Q&A: Empowering Kids and Parents Through SEL

Tamara Fyke presents at the 2018 Transformative Leadership Summit

Tamara Fyke will join more than 40 leading presenters in the third annual Transformative Leadership Summit, which will take place online from July 30 to August 7, and focus on empowerment for administrators, teachers, students, and parents. Educators can attend each day’s online sessions free of charge and can also purchase an all-access pass to get exclusive bonuses and archived content. Visit TransformativeLeadershipSummit.com to register.

Q: In the Transformative Leadership Summit, you are presenting on Parent and Community Empowerment, a very important topic for schools and school leaders to think about. What are the one or two things you want every school leader to understand about engaging and empowering the community around them?

Tamara Fyke: Firstly, my goal is to help us broaden our language from parents to families.  Households today look different than they did twenty years ago. This may include single parents or extended family members living in the same home.  My hope is that we as educational leaders will realize that all of the caring adults in a child’s life – parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, youth leaders, teachers, coaches, administrators – are on the same team:  Team Kid!

Q: In many ways, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to truly empower parents without also empowering teachers and students. What does it look like in a school when each of these important stakeholder groups is engaging in empowered teaching and learning?

TF: I believe the most important way to empower all stakeholders is to build relationships.  Undergirding this is the concept of honor – giving value to each person. Families, educators and students need to know that they are welcome in the school community – that they belong.  Similarly, all stakeholders need to know that they have voice and choice.

Q: If you could have every school in the country try one new thing this year, and do it successfully, what would that one thing be and why?

TF: If I could have every school in America try one new thing and do it successfully, I would have them adjust their schedules to include dedicated time for social-emotional learning – daily for students, weekly for teachers, and monthly for families.  Education is about more than knowledge and data. We are about the business of building people.