Adam J. Salgat sits down with lifelong educator and Texas firecracker, Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop to discuss her partnership with Our Community Listens. Together they are bringing the principles of the Our Community Listens curriculum to students in 8th-12th grade.
As the conversation continues, charming Cynthia shares her passion for youth, meeting people, sports, and food.
So take the time to learn how Our Community Listens and Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop work to create a better world by changing youth.
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Adam Salgat:
Hello and welcome to the Our Community Listens podcast. My name is Adam Salgat, and with me today is Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop. She is a leader in education as a teacher, coach, deputy executive director for two regional service centers. Currently, she is a development partner with Our Community Listens working to expand the communication skills model that is targeted towards K through 12 education. Without further ado, here is Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, hello, Adam. It’s great to be with you today. And just a little bit about me. I’m a lifelong educator. I love to teach. I love teaching people how to connect with the human spirit. And the opportunities that I’ve been given through Barry-Wehmiller Leadership Institute and Our Community Listens is one of my proudest achievements, so I’m happy to talk about that with you.
Adam Salgat:
Awesome. I am very excited, because the curriculum that you are doing, I think it’s vital to change generations. And we’re going to get into what that looks like and how you do that with K through 12, but the first thing I want to talk to you about is, tell me a little bit more about your lifelong educator experience.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, I started out as a teacher and a coach in girls athletics, loved it. And then I decided that I wanted to leave the campus and went to school to get my mid-management principal certification, but ended up at an educational service center where I really found my calling. Because with our Texas education service centers, we’re still teaching. And I just began teaching teachers and principals, superintendents, and board members, and have absolutely loved it. And now my attention is focused back on students, because I know that they are leaders of tomorrow, and any way that we can equip them to become the best people that they can be, that should be our number one priority.
Adam Salgat:
So how did you then get involved with Our Community Listens? Or I think you might’ve stepped into the Barry-Wehmiller Leadership Institute first, is that right?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Yes. I attended the communication skills training at the Leadership Institute, and it was there that I met, as one of my facilitators, Maureen Schloskey, and everybody lovingly refers to her as Mo. And from that relationship, somehow by divine intervention, she introduced me through a conference call to Rebecca Emerson who’s the executive director of Our Community Listens.
And from that point, Rebecca and I began conversations, and somewhere in the midst of one of our conference calls, I shared with her that I was in the middle of retrofitting the three day communication skills class to teach grades eighth through 12th grade students. And she just became so intrigued. Next thing I know, she has me on a webinar with her chapter leads across the nation, and then in a conference call with Bob Chapman, and the rest is history.
Adam Salgat:
And the rest is history. So tell me a little bit about what got her so excited about bringing this into eighth grade through 12th grade, and how are you doing that?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, the mission that Bob Chapman has is to really create a world of care. And to do that, fixing adults who are somewhat broken by the time they’re already in the midst of living life is too late. So I don’t know whether it was that I had this brilliant idea. I just knew that the skills needed to be in the hands of the kids. And so I started on that path and began looking at the three days and completely redoing it. Rebecca knew that this was one of the pieces of the puzzle that Our Community Listens wanted to address.
And the three day class for adults is superior. I would say that it is second to none regarding how to learn the real art and science of communication. When she heard that I was out there doing this with living and breathing eighth grade through 12th grade students, she said, “Oh my goodness, would you share this with everyone else?” And then, like I said, she wanted me to share it with Bob, and here we are. And we are going to do that because we believe that our students are the answer to create a more caring world.
Adam Salgat:
Yep. I will piggyback and state that I’ve talked to a number of different facilitators, and even in my class when I took it four years ago now, that everyone reiterates, “Man, I wish I knew these skills when I was younger.” So that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re getting it in the hands of the youth. You have mentioned, though, that this is a program that is built beautifully for adults. How have you adapted it, and what have you done and what tools are you utilizing to make it fit eighth through 12th grade?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
The adult version has a tremendous amount of direct teach, and that won’t work with kids. Kids need small chunks of a direct teach piece, and they need to be able to engage all of their senses in the learning process. So their vision, their hearing, their sight, auditory, their ears, and their hands, tactile kinesthetic. So I’ve been redoing the training, chunking it a little bit differently. And most importantly, with what I’m redoing, I’m training students and teachers side by side, which is critically important. The activities have been studentified, if I can make that a new word.
Adam Salgat:
Studentified works for me, ma’am.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
And a little less than the adult version, because think about it. Adults already have a suitcase full of baggage by the time they come to the class as an adult. Kids don’t have that same suitcase. And so the approach has to be a little bit different, and the scenarios have to be written so that they can engulf them and sink their teeth into them with the least amount of stress as is possible. And so that’s what I’ve been in the process of doing.
