The CharacterStrong Podcast

CharacterStrong Co-Founders John Norlin & Houston Kraft make a special announcement about Houston's new book, Deep Kindness, and Houston shares a little of the heart behind it. Pre-order your copy here: https://deepkindness.com

Jasmyn Wright is the founder of the Push Through Organization and a former elementary school teacher. She began her teaching career at a Title 1 school in Memphis, Tennessee, as a member of Teach for America. More recently, she taught at a charter school in Wilmington, Delaware, and was chosen to be a Teachers for Global Classrooms Fellow. Visit the Push Through Organization at WePushThrough.org.

Tanner is a senior at the University of Iowa. Tanner is the Vice President of the nationally ranked Club Baseball Team on campus and is also the founder and co-owner of Iowa City Apparel, an apparel company based out of Iowa City. In 2019, Tanner interned for the World Series Champion Washington Nationals in Washington D.C and currently is working virtually for the 2020 New York Mets. Tanner's life has always been about taking opportunities that present themselves and striving - to use those to further his career while staying humble and remembering the core values that he grew up practicing.

Jamie Brown is currently the Vice Principal at Holmdel High School, NJ. A proud NJ educator since 2001, Jamie's passion and dedication to both Character Education & Social-Emotional Learning helped develop the 1st District-Wide PEER Leadership Program in NJ Public Schools. Embracing a "Compassion over Curriculum" growth mindset, Jamie's approach to Whole Child Development & Future Readiness focuses on Positive School Culture Revitalization. His K-12 SEL Program, ACCEPT U, has earned a National "Promising Practice" by Character.org & has been recognized by Future Ready Schools and the Alliance for Excellent Education. Jamie's Professional Learning & Development trainings, Keynotes and assemblies on Civic Education, Social Inclusion and Social & Emotional Well-Being, have assisted many school districts, staffs, students & communities in developing community partnerships driven by student voices. You can follow Jamie on all Social Platforms, as he looks forward to making new connections every day in the education field.

Clementine Chamberlain is a graduate from Carmel High School in Carmel, CA and in her first year of college. She is a past president of Carmel High School's This Club Saves Lives and the creator of Tampon Tuesday. Clementine was a 2019 #ICANHELP Digital4Good award winner for her creation of Tampon Tuesday // While Tampon Tuesday collected thousands of menstrual products for people in need, it brought education and awareness of Period Poverty to Carmel High School while normalize talking about periods. Leigh Cambra is a teacher at Carmel High School in Carmel, CA. She has been an Activities Director, ASB advisor, Home Economics teacher, and now a Health teacher. With her students she created a service club, This Club Saves Lives, and grew it into a non-profit. The club acts on the passions of the students in the club while working closely with WE Schools and Thirst Project. Among other things, the club has collected toiletries, tampons, makes Valentines for the entire school, and spent 8 months raising money and hiking in supplies to families stranded when a bridge collapsed in Big Sur. More information is available at www.thisclubsaveslives.org, www.tampontuesday.org, on Instagram @thisclubsaveslives, and on Twitter @thisclubsaves

Jeff Berger-White teaches English at Deerfield High School, where he has been teaching his entire career. This is the end of his twenty-eighth year. Over that time period, he has taught all grades and all levels. He currently teaches Sophomore English, A.P. Literature and Composition, and Sophomore English Survey, a course for struggling readers. In 2007, Jeff was selected as one of Golden Apple's Teachers of Distinction, and last spring, Jeff won the Distinguished Secondary Teaching Award (DSTA) from Northwestern University. Since 1996, Jeff has been a faculty associate at Bard College's Institute for Writing and Thinking, where he leads workshops for teachers. He holds a B.A. and an M.A.T., both from Boston University.

Meet Kelly Griffin! Most of her 500 students call her Miss G!! Miss G rocks the schoolhouse by teaching social-emotional and character development skills at an elementary school in San Diego. She has a master's degree in elementary education from Rockhurst University (back home in the Midwest) and a certification in Social-Emotional and Character Development from Rutger's University online program. She is the co-creator of a program that provides universal SEL instruction to all students. Miss G is passionate about emotional literacy! In today's world, she believes it is more important than ever. Much of what she does is give a voice to the emotional lives of her students. She builds community and helps create a space where students feel emotionally safe, connected and cared for. This is where the magic happens. Walls come down, hearts open up and students can express their feelings and connect as human beings. These are moments of growth, moments of change that create ripples in our school--ripples of belonging. As said best by L.R. Knost, "It is not our job to toughen children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless." Much of her focus right now is on how her students are feeling. She imagines something roller-coaster-ish…When those feelings of anxiety, loneliness and frustration come up, we tend to conceal them rather than feel them. But this only holds us back, when we name our emotions and acknowledge them we can then figure out coping strategies on how to manage them (Marc Brackett, Permission To Feel).

Dr. Lynass is the owner and Executive Director of Sound Supports whose mission is to support every student and very school through the use of a Multi-tiered framework. Dr. Lynass has over 22 years of experience in the field of education and has worked directly with over 100 schools, 1,000 districts and 4 state departments of education on their implementation of academic and behavioral systems. Previously Dr. Lynass has been the Executive Director of Northwest PBIS and a research scientist at the University of Washington. Dr. Lynass has also overseen and coordinated grants related to academic and behavioral Multi-tiered Systems of Supports in schools and actively disseminates through presentations and publications. Dr. Lynass has also taught courses as an adjunct professor for the University of Washington, Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University.

Rachael Kettner is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher and has been teaching middle school Science for the majority of her 19 years in public schools in Arizona, Idaho and Washington State. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Science at Selkirk Middle School just outside of Spokane, WA.

Jacob D. LeBlanc, Ed. D. is the principal at Katy Junior High in Katy, Texas. He has been an educator for 29 years in the great state of Texas! His wife is an elementary school counselor. They have 3 adult children; an LSU Tiger son, a Notre Dame Fighting Irish son and a daughter with one more year as a UT Longhorn! Jacob has dedicated his life to serving others and created and Co-Moderates the LeadUpKaty podcast.