Self-Led Classrooms Part 2 with Tim Amaral
Self-Led Classrooms Part 2 with Tim Amaral
In this powerful follow-up episode, I welcome back Tim Amaral, an award-winning adult educator and creator of the Self-Led Learning model. Together, they explore how traditional education systems often undermine a student's sense of worth—and what it looks like to build classrooms rooted in connection, self-worth, and authentic community. Tim shares profound insights on how trauma-informed education can transform lives, why belonging is the foundation of learning, and what happens when students are finally seen and valued for who they are, not just what they achieve.
3 Key Takeaways:
🌱What if education isn't about becoming someone, but honoring who you already are?
🌱Why removing threats isn’t enough—true safety in classrooms comes from connection.
🌱The secret power of allowing students to be exactly who they are—without agenda.
---
👤 Guest: Timothy Amaral
Timothy Amaral is an award-winning adult educator and teacher trainer from Salinas, CA. He specializes in the teaching and application of trauma-informed practices, social-emotional skills, and needs-based responsiveness for use in the classroom, in the workplace, and in the home. He is the creator of the SELf-Led Learning model.
Resources & Offerings:
➡️Download the Free IFS Resource Library: https://go.johnclarketherapy.com/ifs-resource-library
➡️Free Training - Learn how to integrate the principles of IFS into your therapy practice: https://go.johnclarketherapy.com/ifs-webinar-podcast
➡️ 1-Month Grace Period with Jane – Use code JOHN or visit: https://meet.jane.app/john-clarke-ambassador
➡️ 10% Off at Grounding Well – Use code GWJOHNCLARKE or visit: https://www.groundingwell.com/GWJOHNCLARKE
➡️ 10% Off at Dharma Dr. – Use code JOHN or visit: https://dharmadr.com/JOHN
💬 Connect with me:
https://www.johnclarketherapy.com/
https://www.instagram.com/johnclarketherapy/
https://www.tiktok.com/@johnclarketherapy
https://www.youtube.com/@johnclarketherapy
TRANSCRIPT
Tim Amaral: [00:00:00] Now there, there are plenty of kids who will, who will achieve in that system. But it doesn't mean that they are thriving, and it certainly does not mean that they are, um, nourished. Absolutely not.
John Clarke: Going Inside is a podcast on a mission to help people heal from trauma and reconnect with their authentic self. Join me trauma therapist John Clarke for guest interviews, real life therapy sessions, and soothing guided meditations. I. Whether you're navigating your own trauma, helping others heal from trauma, or simply yearning for a deeper understanding of yourself, going inside is your companion on the path to healing and self-discovery.
Download free guided meditations and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.
All right, we are back for a second time with, uh, my guest, Timothy [00:01:00] Amaral. He's an award-winning adult educator and teacher trainer from Salinas, California. He specializes in the teaching and application of trauma-informed practices, social emotional skills, and needs based responsiveness for use in the classroom, in the workplace, and in the home.
He's the creator of the self-led learning model. You can find out more at selfledclassroom.com. Tim, thanks for doing part two with me. And, uh, we were talking before the show that, , yeah, you wanted to start with, uh, kind of a snippet from last time, so maybe you can kick us off there and let's see where it takes us.
Tim Amaral: Alright, fabulous. And thank you so much for having me back. It's, uh, um, a privilege, uh, that's absolutely not lost on me. In, in, in the world of, the work that I do. There are not a lot of opportunities for. For teachers to get their voices heard. So I'm super grateful for sure. , So the, the, the starting point for me, uh, this week is, , the motto that we, um, have in my classroom or that we had in my [00:02:00] classroom, , that you don't need an education to be of value.
You need an education because you are of value. So when I started to work on articulating what. My, my, my sort of guiding principles were behind the work that I was doing and what, , my value set was, so to speak. I realized that one of the messages that I wanted to subvert in the sort of standard approach to education is that.
Message that we get where we don't have value unless we're performing, right? So we, we get caught in this system for so many hours out of our lives as kids where we're, , rewarded and considered acceptable as long as we have all of this performance that's going on. And so it becomes this sort [00:03:00] of, uh, scaffolding of, of.
, Performance-based behaviors that we have that carries us through much of our lives in many cases. Right? Yeah. So at some level, the message is you're not, you're not really loved. You're not really loved. It's, it is, you're only gonna be loved if you do X, Y, and Z. And if you do it at this level, and, , that has always, , been something that has not set well with me.
So the motto is a, a, a direct outgrowth of trying to articulate something about pushing back on that. And, and that's where we came up with, , or I came up with, , you, you don't need an education to be a value. You need an education 'cause you are a value. I wanted to make sure that every lesson that I designed in the classroom held that as the centerpiece and.
And so when I was working with students, what it allowed me to do was it [00:04:00] allowed me to take the pressure off myself and them. And, and instead of it being about, , the, the very industrial design that we normally have in a classroom, it really became more. Familial right? We became this sort of second tribe that we were constructing for ourselves, , where our belonging needs were met and where we were welcome to the table and the the right to let go of the stories that we had been cultivating for so many years.
It was foundational and, and the amount of relief that I could see my students experiencing, frankly, me too, as the teacher. Right. I didn't have to keep abiding by that and being exhausted by it.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: So the relief gave us so much more room to get work done, actually, the odd byproduct of, of taking the pressure off that style of for or from that style of work.
[00:05:00] Actually produce the results that, that style of work is, you know, actually hammering people for. Mm-hmm. And, and I don't wanna leave it at that. What I wanna do is I want to emphasize the idea that folks rose up into themselves. Yeah. Right. When, when they started to say, oh my gosh, somebody's. Seeing my, my value, my worth in life at a very sort of normalized level.
