#446 – Preparing Students for the Real World, with Scott Nunes

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• Why does Scott describe soft skills as a “secret power,” and what examples of soft skills do you see in your own life?
• How can building authentic relationships prepare students for opportunities they might not expect?
• What does Scott mean when he says, “Find that intersection of passion and purpose and go for it—be authentically you”?
• How can stories like Winston’s elevator conversation or Scott’s dinosaur race show the value of being ready in the moment?
• In what ways can teachers model positive and transparent uses of AI for students?
• How might schools better support teachers so that they feel valued and motivated to stay in the profession?
• What does it mean to “build your network before you need your network,” and how could students start doing this now?

• Scott Nunes (LinkedIn)
• Creative Portfolio (Scott Nunes via Canva)
• The Business of You: Ask the Right Questions, Tell Your Story, and Lead Your Life (written by Marnie Stockman, EdD and Nick Coniglio)

#446 Preparing Students for the Real World, with Scott Nunes

AVID Open Access
44 min

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Scott Nunes 0:00
You really have to be agile, willing to learn. You need to have some core competencies, need to have excellent communication, be able to work as part of a team, and then play to your skills. Find that intersection of passion and purpose and go for it. Be authentically you.

Winston Benjamin 0:24
The topic for today’s podcast is preparing students for the real world with Scott Nunes. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:46
Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:57
I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:58
And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 1:02
And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies. Education is our passport to the future.

Opening Quote and Discussion

Winston Benjamin 1:11
Our quote for today is from our guest, Scott Nunes. He posted this message on the social network platform X: “Soft skills equal your secret power.” Heavy. What are you thinking about that, Paul?

Paul Beckermann 1:31
Imagine this: soft skills do not necessarily appear on standardized test scores, but in so many ways, that’s the thing that really separates people. The ability to communicate, to be self-motivated, to overcome adversity, to show empathy—all those skills are so important and arguably more important than that academic content that we put so much focus on. So I love that.

Winston Benjamin 1:58
I hear you. So I’m going to tell a quick story about the time I got my college scholarship. It’s Posse, an organization that supports kids going to college from many urban cities across the country—New York, LA, Boston, Chicago, all those places.

But on my interview, the day of my interview, I was in an elevator with a random dude, an older white man. I’d never met this man in my life. Started having a conversation with him. He asked me about what was the last book I read. Thank you to my social studies teachers, because we read Tuesdays with Morrie, which is about a guy who linked up with his college professor and talked about life.

I had a great conversation with him on the way up the elevator, not knowing that he was going to be one of the judges who was looking at the individuals to offer the scholarship. In that moment, I got a chance, and I feel that that’s something that led to my opportunity to get the scholarship.

The book knowledge was great, but like you said, Paul, the communication skills, the opportunity, the ability to not shelter myself in my shell—because I’m a young kid in a building that I don’t know, with a person that I think is superior to me because he’s an older man. Again, I was raised as a Jamaican, so we have very different conversations in terms of how we speak to adults.

So that superpower thing really hits me as a way of valuing what our kids can bring and use their knowledge to talk to people and maybe open a door, open opportunities. So that’s why that quote kind of hits me in that way in terms of superpower.

Paul Beckermann 3:41
I love that story, Winston. You never know when that connection is going to happen. You never know.

Winston Benjamin 3:47
Never know when the chance for your opportunity, a chance to make a chance, right? So as we are sitting here dealing with such a heavy quote in small words—sometimes you can say powerful things shortly—we are so excited to welcome our guest, Scott Nunes, to the show. Thank you for being here, Scott. We really appreciate you.

Scott is an educator and an ed tech leader with extensive experience partnering with some of the most recognized names in ed tech, such as Microsoft, Canva, and PowerSchool. Thank you so much. Welcome, Scott. How are you today?

Scott’s Introduction

Scott Nunes 4:26
I’m doing great. That’s quite the intro. You got my mind reeling already. Got me excited.

I’m sorry, totally tangential, but it’s going to be on my mind the rest of the episode unless I get it out of the way. My favorite restaurant in Austin is Con Oído. If you ever go, you have to try it and let me know—is the Jamaican food there legit? It’s my favorite restaurant there. You go to Austin, I want to know your opinion.

Winston Benjamin 5:01
Hey, I got a reason to go to South by Southwest now.

Scott Nunes 5:06
Come March, we’ll go.

