Interview with Lani Donaldson, Chief Visionary Officer, Engaged Educators Corp, Canada

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INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:

• What children really need to learn
• How a private school puts educating children on its head. i.e. parents fill in the admittance test, what?
• Insights into designing education for the learner, not the system and the impact.
• The facts about dyslexia
• Why you may not want government funding when having a social impact
• How a small business can proactively have a social and environmental impact with few resources

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Interview with Lani Donaldson, Chief Visionary Officer, Engaged Educators Corp; Canada

With over three decades as an educator, administrator, speaker, and most importantly, real-life in-the-trenches classroom experience, Lani’s view of education can be radically different from standard definitions. Known for her practical, humorous, street-savvy style, Lani appreciates and shares with others that education is so much more than current definitions allow. As President, CEO and Chief Visionary Officer of the Engaged Educators Corp., a company whose mission is to innovate education on a massive scale, she has now opened: UP Academy. A 100% independent, private school that offers every student an individualized education program. Lani has known for years that there are places where the system supports the system and not the student. She is considered an educational innovator because she studies ‘the fit .’The fit for how minds learn, how education works, how systems work, and how children are best taught. Education should ignite all learner’s curiosity and encourage learning as a lifelong process. In short: “Education Success Made Simple!”

United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal(s) addressed:
#3. Good Health and Well-being, #4. Quality Education, #5. Gender Equality, #10. Reduced Inequalities, #11. Sustainable Cities and Communities, #12. Responsible Consumption and Production, #13. Climate Action, #14. Life below Water, #15. Life on Land, #16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, #17. Partnerships for the Goals

Social impact:
Lani Donaldson, educating children the way they want to be taught; students are at the centre of learning. She believes in environmental stewardship and takes responsibility to help protect the environment for future generations. Therefore, in all projects and at UP Academy, we are committed to ensuring a carbon-neutral footprint via solar energy, recycling, and hydroponic gardening initiatives. As a corporation, we believe in sustainability in the marketplace and select suppliers based on their commitment to green initiatives. Our 360° thinking means every aspect of business operations is measured against its impact on the environment. With one of her daughters holding masters degrees in marine biology and oceanography, and another a masters in zoology and zoological conservation; responsibility for improving the planet is always top of mind and at the core of every business discussion.

Website: http://www.upacademy.ca
www.engagededucators.com 

Interview with Lani Donaldson, Chief Visionary Officer, Engaged Educators Corp, Canada

Note: This interview is transcribed using AI software, which means, the transcription is not perfect. Watch the video or listen to the podcast to hear our guest’s wisdom in her own words. If you want to see more interviews like this, please comment below!

[00:00:00]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Welcome to You, Me, We Amplified Podcast. I’m Suzanne F. Stevens, your host, and welcome to those joining us live or watching the recording. This episode is sponsored by You, Me, We Community Women, Leading Social Impact. If you have a social impact and want to grow it, grow you and grow your organization. Visit the community tab @YouMeWe.ca

I want to welcome our guests today. Lani Donaldson, the chief visionary officer of Engage Educators Corp and Up Academy engages educators as a company whose mission is to innovate education on a massive scale. Lani has also opened Up Academy and it’s a hundred percent independent private school that offers every student, an individual educational program.

Oh, I wish I had that, Lani. Letting us know for years that there are places where the system supports the system and not the students. And I would guess during this pandemic, many parents would agree with you on that Lani. She’s considering it an educational innovator because she studies the fit, the fit for how minds learn, how education works, how systems work and how children are best taught. Coming to you all the way from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

We welcome Lani Donaldson. And it’s great to have you here with us.

[00:01:23] Lani Donaldson: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to this interview.

[00:01:27]  Suzanne F. Stevens: I am as well, and you know, I think it’s five years ago when I went to your facility and I know you’ve moved your facility and grown it substantially, but I remember being so impressed with how you taught children and taught dyslexia for children and others, using technology.

So this has been five years in coming, so I’m so glad we finally got our schedules together. So why don’t you tell us what the catalyst was for you to start Up Academy? And even before that, your philosophies and in education, because Up Academy is only a year old, but it’s an extension of what was there before.

[00:02:10] Lani Donaldson: Yeah. You know, I spent, almost two decades in the school system. And if you would have told me back then that would be a great training ground for what I do now, I would have laughed at you. When we look at education, we need to understand that is based on a 19th century model and it hasn’t changed.

One size does not fit all. If there’s one thing that I know for sure, children are not sweat socks. One size does not fit all. So you have to be able to break things down and teach kids the way they want to access information. Our kids are wired differently now.

[00:02:49]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Go on with that. How are they wired differently now?