This is not some exceptionalized, you gotta be special, none of that stuff. It's just, Hey, welcome. This is how we eat. And when, when we did that, people started to feed themselves. But the best part is they discovered how they wanted to eat and they discovered how to cook for themselves. Right. So instead of being distracted on this path, chasing life where it's all about performance, and then you'll finally get a little reward at the end, it really [00:06:00] actually cultivated this sort of autonomy and agency and it was anchored in self-worth.
So people really started to cue into, gosh, what does my system need? Oh, mm-hmm. And I would see people who would make the shift from saying. , I, I just want to get a job. , You know, I'm, I'm working 14 hours a day and now I want to get it taken down to eight hours a day. , And I'm tired of my boss at whatever the large, uh, multinational place where there's awful lot of hair nets and styrofoam.
Yeah, I'll just say that way. Uh, and they would say, you know, I've always dreamt about being an artist. I've always dreamt about building stuff. I wanna be an engineer. Great, that if that's what you wanna do with your life, I will support you a hundred percent on that choice. So when we anchored it in self-worth and we responded to people's needs from that viewpoint, they started making choices that were.[00:07:00]
Validating for them and, and , not just validating, but vivifying, like it gave them life energy because they were chasing stuff. Yeah. That was about them. Yeah. And,, and our next great hurdle was how to get folks to be able to graduate. And I don't mean that from the practical sense, I mean
John Clarke: mm-hmm.
Tim Amaral: It was from the viewpoint of getting them to actually leave and launch because they would be so unused to being loved in a classroom.
Yeah. That the thought of moving on to the next stage in life would make them a little scared. And, and I would have to reassure 'em. No, you have all the skills inside of you to be able to handle it and the doors always open to come back. Yeah. And, you know, check in with me and get support if you need to.
The community's gonna be here. Yeah. , So take that community in your heart when you go. And you'll be fine. And, um, sometimes that was the one of the biggest nudges that we'd have to give.
John Clarke: As therapists, we hold space for so many, but who's holding space for us?
If you're [00:08:00] craving deeper healing and more powerful tools for your clients, I wanna invite you to my free webinar on Internal Family Systems Therapy. IFS changed my life and the way I practice. It helped me move through burnout, reconnect with my authentic self, and show up more fully for my clients and for myself.
In this webinar, I'm gonna walk you through what IFS is and why it works. A simple tool that you can use right away and how to bring this work into your practice, even if you're just beginning. This is for therapists ready to go deeper. Join us now with the link in the description. ,
Like, um, how, how did we get here in the first place and just how insidious this culture around performance is? You know, in my case, working mostly with adults and, . Again, most of my career has been out here in the Bay Area, , and at least in private practice working with adults who came here to Silicon Valley to be someone and to be shiny and a unicorn and prove my specialness right?
Yeah. Yeah. And the best way I can prove my specialness is to not only create a startup, but [00:09:00] be the one in 100 that sells the startup and is on Forbes or whatever. And I'm so fascinated by that, right? Yeah. And where that drive comes from and how. I talk with my clients about, , you know, I'm agnostic as to their goals and what they want.
If they're like, I'm in therapy because I wanna make a hundred million dollars, you know, and be this unicorn. , I'm just curious about where that's coming from and how much of that is coming from your woundedness. Hmm. Right. And those parts that hold, those, those fears of being not good enough, not enough, right.
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
John Clarke: So, uh, yeah.
Tim Amaral: Yeah. You
John Clarke: know,
Tim Amaral: there's this funny thing that, . I, I've actually spent quite a bit of time exploring, and I, and I, I know that it's the reason why I do what I do, but I, I, there's this, when I do my trainings for teachers, I talk about this thing called the false dichotomy that happens when the trauma hits, right.
Our body makes this sort of reactive response. Do I need to be like the perpetrator?
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: In order to survive, [00:10:00] or do I need to be. The victim in order to survive.
John Clarke: Right.
Tim Amaral: And then
that we actually end up choosing both depending on, you know, what day of the week it is and what we're doing and like, you know, who we're hanging out with and what we've done.
Yeah. Uh, but nonetheless, that, that split means become, if we pick this path or pick that path, we get kinda locked into that. And so, if. If our house burned down when was a kid, our, our brain will often say, I'm gonna be a firefighter. I'm gonna be an arsonist. And more often than not, we'll be both. Make sure this never happens again.
John Clarke: Yeah,
Tim Amaral: yeah, exactly. That's the thing. So we just keep reliving that moment. And, and so I know that as a teacher, that I, I became the teacher
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Out of that di that, um, dichotomy. And so what I, I try to. Work with my students around and, and I touch on it with my teachers, but I definitely worked on a lot with my students.
We talked about going back to remembering who we [00:11:00] were before the trauma hit, what was in our heart then and don't we have the right and responsibility to, to re-engage those cells and bring them updated information and let them actually yeah, move forward with their life. Right. So that we're not defined by the story of what happened to us.
And it's not about denial, and it's not about, , making a fact, not a fact. Right. We, we, we accept the reality of the thing that happened.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: , But instead we are more loyal to our ourself, the self of the capitalist. You know, we're much more loyal to ourself than we are to, uh. To the trauma narrative, or in fact, carrying somebody else's unresolved issues, right?
That, that's that sort of vampire bite infection thing where they had some problem and they didn't resolve it. So then we carry it for the rest of our lives kind of thing. So in the classroom that way that shows up is that the students often will carry the [00:12:00] burdens that the teachers didn't process. And so I, I just say no, we, we have permission to rewrite that.
It.
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
We don't have to be tied to it anymore. Yeah. We actually can go right back to the place who we were before the trauma and, and that leads to all sorts of interesting conversations. But one of the things that it gives us, I think is the realization that, oh, this is, this is actually possible.
