A new PBS Kids Back-to-School special features a group of young children on their first day of kindergarten.
The children are from diverse backgrounds and were inspired by the characters from Jacqueline Woodson's best-selling picture book The Day You Begin.
The hour-long special and the book focus on finding the courage to connect with others even when you feel like an outsider.
Join All Sides for a conversation about belonging and what it feels like to make connections with others as a child and an adult.
Guests:
- Jacqueline Woodson, author, The Day You Begin
- Pat Enciso, professor, Ohio State University's Department of Teaching and Learning
- Greg Walton, professor of psychology, Stanford University
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. We all know that feeling of walking into a room where you don't know a soul. And that's exactly what a group of kindergartners is facing in the new PBS Kids back to school special, The Day You Begin. The video special is inspired by Jacqueline Woodson's best-selling book with the same title, The Day you Begin. It's a beautiful story about finding your courage when you feel like an outsider. And today, Jacqueline joins us to talk about seeing her characters come to life on TV. Plus, we're diving into a big topic that affects us all, no matter our age, how to find where we belong and make true connections. So joining us now is MacArthur Fellowship recipient and bestselling and award-winning author, Jacqueline Woodson. Jacqueline, welcome to All Sides.
Jacqueline Woodson: Thanks for having me, Amy.
Juravich: Let's start with this PBS Kids animated special. I mean, how does it feel to have your beautiful children's book turned into a TV show?
Woodson: It's surreal, it's amazing. I'm so grateful for it. I watched it in full for the first time this weekend with a group of other writers at a Black Women's Writers' Retreat. And it was just amazing to watch it with an audience and to just see these ideas that started in my head get animated this way. I don't know, I'm a little speechless and I'm still excited. It's a beautiful show.
Juravich: It is a beautiful show, I watched it with my kids. They're a little older than kindergarten, but they still were really drawn to it, just because PBS Kids does such a good job. I think it's a special for kids of all ages, wouldn't you say?
Woodson: I would say that is so true. And also the conversations that it sparks. I mean, for me, of course, as the writer of the book, I went back to remembering what my first day was. Like, not only in school, but in other rooms we walk into. We walk into these rooms every day as young people, as adults, where some part of us feels like we don't belong there. And the fact that the show celebrates that our presence in a space is a gift to that space is so important. It's something that we should all hear all the time, no matter what our age.
Juravich: Both the book and the show are called The Day You Begin, and they both are about finding the courage to connect with others when you feel like an outsider. Can you tell me about writing the book, like where did this idea come from to speak to kids who don't feel like they fit in?
Woodson: So the idea actually started in my memoir, "Brown Girl Dreaming," which is about me coming from Columbus, Ohio to South Greenville, South Carolina to Brooklyn, New York. And my mother always told me the story of my great-great-grandfather William Woodson, who was the only black boy in an all-white school in Nelsonville, Ohio. And how he, you know, how she would say. You know, there are going to be times when you walk into a space where you're the only one like yourself and what are you going to do? Are you going? Are you gonna celebrate it? Are you're going to victimize that experience? And so growing up hearing that made me constantly think about the ways that we do this every day. And when I started thinking about William, I started thinking about it as a picture book. And then the day you began was born.
Juravich: And the book is also about the first day of school. The class is going around the room saying what they did that summer. And the main character, Angelina, she not only feels like an outsider for how she looks, but she also didn't go on a big summer vacation. She stayed at home. She took care of her sister, went to the library. That's how she spent her summer. But tell me about feeling like that. I mean, I guess it's kind of a feeling like being a double outsider is what she was feeling.
Woodson: Yeah, she was feeling that everyone else was doing something fabulous and she wasn't. And in the show, the kids turned to look at her like, wait, that's all you did was read books. And I really wanted to show in the book that reading is a way of traveling. It's a way of having these experiences outside of your own. Um, and, and that's that even though it's not physical travel, it's emotional, you know, it, um, uh, psychological travel. And that's just as important and fulfilling. And of course it comes from, again, I have to keep harkening back to Ohio, to Ohio State University where Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, um, talked about the importance of kids having mirrors and windows in their books. And so mirrors, so they see reflections of themselves in the literature. And windows so that they see into other worlds that they might not otherwise ever experience. And Angelina has all these mirrors and all these windows through those books. So even though, again, since she doesn't literally travel but she does travel, but in that moment she's feeling like that's not enough.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7NPR News. We're talking about the new PBS Kids special called The Day You Begin. It's based on Jacqueline Woodson's children's book with the same name. The special just aired recently. You can catch it on PBS Kids locally here on WOSU TV and in the PBS Kids video app. So speaking of locally, Jacqueline, you mentioned it twice. For our central Ohio audience. You were born in Columbus. You are, you know, an Ohio girl. I wanted to make that connection for our listeners, but I know you were not in Ohio for very long. Do you remember being an Ohioan or was that, were you too young?
