[00:00:00] Welcome to Stories That Stick with me, Laura, as your resident storyteller. I'm here to show you how oral stories inspire and captivate minds young and old. Tune in each week to hear a compelling story and join in meaningful conversations. I'll be digging deep into the heart of storytelling, connection, and listening.
So whether you're a kid, teacher, caregiver, grandparent, or simply a lover of stories, This podcast is for you. Join me as you get lost in another world and discover how stories shape our lives. Here's to the next page in our story.
Welcome to today's episode of Stories That Stick. I've got a really exciting guest to chat with here. This is Jean Marie Dagarin, and she's the Early Childhood POV on Instagram. She and I connected at some point over the last couple years, and her messaging around what is [00:01:00] best for children, what is developmentally appropriate, aligns completely with all that I have to say about how children learn literacy and the importance of meeting children.
Where they're at with their literacy, and she's been an early childhood advocate and administrator. She's been a college professor, and right now she's in a district coordinating programs for universal pre k and head start. So I'm going to let her introduce herself to you before we dive into a little bit about some of the pressures that early childhood educators are facing and the implications that that has on them and their early literacy practice.
So, so glad to have you here.
Thank you so much, Laura. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the time with you. I've been in the field of early childhood for about 30 years, 27 of which as an administrator. So basically at a college, I would just thrust it into an administrative role. I have worked in public programs, private programs, nonprofit programs over the years. Currently, like you said, I [00:02:00] am overseeing a large program here in the state of California at a district overseeing headstart and state preschool programs.
And really actively involved in the alignment of preschool through third grade. So to ensure that, you know, appropriate practices are happening all the way through third grade. And in addition to that, I also teach at the community college level. Currently I'm teaching the administrative course. So.
Early childhood educators who want to go into an admin role, I am teaching that course currently. So, you know, more recently, I would say in the last year, I really felt the pull to really spread the word of developmentally appropriate practice because I'm not sure how in other states it's working, but with us, the push down of academics is still very much exists.
And with the implementation of universal pre K. I'm just seeing inappropriate practices happening and I just think it needs to be talked about more and advocated for more so. [00:03:00] That is in addition to my work, that's what I'm doing through social media, and hopefully it can expand more to that offering courses as well.
Amazing. So for people that may not be familiar with it, can you explain a little bit about what universal pre K is?
Yeah. So universal pre K, not all states have it. I, I want to say there's about 27 states that currently operate universal pre kindergarten. And so basically it is a free preschool for all four year olds.
So in the state of California, it's been a slow rollout for the past five years of each month of each, each year, they are rolling it out to more four year olds. So by 2526, Every child that turns four by September 1st will be have that option to enroll in universal pre k, which is in California called transitional kindergarten.
And it's not based off of economic your income or family size. So every child [00:04:00] has that available to them.
That's awesome. So I, when I was I was hired right out of undergrad. I worked in Boston public schools. I was hired from the school that I did my student teaching at and it was the year 20 2007 to 2008 that the universal pre K like it must have been a grant or their initiative.
Something happened because they opened like 2025 classrooms. And so there was this huge like cohort of us, younger teachers that had kind of just come out of whatever I program we were and there were all these vacancies in the district for these and a lot of the senior teachers were kind of like, I don't know that I want to work with four year olds in a public school and so we were all hired and I think it was, you know, there were definitely benefits to To it, especially that there was this core group of other people that were in the same place as I and it was like I was able to be there from the beginning.
So to help give a lot of feedback to the district in the early childhood [00:05:00] department as they continue to grow their, you know, grow this. And I think that it can be done. really, really well, and it can be done really, really not well.
Yeah. So I think that's, that's the key, right? And so I think these teachers taking on that role, some like for for my experience here in California, a lot of teachers who, who don't have any early childhood education or experience are being thrusted into those classrooms.
And so that's where you were seeing a lot of these inappropriate practices taking place. And it's really unfortunate because people like myself who have that early childhood experience and education are no longer it's like hey they're taking these kids from us and they're putting it in with a teacher that has their multi subject credential that has never taught a four year old or a three year old you know so it's it's tough yeah.
