You'll listen into Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where Purpose Meats Power and StorySpark Transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get unplugged.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged and if you were in academia, you have kids. If you have nieces or nephews, anyone in school, this is for you. She's the blueprint for brilliance, empowering minds, breaking barriers, and redefining what academic and personal excellence looks like. In classrooms, to boardrooms, her message hits hard and inspires deeper. She's brilliant, she's bold, she's beautiful, she's relentless.
She has Houston's finest. It's Jennifer Lett with Jennifer, how are you doing today? I'm doing well today, Mick. How are you? I am doing wonderful.
Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. It means the world of me that you are here to spend time with us. And Jennifer, you know the show, I love to ask people about their because, that purpose, that passion that fuels them every day. So if I were to say Jennifer today, what is your because? Why do you keep doing what you do?
My because is to create the conditions to help my students to succeed. To get up other students who lack the confidence to pursue what they really want to go after. And my because is to help my students to attain a level of freedom through smart, financial decisions when it comes to being able to go to college. And also just the freedom that comes through being able to read well, being able to attain knowledge, the freedom that comes from education, my students, making sure that my students have that, that's my because. I want to go somewhere that you just said the freedom the education provides.
I don't hear a lot of folks talk about that, but it's very, very powerful. The people that are watching are listening, talk to us about what you mean by educational freedom. So educational freedom, when we go to college, no matter what we study, we hope to be able to make a difference in the world. That's why we embark on. We go to college.
And for some people going to college is a ticket to an MRS degree, a ticket to a high paying job, a ticket to entrepreneurship, a ticket to participating in creative professions, whatever that choice is, that is that person's choice. But nobody enters college thinking, oh no, I want to also have a 50 pound weight attached to my leg called student loans to prevent me from being able to pursue my dreams. So just the freedom and the education is supposed to give you freedom. When you're educated, you have choices. And but when you have that heavy, heavy burdens of tremendous student loan debt, it restricts the your abilities to make these great to take advantage of all these opportunities that your education can provide for you.
I love that. And that spoke to me. And I think people need to understand that as well because you're correct, especially in today's world, like education now is not like education when I was going to middle school and high school, right? It was we were separated by, you know, all the smart or the super smart people were in this group. And then it went all the way down to those who we see you get out of here.
Like, like that's how it was. And we didn't have access to the information that that is there now. Like when I was in school, there was no internet. There was definitely no social media. So I think it's harder for professors, for teachers, for leaders to keep children distraction free because there's a lot of distraction now.
So Jennifer, I'd love for you to talk to us about that. Like, how do you keep children distraction free, but also give them the flexibility to to tap into these resources that we didn't have. Okay, so I believe in, you know, all kinds of technology can be used for good and good and use for bad. And we just have to figure out how to help students learn how to use it, use the technology positively. I like to tell people that I charm teenagers for living.
And one of the ways that I get teenagers to do things in spite of all of the distractions. And one thing I have to tell you, my students may be faced with even more distractions because I meet my students online. So we're meeting through the medium that we're using to meet is the tool of distraction. But what I do with my students is I talk with them, I ask them about their interests and I'll tell them funny stories about my interests and my background. And I learn about why I have to understand why my students have a why.
Whenever my students have a compelling why, and I don't know what that why is, the why I could be, I want to be able to get a scholarship to such a university or when my dad drove me to the test, I know that when my dad drives me to the test, he's going to tell me that if you do well on this test, I'm going to give you X amount of dollars. I'm not judging. But I learned what motivates my students. And I always remind them about what motivates them. And I'm always listening to them, making sure that I'm able to accommodate what they need, I make sure that I respect them.
One thing I think adults may have a hard time doing is apologizing to children. I have no problems apologizing to children because I'm human and I make several mistakes a day. And just I think for them to know that someone is interested in them and someone is interested in their well-being and certain about their interests and how they feel, you know, they'll come and they'll tell me, oh, Miss Jennifer, I was awarded this scholarship, I scored, I earned this test score, I earned this great. The first thing I asked before I tell them my thoughts, because usually I'm very, very excited. But the first thing I do is I ask, how do you feel about that?
