Wednesday, August 12, 2026

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Littles (and Older Students Too)

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Quantum mechanics for littles. Yes, you heard that right. Littles. Yes. Littles. Just two weeks ago we talked about space with Mark Wagner and what we can be teaching about it. Now, we're talking quantum physics. Nneka McGee specializes in how to teach concepts relating to quantum mechanics to littles. No, she's not teaching algebra and advanced mathematics, but an understanding that is needed to move forward, yes.

This doesn't mean we stop teaching reading or writing or math. And you don't even need screens to teach this. Quite the opposite. You can use these concepts to promote conversation about future trends without a screen at all.

In today's show, Nneka will share examples of why quantum physics is important to all of us, the future of passwords, and security and some practical ideas we can use now. I'll be sharing lots of resources in these show notes so that you can bring some mini lessons to your classroom. Let's learn about quantum physics and how we can bring it into schools.

“There will be a breakthrough technology like ChatGPT or generative AI in quantum at some point. And where will we be as educators if we didn’t do what was necessary to help prepare our kids for that eventuality?”

Dr. Nneka McGee

Founder, Muon Global

Listen to the Show

YouTube Video
Watch this video on YouTube.Subscribe to the Cool Cat Teacher Channel on YouTube

Ideas for Applying These Concepts in Your Classroom

Try This Tomorrow

Give every student a penny. Have them spin it and slap a hand over it before it lands. While it is spinning and hidden, it is not heads and it is not tails — it is both, and it is neither. That is superposition. Lift the hand and it collapses to one answer. Then ask the question that does the real teaching: what did we lose the instant we looked?

If this doesn't make sense, look at some of the lessons below to go deeper.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

  • Muon Global — Dr. McGee's advisory firm, focused on emerging technology and access in education.
  • AI for Young Learners: Balancing Tech Use with Authentic, Off-Screen Experiences — Dr. McGee's Jump Start Guide from ISTE (January 2026). This is the “AI for littles” work she describes in the show.
  • AI + Learning Differences: Designing a Future with No Boundaries — the Stanford Accelerator for Learning white paper, released July 21, 2025. Dr. McGee was project lead and a principal co-author, alongside Elizabeth Kozleski, Christopher J. Lemons, and Isabelle C. Hau. Free PDF.
  • Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education by Isabelle C. Hau (PublicAffairs, 2025) — the book Nneka recommends for the early-childhood foundation. Isabelle is executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning and a co-author on Nneka's white paper above, so that one link is doing three jobs.
  • Quantum Computing for Babies by Chris Ferrie and whurley (William Hurley) — part of the Baby University board-book series. Ages 0–4, and yes, it is real.
  • National Q-12 Education Partnership — this is the federal quantum education site Nneka mentions. It was launched in August 2020 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation, so it is further along than she recalls on tape. Everything on it is free.
  • QuanTime — free K-12 quantum activities from Q-12, each designed to fit in a single 45–60 minute class period. Hands-on, online, and printable options. No background in quantum required.
  • QISE K-12 Framework — the federal Key Concepts for Future Quantum Information Science Learners. Superposition, entanglement, and coherence — the three terms Nneka teaches — map almost exactly onto it.
  • QCaMP (Quantum Computing, Mathematics and Physics) — the program Nneka calls out, co-founded in 2022 at Sandia National Laboratories by Megan Ivory and Jake Douglass. Teachers are paid a $1,000 stipend for the week. Students get $250.
  • Dr. Nneka McGee on LinkedIn

Fact Check Notes

A note on two numbers from the conversation. Nneka cites brain development as “about 80% before kindergarten” and hedges it herself on tape — the figure researchers actually report is roughly 90% of adult brain volume by age five, which measures physical growth rather than learning capacity. Her underlying point stands either way. She also credits New York with “over $100 million” in quantum investment; the real commitment is $300 million to a quantum hub at Stony Brook, announced September 17, 2025, plus $60 million more for additional sites. She understated it.

And a word for my ninth grader. What she described on that presentation — attackers capturing encrypted traffic today so they can decrypt it years from now once quantum computers arrive — is a real, named threat. It's called harvest-now-decrypt-later, and NSA, CISA, and NIST all treat it as active. NIST finalized the first post-quantum cryptography standards on August 13, 2024, specifically because of it. She was right.

About Dr. Nneka McGee

Dr. Nneka J. McGee is an educator, researcher, and advocate dedicated to providing access and opportunities for learners exploring emerging technologies. As part of her doctoral studies, she researched the experiences of K-12 teachers implementing or planning to implement artificial intelligence in classroom learning environments. Since 2024, she has presented “AI for Littles,” focused on early childhood and elementary learners, to thousands of educators, providing practical strategies to introduce AI in age-appropriate, engaging ways. Dr. McGee recently served as project lead and principal co-author of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning white paper, “AI + Learning Differences: Designing a Future with No Boundaries.” She has served on multiple AI advisory boards and committees, including National AI Literacy Day, EngageAI Institute, and Foundations, Inc. She was named a 2024 K-12 IT Influencer to Follow by EdTech Magazine and was recognized as a 2024 and 2025 ASU+GSV Woman Leading in AI. Before founding her advisory firm, Muon Global, Dr. McGee taught middle school mathematics and served as chief academic officer at a public school district in south Texas.

Connect: muonglobal.com · LinkedIn

Quantum and AI Resources for Teachers and Administrators

You do not need a physics degree to do any of this. You need a penny, a paper plate, and about fifteen minutes. Everything linked below is free. Use school-approved tools for anything that touches a device.

UNPLUGGED ACTIVITY 1: The Penny (Superposition)

Lesson plans for grades K-12 teachers

One class period. Materials: one penny per student.

Spin the penny. Cover it before it lands. While it is spinning and hidden, it is not heads and it is not tails — it is both at once. That is superposition. Uncover it and it collapses into one answer.

For littles, stop there.

For middle and high school, push on the part that matters: a classical bit is only ever a 0 or a 1. A qubit holds both possibilities until you measure it — and the measurement is what forces the choice. Ask them what information disappeared the moment they looked.

Nneka is careful about this and so am I: the penny is a representation, not a qubit. It is an access point for someone who thinks this topic is closed to them. Say that out loud to your students.

UNPLUGGED ACTIVITY 2: The Plate With No Nose (Human in the Loop)

Grades K–5, adaptable up.

One class period. Materials: paper plates, markers, one image generator on the teacher's screen only.

Ask an image generator for a smiley face on a plate. Show the class what comes back. When it gets something wrong — a missing nose, three eyes, a mouth in the wrong place — that is your lesson, not your failure.

Then hand out the plates. Every student draws the correct one. The takeaway lands by itself: the tool is useful, the tool is wrong sometimes, and a person has to check it.

What she did: Nneka built this out of an actual mistake she made while preparing a session. She kept the mistake and built the lesson around it. That is worth modeling for your students too.

TERMS TO KNOW

The terms in the show also line up with the QISE K-12 Framework.