Woodson: Um, my family's still there. You know, I was there two weeks ago. I'm sorry. I missed you. Yeah. I'll be back on Sunday night. Cause my aunt is getting honored in Athens. So I definitely have, because my paternal family is there. I definitely a strong connection to Ohio and consider myself a Buckeye, even though I'm a Buckey here in Brooklyn, I'm a Bukkeye by way of South Carolina. But yeah, I do have a connection to.
Juravich: And you mentioned the connection to Ohio State. Later in the hour, we're gonna talk more about the studying of belonging and connection. And there's been a lot of study of that at Ohio State University. Did that influence your book a little bit? Is that where you learned some things from?
Woodson: I definitely learned stuff from Dr. Rudeen Sims Bishop, who, as I said, was at OSU and who was the godmom of multicultural literature. And just that license because of the writers who came before me to tell these stories was definitely influenced by her and all of that. So yeah, it's a complicated journey to getting to the mini books, but especially The Day You Begin.
Juravich: So, belonging is a buzzword in education. Do you personally, do you like the word belonging? Some people prefer the word connection, or they like to say just have more awareness. What's your feeling on the word, belonging?
Woodson: Oh, that's such a great question. I mean, I'm a wordsmith, so all words work for me. I think one should have both. One should feel connected, and one should feel like they have a right to be in a space. They should feel they belong. And I think that connection is very much a part of belonging, like the way we connect to others, the way allow others to connect to us. Um, makes us feel a part of something. I always think of, um, especially in the day you begin about that community of care, right? Each of these kids are very individual and then they come together and create this community. That's a community about caring for each other. And I think about that with what we learned during the pandemic, right. That if we wear our masks, we're going to not only keep ourselves safe, but other people safe, especially our elders. So my mind is always filled with all of these ideas, but the foundation of it is care.
Juravich: The book and the special, they're not just about the day you begin kindergarten. I mean, the book is more about the day you begin to realize that you can share your story and have the courage to just be you. It's an important message for children, but do you think it's a hard one to teach? Like to teach a small child to have the courage to be you?
Woodson: I don't think it's hard to teach. I mean, I think it comes with love, right? If you love up your babies, they're going to know that. They're gonna know the importance of their self in spaces. They're going know they have a right to be in spaces, they're gonna they have a right speak up about what they love and believe in and how they see themselves in all of that. So I think the harder lesson to teach because our country's so afraid of is that lesson of quote unquote other, right? You're going to walk into these spaces and you're going meet people who are not like you, who are like your family, who are now like the ideas that you might have been taught about. And then how do you negotiate that? How do you negotiating that with kindness, right. How do negotiate that with grace? How do that with care? And I think the one of the many ways One of the main ways young people learn that is through literature, because it shows them these other worlds. And we take, for example, the story of Minjin in the book. I mean, more expanded in the show, but she's very sure of herself. And she comes in and she's so eager and she so excited to share her Korean heritage and the food and her haemone, her grandmother. And then suddenly she opens her lunchbox and the kids are like, wait, what? And you see her deflate. And so, again, what comes is this fabulous teacher because teachers set the tones in classrooms, right? Who celebrates her and her lunch and reminds her that this is all good stuff.
Juravich: Yeah, I really, I enjoyed watching the PBS Kids special with the character Minjin, because she has a special lunch that her grandmother packed for her and she's really excited about it, but it looks very different than dino nuggets and peanut butter and jelly. I mean, it is, it's literally it's seaweed and it's also rice and beef. And it was just an interesting way to feel different because it's not just, you know, your typical mind you would think of feeling different being appearance. But it's even food, right? And so, yeah, just talk to me about that character and the idea of, because the teacher comes over and reminds her, basically reminding the whole table, reminding us, the audience, that rice is the most popular food in the world. So, tell me about it, yeah.