[00:02:52] Lani Donaldson: Well, you know, I always say, and this, and it shocks people that, outside of the fundamentals, if we’re looking at what you and I learned when we went to school and formal education, outside of the fundamentals of learning, so really solid reading and writing skills, really solid mathematical skills, The laws of science and the rule of law.

If we hold all of that, anything else that we were taught has now been proven to be untrue or is no longer relevant. So why aren’t we teaching skills that kids can utilize to make the world a better place? Why aren’t we building, helping parents build better human beings instead of stuffing kids, full heads, full of facts and facts.

 I’m dyslexic and I wasn’t diagnosed dyslexic till I got to university. I just thought I was stupid and someone and someone made a clerical error are. And that gives you a lot of baggage because there’s no one to help you. And I made it my mission in life to make sure that that didn’t happen to anybody else.

[00:03:57]  Suzanne F. Stevens: So I did not know you were dyslexic.

[00:03:59] Lani Donaldson: I am.

[00:04:00]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Okay. I love what you just said there about rearing better humans and it’s not facts and figures. How does Up Academy address that?

[00:04:16] Lani Donaldson: Well, every student that comes to Up Academy actually has their own program. So, you know, in, in education has done provincially in Canada.

So, the government will say, you need say, for example, 750 hours of English in a year and 750 hours of math in a year. And my question when I was both a teacher and administrator for the system was what if you don’t need 750 hours? What if you need more? Or if you need less? The reality is, is when we have kids in classes, they must move at the speed of the class.

So, if you don’t catch or, you don’t master skills you’re pushed ahead because the class has got to go ahead. If you’re ahead of the class, you’re held back because the teacher only has one class to teach and it has to teach kind of down the middle. Here at Up Academy, every student has their own program.

So, every student we meet kids where they are and their skill sets, and we move them where they need to go. Our kids that are in high school, they, if they have the prerequisites and want to take some university courses online, they can do that.

[00:05:25]  Suzanne F. Stevens: It’s interesting because this is a sensitive area for me personally, and sort of a block in my head as a child where I was actually pulled out and put into a different special class.

So, you know, what does that do to you? So, you talk about kids are being held back because they’re advanced, how those kids that are being pushed forward and yet haven’t really mastered the skills. So, they’re always behind.

[00:05:59] Lani Donaldson: Well, that’s, that’s it. What happens here is because every kid has their own program, if you don’t master a skill, you don’t move on to the next skill till you’ve mastered it. And we use a variety of techniques to get that done. We have kids here that are, you know, chronologically they’re in grade eight. But, uh, skillsets they are probably grade four grade five. And that’s just an example.

We have one student here who’s been with us in our pilot program when we piloted it at the old location. And we’ve moved her seven grades in about three and a half years. So, it’s lightning fast to move kids up to where they need to be and to where they want to be.

[00:06:46]  Suzanne F. Stevens: So, how do you children get access?

You pay to have access to the Academy. Say you can’t afford to get access to the Academy?

[00:06:59] Lani Donaldson: Good question. What we have here is we have a foundation that will help with. Tuition because we are not government funded.

I won’t take government funding because there’s too many strings attached to that. Government says you need to be coded in order to have individual attention. Well, hello. That doesn’t help. And, and like you said, you put into special classes when special is not a good word in the education system. So we have a foundation that will assist and take a look at funding. We’re probably one of the less expensive private schools. We don’t test kids to see if they’re smart enough to come into our school. We don’t do that. We test kids to see how we can best teach them and how we can best serve them. At Up Academy, actually, parents, write the entrance exam.

[00:07:54]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Tell me more. Thank God I don’t have children. I wouldn’t have made it.

[00:08:00] Lani Donaldson: You know, some parents get really, uh, you know, concerned about it and I go, no, no, no, it I’ll send the questions ahead of time. Like you can read it at home. But it’s designed so that I know where the parent’s position is on education. Because if I can’t deal with the parent I can’t deal with the kid. So that’s, that’s the philosophy behind that, parents always write. And I’m not going to check their mathematical abilities or anything like that. I want to know what their thoughts are behind education and what their hopes and dreams are for their child.

[00:08:34]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Now, how many children do you have right now?

[00:08:36] Lani Donaldson: Right now, we have seven. Okay. Cause we’re just, we’re just starting.

We will max at 25.

[00:08:44]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Okay. This sounds like something that it would be great for more people to get access to. What is your vision for, or is there a vision for extending access to others and having more than 25?

[00:09:03] Lani Donaldson: Once we fill this facility that we have right now, we will have another facility and now we will start extending our numbers and our programming. We do have the blueprints for a school. It’s very different. Our school doesn’t look like a school. Our classrooms fit seven kids, max. Because if you build a classroom for 30 kids, you are tempted to put 40 in there.

