"And if you're a teen out there right now, I want you to stop bowing down to political correctness. You do not have to worship everybody else's emotions. You can stand up and speak up for yourself even if what you have to say is not popular."  - Fatima Bey

Welcome to Mindshift Power podcast, a show for teenagers and the adults who work with them, where we have raw and honest conversations. I'm your host, Fatima Bey, the mind shifter. And welcome. Today, we have here miss Mae Mae from Michigan. How are you today, miss Mae Mae?

I'm fine. Thank you. I appreciate being here. Well, we appreciate you coming on. So let's just dive right in.

I know I like people to get to the point when I listen to things. So, miss Mae Mae is a Spanish teacher from Michigan who's been teaching for twenty five years, well, really over twenty five years in the school districts for undeserved populations. So it is with this background that we have her on as a guest today. And today's topics, we're gonna talk about keeping it real with students, how political correctness is choking progress for our kids, and needing apathy for education. So, miss Mae Mae, what do you mean when you say keeping it real with students?

Oh, boy. Well, keeping it real is keeping it real meaning telling it like it is. Having the students understand why they're in school, what it is that they're there for, and how they can benefit from it. Okay. Well, what's the problem with not keeping it real with students?

Hemos llegado a un punto en nuestra sociedad en el que permitimos que estos estudiantes progresen de grado en grado o de nivel en nivel, basándonos en presiones sociales, en lugar de en su destreza académica. Esto dificulta que estos estudiantes que pasan a otro grado no puedan leer más allá del cuarto grado. Así que, al final, todos tienen que aprobar y todos tienen que pasar. Y honestamente creo que esto comenzó con la tontería de que ningún niño se quede atrás, donde teníamos que pasar de un grado a otro sin que tuvieran la información que necesitaban, sin que tuvieran que retener la información necesaria para progresar en sus habilidades.

So if, you know, for example, I have students who are unable to read at the fourth grade level, but they were pushed on to fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. Now they're in high school, and the teacher is being held accountable for these students' grades in order to get high marks on their evaluations from the administration. So it makes it difficult in the education field for a teacher to actually do what it is that they set out to do when they wanted to become teachers. You know, I wanted to help shape and mold the minds of youngsters that would then take over society in the future. And they instead, it's more of a what can we do to get them to pass.

Can I share a story really with our listeners? Yes. I of an example of exactly what you're talking about that I have personally dealt with. Number one, I used to teach English as a second language, and I had someone had come to me with their, little girl who was supposed to move on from the first grade into the second grade. They made the parents, doing the best they could, made a painstaking decision to hold her back.

They didn't you know, that has repercussions for the rest of their life, their school life, but also passing her through when she wasn't ready had a repercussion. So they had to make that decision. She could not yet read. She couldn't even read. And so they made that decision.

They came to me and said, can you please help? We don't know what to do. So short version, got the girl to read. Figured out what the problem was. They wanted to put her in special education.

I knew she didn't need it. I freaking hate it when people get when they put kids give them labels like special education when they don't need them. When they do need them and they get the help they need, it's beautiful. When they don't need it, it does more damage than good. I will But I I digress.

Yeah. I will I'm very passionate about that. Yeah. I will interrupt you with that because the truth is as a, second language teacher myself, I see that students who perhaps are native, for example, Spanish speakers that come into my Spanish class, they need to work on their and their their spelling and their reading, their writing and their reading because they speak it in their house, but they don't know how to read and write it. But that's not labeling them as a special needs student.

That should be labeling them as a second language student. And where we do a disservice with the second language students is they come in from another country and perhaps they're 14 years old. Mhmm. And they've just because they are speaking another language doesn't mean they don't understand the content of the material. Oh, that's a whole another show.

But that's a whole another show. I have worked with foreigners a lot, not just teaching you a second language, and that's one thing that pisses me off when we act like when someone has an accent or because they don't yet understand our language or they're not yet fluent in our language that they're stupid. In fact, Americans, we speak one language. How stupid are we? But that's the law.

Bueno, parece que a ambos nos apasiona. Será nuestro próximo... de verdad. Así que, cuando volvamos a la joven, para nuestros oyentes, la niña a la que ayudaba la ayudó a aprender a leer, a trabajar con sus padres y a explicarles qué debían hacer en casa para facilitar el proceso. Había una maestra que ayudaba mínimamente porque era lo único que podía hacer, pero al menos estaba ayudando. Y al año siguiente, esta niña era la mejor de su clase.

