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Like many teachers,
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every year on the first day of school,
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I lead a sort of icebreaker activity
with my students.
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I teach at Lincoln High School
in Lincoln, Nebraska,
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and we are one of the oldest
and most diverse high schools
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in our state.
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Also, to our knowledge,
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we're the only high school in the world
whose mascot is the Links.
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Like, a chain.
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(Laughter)
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And with that being our mascot,
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we have a statue out front of our building
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of four links connected like a chain.
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And each link means something.
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Our links stand for tradition,
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excellence, unity and diversity.
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So on the first day of school,
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I teach my new ninth-graders
about the meaning behind those links,
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and I give them each a slip of paper.
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On that paper, I ask them
to write something about themselves.
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It can be something that they love,
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something that they hope for --
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anything that describes their identity.
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And then I go around
the room with a stapler,
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and I staple each of those slips together
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to make a chain.
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And we hang that chain up in our classroom
as a decoration, sure,
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but also as a reminder
that we are all connected.
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We are all links.
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So what happens when one
of those links feels weak?
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And what happens when that weakness
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is in the person holding the stapler?
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The person who's supposed
to make those connections.
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The teacher.
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As teachers, we work every day
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to provide support socially,
emotionally and academically
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to our students who come to us
with diverse and tough circumstances.
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Like most teachers,
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I have students who go home every day,
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and they sit around the kitchen table
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while one or both parents makes a healthy,
well-rounded meal for them.
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They spend suppertime summarizing
the story they read
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in ninth-grade English that day,
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or explaining how Newton's
laws of motion work.
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But I also have students
who go to the homeless shelter
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or to the group home.
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They go to the car that their family
is sleeping in right now.
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They come to school with trauma,
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and when I go home every day,
that goes home with me.
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And see, that's the hard part
about teaching.
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It's not the grading,
the lesson-planning, the meetings,
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though sure, those things do occupy
a great deal of teachers' time and energy.
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The tough part about teaching
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is all the things
you can't control for your kids,
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all the things you can't change for them
once they walk out your door.
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And so I wonder
if it's always been this way.
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I think back to my undergraduate training
at the University of Georgia,
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where we were taught
in our methods classes
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that the concept
of good teaching has changed.
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We're not developing learners
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who are going to go out into a workforce
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where they'll stand
on a line in a factory.
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Rather, we're sending our kids
out into a workforce
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where they need to be able to communicate,
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collaborate and problem-solve.
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And that has caused
teacher-student relationships
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to morph into something stronger
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than the giver of content
and the receiver of knowledge.
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Lectures and sitting in silent rows
just doesn't cut it anymore.
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We have to be able to build relationships
with and among our students
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to help them feel connected
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in a world that depends on it.
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I think back to my second year teaching.
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I had a student who I'll call "David."
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And I remember feeling like
I'd done a pretty good job
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at teaching that year:
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"Hey, I ain't no first-year teacher.
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I know what I'm doing."
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And it was on the last day of school,
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I told David to have a great summer.
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And I watched him walk down the hall,
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and I thought to myself,
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I don't even know
what his voice sounds like.
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And that's when I realized
I wasn't doing it right.
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So I changed almost everything
about my teaching.
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I built in plenty of opportunities
for my students to talk to me
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and to talk to each other,
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to share their writing
and to verbalize their learning.
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And it was through those conversations
I began not only to know their voice
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but to know their pain.
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I had David in class again that next year,
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and I learned that his father
was undocumented
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and had been deported.
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He started acting out in school
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because all he wanted
was for his family to be together again.
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In so many ways, I felt his pain.
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And I needed someone to listen,
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somebody to provide support for me,
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so that I could support him in this thing
that I could not even comprehend.
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And we recognize that need
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for police officers who've witnessed
a gruesome crime scene
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and nurses who have lost a patient.
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But when it comes
to teaching professionals,
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that urgency is lagging.
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I believe it's paramount
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that students and teachers,
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administrators, paraprofessionals
and all other support staff
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have convenient and affordable access
to mental wellness supports.
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When we are constantly serving others,
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often between 25
and 125 students each day,
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our emotional piggy banks
are constantly being drawn upon.
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After a while, it can become so depleted,
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that we just can't bear it anymore.
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They call it "secondary trauma"
and "compassion fatigue,"
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the concept that we absorb the traumas
our students share with us each day.
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And after a while,
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our souls become weighed down
by the heaviness of it all.
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The Buffett Institute
at the University of Nebraska
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recently found that most teachers --
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86 percent across
early childhood settings --
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experienced some depressive symptoms
during the prior week.
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They found that approximately one in 10
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reported clinically significant
depressive symptoms.
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My interactions with colleagues
and my own experiences
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make me feel like
this is a universal struggle
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across all grade levels.
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So what are we missing?
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What are we allowing to break the chain
and how do we repair it?
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In my career,
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I've experienced the death
by suicide of two students
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and one amazing teacher
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who loved his kids,
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countless students
experiencing homelessness
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and kids entering and exiting
the justice system.
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When these events happen,
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protocol is to say, "If you need
someone to talk to, then ..."
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And I say that's not enough.
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I am so lucky.
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I work in an amazing school
with great leadership.
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I serve a large district
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with so many healthy partnerships
with community agencies.
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They have provided steadily
increasing numbers
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of school counselors and therapists
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and support staff to help our students.
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They even provide staff members
with access to free counseling
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as part of our employment plan.
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But many small districts
and even some large ones
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simply cannot foot the bill without aid.
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(Exhales)
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Not only does every school need
social and emotional support staff,
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trained professionals who can navigate
the needs of the building,
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not just the students,
not just the teachers, but both,
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we also need these trained professionals
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to intentionally seek out
those closest to the trauma
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and check in with them.
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Many schools are doing what they can
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to fill in the gaps,
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starting with acknowledging
that the work that we do
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is downright hard.
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Another school in Lincoln,
Scoo Middle School,
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has what they call "Wellness Wednesdays."
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They invite in community yoga teachers,
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they sponsor walks around
the neighborhood during lunch
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and organize social events
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that are all meant
to bring people together.
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Zachary Elementary School
in Zachary, Louisiana,
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has something they call
a "Midweek Meetup,"
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where they invite teachers to share lunch
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and to talk about the things
that are going well
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and the things that are weighing
heavy on their hearts.
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These schools are making space
for conversations that matter.
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Finally, my friend
and colleague Jen Highstreet
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takes five minutes out of each day
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to write an encouraging
note to a colleague,
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letting them know
that she sees their hard work
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and the heart that they share with others.
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She knows that those five minutes
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can have an invaluable
and powerful ripple effect
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across our school.
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The chain that hangs in my classroom
is more than just a decoration.
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Those links hang over our heads
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for the entire four years
that our students walk our halls.
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And every year,
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I have seniors come back
to my classroom, room 340,
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and they can still point out
where their link hangs.
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They remember what they wrote on it.
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They feel connected and supported.
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And they have hope.
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Isn't that what we all need?
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Somebody to reach out
and make sure that we're OK.
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To check in with us
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and remind us that we are a link.
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Every now and then,
we all just need a little help
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holding the stapler.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
Camille Martínez
The English transcript was updated on 12/11/19.
In the talk description:
wellbeing --> well-being
Thank you!