So, if you build it, max seven, our classes have five. And a lot of classes we’ll have three indeed or sometimes two depending on what subject area they’re working on and what class level they’re at.

[00:09:50]  Suzanne F. Stevens: So your hope is to build this school where you have small class sizes to give individual attention?

[00:09:58] Lani Donaldson: Yes. And the school and we build it. We’ll have a slide from the second floor to the first floor because I’m just a big kid and I want one.

[00:10:07]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Do you still focus on dyslexia in itself?

Sure, absolutely.

Absolutely. We have a lot of one-on-ones like people don’t have to actually come to the academy. We do offer one-on-one programming kids come once a week for about 45 minutes to an hour. We do reading, we do writing, we do mathematics, but we use technology to actually speed up learning.

Yeah. And I was very impressed when I saw that. Can you explain that a little bit? How that helps children learn?

[00:10:37] Lani Donaldson: If you take brain scans of people learning, there’s a neurological loop in the brain that connects the ear to the mouth and controls speech production. When people read that loop lights up. So we use specialized technology.

We record all of our lessons. We have specialized technology to access that loop because that neurological loop is already activated. So why not teach to it? So, when we learn in a classroom, when you look at the neurological model, it’s amazingly learn anything in a classroom of 30 kids, because you have to take what the teacher says. You have to interpret it in your own mind before your brain will ever actually pick it up. And we know that there are absolutely no distractions in a classroom. Right.

[00:11:26]  Suzanne F. Stevens: I remember Jimmy.

 Just before I move on with , the dyslexia and the opportunities with that, these kids that are in the academy themselves, they do eventually have to take testing in the Province?

[00:11:46] Lani Donaldson: Well, that all depends. You must understand that, you know, every province will say you have to have a provincial diploma to get into university. That is not true..

So, what you do have to have is, you have to prove you have the prerequisites to get there. And there’s actually, McGill University actually will seek out homeschool students. Home-school students, all the kids that come to Up Academy, their parents registered as homeschoolers because it allows us to get around, the provincial rules that say, you know, you have to be coded to have this and you have to, you know, you can’t have one-on-one and you can’t have. Because they’re not set up for it. The school system was set up wrong. So, if we have people who are having, the homeschool kids able to go to university, then why can’t, kids that go to Up Academy, go? They’ll still have transcripts. We actually reverse engineer the SATs, but I don’t think it’s testing the application of knowledge.

When you’re doing multiple-choice or what I call multiple guess exams, you’re testing recall, which is the lowest form of intelligence. Hello? What are we doing?

[00:13:05]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Creative thinking is so important, isn’t it?

[00:13:08] Lani Donaldson: Yeah. Here, mandatory subjects are creative thinking and critical thinking.

We do a lot of discussion around current events so that kids can take a look at different perspectives and the ability to take someone’s opinion that you might not agree with and sit with it. And be able to think through those. Our society is missing all of those pieces and the school systems are not helping with that.

And let me just clarify right now. Our school system is faltering, not because of teachers. Teachers most often are the only glue that’s holding it together. It’s the actual structure of it. It’s the fundamentals that are missing. And teachers can only teach within the structure that they’re given.

[00:14:01]  Suzanne F. Stevens: I’m really glad you said that too, because that’s an important element. I know many, many, many teachers and their hearts are in the right place or knowledge is in the right place. And their frustration is in the right place. You know, what, what they can and cannot do and how far they can push.

So, it’s such an important element now with dyslexia. It’s my understanding, and please correct me if I’m wrong. But a lot of times, dyslexia, not only in children but happens with newer immigrants?

[00:14:39] Lani Donaldson: It depends. If you are dyslexic in your own language, because dyslexia is just a fancy Greek term, meaning difficulty with language. If you are dyslexic your brain actually processes differently. Most dyslexics are high average to well above average intelligence. They’re not stupid people. But the way our system teaches they’re made to feel stupid.

I have a lot of kids that once they come to the start coming to the Academy, they’ll go, you know what I feel smarter. Go well, you were always smart. If immigrants come in and they’re having difficulty with their own language, they’re going to have difficulty with English for sure.

Learning English is difficult. Although English is one of the best laid out languages in the world in depth. The problem is, is a lot of immigrants come in and learn English on the surface. And so it doesn’t make it sense.

[00:15:39]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Right.

[00:15:40] Lani Donaldson: And we have a lot of people who are very well-meaning, a lot of church groups are very well-meaning and non-profits that are very well-meaning that are utilizing reading programs that aren’t necessarily an advantage when it comes to learning English as a second language.

[00:15:58]  Suzanne F. Stevens: So could adults be it wherever they’re from, come to your school as well, to try to improve their reading?

[00:16:07] Lani Donaldson: Oh, sure we do one-on-ones. Our oldest, client was, 78, I think. When people ask me, who do you work with?

