Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a
podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else
who supports teachers in the classroom.
This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that
help you go beyond education.
Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com.
I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast.
And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at
least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching.
A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords.
Only stuff that works
Very excited about my guest today.
Today we'll be talking to Francie Weinberg.
She was born and raised in South Florida.
She has a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from the
University of Florida and a Master of Science in School Counseling
from Nova Southeastern University.
Francie has worked as a high school counselor in public and private
schools for nearly a decade.
She now works as a high school counselor at an independent K 12 school.
With a passion for helping teens navigate their most formative years,
Francie is committed to building a school wide culture of social emotional
wellness through loving accountability.
She has also volunteered for the Crisis Text Line and as a court
appointed guardian at LEADM for children in the foster care system.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Francie as we talked about many
of the issues that students face today, children face today in our society,
and also the challenges that teachers have in working with the students.
So it was my pleasure to introduce you to Francie Weinberg.
Francie, good morning.
It's great to have you here.
I say good morning, but you're in Florida.
Francie Weinberg: Yes.
Great to be here, Gene.
Thank you so much for having me.
Gene Tavernetti: Oh gosh, my, my pleasure.
And as I said in the introduction, that one of the things, one of the reasons
that I was interested in talking to you is, you know, everything that's
in the news today about the issues facing teens, teen anxiety, issues with
social media, and just everything that.
So, as I said in your introduction, you've been a counselor for a
school counselor for 10 years.
How has things changed in the, in those 10 years that you see?
Francie Weinberg: Even in the past five years, we're in a wildly
different world now than we were.
I think it was spring semester, two, two school years ago that AI really
took off and It just permeated school.
And so even, I mean, even compared to two years ago, I think it's a
different ballgame than it was.
But you know, I was looking up some statistics on Ivy League acceptances,
admission acceptances, and in the past 10 years, so from 2014 to 2024,
acceptance rates have gone down.
A staggering amount.
So Penn, for example, in 2014, was admitting 14.
2 percent of its applicants, and in 2024, 5.
4%. And really, all the Ivy Leagues have followed suit, and so I think
the world I mean, America at least has become significantly more competitive
in terms of college admissions.
We really are cultivating what we want to see from students and so I think they
are sort of flocking to this online world as just a little bit of a safe haven,
a little bit of a place where they're not being watched and having to perform
perfectly, which as we know is Ironic.
Yeah,
Gene Tavernetti: well, one of the, one of the reasons that I wanted to talk
to you is because, you know, when I met you, you were talking about your job
and you were talking about the issues that you would deal with these kids.
And again, you're a counselor, you're a school counselor.
And so, we talked about two buckets of issues that the kids are dealing with.
That, Actually, there is some convergence.
One of them is what you talked about right now is the pressure of getting
into colleges because you're, what you're working in right now is an
independent school where kids are expected to move on, if I recall.
Okay, and so that's what many people think about a traditional school
counselor, is that they're going to help their kids get into college but you're
doing much more than that, aren't you?
Francie Weinberg: Absolutely.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, that's it's hard to talk about the job without talking about college
at all, because ultimately that's sort of, I think the finish line a
lot of people are looking toward, but yeah, in terms of what it takes up
day to day, it really is a very small percentage of how I spend my days.
Gene Tavernetti: Well, can you talk about, I know I was a counselor for a time
and there's no such thing as a typical day but can you walk us through some
of the things that you're dealing with?
Because, again, one of the things that was interesting when I was talking to
you you're actually dealing with kids in a counseling type of relationship.
Not as just, you know, get to class, young lady, type of thing.
Francie Weinberg: right.
So, you know, it's the role of a school counselor, I think, has really changed.
It's sort of had this rebranding from being the get to class
and your grades are terrible.
You're never going to make it to like, how can we get there?
What is the finish line and how can we get you there?
