You know the kid. That kid. The one who you can’t even let get up from their seat. If they move, you know there’s a problem. Because there WILL BE. But what happens when a child who was suspended more than 30 times and expelled three times becomes an award-winning school leader? He also talked about how it felt to be “that kid” who felt like he was being singled out. I thought his insight was really thought-provoking.
Edward DeShazer leads a school that went from one star to four stars in six years. Today, for Motivational Monday, he talks about the “believement gap.” What is the believement gap? It is the distance between what a student believes about himself and what he can actually do.
Edward also shares some simple things he does for teachers that make a huge difference (coffee every morning, staff workout room, Walking Wednesdays), a two-minute conversation starter you can use at the end of class (plus some thoughts on bell-to-bell teaching that might surprise you).
He also shares what he wishes his teachers had asked him instead of “why are you talking back?” Get ready to get inside the mind of “that kid” and teach and understand him or her better.
One Has Got to Go Class Ender. In the last two minutes of class, put four choices on the board: spring, summer, fall, winter. Ask, “Which one has to go?” Students turn and talk with a classmate about which one they’d get rid of and why. Edward suggests this to let students connect while you pack up, and no one is staring at you when the bell rings.
Edward says his special education teachers were his favorites because they asked about him first. These are the questions they asked him:
What to skip: “Hey, stop being upset. We have learning to do.” And if a student says, “You let so-and-so do it,” listen before you give a detention. As Edward puts it, “a student’s perception is their reality. It does not always mean it’s true, but I just want us to listen to it.”
Here’s where the facts in this episode come from, with the time stamp so you can hear each one. Checked September 28, 2026.
Edward DeShazer is a Milwaukee-based educator, keynote speaker, author, and award-winning school leader with over 20 years of experience transforming school culture and developing the next generation of leaders. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Greater Holy Temple Christian Academy (GHTCA), a private K-8 school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But before any of that, he was the kid most people had already given up on. Over thirty suspensions. Three expulsions. Time spent in multiple alternative schools. Edward knows firsthand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a system that does not always see the full version of a child. That experience does not sit in the background of his work. It sits at the center of it. It is what gives him the ability to speak to educators, students, school leaders, and communities from multiple lenses, and to make the case, with authority, that belief and culture are not soft ideas. They are the whole game.
Under Edward’s leadership, GHTCA grew from a one-star school ranking to a four-star school in six years. He is a member of the Executive Board for the Closing the Achievement Gap Consortium, a coalition of more than 40 public and private school systems across southeastern Wisconsin committed to building a high-impact professional learning community.
In 2021, Edward was nominated by BizTimes as a Notable Minority Executive in Wisconsin. In 2023, he was recognized as a Notable BIPOC Executive in Wisconsin. In 2026, he was nominated as the Top School Executive Director by Education Insider Magazine.
Edward is the creator of School Culture Compass, author of The Secret Sauce and Closing the Believe’ment Gap, and the host of the Homeroom Attendance podcast. His keynotes draw from a deeply personal story rooted in adoption, faith, and a journey from a struggling special education student to a nationally recognized school leader.
If this episode reminded you of a student you believe in, share it with a teacher who needs to hear it this week.
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Vicki Davis (00:00): Happy Motivational Monday. This is episode 996, and today we’re talking about the believement gap, the distance between what a kid believes about him or herself and what that child can actually do. Kids often do not rise above what the adults in the building believe. Robert Rosenthal’s work on teacher expectations validates this. Let’s learn how to bridge the believement gap.
Announcer (00:31): This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.
Vicki Davis (00:35): Today, we’re talking with Edward DeShazer, a school leader and speaker in Milwaukee who was suspended more than 30 times as a student and expelled three times. But today, he leads a school that went from one star to four stars in six years. He’s the author of Closing the Believe’ment Gap. So, Edward, you were that kid that schools tried to give up on. Who was the first adult who actually believed in you and what did they do?