Woodson: Which is very true. You know, when I used to go around to schools and talk to kids, I'd ask them what they thought was the most popular. And they'd be like, hot dogs, pizza. And I'm like, no, it's rice. And then all of them could name a rice dish that they loved. And so with Minjin, who is actually named after my friend Minjin Lee, who's also a writer. And I wanted to put that on the page. I have a lot of extended Korean family. I have it ah a lot of folks who are Southeast Asian. And everyone has a story about a meal that was looked down upon because of the way it smelled and how they had shame about going into the school with that meal and just wanted their mothers or their caregivers to make them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And when the show came out, when I showed Minjin the script, she's like, thank you for erasing generations of trauma for Asian kids. And it just made me feel so good. But I did, you know, when I was writing that scene for me, my mouth starts watering because I love Keanbop and I love seaweed and my kids took seaweed to school. But for them as young people, that there was always trauma, such an unnecessary trauma, right? When we think of any kind of ethnic food, whether it's bratwurst or collards, Like. There's so much love and history in that food that it should always just be celebrated, not made to feel ashamed of.
Juravich: Yeah, you kind of wish the kids could be more curious rather than judging the food, right? But then, but it's just it's such a childhood thing to be picky. So, you know, yeah. Oh, so true. Yes. One of the lovely touches in your children's book is that the illustrator includes rulers in several of the images in the story. And I read that that's supposed to symbolize the way people compare themselves to each other, basically, like the way you measure up. And I did notice a few rulers in the PBS Kids special. Why was it important to you to include this in both the book and the TV show, the measuring the rulers?
Woodson: Well, first and foremost, because I love Rafael Lopez's illustrations. I think he just did such a wonderful job with the book. And I remember when I first saw sketches of it, there was one ruler at the door. And of course it was Angelina measuring herself against, am I good enough to walk into this classroom? Basically, do I measure up? And I was like, wait, what's up with the ruler? And then when I got it, I was, like, let's have them everywhere. Let's show it. And you know, so the, the table. In the lunch room, there's a ruler on it. When Andre is standing near the tree in the playground, there is a ruler. And then slowly in the book, the rulers disappear. And so I really love that. And I love when kids find the rulers and it's kind of like this Easter egg for them. And so when we were talking about the rulers in the show, when we tried to do it, it was a little too distracting on- And so we pulled them back and muted them a little, but there still is that hint of the ruler. And it's such a great conversation piece in terms of asking young people, when do they feel like they're measuring themselves against each other? And it was like around clothes, it's around literal height, right? It's around the ability to read, it's about math, like all of the ways in which they feel compelled sometimes to compare themselves to other people. It's about lunch, so.
Juravich: Well, and now it's an Easter egg for our listeners. So when they watch, they can look for the rulers, which I noticed a couple. But in the book, yes, there's definitely rulers. And then they disappear, which is like a lovely touch that we don't have to worry about measuring ourselves up once we figure out how to focus in on being you. I mentioned belonging earlier, and we're gonna spend the next part of the show talking with a professor who teaches educators how to incorporate a sense of belonging into the classroom. And she told me that she uses your book in her teaching too. So, I mean, what do you hope a new generation is learn, learns from your book, from this new PBS Kids special?
Woodson: You know, my dream is that they realize how important they are to the community and how important the community is to them and that they embrace that. So in doing so, they're embracing difference. They're embracing, you know, the unfamiliar and they're walking into a space literally unafraid. You know that for me, The Day You Begin is about. Um walking in with a fearlessness and a strong sense of again how fabulous you are because I I believe young every time I talk to a young person I'm like oh my goodness y'all are gonna save us you know their their brilliance their beauty their curiosity it's they're gonna be OK. Yeah.
Juravich: Yeah, and you mentioned earlier the teacher in the PBS Kids special being so important to help with the redirection, help guide the students there because, you know, kids on the first day of kindergarten aren't going to be able, they can do some of it on their own but they're not going to able to do it all on their own. So how important is it, do you feel, to teach teachers how to, you know, include that belonging in the classroom?
