Finding Connection through Purposeful Empathy with Andre Bradford

What if the key to combating burnout isn't found in productivity hacks or wellness programs, but in how deeply we connect with one another? In this episode, award-winning slam poet Andre Bradford takes us on a journey through the landscape of purposeful empathy and its transformative power in educational settings and beyond.

As owner and performer at SC Says Poetry, Andre didn't set out to become a mental health advocate. His path began on poetry stages where vulnerability in performance created unexpected spaces for authentic connection. In this conversation, he shares moving stories about the educators who shaped him, and how one unexpected reunion affirmed the lifelong impact of empathy in action.

For leaders, educators, and anyone building community, Andre offers a compelling challenge: What if we evaluated empathy as intentionally as we evaluate performance? What might shift if we prioritized feeling seen just as much as productivity?

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Discover More from Andre Bradford & SC Says Poetry:

Ready to transform your approach to leadership, education, or personal connections? Explore Andre's performances and resources at scsayspoetry.com and discover how purposeful empathy might be the antidote to burnout you've been searching for all along.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scsays/

Instagram: @scsays

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Andre Bradford
• 3:13 The Power of Slam Poetry
• 5:34 Defining Purposeful Empathy
• 9:52 Cultivating Curiosity and Vulnerability
• 19:25 Systemic Challenges in Education
• 25:01 Transforming School Culture
• 37:55 Finding Balance and Staying Grounded

Transcript

Amy Schamberg: 0:03

Hello everyone and welcome back to TAUGHT. Today we have a very special guest with us. Andre Bradford is the owner and performer at SC Says Poetry. Andre is an award-winning slam poet, author and keynote speaker who is passionate about raising mental health awareness and cultivating what he calls purposeful empathy. Andre has delivered his programming to schools, universities, organizations and conferences all over the US. He loves getting to use his poetry and story to help inspire audiences and to help people feel both seen and to see the others around them in a new light. So today Andre will be helping us understand the intersection of empathy and mental health and, specifically, how administrative empathy can be a powerful tool in mitigating burnout. So welcome, andre, oh thanks so much, Amy.

Andre Bradford: 0:55

I'm excited to be here.

Amy Schamberg: 0:56

Oh my gosh, I am so glad you're here. Thank you so much for joining us and I've been looking forward to this conversation all week long. I have so many questions, but to start off, can you just tell us a little bit about the work you do and how you came into this field?

Andre Bradford: 1:13

A crazy long winding road got me here, but essentially I am an award-winning slam poet, a spoken word artist, who has a theater background. I love the stage, but what I was noticing when I was competing in the sign poetry circuit are all the wonderful conversations I was having with complete strangers that started with me just kind of being vulnerable in this creative art form from a stage I was talking about. I have poems that kind of talk about my experiences growing up mixed race, my experiences where I didn't show up as the best version of myself, experiences with relationships, experiences with mental health and depression, and what I've noticed, what I had noticed at the time, was that in doing this and creating a space where I was vulnerable, I allowed others to kind of do the same and some kind of light bulb went off in my head that like there needs to be a space for this, not just at the slam poetry, like venues and stages, but just in everyday life. I think what this art form does so well is it allows people the permission to be honest about what they're experiencing as a human being, whether it's going through divorce, whether it's struggling with identity or loneliness or maybe a mental illness.

Andre Bradford: 2:18

And so when I got that idea, coincidentally, I had someone come up to me after a performance, a guy named Iggy who was part of this group called Cometry, that blended stand-up comedy and slam poetry, and they were going to schools and they were using these art forms to kind of get students to lower their guards and lean into these ideas of leadership and growth development, and so that kind of like created a model for me that I then utilized with my own poetry and my own story to create this programming around something that I noticed was a through line in a lot of my work, which was empathy.

Andre Bradford: 2:47

So much of my motivation and inspiration when I approach the page or I start a new poem is how can I get people, audiences, to see the people around them in a different light, to see the connecting points in a different light? And so I wrote this program around purposeful empathy and I started pitching it to a bunch of different schools and conferences and a lot of people said, yes, I think there is a an inherent need, a desire to feel seen, and so when I was promoting this, this programming, I think that is what people really latched on to is that they wanted their audience to not just come there and like get some kind of rah-rah message, but to actually just feel seen as a human being, and so I started doing that in 2018. I've been doing it ever since.

Amy Schamberg: 3:26

Oh my gosh, that's incredible, and thank you so much for sharing that. It sounds like it's just like this wonderful evolution of something that you were interested in anyways, right? Theater and performance and this. You know what you're noticing. So for those that are listening who don't know what slam poetry is, can you describe that?

Andre Bradford: 3:46

Great question. So the way I typically describe it is slam poetry is kind of just like glorified storytelling. So slam poetry actually is a competition. There are these kind of parameters that you have to follow. So it's got to be less than three minutes. It's got to be an original work, so you can't like quote somebody else, like read somebody else's poem. There's no music, musical accompaniment, there's no costumes, it's literally just you, your voice and your story on a stage.