And I spent, I mean, I spent a surprising amount of my day really working with
kids on dealing with anxiousness and nervousness around test taking
around just the amount that they have on their plate, time management,
executive functioning test taking strategies, ways to, to build Retention
and ways to study more effectively.
And so that really is a big portion of what I'm doing.
I think that there is a big gap in kids being taught how to
study it and learn effectively.
And then even at the best schools there's that gap.
It's just, we're not teaching kids.
They're not learning how to learn.
I think in a lot of places, and then of course, there's the more intense counselor
stuff that, you know, I know we've both.
Dealt with of really making sure kids are in an emotionally
safe place to be able to learn.
And then I do a lot of conversations with parents, a lot of conversations
with teachers to help them navigate conversations with parents.
And then the sort of meetings where everybody who has significant touch
points with kids outside of the classroom where we're coming together
to share information because it.
You know, it's not all, it's not all coming to me as the school counselor.
I'm never going to be every student's.
first person that they go to.
And so it's more important that they have that safe adult and that they're
able to maintain those relationships.
And then that information is sort of centralized.
So a lot of that as well.
Gene Tavernetti: You know, so you're talking about, you know, how to learn,
how to remember, you know, you're talking about a lot of things that,
You know, we talk about it at research and those, you know, just those types
of situations that, again, you think of more as classroom type of things.
Do you do any work other than individual consultations with teachers?
Like, do you do workshops on different things for kids and for the teachers?
Francie Weinberg: Yeah.
So I do both work for teachers.
in terms of how to be there, how they can be the most effective as teachers.
And so a lot of times I'll do, but it's not a ton of that.
Like there's so much.
I think there's so much competition for time, for teachers time, for students
time, that, you know, there's one or two school counselors in a school.
I think if the role of the school counselor was more important, they
really and the idea of it really was to sort of build out support for
teachers, both supporting teachers, as themselves and in doing their work.
There probably would be a different role or more school counselors or some sort
of adjustment, but it's not the case.
So I'm not sure that tends to be the case.
Sort of the priority of any school that I've been at, or really even
any model that I'm familiar with.
Gene Tavernetti: New teachers one of the things that is interesting to me
when there's Whenever there's an issue in our society, gosh, this is going to,
you know, there's no cliches allowed on this, but this is going to sound cliche.
Everything gets, you know, shoved down to the teacher to take care of,
you know, like for instance You know, have to do social emotional learning.
You know, there's curriculum for teachers.
Do you think the teachers have enough training or are equipped to
handle a lot of what we're asking them to do with the kids these days?
Francie Weinberg: I think I started shaking my head like
midway through your question.
Just no, absolutely not.
And it's not it's nobody's fault.
Again, it's this competition for time.
So I mean, think about what these teachers are up against.
They have sometimes 30 kids in a classroom.
They have 45 minutes with the kid.
They have an entire semester.
standardized curriculum to get through that's being interrupted for greed
meetings and for somebody to come talk about not drinking and driving and
everything that can be jammed into school.
We're jamming into school and still expecting tremendous pass rates from
teachers and then saying also teach them to be socially Well, right.
How is that fair?
I mean, that's not their job.
That's what I went to school for.
It's not what they went to school for.
So I just think what we put on teachers to get done in a day in a school year is
I mean, it's really, it exceeds, I think, expectations that happen in most jobs.
Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so, You have, um, defended the teachers in this because
the other place that this falls, because it falls on the schools is because,
well, the parents should be doing this.
The parents, do the, do you think parents have the skills?
I mean, here you have a master's degree in what you do.
Do parents have the skills to support their kids in what they need?
What's your thoughts on that?
Or is that why you have a job?
Francie Weinberg: My, my gut reaction was to say, I think parents think
they have the skills to do that.
I think a lot of parents are in this tricky spot where, of course,
they know their children best.
and it doesn't necessarily mean they know what's best for their children.
And that can be a tough thing to grapple with.