Woodson: Oh, it's so important. And it means teachers doing their own work, right? Around their own sense of unbelonging or around their own prejudices are the way they've been brought up to think about certain things. I remember when I was a kid, my mom and dad had separated and teachers will always like, go home and ask your mom and Dad. And I always felt like I was on the outside because I didn't have a dad. I had a mom and a grandmother. And even when I talk to young people, I'm like, talk to your caregivers about, because I don't want them to assume that I assume they're in some kind of nuclear family. They have foster moms, they live with grandmothers, they live two moms or two dads, they have all kinds of ways in which people have family. And that setting that tone really early on makes them feel safe. So I think with teachers knowing where our own limitations are and working on those so that we don't bring those into the classroom is really important. Or our own judgments are. And it's a journey. I mean, one thing with Mr. Veve is, I can't remember if they're staying in the show, but he makes a mistake. At one point, the kids cheer and then he brings it back because he realizes it impacts Andre, because Andre.
Juravich: Because it's too loud, yeah. Yeah, yeah!
Woodson: Yeah. Yeah. And then he's like, we're going to, this is lit. We're going to whisper cheer. And he turns on the, he turns the light off and on to signal change. You know, he knows that cheering that loud noises isn't going to be make his classroom a safe space. So on that first day, he learned a lesson and he changes behavior himself. And I think we are Bye! Doing that, our need to do that, so that we can make folks feel safe and create a kind of community.
Juravich: We have been talking about the new PBS Kids special. It's called The Day You Begin, and it's based on Jacqueline Woodson's children's book with the same name. And the special just recently aired. You can catch it on PBS Kids, on WOSU TV here locally, and in the PBS Kids video app. Award-winning author, Jacqueline Woods, and thank you so much for joining us today.
Woodson: Thanks for having me Amy, it was lovely talking to you.
Juravich: And coming up, we're gonna talk about teaching educators about belonging in the classroom. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Starting kindergarten is a huge milestone and a brand new PBS Kids special is capturing that magic. Inspired by Jacqueline Woodson's bestselling children's book, The Day You Begin, the special follows a diverse group of kids navigating their very first day. Both the book and the show are all about finding the courage to connect when you feel like an outsider. And today we're talking about what it really means to belong and how both kids and adults can build meaningful connections. Joining us now is Patricia N. Ciso, a professor in the critical and transformative education program in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. Welcome to the show, Pat.
Patricia N. Ciso: Thank you, I'm very happy to be here.
Juravich: So I learned about your work on developing connections and a sense of belonging, because I read about a school-wide project you did with Columbus City School students. Can you tell me about your time you spent with students at Indian Oil Informal? Set the scene. It's a K-8 school, and you were working with kindergarten through eighth graders on different projects at the different grade levels. Tell me about that.
Ciso: Right. My work was primarily with the teachers of K-8 kids, and there were more than 30 teachers who participated in a project over two years. In the first year, we were really assessing what are kids thinking about belonging? What are teachers thinking about? Belonging? How does it matter to them? And what we found pretty early on was that every single teacher was worried about. Kids in their classrooms who were not belonging, and uncertain about how to bring them in, how to create an environment in which they could be seen and understood and respected. So first of all, it was helpful for the teachers to know they weren't alone. And then they could begin to plan together for the next year. And they realized that in this school, as in many schools around, the country and in Ohio, kids are coming into school from very different places. And in this school, the children represented all of the zip codes of the city. So children were coming from very different home lives, travel plans, just different journeys into school. And we began to imagine a school-wide thematic study, focusing on being a city-wide school. What does it mean to belong to a citywide school, not just a local?
Juravich: Yeah, school, Indian all informal is not a neighborhood school. It's what Columbus calls a lottery school. So you kids come kids can come from anywhere in the city. If they, if they get into the school. Yeah.
Ciso: The kids are bussed all over the city for different reasons, for language support, different kinds of support that they need. And that then evolved very quickly into different ways of approaching storytelling so kids could begin to tell their stories, very much in line with Jacqueline Woodson's philosophy and beautiful art that she, and the stories she explores. The children need to be able to say something about who they are and what they care about and what their neighborhoods look like and what the enjoy in their neighborhoods. So the kids began a year long study of one another and their home places.
Juravich: Yeah, the hook for this show today, talking about this today, is not just the beginning of the school year, but it's the PBS Kids special called The Day You Begin, which is based on the children's book by Jacqueline Woodson with the same name. And when I emailed you to tell you about the show, you immediately wrote back and said, I use that book in my teaching. Tell me about that. So are you teaching teachers with this book?