Andre Bradford: 4:10

And if you ask like 50 different slam poets what slam poetry means to them or what the art form is capable of, you're going to get 50 different answers. But for me, it is an avenue to tell your story in a creative way that gets people to see both you as an artist in a different light and also themselves in a different light. And so if you like Google Sam poetry, you're going to see a ton of YouTube videos that you'll kind of notice like there's like this power to this art form. There's a, there's a cadence to the way that we speak, there is an intentionality with the stories that we're telling and there's just this kind of command of story and voice that is utilized to help audiences really lean in and connect to the message.

Amy Schamberg: 4:47

Yeah, that's a much better description that I would have given To go to your website and watch Andre's clips. He's got a whole bunch of two to three minute clips on his site and it's just, it's really. It draws you in. It's like experiential, as the listener, I feel right, and there's this rhythmic, like you said, cadence to it. It's really. It draws you in. It's like experiential as the listener, I feel Right, it's, and there's this rhythmic, like you said, cadence to it. Yeah, I can't describe it, yeah it is.

Andre Bradford: 5:13

It's easier to watch and have it like experience than it is to describe what it is.

Amy Schamberg: 5:17

Yeah, absolutely OK. And so you said 2018 was kind of when you pivoted into this field of the programming and kind of going around and helping schools and universities and organizations through your work Right Understand empathy. So what? What is purposeful empathy? What does that mean?

Andre Bradford: 5:35

Yeah. So I think inherently as human beings we we understand empathy, we understand kind of a lot of the value of it. Empathy, we understand kind of like a lot of the value of it, this idea of seeing someone else's experience or hearing somebody else's story, and then also kind of trying to see how you would react if that had happened to you, or what your emotions would be if that situation was kind of reversed and you were the one sitting in that. But I think, while that is good and that is kind of like a natural inclination, there is something to be said about intentional empathy, this idea that we are creating space where the sole purpose is to try to understand the person across from you clearer, and for that that does require some kind of prerequisite.

Andre Bradford: 6:14

So I always say that there are two prerequisites to what I call purposeful empathy. The first is curiosity. You cannot show somebody empathy if you are not curious about their story. If you walk into a room and you say to yourself I already know everything there is to know about this person, I already know how they're going to react, what they need to do next, there's no curiosity there, there's no space for you to find your connecting points, and so genuine curiosity is one of the first prerequisites for purposeful empathy, and the other is vulnerability. Somebody has to be willing to share an aspect of their lived experience that is below the surface level, that's not immediately apparent, because that is when you start to find these really authentic connecting points and that's how you start to build authentic relationships. So what I think of as purposeful empathy is empathy that is very intentional, where you've created space for a conversation, where you're really just you're curious and you are willing to be vulnerable about your story so that you guys can find your connecting points.

Amy Schamberg: 7:08

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I think I think back to my work in schools as a school psychologist and just working with students and helping them understand. You know basic kindergarten, first grade level what is empathy? You know what does it mean to put yourself in someone else's shoes, what does it mean to just kind of see things from their perspective and also knowing that difference between empathy and sympathy. Right, we're not passing judgment, we're not talking about oh, I feel sorry for you, but, like you said, it's really getting curious about. Well, what would it be like if I was that person and I had that lived experience? And when I hear you say the prerequisites are curiosity and vulnerability, in my mind I start thinking well, what are the prerequisites for curiosity and vulnerability? Right, because there's got to be something before that too, because I think, especially with vulnerability, that's hard for a lot of us, for a lot of people, and that takes practice, right?

Amy Schamberg: 8:03

Yes, yes, it does of us for a lot of people, and that takes practice, right? Yes, yes, it does. Yeah, so I mean, what's your advice? How do people train themselves to be more curious and be more open to vulnerability so that they can?

Andre Bradford: 8:16

lead with purposeful empathy. So that's a great question, I think. For curiosity specifically, I think it requires a very like, a conscious understanding of your own biases. So every time a human being enters a room where there are other human beings, there is absolutely biases that you carry with you, that you there's some kind of assumption that you're going to make about the people around you and that's very evolutionary, like we were designed, like we've grown to do that as a, as a form of self preservation. We want to make sure that we are in a space where we understand where all the danger is, we understand where all the opportunity is and we're kind of like immediately looking for the things that are like and similar, so that we feel like we are in a safe space or we know that we are not in a safe space, which is a very natural thing. And I think where curiosity can be cultivated and developed is first acknowledging that.

