Principals

Mark Brown – Assistant Principal and Author

About Mark Brown

As a high school administrator, Mark Brown (@heymarkbrown) is passionate about helping educators and students live life as their best selves and challenges everyone to embrace the call of Choose To Be You.

Using his experience as a learner, an educator, and as someone who has spent the majority of his life chasing an image of someone and something other than his true, authentic self, Mark delivers a message of hope and inspiration that is guaranteed to impact your life and your school!

Connect with Mark: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Choose To Be You

Mark’s Personal Website

Oklahoma Christian University

Virtual Pep Rally Ideas to Boost School Spirit

Hardball

Google Forms

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. Welcome to season number 2. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. We’re continuing to have this year, amazing conversations with educators all around the world and I’m super excited to introduce you to today’s guest. Today we had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Brown. Mark is a high school administrator and he’s passionate about helping educators and students to live their best lives.

Sam Demma (01:03):
And he challenges everyone to embrace the call of choose to be you, which is actually the title of his own book. It’s a mental health book and it’s, it’s a phenomenal read as I’ve heard from a lot of other educators. Using his experience as a learner and educator, and as someone who has spent the majority of his life chasing an image of someone and something other than his true authentic self, mark delivers a message of hope and inspiration that is guaranteed to impact your life and your school. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed chatting with Mark. Welcome to season 2. I will see you on the other side of today’s conversation. Mark, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast, huge pleasure to have you on the show. Can you start by introducing yourself, and maybe explaining how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today?

Mark Brown (01:47):
Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be here and excited to get to share a little bit with you today and your listeners. So my name’s Mark Brown. I am a high school assistant principal down in Newberg, Oregon. So out in the, on the west coast, in the beautiful Northwest down here. I also coach basketball; have a huge passion around coaching and that’s actually a lot of what got me into education was coaching. But I think the main reason why I do the work that I do is because I believe that being an educator truly is the most important job in the world. And even though I am not actively, you know, every day engaging in life saving research like cancer research or you know, doing crazy big jobs that people, you know, often get a lot of recognition for,

Mark Brown (02:36):
I have the opportunity to mentor and impact young people, and I get to work with students when they are truly in the most important, most formal years of their life, where they’re searching for their identity, where they’re trying to figure out what their truth is, where they’re trying to identify, like what is gonna be my future. And I get, have a part in that. And so I really truly believe that’s the most important job in the world. And it gives me energy and excitement every single day. Like there’s a lot of to-dos with education and there’s a lot of, you know, stuff that we get kind of wrapped up in. But when I stay centered on that fact that I get to work with kids who are truly, you know, preparing to make a difference in this world, like the fact that I gotta be a part of that just, I, I get super excited about that.

Sam Demma (03:21):
Ah, I love that. And tell me more about coaching. How did that all start for you and has it been a big, huge part of education? It sounds like it has been,

Mark Brown (03:31):
Oh yeah. I, I, I think a lot of what I do as an educational leader now as an administrator is rooted in what I’ve learned through coaching and, and I’m in a really special situation, blessed that my my principal, my lead principal has still allowed me to coach a lot of times, you know, when you move from teaching into administration, it’s kinda like, all right, you gotta stop any of that extracurricular co-curricular stuff, but I’ve been blessed to have a supportive principal who lets me still coach. And so, yeah, it started back when in college I I’ve always loved sports. I’ve never been that good at competing in sports. I’m not very athletic, you know, I’m, you can’t tell cuz we’re doing audio here, but I’m a pretty small guy about five, five. But my sported choice is basketball. And you know, I, I think a lot of it for me, it kind of started, I’m a real stubborn person.

Mark Brown (04:18):
My mom has always said I’m were stubborn. And so a lot of people were like, you can’t play basketball. You’re only five, five, but I was like, yeah, right, bring it on. I can do whatever I want to do. And so I think that’s kind of what started me down the path of having basketball as my sport of choice. But I got into it. I started as a student assistant coach at Oklahoma Christian university from there was a able to get on here in, at Newberg high school, right outta college about 10 years ago, 11 years ago, and then worked my way up to being a JV coach. And then now the varsity head coach and you know, they’re just, again what we do on the court. That’s fun, that’s exciting. The strategy, getting to game plan, you know, and compete strategically for basketball.

Mark Brown (05:02):
But every day there’s opportunities to learn life lessons through basketball and through competing and through practice and through the preparation. And so I just love the opportunity to get to not only coach basketball, a game that I love and be involved with that strategically from a sports side of things. But more importantly, like again, I get to work kids, young men who are excited about basketball and I get to help them be excited about life. And one of the missions that I have as a coach is, you know, I want to put a quality product on the court, but more than that, actually in my book, I talk about chasing titles. Yeah. And for me, it used to be about chasing those titles. You know, of the banners that we would hang on the wall of the gym or, you know, chasing those wins that would on the scoreboard.

