Shownotes:
Hey there, podcast fam! Are you ready for an episode packed with positivity and empowering, practical advice? We've got the one and only Dr. Victoria Waller joining us, and she's all about being strengths based! If you're a parent or caregiver of a child with learning differences, you won't want to miss this engaging and fun-filled conversation. Trust me, as both an educator and a parent, I recommend tuning in and joining us on this journey!
About Our Guest:
Victoria E. Waller, Ed.D. holds a B.S in Education from Wayne State University, an M.Ed., as a certified reading specialist, and an Ed.D. focusing on reading and learning differences, from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Waller has been awarded the University of Cincinnati’s Distinguished Alumna College of Education Award, was one of three finalists for the L.A. Music Center’s Bravo Award for Outstanding Teaching, and was named the Local Hero in the L.A. Times for her Printer Pal Program, connecting students with nursing home occupants. She was the creator of the Disney Busy Bags for Travel on Planes and Cars for Disney/Hyperion Books and has created backpacks and toys for M&M Mars, Inc.
Book: Yes! Your Child Can: Creating Success for Children with Learning Differences
Website: drvictoriawaller.com
Instagram: @drvictoriawaller
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of Evolving Learner and a contributing author of Because of a Teacher. Her latest book, Evolving with Gratitude, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! Purchase here!
You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to the pod. I am very excited to have Dr. Victoria Waller with us. Am I allowed to call you Dr. Vicky?
Dr. Victoria Waller: No. Call me Vicky. It's okay, just Vicky.
Lainie Rowell: Well, I feel like for people who have gone to get that advanced degree, they always earned the doctor, but I will take you up on that informality.
Hello Vicky. Welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Victoria Waller: I am so excited to be here. I can't even tell you because usually podcasters have read my book, which is lovely, but I've read your book and I've literally been crying for days. It's so important. gratitude and what you say. It's just, it's, it's the most important thing that I think I can say about every aspect of my life. I started with my parents and I went all the way to where I was now. And I have a whole list of, I have gratitude for all of this and you're right, you say, when you experience it, we create more happiness in our lives and lives of others.
And I think every word you said was just amazing and all the articles by other people, so. I'm gonna compliment you.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, you're too kind. Well, I rushed to read your book. I read it in, I think. 30 hours-ish because I couldn't put it down. And I had so many notes, so many highlights, and I'm really excited to share where our work comes together because I feel like there's a ton of connections between gratitude and your work.
I'm gonna do a very quick introduction and then, Vicky, I would love it if you jumped in and said more about what you do. So Dr. Victoria Waller is an educational therapist with a doctorate in education and learning differences. She is the author of the best selling book. I'm gonna slow down for that... bestselling book, Yes, Your Child Can, Creating Success for Children With Learning Differences.
It is also a finalist in the best book for 2022, the Forward Indies Reviews. We'll talk about that, I hope. I mean your, I'm just gonna talk straight to you right now, Vicky. Your bio is long, impressive and you have such an array of work that you've done and so I don't even know how to capture that all and still trying to keep this a relatively 30 minute podcast, but would you please tell people some more wonderful things about you that you really wanna make sure they know?
Dr. Victoria Waller: Well, I think I have to say, over 40 years I've been teaching and working with children with learning differences. And if you notice that word, I never say, even 40 years ago, I never said disabled children. They were so smart. I always found them smart and interesting . And I thought, they're not disabled.
Okay, they have differences. Maybe they have a little attention issues. Maybe they can't spell, maybe they can't write. But I never said that word, dyslexia. I just don't use those words because I know, because I've taught thousands of children. They're the geniuses of our time. Like Anderson Cooper, Richard Branson, Simone Biles, the astronaut, Scott Kelly, and so many more.
And I believe every child can learn and become successful and happy. If we diagnose them early, we get them help when they need it, and we use their strengths and passions to teach them. You know, parents come into me now I do ED therapy. I was in a school for 40 years and now I do ED therapy.
