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Hi, welcome to The Teacher's Story.
I'm Jackie Scully, and today I am so excited to have both Jennifer Johnson and Jan Frohlich
with us from Captains and Poets.
They are the co-founders, and I recently was part of their Bright Light series, nominated
by Ola.
And I'm just really excited because I love all the work you do with social-emotional
learning, but it's just fun and innovative, really different.
And the professional development I went to recently, I got a glimpse into kind of like
what you are doing in school, so thank you so much for both of you being here.
It is absolutely a pleasure.
Thank you.
So whoever wants to share first, we can kind of like toggle back and forth.
I always ask like what got you into education?
What inspired you?
How do you have this passion and love for this field?
Absolutely in education.
So my first career was as an educator.
I worked in the secondary system and a lot around special education, and I left teaching
for a while, but I knew I'd always come back.
And then when I was introduced to Jan in 2018, we were both on a mission really to empower
young people to be their best selves, and so happy to be back.
And for me, there was no way I was going to be in teaching or education or anything of
the likes.
I grew up in a house of teachers, and everyone around me was teachers, and I will tell you,
it is a very hard job.
Up early, late nights, tons of marking, and I was just like, no way, I am not doing this.
I would do literally anything else, and I did.
I went out on a whole other path in entrepreneurship and in business, and my last stop was working
as Senior Vice President of Women of Influence Worldwide, which was a global organization
that was really working towards the equity and inclusion of women in the workplace.
And through that, I ended up in education because I had this moment of total frustration
in the equity space, seeing that nothing was going to change in my lifetime, and probably
not my kid's lifetime.
And then of course, all the statistics come out 230 years before there's gender equity
in the space.
And I really had this moment of, what's happening?
Why can we not have equity and equality for everybody?
And there was like, I had just like a lot going on in my head, and I thought, we need
to start talking to young people so they can talk to each other so we can have really transformational,
generational, systemic change.
And so I was on a mission at that point.
I was like, I'm going to talk to kids, and that's how I ended up in the education space.
Thankfully, someone introduced me to Jennifer, and 15 minutes later, I'm like, this is what
I want to do, and she's like, that's great, but then expanded on that in so many, so many
different ways.
And that's how we ended up with captains and poets, because she's brilliant and a curriculum
writer and a former educator.
And she really was able to just sort of rein all my thoughts in and build this into something
that makes sense.
And also moves the dial on so many things around knowing who you are on the inside and
being self aware so you can see it and other people.
And that's really the key, right?
It's the key to inclusion and equity is knowing yourself so well that you can love and see
other people and all of their beautiful differences also and see it as a gift to your own life.
So that is the very shortish version of how I ended up in education.
And I could see how you two have this synergy.
You're both like even you're just you're very different like personalities and your energy,
but like the background that Jennifer has in education and the curriculum design and
also like your entrepreneurial background and like the mission and vision that you have
and then putting that together.
I think that is how it works, right?
You need both.
And you both probably have a different captain and poet or maybe something very similar and
we'll talk about that.
And you're doing SEL very different.
So this is, you know, you're in Canada, I'm in America and SEL, which is interesting in
America.
I'm not really sure about Canada, but it can be controversial.
I'm like, but a lot of people don't know about it.
They don't know what it truly is and it can look very different in different curriculum
in different schools, how it's delivered.
So just to kind of like get back into maybe like the meat of the program.
So YouTube got together, you had this wonderful idea and then how did you develop the curriculum
or what were you thinking like, these are going to be the pillars.
This is what we really want to do.
This is what kids need.
Like you said, Jan, like we want to see this generationally passed down, right?
Starting young so that they can pass that forward.
Yeah, maybe I'll start off there.
So we found ourselves in the SEL space and we are differentiated in that.
I think we don't focus heavily on the self regulation piece, which in some areas is part
of the controversy because we believe when you enable kids with self awareness, when
you help them to see themselves, to understand themselves, that they then embark on this journey
of self discovery, which is really empowering and gives them agency.
And we believe, you know, sort of mitigates a lot of the issues that are showing up in
schools.