Really, we can really let this go. Like I have to write. So then we often will still stay in the same career path, right? And we realize, okay, this actually, yeah. I'm already here. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. , So I, I, I, I'm with you in terms of the agnosticism about it, right. But, but understanding and, and going back and, uh, loving up those parts of ourselves [00:13:00] that have been hurt.
, So that they get liberated. I think that's a, a, a, an honorable thing for us to be doing. I think it's a good way to spend our days. , And, and if we still stay in that same pathway that we thought, you know, might be the result of the trauma, but we find out that it's, eh, no, it's actually a pretty good alignment by, by being more self-led while we're there, I think we end up producing, , better outcomes ultimately.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
John Clarke: I, I think we all know what it's like when someone, you can feel the energy of someone trying to get me to change or someone wishing I were different. Yeah. And I mentioned last time, you know, in the last episode for folks who haven't heard that yet, some of my experiences, you know, as a, a kid and teen, uh, and feeling some of that energy from teachers, like, gosh, I just wish you could get it or sit still, right?
Yeah. Or be more like, you know. My friend beside me. , And how, how damaging that is, right? Even [00:14:00] as an adult. , Like an example I often give is like. If you enter a conversation, let's say about politics, and you can tell someone's trying to change you right off the bat. Yeah. Like what happens, what does it mean to get defensive?
Right? Like who or what are you defending when you're defensive? Right. It's like, yeah, you bet 40 in terms it's like an ego defense defending the ego, right? From a parts perspective, it's like our protectors come up 'cause it's like this person is trying to call me bad, right? Yeah. This person is trying to, , touch into my, my badness as a way to motivate me.
Yeah. Right. Or when teachers are like, I thought be, you know, you, you can do better than this. Or you're like this unfulfilled potential thing. Or like, I remember my wife will talk about some of her kind of school wounding as like, , didn't apply herself. Oh yeah. You know, which is like a feedback that I think a lot of teachers like to give.
'cause it's like, I both see your potential and you disappointed me. You know? So, but it also, like for her, it just was like mostly a negative thing to hear that.
Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
John Clarke: So
Tim Amaral: yeah, it's, if it is [00:15:00] remarkable, if you think about how many hours in a, in a day and then spread that out over our, our, you know, K 12 experience on, we, we won't get into university stuff, right?
Let's just K 12, how many hours of the day we're spending with people who give us the message that we're unlovable. That's right.
John Clarke: Yeah. You
Tim Amaral: know, that, that's, that's fundamentally what it is, is that you are. You are outside of the tribe, and not only are you outside of the tribe, but you are damned for the rest of your life.
Right? Yeah. It's like, oh, holy smokes. How does, yeah. Any kid have the resources to get through that unscathed.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Now there, there are plenty of kids who will, who will achieve in that system. But it doesn't mean that they are thriving, and it certainly does not mean that they are, , nourished. Absolutely not.
So what we end up doing is we, we settle for social emotional junk [00:16:00] food as, as the way to get relief in these distressing systems instead of getting things that really nourish us.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: And. I would just advocate for, let's just nourish people all the time. Like let, listen, make that the norm. So it's not some weird, odd statement that shouldn't be
John Clarke: such a radical idea, but it is like it's, it is, it's your whole mission and work is like based on that and it, it really shouldn't be so radical, but it is.
And it's like, what? Yeah. How did we come so far from that?
Tim Amaral: Yeah. I, I actually, it, it feels, and I have parts that get, get kind of. , Excited about this. It feels subversive, right? Yeah. And, and, and yet, , what I find is that those of us who are inside of the system, who are [00:17:00] malnourished as well, it resonates when we bump into that and we just go, oh my gosh.
So. There's a lot of actual grief that's associated with this. We realized how much time was taken from our development, right? And, and if we're educators, we realize how many folks we, we weren't nourishing towards, and, and grief comes up around that as well. So. I, I would never want to give anybody the idea that because you choose this path of, of, of love in the classroom, right.
Meeting the love and belonging needs that it's all gonna be, you know, rainbows and butterflies. Yeah. It's not. You know? Yeah.
John Clarke: And well, and yeah, and experience can be both corrective and re-traumatizing at the same time, you know? Oh yeah, for sure. For me, it's kind of like parenting is, is that [00:18:00] right?
There's moments that are corrective. 'cause I'm kind of doing it differently now with my kid than it was for me. And also like it puts me back and some of my own, you know, woundedness. Right? Same thing for being a therapist or an educator. , There, there's also a sense of, . Helplessness, witnessing helplessness is in itself can be traumatizing for our systems.
, And being part of a system that has a lot of dysfunction in it, right? Yeah. Uh, can, can activate some of that. You know, and I might've mentioned last time, one of my first jobs out here in the Bay was for. This big nonprofit, Seneca, and we were doing school-based programs in San Francisco and so I worked in Petro Hill and , you know, it's like my job was to get these kids to sit still.
Meanwhile, they're going home to fundamentally unsafe neighborhoods and environments and some of them malnourished, right? , And just complete lack of. Safety there, and yet I've gotta do something with this kid. Right. My way of proving my goodness to my boss is like getting him to sit still or earn his like [00:19:00] star chark.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know? Um, meanwhile, he's experiencing an unfathomable degree of like, unsafety at home the second he, you know, gets home from school.
Tim Amaral: Yeah. I, one of the things that, , makes me crazy that the system is so far off kilter, I. Is that we have students who are dealing with extremely unsafe circumstances in their non-school hours, and then we bring them to school and it's only moderately less unsafe.
Yeah, right. So what I, I try to tell my, my teachers is I say, I wanna pop your balloon around the concept of safety. You, you are going to often have the belief that because your classroom. , Has an absence of threat that your classroom is safe, right? And you can do that with, um, removing all the sharp objects.
You can do that by putting bars on the [00:20:00] windows wanding, the, you can do all these things and that will make your classroom safe. Yeah. But I'm gonna tell you that the removal of threat does not. Equate to safety. Mm. Connection does. Mm-hmm. Connection equates with safety. So we, we need an absence of threat.