Pasó de no saber leer a mirarme a los ojos con lágrimas en los ojos, diciendo: «No sé, todos los demás saben leer, pero yo no», lo que me desanimó. Y luego, quizás, me fortaleció aún más para asegurarme de que esta chica recibiera lo que necesitaba. Así que, si la hubieran aceptado, como dicen los sistemas, ¿cuánto habría fracasado ahora? Además, trabajé en Job Corps. Durante un tiempo, enseñé matemáticas en Job Corps.

Este es mi otro ejemplo. Cuando enseñaba matemáticas en Job Corps, la mayoría de mis alumnos, ahora en Job Corps, tienen entre 16 y 24 años para ingresar al programa. Y para quienes no saben qué es Job Corps, es un programa alternativo para ayudar a personas que de otro modo acabarían dependiendo de la asistencia social a conseguir empleo y obtener su GED o bachillerato si aún no lo tienen. Algunos ya tienen un diploma de bachillerato. Ahora que entienden qué es Job Corps, enseñé matemáticas allí un tiempo.

Muchos de los estudiantes que entraron eran de noveno, décimo, undécimo, duodécimo grado o superior, pero su nivel de matemáticas era de tercer grado. Ni siquiera sabían las tablas de multiplicar. No me desprecié por ello. Bueno. Analicemos tu situación.

Let's figure out how to how to make you better. So I found a way to get their attention, which is hard, especially when it comes to math, which a lot of people hate. I love math. So I found a way to get their attention and get them to actually try. And I had one student.

Recuerdo a este, recuerdo a este, a este niño. Lo quería mucho. Le pedí que resolviera un problema matemático complejo en la pizarra frente a la clase. Y la verdad es que yo lo inventé, y no tenían una solución que pudieran encontrar sin calculadora. Ya lo sabía.

But getting to the answer wasn't the point their effort was. So I pushed and pushed and pushed and got these kids to go beyond any anywhere they'd ever gone before and to see that they actually have intelligence. Because when when I got done with this one kid, he tried so hard. I mean, he literally tried his hardest, and he got really far with it. He got really as far as any of us could get without a calculator, honestly, unless you're a super genius.

Y no soy un niño de nueve años. Soy inteligente, pero no soy un niño de nueve años. Así que, ¿sabes?, logré que fuera. Y fue increíble porque después de clase, y esto es algo que desconocía, lo etiquetaron como un niño de educación especial toda su vida, y yo no lo sabía. Lo miré y dije: "¿Qué?".

Because that's not what I saw when I looked at him. I saw an intelligent man who just needed to be his buttons to be pushed in the right places. And and I was just like, but but it's there. The intelligence is there. It's just that our systems only teach one way, so we only reach one type of learning situation.

One type of of learning type rather, and that's a large part of our our system. But, again, that's another show. I think well, I think that when you when you ask what keeping it real means, I think that that's an important aspect of the keeping it real with the students that it's not just the students that need to be kept real. It it's society. It's the parents.

Es la administración. Son los compañeros de clase. Me gusta brindar un ambiente seguro para que mis estudiantes se arriesguen, y les digo que el cuerpo de la encuesta no es perfecto. Y creo que me encanta... quizás otros ya lo hayan oído. Yo no, pero es divertidísimo.

It is something I would say. I love it. Go ahead. Thank you. So I think that it is important for people to understand that if they can look themselves in the mirror and say, I busted my can I say it on air, I busted my ass and I worked hard and I achieved that b minus or that c plus, I I'm proud of me for doing that as opposed to the kid who says, I just googled it and got an a, and they don't retain that material or that information?

Así que creo que, siendo realistas, es importante que los estudiantes se miren al espejo y se pregunten: "¿Estoy haciendo todo lo posible para darme un empujón, para defenderme cuando lo necesito, para ayudar a ese estudiante de matemáticas que puede tener buenas calificaciones en lectura, pero no en matemáticas?". Pero déjame preguntarte algo: sí. En relación con lo que acabas de decir. Para el estudiante que, ya sabes, dijiste que debería esforzarse al máximo para alcanzar sus metas más altas. Mmm.

And maybe sometimes, do more initiation to try to help themselves. I'm just rewording what you said, and correct me if I'm wrong. Mhmm. How do you suggest they do that? That's a really good question.

