How can schools build stronger relationships, encourage healthy choices, and create a positive school culture that lasts beyond a single presentation or activity?
In this episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour, Jake White of Vive18 talks with Pat Fish, founder of Circle Values, about using peer leadership, restorative practices, and student-led activities to help students build meaningful connections. Pat shares the story behind his viral “high five chain” activity, explains why fun is an essential part of learning, and discusses how older students can become positive role models for younger peers.
The conversation explores how schools can use circle practices to create safe spaces for honest conversations, reinforce core values, and empower students to take ownership of their school communities. From simple activities that encourage students to connect to structured opportunities for peer leadership, Pat explains why lasting change happens when positive messaging becomes part of a school’s everyday culture.
Key Takeaways
- Build connections through simple, engaging activities.
- Strengthen school culture with shared values and restorative practices.
- Create safe spaces for honest conversations.
- Encourage peer leadership and positive role models.
- Make prevention meaningful through fun and student involvement.
Introduction to Pat Fish and Circle Values
Jake White: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White from Vive18. And today we’ve got a new friend. Y’all, I gotta tell you, I just saw him online and thought we need to talk to this guy. So Pat Fish is the founder of Circle Values, and he’s hanging out with us today here on the show. Pat, welcome.
Pat Fish: Thanks for having me, Jake. I appreciate you. I appreciate the work that you do in schools. And I have a whole bunch of questions for you, so I don’t know if you’ll get any out for me, but we’ll we’ll see how it goes, man.
Jake White: We’ll go, we’ll go one for one. All right. We’ll do that. so first Pat, you just said you live in New York. I I saw this thing online. It’s just a video where you you gave this student a giant necklace with a hand on it and challenged him to give as many high fives as possible throughout the school day. So can you tell me? Let’s just start with that. What were you doing?
Pat Fish’s Background and Motivation
Pat Fish: So for me, Circle Value’s just started this year. I’ve been in schools for a long time with another organization. And I recently, if you look at my office space right now, I think my daughter’s probably not good to move the camera, but my daughter’s s signature is all over it because my wife and I just had our our first child, so it’s no longer an office. It’s a it’s a nursing. But you know.
Alongside that, I wanted to spend a whole lot of time in schools. I absolutely believe in the messaging of positive, whether it’s drug prevention, whether it’s bullying prevention, suicide prevention. These are all awesome things. but for me, I’ve been in that world for seven years and I went, you know, maybe it’s time for me to take a step back from all this travel and put my focus on being in schools long term probably not as good of a idea for making money or anything like that. But for me, the impact and getting to know the students and building the relationships is what was important. so when I did that, there’s quite a few schools that I’ll be in that I’ve been in before, but there’s also quite a few new ones that I’ve never been in before in my entire life. And as you all have you know your social media and I love watching after you followed me and reached out to me, I started poking around and looking at the games and all that type of fun stuff.
I wasn’t really planning on doing social media in this new venture of mine because it doesn’t really change. I’m gonna have the schools that I’m gonna have. I’m looking for a smaller amount of schools. but what I realized is, the young people tend to gravitate towards the videos, especially the ones that do well. And, you know, they like to, if you go into a sixth grade classroom, how many, how many videos do you have? How many, you know, how many likes are on your video and all that fun stuff?
And for me it was a social experiment. And I believe the one that you reached out to me was probably the third or fourth one that I put up. but pretty early on I decided to start with some of the students that I recognize as influencers in the school, right? The the people that the younger students looked at and wanted to be like someday. And so I threw the high five chain on them and you wouldn’t believe it. The next day all these middle schoolers are asking me, Hey, how when’s it my turn? When am I gonna get to go? And that Reinforcement is a really nice thing to use for some of those older students of look, what you do, these younger kids are watching and they’re gonna notice it and they’re gonna wanna emulate those things.
So, you know, for some of the older kids that have worn the high five chain, they get it and they’re like, Pat, this is stupid. I’m like, I know it is stupid. It’s a big giant chain that says give me a high five. And you know, I’ve also gotten when you have a video that has a decent amount of views, you also get the, you know, negative comments as well. And I think my favorite negative comments have been based on, hey, you should really do fist bumps instead of high five spreading. And I’m like, yes, sure. You know what?