Winston Benjamin 5:10
Man, thank you so much. I appreciate you bringing that human connection to this thing. Thank you, Scott. But one of the things that we really want to do, and it’s really important for us, is to help our listeners actually ground themselves in who we’re talking to.

So can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your journey in education—what got you to the point where you’re at right now?

Scott Nunes 5:36
Oh man, it is a long story, but I’ll sum it up quickly. Essentially, I failed up. So I taught myself how to code when I was 12, had my own graphic design business when I was 14. I thought I failed all along the way. These challenges would come—they seemed insurmountable. Some I overcame, some I didn’t.

Essentially, I had a fixed mindset, and I didn’t know all the things that I know now, like having that elevator pitch ready. I didn’t know. I blew some chances, not realizing, “Hey, I’m talking to this very important person. I have no idea.”

So fast forward a little bit. Those that can’t do, teach, as I say. I found my way into teaching after coaching for many, many years. I coached swimming on and off, and a lot of the parents said, “Hey, you’d be good at teaching.” And I resisted, resisted, until finally I was like, “Okay, let me give it a try. Let me take some classes.”

And day one of that first class, I was all in. Those are the best teachers. I found my people. I was like, “Wow, I had no idea.” And the rest is history.

I went from teaching to being a district leader, to moving into a district leadership role. Helped build a virtual school, helped architect partnering with 27 STEAM labs, won some awards. Then went over to Canva, did my thing there—helped 20x that education vertical. It was a tiny thing when I started, and now it’s blown up. I think publicly they’ve just announced that there’s over 100 million active users.

So I didn’t leave education, so to speak. I wanted to have more of an impact. Every time I stepped into a role, I came, I went, and I conquered to a degree. I had a set of goals, and once I achieved those goals, I’m like, “Okay, what’s the next precipice? What’s the next mountaintop for me?”

And Canva is pretty big, but now I’m on that new journey, and I’m really going deep, really going global, and really trying to make a difference—not just through one lens, one product.

Current Work and Projects

Paul Beckermann 8:03
And what are you doing now, Scott? What is that?

Scott Nunes 8:08
Yeah, what is that? I am doing way too much, but what I’m doing is advising tech companies on how they can go to market, essentially. So if you’re an ed tech startup, you want to know how to build your community, launch sales playbooks, do some marketing, customer success, sales enablement—I’ve got you there. How to run social media campaigns, start a podcast, whatever it is that you need. I’m an experienced generalist that can specialize in a variety of things.

Think of your jack of all trades, but rather than master of none, kind of master of many. And so really bringing that to the marketplace. And then for districts, just being an asset. I’ve negotiated both sides of the table on deals.

We were talking offline a little bit, and I used to equate these teacher leadership roles or student leadership roles as somebody who has a sword and a shield, where you’re doing battle. In the district role I had, I was battling on behalf of the admin whenever I went to go distill information to the teachers. And teachers are giving me info, or students are giving me info, and I’m doing battle for them.

And what I discerned there is I’m a great bridge builder. I love people. I love connecting people. I can see patterns and see how things fit. And so I’m a great strategist and tactician, being able to sort of take down barriers and walls and instead offer solutions. So offering that to districts and tech companies.

And then on the side, I’ve always looked to give back. I’ve received without price often, and so I try to give back as much as I can for free. And so I mentor a lot of educators, help them fight burnout, help them stay in the field. Or if they want to know about this tech side of the aisle, if they’re thinking of transitioning, I just lay it out and we formulate a game plan, just like I would with a student.

Okay, what are your core competencies? What’s your story? How are you going to pitch that? It’s this cyclical piece of: okay, core competencies, fill in the gaps if you need to, tell your story, kind of rinse and repeat—like design thinking in the iterative process.

Lessons from Teaching

Paul Beckermann 10:42
Well, your path has taken you a lot of different ways, and a lot of our listeners are probably K-12 teachers. So let’s go back to where you said you found your people in the education realm. What kind of lessons did you learn from those years, maybe that helped you as you’ve gone on in life, or just to become a better teacher? What do you take away from your teaching years?

Scott Nunes 11:07
The number one thing: you need to network. You need to build your network before you need your network. And something that really caught me early on in my career was a talk from Ernie Hudson. You may remember him—probably most, he’s done a lot of cool stuff, but I think broadly speaking, a lot of people probably know him from Ghostbusters. Great guy.