Edward DeShazer (01:08): The first time I felt an adult believe in me was my freshman English teacher, Ms. Davis. She was phenomenal. I was a special education student since third grade. And oftentimes when I would get in trouble, teachers would just send me to the special education class. And she was one of the first teachers that did not do that when there was a problem in the classroom. And it was the first time as a freshman in high school where I felt that I actually belonged in a school. Instead of just being dismissed from a classroom, Ms. Davis is… I would say she was probably, other than my parents, she was the most important person to why I’m able to do the things I do today.
Vicki Davis (01:46): Okay, so you call this the believement gap. Okay, so how do you define the believement gap?
Edward DeShazer (01:55): We talk about the achievement gap and the opportunity gap and all those things, but the believement gap is the distance between what someone actually believes about themselves and what they’re capable of doing. I created that term a few years ago on a board for the closing the achievement gap, and what I learned is oftentimes in education, we don’t believe things are possible with our students, so we don’t support them for those things to become possible. There was a study some years ago that Harvard did where they told a teacher that one half of the class was advanced, the other half was on grade level, and at the end of the year, the half that they told the teacher was advanced, those students excelled, and the half that they said were on grade level did on grade level. But when we think our kids are capable of doing things or our coworkers are capable of doing things, we’re going to see them for the better. We’re going to see them in the harder moments. That’s where, for me… When I would get in trouble, teachers would just place the box of he’s a special education student. That’s what he’s supposed to do. And Ms. Davis was like, no, you have so much potential and I need you to reach that. You’re not some student that’s a special education student. That’s where that term really came because I think it’s important as educators that we like really believe what’s possible with our kids and with our coworkers and with ourselves of what we can accomplish in a classroom or in a school.
Vicki Davis (03:14): Well, if you look at Rosenthal’s Pygmalion Effect research study, it was basically testing, just like you said, for teacher expectations. They were told that they were teaching students who had the most potential for growth. And what happened? The students grew, right? In my experience as a teacher, kids never exceed what we believe they can exceed. But that’s tough because what do you tell teachers and principals who are like, okay, I want to believe, but like when I look at the facts, this kid is a disaster.
Edward DeShazer (03:47): And that’s why I love to share my story because oftentimes when you see people doing work in education, you know, they’re like, oh, I was a straight-A student and I graduated top of my class. And for me, it’s like I wasn’t. I was disconnected. I hated school. I hated my teachers. But then one teacher, something just clicked for me when I finally was like, okay, this is what school can feel like when I find success and when I feel like I belong. That’s the main reason I like to share my story with people is we just need to see it, that it’s possible. We see those kids that get in trouble in our class, like there’s no way they can ever accomplish this and I stand in front of teachers like I am proof that it can be accomplished. Like I was kicked out of school and now I work and lead a school. It’s no different than kids. When kids see success in a classroom, they get more motivated. So as teachers and school leaders and principals, like we have to see the success for us to get motivated as well. So I try to be that example for some of them of like, I am proof of what can be possible even on those difficult days. Like we can’t give up on the kids that we have in front of us.
Vicki Davis (04:51): And you don’t just lead a school. You led a school from being one star to four star in six years. What were the messages you gave to your teachers and to your students to help that school achieve and become a great school?
Edward DeShazer (05:04): So the main thing that I was looking at was culture, and just relationships. And sometimes in schools, I feel we have things backwards where we think we have to get the achievement and everything else follows that, where I was of the thought that if we can make our building a place where kids want to show up, if we can make it a place where the educators want to show up and actually enjoy being there, the achievement is going to follow all that. I have a marketing background and you see what these bigger organizations do, Googles, and they make it where their employees like walk in and it’s like, wow, this feels great. But then you walk into most schools and it feels like a factory. My thought when I got into leadership is how do I create a space where educators come to work and enjoy being at work? So that was the big thing for me is building relationships with our staff, our staff building them with each other, because then ultimately they will do the work that needs to happen with the kids.
Vicki Davis (06:02): Give us the list of some of the things that you started doing that if I walked into your school, I would notice.