Adam Salgat:
One of the tools that I know you’re utilizing is a book titled Taking Flight! by Rosenberg and Silvert. Can you tell me a little bit about that, how that book came into your life and what it meant to you?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
That book was introduced to me through the three day class that I took at the Barry-Wehmiller Leadership Institute. And for some reason, I was compelled to go back to that book and reread it as I was stepping into this arena, teaching eighth grade to 12th grade kids. Merrick Rosenberg and Daniel Silvert have done an incredible job creating a narrative story around a bird community and how these birds interact and live in the forest together. And the four birds are eagles, parrots, doves, and owls.
For centuries, we’ve known that there are four behavioral communication types. Merrick and Daniel took that and created this narrative. People can’t always remember D, I, S, and C, D for dominant, I for interactive, S for supportive, C for conscientious. But they can remember dominant eagle, interactive parrot, supportive dove, and conscientious owl. So what it enables a person to do is to quickly not only identify their own natural behavioral communication type, but also that of another person. And that is extremely important for our youth, for them to be able to learn it quickly, but also master it in a short amount of time.
Adam Salgat:
You’ve already shared with me in our kind of pre-show interview about how this book provided you a DISC assessment for youth. Is that right?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Yes. I was frantically on the hunt for a student DISC assessment, knowing that the one that we use for the adult version of the three day class wasn’t appropriate. And luckily, I went back to reread my Taking Flight! book to kind of inspire me, and lo and behold, in the back, I saw resources and a website for a student assessment. And while I talk about someone taking flight, I took flight and immediately contacted them, got my certification with them, and now utilizing the student DISC assessment. And it’s profound, changing kids’ lives.
Adam Salgat:
That’s awesome. And speaking of changing kids’ lives, from what I understand, you find it very important to have all the kids doing this together. And when I say all the kids, what I mean is eighth through 12th grade. You’re not necessarily segmenting them by teaching the eighth graders alone, teaching the ninth graders alone, and so on and so forth. Why is it important to put them all in the same room together?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Because they learn from each other. And when you have the upperclassmen with the eighth graders, it makes the eighth graders feel that they are as important as any other individual in the room. And we work on that on the first day of the training, in creating a sense of belonging. And kids will interact when they know that they are safe. Talking about the kids, we take kids that are natural born leaders, we take kids that are in the middle, and we call them the invisibles, and then we take kids that are on the cusp of failing that need something extra to sink their teeth into. So not only are we spanning the grades, we’re also spanning the different kinds of students that are walking the hallways of the campus.
Adam Salgat:
That’s outstanding. And I think it’s really interesting thinking about those that are the invisibles, because I was that kind of kid in school that simply, I was going through it. I was getting fine grades, I was there, but I didn’t necessarily see myself as a leader. It took some time to develop that. By the time I graduated, I had been in that role a little more. What I love about hearing you talk about this is I can hear the passion that you have for youth. So in your experience with them thus far in teaching this course, what kind of stories do you have that you can share that has had an impact on them?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, one story on the very first training day, and the very first group of students really overwhelmed me. And I had two female students who were there at the training. And one of the activities that we do in the beginning, day one, to create safety and belonging is a building community activity. And the kids get to introduce each other. I don’t have to introduce myself. I get to introduce my classmate. These two girls were paired together to introduce one another.
And during the course of the day, one of the things that we do to close out the day, we write positive recognition statements to someone in the class that has either inspired me or showed me their vulnerability and who they really are as a person, or they taught me something that I didn’t know. But it has to be someone in the class. I would have never known this had they not written these recognition statements to each other.
And neither one of them knew that they were writing this statement to the other. And in this statement, they both said, “I knew you went to my school, but I never would have approached you,” because they weren’t from the same circle of friends. “I would have never approached you, and I’m so glad that I decided to attend this class, because I now not only know you, but I have a new friend, and I’m looking forward to our becoming better friends in the days to come at school.”
Would have never discovered that about one another. And so that was just a tremendous story. Another big highlight. Teachers would come to me at lunch on the very first day and say, “How did you get her to talk? You have her interacting, engaging. She said more this morning than I’ve heard her say since the start of school.”
Adam Salgat:
Wow.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
I thought that was pretty profound. And then another teacher said, “Oh my goodness. I didn’t know he had that in him, and I’m discovering that he’s a deep thinker.”
Adam Salgat:
Wow.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
So if this can open the teacher’s eyes up to the uniqueness of the students, I mean, that’s why I wanted to train them side by side, because this puts us all on a level playing field. When they come into the training, they’re all a part of a team, and they’re not there as teachers and students. They’re all there as participants in this three day experience.