I always did a little, but now I do it, and parents immediately come in and tell me everything that's wrong with their child and I say, oh, what are they good at? And there's quiet. Because the parents are so focused on what their child can't do. This one child came and I said to him after, what do you like?
And he said, oh, I love sharks and whales. Now, the mother never said that to me. Well, I so happened to know the biggest shark expert in the world, Chris Fallows. I met him on a trip, and of course he communicates with my students and this child interviewed Chris and he interviewed the man in Maine who was a lobster fisherman and he got caught in a whale's mouth.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, wow.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Yes. Oh, it's fantastic. It's on the internet, and I called this man and I said, can my student interview you? It was so fascinating listening to this man. Tell us how he's a lobster fisherman.
He goes down with his baskets and he gets, he still does that. Many people just put baskets down. He goes down and all of a sudden it was dark. He knew it wasn't a shark because there were no teeth, right? Feel that they leaned, so he knew it was a whale. He lost his mouth piece. So he knew I have to get that, or for sure I'm gonna die anyway.
I can't even believe in like 10 seconds all this went through his mind. He felt around, put it back in his mouth. Then the whale opened his mouth and spit him out. This child dictated questions he wanted to ask him. We did a Zoom with. He read them and I had the mother sitting there. The mother was in shock.
He can't read. Well, he read because he knew exactly what he wanted to ask the man, and he knew what he told me to write down. I typed it in big letters. I try to connect kids and get their passions and their strengths, and I've done this since I've started teaching.
And we did a group of seven boys, and they were so brilliant and they loved writing scripts, and they wrote a script about the Hamburglar who was in McDonald's years ago. He came and he stole McDonald's. So I called McDonald's. I said, we've written the script. Can we film at McDonald's? And they said, yes at 5:00 AM.
Because they opened at 7:00 AM nowadays, they'd never let you do that. And I went with the boys and some moms and we filmed them with a movie camera. It was one of the first things that I did was amazing.
And I said, what was the most important part of this day? And I'm like, glowing, what? Are you kidding? We got McDonald's fries at 7:00 AM.
Lainie Rowell: I mean, they're not wrong. That is pretty amazing. There's just so many connections and you know, you and I have communicated back and forth before, but this is our first live conversation and I just have to tell you, there's so many things that you do and your perspective and your approach that resonate with me.
So first of all, I was a psychology major. I ended up going into education because I did my hours at a non-public school helping a student with learning differences. And this child was just so special. He just totally had my heart.
And I really loved working with kids and just like you said, he was so interesting to me and I was like, oh my gosh, this kid has so much to share and he needs the opportunities to do that. And so that was actually why I became an educator. I was gonna go into special ed.
Years, years down the road I worked for Apple and would do professional learning for them on how we could universally design our lessons and bring technology into this. And so I constantly, as I'm reading your book, which is so inspiring, so informative, as I'm reading your book, I'm hearing about all these ways that you're engaging, you're inviting them into the learning.
You are giving them all these different opportunities to access the content and all these different ways to show what they know and are able to do. And I just think that's something that every child deserves.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Well, the thing about the book is.. I have, every A D H D book, every learning disability book, and you open them up and there's a picture of a brain. Every parent I've ever met buys every single book.
They open it up, they see that, and they close the book. My book is a step by step for parents, for teachers, for educators. It's just a journey.
First of all, He's gonna snap out of it. She's gonna snap. They're not snapping out of it. You have to do something. Yeah. You know, what do you do? What's the testing about?
Parents come to me and they're like, freaked. My child has to go to a brain doctor. Well, that's a neuropsychologist to test them. Nowadays you can go a pediatrician who does the testing and that's on insurance. The testing you do with a neuropsychologist is very expensive. Okay.
IEPs at schools, I have been around those meetings. Those teachers and educators are phenomenal. Mm-hmm. You need to find out what are the passions of strength in my child and how can we get to teach them getting past the fear medication. I am not a medical doctor. I mean, 40 years ago, 45 years ago, there was Ritalin.