Andre Bradford: 9:01

For yourself, when I go into a room, what are the biases that I carry with me? And if we're like trying to figure out where those biases come from, do they come from your culture, from your upbringing, from the media that you consume, and is that bias actually true, if you can ask yourself like a very simple question why am I judging this person this way? And is that judgment like based on a conversation that I've had with them? Is this something that I know to be true? Or is this something that I'm just like carrying with me into this room that I haven't challenged yet? And so I think curiosity, like one of the best ways to cultivate that, is just to kind of challenge your biases and just ask yourself do I have a bias about this kind of person, this kind of position, this kind of culture or group? And then examining where that came from the vulnerability part is so much more difficult because it does require courage. I don't know. I don't know anybody, or maybe very few people, that get up at the beginning of the day and they're like you know what? I'm going to tell my story and I'm not going to shy away from the ugly bits of it, I'm just going to be honest and completely open and transparent. I'm not going to like shy away from the ugly bits of it, I'm just going to be honest and completely open and transparent. I think naturally that gets like ground out of us at a pretty early age by bullying, by someone making a snide comment to the side, you're like, okay, well, I'll never say that about myself again or I'll never tell anybody else this part of my story again. And so vulnerability for me, one of the things that has made it easier is watching other people do it first.

Andre Bradford: 10:23

I think a big part of my story in this work with slam poetry is that when I started going to slams, I just sat in that audience.

Andre Bradford: 10:31

I was there for six months watching other people be courageous, be vulnerable, be authentic, and that had such a profound effect on me that it gave me the courage to actually start to show some vulnerability as well. When I first started writing slam poems, it was all metaphor. I was trying to be very clever. I didn't want to be open and acknowledge, like some of the heavy things that I was going through, so I wrote around those things and it wasn't until I really started to be vulnerable and honest that I actually started to develop authentic connections with my audience and to have really meaningful conversations with them afterwards. And so a lot of vulnerability for me is watching people do it first, finding the people in your life that you admire their vulnerability, you admire their courage, and finding little ways to emulate that. But then also you're not required to go into a conference room or to a classroom and just lead with all of your mess.

Amy Schamberg: 11:22

That's not a healthy vulnerability.

Andre Bradford: 11:25

There are definitely healthier ways to approach vulnerability, like finding people that you do feel safe being vulnerable with is huge.

Andre Bradford: 11:32

That's why community is so valuable and important, because they give you the space to be authentically you, and so finding a community is an important part of vulnerability.

Andre Bradford: 11:40

But I also think that, like, as human beings, we are wired for community.

Andre Bradford: 11:43

We are wired for connectivity.

Andre Bradford: 11:44

We're wired for connectivity, and vulnerability is one of the most powerful ways to do that.

Andre Bradford: 11:49

And so, when you find yourself being afraid of vulnerability, check in with yourself on like times that you've been vulnerable, that you got burned in the past, and allowing yourself to heal from that, and then challenging yourself to find little moments where you can be just just a little bit more vulnerable. If you're gonna, if someone's asking you how your day is going, a simple way to challenge yourself with more vulnerability is to just, in addition to saying fine, adding one little comment that kind of goes a little bit beyond fine, you know, like I'm good, this has been going well for me lately, like I've got more sleep last night than I have in the whole week, and so I'm good today. Or, you know, if you are going to say you know not great like give a little bit of a reason for like why that is. You know, my kids are just getting on my nerves today and I'm just like I'm checking in with like lower energy today, whatever it is that just like that little bit of practice gets you more reps in for more vulnerability later.

Amy Schamberg: 12:38

Yeah, and I love what you just said about practicing vulnerability with something positive, right, because?

Andre Bradford: 12:49

I think a lot of times.

Amy Schamberg: 12:49

We think about vulnerability and that's like you know, airing out our dirty laundry or talking about all of our mistakes and certainly you know, admitting a mistake is part of being vulnerable. But when we haven't done that at all and we're just starting out, like you said, just share something good, because sharing just the act of sharing something, your lived experience with others makes you a little bit vulnerable. Right, it's easier to keep up. So I love that. And then I was also thinking as I was listening to you talk. I would imagine that practicing vulnerability is really hard for perfectionists. What are your thoughts on that?

Andre Bradford: 13:28

Well, as a recovering perfectionist, I can a thousand percent agree. Yeah, yeah, there's this for me. I can't speak for everyone, but for me there is this idea of like, the perfect response. There's like the I like.

Andre Bradford: 13:41

Well, we'll do the very human thing of like if I go into a conversation with someone, I leave that conversation, I'll replay that conversation to myself and be like why did I say that thing? Or like this is how I should have answered that. This was the more clever response. And I think that can also trickle into our ideas of vulnerability. And one of the ways that I've kind of deconstructed that and broken that down are the times where I was either unintentionally vulnerable or I was sharing a vulnerable piece on the stage that I kind of messed up on and I like the response that I got was so much more than if I'd done the piece perfectly, because there's something very human about not having it all figured out, not being perfect, because perfection is an illusion.

