In this episode of the Innovative Schools podcast, we sit down with the Tracey Berry McGee as she talks about social media and how it affects student relationships, cyberbullying, and how her love principles can address these issues. Come on. Let's learn together. Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Innovative Schools podcast. My name is Liz.
Liz Freeman:And today on this episode, I am joined by my good friend and cohost, Jordan. Hey, Jordan. How's it going?
Jordan Bassett:Hey, Liz. It's great. I'm excited to be here.
Liz Freeman:I'm so glad you're here too. So, Jordan, would you tell me who we have joining us on this episode today?
Jordan Bassett:Absolutely. I would love to tell our listeners and you about Tracy Berry McGee. Thank you for joining us today. I'm so glad that you're here with us.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Thank you for having me, it's always a pleasure.
Jordan Bassett:It really is. I'm really excited to do something else with you, we've done a couple things in the past. So I've gotten to know you, but many of our listeners may not know much about the Tracy Barry McGee. What are some of the things that you're doing with your life now? Well, you know, I'm the founder of the I Defy Me movement
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And it's continued to grow in every aspect from local, national to global Mhmm. In addition to us working with girls focusing on social emotional learning and relational aggression, we're also diving into this digital literacy world.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:We have a joy mascot. Yeah. Yeah. Saw wellness mobile, all kind of cool things. We're talking about entrepreneurship.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:We always say the wheels on the bus go round and round, but not all through the town. And now they're going all through the town because we're bringing, an aspect to what it looks like for girls to really define themselves.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah. I I just want to know a little bit more, about the your your mobile, your your the joy mobile?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So I call it the I define me The I I ness mobile.
Liz Freeman:Yeah, got it.
Jordan Bassett:Got it.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Yes. It's the first of its kind in the and if you've ever seen it, it was literally we chose to purchase it looks like a UPS truck. Mhmm. And we purchased it through Yeah. Through during the pandemic.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Mhmm. Because a lot of our girls really needed to connect with each other. Mhmm. And we needed to get out in the community and make sure that they were okay. So when you come on the wellness mobile, you can take a selfie and you can, post positivity to social media.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:You can take the pledge, our I Defy Me pledge. You can get a keeper kit where you receive a keeper bear to take care of yourself to talk to the keeper bear versus the social media all the time. Yeah. And you also get body butter and lip balm and lanyards and a period pack because oftentimes the communities that we serve, the period poverty is real. Yeah.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:It's just another resource to reach out to our girls to make sure that they know that the community has their back.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah. And you go to schools and
Tracie Berry-McGhee:School based.
Jordan Bassett:Like where all where all does it go?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:That's right. So that's our local piece and so we are able to go to different schools in our community back in my hometown and, the goal is to have a wellness mobile that goes into every town, like a huge bus. Yeah. So we could do the whole Joy tour.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah. Yeah.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Something like that. And then we have our wellness, mascot. Her name is Joy. Uh-huh.
Jordan Bassett:She's addition to
Tracie Berry-McGhee:the family. Yes. Is. Joy is an acronym for just being original you. Oh, that's incredible.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Oh, I love that. And, she's all about digital literacy and wellness. And so she goes out and takes selfies and wheezies and uzzies with everybody. And so it's really a cool concept because it allows girls to realize that we have more in common than we do different and, you shouldn't be leaving each other out. That's important.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah that's great. Can you tell us a little bit about Sista Keeper? Did I say that?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Sista Keeper. Right? Sista Keeper.
Jordan Bassett:I was practicing last night and I kept putting an a on the end of keeper, and my wife said also it's one word. Say it. It's Sista Keeper. I really have to think about it though, but
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Yes. So Sista Keeper started 02/2002 in my basement. So like we're we're over 21 now. We've we've been growing for a minute. And the the concept of sister, sister with a a instead of a e r.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:That's why had sorry. Right. Sorry.
Jordan Bassett:To clarify, that's why I had a problem with the e r at the end keeper Right. Because my brain would go, sister, keeper.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Right. No. Keeper is keeper. Keeper.