Ciso: Yes, I teach teachers, pre-service teachers and in practice teachers, and this book speaks to all of them because they want to have a classroom community, but they're under a lot of pressure to sort of pull all of the kids into one sort of line. So the curriculum guides what teachers are able to focus on each day. But within that, they're looking for spaces to bring children's voices in. The other thing that is beautiful about Jacqueline Woodson's book is the artwork by Rafael Lopez in which you see a measuring stick. Measuring tool in almost every page, so kids feel they're being judged.
Juravich: To see if you, yeah, we talked about that a little bit with Jacqueline to see if you measure up basically, yeah.
Ciso: If you measure up and no one's going to measure up to everybody's measuring stick and that measuring stick changes from day to day even. So what we're trying to do with kids is help teachers find ways to make visible children's best selves so that when there is a moment where they don't measure up there's something that goes awry or they're misunderstood. They can return to that core self, that sense of individuality, special qualities, joys, loves, fears, that those are visible to one another.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how adults can help students feel a connection, a sense of belonging. And we're talking with Patricia N. Ciso, a professor in the Critical and Transformative Education Program in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. This sense of belong is not just for students. How do you work with adults in the school to make sure that the adults in school feel connected too?
Ciso: I think this is one of the hardest parts of doing research in schools and working with with teachers is they all have very hectic lives. They're doing a very difficult job and they need to be able to communicate with one another well. So one of the powerful moves I think that that this work did with the teachers in Indianola was give them a vocabulary, a shared vocabulary. Around just the word belonging and the different meanings that that has, especially for children who are otherwise and historically marginalized in school. What opportunities can be opened up to bring more visibility to more kids. Teachers needed a vocabulary around that and we found in the work of Goldie Muhammad, who's a renowned curriculum specialist, she wrote several books about building curriculum that brings children's lives into the center of the curriculum and she came in as a guest speaker and we also read that book together and began to Talk about planning along using those guidelines.
Juravich: I read that belonging needs to come before achievement, but how can we do that? There's only so many hours in a day and there is such a focus on testing and scores and grades, but would you agree with that statement, belonging needs come before achievements?
Ciso: Yes, I think belonging is central to our sense of selves in the world and children in particular need to know that they are in a safe place and that their needs can be heard and met while they also need to create room even as a five-year-old to recognize other people's needs. And as they build knowledge and more opportunities for taking perspectives. They're also going to understand more of the content, I think, of what we're asking children to achieve. Teachers need to build relationships with kids in order to help them achieve. You can't just treat a child as an empty slate that's going to be receiving information or repeating information. Children build knowledge through relationships and through being cared for by their peers. If they don't understand, a peer might be able to help him understand, but they have to have a sense of security around that relationship.
Juravich: Have security in the relationship to be able to, if they need help with the math, be able ask for help because they have to feel like they have friends in the classroom too, right? Yeah, what is being taught in the book and the TV show, The Day You Begin, is also a focus on what makes you special, what you as the individual bring to the table. Talk to me about that shift. Don't focus on what the student and the family does not have. Focus on what they do have. Tell me more about that.
Ciso: We call that an assets approach versus a deficit approach to teaching and learning. In an assets' approach, you're recognizing that every kid has the potential to see the world in a particular way and that that particular angle is worth valuing. It may really be out of left field, especially a group of five-year-olds telling stories together can be. Um, wild.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Ciso: But they're saying what they're saying for a reason and and teachers learn to make sense of what a child is is attempting to bring into the world and creating spaces for that. Children have lots of different assets and and teachers can find ways to name that and help other children name it as well. So it's an ongoing year-long process. Often at the beginning of the year, teachers ask kids to describe themselves, which is a joy. But often kids need teachers to describe who they are to themselves. Kids need vocabulary for their own sense of self as well.
Juravich: So we talked about the project you did with Columbus City Schools and the K-8 school, Indian All Informal. That project was a couple of years ago. Do you do projects with other schools or was that a one-time thing?
Ciso: Um That particular two-year project was based on the needs of Columbus City Schools. My other projects have been on the west side of Columbus with middle school students in a storytelling project. And that project went on for almost 10 years. In that project, I brought immigrant and non-immigrant children together in a lunchtime story club, and they began to tell stories to one another about their lives and some of the folklore that the kids kind of knew, but over the course of the year really developed the stories and the details that were particular to their cultural experiences. They loved telling scary stories with one another. Middle school kids, Edgar Allen Poe, and any scary story you can think of will draw their attention, but they really wanted to learn about one another, Yeah, there just isn't. Time and space in school typically to do that. Yeah, yeah.