I think that as an educator, it's my job to provide the comfort zone and build a relationship with my students so that they feel comfortable coming to me, and then I can direct them to the guidance counselor or to their math teacher directly. And I'm just using math as an example because you picked it up earlier. I think that with the societal pressures nowadays, students have a problem being themselves because they want to fit into society. And I think that if there is a way to break down that barrier and stand up for themselves so I like to try and and say things in the classroom. Like, if anybody has any questions, nobody asks, and then one person kind of Mhmm.

Slowly raises their hand and and kind of hesitates because they don't wanna call attention to themselves, I always say to that student, thank you for having the courage to ask a question. I'm sure there are other people in here that will benefit from it as well. And that's good, giving them that positive, enforcement when they do raise their hand because for a lot of the teenagers, because I work with teenagers a lot, it's difficult for them to to just simply do that, to raise their hands or speak up or speak out because everybody's staring at them and you're under all this pressure to be whatever they think they're supposed to be. I now I I have another question for you. Okay.

Permítanme decirles que, ya saben, miran y les preocupa lo que digan los demás. Y casi quiero culpar a la tecnología, porque tengo adolescentes que se sientan en el asiento trasero de mi coche y se escriben mensajes, sentados uno al lado del otro, y no conversan porque no saben comunicarse oralmente. Claro. Y creo que eso es lo que disfruto de las clases de español, porque les obliga a usar el lenguaje oral y auditivamente para transmitir un mensaje o explicar un concepto, o, ya saben, incluso si solo se trata de decir colores y números. De hecho, usan la voz para hacerlo, lo que espero que se traduzca en conversación o comunicación de alguna manera.

Mmm. Ya hablamos de que tienes que ser sincero con los estudiantes, y voy a reformularlo como poder decir la verdad. Bien. Mmm. Poder... y corrígeme si me equivoco.

Being able to just call a spade a spade, as you said to me before. Yeah. I I completely agree, but I think it's an issue that goes far beyond our school system. It's an issue in our society, and it's a large part of why I started this podcast. I wanted to create a space where people can actually speak honestly without having to worry about being canceled or having, you know, oh, you can't say this this.

No puedes decir eso. Esta persona se ofenderá. Aquella se ofenderá. Creo que, como sociedad, debemos empezar a centrarnos en a quién ayudamos en lugar de a quién ofendemos. Mentalidades completamente diferentes.

I love that. And I will tell you that when I give an example, I, you know, I hear bickering in the classroom. Even amongst dark skinned black people and light skinned black people, I want I can't necessarily say African American because I have a friend from Jamaica, and he's black. And if you call him African American, he says, I'm from Jamaica, man. You know?

So Yeah. You know, I and and so I use the term black as a General term. General generalization. Because when my daughter was little and she goes, why do they say black and white, mommy? My skin's peach.

So, you know what? Kids are so logical. Yes. And I love looking at at society through the eyes of the young ones because my daughter didn't understand even the, the black and white thing until she had to do a Black History Month project. And she picked, a tennis player, a black tennis player, because she played tennis at the time.

Mhmm. Okay. And to her, it was just a famous tennis player. It wasn't a black tennis player. And society has put these labels on us where instead of being of the human race, we're categorized by our skin color, by our religion, by our ethnicity, by our gender decisions.

And Mhmm. It's it's disheartening. But so these kids were bickering in my classroom one day, and I said, look. We're going to a party, and it's at Johnny's house. And I walk in with Mary, and Mary sees a bunch of white kids.

Does she go over to hang out with the white kids and I go over to hang out with the Latino kids and Johnny goes to hang out with the black kids? I said, no. And they go, oh, miss. You being racist? I said, no.

No lo soy. Escuchen lo que tengo que decir. Los tres nos juntamos porque somos puertorriqueños. No importa que uno tenga pelo rubio y ojos azules, otro tenga piel negra y un afro de los setenta, y el otro tenga piel aceitunada y mida solo un metro setenta. Porque todos lo somos, vamos a estar juntos.

It's not the black people and the white people and the Hispanic people. Completely agree. Good boy. That's really a whole another show. We could go into that topic.

Let's talk about that. About keeping it real. You know? Yes. I I agree.

That's a part of what I was that's a part of, what the, you know, conversation that we had even before this Mhmm. Recording of this podcast that it's Which we should have recorded. It was so rich. Right? I know.

But it's it's so we are in a society. We are so off balance when it comes to a lot of things and especially when it comes to expression, when it comes to verbiage. We are very off balance. We think as a white woman, the second you say black oh, you're being racist. You're talking about race.