Adam Salgat:
That leads me to a question about teachers. How are you focusing on teachers as well? It sounds like you’re incorporating them right in there in the teaching and you find that important.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Absolutely. And it’s critical that you identify the true kid champions, for a lack of a better term, to identify them. Kid champions are those educators, whether they are an administrator, a teacher, or a support staff, like a teacher’s aid, they are true kid champions in that those are the individuals kids trust. Kids know that that adult will stand up for them, go to the mat for them. If they’re in a fix for whatever reason, that would be one of the individuals that they would go to.
And we make it very clear that when we step into the training, that you as the adult are not going to be in the back of the room watching. You’re going to be at the table with the kids, fully interacting and experiencing everything that they do as a part of them and as a part of their team. All kids need a kid champion.
And if the kids who are struggling, if they just have one caring adult that they can turn to when they need an adult perspective or an adult voice, their life will be forever changed. And so that’s one of the other things that we want to make happen through this three day experience. And the three day experience is just part of this. It’s what we do beyond the three days that is so critically important to the campus, to the staff, and to the students, and even beyond to the community.
Adam Salgat:
Tell me a little bit about working through effective confrontation. I know that is an element that you do in this three days. You talked to them. It’s obviously an element of our Our Community Listens training, but I know you’re bringing that to students. And I was thinking about that, and the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking effective confrontation and teens was avoiding fights, physical fights.
But then I thought about someone like my sister, who would never get in a physical confrontation with anyone. And as a teen, I know she struggled with people potentially, quote unquote, yelling at her. She didn’t like people yelling at her. So when we think about effective confrontation in youth, it’s not necessarily just the kids who might get into a fist fight or a scuffle of some kind, it’s also for the kids that are struggling with just how to connect with people and afraid that they might be not doing something good enough. So tell me what that experience has been like going through effective confrontation with youth.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, let’s start talking about bird types just for a minute, just a quick little bird type lesson. You’re looking at the eagle and the parrot, and then the dove and the owl. An eagle is opposite the dove as far as their communication style, and the parrot and the owl are opposite regarding how they naturally communicate. One of the things that kids say when they learn the different bird types and spend time with their own profile, and 10 to one, they all say, because I asked them, “Is this really you? Does the profile really capture who you are?”
And they’ve said, “On the money, to a T, that is me.” It’s liberating for them to know that who they are has unique gifts, yet we still have areas that we need to improve upon. So think of this. You’ve got a student who’s a dove who’s going in to communicate with a teacher who’s an eagle. And because of the way the eagle communicates, the dove automatically thinks, he or she doesn’t like me. And so kids have said, “Oh my goodness. So Mr. So-and-so is an eagle. I just need to flex my communication temporarily when I go in to communicate with him, because he wants me to be direct, bottom line, don’t take too long, and let’s resolve whatever it is.”
Whereas the dove doesn’t want to offend anybody, keep the peace, be very traditional, laid-back and reserved. And when kids learn this, they learn how to best communicate with all of their teachers, and then it spills over into their families. And they begin to say, “Oh my goodness. Now I know why my dad and I are having so much conflict.” And it helps them approach that from a different perspective, because here’s one of the things that they learn.
Confrontation is not bad. Confrontation is a conversation starter. And when you confront with empathy, humility, and on bended knee, then you can voice what you need their help with to get your needs met. And it doesn’t have to blow up into this fight, as you say, or major confrontation. It’s just teaching them the skills in how to approach that.
Adam Salgat:
Cynthia, I absolutely adore listening to you speak on this. It’s wonderful. Thank you. I just needed to jump in to say that.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, I appreciate that so much, because you never know that what you’re doing is touching lives. But this has all come into alignment in such a way that I knew I was fulfilling my purpose in all these years, these 30 plus years that I’ve been in education, but to be in this next phase of my life as an educator and be doing this to touch the lives of our youth, I feel that I’ve really stepped into my purpose.
Adam Salgat:
That’s wonderful. So speaking a bit about your purpose, my next question is, what do you hope to achieve by teaching this communication course to the youth?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
An intentional school culture of safety, civility, and service, in that we’ve had so many of these acts of violence in our schools. And as I walk about my life, just living in the world, whether it’s at the grocery store, whether it’s going out to a musical concert, or stopping at one of the neighborhood Little League games, our world becomes more contentious every day. And I see that, and I’m just trying to do my part to help with that.
