the kids who have older siblings because we've heard of for years and years and years. Well, if Peach, your older brother, oh, he was worthless, so you're just gonna be just like him, you'll never graduate either. And it's like, hey, I'm me, I'm not this person. And so that judgment is just kills kids, yeah, buries them.
SPEAKER_01It's really about creating that safe space for kids so that they have the freedom to number one. I I don't I don't know about you, but if if I'm in a climate where it's hostile and where I'm being constantly judged, it's very difficult to function, let alone to let alone excel. And so creating that safe space is so important. And to me, children are just like animals, and and what I've observed is you can't fake it, it has to come from a genuine place. You just have to at your core come at this in a non-judgmental way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, you know, most of the time we're operating out of our out of our preconceived ideas, right? We um just had a conversation I did with uh a friend of mine about some of these ideas from a psychological perspective, that um most of us are navigating life from what we believe is going to happen. So we're predictive models, right? So we have predictive models that work in our minds all the time. Out of those predictive models, then we make decisions. For example, if I walk in and I see Sasha across the room and it looks like he has a scowl on his face, I'll predict that he's in a bad mood. And so I'm not gonna talk to him. So I'll make a decision about how I act based on my predictive model of what I saw on Sasho. Probably completely wrong because I know Sasho and he's hardly ever in a bad mood, right? So, but I will predict things about what I see in the world around me. And as a result, then I'll act in a way that's that's congruent with my predictions. And so part of what judgment does is when a student walks into an environment and they're judged, we are giving them predictions. Here's how it's going to turn out for you. You're you're gonna struggle with this. You go back to the idea, Pete, of right, you'll never succeed. What that's not necessarily true. In fact, it's probably not true, but it creates a predictive model in the mind of the student that then they feel the need to live up to. I have to make my decisions based on what's been predicted about me. And the sad thing is that when, especially when you're working with students, the words that we speak create their predictive models. They're not at a place yet where they have the wherewithal and their mentality to be able to deflect what somebody might say and say, no, I have a different predictive model than what you're saying to me. So I don't take those words and internalize them. They internalize them. It means the world to them what they hear. And so as a result, they act out of that. And, you know, we hear people say all the time kids will rise to the level of expectation you set for them. There's a reason that's true. It's because what they hear creates their predictive models. And so what I'm hearing in this is at BCS, we're allowing them to develop their own. Let's let's let them have a bit of a sandbox here where it's okay to make mistakes and to grow, and you don't come in with preconceived ideas and notions. In fact, we're gonna challenge those, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, and if you look at a student's record, say they've it they've come here on a behavior plan. Most people don't do something or react to something unless there's a reason. And I think it's so important to just seek to understand, to ask those questions. And that's how you're gonna find out what the need is, what what occurred that even put them in the position they're in now.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And uh most times I don't think anyone's taken the time to figure that out.
SPEAKER_03No, it's facts. I you know, a sad truth of reality that I think all of us have experienced is that we can count on our hand the number of people that have been love, encouragement, and give us an opportunity to not feel judged for what what our dreams, what our passions are, what our goals are, what we want to aspire to. But, you know, there's a line, an amusement park line for a ride everybody wants to get on of people that are going to tell you how you can't, um, how worthless you are, how your thoughts are wrong, and how how much how how predetermined they are to tell you that you will never be able to do that. And and you know, and I I'm not saying that to like paint like a doom and gloom picture. I'm saying that because I personally believe that that comes from a place of fear that I'm afraid to take that step because I'm afraid of being judged, and therefore I don't think you should take that step either, because you're going to be judged. And and it's really, it's really heart-wrenching because it's we hear it all the time with every single one of our kids that graduate. Their story is when I came in here, I I was broken, I was afraid, but every day I came in, they were consistently caring about who I am and how am I, and all of a sudden those kids realized I'm safe. It's it's okay that I struggle with something, it's okay that I had an issue with something. You know, they actually care, and that's something that um, you know, over the last 20 some odd years, you know, Mary and Pete have been really brutalized by this industry as a whole, really just for having compassion for kids that just needed an opportunity to s have someone care. And they've been ostracized by that. And it's um, you know, we've talked about it before, where like, you know, in many ways, everything that within the organization about people, not just not just staff, but just people, communities, everything just comes from the standpoint of like being the biggest losers because of how our experiences have shaped us to say we we never want someone to feel that. We never want a community to feel like they're not important or that the community doesn't matter. Let us do what we need to do. Screw you, you're not involved in this. And and it's um, I I hate to say it, but it's so uh counterculture to realize like to make things very inclusive, to allow people in is so counter-culture right now to where our society is. Because if you don't think like I do, if you don't, you know, if you don't have these experiences like I do, or the fact that you don't even understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, you're you're you're an antagonist. It's horrible. Sorry, I went out of tangent.