I agree. Wash your hands. I’m for it. But I think the important thing is that it got young people excited about reaching out to other young people that they might not necessarily see in the hallways as somebody that they’re going to interact with all the time.
The High Five Chain Activity in Schools
Jake White: That’s so good, Pat. I I immediately was like putting myself in the experience, saying, like, wow, if people were doing this at my school, we’d have more connections, more reason to look up in the hallways, smiles to be had, and like the feeling of home and safety would just increase. And like you had mentioned, what’s gonna build the bridge between a ninth grader and you know, a 12th grader?
That ninth grader and a seventh grader, something silly, something that is is random. and I just think it was it was really cool to see that. And I could just put myself there and feel feel good. I was like, wow, whatever it is, so simple. Like what what a fun way to challenge school culture. And like you said, just put something positive in there. It didn’t have to be a lecture, it was an activity that happened all day, and plenty of people felt the outcome.
And one person learned that they could be a leader in their school too. So it’s so awesome.
Pat Fish: Absolutely. And it’s a it it’s been cool for me because it’s been one small facet of what I do within schools, but it’s the one that’s all of a sudden I had a school in Canada. And where I I’m located in New York. This was Western Canada that was like, Hey, we started the high five chain. I’m like, Great, this is amazing. Look, I’m not I’m not making any money off of these high five chains. I think the guy that makes it is like he loves me because he’s like, Wait, you’re gonna draw people to my site and people are gonna buy I’m like, dude.
I don’t wanna go through the process of making two dollars or three dollars off each. I’m not gonna sell that many of these chains, and that’s not the goal. I think he’s giving me credit towards some chains that I can give out in the future or something along those lines. But for me it’s about the impact. And I think it’s been neat to see that some schools that I’m will never ever step foot in are just trying this this I think positive technique, but you know, it’s a social experiment. I’m not gonna sit here and act like yeah.
Your school needs the high five chain, it’s gonna change your culture. No, it’s gonna it’s gonna impact your climate for a day, right? And if you don’t but if you continue to use it and use it in different ways, and I think that it that’s with any programming, right? A program like yourself. if you go into schools and you point out any type of drug prevention programming, it really comes down to how the school carries that message on, right? Because you’re gonna go off to another place.
And you’re gonna have some schools that are like, Yeah, this Vive 18 is great. And then there’s gonna be some other schools that were like, Yeah, they came in, it was awesome, but after that, nothing really came of it. And you’re like, That’s that’s you, that that’s your part of but I think that that goes to speak towards the impact that young people have on their school culture day to day versus someone like me or you coming in and trying to have a positive impact for a little while, right? They are the ones.
Jake White: Well, it’s the difference, and it’s the difference between a guest and a partner. Is you can have a guest speaker share for a day, and you hope to make an impact or a spark of change that they need to fan that flame and keep going, or a partnership, which those are our favorite things about working with schools, is the ones who say, Hey, here’s our five year goal and here’s what we’re the the culture that we want to make and how we want students to feel when they’re here and how they’ll be safe.
Then we can build a wraparound program around, okay, the the assembly is the spark. The student led club is fanning that flame. And then them implementing the curriculum in their schools is where we this thing starts burning real nice and warms up the entire school. and it sounds like that’s your program too. Can you tell me more about circle or circle values, right? Like just your whole thing.
The Importance of Consistent Messaging and Values
Pat Fish: You before we do that, you said we were gonna go one for one, dude. So let me get one clear. Where what inspired Jake White to start b Vive eighteen? You know, why why drug prevention? Why the work that you do? To move to Arizona from Wisconsin because it’s near an airport? Like what inspired that?
Jake White: Yeah, I watched addiction ruin some lives in in my youth, just like people close to me. And I knew I never wanted to get into that because right, I’ve seen evidence. This is where it could take you. I hadn’t seen evidence of like good things happening from people using those things. So the decision was so easy for me. And then when I got to college, it was the first time that I felt really weird about my decision.
It was like, wait, this culture says that it’s not okay to be healthy or to protect yourself by not drinking and smoking. I feel super weird for it. and that’s when I I’m I’m giving you the very short version, but like feeling that way for a couple years and then realizing there’s other people out here like me. And our world’s not going to change if nobody tries to change it. So my idea was I’m gonna throw a house party without any drugs or alcohol and just.
