This back to school blog post is for the teachers of my little sister, Charlotte. On August 31st, she will start kindergarten. Since I won’t be at the school where Charlotte is going, I thought I would write a list of “Char-isms” for her teachers, in case they need help while I am not there because let's face it, she IS sort of a handful. Hehehehehe!
If I had to describe Charlotte by characters in books, I'd say she's a little bit Eloise at the Plaza with a dash of Lilly (from Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse), a bit of No David and A LOT of Hermione. I've actually never read a book that had a character like Charlotte, so maybe I need to write that someday! Here's a list of the most important Char-isms I hope will be helpful at her new school: 1) CharTime Charlotte gets things mixed up when it involves time, like she says, yesterday when she really means today, or last night when something happened a month ago. It’s super cute but also super confusing. So, if you are counting on her to know when something happened, I’d ask another kid. 2) CharDance Most of what Charlotte does in her life revolves around making it into some sort of interpretive dance. Anytime there is music on, Char will start to move and her face will begin to show the emotion of the song. So, if you plan to use music in the class, I hope you won’t mind Charlotte’s interpretative dances. 3) CharBootiful I figured I better warn you about Charlotte’s definition of beautiful. When my mum is traveling it is ALWAYS a problem because Charlotte tries to wear crazy things to school she says are “bootiful.” One time she wore her cheetah long johns for like three days straight before Muma came home and made her change. 4) CharCheetah Speaking of cheetah long johns, Charlotte is pretty sure she’s part cheetah, so I am almost certain she will run in the halls. SORRY! 3) CharBoss Charlotte is very determined. When she wants to do something, she will keep trying until she OWNS it and that’s why we call her CharBoss! But, also she can be a little bit bossy in life, but I know that is really just leadership skills for when she is a grown up. 4) CharsPeople If you want a friend who will stick by your side, then Char is your girl. She is super loyal even when she probably shouldn’t be. Char loves people so much and she looks out for anyone who needs a friend. Her heart hurts if someone is being unkind. Char is totally justice seeker. 5) CharLove The best part of everything that is Charlotte is something we call CharLOVE. At first, it was a joke. We would say that we felt the “CharLOVE” whenever she made us laugh or feel happy. But, then we realized that it’s not a joke, Char really does bring A LOT of happiness to A LOT of people. CharLOVE is a real thing and when you feel it, you get heartbeeps. I am so excited to watch Charlotte share her CharLOVE with her kindergarten class. Be sure to check out my Liv’s List of books all about kindergarten. And, if you want to be part of #CharsPeople, you can follow her on Instagram @TheCharLOVE. I hope this blog post makes you think of someone you love who is starting a new adventure. I hope you reach out to them and let them know they are in your heart. Mostly, I hope after you read this you feel the heartbeeps I feel from having a sister like Charlotte. I am lucky. Keep reading, keep thinking, and, thank you for following LivBits.
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 Have you ever had an opportunity that meant SOOOOO much, you had to pinch yourself to believe it is real?
This week I am the kid keynote for Alan November’s Building Learning Communities (BLC) in Boston, MA. This is a conference with lots of techie people who come from all over the world to learn strategies that grow teaching and learning in innovative ways. How did I get to be the kid keynote? Well, Alan picked me, and honestly, I feel super special that he did. Last year, I presented with my favorite person, Kristin Ziemke. She was one of the grown up keynotes, and she also presented at the conference and invited me to help her. I am not going to lie, it was one of my best days ever. It wasn’t what Kristin and I did together, it was how we felt together. I felt like we shined, like glitter! When you have grown ups in your life that help you grow your passion, share your thinking, and encourage you to dream BIG, you take more risks as a learner. Right before BLC last year, I got an account on Twitter. I learned how to tweet and interact pretty quickly, and before I knew it, my followers grew and grew and grew. Last week I had a call with Alan to go over my keynote. He joked that maybe he would wear a target shirt to let the audience know that soon I would overtake him in followers on Twitter. It is incredible that in such a short period of time, I was able to grow so much on social media. But, really it isn’t the number of followers you have, but how you engage with them that matters. People always ask me for my secret, so here it is: BE GLITTER ONLINE. Stand for digital good and spread it around like glitter because everyone knows glitter sticks to everything and makes MOST people feel happy! Follow people who make you smile about the world; share your happiness and celebrate other people’s joy, too. Challenge yourself to a tweet back with one of your followers, encourage them after they post and see how much that tweet back gets paid forward. Check your emoji line up, and if the happy emojis aren’t to the left, send some to move them up! When you see an injustice, speak up, but do it kindly and with words that help people see another perspective. Pay attention to other people’s words and remember that words are like glitter too, they stick. This week, I want to be the glitter at BLC. I want to inspire grown ups to think more about kid voice and global learning. I hope my words make people’s heartbeep for kids everywhere. My keynote isn’t just for BLC, it’s for the world. I hope if you’re not a fan of glitter, I’ve helped you think about it in another way. Glitter to me means shine, and shine means light, and light means hope. That’s me in a nutshell, LivBit: glittery, shiny, hopeful light. Thank you, Alan November for letting me share my kid voice at BLC17. I will never forget this moment, ever. And, you won't either because I'm the glitter that will shine at BLC17! Keep Reading! Keep Thinking! And, thank you for following LivBits!