Jordan Bassett:Okay. Yes.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:The sister basically means that ER, you may biologically have a sister or a brother. You have sisters?
Jordan Bassett:I have two sisters. I only Okay. That's my only siblings. Two sisters.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Alright. And how about you Liz?
Liz Freeman:I'm an only child.
Jordan Bassett:You're an
Liz Freeman:only child. I'm an only child.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:I was raised an only child as well. I always wanted a sister.
Liz Freeman:I know. Me too. Okay.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Me too. That's what the a means. The a means that we're all sisters. Oh, I love it. I always tell everybody just open up your multicultural Crayola box.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:If you find your color, that means you're a sister or a brother. And so you're my brother, and you're my sister. Thank you. And the keeper means that we have each other's back. And that's important because everybody wants somebody to have their back.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Yeah, absolutely. But you have to be a keeper to yourself first.
Liz Freeman:That's an important reminder. That
Tracie Berry-McGhee:is important. So, yeah we started it because I I wasn't I am an only child. I dealt with bullying growing up and I always wanted to have someone to talk to about my issues and so having a community of girls to connect with was huge for me and I wanted our girls in our community to do the same thing. So we started with seven girls in my basement and now it's local, national, and global. It's community based, school based.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:I'm a licensed therapist so I knew that there was a need for our girls to journal their feelings and not put everything out. I didn't have social media back in the day. Back in the day. But hey, now we have all ways to connect. So we need to make sure that they go to inside first start journaling out their feelings.
Jordan Bassett:That's fantastic Tracy and what a great segue into talking about social media, one of our topics today.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Oh wow.
Liz Freeman:Yeah, so Tracy, we know that social media is such a cool way that we are able to connect with and everyone is a part of social media. I can't think of anybody who isn't, but we also know that there's some negative side effects to social media like cyberbullying, low self esteem, anxiety and things surrounding that but I would love to hear kind of with adolescents kind of the role that social media kind of plays in those relationships that they have So I would just love to know more about that from your perspective.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:That's a good question. It's really layered because social media does play a huge role and I was talking about how I didn't grow up with social media but the average kid they don't know life without it. Mhmm. That's all that they've ever known and oftentimes I work with girls who say they sleep with their phones, they wake up to their phones, if their phone is dead and there's some place they may leave.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And so the positives to that I think is the value of connectivity like we can literally connect with each other. There's always someone that you can text and ask questions and get feedback. It's a space for social acceptance.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:But you can explore that identity, expression of like, who do I think I wanna be today? And and get people to like and follow and subscribe and be a whole brand. But the negative piece to that is what if the people that you follow or the people that you subscribe to or that algorithm is negative. Mhmm. Or people don't like what you're speaking about.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So then you have that negative piece
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And then people are unfollowing you or speaking negative about you and then you feel alone. So it it's like it's a catch 22 situation. You can have a million followers but no friends. Yeah. You feel totally isolated.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Wow. Yeah, that and of course the relation aggression, the cyberbullying piece, which is huge.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Jordan Bassett:So what do you think or thinking about social media and what it's doing, I guess my question I kind of have speaking to the educators out there writes, social media is beyond the walls of the school,
Tracie Berry-McGhee:but
Jordan Bassett:what what kind of effects have you seen of social media cyber bullying, really relational aggression, through those channels, how do you see that affect and influence I guess school culture just even academics in general and in some of the work that you've done with what can you I
Tracie Berry-McGhee:think that, in the schools that we school and community because I think it's not just in the schools but a lot of the issues that happen when I talk to educators they're like on a Monday when we come back, everything has popped off and there's somebody that wants to give you all the tea. Wow. And they have the quote receipts to prove what happened because we are in a society where everything is videotaped. Mhmm. And so people are recording each other.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Our kids have this this thing of FOMO that this fear of missing out. That's so real. And they want to be in the space and be popular and so they are sharing each other's information and inboxing with negativity and so it causes huge issues and as a result of that you may have like I keep saying back in the day had an issue with someone and then went home and addressed it later or the next day. But these things occur in school and they carry over to when they go home and they're inboxing each other because you're behind a screen. You can say so many negative things about each other.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So it is causing a lot of social anxiety. It's causing kids to deal with depression, and feeling like I don't like myself because a lot of comparison is happening. And then again we have these kids. I keep saying, we're comparing ourselves to a highlight reel that isn't real.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And they're not just on one platform. There's terrible platforms.