See who shows up. And Pat, hundreds of students showed up and we’d get sponsored by big brands like Red Bull and Pizza Hut and Subway. And then students around the country were basically saying, can you help me do what you’re doing? I want to throw drug-free events and protect my friends and have a positive place to hang out because I love what you said in the beginning is something positive and actionable. Prevention by name is like what you’re not doing.
But if we all go around the world talking about what we don’t like and what we don’t do, we’re not going to connect, we’re not going to create, we’re not going to live our lives. What are we going to do instead? And so I just really became really passionate about creating positive environments where you feel good without drugs and alcohol and you can connect and make friends without those things. and the movement, it just started. Like I didn’t have to push it very hard. I just started and it it led to vibe 18. And my heart behind this is.
I never want a student to feel to feel alone or isolated or like they’re less than because they’re making a healthy choice. They should feel empowered and courageous and and become an influencer because their good decision could actually save lives.
Pat Fish: Wow. That’s a that’s a phenomenal story. And I, the part that I think back to and really connect with my background’s in organizational psychology. and it not so much not not so much a popular field in the world of education. You don’t see a whole lot of organizational psychology people going into schools.
Us you see it every once in a while at the university level. I’m sure there’s some public high schools out there that that utilize it. But for me, it wasn’t a impact that stemmed from you saying, okay, I’m the leader of this campus and we’re banning drugs and alcohol on this campus. No, it was started from a peer network within that campus space. Because if you from a campus perspective go, no, it’s not allowed, what’s gonna happen? People are still gonna do it.
But because it’s student led, it’s student driven and young people were seeking it out, that’s a really great thing. Right. And they were going to show up to this event because they wanted to connect with other like minded people that also didn’t want to experience drugs and alcohol. They wanted to connect on a level that didn’t need it, which is really great to me. and that’s the one thing that I connected to most with with your videos is you’re doing it in a fun way. and a special, you know, I I’ve spent a whole lot of time with circle values, with my work beforehand, and understanding play and it’s important on young people.
It’s important to play. And, you know, if you want young people to learn, you gotta have fun. You just have to. It’s the most important thing. there’s a guy named John Medina who says the number one brain rule for learning all time is motion. you need to move in order for those neurons to start firing and you to start picking some stuff up. So the more that you can play and have fun.
You can learn things so much quicker and stuff can become locked in. And guess what? That’s what you’re doing with some of those games. I even tried one out. we tried it out with the paper one. People were blowing paper off of a table. I don’t know. I saw it on your account and let’s give this one a shot. This looks like fun. And I tried it at a school where I like to call them my test thummies because I’ve been there for so long. And if a game’s terrible, they’re Pat, this game stinks. I’m like, all right, let’s move on to the but we tried it out and I I took a student suggestion. They were like, hey.
You would make this game go longer? And I’m like, what? They’re like, use straws. I’m like, okay.
Pat Fish: We’re right by the cafeteria. We grab some straws for the next group and we were using straws to blow the papers off the table. And again, if your message was, hey, save the environment, don’t use that many straws, that’s probably not a good thing for me to use that many straws. But I think the connection that the students were having was the most important piece. And they were allowed to organize the game, control the game, and and and lead it in their own direction.
Circle Practices and Restorative Approaches
Pat Fish: So circle values for me stemmed, as I told you, from me wanting to spend more time in less amount of schools, but doing what work exactly. I I come from a background where I think I’d put myself toe-to-toe with anybody in the country as far as the amount of circles that I’ve facilitated in the last seven years. And you say, What circle? I go, Well, you know, people sitting around in a circle and having conversations. That’s what a circle is. And people listening. And yeah, we have some guidelines. I’m not gonna sit here and say, hey, everybody talk at once. Let’s just blurt over the top of each other. That’s not gonna be great. We set some guidelines forward, hey, let’s have a talking piece.
