In today's economic climate, I don't think I'd recommend an undergraduate degree in education. Classroom experience can be acquired relatively quickly without a teaching degree or license. I'd recommend a broader course load or pursuing more lucrative education in other fields.

I spend my time answering emails, attending meetings, and talking to providers of early learning and early childhood resources about how to help families be better brain-builders to their children.

Early Learning Project Manager

You can do brain building in those little moments.
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00:00:02.435 --> 00:00:05.372 You don't need to be on your hands and knees all afternoon
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00:00:05.605 --> 00:00:06.806 to be doing brain building.
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00:00:06.806 --> 00:00:08.308 It's while you're already
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00:00:08.308 --> 00:00:12.212 in those mundane moments of life, that brain building happen.
 6
00:00:12.212 --> 00:00:17.212 And so that's what I would recommend for sure is to tell parents you are a brain
 7
00:00:18.018 --> 00:00:21.821 builder, take what you have and you do brain building every day with your babies.
 8
00:00:22.389 --> 00:00:23.623 I'm Travis Allred.
 9
00:00:23.623 --> 00:00:26.760 I am currently the early learning project manager
 10
00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.829 at a nonprofit in Salt Lake City called Envision Utah.
 11
00:00:29.863 --> 00:00:33.033 We started out as sort of a nonprofit
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00:00:33.033 --> 00:00:36.836 that looked at sort of what the growth of Utah should look like.
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00:00:36.836 --> 00:00:40.840 Back in the nineties, there was a lot of clamor among Utahns
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00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:42.442 about some growing pains, right?
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00:00:42.442 --> 00:00:44.077 There was a lot of bad air, right?
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00:00:44.077 --> 00:00:45.245 A lot of traffic.
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00:00:45.245 --> 00:00:47.881 And people were like, this is this is uncomfortable.
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00:00:47.881 --> 00:00:49.682 We need to fix this problem.
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00:00:49.682 --> 00:00:50.950 We need to have some solutions.
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00:00:50.950 --> 00:00:54.788 And they realized the only way to do it is we've got to do it together.
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00:00:54.788 --> 00:00:56.689 And so I love that message.
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00:00:56.689 --> 00:00:58.191 I really resonated with that.
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00:00:58.191 --> 00:01:00.093 And my parents, they're both public servants, right?
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00:01:00.093 --> 00:01:02.796 My mom, she was a teacher all for her whole career.
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00:01:02.796 --> 00:01:05.031 And then my dad, he was a city planner.
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00:01:05.031 --> 00:01:07.801 So I taught for five years and a lot of fun.
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00:01:07.901 --> 00:01:09.269 But one of the problems
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00:01:09.269 --> 00:01:13.440 I kept noticing, some kids I noticed, like, you're going to be fine,
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00:01:13.506 --> 00:01:18.378 but then some kids, no matter what I said or did, they were not going to be fine.
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00:01:18.378 --> 00:01:20.113 And I just I didn't know how to reach them.
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00:01:20.113 --> 00:01:23.850 I didn't know how to get a hold of their future and adjust it.
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00:01:23.850 --> 00:01:27.720 You know, I wanted to be able to sort of adjust their trajectory in some way.
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00:01:28.121 --> 00:01:32.525 And so I decided, you know what, Like I need to go upstream a little bit.
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00:01:32.525 --> 00:01:35.929 And so with my next role after graduating from business school,
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00:01:35.929 --> 00:01:39.332 I thought, you know, if there's a way for me to do this, that would be great.
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00:01:39.332 --> 00:01:42.235 And that's when I found that that role at Envision Utah.
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00:01:42.268 --> 00:01:43.603 And I thought, let's jump on this.
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00:01:43.603 --> 00:01:45.572 So that's kind of where I ended up with.
 39
00:01:45.572 --> 00:01:48.875 I know your mom was a teacher, but did you have any, like, teachers
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00:01:48.875 --> 00:01:51.111 or someone else that maybe inspired you to be a teacher
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00:01:51.111 --> 00:01:52.345 going to the high school level?
 42
00:01:52.345 --> 00:01:54.948 All the teachers in the room, like we all have our inspirations.
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00:01:54.948 --> 00:01:59.052 We all have the people that made teaching come alive for us,
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00:01:59.052 --> 00:02:03.423 that made the educational experience truly amazing for us and
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00:02:03.423 --> 00:02:07.527 and made it real for us and go like, I could do this someday.
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00:02:07.527 --> 00:02:07.927 Right?
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00:02:07.927 --> 00:02:12.927 And so it's people like that that you have to look back and say thank you for.
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00:02:13.299 --> 00:02:16.569 It's funny because, you know, I was doing my practicum or some sort of
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00:02:17.504 --> 00:02:20.840 classwork in college and I was, you know, coming back home
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00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:23.009 and I swung by the school and
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00:02:23.009 --> 00:02:25.678 knocked, poked my head and said I'm going to be a teacher just like you!
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00:02:25.678 --> 00:02:27.213 He said, I am so sorry.
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00:02:29.649 --> 00:02:30.683 Right.
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00:02:30.683 --> 00:02:31.351 It's funny.
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00:02:31.351 --> 00:02:36.122 We laugh, but like, I think as teachers, we all kind of know a little bit
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00:02:36.122 --> 00:02:41.122 what he means when we say that because it is a beautiful
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00:02:41.361 --> 00:02:46.361 industry, it's a beautiful job, but it is so taxing on our souls.
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00:02:46.399 --> 00:02:49.169 And there's thousands of high school kids graduating every year
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00:02:49.536 --> 00:02:52.005 that are no longer thinking about becoming a teacher.
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00:02:52.038 --> 00:02:53.206 Just like that conversation
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00:02:53.206 --> 00:02:55.642 I had where they said, I want to be a teacher just like you.
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00:02:56.276 --> 00:02:59.546 And instead of saying, I think that's awesome,
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00:02:59.546 --> 00:03:02.115 I think that's awesome, I think you would be an amazing teacher.
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00:03:02.115 --> 00:03:04.083 They're saying, I'm so sorry.
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00:03:04.083 --> 00:03:07.220 And so for me, I feel like if you just pay teachers