Andre Bradford: 14:20

So for me it has been like trying to release this idea of the perfect thing to say or the perfect response, because that doesn't exist, and allowing yourself to just be you.

Andre Bradford: 14:31

I think the more authentically you you can be in a situation or a conversation that maybe is the perfect response, because then that person gets to understand you versus this version of you that you think that they want. So there's all of these like little nuances in our conversations where we're trying to present the best version of ourself, but a lot of times the best version of ourself is the messy version. It is the one that's like throwing out a lot of ums or kind of rehashing old stories that we've already told. But that's a part of what makes us us. And so allowing ourselves the permission to be like messy in our vulnerability, to not be perfect in our vulnerability, and know that our vulnerability is going to take practice and so the reason that we practice is because we're not excellent at something and so allowing ourselves the grace that practice in our vulnerability is going to be required so that it becomes more natural for us.

Amy Schamberg: 15:21

Yeah, I hear so much in what you're sharing. I hear, like practicing mindfulness and being present and using self-compassion and communication skills too, where it's like, okay, get out of my head and stop thinking about what I want to tell you and let me just listen to what you're telling me right now. And right, I think that's a huge part of it too. And I really resonated with what you said about when you were first on stage and you were kind of going over a script that was vulnerable but maybe not an actual experience being shared.

Amy Schamberg: 15:57

When I first started doing my wellness workshops and stress management trainings, I was very I wouldn't describe myself as this way back then. But looking back, I think I was very clinical. I was just giving you know here's the data, here's the research, here's what you can do, and that kind of landed ish. But at some point I switched and I just led with a story about my own burnout and you know how that really impacted me and how I had to take a leave of absence from work and I talked about how the alarm would go off in the morning and I would just calculate the number of hours until I could go back to bed at night. And you know that's being really vulnerable, but I decided I just got to put this out there and I cannot even tell you the incredible shift that occurred when I spent five minutes at the start of a 90-minute presentation talking about my own experience.

Andre Bradford: 16:48

Yes.

Amy Schamberg: 16:48

You know right, because people I mean their eyes get a little big like, oh my gosh, is this lady really telling me this? But then you see the heads nodding and it just sets the tone that this is a safe place. We're not going to judge each other. We've all been through some stuff in our lives and also me standing up here is showing you that things can and will get better. So let's talk through that, you know, together for this next bit of time.

Andre Bradford: 17:14

Yes.

Amy Schamberg: 17:14

Yeah.

Andre Bradford: 17:16

I love that I have a very similar approach to any time that I touch the stage, because I want you to see me as not someone getting up here having all the answers. I want you to see me as a human being that is still navigating some of the things that we're going to talk about today, but it may be coming at it from a place of maybe like 10% ahead of where you are, but that is still very like approachable, reachable, human and relatable. And I love that you do that, because it is so like if I'm sitting in an audience, the last thing I want is someone to come in and be like all right, everybody here's who I am and here's what's important. I want to know that you care about me and you see me as a human being and like one of the best ways to do that is just to be a human being on the stage first.

Amy Schamberg: 17:55

Absolutely Well said. And it doesn't matter how many letters a person has after their name, right, like I want to know that you have empathy for where I am right now. Right, if we're going to talk about all of this, we need to have that shared experience, yeah, and then Going back to curiosity, I think that that takes a lot of work too, and I think that it takes us. For myself, anyways, being intentional about examining the stories that are going through my mind when I walk in a room, I think we I often have assumptions that this person is thinking this, or this person is thinking that, or you know, it's just we have to get curious about the thoughts that we're having in order to kind of be curious about how someone else is experiencing a situation. Like, I have to examine myself before I can examine what it might be like to be you, right?

Andre Bradford: 18:55

Yeah.

Amy Schamberg: 18:56

Yeah, yeah, so okay. So let's, this is great. I want to dive in, though, to some of the systemic challenges. So you've, you know you've been all over the country. You've been doing this work for seven years, is that right? Seven or eight. So you've had, I'm sure, many, many conversations with, you know, leaders and employees and students. So what do you see are some of the biggest systemic challenges that are contributing to things like chronic stress and burnout in organizations and education, or corporate organizations. You know what are some things that you're noticing?

Andre Bradford: 19:32

So one of the first things that I noticed when I started doing this work I was primarily speaking at like private middle schools and high schools and those schools and for good reason, they have these kind of like expectations.

Andre Bradford: 19:45

You, you send your student there. The kind of like unspoken goal or sometimes very like vocally spoken goal is that your student is going to go to a very well-known university. That's kind of like the idea behind a lot of the private school, like roadmap, and so when I was going to these schools and having these conversations with students, a lot of them, either vocally or not, like not saying specifically, would just talk about the pressure. There is just this huge amount of stress and pressure put on them, put on the faculty, to make sure that they get into a good school. And while that's beautiful and very motivating for some students, for other students who are maybe more artistically inclined, who maybe don't think the same way that everybody else thinks, that is an oppressive wall that they have to navigate day in and day out. And it's not just them. Even the students that do kind of really lean into their academics or they're leaning into the challenge of a sports like trying to go for a sports, scholarship. They feel that pressure and so one of the surprises to me was I was going there.