Juravich: And just to end on one thing that I read about the Indian Ola Informal Project is that the oldest kids in the school, so like the seventh and eighth graders, developed a podcast where they actually went around and interviewed students about whether they felt like they belonged at the school that they were in, which I find is very interesting. But also like the takeaway seemed to be that the kids loved their school. Did you find that? Yeah. Yes.
Ciso: Some yes they loved their school and they learned um what we learned in talking with the teachers as well is that some of the same kids who said they loved school at eighth grade hated their school at fifth grade so it's a journey for kids to to grow up to see themselves as part of a group, no matter how... Gifted and thoughtful teachers are around their creating a sense of belonging. There are children who really feel sad and hurt and left out and it only takes the friend from yesterday to say something hurtful that that just devastates a kid and that needs to kind of work its way through over time. So by eighth grade kids are just feeling a little more sure of themselves.
Juravich: Yeah, and your project also empowered them to talk to each other. I feel like, yeah, because whenever you're the question, when you're the question asker, you learn stuff too. I mean, I know that from experience. So I'm sure that some of those podcasters learned more than they expected.
Ciso: Yeah, they were they were terrific. But we were working with kids from kindergarten through eighth grade. And the kindergartners did some wonderful work by creating fairy tale characters for their neighborhoods, mapping those so that kids could see that the kids in their classroom came from all over the city with fun, funny, powerful characters in their lives. Completely invented, but really fun. Then the second and third graders drew on Amina Lynn Robinson's Homeplace series to create images of home place for their neighborhoods. The kids went back, they created a class book and the kids returned to that book day after day after day showing one another something about their picture and their lives.
Juravich: We've been talking about how to find connections in school with both students and the educators there. And we've been with Patricia Enciso, a professor in the Critical and Transformative Education Program in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. Thank you so much for your time today, Pat.
Ciso: Thank you, this was a joy, thank you.
Juravich: And coming up, we're gonna talk about what it means to feel like you belong as an adult. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News. You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Do you remember your first day of school? A new PBS Kids special is bringing those nervous and excited feelings to life with a wonderful cast of diverse kids. The show is based on Jacqueline Woodson's bestselling book, The Day You Begin, and both carry a powerful message, how to connect with others, even when you feel like you don't fit in. Earlier in the show, we talked with Jacqueline Woodson about her book's jump to the screen. And now we're gonna turn our discussion to the art of belonging and how to make connections, whether you're five or 55. And joining us now, we have professor of psychology at Stanford University, Gregory Walton. Much of his research investigates psychological processes that have contributed to major social problems. He investigates questions like, do I belong? Can I trust you? And can I do it? His most recent book is called "Ordinary Magic, the science of how we can achieve a big change with small x." Welcome to the show, Greg.
Gregory Walton: Thank you Amy, it's a pleasure to be with you.
Juravich: So when I asked you to come on the show to talk about belonging related to a PBS Kids special about the first day of kindergarten, what is the first thing that popped into your head whenever you considered the topic?
Walton: Well, you also mentioned to me, Jacqueline Woodson, and her book, The Day You Begin. And I just want to say I adore this book. And I find it a playbook, really, for building belonging and trust in school. And it's a book that's actually helped me to understand the science better. So I have a... A very deep and genuine appreciation for the connection between the children's literature and the stories that we tell and then how we navigate the spaces that we're trying to join like school or work whether you're a kindergartener on the first day at a new job at a company that you're you're proud to join.
Juravich: Yeah, your audience is probably usually college students or adults. I mean, is belonging something that elementary schools are teaching and leaning into, but is it missing from our grownup world?
Walton: Yeah, we had a kid, our son is entering middle school this year, and last year, at the end of the year, walking through his classroom, I saw the classroom constitution that they had on the wall, the rules that the teacher had sat down with the kids to say, what are the rules that we wanna have for this space, for how we can make this space be as good as it can be for all of us? And I think sometimes we could benefit from doing things like that in our adult world too. There are a lot of lessons from how we welcome young people into school spaces that we can bring into the adult world as well.
Juravich: Yeah so tell me about that sense of belonging at work. Is a job just a job? Can we put it in a box and just do the job or do we need more?
Walton: You know, I think we need more. I think people wanna feel, you know, obviously people need to earn a salary and be able to support themselves, but people also wanna feel like they're contributing to something that they value, that they care about, that they're providing a good or a service. My bet is that you didn't go into national public radio because of the high pay.