Have you ever thought about the power of your words and how they make others feel?
Last week I wrote about summer reading tips. When I posted my blog and the Bit I made to go with it, someone commented how lucky I was to have books to read over the summer. The comment mentioned kids who weren’t as fortunate. The week before, I posted a Bit for a class and someone commented he didn’t like the feminist message on my t-shirt and it was probably just a political move by my mum. All week long my brain went back to these comments again and again. I thought about how my posts are perceived by followers. I talked about it with a lot of people. I wanted to understand why followers thought I didn’t understand the needs of other kids or what the word feminist means. It bothered me so much. Sometimes grown ups don’t give kids enough credit. They think they can say things that won’t stick with us. They think we don’t understand when their comments are cutting or snide. Sometimes grown ups take out an injustice they feel on other people, and when those people are kids, they expect us to just take it. Here’s the thing, I use my blog, social media, and the Bits I make to share my HOPE with the world. I DO know not all kids have the same opportunities. I spend a lot of time feeling worries for other kids. I wish kids everywhere had the same kinds of experiences with books that I do. I know this isn’t always possible, but that is also one of the reasons why I started LivBits. I think when kids hear messages from other kids, they listen more, and they get hopeful and inspired, too. Grown ups needs to stop insulting kids. I do know what feminist means. My mum doesn’t force me to wear messages on my shirts; I LOVE TO WEAR MESSAGES ON MY SHIRTS! The feminist shirt I was wearing in that Bit was a gift from a special friend, not a political ploy by my mum. I feel sad that I have to defend silly things, but I also want to make the point that people should care more about their words. Words can lower or LIFT people; cause pain or JOY; confusion or UNDERSTANDING; make someone cry or LAUGH. Your words can write on someone else’s soul. What was good about those comments? They made me think more about the world, people, kids, and the power of words. On social media, your words are always PUBLIC. This means they carry meaning to more than just the person you direct them to. This also means that you should THINK before you comment: Is this helpful, kind, and true? Sometimes people don’t think they have to be aware of how THEIR comments impact OTHER people. Being a good digital citizen means you always consider others – they ARE real people, with real feelings. My friend Kristin calls me LivLOV. I like this nickname for lots and lots of reasons. The biggest one is because it has intention. It’s like it reminds me to live a life of love everyday AND give love to the world. I feel like the mission OF LivBits is TO LivLOV. I think about my words and comments as a chance to LivLOV and I hope you do too. Thank you to all the followers who get me, who get love, and, who LivLOV. Those are the followers who matter most. Keep Reading! Keep Thinking! And, thank you for following LivBits!  Lately, lots of teachers have asked me what my plan is for summer reading. I always think this is a funny question because my MAIN plan is to just READ! Even though my summer is super busy with lots of ballet (I am doing summer intensives in Chicago and NYC), I’ll still have lots of time to do what my mum calls lingering around books.