  • Superposition — a qubit holds more than one state at the same time until it is measured. The spinning penny.
  • Entanglement — two qubits become linked, so measuring one tells you about the other no matter how far apart they are. Two coins that always agree.
  • Coherence — how long a qubit can hold its quantum state before the environment knocks it out. The reason quantum computers are hard to build, in one word.
  • Qubit — the quantum version of a bit. A bit is a 0 or a 1. A qubit is both until you look.
  • Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) — new encryption designed to survive quantum computers. NIST finalized the first standards in August 2024.
  • Harvest-now-decrypt-later — capturing encrypted data today to crack it years from now. The thing my ninth grader figured out.

For AI vocabulary, here is my full AI Vocab list, and my Spy the AI game for practicing vocabulary.

MORE Free Resources on Quantum for K-12

Ready to teach tomorrow
Go deeper
For your summer, and paid
  • QCaMP — three-day teacher camp, $1,000 stipend, travel funds available if you are more than 50 miles out. Nneka is right that this matters: it means you do not have to choose between a summer job and learning this.

Other Shows for K-12 Teachers Teaching STEM and AI

Listen and Subscribe

If a teacher in your building has ever said quantum is over their head, send them this one — it takes a penny to prove otherwise.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis: How to Teach Quantum Physics to Littles and Older Students, too, with Dr. Nneka McGee. You can grab a single penny and teach superposition.

Announcer: This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: Today, we're talking with Dr. Nneka McGee, founder of Muon Global and one of the most fascinating voices in both AI education and quantum computing for kids. She led a Stanford white paper on AI and learning differences, wrote an ISTE guide for AI for littles, and her FETC session on Quantum 101 for educators blew my mind. So I had to get her on the show. Whether you're teaching kindergarten or high school, you're going to want to hear what Nneka has to say about preparing students for an AI and a quantum world.

So, Nneka, thanks for agreeing after our session to come on the show today.

Nneka McGee: Thank you for having me, Vicki. I'm excited to be here and excited to talk emerging technologies such as quantum and AI today.

Vicki Davis: So let me just ask you this. Some people would say… AI, quantum computing, like, okay, help me understand. Are they related? Are they not related? Why are you going from one to the other? Talk about it.

Nneka McGee: We've all heard at this point of artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence related systems. And I want to focus squarely on education. That's my world. The technical part is another show. It's focused on how we can help kids learn and grow about the technologies that will impact them in society. For me, the primary connection for artificial intelligence and now quantum computing are that these are technologies that will impact our students who are going through pre-K through 12 systems and even college.

And it is important to prepare our students because, for example, I'm an educator. Chances of me going into another career at this stage in my life is minimal. But for a student, a young student who is interested in the world, their pathways are limitless. And so we have to give them the tools that are necessary. And I believe that gaining an understanding in the foundational principles of first artificial intelligence and now quantum computing will help.

Vicki Davis: I don't think anybody would debate you on the importance of AI, at least not now, maybe three or four years ago. But quantum computing, give us an overview of what will quantum computing mean to our world. Getting into the details might be a bit, but why is quantum computing important?

Nneka McGee: When we think about quantum computing and then we think about classical computing, I want to make a distinction here. Quantum computing will not replace classical computing. Right. Quantum computing, at its heart, is designed to solve problems that are different and novel. And I'm going to give you a very specific example of quantum computing and what can happen. There is an encryption technology that we use that governs the Internet, governs all of these things that help us run banking technologies.

Because they use prime numbers and semi-primes and it's really technical, it takes classical computing millions of years. A quantum computer would be able to crack this encryption in a very short amount of time. Can you imagine what that would mean for every sector of our society to have this type of computing power? It's not there yet, but I can tell you that many companies, they're trying to get ahead. Of this eventuality that's going to happen once quantum computers have this capacity.

So that's just a stark example of something that can shake every aspect of our security in digital spaces and that they're working on it now. They're not waiting until it comes online. They're doing it now. That's a stark example of why it's important.

Vicki Davis: We're looking at basically none of our passwords really being truly secure.

Nneka McGee: Not only passwords, the mechanisms behind what makes passwords work in every aspect. Once you can crack those large prime numbers in the semi-primes that brought those prime numbers together, it's kind of like with the pennies in the activity we described. It's not exact, but it'll tell you basically at its heart. What happens is that it really takes computers a long time to factor. These are huge, huge, huge numbers. And so that's why it's difficult for a classical computer to factor these numbers.

Vicki Davis: So I'm going to check out something one of my ninth graders said. It just presented on quantum computing in my class. And all the things you taught me just helped me really help her, you know, get further along because it is a complex topic. The S in HTTPS, that secure piece, will be able to be cracked. And so all these people who are using something called packet sniffers today, so they're grabbing all these packets of data off the Internet.

And just putting it somewhere. People who are joining all this free Wi-Fi, like say you go to Starbucks and you join the free Wi-Fi, and yeah, you've got your encryption and you're using all the latest stuff and you've got your current operating system, but somebody's just grabbing that encrypted stuff out of the air. She said that basically when quantum computing comes along, it could be even possible to decrypt things that they captured back here in our current time.

Nneka McGee: She's correct in the sense that, yes, we will get to a point, particularly with quantum computing. And I don't know a better way to put it other than the security of the Internet and our digital world will be crackable at every level. It just will be. And there will be a point once quantum computers get to, you know, a state in which they can crack those codes where it'll be useless.

Vicki Davis: So we were talking before the show and you said working with teaching AI to kids and teachers for eight or nine years. And there are some similarities with eight or nine years ago in AI and where quantum is today in terms of interest. How do you kind of compare the two and where people are in terms of what they're ready to learn about?

Nneka McGee: Right. Well, even before, so, you know, before ChatGPT came online, and it's so interesting because in June of 22, I was part of an ISTE panel, about artificial intelligence and its future implications. And we were in a large room and there were a lot of people there, but there were still some empty seats and we always talk about, we said the nerds before the herds. We're thinking we're part of this amazing kind of emerging technology and we didn't know anything.

You think you know something and you don't know anything. For example, when I tell people. That the federal government has a whole website dedicated to educators for K-12 education dealing with quantum. People are like, really? So you're seeing that things are happening, but the awareness level needs to grow. So we need to get more people on board with understanding that this is emerging technology that people are working on and we need our kids to be prepared.

People can say what they want to say, but when you hear the word quantum physics, yeah, people are like, that's not a place I want to go again. You see the government investing funds. You see states, New York, invested over $100 million in quantum technologies. Places like Colorado states are starting to invest heavily in quantum technologies and preparing at the college level for people to enter the workforce or build careers in quantum and quantum-related technologies.

And you can do a lot at the college level, but if you haven't prepared kids, how are they going to succeed? Yeah. I mean, because if they don't have strong grounding in mathematics and physics, some understanding of those topics, where are we? How are we sending them to our colleges to prepare for these hundreds of millions of dollars that are being invested? And there will be a breakthrough technology similar to mark this, tag it, do whatever you need to do.

There will be a breakthrough technology like ChatGPT or generative. AI in quantum at some point. And where will we be as educators if we didn't do what was necessary to help prepare our kids for that eventuality?

