The MCIULearns Podcast

Dreaming Forward: Students Empowering Their Futures with Kate Yeager

• Montgomery County Intermediate Unit • Season 6 • Episode 12

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In a world where the voices of youth are often unheard, this episode sheds light on how students in Montgomery County are stepping into leadership roles through the Dreaming Forward program. Join us as we engage with educational leaders and music artist Kate Yeager, who share their insights on the impact of storytelling and personal narratives in shaping young leaders. This heartfelt conversation explores the challenging yet empowering journey of students as they find their voices and foster a sense of belonging within their schools.

Christy Ruth:

Dreaming Forward is really an opportunity for students across Montgomery County to come together and really talk about what does leadership look like and how can we grow as leaders and increase opportunities for students to belong back in our spaces, in our school, because we know when students feel like they belong and their voice is heard, then they feel more comfortable and they grow as learners.

Kate Yeager:

To be in a position where you have the tools to get to tell your story is so huge, and being young is so hard. The fact that they have a supportive team around them that gets to empower them to go through the steps of amplifying their identity is so powerful, and they're so smart and kind and intelligent and it's just, yeah, it's really cool to see.

Brandon Langer:

Hello Montgomery County and welcome to the MCIU Learns podcast. My name is Brandon. I'm the Director of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Norristown, pennsylvania. This is our conversation with ed leaders, thought leaders, people working with young people, helping to advance education, advance futures, and I'm joined today by two amazing colleagues from the Office of Organizational and Professional Learning and a special guest. But we'll start with our colleagues here and then we'll get rolling.

Jesse Gluckman:

I'm Jesse Gluckman from the Office of Professional Learning and I am a project consultant.

Christy Ruth:

Hi, I'm Christy Ruth. I'm a program administrator in the Office of Organizational and Professional Learning.

Kate Yeager:

And hey, I'm Kate Yeager. I'm a singer-songwriter and don't work in the district. That's all right. We're happy that you're here.

Brandon Langer:

I don't have a fancy title, that's okay, it's overrated, to be honest with you, and it becomes a mouthful to say every time you do this. I can tell yeah, but no, we're so happy you're here. Kate, we're going to get to you and work you've been doing, but I want to start with Christy. You and the team over in OPL have been doing amazing work with a new student group called Dreaming Forward Love, to hear more about what that work is, what students are doing and just why Kate's joined us today.

Christy Ruth:

Yes. So Dreaming Forward is really an opportunity for students across Montgomery County to come together and really talk about what does leadership look like and how can we grow as leaders and increase opportunities for students to belong back in our spaces, in our school, because we know when students feel like they belong and their voice is heard, then they feel more comfortable and they grow as learners. So it's just that space for those students to come together. We've met three times this year already and we talk about leadership, we talk about belonging. They give each other feedback, they network with one another and hopefully we with some good ideas of how they can take action back in their spaces.

Brandon Langer:

And Jesse, this has been a team effort. You know, through OPL, what has been your most exciting thing that's come of this group this year.

Jesse Gluckman:

The students are just so refreshing to work with and to hear what they want to do and what they see the future of schools looking like. And just to hear their voice is really powerful as an educator, and I think one of the things we've really leaned into is how do you use your voice as a student, how do you use storytelling as a leadership skill? We've really been cultivating that and that's why we brought Kate in. Kate is a singer-songwriter and her songs the first time I heard it had me in tears because they're just so powerful, and when I was hearing it really decided that they need to hear it too. So ran over to her merch table and randomly stalked her for a little bit and was able to bring her in. So it's really a cool opportunity and I'm glad we landed here and it was really a team effort to get us here.

Brandon Langer:

Absolutely, and I think there's been a big emphasis. I'm sorry if either of you already said this, but just an emphasis on part of leadership is just being able to articulate your story and make it meaningful and accessible to all. Right. That what it is you're hoping to instill. Whatever positive change you're hoping to affect, that starts with your voice and finding it for yourself. And I echo Jesse Kate, you were new to me today, just hearing you sing, hearing you tell your story. What can you tell us about your career as a musician in the music industry and what brought you to us today?