A black person, the second they say something about you being white oh, you're being racist too. No. If you actually listen to the content of what I'm saying, I'm talking about bigger things than just race. Right. You are white.

I am black. That is not all we are. That is not all we are. I am a black woman. I am proud to be a black woman, but that's not all I am.

No es solo de eso de lo que hablo. No es un porcentaje de mí. ¿Verdad? ¿Sabes? Y dije lo mismo.

I was talking to a person who's gay, and I was like, yeah. You're gay. So what? What else are you? It's like, can we focus on other things?

Can we talk about other parts of you instead of just focusing on one? And it's not that those things don't matter, aren't important, but we're giving them a % attention when we should be giving them 50% attention. Or less. Because if you ask me from what culture I come, I can tell you, well, I'm part of the Latina culture because I I feel That means the Latin culture inside her body because you don't speak Spanish. I speak Spanish too, so I know what she said.

But I'm also a mom. Mhmm. So I'm part of the mom culture. I'm a dog owner. I'm part of that culture.

Estuve en una hermandad en la universidad. Formaba parte de la cultura griega. Soy deportista. Formo parte de la cultura del deporte. ¿Sabes?

Así que hay más en nosotros, y luego nos adentramos en la religión. Podemos entrar en la derecha. Simplemente nos clasificamos. Y creo que cuando vuelvo a los estudiantes en la escuela, trabajando con una población marginada donde son marginados o no tenemos la tecnología que necesitan en el aula para darles esa ventaja. Mmm.

Creo que es importante que digamos: "Oye. Aboguemos por nosotros mismos y consigamos lo que necesitamos para que puedas salir adelante. Te doy lo que necesitas. ¿Por qué no te lo tragas?". ¿Sabes?

Acéptalo y dale caña. Y, ya sabes, hay algunos que sí, y otros que, ya sabes, es como que no. No vas a ser el próximo Steph Curry porque quien se esfuerce por serlo será el próximo Steph Curry. Ahora bien, para nuestros oyentes, me gusta que estén presentes en la sala durante esta entrevista. Diré que sé que hay muchísimos que están de acuerdo contigo.

También hay muchos que no están de acuerdo con algunas de las cosas que acabas de decir. Y sí. En este programa, me gusta escuchar a todos ustedes porque creo que todos, la mayoría de la gente, tiene puntos de vista válidos, aunque sean tontos. En algún punto de la mezcla hay algo de verdad. De acuerdo.

So we think that we should be able to to start keeping it real in our society. Let's take it to the extremes because that's what we do in our society. Let's say everybody says everything they want, whenever they want, all the time. Would that also be a problem? Yes.

Somewhere, where does the filter come in? And, you know, you we we talked a little bit earlier about the kid who wasn't able to read and and couldn't pass into the next grade, but then you have people that say, yeah. But how can you put a 15 year old back in eighth grade? Because they're either gonna drop out of school or they're going to, you know, be ridiculed or whatever. Mhmm.

And the the the student who has the street smarts is going to say I I mean, I had a kid tell me that I needed to shut up because I was gonna get bitch slapped if I didn't. And this is from a 15 year old kid. I I I was dumbfounded, but I couldn't write him up because he didn't hit me. All he was yep. All he was doing was talking.

So He still threatened you. Well right? But like you said, can anybody say anything about anything, everything, anywhere? And that is taking it to the other extreme. I agree.

I I don't know where our society stopped. There's a fine line between calling a spade a spade and you know? Because I shoulda turned around, and I coulda said to him, look, you little SOB. Who the hell do you think you are talking to an adult like that? But if this student talks like that at home to his parents and his parents talk back to him like that, that's the norm for him.

Así que nuestras normas sociales varían según el lugar, la gente y la cultura. Ya sabes, si estoy en la cancha de baloncesto y hago un mal pase, digo: «Uy. Lo siento. Voy a sonar como un ding a ling». Pero si digo: «Ay, qué mal», y me golpeo el pecho y seguimos jugando, entonces encajo.

Whereas in the classroom, if I trip over somebody's foot and I go, oh, my bad, they're like, does this teacher know what she's talking about? I should have said, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. So I think dialectical differences come into play Good point. Okay.

En ese sentido también. Y como dijiste, es tan multifacético que, cuando digo que hay que ser realistas, creo que serlo debe empezar con esta conversación multifacética, porque el sistema educativo está roto. Muy roto. Y como un cristal roto. Y lo he visto deteriorarse en los últimos veinticinco años porque la gente no parece respetar la educación en sí.

