Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Welcome advocates to another episode of the Leading Equity podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. Today's special guest is Tiffany and Erica. So without further ado, Tiffany and Erica, thank you so much for joining us today.

Erica:
Thanks so much for having us. Thank you.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Pleasure is all mine. I'm excited for today's conversation. But before we get started, Tiffany, I wanna throw this out to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Tiffany:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I have been in education for over twenty years. I've taught elementary, middle, high school, and then I became a school administrator thirteen years ago. So I was a principal of a k eight school as the assistant principal of a middle school, and then this would be year ten as the principal of an elementary school, but I'm actually taking a year long sabbatical. A couple years ago, Erica and I wrote a book, Connecting Through Conversation, a playbook for talking with students, all about how to build cultures of connection, transform student behavior in schools, and that's been doing really well. So we've been traveling all over the country sharing that the connected communicator message, helping educators. Doing keynotes and workshops and coaching and consulting.

Tiffany:
And that's kinda hard to do as a full time principal. So I took a year to do that. I'm also teaching pre service teachers at our university here in Ashland, Oregon. Oh my goodness. It's so much fun. I love teaching, and it's really fun getting to work with new teachers.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, welcome to the show. Good for you. Taking that sabbatical. I know you missed the kids and the staff, so we'll we'll get you back there soon within, I guess, the end of the school year and, you have that opportunity. Erica, I'm a throw it at you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Erica:
Thank you. I'm currently the superintendent in the South Umqua School District. I started my career over twenty years ago really focused on supporting students in special education. So I was a special education teacher, and then had the opportunity to do that at every single grade level there is, pre k through 21, and then transitioned into administration. I was a high school principal, assistant principal, elementary principal, director of student services, assistant superintendent, all of the very best jobs in education and have loved every minute. And then I also spend a good amount of time doing the work that Tiffany and I started together around supporting the connected communicator movement.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Alright. Well, I'm interested now, and I'm sure my audience is also interested as well. How did the two of you connect? And and and where do all the connections start? Tell us a little bit of the origin story, please. And I I don't know whoever wants to take that on if if Tiffany or Erica wants to start that off.

Tiffany:
I can start. Okay. So Erica and I oh, how many years ago? Fourteen years ago, we both started this administrative licensure program. And we had this wonderful professor, and it he had us do different, like, work together. We had all these different writing projects and different activities to do and lots and lots of discussion. And through that, Erica was, like, the smartest person in the room, and so I made her be my friend.

Erica:
Not true at all, but thank you for saying that.

Tiffany:
No. I was just like, you you're really smart. You really care about kids. And she just she made me think a lot. And so it I mean, no. I really was like, she in my head, I was like, she's going to be my best friend. She just doesn't know it yet. And so then we worked on different projects together.

Erica:
I mean, Tiffany we connected for a lot of reasons. Tiffany asked the very best questions in the class, and she always made you just kind of think about things a little bit differently. And we had such a shared passion around supporting students in feeling a sense of belonging, feeling like they're connected to school, feeling connected to the educators they work with. And that started with us really early, and as we were working on those papers, working on those different projects, we're like, someday someday we'll write a book together. And we were also really fortunate that we both happen to get administrative jobs in the same district at the same time. So we became, like, our own little support network. We were both first year administrators, so we had, you know, we would go get dinner and talk through all of those those wild things that happen as school administrators and really supported each other through and continue to do so.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Alright. Well, thank you for sharing this story. I'm glad that y'all are connected. Y'all seem like y'all have, a lot of reports. I know this couldn't have been just like last night that y'all

Erica:
No. Connect.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
You know

Erica:
what I'm saying?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
This is a lot in the makings, and and I I'm glad to hear that. So thank you again for sharing the story. Erica, I'm a throw this to you because, you know, today's topic is about how we can highlight and celebrate our students, their unique backgrounds, characteristics, languages, traditions. But I like to ask these kind of questions with the caveat that when we do these things, we don't want them to feel ostracized, othered, tokenized. Right? Because we're all about a sense of belonging. So I wanna start with you, Erica, as far as what are some strategies that you can pitch out to us for educators, principals, whoever that are wanting to highlight students that are coming from unique backgrounds in the right way.