Jordan Bassett:And there's a new one all the time.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:There's a new one all the time. There's a new one all the time. And some things it's a story and it may leave in twenty four hours but there are kids who feel like this is going to destroy me for the rest of my life and they just want to tap out or they don't feel like they have anyone to connect with them. Oftentimes girls say I'll make a post and I'll check to see even adults.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Someone has followed me or liked it and if not, they delete it. Mhmm. When it may really be the true essence of who they are. And then there are some people that just really like to connect online and they don't they don't do good in person. They're not in person people.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:They just like to be behind the the behind the screens.
Jordan Bassett:Mhmm. Sure. Yeah.
Liz Freeman:Yeah. I feel like I'm definitely one of those people, and I'm so guilty to say this, but I'm one of those people where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna post this. I feel like I look really good in this post or things like that. And if it's not well received by my peers, I start to question that. And so all of those, negative thoughts creep in.
Liz Freeman:I'm like, no. I'm gonna take it down. I'm gonna take it down.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So keep it up and just that's the whole reason why people connect with you because you're just being original you. That's joy Mhmm. Being original you but also being authentic. And I think in this culture now our kids are being more authentic. They're not getting attached to the filters.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Now there is a population of people who are but your tribe, your algorithm will find you if that's what you're talking about is being true to yourself which you are, then your people will find you and if they don't they're not your people.
Liz Freeman:Absolutely. That's incredible. Thank you for that. Yeah. And thank you.
Jordan Bassett:You weren't quite expecting
Liz Freeman:to get a little. I wasn't, but I was like, thank you, Tracy. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But yeah, so just like in light of that, just diving just a little bit deeper, like what role do you think social media does play in shaping the dynamics of those adolescent peer relationships?
Liz Freeman:Like what what do you think about that?
Jordan Bassett:Yeah, that's really real real quick. I I really like that question because, like, when I was in school, our social media was just text, we didn't have group group text or anything like that, and so even for some, I'm, you know, some would say fairly young, but even for me, it's still a disconnect and I could see where educators might kind of have some of that gap as well, especially if they've been, teaching, wonderfully teaching for so many different years.
Liz Freeman:Right,
Tracie Berry-McGhee:right, Well I know that oftentimes our kids connect with people that they don't even know but it's what they're connecting about. So I think the value of when I talk to girls is like I'm a whole brand, I'm an influencer and so I have this way of connecting with people who I may have never met before but when someone in the community is interacting with a sport then they can now be influencers. Know our athletes now have brands and they're getting paid to do it. Have kids that have YouTube pages and TikTok pages and they may be at your school and they're TikTok famous
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And you wouldn't know it because they show a different side of themselves in the classroom. And so really being able to tap into those kids and ask them what are their gifts, that behind the scene kid is probably the one that you would never know that that is that they have 10,000 followers but I think it also allows our kids to think about the variety of ways that they can connect with STEM and we can definitely talk about all of those solutions but at the end of the day we have to go back to how are they using social media and how much time are they putting into It is a tool but our schools really need to explore how can they expand like let me showcase the positive things that you're doing because at the end of the day they're on social media because they want to be seen they want to have a voice and they want to make sure that their voice is being heard so it's important that not only the educators educate themselves but the parents, the grandparents, a lot of grandparents are raising their kids and also really talking to them about what happens when you disconnect from social media.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:What are you doing? Are you interacting with sports? Are you interacting with band? Or all those different aspects of it because our kids they multitask real. We often say that their attention span is shorter than a TikTok.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:But because it's like we can go down a social media hole and a lot of our kids talk about the amount of time you realize, oh my god, I've been on here all night long. I was talking to a parent recently and
Jordan Bassett:Liz just rose
Liz Freeman:in her
Jordan Bassett:hand. Listeners, if you're not watching, just wanted to point that out.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:If you are like just going alone and liking and watching things over and over again, I find myself doing it as well Mhmm.
