S4 EP1: True Colors: Potentiality & 8 Hidden Superpowers for a Brand-New School Year 🌈💎

The Middle School Mary Poppins Podcast

In Season 4, Episode 1 of The Middle School Mary Poppins Podcast, host Suzanne explores the concept of potentiality—the idea that middle schoolers' current behaviors and traits are not fixed but represent unfinished

Key takeaways

What appears to be a behavioral 'problem' in middle schoolers—like arguing or overthinking—may actually signal the early development of powerful future strengths such as advocacy and communication.
Potentiality is not about blind optimism; it's an intellectually honest acknowledgment that outcomes are still unwritten, offering space for growth without pressure to predict success.

Main topics

Potentiality in middle school development
Reframing behavioral challenges as emerging strengths

Notable quotes

"An argumentative kid might be developing the persistence of an advocate."

"What you're looking at right now isn't necessarily a finished product. Sometimes what you're looking at is a hole and you need to build a ladder."

Conclusion

Suzanne closes the episode by reaffirming her commitment to helping middle schoolers thrive through understanding

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:16) Well, hey y'all, welcome. It is now season four of Middle School Mary Poppins, and I'm so excited to be back with you. I've got so many exciting things to talk about with you, to just get into all these cool idiosyncrasies of the middle school brain and life and culture, and I just, I can't wait. I know it's been a minute since I've been able to talk to you. It's been a couple weeks, and it took a little time because here in the state of Tennessee, you know, we had a loss of our wonderful Auntie Dolly. And I did hear yesterday that they're pretty sure they're going to name the Nashville airport after her and all of her sunshine, which will be the first airport named after a woman. So that's really awesome. And September 25th is going to be nine to five day, which is very cool. So. I was just brokenhearted because 9 to 5 was one of my mom's favorite movies, and I just loved watching that with her, and I would quote stuff from it. You know, Lily Tomlin, come on. And the whole crew was just so much fun. But I took a little time. I was kind of sad about that, and, you know, I've been working really hard to try to make this podcast be my career, but it's a little tough. But that's okay, and I decided that, you know, find out who you are and do it on purpose, and I decided that getting back on this phone and recording a new podcast is exactly what I need to do instead of being just down in the dumps, and that is not a dolly way to be. So, it is a beautiful day to bust some cognitive distortions, and today I have a cool hodgepodge question for you. So, what knew a hole in the Texas desert, excuse me, a nearly indestructible geode in Asheville, North Carolina? a Latin word that's been kicking around for, I don't know, a couple thousand years, a queen-size memory foam mattress, a determined little dog named Steve, and a nervous middle schooler on the first day of school all have in common. Quite a lot, actually. And if I do my job correctly, about 25 minutes from now, this is all going to make perfect sense to you, and you won't think I'm insane. But every one of them brings us back to one core idea. And that's what I wanted to talk about today, and that is potentiality. Love some potentiality, and kids are brimming with potentiality. So what something is right now, and what it might still become. And I posted on Facebook the other day, I found a picture that popped up in my feed from 16 years ago, one of my first groups of 8th graders. And it was so neat because I posted it and just hearing from the kiddos. And one of the parents wrote and said that one of the girls in the photo is about to finish her law degree in criminal, you know, criminal justice, all that, and become a lawyer. And I'm like, and she was always like sticking up for people and that type of person. So I was like, wow, that's cool. It's so cool. All that potentiality, because I look around the classroom constantly and wonder, who's in this room? What can they become? What will they do for the world? And hopefully I can do my part. And teaching, that's one of the greatest gifts of teaching, is all the potentiality. So welcome to Season 4. And before we get into it, I actually am going to do a kid question of the day because I keep getting some cool questions from listeners. And we've got about 20 % of our audience are middle schoolers. So that is awesome. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. This is meant for you as well. Anything I say to your family, I'm saying to you too. But I had someone write to me and ask me recently, how many people does it take to make your podcast? And I literally was drinking some coffee and it went out my nose. And I was laughing. Speaker 1 (3:42) One, actually. That would be me. And I have my specialist degree in educational technology, so I'm kind of a computer geek. But everything involving this entire podcast, this entire time, has involved my phone. This is recorded on an app, okay? And then I use other apps to make my website and to work on other things. But, you know, Steve is my awesome companion in so many ways, but he doesn't have thumbs and can't really type stuff. But he had written that he thought, he's like, I'm going to take a guess. I think there are six people. So the fact that you all think that I might actually have a team or, you know, a budget or actually make money on this podcast is kind of awesome. But I thank you so much for your listenership because we're almost at a million. downloads. Like what? A million people. That's insane. So I'm so glad that my little cultural dissertation for everybody, you know, on how I believe middle school needs to be run and what I think we need to be thinking about. So kiddo, yeah, just me. It's me playing on my phone. constantly and hoping that things will turn out all right. So yeah, just a party of one. So this is a very homegrown thing and it's really cool to be like up against these huge production companies with commercials and a bunch of books. I'm working on trying to see about a book deal though. So you never know, maybe I'll be able to write my book. I want to call it Ridiculous Joy. So anyway, there isn't secret research department hiding anywhere or anything like that. I mean, I do the research and the writing and the recording and all the legwork and Steve handles the email. But he also kind of slobbers all over the email and stuff like that. But thank you. I mean, every time you listen and share an episode and send me a question or tell another parent or teacher about this, you know, weird little experiment I'm doing, you're helping me to be able to keep doing it. And I really like this to be my career. Honestly, haven't had a paycheck since about March. So this podcast actually made two whole dollars last month. So I just would love for you to think some great thoughts because I really would like to keep this going, but it costs a lot of money to keep it going. But we made it, and we're here at season four, and let's go back to that word, potentiality. Okay? Well, I've been thinking about what I wanted this season to explore, especially as kids head to a brand new school year, and I keep coming back to it. Speaker 1 (5:56) Potentiality really is the capacity for something to become or develop into something that it isn't yet. Has that Carol Dweck yet thing? The word reaches back actually through the Latin word potentia, according to my little notes right here. Potentia, power, ability, capacity, and potens, meaning powerful or able. It is the same family that gives us words like potent and potential. And that comes straight out of the dictionary. But if the idea itself... is, you know, pretty ancient. So we've been thinking about potentiality of folks for, you know, just about as long as people have been in existence. I mean, Aristotle actually wrote about the distinction between potentiality and actuality. So when something is right now versus what it has the capacity to become later, which is pretty interesting. Okay, so I mean, I need to give you an example. Okay, so like an acorn, right? One who can stand in front of a room and make a complicated argument. really well? We don't know yet. Speaker 1 (6:59) I mean, that's the point. Potentiality is not positivity. Those are two really different things. So positivity can become everything is going to be great, you know. Well, we don't like totally know that. We hope for that. But it doesn't mean that that's, you know, it's all going to turn out great. I mean, I tried to go get gas the other day. I went to five different gas pumps. You know, that's my life. ATM, same thing. So, you know, everything's going to go great on this trip. Well, we don't know that. But your kid may get a teacher that they don't like. That happens. These things occur. But their best friend may end up on another team and they're not with them. And seventh grade lunch may have enough interpersonal drama to sustain a telenovela at this point. But I'm not interested in telling a nervous kid, don't worry, this is going to be the best year ever, it's going to be so awesome. Because they know perfectly well that I absolutely have no evidence for that. And you have to show evidence to middle schoolers a bit. And just, you know, making some platitude isn't really going to help or just saying something that is there to make them feel better. But potentiality doesn't require us to predict a wonderful outcome. It just simply asks us to acknowledge that the outcome hasn't really been written yet. And that's the difference. I mean, I think that's a much more intellectually honest kind of hope because hope is really dangerous. You know, it's