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00:03:07.220 --> 00:03:12.220 like incredible game changing money and get the heck out of their way,
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00:03:13.059 --> 00:03:16.029 we're going to see the outcomes that we want to see.
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00:03:16.262 --> 00:03:19.332 But right now, they're being so burdened with accountability.
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00:03:19.332 --> 00:03:20.400 We want to see the accountable.
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00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:23.136 We want to see you know, we want to see your test scores.
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00:03:23.169 --> 00:03:24.270 We want to see all of the stuff.
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00:03:24.270 --> 00:03:27.073 And it makes it really hard when you're on the ground
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00:03:28.074 --> 00:03:29.509 to be accountable
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00:03:29.509 --> 00:03:32.312 to the entire public for everything.
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00:03:32.545 --> 00:03:36.950 One of my major goals is to kind of equipped families with this
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00:03:36.950 --> 00:03:41.854 like foundation of being their kids, like biggest advocate,
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00:03:41.854 --> 00:03:46.059 biggest cheerleader and all that, particularly with academics.
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00:03:46.059 --> 00:03:50.797 So what like what advice or what suggestions do you have for me?
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00:03:50.797 --> 00:03:53.132 As I kind of work on that?
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00:03:53.266 --> 00:03:57.804 Yeah, I think coming at it from this attitude of like, mom, dad,
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00:03:57.804 --> 00:03:59.906 you are a brain builder,
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00:03:59.906 --> 00:04:02.542 I think that's kind of the messaging that we have at Envision Utah,
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00:04:03.243 --> 00:04:06.613 and that's something that we want to sort of change the culture in Utah around
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00:04:06.613 --> 00:04:07.981 is like parents.
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00:04:07.981 --> 00:04:09.849 You guys are brain builders and you guys are a part
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00:04:09.849 --> 00:04:11.284 of a community of brain builders.
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00:04:11.284 --> 00:04:13.653 So when you're doing your parent teacher conferences,
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00:04:13.786 --> 00:04:16.623 when you're doing those back to school nights, mom, dad,
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00:04:16.756 --> 00:04:18.992 you guys are brain builders and I need your help.
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00:04:18.992 --> 00:04:20.193 I can't do it all alone.
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00:04:20.193 --> 00:04:24.030 You're with your kid the other 130 hours a week.
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00:04:24.297 --> 00:04:26.733 I need you to be brain building at home.
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00:04:26.733 --> 00:04:28.801 And this is what it looks like, right?
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00:04:29.102 --> 00:04:31.337 And so you can do something like that really easy.
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00:04:31.337 --> 00:04:33.640 So I'm not worried. Right.
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00:04:33.673 --> 00:04:35.275 And neither should your families.
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00:04:35.275 --> 00:04:38.311 Neither should your parents that you engage with, because
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00:04:38.811 --> 00:04:42.715 parents already have everything they need and they're already
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00:04:42.715 --> 00:04:45.985 doing an incredible job to be great brain builders to their kids.
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00:04:46.052 --> 00:04:47.787 Like, here's all the things you're doing right.
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00:04:47.787 --> 00:04:50.323 And don't worry, you're doing an incredible job.
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00:04:50.323 --> 00:04:53.493 You're doing amazing things already, and you can do brain
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00:04:53.493 --> 00:04:55.061 building in those little moments.
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00:04:55.061 --> 00:04:57.964 You don't need to be on your hands and knees all afternoon
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00:04:58.231 --> 00:04:59.432 to be doing brain building.
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00:04:59.432 --> 00:05:04.432 It's while you're already cooking dinner or driving or waiting in line, it's
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00:05:04.537 --> 00:05:09.242 while you're in those mundane moments of life that brain building happen.
 108
00:05:09.242 --> 00:05:14.242 And so that's what I would recommend for sure, is to tell parents you are a brain
 109
00:05:15.081 --> 00:05:18.985 builder, take what you have and you do brain building every day with your babies.
 110
00:05:19.185 --> 00:05:23.823 What piece of advice you have for us or for parents like myself or future parents?
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00:05:23.923 --> 00:05:28.923 Don't be afraid to make the hard choices, whether that's staying in teaching
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00:05:29.329 --> 00:05:33.066 or whether that's leaving teaching or whether that's, you know, changing
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00:05:33.066 --> 00:05:34.634 something up about your teaching
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00:05:34.634 --> 00:05:38.738 or whether that's changing the school you're in or, you know, whatever it is,
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00:05:38.738 --> 00:05:42.575 don't be afraid to make that hard choice and you will land on your feet
 116
00:05:42.575 --> 00:05:47.113 because you're smart and professionally, I would have to say, talk to your babies.
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00:05:47.113 --> 00:05:49.449 And the brain building is is super, super important.
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00:05:49.449 --> 00:05:49.716 But yeah,
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00:05:49.716 --> 00:05:53.586 also like celebrate their little wins, celebrate their successes, celebrate
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00:05:53.586 --> 00:05:55.288 their little accomplishments.
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00:05:55.288 --> 00:05:57.490 Those are big things for them. And
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00:05:58.491 --> 00:05:59.425 just try and
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00:05:59.425 --> 00:06:01.794 look at the world just as if it's
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00:06:03.162 --> 00:06:03.796 brand new.
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00:06:03.796 --> 00:06:04.764 Right.
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00:06:05.531 --> 00:06:08.101 Because they're seeing it for the first time.
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00:06:08.101 --> 00:06:09.502 You've seen it.
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00:06:09.502 --> 00:06:11.871 You see it every day, but they've never seen it.
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00:06:12.105 --> 00:06:14.340 And and that's a magical experience
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00:06:15.541 --> 00:06:18.077 to see the world fresh.
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00:06:18.077 --> 00:06:20.580 And that's been such a wonderful, wonderful gift
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00:06:21.881 --> 00:06:23.383 for me as a parent to see.
 