And so while no, I don't think many parents have the skills to teach
their kids really to be have like a strong psychological immune system.
And part of that is my role as the school counselor is to give parents The
skills to both for themselves to model for their kids and to teach their kids.
But I often think that they don't have the skills at many of them
still tend to think it's my kid.
And so therefore I know best and I understand that mindset.
And I also know that there are people in education who've been
doing this for 10, 20, 30 years who have degrees in it, who really.
This is what we know and this is what we do and you know, there's a, there's
part of me that wants to say when you enroll your child in this school,
you are trusting this organization's educational expertise and so just
have a little bit of faith in us.
Gene Tavernetti: Well, you talked about knowing best, you know, parents knowing
their kids, parents knowing their kids best, but we're in a time now where nobody
knows, seems to know what's best, and I think, you know, talking about social
media, the impact of social media and I can't help but go back You know, do
the timeline of when you were talking about when things began to get worse.
And it seemed your two and a half years would put us right after COVID.
And smack dab, you know, between COVID and social media.
How's social media impacting?
Your work, you know, how do you see it impacting your work?
Which really means impacting the kids because we hear about it all
the time in the media Is it being overblown in the media or no?
Francie Weinberg: I think that's a really, obviously a really complicated question.
If it wasn't, we would have one answer and we would know what to do.
I think that there are ways that social media has sort of become
this bogeyman where we're making it, out to be terrible in every way.
And while I think that there are a lot of ways that social media is terrible
I also know, I understand why kids have turned to it in the way that they have.
You know, I think teenagers have always sort of done the revolutionary
thing that adults are afraid of, and that's always going to be part of it.
And.
And then there's the layer of parents modeling healthy social media use,
which I don't think is happening either.
And so it's really hard to talk about teens on social media without talking
about what they're seeing at home.
I found an abuse survey in 2020.
68 percent of parents report sometimes or often feeling distracted by their phones.
when they're spending time with their children.
And so, it makes me wonder why we expect teenagers to act differently.
In terms of the way that I see it in schools, I don't think it's that kids
are unable to have conversations.
I'm not seeing kids incapable of looking adults in the eyes
and forming complete sentences.
And that's really not what I'm seeing.
But what I am seeing is this comfort that comes from hiding behind a
screen, sort of taking down any Real desire or need to be polite.
I think it's damaged the ways in which we communicate and the value we place
on being thoughtful about our words.
Gene Tavernetti: So when you're working with students, do you have, are there
students who you're working with that you will work on those particular skills?
Francie Weinberg: We have to because there's this idea, I think, when you're in
an online community, and it's very easy to enter and exit, right, there is, Jonathan
Haidt calls it a low bar for entry community, where you can enter easily, you
can block anybody easily, you can leave at any time, and so there is no real skin in
the game in terms of you know, rectifying mistakes or apologizing for saying
something in a way that might be hurtful because They're low barrier communities
and in schools, in a classroom, the relationship you have with your teacher,
the relationships you have with your administrators, those are high bar for
entry relationships and so you have to be thoughtful about those things and I think
kids at this point because their lives are so intertwined with the internet, they
don't really note that difference as kids.
Kids and teenagers.
And so we, I mean, we have to work on it.
We the, I can't tell you the number of times I've had to say like,
you can't call your teacher bro.
It doesn't matter how frustrated you are.
And it doesn't matter that when you're frustrated and you're
texting, you say, Bro, come on.
You can't then turn around and say it to your teacher.
Gene Tavernetti: Yeah, and you, I hope you also tell them, don't call them dude.
Francie Weinberg: You know, it's way more bro than dude these days.
Gene Tavernetti: It is, you know, I of course, okay.
Here's boom alert coming.
I just can't, that is one of my, I, there's a place I shop.
Boy, this really is a bird walk.
There's a place I shop and I walk in and it's not busy.
It's a supplement store and there's a young person behind the counter
and as soon as I walk in, he says, Hey bro can I help you, bro?