Kate Yeager:

Yeah, so I've been today. I've been in music since I was like 13 years old. I've always wanted to be a musician. I've always known that this is the thing that I want to do with my life, and so I've kind of just followed it down the deepest rabbit hole you could, which is being a professional musician. And so I lived in New York for a while.

Kate Yeager:

I went to school for music, I was at NYU at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at Tisch, and I just decided that I really wanted to tell my story and tell my stories. I think it's really powerful when you have a mic in your hand, that you have the opportunity to connect people and relate. And I wanted to do what albums did for me when I was a kid. Like I didn't have a lot of friends in high school, so like my friends were like records that I would like listen to in my basement, and so for me, I want to make the music that made me feel less alone when I was a kid, and so I've just been like chasing that down uh ever since, and I feel like every year that I do this, I get closer and closer, uh, to cover just like kind of what it means to be like Kate, which is really cool absolutely.

Brandon Langer:

And Jesse, you're an artist, you know you. You, you obviously brought Kate to us through this vehicle. But, um, I know that you believe in the power of art and our ability to tell our story, to own who and what we are. Um, you said already, you know that that believe in the power of art and our ability to tell our story, to own who and what we are, you said already you know that that songs landed with Kate, but there's a lot of emotion tied up.

Jesse Gluckman:

What spoke to you specifically, I think Kate told her story was so, first of all, catchy, right, like her music's great, her voice is great, but there was such a meaning to it. And I think, as an artist, I personally think that when I'm doing something, I'm telling someone or I'm giving myself, and Kate does that and I'm interested in Kate. Like how did you go on that journey? Like how do you get so vulnerable with, with the people that you're singing to? It's? You do it day in, day out, but you connect with an audience. It's emotionally draining, so how do you do that?

Kate Yeager:

The short answer is therapy. The short answer is therapy?

Kate Yeager:

The long answer is that I feel like every year I get to discover something new about myself, and for a really long time in the music industry, like whether I was in college or the couple of years that I was in New York afterwards before I moved to Nashville, it was a lot of trying to fit in with my peers that were around me. Um, I was a girl with a guitar, with a big voice, and I could slot into any performance space, mostly like a folk show or like I was opening for, like bands that had like seven, eight, nine people, like the genres like were so wide and vast and I could lean into those things to make me feel more palatable to the audience. And then when people were coming to my own shows, they were like they saw these bits and pieces but they didn't know who I was as a person. I was as a person and so when the pandemic happened and we were writing and like songwriting stopped essentially except for like Zoom sessions and like writing by yourself, and I think the opportunity that I got to write by myself gave me the opportunity to find what voice I wanted to have throughout all of this and the music that I was the most scared to release was the thing that landed the most with people and like being the most vulnerable that I could and it was absolutely petrifying.

Kate Yeager:

But I think that I've realized that one of my mentors once told me that a compliment is like an olive branch it's somebody's like attempt at having a relationship with you.

Kate Yeager:

So when you shut down that compliment, like you're shutting down that person's olive branch to cultivate a relationship with you. So I think that if I shut down my ability to be vulnerable, I'm shutting down an opportunity to connect with people on that level, and so I've just tried to like really embrace it head forward and just keep trying it Like sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it lands with like a niche group of people, sometimes it lands with like a massive group of people. But like I'm also doing it for me it's not just for the people who are listening to it Like In the same way that I found records when I was a kid that made me feel less alone, these songs that I'm writing are making me feel less alone because it does ultimately connect with a group of people who relate to it and to just know that together we're all not alone in this thing that we're experiencing. Whatever it might be, is super powerful.

Jesse Gluckman:

I think that's Brandon. That authenticity is what I saw in Kate and there's one of the reasons why I was like she needs to be in front of students Right.