And I think for them to know that someone cares about how they feel about certain things, I think that offers them by in. In fact, my students beat me to class. And I think it's because they know that they're going to get that care, they're going to get that concern, but they, yes, they will get the lesson as well. They will get the lesson as well. I love that.
I love that. And so with most of what you're doing being online and we're in a time now where, and again, it's not bad, right? It's just how we evolve as society where everybody's about shortcuts and hacks and how can I get to this quicker? How do you keep your students engaged and disciplined when everything isn't a shortcut at this stage of learning, right? Like you're building foundational.
So there's no shortcut in the foundation. Yes. Right. Well, I just let them do it. If they go do the shortcut and you know, sometimes the shortcut works and I'll tell them, hey, as long as your method is yielding correct results, you're comfortable with it and you can do it consistently.
I'm going to leave you alone. But because I've done this for over 20 years, I know what's not going to work. And so what I do is I just say, okay, you want to use that shortcut? Go do it. Go ahead, do it.
And tell me what happens. And then I see what happens and they'll come back. I'll give an example, one of my students, we prepare for SAT and SAT math on the entire test, and we're going to use a calculator. And what I have been trying to teach them all along is, you know, you need to be able to do some of this stuff without a calculator because there are questions that the calculator isn't going to be as useful as you'd like it to be. And you're like, oh, no, I'm a Jennifer.
I want to, you know, teenage boy. I said, okay. And then he went and practiced and he came to me. He said, oh, Miss Jennifer, this was so hard. And it was like, oh, what happened?
You have the calculator. And let me be clear. I am not an anti calculator, anti technology person. I was like, what happened? You had the calculator.
Miss Jennifer, that calculator was useless. So a lot of times when they're trying to do the shortcuts and trying to do the hats, I'm always close. And usually when they come to me, they've tried to do something. They tried to get a better grade, tried to write an essay on their own. They have tried to prepare for a test on their own and they did not get the results they needed.
So I, you know, and I said, well, you know, what you tried before. And sometimes I even offered it to them. I said, I'll ask them, do you want to try it your way or do you want, would you like me to show you how I do it? And that's usually what I do. Like usually I don't say, boy, you need to do this.
This is a girl. You need to do this. This is this. I'm not going to do that. I just start with, because the thing is, by the time I see it's come to me, they've been in school for, you know, 11 or 12 years, they've been on this earth 15, 16, 17, 18 years, they do have some knowledge.
I don't want to, and I want to respect their knowledge. I want them to know that I honor their knowledge and I will ask them, okay, how do you want to approach this? Do you want to try it on your own first or do you want me to walk you through my process? And then sometimes even I'll ask, would you like to walk through your process and then have me critique you while you're doing it? So I give them options.
I want them to know that I'm listening to them. In the back of my mind, I know, I know the response, I know what they're going to tell me, but what I have to do is I have to get them in a space where they feel comfortable to be vulnerable enough to open up to me and allow me to give them that help. I love that. And I just learned something. So, you know, when I took the SAT, I may or may not have had a perfect score on the mouth part of the SAT, you know, may or may not have, but you can use calculator.
You can use calculators on the SAT and ACT now. Yeah, you can use calculators on percent of the math sections. Allow the calculator. I would have been dangerous. I would have been dangerous back in the day.
Let me tell you something. One, one nominator is actually what they do is they write the tests in response to the students having the calculators. So the questions are a little harder because they're expecting you. Yes. Okay.
I still would have been dangerous. Still would have been dangerous. But I want to talk through this talking about, you know, preparing for exams and tests. You know, I think probably one of the misconceptions that we talked about offline is that, you know, someone needs to wait till they're in the 11th grade or 12th grade to start working with, but it's actually better, sometimes even more beneficial if they're starting earlier. So talk to us about, you know, when someone should be a part of the programs that you're developing.
Okay, that's a good question. All right. I want to offer this perspective. I graduated from high school from a major football powerhouse high school, I'm in Texas. And currently that high school is a perennial contender for not the district title, not the regional title, state title, it is expected that my alma mater makes an appearance in Arlington at the state championships every year.