And I’m in my daughter’s room right now, so what do we got going on here? perfect. We have this little bunny, right? This is our talking piece. And if you have this, it’s your turn to talk. If you don’t, maybe you just listen. And I promise you if you have this, I’ll just listen. And if we can all agree to that, we have a space where no one gets interrupted, which is pretty rare in this world. And then look, we’re gonna pass this around and everybody’s gonna get a chance to go. You absolutely don’t have to go. If you want to just be a listener, just listen. And then whatever we say in circle, look, I’m not saying this is a top secret meeting, but what I am saying is just because someone trusts you with some information from them here, that doesn’t mean they’re giving you permission to go out to the cafeteria and tell everybody else in the school about this.
So what are we doing? We’re creating this space where we can actually have a conversation where people feel as though they might be able to open up to one another and practice listening to each other. And that’s where my work has been for the last eight, eight years is really spending time in those circles and asking silly student-led questions. And the more I sat in these circles and the more I went to schools and trained educators, trained teachers on doing these circles, what would happen? Well, some teachers would come back and go, this circle thing’s awesome. The students love it. And then other teachers would be like, this is a load of crap. It doesn’t work.
And I go, why? And just ask why and listen and ask why and listen. And as I asked why and listened, I always thought back to one of my favorite teachers of all time, who, if you asked me if she was my favorite teacher of all time when I was in her class, I would have said, Absolutely not. Mrs. Malars was my middle school math teacher and I was terrified of her. She scared the out of me. And I sat in there and she was so on the ball with math and probably the best math score I ever had in my life.
But it was because she was so energetic, so in your face. She taught like she coached, and she was a very good volleyball coach. And I was, okay, yep, yes, Miss Millars. And she ended up being my first boss when I got a job one day and was like that as a boss, too. And I learned, okay, this person has high expectations. They’re that’s a great type of teacher. If I asked her to facilitate a circle, I can see why some students would push back on that. Why? Because
If I’m saying these are guidelines and I’m not going to talk with you got it, I’m putting y’all in charge too. And that’s a really tough space for an educator to transition from being in charge of the room, which is a good thing. They’re the highest competency in the classroom when it comes to teaching math. But when it comes to this social emotional thing, if you showed up to a campfire and you said, Hey, raise your hand if you want to speak at this campfire, no one’s going to want to be there. So you got to be able to even out the hierarchy. And how I have done that is I started to train students. I started to train older students on facilitating these circles. And when it came to those younger grade levels, there was a switch because all of a sudden these students that were not into it, you’re all of a sudden dropping your cooler older kid in the room. And I wore my I haven’t worn this yet. I was planning on throwing my normal work polo on for the day. But I don’t know, you ever what’s your do you have a favorite sport? You ever play any sports or anything like that, Jake?
Jake White: I like basketball and volleyball the most. Yeah.
Pat Fish: So I have a jersey on that if you can tell me what team this is, I will be shocked.
Jake White: Well, I know they’re called the sharks, but I’ve never seen that jersey before.
Pat Fish: This is I I I was grabbing a polo from my closet and I was like, no, this is perfect for what I’m gonna talk to Jake about. Because this is a Jimmer Fred Shanghai Sharks jersey. Now, the Shanghai Sharks. Now, Jim or Ferdet, you grew up in Wisconsin. You probably have no idea who Jimmer Fred is. Maybe you do. I don’t know. But Jim or Ferdet was he played at BYU. He was the
NCAA player of the year when he was in college. Then he got drafted to the Kings. Things didn’t work out. He ended up in Shanghai, was the all-time leading scorer for the Shanghai Sharks. But Jimmer Ferdet went to a school right down the road from me. Now, when I was in fifth grade, I got Jimmer’s autograph on a napkin. Now think about it. He’s a high school senior and a fifth grader’s running up to him, like, dude, can you sign this? Now
I have stories with Jimmer. one time he was at a camp thing that I was at, and he let me be his partner for partner tag. And I got
I am the coolest fifth grader that’s ever existed. Because Jimmer was that cool to everybody in our area. Now, Jimmer was this amazing role model, great basketball player. For a while, I think he was New York State’s leading scorer. he was just this unbelievable player, could shoot from anywhere. He was Steph Curry before Steph Curry existed. Now
At one point after that game of partner tag, Jimmer said to You play basketball, right? I think he you’re a hooper, right? I’m like, Uh-huh. Yes, Mr. Jimmer. And he said to me, Make sure you work on that left hand too. That’s all he said. Now, when I tell you I showed up to my next basketball season and my coach was like, Pat, you’re right-handed. you can use it sometimes. I’m like, shut up, dude. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Jimmer told me to use my left hand. I’m using my left hand only because that’s what Jimmer said. And Jimmer is the man. Now Jimmer could have told me, dude, you know what’s cool? Cigarettes. And I would have went to Grandma Marge’s house and found the Marlborough Reds right underneath the butterscotch candies in fifth grade, and I would have lit one up, dude. Cause that’s how cool Jimmer was to me. And I think the the thing when it comes to drug prevention, the thing when it comes to other destructive decisions like self-harm, suicide, even preventing bullying, well, how do we change this?