Interview

What piece of advice you have for us or for parents like myself or future parents?
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00:00:04.838 --> 00:00:09.838 Don't be afraid to make the hard choices, whether that's staying in teaching
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00:00:10.243 --> 00:00:13.980 or whether that's leaving teaching or whether that's, you know, changing
 4
00:00:13.980 --> 00:00:15.548 something up about your teaching
 5
00:00:15.548 --> 00:00:19.652 or whether that's changing the school you're in or, you know, whatever it is,
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00:00:19.652 --> 00:00:23.490 don't be afraid to make that hard choice and you will land on your feet
 7
00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:28.028 because you're smart and professionally, I would have to say, talk to your babies.
 8
00:00:28.028 --> 00:00:30.363 And the brain building is is super, super important.
 9
00:00:30.363 --> 00:00:30.630 But yeah,
 10
00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:34.501 also like celebrate their little wins, celebrate their successes, celebrate
 11
00:00:34.501 --> 00:00:36.202 their little accomplishments.
 12
00:00:36.202 --> 00:00:38.405 Those are big things for them. And
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00:00:39.406 --> 00:00:40.340 just try and
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00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:42.709 look at the world just as if it's
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00:00:44.077 --> 00:00:44.711 brand new.
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00:00:44.711 --> 00:00:45.678 Right.
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00:00:46.446 --> 00:00:49.015 Because they're seeing it for the first time.
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00:00:49.015 --> 00:00:50.417 You've seen it.
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00:00:50.417 --> 00:00:52.786 You see it every day, but they've never seen it.
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00:00:53.019 --> 00:00:55.255 And that's a magical experience
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00:00:56.456 --> 00:00:58.992 to see the world fresh.
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00:00:58.992 --> 00:01:01.494 And that's been such a wonderful, wonderful gift
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00:01:02.796 --> 00:01:04.297 for me as a parent to see.
 

