Sept. 16, 2025
080: Unlocking Student Potential: The Leadership Journey with Maureen Chapman and James Simons
What if leadership skills were taught right alongside academic content? In this episode, Maureen Chapman and James Simons, co-founders of Cor Creative Partners, share their powerful approach to helping all students develop leadership skills like motivation, perseverance, communication, and collaboration within everyday classroom learning. Their new book, Leaders of the Class, challenges the idea that leadership development is only for a select few. Instead, they offer practical strategies t...
What if leadership skills were taught right alongside academic content?
In this episode, Maureen Chapman and James Simons, co-founders of Cor Creative Partners, share their powerful approach to helping all students develop leadership skills like motivation, perseverance, communication, and collaboration within everyday classroom learning.
Their new book, Leaders of the Class, challenges the idea that leadership development is only for a select few. Instead, they offer practical strategies that make leadership accessible to every student through intentional teaching and thoughtful integration.
You’ll hear insights on how to build authentic motivation, create space for productive mistakes, and support students as they grow into confident, capable leaders. This conversation is especially valuable for educators who want to strengthen engagement and support social-emotional growth without adding more to their plate.
Explore how leadership can come to life in any classroom and learn how to make it happen.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Connect with Maureen Chapman and James Simons via their website, Cor Creative Partners and LinkedIn (Maureen + James), and email at workwithheart@corcreativepartners.com.
Purchase their new book, Leaders of the Class!
00:00 - Introduction to SEL in EDU
03:11 - Meet Maureen Chapman and James Simons
08:22 - Leadership Development for All Students
17:51 - Teaching Communication and Goal Setting
25:45 - Experimenting and Learning from Mistakes
35:05 - Building a Culture of Effective Feedback
WEBVTT
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Welcome to SEL in EDU, the podcast where we explore how educators bring social, emotional learning to life by sharing stories, strategies and sparks of inspiration.
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I'm your host, Dr Krista Lay, owner of Resonance Education.
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Thank you for joining us on this SEL journey on this.
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SEL journey.
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I'm Chris Nessie, host of Behind the Mic Voices of the EPN, a part of the Education Podcast Network.
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Just like the show you're listening to now, shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others.
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Find other interesting education podcasts at edupodcastnetworkcom.
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Maureen Chapman and James Simons love school.
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They're the co-founders of Core Creative Partners core from the Latin word heart.
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Their new website can be found at corcreativepartnerscom.
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As a co-founder, maureen supports leadership development and student engagement through speaking, coaching workshops and PLCs.
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James works to spread his love through educator professional development, with a focus on student engagement as well as leadership development for adults and adolescents alike.
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They both contribute to the community of thought leaders by speaking at conferences across the country and writing for various outlets, including Solution Tree, edutopia and Inside Higher Ed.
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They are the co-authors of the Solution Tree book Leaders of the Class teaching motivation, perseverance, communication and collaboration in the secondary classroom.
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You can connect with Maureen and James on LinkedIn and learn more about their work at wwwcorcreativepartnerscom.
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Maureen and James, welcome back to SEL and EDU.
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I am so happy to have you back on again.
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You are some of my favorite people in education and in SEL, absolutely Right before I hit record, we were talking about how time has gone by so quickly and we like to do check-ins with each other like how's things going, what are some new things you've learned, sharing some tips and tricks with each other because of it being summer and us all having families and we've just been chilling the last couple of months, but then, all of a sudden, I knew you were working on a book.
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It's out.
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Please come back on and tell us all about this.
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So I want to start off just jumping right into a book that you've written because, being all secondary people, I feel like SEL is forgotten about for the older students, because it's oh.
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They should know this by now.
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Your book addresses how to support some of these really foundational SEL skills with our older students.
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What were you seeing that motivated you to put this into a book for people?
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We started this consultancy after seeing how much suffering there was in the pandemic, seeing just the intensity of the need, when we asked ourselves how can we uniquely contribute in service of this field that's struggling?
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We had a lot of experience with integrating holistic child development into academics and in the secondary setting.
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It is developmentally different for students in elementary school.
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It is really appropriate to have that morning circle, to have that extra time with a lesson on friendship In the secondary setting.