SPEAKER_02No, it's totally fine.
SPEAKER_01Makes perfect sense.
SPEAKER_02So the idea here that's what's going through my mind as you're talking there, Sasha, is there is a scenario in which judgment is valuable. Um, so we would call it good judgment, right? It's like making good decisions at some point in our lives, uh and in all of our journeys, and especially in the journey of our students, there's a point at which we want them to use judgment, good judgment. And so I think it's important to maybe even make a bit of a distinction and dial in even a bit more on what we mean by judgment free. Uh, because on one hand, it can sometimes appear that means we can't have an opinion about anything. And that can't be true either, right? Um, there are things that matter, there are things that must be judged. So, as an example, and and judged is probably not exactly the right technical word, but I think sometimes it gets lumped together as we talk about these ideas. Uh, for example, grading a grading a test. You know, there's a right and wrong answer to a test. That's how we're tracking knowledge and whether or not someone's assimilating information. Um, and so that's a judgment that's made. We're judging whether or not that answer is correct. Um, but it's a different kind of thing with that that I think we're talking about here with students. But when we say judgment free, what is it that we mean exactly? Like what how does that play out?
SPEAKER_01What I mean by that is that their past doesn't define who they who they can become.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01That's what I mean by that. Um 100%.
SPEAKER_02It is. So how does someone how is someone judging a student in a way that creates that scenario where the future is being predicted?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, when I used to handle enrollments, you would hear a lot of students say, like Pete was referring to earlier, just because of your last name, you'll amount to nothing. That was a very common thread in the first school that we worked, worked in. They would be coming from an environment where that was said to them. Um or they do something that lacked good judgment. And now they it they've paid the price for it as far as whether they had to serve a suspension or an expulsion or what have you. But there just seems to be no ability to get away from that behavior. It seems like it's constantly being held there over their head. Those are two examples I can think of off the bat.
SPEAKER_02No, it's great. I love that last phrase there. Let's if we could pause on that phrase, that idea for a second. Um their past behavior is being held, essentially held against them.
SPEAKER_03Could be a kid coming in angry. You know what? They're just a jerk. But could they be coming in angry because they saw something happen to one of their family members and they have no control over it? Absolutely. You know what I mean? Likely how would you feel? You would be angry. And if you have and if the only thing you do is you see this kid or even see this adult, and it's just like they're just angry. And instead of fighting fire with fire and saying, well, since they're angry, I'm just gonna treat them like a jerk as well. Instead of just saying, hey, just everything okay, is there anything you need to talk about?
SPEAKER_02So is that is it? I'm I'm hearing in that I love that, Sasha, because what now what I'm hearing is a different word, and that word's assumption. And assumption and judgment often are you know very close relatives. We make an assumption about somebody's reality and then we judge based on what we believe is likely true, though we don't know.
SPEAKER_03Like, I mean, if someone just comes with maybe just not having clean clothes, I don't think they're dirty. I don't think that. What I think may possibly be happening is they may have had their water turned off. They may have had a washing machine break, and they may just need someone to have an opportunity to just say, Hey, do you need some help? Did something happen? Is it what what can we do to just support you? And and sometimes just that little bit of humanity.
SPEAKER_02But if I'm judging dirty, yeah, if I say dirty person, yeah, then I'm more likely to not engage them 100%.
SPEAKER_00They're not worth engaging. I'm not sure. And and and you know what's crazy is I wish I had a penny for every time I heard a teacher say that students lazy because they don't they don't come to school. They just rather sleep, they're lazy. That's a judgment being made. And so to to me, judgment free zone means that I'm going to accept you and I'm going to get to find out who you are free of judgment.