Y quiero decir, podría extenderme en 20 tangentes más. ¿Será porque al profesor solo le pagan lo mismo que al tipo que trabaja en McDonald's? ¿Es porque subimos el salario mínimo para que sea digno? Bueno, un profesor debe tener x cantidad de títulos y x cantidad de formación continua para mantener una certificación. Y luego, cuando llegó la COVID, de repente, los padres pensaron: «Oh, los profesores valen algo». Pero ahora que volvemos a las aulas, los profesores han vuelto a ser ciudadanos de segunda clase según el gobierno.

You know? We could just go on and on and take I call them octopus tentacles because I wanna go back to, what you had said when when I had asked you about, you know, going to the extreme of just saying anything you want all the time anywhere. And I agree. We don't wanna do that either. My point in asking that question is the fact that in our society and, again, this is not just in schools, but schools reflect what's going on in our societies.

Mhmm. Mhmm. We need balance. Amen. We only operate in extremes.

Look at the look at the left and the right parties, political parties. Both parties are primarily been taken over by extreme nut jobs. So both parties are are at extremes right now. Absolutely. I mean, really, the the the if the Republicans a lot of Republicans don't even wanna admit they're Republican anymore.

Y luego están los demócratas, que están locos. ¡Guau! Me da mucha rabia ir a los extremos. Bueno. Bueno, muchos de nosotros estamos en el medio y no estamos en esos extremos.

We might have the political party on paper, be a part of the political party on paper, but we're not those extremes. But, yeah, you can lean fiscally one way and. Right. Right. And for me, I'm I'm really, truly, truly, truly in the middle.

Sí. En algunas cosas soy muy republicano y en otras bastante demócrata. Depende del tema del que hables. Pero eso es solo un ejemplo de los extremos a los que llegamos en nuestra sociedad. Yo lo llamo ser un extremista mental.

If you think about that all all or nothing principle, black and white Right. There's those shades of gray. If you think about the sun coming up, the sun doesn't automatically show up in a dark sky, and it's a good analogy. Yeah. It slowly rises.

Right. And then the moon, it slowly sets, and the moon comes up. And it it's it's a phase that that it goes through, which many people think if you are not on a the 100 or the zero, as you said, that you are wishy washy, and you're somewhere in the middle that, oh, you can't make a decision. That's your problem. Whereas Mhmm.

What these students and and and in schools, we are teaching to a test. Circle the right answer and bubble it in. Well, for example, I I've been a lifeguard and had my CPR instructors for years. I can't get a % on my CPR multiple choice test because in my head, I'm like, well, if it were raining, answer would be a. But if it were sunny, the answer would be b.

I think like you. I get it. But and so that you know, so I think that what these students need to learn is that it's not always an a or b answer. It's not always all of the above or none of the above. Yes.

Yes. You need to so the component that we're missing is the critical thinking, and that's where students don't just ask what, but they ask the how and the why. Yes. And we are missing as a society the how and the why. And I'm gonna take it back to picking up my Google and being able to if if she asks me a question about, you know, what time does the sunrise, I can Google it, and it'll give me the answer in zero point o two four seven seconds.

But you didn't ask me when the sun rose in the Eastern time zone or in Guam, which is actually yesterday for me, but tomorrow for you. Mhmm. Or you know? So my question to you should have been, when do you want to know or where do you want to know when the sun rises? Right.

Lo veo como contexto. Sí. Lo que escucho de ti es que dije que parte de la solución es estar orientado a las soluciones. Y lo que escucho de ti es que la otra parte, una parte diferente de la receta del éxito, es no pensar solo en blanco y negro. Sí.

In order to find your solution, I have to stir in my mixed wet white wet ingredients and dry ingredients. Right. Exactly. So what I'm hearing so far is being solution oriented, which has to do with a mentality because that's where everything starts. Everything in your life does start with mentality.

All your your victories, your failures, they all start with your thinking. So and that's what I tend to focus on, so that's why I bring it up. But being solution oriented, that has to do with your mindset. And then not just thinking in terms of black and white and understanding that there are thousands of colors in between. And then context.

Context. Context. There are people who foolishly say, no. It's it's one or the other. Context doesn't matter.

Y digo tontamente porque si así piensas, eres tonto. Voy a decirlo sin rodeos: es una tontería. Es una tontería. El contexto importa porque, como dijiste, las zonas horarias. Si te refieres a algo como la salida del sol, ¿a qué hora sale el sol?