It is, I'm sure, and that's kind of where you come in, right? Yeah, exactly,
exactly,
yeah. So, one of the things that, you know, we had talked about sharing a little bit about was this idea [00:06:00] that schoolification is impacting Early childhood educators to be doing developmentally inappropriate things, and I'd love for you to just kind of define a little bit what you mean by that term in relation to early childhood education, and then go ahead and just define what developmentally appropriate practice means to you so that As we are all listening and talking, we're all on the same page, making sure that we have a clear understanding.
Yeah, it's interesting. I recently I was a reader on one of my, one of my former teacher's thesis, and her thesis was on schoolification. So I actually learned a lot from her because I never really heard that term before. But after I read it, I'm like, Oh, I'm totally familiar with what schoolification is.
It's been happening for quite some time. And, and really, it, I would say it started back in the 80s when that academic push down. So basically what schoolification is, it's that academic push down from the upper grades all the way down to kindergarten, and then it gets pushed down to preschool of implementing inappropriate [00:07:00] practices in their classroom, inappropriate academic expectations of children, really focusing in on the literacy piece and the math piece that is where and so back in the eighties.
They had that push, right, that push down. And that's where NAEYC, the National Association of Education for Young Children, came in and, and developed. The the statement on developmentally appropriate practice, they're like, Hey, wait a second. These prep, we are not going to, we don't stand by these practices in preschool and early childhood.
And so they issued that statement. And that's where in the 80s was so great because that's when people like that boss came alive and was just really our champion for developmentally appropriate practice. And then as the years went on. And really what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing at the school level is Well, we need to catch up.
We need to get these children caught up from COVID. We've lost so much time from COVID when in fact COVID was such a beautiful time like kids were able [00:08:00] just to be and play and do their thing. But no, we're now we're having to catch up. So what does that mean? Schoolification is in full effect now and the academic pushdown is very, very well and alive and in the school system and that pressure that teachers face and it's sad because You know, these teachers are well intended but I think that they are, they, they're just falling in line like I have to do this because I have this pressure, my kids need us to get these certain scores for our district to look good.
And, yeah, so that's that is very well on the line. So, back to what developmentally appropriate practice what it should be happening, in my mind, developmentally appropriate practice. The definition in two words is child centered. So if you are centering everything that you do in your classroom surrounding that child and really focusing in on the whole child.
Then you're, you're probably implementing developmentally appropriate practice because it's all based on the individual needs of that child it's [00:09:00] based on where they are developmentally so you can have these standards but if a child who's a typical four year old isn't performing at that standard that's set by who, what, who, who, who developed these standards are not based off.
You know, individual children and their needs. So developmentally appropriate practice is looking at the whole child and supporting them at every step of their development and supporting the family through that process as well.
Oh
yeah. I think that that's a really key thing. And operating in an anti biased fashion and all of that is all encompassing, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. So, the first thing that came to my mind, not surprisingly, I think, is that Vivian Paley, who is, you know, what so much of my world comes from, she, I always say that, you know, a saint in the 80s, she was writing and saying, like, but what about The kids in kindergarten, right? Because she was watching, she was there in the [00:10:00] 80s, watching the decline of play happening, right?
Right in front of her and was fiercely advocating for it to not be happening. And that's where she started kind of coming up with this storytelling, story acting, which was something that, was building so many literacy skills, but was completely child in so many ways, child led and child directed. And it was just such a beautiful thing.
And when I saw it and was implementing it into my kindergarten classrooms, and what is beautiful about what Boston public schools was doing was they have. Their early childhood department does as well go up through third grade, right? So they had this progression of what it might look like to be doing storytelling and story acting as a three year old.
And if you're staying in the district, going up through third grade and the way that that can grow with the children that have been telling stories and acting them out and being listened to and heard, right? And I think my gut says the schoolification and the academic push down and [00:11:00] that pressure is even Worse in places where there is universal pre k because a lot of the universal pre k is at least I know when I was in Boston and when I was in Providence are in a public school that goes up through fifth grade or up through eighth grade.
You would get comments. If you were the. Preschool teacher and you would overhear it, whether it's in a lunch room or from a parent or whoever, you can tell who came from so and so's room. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. And there's so much pressure that teachers face. So it's same because, when I go into classrooms throughout the years and not even, you know, speaking about where I'm at currently, but still it happens, the teachers feel that pressure and these practices that are taking place, I, I just.