sort of, you know, there are books written on hope quite a bit where hope can be the most beautiful thing in the world, but also. very dangerous thing because hopes can get crushed and in monumental ways. So anxiety loves to make predictions. Anxiety is a planner and a calculator and it takes yesterday's evidence and then writes tomorrow's story with it. So like for example you'd be like you know sixth grade was terrible therefore seventh grade will be terrible. I've heard this one. Seventh grade is going to be terrible then eighth grade will be awful and I struggled in math and therefore I'm bad at math and I'll never do math. And I didn't have many friends, therefore I'm not going to have any friends at all. And it's, you know, it's if then, if then, and it's always crash and burn on the then. But a new school year introduces an enormous number of variables that haven't even happened yet. So we need to make that clear. You know, new teachers, new classmates, new material, opportunities, relationships, interests, and lots of different choices. And a slightly older brain with more experience than it had last August. So a year older, a little bit wiser, right? So it won't go the same. It can't. It's like, it just doesn't happen. So even the kid walking through those doors isn't the same kid who walked out in May anyway. And maybe the kids forgot about that. So middle schoolers, you're not the same person you were a few months ago or definitely a year ago. And think about who you are now. So know who you are and do it on purpose. Your kid hasn't met everybody they're going to meet yet. I mean, they haven't encountered every problem they're going to solve and discovered every ability they're going to need yet. And they haven't even met every version of themselves they're going to become. You know, they say most of us transition into sort of 12 different facets of our personality, which is pretty interesting. I learned that in therapy school. And, you know, they said most people, it's about 12-ish in and around there. But, you know, depending on different jobs and needs, we all become lots of different people. So we just morph into the next thing. So instead of, you know, telling an anxious middle schooler, you know, it's going to be fine, you can probably give them something a little more effective. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about with this is to make sure that our words are intentional and meaningful and not just a platitude. So I think saying to a kiddo at this point, you don't know what this year can become yet. That's radical reframing, I think. And it's potentiality. And maybe the simplest way I can even put this is don't confuse unfinished with incapable. Which naturally kind of reminds me of the time I lost a fight with a rock in Asheville, North Carolina. So, okay. So in Asheville, North Carolina, it's one of my favorite cities. And the last time I was there, I went to one of these gem mining places because I love rocks. I love, you know, all that kind of stuff. Geology is so cool. At the end, I picked out this geode. Okay, it's about the size of a softball. And a geode is like a big rock that has crystals on the inside. Usually they're found in rivers and things like that. And I took it around behind the gem mining place and you could crack them open with a hammer. So talk about, you know, awesome therapy that way. Whack, whack, whack. But at least apparently most people have the ability to just take a hammer and hit the thing and it splits open. You're like, yay, purple or whatever. Not me. I had somehow managed to select the one single geode in North Carolina that was like 90 % solid quartz. But I didn't know this. So I sat behind this place with a hammer and I was banging on that thing for what felt like, I don't know, like a half hour or so, my poor shoulder. And I changed my angle and I smacked that thing harder. I tried different angles of the hammer, different spots. And at some point this started being, you know, like a real issue. And gem mining, you know, became like a personal vendetta that I had to do this. And eventually the owner of the gem mining place. I think he like took pity on me or became concerned about how long I was willing to continue this because, you know, I'm a fighter. I'm going to stick it through. And he's like, look, I have a saw. I can just cut it for you. I'm like, oh, and I'm, you know, sweat pouring off my eyelids and all this stuff. I'm like, oh, okay. But when it finally opened, most of the inside was exactly what we suspected and it was solid quartz. But right in the easy-peasy little middle spot, there was this. tiny little itsy bitsy little cavern. Like for itsy bitsy tiny little person. And inside that cavern was what looked like a tiny little city. It was just like made of diamonds. It was beautiful. I mean, in all that geological time, all that pressure and all those minerals moving through spaces, I could not even see.