Erica:
Right. Thank you for asking that question because it is it it can be tricky for folks. So for for us, what we really wanna focus on is we want to get to know each and every one of our students, who they are individually, who they are in a group. We wanna know about their family. We wanna know about their culture and their traditions and all of those, the rich tapestry that makes our classroom and makes our schools. And so for us, the first step is to lead with that real curiosity, and we're not singling out individual students that we're quizzing and trying to get to know a ton. We're really making sure that we're getting to know all of our students really, really well. And there's a couple of different strategies we do like many educators do this.

Erica:
We kind of do an inventory as we're getting to know kids. Tell us about your favorite things. Tell us your favorite song. We can maybe build a playlist of everyone's favorite song that we can listen to at certain times in the class. Favorite snacks. Different things that we can learn about them including things like who lives at your house. Tell us about an important tradition in your family. Those sorts of things that can give us a little bit of an insight into who the student is and where they come from.

Erica:
And that helps build the foundation that will allow us to start learning more and more and more. We really talk about the idea that small talk isn't small. We wanna make sure that we're leveraging every single opportunity that we have to leverage what we call those small stakes conversations to really help us get to know kids and also build that relationship and that rapport so that when we do have to have those more difficult conversations, we we have a foundation, and it's gonna make that conversation a whole lot easier. And so we have a bunch of questions that we like to ask. We've got, I don't know, 40 of them on our website that you can download for free, but we really just like to find out what makes them tick, what are they interested in, what's important to them, what's important to their family. It's not necessarily targeted to specific students. It's really we want to universally approach every single child that we support with that curiosity. And then it's also wanting to make sure that we're setting the stage early, that what we are that makes us unique and special and individual is what makes us so special and what makes the fabric of our classroom so special.

Erica:
And what we know is, like, when kindergartners come in, they usually come in, like, all about their uniqueness. They're not trying to hide any parts of themselves. They're all about who they are, and we love that. As kids go up in the grades, as they start going into fourth, fifth, and then certainly in middle school, it starts transitioning to kids really wanting to maybe hide or keep to the side parts of themselves that are different because it seems so important at that developmental stage to look like everyone else, sound like everyone else. It's this real pressure to kind of fit in. So we wanna set the stage as educators that it's not about fitting in. It's about belonging as your whole self, every unique and special part of you showing up and being accepted for everything that you are. And so that's really about modeling and just how we have those conversations and how we celebrate those unique differences for all of our kiddos.

Tiffany:
It doesn't have to be this big strategy that you're spending a whole bunch of time creating or these different activities. And not that those don't have a place, but but it really can be as simple as just doing a check-in at the beginning of every class. Like, I teach university right now. Every single class that I have, we do a check-in, but that's not different than when I taught high school or when I taught elementary school and when I taught middle school. It's just like, let's provide an opportunity and a space for students to feel safe enough to be able to share what's happening with them. And and the part that was, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it always was a bit surprising is how quickly we were able to build that community and be able to really have students share really powerful things and, and things that they maybe wouldn't necessarily be willing to share in other environments. Amazing things that happen. And then sometimes things like, I had a family member pass away or my dad just went to jail.

Tiffany:
Like, I mean, there are really powerful, vulnerable things that students were sharing because we had created an environment where they were safe enough to do so. And if you feel when students feel that way, then they do get to feel like, oh my gosh. I'm in a safe space where I can belong. Sometimes educators need permission to do that. Like, they need permission to allow the time to be able to get to know our students. We are in these high stakes testing environments where folks feel like, Oh my gosh, I have to get through my curriculum, or I have to teach my material. And we really have to stop and remember that we're teaching kids. And not only are we teaching them to read, to write, to think critically, to problem solve, to be mathematicians, we're also teaching them how to share space.