I look at them. I'm like, what are we doing here? Like, are we really focusing in on what the child needs where they're at? And so, but I, I, I guess I can understand, right? They have this pressure because they're working at [00:12:00] the schools and they're hearing that buzz from in, in the lunchroom too, from, oh yeah, like they're coming from that classroom and all they did was play or whatever it is.
They didn't prep them. And, and, you know, my philosophy is that kindergarten teachers need to be ready for the children that they receive. Children shouldn't go to them ready for what their expectations are. And so that's really difficult. It's a mindset that we need to somehow shift. It's, and it's globally, like, I just don't think it's
Oh, absolutely.
Right? And, and let's be honest, probably a lot of the kindergarten teachers are feeling the same thing, right? Like the first grade teachers are saying, you know, they're not coming to me and like, because there is that, right? And when you're in that public school setting and you're teaching in a classroom where you're in a school, like I was telling you, I was in a K 8 school.
So many of our staff meetings are about the standardized testing and the scores and why we're a turnaround and this and that. And so then that's where this, this stream comes from, right? Because [00:13:00] it's like, all right. They're not performing the way that they quote unquote need to be performing in fifth grade.
So where are the gaps in fourth and third? And you know, and unfortunately, we're just, the science of how children learn, right, is not what, is what's not being honored. And as you say, you know, what you're hearing is like, we've got to catch them up from COVID, when in fact, like, this was happening pre COVID, right?
And what we're seeing, what we're seeing post pandemic is a lot of Trauma, right? Everybody's lives changed. Parents lives changed. Children's lives changed. And so what we're seeing is in fact, an impact and, and not necessarily that they are quote unquote behind or ahead or whatever it is, but that we all nationally internationally had this very significant, you know, one to three year event that consumed our lives and these children are still processing it, right.
And reacting and [00:14:00] responding and, And so it's hard because, yeah, that's the, the, the narrative and I'm sure that's the narrative that's in the upper grades as well,
right? Yeah, yeah. And so I think what's missing here is instead of focusing in on that academic push is focusing in on that. Supporting them socially and emotionally and, and, and going from there because continuing to push that academics on children who aren't ready, you're just going to continue with the same rhetoric, the same low test scores or whatever is happening at that school site or that district.
You know, you need to really lean into supporting their social emotional needs before you can have these expectations, academic expectations. If they're not ready, they're not ready. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm curious, now, you know, it goes without saying, like, all of us You know, we do the best that we can. We teach what we know, and we use the tools that we have, right?
And so, yes, there are, I [00:15:00] imagine, sometimes, a handful of people in the education field that are doing something that they know is not in the best interest of the children, and they're doing it because maybe, quote unquote, the thing I know I've always heard is, it's the way we've always done it, right? And change can be hard.
Yes.
And, I think that there's a lot of people that are maybe doing some developmentally inappropriate things. literacy practices because they don't know any better, right? So they're pulling on some wealth of knowledge or some mentor or some, something, some experience that's dictating the choices that they're making in the classroom.
And so can you give us some examples of some of the developmentally inappropriate early literacy practices that you're seeing? Yeah, I mean, I
I recently, oh gosh, I recently walked into a classroom where a teacher was sitting at her desk and I don't like preschool teachers sitting at a desk.
We should be with the children, but she was sitting at her desk and she literally had her, the hand of a child, her hand grasping the [00:16:00] child's hand and really, and doing the writing for him. And, really she thought I'm teaching him how to write his name. Well, children, that's not how they, they learn how to write their name and it has to happen naturally.
I think that the letter of the week teachers really want to hold on to that because traditionally that's what they do. And it's just like, that's not, that's not, that's not helping them. That's not supporting them in their early literacy. So it's easy to identify what's inappropriate when you see things like that happening in the classroom and.
You know, really not children, teachers, not honoring where that child is. If you have to hold his hand to write his name, he's not ready. So yeah, that was a more recent example that I have the letter of the week and just going through those traditional practices, just because like you said, that's just what we've always done.
And. It's time to look at other ways and honoring where children are at individually.
Yep. Now, I have to [00:17:00] say, I never did Letter of the Week. I was never big on Any like of those more traditional practices, right? I never did the calendar time in the way that many of my colleagues were doing.
I don't know why. I just, I don't know. I just never took to it. Maybe. I don't know that I actually knew better, but I just didn't do it. I never really did what's the weather. Right. Maybe sometimes we'd sing that song, but not really. I always had my own structure of what my quote unquote group time was.