Mark Brown (05:46):
And I quickly learned that my job is to chase the titles of, for, for my players in the future titles that they are gonna hold. And you know, not many of my players go on to play college basketball. Not many of them are gonna have a future in competing professionally, but they’re all gonna be dads. They’re all gonna be husbands. They’re all gonna be employees. They’re all gonna be leaders within the communities that they establish their selves in. And I gotta be a part of helping to shape and mold and mentor them in, in being prepared for that. So again, I, I love coaching. It’s a great opportunity and I, I just love basketball more than anything.

Sam Demma (06:20):
And at what point in your own career journey, did you know I’m gonna work in education? I know coaching and athletics was a big part of your life, but making the decision to work in a school is a big one. And you have to be a very specific type of person to always want to work with students and young people. And it’s clear that you have that passion, but I’m curious to know when you personally knew that that was your calling or your future career.

Mark Brown (06:45):
So I knew I always wanted to coach. I always, you know, I always had that desire to be a coach. Yep. But I didn’t go into college initially thinking I was gonna be, become an educator. I wanted to initially actually I thought I was gonna do sports medicine. Nice. But I quickly learned if you’re the athletic trainer, if you’re on the sports medicine side of things, your schedule doesn’t really align with being able to coach because you have to be there to support all the sports. And so you really don’t have the freedom to then coach most of the time. And so I quickly realized that and I, I knew I wanted to coach. That was something I, I knew I needed to do. And I had some good mentors in college. My first couple of years who really helped me understand like the best path to being able to coach is through teaching and being an educator.

Mark Brown (07:29):
But more than that, they helped me understand that in order to be a successful coach, I needed to understand teaching. I needed to understand how to educate and how to teach, because I think, you know, one of the things I’ve come to learn is guys who can strategize, who can drop the X and OS of basketball. They’re a dime dozen. Like there, there are a lot of people who are very successful, but the real successful coaches are the ones who understand how to teach and how to connect with kids. And you learn that through becoming an educator. And a lot of us, you know, a lot of educators, we kind to have that innately ingrained into us. It’s kind of part of our DNA. And then we learn some of the strategies, the tips and tricks but really understand teaching and pedagogy and how to connect with kids has really allowed me, I believe to be a much more successful coach.

Sam Demma (08:14):
And you briefly alluded to the fact that there’s so many life lessons that we learned through the sport, and I’m sure you’ve seen so much transformation happen in your own life and your students life due to the game of basketball. I’m curious to know, I’m tempted to call you coach Carter, but we’ll call you coach Bown. I’m curious to know what are some of those life lessons that you drill into your athletes that other educators listening should consider also teaching to their own students, whether they’re on a basketball court or not.

Mark Brown (08:44):
Yeah. So, you know, I think anytime you are competing in sports, you wanna win. Yeah. And I think, you know, I, I, I think that’s a good thing having that competitive drive, that competitive fire and, and wanting to win. I think that’s why we play sports. If that, if, if I didn’t have that drive, I would just go shoot hoops in my, in my backyard by myself, but I want to compete. And so I want to win, but I think if we put all of our value in just the fact that winning is the only way to be successful in sports, I think we limit the opportunity that we have to learn and grow through sports. Mm. And so for me, one of the things I’ve really learned early on in my coaching career, it was all about the wins. And if I lost a game, I, I went home and I didn’t sleep that night.

Mark Brown (09:26):
And I watched film. I watched the game two, three times before my next practice, you know, stayed up all night and drove my wife crazy. You know, but I, I was, so I had to figure out what was wrong and why we weren’t witty and what I’ve come to learn. And I now try to really coach my players on is the fact that it’s okay to wanna win. And we should all have that desire. We should all have that drive, but that’s not the measure of our success. If we, we step on that court and we give our best effort. And if we do everything with the right attitude and doing things the right way, doing things, you know, in a way that people can respect. And if we make sure that we have good sportsmanship, I believe there’s three things in life that we can control, having a great attitude, even our absolute best effort and making, treat other people the right way. If we do those three things, we cannot fail. The scoreboard might not always be in our favor and we might lose some games, but we can step off that court being confident in knowing that we did things the right way, we gave our absolute best effort and people can respect that out of us, regardless of whether, what the score. And so I think that’s a big life lesson that I’ve really learned over the years in coaching and that I really try to pass on to my, my other coaches and my players.

Sam Demma (10:45):
And even if it’s not on the basketball field, every person is technically playing their own game, which is life. You can look at life like its own field or choose your field. Maybe one field is academics, the field as athletics. And I think what you just explained is such a beautiful analogy because you can define success in each of those areas and make sure you’re showing up and the score takes care of itself. There’s a great book about that. And I think it’s, I think it’s really true in your experience, teaching and coaching, have you in some transformations of students and is there any that you think are worth sharing? And the reason I’m asking is because there might be another educator listening right now, who’s extremely burnt out. Who’s maybe on the edge of even quitting their, this job and this calling. Cause I don’t even wanna call it a job. And a story of transformation might be the thing that, that reminds them, how important the work they’re doing is, and gets them over that hump to, to keep going. And if it’s a yeah, serious one also feel free to change their name for privacy reasons.