Yes. And we need connection because being in the same space with a whole lot of people who consider you outside of the tribe doesn't make you feel safe on the inside. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so what I really want them. To understand is that yeah, we want the absence of threat, but we want the presence of connection.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: And
that will then equal safety.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: And, and when we, we feel ourselves to be loved. And there's something about the redemptive quality of doing it in community, right? Is that we, we can do some of this work that's healing and, and [00:21:00] I, and I'm using that language very. Carefully, because we don't do therapy in class.
What we do is we make the classroom this safe space because we have connection. That connection produces a healing experience for many, many trauma survivors. The mere presence of connection is itself a healing experience. Yeah. And, and we're not doing it with this one-on-one dynamic, which is fine. It has its place in the world, but there's something about being seen by the eyes of the collective.
Yeah. And everybody puts their arms around you. Right. And, and that's in spite of having some pretty heinous histories with my folks, you know? Um, I have had. Many students, many students upon [00:22:00] graduation, they would come back and these are, these are folks who've had some life experiences and upon graduation, they will not just shed a tear, they will have a convulsive cry in class around, .
As they would say, you guys are my family, and I feel like I'm walking away from my family. And so we, I, again, at that point, the family rises up and we just love them up and let 'em know we're, we're here with you and we're, you can take us with you. And then the door's always open to come back. So we don't feel this, , attachment wound as intensely, right.
We don't, we don't want to like, push that any harder than it's already been pushed. , But, but that whole sense of. What it takes for people who were normally so guarded and so locked down. , Both, , metaphorically and literally in some cases [00:23:00] to be so vulnerable that they can cry like that. I. Like the kind of, we call it the vomit cry, where they'd do the vomit cry in class, and they'd still get loved up and it would still be great.
And everybody would meet them in that space and say, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna miss you too. This is gonna be your chair forever. And, and, and that sense of healing in the, in the community is, mm-hmm. It's invaluable. It really opens up a whole lot of other things where we're not dependent on one person.
We're not dependent on, , this one little single space. It's, it, the multiplicity is really, uh, it's a gift. Uh, it's something I'm gonna miss a great deal actually. Yeah.
John Clarke: , Tim, we've talked a lot about your experience as a teacher and with teachers in the work that you do. Yeah. , [00:24:00] I'm so curious. Whatever you're comfortable sharing.
What about your own experience as a student? How did that shape all of this?
Tim Amaral: Yeah, so, uh, I was a kid who could do. The performative stuff, right? I, I, I figured out how to get the grades. Being in the classroom was extremely painful for me. , I had a body that really, really struggled to be in a desk, and I also was experiencing trauma in the environment in which I was living.
And, , so I was the kid who could get As but didn't, , the kid who, um, uh, you know, I got the highest [00:25:00] SAT score in my high school and then I was brought home in the back of a police car. So that's my, that's my, that's my educational experience right there. Uh, grew up in a place where nobody once ever said, so are you going to college?
There was nobody who represented that pathway in my life. So I know that as I've done work around all of this, that that's the energy that guided me into the work that I do today.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Amaral: But, , I, I would say, uh, it felt, , like incarceration.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yeah. I would've taken a wild, taken a wild guess that, , I.
Part of your background has to inspire this stuff. It's like how therapists end up therapists, right? Yeah, you bet. You know, kind of wounded healer, whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Amaral: It's that
dichotomy,
right?
John Clarke: Yeah. Well, [00:26:00] and I, you know, something I love about working with kids and teenagers is, on one hand it's, although it can be tremendously difficult, and there's a reason why not.
Every therapist works with teens.
Tim Amaral: Oh yeah, for sure.
John Clarke: , They, , they really can smell bs. Yeah. Like no one else. And so as you're talking about this piece of your background and kind of your realness teens, like they kind of demand that you bring your realness. Yeah. Because if they, if you don't right, and you BS them and you just do the whole like teacher thing, like almost overly guarded, it's like they really don't trust you now.
They really don't respect you. And really going back to that connection piece, it's like they need to connect with something real, because they're also in this p this phase developmentally of trying to connect with what's real inside of them and who am I, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Who can I kind of anchor into, right?
Like, is Tim gonna be real with me? You know? Um, and I've just found that over time in, in all the teens, I've seen both in the schools and. In private practice, you know, that realness really, really has to be [00:27:00] there. , And one way that I level with them when I'm starting with a teen and therapy is, um, there's all these adults out there that are trying to get you to do something.
Yeah. Right? And that's part of why you're here. And so. I don't want to be just another one of those adults basically that has an agenda for your life. And at the same time, there's some things that have brought, landed you here, right? Whether it's like doing drugs or stealing or not, you know, like you're not holding up your end of the bargain, right?
And that's why you're here. , But I really wanna understand why this matters to them, why their life matters to them. ,
Tim Amaral: Yeah,
John Clarke: what, what matters to them, right? And if school doesn't matter, why, why is that? You know? Um, yeah. But I don't want to be just another adult that has this agenda for them, like another person that they can fail basically.
Like, you have failed out here, mom, dad, coaches, teachers and everything, and you're gonna go fail your therapist as well, right? Yeah. So to me it's a no fail environment, you know? , And that's, that's really important. , On the other hand, the agendas of the parents is usually [00:28:00] the problem 'cause they're wanting very specific outcomes.
You know, from this therapy that we're doing, we're coming, we're paying this money and all that. And I totally get that. So for me, working with the parents is a huge part of working with, , a teen. And so much of it is just fear, right? And when I work with the parents, I really try to level with them of, you're here and you're worried about your kid 'cause you're a good parent.
Right.
Tim Amaral: Right.