I called it a community meeting. And that's when I think a lot of these things happened. And Letter of the Week, I don't recall doing it as a kid, so it was never ever something that I was like, oh, I'm gonna recreate this. And also I'm not one for wanting to cut out 95 of the same things to make the thing that goes with the thing or purchase all the glitter for the letter G, right?
Like it just wasn't something for me. That being said, hand over hand writing and tracing. Oh yeah. I was there. I mean, I, [00:18:00] I did it right. And, and it was, and there's other things like that, right. That I look back and I'm like, Ooh,
cringy. Right. Yeah. Right.
And, and it's. You know, what needs to happen, is once I realized and, or was learned or taught or whatever, that honoring whatever marks a child was making and saying, that's my name was way more meaningful for them than me tracing over the letters with them, my hand and saying the letter path, and then being like, that's your name.
And then, you know, after 12 weeks being like, How do you not know your
name? I know. And that's got to be stressful for a teacher, right? If you're sitting there doing that, yeah, it's gotta be stressful. The other thing too is like what I see is, okay, we're all going to sit down. These are three and four year olds.
We're all going to sit down with our journal and like the whole group, 16 kids sitting down, you know, with the pencil in their hand and writing their name. And it's just like, It has to happen organically, [00:19:00] right? I'm all for journals in the classroom and for it to be just in the environment and if a child wants to scribble their name, that's their name right but to sit down like we're all these little soldiers sitting down writing our name and I don't know what if it's a time filler, I'm not sure why teachers continue to do that but the struggle like I, yeah.
I think, because there's pros and cons to the Common Core but it is something slightly universal, and if you really look at some of the early literacy standards in some districts in some states, what they're basically doing is taking the first grade standards, and then adding with support, Will do whatever the first grade standard is and then they'll take it to the PreK and they'll say with support and prompting and it's still the same language from the first grade right but the only difference there is the with support and prompting and so for every teacher With support and prompting can mean completely different things for a play based [00:20:00] educator.
That means supporting by providing the materials in the classroom, prompting by saying, Oh, you wrote your name. Look at that. I see those marks that says your name, or for somebody else, the support is the hand over hand tracing and the prompting. What is that? That's your name. It's so vague. And so that's what's, happening.
That's, that's, I think, and so doing a journal for three and teachers of three and four year olds, if their early literacy standards say something along the lines of, with support and guidance, will write, draw, tell, dictate about an event, Because the first grade standard is, the child will use a combination of writing, drawing, and write, and to tell about an event.
And so, a journal is a, okay, what'd you do yesterday? Well, my four year old can't answer what she did yesterday. Exactly. Yeah. I can't answer what I did yesterday. But right, I mean, it's all well [00:21:00] intended, but it's like a, it's almost this means to an end, right? Like, okay, they need to write about and, and tell and draw about an event.
Right. So we're going to use a journal and I'm going to ask about what they did over the weekend, or I'm going to ask that. Yeah.
And it's very transactional and it doesn't feel like natural. And you know, children, let's say their name, for example, I mean, that's a natural thing for them to be curious about.
We had a little boy in our program who was very curious about his name and we were on the yard or the classroom was on the yard and he, he got a couple of sticks together and. started forming on his own, started forming the letter T because his name started with T. He would see his name throughout the classroom, right?
Because there were different labels throughout the classroom with his name. So intrinsically he was very motivated to do that. And that's beautiful. It's like, wow. And that teacher supported that. Okay. So how can we build upon this? But it happened organically and natural and that's really how it should be.
Right. And it's noticing that, [00:22:00] right? Because when the child is interested, then they want to receive it. But it's like when we're regurgitating the information to them, that's when we're losing them, right? When we're doing those,
even as
adults. Yeah.
When we're
doing these extended whole group times, you know, and it's, and it's hard because there is research and there are places and times where you do need to explicitly instruct and you need to at times be saying, this is the letter T.
It makes the sound. Fill your throat when you say it. Can you feel anything? Feel the air in front of your mouth. Oh, let's find things in the room that begin with T. And move on. And move on. That's like my like, go to. You can explicitly explain and name something. The kids that are interested might ask more.
They might stay. They might get more from it. And know where you're going. Know what letters you've talked about. What letters are interesting to the kids. And then move on. Don't beat it to death. Yeah, exactly. Because that the kids know when we're doing that, right? I had a kid one time that was using this little like magnetic [00:23:00] figure.