So yeah, we were really in 2018.
We looked at the world and thought, oh my goodness, the world is increasingly complex.
Little did we know what was coming and we wanted young people to have an inner compass
so they could know who they were, they are and navigate situations, you know, with authenticity,
with compassion and with resilience.
And we found as on this journey over the past few years that really we're a little bit unique
in that we are at the intersection of well-being and identity because they feed one another
and that's really where connection lies, connection to self and connection to others
that the jam was alluding to earlier.
Yeah, I would only add just because it is controversial and it is, right?
Because there are inequities.
It's a thing.
Like it's real.
There are inequities in social emotional learning.
And you have young people showing up at schools who do not look like me and don't have the
same experience as me and I don't have the same experience of them and they're expecting
to, or we're all expecting them to co-regulate us to co-regulate.
But we don't have the same knowledge of each other's experiences.
So that is where it's so limiting, right?
And that's why the self-regulation, the self-management part, we never hooked ourselves to that train
because we were just very much like, no, it's about self-expression.
It's about exploration and awareness and discovery of who you are.
And in doing that, you are creating a whole new environment with your educator and with
the students in your class, right?
And that social emotional learning is so much better and so much more supportive for everybody.
And that's really important to us, really important to us because, well, because it's
not necessarily being used that way everywhere.
I like that explanation of how it's different because I do see a lot of self-regulation
as CL and I never thought about it being so inequitable, but that makes a lot of sense
because we're all coming from different places.
And we're approaching a class.
We are coming from different homes, different backgrounds, different challenges.
And when we do have education where it's like kind of still one size fits all, it's not
equitable.
It's not fair.
And then when you throw SEL in there and say, this is how we're going to talk about how
you're going to self-regulate and you're all going to do it the same way.
And it's like, people are not all starting from the same place.
So I love that insight.
Can you tell us a little bit about like, what is a captain?
What is a poet and then give me maybe an example for yourself?
And I can share as well since I was doing that as an activity through your Brightlight
series.
Yeah.
The whole world knows about your captain and poet now.
So great.
Yeah.
So the captain is the doer.
The captain is the part of you that takes charge that goes out into the world and tries
new things, gains confidence through experience.
You know, they're the navigator.
They're making decisions and choices and the captain is sort of the part of you that wants
you to get out of your comfort zone is a little bit bold and adventurous when they need to
be.
So the captain is doing and then the poet is being.
So it's all of that good human stuff, stirring inside of us.
So everything from our emotions to our imagination, you know, what's in our hearts, our values,
our dreams, our aspirations.
It's our creativity.
It's even our intuition and our gut feelings.
So as soon as you introduce this concept to kids and increasingly adults, they sort of
the shoulders drop because it's like, oh my goodness, I'm not the only one that has all
this stuff going on.
That's actually part of being human.
So we really position ourselves as a human curriculum and it's the formula of the captain
and the poet together.
We call it better together.
So when the captain and poet are in partnership in balance, that is how we are our best, most
authentic selves.
Just a simple example, the captain is sort of nudging the poet to be more self expressed
in the world, to show the world who you are.
So it's come on, put up your hand, right?
Share your ideas, express how you feel, say what needs to be said.
And this is counter to the self regulation piece that we were talking about earlier, right?
Because we want to excavate what's beneath the surface in classrooms and for kids to
bring their whole selves, right?
So the captain is really nudging the poet then just to bring who you are to the world,
to go after your dreams and the captain is there to help you set goals and take steps.
And then in the other direction, the poet is guiding the captain's actions from that
place of self awareness, what's going on inside of me, what's important here, what about the
other poets around me from your moral compass?
So the poet is really not in the backseat, they're partners.
So that's the metaphor and it's a simple language where we're really trying to collapse all
of those SCL skills into two words because it can apply to any situation, you know, academic,
in sports, personal, interpersonal.
And more and more we're starting to bring this to teachers as well because it's just
a beautiful self discovery tool to check in on like how's my captain today, how's my poet
today, you know, what's going on there and how can I connect with the other captains
and poets around me?