Support & Encouragement

Advice For Teachers And Parents

I'm Travis Allred.
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00:00:01.167 --> 00:00:04.270 I am currently the Early Learning project manager
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00:00:04.270 --> 00:00:07.340 at a nonprofit in Salt Lake City called Envision Utah.
 4
00:00:07.374 --> 00:00:10.510 We started out as sort of a nonprofit
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00:00:10.510 --> 00:00:14.314 that looked at sort of what the growth of Utah should look like.
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00:00:14.347 --> 00:00:18.618 We do surveys and we think about challenges that are really hard questions,
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00:00:18.618 --> 00:00:21.955 and we really ask those hard questions and we say this is
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00:00:22.789 --> 00:00:26.126 our problem together and what are we going to do to solve it?
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00:00:26.126 --> 00:00:29.629 Because we'd rather be growing than not growing.
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00:00:29.629 --> 00:00:33.633 And so as the Early Learning Project manager at Envision Utah, my day to day
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00:00:33.633 --> 00:00:35.168 kind of looks a little bit different every day.
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00:00:35.168 --> 00:00:39.372 So, for example, yesterday I went out and did like a tabling event.
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00:00:39.372 --> 00:00:41.541 I went to sort of a WIC clinic and like,
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00:00:41.541 --> 00:00:43.777 you know, talk to some new moms and some expecting moms
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00:00:43.777 --> 00:00:46.679 about the importance of brain building to their new babies.
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00:00:46.679 --> 00:00:49.716 And so I was able to share some resources about the importance of brain building.
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00:00:49.716 --> 00:00:52.185 And then I went to a training in the evening
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00:00:52.185 --> 00:00:54.154 and talked to some preschool teachers,
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00:00:54.154 --> 00:00:56.156 kind of as the school year is getting going.
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00:00:56.156 --> 00:00:58.324 So that's kind of what my day looked like yesterday.
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00:00:58.324 --> 00:01:02.328 Today, I'm going to go and talk to a library about how they can
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00:01:02.328 --> 00:01:06.099 sort of beef up their space to make it more literarily appropriate
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00:01:06.099 --> 00:01:09.469 and kind of beef up their sort of brain building content on the walls.
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00:01:09.469 --> 00:01:12.639 And so sort of helping folks, partners
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00:01:12.639 --> 00:01:15.708 around the community to improve their messaging.
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00:01:15.742 --> 00:01:20.180 So our goal at Envision Utah is to surround parents and families
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00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:21.147 with the message
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00:01:21.147 --> 00:01:23.316 that brain building is important and that they can do it
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00:01:23.416 --> 00:01:25.452 and that they're already doing an incredible job.
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00:01:25.718 --> 00:01:28.621 And so that's kind of what my role really looks like.
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00:01:28.621 --> 00:01:32.492 And it can kind of vary from day to day, but that's kind of the principle there.
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00:01:32.492 --> 00:01:36.729 And so whether it's looking at messaging or whether it's working with a health care
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00:01:36.729 --> 00:01:39.432 provider or whether that's looking at a nonprofit,
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00:01:39.432 --> 00:01:44.432 all of these different voices hopefully will work on families to sort of
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00:01:44.771 --> 00:01:49.771 change the conversation to the point where hopefully our goal is,
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00:01:50.043 --> 00:01:53.680 you know, a baby comes home from the hospital and grandma says,
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00:01:53.847 --> 00:01:56.316 now you're brain building that baby, right, Mom?
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00:01:56.683 --> 00:01:57.283 Right.
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00:01:57.283 --> 00:02:00.186 Sort of in the same way that it's like now you're keeping her bundled up
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00:02:00.186 --> 00:02:01.321 because it's cold outside
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00:02:01.321 --> 00:02:04.824 and all of those little messages that that we've come to agree
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00:02:04.824 --> 00:02:08.728 that are important for for babies to have that brain building early learning
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00:02:09.429 --> 00:02:10.530 come along with that.
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00:02:10.530 --> 00:02:12.265 That's kind of my role at Envision Utah.
 