You don’t change it by putting up a poster and saying we’re a drug free school. We’re a bullying free school. That’s not going to change anything.
You don’t change it from a one-off presentation. We don’t bully here. yeah, right. It’s always existed. It’s always gonna exist for all of human history, just like, just like drug uses, right? And the misuse of drugs will always exist. But how can we attack it? Well, take those people that have the potential of having a positive influence on the younger people around them who naturally look up to them.
And given them some purpose. And I think that’s where our programs align so heavily is that positive practice. Instead of it being something where we’re attacking kids that do drugs, look, if you’re a a young person that is battling with addiction of any kind, it’s why when I talk with young people, I’ve sat in circles and said, Hey, what’s your strategy for dealing with anxiety? I don’t have that conversation out of a judgment.
From me. I say, look, I stopped judging kids on this a long time ago. Because if you tell me that you pick your fingernails, I don’t think that’s looked at as a healthy way to deal with your anxiety. Probably not, right? It’s probably not good for your fingernails. But if it’s better than whatever you were doing beforehand, well, you’re on the right track. And I’m not going to villainize somebody, that young person who says, Well, you know, I I smoke weed. Okay. Thank you for being honest with me about that.
Hopefully we can start to put you in those peer groups with people that have a bez better positive influence over you. But I’m not going to villainize you because you’re a young person and you make a brash decision. Young people do that all the time, So for me, circle values is is about two things, and it is about sitting in circles and having conversations and listening, and then allowing young people to be leaders within their school community and really giving them the reins and the ownerships to the process.
And I think that aligns well with drug prevention because at the end of the day, there’s tons of studies that point to, big brother, big sister, why did that come into fruition? Well, there’s a lot of reasons, but one of them was these kids that were growing up in homes that had some really, really negative things going on around them needed a positive role model to look up to. So for the younger students, we’re doing that by putting, I like to call it the Breakfast Club when I talk to schools.
I had my first administrator that had never seen The Breakfast Club before this year and I was like, Okay, I’m getting old. Fair enough. I that’s a movie for me that was like an old movie, so I get it, but we want our our different peer groups where there’s leaders within each pocket of it, and we wanna take those leaders and we wanna give them ownership practice at the younger level, and then hopefully it rubs off in their own peer social networks as well.
The Role of Play and Fun in Learning
Jake White: That’s incredible. And I love what you said too, of like that when we are trying to curb a certain behavior, talking about the behavior is not going to do it. It’s it’s giving them something different to focus on and calling them to a higher purpose. One of my one of my favorite stories from our partnerships, and it just aligns with your sports one so much. Is it was in Arkansas, we went to one of these schools for the first time.
And we did a tour, a school tour in the region. And they were like, Jake, we want to start the peer-led clubs. That’s really important to us, not the one and done. So we’re like, cool. That’s a this is our favorite. And so we did the schools, they started the clubs. and we just get them in a first project, right? It’s not like, hey, go change the world. It’s just, hey, what can you do in the next 30 days? they’re gonna work together and they do it. And what’s fun is since we work with them year after year, we get to see the growth. And we just hosted our our statewide prevention and leadership camp in Arkansas. And it was the first like external state besides Arizona. So it was so fun to see like those students were leading sessions because they have a club of over a hundred student leaders, and their big thing is exactly what you mentioned.