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A lot of people have rushed to adopt an SEL curriculum off the shelf and find somewhere.
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Maybe we can find 30 minutes once a week if we're lucky to have a little lesson.
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Inevitably that isn't really enough.
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Teachers haven't written those lessons, it's not graded, it's not in context of the actual work.
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So we really wanted to provide a way for teachers to collaborate with our book, almost co-construct with our book.
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How can I sequentially and manageably teach all the skills of what someone would access in a leadership development program in my class where I have the relationships where the hard work is happening?
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We see need that is so great.
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We see student potential that is so great.
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And then we also see our responsibilities, our to-do list, which is so great.
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We ask how can we meet these needs, support students to move toward their tremendous potential and also do it in a way that is manageable?
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We present a sequence of five units to help students build their skills, to motivate, to persevere, move toward the goals that they're motivated to set, even when things get hard, to communicate authentically and adaptively with each other.
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And then, lastly, to collaborate, so to not only achieve individual goals but to also achieve collective goals.
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My hope is that teachers will take this framework and pair it with their pre-existing academic curriculum and just ask themselves where and when and how to incorporate this framework.
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For some teachers it might be okay.
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The first unit is motivate, and my kids are not motivated so early in the year, build in some opportunities to reflect on why we are doing this work, why this work matters to me, to you, to us, to this world.
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And then I'm going to build in a regular routine of goal setting, not just for the year or for the course, but for every academic experience, and for one student it might be.
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I want to make sure my voice is heard and for another student it might be I want to make sure I hear my partner's voice, and so, continually going big picture, this is what we want to achieve, what we believe we can achieve, and then, zooming in to the small frame, to say this is what I'm ready to try and thus to achieve.
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This is one of the reasons why I love hearing what you're both doing so much is because we have the same philosophy around.
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It's not one more thing, it's how it's integrated into what we're already doing, and so for us, we call it the instructional practices and the curriculum, and it's not a forced fit.
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It's where do you see these opportunities?
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There are several things that you mentioned that I want to come back to.
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Maureen, you said earlier about how you can take what could traditionally be for a leadership class.
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I helped create a leadership class at the school I was at, and we specifically were looking for students who had all types of leadership potential, even the kids who were.
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We've made this accessible for everybody, because these are skills for all students and for all of us in particular, and so I'm curious what you've seen traditionally around?
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Who is considered a leader?
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Yeah, secondary school is a time of identity development.
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It's our belief that if everyone could answer that question with many things, nobody is just one thing, but one of the things that I am is a leader.
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I have to believe that and I have to make it true to work toward reaching my leadership potential, but also to be seen as a leader and to believe that my teacher thinks I'm a leader and believes in me in that way as well.
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Belief in self and others is one of the four conditions that we have in place in the book for leadership development to grow, and so, yes, it's really important to us that it's not just the kid who raises their hand, who gets on the stage, who's captain of this and president of that, who everybody says oh, what a natural leader, but that we feel seen for who we are and for the way that we contribute as leaders.
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James and I, in writing this book, did a ton of research in pedagogy and education, but also in the leadership world outside of education, and what are the lessons that we can transfer and distill for teachers business or marketing or military and how they see leaders and provide opportunities for leadership development.
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One thing that we noticed again and again was attention to emotions and, foundationally, opportunity to surface emotions and understand what they were telling us.
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We start with this book in terms of sequencing and not just diving in off the deep end and saying and I'll do everything.
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Let's really give space and time for students to surface how they're feeling in your class.
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How do they feel in math class?
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How do they feel as a scientist?
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How do they feel in a school setting at all?
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How can they unpack what that means about what's important to them?
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Because emotions aren't always pleasant.
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It's not always a sunny day If we can expect that we have a range of emotions.
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How can we provide direct instruction, maybe a mood meter or another literacy tool for students to be able to share what those are and know that you actually do care to hear it and that you will respond without just shutting down that any negative emotion is disrespectful or et cetera, but just to help kids process their emotions and how they see themselves in your classroom.
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So that's a really good starting point for any leadership program to be able to really just honor that portion of building self-awareness.