SPEAKER_01It's giving people the grace that we want others to give us.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. And and you know, with teenagers, they don't have a fully developed frontal lobe which does what? Help with decision making. Okay?
SPEAKER_02Executive functioning, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I don't have any other way to put that. So I No, it's just a fact. I can't assume that a kid has the ability to process something the way that an adult would. And shoot, no offense. I'm gonna just talk about Sasho here. The word ignorance is thrown around as like a negative, all right? But there are things I am ignorant of. That's not a negative. I'm ignorant of them because I don't know, I don't understand, no one has spent time educating me on something specifically. So I'm curious. I have no problem to say I'm a little ignorant on that. Could you could you enlighten me so that I could actually understand? So then I'm no longer ignorant on this. Now I can choose to be ignorant afterwards, once I understand. Well, that does then make me ignorant in the negative sense of the word.
SPEAKER_02And once you know something and choose to not follow that knowledge, right, is a different thing than not knowing something and not doing it because you didn't know, right? So you what you said there, I think, is an important distinction. Um you said because of literally the physiological development of their brains, right? Of well, let's say this way, all of our brains. Like all of us were this way at 16. Yeah, there aren't these aren't a bunch of exceptions. This is all how it happens. Um, what you said there was it's we we can't assume they know, right?
SPEAKER_03You will fail people every day of your life if you are under the assumption of you should know this.
SPEAKER_02So is it would it be important then to adopt this mindset, which is I'm gonna assume you don't know. Rather than so, do you know that makes sense? The distinction of between um assuming assuming they should know versus I'm gonna assume you don't know, because that changes then how I interact with you. If I'm assuming you don't know, I'm more likely to do exactly what you need, which is give you the information I know highly you probably don't have, right? So versus if I assume you're choosing to not know, now I'm not gonna engage you because I think you're being lazy, versus I know you don't know. So I'm gonna tell you.
SPEAKER_03No, I I don't disagree with that at all. I I mean, um a lot of us have different experiences just based on if we had a two-parent household, based on the level of income that our parents made, based on our ability to have experiences, whether they're vacations, education, um, athletics, extracurriculars, you name it. And and it shapes us differently. And and because we have those unique perspectives, all of us do, um we we have to be cognizant that sometimes we can get caught looking at the world from the lens of I've experienced all these things and therefore others should have as well. And if they haven't, well, then they're just idiots. And I I I'm sorry to say it like that. It's just one of those things where it's like, well, we forget. They probably they may not have. Um, how would they know if they're if their parents weren't in the corporate world? How would they know how a business lunch works? Uh not just not being funny about that. How would you know? How would you know to ask an attorney or an accountant for financial advice? If it's going to impact you, how would you? Just I'm not sure I know that.
SPEAKER_02No, I think it's I think it's brilliant. And it really does position the idea exactly, it feels like where it needs to sit. And the idea of the judgment-free zone really, maybe an essence of it is don't assume.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. And so much of so many students at the age that they are haven't acquired a lot of the skills. They don't have those interpersonal skills, the skill sets. Um, and we're here to to also encourage the development of those skill sets, how to put yourself in an in another person's shoes, how to, how you're in control of you and you alone are in control of your reactions. Um, those are all things that are developed over time, and I'm certainly not perfect at them at this point in my life. And I know I'll forever keep working on myself. I know I'll forever keep learning. I was having a conversation with Sasha the other day about I'll die probably having less than 5% of the knowledge that exists in the world. It there's just no way for one human being to know everything. You're you're constantly learning, you're constantly growing, each one of us. But the students at the age that we're dealing with, they're they're they're babies. They they haven't experienced things. And oftentimes all they've experienced is hardship, negativity, and we're there to show them a different way.
SPEAKER_03There's a lot of vulnerability in that that uh we forget about because there's things in our own lives that um we're vulnerable with because we don't have the experiences of them. And and it's the same thing for our kids. And and I think we have to be cognizant as adults that are impacting children and and impacting communities the way that we are, that we we are always a work in progress, like Mary is saying, we are always an opportunity away from learning something new and and and experiencing something that we we never did that makes us better.