You know.
And in the course, I know exactly what I'm going to get.
I get the same thing every time.
I'm in two minutes and You know, I'll get five bros, you know, in, in two
minutes, but you know what I don't get?
Thank you.
Thank
Francie Weinberg: think
Gene Tavernetti: And so, so that's the one that really has
gotten me, you know, so, thank
Francie Weinberg: perfectly illustrated my point.
Thank you.
Gene Tavernetti: thank you.
Thank you for your work in that in that space.
Actually, I wasn't listening to your,
Francie Weinberg: a hero.
Gene Tavernetti: yeah, well, and you know, and your survey
with the Pew survey was 68%.
I have a feeling that there's at least 25 to 30 percent of parents lying about that.
Or don't even realize that it's happening because that's how much
things have, has permeated our.
our daily lives.
We don't even, we don't even think about it.
Francie Weinberg: Do you know what, you can track your pickups on your
phone, so the number of times a day you're, if on an iPhone you can see the
number of times you pick up your phone.
I think we pick up our phone.
You do that thing where you pick up your phone to look at the time
and you put your phone down and then you're like, what time is it?
Do you ever do that?
Gene Tavernetti: It's, it's scary.
I look, pick it up to look for something, you know, but yeah it's all the time.
And so, So I really that's why I wanted to talk to you.
I mean, like, God, is it as bad as we think it is?
And is it just, um, I think the kids, like you say, they have conflated
how you communicate online with how you communicate in person.
I know had Dr. Rodriguez on recently talking about his experience with, Like
late teenagers as they were doing job interviews that people would interview
in their pajamas, you know, or walking down the aisle at Costco, you know,
because they just don't know how to communicate beyond this social media.
Francie Weinberg: I thought that was incredible where he was talking
about how he has them start the interview with their camera off.
And I mean, it's, it is shocking to me that's necessary, but it is.
And I can't help but feel like that was a byproduct of COVID where they
really did sit in their pajamas.
I mean, I, we did teacher orientation on zoom and there were teachers in bed.
So, I while I feel that no amount of global pandemic would ever end
up with me doing a Zoom from my bed for work, I know that my judgment
is not everyone's and so now things have to be taught that we didn't
really ever expect to have to teach.
But it's a different world.
Zoom interviews didn't exist.
Not that long ago.
Gene Tavernetti: So, let me get back to teachers again.
So we had a survey with regards to parents and their what they reported with respect
to being interrupted by their phones.
How do you think teachers, do teachers, you know, and I don't know where you
would see this except maybe in a staff meeting, how, or do you see the same
distraction level with the teachers?
Francie Weinberg: I really do.
I really do.
And that's what makes it, that's what makes it so tricky.
So, you know, this year, I think a lot of schools moved toward a
phone ban and a lot of schools were sort of just making like blanket
policies on what they wanted to do.
And one of the things that the school that I'm in decided to do
is no phones in academic spaces.
So in any of the academic hallway is in.
any of in the auditorium or the library.
And when we're in the auditorium, I see, I mean, I see kids and
adults alike on their phone.
And everybody has stuff to do and everybody's busy and
everybody has responsibilities.
And, you know, especially for teachers, again, I can't help but
defend them when they get a free moment in the day, which is so rare.
I'm, I, of course they want to take a look at their phone.
Everyone does.
And so again, if everyone does, that's where I feel that how much
of our concern we've directed toward teenagers might be a bit misplaced.
I think We could spread the wealth of that concern to non teenagers as well.
I mean, I've parents, I've seen parents in parent teacher conferences pick up their
phones and start texting and take phone calls and everything you can imagine.
And it's the same, it's really the same behavior.
Gene Tavernetti: No I agree.
It is so pervasive and that's why, you know, I really wanted to talk to
somebody who's with kids all the time to see if it is different because it's
really hard to try to put down rules.
that you yourself don't follow because that's, I mean, you think
kids don't pay attention to that?
