a team of Evergreen School staff sitting with me, eager to tell me about the changes they've made.

When the provincial government began publishing the results of the grade 12 provincial standards tests, we found ourselves at the bottom of the list in the province on at least one of those grade 12 provincial standards tests in math.

We wanted to make sure that we tried to make a course correction around our math results.

Scott reminds me this style of teaching is just one of the many changes they've implemented.

But still...

It's a massive change, yeah.

You can just see and feel the difference because even on a quick visit, you're hearing the voices of basically all 20 kids in the room.

It's about trying to make sure that every kid will have the tools to participate, you know, say things out loud when those things need to be said.

But still-

It's a massive change, yeah.

You can just see and feel the difference because even on a quick visit you're hearing the voices of basically all 20 kids in the room.

It's about trying to make sure that every kid will have the tools to participate, you know, say things out loud when those things need to be said.

So we think that the pathway to get there is more likely through, you know, our version of direct and explicit instruction than it is through other iterations of, uh, that we've tried, you know, that we've tried just pretty enthusiastically, that are built around the idea of inquiry or discovery learning or emergent learning.

I feel like [laughs] I don't know, really grateful in, you know, the, what are probably my last five to 10 years, uh, in my career, I'm going to feel like I was part of something that was really making a significant, noticeable, measurable, and observable difference in the lives of kids.

I'll talk to you soon.

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And I think that's really important.

Yeah.

I'll tell you how incredibly important that is to me to the point to where, and this is an interesting story and it's very fresh and I've told no one.

We are currently out of our flea and tick supplement, right? It's a powder that goes on top of the food.

And the reason we're out of that is because I was working with our manufacturer and we had a seasonal anomaly in one of the materials, the coconut that's in it.

And it wasn't perfect to spec for me.

It was 1.1% more fatty than it usually is.

ocean fish oil I'm putting on there.

How much of your role involves listening to what's not being said in the room?

Isn't it really the human dilemma? If you think of our own relationships, like how much, how much do we tell? How much do we reveal of ourselves, or do I say that thing to my partner when I come home? Do I tell them I'm a bit hurt by that, or do I not? You know, you have to weigh it up.

It's tricky, isn't it? 'Cause if I say that thing, will I harm the relationship? Will it mean that that's our evening gone now, or will it actually cause a bit of hassle to myself, or will I actually upset that person? Or if I say that, or if I tell them I'm messed up, you know, how will they view me? It's a human dilemma, isn't it? I really sort of, for people listening to this or thinking about couple and family therapy coming, I, I would really sort of say, look, I don't...

I listen to those things.

I don't go after them, because it's, has to be sensitive, and everyone, everyone...

Often when I work with teenagers and parents, I often say to a teenager, like, "How much..." Or else I usually see the parents with the teenager, "How much, if 100% means you know that your teenager tells you everything, 100%, how much do you think your teenager shares with you?" It's quite an interesting question.

They go, "Oh, maybe 70, 80%." And then the teenager goes, "No, 50%, 40%." But we normalize it, you know, that we kind of say, like, there will always be parts of us that we don't share, you know? But I think if we do too much of c- concealing, not showing us who we are and what we, our views are and our hurts and our upsets and our views and things, you know, we, the relationships do become disconnected.

... what emotional needs tend to sit underneath the conflict when that happens?