That's an expectation. And when I graduated from high school, I was very excited because I thought that I was going, there's nothing wrong with football. I went to all the football games and everything. I grew up in all of that. I brought my coach with Bob, but you know, I wanted something different when I went to college and I had no clue.
I guess I was like little nail from the country. I decided to attend the University of Oklahoma. I attended Oklahoma in the Bobstoops era when we went to a ball game every single year. And so I want people to think about how football is made, how those successes are made. The successes are not made when, you know, team makes the orange ball or they're marching down, you know, they're the Rose Bowl or even when high school championship where somebody throws a Hail Mary pass and it is successful, it's completed and that wins the game.
That's not the success of those programs. So in my community, there are two main, just like most communities, there are maybe two main roads. So one of the main roads, I can drive down one of the main roads on Saturday afternoon. In fact, this past Saturday afternoon and I see those little boys out there playing football and their families are out there. They have the tents, they have food trucks, they have everything going on to support those babies in football.
And then when I turned down another major road, I see the same thing happening maybe on a Sunday. And I say that to say, we start early and there's a pipeline. There's a pipeline in my community that creates these perennial contending teams for football. And I need for people to think about thinking that same way, people need to bring that same energy to education. When they are younger, the main thing is that they have to be able to read.
They have to be able to comprehend. And I'm going to tell you something. The prevailing attitudes in school and in a society is that from birth to the third grade, students are learning to read. And then from third grade on, the students should be reading to learn. Now what happens when the students haven't learned to read by third grade and then they're left out there reading to learn?
Well, I'm going to tell you what happens. What happens is up to the parent because as well meaning as our educators are, they are not going to care about this literacy issue more than you do. They are not going to care about your child being able to read more than you will care about your child being able to read. And I'm not casting anybody as a villain or hero or anything. I'm just saying that this is your child.
This is your priority. You have to make just like those parents, get those babies down there to play football or hockey or golf or swim or competitive dance or competitive cheer. People have to bring that same energy to literacy. And when I talk about literacy, it is do your children comprehend what they are reading. Not can they call words because I can read my sister and say chemical engineer.
One day I was being silly. I don't know what passes before I did my family. But one day I was reading her textbook for thermal dynamics. And I was reading a paragraph. I could and I read it aloud.
I pronounced everywhere perfectly. And I looked to her and I said, hey, what did I just read? I have no clue what I just read because I don't have the background knowledge. I didn't take that kind of advanced, whatever, is it? So whatever to be able to understand that.
So that's what we have here. We have to make sure that our younger kids are getting the background knowledge to be able to perform well because when I look at my students who are doing well as 12 graders, like we're at a point now where they just have to walk through the door. They just have to submit the application and they're going to get the scholarships. When I think about those students and what happened well, it was the reading. So I have programming to help students.
We meet multiple times a week and parents can pay a monthly subscription fee and they're getting classes that are based in reading, writing, math, test prep, essay writing. I have workshops for the family. So about how to pay for college. What are some things you can be doing now to prepare this comprehensive program and regular progress reports. So parents don't have to wait until the student is in the summer before the senior year.
I got the people calling me the summer before the senior year and they're like, hey, little Johnny needs to bring up his test scores. I'm like, okay, I'm just Johnny's test scores. And I see him and I'll tell you this, the highest a student can score on the ACT is the lowest is zero. People call me, their kids have 16s and they say, yes, summer before the senior year before we're supposed to be submitting these scores to get scholarships, get college admissions. They call me and they're like, I don't know what happened with little Johnny.
Johnny was in all the advanced classes and he was getting A's in the advanced classes and it's like, well, you know, but tell me a little bit about what Johnny reads. I said, I'm done like read. Okay, well, tell me about little Johnny's homework. He does his homework at school. Well, tell me about his test.
Well, you know, he's always going and, you know, doing the retakes. So in my program, I have a program that's actually called a dollar rating, but the name of the program is college ready and college ready is designed to help those students little by little consistently we're out there. Hey, we're out there on the field practicing consistently. So when it's time to get to that senior year and we're throwing we're throwing passes that are being caught and that are winning the game of college admissions, we're going to the ball games, we're winning the championships and we're starting with them as early as seventh grade to get them prepared. We want to make this of course students are working on it, but also we want to make this a family effort as well because I've done this for over 20 years and I want to win and sometimes and what I discovered is yes, it's good to yes, we do have to do the things toward the end of the book graders, but let's also build that pipeline with those kiddos and seventh, eighth and ninth grade so we can win this game.