John Clarke: To me, like the, the biggest fear that most parents have is like being a bad parent or being perceived as a bad parent. Right. So if I can kind of just honor that piece and see like, there's parts of you working so hard to make sure your kid, um, is okay. Right. And is succeeds in life, in other words, is like, is connected and has their needs met and can.
To survive on, you know, on their own. Of course you want that 'cause you're a good parent and a lot of times by seeing the goodness in them, we start to have a working relationship here. I'm to see I'm not against you. Right? Yeah. I,
Tim Amaral: I, if I may reflect on a, a [00:29:00] phrase that you used that really, , catches catches my ear and that is you see the goodness in them, right?
And that whole idea of having. Anybody see the goodness in us?
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Is it's a lightning bolt, you know, it's a lightning bolt. And the mere act of, of doing that with folks in between folk, that, that, that whole exchange of, we operate in that world where that's the currency of the day, where we see each other's goodness as, as.
The primary source of this energy that we're gonna move through life. Yeah. It gives us that sense of value. And human beings are smart. They're going to take care of the thing that is valued. Yeah. It's, that's, it's like our, one of our fundamental survival drives, right, is we're gonna take care of this [00:30:00] stuff that's valued because the thing that's valued is, is good for whatever.
And the ironic part or the, the. Contrary. Part of that is when we get sent a message that we have no value, that who we are is not good enough. Number one, we at some level, as we take that in and, and identify with it, there's gonna come a day where we're gonna make that come due. That's a, that's a destiny right there.
As soon as I say I have no value, there's a day where I'm I. All of the work that I put in through my life is gonna be kind of pressing down. It's gonna be inverted and it's gonna land on that point.
Mm-hmm.
Tim Amaral: And, and one day it always snaps. Whether it snaps through the body given up in terms of health or some behavior that we, we, um, get ourselves into that goes south or the company that we keep or whatever it may be.
[00:31:00] But that debt comes due on the other side of that. If we see our goodness and we see our worth, then the rest of our values make sense, right? The rest of our beliefs about life makes sense because we're actually gonna say it. Oh, I'm gonna take care of this. This is gonna be the thing that I take care of.
Then the people who are around us look and go, oh, well that's kind of what it looks like, and people who love us, our i.e. kids, right? They'll, they'll. Wanna model, right? We're modeling, they'll wanna do what we model for them.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: So if the teachers start to do that, if the teachers start to see their own goodness, right?
If they start to see their own worth as they bring that into the classroom, and that's the central thing that they're bringing in, that they have value too. Then the students in class go, oh, you're not conning me. You're not tricking me into liking you. You're not trying to be the cool teacher who's gonna, you know, hang out, party with us on the weekend.
You're instead just authentic. You're just, [00:32:00] you're in a wow, you're, you're being real. I can be real too. And so they rise into that. Now, a lot of times we don't know where we're going. When we get to real, we just get there. Yeah. But through experience, and that's why it's so important. In the classroom to have this diversity of experience of like a thousand things that students can, can bump into.
'cause we never know which one is gonna be the thing that aligns with the self. Yeah, yeah. So if, if I may go just a little bit farther with this idea, I. There was something that used to drive me crazy when I was a little kid and I didn't learn how to express why. It made me crazy as a little kid. I just know that it did.
Like, I thought there's something offensive underneath this. But I'm gonna answer your question 'cause you're big, right? And the question was, what do you want to be when you grow up?
John Clarke: Oh, yeah, yeah,
Tim Amaral: yeah. [00:33:00] And, and you that, I mean, that question's asked like a million times a day in the United States, what do you wanna be when you grow up?
Yeah. And I couldn't speak to it, but it always rubbed me the wrong way when I was a kid. Even, even, you know, as an adolescent, people are gonna say, what do you wanna be when you get, it's like, wait, no, something wrong there. And what it landed on, what it, what it took me well into adulthood to be able to articulate is the, the error is that if I'm gonna be something, then I'll.
Finally get loved. But
John Clarke: yeah,
Tim Amaral: what I want to shift the language towards was, you're wonderful and I love you, and what do you wanna do with your life? What do you wanna do? And because what you are is good.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: What, what you are is the good thing. Now what do you wanna do with that Good thing? What would be fun for you to do?
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: And, and, and that's really different than what do you want to be? 'cause you gotta be something other than what you are.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and if it happens to be. You know something. That is like the most shiny thing. [00:34:00] You could be like a doctor or lawyer. People go, oh, and if it's something else, people are like, oh, interesting.
You know? Right. Exactly. Um, there, you know, there's also this piece like Tim around, um, you know, in if FS we call them legacy burdens, but basically the expectations that are passed down from generation to generation, you know, part of the lore in my family on the, the male side is that. , My dad's biggest disappointment to his dad was my dad became a lawyer and not a doctor.
You know? Wow. That was his failure. Right? Wow. , I, I, you know, I have some, some of my own burdens around overworking that have been passed down for whatever reason. My parents did a pretty good job of not, um. Passing down that pressure to me to be a doctor or lawyer. It's like I'm a therapist. I don't know what that's, you know, worth, to me it's worth a lot, but it's also like, you know, , wasn't as shiny back then as the kids who wanted to be, you know, a doctor or lawyer, whatever.
Or both.
Tim Amaral: Yeah. Yeah. I get it.
John Clarke: , So yeah, I mean it kids as [00:35:00] young as my daughter, like she just turned five. They get that question all the time. Yeah. And really I think what's underneath it is also like, what lights you up, you know? What are you interested in? What are the interests you have that we could nurture and develop?
And I also think like, , when we zoom out and go, what is the intent of things like a liberal arts education? Let's expose you to many different. Areas of life and study and academics that could be interesting to you. And you could find that thing that you go, oh, not only do I have a tremendous interest in this, but I have, , I have skill and natural, like God-given abilities behind it, which was the case for me with psychology.