Brandon Langer:

Cause, if we're trying to cultivate that in young people, they need to see it modeled and they don't always want to see it and they see it every day from teachers, hopefully, and and leaders in the school system. But there's something about that being just, you know, I'm just guessing, you know, mid-20s, you know they're kind of within reach still of really speaking to the room in a way that maybe an adult can't reach them. And that was the part, kate, to me that was so cool to see. That vulnerability being modeled in real time is extremely powerful for young people to see me, to hear because I've had a similar experience as an artist that the, the times you went deepest, the times you went sometimes darkest, are the ones that pull in the most. Um, and it's not just about clicks, it's not just about views, just the most response.

Kate Yeager:

you're like yes, that's me, I see myself in your message and that was what was really cool to hear from you today yeah, it was, it was cool to and I was even saying to Christy earlier, like, like, like the hardest time for me was in high school. So, like, going back and talking to these kids was low key, terrifying, because you're like, yeah, I'm in my mid twenties and like I can relate to them, but like gosh, I was so nervous that they wouldn't think that I was cool.

Jesse Gluckman:

I was like, I was like gosh these kids are going to gonna just like.

Kate Yeager:

Because that was the age that I felt the most self conscious and it like kind of brought me back there and I had to like, really like, stand firmly in like what I was saying, because I was like, if they sense any doubt, it's gonna be over for me. So I was like I really have to like hammer in and be somebody that, like I would have wanted to see. Because I was saying like I have to like hammer in and be somebody that, like I would have wanted to see. Because I was saying like I did programs like this all the time when I was a kid. So for me, like the people that I related to the most were the ones that talked to me like I was a person. And to like talk to these kids like they're people and just to let them know that like these things are accessible to them was, was super, it was an honor to get to do today.

Christy Ruth:

Yeah, and I think you connected with them because you were self-aware and you knew that. You knew that you wanted them to like you and think that you were cool, and you called it out right away and I think that they appreciated that, because that's some of the work that we did in Dreaming Forward with them in our very first session. It was around self-awareness, and before you can really be vulnerable with others, you have to be vulnerable with yourself, you have to be aware, and so I think they saw that in you right away and that's what caused that connection immediately, because we saw it on their faces and we felt it in the room they took a little bit to one that went over.

Brandon Langer:

I think it was also probably first thing in the morning. Let's be. Oh yeah, I mean, it was first thing in the morning for me.

Kate Yeager:

I was acclimating, we were all acclimating and I was like I'm just gonna Say go, chiefs, and see what happens. And then finally I got yelled at and I was like, oh, you're alive.

Christy Ruth:

Good to know.

Kate Yeager:

And I also firmly say go Birds, I just need everybody to know that right now it's safe.

Jesse Gluckman:

Thank you. For those listening in the future the.

Brandon Langer:

Super Bowl of 2025 has not yet happened, so the eagles are are, you know, obviously playing the chiefs and uh, tension is high in that in that arena. Um, kate, I want to talk specifically. You kicked off this morning, I think, with one, and I didn't get a chance to see it live, but, uh, someone that works up here did get to see it and said great wish. I went and listened to it. Um, the song fat that you shared, uh, this today, it's very emotional, it's very powerful. Um, we've been talking about vulnerability, we're talking about using that voice, but what can you tell us about that song? And just you know the response from you, know, sharing something in that realm.

Kate Yeager:

As a specific example, yeah, I mean way to choose a well well of topic there. Um, no, I feel really lucky that this song was the song that kind of like catapulted me in my career and, um, this song is the scariest thing I've ever released in my entire life. Um, I did the scariest things possible with this song, like the vulnerability that I put out on the internet about it. Um, but this song is the. I was talking to the kids a lot today about what their thesis is, and the thesis of this song is that I would have never known that there was something wrong with me unless somebody else told me. And that's wrong in quotes, like what somebody perceived to be wrong with me. And I think the way that I just like approached this song was with a sense I didn't want it to come off as like bitter or angry. I just wanted to tell the story with the facts and that's why there's no like really judgment for the characters in the song. It's just like fairly matter of fact and how we're talking about it. If, when you talk and you tell your story, if you stick to the facts, it's incredibly hard to dispute those things and if it's causing feelings that tells me that's something that's on your end, and I think that this song got a lot of love on the internet.