Mark Brown (11:46):
Yeah. No, I’ll definitely use other names. So I have, yeah. Oh man. That’s a, that’s a good question. That’s a tough one. Cuz there’s lots of good stories and that’s one thing I think all educators can, can love about this job is every day there’s something new and you know, we could all by the end of our career, write a big long book of all the, the different stories and transformations. But I think the, the, the one that really sticks out to me is I, I had a, it was actually my first year as a head coach and it’s a story of transformation, not just around one student individually, but actually around my team. Hmm. And this, this group of young men, every year of high school, they had had a different coach. Well actually there was one coach. The coach prior to me was there for two years.

Mark Brown (12:36):
But they growing up through the youth programs and everything. I was the, the fifth head coach in six years. So there was no continuity in the program. But this group of young men, even through all the turmoil, E even through all of the changes and the unknowns and the frustrations that came with that for they stuck together. And what happened during their senior year, one of the most, the, the biggest tragedies that I’ve ever experienced in my educational career we, we lost one of our, our students. We lost one of our young men to suicide. Wow. And he was actually a cousin of a couple of the players on my team and best friends with most, all the players on my team. And he was in, in kind of the inner circle, even being on the team himself. And I, it, it AB it, it hits that team incredibly hard, right in the middle of our season.

Mark Brown (13:28):
In fact, we found out about it. We had just had our, our first league game. It was against one of our rivals. It was our first game in a new league. And we had won on the road. We came back and we celebrated, we all went out to pizza. And then later that night we get the call about this student and his, that he had died. And I didn’t know what to do. I was a young coach. I was like 24 years old. I wasn’t sure what my role in all of this was. And what I, I saw in that experience was because this group had already been so close, been so United, stuck together through all of the, the turmoil and all of the, the stuff that they had already been through over the past several years, they were prepared for this.

Mark Brown (14:13):
And I didn’t have to have the right thing to say. And that’s what a lot of educators feel. A lot of pressure we feel is we don’t have the answers. And especially right now with COVID right, we don’t necessarily have the answers. We don’t have to have the answers. We just have to be there. We just have to be there to listen. We just have to be there to hug. ’em When they need a hug, we just have to be there to provide what they need. And they will tell us, even without directly telling us, these are the things I need. They will tell us through their behaviors. They will tell us through their emotions. They will tell us they will show us what they need. And as long as we are there, as long as we show up, and again, we give our best effort and we, we love on them and we support them.

Mark Brown (14:51):
Like there there’s been absolutely nothing better for me in my career than that experience. Although it was absolute tragedy and still to this day impacts me. It was a great reminder to me on the fact that our kids are resilient and I have an opportunity to help support them through whatever they’re going through. And just that transformation of this, you know, maybe that wasn’t the transformation story you were thinking of, but that transformation of this group of kids who had so many things go against them in life, the fact they stuck together, they supported one another, like what a great example to me and what a great lesson for me to learn and has helped me then, and focus that much more on helping my students, helping my players find ways to stay connected and grow together as, as, as a community, because that community is so important.

Sam Demma (15:41):
Wow. What a story that is such a great story. There’s there’s a movie about a baseball team and the coaches piano Reeves, and it’s a very similar story. That’s team comes together and they’re not doing well. And midway through as they start improving, one of the players actually passes away and it’s, it’s funny. Something very similar happens in the movie and all the kids come together and they end up winning. Not that it’s about winning or losing, but you’re the real life story of the movie. So that’s a really, that’s a really touching story. And I hope everyone listening is thinking about how they can help their students also feel more connected to each other, you know, right now is a challenging time, like you mentioned, and I’m curious to know how do you ensure your students and teams and anyone in the school is, is feeling appreciated, valued, heard, and connected despite the, the challenges of the pandemic.

Mark Brown (16:29):
Yeah, I think that’s definitely one of the challenges we’re facing as educators in a school rules right now is how do we connect with kids? How do we reach them? How do we make sure they have what they need? Because it’s kinda, it, it’s easy when, well, it’s, it’s not easy, but it’s easier when we’re in the building and they’re walking the halls and we can, you can tell when they’re having an off day, you can tell when they’re having a bad day and a lot of times when we’ve built those relationships, kids will stop by your room. And just, you know, you can, you just kind of know when they need a little bit of extra time, a little bit of extra love, a little bit of extra attention, but right now we don’t have that opportunity. And so what we’re doing, we’re watching obviously the big things of grades and attendance in the virtual classrooms.