Mm-hmm. That was the, the first thing that clicked in my K through 12 experience. It happened to be. 11th grade, you know, it only took that long for me to, , have that opportunity to sit down and go, for some reason, all these psych 1 0 1 concepts, they make sense to me. I'm very interested in them, and my teacher could see it, like, I'll remember her forever because she saw my abilities in that.
And she would keep me after class in a good way, which was [00:36:00] never my experience as a kid. Right. Yeah. Like I mentioned on on the last time, usually it's a bad thing, like, can I see you after class?
Tim Amaral: Sure, sure, sure.
John Clarke: And it was just to talk to me about. Psychology and talked to me about like my, my fascination with people and feelings and, and all of this.
, And so I started to feel special to her.
Mm-hmm.
Right. Um, because she was seeing, like, this stuff really lit me up. Um, and nothing else really did in that way. Um, and to your point, and with your whole kind of philosophy, like I had great. This connection with her, you know, I had kind of earned it maybe.
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
John Clarke: But also I think she did see that, I really liked what we were talking about here, where some kids were just zoning out. Right. And that's fine. But yeah.
Tim Amaral: Yeah. It's, it's funny
how fragile that moment is. Yeah. Right. It's a really fragile moment If, if she responds to you with that love and belonging dynamic.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: It just keeps the doors open for you [00:37:00] and, and you find your way through. And if she misses that moment, then quite often for young people, they will then sour on the subject itself. Yeah. And they'll say, I don't wanna do that anymore. Yeah. And we, we just don't have the skills quite often as, as youngsters to be able to disentangle somebody else's vibe.
Yeah. Own experience.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Amaral: So, uh, with, with that in mind, uh, props to her for getting that. Right. That's a, yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a big gift for a teacher to have.
John Clarke: Yeah. Well, the, the other piece, you know, again around like agenda and non agenda, I think that's a lot of what we're talking about here.
. And education being a place that could actually just open doors for people to walk through them or not walk through them.
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
John Clarke: , I think that's kind of what it should be. And, . You know, I remember as a kid, I don't know if my parents did this [00:38:00] intentionally or not, but for me, music, and I mentioned I've been a drummer my whole life, and from an early age, people could tell like I'm, I'm naturally good at, at drums.
Mm-hmm. And, , my parents always just let that be my thing and let me approach it however I wanted and played drums my way. And I did have some teachers along the way, but they were not dogmatic and they were not like classically trained. You know, I'm gonna get you to kind of. March like this. Um, and I think that had a lot to do with fostering and maintaining my love of it.
And I still have a great love for music and playing music and being able to just express myself through this thing. On the other hand, you know, I remember a couple years ago I was with my buddy at his apartment in San Francisco, and I looked down and I'm like, there's a piano. And I'm like, I, I didn't know you played piano.
And he had this whole reaction to it of like, well I, yeah, I used to and I'm trying to like get back into it. Yeah. You know, and I'm like, well tell, you know, tell me about it. And long story short, he has tremendous burdens around being trained classically and being forced into learning it and it being this certain way and it being a [00:39:00] performance thing.
And he was one of the top performing, you know, kids or whatever in his town on the piano and classical piano. And I'm like, wow, this, all of this really ruined your relationship with what could be a beautiful thing. Like, what would it be like to just sit down and play some notes and see how that feels or like see what sounds good to you?
Tim Amaral: Yeah.
John Clarke: , And he was on that journey and probably still on that journey of trying to heal his relationship with the piano. Right. But it's a pretty classic example and a lot of kids get piano lessons or French lessons or whatever and um, slowly grow to absolutely hate it and have a very tense relationship with it.
Yeah. And with themselves right through that thing. And it, to me, it's just such a shame that, um, that like that, that has been so tarnished.
Tim Amaral: I, there are a couple of things that pop up around this. So the first one is, is how many gifts the rest of us don't get. Yeah. If, if the teacher misses that moment.
Right? Yeah. So all, although the blessings that lie inside you and that all the blessings that lie inside of your friend, they either are accessible and able to be shared to the rest of [00:40:00] the world or their cutoff and the flow is just completely blocked. Yeah. It's, it's, uh. We can all be technicians in the classroom, but that stuff is an art form.
And I, I, uh, you know, call it the martial arts ethic of always wanting to get better. You wanna be the artist portion of the martial part, right. It's just the, the, the martial part's a dime a dozen. Everybody can do that. But the artist part, part of martial artist is another story. And I want my, my teachers to be educational artists.
John Clarke: Mm-hmm.
Tim Amaral: . So that's, that's one thing. The other one is, I would be remiss if I didn't say something about what, what we call in, in my work needs-based responsiveness. And it comes out of the work of, uh, David Rico, a therapist who's actually, , in San Francisco. And, , David's a fabulous man, well-published author.
And one of the things that, , he put out in the world [00:41:00] is, . This cluster of ideas on the love and belonging level of Maslow's Pyramid. I'm saying that here. I don't know if you'd say that, but I'm gonna say that. , And it's the the five A's attention, affection, appreciation, acceptance, and allowing. And most of us can grab those first three really strongly.
Right? Affection, attention, appreciation. Yeah. Okay. Then we get to acceptance. And we're pushed a little bit farther in terms of what that's about. And then the allowing is the one that a whole lot of folks struggle with. But what I'm hearing in the stories that you're telling is that there's somebody who's doing a really good job of allowing you to be you, and they're making space for it.
And it's just normal, right? You know, John likes drums. That's, that's normal. And let's not get in there and like try to control the thing to death and strip the joy from him and. Force him into this level of what, it's just, I'm gonna allow him to move through the process and find, find what, you [00:42:00] know, sets his world on fire and, and that ability to allow for change and stasis that, that sort of interplay between change and stasis.
