An Interview With Jake Frankel
Love unconditionally- refrain from judgment and from rescuing them from every setback. Allowing kids to ‘fail safely’ builds resilience and competence for greater confidence.
School is really not easy these days. Many students have been out of school for a long time because of the pandemic, and the continued disruptions and anxieties are still breaking the flow of normal learning. What can parents do to help their children thrive and excel in school, particularly during these challenging and anxiety-provoking times?
To address this, we started a new series called ‘5 Things Parents Can Do To Help Their Children Thrive and Excel In School.” In this interview series, we are talking to teachers, principals, education experts, and successful parents to learn from their insights and experiences.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ramita Anand.
Ramita Anand is a visionary educator, author, and podcast host dedicated to empowering young individuals. As the founder of Elevate.RA Mentoring Services, Ramita draws on nearly two decades of international teaching experience and her role as the Department Head of Learning Support and Enrichment at top UK academic institutions. Her mentoring program focuses on building confidence, resilience, empathy, emotional intelligence, and kindness in tweens and teens, offering proactive support during their formative years. Through Elevate.RA, Ramita is helping young people navigate challenges and thrive both academically and personally.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us a bit about your “backstory”?
I grew up in Vancouver, Canada in a multicultural society but still felt different to my friends who did not have the same immigrant parents making a life for their family in a new place while holding on to their Indian roots. I very sadly lost my mother at age 13 to cancer, and my high school days felt quite tough as I learned to navigate my way through the changes.
Since graduating from university, with a Science and Special Educational Needs specialization I have lived and taught in London, New York and Singapore and loved learning about new places and people along the way. I have two teens, my youngest having a neurodiverse learning condition. Motherhood has also been a ride but also my greatest teacher.
With 20 years of classroom teaching experience, and corporate experience working in communications for pharmaceuticals, I landed back in education and spent seven years of my teaching career as the head of learning support departments working with children who have learning differences at various schools worldwide.
Four years ago, I set up ElevateRA, one of the first educational ventures that seeks to address the global teen mental health crisis using preventative measures. I work to design, write, research, implement and execute the growing aspects this platform provides to families, schools and organizations working with young folks. These include a mentorship program, podcast, newsletters, articles and blogs, a book, school curriculum, workshops, parent and corporate webinars.
The bespoke mentorship programmed is composed of eight customized mentoring sessions designed to help girls tackle whatever problem is holding them back. From social anxieties to school performance concerns, girls in the ElevateRA programmed are given dedicated tools and resources to develop their own solutions to these complex issues.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Supporting children with additional challenges. I was inspired after my son, now aged 14, was diagnosed with Autism at age four. Working through his development cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically has taught me so much about neurodiversity and nurturing the mental and emotional well-being of our children. No matter their makeup, it is crucial for parents and educators to champion every child.
We must encourage them to pursue their dreams while keeping their confidence up. Because of this conviction, my personal experience as a mother, and subsequent professional research and development of new methods, the mission to support children in their hardest years of transition has become a passion. I had zero experience or exposure to learning differences before I became a teacher and then when it hit me as a parent, I truly realized the beauty and potential we can unleash in children with the correct support.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Always, from ever inspiring Michelle Obama — “When they go low, we go high.” This has been my go-to mantra during many of my mentoring sessions with teen and tween girls who have felt somehow let down or unfairly treated, sometimes by those they felt close to. The pain can understandably cause emotional reactions from teens which they might regret later on, and this quote has helped my delivery with teaching girls the value of taking the higher ground, engaging in behaviors that show them working and living life in higher frequency vibes.
I apply this same principle to my own day-to-day life also. Moving out of my comfort zone to set up my own entrepreneurial venture has meant that I have faced rejection, judgment and critical feedback from others which can be difficult. This quote reminds me not to dwell or fester in anything that doesn’t serve me and to let go of relationships that may not be there to uplift you, but rather might see you as competition or a threat. It has provided me with a greater appreciation for people who do show up for me and celebrate my success.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Empathy, passion, and commitment.
I feel so much empathy for teen and tween girls trying to find their way in the world and living up to a set of (usually unrealistic) expectations that can be detrimental to one’s own well-being. I found my own teen years especially tricky as mentioned earlier, and also not fitting into any standards of beauty in the 80s and 90s meant I had no real role models in the Western world to look up to anyone I felt I could relate to as a first generation child of immigrants.
The load of weight of trying to be and look a certain way has only been exacerbated in recent years with the introduction of oversharing on social media that feeling low and ‘not good enough’ has made the self-confidence issue in teens so much worse. I share the pain many parents must feel when trying to support their young girls and understand how crucial it is to help their girls and parents/careers not to feel alone in this.
The empathy and passion I have for rewiring and changing the brain’s pathways to develop a positive, can-do mindset comes from my own experiences raising my neuro diverse son, whose physician told me he may never speak. This revelation shook me to my core, and I worked tirelessly with professionals to ensure we worked on the science of neuroplasticity to help him learn the vital skills he needs to live his life.
My commitment to ensuring all girls are taught to think about things from new perspectives and develop resilience to further their own development in meaningful ways with self-belief is what has allowed the business to grow and expand into schools, organizations and families internationally.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I am always planning new things and thinking of ways to get the Elevate message to as many young girls as possible. We are currently exploring opportunities to grow our podcast and work with more organizations with collaborations and schools to get the well-being of young folks at optimum levels!