Lingering means taking time to read lots of things that are interesting and fun with no real reason except to feed your brain with fun facts and joy! Since so many people have asked me for advice, I thought I’d write down a list with a few tips for summer reading. Have an “I DID IT!” Pile Collect books you hope to read this summer in a big pile. Put them in a place where you love to read. As you read the books, move the books from the “TO BE READ” pile to the “I DID IT” pile! It’s so fun seeing your books move from one pile to the next! Create a Word Journal I love, love, love to learn new words! I keep track of fun, silly, and interesting words in a word journal. I love to see evidence of all the words I collect over the summer all in one place! Words make me happy! Make Room for Picture Books Lots of times, and especially when you get older, teachers put together summer reading lists for kids and almost ALWAYS when you are older they are ALL chapter books. But, guess what? Picture books are important too, even if you are an older reader! I read sooooo many picture books and I get super inspired by topics I find there. Sometimes, a good picture book LEADS me to a chapter book on the same topic because I want to learn even more! I say make sure you have LOTS of picture books in your summer book pile! Reread Old Favorites My mum always takes pictures of all of us with our summer reading piles. If we don’t own the books we want to read, she takes a picture of the books we write on a list so we can get them from the library. This year my brother, Quinn is rereading all his old favorites by Roald Dahl. When I saw his stack of books, it reminded me that I love some of those books too! Rereading can make you remember old feelings you had and can inspire you to grow your thinking in new ways. Start a Summer Reading Project A really good book can motivate you to take on a cause or focus on a passion you have. Lots of times kids don’t think their voice matters when it comes to big ideas. But, that’s not true! After reading Heather Lang’s book, Swimming with Sharks, I was inspired to contact her and start a contest with her for kids to share their love of sharks AND bring awareness to shark conservation. I am also super inspired by Kate Parker’s book Strong is the New Pretty. At first, I dreamed of having my picture taken by her, but since that is probably impossible, I decided that I could take my own pictures this summer. I want to show the world that ballerinas aren’t all fluff and tutus. Ballerinas are strong, athletic, and fierce! While I am at my ballet intensives, I am going to document this and share the pictures on my website. If I had to show my summer reading plans in hashtags, it would look like this: #LingerinBooks #LingerinIdeas #VisittheLibrary #FeedMyBrain #IDidItPile #PictureBooksMATTER #CollectLOTSofWords #ReReadOldFavs #FeedMyPassions #TakeaStand #ConnectwithOthers #KidsCANteachus I hope you’ll create your summer book plans in hashtags, too and share them with me! I wish you lots of book lingering, loving, and learning this summer! Keep Reading! Keep Thinking! And, thank you for following LivBit!  This week my Mum, Cynthia Merrill is guest blogging! I hope if you don’t follow her on Twitter or IG, you will (@cyndisueboo). She has super good ideas about thinking, reading, and teching! But, the BEST part is that she believes in kids A LOT and, she especially believes in ME!Recently, Liv asked me if she could delete a follower (and all her posts about her) from her Twitter and Instagram accounts. At first, I thought nothing of it, until she followed up with a brief explanation. It seems this person had gone from rabidly retweeting, liking, or commenting on Liv's posts, to virtual silence. She felt hurt and confused, especially when she could see that she was promoting other kids as actively as she had once promoted Liv.
This gave me a lot of pause – trying to figure out how to best support Liv in her growing understanding of adult behavior in digital spaces – spaces where the “slights” can sometimes feel bigger and are public. While also being mindful that Liv’s recognition of this didn’t necessarily give her the maturity to understand all of the machinations of why some adults act suddenly dismissive. Social media slights are very real. They may not be talked about all that much, but I can attest to the feeling of not getting a seat at the “popular” table. In social media we have different names for groups of people that support each other, the most popular probably being PLN. The reality is that some PLNs function like a middle school lunchroom table -- the outright promotion of some people, and the exclusion of others. I listened this weekend as an accomplished friend told me how she had to “step away” from her social media feed because of the sheer panic she felt when she read how much other people were doing, experiencing, supporting, and learning. She felt like a complete failure. Liv’s realization of the once fan now silent has more to do with the fan, and how she has moved on, than it does with Liv. But, as a parent, I am deeply aware that I allowed this to happen. I have found that with Liv’s success comes people who like her for what she can provide for them. Recently, an expert in social media research interviewed me – her first question asked why I would put Liv in social media spaces when the recommended age for these platforms is thirteen. It’s an honest question, and it deserved an honest answer. I think thirteen is too late. Developmentally, 13 year olds are already finding their space from parents, figuring out their identity, and more often than not heavily influenced by peers and celebrity social media accounts. Helping Liv navigate these spaces at 9 and 10 is EASIER than it would