FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS / BLOG
HOW LONG IS A TYPICAL ASSEMBLY SHOW?
Assemblies generally run 45 minutes (but can be adjusted as you need) and are filled with audience participation and strong educational themes about kindness and behavioral dynamics amidst the laughs. I work with each school to incorporate into the show messages from current ideas about kindness themes being promoted at that particular school.
Please note that the ‘full day experience’ is the assembly followed by class visits where I go into classes to further discuss the ideas for 15 minutes at a time. Please inquire for more information!
DO YOU OFFER OTHER MESSAGES other than kindness?
Absolutely. I live 100% drug, alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco free, so I can speak from firsthand experience about being drug free, and serve as an adult role model for your student body. In addition. I am asked occasionally to speak and tie in juggling to topics in science and math (juggling is a great tie in here!)
HOW DO YOU GUARANTEE IMPACT with the students you serve?
Focusing on each school individually definitely helps. In addition, after every show I send a video to the school to distribute to every student to reinforce the messages covered in the show. This gives students something by which to remember the show and also allows parents to understand the content of the assembly and the messages being shared with their children. I also send signed posters to every school after the event date too.
WHAT SIZE AUDIENCE IS BEST FOR YOUR SHOW?
I can perform for any size audience, from a dozen, to multiple thousands of students. I find that for most schools, a group of 350-500 students is a perfect size and many schools will book two assemblies if they have larger student populations. They split the school in half for two assemblies. I don’t charge extra for that.
DO YOU NEED A SOUND SYSTEM??
Greg provides his own microphone which he plugs into your school’s sound system. Beyond that he is entirely self contained! For virtual of course, we are automatically good to go.
FROM WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION?
From my mom. Read this latest blog post for more on her incredible backstory.
My Mom: An Influencer Before There Were Influencers
From 1964 to 1971, my mom taught elementary school in inner city Philadelphia in a school so rough that teachers feared for their personal safety and substitutes often only made it to 10AM before quitting. Amidst that environment, my mom, fresh out of college and determined to educate and inspire, ignored the advice given by her new colleagues and forged a path of creative education that lasted for six truly innovative years.
She started a program of school assemblies for students though she had been told that students not only wouldn’t be interested, but for safety’s sake shouldn’t be in the same room together at the same time. She decided that students just needed a chance and for someone to believe in them. She decided to do assemblies and would get the student body together and read them poetry and Grimm’s Fairy Tales every week. Many had never had anyone read to them before. The students loved it.
When students did well in their studies, she would celebrate with them by throwing disco dance parties where she allowed the kids to dance on their desks. She took her classes on field trips, unheard of in the school, and the students would dress up as best they could, many never having been out of their neighborhoods before.
When I began speaking to students across the United States about Tthe Possibility of Kindness (a concept I talk about in my book), I knew the appeal would be nationwide. But this week, it was a tremendous honor to return to a neighborhood very close to where my mom taught in Philadelphia in the 1960s and work with and speak to an incredible group of two hundred 6th through 8th graders at William H. Hunter Elementary School.
Capturing the attention of young people is about speaking to them about ideas that matter, and doing it with sincerity and a determination to share and connect. I spent the entire day at the school, going into classes, connecting with students one-on-one at times, speaking about kindness and asking them what their dreams were and how they could take action on those dreams and build a better now to better influence the future they wanted someday.
Two nights ago, I sat with my mom and Stephanie in Pennsylvania and we asked her about her time as a teacher. Her stories were astounding and reflected being innovative, risk-taking, and purely renegade. She was a revolutionary thinker, and inspirer of hundreds of students over the years she was teaching. We sat in awe as she told stories of all the things she did for her students even in the midst of what conventional wisdom or better judgment might have advised otherwise.