Yes, I love that.
I think it's a beautiful metaphor and think one that kids can really resonate with right
away, especially like younger kids.
And I was thinking when I was having to do this activity of thinking of my captain and
poet, I'm like, I really want to embrace my poet, because sometimes I put my poet on the
back burner, or I want to hide my poet.
So for me, a big part of my poet is my sensitivity, my emotions, my big heart, I wear my heart
on my sleeve, I'm a crier, I have a lot of emotions.
But it's part of what drives my captain, which is also leadership and wanting to use my voice
and wanting to help others use their voice and come from that heart centered place.
And it's something I see lacking in a lot of leadership, right, because I feel like people
fear almost being like an emotional leader.
Obviously, you need to regulate as a leader too, but you leading from the heart is a really
powerful thing.
And it's something that we need in this world.
So I think embracing your poet, because I can see the captain taking almost like the
center stage in people's lives, or they see that because it's the doer, right?
And we're in a society that's very like action oriented, right?
But I think really, for me, at least my personal connection is looking at that poet and seeing
how important it is, and how it is this team, right, working together and allowing kids to
embrace that within themselves.
And even the teacher, because I think the teachers are very, I don't know, well, there's
a lot of teachers that are dysregulated, but they're not in touch with who they are, where
like, you know, you get into a profession or you get into something and you start going
through the motions and you forget what is driving all of this.
So I think this is just important for the educator that's doing this alongside the students
as well.
That's right.
And there's a beautiful combination there.
So I remember you talking about, for example, how your captain is organized and your poet
is quite intuitive.
Like, so when you combine those two skills, for example, like you being organized and
intuitive, you just know what's important.
You're able to distill that down, whether it's dealing with a student in the classroom,
whether it's looking at the systems that you want to transform, you have that sense, that
ability to see what's important in any situation, which is such a gift.
And if every teacher could have that insight into their unique abilities that they bring
to the classroom, it's so empowering.
And it just, it lights people up and that tends to theme of our bright lights campaign.
So we want this for teachers as much as we do for students, because that could be a lot
of beautiful light bulbs going on.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I just wanted, I just wanted to just add something.
We were in a school last night, actually, and what you just said about how you want
to embrace your poet.
And you know, it sounds like it's been hidden and that makes sense for a lot of women in
professions, like they hide their poet so they're taken more seriously and they're not
so emotional.
But it starts so young.
Like I had, she was probably nine, I had a nine year old last night who just immediately,
she got the concepts immediately at her head just went, she said it like three times.
I hate my poet.
And I was like, why?
She's like, I'm too emotional.
So you know that she's heard this because nobody says that, right?
Nobody says that.
So you start to learn and we talk about this with kids about how you learn early, you hear
messages from the world that you're too much, you're too emotional, you're too this, which
is why you would have gone on to hide your poet and totally make sense, right?
And for, we get to go in and have these conversations about how you need your poet, right?
And it's, and empower them to own these parts of themselves that are so beautiful and so
necessary in order to live a balanced, whole, beautiful, healthy, successful life.
So it's, and it starts young.
So we stand as you can see, you know, works on all ages, right?
Because it is a very long process if you haven't learned this early of getting out of that
and coming back to who you really are, because you are doing that right now, right?
Yeah.
So, and starting young is important because just even hearing that, I can picture like
little Jackie in the classroom.
I was having teachers tell me in first grade, she talks too much.
She's too bubbly.
Oh my goodness.
Oh, I'm so positive.
Oh, that's such a bad thing.
Let's call home and tell my mom about that.
I think this is ridiculous, you know, but there is, it's a societal, because everyone's
trying to like put people into these boxes, things that they can control, things that
they, they know they could understand.
And I think getting kids to talk about that and talk about how important it is to have
the two working together and that they're both important and then see that as their
light for kids to see their light in them and own that light.
So when there's a bully or when there is someone saying you're too this, too that, you're like,
no, this is who I am.
And I know why this is important.