ever be at age 13. She understands my role as an active guide on the side of her social media life. Initially, she would see my posts on Twitter and Instagram and mirror her own posts after mine. As her knowledge grew, she discovered that she had a talent for hashtags that people seemed to really like. As her followers quickly grew, she gained confidence interacting with them. Honestly, her biggest delight is meeting a follower in real life. I think this might be the opposite of many adults on social media – I’ve heard many adult stories of how meeting followers in real life is awkward and, at times, even disappointing. Liv’s delight in moving from digital relationships to real relationships provides us with a demonstration of how a digital native imagines the convergence of her lives – she doesn’t imagine them as separate. She sees both spaces as opportunities to be real. Adults often fumble their way through these spaces because they see them as separate from their real lives. Social media brings out sides of adults that most of us wouldn’t see in person. Liv shares in her presentations: “Who you are online, should match who you are offline.” So, if we push this idea a bit further, we can assume that any adult that would go silent on a kid online would be equally silent outside of the digital space. If those adults are teachers, this causes me to be seriously concerned. If those adults are ones she sees promoting digital citizenship or running chats about empowering kids, it’s really a fraud. Digital space is REAL space. For Liv -- it’s life, it’s love, it’s learning. It’s a chance to connect and grow. Consider your interactions online – are you authentic -- have you gone silent on someone? If so, why? Was your intent to hurt? Think about the person sitting behind the screen. Make it right. For me, I am making it right with Liv. I encouraged her not to delete the once fan. I’m helping her understand complicated behavior. Thankfully, she has so many incredible mentors who don’t look at their interactions with her in an opportunistic way -- they understand how real Liv's feelings are. These mentors are also just as delighted meeting Liv outside of social media, as she is meeting them. One recently messaged me and said, “Thank you for sharing Liv with the world…she makes my world better…falling in love with her is so easy…and so REAL.” That’s what it’s all about. Keep Reading! Keep Thinking! And, thank you for following MY LivBit!  I love teachers! My mom and dad are teachers; Gram, aunt and uncle are too. Everywhere I look, I have teachers loving me. I even have teachers on the other side of the world encouraging me and helping me grow my thinking! If you follow me on Twitter, you know I like to hashtag my teachers with #MyTexasTeacher (thank you, Nancy) or #MyChiTeacher (thank you, Sam) or #MyOhioTeacher (thank you, Courtney). I am so, so lucky!
Last summer, I presented at Alan November’s conference, Building Learning Communities in Boston, MA. I got to do this incredible conference because of Kristin Ziemke, author Amplify: Digital Teaching and Learning in the K-6 Classroom. Kristin’s work is about empowering kids to drive their own learning, and she had me join her sessions and help her teach teachers. Yup, I was the teacher! Thank you, Kristin! When I was at #BLC16, I met a lot of really amazing thinkers. I’d say that lots of them are teachers AND innovators. They knew that kids and tech go together in ways that are important and powerful. I even met Reshan, the creator of the Explain Everything app. Meeting him motivated me to check out the app and teach myself how to show my thinking in new and exciting ways. The energy at BLC made me feel like I could do anything! At the time, I had JUST gotten my own Twitter, and I was tweeting out lots of things that I was thinking. I remember that I tweeted out to Alan how I hoped to be a Twitter sensation. At the time, I had a few thousand followers, now I have over 25,000! Looking back, I didn’t really know how powerful social media spaces can be. I was just having fun figuring it all out and “meeting” new people. Now, I understand how I can use social media to connect with teachers, thinkers, and just really cool people all over the world! Using social media platforms, like Twitter has changed me as a learner. I met Pana, #MyTaiwanTeacher when I was at BLC last summer. Since then, she and I have collaborated on some really amazing projects, even though she is all the way over in Taiwan and I am in Durham, NH. Pana has even started a project with my little sister, Charlotte. It’s so exciting to know that even before Charlotte is in kindergarten, she already knows she can have teachers EVERYWHERE – even on the other side of the world! The work that Charlotte and I do with Pana is based on things we want to investigate. Pana supports us in lots of ways, and especially, by introducing new apps and ways to document our thinking. This summer, I am the kid keynote at BLC17. I feel so honored to be able to share my story with the BLC crowd because in lots of ways that’s where I began thinking about being a #GlobalLearner. When you allow kids to be in social media spaces AND you teach them about the power of connecting to interesting people, you give them the chance to know the world, see the world, AND change the world. If kids see themselves as an agent of change, it motivates them to WANT to do good things. They don’t just see their social media posts as what they want; they see them as what the WORLD wants. I post with my audience in my mind. I think about what I can share that is important, challenging, and true. I think about my message. I think about what I learned from my teachers all over the world. I would say I CARE more about what is happening in the world BECAUSE of my social media interactions. I know I am a kid, but I am a kid with a message: Hey, world! Thank you for being my teacher! Thank you to ALL the teachers who have made my world smaller and bigger ALL at the same time! Thank you for caring about me: LivBit, a kid from NH, who loves to read and talk. Thank you for believing in me in REAL ways. Thank you for showing me how much the world can CARE and LOVE. I hope after reading this post, you will think about how you support your kids to be #GlobalLearners, too. Keep reading, keep thinking, and, thank you for following LivBits. P.S. Yes, I know I spelled present wrong in my Kristin letter. I think it makes it cuter! Hehehehe!  