Yeah. That's a big thing because as teachers we get very compulsive, frankly, about wanting to push somebody onto the next level. Yeah. And it's like, no, we, that's, that's the antithesis of allowing, right? Yeah. We wanna take the foot off the gas pedal a little bit and let people be where they are so they can integrate and digest what the experience is, and then they can move forward when, frankly, when their body says they're ready.
John Clarke: Right.
Tim Amaral: When their
body says they're ready, then we can go forward. And a whole lot of that is about building trust in their internal system as well as in the space around them.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: And, and then what we see is that people move forward in bursts and then they'll slow down and they'll move forward in bursts and then they'll slow down.
And, and by allowing them their own natural rhythm, [00:43:00] oh my God, you gotta see what people can become. And, and then the gifts that they give to the rest of the world outta that dynamic is incredible.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: So, , I I'm, I'm hearing in your stories people who are getting really good at, at the allowing portion of five a's
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Yeah, yeah,
John Clarke: yeah. Again, I, I just, I think part of why therapy in itself and IFS. Is just so darn healing as a stance toward our inner child is I don't need anything from you. Right? You can show up here and be you and be messy or really put together or really driven or whatever. , And it's all good. And this idea of no bad parts is, is just a profound, , healing stance to take.
And same thing for. For that of a teacher to take that while also being mindful that they are in a bigger system and they do have performance metrics and standards of learning tests coming up, which was always like the felt pressure I had as a kid too, of like, okay, yeah, let John play drums, but also we have the [00:44:00] SOLs coming up.
Yeah. Yeah. And I could always feel that pressure of like, oh, you just need me to get. A good test, a, a good test score for you. Really. It never felt like it was for me to like submit my own learning or celebrate my own learning. It was like, um, I need to make sure you know how to spell the word necessary.
'cause we heard it's gonna be on the SOL. Like I remember that being a thing. And I remember the anxiety I had around seeing that on the test and being like, oh shit. Um, you know.
Tim Amaral: Oh my God. It's so
funny that you say that. It's so specific. Yeah. I actually wrote a poem when I was young about the anxiety. I felt around spelling the word necessary.
John Clarke: We were on the same page.
Tim Amaral: Oh yeah.
John Clarke: It's a universal challenge, you know? List. People listening right now are like NEC, you know?
Tim Amaral: Exactly.
John Clarke: It's, it's fine. Siri.
Tim Amaral: We can have
our own community. Oh gosh. Yeah. So, so that, that thing about, uh, about being inside the system and, and [00:45:00] I was fortunate enough after a lot of years to be able to sort of carve out my own space where my bosses.
Just said, we have no idea what you're doing in there.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: , It looks like mayhem when we walk by the window, but it's coming out like love and, and graduation, so Hallelujah. We'll, we'll let you do it.
John Clarke: Yeah. ,
Tim Amaral: We kind of don't wanna know. Uh, so I got very fortunate in that regard. Whole lot of other teachers are not necessarily as fortunate as I was, and all of us are in these systems.
All of us are in these systems. Unless you're working as a home tutor or teacher. Yeah. And so in that, how do we, how do we navigate that experience of being beholden to other forces that are in our life? Yeah. And, and whose agenda may not really align with ours, certainly in any way that we can see, and in some cases not at all.
So what we would do in [00:46:00] class is, I, we would actually speak about this. We would say, Hey, this is what. The system is saying we have to do, in order for us to keep the lights on in here, to be able to provide this space for you and for the next generation who's gonna come through and the generation before you did this as a way to keep the lights on for you guys.
And so I'm just gonna ask that we all sort of band together and do a thing that's not pleasant, , and is not gonna be like directly and obviously connected to us. And we'll do our best at it. And we'll also know that our, , bread and butter's over here. So this is just a thing we gotta do for the day.
And let's, let's push on through and we'll do, okay. , And, and the upshot was, , I would all often tell them, I would say, you guys are gonna have the stand and deliver moment where you guys are gonna do these standardized tests, and at the beginning of the year, your score's gonna be here. And at the end of the year, your score's gonna be here.
And I'm gonna guarantee you that the computer's gonna look at that. Not people, then people aren't gonna be making the judgment. It's done with like AI stuff.
John Clarke: Yeah,
Tim Amaral: the computer's gonna kick it out and say you [00:47:00] cheated on the final test because your growth is gonna be so high. So let's get that mark.
Everybody. Let's get the mark that shows we cheated on the test at the end of the year. And, , and, and it'll be something that'll be fun for us. We'll sort of wear it as a badge of courage. We, it was called the black Diamond. Yeah. , And so we would, we would, we would aim for the black diamond at the end of the year, and, and they would, they would see a little bit of joy in that process.
So it was easier to get folks to buy in and, and do those standardized tests and. None of us showed up on Monday thinking, Hey, this is the thing that I really wanna do with my life. Uh, so it, it, it really is about how to navigate a system that doesn't always either have your interests at heart or have your interests at heart in an, in an obvious way.
Right? Yep. How do we, how do we move through that? Because we, we would love to be able to generate, you know, Nirvana and heaven and all that other kind of stuff. Here in our own spaces, but there are a lot of forces that are at play that make that delusional. So we, we have to navigate it.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yeah, I get, I get [00:48:00] that.
And there's always gonna be, not always, but in mo many environments and especially like publicly funded environments, a need to measure what we're doing here, right?
Tim Amaral: Oh, yeah.
John Clarke: , Yeah. And in, in some private schools, in my experience, they sometimes escape that, you know, uh, vortex of standardized tests and whatnot.
. Although the kids are working their way toward having to take the SATs or the GREs or something, right? Yeah. Some sort of standardized measurement that says like, here's where you are on the bell curve. And as a kid I'm like, what's the hell is a bell curve? You know? It's like, why am I interested in that?