Is like, how can we call these student athletes or these leaders? They’re often seen as leaders, student athletes are. So how can we call them to be a part of it? And they actually visit the middle schools and the upper elementary grades during recess to play sports with them and to have a discussion, which I’m learning from you is like they’re just having a circle, right? And so they’re using these skills and it’s completely transforming not only the young people’s lives, but but also, well, now these
These leaders have something more to live up to as well and to protect their good decisions and their investments that they’re making in themselves with grades and school and leadership and all those things. So it’s it’s trickling across the community and it’s trickling farther and farther into these students’ lives. and it and Pat, if I can ask you like the the I think the only thing I’m missing here to understand your your program the most as I could is.
When someone is having an issue, is it a school administrator? Is it, is it somebody that says, Hey Pat, I’m struggling with this? Can you come help me with circles? Or like, what’s the main challenge that people are coming to you with? Because I see circles and these activities as kind of like a an overall prevention tool in a way. are people hurting when they come to you, or is it like a positive thing that just wanna invest in their culture?
How do people usually approach you when they when they want to work together?
How Schools Approach Circle and Prevention Programs
Pat Fish: So restorative practices is something that came into fruition years ago. And I think like with any other program as we’ve discussed, sometimes people go, yeah, we love it. And other times schools don’t really buy into it or love it. And one of the things that I’ll say to schools is like, look, it depends how you roll it out, right? And circles is looked at often as a restorative practice. And can you use it in a way that, hey, somebody did something mean to someone else on the playground?
Let’s talk about these things. Sure, you can use it in that way. But for me, that prevention side of things is building a community. And when it comes to building a community, these conversations can stem in a whole lot of different directions. And you start with perspective taking, you move on into emotional sharing. And a lot of times people go, Well, what do you like? Are we going to talk about sad stuff? Sometimes, but
I’ve found emotional sharing can be sharing laughter with each other too. How do you meet your best friends? Well, usually you pick them because they’re fun and you like to be around them. And then you work your way into the last stage of empathy building, which is compassion, which isn’t an empathy at all. That’s actually acting upon it and being there for someone else when they’re going through something difficult. So for me, circle is the best way to do that. And that’s nothing that I invented. That’s nothing that anyone alive invented. They’ve been around for
As long as human beings have been sitting around fires. They sit and they listen to one another. And when a school comes to me, the two schools that I’m in this year that I have a weekly visit for, I’m in their school once a week throughout the entire school year. one of them came to me because they already have a program going where the older kids go down and work with K through two and they read to them, which is awesome.
Okay, how can we expand that into that third through six where
Whether it’s the bullying behavior starts to tick up a little bit, or just the social peer pressure starts to tick up a little bit, where we can get some of these older kids having a positive influence on them in that light. Now that school already has its values, its core values chosen. They go down and they read to them about character. They go down and they read to them about responsibility and trust. those are great things. But I have another school that
We went through and did it a full discovery process this year. The students voted, the staff voted, the parents voted, the community voted. We got input from everybody that we can to choose these five values that the older kids are going to be working on with the younger students. Now, for me, why am I so, hey, pick your It’d be silly of me to assume that I know what your community culture values most down in Arizona, Jake. I just don’t.
But what I do know is that this stuff works. And at the end of the day, whatever they’re talking about, if you put them in a positive environment, look, you can’t tell me that no, we don’t want to teach our young people that it’s important to be honest. We don’t want to teach our young people that it’s important to be accountable. You pick, I’m telling schools, look, if you have your set values chosen as a school, why not find a way to actually teach it to young people in a way that is evidence-based because
Mixed-age learning is not something that’s new either. For all of human history, younger mammals have looked up to slightly older mammals and wanted to be like them because they thought they were cool. And now we have young people that are battling against what’s cool on these things. And look, don’t get me wrong, there is a slew of positive stuff that can be seen on social media, but there’s also quite a bit of negative stuff.
And I’m a fan of rap music. I love it. I always have loved rap music. I’ve loved it since I was younger. Lil Wayne is my all-time great rapper and he’s awesome. However, some of the lyrics, if truly listened to, probably aren’t super beneficial when it comes to drug prevention.
No, they’re not. But here’s the thing. If we have young people only looking up to these people, then it’s not good.