For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit about why you are an authority on how to help children succeed in school?
I am one of only a handful of educators who is working on ways to preventatively equip young adolescent folks with the skills that they will need throughout their lives. Unlike the more traditional methods of reacting to problems and issues after hardships/events or difficulties occur, it is my view to be more proactive with our pupils when they are in their most impressionable stage of development through to adulthood. I believe in providing pre-adolescent pupils with a strong foundation that includes the tools for them to draw from when required.
By laying the groundwork in the time of development that our children’s brains are re-forming during adolescence allows us to take advantage of making strong neurological connections that can help young folks thrive with self-belief and a growth mindset to take on whatever is thrown at them. Teens are struggling now more than ever with their mental well-being, and currently, the approach is to help and support them reactively, which can often be too late.
As a society, we have embraced preventative medicine, and in the same vein, I believe our girls can benefit from being taught strategies that will assist them to face challenges with greater confidence and poise, which makes ElevateRA unique. The lesson plans designed by ElevateRA are all based on best practices and research from leading professors, psychologists, and scientists who have proven that the skills in mindset shifting and self-belief come from the work we put into our brains.
Tween brains are evolving and reconstructing at a rapid rate and offering them impactful tools and strategies during this time in their development can show meaningful long-term results. By helping them embrace the skills to deal with challenges and setbacks with a growth mindset, our girls can make long-lasting neurological connections that will set them up for future success.
My own journey towards growth has taught me to persevere. I have also learned how to use education, honesty and exploration to keep myself grounded, full of the strength and optimism necessary to face each day with new courage. I hope that my personal experience and stories of evolution and discovery will help girls recognise their potential and inherent self-worth.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. Can you help articulate the main challenges that students face today that make it difficult to succeed in school?
There seems to be an immense amount of pressure pupils either put on themselves or inherit from societal/parental expectations to feel worthy and successful in multiple areas. The pressure seems to stem from a multitude of facets including academic, social, emotional and the state of current affairs (from climate change to current wars).
Students are trying very hard to achieve a level of perfectionism across a landscape where so much is artificially curated and competition is fierce. Therefore, their minds are distracted and filled with anxiety about their futures, and their ability to ‘succeed.’ Many students are also defining their worth from test scores or the number of likes on a TikTok video over their ability to show compassion and kindness even to themselves.
In addition, although there seems to be a greater degree of neurodiversity awareness and diagnosis among students, the training and support within schools and their staff has not matched the growing need enough. Many students are being left behind or not accounted for within the demanding day of school life to ensure they will flourish with the appropriate interventions.
It is also worth noting that the pleasure of learning from a place of curiosity has been overtaken by the need to attain certain grades or GPAs in order to ‘make it.’ Fear of ‘failure’ as viewed by our students is overtaking the joy of taking in new information from a place of inquisition and interest. The process of learning is much more important than a given test result or acceptance into a top institute. We are raising students to put greater emphasis on the outcome than the journey which in my opinion is the wrong way around.
Can you suggest a few reforms that you think schools should make to help students to thrive and excel?
Greater time spent on mental fitness, and learning to improve and enhance EQ not just IQ will make a massive difference in helping students thrive and excel. When a strong foundation of wellness and self-belief is taught with a growth mindset, students build and maintain healthy relationships with others but most importantly with themselves. If this aspect of their development becomes secure, achieving great results in school is inevitable.
If schools spend time investing in these life skills, improved social and academic success is bound to occur!
Here is our primary question. Can you please share your “5 Things Parents Can Do To Help Their Children Thrive and Excel In School?” Please share a story or example for each.
- Encourage open and honest communication, making no topic off-limits.
- Be present- actively listen and show interest in their interests and their lives.
- Love unconditionally- refrain from judgment and from rescuing them from every setback. Allowing kids to ‘fail safely’ builds resilience and competence for greater confidence.
- Let’s not compare our kids to anyone other than themselves.
- Set and reset your markers of success, and allow your children to unleash their own hidden potential without any pressure or expectation from you.
As you know, teachers play such a huge role in shaping young lives. What would you suggest needs to be done to attract top talent to the education field?
Teachers are increasingly under scrutiny to deliver much more than just the curriculum. Their role has evolved to encompass the growing need to deal with mental health concerns, special needs, and the growing pressure from governing bodies to produce top results. They are struggling to keep up with the amount of work they are responsible for and are not compensated financially for the huge amount of time and energy they invest in our future generations.
To make the profession appealing, we need to demonstrate greater value in the work they do both financially but also with enough support staff and increased budgets to support the growing needs and demands placed on teachers. Greater care and attention to pupils is only provided when ratios of teacher to pupils are realistic and achievable.
Therefore smaller class sizes, greater investment in support staff and effective use of tools such as AI can make a big difference if we provide our teachers with the correct training, these can all be hugely beneficial.
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Michelle and Barack Obama, and Oprah, if I can be greedy! I know I have said three names here… sorry! If they can’t make it, I am hugely keen on meeting Amal Clooney for all she is doing to support the vulnerable also.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can follow my work on my website www.elevate-ra.com or connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok.
Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!
Ramita Anand On The 5 Things Parents Can Do To Help Their Children Thrive and Excel In School was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.