Andre Bradford: 20:53

I had all these poems around my experiences growing up mixed race around like kindness and mental health awareness, and a lot of times what the students would come up and talk to me about is their the pressure that they feel, both from their parents, from their, their, their teachers, their mentors to excel, to be excellent and like everything that they do and like. As someone who also went to like I was a part of my gift the gifted and talented program. Growing up in like elementary school I was an IB candidate. I like completely related to that. That wasn't the message that I was going there to bring them, but by talking about my own experiences and leading with this idea of empathy, I kind of helped create this space for honesty.

Andre Bradford: 21:33

And the number one thing, like the consistent things that I would hear about, are the stress of our current education curriculum and system that very much prioritizes the result of getting into a good school and the lack of, in a lot of spaces, resources to help them manage their wellness and their mental health. So those are kind of like the two big themes that I would see over and over again, regardless of like where I was in the country, those two things I could almost count on to be common, like stressors and issues for students and for faculty, because they also have that pressure to you know, like we have all these schools listed on our webpage of all the places that our students go and we kind of have to keep up that legacy and that is difficult.

Amy Schamberg: 22:14

Absolutely so, like these incredible demands that we place on these students, and it's like a focus, like you said, on the outcome, not the process. There's no learning for learning sake, it's you're learning, so you get an A in this AP class.

Andre Bradford: 22:28

Exactly.

Amy Schamberg: 22:29

And have a better chance to get into this college. Yeah, so, and I would imagine, too, that the educators are feeling that same pressure, because they are tasked with making sure that these students, you know, pass the AP bio test so that they can get into the Ivy League school or whatever it is. Yes, yeah, yeah. So, oh, pressure that's so big. I mean, that's just a cultural piece, right? Is that something that you're noticing across the country, from coast to coast? Are you noticing it more in certain areas of the US?

Andre Bradford: 23:03

I think it is like pretty systemic across the board. But I will say what has been very encouraging is, over the last seven years, seeing how many more positions have opened up both for wellness and for counseling. I do think that schools are really noticing that students, and not just like faculty students, are also kind of struggling with burnout and their response to that has been very encouraging, either with helping create student groups for like advocacy for wellness and mental health or just making sure that they have enough counselors and mental health practitioners on campus readily available for these students to go and actually just like vent and to get these tools that can help better navigate some of that stress. That has been super encouraging and that's like across the board as well. So there's a ton of stress out there and a lot of pressure put both on the faculty and the students, but there are also these really innovative ideas and how to get these issues, if not resolved, definitely lessened and more manageable.

Amy Schamberg: 24:00

Yeah, absolutely. I mean just the lessening the stigma around mental health struggles is huge, Right, and I think back to when I was in school a million years ago. Nobody was talking about, you know, anxiety or depression, right.

Amy Schamberg: 24:15

Yeah, they spoke about it and for those of us who were experiencing that, it felt really isolating and shameful. So I am thankful to see that pendulum switch and you know it's talked about. There are more resources. Of course, it depends on what school you're at and you know funding and all of that. But I think that there are so many puzzle pieces and I do believe that personal resilience is a piece of it. Right, and we have to teach them how to manage their stress.

Amy Schamberg: 24:45

And you know, scrolling on TikTok and doom scrolling for five hours after school is not going to erase the problem. Are there other like I don't know, like I think about? How could one building? So let's say there was a particular school that was very high achieving, maybe it's a gifted and talented school and the learners, the students, are very invested in their learning and they do want to go on to a good school afterwards, but the pressure is just really really impacting their daily functioning. Even with the addition of stress management tools and counselors and that sort of thing, what else could we do to alleviate the pressure Like 2%?

Andre Bradford: 25:30

Oh, great question. So something I talk about in my programming are like these two teachers that I had growing up. That had a pretty profound effect on me and just getting me to shift my ideas of like what education could be. And the first one was my sixth grade English teacher, mr Lackey, who just like would start the day asking us like we would listen to like little tidbits of the news, and then he would ask us sixth graders, who have no worldly knowledge, what we thought about those things. And it created this, this unconscious space where we were allowed to talk about life. We didn't just go into the classroom to learn, it was kind of a given, a take of conversations where we were both vocalizing things that we thought and like receiving information as well. And that was a really powerful shift where I went from just like basically kind of like a human version of a download stick, where I was just like soaking in information, to like actually being a collaborator in information, and so that kind of planted a seed that eventually got watered and grown by my theory of knowledge.