Vicki Davis: So you're talking quantum, Nneka, but you also talk AI for littles. Now, some people would say, hey, okay, quantum, no, and AI for littles, like, why? So what do you do with littles? Because typically littles is like kindergarten, right?

Nneka McGee: Yeah, even not. So when we think about, you know, early education, you're thinking as early as three years old. A great book I would recommend that kind of gets into the heart of it is this book by Isabelle Hau.

Vicki Davis: I've had her on the show. She's amazing.

Nneka McGee: She is amazing. and one of the things that she talks about is how when we look at brain development in our kids, I want to say it's like 80% occurs before kindergarten, yet we talk about kindergarten readiness, right? And so it doesn't mean that we're teaching linear algebra to young kids, but the key is what that tells us about brain science and what Isabelle is talking about in Love to Learn in terms of even with artificial intelligence and relational intelligence is this is a great time through concrete activities, hands-on activities, to give kids understanding and foundational skills with topics where technology and interacting with the technology may not be appropriate or necessary.

I've stressed with AI for littles and what I did was gather together different types of hands-on activities that teachers could use with the youngest learners. And one of them, the one that I use the most. It was a mistake. It was early DALL-E, which is the visual. Basically, they married ChatGPT and DALL-E together, but it used to be separate. Right. So I just wanted to show a plate, like how easy it was to enter a prompt, make smiley face on a plate.

So I enter in these instructions and the image that comes back is a plate without a nose. And I said, this is the most I have built a whole lessons. So I do this lesson and basically I say, hey, you can do all of these things. Any kid with a marker, doesn't matter how long, how big the marker is, they can draw on a paper plate. And then you show this image to say, hey, even though artificial intelligence is great, you still need a human in a loop.

Not only does it make mistakes, but you need somebody to make sure your instructions don't cause someone not to have a nose, right? I built those series of hands-on lessons. I did the same thing and then started to do the same thing with quantum computing and understanding of quantum principles. And I start with the basic superposition, entanglement, and also with coherence. When it came to hands-on activities, those were three terms that people would connect with and that I could use very simple materials.

Vicki Davis: And you use a penny. I had a student, the one who did the presentation, was struggling with what's a qubit? How does it even work? And I pulled out Penny and did what you taught me, Nneka. And she was like, oh, I understand. And she even used that in front of the class to explain a little bit about how it works. No computer. Here's a penny. Let's explain these terms. These are things that kids can understand. And I know it shocks people.

How young have you taught lessons on quantum?

Nneka McGee: Thank you for sharing the story of your student, because a lot of times people say, well, do people take things back from conferences? It's so exciting to know that you took something back to a conference and it led your student to gain an extra understanding to a point where, what does she do? Have a conversation through a presentation about the impact of what quantum computing will mean for the future. We've worked with kids, when I say four or five, five-year-olds, the same lessons that we go over, we have done with kids.

These are not just pull them out of the air and then present them. There are things that I've actually done with kids, and that's so important. And there are certain things that I stress, and I think that I stress to you. First of all, even with the penny, It is rudimentary. It is a representation that can allow an access point to an individual who may think that quantum mechanics and quantum computing is inaccessible. And that's the bridge that's going to be very hard.

My life as an educator to ensuring that students have access and opportunity to math and science is like the core of what I do. That is why it's important to present accessible activities. There's a quantum physicist who. And I shout her name, Dr. Megan Ivory. I don't know if she had co-developers, but she is one of the main point persons for QCaMP. These QCaMPs, not only do they help students, but they help educators. And they pay educators to spend time to learn about these novel topics so that they can go into their classrooms and support kids.

Recently in New Mexico, they had an event where they created activities even for younger kids to be able to explore. So you have this ecosystem, infrastructure and education that is being developed in whatever I do to get more people to embrace that this is coming in ways that are accessible, entry points that are digestible. That is my task.

Vicki Davis: What is the most surprising thing that kindergarten and first, second grade teachers find as they go to your workshops or sessions for either quantum computing or AI?

Nneka McGee: Well, the first thing that surprises them is that they can introduce these topics in a way that is accessible.

Vicki Davis: That is so exciting. We shouldn't be playing king of the hill. We should make a bigger hill, especially when it concerns the future of children. Dr. Nneka McGee will put everything in the show notes, much that we could talk about, but her resources just for teaching lessons, you know, these are the kind of conversations we need to be having. You can teach quantum computing and teach AI. And yes, you can even teach them to little.

So thank you for the work that you're doing and the conversations you're having and for agreeing to come on the show. So this is really exciting. Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter.

Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Vibe Coding with Gemini: Build Your Own Classroom Tools

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Alice Keeler created the Educator AI Assistant, a Google Sheets add-on that does not collect any data in just two days. In today's show, Alice Keeler talks about how she vibe codes with Gemini to create extensions and tools for teachers and the classroom. Vibe coding is “all the rage,” and everyone is talking about it. But how do you do it? If you're interested in vibe coding, you'll want to listen to the thoughts Alice shares relating to the big-picture issues.

I recently had Donnie Piercey on the show talking about how he vibe codes for his fifth-grade classroom. However, this show is different. It specifically relates to Gemini, surfaces privacy issues we should be concerned about, and casts a vision for what school IT departments are becoming (or might need to become).

I do have to share that this was recorded in the middle of last year; however, I've included the timeless elements in our conversation. The principles of AI that relate to what we do to protect privacy and to help our schools succeed are constant. Some of the tools have changed, and they will continue to change. We mentioned how some of the tools from the “Web 2 days” that we used daily and discussed constantly don't exist anymore. That will happen again. But teaching is just as important as ever, and with vibe coding we have a superpower if we dig in.

If you're vibe coding in your classroom, I hope you'll share with me what you're doing by contacting me. I'd like to hear your story!

I want my toolbox to small. I don't want to sign up fro 10,000 different products.

Alice Keeler, Google Developer Expert for Google Workspace

Table of Contents for These Show Notes

Table of contents

Listen to the Show

YouTube Video
Watch this video on YouTube.Subscribe to the Cool Cat Teacher Channel on YouTube

Key Takeaways from This Show

Here are some of the things we talked about on today's show:

  • How expertise matters, but not quite as much as you might think, when it comes to vibe coding.
  • Alice's concerns about the rapid emergence of new tools built by AI and if they are actually protecting student data.
  • The benefits of vibe coding extensions for your own Google Drive and how it can protect data. Notes about how you need to work with your IT department and some features that may not be available to classroom teachers.
  • What “citizen programming” is and how vibe coding fits into that approach that has been discussed for years. Also, how it impacts the IT Department of your school.
  • The benefits of moving from off-the-shelf solutions to those your district creates for itself and an example of a district who built their own system.
  • What we learned from Web 2.0 days that applies to AI days today.
  • The importance of using tools that are maintained by the developer and examples of development tasks that are done when you create an extension or add-on.