And I'm going to stand up for that captain and poet and more so maybe the poet because
I was putting that down before.
And I think that's a very empowering language to start out with like little kids before
they get to, you think like middle school when really like things are starting to get
into like, you know, self-esteem issues and like, what's my identity and all of that.
I could help shape their identity because you see a lot of kids who have identity issues
and struggling with that because they're like, I don't know what my light is.
I don't know who I am.
I don't know what my talents are.
I haven't been asked to embrace that in school.
I've just been asked to do a bunch of subjects and learn a bunch of information.
So this is, to me, this is not a soft skill.
It's an absolutely like number one priority thing that we should be doing in schools and
putting like front and center before all of like the core subjects.
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Yeah, we refer to them as power skills.
Hmm.
I like that.
They're essential.
Yeah, soft skills are the new power skills as we like to say.
And someone should have told you when you were young, you should be a podcaster because
you're so good at talking.
Right?
And even if you think about those traits that you have, like that's your lens on learning.
Right?
That's your lens on the whole world.
So if we don't know the kids in the classroom, how can we really reach them and connect with
them?
And the beautiful things, I mean, we'll do assemblies with hundreds of kids and of all
ages and it just gives them permission.
They've all got their hands up saying they want to just show up as themselves.
Right?
And we do workshops on bullying too.
And if you talk to the bully and say, I hear you're a bully, they'll say, no, I'm not.
I'm the one getting bullied.
Right?
So everyone's just, there's all this confusion as you said around identity and the social
structures.
And I think what we're really trying to do is create that safer, braver environment where
everybody feels like they can show up as their.
Yeah.
A practical question I have, because this is just always that this comes up in high
school at least, because I'm seeing this program can go all the way through.
And I could hear administrators or teachers being like, well, where are we going to fit
it in?
We don't have the time.
I'm sure you hear that all the time.
That isn't the biggest gripe, but it is.
It's a practical concern.
A lot of teachers feel like it's one more thing on my plate.
And I'm not knocking that because most teachers want to do this work, but the administrators
make no space for it in their schedule.
So how do you kind of work with schools from elementary through high school to kind of
figure out where this goes or fits or how to maybe even like just start to mold a new
culture?
Yeah.
That's our favorite thing to do.
And we need to find the entry points as you mentioned.
So we have tried to make it as easy as possible, simple language.
We do align to the state curriculum, national curriculum, and whenever we go into a market.
So trying to make it easy again, not another thing on teachers plates.
So advisory in home rooms is a popular area.
As you mentioned in secondary school, it is harder because you're trying to align them
to subject areas and whatnot.
So we tend in high school to also go in through leadership programming.
Because the whole premise really is self-awareness is the foundation of self-leadership.
How am I showing up in this moment for myself and for others?
And then self-leadership is the foundation of effective leadership.
So we believe everyone is a leader, even if it comes down to just the day to day and leading
in your own life or it could be on the world stage.
So that's a nice way to sort of package it and really give young people in secondary
access to this knowledge about themselves.
Yeah.
There's also opportunity for things like mentorship programming and like most high schools have
like a peer leader program.
So we've worked with the peer leaders and that gives opportunity for it's sort of a
train the trainer kind of thing.
Once they've had the messaging and they can go out and do whatever they want or need to
do in the schools.
Yeah we have that in my current school.
We have a peer leadership program.
But I could see something like this really coming into at least the peer leader and we
have an advisory program too.
And I think that has a really nice space there and it's something that's consistent.
It meets like every week for an hour.
You're meeting with the same kids.
You have a small group of kids and I can see like the curriculum building from like grade
to grade.
So like you're taking this language through.
So if someone's because we're like a three division school you get to high school and
it's just again it becomes part of the culture.
And then it's just then you can see it everywhere throughout the school and not just like this
is an advisory program but this is how we talk.
This is how we communicate and like you could be in a history class.
You know that's my background and with like say a group project who's going to be you
know the captain and poet.
Notice what are you bringing to the group.
What are you bringing into this relationship where you might need to really know what that
that poet is to what's driving them in this type of project.