Liz Freeman:Just
Tracie Berry-McGhee:laughing out loud, literally. Mhmm. And then I was talking to her mom and she said that her daughter was on social media with she walked in the room and her daughter was asleep. And there was a group of girls and they all were on a screen, sleep. She said, what's going on here?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:When she woke her daughter up, she's like, they're all muted but they're all asleep. And what we realized was that was their sleepover. Like kids don't connect with each other anymore physically. So that's their way of connecting. I remember back in the day, you know how you turn your phone in and they have to download all this information.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And I told my daughter, look, we can't sit here and wait forever. We gotta move on. She's like, no, these are all of my text messages to my boyfriend or my girlfriends and I realized that's their love letters. Like we have our love letters in But everything is there and so for people to understand when you take a person's phone away or you disconnect them from social media that may be their only communication to the world and so we have to look at their why address the why but also give them other options outside of totally connecting with social media.
Liz Freeman:Yeah, yeah absolutely. Yeah I absolutely love that you talked about that, and I know that it's such an important avenue that students can use to connect with other people. I've never considered the whole sleepover via your phone type thing before, I've never thought about that but wow, They're like yearning for that connectivity. And I'm just thinking kind of on the opposite side of it back to when I started my social media journey way back in the day, there was a thing called Myspace.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Right. There
Liz Freeman:was a thing called Myspace.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Or Bebo.
Liz Freeman:Oh my gosh. Different
Jordan Bassett:ones. Zynga.
Liz Freeman:Oh my gosh. I'm like, I've never heard of those. Okay. Oh my gosh.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Okay. I'm showing my age.
Liz Freeman:I'm showing my age. But I'm just thinking about back to kind of your top eight, your top nine or whatever it was on Myspace and the relational aggression piece where if you had a friend who hurt your feelings or she talked the boy that you liked or any anything that's, like, petty or catty, you would take that friend off of your your top eight, your top I think it was top eight. Right?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Because Tom was the other one?
Liz Freeman:Yeah. And I'm just thinking, like, what role do you think that social media really does play in that relational aggression piece amongst adolescent girls
Tracie Berry-McGhee:and guys? Huge. Is huge. Relational aggression number one is is different because there's a difference between if one person is bullying you. Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:But when you're behind a screen, everybody is liking and seeing and feeling that emotion Mhmm. Along with you either on a positive end or a negative end. Yeah. And all of their friends are there. It's like look what I wrote about this person.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And we know girls can be very messy. Mhmm. And so they're body shaming. They're talking about your hair. They're talking about, your culture.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Mhmm. They attack you in every form and fashion. And the thing about it is oftentimes our girls will say they don't delete it. They don't take them out their top five because they want to know what they're saying about them. I'm like why don't you block them?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:But they don't and so they take it all in and over and over again to the point that it affects their self esteem and they're they're crushed. Yeah. Yeah and that's a difficult space. Relational aggression is real. Yeah.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Everybody said girl drama is real and it happens on a regular basis and unfortunately there is that middle school spot but it happens as early as preschool where somebody says you're not invited to my birthday party. The flyer comes out and you're not on the list. Wow. What does that look like?