Resources Mentioned on the Show

  • Educator AI Assistant — the Google Sheets add-on she built in two days. Collects no data. Still in beta.
  • TemplateTab — the add-on she references, 26M+ installs

About Alice Keeler

Alice Keeler is a Google Developer Expert and educator specializing in Google Apps Script, automation, and custom EdTech solutions. As the creator of 37 Google-approved Add-ons, she develops powerful tools that streamline workflows for educators and organizations.

Alice was a featured speaker at the Google Cloud NEXT 2023 Developer Keynote, showcasing her contributions to the developer community. A Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and AppSheet, she is widely recognized for her deep knowledge of Google Sheets and automation, earning her the title Queen of Spreadsheets.

With degrees in Mathematics and Educational Media Design and Technology, Alice combines her technical expertise with a passion for making Google technologies more accessible. She actively shares her knowledge through speaking engagements, development projects, and global training sessions, empowering others to harness the full potential of Google tools.

Teacher Tech blog  ·  Educator AI Assistant  ·  LinkedIn

Beginners: Start By Making a GEM

Classroom teachers, IT Coaches, and curriculum directors

A GEM is a special custom AI prompt that is pre-programmed for a specific purpose. Read Alice's information on Gems in “What are Google Gemini Gems

Before you start making one, try a Gem like one of those found at on Alice's shared GEM site or Edugems, made by Eric Curts.

Make a Gem to Align to Your Standards.

1. Sign in to your school account and go to your Gem Manager.

2. Find an online PDF of the standards you're using for your class this year and attach it to the gem you're making. Attach only your grade or course section. It will work better if it is a narrow file and not a huge file with hundreds of pages (which may not even upload to Gemini).

3. Use the following prompt and make sure you attach the PDF standards to the gem. Edit the prompt so that it is asking what you want it to help you do. (In Alice's article on GEMS, Alice gives the acronym PARTS (Persona * Act (Task) * Recipient * Theme * Structure)

TIP: Pick a better model like Thinking or Pro and not fast as you start with it. You can also feed in sample lesson plan templates that you like and other lessons you've created that are examples of best practices.

TIP: use a file name like best-practices-template.pdf and standardsname-grade.pdf.

Then set up the GEM with this as a starting point. Edit the instructions to fit your situation and needs.

Description Field

Attach or paste your lesson plan. Name the standards you are teaching in this lesson, by code.

Instructions Field:

You are a standards integration analyst. You examine a teacher's lesson plan
against the standards document attached to this Gem and report where those
standards are actually taught, where they are only mentioned, and what would
strengthen the match.

Use only the attached standards document as your source of standards. Do not
generate standard codes. Do not quote standard language that is not in the
attached document. Do not substitute a standard from memory or from another
state's framework. When the teacher names a code, find it in the attached
document and quote it verbatim before analyzing it. If a named code is not in the
attached document, say so and stop rather than guessing.

For the lesson plan provided, do the following in order.

1. Confirm the standards. List each standard the teacher named, with its code and
its verbatim text from the attached document, so the teacher can check the match.

2. Build a coverage table with one row per named standard. Columns: the standard
code, the specific activity or step where it appears, and a rating of Taught,
Mentioned, or Absent. Taught means students do something that requires the
standard. Mentioned means the standard is named but no student work depends on it.

3. Check the verbs. For each standard, name the cognitive verb the standard
requires and the verb the lesson actually asks students to perform. Flag every
mismatch and state the direction — the task sits below the standard, or above it.

4. Name the evidence gap. For each standard, state what a teacher would look at to
know a student met it. If the lesson produces no such evidence, say so plainly.

5. Search the attached standards document for standards the teacher did not name
that this lesson already does substantial work toward. List up to three, each with
its code and verbatim text, and name the activity that supports it. Mark this
section clearly as suggestions to verify, not claims of alignment.

6. Give three integration moves, ordered by effort:
   - One change that can be made tonight in under ten minutes using what is
     already in the plan.
   - One change for the next time this lesson is taught.
   - One larger redesign worth considering when the unit is rebuilt.
   For each, name which standard it strengthens.

7. Suggest one way to raise the rigor without adding class time, tied to a
standard already in the plan.

8. List anything in the lesson that is not serving a named standard. Do not
recommend cutting it — some of it is classroom culture. Report it so the teacher
can decide.

Report in plain language a teacher can skim. Do not rewrite the lesson plan.

Then, remember, to test your gem. Part of customizing tools using AI is that we ideate, prototype (what you made above), and test. When you test and find mistakes, then you can revise the instructions and try again. Send the link to someone to test.

This is an example of a GEM I'm testing to help parents configure student devices at home. You can see I selected the thinking model for this gem. Several administrators are testing this before we would even consider giving it to parents. I've attached some safety information relating to the school in the “knowledge” section which is where you would put your standards from the example above.

Learn More About Gemini and Vibe Coding

A GEM is just a start, you can go so much further with vibe coding than this. Recently, I described when I vibe-coded my AI terminology game for ISTE. (Here's how I did that one and here's the game.) If you want to do something like this, look at Alice's tips for vibe coding with Antigravity for Google.

  • Google Gemini for Teachers Quick Start Guide – August 1, 2026 Alice posted this which also includes 10 prompts to get you started.
  • Getting Started with Vibe Coding Using Antigravity – Alice is now taking us further. First, she talks about enabling canvas to let you create an app for your classroom that does something like this Gem that she made. Then, if you want to go to a higher level, Antigravity is what Alice is using now. Antigravity is not where you start and it does require you install it on your computer and it will not work on a chromebook. She goes through every step.

Make AI-friendly handouts. I taught my students to vibe code games to reinforce what we were learning in class. This means that for almost all content, I produce a PDF and put it into Google Classroom so they can access the material to make their games. Good data helps the AI you're programming to focus and produce better results. Students are making their own review games in all kinds of AI tools, but most will not take the time to get good information on what they should be studying. I think of these PDFs as handouts for the AI tools my students are using!

Transcript of this Show

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis: Today on Tech Tool Tuesday, we're talking about vibe coding for Gemini for teachers with Alice Keeler. Remember, go to the webpage for this episode for a lot of amazing resources at coolcatteacher.com forward slash E966.

Announcer: This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: I am so excited today to be talking with my friend Alice Keeler. She is the queen of spreadsheets and yes, Google gave her that name and she has her cat on camera. For those of you who are watching YouTube, well, I am the cool cat teacher, so there you go. She is a mom of five, author of eight books. She blogs at alicekeeler.com. She has an AI teacher toolbox that you definitely want to check out at educatoraiassistant.com. It not only creates lesson plans rubrics, but it collects no data. All of her data collection-free add-ons are at alicekeeler.com. Forward slash codedbyalice. You sent me a text the other day that said, how many? 37. 37 add-ons.

Alice Keeler: And it just feels like so many, I can't keep track. I'm like, is it really that many?

Vicki Davis: Yeah. And you start as a math teacher.