I go anywhere between the ages of six and 96. And we had to cut off the 98 year olds because they kept falling asleep during the sessions.

But it’s all one-on-one right. So that you’re not in a class. So, you’re not feeling the pressure of getting things wrong. It’s just you and an instructor and some technology that we utilize, which speeds up learning. We also use the same technology to dampen down accents.

[00:16:48]  Suzanne F. Stevens: So what steps did you take to start your social initiative?

[00:16:54] Lani Donaldson: I’ve always been wired that way. I think it comes from the way I was brought up and growing up in, in Northern British Columbia, it wasn’t the end of the earth, but you could sure as hell see it from there. Looking at the diversity of cultures that were in that area at the time.

When I got to be a teacher in an inner-city school, there were lots of diverse cultures. And you could see a lot of social impacts that were negative, that shouldn’t have happened. And then when I started opening my own business and started doing one-on-ones, I had a young mom come in, her husband brought her in and she was from Zambia. They fund the government was funding education from kindergarten to grade two. And then you’re on your own. If you can’t, pay for private education, then, then your kind of hooted. And he brought her in, she was dyslexic, and he brought her in so she could read, so she could go to school and she was terrified when she came in one because I was a white woman in authority and she had a history of, of bad, bad experiences. And she thought that I would think she was stupid because she couldn’t read.

So, I took her into my assessment room and I brought her husband with me and I did a sample lesson and I taught her four letters in four sentences.

And I said, can you write the sound “a”. We went through the process and then she would write down the letter and I go right “a” four times. She did it and she was so excited. And I said, do you want to write a word? She goes, oh no, no, I can’t do that. And I go, sure can, write cat.

You could see the penny drop. She was, all I’m doing is adding, sounds. Exactly. Then I said, would you like to write a sentence? She goes, well, I can’t, I can’t. And I go, you got four sounds. You can write a sentence. And she goes, I’ll try. And like, you can do it. So, write “a fat cat.” And she wrote it and she jumped out of her chair and she was so excited and tears running down her face.

And I looked over and tears running down her husband’s face. Oh, we got to get this out of out. We have to teach more people. This is ridiculous. That something so simple is such a roadblock and we’re all we all benefit from it. We all lose if people lose. Yeah.

[00:19:33]  Suzanne F. Stevens: You gave me shivers Lani, gave me shivers. So you started one-on-one and that’s where you saw the need to start expanding?

[00:19:44] Lani Donaldson: Yep.

[00:19:44]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Okay. And when you were expanding, what was your first thing? Did you get financing? Did you get find teachers? You found a place where did you go from there?

[00:19:54] Lani Donaldson: I did, uh, I did a lot of creative funding.

Let me tell ha. I was fortunate enough that, I have a very supportive husband and we had some good years where we did some really good investing. And so, we funded the basis of it. And then we had some other people going, well, this is fantastic. How do you do what you do?

Yeah. And I go, well, this is how I do it, this is my philosophy. This is what… Can, we help you? Well, sure you can help. So, there are some people who were funding, various things. And, when we started expanding one-on-ones because once you teach people to read, then you gotta teach them to write.

We’ve developed a study skills program that teaches the five things you need to master to do well in school. And I wrote that. When I, based on my reflections of when I was a teacher in a classroom and I would think to myself, okay. So, I got two students that have the exact same ability.

They have the exact same teacher assignments, and exams. Everything is the same. Why does one get an A in one, a C plus? And so, I looked back, and I thought, huh, there are five things the student has mastered five, the C plus student has not. And so, the five things are just, operating system. How does your brain process information?

How does it want to do it? Productivity, some people call it time management, but good students have 24 hours in the day. And poor students have 24 hours in the day. So clearly the time is not the thing. It’s the productivity based on your operating system. Don’t give me a daytime or I can’t do that. Right.

So you have to have your operating system. You have to figure out how you can be productive based on that operating system. You have to figure out how you process information based on your operating system. We cannot put Mac software and a PC and expected to work. Then you have to figure out how to make things sticky, information sticky, so you can recall it based on your operating system. And then the last thing we teach them is how to write an exam. Because an exam is a visual process. So, you’re not a visual learner. You’re hoot, unless of course you reverse engineer it and you figure out how to force answers out of questions and how to look at how questions are formulated so that you can actually study for them.

[00:22:18]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Now do you in any way, stay abreast of what’s going on in the education system by connecting with teachers, just to, so you’re aware, of what’s still going on because it’s been a little while, since you and teaching in the classrooms. Do you have any process for that or?

[00:22:36] Lani Donaldson: Oh sure. A lot of my friends are teachers.

