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In this episode of Conscious Pathways, Brittney Carey sits down with Nick Marmolejo—award-winning educator, education transformation expert, and TEDx speaker—for a thought-provoking conversation about how purpose can (and should) guide how we teach and support students.
Nick shares how his time with Teach for America and the mentorship he received early in his career sparked his passion for transforming traditional education. He invites us to consider what might change if schools prioritized purpose over performance, and if classrooms became spaces where students could safely explore who they are and why they matter.
Key themes in this episode include:
- What purpose-driven learning really means
- The importance of mentorship in educational leadership
- Creating safe, intentional classroom environments
- How schools can better support students with autism and other learning differences
- Why academic achievement is not the only marker of success
- A preview of Nick’s upcoming children’s book, Where’s My Compass?
- How parents and educators can bridge the gap between expectations and student needs
Whether you’re a parent, teacher, administrator, or social justice advocate, this conversation will inspire you to think more deeply about what’s possible in education.
Resources & Mentions:
- Nick’s TEDx Talk: Are Schools Destroying Purpose?
- Where’s My Compass? (Coming Soon)
- Follow Nick Marmolejo on LinkedIn
- Listen to more episodes of Conscious Pathways here
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Brittney Carey: Well, welcome back to Conscious Pathways, where we reimagine education at the center of social justice and heart centering learning. I’m your host, Brittney. As always. I’m very excited and happy for you to be here. Today’s conversation is one that will sure stay with you. I’m joined by Nick Marmolejo, an award-winning educator, TEDx speaker advocate for purpose-driven learning.
Nick’s journey into education was deeply shaped by mentorship, and now he has a calling to shift what, how we think about school, not just as a place for academics, but as a space for purpose and connection and possibility. Together we explore the power of cultivating purpose with our students and why this might just be the missing link between education and the future of meaningful work.
Nick shares his deeply honest reflections, sharp insights, and even a sneak peek into his upcoming children’s book that centers autism and a purpose for compassion and care. Broader conversation. Nick shares his deep reflections, his sharp insight, and. Even gives us a, a keen sneak peek into his children’s book that centers autism and purpose with compassion and care.
So if you are a social justice, curious parent, educator advocate, or just someone who simply wonders how we can better support that next generation, this is an episode for you. Let’s stop into it. Welcome to Conscious Pathways. Today I am joined by Nick Marmolejo. Thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:01:34] Nick Marmolejo: It’s a pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me here at your space.
[00:01:37] Brittney Carey: Yes. I’m so happy to have you here.
Tell me a little bit about your journey into education.
[00:01:44] Nick Marmolejo: That’s a great question. I would say that I don’t have one of those amazing stories where I just grew up knowing that I was gonna be a teacher. I would say the opposite, actually.
I never imagined myself as a teacher. Yeah, it takes me back to though my two favorite teachers. I, I think maybe we all have someone like that that we can think of and maybe we’re still friends with them. I had two teachers, one by the name of Miss two, and another by the name of Ms. Durham. Both played a really pivotal role in just kind of keeping me on the straight track, just being really great mentors along the way.
I would actually credit the actual like catalyst to. Teach for America. So Teach for America at the end of college kind of plucked me up as they do many others. And I look back and I, I thank them. I think that experience and I would never have become a teacher if they wouldn’t have opened that door for me.
And, and kind of provided a pathway?
[00:02:40] Brittney Carey: Yes. And what about that experience really kind of gave you that passion for education? Is there anything particular that stood out to you?
[00:02:50] Nick Marmolejo: It was just a love, I would say, for people from all industries who had a passion for helping children. Many people were gonna go on to become like a doctor or attorneys, and by the way, a lot of those people were much smarter than me.
But we all had this shared passion of going into a classroom, having an impact on kids’ lives. That’s really just the root of it, I would say. That was my one memorable thing. In fact, we had the director out in San Antonio at the time. Her name is Laura Saldovar Luna, and she said something one of the first days that we ever met as a cohort.
She said, our mission is one day all children. Right? And so we always had that kind of north star of this was a long-term commitment. This was not a two year commitment as they always said. So that’s probably the one phrase I think that really stood out to me.
[00:03:41] Brittney Carey: I actually really love that. I love that it’s open to a lot of different interpretations.
Like you could take that in a number of different ways, but it’s also, it’s very holistic. I’m gonna be taking that.
[00:03:52] Nick Marmolejo: Yeah, you’re right. Right? Like I think people probably get different things from that, right? When if, if someone just broadly says one day, I mean it, what it means to me, it might mean something different to you.
But I think we base all of that too, like a off of our lived experiences and I think just like access to education. Quality teachers who cared like that mattered to me. And so I think that’s kind of how I interpret it, you know what I mean?