SPEAKER_02It's powerful. Honestly. One of the things I was thinking about there, Pete, was um I've heard, you know, in several of these conversations, you've alluded to the idea that students students come in with a certain background, right? So you've said in several of these episodes, they come up with a certain mindset, a certain background. And as a result, they respond to teachers and situations based out of that past experience. But it's just within months, sometimes weeks, that they see it's not that way. And all of a sudden their behavior changes because they're introduced to a new reality, they've experienced something new. To your point, Sasha, they've learned something new, and now they're acting in a new way. To me, I feel like that those examples are precisely what you're talking about, Mary. That if we allow them the space to learn something new without the judgment of how they're acting initially. So they come in, they present aggressive, mouthy, all the things. Rather than labeling them, love them and give them a chance to experience something different and watch what happens.
SPEAKER_01You know, I I'm gonna steal from Sasha right now. Sasho is always saying if if he's come out a certain way, I've heard him say, no, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do that. That's not how we're gonna do this. Let's have a conversation. And honestly, I think that it's I've heard him say it so much, and it's just it's the perfect way to to approach somebody that may be having a difficult day and we're not understanding what's going on quite yet. And it gets them to open up.
SPEAKER_03We we gotta avoid shutting down, allowing people to shut down because it is a defense mechanism. And and we've gotta be okay being that for one another, the sounding board in the difficulty to say, no, we don't get to bury that one. We we gotta we gotta talk it through and and do it safe.
SPEAKER_00And you talk about shutting down these these students that we work with. I think the one that bothers that is the worst is our kids coming to us afraid to ask for help. Yeah. Right. Um how is the only way that you can learn is that if you don't understand something, you ask, I didn't understand that. Could you please go over that again? Or I didn't quite get that. And to have a teacher say, Well, that's on you, I explained it. Or the student next to you going, What are you stupid? Yeah. Okay. We are taking away from these kids by judging them the number one thing we all want to be able to do. If we don't understand something, we've got to ask questions. We've got to ask, as Sasha said earlier, if I don't know something, I'm not ignorant about it, I just don't know. But then you're gonna tell me I don't have the right or the ability or allowed to ask questions, or that if I do ask them, I'm gonna be ridiculed and teased and made fun of. And so that is our biggest challenge with these students coming to us on their schoolwork side of things, is it's okay to ask for help. And how sad is that that a student has to feel that way and almost apologize for asking for help. And that's why I think what we've developed here of the one-on-one instruction is to allow that student to ask the questions and be free of judgment because it's just me and that teacher. And I don't have to worry about the other kids around me forming an opinion. But you know the best part is the kid who probably made fun of me for asking the question didn't get it either, but didn't have the guts to ask. Yeah. Because they were afraid to be judged. That's right. But they're the ones paying more attention than I am to the answer if the teacher's willing to go over it again.
SPEAKER_01I feel like a very important tool that our graduates leave with is self-advocacy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I feel our model, just inherent in the model, teaches self-advocacy, and that's so important. It's such an important skill.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we we can't assume that someone is going to always be there in our corner. Um, we we've all experienced it with our good intentions when anything. I mean, shoot, I've had I've had college professors that failed people on their finals because they didn't write their final exam to agree with the opinion of the professor. And they had to go and advocate for themselves to say, I did the work that was supposed to be done. I did it the way it was supposed to be done. I just didn't agree with my professor. And literally have to have a non-pious third party say, they met the requirements for your class, even though they didn't agree with you, they passed. It it marries 100% right with that, with literally, that's the one thing that our kids not just walk away with with an education, but they walk away with the ability to say, I'm not all those things that everybody has said to me. And you no longer get to hold me accountable for something that I had nothing a part of, other than just being affiliated by either blood or a name. So it's so true. Our kids go to college, they were told they never would. Our kids get get into the trades, and they never thought they would. And they realized that they're gifted gifted and talented. They didn't realize that they're not weird. You know what I mean? It's like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_01Everybody has a unique gift and a unique talent, and it's just finding it. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And we're here to give them that freedom to find it with no judgment.