Tiffany:
And we're also teaching them how to be in dialogue with one another. We're also teaching them how to disagree. We're teaching them how to have conversations in ways that are respectful and caring. And I really think to do that, they have to feel safe enough to be themselves. And we it's our job to create those safe environments so they can show up who they are and they don't have to pretend to be somebody else, or they don't have to do things to fit in and not and not be who they really are.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Yeah. Yeah. And and I love that you're saying those things because at the end of the day, there's a lot of folks that are educators, they're in classrooms, and they're feeling inundated with lesson planning. And they feel like, oh, I gotta do unit plans, and I then got the state testing, and I got this exam I got all these different things. I don't have time with 40 kids, 30 kids in my classroom to get to know them individually on a personal level. I don't have that kind of time. And and it's not necessarily that they don't want to. It's just the other pressures that they're facing in regards to what they have to get done as far as the academic side.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
But like you said earlier, Tiffany, we forget that they're human beings as well. And so I love that that that's that's a good start for this conversation. So, Tiffany, I'm gonna stay with you because one of the things I heard Erica mention was the inventories. And I know that a lot of teachers do inventories, but what do you do with the data that you collect? I want to throw it to you. It's like, okay, I've collected this information. Can you give some strategies on how to properly utilize this data? Because I see it get done. Oh, great way to know your favorite color is green. You know what I'm saying? What, like, what do we do beyond that?

Tiffany:
For me, I love that you asked that. Thank you. For me, I I like when students are doing a check-in, sometimes I'll just kinda or or I've got some kind of inventory. I'll I'll keep it in a place. Like, I'll keep notes of that, or I've got it written down, like, my own style of, like, how do I remember? Sometimes it's just easy for me to hold those pieces in my head, but I know that not everybody can do that. But what I do with that is I bring it up again next time we're talking. And so it's like whatever your strategy is for remembering those pieces, it's that you bring it up again later. And so Eric and I actually we have a whole chapter in our book called Small Talk Isn't Small.

Tiffany:
And it's this idea of, like, when we're learning these little things about our students, then next week or tomorrow when we're talking, when they they mention something else, we're like, oh, yeah. Because I remember last week you were talking about this or, like, how did volleyball go? Or just and it's not I guess for me, it's not just about me connecting to the students. It's creating an environment where I can help the students connect to one another. Like, I can be like, oh, well, she was talking about that last week. Did you go there too? Oh, you did. Okay. I'm just figuring out those ways that not only am I building connections here between the student and the teacher, but I'm building connections between the students themselves. What I want is a culture of connection.

Tiffany:
Like, what we want is our whole community to feel that deep sense of belonging and to feel connected to one another.

Erica:
Yeah. And I would just say too, it's helpful to choose some routines that are gonna force you to to go back and remember those things and bring them up. So we talk a lot about celebrating milestones. So you likely have a way in your classroom or in your school to celebrate students' birthdays or your colleagues' birthdays. So on that day, if their favorite superhero is Superman, you're gonna give them a Superman sticker. And you're or if it's the favorite color, you're gonna make sure that that's kind of our color of the day. With older kids, absolutely. I I made playlists for every single class and every single staff I had that was of their favorite songs, and we would always turn it into a game.

Erica:
Guess whose song this is, and we'd have these competitions to figure out who's was who. And the other piece that can be really powerful is as you're learning about students, as you're identifying these specific things that they care about or that are important to them, it's bringing it up with them. It's helping them use it to connect colleagues or, I'm sorry, to their peers, but, also, it's such a useful tool as we're getting to know their caregivers and building a relationship of trust with them as well. When we are able to connect with a student's parent or caregiver at pickup and mention something that they shared with us in a conversation or, oh my gosh. I noticed that that Johnny is big into baseball. Tell me about that. All of a sudden, my caregiver is like, wow. So you really kind of know my kid.

Erica:
You see my kid. You care about them. And then that starts to build that bridge as well. So it really is about going back to that information. You do need to have a system. I have to like, Tiffany can hold a lot of these details in her head. I I struggle with it. I'm gonna my very first teaching job was many years ago before technology was as helpful as it is today.

