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Let’s do this! 🇺🇸 The Democrats appear to have won both Senate runoffs in Georgia last night, giving them control of the Senate. Chuck Schumer will be in charge, for the first time. Kamala Harris is the tie breaker. (Slide 👉👉👉 for cool 😎 pix.) I met with both offices to advocate for our kids’ education. Our future. 💪🧠

Hope and possibility. 🤞

“Here in the United States, we don’t have to determine our path when we’re children, unlike in so many other countries where kids have to decide on a math/science or humanities track before high school. We can take our time and figure out who we are. We might decide to become a chef or a contestant on The Bachelor, or pursue a patent for a lifesaving medical invention, or become a conceptual artist using empty tomato cans, or even run for president. We can be innovative and creative. And the icing on the cake? Without investing in thousands of hours of schooling, we speak English, the most commonly spoken language in the world." 🌎World Class, page 219 📚 ...

Truly a fun 🤩 and informative listen with two fabulous ladies from Across the Pond. 🇬🇧 Parenting mishaps, laughs, stories. We all have them. 😂 Tips on what we can do as parents and teachers and as role models to empower 💪ourselves and our children. We discuss what I learned during my decade in Asia 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇭🇰 and then in the US 🇺🇸, sharing the best of education and parenting philosophies and how to implement them in homes and schools around the globe.

Available on @spotify ✅ Link in bio.

“Teru spent 10 years investigating and studying the public education systems in Asia and continued her research across the publicly funded American school systems. Her book presents the perfect balance of anecdote, reflection and hard research. It is of no surprise, that she also experienced shifts in her philosophies in how she parented her three children.”

Thank you, @mumbleforum! ♥️ ...

Does anyone feel like they want some quiet (and peace) right now? I just want all the noise to stop.

I'm going to say something controversial here -- forgive me if I offend. But I love and miss the quiet of Japan. Little yelling, minimal if any chaos, order and respect. China was wild -- like you didn't know what to expect at any moment except everyone was grinding and thirsty with ambition from kids in school to the bodega attendant to the entrepreneur. In both places, there seemed to be a unified purpose or at least a larger-than-oneself goal. Today, here in the US, I feel tired of all the noise. People often talking just to be heard. With so much competition and fleeting resources and solutions, I get it. But, I'm exhausted by it.

I look out my window (👉) -- somewhat of a Hitchcockian Rear Window situation -- and I love the voyeurism. SO much life, but I observe it in silence. Some TV's are so large I can read the tickers. There is a football game on another. On Christmas Eve, I saw immediate families gathering for meals and then playing games like pictionary. There is one man who lifts weights by his Christmas tree. One teen records tiktok dances regularly. Many neighbors have moved out and new ones move in. I live above a firehouse, so this silence is usually only broken by intermittent sounds of sirens. I kinda think we all watch each other. And offer comfort. We do all have shades, afterall.

The quote here is about one of my closest friends in Shanghai. She called me "sister." We are both only children -- she out of policy and me out of family circumstance. I called her "Little Buddha." She spoke in a whisper, and everything she said felt wise. She rescued me during many of my hard times while we lived there. I learned so much from her.

This feels like a long journal entry, but I share with you because I don't think I'm alone. I think a lot of us are tired of the noise and seek some silence, especially on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. ...

What can parents do to support their kids’ education, especially this year? Blackstone invited me to speak with hundreds of their executives globally to discuss the specifics.

I wrote WORLD CLASS because I found that parents in nations with thriving school systems were crystal clear on this. In the US, not so much.

The 6 questions I answered during this Blackstone speaking engagement:
✏️Tell us more about your background and personal story. What gave rise to writing WORLD CLASS?
📚 Talk a bit about your and your children’s experiences in HK, Shanghai and Tokyo? You sent them to bare bones schools without flushing toilets and nicknamed “The Prison”. What were some of the most significant differences you experienced between the educational experience of your children there vs in the US? Are the legends around “tiger moms” true?
🖍 In WORLD CLASS, you write about “systemic failures” in our education system. Can you share with us what you mean by that? What are the problems you see in today’s education system in the US?
🇺🇸 OK, so to be fair, we do live in the world’s most productive society despite not having a perfect education system. What were some of the aspects of education here that are missing in Asia? Does the Asian approach in any way stifle free, creative thought and risk-taking?
🏫 Here we are in 2020 in the midst of a global pandemic, and many of our children are schooling virtually whereas so many other nations have been able to open schools. What are your thoughts on that and advice you may have for parents managing this challenging time?
⏰Looking ahead beyond the immediate COVID crisis, what advice do you have for parents generally? You write about the importance of parental involvement and advocacy. For working parents who may not have time to micromanage their children’s education, what are your thoughts on where parents like us can best focus our time?

You can invite me to your corporate special interest groups, clubs, schools, book clubs, and organizations for similar talks — I promise 💪you’ll leave feeling empowered, educated, refreshed. ☺️ ...

Who's the boss of our education system? 💪 In the US, it's the tail wagging the dog. 🐕 Nations with thriving schools put their schools in a bubble 💭: funding isn't reduced during economic downturns, all kids are educated equitably, kids are prioritized with wrap around support services that begin from birth, and educators are involved at every level of policy-making.

Now on the table, with the US government 🇺🇸 and 48 attorneys general filing antitrust lawsuits ⚖️ against Facebook, who owns all the data on our kids? Is it public or private? If private, is it theirs or ours? With our kids tied to tech📱this year (remote schooling, Instagram, TikTok, Snap, YouTube, Discord, gaming...), shouldn’t we, parents and teachers, know what they know about our children and what and how they are learning 📚 ?