So it goes with the magnet tiles. They're like magnets for your refrigerator, I think. So it's got just like a stick figure, and the hands and the feet have little magnets in it. And they're awesome. They're so cute. Well, they were like, This is a letter and they held it up and it looks like an X, you know, but I don't think they knew but they were just kind of like, you know, and I was like, oh, it's an X and then they changed it a different way and they're like, this is a letter and it kind of looked like a P.
The arms and the leg was kind of together. I was like, oh, yeah, a P and then they made it and it kind of looked like a K and they were like, and this is my letter. And it kind of looked like a straight with the two legs, right? And I was like, that's right. That's, that's okay. And that was it, right? And so then maybe tomorrow I would pick those three letters and another material and just, you know, strew it.
Might lay it out. Or I might invite the child over and be like, Hey, remember yesterday you were like thinking about those, like X and P and K? Like, here are some other straight lines and curves if you want to explore those. And then take it or leave it.
Yeah, [00:24:00] I'm very much a believer as the environment is the third teacher.
And I think if you set up your environment to support that, you know, you can, you can easily scalpel children through those, those moments. And yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah.
So I'm curious, do y'all have a curriculum, a scripted curriculum that the teachers have to use? Our
district does. It's a very theme based curriculum. I'm not a huge fan of a theme based curriculum. I really prefer much more of an emergent curriculum, but. You know, I always tell my teachers don't use that as your crutch, it's a resource, so use that as a resource to help guide your teaching because sometimes with those theme based curriculums and you really lose being in touch with what children's interests are, and we really need to honor their interests, so,
so are the themes relatable to the children?
Well, it's the typical, like, this month we're going to talk about friendship. This month we're going to talk about community community helpers, all of that, so.
Is there an expectation that they are following some type [00:25:00] of scope and sequence for their for their literacy, because it doesn't look like this would promote something like letter of the day.
So where does that come from if they do
letter of the day so teachers kind of go off the grid and do letter of the day like many of them do, it's really a hard thing for them to let go of. Yeah. Mm hmm.
It's always so, you know, it's the curriculum in itself. It's its whole, it's a whole different beast.
Right. So you don't
in preschool, you don't need it. I really don't believe that you need it. It's a money making scheme. I think we just really need to roll with, with children and their needs and their interests. And
yeah. On the on the flip, I will say there are some like creative curriculum has great pieces to it.
And for some, if they have the right training. Right. If they're coming green and don't know about much about early childhood development or how to do emergent curriculum, which can feel super overwhelming, right? And then you kind of fall into [00:26:00] Pinterest world and then you're doing things that are all over the place.
There, there, I do feel that there is a place for curriculum for some, right? That they need something. But in reality, the big thing that everybody needs is a lot more training and schooling on how children learn.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I think it can be overwhelming. Like you said, if they don't have any previous experience, then if you say, well, they learned through play.
And so, okay, well, what does that look like for me? And how do I, how do I set up the classroom? How do I support that? How do I create an environment? That's not just a free for all. So yeah, I do believe that it's a benefit for those teachers, but you're more season teachers. It's not necessary.
I really don't feel like it is. But yeah, for sure.
Okay, so, you know, we're saying maybe what's not the best for kids to be doing having hand over hand tracing, extended whole group times, these letter of the weeks. But what, so what can teachers do? What developmentally appropriate early literacy practices are you seeing?
And you walk in and you're like, yes.
Well, like I, I
said, I think that [00:27:00] an environment where environment is really set up, it's like a stage that is really set up. There's books in every area.
There's books to support, if they're in the block area, there's books to support that subject matter. There are, in some of my programs, we would have these little handhelds. Recorders so that children, we could just record their, their stories, their conversations. And then when we come back in our group, in our little community gathering, we could replay it and then even write it down for them so that they can create their own book from it.
So to me, that's, that, that's what it is having tools available really, you know, for that writing piece too, is to have those tools available to develop the fine motor skills. You know, bringing in loose parts they can use loose parts to do letter formation but really making it more of a natural holistic way of, of learning that pre literacy.
Absolutely. Okay. Handheld recorders.