He kept it real on this talk, and he just doubled and tripled down on the need for teachers to be a light. So that’d be the secondary piece: finding your people and being that light. And you need those people to help uplift you, help upskill you along the journey, so that you can be the best version of yourself day in, day out. It’s easy to burn yourself out in this field. It’s a labor of love.

Transitioning to Tech

Winston Benjamin 11:58
Without a doubt. Because every time I tell my new teachers, I’m always like, “Yo, follow along with the airlines: put your mask on first so that you could put others’ masks on.” And they look at me like I’m insane, because they always want to put someone else’s mask on.

So I totally agree with you that this is one of the fields that we just do for others. So now that you’ve had these two ideas that you got from your teaching career—networking and being a light—as you moved forward, you started working with Canva. What’s some of the biggest takeaways that you got from your next step?

Because again, sometimes we’re afraid to make that next step, not knowing how our skills from our first part of our journey translate to the next. What were some of your takeaways as you stepped into that next step of your journey?

Scott Nunes 12:52
So many lessons there. I’ll back up and then answer that question more directly. Backing up: working for a startup, especially one like Canva, every year is like a doggy year. So my three and a half years, it’s like I’m a seasoned vet. I will always appreciate that time, because I learned so much.

And so that leads me into the next part: you really have to be agile, willing to learn. You have to be likable. And again, this all ties into those soft skills. You need to have some core competencies, need to have excellent communication, be able to work as part of a team.

But then, what are you going to do in your free time? If you have free time, if a gap comes up, well, you’ve got to figure out something. So pick up a project, like we might do a PBL project or something like that, a passion project in the classroom. I love doing those for my students. Do that for yourself within those roles.

And then play to your skills. Find that intersection of passion and purpose and go for it. Be authentically you, because at the end of the day, you can’t fake it to make it. You can a little bit in some ways—if there’s a skill deficit, you can build up that skill. Like maybe you’re not there yet. Like Carol Dweck and some of her work talks about that power of yet.

But in terms of your true self and who you are—I’m not a very funny guy. I love being around funny people, but the only time I’m funny is when I do something foolish and laugh at myself. That’s just not me.

Preparing Students for the Real World

Paul Beckermann 14:42
So our topic for the podcast is preparing students for the real world. So we should dig a little bit into that. And I know that’s a topic that you’re passionate about personally. What does that mean to you, preparing students for the real world?

Scott Nunes 14:56
Well, going back to that story, I really thought I failed, and in many ways I was down on myself. How many people started a business at 14 and taught themselves how to code? I knew that, but because I didn’t have anything to show for it—like the only thing I have is my buddy that I launched the business with got mentioned in the local newspaper. So there’s a local newspaper article. It’s not archived unfortunately. It’s in the Modesto Bee. Look it up: Wicked Design. It’s not there. I tried looking for it. If you find it, tag me.

But that’s like the one mention of it. But what it gave me was the ability to pitch and learn how to sell. Education is selling. A lot of educators don’t think they can sell. A lot of students don’t think they can sell. But communicating, conveying an idea, using persuasive language, trying to get someone to come to your side of the argument—that’s sales. And really it’s about finding a solution that works for folks at the end of the day, creating a win-win situation whenever you’re working with others.

Paul Beckermann 16:19
There’s some tie-ins to Winston’s elevator story with that, because you didn’t really perceive that this was a life-shaping moment for you at all. It was just like you were in an elevator.

Winston Benjamin 16:30
Dude asked me something, and my mother always taught me to respond and communicate. So in that moment I was doing the simple things that my parents taught me—how to communicate, remember that you’re interacting with people, be kind, be gentle, be soft, be strong, but also be affirming, right? All those things that I was attempting to do, it was just in that moment. So like, to your point, stepping into it is important.

Paul Beckermann 16:59
Yeah, and then similarly, Scott’s story—he’s 14 years old. He doesn’t realize that he’s being self-motivated. He’s self-teaching himself. He’s learning all these skills that are building a foundation. We don’t know which pieces are going to make a difference.

Scott Nunes 17:19
And to add to that, I love Canva and everything the founders built—totally their idea. But it was one of those things. I remember the discussion clearly. I was a sophomore or junior, rather, and talking to my biology teacher, and I was trying to pitch him on hiring me to do a class website for him, or just doing it for free to gain some experience.

And I was talking about, “Oh, it’d be so cool if you could just visually lay it out and the coding was taken care of, because it’s so time consuming.” I’m able to sort of envision something. And that’s totally what Canva was.