Kate Yeager:

And it also hit the wrong side of instagram, like once this song hit about five million views on instagram, it kicked over. The algorithm kicks it over to um, what will bring up the most comments, which is usually the antithesis of the audience, and so I was getting hate comments and death threats about my body and who I am and I'm like that is. That tells me more, more. I felt so much empathy for people, or I tried to feel so much empathy for people who were spewing that hatred, because I was just like somebody else taught you that, like you didn't learn that, just like how I didn't learn how to hate myself, like you didn't learn how to hate somebody else until somebody else taught you or an experience happened, and so it was just this like very interesting dynamic in the comment section of me being like I'm so sorry somebody hurt you and just like letting it exist.

Kate Yeager:

And if I said that, like nobody could really respond and that was the approach that I took. So I feel like it's really rare that you have a song that is such a conversation starter, but I think it applies to so much more than just a body neutrality or a body positivity or a body anything it's like. It can be about who you are as a person, your identity. It's just all encompassing of maybe being told that you were like too much or not enough, like you would have never known those things unless somebody else truly pointed it out to you, and so I just feel lucky that this is the song that kind of like bridged that gap for a lot of people yeah, I think that's very powerful as we.

Brandon Langer:

I again want to echo the ability for you to model. That speaks to not just your character and your vulnerability, but also the amazing person you are and what we want our young leaders to become. Jesse and Christy, you know, with this group, I really want to say this is an amazing experience that you guys brought as a team to the students in Montgomery County and it was very. I only got to see Meteors was the song that I got to come down to, but even just hearing you play the crowd, you know get them into the message before you delivered. It was really well done, kate, and I want to thank you for doing that. From the other side, you know you're sharing your vulnerability. I'm sure the students delivered a little bit of it back and hopefully they did today. I'm curious what your takeaways were from being with our students today.

Kate Yeager:

I think I'm just excited for them. To be in a position where you have the tools to get to tell your story is so huge and being young is so hard, and the fact that they have a supportive team around them that gets to empower them to go through the steps of amplifying their identity is so powerful. And they were like, they made me crack up. They were sharing all kinds of things. They're so funny and they're so smart and kind and intelligent. Um, and it's just, yeah, it's. It's really cool to see and it makes me hopeful for the youth of america we need it um, I'm kind of curious as we wrap up.

Brandon Langer:

You know what's next, what's next for dreaming forward? You know what do you guys hope to accomplish, not just this year, but moving forward into the future with this leadership group?

Jesse Gluckman:

our goal has always been to just equip students with the skills around leadership to affect positive outcomes, around belonging um and and making people and schools feel welcoming. And it's, I think a lot of times it's an adult conversation and I think we've realized that we need to have supports in place for students to be a part of the work. So, just like I know today I was really empowering the kids in the space that it's not about a teacher telling you something, it's about us doing this work and a teacher should support it. But you, your voice, matters. You want to hear from your colleagues or your peers. So how do we create that system for that to exist?

Jesse Gluckman:

And then finding helping the schools figure out a way to activate the student's voice. So it's a two part right, Like we're working with the students but we're also working with the adults in the space. And how do we? How do we get their voice? Where's the opportunity for the kids to tell their story? How do we support good ideas and create change? Because enough of us figuring it out for them. Let's involve them in the work, because then we teach them along that journey about what it means to do effective things and to find out who you are as a leader.

Christy Ruth:

I think probably one of the coolest things that we've seen, and something that was probably actually a little surprising in the beginning, is how much they actually want to talk to one another and connect with people outside of their school. So I think that piece, that networking piece, keeping them connected together so that they can continue to grow together and mentor one another is really powerful and I think it was surprising, but it's really grown throughout the three sessions. So we want to continue to foster that as well.