Liz Freeman:Yeah. So we were seeing, the statistic and it was kind of saying like thirty three percent of middle schoolers reported cyberbullying amongst students and almost as high as thirty percent with high schoolers. Is there a reason why
Tracie Berry-McGhee:that middle school would
Liz Freeman:be like Is there is there a reason to that?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Well, middle school is a time when you're really trying to define yourself. Mhmm. So you put yourself out there. This is the time when you typically do get a cell phone.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And so, your amygdala, your brain is not fully developed, so you're very impulsive. Mhmm. So you might put a picture out there and see what people say and then immediately delete it but you're going for it. Mhmm. When you get to high school you're thinking it through just a little bit more.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Everybody's talking about and saying hey you know what We know that you're going off to college or you're trying to decide what it is that you want to do. Mhmm. And so you need to you've made a couple of mistakes. Mhmm. But the other piece to that is you just wanna experiment.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:It's your first opportunity. And and you think, is this really w w w the world wide web? Is everybody watching me? You don't realize, no, everybody's watching. And some things are not as easy to delete.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So that middle school space you're really just you're trying to define yourself and you should have a safe space this is why we tell you to put things protective things in place so that you can just share with your friends. But now we also we got gaming and you game live. Not only do you game live, people are going live and so when you delete no one knows what someone has said to you live. No one knows what your kids may have been exposed to live because they're seeing it in real time and so it's important that we monitor it even more.
Liz Freeman:Tracy that was incredible thank you so so much and it was so informational not only on the way that students are really yearning for that connectivity with social media, but on the opposite side, just really the struggles that come along with it. After the break, we are going to come back and talk to Tracy, kind of how we can address this, cyberbullying, relational aggression issue with her love principles, and we'll see you in just a second.
Jordan Bassett:Welcome back everybody to the Innovative Schools Podcast. I'm Jordan here with Liz and Tracy Berry McGee. We've been talking about social media, cyber bullying, how it affects the kind of adolescent mind and relationships and also other stuff that can find its way into schools and the classrooms. Right. And so that was all really informative, but there's still kind of this lingering question of what do we do about these challenges that we talked about and you have something called the love principles.
Jordan Bassett:Can you tell us just a little bit and then we'll kind of dive into more about them?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Absolutely. So one of the biggest impacts that social media has on girls is their self esteem. They don't see themselves as being beautiful, they compare themselves to others and as a result of that we have to really look at how are you loving yourself. And so the love principle is an acronym that I came up with and the L is listen. Like we really have to at times put down the phone, shut the tablets, the laptops and truly listen to ourselves.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Mhmm. Really go inside and block out the negativity because we always say hurt people hurt people. Right? And a lot of the cyber bullying and the relation aggression happens because someone else is hurting. So it's really important to start listening to your gut, listening to yourself and listening to the people that we talked about this in the first half, finding your tribe, people that will uplift you and cheer you on and really block out that negativity.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:The oh Can I
Jordan Bassett:just for one second what are what are some things that a teacher can do? I don't, I don't know if this isn't a classroom kind of thing or a group or an individual to to help, you know, girls, boys, I get whoever to listen more. Is there some activities or something that you have?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:If you so we do a lot of groups and and circles. You can do, the restorative justice circles and, making sure that you have a safe space for them to really be able to do some self regulation. So to be able to sit down with yourself and do meditation, is really important because you're listening to yourself. Yeah. And being able to just close your eyes and shut everything down.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:A lot of kids are don't like to shut their eyes and that's okay as well. Listening to your favorite song or, something outside of the social media piece to quiet your mind. That's really important. Got it. Yes.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Yes. The o in the love principle is observe. Observe. As educators we have to be able to observe nonverbals.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Our kids speak very loud. We talked about, educational equity a little bit. Our our nonverbals as girls in general. We can say a lot like
Jordan Bassett:Yeah. Yeah. Tracy is making snarking eyes, is that the way to describe They call it like
Tracie Berry-McGhee:sneak dissing, right?
Jordan Bassett:Okay, okay.