Now there's all kinds. One of my students she takes a little medicine. It's liquid. I didn't even ask what it was. Okay. She's totally changed. She was inattentive. You know, we never seem to find the inattentive children because they're quiet, but the ones I seem to get all the time are the inattentive who they say, oh, they'll snap out of it.
So my book takes you on a step. What do you do? How do you hire the right person? It doesn't have to be somebody with a doctorate. I'm met a girl the other day she's 32, and she said, my second grade teacher, Took me all through college. I went, what? She said, yeah. She was just a brilliant woman, but she liked teaching little kids.
But she started with me and she could do all the math and all of that in high school. She took her all the way through. It's getting the help, hiring the right person. I just talked to one of the moms. I hadn't talked to her in years. I wanted to check up on her son, who's brilliant and fabulous, and she had come to me and said, I've interviewed 26 therapists and I don't like any of them.
And I thought, oh, this is gonna be a good one. Right? I mean, 26, that's the most anybody's ever said to me. And of course I totally hit it off with the child. He's brilliant. You know, when people kept saying, oh, he can't do this, he can't sit still, he's not smart. These children are smart. Yep. And you need a team to help you, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a teacher that can help after school. I find better than parents helping the kids. Kids don't do as well when the parent tries to teach them.
Lainie Rowell: Oh no. I think we all learned that during Covid. Even those of us who are educators learned that and no disrespect to those who homeschool.
I have so much respect for you if you homeschool. That is just not for me. If you can do that, I think you're possibly up for sainthood. That's a gift if you can teach your own kids.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Well, it's funny during Covid, one of my students made himself an alien.
So on the camera he was an alien. And another person who was working with him called me and said, I can't stand it. It's so stupid. Doesn't it bother you? I said, well, not really because it's his voice and he's reading with me and he's responding. You know, so he's an an alien.
I wrote it up in the New York Times, even printed it, I said, during Covid, I taught an alien to read because I did. But my book is that step by step journey and the parents who follow it and find the strengths of their children, the passions...
And my book tells about all of it very simple terms. Do this, do this. And it's funny because the Quill Driver Press, the people who published the book and there was a woman who was the editor, and at the end of every chapter, she made these blue boxes. And it's what to remember and I loved it because you know, you read a book and then you go, oh, where did it say that?
At the end of the chapter, it's the blue box that tells you exactly what the chapter is about. Everybody along the way talking about gratitude. I just, I read your book and I went from my whole life with my parents saying I was never the smartest kid in class, but I was the one doing plays.
Vicky would do the plays and write the plays and I was the youngest of three sisters, and the sisters were, they were 18 and out of the house and I was 10 so mother says, I grew like topsy. I just grew. Who knew? She didn't pay very much attention, but they always said, oh, you can do it.
They always said that to me. And then my whole life it's been people that I've met, and I'll just do this quickly, the professors at the universities all the people that I contact for my student. There's not a person that I contacted, very famous people, the head of Disney, Michael Eisner he got me into every single...
In the eighties and nineties, Disney was really hot and I'm in LA and they would have all these fantastic openings and all my kids. We were the first ones on Splash Mountain and somebody said, but what happened if it broke? I said, well, no. You know, the people at Disney, the actual people who worked there were on, you know, it was gonna open in two weeks, but we were the first kids You know, Secret Service, the head of the Secret Service for Clinton.
I met his wife on a plane and when she told me what he did, it was like, okay. But he arranged my students here when I was doing ed therapy to get a challenge coin. A challenge Coin is given by a president to people in the Secret Service and they slip it to them. And the head of the Secret Service said to me of, of Clinton, of course, he would tell me nothing about anything that went on with Bill Clinton. I said, you won't even tell me a little story. No, Vicky...
Lainie Rowell: You're fishing. It's so funny.
Dr. Victoria Waller: No, of course. But he was wonderful and they gave, I have two kids that got a challenge coin, but it's a Secret Service challenge going so it's like even better than the president's one cuz so few are given.