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How are we feeling and sharing about that first, really just with the student and the teacher and build up that ability to feel safe there before, later in the sequence, maybe asking students if they're comfortable sharing those in communication with each other.
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That allows for a great baseline data for being able to set goals around content and academics, but also around social, emotional learning.
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James, one of the pieces you had put in earlier was students thinking about what their specific goals were.
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In, let's say, for example, a collaborative setting, I want to be able to speak up more.
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I want to be a better listener.
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When we're doing this, we're also allowing for purposeful grouping based on not just the content but on SEL skills.
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For instance, who has a goal around wanting to be a better listener and who has a goal around wanting to be able to speak up?
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And so teachers can then partner up students and allow them to work on those skills based on the goals that they had created.
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Does that resonate with you?
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I'd love to hear how you interpret that, because it's so important, I think, for us as adults and for our students.
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Yes, so thank you what I'm hearing.
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There is a question about the impact of individual goal setting, and then also a question about what it means to teach communication that is authentic, that is true to yourself, but that is also adaptive, that is responsive to those around you.
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In terms of the first, as educators we talk and think a lot about differentiation.
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Often with that conversation and those thoughts comes a lot of overwhelm, Like how could I possibly do that?
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I got 20 kids in this class, so I need to teach 20 different courses.
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Goal setting is a good example of taking a stance that is inherently differentiated.
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So you don't need to plan 20 lessons.
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You plan one lesson that includes goal setting, and in doing so, the kids are doing the work of differentiating.
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This is what I am working on.
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And then you go oh, thank you for that data.
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Oh, thank you for that data.
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In our coaching, one of my mantras is how can the students do more and you do less, and in doing so, your job is going to feel more manageable and you are going to be better at it?
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Ultimately, the goal is to empower students to be doing this critical thinking, this creative, collaborative work.
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Goal setting is a great example of how you can do less and still move towards your goals of differentiation communication.
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It's very challenging and very important to determine how can I show up in a way that is authentic, how can I be myself but know that we are multifaceted and our identities are fluid and we need to, to a degree, code switch, and tomorrow maybe I will be at the beach with my family and be wearing something that would be wildly inappropriate if I showed up to this conversation.
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In both moments I'm being myself.
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I am just adapting according to the setting and the thing is and kids are so good at this no one is better at code switching than a child.
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You know, my kids come to me and they're all sweet and nice and they're cuddling with me, and then they go to their friends and they're using a different language and they're also expressing affection, but it may be in a different way.
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When I'm at home, I'm speaking Spanish, and when I'm in math class, I'm speaking English, and so this is one of the many superpowers that our kids are showing up with.
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We need to honor these skills and we need to empower and instruct students to transfer those skills to the work that we're doing.
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Now.
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Let's communicate about communication.
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What does it look like in this setting and how do you want to communicate authentically?
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Yeah, and sometimes, when kids are really perceiving an injustice, their injustice meter is so sensitive, as it should be.
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Maybe you choose not to be adaptive because you need to break something, or you're perceiving that you need to break something, and so if we're continually opening the lines of communication about students' emotions and where they're coming from and what to do with them, we're going to hear some of their feelings about what's not fair, what should be happening.
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Again, it just opens those lines of communication so a teacher and a student can have the conversation they need to have, so that people can move through whatever that big feeling was.
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Because if there are really big feelings, learning is not happening.
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How can we help students have hard conversations and feel safe, especially knowing there is a power imbalance?
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We have formal power and positional power they don't have and everybody knows it.
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So how can we make it safe to engage in those conversations with students and also be supportive for them to say what does that mean for us in this class?
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Because I believe in you and believe in the work for you, so I'm going to stick with you through this, hold high standards for you, behaviorally, academically, emotionally, et cetera.
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Hearing you speak, maureenen reminds me of the quote around being curious and not judgmental and so student is perceiving an injustice and voices that.
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How can we regulate?
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And maybe get to a point where we're leaning in and saying tell me more about why you feel that way and how you're defining this as an injustice, and it might even be something that helps transform our way of thinking about something.
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Every unit in the book ends with scaffolds.
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So we present how we need to open, addressing this competency and how to help students engage in ongoing personal data collection and reflection, and then a quick performance test, but then we dive into common scenarios we've seen in our coaching and in perseverance really can't learn when we're angry, anxiety and boredom being the other two that are most harmful to learning.