Mark Brown (17:06):
And those are a lot of times our identifiers to us that maybe something’s going on, if grades start dropping or attendance start dropping, but we’re reaching out. We at our school this year, I’m super excited. We several years ago, got rid of, kind of that homeroom advisory where there’s kind of that one, you know, that core group of students that is with an educator all year long, we got rid of that. We brought it back this year because we knew that we needed everyone to kind of have a home, a home base, a spot to check in. And we, we started the year, went through the first couple of months. And then what we started doing a couple weeks ago is during that time, instead of like the group of 15 students meeting with that educator, we actually scheduled one-on-one individual meetings. So all 1400 kids in our high school got a one on one individual meeting with an educator that they already have a relationship built with just to check in. And we had kind of a we used a Google form, a standard set of questions that we asked everyone, cuz we wanted to get some data kind of like how, you know, distance learning going, what can we as a school do to improve of what’s your experience like, but then educated, you know, and I did it with my students. I have a group of students that I gotta meet with. It led into like a long conversation of just checking in with each other. And it was so cool that even in this virtual

Mark Brown (18:22):
Setting, we were still able to find that connection point and still able to build those relationships. And so, you know, one of the things I encourage is whatever you can do you to again, look for ways to build that community. We did that in our homeroom. We call it tiger time cuz we’re the Newberg tigers. So we call it our tiger time and everyone knows that there’s nothing academic there. There’s no great associated with that class. It’s just a time to check in. We do a lot of, you know, character development, social, emotional learning. We do some fun things. We do some like virtual pep rallies. We have ’em coming up on Monday that we do nice. But then we also created those opportunities for that more intimate one-on-one checkin. And so that’s something we’re trying to do is still find ways to have that, that, that more informal check in that we often get in the classroom setting, just kind of by happenstance. We’re looking for ways to create those opportunities.

Sam Demma (19:07):
I love that the Google form is such a simple tool to use. And if any educators listening, if you’re listening, give it a try, maybe try scheduling those one-on-one meetings. I’m curious to know in your own personal experience, you said they led to much longer conversations and lots of dialogue, but overall, how did the students, how do students feel about those one-on-ones with you?

Mark Brown (19:27):
Oh, I think they love it. You know, I, I think they, they, they feel like we care. Yeah. That I think as, especially a lot of the time when we’re in the virtual classroom, it’s easy to get lost. And even though our class numbers are actually smaller, we were able to set it up. So in all of our, you know, classes, we have no more than about 15, 16 students per class, which is a great class size. But it’s really easy to not say anything and to turn your camera off and just kind of get lost in the crowd. Yeah. But when you’re one on one, like you can’t be silent, you gotta talk. Right. And so I think it’s, it’s forcing some of them to come outta their share a little shell a little bit, but more than that, you know, I, I know students, they showed up on time for that meeting.

Mark Brown (20:09):
Like they were eager to get, to have a conversation and know that someone was there to listen. One of my good friends and mentors, Philip Campbell, PC, his big thing is, you know, all students want to, they want to feel seen. They want to be heard and they want to feel loved. Yeah. And you know, I think by us setting up those one-on-one meetings, like students felt seen, they felt like we were listening to them. They felt heard and they felt loved because we just sat there and listened and got to, got to connect. And so I think they loved it.

Sam Demma (20:38):
I love that. And you’ve written a book, you’ve been a coach. You’ve been an assistant. You’ve been a teacher. If you have, you have so much to share with other educators, but I’m curious to know if you could go back to when you first started teaching, what advice knowing what, you know now would you give your younger self?

Mark Brown (20:57):
Be you? And you know, the title of my book is choose to be you. My, I, I have a, I have a battle that I fight against anorexia I’m anorexic and you know, that’s something that even I’ve written a book about it, I share publicly about it. I speak about it. It, it’s still hard to say that. And honestly, you know, as I I’m, I’m getting to see you cuz we’re doing a video here through the screen, that’s still hard to say. Yeah. because the, anytime I make myself vulnerable, it, it sometimes feels embarrassing and it, and it challenging to get to that level. But as a young educator, I ne I didn’t embrace vulnerability and I didn’t embrace my true identity and who I really am. I tried to create this, this, this picture of who I wanted people to see Mark Brown is.

Mark Brown (21:42):
Mm. And I, I became very successful in education. I’m, I’m a very young educator. I was a very young head coach. I climbed the ladder very quickly and I was really proud of that. And really like, I, I put a lot of value in, in those accomplishments. Yeah. And I, I put my value really in the wrong places for a long time. And I put my value in creating this fake identity to kind of try the, try to hide the real me. And what I’ve really learned is it doesn’t matter what Sam, what you see of Mark Brown, what matters is what I see in my reflection in the mirror. And, you know, I can, I can create all these lies. I can create all these, you know, win all these awards that I hang in my office. I can get all these titles added to my resume of things that, that I’ve done.