And my children who work really hard and he set up so that a Secret Service agent gave the child the Secret Service going. It was amazing. The head of Google, I met him on a trip and he had kids and I went over and said, oh, what do you kids like to read? I always chit chat with people and we were in Australia.
I said, where are you from? And he said, mountain View, California. And I'm going Mountain View. One of my students, Google, he's obsessed with Google. This was 20 years ago. He is president of Google paris now. We've been in contact for 10 years. We flew to Google and the student and his father and I did. The three of us, we spent the day at Google. He was then the vice president of Google. We spent the day with. And it was funny cuz at the end my student was eight and he just loved everything about Google. This was when it was really starting. And he, I said, what was the best thing about the day?
And I'm like, flying cuz he interviewed the Vice President Sebastian. And he said, in every room there is a big, huge bowl of candy. You can eat all the candy you wanted all day. And he kept stuffing them in my pockets and stop giving him sugar. And he said, well, Vicky, what was your best thing?
I said, are you kidding? Number one, you could bring your pet to work. I love my Labradors. Okay, you can bring your dog to work and if you work there, you take your laundry in the morning and, and when you leave, they have the laundry finished. I said, I'm working there. That's like the best thing I've ever heard.
Lainie Rowell: It's very, very smart. Yes. And I'm a Google Certified Innovator. I was brought in in Santa Monica. And I've done things for Google at the DC office, but I've never been to Mountain View, which of course is the flagship. So I have serious envy that you got to do that because that is the best Google campus to be at.
Dr. Victoria Waller: This seven year old boy could cook. He could cook, we could go into the, and he couldn't read the recipe. I read the recipe, but we, he'd tell me what he wanted to make and we go into the kitchen. But he could taste something and say it needs a quarter more of salt.
And that'll do. And he's still a cook to this day. He's 17. Loves cooking.
Lainie Rowell: What a pallet. That's amazing.
Dr. Victoria Waller: And Google, their lunchroom has 25 different countries that you can pick and, and this, he was so funny. He said, can I keep going back? I said, go, go and taste all the foods from all over the countries.
Chris Fallows, the shark expert, the principal from Crossroads School who said, every report I wrote, she kept saying, this is a book. This is a book. And that's how it went. My publisher, Quill Driver, forward reviews. I'm now a finalist. That's so far unbelievable for book of the year, 2022. And somebody said, oh, well, oh, maybe you'll win.
I said, I, I mean, yes, that'd be nice to win, but that is so far fetched. I'm a finalist. Yeah, that's amazing. How many people can I get to, to, to tell them that their children are smart? You have to do my step by step and your child will succeed. But if you don't and you keep putting it off or saying, oh, he'll step out.
They're not going to snap out of it.
Lainie Rowell: I love that your, your book is a tribute. It honors. All of these people that you've been able to help and the people who you've worked with who've helped these people and the families and the everyone that coming together to support these learners, it's just a lovely tribute to what's possible.
I mean, your title, Yes! Your Child Can that really sums it up. It's yes, every child can, right. We're so blessed as educators to have so many of our fellow educators who have that mentality. It's, it's pretty rare, but but there are some who don't always get that.
So your message is important. It's, it's important for everyone to understand. Everyone can, all of our learners are capable. We can hold them all to high standards. It's how we help them get there that's different.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Yes, and I think it does start with, of course you have to have a teacher who understands, but it starts with parents saying, oh, Maybe there is not a problem, but maybe there's something. The parents will come, oh, he is lazy.
They're not lazy. They just have a different way of thinking. And if you get them help, whether it's getting, a tutor to help them after school, a teacher that they love, like that girl, a teacher that they love that wants to help them, and if they need medication and I have to tell you, so. It used to be, oh, if you give them medication, they're gonna become a drug addict.
Guess what I have to tell you, after over 40 years, let's say they need medication and you don't give it to them. You don't get them help. You don't listen to what people are saying and you think, oh, they'll snap out of it. When they're 14, 15, and 16, they're gonna start self-medicating with bad things because they keep saying, but everybody says I'm smart and I can't do anything.