 I, I also read an awful lot and study an awful lot and listened to an awful lot of podcasts. I have coffee and breakfast and lunch and dinner with teacher friends and friends of teachers, friends to figure out what is going on, to stay abreast, of what curriculum changes are happening and talking to teachers going, what do you think of the new curriculum?

 I don’t know what you’ve heard in Ontario about the Alberta government’s new curriculum that teachers refused to teach. Because it wasn’t well thought out. So, you always have to keep visiting. It’s not all, always all the same. And of course, with COVID it’s not like you could go and visit a school.

[00:23:28] YouMeWe: Yeah. So, what measures do you have in place to assess the impact that you’re having on your students?

[00:23:34] Lani Donaldson: We do norm reference testing fairly frequently, so we have an exact measure of where kids are and how far they’ve come. We, we often will reverse engineer, SATs, and kids do practice SATs, and it’s a really good way for us to keep kids abreast of technique and strategy as well. Because when they get into post-secondary, they’re going to have to take those kinds of tests. They’re going to have to produce information based on that. If a kid can sit down and apply what I’ve taught them or what their teacher has taught them, apply it in a number of different perspectives. They’re are not going to have a problem with the exam..

[00:24:19]  Suzanne F. Stevens: The Up Academy is newer, but you have been working with people for quite some time.

 Do you know what any of those students are doing for a living now?

[00:24:28] Lani Donaldson: We have students who are entrepreneurs. We have students who are doctors.

We have students who have come back and, you know, they, they became an engineer and then they got tired of that and went, I want to do what you do. Uh, okay. I’ve had former students come back and now work for me. I have students that, a fair number actually that are in the medical industry right now.

[00:24:56] Suzanne F. Stevens: That’s interesting. Particularly if they, if some of those students were dyslexic. Now I know not all your students are dyslexic. That would be interesting if

[00:25:05] Lani Donaldson: A lot of them are.

[00:25:06] Suzanne F. Stevens: Okay. Sir Richard Branson is one of the first dyslexic people I think about who’s done okay for himself. Or, you know,

and there’s a, has.

So what’s the ultimate impact on the beneficiary, in your case, students of your initiative?

[00:25:26] Lani Donaldson: I think the ultimate impact is the world is a better place. And students have a leg up. Most, most kids that are dyslexic, there’s nothing wrong with them. They just learn differently. They process information differently. When you often, when you’re talking to a dyslexic, there’ll be talking with you. Our middle daughter is dyslexic. It used to happen at our kitchen table a lot. We’d be talking about something as a family and all of a sudden, she’d ask a question that seemingly was out in the left field and my husband would go, man, you know, us people on this side of the table have no idea what’s going on that side of the table. And I said, if you pay attention to dyslexics, they see the whole picture, which is often why they get misdiagnosed as attention deficit. But that’s an entirely different issue. Because they can see the whole picture they often play, the conversation ahead in time. And I think if you harness that ability of someone who’s able to think ahead of where everybody else is, if you can harness that, then there’s opportunity for multitudes of things and multitudes of change. If we just sat back and went, okay, what if?.

And dyslexics are often naturally able to do that. Because they often think ahead because they see it coming before it’s there. It’s like watching a television screen and the actors are walking on screen, but you can see them off stage before they get there.

[00:27:08] Suzanne F. Stevens: So what advice would you give to somebody who wants to contribute in a meaningful way, far as education with children specifically?

[00:27:18] Lani Donaldson: I had this conversation with someone, not that long ago that talked about the fact that I do initiatives for specifically for women and children, educational initiatives. And someone said, well, what about the men? Like, are you going to have all these really smart women? And then dumb men? And I did make a smart comment about that.

Uh, but uh, last time I checked children come in both male and female. And, when we teach children, we changed the world. If you teach women, you change the village. If you teach children, now you teach the world. If you teach children, how to think, how to think critically, how to think creatively, how to make decisions best on multitudes of perspectives and how to take in information and analyze it and sit with it and be quiet with it and go through all of the different things that can go either way on an issue.

If you teach children how to do that, which a lot of them will do it naturally. And we just teach it out of them. In a regular system, but if we can all teach children that, if people can focus on initiatives that help children will change the world.

[00:28:46]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Amen to that. Absolutely amen to that.

So just shifting gears, often when you’re doing a social impact as an organization, there are so many areas that you actually connect to. As matter of fact, I always highlight women and their social impact, but the fact that it’s an international women’s history month, I’m doing more events in order to celebrate women like yourself and women internationally, but specifically in this month and focusing on Canadian women and the impact that you’re having. And particularly the impact that you’re having on the sustainable development goals, the 2030 sustainable development goals. And based on what you are focusing on, you’re impacting good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, and reducing inequalities, which is a real mitt full.