Edward DeShazer (06:07): One of the first things I did was we give our teachers coffee every single day. And it’s not expensive. It’s simple. Our food management director, we have a big coffee pot and she fills it up. So when teachers come in, they can get a cup of coffee or two cups or three cups every single morning. So it’s little things like that, that to me, I felt like it was expected. But then when I go into other schools or when people come in and like your teachers get coffee every day, I’m like, yeah, it only costs us 10 bucks at the most. But what that does is now teachers aren’t scrambling to get to Starbucks to get to work on time. They show up what you see in the morning before the kids get in our teacher’s lounge is there’s teachers gathered around the coffee space having conversation. So it’s little things like that. We’re big on getting our teachers hoodies. When we move into our new building, one of the non-negotiables for me was having a workout space for our staff. So we have a dedicated workout space. And I told our, when we were with our contract, I was like, however this is built out, to me, that’s a requirement. You look at corporations, they offer their employees gym memberships, or you get all these other benefits that in schools, when you walk in, if you were to lay out the entire building, a small percentage is dedicated to the staff. It is fully dedicated to the students, which I do understand without the students, we don’t have a school. Without the staff, we don’t have a school as well. So I was really big on just having that where we have teachers that walk on their lunch break on the treadmill. We have some staff that come in early and work out. They stay late and work out. And it’s just little things like that that you see Fortune 500 corporations do that. I was like, why can’t that be the same thing that happens in a school?
Vicki Davis (07:51): I’ve often thought when you’re under a lot of stress that the teacher planning period might be better spent on a treadmill or working out for just a minute. There’s a lot of physiological benefits of taking time to work out. And the challenge in a school is that you got to find a facility where the kids aren’t. I applaud you for that. That’s awesome.
Edward DeShazer (08:12): Another simple step is we did walking Wednesdays with our staff, where every Wednesday, we encourage our staff to walk for 20 minutes during the day with a coworker. It helped me as a school leader because I would send a notice to our staff like, hey, everyone, if anyone wants to meet me at 7:10, I’m going to do the walking Wednesday. And you learn things about people you work with, which makes your school stronger when you actually know the people that you work with.
Vicki Davis (08:37): You have to relate to educate, but you really have to relate to work with and lead people, don’t you?
Edward DeShazer (08:44): Yeah, I think what you just said is so important. I’ve been at so many PDs where we’re pushing educators to build relationships with their students, but do the school leaders build relationships with their staff? And do you get your staff building them with each other? I really feel that relationships and culture in schools is one of the few things in this world that actually trickles down. Like if we do it as school leaders and build relationships with our staff, it then models what we want them to do with the students. And the more we all know who each other are, it makes those difficult moments a little less difficult because we’re human beings versus like that’s a teacher, that’s a student, that’s the principal. We are all people having challenges. The more I can get to know our staff, the more it encourages them to get to know their students. And it’s not just, hey, you guys go build relationships while I sit in my office. We have to build them across the board. The students need to have them with each other, with their peers. Staff need to have strong relationships with each other because that’s where you see a lot of disconnect is you have teachers that are in buildings that don’t like each other. And I’m not saying we have to like everyone in our building. But what I’m saying is you will be less likely to dislike someone if you actually know who they are as a person.
Vicki Davis (09:57): So, Edward, but what do you think some of the biggest mistakes us well-meaning teachers and administrators make that we think builds that belonging that actually does not?