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And then the most positive, which is more positive than any of those is negative, is curiosity.
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So how can we counter anger with curiosity, boredom with curiosity?
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And I think this stance of curiosity is the stance of a leader, helping students to do that.
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One of the core practices of leadership that we dig into is experimenting with strategies.
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Okay, let's mess up, let's mess around.
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I'm noticing that I'm not getting my homework in.
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Maybe I could try this.
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Let's try that and see how it goes.
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I'm noticing that I'm talking too much or in conflict constantly.
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How can we notice that and just say that's what's going on.
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What can I try?
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Because every emotion is valid, but not every behavior is.
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So how can we keep just holding ourselves accountable to trying different things till we can be acting in ways that align with our goals, that serve us in reaching our leadership potential and so on.
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That reminds me very specifically of the scientific process in science.
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What are all the variables and how do I adjust these variables?
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How do I adjust these emotions or try these different strategies to see how it impacts the outcome and then, based on that, what outcome do I want?
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But it does take that experimenting.
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I love that you use that word specifically within an SEL context with emotions.
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I hadn't thought of it that way before.
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Yeah, you're right, krista, that isn't a defect, that is a feature that is built in.
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We know that the scientific method is functioning properly when we are making many mistakes and learning from them.
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In classrooms, we similarly think of some mistakes as features.
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I know that when I give you this math problem, seven of the 10 kids here are going to make this mistake, and I know to anticipate it and to provide the following corrective instruction With our social and emotional skills.
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The mistakes we make are also features, not bugs.
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We are in this safe space messing up all over the place so that later, when we leave this space, when the stakes are higher, when the safety is lower, we are going to be prepared.
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And so if a student makes a math mistake, we're not getting emotional about it, we're going yep, all part of the plan.
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When a student is rude to another student, when a student is dysregulated and shuts down, when a student is dysregulated and shuts down, when a student demonstrates any kind of social or emotional gap, we need to say yes, this is part of the process.
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You were meant to make this mistake in the math problem.
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This is all part of the beautiful science experiment that is teaching and learning.
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So let's gather data from whatever explosion we just had in the lab and let's talk about what are we going to try in our next experiment.
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My SEL mentor.
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I learned a great deal from him about experiential learning, specifically in SEL, and there's a smoother entry point at elementary because people seem to have a little bit more time with their students, as opposed to half an hour to do this experiential activity with high school or middle school students and then figure out how does it relate to content, what worked, what didn't work.
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Because sometimes as adults we get to step out of times where we feel uncomfortable.
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Yet we want the students to have that experience with yes, this was meant to happen, and so, as facilitators, I know that sometimes we do that because we need those memories to remember what it felt like to be a little uncomfortable and to stretch.
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But there's a lot of times as adults, we can opt out of that experience that we still want our students to learn from.
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There is a study that we like to cite in which people are given the choice to either sit with their thoughts for some period of time not even like maybe 10 minutes or to deliver self-administer a shock to themselves to get out of it, and a lot of people choose to shock themselves rather than sit with their thoughts.
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So absolutely, we have to build our stamina, just like we teach students to build their stamina for sustained silent reading.
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We start with one minute, then two minutes and five minutes.
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But we really believe through the book that if we can build our capacity to reflect and sit with the emotions and give tools to help people pick words Kids only have a couple of words but to build our skill and our stamina for some of this work, that it's really valuable.
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And we're in such a rush in school constantly.
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Teachers' time away from students is so precious and so rare.
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They just want to catch their breath, but they're running and running.
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Ask teachers to start to just think of some of their own thoughts, about their own motivation or their own communication and feedback tendencies, etc.
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Whatever the competency may be to really be able to bring that into the talking points they'll use with students to launch.
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The teacher is in partnership with this book, co-constructing how it's delivered and really hopefully surfacing some things and sharing some things that maybe they think kids would know.
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But sometimes we make those assumptions and we don't take the time to share what we're really thinking about our own purpose.
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There was something in the David Yeager book 10 to 25, about how even the best teachers often skip over sharing their big why.
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This just builds that in and gives that time to make that more visible to students before digging in.