Mark Brown (22:29):
But at the end of the day, I’ve gotta be able to look in the mirror and be honest and truthful, cuz it’s really, if you’ve ever tried to lie to your reflection of the mirror, it’s hard. Yeah. And you know, there’s a lot of people who I’ve learned through counseling and going through therapy. There’s a lot of people who actually don’t look in the mirror. They don’t, they very unintentionally, they avoid mirrors that in the cost, because if we are not being honest and true to who we are at our core, it’s hard to face that reflection. And so I wish as an early admin, as an early educator, younger educator, I wish I would’ve been able to embrace my reflection. And you know, I still struggle with that even though, you know, I’m a champion for it now, and I’m an advocate for it. And mental health awareness is a big part of my message and who I am. It’s still hard. It’s not like it becomes easy. I’ve just learned tools and strategies with how

Mark Brown (23:23):
And how to make it a part of my, my daily life, my daily routine. But getting to that point where I can look myself in the mirror and say, you know what, mark, you’ve got some challenges. You’ve got some struggles you’re not perfect. And there’s some things you’ve made some mistakes. I’m a failure. Guess what I have failed time and time again. But what’s important is if I can look in that mirror and I can look at my reflection and I can choose that my next action is going to be done with the right intent. And my next action is gonna be done, giving my best effort and doing it with the right attitude and making sure that while I do it, I treat those around me the right way. And I bring people into my life who are gonna be able to support me as long as I can do that. I know I’m gonna be successful. And so that, that’s something I wish I would’ve done. A better job of earlier on in my career is embracing my true reflection rather than trying to create this image of who I really am not, or just who I wanted people to see.

Sam Demma (24:16):
You’re speaking to my soul man. I was, I was trying to be a professional soccer player, my entire life. And at the age of 17, I had three major knee injury, Reese, two surgeries, and a torn labrum in my right hip. And my identity was based on the fact that Sam was the soccer player. My whole family saw me as the soccer player. Sam’s gonna be the prodigy soccer player. I lost a full ride scholarship to a division one school in the states. I had to stop playing sports and it became hard for me to look in the mirror and I’m sure you’re, if you’re listening, you know, you have your own battles and struggles and challenges as well. And it’s so true. You always have to, at the end of the day, look at yourself in the mirror and decide who you are.

Sam Demma (24:56):
And even if you lie to yourself you know, that conversation is gonna come up personally at some point in your future and you’re gonna have to face it. David Goggin’s, who is actually an ultra marathon runner and ex Navy seal talks about this all the time and by the smirk on your face, it sounds like you know who he is. And he says the most, you know, the most important conversation you have is the one you have with yourself. And he has it every night for 15 minutes while he shaves his head so all I wanna say is thank you for being vulnerable and sharing because it’s gonna give everyone else listening the opportunity to do as well, and I really appreciated this. If someone wants to reach out, hear more about yourself, your book, your coaching tactics, or just wants to connect and have a conversation, what would be the best way for someone to do so?

Mark Brown (25:40):
Yeah, reach out. I do have a, a website www.heymarkbrown.com where there’s ways you can contact me there. You can learn a little bit more about me. There’s also links on there to my book, it’s available on Amazon; both amazon.com and Amazon Canada. Actually fun fact, my publisher is Canadian; Codebreaker, they’re a Canadian group. And so I love my Canadian friends. But yeah, if you wanna check that out, it’s on Amazon; Choose to be You. And then I’m on social media, and I’ve really learned that social media is a great way to connect. I’ve, I’ve met some of my best friends actually through social media, some educator friends. And so I’m on Twitter @heymarkbrown. I’m on Instagram @heymarkbrown, or you can look me up on Facebook, Mark Brown.

Sam Demma (26:25):
Awesome. Mark, thank you so much, Coach Brown. I really appreciate it and I, I look forward to staying in touch and seeing all the great work you’re doing.

Mark Brown (26:33):
I appreciate what you’re doing and yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity.

Sam Demma (26:37):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; f you want meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Mark Brown

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education. By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators. You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

Camille Loken – High School Principal & Executive Coach

About Camille Loken

Camille is a Principal at a high school concurrently pursuing her Doctorate of Education. She brings enthusiasm, creativity, and a passion for reciprocal learning and teaching to all endeavours. Camille is also a certified executive coach and has worked with many leaders to help them find clarity and a path forward with their leadership dilemmas.

She is a forward-looking leader who enjoys complex challenges. Camille is committed to seeing herself as a perpetual amateur where learning is about taking risks and is a grand adventure. Fundamentally, she believes that life, with all its lovely challenges and complexities, is meant to be enjoyed. It is all about evolving and looking at experiences as opportunities for growth. And, it’s always okay to have too much fun!

Connect with Camille: Email

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

The Skill of Self Confidence by Dr. Ivan Joseph

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Catch Them Being Good: Everything You Need to Know to Successfully Coach Girls

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Camille; Camille Loken. Camille is a Principal at a high school concurrently pursuing her doctorate of education. She brings enthusiasm, creativity, and passion for reciprocal learning and teaching to all endeavors. Camille’s also a certified executive coach and has worked with many leaders to help them find clarity and a path forward with their leadership dilemmas.

Sam Demma (01:04):
She’s a forward looking leader who enjoys complex challenges. Camille is committed to seeing herself as a perpetual amateur where learning is about taking risks and is about grand adventure. Fundamentally, she believes that life with all of its lovely challenges and complexities is meant to be enjoyed. It is all about evolving and looking at experiences as opportunities for growth, and it’s always okay to have too much fun. I had an amazing time with this interview with Camille, and I hope you enjoy it. Get a sheet of paper, get a pen or pencil, take notes, and I will see you on the other side. Camille, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. We just had a great conversation off the air about adversity and my story, now it’s time to flip it over to you. Can you introduce yourself and share a little bit behind the journey that got you to where you are today, doing the work in education that you’re doing?