Andre Bradford: 26:31

Teacher my junior and senior year in high school, mr Wood, and that class to this day that is one of my favorite classes for a million different reasons, but the main reason was that the idea of that class is to learn how we know what we know, and one of the best ways to teach that is to, as the instructor, become one of the students and you all discuss and ideate about this topic or idea.

Andre Bradford: 26:57

And so we would have these classrooms these days where we're all given the same bit of information and you would get to see and hear that your peers could get to different conclusions even though we all have the same piece of information, based on their own lived experiences.

Andre Bradford: 27:12

And we got to argue with our teacher about why we thought what we thought or why we believe what we believed, and that just created the space of conversation and like interconnectedness.

Andre Bradford: 27:24

And so I think like one of the easiest ways to move the needle that 2% is to kind of shift the dynamic of like students being walking, talking, download sticks to being collaborators in information and really being curious about their takes on, like the lesson plan, the curriculum of that day, what they took away, why they took away those bits of information where their story, their culture played a role and how they got that information, and those little bits of like conversation and and community dialogue really go a long way in allowing, eventually, those same students to be open about other aspects of their lives.

Andre Bradford: 28:02

So we're not just talking about school and class and curriculum. We're also being open about culture. We're also being open about language. We're being open about relationships, friendship, loneliness. Those little seeds are what eventually get us to a space where students can download themselves the information or the things that they are going through and help alleviate just 2% of that pressure. You know, if they just feel like their voice is being listened to and heard, that goes such a long way and allowing them to feel more capable of handling, like, the load that is on top of their shoulders.

Amy Schamberg: 28:36

Absolutely. And first I have to say I love that you still remember your sixth grade.

Andre Bradford: 28:41

Profound effect on me. Yeah, I love that guy.

Amy Schamberg: 28:43

Yes, and that's so profound, making education meaningful for kids, right? And it's not. The meaning is not to get an A. The meaning is what you just described and in the process of having those conversations, you're developing connection. You're creating, I would assume, a culture of belonging in the school, like you're contributing to, the school culture being one where we care about each other, we collaborate with each other, we have empathy and that sort of thing. How many students were in your middle school and high school?

Andre Bradford: 29:19

Oh gosh so many you know high school I know was 4000. Like my graduating class was 600 students and that was a long graduation ceremony. And I want to say our middle school, at least where I grew up in Texas, we were only seventh and eighth grade, not sixth, seventh and eighth. And I want to say our middle school, at least where I grew up in Texas, we were only seventh and eighth grade, not sixth, seventh and eighth. And I want to say we were somewhere around 2000 students.

Amy Schamberg: 29:41

Whoa, those are huge schools.

Andre Bradford: 29:43

Yeah, yeah, but that's all like also all I knew. I didn't know that there were schools that were smaller than this, and so it didn't seem weird at the time. But looking back on it, my classes were, on average, between like 30 to 40 students in a classroom, and for a teacher like that's got to feel so difficult to to create an intimate relationship, a one on one relationship, with every single one of those students, and so the challenge is immense. Like the resources are very limited, including time very limited. You have, including time, and you have these students who, because of the nature of like the numbers game, already don't feel like they, they have, they, they're very close to that, that instructor, that teacher, because there are so many people that that instructor and teacher has to educate, and so it doesn't feel very like education doesn't feel very specific to them. It didn't feel very specific to me. It felt like I was kind of like one of the one of the cogs in the machine that hopefully will eventually transition into a new machine called college.

Amy Schamberg: 30:40

Do you feel like your theory of knowledge? Teacher was very unique in his way of teaching you all Like. Was that not the experience you had with the rest of your high school teachers?

Andre Bradford: 30:52

I want to say that that was definitely just a Mr Wood-ism Like he was. He was already I had him for English my freshman or sophomore year, one of those and so I'd already appreciated his teaching style. But when he taught theory of knowledge, it was very much an evolution of just how Mr Wood would teach. It was very much a collaboration process. He taught with curiosity. I think that was one of the things that stuck with me the most is he got to know us on an individual level and he really cared about like what we thought about a topic and he would write in the margins of our grades. You know, like this is an interesting take. Come talk to me after class about why you got this take, because I'm really curious about it and just like little things like that really made me feel less like a cog and more like a student. That is like in collaboration in community with a mentor, and that was just that. That changed everything for me.

Amy Schamberg: 31:42

Yeah, a person first. Have you connected with these teachers Like in your adulthood?

Andre Bradford: 31:52

That is a great question. So I actually I was, I was doing a conference. I was speaking at a conference I think it was the Texas Association of Gifted and Talented and I talked about my experience with Mr Lackey, and his daughter, who is nowa teacher, was in that audience. So I didn't get to talk to Mr Lackey directly, but she had madea post about that, that being basically her dad that I was talking about, which is really cool.

Amy Schamberg: 32:11

And sorry was that a coincidence that she just happened?