Alice Keeler: I taught myself to code. And now with Vibe Coding, I'm killing it with the Vibe Coding. So Vibe Coding would be that when you use AI to code. So I go to Google Gemini and I'm like, this is what I want. I code Google Workspace, right? So Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides. I know how to code. So my prompts are pretty good. This is what I want the add-on to do. Honestly, Vicki, the other day, it was really disappointing because it worked the first time. No edits. I'm like, how boring is that? But it also is like, how quickly can I get out new features and improve the functionality and things that I kind of know about, but I don't know? I can actually incorporate those things really quickly into my add-ons and into my code. So Vibe Coding is coding with AI. So it took me two days to create this AI teacher toolkit. So what I wanted to do is to have something that collects no data. I feel very squishy about all of these products that have seemed to have popped up over the last year. There's some rumors about some companies just signing whatever the schools give them. But are they? I mean, it's easy to sign something, but what are they really doing with your data? So I want my toolbox to be small. I don't want to sign up for 10,000 different products. So what can I do with Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, stay in the Google ecosystem if you're a Google user? This is the ecosystem you're in. It's in your own Google Drive. You should, like, keep your data with yourself. So what I coded was the ability to, it's an add-on for Google Sheets, that will allow you to create lesson plans, rubrics, respond to an angry parent, lesson plan simulator that turns your lesson plan into a D&D adventure. Honestly, anything you want, like, literally anything you want. IEP writer, Dungeons & Dragons, any of those things and more because I have a feature that allows you to describe what you want, what tool you want, and it will create the prompt for you and add it into your toolbox. In my particular case, everything is sitting in your Google Drive, in your Sheets. So, I mean, like if it's in your Google Drive, we have a lot of PII in our student drive, right? Like all the student work, rosters, everything, Google Classroom has that PII.

Vicki Davis: Now that vibe coding exists and people can write their own extensions, There are bad actors that can write extensions that can take information. So how do we determine which extensions we really want to trust? And do we just write them ourselves?

Alice Keeler: I think you should write them ourselves. I mean, it took me two days to write this teacher AI toolkit. Now, granted, I have a lot of background knowledge and things that helped me to do this. I don't know that your average person with no knowledge could just pull this off tomorrow. But that's what's really exciting is that school districts can look at these tools and be like, we want that, but we want the privacy. They can literally have somebody with honestly very mediocre skills in coding, put one together, distribute it out to the whole school district, and you know it's safe because you made it internally and you published it. And it's so easy to publish internally. Now, you have to have permissions. Like, probably as a teacher, you don't have the ability to make a cloud project at your school. So you're going to want to work with your IT department, Either get them to do it because it's insanely easy to do that. We're in a really exciting time of more security because it's really doable. If these companies can pop up overnight, why can't your school district make that themselves and then share it with other school districts? Like, it feels to me like the democratization of EdTech right now. I'm really excited about it.

Vicki Davis: Programming we've been talking about for years. The rise of citizen programming, which is basically vibe coding, means that by describing an app or a tool that you can create it adds another layer of what IT departments will do, which is the approval of apps, programs, websites, all of these things to deploy them. Because if you can do that, you can have more safety and more security. But, you know, there are some IT departments who say, hey, we're not programmers, we're computer fixers. Right. That's got to change.

Alice Keeler: I think that's true for every job. It's not just the IT department. What does the job of teachers look like moving forward now that we have this democratization of ed tech and all of the things? So I would hope that the IT department is always moving forward because technology moves fast. So what we were doing in the IT department 10 years ago, 15 years ago, was obviously not the same today, right? How many of them were writing AI policies 10 years ago? None of them. And I hope they all are now. So let's just assume that's happening. But getting them on board with the citizen coding, with the vibe coding, is that you have people from your community, your school district, contributing to solve your really unique problems. Yeah. And anything you buy is pretty much off the shelf, right? It addresses your problems, but does it really solve what you need it to do? Now, I'm just doing it with Google Workspace, but of course, you can vibe code in anything. You can vibe code Python and different things for whatever your applications are. What could we do if we were to vibe code and create these tools that we know that they're safe because we made them ourselves and worked on them internally? Some of it's going to be too much. I don't know that I'm going to recreate PowerSchool anytime soon, as much as I need. But there's a lot of things that we can look at. And like, that's a cool feature. Could we build it internally? Could we band together with some other schools? I know like Fresno Unified and their Microsoft school. They're awesome. They do make their own power school. And so they do it all internally. It's gamified. And so it does happen. And it is possible. But Fresno Unified is the third largest school district, I think, in the state of California. So they have a lot of resources. But better yet, if we were to just, you know, make a conglomerate that we work together.

Vicki Davis: One thing at ISTE that perplexed me, I guess, a little bit is I'm a big one for using like the actual direct model. Like if I'm going to be using Gemini, I'm going to go straight to Gemini and use it. If I'm going to be using Claude, so many of these tools built on top of models, A, they don't tell you which model they're using. B, they don't tell you how they're using the data. And you're not transparent to like, where is this data going and who's using it? And then you've got the issue of, listen, you and I have known each other a long time and we lived through the web 2 era. So many apps that we talked about daily in the Web 2 era, including one of them was Wikispaces, bought by TES and then went away. Daily tools, big players, thinking they're going to be here forever. Right. And then they went away.

Alice Keeler: Right.

Vicki Davis: And that's going to happen again. And as OpenAI or Gemini or whoever updates these app models, it'll break. And then we start from scratch.

Alice Keeler: When I, when I connected up, I put in my code, a link that says model name and I click model name. So it's really easy for me to update which model. So, and so all I literally have to do is swap out, not even a line of code is just a text string have to be actively supporting, but I hope that you're using tools that are being actively supported anyway. So for example, my add-on template tab, I have 30 something million installs on that. [Editor's note: the Google Workspace Marketplace listing for TemplateTab shows 26M+ installs.] So what that does is it takes your roster of students on the first sheet, and then you design your graphic organizer on the second sheet in Google Sheets, and then it'll replicate your graphic organizer for each student on your roster and put their name on the tab at the bottom. So at some point, Google had changed the way that they handled folders and moving files and some of those things. And so they are deprecated. So I go in and I look at my code and some things are like lined out because they're not supported anymore. So in that case, I did have to update my code, but not because of AI per se, but just because that's how software works.

Vicki Davis: Your point is really valid. Like this is helping me understand is that the value of, is this being actively maintained and updated so that you can have access to the new models? So Alice Keeler at alicekeeler.com, what she's great at is helping people become massively efficient with Google Workspace. So if your school is Google Workspace, you should reach out to Alice. She can help you just be a game changer. We're not going to get more people, so we got to get more efficient. We got to streamline admin so that we can free up resources to have more people in the classroom. So thanks for coming on the show, Alice.

Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you.  Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Vibe Coding with Gemini: Build Your Own Classroom Tools appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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Monday, August 10, 2026

How a School Built Its Culture Around the 7 Habits — and the Academics Followed

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Giving students a voice. Respecting the heart of teachers. What if this could really be done? A.B. Combs in Raleigh, NC did just that as they integrated Dr. Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People into their school culture. Then, when Dr. Covey wrote about them in The 8th Habit, it became one of the most visited schools according to then Principal, Muriel Summers.