Liz Freeman:They
Tracie Berry-McGhee:just kind of look at you because you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, And boys do it too, but they can let you know if they like you or they don't like you without even talking. So we have to observe nonverbals. If you're in a space where we are working with girls in a space that it's a group, Observe who sits next to each other one week and who doesn't sit next to each other. When they come into the classroom, if they have a hoodie on or because maybe her hair isn't combed or there's some issues that he didn't get his haircut.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Observe how they're dressed, how they might dress one day and the next day they don't. So you want to make sure that you observe the nonverbals because nonverbals speak loud. We witnessed that during the pandemic. You can have on a mask and
Liz Freeman:you can
Tracie Berry-McGhee:tell the person sad, if they're happy, if
Liz Freeman:they're frustrated,
Tracie Berry-McGhee:so we got to tap into giving each other that eye contact and being able to read nonverbals appropriately.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah, did a couple communications courses in college, and I mean the emphasis on non verbals, and like even, you know, with the relationships I find myself in with, that's either my wife or, or actually here's the better way to explain this, my daughter started school in 2020. Yes. Like as as a three year old, four year old, she was in pre k three, and her teacher, would just tell us how much she could tell how my daughter felt just on the eyebrows, and she would be like, because he had the mask over the face, couldn't see anything, and her teacher was just like, I can tell if she's happy or if she's sad, if she said something snarky, if she whatever. Right. Just from the eyebrows and how important posture and like even the little things of just the little changes in how your eyes are, it really tell a lot of what you're seeing on the outside may not be matching on the inside.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And that's why you can look at someone and you're like, what? They don't have to say anything. You're like what do you mean what? Something's going on and if it's your friend they can pick it up right away. So as an educator you know your students and you'll pick that up the moment they walk into the classroom.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:The V in the love principle is validate. We have to learn to validate, each other. We want to validate our students, allow them to see that we see them, we hear them, but also self validation, affirming them. I'm always about affirmations. We have to constantly give kids, those sayings.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:We have a pledge that we use in our program, but everybody can have a pledge or mission statement.
Liz Freeman:Mhmm.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Something that you say to yourself on an ongoing basis to affirm yourself. I am beautiful, I'm loved, I appreciate myself, I see myself, I see you. Yeah. It's important to be seen. So that self validation and validating each other is important.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:And then the e for educators is we want to educate and we want to empower. The em in empower is we. This is a we thing. We're all in this together. We have more in common than we do different.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So to be able to empower a young person to realize that you don't have to compare yourself to anyone else on social media period as the kids say period. I define me. The joy of just being original you is is there's value there and when we realize that then you your self esteem increases tremendously because you're not comparing yourself to anyone else and why compare yourself to anyone else anyway everybody else taken be you just be you.
Liz Freeman:You're the best
Tracie Berry-McGhee:you you could be.
Liz Freeman:You're the
Tracie Berry-McGhee:best you you can be. That's incredible. You'll find your tribe, they'll find the algorithm that fits them and we'll all be happy because we have connected in a positive way. I always tell people that social media is not going anywhere so we have to figure out a way to make sure that our kids connect and when you need to disconnect be able to have some self regulation to love yourself enough to say I have some other tools. I'm going to journal my feelings, connect with my friends in person, meet me at the playground and listen to music or, find other ways to truly connect in a circle where it's a safe space.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So creating a safe space to love on each other. So it's listen, observe, validate and
Liz Freeman:empower. Empower. That's awesome.
Jordan Bassett:I had a question so we we talked about earlier we we said that social media is a tool and we have the love the love principle and everything that goes into that. Can social media be used also in a way
Liz Freeman:to like
Jordan Bassett:exercise the the love principle principles yes that kind of thing?