[00:04:17] Brittney Carey: Yeah. I believe that because I think, like I said, I think it goes into kinda social justice and, and social justice pedagogy, thinking that change happens over time.
And sometimes we get really caught up on the, I want it to happen right here, right now. Uh, we get caught up in the urgency of it and, and there is a lot of urgency. You know, we’re seeing, especially with education today, there’s. Definitely a lot of of urgency in in our work, but knowing that good change happens over time and as things change, we learn and grow and so that someday, you know, it might not look the same way that we imagined it today.
It might grow and change and shift a little bit, but we know that that’s guiding force. That’s our north star. Like that’s where we’re going to like, it kind of gives you that sense of hope that we are going to get to there one day, like it is going to happen and as long as we stay together and as long as we stay ready to keep doing this work.
Then we’ll get there. I might have just interpreted that a whole other way, but
[00:05:10] Nick Marmolejo: No, you actually bring up a really good point, I think of the word sustainable or sustainability because you go into any given classroom in the us I mean especially public schools, there’s a big burden and a big responsibility on teachers to like impact every child that they come across.
And that’s a, like I said, that’s a good thing and that’s a heavy thing to carry. But when you really think about it, our goal as teachers is not to have those kids depend on us forever, right? We want them to be self-sustaining and their own advocates and have their own autonomy. And the only way that we could sustainably do that is by teaching them to love to learn more than anything else.
So I would say the best teachers, thinking of my former teachers and maybe people listening out there, have someone like that, but. It really starts there and it feeds all the other effort as long as you start with loving to learn and making sure that every kid believes that and has that.
[00:06:09] Brittney Carey: Yes, and actually that perfectly segues into my next question, which is something you talk a lot about is purpose-driven learning.
You share a little bit more about what that means and what that missing link is in today’s education.
[00:06:24] Nick Marmolejo: I describe purpose, right? And so we think of it in this realm of right. It’s this complex thing that’s hard to define. Some believe that it exists. Some believe that it doesn’t. I’m in the group that believes that it exists for every single child, every single person.
And so my definition is the best of what you’re equipped with to help others solve problems. And a lot of times the misconceptions that we put out there are go follow your passion, right? But we don’t talk about purpose so much. We openly talk about. We tell our students, our kids follow your passion and you’ll never work a day in your life.
And I’m like, well, sounds good. So there’s a lot of truthiness out there around the topic, and I think what I’m passionate about, I’ll use that, is dispelling those myths and opening up that conversation. Because like I said, I think the only way we can sustainably move forward is if. Every child has a love for learning.
And then from there they’re thinking about, Hey, what do I have in lived experiences and knowledge? What do I enjoy and how can I go out and use that to help others? Because I think the last thing I would want in the situation when I talk about purpose driven education is people being under the assumption that you’re just helping others matter of factly, like help others.
It sounds good. No, I mean like there’s very specific ways that we can serve each other and it’s fulfilling for us and it maximizes our potential to help other people. So does that kind of answer your question?
[00:07:58] Brittney Carey: Yes. Yeah. I think, like you said, purpose is kind of one of those hard words to define because it can mean a multitude of different things.
But when you break it down into those kind of more finite terms and what it means and what it feels like, and especially for students, what that looks like and what that feels like. You, you’ve talked about this before, but in education, we’ve kind of got so inundated with teaching to the test. We’ve got so inundated with the worksheets and kind of the work of it, but we kind of forget what.
The purpose of education is right. We kind of forget what our intention here is. Look, our intentionality as educators in that classroom. I know I don’t want to build a classroom of students who are completely dependent on me for their learning. That’s not really fun for me. That means I’m doing a whole lot of work.
That means I’m doing a whole lot of work off the clock. That means I’m doing a whole lot of extra work in the classroom. Whereas when we build children’s skills up and we build student skills up to do the critical thinking, to do that work, to ask those questions, right then one that makes my job a whole heck of a lot easier, I.
Also, I know that I am building up these student skills they will take with them for the rest of their lives, right? They’re not depending on me to learn. They’re not depending on me to be the bringer of knowledge, right? They are completely empowered to know that they have knowledge that they bring to the table, that they have knowledge that they can learn from each other, that if they don’t know things, like we can figure that out together.
And there’s so many different ways that we can do that and experience that, and I think that falls into that realm of purpose, right? It’s such a powerful thing.
[00:09:38] Nick Marmolejo: It really is actually. You bring up a lot of good points and I’m so happy that we get to have this conversation.
When I was preparing for my TEDx, I was reaching out to workforce directors, superintendents, people at the vice provost level at universities, and.
It was great that they gave me their time, but I kept asking them the same question and I forget where it came from. Like it popped in my head one day or I asked it to someone on LinkedIn. But the question is simply what’s the purpose of school or what’s the point of school and you know what kind of responses I got.
You wanna take a guess? All over the place. Job
[00:10:13] Brittney Carey: readiness.
[00:10:14] Nick Marmolejo: Oh yeah. Well, sure. Right. People said job readiness and, but, and they said things like preparing people for the workforce, and I get it, but really no one agreed. No adult agreed. And more importantly, no one was succinct. Everyone had, I mean, lengthy responses.
It was like this. This one powerful question that like, actually that’s how a lot of people would start their response. They would say, wow, what a good question, what a powerful question. That’s a complex question, and I just thought, is it really? I don’t know if that’s the childlike person in me, but yeah, so I think I would challenge parents and kids and teachers and everyone to really rethink that.
Like what is the point of school? And I think if we can come to some kind of agreement there, then it really, it’ll help set our priorities and then we can be productive. If we’re aiming in the wrong direction or kind of climbing up the wrong wall, then everything else is kind of fruitless and it’s really hard to get traction.
[00:11:15] Brittney Carey: I, yeah, I couldn’t agree more with that. I think there’s a lot of viewpoints in education and even the different facets of education, even like reading. Common core, all these different strategies that we, we think and talk about. But I think when we really go back to our intentionality, what is our intention with education?
What is it that we are hoping students do learn? What are we hoping that they feel? I. Within, you know, the confines of school, even talking about is there a difference between school and education and what does that difference look like? There’s so many ways that if we just got to that point of defining what that meant, and I remember a conversation I had a couple episodes ago with Dr.
Eliana Edwards and she was saying that we actually don’t have a agreed upon definition of what safety looks like in schools. That kind of blew my mind in a lot of ways because it’s such an important and integral part of how we move about our lives, especially when we’re going to school. School safety is the Maslow’s hierarchy of need needs, right?
It’s safety is an important, it’s right there. Here, it’s like one of the number one things we need. Not having this agreed upon definition. And do we need an agreed upon definitions and what does that look like? It’s been swirling around in my head ever since. I feel like that conversation changed my brain chemistry.
’cause I’m like, what does that mean? What does that look like? How students feel in school? But similar concepts, right? Especially when we’re thinking about purpose and why do we do that and what is the intention? And I think if we do have an agreed upon idea about what that looks like. It can help us to be more intentional in our classrooms and be more unified in our classrooms and looking at the research and the data.
I think that can also help us to make decisions that are more holistic for the students who are in our classrooms right now. The students are gonna be different than they were 10 years ago, and they’re gonna be different than they are 10 years from now. A lot of things to think about and consider.
[00:13:10] Nick Marmolejo: There really is, and I think when, when I get to have these conversations with people, one, I’m so fulfilled by them. But the other thing is that I think people go, well, there’s pedagogy. It’s so complex. And I go, but maybe that’s the problem is that we’ve made it so complex, maybe we really need to scale it back.
There’s all of these videos, if you watch reels like on IG or Facebook. They do a really good job about teaching you about the, the history of education and, and kind of why the system was created, the way it was created, and why it’s doing what it’s doing. And I go, that’s great. So if we know that that’s why it’s created, then we need to go back to that point because everything else is, it’s like climbing uphill, like super steep.
But when you bring up the topic of safety.
And I didn’t really realize we were gonna talk about that it, two things came to mind. One, I actually had to change the title of my TEDx, so I chose to, what it’s currently titled now, it’s original title, but it was because of the safety topic. And then the other thing I think of is I asked plenty of educators, Hey, when you walk into a school, right, and you’re assessing it, whether you’re a consultant or you’re a parent choosing a school, how long does it take you?
To know whether or not that’s a good school. I’m curious, how long do you think it would take, like a master educator to know if it was a good school? Hmm. I’m challenging you with this one. What do you think they said?
[00:14:36] Brittney Carey: I say within a couple of minutes, maybe.
[00:14:38] Nick Marmolejo: Absolutely. Right. At first they said 15, and then in further conversation they said no.
Probably in three to five minutes I could tell you. And the first thing that came up was safety. Okay. Is the school safe? Do they have. Protocols in place, but also does it feel safe? Then you can talk about nurturing and then you can talk about academics, and I think it shocks a lot of people when I tell them like, Hey, learning’s gonna happen, but first, safety and the nurturing piece, the academics will be fed from those things, and so I’m so glad you brought up the safety topic.
[00:15:12] Brittney Carey: It’s an underrated topic and it covers. So many different aspects, right? I think when we think about safety, we immediately go to like physical safety. Mm-hmm. Is the building secure? Like do they have plans in place? Like all these different things to go to that, that physical safety component. Right. And especially the top of our mind, especially these days, our, you know, school shootings and how are we keeping our, our students safe from outside forces?
How are we keeping our students safe from the weather, the environment? Right. So I think that’s the first thing that comes to mind. And it is very important. It’s, it’s an incredibly important thing to, to focus on, but there’s also that psychological safety. There’s also identity safety. Do I feel safe to express myself?
Do I feel safe to be myself? Do I feel safe to express, have the full expression of who I am, right? There’s that academic safety component. Do I feel safe to express myself? Do I feel safe to challenge, you know, the curriculum or challenge the adults in the room? Can I do that without facing, you know, repercussions, especially we’re looking at even in higher education with students.
Expressing themselves and freedom of speech and everything. And the more students who are getting penalized for protesting and, and using their voice, right? This is what school is for. This is what college is for, right? It’s supposed to have, we’re supposed to let them protest. We’re supposed to let them express themselves.
And to see that right? That, that really challenge is that freedom of speech. And it, it makes that, that academic safety, it lowers students’ sense of academic safety. ’cause if I can’t protest what I, what I know and feel like is wrong, what can I do? There’s so many different aspects of safety. Is there racial safety again, that goes into that identity safety, you know, is our curriculum, is it culturally responsive?
Is it relevant? Is it sustaining? So many aspects of what goes into safety? And while there are aspects of it, like I said, physical safety is really important. It’s integral. There’s all these other aspects that are just as important to how students get to show up and how families get to show up. And I agree.
When I walk into a school, that’s the number one thing that I’m looking for. I’m looking at how easy was it for me to get into this building. It shouldn’t really be that easy for me to just walk onto a school campus and be like, I’m here now. And if I’m putting my child somewhere, that’s the one thing I’m looking at.
Like, how easy is it for someone to get on this campus? How do I feel when I walk into that building? Do I feel welcomed? Am I greeted by people who seem friendly and want me to be there? So, yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking, so I’m glad that you said that too.
[00:17:41] Nick Marmolejo: What happens too, and I realize this ’cause I had an actual moment, like this morning, um, this is, my brain is going everywhere in a good way.
But an example would be I actually walked into my son’s. His former preschool today, and he’s no longer in preschool, he’s in grade school, and I was looking for a form that I needed. Yeah, I had to file taxes, you know how that goes. And in doing that, I walk in, I go, oh, like the process to gain looked different, and it actually looked a lot easier.
I mean, it was just, I could go in there and I was like, oh, I don’t know how I feel about this. And, but what I also know is that with turnover, staff turnover, whether you’re talking about teachers or directors or principals, the quality, like the effectiveness of those procedures and those, um, processes, like they, they get weaker and we have a little control over that because you gotta train people up, they have to be bought into it.
And so I didn’t comment or anything, but I just thought that was really easy for me to walk in. I wish that wasn’t the case. So.
[00:18:45] Brittney Carey: It’s one of those things I, I’ll have friends who are expecting, and you know, that’s one of the things that they, they’re constantly asking me, ’cause my background’s in, in early childhood education, and they’re like, what should I be looking for?
And a lot of the questions I seem to get are more about like curriculum and about the school philosophy. And those are important questions to know, right? It’s important to go to a school philosophy that aligns with what your family values and also what you think that your child would. Thrive in, not every child’s gonna thrive in Montessori, just like not every child is going to thrive in in Reggio, it’s my favorite.
So I think thrive in it, but not every child is gonna thrive in those environments. And so as the parent or guardian, you’re gonna know your child and you’re gonna know what they need and what they’re gonna thrive in. But that’s number one. The first thing I always tell them, like, how safe does it feel?
Right. And you know, I always go into the different aspects of safety. You know, do you feel welcome? Do you feel like you’re represented When you walk in, you see a classroom? Do you see families that look like your family? Do you see books that represent, you know, your family? Do you see yourself represented in the toys?
Do you see yourself represented in the staff? Those are all. Aspects of safety as well. Like are, do you feel like you’re gonna be safe? Do you think your child would feel like they’re safe there? But also the biggest thing is how, how easy was it for you to get on that campus? And if it was too easy, you might not wanna go there.
[00:20:08] Nick Marmolejo: Yeah. And you know what, like just some really great, uh, staff who’s bought in goes a long way because I’ve seen early childhood places where they have all the bells and whistles. And yet it still didn’t feel as safe. And there was other things that were also going on that made that very clear. But a great staff can make up for that.
You know? It truly can. And by the way, you know what your friends should do? They should just take you with them. You tell them Yes, yes. No.
[00:20:43] Brittney Carey: Right? I just get to go on all the. All the tours, I’m like, this is fun.
[00:20:48] Nick Marmolejo: Don’t forget your hourly rate, whatever that is. Yes.
[00:20:50] Brittney Carey: Yeah. Just I gotta charge em my hourly rate.
Like if you’re gonna take me all these tours, hook up the coins.
But I think we’re talking about safety, and especially for students and families who have been systematically and historically marginalized, especially in education, safety and belonging is something that is incredibly important, but it’s not always something that gets talked about.
And so going back the idea of. Purpose driven learning. How do you think that helps to drive equity and kind of make meaning in learning with education?
[00:21:21] Nick Marmolejo: That’s a great question.
So when I think about purpose, so here’s the thing, I am a big proponent that your words are either pulling people apart of bringing them together.
And so as I was ruminating after I left the classroom, I kept thinking like, what is missing? Right? What, what is gonna bring people together? What’s hard to argue about? I. What is in our identity. And so as I thought of that and I had plenty of conversations, purpose kept coming up as that word for me. And I just thought, look, if we all have it, which again I believe, then that’s like our starting point.
From there, it’s okay. Now we gotta agree on a definition. We gotta break down some of the myths about it. But to me, that’s the one marker of our identity that we actually share and we can talk about openly. And I think it helps us get back to those kind of conversations in the first place because it seems so hard to these days to to bring up all the other pieces of our identity without like triggering others or even sometimes feeling triggered ourselves.
And so, yeah, I just think purpose is a unifying word. It’s a unifying topic. How do you be combative around that? So at the worst that I could find a way. Yes, that’s fair. I’m maybe, I’m overly optimistic, so I hope that was clear. You know, I just think it’s a unifying word and it actually leads to some of those tougher conversations too.
[00:22:46] Brittney Carey: I think so, and I definitely agree. I think shifting to more purposeful alignment is something that I think you can get buy-in from admin and teachers and, and families and children. Right.
I. One question when I was in the classroom that I would always ask of my parents is, what are your goals for your child in my classroom this year?
What do you hope that they walk out of here learning? And their answers give me a lot of insight into what they value, what’s important to them. You know, whether that’s academics or whether that’s social emotional learning, or whether that’s just they want them to be happy, right? It gives me a lot of insight into what they value and what they want.
Then I can make sure that I am, you know, amending my classroom and, and amending what I need. So whether that’s, I’m giving them a little bit more resources on things. You know, some families are very like academically rigid. Like, I want my kid to do this. I want them to write their name and read by the time they go to kindergarten.
And as an educator, I know that, are there some kids who can do that? Sure, yeah. There are some kids who can read and write their name by the time they go to kindergarten, but that’s not the norm. That’s not developmentally appropriate practice to assume that all kids can get there. There’s a lot of factors that go into kids being able to do that, and I would even argue it, I don’t think that kids under the age of like eight are actually like reading to comprehend.
I think they’ve just memorized things and they’re regurgitating what they’ve memorized. So is that actually reading? When we really think about it, I don’t think that’s actually reading, if you’re not comprehending really what you’re reading, but that’s a whole other conversation. So, you know, it just gives me opportunities to let them know what we’re doing in the classroom, but.
Everything I want to do in the classroom is intentional. So whether that I just need to communicate to the parents more what we’re doing and why we’re doing that, or communicating that to the admin. Again, what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, but just making sure that it’s very intentional.
Everything, every toy I bring into the classroom, every book I bring into the classroom, every person I bring in the classroom, I’m doing that. It’s an intentional choice. I have a reason for why I’m doing it, and I think I harp on this a lot, but I think that’s really the biggest thing about having a reflective teaching practice, is that you need to be able to reflect on who’s in your classroom.
You need to reflect on your practices and are your practices being challenged? And if so, what can you do to help that? What can you do to help that student? What can you do to help that family? I think that’s kind of the wonderful, glorious thing about education is that we are just in a field that we constantly get to learn new things and try out new practices.
And that’s a beautiful part of the work that we get to do every day.
[00:25:18] Nick Marmolejo: It is.
I was gonna ask you too, ’cause so you ask parents that question right at the beginning of the year, how do you balance what they have to say with what the kid actually needs and expresses and then your own like discernment. How do you balance that?
[00:25:34] Brittney Carey: Yeah, that’s a really good question because there is that discernment met. So if I do have a parent that is very academic and oh, this parent says, I want my kid to write their name and read their name and know all their letters and all their numbers by the time they go to kindergarten and I’m looking at this kid, and this kid could not care less about letters.
Numbers key. Kid does not give any sort of care in the world about those things. It gives me a lot of understanding about, one, where this family is coming from, what they value, what’s important to them. I agree that learning is gonna happen in a multitude of ways, right? Learning is always happening, and I can be really intentional about that.
So part of that means that I might just be sharing a little bit more information with this family about what developmentally appropriate practice looks like. And so what I’ve done in the past is. Say I’m playing, you know, I play out Play-Doh, right? There’s a reason I’m putting out, I’m not just putting out Play-Doh just ’cause like
[00:26:24] Nick Marmolejo: we all love Play-Doh.
It’s okay, we love
[00:26:26] Brittney Carey: some Play-Doh, right? But usually there’s a purpose, right? Um, either there’s some fine motor skills I want them to work on, or there’s hand-eye coordination I want them to work on. And so if I know that literacy is important to that family, I think literacy is important for everyone.
Right? And so just general practices in my classroom is, you know, we do read books. If the kids are interested in it, great. If they’re not great. I find it as a, sometimes it’s a bit of a challenge. ’cause if I have a kid who just is not interested and I’ve had kids in my class who again, not interested in print, not interested in letters, not interested in spelling their name, like they do not want that, and they’re actively like, get, get that away from me.
What I do in those moments is I find things that are interesting to them. So I had a kid who loved all anything, superheroes, anything superhero. This kid loved it, could not get enough of it. And so I would go to the library and I got. Spider-Man comic book, and I read through it to make sure it was appropriate that they, there weren’t any, you know, inappropriate thoughts and there was Spider-Man, so I didn’t think so, but I read through it.
I was like, okay, this, this seems like a, a, a fun thing. And brought that in. I just kind of left it on the circle time, Matt, and that was the first time he came to the Circle Time rug. Right. He did not care about Circle time at all, but that day he was like, oh, Spider-Man’s there. I’ll check this out. And being able to balance that, right, because I value the kids’ interests, I value following their lead.
I value having them become independent thinkers and learners, and they’re super not interested in letters and numbers. I’m okay with that. Because they’re gonna learn it eventually, right? And if they don’t, then maybe there’s something deeper that we need to be looking at. Maybe there’s some developmental delays that we need to be attuned to and aware of, but I know for the most part, if you go through school, you’re gonna learn letters and numbers, and you’re probably gonna learn to read in some capacity.
And so that’s kind of what I do. I kind of balance that discernment, right? Like I’m not going to overly push things in the classroom that aren’t in alignment with my philosophy and aren’t in alignment with the school’s philosophy, um, and aren’t developmentally appropriate. And sometimes that’s just a teachable moment, whether that’s a teachable moment for a student, a teachable moment for a family, a teachable moment for us at a school community.
I think part of that is when families are coming into my classroom, I make it very known what we do in this classroom, what we value in this classroom, and so they, they know what they’re walking into. They’re not surprised, and I’m like, this is what we’re talking about. This is what we’re doing. We’re gonna do social emotional learning, we’re gonna talk about empathy, we’re gonna talk about social justice.
We’re gonna talk about, you know, race and all these different things, because that’s what’s we do as a community, and that’s what we do as a diverse community and a diverse society. So it’s, it’s a lot. It’s a balancing act. I’m not gonna say it’s easy, but,
[00:28:56] Nick Marmolejo: well, you gave a, it’s really a big
[00:28:57] Brittney Carey: balancing act.
[00:28:58] Nick Marmolejo: You gave a really good example, and I think what you did really well in the example of the Spider-Man comic book was you met him where he was at. They brought it to the carpet. And so you’re that little, those little seeds like that are planting the love for learning and so you’re right, it’s gonna fuel.
Right. And ’cause he at some point that child, like others will take ownership over their learning. But it starts with those like what seemed like very minor decisions. Like very, yeah. This is never gonna be the thing that is the one stop all fixed like solution. But you should give yourself pat on the back.
’cause I think like that is amazing. I wish. We had more time in schools for teachers to feel like they had that decision making. And I think what that actually does is when we have time, it actually relieves some of what feels like a burden or even some misplaced mindset around like being a savior. Like none of us have to carry that, right?
It’s a collective effort and it’s not a burden we really need to give back, I think, to the basics so that teachers can enjoy their work, be fulfilled by it. And mentor kids so that kids can take ownership over their learning. I mean, we can’t spoonfeed it to them it’s just gonna, it would take too long anyways, even if we could.
[00:30:13] Brittney Carey: I agree.
And one of the things that I love about the, the Reggio Amelia philosophy is that idea of continuation of care. And so the children that you start with, the idea that you get to grow with them. And so in the school that I worked at, they would start at age, well, they would start at infants and toddlers, but I started with them when they were two.
And so the idea was that. I would be their teacher all the way up until they left us and went to kindergarten. Wow. But that really does give you that time to really get to know your families. Really get to know your student. Know what makes them ticks, knows what they love, knows what, like, how to get them to engage in things.
Right? Like I knew that kid loved, loved, loved, love, love, love superheroes. So I knew if I brought anything superhero related into that classroom, he was gonna be locked in. Mm-hmm. Right? And so. If my goal is to help to develop that love of learning, that love of, of print media, that love of books and pictures, and just be interested in it, right?
Yes. If all I did that entire year was get him interested in it, I succeeded. Yeah. Right. Because I feel like that is in my, my realm of early childhood. That’s my job. My job is to get them to love learning, to be interested in learning, to see the value in learning. And again, if I did that, then I have won.
I have won the lotto.
[00:31:28] Nick Marmolejo: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You, you totally get it. You totally get it. Like through and through. I think you’re a fine educator and I think the children that you’ve, and the families that you’ve gotten to impact are, are lucky to have spent time with you. And you know, I just wish that more kids get to have that, like get to receive that from you, but then from other teachers too.
[00:31:50] Brittney Carey: Yes. So the hope and the goal is inspiring other educators, other parents out there.
Speaking of that, so you have another project that you’ve been working on as well, a a book I hear that you’ve been working on. Can you tell us a little more about that?
[00:32:04] Nick Marmolejo: Yeah, so the book is called, where’s My Compass? It’s about a 10-year-old boy with autism who goes on a journey to find his father’s missing compass, but instead he actually teaches us the secret to purpose.
And so it’s wrapped up in this entire idea of. Right. We think about those who are disadvantaged and those who are often not, not given the voice, the kind of advocacy that they need. And I thought, who’s the perfect group? The perfect community to really communicate the value of purpose in every single child.
And so in working on this book, I interviewed dozens of experts on the topic of autism. So parents, clinicians, diagnosticians. That whole world opened up to me. I mean, they’re so welcoming and they’re also very direct, which I love because they taught me things that I otherwise wouldn’t have known. ’cause I had limited experience, I would say, in the classroom with children with autism.
And if you’ve ever heard the saying, right, like if you’ve met one child with autism, met one child with autism, and so I would say that this book has been a passion project of mine for quite some time. And it’s 800 words, but eight. I crank out eight, 800 words like any given day. No problem. I mean, maybe we all do in texting and whatnot, but I’m telling you an 800 word children book, it’s a project for sure.
[00:33:29] Brittney Carey: Yeah, I can only imagine. And I’d love to pick your brain on that process. ’cause 800 words just seems like so much, but at the same time, you have to craft a, an entire story from beginning, middle to end, and. That’s an incredible process, and I love that the focus is, you know, a child with autism and kind of seeing things in their eyes and seeing things through their world.
I agree. I think that’s kind of the perfect perspective to really take on this, you know, what have you learned throughout this process of speaking to people with autism and writing this book and really getting that idea of purpose through? What have you learned through that process?
[00:34:04] Nick Marmolejo: So both purpose and the topic of autism are what I would consider like high concept.
They’re often complex topics. There’s a lot that goes into it. So I think that’s what makes it really hard to really have a conversation. What I’ve learned is that if you just ask this community like, Hey, I am curious about this. Please enlighten me, give me insight, show me. I mean, they, like I said, they were very welcoming into that world.
What I learned is that these families, their idea of their children succeeding is vastly different than what schools are actually aiming for right now. No parent of a child with autism said, I want my kid to graduate in the top 10%. No, they also didn’t say, I want my kid to have a high school diploma.
Instead, they said things like, I want my kid to live an independent, meaningful life and think about that. I mean, I’m almost tearing up just talking about it because they meant it. They really meant it. And uh, yeah, I’m just very grateful for that community.
[00:35:10] Brittney Carey: Yeah. I feel similarly, and I’ve worked with, you know, students with special needs and students with autism and students with Down syndrome.
And I hear, I’ve heard the sentiment as well from parents working with their kids and looking at what are your, your goals, what it, what would you love for them to be able to do by the end of, of this year? And. That’s the sentiment that I’ve heard a lot as well. Like, I want them to be independent. I want them to make friends.
I want them to be happy. I want them to be successful in, in whatever that means to them. And that is so empowering in so many different ways. Right? Because it, it puts it back in their hands of I believe that you have the power to do this. Right. And they for sure believe they have the power to do anything.
So,
[00:35:50] Nick Marmolejo: yes. Got it.
[00:35:51] Brittney Carey: It’s really about how do you harness that and how do you give them the school, the skills. Also, how do you not put out their flame? How do you help them to maintain that fire? Right? That is the most important thing in the world to me, is especially in education, we’re working with these kiddos.
How do we help them navigate life but also keep their fire burning? Right? How do we not diminish their flame, like let their flame thrive, but give them the skills and the tools to do that? How do we do that is it’s constantly the question that’s top of my mind.
[00:36:22] Nick Marmolejo: We mostly have to stay out of their way. I.
That is what I would say. It’s kinda like maybe herding cats isn’t the best definition. I coach like boys basketball and soccer and things like that, and so sometimes I say that playfully, but it really is just kind of giving them guidance along the way and course correcting and asking them a lot of questions along the way to get their brain moving.
They’ll fill in the answers, you know, I’m a big fan of like the Socratic method and so you ask great questions. I think you get great answers.
[00:36:54] Brittney Carey: And on that note, can you tell me how you reimagine education?
[00:36:58] Nick Marmolejo: I reimagine education as purpose driven, right? And when I say that, I mean teachers and students walking into school excited to be there, families engaged at the highest level and in every school across the country.
And it starts with public schools. So I imagine teachers who, who retired early, returning to the field. Whether that be to teach again full-time or to substitute, right. We have a huge shortage in our pools across the country of high quality teachers. And when I say high quality, what I first mean think what we’ve been talking about is people who really care, who are invested in the future of these children and their colleagues.
And so I imagine a resurgence of like a nostalgic love for the profession of teaching. Respect for teachers. And I imagine kids walking into school and just lit up because they want to be there. They don’t want to go home ’cause they don’t love their family and their parents, but they’re just like, I just had so much fun and so much was poured into me here that why wouldn’t I want to stay here?
And so I think on a more ground level, what I imagine us, us getting our priorities straight, I. We’ve complicated it, and I think when we start with things like say, literacy, and I don’t mean like just teaching to read. Yeah. I mean, there’s the science of reading that I’m a big proponent of. I think it’s just so simple when you give kids the time to focus on the fundamentals and you do it in a way that’s actually fun, that it’ll feed everything else.
Like math will come. Science will come, history will come. But you start there and you’ve opened up their world to learning on their own. I use my son as an example of that, him learning to read at a really young age, and I think that that was just purely getting back to the basics. So I just imagine us getting back to the basics really.
Yes.
[00:39:01] Brittney Carey: Back to the basics. I love that. And yes, let’s get back to the basics of education. Let’s get back into our purpose and our intentionality. There’s so much there.
Nick, I wanna thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story and sharing your insights. I know there’s so much that I have in my mind now to just chew on and think on and just reflect on and have lots of aha moments after, after this episode.
Anything else at where can my audience find you?
[00:39:29] Nick Marmolejo: Yeah, so I’d love for them to check out my TEDx talk on YouTube. It just landed there actually a couple days ago. It’s titled, are Schools Destroying Purpose? But don’t let that scare you away. It’s really a conversation starter. I think that if they give it a look, maybe one to two minutes at least they’ll notice.
That it’s really an invitation to all the things that we’ve been talking about today. But if not there, find me on LinkedIn. I’m active there and I’m just creating the largest collective of purpose-driven educators. So please, let’s connect, let’s network, and happy to advance teachers in any way professionally that I can to.
[00:40:07] Brittney Carey: Absolutely, and I’ll link all of that in our show notes below. So if you wanna connect with Nick and watch that TED talk, it’ll be right there. Again, I wanna thank you so much for joining me, for sharing your insights, for sharing your story. I am just so excited that our paths have crossed, so thank.
[00:40:22] Nick Marmolejo: I’m thankful as well, honored to be on your show to share your space, and you really do ask great questions.
So thank you.
[00:40:29] Brittney Carey: Thank you. I appreciate that. Awesome. Thank you so much. Bye.
I hope this conversation with Nick sparked something in you as a reminder, that purpose isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a critical ingredient to building schools that are truly serving all children. If you’re walking away from this conversation thinking, how can we build safer, more intentional spaces for students to thrive than you are not alone?
I promise you, you’re not alone as Nick so beautifully put it. Education should be a place where young people don’t just prepare for work, but discover who they are and what lights them up. Be sure to check out his TEDx talks, our school’s destroying purpose, and keep an eye out for his upcoming children’s book.
Where’s my compass? It’s one that you’ll definitely want on your shelf, and all of that will be linked in the show notes. And if you found value in this episode, because I know you did, don’t forget to follow, share, and leave a rating or review. It really does help the podcast find more listeners just like you.
And until next time, navigate your conscious journey with courage and kindness, and I’ll see you there for more transformative conversations. Bye.