They have no confidence. What you want and your whole thing with the gratitude... we create more happiness in our lives and lives of others. And it's not happy people who are grateful, it's grateful people who are happy. That's in my room right now. What you said in your book, I mean, just was over the, the mountains and hills.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, you're so sweet. Well, like I said, I think we're sisters in that we really see how wonderful everyone is in their own special way.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Yes.
Lainie Rowell: And we see that as an asset and not as a deficit. And so I think that your work is so important.
And I love that you keep coming back to learning differences. And you keep saying it's not a disability, it's about uncovering what the abilities are. And I just think that even if you. You know, health, exercise, eating, like there is no one way that's gonna work for everyone. And as soon as we start to appreciate that variability, that's when we can see it as opportunities instead of, okay, well now we have to do this.
It's like we're all different and I just wanna say something really quickly. The inattentive, this was a big learning thing for me early on in my career because I had a master teacher who said to me, Okay. There might be kids who are driving you crazy and there might be kids who are making your days.
Be careful you don't miss the ones who are just flying under the radar.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: Watch out for them because they might be in the most need. And I think about that in respect to gratitude. If you think about how often a child hears their name said out loud in a classroom, we've got the kids who are doing the things that we're hoping they do, so they get the praise. And then we have the kids who are maybe challenging us and they're getting the corrections. Obviously we wanna work on that. Upping the praise for everyone so that everyone is hearing their name in a positive way. And that really sometimes I think is the hardest for the inattentive kids.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Yes, yes, yes, for sure.
Because what happens is they go under the radio. It's funny, I even said to one of my students, the teacher I went to visit the class and they were on the floor and she was talking about whales. This child knew everything about whales and he sat in the back of the room, he was inattentive, and later I said to him, I can't believe it.
You didn't raise your hand. You're the one who knows more than the teacher on whales. And he said, You know what, the three kids in the front row always have their hand up and she always chooses the same ones. He said, what do I have to talk for? So the ones that are inattentive are the ones that teachers think, oh, they're not smart.
They don't talk. And the funny thing is the child who loved the whales and sharks, you know, I said, what do you like when I started talking to him after, and I have clay, I have all kinds of things here. And he made me the whale that the man, the man was caught in and he had feet coming out of the mouth.
So not only could he to make it, but he's clever. It was just amazing. And the mother said, oh yeah, he's always building and always ma, that was to her negative. Well, everybody does that. No, everybody isn't created like he is. And it's just interesting that I tend to see more of the kids that are inattentive because the parents just think they're lazy and they'll snap out of it and they're not paying attention.
And as soon as I give that list in my book about does your child not reply when you call them 14 times, but all kids do that now because they're on their computers or something, whatever. But my book is giving you a list. This is what to look for. What are these doctors?
What is a neuropsychologist? What is an IEP at a school? I have to tell you, the testing they do at public schools is as good as the $7,000 neuropsychologist, they're all trained, they're brilliant, and it's free. And then they have the writeup for the teachers to work with him, or they'll say, get somebody out of school to help your child.
It's very important, the team that you choose to work with your child. I can't stand when a parent says, well, he's lazy because I haven't found any student who's lazy, especially the inattentive ones. They're just quiet, but they're always into something, they love something that they do. I found it so interesting the different, they like sharks, they like whales. Like the one who like Google. He was obsessed with Google.
Lainie Rowell: I see it from the teacher perspective and I try and correct myself because I know what's happening deep down, my brain knows, but there's part of me that takes it real personal and I just go, I'm not engaging them. They don't find me interesting and I make it, which I think humans have a tendency to do, I make it about myself, and what I really need to think about is, okay, well what could I be doing differently to bring the gifts that this child has into our learning community and making sure that everyone has a voice.
I think there's a lot more ways to even do this now. You know, you mentioned technology and I love how you give examples in your book of ways that we can use technology to remove the barriers and help learners with what we're trying to accomplish.