Tracie Berry-McGhee:So earlier we talked about everybody being a brand that's a huge thing. What do you represent? How are you putting positive things out there because there are a lot of resources out in the social media world that we need to tap into. So if you know that you're struggling and you need someone to listen to you or you want to be the voice for something positive, then you can literally tap in and go live and say, hey, I want to make sure that I want everyone to know the value of being true to yourself. Or saying my affirmation of the day is one of the things I love to do is a what's in your cup.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:I'm a therapist. So my cup may be full or empty and I ask everybody what's in your cup? My cup is empty and I need to fill it up and giving a tip for that. So I want everybody to listen in or I love coffee. So it could be something like that.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:My cup, I drink my coffee black, no sugar, no cream. So I want to give it to you straight. Like what does it look like for you to be able to give a positive tip. So that's really a cool way to do it. The observe is maybe you don't like to talk a lot and so you want to go out and do something where people are observing and we may do some meditation together and you tap in and you want to show somebody a tip on how to just go walk and then you put the words up.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:But there's so many ways to tap in and use social media in a positive way. It may be that you don't show your face, that you just validate and you show a word of that day. Mhmm. Or you take a picture of a a piece of art or a flower or sunflower or something like that. And then the the we thing is I always talk about selfies and usies and weasies.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Mhmm. Selfies, weasies, usies. We can do this together you don't have to do it alone but also know when it's time to tap out and listen and observe and validate and empower yourself we have to find the balance and it's not easy it's it's never going to be easy Social media is always going to be here.
Jordan Bassett:Yeah, I think I think that's a really good, point I think about this of social media being that it's just a tool, a hammer can build and it can destroy and how it's how it's used, and I love the idea of trying to to flood, and that's what I think of flooding social media with, just the the good sides, the the positive, the stuff that can that can help. I'll even sometimes when I get stuck in that loop of just looking through reels, I come across the one that says turn your phone off. I'm like oh
Tracie Berry-McGhee:thank you, social media is like
Jordan Bassett:yes, yes,
Tracie Berry-McGhee:because you'll look up and you're like oh my god, I've been on here for hours, Yeah. But I often ask people when's the last time you took a social media cleansing? Seriously. I mean, of families going on vacation or a cruise or if you go to have dinner and everybody puts the phone down, like eye to eye contact is real. Being with real people.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Gaming in real life, board games, all those type of things are really fun. And so oftentimes we don't have to take a picture. I I saw a social media video where they talk about you don't have to take a picture of your food, just eat it. I'm always taking pictures of like no, I I love to take Phony squares. Save this moment.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Yeah, phony squares. And I'm always on but at the end of the day we have to be able to disconnect and connect to each other. That's true love. Yeah. Absolutely.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Yes connecting with your daughter. Yeah. Connecting with our besties.
Liz Freeman:For sure.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Absolutely. Yeah. That part. Well,
Liz Freeman:all right. Thank you Tracy so so much for just helping shed light on social media and what our young people are really experiencing in that social media realm and how it really does impact our relationships on the day to day basis. So thank you so much for sharing your insights with you.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Thank you for having Yeah,
Liz Freeman:seriously we need to.
Jordan Bassett:We will, we'll post it on our social media.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:Absolutely. I
Jordan Bassett:mean, don't look at the social media, I'm kind of confused now, but that's okay.
Liz Freeman:No, we're gonna post it.
Tracie Berry-McGhee:That's we post, we post with purpose, and we post with Absolutely.
Jordan Bassett:Yes, yes.
Liz Freeman:I love that.
Jordan Bassett:That's great. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Innovative Schools podcast. We had a great time talking with Tracy Berry McGee. If you want to bring her to your school to do some of her training on, girl bullying and relationships and all those different things, we're we've put links to all that down in the show notes, whether you want to check out the wellness mobile or see Joy the mascot, we'll have all that in the show notes for you, so make sure you check that out and connect with Tracy to learn more about the wonderful work that she's doing. I want to ask you that if you liked this podcast, please share this with your colleagues and with your friends, leave a comment and a review, and subscribe.
Jordan Bassett:It helps us reach more educators, and that's really what we want to do. We don't want to be, you know, we're not trying to push anything to be this big podcast other than in the fact that we want to help educate and empower and give educators tools and resources that they need, and that happens when you like and subscribe and, follow and all those different things with with the podcast and and share it, so I want to ask you to do that. Teaching is difficult, and we recognize that. And the late nights and the hard work that you guys do is rewarded by the success of your students, and we wanna help you help your students succeed. I hope that you learned something in today's podcast that you can take into your classroom the next time you teach, whether that's later today, next week, next month, or whenever.
Jordan Bassett:So I hope you learned something, and we'll see you on the next Innovative Schools podcast.