My mum and I make a good team. We present at conferences on lots of things, but recently we have started presenting about the idea of REAL and FAKE on social media. I know there are lots and lots of ideas about real and fake out there right now – many “famous” social media people are making Padlet after Padlet with resources for teachers.
But, we’ve been thinking about it in a different way. Real and fake to us is about how people behave on social media (see my previous blog posts: #HeartFamily; #DubLit17; and #BlockandBloom). I’ve noticed there are more and more kids like me on social media, and especially on Twitter. The rule for Twitter is that you have to be 13 years old in order to have an account. Since I am not anywhere near 13 years old, my mom monitors my account. MONITOR is the key word. My account is MY thinking, messages, and hopes for the world. I do my own tweets and hashtags. I make my own LivBits, and I decide when I am going to share them. If I want to use a swagged up picture, I make it. If I see something inspiring, I retweet it. If I have someone come after me and call me a “squeaky little <<BLEEP>>> n-word,” I know I can block and report them. Still, I am so grateful when I call on my #digitaltribe to help me, and they respond quickly with support. That was the deal from the beginning for me to be on Twitter. I BEGGED my mom to let me have an account last July after people at the #ISTE conference in Denver, CO where I presented, kept asking for my handle. I knew that if I was on Twitter, I could share my message with an even bigger audience. I also knew I had to learn how to navigate such a “grown up” space. What I’ve learned is many grown ups haven’t figured out much about their own digital identity, sometimes even if they present at conferences on it. I can tell by how they behave. I’ve also noticed that lots of the kids on Twitter are REALLY grown ups USING their kid’s account to get attention for themselves or a big idea they have. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad idea IF people know that it is really a grown up doing the work. But, I am totally confused when other adults share the kid’s work AS IF it is REALLY a kid. This is where I wonder why more people aren’t thinking about REAL and FAKE in this way. My mom explains it with the research. She says that most people on social media don't care because the research says we react to how something makes us FEEL rather than if it is TRUE. So, if a cute kid account is promoting something, then people are more likely to retweet it, and promote it, EVEN if it is NOT really a kid saying the message. See why it’s confusing to a kid who is trying to REALLY figure things out on social media? If it’s not a REALLY A KID SAYING IT, you should make that clear. People don’t because it CHANGES the message. People would rather believe that a REAL kid is saying it; otherwise, you’d have to admit that it’s more FAKE than TRUE. How can you tell when it's a grown up and not really a kid? Lots of ways, but here are a few: when the words don't match how the kid speaks in real life or on videos; when posts pop up throughout the day and the kid goes to school; when the kid uses words but doesn't know what they mean; when retweets never show different "sides" of the kid. Those are just a few things, but the bottom line is that your posts define who you are, and most kids define themselves in loads of ways. Lots of grown ups complain about how our President uses the words REAL and FAKE all the time. But, sometimes those are some of the same grown ups I see who are sharing FAKE kids on social media. A few months ago, one of my followers called me her “digital conscience.” At first, I was unsure what that meant. Then, I began thinking about it more deeply and talking to her about it. I shared with her about my confusion around adults using fake kids in their work. She didn’t have any answers for me, but encouraged me to keep sharing my message because I am REAL. So, consider this blog post a bit of your DIGITAL CONSCIENCE. If you share FAKE things, it makes you fake too. You can say that the message is powerful, but you should ALSO say it’s from a grown up USING a kid to promote it. If you don’t, you are part of the problem, not the solution. Fake in our world is promoted by a lack of understanding, awareness and responsibility. I am realizing that ALL of these things take time, and most people don’t want to take the time to consider if a message is REALLY from a kid. I think this comes across as grown up code for “I don’t really care about the truth.” Sometimes, I understand my digital identity more deeply than some adults do. Thank you to #mypeople who always encourage me, take time to read my work, answer my millions of questions, and just believe in being REAL models of digital citizenship. I’m lucky you understand real and help me add to my understanding, too. Keep reading, keep thinking, and, thank you for following LivBits.  Have you ever wondered how you really know your students are learning? I am sure most teachers wouldn’t say from a standardized test.