Bueno, si te refieres a esto, esa es una respuesta. Si te refieres a Nigeria, esa es otra, etcétera. No siempre prestamos atención al contexto, por eso, cuando ves algo en la televisión o en las redes sociales, sea cual sea el medio que te dé noticias sobre una persona, por favor, no lo aceptes tal como es, porque me doy cuenta de que el 80% de las veces se elimina el contexto. Solo te dan datos sin todos los hechos. El contexto son algunos de los hechos, por lo que pintan una imagen y una narrativa diferente a la verdad real.

Hecho y verdad no son lo mismo. La verdad contiene algunos hechos, pero no solo contiene algunos, como un pastel no contiene solo harina. Amén. ¿Sabes? ¡Muy bien!

Preach your little sister. So, but yeah. So where our time is running our time is running out because we got so much of where I wanna talk about. But I do wanna hit on we talked about apathy in education. Okay.

Tell the audience, what does apathy mean? I think apathy is the lack of desire for anything. When you are apathetic about something, it means you really don't care what's going on one way or the other. It's just like, meh. Right.

Entonces, cuando hablas de apatía por la educación, lo que quieres decir es que a nuestros jóvenes de hoy, y esto en términos generales, les importa un bledo la educación. Estoy de acuerdo en eso, debido a los valores que les han inculcado en casa o no. En algunas culturas, la educación es importante, y esos estudiantes se esfuerzan. Puede que sea una motivación externa. Algunos pueden tener una motivación interna.

But then the others are just like, well, I don't need to learn that because as I referred to before, Google can give me my answer. There's no need for me to retain knowledge because I can use the Internet to find information. Good point. Very good point because we didn't grow up with the Internet. We had encyclopedias, and you had to go to library.

Yes. And you had to and then you had to memorize it because, you know, if you shut that book, you're like, oh, which which did I get it out of Britannica, or did I get it out of the other? Right. Right. You know?

Well So so when when it comes to apathy for education, we definitely see that as a problem. And I I agree with you because I you know, working with youth, I see it. I it depends on the crowds you're talking about because in and it really does. Not all youth are the same, just like not all adults are the same. When I have some teenagers' guests on, I will talk about that subject a little bit more with them because I I know that many listeners agree with you that that is an issue, but I also wanna hear it from a teen's perspective since they're the ones we're talking about.

Exactly. And we'll talk about that in the future. But what I wanna ask you, as, as we end this particular episode, what do you have to say to the teenagers who are listening right now? Oh, the message I'd like to give is to get out there and make a difference. Take a stand for something that you value, find why you value it, and then communicate that information to the rest of us as opposed to just following blindly like sheep.

Make sure that you actually have passion and compassion, and take the time to you know, if stand up for what is right. And and and, you know, if you there's a country music song that says if you can't stand up for something, don't fall for anything. Mhmm. And I think that the more that you become informed about whatever it is that brings you passion, make a difference with it. And with that, I agree.

Amen. Woo hoo. What? With that, we will, end this episode. And thank you, miss Mei Mei from Michigan, for, for agreeing to come on here and give us your thoughts.

And now for a mind shifting moment. If you are an adult out there listening and you work with youth or you have a teenager of of any age, I want you to think about this. When we don't allow them to express themselves freely, and I mean in conversation, I'm only talking about conversation, We need to allow them to speak their minds and speak the truth as they see it even if they're absolutely dead wrong. It is so important that they're able to express themselves to you because if they can express themselves to you, they're not going to come to you when they need to. They need to feel free to speak their minds and speak their opinions even if they're not popular, even if you disagree.

Because then you have an opportunity to talk about why that opinion exists and do something about it. Listen to your teens instead of telling them how they should think. Listen to how they're already thinking. Maybe you can give them good guidance. They're not gonna listen to you if you don't listen to them.

And if you're a teen out there right now, I want you to stop bowing down to political correctness. You do not have to worship everybody else's emotions. You can stand up and speak up for yourself even if what you have to say is not popular. Have conversations with people. Whether they agree with you or not, try to have conversations because no solutions can come from you shutting up and sitting down.

Every single societal thing that has changed in the world has come from somebody standing up against the tide, against what's common, and speaking their minds. I think that many of you hold the solutions to your problems, but you're just not speaking up to have the conversations you need to have to make them happen. Thank you for listening to mind shift power podcast. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter. If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit FatimaBay.com/podcast.

Recuerda, cambiar tu forma de pensar tiene poder. No te lo pierdas la próxima semana.