I'm telling you because just like athletic scholarships and then scholarships are starting to tighten up later and later to meaning sometimes if you're waiting till your senior year to apply, they've already hit the quota for that year and you're going to have to wait for selection rejection as I like to call it. You're not the way for somebody to say, Oh, I'm not going to go to the school before you even have a scholarship open ups. I love what you're doing there. I want to talk to parents right now and Jennifer, you're the expert on this. So I have three kids and my youngest one is in grad school now.
So we've all gone through the scholarship process and the test taking process, but I'm going to lay out each of my kids are uniquely different when it comes to standardized testing. So I started my oldest my daughter who is a good student works really hard to get good grades. And so as she studies is how she takes test to so if she's a B student in a subject, you can expect her to fall in that B area and test taking to she's an A and something you can expect her to have to test A in that I'd say pretty standard right like that's how it's going to be what she studies what she learns what she retains is how she's going to perform on the test my middle child my oldest son. I shouldn't say this out loud but I love all my kids equally naturally is the smartest of the three meaning it's going to take a class test not have to study a lot make a right his short term memory can memorize anything but those standardized tests test though Jennifer he's going to be very average and Jay you know that like we can laugh about it later but classroom tests going to make a hundred every time because his short term memory is great standardized test freaks out it's going to be average right my youngest son came in again I love all my
kids equally he is going to do the minimum to get what he needs done so if I tell Kevin hey you got to make a B and everything he's going to make a B and he's going to say but dad you remember you said all I had to do was make a B but came on on standardized test is a freaking genius I don't know where this has come from Jennifer but that is came right like he's going to give you enough effort so that he's not in trouble in the classroom but those standardized test he's not going to give you more effort but he can score really really well I love for you to talk to parents about understanding who your kids are and how not to freak out sometimes because I think as parents we see the end result and then we try to course correct after but if you know who your kids are and understand that all things aren't created equal classroom does not equal standardized test standardized test sometimes doesn't equal classroom like talk to the parents about knowing their kids and how to be okay but then how you can help them what to understand who they are and how they take those tests how do you understand your students especially when you have multiple children because none of them you already know you can feed them the same food they can grow up in the same house attend the same schools and they're going to be completely different so how does that how does that work when it comes
to standardized test don't make assumptions because some of the things that you learn about your students you don't want to learn too late that oh my student does really well on a classroom test but boy when they took that ACT that was that that was a revelation don't don't listen just have them take a test early and you know you don't necessarily have to have them go into the actual official testing environment practice tests are available online administer the practice test to the student and what ACT does offer a paper based exam that you can get online as a PDF and college board offers digital exams where of course the you know the software will score it for everyone have them take those tests early now some students need to take it in an official environment so they can see that this is really real but other students are okay just doing it kind of informally but homeware have them and then have them test early so you can know where they are and then you need to talk with them about their goals and I know for me as a student what was helpful for me in terms of pursuing in terms of being very hungry and driven about my college application process because I am
incredibly persistent but one thing is I'm persistent about what I want to be persistent about when I was in high school and I was in 12th grade and I was taking calculus like I'll just kind of blew it off because in my mind I was done with high school oh that wasn't the best thing what's the best thing to do but when it came to my application process I wasn't incredibly persistent because I knew my goal my goal was to go away and I mean the only way for me to achieve that I had to sit and do the things that were required to do that and so parents need to talk with you know you have them take those practice tests you look at the practice you look at the test scores and when you have them take the practice test explain to them that we're having you take this to have an understanding of where you are it's not an indictment or a confirmation of your intelligence it's not it's kind of like when I go to the doctor's office I have to step I have to step on the scale do I want to step on the scale but I have to step on the scale because that is an indicator to help the doctor understand the state of my health same thing here we want to know where you are with your test and then when you start you know and then you say okay well you're the test scores and then you talk with the student about his or her goals okay so like you're graduate student your your graduate student is in graduate