Muriel Summers on building school culture around the 7 Habits at A.B. Combs Elementary — 10 Minute Teacher Podcast Episode 965

Muriel coauthored The Leader in Me and now has a new book Teacher Believed in Me. Muriel tells the story of how a struggling principal and single mom in a struggling school believed in what their school could be and it made all of their lives better and the school became a success story that the world stood up and noticed.

Today is the perfect story for a Motivational Monday as so many of us head back to school. Thank you for making the 10 Minute Teacher a show that you listen to on the way to school. I hope this story encourages you like it does me. I was even shocked how they involve students in the hiring process! (Five year olds learn how to interview – ok, before you get upset, take a moment to hear what she's saying. They aren't literally hiring but the story is amazing!)

“So when you’ve got a culture of everyone is leading, everyone is important, everyone’s voice matters, everyone has genius. You don’t have to worry about the academics. They just happen.”

Muriel Summers

Former Principal, A.B. Combs Elementary · Global Ambassador, Leader in Me

Listen to the Show

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Watch on YouTube and subscribe for new episodes every week.

Key Takeaways for Teachers from Muriel Summers

  • She fixed the culture and let the academics follow. Muriel says when everyone is leading and everyone has genius, “you don't have to worry about the academics. They just happen.” She tells a remarkable story about how A.B. Combs went from one of the lowest performing schools to one of the highest. The story is awesome!
  • She asked five groups what they wanted before she changed anything. Parents, students, teachers, college professors, and local business leaders all answered the same question: what would your ideal school look like, sound like, and feel like? The business leaders' answer was really thought provoking. They said, “we can teach someone of average intelligence to succeed here, but we can't teach them to be trustworthy.” Character matters. (I would argue, now more than ever. Character has always mattered but I think perhaps now, it shines even brighter.)
  • Every child had a job, not just the responsible ones. Discipline went down almost immediately, and Muriel's explanation is simple: children wanted to come, and they wanted to be part of it.
  • Children as young as five sat on the hiring panel. Shockingly, the one time she overruled them, she was wrong.

Try This Tomorrow

Put three words where your students will see them on the way in. At A.B. Combs the words above the door were you are seen, you are known, you are loved — and every teacher was outside greeting children by name as they got off the bus. What words do you want students to see as they walk in your school? Into your classroom? Intentionally decide where to put them.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

About Muriel Summers

Muriel Summers, former principal of A.B. Combs Elementary and Global Ambassador for the Leader in Me
Muriel Summers

From the minute she stepped into the classroom, Muriel Summers has always viewed teaching as a calling. As a principal, she twice guided her school, A.B. Combs Elementary in Raleigh, North Carolina, to being named the top magnet school of America. The school also became the original leadership school featured in FranklinCovey's Leader in Me. The vision and strategies she and her remarkable staff developed are now being replicated in over 8,000 schools and more than seventy countries. She bears the honor of having received several awards, including teacher of the year, principal of the year, and an honorary doctorate. She was awarded the William and Ida Friday award for Leadership in Innovation, The Order of the Long Leaf Pine given by the Governor of North Carolina (the state's highest honor given to a North Carolinian), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Award for Leadership in Education, and the Ralph Kimmel Award, North Carolina's highest honor for principals. She now serves as the Global Ambassador for the Leader in Me and keynotes at conferences across the US and abroad.

7 Habits and School Culture Resources for Teachers and Administrators

I've been doing some research for free resources that you can use in your school now. I would start by reading the books that I linked above (if you haven't already>)

Free Lesson Plans and Printables You Can Use Tomorrow

  • The Leader in Me Level 1 Annotated Teacher's Edition (PDF) — This is a sampler. Open this one first if you teach the little ones. Habit 1 is a complete read-aloud lesson built around King Bidgood's in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood and The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, with before-you-read, while-you-read, and after-reading questions written out for you, plus cross-curricular extensions in language arts, social studies, science, and art.

    It also has a parent letter for Habit 1 you can send home this week, a literature list, hand signs for each habit, and the 7 Habits Tree in kid language: You're in Charge · Have a Plan · Work First, Then Play · Everyone Can Win · Listen Before You Talk · Together Is Better · Balance Feels Best.
  • The Leader in Me Level 3 Annotated Teacher's Edition (PDF) — The same idea for older students. Grab it even if you teach elementary, because of the leadership-tools section: thirteen thinking tools with plain instructions for how students use them, including the Circle of Control diagram, the Stop and Think chart, the Plus/Delta, the Synergizer, the Prioritizer, and the Goal Planner.

    These work in any classroom whether or not your school has heard of Leader in Me. It also lists the education correlations for each habit, which is what you need when someone asks you to justify the time.
  • 7 Habits of Happy Kids Classroom Posters (PDF) — A free seven-poster set, one per habit, each written in first-person student language: “I have a ‘Can Do' attitude. I choose my actions, attitudes and moods.” Made and given away by a third-grade teacher who blogs as Third Grade Bookworm. Print, laminate, done.
  • The 7 Habits of Happy Kids (and teachers!) printable library — A K–5 teacher in Memphis put her whole set online: a classroom poster set, a 7 Habits clip chart, student certificates, character slips, bookmarks, coloring pages that pair with Sean Covey's book, a Habit 2 goal-setting sheet, a Think Win-Win graphic organizer, graphic organizers scaled up for grades 3–5, and 7 Habits songs. Every one is a direct download.

Leadership with Intention Exploration Activities: As You Look At Your School Consider Some of these Questions

Who this is for: whole-faculty meetings, grade-level teams, leadership teams, and new-teacher induction. How to run it: After your team listens to the show, these questions come from what Muriel actually described, not from a template. As I shared on the show, we should make our “to be” list before we make our “to do” list. These activities can help you look at your school now at the beginning of the year as you decide how you can make things better.

1. Open with the two-minute test describing your school

Muriel's assistant principal, Michael Armstrong, used to ask one question about the building: Can you feel it? She says you don't need long in a school to know what it's about.

  • A parent walks in for the first time. What do they see, hear, and feel in the first two minutes?
  • Walk into your school on a regular day and observe. What do you see, hear, and feel in the first two minutes?
  • Is this what we choose for people to see, hear and feel? Should any of it change?
  • EXTEND THIS and Walk the halls: What do our walls currently teach? Whose work is on them?

2. Interview Stakeholders

Before A.B. Combs redesigned itself, they asked parents, students, teachers, professors, and local business leaders one question: if you could create your ideal school, what would it look like, sound like, and feel like? The answers surprised them. Teachers wanted students who respected them and a place where they had a voice. Students wanted teachers who loved them. Business leaders said they could teach someone of average intelligence to succeed in their organization, but they could not teach trustworthiness or collaboration. Parents wanted a teacher who knew their child's story and could see gifts beyond academics.

  • Ask the five groups the same question this month. Who does the asking, and by when?
  • Which answer would be hardest for us to hear right now?
  • What are we already doing that no one asked for?