But what’s really interesting, not only are you doing all of that through educating children and women, but, and this is what love. You also are being very proactive to climate change. And I would like you to tell us about your environmental sustainability practices and in particularly how, when you have an infrastructure that’s focused more on the social or the people impact how you can do both.

[00:30:06] Lani Donaldson: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I wouldn’t consider one without the other. Here at the school, we do the usual, reuse, recycle, reduce, that kind of, of mindset. But when we have what we call, a 360 degree look at things when we are purchasing right down to desks that are used and carpets that are on the floor and cupboards, anything that we purchase, we research the company and find out what are their green initiatives?

 What are they doing? Are they doing their part for the environment? And we don’t deal with them if they’re are not. It takes, I’ll tell you, it takes a lot of parent volunteers to research.

[00:30:57] Suzanne F. Stevens: I was going to ask you, how do you manage that? It’s a lot of work to do that.

So, parents volunteer to help. Do you have that as part of your contract when you’re teaching their kids?

[00:31:07] Lani Donaldson: No, you know, what’s interesting parents come in they go, this is so different. Like this does not even look like a school.

And I go, no, it doesn’t because kids go to a classroom, learn, a skill set, and then they’ll go back to their independent or collaborative working areas and work on it. And parents come in and go. Is there something I can volunteer to do? Like, I just like hanging out here. Is there something I can do? And I got, it might be a sad you asked that.

 We have a lot of support from parents, but that’s not the only group that researches kids’ research as well. So we’ll go, well, we’ve got to narrow down to this and this and the kids will go, okay where’s the research on the companies that build that? And so, as you know, the kids sit down and go, okay, well, what, what do you think?

And a little kids would say, “I want the pink one.” Right. But the older kids go, okay, well, let’s, let’s see how they made the pink color and we’ll get back to that.

[00:32:07]  Suzanne F. Stevens: It’s interesting, as you know, in interviewing the many women I have, and particularly when we started YouMeWe we Amplified, I was interviewing African women.

And one of the women just blew my mind away with how they created a school that you alluded to, that you get the kids what’s going on in the world. Now getting the kids involved, getting them to find their voice, getting them to do the research so that they particularly when it comes to the environment, that they’re the ones that are leading the charge.

And that’s such an incredible way to teach. Because it’s not just to know when it goes back to your earlier comment. It’s not just to know it’s to know what I can do and the impact it actually has if I’m proactive in the voice. So I love that you’re giving them that opportunity to dictate how you’re running your business in a way.

[00:33:10] Lani Donaldson: Sure. And they’re part of it. When you walk into our school, you just feel family. I think we have one teacher that, that kids call her Mrs. So-and-so. Kids in our school call me Lani. Do I run the school? Sure. But I’m a human being just like them.

And do I need a title to make sure that there’s a respect level? No, because our cornerstones are respect, responsibility, resilience, and results. Those are the cornerstones of Up Academy. They’re the cornerstones of engaged educators. So we’re all really family here.

[00:33:51] Suzanne F. Stevens: Yeah. Titles are really getting passe or they not,

I remember the days when getting rid of the title off the card was really, then people won’t know what you do. How far we have come. Which kind of leads to the pandemic has helped us, over the last couple of years deal with many issues, but at Up Academy, how’s the pandemic affected you and what challenges have you had and how, if you have overcome them, you know, a few of those there.

[00:34:23] Lani Donaldson: Great question. Great question. What we did when, when the government sort of shut down everything and shut down schools and you must be online. Understand that we’re an independent school. We’re not part of the government process, but we didn’t understand COVID so we went, okay, we’re going to, we’re going to shut it down.

It happened to coincide with our two weeks spring break when school shut down. And I have, an amazing staff. So, the staff went, you know, we will not take our spring break. We will work through spring break. We will figure this online thing out. And we sat down and worked for two weeks. When the kids came back online, we had it all figured out.

And so, we did three, four weeks online. And because we have such a small cohort, we brought the kids back in. And our kids have been two, three months online, our kids finished all the curriculum and all the requirements about two and a half weeks early. ‘Because we set up the way we do and kids have lots of one-on-one time with instructors during the day anyhow, and kids can make appointments with their instructor and see them anytime. And they can do that online as well. Teachers stayed online, all day. Kids went to various classes from nine, until noon, with a break in the middle there. And then in the afternoon, they could work on their projects, but the teachers were online and they could access them at any time.

So, we actually sped up learning. Our kids didn’t experience any learning loss at all.

[00:36:13] Suzanne F. Stevens: Which is great. Now from a business standpoint, did it impact you in any way?

[00:36:20] Lani Donaldson: It killed our one-on-one programming. It absolutely killed it because people weren’t going anywhere in order to do one-on-one, we’re using specialized technology, especially in our reading programs.