Erica:
I literally had a binder, and, like, I had the kids' inventory in there. But I would also like, as I learn things about them in conversation and in dialogue, I would jot that down on a sticky note and and add it right on top. And then that has evolved through the years to Google Sheets and Google Forms and all of those different things that we can track. But I would try and go back and review those on a regular basis. In particular, if I had a particular meeting or focus on on a student, then, obviously, I would wanna go through all of that ahead of time. But, also, if I was feeling like I I wasn't connecting in the in the way that I wanted to with the student or if I I kind of would wanna be on a regular cadence and schedule on specific check ins with students. So I would try and review those on a really regular basis so that you could use the information. Asking for it and then not using it is not helpful.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Well, you you you touched on what I was gonna ask next, Erica, because I was thinking, like, okay. Let's just say you got 20 questions that you're asking about each student. Like, Tiffany, you're gifted if you're able to to remember all that. I I don't have that skill set. So I might remember certain details or stuff that I that I can identify with that I I I that I find similar, like, favorite artists. If they like Kendrick Lamar and I like Kendrick Lamar, that's easier for me to remember. But if it's a band that I've never really heard of, stuff like that, like, how do I make those connections? So, Erica, what I'm hearing is if you do not have that skill set to just remember everything like Tiffany pin

Tiffany:
Well, that's not all the way accurate. Like, come on. I'm not like a superhero. That is not That's what

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
I'm saying. I was impressed.

Tiffany:
No. I don't have that skill. That that would

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
be easy to impress. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm joking. I'm joking. Alright. Alright.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
But seriously seriously, do you suggest, Erica, that we create some sort of a profile? I know, like, sometimes people will put, like, on their calendar, they'll put children's birthdays and things like that or what they like. But kinda walk us through what kind of suggestion. You mentioned a binder. It's kinda morphed into Google Sheets and stuff like that. Tell us a little bit more of what that could look like as far as that inventory data.

Erica:
There's so many ways that you can organize it really depending on your style. Like, I I've been around a long time, so I still love paper and pencil. I leverage technology absolutely. But I have now for me in my current role, it's more about the educators that I support. So I I track all of that information. They all have their own little folder. You could easily transition that to an online folder where you just throw information in that you can review later. It does not need to be complicated.

Erica:
It's really just a place to store and warehouse that information. And then you need to have kind of think about what sort of schedule or cadence is gonna work for you to go back through that. Celebrating birthdays is really important because it's one of those days that's all the only day that's all about that person. Right? So I do have those marked out on my calendar, and I also have time marked out on my calendar to do something personal for the folks whose birthdays are coming up. And, of course, I'm I'm supporting as as staff, so that's a little bit different. When I was in the classroom, you might have a 80 students. You're gonna want that to be really, really part of a routine that is easy to do, but it's very simple to play that kiddo song when they're walking in. It's very simple to have a whole bunch of different different things that represent what students are interested in.

Erica:
So you kind of have to stock up and prepare in September. Small things, nothing big, but kind of plan it out for the year. And then every week on on Friday, I have just, like, a half an hour blocked out, and I'm doing things for the following week. There's nothing more powerful than a handwritten note. And if you can throw that in the mail to a kiddo, that is huge. Nobody gets mail anymore. And it doesn't take very long, but if you have that time set aside and you're going back and you're looking at all the information that you've learned about a student, you can make that really meaningful and powerful, and you'll make sure that everyone gets that connection over the course of the year.

Tiffany:
And I would say with that postcard piece, oh my goodness, that, like Erica's saying, you send that in the mail. Postcards, we had our office manager print off because she's magic. I, there's no way on earth I could figure out how to do it, but she printed off all of our students' address labels. And so at our elementary school, and I know Erica did this at high school as well, but we had every teacher had their list of their student address labels. And then I'd have like our stack of we were Walker Wolfe, so we had our Walker Wolfe postcards. And at the beginning of every staff meeting, they just write two or three, however many, put that address label on, and then we'd mail it. And then we know, okay, these are the students that have that are left. So we've got we're gonna make sure that every single kid gets a postcard from somebody at school by the end of the year.

Tiffany:
And then the part that I love with that is that if there's something really in particular that you're working on with a student, if there's, like, a skill or a behavior that you're really trying to target, for me, we were struggling with a pretty significant attendance and tardy problem. And as the principal I know. I know. And as the principal I don't think that's unique to us. As the principal, I had to send out these these letters that were like, here's your attendance and here's what we know about how attendance impact all those things. And those aren't fun letters to send, and they most certainly are not fun letters to receive. So the moment that we saw that there was any kind of increase or improvement in attendance or tardies, you better believe they got a positive postcard from me that was like, I see what you're doing. I notice.