And so if we can create a systemic experience for students, staff, and community that’s one of safety, civility, and service as its backbone. I really think that we’ll be equipping pre-K through 12 with the tools to cultivate and foster young leaders with their head and their heart bridged to serve others and be the living example of compassion and care.
Adam Salgat:
I love that. I love what you’ve stated there. And I was going to ask you a little bit about the violence that we’ve seen at schools or even in public, but I don’t think I need you to touch on it much. I just simply think what you’re doing has some really deep roots to eliminate that type of violence happening within our schools.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
One thing that I would add is that I know many things are going on that they’re trying to address school safety from the outside in. Bulletproof glass. Yes, we’ve got to have evacuation plans, all of the different safety precautions that are on the outside. I wanted to be a force to work on safety from the inside out. Leverage the most abundant resource every school district has. And what is that? What do they have more of than anything? Kids.
Adam Salgat:
Students. Yeah.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
So leverage the students. Flip the professional development equation, bring kids into this mix alongside teachers, training us, teaching us, letting us experience early on. Kids know what it feels like to be left out. Everybody has been on the fringes at one time or another during their schooling experience. Why do we allow that? Why don’t we step up and take responsibility for that? Because all you do is begin with a hello. You don’t have to have the slumber party. Just begin with hello, and let a kid know, “I know you’re here and that you’re alive.” It’s bound to work. I know it will.
Adam Salgat:
Well, you have two pilots going in Texas, and you have another pilot session going in Wisconsin, and another pilot coming in Michigan. How excited are you to know that there’s spaces that are starting to implement it?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, I will tell you my excitement has come through meeting the chapter lead in Michigan and the chapter lead in Wisconsin, Julie [Zoumac 00:26:00] and Misty Janks. And when we met, the human connection was just apparent. And me being able to have them to be partners in crime with me with this, and bounce ideas off of each other, and have that naked eye of theirs see maybe some holes where we can tighten this up and just make it be that kind of experience that kids can not walk out of there not being changed, is a real life changer for me.
And I’m just so glad to be on board with them. And then wherever we take it after that, getting the kinks worked out of it and all of our resources aligned, it should be just amazing. So yeah, I’m thrilled, overwhelmed, and sometimes I have to pinch myself because I don’t believe it’s real. But it is. It’s real.
Adam Salgat:
It sounds like you have been an educator for a long time, and you mentioned coach specifically. So I’m wondering, what type of coach? Were you sports? What type of athletics?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, when you’re a female coach, you coach everything. And so basketball, volleyball, track, softball, and then a few years of competitive gymnastics. Now, I wasn’t the gymnast. I took a lot of gymnastics classes and things like that, but I was more the coach on the floor and making certain that they landed safely, and then doing their strength and their conditioning. But I just love competition. And I love to… I don’t want this to sound wrong. I like to win, meaning achieve. I like to achieve.
And I love the team spirit, because there’s nothing better than commanding something with fellow teammates. This communication skills training and the Taking Flight! and teaching people the different four bird styles strengthens the team in a way that I only wish I’d had it way back then. But I love the twinkle in a kid’s eyes when they make a connection and you’ve taught them about an academic subject, because I was also a science teacher.
And I loved connecting with my kids. And I had four rules of thumb that I utilized in my classroom, edible, gross, an element of mystery or danger, and humor. And so in teaching science, boy, you can gross them out every single day. And if you touch their emotions and you tell them a story, they remember it forever. And I have kids today that I’ll run into, and they will tell me about something that we did in the classroom.
When I moved out of the classroom and started teaching adults, I really missed the kids, because the kids will tell you whether you look good, whether you’ve made their day, “Why did you get your haircut that way?” Or, “I just love you.” And adults, they’re very selective with what they praise you with. And me being a high I and a high S, dove and parrot, I like that feedback, and so I really love working with the kids.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah. Tell me what you do in your spare time. Tell me a little bit about when you’re not teaching. Maybe it sounds like you might stop by Little League games every once in a while.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, I know every family in my neighborhood and their children, and so I like to give them things to support their learning. Like at Valentine’s, Halloween, I’ll either give them little books to read or take them things to color, things that they can do outside of their devices, because they all have devices.
And I think that that is… I don’t think, I know that it is having an impact on students being able to interact face to face with people when it’s necessary. And so I do that. I love to plant things and landscape and grow things, as does my husband. And so we’re always out there in our yard, planting something new. I love to see the fruit of my labor as it grows and turns into something beautiful. I’ve done a lot more reading since-
Adam Salgat:
Oh, yeah?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
… I’ve been engaged in this. And so I’m always surfing all of the gurus, finding if they can add one more pearl of wisdom to what we are creating in this experience for our students. I love to go to restaurants and eat.