Francie Weinberg: Kids, kids are always All behavior is learned, I think.
If kids are learning from what they're seeing all the time, they're learning
from their teachers, they're learning from their parents, they're learning
from what they see on social media, and that is such a big chunk of it.
If they're learning so much from what they see on social media, isn't
it then more important for us to model behavior that's different.
We know that's the information they're getting.
They're getting this sort of constant feedback loop on social media of, this
is good, this is fun, this is positive.
If we then want them to do less of that, then that's the behavior we need to be
modeling when they're not on their phones.
And it's, I think we, we tend to fall into this trap of, saying get off
your phones and then just quickly checking ours and putting it down.
Gene Tavernetti: So, so you're working in a K, you're working in
a school right now that it's a, an independent school, but you also, as
we said in your introduction that you volunteer with a crisis text line.
So does that, is that what it sounds like is that you are
actually texting people in crisis?
Francie Weinberg: So people in crisis text in and then those of us on the
receiving end are on, we're on a computer and so I'm doing it, I'm not texting
but it's, I mean, it's, The regular crisis text line that is on, when I,
in the last county I was working in, all of the students had the suicide
hotline and the crisis text line phone numbers on the back of their student IDs.
So, it's that crisis text line, and I mean, I think we get,
we have so many people texting and saying, like, are you real?
Is this a robot?
Is this AI?
And that's how, like, 40 percent of the conversations start.
Gene Tavernetti: okay, but just to clarify, you get it, somebody texts
in, but you also respond digitally.
The response is digital.
Francie Weinberg: correct.
So there's no, nobody's talking.
Gene Tavernetti: Wow.
I mean, you know, that's interesting.
I mean, you know, that's kind of what we're trying to fix, you
know, you know, the anonymity, you still have anonymity, but.
But at like double blind, it's double blind.
Here you are on the text.
Francie Weinberg: It is, and it's tricky in terms of if
there, is somebody who's at risk.
We, it's, we're really sort of depending on them to give us that
information because it is anonymous.
Any information that they share with us is voluntary.
So sometimes we'll say, are you comfortable sharing your name?
And they'll say, no, we don't, I don't want to.
And that's fine.
Gene Tavernetti: Wow, that must take a whole lot of skill because,
I mean, I hate sending emails because the tone can be mistaken.
You know, Miss Red and, you know, why did, here, let me
read this email that I just got.
And then, you know, like you're, you make up how awful this
person was on the other line.
How do you mitigate that with text?
Or you just become skilled at it, knowing, or?
Francie Weinberg: I think you become, so there's a training program you
go through a training where you're having conversations with robots and
by conversations I mean you're typing with them and they're responding and
so there's a training and then you do get skilled as it, as you, You do get
skilled as you continue, but also, to be clear, it doesn't, it's not a skill
that feels to me like it translates into emails, because I have the same
experience that you're describing when I'm answering emails still, and I don't,
it's just a different headspace, I think.
Gene Tavernetti: Okay, because you know that they're entering
in the conversation in crisis in looking for some, it's just yeah.
Francie Weinberg: it's a different, My, my role is different.
My role is to get them from crisis to a calmer place where they're able to
safely go about the rest of their day or night or whatever it is, versus, you
know, you work for days and days on a project and then someone sends you back
an email that says, Thanks with a period.
You're like, I, this can't be right.
So it's just not the same.
Gene Tavernetti: So, so now taking those crisis issues, and then
comparing, contrasting to issues that you deal with anxiety and things in
schools, are there, is there overlap?
Are there, are you seeing some of the same issues?
Are there issues that you may have in students that don't manifest when
you're talking to them as crises?
But you kind of.
Can't see that they are.
You know what I'm asking?
Is it?
Francie Weinberg: Yes, I had so I made a QR code for students to scan
when they want to meet with me.