Tiffany:
And then I'd have caregivers say, this is how I get my kid out of school, out of the house in the morning. I'm like, do you see miss Tiffany's postcard on the refrigerator? We can't. We gotta be there. Come on. We've got, we gotta make sure that she's proud of us still. And so that really lets kids know that you're paying attention and it's showing them that you care about them. And it it helps their I think it really helps their caregivers at home support what we're doing at school.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
I love this. Alright. So let's shift gears, and I'm I'm a stick with you, Tiffany, because sometimes teachers, educators, leaders, whoever, sometimes have the best intentions, but they make some assumptions about a student based off of maybe their ZIP code, last name, whatever home situation they might have heard overhand, but they didn't necessarily hear it firsthand. And so they make a lot of assumptions, and bias comes in. So I wanna switch gears a little bit because I hear a lot of themes about sense of belonging. That's very important. This is work that I do these days as well. So when we're thinking about unique experiences and celebrating our students, what kind of strategies could you throw out to our folks out there in regards to bias and stereotypes and making these assumptions about some of our students?

Tiffany:
Well, it's really important to do the work yourself as an educator and really spend time thinking about and and educating yourself on your own biases. I don't know if you're aware. You probably are, Sheldon, but there's Harvard has an implicit bias text. Yeah. And I so I teach university right now, and I have students do that. They don't have to share their answers. They just talk about the experience. And there's this wonderful woman, doctor Marjorie Trueblood, who taught me years ago, or she used to say that we all have biases.

Tiffany:
And if you have a perfectly functioning brain, then your brain is perfectly imperfect. And we have biases. And and the piece is just like, I am a white woman and and so I have a lot of privilege just in that. And not viewing that, like, not getting stuck in that privilege as a place of, like, I'm gonna feel shame or blame or guilt. I'm gonna feel responsibility. Like, I'm gonna take that privilege and feel some real responsibility. And in order to to really check myself and check my own bias and check stereotypes that I might have. Like, really spending time with that and really doing some work and really reading and doing different workshops and, and trainings for that.

Tiffany:
Like, when I first started at the school that I was at doing as a as a principal, we really dug deep into some equity work, like, really deep into equity work. And when we first started doing our workshops, my word, I didn't know we had as many dentists as like, there's everybody had a dentist appointment, and I didn't even know we had that many dentists in our valley. Like, nobody wanted to come to the trainings at the beginning. And I was like, there just aren't that many dentists, everybody. Like, what are you talking about? So, anyway, at the beginning, we were we were having a lot of kinda like, this is uncomfortable. And and as we work together as a staff, I would say we became more comfortable in the discomfort. And and really, we're just like, okay. What do we do? And then once we you know, to quote Maya Angelou, when we know better, we do better.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Exactly. You

Tiffany:
know? And just really thinking about what are the ways in which, you know, what are the ways in which we're contributing to this? And what we know is, like, there is individual racism, absolutely, but the big problem is the systemic pieces and what are we doing to to really look systemically at at what's happening? And what are we how are how are we contributing on an individual basis or or not?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Like you said, we all had starts internally. Like, we have to recognize that we ourselves have bias. Like, I say I tell people that I do bias training, and I and I bring up the implicit association test, and we talk about and all that stuff. I'm like, look. I'm speaking to you as someone who does all these trainings. I have my own biases. It's just human nature. Once we start with ourselves and say, yes.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
We all have biases, but we do want to celebrate our students. But as best as we can, try to to mitigate situations of assumptions, limited information, and stereotypes. But being being able to help our students shine and and be who they are is very

Erica:
Yeah. And I, as you say that, when we think about how we're gonna celebrate and how we're gonna elevate what is unique and special about an individual, we shouldn't be doing that without their partnership. Like, we need to inquire. This sounds so incredible. How can we share this? What would feel comfortable? Is this something that that we could make sure the whole world knows? It is about working alongside and not assuming we know that some what someone would appreciate or how someone would wanna be celebrated in a particular way. We have to ask the question. And it also it it definitely starts with that internal work. We have to be asking ourselves those questions.