Andre Bradford: 32:14

Yeah, 100% coincidence. I had no idea that she was there.

Amy Schamberg: 32:17

Oh my gosh, I love that.

Andre Bradford: 32:19

Yeah, so she got. She was like I think he's talking about my dad which was so cool.

Amy Schamberg: 32:23

Oh my gosh, Andre, that's amazing. That is really cool.

Andre Bradford: 32:26

Yeah, and like another wonderful, beautiful, serendipitous moment, I was speaking at the People of Color Conference and I had like the earliest slot. I was at an 8 am session and I got in late, so I didn't really get to do any kind of like networking to get people excited about the session. So I'm showing up there it's like 730 and there's nobody in my session and I'm like, ok, cool, so this is going to be a very lonely practice of my programming and so I'm going out, I'm putting out signs and I come back in the room and there's one guy sitting at the very front row and I'm like, ok, I'm going to go tell this guy that we're going to get started pretty soon.

Andre Bradford: 33:05

I'm going to wait for more people to get here and I go up to him and it's my theory of knowledge teacher, mr Wood, oh my God. And he was like I saw your name and I had to come and see your presentation and like it was crazy because as soon as he said that, a flood of people came into the room, like the room eventually was packed Easily one of my favorite performances I've ever done. And he also teaches at another school in the Dallas, like Fort Worth, area that he's helped bring me to, to, to, to to present for his students, which is really cool.

Amy Schamberg: 33:29

Oh my gosh, that is serendipitous and that gave me goosebumps.

Andre Bradford: 33:32

You just said that I was about to start crying. I was like there's no way that you're here right now.

Amy Schamberg: 33:37

Oh my gosh. That is incredible, and I think it's a sign from the universe that this is what you're meant to be doing right.

Andre Bradford: 33:43

I think so too.

Amy Schamberg: 33:44

Yeah, oh my gosh, okay, okay. So let's shift to. You know, purposeful empathy and leadership. You know how can leaders? You know, let's say that they have. They've been working on their curiosity, they've been working on their vulnerability. How do you see a leader in a school, an administrator, a principal, for example? How do you see them using purposeful empathy in a way that changes the culture of the school with the staff members? Right, that lessens the pressure a little bit for the staff.

Andre Bradford: 34:20

Yes, I love this question. So this actually was not my idea. I'm totally blanking on where I got this idea from, but it was the idea of celebrating, celebrating empathy. So the same way that we kind of we give critiques on like student or a professor, leadership, professor outcomes, putting empathy on that same kind of like tier list. So if we're going to grade performance, you're doing a performance review.

Andre Bradford: 34:47

If we're going to grade a performance of a teacher on their effectiveness in the classroom, on their grades in the classroom, putting empathy in that list is a powerful way to let the school know that this is something we prioritize, let the faculty know that this is something that we want to see.

Andre Bradford: 35:01

We want you in your classrooms leading with this thing. And the metrics can look totally different and I think we'll probably be specific to that community, but just having that as a as a part of that review process does really powerfully communicate that this is something that the school takes very seriously. This is something that the school celebrates, and so that will also trickle into the classrooms that the teachers then are not just grading on how effective a student is at memorization, on how effective a student is at memorization, but they're also grading on how much of a student is contributing to their community in the classroom, contributing to the discussion, being honest with their takes from that day's lesson. That will also eventually, over time, really start to change the culture of that school from one of producing a memorization robot to one of like student learners, like human learners that then can hopefully go out and continue that transition in the new spaces that they find themselves in.

Amy Schamberg: 35:57

Yeah, and, like I imagine that would be a really beautiful feedback loop too. So when that's trickling down to the students and they're, you know, feeling more invested in their learning, that's rewarding to the teacher, right, because no one wants to teach a bunch of students who could care less about the subject or aren't doing their homework. But when you kind of have that positive feedback loop, I think it's a win-win. So okay. So I heard you say modeling it. So leadership is modeling it, prioritizing it, just making it a standard part of the school. That empathy is part of our policy, really right, it's part of our policy. And then it's always on people's minds because we know that we're going to be I guess, quote unquote graded on our empathy and it's increasing the emotional intelligence across the board. I think that's a beautiful, beautiful way to really kind of help others understand that we don't have to just be in this slog of working and learning and whatever.

Amy Schamberg: 36:57

it is right If you're your org administrator or a student. We can find meaning in what we're doing, and I think that that's a big puzzle piece. That's missing, I think, in a lot of places is just that connection, that meaning that that's bigger than what's on the surface.

Andre Bradford: 37:14

Exactly, and I wish the schools that I was a part of growing up had prioritized this more, because I don't remember specific lesson plans, I don't remember certain ways, like certain equations I'd like have completely forgotten at this point in my life, but I remember a time where I like I think there was a student who forgot their lunch and I shared my lunch and a teacher noticed that and came up to me and just told me that they appreciated that I did that.