And just for my own information, I asked them to rank the
urgency low, medium or high.
The urgency is shockingly high.
I mean, it's the same rank if it's my, I'm worried about a friend who's in
crisis or my math class is not going well.
Both of those are extremely urgent in the eyes of a teenager.
Also on a crisis, on the crisis text line, we're really the job there.
And, you know, The job is to provide support for whoever needs it, but
it was born out of a need to respond to people in crisis who maybe either
aren't comfortable picking up a phone, aren't in a place where they can
have an out loud phone conversation, and they really need that support.
And what I see there, like what I see in schools, is that I think people have a
hard time understanding really what it means to be in crisis, and that's okay.
That means that their barometer for crisis is low, and that
Lucky them, that's a good thing.
But the issues sort of range across the board in both places from things
that really are a crisis to things like my parents are really mad at me
and it feels like a crisis because I am a teenager and I don't like it.
Gene Tavernetti: Yeah.
And my parents won't get off the phone to talk to me or they won't
Francie Weinberg: am not.
Gene Tavernetti: they won't respond to my text.
Yeah.
You know, one of the things that was talking, I wanna talk a little
bit about trauma based ed education.
And one of the things that was interesting to me when I was doing my.
my master's in counseling was, you know, how things were diagnosed how
maladaptive behaviors were diagnosed.
You know, you got your manual, I don't know if people know, there's a a DSM,
and I don't know what the latest is, but it's a Diagnostic Statistical Manual.
Is it 13?
Okay, wow.
And so a therapist, a counselor will look at this manual, and it has a list
of manifestations of this behavior.
And if you get four out of six, then you have it, you know, and so it's a,
seems like a funny way to diagnose.
But having said that the point that I was going to get to, and I will,
is that at the time there was a I don't even remember what was going
on at the time, but, They said 90 percent of the population has this.
you know, maladaptive behavior.
Well, it seems to me if you're using a statistical manual to diagnose things and
90 percent of the population has it, it means that it's not, by definition, it's
normal, you know, and how do we do that?
And so that's sometimes how I'm wishy washy on the whole trauma.
trauma based stuff.
You know, it's you know, what is it, the ACES?
That is the diag it's kind of the diagnostic statistical manual
for, you know, how bad trauma is.
How is, are we looking at that in a funny way?
Or what's your thoughts about that?
Francie,
Francie Weinberg: It's interesting that you ask that.
I started my master's program where I live in Florida, which is the same county
that Marjory Stoneman Douglas is in.
So I started my master's in August of 2018, and that's the That shooting
happened in February of 2018, so six months earlier, and a lot of the
professors that I had at the time were, they were part time professors and full
time directors of school counseling, directors of middle school counseling,
directors of high school counseling, and they were the first people to go back
into the school when the school reopened to meet with students, to start working
on that trauma informed counseling.
And so my degree and learning in the classes that I took sort of came,
you know, With this as the backdrop, it was really hard to separate
what we were talking about from this really significant trauma that
had just taken place in our area.
And so I, my education may be unique in the way that I think the way I
was taught about trauma and the way we talked about it was, I mean, that
it's not, I don't feel like that's.
It's something that we take lightly here with our students.
And so, you know, I think like, like anything else, and like we were
talking about with social media, there, there's these things that gain steam
and start rolling forward of where we want to, The words we want to use,
the pedagogy we want to align behind, and because it sounds good, and this
trauma informed therapy in school counseling, I think, has the opportunity
to be a lot of hot air, but I'm lucky in that where I am, it really isn't.
It's really sort of fundamental to, you know, to the training that we get,
and in a very realistic way, in a way that's like this is what you need to
look for, this is what you do when you see it, and this is how we move forward.
Gene Tavernetti: that's a distinction.
Okay, what you just described, that's a pure distinction.
And everything you talked about your training in counseling, dealing
with trauma informed counseling.