Jesse Gluckman:

And then we need to figure out how to just keep inspiring Kate to make new music so she can come back.

Brandon Langer:

And she's not to be left out. Okay.

Kate Yeager:

What's on the?

Kate Yeager:

horizon for you individually, as a as a musician yeah, I, I mean, last year I did a lot of touring. I was on about like eight tours last year so I was like constantly not home, um, so I've been enjoying the time with my family and my dog and um, but I'm currently just like writing an album and it's honestly, this career is just like wherever the wind takes you, so like could be another tour, could be coming back to Montgomery County, you never know. And I'm that's, that's what I love about my job, is that I'm just, I'm up for it.

Brandon Langer:

Yeah Well, and I think you would echo some of what they just said about how, um, how much as a young person you know, you articulated some of your struggles and your personal growth opportunities, as we might say. But you had that other network and I know this because you worked with some of my former students through theater, through music, through the arts and I think that's the coolest thing to see unfold here at the IU today was just for me personally and professionally as a teacher, as a human, the arts exemplify all that is good to me in humanity and we need more of your art.

Brandon Langer:

We need more opportunities for students to see that play out in real time, because, whether they know it or not, there's artists sitting in that room as well getting to see you model that, getting to see us work with them to find their voice, and I just want to thank all of you for what was, I think, an incredible day and joining us, not only for this conversation, but joining with young people Just to echo your sentiments. You know we're doing more in the space of student events. We have our Dreaming Forward group that we're focused on today. We have the Voices for Education on the more legislative advocacy side. Obviously, we've been doing competitions for years, but and we have our students in important classrooms that we support from the IU perspective but continuing to diversify that and ensure that we're reaching all audiences and that they all belong with our work is really important too. So thank you for doing that, christy and Jesse. Any closing thoughts? Words of wisdom.

Jesse Gluckman:

I'm just interested, like is there anything you wish you were able to tell the students today that you didn't get a chance to tell them?

Kate Yeager:

Oh gosh.

Jesse Gluckman:

I know.

Brandon Langer:

You had her up there for like a few hours.

Kate Yeager:

I'm a yapper.

Christy Ruth:

I probably told them a lot.

Kate Yeager:

I think that, like, sometimes, when we talk about high school, we talk about the opportunities to improve it, and it is so hard to improve high school. It's such a charged age and I just want them to know that, like I needed somebody to tell me that, like there was life beyond high school, and I like want them to know that if they don't have their place yet, they will yeah, it's so important like I was talking to some of the kids today who were like telling me about some of their feelings, about, um, not feeling like they had a place, uh, or that they found their people.

Kate Yeager:

and I was talking to them and I told them like a story that my grandmother told me I felt so old.

Christy Ruth:

I was like gosh.

Kate Yeager:

And I was like listen, like you go your whole life. You go your whole life cultivating this puzzle piece, where it is different colors and shapes and patterns and textures and textures and it is truly impossible to think that you are going to find somebody who's experienced those exact same things as you, who is the exact same puzzle piece. And I was like, if you get 70%, like you nailed it, and like to just know that there are other people out there who have been like cultivating their own puzzle pieces and sometimes you snap in a place with people and sometimes you don't, and to just know that like there is life beyond high school. I didn't know that until I was like a junior, until a program like this came into my school. So that is, that's a hard thing to like weave into store, like talking to them about songs and song structure, but that is the one thing that I do wish, that if I had the opportunity to tell them, I would Well you did.

Kate Yeager:

We just captured it. You're welcome.

Brandon Langer:

Well, thank, you again, kate, for joining us today. Thank you, jesse and Christy, for an amazing event. As I said, for those that haven't heard our podcast before, we do MCIU Learns podcasts on the regular. You can check them out at learnmciuorg. Be sure to like and subscribe across all the social media networks at MCIU Learns and we look forward to more amazing podcasts, more amazing events like this as we head into 2025. So thank you all for joining me, thanks for having me, thank you. So thank you all for joining me.

Kate Yeager:

Thanks for having me, thank you.