So when that opportunity struck, I was like, “Okay, this is full circle. This is my jam.” But had I been more confident, who knows? I could have come up with it. But I was too scared. I wasn’t the one like Melanie Perkins from Canva to step in and add value and to make this thing work that I believed in.

And so that pain sticks, and I infuse that into my talks to teachers, to students, and leaders.

The Unknown and Education

Winston Benjamin 18:34
So there’s something that you’re mentioning in what you’re saying, Scott, that—Paul, you’re mentioning—I did this program called SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity), and one of the things they say is the DK/DK: you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And I think it’s a very powerful thing. It’s a simple way of explaining, like, there are gaps—not negative gaps, just gaps.

But as you’re talking, there’s something where we’re thinking about preparing students for that next step, and there’s a leap of faith that you’re mentioning with you. There’s a leap of faith with me, right, with that such an uncertain next step, because I never thought AI—I don’t even know what’s after AI, right? It’s moving so quick, right?

So how, as teachers and educators, do we do this idea of supporting and preparing our students for the real world? What are some of the things that we can do as a way of preparing for the world that we don’t even know?

Scott Nunes 19:42
The number one thing would be relationship building. How do you talk, communicate, and work with others—all types of people? I had a great class in high school that prepped me for that. It was called Human Relations. They hand-picked each of us. And so, being a little stereotypical here, you had your nerds, your jocks, your whiz kids, you know, skaters, rappers, gangsters, right? Just everybody was in that class, and it was uncomfortable for the first couple of months.

But once you got to know each other, broke down barriers, we worked together on projects. It’s like Big Brother, Survivor, but you’re not going after each other—everybody stays, and you build some fantastic things on top of relationships. And I think that’s the key, especially in terms of AI.

That’s a great technical skill, being able to use that, and you can use AI to level up in many ways. It can teach you things. That’s probably the best way to use it. But teachers, they can show how to communicate, how to have an effect on other people, and how to really get to the heart of others, and how to share your heart in a way that is very professional.

So how do you keep it real but not be so vulnerable and just spewing everything out, right? There’s a balance.

Retaining Teachers

Paul Beckermann 21:17
I’m going to take a slightly different direction here. You mentioned earlier, Scott, that you like to give back, and I know that you’re passionate about supporting teachers, especially those that feel like they’re getting a little burnt out. It’s getting tough for them. And teaching seems to be getting more difficult every year. So there’s more and more of that going around.

Any ideas how we can retain our teachers and convince them to stay in the profession? Because we need great teachers.

Scott Nunes 21:46
Yeah, it’s a multifaceted approach. What I’ve learned over the years is there’s not a one-size-fits-all. So some teachers like getting a little extra money, some teachers like getting a little time, some teachers like the praise, some hate the praise, right? So you have to do a multifaceted approach.

It doesn’t mean you do it all, but where you can—again, it comes down to relationships. Know your teachers, learn what they like, ask them, and then do as much of that as you can, sort of switch it like seasons. Like, “Okay, we’ll give you some time back. Hey, enter this contest or do this thing. We’ll take over a period.”

Admin who do that I think are amazing, especially for younger teachers, giving them some time back. But who doesn’t like getting some time back? Another thing is having their name on something, giving them something meaningful that they’re going to use, like a nice water bottle. Now, not everybody’s going to use that, but something with their name on there, it’s custom, maybe school colors—like a nice YETI or Hydro Flask, something like that that they can use time and time again. Or a custom laptop case for their device, something affordable and doable but handcrafted.

And writing some handwritten notes. If you’re an admin, right? Three a week—start there. Handwritten notes. “Hey, I saw you do this. I appreciated that.” Say three nice things in there. It will make a world of difference. Give it about—take some time—six weeks to six months, you’re going to have a magnificent, positive culture change doing just that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 23:43
What I’m hearing from you, really, it’s not even about what you’re giving them. It’s about the fact that you’re seeing them and you’re recognizing the fact that I care about you. I see you. I appreciate the things you’re doing. Here’s a little token of that that lets you know that I really did see you. I mean, to me, that goes a long way.

Winston Benjamin 24:07
Yeah. And we also have to remember, like, sometimes shoot a letter up to your admin. Oh yeah. Because like, they’re going through it too, and they will warm, they will get you back more. If they’re like, “Yo, I see that you just blocked that parent from me. I appreciate you making it a little easier so I don’t have to get into that fight.” Like, if we do it both ways, that would—whoa.