Juravich: Certainly not.
Walton: Right, and I think a lot of people make choices about the kinds of companies that they want to be part of and communities that they wanna be part because they believe in the mission and they wanna support people, they wanna contribute to the mission of that organization. And then if you're at a new job, maybe you started, maybe your struggling at first, Maybe you don't. Feel like you're doing very well. It can feel very, I think, demoralizing. It can be like, maybe I can't accomplish what I actually want to accomplish. I have a story from a Stanford alumnus once who I did a talk with in an alumni group. And he said he worked for a company in the West Coast, but it was based in the East Coast. And he felt like he was struggling. He was there six months, nine months. He felt like it was really behind, not meeting quota. Company he really valued and then the boss of his boss came to visit from the east coast and the two of them are standing beside him and he's sitting at his desk and his boss puts his hand on his shoulder and says to the boss, of the boss this is going to be one of our stars and it was at that point that he felt fully secure and that he could lean into that company and lean into his growth and become a great employee for the company. So these key moments, you know, I think where we're doubting ourselves, where we are wondering and there's critical acts that people can play to help us get back to who we want to be there.
Juravich: Yeah, he needed to be told that he was doing a good job. He didn't know. Yeah, and from the-
Walton: And from the boss to the boss of the boss, right?
Juravich: So whose job is it to make sure employees feel like they belong? Is it the big company? Is it direct manager? Is it co-workers? Whose job is this?
Walton: Everybody, right, and it's your own job too. I mean, it's a co-construction. I think of belonging as a relationship between yourself and a place. You could think about it in an analogy with like a dinner party. You have a host who's creating that environment, who's deciding which food to serve, which activities to play, who to invite. And then you have the guests who are entering that environment. And they both have a role to play in creating a good party, a good dinner party where everybody feels good and connected. And feels like they're contributing to that group activity. And so, you know, certainly like a person who's coming into a company or a school has a job to do, right? Like they have to learn some skills, they have put forth their work, they have show up, they have be kind to people. And certainly the company, both the immediate manager and coworkers and the broader superstructure that management creates has to create the space that allows the relationships to build and allows the contributions to happen. In. You can get problems in all sorts of ways when any one of those things don't occur.
Juravich: Tell me though how belonging is not just your boss having a pizza party or like Right. Yeah, because it's not it's just that it's not just having you know a free lunch once a month or something. Yeah
Walton: Yeah, so one of the things, once a former graduate student of mine named Greg Murugishi did work looking at women's experiences in tech companies. And one of things that he did was he was really interested in the idea that the people around you are treating you in a way that allows you to contribute. That is, are they? Um. Giving you tools to learn the skills you need to learn. Are they listening to your suggestions and valuing your suggestions and building on your suggestions? Or are they maybe taking credit for your ideas, for example? And he compared that distinction against exactly the distinction you're describing. It was a happy hour in his case. You're invited to the happy hour, and everyone personally invites you there. Your boss sends you a note. Hey, this happy hour is happening. Please come. You go to the happy hour. You have a great time. And that happy hour experience increases belonging for women in tech companies. But nowhere near as much, nowhere near as much as having your co-workers actually value your contributions. Because a big thing that we want when we're part of a group is we want to be able to contribute there. It's not you're not joining the company for the happy hours. The happy hour is nice. It's a good thing. But that's not the center of the activity.
Juravich: Right, especially if you can't go to the happy hour because you have to pick up your kids and your boss doesn't understand that, right?
Walton: Right, that's a whole nother issue.
Juravich: That's a that's a whole nother show. We can get there another time. But your book that I mentioned at the beginning is Ordinary Magic, the science of how we can achieve big change with small acts. And it asks questions that I mentioned earlier, do I belong? Can I trust you? Can I do it? Before we dive into those questions, can you tell me about the title, though? Ordinary magic. Why magic? What's the magic?