Camille Loken (02:00):
Sure, I’m a high school Principal. I’m at a really large high school in Edmonton, Alberta. I think probably the largest one in the city. I mean, that might change in terms of student enrollment, but it’s a big one so there’s lots of levels of complexity in a, in a high school. And I’m new here this year. So I transitioned from a k-9 school as a Principal last year to a high school this year, which so many people say, well, isn’t that interesting taking on a big school in the middle of a pandemic and yes, actually the word is more, more like fascinating than interesting. Yes, because there’s, that’s just another level of complexity. So in terms of my journey, this is my third principalship. I never set out to be a principal. That’s not, that’s not how and really setting out in this journey.

Camille Loken (02:55):
Actually, I started when I was about five. So you know, how people ask you, what would you like to be when you grow up? Yeah, I was very clear in my intention, even when I was very young; I’m going to be a teacher, and I didn’t ever go off that path. That was what I had decided I was gonna do. And so you know, a little bit of a calling and even as a kid, I remember kids coming to our door knocking on the door, can Camille come out and play? Yeah, and then there’d be a crowd waiting, because I’d come out and I’d organize everything. I’d be like, we’re playing this and this is how it’s gonna go. And they would, you know, that’s how it would be. And so like those skills were, were in me to just quite naturally to wanna be with people and wanna help them to, you know, be together and, and be a collective. And all of that was just in, in me as a young, as a young person. So yeah, so I started that path, went to University, became a teacher, worked on my master’s of education at some point and currently I’m working on my doctorate.

Sam Demma (04:00):
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And sometimes we embark on a path from a young age and we veer off. Did you veer off it at all and do something different at first? Or was it like, no, this is, this is the direction we’re going in. And every step just took you closer to this destination.

Camille Loken (04:16):
Yeah. It wa it was, I didn’t really veer off, off. I remember a time in high school when everybody’s talking about, oh, this or that or the other thing I thought, well, is that for me? Or, you know, when you do those assessments, oh, you could be an architect or a lawyer or whatever. Typical thing came out. So in those moments, sometimes I may go, well, maybe I can be an architect or a lawyer, but then none of that ever lasted very long. Yeah, it was, it was kind of, I’m going to be a teacher. That’s, that’s what I wanna do.

Sam Demma (04:46):
And when you think back to your own teachers that have taught you in your life which ones stick out and had a huge impact on you because I’m sure you were inspired by other teachers along the journey to pursue this path as well. Sometimes it’s the reverse also having bad teachers inspires it as well, but let’s focus on the positives. Can you share any of those names and then also expand and tell me why they had such an impact on you?

Camille Loken (05:13):
Well, one, I think teachers are everywhere. I think sometimes when we talk about teachers, we, we limit teachers too, our schooling experience. But I I’ve met some fabulous teachers along my journey that are, have not ever been in school. So yeah, teacher large is a much bigger thing. And so there’s lots of people that in my life that I would consider significant teachers. And, and yet to your point of teachers teaching you how you don’t wanna be, that there’s a couple that come to mind as well. And on that note, I, I think the like school system worked for me. I got the, and, and when I say school system worked to, for me, I got, I understood the system. I knew what you needed to do to do well. I knew what you needed to do to have effective relationships like me deciding on that for myself, like working the system a little bit.

Camille Loken (06:07):
I mean, it sounds a little bit CRAs, but I got the system. And then because I got the system, the system worked for me, so I got recognition teacher, you know, well, we enjoy having Camilla in class. She’s just such a really good student. One of the things that really informed me along my path is I have a sister who has some, some significant learning disabilities. So at some point she, her and I are two years apart. So at some point in school, I was accelerated a grade and at some point she was held back a grade. And so we were in the same grade. Even though we were two years apart and not in the same class, but in the same grade. And oftentimes we were in small schools. My father was in the armed forces. We moved over two years.

Camille Loken (06:54):
So that’s, that comes into the story as well, every two years, I’m somewhere new. And so I didn’t ever stay in a school for any length of time. So naming teachers for me is like the only teacher actually that comes to mind is Mr. Peters. And I’ll get back to him when I, because I was side by side with my teacher and the school system did not work for her. Well, lot of that informed me about how I would want to be in a system and what a system needs to look, cuz it needs to be equitable. A system that works for me also needs to work for my sister and it didn’t. And that’s a problem. And you know, that’s always in me to make sure that we’re creating systems to ensure that every that is going to have an excellent and equitable experience.

Camille Loken (07:43):
So Mr. Peters was my grade nine teacher at sir, Samuel will steel doesn’t exist anymore in Calgary, Alberta, which was a school on the base. And he was, I think it was his personality and he really just went outta his way to connect with kids and see us for who we were. Hmm. So I think I probably had established a little bit of a reputation of being the good student maybe, but he, but he saw this other side of me too, right? Like the, the quirky little, you know, kind of creative, those kind of things. And he nourished those, those things in me as well. Yeah. He saw me.