Paul Beckermann 24:35
When I was a tech coach, you don’t get tons of feedback. But one of the teachers sent—actually, he didn’t send anything. He called my supervisor, and he said, “All right, I’ve got to let you know. I’m one of these teachers that when something’s not right, I’m going to let you know, but when something’s right, I’ve got to also let you know. And this guy did a good job.”

And that meant a ton, especially somebody in a new position. And if you speak praise to somebody in the company of another person, it’s amplified.

Scott Nunes 25:09
Yeah, that’s great. I think it comes down to doing whatever you’re doing with intentionality and just great love, pouring yourself into it in that moment, and that’s going to show up. Now, not everybody’s going to see that, so you have to do it without expecting anything in return. And that’s why you have to save a little bit in the tank for yourself and the things you love and the people who know and love you and care about you most. You need to be intentional about that time so you can stay fueled up and ready to go.

AI in Education

Winston Benjamin 25:47
So this is kind of veering back into preparing students, preparing for next steps, but it’s still in relation to this idea of giving teachers time—how do we respect the things they’re doing by giving them time? And as of right now, the biggest thing that we can see that can help teachers get a little bit more time is AI.

It gives them back some free time to do the human connection, meeting with students, all these other things, because they can simplify the actions. But the question that I really have is: if you can think and give some ideas of what role AI could play in both preparing students and supporting teachers?

Because sometimes we say it as if it’s in opposition of each other, right? Where if I—this teacher’s job is that it simplifies the task, students lose, or if students use AI, teachers believe they’re not engaging deeply. So how could we talk about the role of AI that really helps prepare students and think about supporting teachers, if that makes sense?

Scott Nunes 27:04
Yeah, I think it comes down to being transparent as educators and modeling positive AI use. So if you’re planning a lesson, letting them know, “Hey, here’s where and how I used AI in this. Here’s how long it would take me to do this rubric, and here’s how long it took with AI, and here’s what I fed into it.”

I noticed a big gap—or it’s my personal opinion, rather—when I go to school sites and give trainings on AI specifically, a lot of folks don’t know how to prompt well and to follow up with prompts. So learning that yourself as an educator, and then following up—AI is definitely not a one-and-done thing. You have to prompt, re-prompt, and sometimes it’ll lead you down a place you never knew, but it’s great. It’ll say, “Hey, do you want this as well?” “Oh yeah, I didn’t know I needed that,” right?

It’s that gap that you mentioned earlier, and it really opens up a realm of possibility. And then really just using it in a way that enhances what you’re already great at. So if you’re having a project where a student is practicing real-world skills like communicating, collaborating, maybe pitching themselves, have AI offer suggestions. “How can I pitch this a little better? Here’s what I’m thinking, or here’s my script so far. How would you rate this? And how would you make it better, and why?”

And then prompt it later. “Okay, now where does this come from? What research do you have? What would you recommend I read that is current, within the last five years, and give me a variety of things—like a journal article, a book, etc.?” Things like that. And wow, then you’re going to have something super solid. You can make a kickbutt paper out of a series of prompts like that.

The Business of You

Paul Beckermann 29:12
All right, we’ve covered lots of ground here, but I want to give you a chance to go wherever your mind has been lately, Scott. So what have you been pondering? What’s been on your mind lately as you’ve been just thinking about all things education or not education? What’s on your mind?

Scott Nunes 29:31
Yeah, well, the biggest thing on my mind is some work I’m doing with The Business of You. And so these are a couple of former execs. They were actually PowerSchool execs. I met Marnie Stockman, one of the founders. Met her at ISTE 2019 through Kelly Iai, who still works for PowerSchool. Both great.

And we’ve just kept in touch, and she’s doing a lot of great work with Nick, the other co-founder. And they’ve kind of brought me aboard and just let me kind of do my thing a little bit, bring in my expertise and listen to my ideas, and bring in other voices—from educators to school counselors to CTE folks, higher ed, K-12, parents, students.

And they’ve developed a simple framework that anyone can use—students, parents, educators, admin, you name it—that can be employed tomorrow. And they’ve already put that into practice. So I’m really excited to help build that and see where it goes. It’s the thing I wish I had. If I could go back in time and do one thing, it would seriously be—I think back, I was part of FBLA my senior year, and I bought a business book. It really didn’t help me.