And so people need to come here. They need to be on-site to do it. So that impacted that portion of the income streams for the company. For sure.

[00:36:46] Suzanne F. Stevens: So, would that be one of your biggest challenges?

[00:36:48] Lani Donaldson: The one-on-ones are now coming back primarily because of learning loss and kids have missed so much. The big social impact is making sure that these kids don’t get lost. They don’t feel like they’re drowning in an education system that’s not listening. My assessment room that I have here, where parents come in with their children, for me to do some assessing, my staff has dubbed it, the crying room and not because kids are unhappy. But when the kids go off with my assistant to do some computerized testing, parents often just break down in tears and go, oh my gosh, someone is listening to me. And I’m going, yes, I am listening. You are the expert in your child. I am not. I’m an expert in how to teach your child and how to access and gain knowledge for your child.

But I’m not the expert in your child, you are as a parent. And a lot of parents just are blown away by that because that’s not the way our systems are set up.

[00:37:53] Suzanne F. Stevens: Now that we are coming back and face, face to face, what would be the three key things to ensuring that you are sustainable as a business standpoint so that you can continue to have the social impact that you’re having every day?

Because at the end of the day, we both know, it’s great to have, and want to have a social impact. It’s great to have the systems and everything, but it also needs the financing to do that. You don’t get government funding. Is there any sort of three things that you think are absolutely key to ensuring that you continue to have that social impact that you’ve been creating?

[00:38:28] Lani Donaldson: Yeah, I think the key is to increase our student numbers. So get more students into Up Academy, obviously increasing the one-on-ones is incredibly important, not only for our business, but for the community at large. We’re also starting an initiative. The kids are starting it. We’re doing a hydroponics lab where kids are now growing sustainable food.

And that’s a project that we would like to start talking to some of the grocery stores now that we can do a massive, but I want to teach kids what the process is. What are our systems socially? To make sure we can feed a population. And I think there’s some, somewhere in there we can gain some corporate sponsorship in terms, in order to keep our initiatives going.

[00:39:25] Suzanne F. Stevens: Absolutely. And on that note, I will send you one of our YouMeWe. We amplified interviews where, we’re talking about the hydroponic gardens and some of the challenges that they had, in creating it. It was for women that have suffered from violence, giving them dignity and community. (https://podcast.youmewe.ca/kathy-willis-huronia-transition-homes/

They created it to make income as well, but some of the challenges they overcame. I’ll send you that interview because it’s a very insightful interview. We’re going to dive into rapid-fire questions.

Why is your social impact and educating students important now?

[00:40:10] Lani Donaldson: I think in history now more than ever, it is time. We all have to take responsibility for what’s going on.

[00:40:20]  Suzanne F. Stevens: Absolutely. Why are you the right person to lead this initiative?

[00:40:26] Lani Donaldson: I have been told I think I’m in the box a lot. I have a very conceptual, but a very analytical way of looking at things and I seem to be the only one that’s stepping in and questioning how we educate kids. Because it’s, it’s a lonely road, but I’m willing to do it because there’s a lot at stake here.

We kids are our future. We can’t let them down now..

[00:40:52] Suzanne F. Stevens: Yeah, I I’d love to see you open these up everywhere. It just makes so much sense to me.

And when we get past this pandemic hit me up for funding. There you go.

Way past it.

[00:41:10] Lani Donaldson: Yes. Yes.

[00:41:11] Suzanne F. Stevens: Now how has your company provided meaning in your life?

[00:41:15] Lani Donaldson: You know, I get so excited to come to work every day. People ask my husband, what does your wife do? And he goes, she molds young minds.

I don’t know if I mold them, but I work at the best place in the world. I get to see miracles happen every day here.

[00:41:40] Suzanne F. Stevens: What is one thing you wish you knew prior to starting down this path?

[00:41:46] Lani Donaldson: You know, taking some business courses in university would have been helpful.

[00:41:52] Suzanne F. Stevens: Great advice.

And one of the reasons why this platform exists. I often think when people say something like that, I think to myself, and yet you may not have done it had you had those courses.

[00:42:04] Lani Donaldson: True.

[00:42:06] Suzanne F. Stevens: There’s two ways of looking at that, but it’s an excellent point. What have you done that has made you uncomfortable, but if you did not do it, you would not have had the impact that you have on your beneficiary and students?

[00:42:20] Lani Donaldson: You know, this is going to sound kind of weird, but I am dyslexic. I read a minimum of 52 books a year just to keep up on business and what’s happening because I don’t have a background in business nor did my parents.

I didn’t have any role models for that. So, I think reading that much one year I would read 198 and that makes me really uncomfortable. For the dyslexic, it’s very tiring to read, but I have learned so much from so many different perspectives. I would say that’s probably it. Bizarre, you would think there would be a lot of other things that I could come up with, but that much reading.