And it can give a lot more context about group work and like how people work together because
I know that's always like a sticky thing with teenagers are like oh here's another group
thing and I'm like you're going to have to work with people your whole life.
Like it's it's part of being human.
So I could see it playing out then trickling into subjects into different ways that teachers
could weave it into their own curriculum.
So I don't know if you want to give any other like examples or even testimonials from like
teachers kids and how they've been responding to this curriculum in their schools.
Sure.
I mean just building on what you're saying like you can use the captain and poet as
a lens on social issues going on in the world social studies history.
We recently worked with Case the Canadian accredited independent schools organization
their national leadership conference for middle schoolers and they were going to the museum
of human rights the day after our workshop and it was amazing.
We were able to connect it and give them the ability to reflect on what they were learning
about and also how it was impacting them.
And I think that's a point we often don't talk about enough is the world is a pretty
overwhelming place right now for adults never mind children.
So you know it's really wonderful when we can give them these tools to make sense to
make sense of things and then feel empowered to actually do something from their own unique
contributions that they bring their captain and poet.
Yeah.
I would just say also getting to what kind of blending those two things those two things
together is that getting kids to work together when they learn about their captain and poet
when they run through the leadership programming we often talk about we talk heavily about
unique abilities.
So and that's one of the most beautiful things about the kids want to find each other's unique
abilities and that there's it's more fun you know to start to find out what not just what
your own is but to see what it is and other people and that creates a beautiful environment
to build something incredible with your group when you're building group work right.
And that's something that they're going to have to do their whole lives.
Yeah.
And there's ownership there for each student to feel like I have something to bring to
the table because you often will hear students be like well this is the smart kid in the
group or this is the organized kid in the group or this is the one that's really good
at speaking or this is the one that's really good at writing and then you'll always have
a kid that's like I'm not good at anything you will always have that and instead to be
like challenge each student like no you're all going to find that your unique ability
is needed in this group project and that's why I think having assignments where there's
more student choice there's not as much structure the teachers more of a guide let the kids
kind of like find their way through it and let it be a little messy.
I think kids need to know how to work through those relationships when things are tough
in group projects or group dynamics with whatever they're working on.
Sometimes I think teachers want so much control or put kids into roles into what they think
these kids are good at because it's better classroom management.
So that's adult centered that doesn't work for the kids they have no buy in.
So I just I really can see this in so many different facets of a school and I would love
to like learn more as we kind of wrap up here about like where are you going and like how
is it growing and any exciting things you want to talk about in 2024 and beyond.
Sure I can start.
I will say that when we started out in 2018 we did not anticipate that we would be working
with teachers and principals so much and I think the last few years that everything everyone
has gone through you know people are overwhelmed they're worn out they're a little threadbare
and so they also the adults in the room also need a boost and need to be seen and need
to be re-energized and need to reconnect with their purpose.
So we're excited to be introducing more offerings that way just as part of our solutions because
it is a whole school approach and I think sometimes we forget when we say whole school
we're thinking it's really centered around the students but it's everyone it's everyone
in the community and even the parents you know so we have resources to connect with
the parents so that everybody is using that same language and you know coaching coaching
that individual student and to their strengths and then ultimately we want them to be able
to coach themselves and carry this with them their entire lives.
Yeah I love that it has to really touch every member of the community and I think I could
see it being a great PD professional development and those like opening days when teachers
are starting before the kids come to school to like tap into your captain and poet again
and kind of workshop that and get you kind of re-energized into like what are your unique
abilities that you because I know this is I do it teachers compare themselves to other
teachers like we're not robots we're not supposed to be like each other we all have something
special to bring to the classroom and to see that and I think utilize that in departments
and putting that almost kind of like on the leadership like department leaders to say
you want to see in your department members what are their captain and poet what do they
each bring to your department in your curriculum asking for more feedback and more ideas and
not I can go on and on because I just see a lot of top down still and like here this
is what you're just doing and not embracing like why did you hire this person in the first
place because they're passionate they're creative and then that kind of loses its you know shimmer
after a while so I think bringing this back to like re-energize the faculty is great.