Day In The Life Of An Early Learning Project Manager

I know your mom was a teacher, but did you have any, like, teachers
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00:00:03.436 --> 00:00:05.672 or someone else that maybe inspired you to be a teacher
 3
00:00:05.672 --> 00:00:06.906 going to the high school level?
 4
00:00:06.906 --> 00:00:09.509 All the teachers in the room, like we all have our inspirations.
 5
00:00:09.509 --> 00:00:13.613 We all have the people that made teaching come alive for us,
 6
00:00:13.613 --> 00:00:17.984 that made the educational experience truly amazing for us and
 7
00:00:17.984 --> 00:00:22.088 and made it real for us and go like, I could do this someday.
 8
00:00:22.088 --> 00:00:22.489 Right?
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00:00:22.489 --> 00:00:27.489 And so it's people like that that you have to look back and say thank you for.
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00:00:27.861 --> 00:00:31.131 It's funny because, you know, I was doing my practicum or some sort of
 11
00:00:32.065 --> 00:00:35.402 classwork in college and I was, you know, coming back home
 12
00:00:35.402 --> 00:00:37.570 and I swung by the school and
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00:00:37.570 --> 00:00:40.240 knocked, poked my head and said I'm going to be a teacher just like you!
 14
00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:41.775 He said, I am so sorry.
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00:00:44.210 --> 00:00:45.245 Right.
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00:00:45.245 --> 00:00:45.912 It's funny.
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00:00:45.912 --> 00:00:50.683 We laugh, but like, I think as teachers, we all kind of know a little bit
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00:00:50.683 --> 00:00:55.683 what he means when we say that because it is a beautiful
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00:00:55.922 --> 00:01:00.922 industry, it's a beautiful job, but it is so taxing on our souls.
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00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:03.730 And there's thousands of high school kids graduating every year
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00:01:04.097 --> 00:01:06.566 that are no longer thinking about becoming a teacher.
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00:01:06.599 --> 00:01:07.767 Just like that conversation
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00:01:07.767 --> 00:01:10.203 I had where they said, I want to be a teacher just like you.
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00:01:10.837 --> 00:01:14.107 And instead of saying, I think that's awesome,
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00:01:14.107 --> 00:01:16.676 I think that's awesome, I think you would be an amazing teacher.
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00:01:16.676 --> 00:01:18.645 They're saying, I'm so sorry.
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00:01:18.645 --> 00:01:21.781 And so for me, I feel like if you just pay teachers
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00:01:21.781 --> 00:01:26.781 like incredible game changing money and get the heck out of their way,
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00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:30.590 we're going to see the outcomes that we want to see.
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00:01:30.824 --> 00:01:33.893 But right now, they're being so burdened with accountability.
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00:01:33.893 --> 00:01:34.961 We want to see the accountable.
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00:01:34.961 --> 00:01:37.697 We want to see you know, we want to see your test scores.
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00:01:37.730 --> 00:01:38.832 We want to see all of the stuff.
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00:01:38.832 --> 00:01:41.634 And it makes it really hard when you're on the ground
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00:01:42.635 --> 00:01:44.070 to be accountable
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00:01:44.070 --> 00:01:46.873 to the entire public for everything.
 