3. Everyone has a job — not just the responsible ones

Muriel says discipline dropped almost immediately once every child had a role and their genius was recognized, because children wanted to come and wanted to be part of it. Note the scope: every child, not the reliable handful.

  • List every classroom and schoolwide job that currently exists. How many students does that cover?
  • Name three students who have never held one. Why not?
  • What job could exist that doesn't yet — and which student is it obviously for?
  • Do adults feel like leaders in their area of responsibility? Are they empowered to act? Do they feel heard?

4. The hard one: would we let students on a hiring panel?

At A.B. Combs, candidates were interviewed by children — some as young as five, taught how to interview rather than left to wing it, with an adult in the room to listen and debrief afterward, not to feed them lines. The students didn't decide who got hired, but their voice counted. Muriel says teachers consistently called the student interview the hardest one. In twenty years she overruled the children once: a candidate with an MBA and a systems-thinking background the students admired but said “doesn't get kids.” He lasted until November.

When I was at Georgia Tech, I was on a “hiring feedback panel” for the Director of External Affairs. We gave feedback on the candidates. It was a great hire and a person who really connected with students and faculty. We gave feedback but didn't make the final call.

  • What is our honest first objection to this, and is it about the students or about us?
  • If we tried it once this year, for one hire, what would we have to teach the students first?
  • Where else do we ask students their opinion and then not weight it?

5. Close: the to-be list

Now, again, as I said at the end of the show I mentioned something my mother always said: you have to create your to-be list before you create your to-do list. There are an overwhelming number of things you could do. If you don't know what you want to be, you have no way to choose the right one. Muriel says something similar in her own words: don't get caught up in the whirlwind of the things that matter least.

  • Each person writes three words for what this faculty wants to be this year. Not goals. Words.
  • Collect them. What repeats? What's missing that you expected to see?
  • What is one thing on the to-do list that the to-be list says we should stop?

Three Words Above the Door

The simplest thing in this episode is something to discuss. Above the doors at A.B. Combs, where children saw them getting off the bus every morning, were the words: you are seen, you are known, and you are loved. Teachers were outside greeting children by name with music playing. What are the words you want students and visitors to see as they enter. What are the words you want them to see?

More Free Resources on the 7 Habits and School Culture

From Leader in Me and FranklinCovey

Other Shows for Teachers and School Leaders

Listen and Subscribe

If Muriel's story gave you something to carry into this school year, share it with the teacher down the hall who is rebuilding their culture right now.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis (00:00): How a school built its culture around the seven habits for highly effective people, and the academics followed. This is episode 965. Happy Motivational Monday.

Announcer (00:13): This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis (00:17): Today, we're talking with Muriel Summers. She's a principal who took a struggling Title I elementary school, A.B. Combs in Raleigh, North Carolina, and turned it into one of the most visited schools in the world by asking a question many of us need to be asking. What if every child could be a leader? Muriel is now FranklinCovey's Global Ambassador, co-author of the newly updated A Leader in Me, and also the new book Teacher Believed in Me with David K. Hatch.

Muriel, you said that leadership isn't a title or a personality trait. It's a set of habits that can be taught. Take us back to 1999, your first year at A.B. Combs. What did you see that made you bet the whole school on that idea?

Muriel Summers (01:13): Vicki, first of all, I am a big fan and quite honored to be part of this this morning. I'm reminded that through incredible challenge often comes wonderful opportunity. And I think if there was a quote that captured that first year for me as a principal, it would be that. I really didn't even know what I was doing.

I had so longed to be a principal for a while, and that was my goal. The way this story goes is that several people applied to be the principal of A.B. Combs. When they did their homework, whatever their reason, they withdrew their names. I was the fifth person interviewed for this job, and I was the one who did not, embarrassingly enough, do my homework as much as I should have.

But nonetheless, I know now that I was given one of the greatest professional gifts of my lifetime to go in with like-minded, amazing educators with a belief that we could do something extraordinary. We approached our challenge of reinventing ourselves. And how were we going to do that? And the charge was that it could not be a theme like any other school.

It could not be like any other magnet school. And we wouldn't have a lot of money in which to make it happen. So that was the charge before us, and I had just heard Dr. Covey speak in Washington, D.C. I was listening with the head of an administrator that had been issued this incredible challenge, but also the heart of a single mother of two small children.

How was I going to make all of this happen? So as I listened to Dr. Covey speak, I wondered if I had learned these habits much earlier in my life, how different my life might have been. And that was one question swirling around. And then the second question was, I wonder if you could teach leadership to young children.

So I listened to him and I was quite emotional, Vicki. I was quite emotional thinking about my own future, thinking about what my vision was. Habit number two, begin with the end in mind. Thinking how am I going to be proactive and use my time effectively when I had so many things juggling in the air.

But learning these habits gave me my toolkit to navigate a school and to navigate my life and to navigate my role as a mother, a friend, and all the other roles that we play. So I hear him speak. I go back to the school, and I'm like, we've got to reinvent ourselves. We don't have much time.

I've just heard Covey speak. Do you think we can teach these habits? Now, mind you, Vicki, there was no framework for us to follow as educators. We read his book.

We read Sean Covey's book, which I will lovingly and admiringly say that it's the cliff notes of his father's book. So it really related to our teachers in a way that they could take what Sean had written and pull any book off a shelf and find a way to teach these habits.

Vicki Davis (04:23): So you're talking about seven habits for highly effective people, and I'm assuming seven habits for highly effective people for teens, right?

Muriel Summers (04:29): That's exactly right. So we called in our parents, our students, our teachers, university professors, because we are like three miles from NC State University, 20 miles from UNC Chapel Hill. We asked the question, if you could create your ideal school. What would it look like, sound like, and feel like?

And we gathered all that feedback. Teachers wanted students that respected them. They wanted to work in an environment where they had a voice. Students wanted teachers who loved them.

Now, mind you, this was an elementary school. Business leaders were looking for a skill set quite different than an academic skill set. The comments that were made was, We can teach someone with average intelligence how to be successful in our organization, but we can't teach them how to be trustworthy. We can't teach them how to be collaborative.

We can't teach them how to embrace diversity if it isn't a part of who they are. Then parents, we just want a teacher who knows our child. We want them to know their child's story. We want them to see their gifts beyond academics.

We took those seven habits, Vicki, and we aligned it with all that feedback, and it screamed leadership to us. So we just went to work. This is a philosophy. It's not a program.

One of our core paradigms, our core beliefs, that every child has genius. So we went about creating a culture where children had roles and responsibilities, where their genius was recognized. We saw discipline go down almost instantly because children wanted to come to school and they wanted to be a part. So we started referring to everybody as a leader, Vicki.

And guess what? We not only viewed them that way, we also gave them opportunities to lead. So when you've got a culture of everyone is leading, everyone is important, everyone's voice matters, everyone has genius. You don't have to worry about the academics.

They just happen. But we fixed the culture, and we created a culture of leadership for all. And we went from one of the lowest performing to one of the highest performing. Everyone was working from the inside out to become all that we thought individually we could become.

And equally as important to create a school that every child wanted to come to that would leave a lasting impact.