If I could swap that business book with this one on being life-ready, I would do it in an instant. And I think my trajectory would have cascaded higher sooner. And I want that for us.

Paul Beckermann 31:30
So what is it actually that they’re building, and how does somebody access that?

Scott Nunes 31:36
Yeah, so they have a book called The Business of You, and the core competencies and frameworks and way to do that are in there. Just like in Winston’s story, there’s a piece about developing your elevator pitch. When I was with Canva, I had 30 seconds to sell a client in an elevator. Done. Landed two accounts with that. One 32-second elevator pitch. True story.

Also fun one: racing against a T. rex at the Perot Museum in Dallas got me a client.

Paul Beckermann 32:09
Okay, you’ve got to tell the story now. I mean, you can’t just leave us with that.

Scott Nunes 32:16
So this is one of those things, right? I’m not funny, like ha-ha funny. That’s pretty funny though. But because I’m a fool in some ways, I can laugh.

So I wanted to show off to my friend that I was with. We were at some after-hours evening social put on by somebody, and at the basement or the base level of the Perot Museum, you can race like these different athletes—you can race Patrick Mahomes. And I told him, “Hey, watch. I’m really good at this. Watch me race this T. rex.”

So I raced the T. rex, and these girls were making fun of me. And I said, “Hey, let me see you do it.” They’re like, “No, no, no.” And then I struck up a conversation, found out they were from a larger school district. I was like, “Have you heard about Canva?” Kind of like—and then boom, two minutes later, set up the call, and then eventually sold to them.

So super cool, and just by being in the moment and just being silly and funny and being authentically me. I just do silly things sometimes, like race dinosaurs when everybody’s proper and just having their cocktails in the evening hour.

Paul Beckermann 33:37
And you know what? That’s not so different than teachers and students, right? I mean, you be your authentic self. Sometimes those silly moments with the kids—that’s what makes the difference, and it brings them over to the other side.

Winston Benjamin 33:52
Absolutely. Well, I love that you are faster than the T. rex. That’s what I’m going to tell myself from now on. But it’s time for our question that we really like to ask: What’s in your toolkit?

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 34:09
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

What’s in Your Toolkit?

Winston Benjamin 34:19
What are you taking away? How can you use what we talked about in your action steps in the next couple of weeks, months, or years? So Paul, what’s in your toolkit? What are you thinking about?

Paul Beckermann 34:31
I’m actually going to pitch a series of articles and podcasts that we have over on AVID Open Access, because a lot of people are thinking AI is like the not-human thing. But we’ve written a series tying AI to the 4 Cs and actually the 6 Cs—so communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, and then we’ve added character and citizenship on that too.

But how can we leverage AI to help students develop those very human skills? They don’t have to be separate. There’s a way that we can leverage the beauty of both and bring them together. So I encourage people to head on over to AVID Open Access. It’s in the collection “AI in the K-12 Classroom.” I think you’re going to find some stuff you like.

Winston Benjamin 35:15
I appreciate you putting that out in terms that people can actually use. I’m going to steal the idea that Scott started throwing in: check out The Business of You. Check out The Business of You.

But what I really was going to say was: do a soft skills assessment. What are you good at? How did you develop that? How can you help your students figure out what they’re good at, and how can you develop the other pieces of themselves?

Because my thing was, I talked a lot. I got into high school debate that allowed me to learn how to use my voice in different ways. That took a very shy—English was not my first language. I got made fun of because of my accent and the way I said certain words. Like, my parents still say “flim” instead of “film,” right? And it took me a long time to break that, to recognize how to say things in a language that I have to process twice.

So that ability to recognize that I am capable really helped me as I was growing up, and that really allowed me to develop into who I am today. So I really want to tell our teachers, like, what are the skills that you need to help our students develop and see outside of academics?

Because how do you break those shy kids out of their shell so that they can be great and find opportunities, maybe even chase a dinosaur, right? How do we get them to get out of there to be able to be seen for who they are?

Scott, I’m going to throw this to you. And I’m sorry, I think the dinosaur thing is the dopest, because, again, sometimes—sometimes we’ve got to recognize we don’t have to put on pretensions in order to be successful. We can be exactly who we are and still be great.

Paul Beckermann 37:17
I’m thinking Scott’s going to have to write a book, and it’s going to have to be called Chasing Dinosaurs. Yo, there’s a whole potential there. Doesn’t that sound like a title that would grab you?