Inspiration

The Importance Of Teacher Inspiration

One of my major goals is to kind of equipped families with this
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00:00:04.604 --> 00:00:09.509 like foundation of being their kids, like biggest advocate,
 3
00:00:09.509 --> 00:00:13.713 biggest cheerleader and all that, particularly with academics.
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00:00:13.713 --> 00:00:18.451 So what like what advice or what suggestions do you have for me?
 5
00:00:18.451 --> 00:00:20.787 As I kind of work on that?
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00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:25.458 Yeah, I think coming at it from this attitude of like, mom, dad,
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00:00:25.458 --> 00:00:27.560 you are a brain builder,
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00:00:27.560 --> 00:00:30.196 I think that's kind of the messaging that we have at Envision Utah,
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00:00:30.897 --> 00:00:34.267 and that's something that we want to sort of change the culture in Utah around
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00:00:34.267 --> 00:00:35.635 is like parents.
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00:00:35.635 --> 00:00:37.504 You guys are brain builders and you guys are a part
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00:00:37.504 --> 00:00:38.938 of a community of brain builders.
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00:00:38.938 --> 00:00:41.307 So when you're doing your parent teacher conferences,
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00:00:41.441 --> 00:00:44.277 when you're doing those back to school nights, mom, dad,
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00:00:44.411 --> 00:00:46.646 you guys are brain builders and I need your help.
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00:00:46.646 --> 00:00:47.847 I can't do it all alone.
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00:00:47.847 --> 00:00:51.684 You're with your kid the other 130 hours a week.
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00:00:51.951 --> 00:00:54.387 I need you to be brain building at home.
 19
00:00:54.387 --> 00:00:56.456 And this is what it looks like, right?
 20
00:00:56.756 --> 00:00:58.992 And so you can do something like that really easy.
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00:00:58.992 --> 00:01:01.294 So I'm not worried. Right.
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00:01:01.327 --> 00:01:02.929 And neither should your families.
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00:01:02.929 --> 00:01:05.965 Neither should your parents that you engage with, because
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00:01:06.466 --> 00:01:10.370 parents already have everything they need and they're already
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00:01:10.370 --> 00:01:13.640 doing an incredible job to be great brain builders to their kids.
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00:01:13.706 --> 00:01:15.442 Like, here's all the things you're doing right.
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00:01:15.442 --> 00:01:17.977 And don't worry, you're doing an incredible job.
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00:01:17.977 --> 00:01:21.147 You're doing amazing things already, and you can do brain
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00:01:21.147 --> 00:01:22.715 building in those little moments.
 30
00:01:22.715 --> 00:01:25.618 You don't need to be on your hands and knees all afternoon
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00:01:25.885 --> 00:01:27.087 to be doing brain building.
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00:01:27.087 --> 00:01:32.087 It's while you're already cooking dinner or driving or waiting in line, it's
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00:01:32.192 --> 00:01:36.896 while you're in those mundane moments of life that brain building happen.
 34
00:01:36.896 --> 00:01:41.896 And so that's what I would recommend for sure, is to tell parents you are a brain
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00:01:42.735 --> 00:01:46.639 builder, take what you have and you do brain building every day with your babies.
 

Becoming Your Child’s Biggest Advocate

You can do brain building in those little moments.
 2
00:00:02.435 --> 00:00:05.372 You don't need to be on your hands and knees all afternoon
 3
00:00:05.605 --> 00:00:06.806 to be doing brain building.
 4
00:00:06.806 --> 00:00:08.308 It's while you're already
 5
00:00:08.308 --> 00:00:12.212 in those mundane moments of life, that brain building happen.
 6
00:00:12.212 --> 00:00:15.982 And so take what you have and you do brain building every day with your babies.
 7
00:00:16.516 --> 00:00:17.751 I'm Travis Allred.
 8
00:00:17.751 --> 00:00:20.887 I am currently the Early Learning project manager
 9
00:00:20.887 --> 00:00:23.957 at a nonprofit in Salt Lake City called Envision Utah.
 10
00:00:23.990 --> 00:00:27.127 We started out as sort of a nonprofit
 11
00:00:27.127 --> 00:00:30.964 that looked at sort of what the growth of Utah should look like.
 12
00:00:30.964 --> 00:00:34.768 And they realized the only way to do it is we've got to do it together.
 13
00:00:34.801 --> 00:00:36.669 And so I love that message.
 14
00:00:36.669 --> 00:00:38.171 I really resonated with that.
 15
00:00:38.171 --> 00:00:41.775 So all the teachers in the room, like we all have our inspirations, we all have
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00:00:41.775 --> 00:00:46.012 the people that made teaching come alive for us, that made
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00:00:46.012 --> 00:00:49.682 the educational experience truly amazing for us and
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00:00:49.682 --> 00:00:54.187 and made it real for us and go like, I could do this someday, right?
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00:00:54.187 --> 00:00:56.489 So I'm not worried. Right?
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00:00:56.523 --> 00:01:00.393 And neither should your families, Neither should your parents that you engage with.
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00:01:00.393 --> 00:01:03.930 And don't be afraid to make the hard choices, whether that's
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00:01:04.431 --> 00:01:07.700 staying in teaching or whether that's leaving teaching,
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00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:11.604 you know, whatever it is, don't be afraid to make that hard choice
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00:01:11.604 --> 00:01:14.007 and you will land on your feet because you're smart
 25
00:01:14.007 --> 00:01:16.309 and the brain building is is super, super important.
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00:01:16.309 --> 00:01:16.543 But yeah,
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00:01:16.543 --> 00:01:20.413 also like celebrate their little wins, celebrate their successes, celebrate
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00:01:20.413 --> 00:01:22.115 their little accomplishments.
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00:01:22.115 --> 00:01:23.583 Those are big things for them.
 