We need to put these positive influences on them in a space where they’re allowed to be positive. Because look, sports isn’t something that is uniformed as a positive when it comes to mixed aging. I think it there’s plenty of studies. I I believe it is marijuana use goes down as far as young people being involved in sports, but alcohol use is seen as the same as the general population. Well, that’s not great.
Right. You’d think your student athletes would be held to a higher standard and and not be participating in that stuff. But I can come from somebody I got moved up on the lacrosse team when I was in eighth grade. Guess when I saw my first beer opened and drank by a senior on my lacrosse team when I was in eighth grade. that’s not a good thing. So finding ways to put young people around positive older influences in a space that we have control over. Right. There are educators in the building there are people like myself, there are counselors that are watching this space. Are we gonna have an older kid go down that is going down to teach them really terrible things? No. But I’ve found that when you take that kid that you look at as a bad apple and doesn’t pay attention in class and is a troublemaker, they take on the responsibility of being a positive role model to these younger people just as much as the other students do. And when they go down there, even if they’re switching it off for a little while.
And acting out a role, well, guess what? That’s acting out habits. And when you go down and you teach a lesson to younger people about holding yourself accountable, well, maybe something rubs off from when you teach something, it a little bit better. And maybe, just maybe, when you get into your own life, you go, well, it’s really hard for me to teach this to a younger person and not at least think about the way that I’m acting on it myself. So that’s the idea.
Embedding Values and Positive Influences in School Culture
Jake White: That’s big. Man, Pat, this has been a cool conversation. I feel I honestly just feel really affirmed talking to you. with your your background and what you’re building, it’s it’s really exciting to learn about. If people are like, Hey, I wanna check out what you’re up to. they wanna check out your program, where can they go?
Resources and How to Connect with Pat Fish
Pat Fish: So if anyone is interested, circlevalues.com on there, we have plenty of ways that you can reach out and contact me. there’s also a free facilitator app. One of the things that I felt really bad about in leaving my last position was I traveled around to different schools all over. And that’s why I said, look, you can’t find somebody that’s done more of these circles in any school if you look for them, because I was, you know seven, eight periods out of the school day having a different small group come in and facilitate circles every day for seven or eight years, living out of holiday ends, you know how that goes.
Pat Fish: One of the things I felt bad about is some of those teachers who loved having me come in for circles. I’m like, look, I’m not gonna be back in your building. I just don’t think it’s the way that things are going to work because I have these schools that I’m gonna be at more regularly. so I created an app that a teacher can go on and click a value that they wanna
talk about with their students. A game will pop up along with four or five questions. It’s completely free. It’s just an idea. It’s not anything that I think is gonna be the next Facebook or anything like that. It’s much more just a tool or a resource that again, if an educator uses it, that is a strong educator that can
really get their students to buy in. It’s gonna go awesome. But I’m sure there’s plenty of educators that if they look at it, it’ll be trash and I’ll go, Yep, you’re probably right. It is. It’s all depending on how you use the tool,
Jake White: Yeah. Well, that’s awesome. Don’t don’t sell yourself short. The people will enjoy it. And right, it’s not for everybody, but we we make these things for the people that want to use them. So I’ve I’ve loved seeing your posts. I checked out the app. I was clicking on your links on your Instagram page. It’s it’s linked there. and once again, everybody, circlevalues.com. check it out. You can reach Pat there. This has been awesome. As for everybody listening.
Y’all, thank you for being in this field. Thank you for being an educator, for being a part of young people’s lives. You are truly making a difference. Please reach out to us if you need any help getting youth involved. Please reach out to Pat if you need help creating these school environments. one thing I saw on his program website is it’s custom built. So if you’re in the New York area, definitely reach out to him. And I’m sure Pat, you’re so nice. So, like I just sent you a message and you actually responded.
so if people just want to chat, go to his website, check him out. Pat, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show, man.
Pat Fish: Appreciate you greatly, Jake. And don’t be a stranger. I I know I’ve been on your show and you’re now one time, but if you ever want to talk, not on the podcast and just have a conversation, feel free to hit me up, man. It was really nice meeting you.
Jake White: Definitely. And stay on just for a second, Pat. We’ll we’ll let the the thing download. And for everyone else that’s listening, we’ll see you next Monday for another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.