In the next few weeks, like LOTS of other kids in the United States, I will be spending LOTS of time taking standardized tests. In NH, I get to take an “extra” science test along with the Smarter Balanced tests. If you also count the assessments we take at the end of the year in 4th grade, there isn’t a lot of time left for just learning about things we love or ending our year with lots of joy. Last week I made a LivBit that was a review of the messages I’ve shared in my videos over the last year. It was special because I got to look back at almost 80 LivBits and decide what I wanted to include AND what I thought my audience might want to hear again. I considered the Bits that got the most comments or re-tweets, along with the ones that made my own #heartbeep. It was a ton of work, but it didn’t really feel like work at all. The project showed me how much I’ve grown as a learner and thinker, and inspired me to keep reading and thinking! I know there isn’t a way to grade the kind of work I did in that project, but if there was, I think I would be #ExceedingExpectations. It’s sort of sad to think that instead of doing projects that have MEANING to me, I’m stuck doing tests that define me by a number. Want to know me better as a learner? Talk to me; watch one or two of my LivBits; read my blog; watch me create a world in MineCraft; give me some paper and watch the comics I like to draw; ask me about how I challenge myself in math; start a conversation with me about sharks (I dare you); listen to my endless questions about life (OK, maybe you don’t want to do that). You get the idea. Learning isn’t measured in a test; it’s measured in a life. You have to spend time getting to know kids in order to know how to really teach them. The best kinds of learners are the kind who dream BIG and share their thinking with the world. The best kind of teachers are the ones who stand back, watch, cheer, and make that kind of learning happen for ALL kids. Thank you to all the teachers I've had who get me, support me, and encourage me. I am so lucky I have teachers all over the world. My biggest wish is that ALL kids could have that too! Keep reading, keep thinking, and, thank you for following LivBits.
I have a super strength and it’s the power of words. They are my gift to the world. I created LivBits to share my story, and I hope that every Bit means something to someone. I know that sounds like a super BIG idea, but it’s true, I hope my words matter.
In the last few weeks, I’ve had lots of experiences where words have made my #heartbeep. One of the most powerful experiences was my visit to Conway Elementary School in Conway, NH. I got to talk to ALL the students about the power of sharing your story with the world. It was an incredible day, but some of the words the kids shared with me were so thoughtful and special, they are now part of MY story. My talk was a part of their Cougar Pride Family time. Every single student has someone on staff leading their family and kids are in multi-age groups to bond and work together. This year, they have special shirts that say: “Ask me about my super strengths!” It was so amazing to look out at the audience and see the staff and students in a sea of maroon colored shirts sharing this message. I am not going to lie, I ALWAYS get a little nervous when I am speaking to older kids, and especially middle schoolers. It’s mostly because I wonder if they will take me seriously. I'm not that cool and I talk A LOT. I know that can annoy people. Still, I like to think my energy is contagious and when kids are around me, they know I am FOR them! Actually, I often have so much energy in my body; I sometimes do front walkovers to get it out! Since there wasn’t enough space in one of the 6th grade rooms for me to do a walkover, I might have dropped down into a split because of my nervous excitement! Even I still can’t believe I did that! Hehehehe! As I was visiting the 6th grade, one of the girls turned to her teacher and said, “Liv’s smile is bigger than my future.” At first, I thought maybe I misheard her. When I left the room, I asked my mum if those were her words. We talked about how kids teaching kids can really inspire, and how just a simple smile can change a person’s day. But, deeper than that, my mum explained how when someone says something like that, they admire you in a super special way. Then, I got several notes from 3rd graders. One said: “The world is a better place and my hero is Liv...all I have to say is be an inspiration like Liv and keep reading books that you really love!” Another said, “You are really good at teaching kids and inspiring us!” Someone else said, “I want to be you!” What an incredible gift these kids gave me in Conway! I was supposed to be there giving to them, but really they gave so much to me. The words they used to describe, compliment, and connect with me are so