Travis Allred Highlight

When you think
 2
00:00:00.767 --> 00:00:04.738 about your journey, you're like trajectory to be where you are today.
 3
00:00:04.771 --> 00:00:07.841 If you were to be talking to a high school student
 4
00:00:07.841 --> 00:00:10.977 or something and giving them kind of tips and
 5
00:00:11.411 --> 00:00:14.147 and tricks to get where you are today, what would you say to them?
 6
00:00:14.314 --> 00:00:19.119 I would tell that kid to not stress about the little stuff.
 7
00:00:19.119 --> 00:00:23.957 Don't stress about that one test or that one paper too much.
 8
00:00:23.957 --> 00:00:25.658 Just be consistent. Right?
 9
00:00:25.658 --> 00:00:30.658 It's the day in and day out grind and it's not about any one thing,
 10
00:00:31.664 --> 00:00:35.301 but it's about that consistency and it's about that sort of gradual effort
 11
00:00:35.301 --> 00:00:36.836 that will pay off over time.
 12
00:00:36.836 --> 00:00:39.139 And it's that slow and steady right?
 13
00:00:39.305 --> 00:00:43.343 For me, I feel like that's really where I've gotten to today.
 14
00:00:43.343 --> 00:00:45.712 It's about continuously believing in yourself.
 15
00:00:45.745 --> 00:00:47.414 I mean, I know my my, my wife,
 16
00:00:47.414 --> 00:00:49.516 she believed in me and she said, Baby, you need to, you know,
 17
00:00:49.516 --> 00:00:51.885 go back to grad school. And that's a really hard step.
 18
00:00:51.885 --> 00:00:54.921 You know, you need to, you know, continue to apply yourself.
 19
00:00:54.954 --> 00:00:56.222 I know everyone's in a different spot
 20
00:00:56.222 --> 00:00:59.259 in their journey, but it is hard to continually try
 21
00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:03.363 to go out and continue to reach for those things that we know are hard.
 22
00:01:03.363 --> 00:01:04.931 Wherever that next step is.
 23
00:01:04.931 --> 00:01:07.067 It's that zone of proximal development, right?
 24
00:01:07.067 --> 00:01:08.701 To pull out those teacher words.
 25
00:01:08.701 --> 00:01:12.539 But we need to continually push for those even out of high school
 26
00:01:12.539 --> 00:01:14.674 and then out of college and then out of grad school.
 27
00:01:14.674 --> 00:01:18.511 We need to continually push for those to get to where we want to go
 28
00:01:18.511 --> 00:01:19.479 every step of the way.
 

Gradual Effort Will Pay Off Over Time

You can do brain building in those little moments.
 2
00:00:02.535 --> 00:00:05.472 You don't need to be on your hands and knees all afternoon
 3
00:00:05.705 --> 00:00:06.906 to be doing brain building.
 4
00:00:06.906 --> 00:00:08.408 It's while you're already
 5
00:00:08.408 --> 00:00:12.312 in those mundane moments of life, that brain building happen.
 6
00:00:12.312 --> 00:00:17.312 And so that's what I would recommend for sure is to tell parents you are a brain
 7
00:00:18.118 --> 00:00:21.921 builder, take what you have and you do brain building every day with your babies.
 8
00:00:22.489 --> 00:00:23.723 I'm Travis Allred.
 9
00:00:23.723 --> 00:00:26.860 I am currently the early learning project manager
 10
00:00:26.860 --> 00:00:29.929 at a nonprofit in Salt Lake City called Envision Utah.
 11
00:00:29.963 --> 00:00:33.133 We started out as sort of a nonprofit
 12
00:00:33.133 --> 00:00:36.936 that looked at sort of what the growth of Utah should look like.
 13
00:00:36.936 --> 00:00:40.940 Back in the nineties, there was a lot of clamor among Utahns
 14
00:00:40.940 --> 00:00:42.542 about some growing pains, right?
 15
00:00:42.542 --> 00:00:44.177 There was a lot of bad air, right?
 16
00:00:44.177 --> 00:00:45.345 A lot of traffic.
 17
00:00:45.345 --> 00:00:47.981 And people were like, this is this is uncomfortable.
 18
00:00:47.981 --> 00:00:49.783 We need to fix this problem.
 19
00:00:49.783 --> 00:00:51.051 We need to have some solutions.
 20
00:00:51.051 --> 00:00:54.888 And they realized the only way to do it is we've got to do it together.
 21
00:00:54.888 --> 00:00:56.790 And so I love that message.
 22
00:00:56.790 --> 00:00:58.291 I really resonated with that.
 23
00:00:58.291 --> 00:01:00.193 And my parents, they're both public servants, right?
 24
00:01:00.193 --> 00:01:02.896 My mom, she was a teacher all for her whole career.
 25
00:01:02.896 --> 00:01:05.131 And then my dad, he was a city planner.
 26
00:01:05.131 --> 00:01:07.901 So I taught for five years and a lot of fun.
 27
00:01:08.001 --> 00:01:09.369 But one of the problems
 28
00:01:09.369 --> 00:01:13.540 I kept noticing, some kids I noticed, like, you're going to be fine,
 29
00:01:13.606 --> 00:01:18.478 but then some kids, no matter what I said or did, they were not going to be fine.
 30
00:01:18.478 --> 00:01:20.213 And I just I didn't know how to reach them.
 31
00:01:20.213 --> 00:01:23.950 I didn't know how to get a hold of their future and adjust it.
 32
00:01:23.950 --> 00:01:27.821 You know, I wanted to be able to sort of adjust their trajectory in some way.
 33
00:01:28.221 --> 00:01:32.625 And so I decided, you know what, Like I need to go upstream a little bit.
 34
00:01:32.625 --> 00:01:36.029 And so with my next role after graduating from business school,
 35
00:01:36.029 --> 00:01:39.432 I thought, you know, if there's a way for me to do this, that would be great.
 36
00:01:39.432 --> 00:01:42.335 And that's when I found that that role at Envision Utah.
 37
00:01:42.368 --> 00:01:43.703 And I thought, let's jump on this.
 38
00:01:43.703 --> 00:01:45.672 So that's kind of where I ended up with.
 