Dr. Victoria Waller: It's funny, I had a student, third grade boy and everybody had to do a report and his report was supposed to be on strawberries, and he came to me and I went, what? The teacher gave him strawberries. And I thought, okay, I don't even like strawberries. I'm a raspberry person, but I went, wait a minute, you know everything there is to know about rollercoasters. His grandmother lives in Cedar Point in Ohio, which is the biggest rollercoaster park.
So he's been going there all the time and he knows all about them. So I said, let's write a letter to the teacher and ask if you to could do it. And he went up and he said, could I do it on roller coasters instead of strawberries. And I'm now calling her my wonderful teacher. She said, of course. You have no idea. He built a rollercoaster. I don't know how he did it cuz he was really good at math. When he went to Cedar Point, he interviewed the president because I called ahead of time and asked if the president would do me a favor.
I'm always asking people for favors. And he said, sure. And he interviewed him and he took notes the whole time. It was unbelievable. Just a little thing. It's a little hard for a mom or dad to ask the teacher to change something. But if your child could do it, or if you have an ed therapist or a tutor, maybe the tutor could say, you know, he knows everything about sharks. Could he write it on sharks? Most teachers will say, sure.
Lainie Rowell: To the wonderful teacher, I don't know what the standard was, but obviously she had the wisdom to go, okay, well the standard isn't, he needs to know about strawberries.
It was probably a writing standard so she goes, oh, well the writing standard is still covered if he talks about roller coasters, and that is, such a brilliant understanding of teaching and learning is if you can get to the point where you really focus on, okay, what's the standard?
And then give that flexibility. Universal Design for Learning we say firm goals, flexible means the flexible means is what is so important. And your book is so good at making this accessible for parents. I wanna make sure and get this out here because I think if your child needs additional support and you've gotta advocate for your child, and you've gotta get a team together to advocate for your child, that is incredibly complicated, incredibly overwhelming for a family that might already be overwhelmed in a number of other ways.
And I really appreciate it in your book, that you made it very accessible for non-educators to understand how this system works and to really leverage the resources that are actually available and sometimes even free, and take advantage of those things. And here's how to make it make sense to yourself.
And here's how to ask for help and who to ask for help. And then there's one more thing that I wanna say, cuz there's so many spots where I'm just like, oh, this resonates with me. I know we can talk for hours.
Dr. Victoria Waller: I took notes on your book and it's some of the things you said, I'm just sticking them up on my wall.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, you're so sweet. One of the things that I really connected with is you are bold in asking for people to come in and make the connection with learners, and I think that is a testament that actually a lot of people are happy to do that. Schools are not an easy place to be invited into. But there are services out there. I mean, you got fortunate that you were on the plane with the wife and...
Dr. Victoria Waller: Well, I talk to everybody, that's what I do.
Lainie Rowell: You talk to everybody and that is very, very helpful. But, you know, there are services out there. When I was in the classroom I would use Skype in the Classroom and it was a network where I could find experts and have them video conference in to be interviewed.
There are all these people, a Minecraft engineer could be video conferencing in and talking about their process, how they design, troubleshoot. So many experts out there that would be happy to donate a little time and we just have to make that connection. And so I love that you're encouraging kids to have the agency to be like, I care about roller coasters.
I wanna do this. Can I research this? And when teachers know about those interests, they can actually start to bring the experts in. And it's not as hard as you would think.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Zoom makes the world right here. It's amazing. You know, I didn't even know who Joey Chestnut was. During Covid I had these two kids and they love... Joey Chestnut is the one that goes to Nathan's and eats 5,000 hotdogs at July 4th.
That's the guy who has the record. Oh my goodness. Well, we interviewed him. It was a hoot and nowadays you look on Google. In fact, it's funny How to Be a Perfect Person is one of my favorite books. Very old book. Stephen Manis is the author and I had to call him cuz I read that with every child cuz can anybody really be perfect?
It's such a funny book, short. The kids like it, but it's. So I look him up on Google, right? And it doesn't say anything. Then it says wife. So then I look up his wife and it has her phone number. So I call and he calls me back and he says, how did you get my phone number? It's not listed. I said, no, but it said your wife's name.