Sam Demma (08:26):
No, that’s awesome. Back to the, the equity piece for a second as well. Can you share what some of those challenges specifically were, and I’m curious to know, do they still exist now? I’m sure a lot of them still do. And can you talk to some of the ways that you envision the future systems changing to fix those issues?

Camille Loken (08:48):
I think our systems are better now. I still think we have long way to grow. I think we need to, I think we really do need to pay attention to that and, and ask ourselves and check into our systems to, to see if how we’re doing. Like we need to measure it as we go along. So now we talk, we talk a lot about, oh, and I think about this just Steven as because as a kid, I didn’t have an under of how you would even do that. I just saw that it wasn’t, it wasn’t right. Yeah. But I, I wouldn’t have had an understanding of how anybody would go around about, about that as a, as a teacher. And I’ve been teaching for, I, I first started teaching in 1986. I haven’t taught all those years cuz I took off time to have lots of sons.

Camille Loken (09:35):
So was a stay at home mom for a while. But when I started in 1986, we didn’t really talk about differentiation. We didn’t talk about, you know, meeting the student where they’re at and filling or recognizing their gifts or what the strengths are they bringing into the classroom and going from there, we, we didn’t talk about that. It wasn’t something we discussed and over time that has been it, it is part of what we do now as educators who really think about how do we meet everybody’s need as a unique individual. And it’s struggle. I think we, we haven’t arrived around really understanding that because you can, as complex as human beings are like each individual is, is incredibly complex and then put 30 human beings in a classroom and you know, then you have really lots of complexities to think about

Sam Demma (10:30):
That’s so true. In, in this idea of creating more equitable schools, like what are some of the steps that, that should be taken or considered? Like, for example, imagine you, you were removed from your current reality in place, back in that school you were at with your sister, like 20 years ago or 30 years ago, I might be bettering the numbers. Totally. but you look very young, so it’s oh.

Sam Demma (10:57):
And if you’re placed back in that situation with the knowledge you have now, what are the first things you, you change or what are the first things you tell all the staff like, you know, if you have the opportunity to bring them all into the cafeteria and say, this is how we need to change right now, because I would imagine that some of the schools are like, you know, a lot of them are changing and we’re getting better as a system. Some of them might still be stuck in those old ways. And what are those initial first things we have to consider?

Camille Loken (11:22):
Yeah. That’s such an awesome question. It’s a time travel question, Sam. I love time travel. Cool. want me to travel back in time, knowing what I know now and if I were talking. So if I were talking to the staff of the school that we were both in a, at the same time and, and she was having a different experience and I, I would say, think about my sister and what are the unique gifts she brings to the classroom. Please identify with her from that. Not, not from a deficit lens. Because I think many people saw her from a, a deficit lens, what, you know, what she didn’t have or what she couldn’t do. So think about her unique strengths and what she brings to this classroom. Because I think even, even that is step one. Yeah. She would be, she would feel valued.

Camille Loken (12:12):
Yeah. And appreciated from a, from a, from a gift point of view from yeah. From being valued. And then I would say, okay, so here’s someone that maybe learns differently. Maybe retains things differently, connects to things differently, you know, what is she interested in? What are the passions that you could tap into to make this relevant? How might you make learning relevant to her? How would you provide her voice about how she could demonstrate her learning? Cuz maybe you want her to demonstrate your, her learning this way and that’s not in her wheelhouse or that’s not a strength thing or she wouldn’t even be interested in that. So how might she demonstrate her learning in unique ways to her that you, that still would meet the outcomes that you still could assess and have an understanding? I mean that, and that gets to that student voice and choice.

Sam Demma (13:08):
Hmm.

Camille Loken (13:10):
I think if we had teachers who could really understand that we would have yeah. A lot more successful students who struggle. Yeah. And not even the ones who struggle. I mean, we also think of the ones we have our gifted students that are just so incredibly bright and they’re in a classroom with teachers who are kind of teaching to the middle and yeah. They’re like this isn’t meeting my needs at all. Right. Yeah. And those students are as at risk, as, as kids at the other end, like my sister, because they they’re like, this is boring and meaningless and I, I’m not in, I’m not engaged.

Sam Demma (13:50):
Yeah. It it’s an interesting conversation because like you said, there is so many complex within the confined walls of a school building and it’s a exciting challenge to figure out how to meet all their needs. Because I think that when that day comes it will come sometime in the future. It’ll be an exciting celebration and day because I think schools will have an even a huge impact on the lives, future leaders or young people. Absolutely. You, you mentioned time travel and loving time travel questions from a teaching perspective. Personally, if you could go back to the first year that you taught what would you tell yourself as a teacher? Imagine there’s a teacher whose first year in education is right now, it’s like a full blown pandemic and maybe they’re in their PJs teaching from home with the zoom mullet. Like what, what, what advice would you have for a teacher?