Yeah it's really fun to watch the teachers tap into who they are and also be seen by
their peer groups and their colleagues and their students when the students can like
articulate their teachers captain and poet it's like oh man these like teachers are in
tears because it they work so hard and they don't get that kind of feedback.
No.
And they do it's like whoa it's working.
Yeah.
I'm doing a great job and they know who I am and they can see that I'm trying and they
can feel my kindness and my compassion and all of these and it's just a beautiful thing
to be doing.
So more of that that's what we want to do like we like a lot more professional development
I'm surprised how much I enjoy the working with the adults side of things because I really
thought nope the change was going to be with the kids and that's true except that we need
the teachers to teach them so they need to know they need to really get involved in
it and feel it themselves right so more PD for sure we want to reach as many kids as
we possibly can as quickly as we can to change the world.
We're working with a lot of and we'd love to work with more youth organizations we have
a bit of a passion for that.
And of course the we're already working with some amazing organizations Jen just said like
case we're working with we have a partnership with the International Coalition of Girls
Schools and we want to keep building on what we've been doing we're in seven countries
right now we want to be.
That's awesome.
Yeah in a very short period of time we've had a remarkable start I would say over the
last five years and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon people are starting to catch
up with that.
Yes, I think post COVID too people see the real need because there was just such a shift
in you know we all went inside and kids really struggled with the isolation and I think it
made it harder for us to re-enter back into society and kids are like I don't know how
to be I don't know what I am what I'm doing.
So I think even more so in the time these years after the pandemic is really essential.
Yeah we're not we're not cookie cutter but we are so easy and like we just want to make
it work we'd love to talk to the educators we want to build things together so we're
not a scary company it's not a whole bunch of printouts you don't have to know how to
use a computer very well like it's nothing like that like it's not edgy tech it's real
tangible, real tangible connection stuff so you just have to be willing to you know send
us an email and connect.
Well that is a great way to also kind of end this because I was going to ask you like where
can our listeners find you and I will put all of that in the show notes and they can
easily like click on a link and learn more if there's anything else you want to share
as your final thoughts as well.
It's just been such a pleasure to talk to both of you and I love your program and I will
just not only with this podcast keep sharing it to as many people as I know and even the
school that I'm leaving I have a very good relationship with them I could see this really
fitting into their advisory program so I would love to share it with my independent school
yeah.
Really appreciate that yeah that would be amazing and when you can find us at captain's
poets on every social we are we have a really amazing LinkedIn community of educator so I
would recommend people checking that out like they're they're finding us and they're really
they are the bright lights obviously on Twitter, X whatever that is Facebook, Instagram we're
there and also personally on LinkedIn we'd love for people to reach out and connect with
us both.
Yeah, thank you very visible I've seen it all over it's great news that we have a great
monthly newsletter too so yeah find that out and one more thing we invite people to nominate
bright lights that they know.
So bright light who are making a difference because we know things are hard but Jen and
I have the privilege of working with all these amazing educators around the world and we
just had a moment one day and thought what if everybody could see this what if we could
show all these lights around the globe and just uplift teachers because everybody's working
in their own corner in their own classroom so if you know someone or you can even nominate
yourself we have a link out on social as well that you can access.
And I'll just do that yeah please do that because you know what we need to lift each
other up and I always and I said this in the bright light series like it is all about community
you know good teachers who really care about staying in this profession they need to do
it in community it is really hard it's it's very easy to feel like you're on an island
by yourself and you don't get a lot of feedback and so you know it's great when you get it
from your administrators it's great when you get it from your students and parents but
they you know we could lift each other up to teacher to teacher right nominate a great
teacher just lift you up and in your profession and showcase that to the world so I love that
bright light series thank you and thank you so much for you know bringing me into that
as well.
Of course thank you.
This is great I have enjoyed this conversation so much and I wish you both so much success
with captains and poets and we'll definitely stay in touch thank you so much have a great
day.
Thank you.
Thank you Jackie.
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