How much does the classroom Again, this gets back to what we're
asking classroom teachers to do.
I know I was at a training for new teachers.
These are brand new teachers, and they had to learn about trauma informed teaching.
And I'm thinking, holy cow, they don't know about anything.
And now you're shaking your head.
So tell me what you're thinking about this, what we're asking teachers to do
Francie Weinberg: I mean, I, again, I think it's, the role of a teacher I think
we really need, we're at this strange time where parents who do believe that
there are experts in the field, which is great, are maybe too comfortable
outsourcing parenting sometimes.
And so they have a sort of a team of people working with their kids, the
kid has therapists and tutors and executive functioning skills coaches
and a college counselor and all of these people whose job it is to support them.
And and the idea that it's, that's the role of the school, the job of the
teacher, the role of the teacher, of the classroom, that is where kids go to
learn the subject that they are learning.
And if we want to make it the responsibility of the school to
teach kids how to be good people, we need a lot more hours in the day
and frankly a lot higher salaries.
I mean, it's just, it's, parents still need to be parents.
And so teachers can be teachers.
Gene Tavernetti: You know what, Francie, that might be
the perfect place to end this.
It is, you know, Francie, it is always a pleasure.
And I'm sure we'll talk again.
Hopefully we'll see each other soon.
And do you have
Francie Weinberg: so much,
Gene Tavernetti: You have any questions for me?
Francie Weinberg: I do.
I was wondering about your time as a school counselor and now as a coach, sort
of what experience are you able to draw upon to use in your coaching that you
maybe used or honed as a school counselor?
Gene Tavernetti: Well, I, as I read, as you know, you know, me
just enough to know that I'm a contrarian, you know, type of person.
And I read a lot of books.
I have read a lot of books about counseling not counseling, I'm sorry
coaching, instructional coaching, and a lot of the, a lot of the pages in those
books are devoted to communication.
And I think I just, well, two things about that.
One, some things that they ask instructional coaches to do as a
counselor, I wouldn't have touched, you know, just like you're talking about that.
It's just way too demanding.
So even as a trained counselor, I don't go there.
I don't want to get into those things with Francie.
I like you, you know, go see a therapist, you know, you know, go see a therapist.
That's not my job.
So, so it has helped me in communication.
It has told me that I need to listen occasionally, and you know how tough
that is for me, that I need to listen.
But I think that's been the biggest the biggest impact is
those communication skills.
And having some empathy for people.
I mean, like you said there, you know, teachers are doing a lot of work.
I mean, they're asked to do a lot of things.
We can't just go in there and pretend to know everything.
And I know some school, when I had school counselors, that's how they were.
They knew everything and they wanted to let me know that they knew everything.
And so that's been the, that's been the biggest the biggest thing for me.
It's a big part of what's necessary that I didn't have to relearn.
And
Francie Weinberg: number one tip as a coach for a school counselor?
Just give me one, one for the book.
Gene Tavernetti: you talk about working with adults
Francie Weinberg: Working as a coach, what would you tell me as a school counselor?
Gene Tavernetti: as a school counselor.
Don't give any advice.
until you know the situation.
And I think adults should give advice.
I'm no Rogerian there.
I mean, you know, Hey, you know, I've been through this.
I understand it, but you need to understand the issue and you need
to understand like, like I want to give you a pat on the back here.
The before I talk to somebody, before they're a podcast guest, I send them a
little you know, a little prep sheet, and one of the things I always ask
is, where are you on social media?
You know, where can people find you on social media?
And you said, no social media, walk the walk.
And I think that is great advice for counselors.
Don't be, I mean, I knew high school counselors who were
trying to tell kids not to drink.
You know, you, you can't, you, you truly do have to walk the walk and
you could still have a fun life.
Francie Weinberg: Thank you so much, Gene.
Gene Tavernetti: Hey, Francie, it's been a pleasure.
Talk to you soon.
We'll see you soon.
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