Scott Nunes 37:28
That would. Nobody steal it.

Winston Benjamin 37:31
Yeah, it’s copyrighted.

Paul Beckermann 37:35
I might write a song about it though. You could use it as a theme song to launch the book.

Winston Benjamin 37:40
Yeah. What are you thinking, Scott?

Scott Nunes 37:45
Oh, we’ve talked about a lot, and you’ve done me plenty of justice with The Business of You—businessofyou.ai, right, for the site. You can find the book on Amazon.

I think other than that, I’m going to switch up what I had and share something really cool that I hope people play with. One of the things I loved just over my career was taking all these different assessments. So when I was doing more business stuff, doing like Five Dynamics, they have SIGMA, they have all these different things you can do in the business world. And then we have some of those things in education, and counselors do those things, CTE programs do those things.

What if you create your own sort of core competency sets and skills you want for yourself if you’re in the business of you, shaping your own life as an educator, as a student, as a leader? And then having AI create a heat map for you based upon those answers that you give, and then working with it to develop a program to help you be a better version of yourself.

So one thing I’m working on is getting more fit. So every week I’m running 10 miles. If I stood up in this chair, you would see I do not look like a 10-miler. I’ve got to keep up with these kids here. So that would show lower on my heat map, right? And I’m going to elevate that skill set and get better. And then once I kind of have it where I’m at, I’ll focus on another area. And then maybe once I master that, I’ll do a whole new heat map.

But that’s my pro tip. It’s pretty cool, something I’ve been doing, and it’s really helped me up my game and make things very trackable and timely, being hyper-organized. That’s awesome.

Paul Beckermann 39:50
All right, with that, I think it’s time we jump into our one thing. It’s time for that one thing.

Transition Music 39:56
Time for that one thing, that one thing.

One Thing

Paul Beckermann 40:10
All right, it’s one thing time. Time for a final takeaway today. Winston, we’ll let you go first. What’s on your mind?

Winston Benjamin 40:17
Ah man, I’m still reeling through the conversation of supporting our students for the next steps. Yo, be you. Be you, teachers, so that your students can see a model of being themselves. They don’t know what they don’t know. Show them what it is to stand in their own skin and be comfortable. So that’s really what I’m thinking about as we step out of this.

Paul Beckermann 40:40
You know, mine’s related, Winston. It’s really about people. Again, it’s about relationships. And I love what Scott said at the beginning. He said, “You’ve got to build your network before you need your network.” I’ve never thought about it that way, and I don’t know that I intentionally go out intending to build networks. It’s more like I just want to get to know this person.

I want to be myself, and I want to find out who they are. And if you genuinely have interest in people, that network is going to happen. And I think that works between students and staff, it works between staff members. Students can learn to do that within the classroom. That relationship piece is just so foundational to everything.

All right, Scott, you get a one thing as well. What do you want to leave us with today?

Scott Nunes 41:25
My one thing is go from consumer to creator. So rather than just watching and seeing and grabbing from everyone else—those things are good, I still do that too—but the most successful and the happiest and most joy-filled people I’ve met in my life have been creators, those who are sharing out, giving back, and doing so freely.

Like, if money weren’t a thing, what would you be doing? What would you be telling others about or showing others? And don’t worry about if it’s perfect or not. Just ship it. Seth Godin, marketing guru, talks about that. Just ship it. Put it out there. It doesn’t matter if you get one view, zero views, six views. It’s fine. Everybody starts at zero. I love that. You’ve got to start.

Winston Benjamin 42:22
I just wanted to let that breathe for a second, because that’s some really good advice in just everything, right? Step into it.

So thank you, Scott, for being with us today and just thinking about how do we prepare our students for that next step, the real world? They’re not going to be in a place that loves them as much as we do. How do we prepare them to be in a space that they can create the networks that love them like we do? Those are some of the lessons that I’m really trying to think about and take away in this conversation.

I really appreciate your time, Scott. Thank you so much for being here. Have a wonderful time. Have a good night.

Paul Beckermann 43:04
Thank you. Hey, Winston, you forgot one thing.

Winston Benjamin 43:08
What’s that?

Paul Beckermann 43:09
We also learned to chase dinosaurs, y’all.

Closing

Rena Clark 43:17
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 43:20
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 43:33
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 43:38
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 43:41
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 43:44
You make a difference.