Available for Interviews: Nadine Levitt
Nadine Levitt is an education advocate, speaker, and the CEO & Founder of WURRLYedu, an educational technology platform. Nadine specializes in the social-emotional curriculum (SEL), and she is also the author of the children’s book, My Mama Says Inside Me Lives a Village. New for 2022, Levitt has launched a new professional development resource for teachers called PD Reimagined.
What Nadine Levitt can say in an interview on
What Parents Can Do To Help Their Children Have
Greater Success in School:
Because emotional intelligence is a learned skillset (and a foundational skill to succeed academically and beyond), here are 5 things that parents can do to help their kids thrive and excel at school and beyond:
1. Find an approach that you love on emotions.
At My Mama Says, we teach kids that:
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- emotions live inside us all the time
- they don’t control us and we don’t control them
- emotions are really just messengers, trying to deliver a message with alarms and rewards
- they never come alone, they come in groups
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We are programmed as human beings to recognize patterns, and those patterns are never based in fact, they are based on the stories we tell ourselves. But they can affect outcomes if we buy into these thought patterns and believe them! This is why emotions can be challenging to hear — there are a group of emotions with alarms, all screaming these different thought patterns at us. This is why it is crucial that we create enough space around our emotions, separate out the thought patterns from the emotions, and direct our thoughts and behavior in a positive way that serves us.
2. Practice and model the skills necessary to build an emotional tool kit! Remember that nobody is perfect, so it is unrealistic to expect yourself to constantly model the healthiest emotional responses. But you can create rituals or habits that you can practice regularly with your kids — ideally habits that leverage play! For example:
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- Reading books that start conversations about emotions
- Try incorporating art, music, and theatre activities — ask kids to think about what emotions are reflected in specific songs, have them draw an emotion or create their own village or use dance or theatre to explore the physicalities of emotions.
- Incorporate a mindful minute into your day, where you get to check in with your body and think about how you are currently feeling.
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3. Show your kids that you are still growing and learning too.
Try to model moments where you disrupt the momentum of your negative thought patterns. As soon as you become aware of it, identify and talk about it with your kids. Something like “Oops, I just noticed that I was being sucked into this thought pattern that isn’t based in fact. It doesn’t serve me so I am not going to buy into that.” Try writing it down and crossing it out.
4. Celebrate wins loudly!
There is a quote I love from Dr. Barry Morguelan, that says “the energy flows where the focus goes.” When we only talk about the things that someone is doing wrong, or when we label a child a “bad” they are likely to fulfill that expectation. But if we celebrate the wins loudly we encourage more of those positive behaviors.
5. Try to instill the belief in your kids that they have limitless potential!
Everyone in life undoubtedly will experience self-imposed or externally imposed restrictions on that potential with thought patterns like “you can’t do that!” But if you can use those moments as learning opportunities, to show that you don’t have to buy into those thought patterns, you are empowering them to create their own expectations for themselves.
Last Thoughts
If we celebrated teachers more throughout their educational journey, throughout their careers, then I think you would attract more people to the profession. It is not just about salaries. It is about feeling valued, heard, and supported. The value attaches to many things, like salary and benefits, but also general appreciation.
Interview: Nadine Levitt
Nadine Levitt is a Swiss-born, German, Kiwi, American thought leader, speaker, and author who is passionate about education, especially focusing on child emotional wellness, social and emotional skill development using the Arts, and EdTech.
In 2015 she founded the technology company WURRLY, which also makes WURRLYedu—a leading music education solution being used in schools across 22 states. Nadine has authored two children´s books for social and emotional learning (Inside Me Lives a Village and Inside Me Lives a Superhero), initially developed as a tool to use with her own kids, to help them develop positive self-awareness, self-regulation skills, confidence, empathy, creativity, and self-expression. This quickly grew into a school program, with the development of a supporting curriculum and classroom resources, and toys and other children’s products that foster a healthy relationship with emotions.
In 2022, Levitt launched PD Reimagined, an exciting new professional membership for educators, designed to celebrate and inspire educators! It combines subscription boxes, exclusive intimate retreats with world-class thought leaders, and peer groups for reflection, planning, and support.
As an education thought leader, Nadine Levitt gives keynote speeches around the world on the subjects of music education, social and emotional learning, and technology in classrooms.
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