school so somewhere along the line he knew that he needed to go to graduate school so maybe at some point maybe he understood hey I'm gonna have to go to graduate school and then go to graduate school and this is the kind of lifestyle that I have like I would talk with my students about the kind of lifestyle they want to have after college and then we just work backwards I talk to my students and I tell them hey you look like you like nice things so let's just talk about what your life is going to be like after college and then I'm like okay well let's talk about what that's going to cost and then we start talking about the cost of college and you know okay you get a student loan this is what this is going to look like and this is how it's going to impede your ability to live that life where you're you know flossing and stunting for the gram and all of that you know that's gonna affect that and then we just and we say okay well this is this is the kind of life that you want this is what it's going to cost so what are you willing to do now in order to defray the cost and just listening to them and it may be sometimes it's easier to have that conversation to have a third party to have because I know why one parent had that conversation I'm retiring next year I don't care what you do and I'm not sending you to this school because of blah blah blah and you know he was saying the
same thing that I was saying but I was just saying it in a different way so that's what I would do I would start with this hey have a student take the exam have that student you know walk them through the end what is this what is your life look like after college talk with them about the cost helping them understand what they're willing to do now to make it happen and for you have to know your child so some students I meet with students online and we're one to one online some students thrive in an in-person class if that is your student that's your student do that for them some students have crazy busy schedule so your daughter sounds like the type of person who probably took a lot of advanced classes and she probably worked very very hard at her advanced classes and she probably doesn't need to really prepare during the school year she probably should have prepared in the summer time because she's one of those students who's going to do what you ask her to do and so she's going to be torn between test prep and AP English but that's what I would say you broke it down I think a lot of parents got a lot of insight right there on the things that they can be doing right now to to help their students their children who are the future really start to prepare so where can people
find and follow you Jennifer I'm going to make sure I have links everywhere on this site and all the clips that I post as well to okay to find me and to contact me they can reach me at scholarready.com that's the word scholar the word ready one are in the middle dot com and they can click the contact us page and you can follow the information there I also am on YouTube and that handle is at scholar ready same spelling scholar ready one are in the middle and I offer courses to parents and students alike at event bright and I think and it's under scholar ready love it I'll make sure we have links to everything there I'm gonna get you out of here on my quick fire rapid fire five questions you ready okay all right what was the high school you went to in Texas North Shore senior high school all right how many championships so they went while you were there in football zero all that championship talking to anyone nothing they didn't even a powerhouse Sealy said they run all of y'all out there Eric Dickerson told me they used to beat y'all like y'all stole something that's what he told me so I'm saying Eric Dickerson at Sealy he said Sealy manual and then my guys at Carter high school
said y'all never wanted to see them in the playoffs anyway so they're on that out there anyway back to this quick five what is your favorite Houstonian bill favorite Houstonian meal is I cannot eat this anymore because I have developed all of these food allergies but my very favorite is my grandmother's gumbo with shrimp with shrimp and crab and turkey nicks and chicken and sausage and okra that's my favorite there you go love it love it love it what's one subject that you hated in school that you now see the value of my gosh business communications business communications I was like why do I have to take this class like my secretary is gonna be writing my emails for me and it's like no but that class was so valuable if I could have one day where I have five vice presidents and 10 secretaries and that class would still be required for everything that I did that was one of my majors in school written in education look at that there we go all right when the story of Jennifer led with is being written what's one word you want to define your legacy persistent I love it I love it Jennifer thank you so much for spending time with us today everybody scholar ready calm make sure
you are following make sure you're reaching out let Jennifer know you heard us on this podcast today too just appreciate the value that you're giving and the insights that you're helping parents with their students with Jennifer you are needed and I am thankful for you and all the things that you do thank you make you got into all the viewers and listeners remember you're because is your superpower go unleash it that's another powerful conversation on mik unplug if this episode moved you and I'm sure it did follow the show whatever you listen share it with someone who needs that spark and leave a review so more people can find there because I'm really rushed and until next time stay driven stay focused and stay unplugged