The CharacterStrong Podcast

Andrew Jordan Nance has been an educator since 1990. He is the author of four published books; The Barefoot King, The Lion in Me, Mindful Arts in the Classroom, and the bestseller, Puppy Mind. He als…

Founding President of YV Educational Resources Inc., Yaritza Villalba has eleven years of experience in education. She started her career teaching Social Studies to high school students in Bedford St…

Tyler Bastian is an educator, filmmaker, father and the founder of Roots Charter High School. Tyler loves to teach and has a passion for discovering and developing potential in everything around him.…

John talks with CharacterStrong Co-Founder Houston Kraft & Team Member Don Bartel about the recent CharacterStrong leadership conference, and the role and impact that student leadership has in school…

John shares a powerful reminder of a teachers impact thru perseverance, a short reading from Jacob Riis, and he gives some encouragement as we live, teach & work during this season.

We celebrate our 200th episode! John and Houston look back at some good things in the midst of the hard over last 12 months, they look forward to what is needed in 2021 & share some hope.

Monte Syrie is a high school ELA teacher at Cheney High School in Cheney, Washington. A 25 year veteran in the classroom, Monte is committed to finding the better in education and contributing to the…

Susy is an Oregon gal, born and bred. After her schooling at the University of Oregon and Linfield University, she was hired at McMinnville High School (her alma mater) in 2012 and began advising the…

Alicia has been a secondary administrator for 13 years at both the middle and high school levels. She has had the privilege of holding nearly every administrative position at a secondary site includi…

Ms. Barton was born and raised in Fort Worth, TX and graduated from Texas Wesleyan University. Her 21 years of teaching have all been with Crowley ISD where she was named "Teacher of the Year" in 200…

Daphne uses books as though they are EpiPens and every student who walks into her room has a mouth full of shrimp. The more books she can get inside of a student the more apt they are to fight the ap…

Ebone Kimber is a licensed Master's level social worker who has been working in child welfare for over 13 years. She received her Bachelor's degree in Social Work at the University of Alabama in Birm…

Each day this week we are counting down the Top 5 episodes of 2020!  #1: Season 2 Ep. 56 - CharacterStrong Co-Founder John Norlin shares a recent experience from a training, and talks about why we c…

Each day this week we are counting down the Top 5 episodes of 2020!  #3: Season 3 Ep. 11 - We talk with Dr. Bikowsky about her work with educators helping students reframe thoughts, feelings and beh…

Each day this week we are counting down the Top 5 episodes of 2020!  #4: Season 3 Ep. 18 - We talk to Angelica Rodriguez about how we can put a focus on taking care of ourselves as teachers, the imp…

Each day this week we are counting down the Top 5 episodes of 2020!  #5: Season 2 Ep. 108 - We talk with Maddie Bogart about virtual student engagement, how she used one of her weekly meetings to fo…

John talks with new CharacterStrong team member and veteran educator Don Bartel about the topic "The Way Out Is Through", they discuss the new CharacterStrong student leadership conference, and they …

Nationally-recognized speaker, counselor, and author Barbara Gruener thrives on positively influencing character change, passionately helping people create caring connections, and intentionally impro…

Nikolete Nikravan went to UHCL, graduated with her BA in Math and her 7-12 Math Certification in May of 2019. She won New Teacher of The Year for Santa Fe High School last school year, and was featur…

Felisha Fields is a Mississippi native & she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi. She is in her 11th year in education and her 2nd year in Crowley ISD. Felisha has spent 9 years as …