Adam Salgat:
Oh, yeah?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Yes.
Adam Salgat:
Do you have a favorite food, or let’s say a favorite style of food?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
No, I like it all. And I like to try new things. Being raised in the South, I’ve got the steak and potatoes down pat.
Adam Salgat:
Oh, nice.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
But I love Mediterranean. I love Italian. I love Mexican. I love Vietnamese. I mean, I like it all. And I love cilantro, so hey.
Adam Salgat:
That is a relatively divisive plant, that cilantro.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Yeah. Yeah. But you know me. The thing that I thrive on is people. I love to meet people, and I never meet a stranger. I want to know who they are, where they’ve been, where they’re going, and I want them to leave me feeling, oh my goodness, that was a breath of fresh air, if nothing else. Because I’ve had people ask me why am I so happy. And that’s just who I am.
And I always see the glass half full. I never see it half empty. And I want kids to believe that, because one of the things that I have the students recite is that, “I am uniquely and divinely created with gifts all my own.” And I want them to know they have gifts. And if I can be the instrument through which their potential is unlocked through their gifts, then my life will have meaning.
Adam Salgat:
Misty told me that I was going to enjoy meeting you, and she was not mistaken.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Oh, you’ve made my day.
Adam Salgat:
Let me ask you this. You love people, but when you need to recharge, what are you doing to recharge that battery?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Take long walks, learning to meditate, because I’m extremely high octane. Thankfully I’m married to a man who is calm, cool, and collected, who looks at me sometimes and says, “Cynthia, could you come down out of the chandelier? I don’t know why you’re up there, but come on down.” So I like to take long walks and be out there with nature. We love to go to San Diego.
And people always ask us when we go to San Diego, “What do you do?” We walk the beach. We hack the trails at the Torrey Pines State Park, because you can go from cliffs to the beach in a 700 foot drop hiking their trails. And that’s a happy place for me. And then sometimes I just like to sit with friends, share a meal, cook together, share a meal, and just kick back on the patio and look out at the woods that are behind my house, and just enjoy the quiet.
Adam Salgat:
That sounds pretty pleasant to me, ma’am.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, you can come and sit on my patio any time.
Adam Salgat:
So Cynthia, I know you’ve had a lot of interaction with the Barry-Wehmiller Institute and Our Community Listens. Tell me a little bit about how that’s been and what it’s been like working with the people of both of those institutes.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
One of the most life-changing experiences in coming to the institute and really learning about Our Community Listens is how they make you as a person feel. They make you feel like you’re the most important person on the face of the Earth, and they do a fantastic job of helping you unlock your potential and really honoring the gifts that you bring to the world. Because I believe, just as they do, that everyone is born with gifts, and it’s getting people to recognize those gifts.
And so their ability to see in people how they bring something to the table that can help them advance their mission is incredible. And I know that Maureen Schloskey somehow saw something in me, this spark that she would never let go of it. And she would touch base with me from time to time, ask me what I was doing. And in the end, I have her to thank for connecting me with Our Community Listens and Rebecca Emerson, the director. And I just can’t thank her enough. And I’m so honored that I’m being given this opportunity to contribute to something so much larger than anything that I could do alone. And so I’m just richly blessed.
Adam Salgat:
I definitely can see how Maureen must have saw a little bit of a Texas firecracker, and I am happy that I got to meet you today, Cynthia.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Well, I hope someday we might get to meet in person.
Adam Salgat:
That would be splendid, especially if it’s in Texas, warm Texas.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Absolutely. Well, you have an open invitation, because I got plenty of bedrooms.
Adam Salgat:
All right. I’ve got a wife and two kiddos, so-
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Bring them on. Bring them on.
Adam Salgat:
All right.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
The more the merrier.
Adam Salgat:
That has been a mantra of my own, to be honest, the more the merrier. So again, Cynthia, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Just stay tuned, and watch to see how this union of all these different entities are coming together to impact K-12 education. And wait for us to infuse into the curriculum the teaching of listening skills, because I believe that that will change kids’ lives, and they will be better students, communicators, problem solvers. They’ll be better spouses, parents, community members, and they’ll change the world.
Adam Salgat:
That sounds wonderful to me. Thank you so much, Cynthia.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Thank you. And I have so enjoyed this exchange with you. Maybe we can do it again next week.
Adam Salgat:
We’ll start our own little talk channel.
Cynthia Bayuk-Bishop:
Okay.
Adam Salgat:
All right, alumni. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you’d like some more information about Our Community Listens, visit our website at OurCommunityListens.org, and don’t forget, you are the message.