Engage to Win Persuasive Messaging For Education Advocates

EDUCATION WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: America’s students have never been in greater need of persuasive advocates to propel reforms and advance their academic interests. While Chinese third graders learn calculus concepts, ours aren’t reading or doing math at grade level, with our most vulnerable at-risk students suffering the most. Considering national reading and math scores for 17-year-olds haven’t risen since 1970 despite a tripling of K-12 spending, American students are getting a raw deal, endangering American society.

Despite crisis levels of student under-performance and mental health distress made worse by pandemic lockdowns, school systems continue to divert scarce educational dollars into non-academic programming including controversial ideologies designed to politicize the classroom. Meanwhile, untrained and unlicensed teachers are doubling as therapists in the classroom, further jeopardizing our children’s well-being.

We have an obligation to students – and the taxpayers who fund their education – to get back to basics so they are academically prepared to flourish in their lives and participate in our democracy. This persuasion workshop is designed to help education advocates resist attempts to politicize the classroom, focusing instead on achieving academic transparency and real student equity. Equity means helping differently talented students realize their full potential while developing the grit and resilience to overcome obstacles – a goal that can only be realized if parents, teachers, and administrators work together. Helping education advocates become more influential is the aim of this workshop, an interactive, skill-building program designed to teach attendees how to persuade by appealing to both hearts and minds, whether speaking at a school board meeting or writing a letter to the editor. Workshop attendees will learn Six Powers of Persuasion to attract “persuadables” while powering down “hostiles” who seek to “cancel” them. Speaking up doesn’t require as much courage if done in Engage to Win style!

Workshop participants will learn, practice and be coached to:

Enhance likability and trust by becoming more winsome

• Advance ideas, values, and priorities by using language that resonates
• Become more confident, even in difficult conversations
• Catalyze agreement by building bridges to common ground
• Tell stories to make a connection, opening hearts and minds
• Pivot away from controversy to common ground
• Be a role model by becoming more compelling and influential

Workshop covers how to message the most controversial issues including Critical Race Theory; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; gender ideology; and Social, Emotional Learning.