It's a long slog. Using antitrust law to secure consumer privacy that Congress has so far neglected will require multi-stakeholder efforts at all levels of government 🏛 and greater society. For World Class research, I spent a week in DC trying to get some inside scoop, but big tech is all over lobbying efforts and underwriting political campaigns. Black box.

"Often corporate profits 💰 seem to be more important than our social responsibility to protect and nurture our most vulnerable yet invaluable asset: our children." (World Class, page 207)

I hold these companies accountable.

What do you think? 🤔

(Above is the title of chapter 12 of World Class. The chapter is 16 pages that I dedicated to discussing who makes the decisions in our schools from an internationally competitive angle. The first page of the chapter here 👉.) ...

What keeps your where you are? I had this odd realization that it wasn’t just the art and culture of NYC but this particular museum, The Met. 🎨 It was a place I never appreciated (#shame) growing up — I have to make up for years of having ignored it in my backyard. I find myself there — even clearing my head way past visiting hours during early morning and late evening walks — when I feel depleted and need comfort.

I take my kids there as often as I can. These photos are from yesterday. My daughter made me promise that I wouldn’t read every placard before we went 😂. (She remembers when we went to the @Newseum in DC, and I spent many hours in a single room reading every article in every drawer. 😅)

These photos are from yesterday at the About Time exhibit #mustgo. For anyone who may not know, I love fashion — can usually name any designer’s work. And, in a former life (BC: Before Children), I was an interior designer and hosted a show for HGTV while running a residential design firm. Not a surprise that in my current creative project, one of my characters is a half-Japanese designer.

This year especially, The Met has been my antidote. ...

Shop for a good cause ... our kids! (Swipe 👉, watch video 👀 and read👇.)

Gift WORLD CLASS to parents, your teachers and anyone who cares about kids. And, especially more meaningful now, you’ll go on a voyeuristic journey around the world with laughs, tears and knowledge about what’s working in education and parenting that will definitely set you up to prepare your kids for their future.

Want to know what to do — how to educate and parent our kids this year? It’s all in here.

Watch the video (one swipe👉) and catch some awesome endorsements (second slide👉👉).

Link to purchase is in bio and available on Amazon and independent booksellers everywhere. 😊 #worldclassbook ...

I love overcast days like this. Do you? (Please read below 😊)

Today in NYC reminds me of how Shanghai felt daily — maybe overcast but mostly pollution from the daily grind and determination to leave behind decades of poverty. You could taste the sweat. It was both intimidating and invigorating.

So here is a photo from Shanghai from 2010. Then slide 👉 for a photo from an hour ago in NYC. Greenwich Village. Not so different. We experience the same world and all its issues and glories but from halfway around the world. 🌏

I believe that this very world hands us the tough experiences we need to set us straight. The bigger the hurdle, the greater the humbling and learning. 💫

So, in the same vein, I share some words from World Class — when the Shanghai pictured above handed me my greatest and necessary humbling when I arrived in 2010. Then, in 2012, when we had to leave, I didn’t want to. (Photos after the first two are of the previously communist officer occupied tenement lane where I lived.)

In 2010: “Here, I felt completely helpless. It was another necessary humbling—an undoing of years of unappreciated privilege.” (pg 47)

In 2012: “We were packed up and gone in four weeks. I bawled my eyes out on the way to the airport in Shanghai. I hid my heavy breath and tears
from my children, staring out at the dilapidated homes under the expressway, deeply inhaling the smog that had once been my undoing. (pg 114)

That said, the sun does always seem to find its way out. 🌞

#worldclassbook ...

This morning's speaking engagement to 3,000+ JPMorgan Chase employees globally. 🌎 Topic: Setting Your Children up for Educational Success during COVID-19 with Teru Clavel. (Thank you for having hosted me, @JPMC!)

I discovered my various "looks” that I’ve posted here. From pleased, giggly, serious, to "huh?..." I've been told I'd be a terrible poker player. 😅 Most certainly.

Now onto the questions I answered:

1. Given the current environment, can you talk about the importance of parents and caregivers’ roles and behavior and what impact they have on children?
2. In your book WORLD CLASS, you talk about conducting a needs assessment or family audit and how to create a multi-layered, family-specific action plan. Can you talk a little about the purpose of that and how you go about doing that?
3. I know that parents and caregivers are especially challenged right now. In that light, what are some things that parents and caregivers can do at home to help support their child’s learning?
4. Due to current schooling, kids are spending a lot of time online. What do you recommend to parents and caregivers about spending time online vs offline? Are there any online resources that you would recommend? Any tips?
5. This is no doubt a challenging time – as parents and caregivers need to get work done, and children may be learning in a different way. What would you say to parents and caregivers who are beating themselves up over the fact that their kids may be falling behind, or that they are losing the online battle?
6. How can parents and caregivers establish a good partnership with their childrens’ teachers and schools? What influence does their involvement have on our kids’ academic outcomes and emotional wellbeing?

So, if you would like to know answers to any or all of the above questions:
⭐️Send me a message and invite me to your schools, PTAs, teacher groups, parent groups, office gatherings, and BOOK GROUPS ♥️ ! My paperback has a reading guide. 📚
⭐️Read WORLD CLASS

And, I do this all to empower parents 💪 and to make a positive difference.💫 So, please share my Instagram account and please help grow my following.

Thank you! 😊

#worldclassbook ...