Walton: It feels like magic sometimes, like it feels like you, they're in the science, and about 10 years ago, a colleague and I wrote a paper called Social Psychological Interventions in Education. They're not magic, because it can feel like magic. And you can do these little things like the gesture that that boss did for the coworker, the employee. Um that can totally transform a person's you know life and experience in a setting and have effects that are that you can see in in the science you can see effects months and years later of even brief experiences like that brief moments but um the so the the goal of a lot of the research and the goal of the book is to try to pull back the curtain so that we can understand what's happening so we can see how addressing these kinds of core questions at critical times can set in motion what I call upward spirals, and really help us to succeed long into the future. So, in The Day You Begin, one of the things that's really beautiful that I love about The Day you Begin is it kind of gives a recipe for how to start belonging in a space. And it begins by creating space to somebody who feels different or who feels marginalized, who feels looked down upon, has space to speak and to give them that space in a way that anticipates their strength and their goodness. And then to listen to them. In the day you begin there's a central character who feels like all the other characters, all the other kids in the school are having these great experiences and all she did was stay home all summer long and read books to her sister. But the teacher creates space for her to speak and then she starts to speak. And she tells her sister's name, and one of the other classmates says, oh, your sister's is name is, I have a connection to that name. And she starts to create space for her to exist within that classroom. And in school, many times, there are particular groups of kids who can systematically be misseen or unseen, like a foster child, or a kid who's been getting in conflicts, maybe they've been suspended. Maybe a child who's been caught using substances in school. There's maybe an English language learner who goes unseen completely. And when we can create spaces for these students to say who they are, what their values are, what their goals are, who they're trying to become in the school, then. Teachers can hear that, and they can respond to that, and they see the goals that the student has, and they help the student work towards those goals. I think of that as an incredible kind of magic, a magic that can change a young person's life.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how to foster a sense of belonging from elementary school through adulthood, and we're talking with Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, Gregory Walton. I found a piece you wrote maybe four or five years ago for Education Week, and it's titled, Stop Telling Students You Belong. And in it you say that the phrase does not get the job done. So tell me about that true sense of belong versus the button you wear, or like a sticker that you put on your water bottle.
Walton: Yeah, right, you can't really reduce it to just a boilerplate, right? That, yeah, so I mean, I think that it really depends on feeling seen and feeling connected and being seen and being connected. And so opportunities for people to say who they are, for them to be confident that other people can hear who they are and who they're trying to become. That creates a much deeper sense of belonging than just, you know, we want you to belong or you belong as an assertion.
Juravich: It also reminds me of those like choose kindness t-shirts because I saw a video once of like a mom yelling at a teacher in a school pickup line and they both had different versions of like be kind on their t-shirt, right? But right, but it's such an it's an important message to to not get lost in a world of bumper stickers, right.
Walton: I mean, it is, the bumper sticker is helpful, right? It is good to have it as a goal, but you gotta go beyond just the goal, right. You gotta actually create the structures and the systems that let people connect and build their relationships.
Juravich: In your book and in your studies, you talk about how important it is to learn that everyone feels out of place at first, like everyone feels the way you do. Everyone is new somewhere at some point. Everyone has had an embarrassing moment at some time that can make you feel alone. Talk to me about how knowing that can help you develop belonging.
Walton: Yeah, I think the easiest way to see that is what happens when you don't know that. If you feel like you're the only one, if you're that, that employee at that company and you feel that you're only one who's struggling, that nobody else has struggled like you have, it sure seems like there's something wrong with you or that place or the fit that's just not going to work. You're not going be able to do it. If you go to college and you feel like I'm the only who feels homesick, I'm the only on who got a disappointing grade on a first assignment. I'm only one that that professor yelled at. Then it's very easy to think that there's something just structurally wrong about you or the place or the fit that means that there is not going to be any hope, you're not going to be able to succeed there. So it's kind of a foundational importance for people to know when they're going through transitions, school transitions, when you're the first, when you are entering kindergarten, when your entering middle school, when when you're entering college and you're starting a job. That everybody goes through a period of wondering whether they belong in that space, of not feeling connected to people, feeling disjointed, feeling at sea, and that there's ways to make progress on that. There's ways to build that belonging in that space. And so it's very important that we tell stories about this, and lots of different kinds of stories, stories from many different perspectives, that talk about different ways that we can have those experiences that were authentic and honest and real about that. And that you can know that your story is just part of that broader story, and it's a story of growth, ultimately, and connection.
Juravich: We're going to have to leave it there. We've been talking with professor of psychology at Stanford University, Gregory Walton. Thank you so much for your time today, Greg.
Walton: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And you can also watch the PBS Kids back-to-school special the day you begin. It's inspired by Jacqueline Woodson's best-selling book with the same title. Watch it on PBS Kids, WOSU TV locally, or in the PBS kids video app. You've been listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich.