Pete Stone
Pete Stone left medical school after passing the STEP 1 Board Exam to follow his true dream of being an English teacher, writer, and filmmaker. While medicine is an admirable profession, he is more passionate about working in public education as it helps each individual not just heal physically, but also discover the tools to constantly work towards becoming the best wholistic version of her or himself. His passion for education led him to connect with celebrated South Carolina poet Dr. Vivian Ayers. It was Dr. Ayers that sent Stone a letter in medical school finally helping to convince him to return to teaching and the arts. He now serves on the Brainerd Institute Heritage Board of Directors with her to help offer grass-roots education and literacy through the arts in an outdoor program called Workshops in Open Fields. Stone currently teaches English and Journalism at Lewisville High School and was honored as his District’s Teacher of the Year in 2020.
Stone has a natural ability to help students and teachers celebrate their unique genius and use that intrinsic motivation to overcome obstacles to help themselves and others accomplish incredible personal and team goals for success. His first year teaching an EOC course, his students of non-traditional test takers went on to achieve the collective highest passing scores in school and district history. More importantly though, his students from Chester County have gone on to start enormously successful businesses, become strong advocates for social causes, and outgoing community leaders. As president of The SCEA Chester affiliate, he helps empower all faculty and staff to be part of the solution with unity. His main belief in education is that each person is already full of enormous potential and simple shifts in perspective lead to incredible personal and team results by not looking at what we can’t do but instead always focusing on the phenomenal things that we can.
Stone has a natural ability to help students and teachers celebrate their unique genius and use that intrinsic motivation to overcome obstacles to help themselves and others accomplish incredible personal and team goals for success. His first year teaching an EOC course, his students of non-traditional test takers went on to achieve the collective highest passing scores in school and district history. More importantly though, his students from Chester County have gone on to start enormously successful businesses, become strong advocates for social causes, and outgoing community leaders. As president of The SCEA Chester affiliate, he helps empower all faculty and staff to be part of the solution with unity. His main belief in education is that each person is already full of enormous potential and simple shifts in perspective lead to incredible personal and team results by not looking at what we can’t do but instead always focusing on the phenomenal things that we can.
Sessions Offered
Increasing Cultural Relevancy in Your School and Classrooms
Cultural relevancy is not an additional teaching trick to add to the curriculum for increased productivity. Cultural relevancy is in one simple word: Truth. Truth engages and inspires because it tells the complete story. Also, our world is naturally a wonderful and exciting place because of our collective, beautiful diversity. Therefore, it actually takes more effort to not present culturally relevant lessons and work environments than otherwise. However, given the current nature of our society, being culturally relevant in education does take being on purpose. In this session, Stone offers an opportunity for participants to open up and collectively discover how to bring cultural relevancy into our work as well as recognize the tremendous benefits this approach brings to improving every area of our profession and lives. Stone has taught this way his entire career with great results as the truth always inspires students. Given the great sensitivity surrounding these issues, Stone will also help share tools to help you feel more confident bringing this approach to your work environment in sensitive and successful ways. If you or your faculty is looking for a way to approach starting and continuing this conversation or emphasizing the skill set needed to have culturally relevant lessons and environment, then this is a great session to participate in.
Intrinsic Inspiration
The vast majority of all human beings naturally enjoy learning, right? It’s what we do. It’s our strongest instinct as a species that keeps us alive. Yet, when we compare a kindergarten classroom to a high school classroom, or a professional development session, we quickly ask, “where has that fire for knowledge gone?” People often point to a “lack of motivation” as the cause. One reason motivational techniques often fail is they are approached from a defeating perspective from the start. In other words, there is an initial assumption that the educator or student is deficient in some area and in need of being “fixed” until aligning with outside metrics for success. Just think how often school or work makes everyone focus on “their weaknesses” instead of celebrating and growing strengths. This technique is exhausting and ephemeral because it requires enormous energy or outside reinforcement to commit to someone else’s idea for “proven success” in areas we already feel inadequate in, either through constant pumping up or reminders of scary consequences.
In truth, it does not take enormous amounts of “will power,” “self-discipline,” or fear of consequences to be more “motivated.” Rather, all we need is to be inspired by understanding the root of human inspiration. This session will help educators not start with a deficient approach to learning, but rather start with the belief that we are already miraculous and full of wonder. Learning is an opportunity to build upon one’s own natural genius with perpetual growth into that bliss. This growth mindset and intrinsic inspiration provides more opportunity for individuals to not measure themselves by outside metrics but find personal value in onward development of one’s unique self. In this powerful session, Stone will show how he takes non-traditional learners or burned out educators and helps them become leaders in and out of the classroom. Afterwards, you will have the tools and perspective shift to tap into unlimited inspiration for yourself and more naturally help others identify their own sustainable source of onward growth too.
In truth, it does not take enormous amounts of “will power,” “self-discipline,” or fear of consequences to be more “motivated.” Rather, all we need is to be inspired by understanding the root of human inspiration. This session will help educators not start with a deficient approach to learning, but rather start with the belief that we are already miraculous and full of wonder. Learning is an opportunity to build upon one’s own natural genius with perpetual growth into that bliss. This growth mindset and intrinsic inspiration provides more opportunity for individuals to not measure themselves by outside metrics but find personal value in onward development of one’s unique self. In this powerful session, Stone will show how he takes non-traditional learners or burned out educators and helps them become leaders in and out of the classroom. Afterwards, you will have the tools and perspective shift to tap into unlimited inspiration for yourself and more naturally help others identify their own sustainable source of onward growth too.
Simplicity - Reclaim Learning and Life By Doing Less
This session is a major help to anyone suffering from burnout and getting diminishing results despite how hard they work or all the “new things” she or he keeps trying. The great challenge is we live in a world that wrongly equates being busy with being productive. Likewise, this is one of the best professional developments to attend because instead of adding more to educators’ already filled plates, Stone will help participants develop the tools to get more meaningful work done by confidently learning to do less. He has extensively studied the Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule in great depth to find ways to apply this philosophy to the education profession. Essentially, this principle acknowledges that only 20-10% of our actions accounts for nearly 80 - 90% of the results we seek. Most of the other actions we spend our time stressing out over or being “voluntold” to do, not only don’t help, but actually get in the way of solutions that do. The good news is you probably already know or are doing what’s most important, and by simply learning how to identify activities to eliminate, you’ll maximize positive results at work and in life. This session will help you master the skill of addition by subtraction to allow the best you that is already there to simply shine.
Think of public education and even ourselves as an over medicated patient. Some medicine helps, but too much causes diminished or conflicted results. When results are bad, people often think about prescribing even more; the problem perpetuates. This session is critical in helping educators rid their career and lives of all the unnecessary meds or “best practices” that are actually getting in the way of true success, freedom, and feeling good. This approach has worked so well for Stone that his English EOC students collectively scored the highest pass rate in the school’s and district’s history. The best part is that no one got burned out in the process. The class took walks outside most days, wrote poetry, and did the things that make school fun. This powerful session will help you develop the tools to regain your passion and focus for what matters most, get stellar results, and again have more fun and joy in the process.
Think of public education and even ourselves as an over medicated patient. Some medicine helps, but too much causes diminished or conflicted results. When results are bad, people often think about prescribing even more; the problem perpetuates. This session is critical in helping educators rid their career and lives of all the unnecessary meds or “best practices” that are actually getting in the way of true success, freedom, and feeling good. This approach has worked so well for Stone that his English EOC students collectively scored the highest pass rate in the school’s and district’s history. The best part is that no one got burned out in the process. The class took walks outside most days, wrote poetry, and did the things that make school fun. This powerful session will help you develop the tools to regain your passion and focus for what matters most, get stellar results, and again have more fun and joy in the process.