It's so great just to hear the voice to write to kind of hear [00:28:00] that language, the language development that takes place and he'll save that and bring it back. And compare it like just their language development over the years to over the
right one of my favorite things to do when I was in the classroom was to hide behind a bookshelf or a corner or wherever, and then bring my documentation journal with me or my laptop and scribe, because the children talk differently in their play when you're not there, right, and you get such different glimpses you get to hear them.
I love that. Saying things that you know their family is saying you get to hear them pretending to be you you get to hear them And their real personality like bossing around whatever because I think they monitor theirself, right? They know when we're watching and they monitor so if I couldn't set up a camera Then sometimes I loved especially around the dramatic play area just like hiding around the corner Yeah, just here and and so I imagine putting a handheld recorder there right where they have Ability [00:29:00] to just record Conversation and then maybe forget about it.
And you could just like listen. Vivian Paley actually did a ton of that when she was first like developing her storytelling and story acting was collecting, you know, she did her research in her classroom that way. She was just recording conversations that she was facilitating and how
you can't, you can't get, there's no way you can catch everything.
Right. So but yeah, those little recorders are great. Those are great to capture that. The language and the negotiation that happens among the children and who's the leader who's taking charge and the different rules that the rules that they play. So, yeah, it's pretty, pretty
cool. Yeah, and all that is literacy.
I think it's so easy. To think it's not, it's so easy to just think of literacy as knowing letters. And there's so much more to it. There is, there's the executive functioning has to be happening. They have to be navigating and negotiating. They need to be, you know, regulating their emotions. They need to be developing vocabulary, communicating, clearly listening, actively listening, [00:30:00] responding, you know, all those things that are happening when they're playing.
And if we're stealing that time. Directing and controlling that away, then then those opportunities aren't happening. They're missed. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Awesome. So are there any last tips or thoughts you want to leave for us? Maybe your favorite moment you've seen unfolding in a Playbase, like a really Playbase space recently
I I, I think that what I had shared earlier, that was just such a magical moment and just the transformation of this little guy, really, you know, it just goes back to where they are and what they're interested in. And he was really interested in it. Knowing his name and how to create that on his own.
And so just watching that unfold was pretty cool. Over the course of the school year, knowing that he had started with very little language and and then the teacher just quietly being there to support his development, she noticed that he had, you know, was interested in his name [00:31:00] and how the formation of the letters and just watching that, that relationship between the two of them, where she really.
Was reflective in her practice and really supported him through his interest in that. And so the little things that she would do in the classroom environment to make sure that he was well supported in that because many of our programs are mixed age groups. And so, you know, you have children at all different rates.
So I just think that was a magical thing.
I agree. I think when and it's so reaffirming of reaffirming for us when we see those moments, right? And it's like, yes, they are innately curious. They are interested. And some kids just aren't interested in their name and letters yet because they're interested in numbers or dinosaurs or running around or whatever it might be,
I
think that it takes a teacher, you know, we talked about developmentally appropriate practice and specific to. Literacy, because that's such a huge expectation going into kindergarten. [00:32:00] You know, when we really believe when we really have the belief that that's how they learn, they learn through their, their own play and through their own interests and, and if the teacher just sits back and supports that then it, it can be pretty magical, but you know, if we're force feeding this to the children, you're just going to be set up for failure because we're going to resist any attempt for you to kind of force feed that.
Absolutely.. Well, so nice chatting with you. Tell us, put it all in the show notes, but where can people find you and learn more from you?
Yeah. So I'm on Instagram. It's the early childhood POV. You can find me there on Instagram. I also have a website where you can get some of my free resources at the early childhood POV as well.
I'll put in one of your freebies in the show notes so people can get on your newsletter.
I love getting those in my inbox and just little, little pep talks. And I love seeing what you bring onto social media. You know, your reels always, always give me a good laugh. I appreciate them. I can tell [00:33:00] that you're playing with them and if it's not playing, like, what are we doing, right? Like, what are we doing?
Yeah.
Yeah. All right. Great. It was so much chatting. Thanks. All right. Thanks, Laura.
The end. But really, that's it for today's episode of Stories That Stick. Inspiring and captivating minds, young and old. Remember, stories have the incredible ability to spark conversations, ignite imagination, and create lasting connections. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a five star review.
It really does make a difference. And, if you have a story to share or a topic you want me to explore, reach out to me on Instagram at LittleStoriesThatStick. Until next time, keep working that storytelling muscle and tell stories every day.