Vicki Davis (07:05): Take me on a verbal tour. Tell me what I would see from morning to when school ends, the types of things that students or teachers might be doing, and also your role.

Muriel Summers (07:17): We had an incredible assistant principal whose name was Michael Armstrong, and he died at a very early age of 40. But Michael left a lasting impact, and he would always say, can you feel it? So the moment you would walk in the building, we wanted people to feel something. And Vicki, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You don't have to be in a school very long, just a few minutes, to know what that school is about, about what you see, what you hear, and what you feel. When the children entered the building, there were big words right above the doors. So when they got off that bus, these were the words that they saw. And I feel like I'm going to get emotional, but you are seen, you are known.

And you are loved. And when they got off that bus, they would hear happy music playing. Teachers would be out greeting the children as they got off the bus, calling them by name was a requirement. You know every child's name.

They would call them by name, always modeling. We model what we expect to see our children do. So they would walk, hear that fun music, hear their name being said. We're so happy you're here.

They'd walk up the steps, they'd look at those words. You are seen, you are known, you are loved. They'd walk in to the building. There was always someone standing there to greet them.

I helped to get children out of the cars so I could see the parents. And so everyone was in the hallway. Children would go to their classroom and they were greeted. Social etiquette, big part of what we taught as well.

They would either high five, shake the hand, do a little dance, do whatever. So that that first connection with their teacher was being made that day. The walls were required to teach and to reflect our students' genius. I always had some challenges with our fire marshals because when we had an art show, there were 900 pieces of art on the wall because every child had their art displayed because we wanted our children to see themselves as leaders in art, leaders in music, leaders in public speaking based on their genius and based on their passion.

My favorite teacher, Miss Rose. So much of Miss Rose is embedded in the culture of A.B. Combs. She told us every day it mattered not where we came from. What mattered was the size of our dreams and our hopes for our own future.

And we were the sons and daughters of cotton workers and mill workers and cotton farmers in rural North Carolina. So much of what is in the classrooms today becomes a reflection of each teacher's favorite teacher. So we wanted the school to reflect leadership. I know you're a collector of quotes.

There are a lot of quotes throughout the building. But they're not just words, Vicki. We take our children several times during the year on a field trip throughout the school to say, what does this mean to you? What do you want this to look like?

The school is very much child-centered based on what children have said they wanted and also what we wanted the walls to teach. You will see the Seven Habits Tree in the building. You will see photographs of great leaders. That it's very important to us that we put role models, great examples of great leaders in front of our students.

And whether we find that on the news or in a sports arena or in a piece of great literature, we're always pointing out the characteristics of great leaders. The morning begins with a morning meeting. So every child is having a voice and a say. And those meetings are very powerful.

They're as important as instruction as far as I'm concerned because they set the tone. And then every afternoon, we conclude with doing an evaluation on how we did in our classrooms. What went well? What are the opportunities for improvement tomorrow?

And the teacher stands in the doorway as each child leaves and tells him to have a great night. And that's exactly what Miss Rose did. She would say, how am I going to make it to the next day without you? How am I going to make it through the night?

Because I'm going to miss you so much. And you know what, Vicki, we believed her. We believed she was going to miss us. And we loved her to pieces.

And the impact that one lady had on the lives of so many, your teacher, you as a teacher, and I hope. Me as a teacher, I hope I left a little bit of my heart in every child that I taught. I hope I leave a little bit of myself with them. Yeah.

Vicki Davis (12:13): Take me back to when you would have a new teacher start at your school. What did you say?

Muriel Summers (12:18): Well, before they were ever hired, students assisted me in the hiring process. And what I mean by that is a teacher jumped through several hoops to be a teacher at Combs. And one of those hoops was the administrators reviewing the file and saying, this person looks like they could be a good match. Then we brought children in and we never asked children, Vicki.

We taught them how to interview someone as young as five years old. Children know what they're looking for in a teacher. We let them loose. Now, there was always an adult in the room with the children who were interviewing the teacher.

But the adult's job was not to tell the children what to say, but to listen so that we could debrief afterwards and say, this is what you did well. Children, in essence, were learning how to interview as they interviewed a teacher. And children would ask the most amazing questions, Vicki, questions that we never thought about asking. And the teachers that we were interviewing would always say the student interview was by far the hardest.

They were not responsible for determining if a person got hired or not. But their voice mattered. And it mattered to us. There was only one time, Vicki, in all the 20 years that children were part of interviewing, did I go against what the children said?

It was like they were looking for the same things we were looking for. But this was a gentleman who had a degree from a local university. He had this business background of systems thinking, and I was so intrigued by it. No matter how good you are, continuous improvement, how do you get better?

Vicki Davis (14:05): He had that. Sharpen the saw, right?

Muriel Summers (14:07): Exactly. But he had a business skill set that I didn't have, and I thought how valuable he would be on our team. So he had majored in business, an MBA degree in business, but had always wanted to be a teacher, or so he thought he did. The children said he's very smart so he's a genius he's a leader in intelligence because they picked up on this man was very smart, but we don't think he gets kids.

And I'm like, tell me more. We just don't think he gets what kids are about. I thought, well, they're gonna learn to like him, and I need him, and we're gonna hire him. He lasted until November.

Vicki Davis (14:47): Oh, my goodness. So the kids were right.

Muriel Summers (14:49): The kids were right. Dr. Covey would say, a little child shall lead us. And I think that was really the fabric of everything. Let our children lead.

Let them have a voice.

Vicki Davis (15:04): What are some things I can bring to my classroom tomorrow?

Muriel Summers (15:09): There are over 8,500 schools in over 60 countries around the world that are teaching the same thing that we started at A.B. Combs. So there is that framework. But this leader in me and teacher believed in me go hand in hand, teacher believed in me, because we wanted to give homage to great teachers. What do great teachers do differently?

So that quote, never underestimate what a committed group of people can do, because, indeed, it's what has changed the world. And I do think in a very small way, A.B. Combs has changed the world in terms of what schools should look like, sound like, and feel like based on the hearts of teachers and the hopes and dreams of children. If I can do it, Vicki, anybody can do it. Not to get caught up in the whirlwind, of those things that matter least.

But let us stay focused on what matters most. And to me, it's just love them. Just love the teachers, love the children enough that you will give your very best to help them all succeed.

Vicki Davis (16:26): My mom, who was a great teacher and my closest mentor and who loved the seven habits, um, Always said, you've got to create your to-be list before you create your to-do list. Because the things you do, they're just an overwhelming number of things that you could do. But if you don't know what you want to be, you have no ability to determine the right thing to do. We've been talking with Muriel Summers.

She's a principal who took a struggling Title I elementary school, A.B. Combs in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has an updated book of The Leader in Me, a new book, Teacher Believed in Me. Muriel, thank you so much for coming on the show, for coming.

Muriel Summers (17:13): Vicki, thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Vicki Davis (17:18): Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful.

See you later, educator.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post How a School Built Its Culture Around the 7 Habits — and the Academics Followed appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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