Erica:
You mentioned as people are telling us a story or as we're learning about someone's background, we have to make sure that we're filtering that information through this idea of what what kind of bias is this bringing up for me? What is this making me think about so that we can pause? And then also, when we're starting to think about how those those assumptions that happen every day with individuals, how those become more systemic, how are we using an equity lens for all of our decision making? What are those systematic questions we're gonna ask ourselves every single time we're allocating a resource? Every single time we're looking at a policy, every single time we're making a decision about what courses are available and offered, we have to also systematize those questions that we have to ask ourselves to identify both the biases and the barriers that might be in place. Because as you mentioned in the beginning, like, we're busy, and sometimes we get moving fast. And the whole thing about bias is a lot of it happens unconsciously.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Yeah.

Erica:
And it takes a minute to pause and bring that to a conscious place. And so it's about both making sure that you're you have a good system and routine for filtering that information. And then also, of course, as Tiffany talked about, you have to do that internal work.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
Alright. Well, listen. I will say this. I've learned a lot so far within our conversation. And, man, the the inventory, like I said, I I feel like it I hear it a lot. I've done it before in the past. I see my kids as they come home from school first few weeks of school. Daddy signed a paper, and then there's there's all this information, and the inventories are done, all that jazz.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
So I appreciate you for giving us some strategies as to how to utilize that, how to organize it, and keep it together. In addition to that, you also gave us a lot of good feedback as far as recognizing look. We don't wanna make these assumptions to stereotype students based off of limited information such as names, ZIP code, addresses, single parent home, whatever. That's all good stuff. Tiffany, I'm gonna start with you. I'd love for you to share any final words of advice to our listeners out there.

Tiffany:
At the very heart of education is connection. And so just really remembering how important that connection is and really knowing that you have permission as an educator. Like you said, Sheldon, that people sometimes think, oh, I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do these getting to know you activities. And what I would say is you don't have time not

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
to Man, that was that was mic drop right there. That was you know? That was she said you don't have time not to. Okay. Okay. Alright. Well, Eric, I'm gonna throw it over to you. Any final words of advice to our listeners?

Erica:
Well, Tiffany said that the thing that really is is the truth, which is when we lean into connection, when we lean into those relationships, we not only are making our jobs and our lives more enjoyable and something that we're gonna look forward to every single day and bring meaning to our work, we're also so much more effective in the work. And so when we lean into connection, when we remember that at the heart very heart of education is connection, then all of a sudden we're more effective, we're happier, and we're honestly saving ourselves a whole lot of time working through a bunch of issues that never would have come up had we started with the relationship in the first place.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
And y'all are killing it. I'm just I wouldn't be like y'all when I grow up. So thank you thank you for all that you are bringing in. Tiffany, if we have some folks that wanna connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Tiffany:
Come to our website, www.connectingthroughconversation.com, and we have oh my goodness. We have so many free resources for folks. We've got all kinds of different downloads. Yeah. There there's a ton of stuff. We have a blog. We send out information all the time, all kinds of free stuff. And then, oh, we just sorry.

Tiffany:
I get so excited. On Valentine's Day, Erica and I just launched a a course, an online course for transforming student behavior through the power of connection. And because we we go talk all over. And what we hear from folks is, like, this is great. But, again, we're gonna go back to that time thing where they say, but I don't have the time. Like, I can't get our staff together for two or three hours on one PD day. That's really challenging to do. So Eric and I made this course that's prerecorded, and they're, like, five to fifteen minute lessons that folks can do.

Tiffany:
There's, like, downloads that come with it for questions. So folks can do that where they watch individually and do some reflection. They can do that as a whole staff. They can watch in a flexible way, in a way that works for them. And we do we actually Erica, we have our discount code. We can Yes. That's right. Yeah.

Tiffany:
So for any of your listeners, Sheldon, we have a $50 off the individual license, and they just have to write CTC podcast, and they'll get $50 off that course.

Erica:
You can also find on our website, and you can find both of us there. But our book, which is how this all started, so you can buy our book on our website, and then we're on all of the social media platforms. Please do follow us. We'd love to be connected to y'all.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:
And the title of your book is connecting through conversation, a playbook for talking with students and, of course, folks, links in the show notes. Erica, Tiffany, it has truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

Erica:
Thank you so much.

Tiffany:
Thank you. Thanks for having us on. This was really a lovely conversation.

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