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I'm trying not to smile so much because one of the other favorite things about you both is that you bring up great research and I'm such a research nerd, so it's things that you're like oh yes, we put this into practice.
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But then already you've shared the Hattie research and two more books that helps reach a group of teachers who need to know the research behind this.
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So what feels like it works and feels right gut-wise, emotionally, but then also brain-wise, what do we know is best practice?
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You're right, krista.
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There is so much research about best practices and when you look at other industries benefiting from collaborative advancements, and we need to do the same in education.
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But the good news is research, best practices enable creativity and critical thinking and freedom for the adult, but also for the students.
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If we are all doing what is best, paradoxically, all of our classes will look different, because each class will have different individuals in there who have different goals and different strengths and struggles and different relationships with each other.
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What do we know is effective?
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That we can scale across classrooms, across schools, across districts, and then, within that, where is the opportunity for me to be me and for you to be you and for us to be us?
00:23:38.846 --> 00:23:43.607
Because there is no other classroom in the world like this one.
00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:48.449
We have that same philosophy that it can't be scripted.
00:23:48.449 --> 00:23:55.390
We have uniquenesses in who we are and the students and it changes every hour to hour and a half.
00:23:55.390 --> 00:24:02.482
So in secondary we need to adjust and be like okay, we've got this new group of students who are individuals who are interacting with me.
00:24:02.482 --> 00:24:04.006
The whole dynamic looks different.
00:24:04.006 --> 00:24:06.310
What can I adjust?
00:24:06.310 --> 00:24:27.828
Because of my own expertise and a sense of agency as an adult to do what's best, and sometimes that piece is missing for secondary that we trust that you have the professional expertise and you know your students and you leverage that piece by saying here are some foundational starting points and strategies.
00:24:27.828 --> 00:24:47.742
You can take these and adjust them to fit what you need in your context as a starting point and then where people get.
00:24:47.762 --> 00:24:50.753
Sometimes a worry that can get in the way of the work is if I ask a question and I don't know what the answer is going to be.
00:24:50.753 --> 00:24:54.830
I don't know what kids will say if I say how did you feel motivated today?
00:24:54.830 --> 00:25:00.086
And what they say if they didn't feel motivated might hurt my feelings and I don't want to hear that.
00:25:00.086 --> 00:25:12.205
So giving some key responses and some opportunity for teachers to explore that for themselves too Often as a great entry point, we can just get curious.
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In response, we can have conversations.
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We can grow closer in our relationships through the conversation about the response.
00:25:15.478 --> 00:25:19.528
So that is one of the other conditions for leadership is opportunities to lead.
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So we have to keep providing chances for students to do it.
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If you taught secondary school, you can't tell a kid what to think.
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They have to discover it for themselves and we can create the space in which they do that.
00:25:31.532 --> 00:25:45.045
That's messier, it's maybe more dynamic, but it's really rich and rewarding Growth chances for kids to feel more like leaders means again, there's that experimentation vibe in the room, but it's also very productive learning.
00:25:45.045 --> 00:25:48.748
It is the work that we all went through as we became professionals.
00:25:49.819 --> 00:25:52.650
Yeah, and it's really important to see that.
00:25:52.650 --> 00:26:09.250
Just as we are encouraging students to have the courage to experiment, knowing that the path to success is laid with a series of mistakes, educators also operate often from a place of fear.
00:26:09.250 --> 00:26:14.199
What if I ask if kids like this lesson and they say no?
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What if I try a new lesson and it's not going great and the principal walks in?
00:26:20.258 --> 00:26:22.287
We are scientists.
00:26:22.287 --> 00:26:31.240
It is our job to experiment and as we experiment, it is our job to gather data, and feedback from others is important data.
00:26:31.422 --> 00:26:43.821
I remember in my first year of teaching eighth grade, at the end of the year I gave them a survey because a colleague told me student voice is important, so how was this year?
00:26:43.821 --> 00:26:50.074
And they filled it out and I collected them all and I put them in my bag and I couldn't look at them.
00:26:50.074 --> 00:26:53.640
I was terrified because the stakes were so high.
00:26:53.640 --> 00:27:00.904
That survey was telling me was my first year as a teacher a success or a failure?