My Career Path

Education's Future: Teachers + Families    

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Education's Future: Teachers + Families   

I'm going on a road trip in a big green RV with two other teachers. &gt;&gt; From Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, basically all states on the exact opposite side of the country I've been on my entire life. &gt;&gt; The theme of our road trip is family and community engagement. &gt;&gt; We're gonna be interviewing teachers, parents, people that work in schools or with schools. &gt;&gt; Those that can really give us at least a different perspective on how we can connect families, communities, and the classroom we're trying to have students learn in. &gt;&gt; Lots of different things I can learn on this trip, like how I can get community members more involved. &gt;&gt; What are some recommendations on establishing these fantastic relationships with parents? &gt;&gt; What does the future of education look like for you with the parent family engagement? &gt;&gt; Such a great question. &gt;&gt; Education starts at home. Teachers talk about certain things in the classroom, but parents, sometimes they don't know what to say or how to follow up and reinforce these things at home. So what are schools and teachers doing to kinda fill them in? &gt;&gt; It's not just up to a teacher when they get to kindergarten is when you start learning. It's like no, no, no. It's from the first day, mom, dad, you guys are brain builders, and I need your help. &gt;&gt; Hearing these positive stories and all the inspiration from the leaders, I think it's definitely filling that part of me that wants the feedback and wants to teach and wants to put a smile on these children's face. &gt;&gt; I feel like we're getting back to that community and family. We're just making a better world for our kids and giving them the future they deserve. &gt;&gt; I want to do more, not just in my class one year I have them. I wanna be that for a vast majority of students in my county, in my state, in my area, my community. &gt;&gt; This experience has been transformative for me. I've been able to gear toward finding my identity outside of being a mother. I haven't really been able to take a step back, reflect, ask myself questions about me and my identity, so this trip has definitely given me that opportunity. &gt;&gt; Find some way to reach out to your families and to your students. Get to know them as human beings. See them in their full humanity and let them see you in your full humanity. &gt;&gt; What are you doing in the community? And how is that gonna impact the community? And strong families bring strong communities, so it sounds like you guys are doing great work. &gt;&gt; Families need to be involved, to help raise and build these strong characters that we need in the world. [MUSIC] 

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Episode 1: The Classroom Is Changing

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Travis Allred

Early Learning Project Manager

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Travis Allred

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Education

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My work combines:

My work combines:

Education

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Interviewed By

Education's Future: Teachers + Families

Travis Allred

Early Learning Project Manager

Videos

Travis Allred

Milestones

Education

Career

Career Roadmap

My work combines:

My work combines:

Education

Non-Profit Organizations

Teaching / Mentoring

Day to Day

Advice for Getting Started

Interviewed By

Education's Future: Teachers + Families

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