[00:43:04] Suzanne F. Stevens: Interestingly enough, I’ve never heard that one.

So, and that’s what we’re looking for. Whatever’s true. True. And authentically you. Worst piece of advice you ever received?

[00:43:16] Lani Donaldson: Worst piece of advice? That’s interesting. Oh, you should. You should stay in the small town that you grew up in and go to work and be like everyone else. And that was the worst piece of advice, but I didn’t take it.

So, you know, I kind of laughed at it.

[00:43:38] Suzanne F. Stevens: What would be the best piece of advice you’ve ever received or one of the best pieces?

[00:43:44] Lani Donaldson: I don’t know if it was advice or like my mom wasn’t a teacher, but she understood fundamentally that I wasn’t stupid. And when she sent me off to go to university, cause that’s what I wanted to do because it was the only way I could figure out how to get out of that small town. The best thing she said to me is if it doesn’t work out, you can always come home. And I was driven, not to.

[00:44:19] Suzanne F. Stevens: Smart mother. Which of your strengths do you rely on most to have the success you have achieved?

[00:44:30] Lani Donaldson: Definitely conceptual thinking and being a visionary. I rely on that creative out of the box, thinking constantly with every problem we face.

[00:44:45] Suzanne F. Stevens: Besides yours, which beneficiary do you think needs the most investment of time research and money?

[00:44:56] Lani Donaldson: That’s a really good question. You know, I think I really, in my heart of hearts, Suzanne, I really think if we focused in concentrated on kids, a lot of the other stuff would go away. But I think we need to look after the plantet. Because if, if, if we wreck it, where are we going to move to?

[00:45:19] Suzanne F. Stevens: Well, apparently speaking of a Sir Richard Branson, he’s got an idea.

One. I don’t think it’s realistic. But, nonetheless. What leadership advice do you have for people who want to have a social impact?

[00:45:40] Lani Donaldson: You have to listen to others. There are lots of people that charge off onto like, let’s teach everybody to read and they charge off to Africa with books written in English. Non-helpful. I really think you need to listen and understand before you act.

[00:45:57] Suzanne F. Stevens: Now I, I do not know this Lani, nor does it really matter, but I’m going to put you in a simulated situation.

If you had a 10-year-old daughter today, what advice would you give her?

[00:46:10] Lani Donaldson: You have to master how to learn, because things change so fast. We’re developing technology faster than we can figure out the consequences of doing so.

[00:46:21] Suzanne F. Stevens: That is such a true comment because we’ve again, been living. It is technology has not served us well in all cases. It’s an excellent point.

Now, what advice do you wish you received? When you were 10?

[00:46:36] Lani Donaldson: When I was 10 oh Suzanne, that’s a long time ago. I think I needed someone to come alongside me and tell me it wasn’t stupid because I grew up thinking that. Until I was in university and sat in a linguistics class, I went wait a minute.. There sounds letters have sounds rules control at combinations.

Make, ah, this would have been handy to know

[00:47:01] Suzanne F. Stevens: Who’s the greatest female influence in your life.

[00:47:08] Lani Donaldson: Other than my grandma on my mom’s side, who came over on a boat from Europe,

There are so many of them. I I’ve learned from so many, cause I’ve read so much.

[00:47:21] Suzanne F. Stevens: What three values do you live by?

[00:47:27] Lani Donaldson: I think compassion, perspective, understanding. I have lots of values that the school has.

[00:47:37] Suzanne F. Stevens: And I love the ones that you mentioned that your school has as well. Thanks for that.

And thank you, Lani, for joining us and thank you to those who have joined us live, and those who are watching the recording.

You can subscribe to You, Me, We Amplified Podcasts. So you receive each new interview notification in your inbox. Please share the interview by going to the share button located on each guest exclusive page. And you can find that at podcast dot YouMeWe.ca and the good news about our interviews is if you like to read, you can read like Lani. will. If you like podcasts as Lani does, you can listen to a podcast or you can watch the video. So, we do give it to you in three formats.

And if you want to grow you, your organization and your social impact, please look into YouMeWe Community: Women Leading Social Impact. You can find us at YouMeWe dot ca.

And my final question, goes to you, Lenny, because who else would it go to at this point?

Is, do you have any words of wisdom for our audience regarding making a contribution to society?

[00:48:46] Lani Donaldson: I don’t know if it’s words of wisdom, but we all live here. All of us, doesn’t matter where we are on the planet, we all live here and we are all responsible for everyone else. So, pull up your big girl panties. Let’s get to it. It’s women who are going to make the change.

[00:49:06] Suzanne F. Stevens: Absolutely.

Until next time, make your contribution count for You. Me, We.