And it's like, well, you know, yeah. Here's why. And it's like, I just wanna go play drums. I don't know. Uh, and hang out with my psychology teacher, you know? Yeah. It's like, for sure. Where's that on the bell curve? Right? And, uh. You know, the headline of my whole story is like, I graduated, um, you know, high school with like a two six Yeah.
Graduated college with a 3, 9, 7 or something along those lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the whole like, what do I, what can I take from that? Maybe I wasn't the problem [00:49:00] after all. Hallelujah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's, that has only taken me decades to learn and years of therapy and processing and unburdening and all these pieces and then, and proving to myself and to the world that like, .
I'm good at some things. Therapy is one of those things I'm good at, and I can say that, yeah, just like I'm good at drums as well. , And, and what if I wasn't the problem after all, you know? Yeah. And here I am as a therapist now, seeing kids in that same exact place that I was in. Yeah. And it's like, man, how do I tell them or show them or just let them feel that I don't see them as the problem either, you know?
Tim Amaral: Yeah. Yeah.
John Clarke: So that's the corrective stance.
Tim Amaral: It is that. And the more we embody it ourselves, the, the more credible advocates we become for that. So when, when folks see the payoff, 'cause quite often in in education we have these folks who are telling us, Hey, you gotta do this in order to be whatever in life.
And they're not credible advocates. We look at them and they're like, [00:50:00] you're kind of a mess. You're not really a decent person when you're engaging with us in the classroom. And why would I take your advice? To grow into a thing that reflects what you are, that seems kind of weird.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: So when we have healthy teachers, they embody that when they, when they show a joy for their work, an aptitude for their work and the capacity to love us while they're doing it, that that's such a good solid whole classroom, whole student experience.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: And, and that.
W we, we, we had a short phrase for it in class. The short phrase was, um, when somebody would walk in the door, I'd say, I need to get two things done this year. Otherwise, if I haven't, I've kind of failed you as a teacher, I'm just gonna put that pressure on myself directly and make it very clear that this focuses on me, not on you.
Mm-hmm. [00:51:00] I need you to walk out when you leave my class with two things. You need to walk out, educated and you need to walk out. Graduated, and there are two different experiences entirely. And in education for me is this, this sort of full bodied get in, get a little bloody, have a little fun, you know, eat something good kind of experience.
That's the education part. And then the graduation part is a part where it's real mechanical and kind of stripped of its soul. And we're just gonna get this paperwork done and turn it in so that the powers that control our system. Will not prevent us from moving forward with our own growth.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: But we are, our growth is gonna be the central thing that we're chasing.
Uh, because we matter. In this world. In this life. We were lucky enough to get born. I. Means the universe has said you matter. And, and, and if we make that our sort of atomic core, if that's our nucleus from which we're moving, we're gonna be, we're gonna be doing okay. But, but it really takes those two things because if all I got you was graduated, that would be a disservice.[00:52:00]
And if all I got you was educated but not graduated, that would be a disservice. I need to be able to do both. We need that real practical outcome because the whole world operates in that space out there. Yeah, but I also need to know, I need you to be educated. So that means you are in control of this thing and this thing matters to you, and this thing matters to you, and this body matters to you.
Like the all of you matters to you. That that's the thing that I want. I want you to say, oh man, I can do this with my life. This is, I could do that. There's any, that's where I want you to go. , And if I turn you loose with just a diploma and none of that.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: Oh my God, what a painful place that is.
John Clarke: Yeah.
Tim Amaral: CEO. Yeah. Or, or somebody pushing a broom on the street. If you're in that space in either of those locations, that is a really rough place to be.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That sentiment of like, again, thinking back to my psychology teacher and just in so many words, I think what she said to me by keeping me after class was like.
You could be really good at this. [00:53:00] Yeah. You know, like you have gifts here that we could develop. And again, the first teacher in almost 12, you know, KK through 12 that had Yeah. Sat me down and just, just offered that. Yeah. Um, and it didn't, you know, seem like, uh, an agenda thing, but really just a witnessing thing of, um.
Yeah. Seeing my, my potential and honoring it, but also not needing me to like 10 x my psychology skills for her, you know? Yeah. To prove that I'm like worthy and successful and like, uh, you know, gonna be a. A billionaire. So, , Tim, we're, we're, , somehow out of, out of time. Once again, I can't thank enough for doing this for part two.
If folks miss the first one, go check that out. But these, I think, blend together well, these, these two interviews. Um, yeah, what do you wanna see here as we wrap up, Tim? And then, of course, just another plug for how people can learn more about your work and how you help. ,
Tim Amaral: So the, the plug is the easy part.
Uh, selfledclassroom.com. Just reach out to me directly there. And, and, [00:54:00] uh, I'll, I'll respond. I'm available for doing, uh, professional development trainings, conferences, the whole nine yards. Um, I, I will say, to wrap it up is that that little fragile moment that you and I have been talking about here, when we get it right, I.
It's this single moment, almost always with a single person, but the benefits downstream of that, thousands of people's lives get affected by the goodness that can come through us. Yeah. And so I think your work here is a celebration of that, , teacher getting it right all those years ago. It, you're living proof of when people get it right.
So
John Clarke: That's well said. Yeah. It has many, many ripples. . Often, which we can't see right now or in the moment or for that teacher to see in the moment. But we also know what it's like when a, a kid or who's now an adult comes back to the teacher and goes, Hey, that thing you said, or that moment after class, like, it meant everything to me.
Yeah. I mean, what a gift for the teacher to hear that. So I should probably call her. Um, Tim, thanks again for doing this. And you
Tim Amaral: Thank you [00:55:00] John.
John Clarke: I look forward to the next one.
Tim Amaral: Uh, me too. Take
care.
John Clarke: Alright.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching, and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can follow me on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at John Clarke Therapy and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com.
See you next time.