Why does it do that?

Every time I select something and try and use the push/pull tool it will deselect anything I had selected I am using sketchup for schools

Can you show a screen shot of what you are selecting? If you are selecting more than a single face, SketchUp will deselect it all because it will only work on a single face.

sure i’ll take one

That’s different from what you wrote in your original post.

With Follow Me it is normal that the selected edges deselect when you get the Follow Me tool. Just go ahead and click on the profile. Follow Me has remembered the path you selected.

well it does it with push pull also but every time I select the rectangle it says it’s not a valid path

Again, if you’ve selected more than a single face, Push/Pull will deselect everything because it only works on a single face.

You need to select the path you want Follow Me to follow. Then get the Follow Me tool and click on the face that is the profile of what you want to extrude.

let me get screen rec real quick of what it does

nvm it wont let me put in the video but I select the rectangle abd it says not a valid path the person in the video is using the sketchup app they select the parts I selected then wit hthe follow me tool clicked on the rectangle and it made that path which I showed in the screenshot of that video

I don’t know why but several of your posts got flagged. In any case, you need to select the path first. Normally that would be edges, not a face

so I would use the select tool and highlight the edges in the direction I want it to go?

For FollowMe, yes. Select the path, then start the FollowMe tool, the path selection will be remembered but appears to deselect. Then click on the face you want to extrude.

For PushPull you select a single face, then start the Pushpull tool. Or start the PushPull tool, hover over a single face to select it, click to start the pushpull action, and click again (or type a distance) for the end of the pushpull operation.

Tap the Ctrl key (Windows) or Option/Alt key (Mac) to toggle on or off whether to keep the original face if it is part of a larger face. With no toggle, the pushed face will in effect Move leaving a hole in the face surrounding it. Toggled on, the face will be duplicated (and usually reversed).

Possibly these videos will help:
FollowMe Tool
FollowMe Tool #2

and more from Sketchup:
The Learning Center

These are all by the Sketchup Team

ok thank you!

ill take a look