So I just called her, left a message saying, give this to your husband. But people, because of Zoom, they're just so easy about, okay, I have 10 minutes on this. Now Chris Fallow is the biggest shark expert in the world. Chris is now on tour and he's coming back in May, and I have a student who's really into sharks, so he's gonna do a Zoom with him.
Now. We just did, this is the new one. Do you know who Mr. Doodles is?
Lainie Rowell: Oh, I feel like I do. Yes. I, and always seen him on Instagram. Yeah,
Dr. Victoria Waller: he doodles his house. Okay. So I wrote a letter. And the funny thing is the person that's his media person used to be a teacher. Oh, okay. So my letter saying I'm a teacher with these kids with learning differences, he wrote me back immediately.
Now we videoed the children asking the questions and he replied, cuz it's London. He replied to their questions on a video. It wasn't, he didn't see them. And they didn't see him. They saw it at the. Because they saw...
Lainie Rowell: But that's a beautiful workaround for the time zone challenge because we've got kids in school for six hours and you gave a pro tip earlier that I wanna highlight because this is critical.
We can ask them to come in via Zoom or Skype or however you wanna do it, and it's so generous of them to give a little bit of time and to honor that time, you need the kids to come prepared with questions, and you did this, and so I wanna make sure that teachers know to do this too, because I have failed at this.
I did it one time where I didn't have the kids have their questions fully prepared. Well, they had written them, but I hadn't vetted them. And the kids were so nervous to ask the questions that one kid would ask the question and the other kid who's ready to go was so nervous they weren't listening to the first kid's questions, and they asked the exact same question and I was like, oh my gosh, I feel so bad.
So from then on, I vetted the questions just to make sure we didn't have redundancy, that we were making good use of the person's time. And now we have tools like Flip, formally called Flipgrid, where we can even do it asynchronously with the video responses. I love that we can just even email videos back and forth.
I mean, whatever it is, we can find easy ways to do that. You're doing it in such smart ways. I just wanted to point out that I thought that was really clever.
I could talk to you for hours, but I gotta let you go. Now. One thing I love about this episode is that you basically answered all of my questions without me even asking them. So I thank you for that. You just were so good at sharing and I never even had to explicitly say like, what does this mean to you?
So I love that you made my job as a host very, very easy. I thank you for that. I do wanna make sure, I'm gonna put this in the show notes as I always do, but I wanna make sure you have a chance to tell people how to reach out to you.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Well, either on Instagram or you can do my email it's drvictoriawaller@gmail.com. That's an easiest way, or on my website at Dr. Victoria Waller, and it says, contact her, but I think it's easy to just do it directly to me.
If you have questions or anything, I'm happy to answer.
Lainie Rowell: All right. And I will be sure to, in the show notes, put a link to the book.
Dr. Victoria Waller: I'm so happy. My publisher has been wonderful to me and I have this social media person. Let me tell you something. I didn't even know what a social media person was when this all started, but her name is Julie Hoffman. Honest to goodness she's young and she's brilliant. Yeah, and we just were like almost like sisters. It's funny, the people, even you, I could be friends with you. I said that to my husband.
I said, I've done like almost 40 podcasts. I said, I love every single person that I've been on a podcast. He said, oh my gosh. I said, I know, but he said, well, cuz you're like-minded. That's why. But I haven't found anybody that I'd say, oh, I didn't like that so much. It's just, they're educators and it's people who wanna help children how can it be bad.
Right?
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. We are same team, trying to make sure that everyone has every opportunity to live life to the fullest. Have that fulfilling successful life. So well, Vicky, this has been a real joy. I am super grateful for this time with you. You gave a ton of shoutouts and I am excited to release this episode out into the world.
Thank you for the work that you're doing, and I hope I get to chat with you again real soon.
Dr. Victoria Waller: Oh no, absolutely. Thank you so much and I love your book. You're, they should buy your book.
Lainie Rowell: They can buy both of our books. How about that? I'm a fan of both books and I really do hope people grab yours.
So thanks everyone for listening.