Edward DeShazer (10:09): We have plans. And then when the plans don’t work, we think that we’ve failed. We have plans to teach. Like you said, teachers have lesson plans built out. But do you have a plan on how to be intentional with the relationships that you build in your school or in your class? And you only need a couple minutes per day. There’s stuff I’ve done where we do one has got to go. You could put on the board, hey, spring, summer, fall, winter, which one of these seasons has to go? Turn and talk to one of your classmates about which one you would get rid of and why. And you can do that at the end of class while the teacher is packing up and getting themselves ready. And the “we have to teach bell to bell,” I think, has put teachers in a spot where they feel like if you’re not teaching academics, you’re not doing your job. And I would challenge that notion because we’re going to have a lot of kids that are learning academics that don’t have social skills, especially now with computer screens and phones and everything. It’s like we need to still teach our kids how to connect with each other and have conversations. But as the adults, we have to be intentional with building those things into what we’re doing. Maybe it’s a two minutes when class starts to get your kids reset. Our school, we do a lot of self-containing classrooms for some things, but like just taking two minutes to just like set the standard of what the class is going to feel like and getting them talking. And then at the end, the teachers are getting ready when maybe they’re transitioning to another room, getting kids connecting. And it only takes a couple of minutes, but those are valuable minutes that now you can do what you need to do as a teacher while you have them connecting. And it buys you time to like pack your things up and do all the stuff that you want to do versus just having them stare at you or the bell rings. And now you’re scrambling as a teacher.
Vicki Davis (11:54): Okay, so travel back in time and you’re Eddie. If you could have spoken to teachers, here’s this kid, he’s getting suspended and expelled. Speak as if you were little Eddie to teachers about what actually made you feel like you belong and coaching those teachers into reaching Eddie.
Edward DeShazer (12:11): So what I would say is my perception is my reality. And if I say you let so-and-so do this, but you don’t let me, teachers a lot of times don’t like to hear that. But sometimes that’s the feedback that we need as an adult to understand what our kids are feeling and seeing. Now, just because my perception is my reality doesn’t always mean it’s true. But what I would say is because I was such a challenge in the classroom, if I got up to go do something, I was immediately like, hey, what are you doing? Go sit down. But one of my classmates gets up and they don’t say anything because they don’t cause problems in the class. So then when my response is, well, you let so-and-so get up and go sharpen their pencil, or you let so-and-so go to the, then it’s like, well, why are you talking back? You know, sit down, here’s a demerit, here’s a detention, go to the principal’s office versus just hearing and saying like, okay, maybe there is something there to why Eddie feels that he is picked on or does not feel like he belongs because I can see what other kids in the class can do, and then I see what I’m able to do and it was not the same. If I got out of my seat before I even moved away from my desk, the teachers were saying something to me. But then I watched the person next to me get up and walk around the room and they don’t say anything to them. So I think it’s important for educators to know that a student’s perception is their reality. It does not always mean it’s true, but I just want us to listen to it because the behaviors our students have are typically communicating something. And oftentimes we try to just respond to the behavior versus like hearing what the behavior is trying to communicate to us. And a lot of times I was acting out in class because I either wanted to get something or get out of something. And a lot of times it would be, I knew that I could go to my special education classroom and I felt like I belonged in there because the teachers, when you ask kids who their favorite teacher are, typically it becomes teachers that they had in smaller environments or coaches. Because when you get in those rooms, it’s less about the academics and more about the relationships. When I get to my special education teacher, they’re not like, hey, you need to learn this, this, and this. The first question they ask is, what happened in the classroom? Why do you feel this way? What’s going on? So then you wonder why those are the people I had great relationships with. It’s because it wasn’t always academic for them. It was, hey, what just happened? Why are you so upset? Versus, hey, stop being upset. We have learning to do. So I think that’s like the biggest difference. And I don’t think it’s possible for a teacher to check in with every single kid on, hey, how are you feeling? And but there are ways that we can do that and check in to make sure our kids feel seen and safe. And I did not feel I felt safe. I did not feel seen in my classroom. And it’s important for kids to find success. They have to feel both. Same for the adults in our room. Our adults thrive in a school when they feel safe and they feel seen. And if they don’t feel safe or seen, their behaviors are going to communicate otherwise.
Vicki Davis (15:10): So today we’ve been talking with Edward DeShazer, school leader and speaker in Milwaukee. You can follow Edward all over the place, TikTok, Instagram. I just followed him today as I was preparing for our interview because he has so many motivating and encouraging things for school leaders and for teachers. So Edward, thanks for coming on the show.
Announcer (15:30): Thank you for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Join us here every weekday and subscribe to the Classroom Matters newsletter. See you later, educator.
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