powerful for my heart. They make me believe even more deeply that #kidsCANteachus. So, I challenge teachers, schools, authors, and parents: how have you created opportunities for kids to teach one another? Are the opportunities real and meaningful? Lots of times, schools think that when kids have time to talk or work in small groups, that’s enough. But, I am talking about deeper ways to be connected and using social media platforms to share with kids all over the world! The support you can get from people in the digital world can help you feel more confident in your everyday world. I know kids can #ChangetheWorld when they are given the chance. But, first, they should know they can change each other; just like the kids in Conway changed me. They taught me that my work matters; people are listening; and, people are learning from me, too. Their encouragement helped grow my confidence. Conway Elementary School have lots of super strengths: the power of a community that encourages and believes in one another; the power of kids who know how to see the good in others; and the power an entire staff believing in kid voice. Thank you Conway Elementary School for being such a beautiful part of my LivBit story and for sharing your super strengths with me! Truth is, I want to be YOU! Keep reading, keep thinking, and, thank you for following LivBits.  This past summer, I got to spend two weeks in NYC for ballet intensives at the American Ballet Theater. It was such a special time with just my Muma, and we did lots of fun things together: Empire State Building, exploring China Town, wandering around The Met, and eating thin crust pizza again and again at our favorite neighborhood restaurant. We even went to see several shows on Broadway. My absolute favorite was Wicked.
There is one song from Wicked that has lived inside me ever since I heard it. “For Good” is at the very end of the show, and it synthesizes the meaning of the entire story. In it, Elphaba and Glinda sing about their relationship and what they learned from one another. It’s an emotional song because the friends are saying farewell as their lives go in different directions; they realize how much they mean to one another. I’ve thought about how funny life can be that we often wait to tell people what they mean to us. If I think about my work on social media, I try to comment, like, or retweet as a way to show support and care. That’s what’s so cool about this kind of work, you can show #ConnectedCare so easily! On the way home from the musical that night, it was like our taxi driver could sense that Muma and me were quietly reflecting on something important. We couldn’t shake the song and we talked about the words and the meaning. As we were talking, the taxi driver offered that maybe this song stayed with us because we have a bigger purpose in our lives. He told my mum that she had eyes that “told a story” and he said that I had a “joyful energy in my body” (and I didn’t even do any front walkovers in his presence, so how did he know that about me?). As we listened to him talk, Muma whispered that it was like he had known us all of our lives. The driver reminded us that the world gives us gifts, and it is for us to decide how to share them. He shared that people will always “seek good” but this doesn’t mean they won’t feel pain. As a side note, you should know that Muma and me are known for meeting the most interesting and insightful taxi drivers no matter what city we visit. We always end up talking about deep things, and on this night the taxi driver actually jumped out of his car to hug both of us. It’s true, we have great #TaxiKarma! So, my work on LivBits is like a gift to the world. It’s not always a fancy gift, but it is all that I have right now. I think about how Elphaba says that Glinda will stay like a “handprint on her heart” and in many ways this is what I hope my LivBits do; I hope they stay in your heart and, maybe sometimes they take away a little bit of pain that’s in the world. This week I thought about our NYC taxi driver when Upworthy included me in their “Weekly Dose of Good” roundup. UpWorthy tweeted out the list saying, “12 stories that will make you laugh, smile, fist pump, and just feel awesome.” Just reading those words made my #heartbeep! I feel so amazing to be included on a list with so many other incredible people and stories. Upworthy’s nod to me means that people care about my story. I want LivBits to be about #celebratingothers and sharing ideas that make people think and feel happy. But, mostly, I feel like it confirmed what the taxi driver told me that night; when you are #ForGood the world notices. Keep reading, keep thinking, and, thank you for following LivBits. |
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Hi, I'm Liv and I am super excited to share my thinking with you!
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