Andre Bradford: 37:38

I remember that moment. I think as human beings we remember feeling seen, feeling appreciated, the times that we showed up for other people and having that be seen and celebrated. We remember those moments and they become powerful like re motivators, reminders that this is important, that this, like this, this, this thing that we do with other people, this communication, this connection is vitally important and if we start to prioritize that as much as we prioritize getting a good grade or getting into a good school, we will start to see a shift in in like loneliness going down and our ability to actually have real conversations around mental health, in kindness. You know we'll start seeing a lot more acts of kindness if we start celebrating those things on our campuses 100 percent.

Amy Schamberg: 38:20

Yeah, mic drop right there. So, ok, one of my final questions how do you stay? You know, how do you personally stay grounded and well and resilient in this work? Right, because you're super busy, you're traveling the country, you're talking to folks all the time. How do you take care of?

Andre Bradford: 38:40

yourself. Um, this year has been actually very difficult just in terms of there's been a lot of travel. I've had a lot of flights get delayed or canceled, there's been a lot of moving parts this year and it just has taken a huge mental toll on me. And so one of the things that I've started to incorporate in just like my process for a presentation or performance is to find time to get into nature wherever I go. So I'm now flying into a place hours earlier than I normally would specifically, so I have that time. I'll go to a park, I'll find some kind of body of water if that's available to me, and I will use that as a space to center. And I will use that also as a space to reconnect with the reason for why I'm there, for the mission behind a lot of my programming, and to remind myself because I do need this reminder.

Andre Bradford: 39:30

It's not about me. It is so, so difficult as a speaker, as a human being, to put yourself out there and get rejected. I've had so many performances where there's just someone in the audience that's not paying attention. They're on their phone. I've had people be like just passed out, just getting the best sleep of their life in a presentation and just like reminding myself that this is ultimately not about me.

Andre Bradford: 39:52

This is something that I passionately believe in. I want to see a world where more people, especially leaders, lead with more empathy, lead with more purposeful empathy, and my way to help inspire that and do that is through poetry, is through poetry and story and these data points that really point to what our world can look like without empathy and the benefits of what practicing more purposeful empathy can do, can produce, and so for me, it is having that time to remind myself of all of that and just to be centered, to be quiet in my mind, to get these self-doubt. I struggle, like many entrepreneurs with imposter syndrome, just like tons of it, and so giving myself that space to really kind of center and to remind myself of the importance of this work does really help me to re-energize. There is something called empathy fatigue, and if you're an empath, you've absolutely experienced it. So there's a need to refill that cup, and this is one of the ways that I personally can do that for myself.

Amy Schamberg: 40:50

I love that. Get out into nature, remember your. Why? Give yourself the time to put some space between getting off the plane and getting on the stage?

Andre Bradford: 40:59

Exactly, and it's just. It's also a great time to remind myself of the conversations that I've been able to have with the people that have really received a lot from the presentation. I've had so many wonderful conversations with people that I did not think I had anything in common with, and that is beautiful. I love helping to create spaces where people who across the room, initially, when they see each other, wouldn't think that they have a lot in common with that person, and then, through our stories, finding those connecting points and then really like strength, strengthening them and investing in them. I think that's such a beautiful thing that we need more of today.

Amy Schamberg: 41:31

Yeah, you're a connector, right you? Yeah you model vulnerability, you you teach empathy and ultimately, you're connecting others with each other or even outside of the venue, right it's? People leave that experience with something that they didn't have before. So I encourage everybody to get on your website and take a look, take a listen. Where can people find you?

Andre Bradford: 41:55

Yeah, so my website is scsayspoetrycom. There's a lot of poetry videos on there. There's also ways to get in contact with me on the website. There's also an online course. So if you are in a classroom and you're trying to implement more empathy in your classroom, I do have a couple of videos on how to better do that. They're very short and digestible. Those are on my website as well. And then also I post a lot of what I'm doing on LinkedIn these days, and so if you are curious about if I'm coming to your area or anything, I post a lot of that information on LinkedIn and you can find that at SC Says, as he says, Amazing.

Amy Schamberg: 42:26

Where are you traveling to this summer?

Andre Bradford: 42:29

I'm going to Michigan, thankfully, so I will get out of this heat box that is Texas and we'll get to experience a Michigan summer for the first time, which I'm really excited about. I'll be doing an artist and residency program out there.

Amy Schamberg: 42:41

Very cool, very cool. Well, thank you so much, andre. This was such a powerful conversation, lots to think about. I'm so grateful for your insights and your time. This has been great.

Andre Bradford: 42:52

I mean, I've had so much fun. Thank you so much for having me.

Amy Schamberg: 42:55

My pleasure, see you next time.

Andre Bradford: 42:57

All right.

Amy Schamberg: 43:00

Okay, bye.