00:27:02.047 --> 00:27:07.195
And we know that we need feedback.
00:27:07.195 --> 00:27:09.660
That is, more frequent Communication.
00:27:09.660 --> 00:27:15.190
So you and your spouse should, once a decade, ask how each other is doing.
00:27:15.190 --> 00:27:23.269
No, you need to constantly be asking and learning and growing together through that process.
00:27:23.269 --> 00:27:27.798
And so, similarly, my colleague was right to say hear from kids.
00:27:27.798 --> 00:27:34.387
But that survey should have been going out in the first class and the second class and the third class.
00:27:34.387 --> 00:27:40.151
That survey, in different forms, should be happening at the start of class and the middle of class and the end of class.
00:27:40.151 --> 00:27:54.096
And if we're constantly gathering that data and adjusting our practice, it's far less threatening because not as much is at stake and that feedback is going to be increasingly positive.
00:27:54.884 --> 00:27:58.031
I used to do feedback surveys after every unit.
00:27:58.031 --> 00:28:00.718
What resonated with you, what did you enjoy?
00:28:00.718 --> 00:28:01.807
What was difficult?
00:28:01.807 --> 00:28:03.611
What recommendations do you have?
00:28:03.611 --> 00:28:16.932
And I remember there were times when I didn't feel it went well and so I didn't give the survey because I had this fear that what they were going to say reinforced what I already thought.
00:28:16.932 --> 00:28:24.959
But that was the time when I needed it the most, so that I knew what to fix and I could do it with them.
00:28:24.959 --> 00:28:28.630
I always give a feedback survey after professional learning.
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I can't look at it for a couple of days because I've invested so much time leading up to there and my emotional energy and my heart that I have to give it a couple days space so I can look at it with clarity and without the and receive it critically.
00:29:03.738 --> 00:29:12.567
And so I know this about myself that I'll look back a couple of days later then process something instead of just being in a heightened emotion and shutting down and never seeing it at all.
00:29:12.567 --> 00:29:21.968
But when we're asking students to learn how to give and receive feedback in the communicate chapter, we use a really simple template what are your observations, celebrations and questions?
00:29:21.968 --> 00:29:24.298
Nowhere in there is criticisms.
00:29:24.298 --> 00:29:26.365
Nowhere in there is what could someone have done better?
00:29:26.365 --> 00:29:27.647
People don't need to hear that.
00:29:27.647 --> 00:29:36.368
First of all, we are hard on ourselves and the second, someone comes in and tells us what we should have done differently, and they didn't even ask us what we thought we're shutting down.
00:29:36.368 --> 00:29:41.929
So how do we help students know that we're not expecting them to make people feel bad?
00:29:41.989 --> 00:29:47.208
When I had senior interns giving presentations, the only prompt was what was your favorite part?
00:29:47.208 --> 00:29:50.576
And students were like thrown.
00:29:50.576 --> 00:29:51.940
What am I supposed to tell them?
00:29:51.940 --> 00:29:57.515
We just need to be inspired and replicate what's working well, and that is some of the best feedback.
00:29:57.515 --> 00:30:06.145
But training students who are so accustomed to how do I tear this down to instead be in the celebration zone of what was great?
00:30:06.145 --> 00:30:14.011
Why not just be in that zone, because we're going to be so much more inspired to do great things when we're feeling that safety and that excitement.
00:30:14.785 --> 00:30:22.259
And as we build that safety, it becomes a lot easier to also sometimes give critical feedback.
00:30:22.259 --> 00:30:24.332
Our point is very valid.
00:30:24.332 --> 00:30:26.404
We shouldn't be leading with critical feedback.
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It shouldn't be the predominant type of feedback that is coming out.
00:30:30.696 --> 00:30:40.644
There's a survey from the Harvard Business Review that I think there should be a ratio of six to one in terms of affirming feedback versus constructive feedback.
00:30:40.644 --> 00:30:42.692
So there is a place for it.
00:30:42.692 --> 00:31:03.286
But before you have someone walk along the tightrope of receiving constructive feedback, receiving constructive feedback you need to put the safety net below through specific, authentic, affirming feedback.
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