Camille Loken (14:54):
Yeah, that’s right. Showing up in front of the screen with your pajama bottoms on and it’s

Sam Demma (14:59):
Knows.

Camille Loken (15:00):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, if, if I were to travel back in time to talk to, you know, Cannell first year I, you know, I’d say things like you, you, you haven’t figured out, you got it. Don’t don’t question yourself so much. Like, you know, am I on the right track? Do I understand this? Am I doing the right thing? Like trust your instincts. And if you are, you know, if you love this work, like if you’re showing up for the right reasons, because not everybody necessarily goes into this career for the, for the right reasons. Yeah. I think most of us do because it, it isn’t easy to work. So I think most of us show up because we are in service and we, we want to be with children and we want to make a difference in the world. I mean, I think that’s what pulls us into that.

Camille Loken (15:54):
So I think if, if you stay in that place, right. And always be a perpetual learner, like if you don’t, I, I don’t know how to teach this or I don’t, I don’t get this kid or, or, oh my goodness. This kid is pushing my buttons. So stay in the place of being a learner. What do you need to understand about yourself? I’ve said to, I say this to teachers all the time, and I would say this to first year Camil if you have taught it and they haven’t learned it, then you haven’t taught it. So you need to think about that and, and get to it. Right. Which is gonna challenge you it for sure it will. And there’ll be time that you’re like, I, I, I don’t know. I, but there is a support system and there’s lots of, there’s lots of places you can go and there’s people you can talk about and you can work as a collective and we’re better off together. And we’re you know, creating those conditions for yourself, even if they’re not in your school so that you can have that support to, to, to support our students.

Sam Demma (16:55):
I wanna go back to the last question. You mentioned something, and that was a great answer. Thank you for sharing that. If, if younger Camil was still around, she would’ve loved that advice. Yeah. You mentioned that sometimes students get looked at at what they don’t have at the lack at the deficit from a deficit perspective. And there’s this amazing book called “Catch Them While They’re Good”. Good. And it talks about the importance of coaching and giving feedback from the lens of, you know, reinforcing what they’ve done, right. As opposed to reinforcing what they lack or they’ve done wrong. And the example that I heard in a TEDx talk by this guy Dr. Ivan, Joseph, he took a self confidence expert. He was saying, I used to coach soccer teams. And, and if a player, you know, didn’t kick the ball, right. It would go over the net.

Sam Demma (17:42):
And usually the reasons are that their knee isn’t over the ball and they’re not looking down. And he said, you know, I, I could have stopped a player and said, Hey, you know, next time, make sure your knee’s over the ball. You know, you did it wrong, make sure your head’s looking down. Or he said, I can let that player have a mistake. And you know, not, not really focus on it or hype on the mistake. And then someone else goes up and they do a great job. And I reinforce the good behavior and that in the next athlete who kicks the ball, and then the first athlete doesn’t feel demoralized cuz you didn’t single them out. But they’re like, oh, that’s what I have to do next time. I’ll try again. And I think praise and catching people while they’re good is such a, a low hanging fruit and an easy way to make them feel valued, seen, heard, and appreciated in today’s environment how do we make students feel valued, seen, and you know, teaching virtually or teaching in a classroom? Like what do you think are the ways we can make students feel like they’re a part of the community.

Camille Loken (18:39):
I love that title, catch them being good. I, you have to read that book. I have stacks of books that just wait for me to

Sam Demma (18:46):
Me too.

Camille Loken (18:47):
I know it is kinda ridiculous. And what one time, you know, at some point you’re building get books all the way kinda doubted that catch would be good. Yeah. You know, as you were, as you were saying that, talking about that story, catch them being good. I, all of a sudden in my, in my head popped a student that I had when I was so relatively new teacher, I think I was maybe seven years into my career. Nice. And she was so this is in St. Albert, very affluent community. And she was new to this school and she was living in foster care, which was relatively unusual in our school. And she came to our, to my classroom, more to our school with just so much stuff, like so much baggage, she was angry, angry, angry, angry, and she would, she would come into a class and try to get that going like to, I, I think she understood anger.

Camille Loken (19:44):
She understood people being mad at her. So she would do something to, to have that happen. And I, and I thought, well, I’m not, I’m not doing that. I’m going to go outta my way to love you. Like just to, to have the loving energy. And I had to work on it because she, she could be incredibly provocative as she stopped into stomped into the classroom and whatever she was doing. And, and I would kind of just be grounded about it and I would greet her and a big, big smile. And it’s so nice to have you and just, just blaster with this, this energy that I just I’m so happy you’re here. Right. Even if I didn’t say those words. And then in my actions throughout the classroom, just attending to that making sure that she understood that I really wanted her to be in the classroom, despite all the things that she was doing, which didn’t mean that we didn’t have conversations about this or, you know, or had a redirect or anything, but it really is, you know, love them despite what they might have or what they’re bringing, because they are a human being and they’re unique and they’re beautiful with all of that.

Camille Loken (20:51):
And you have, you sometimes have to work really hard to get to that place because some kids come with so much, they just wanna push you away, push you away, push you away. Yeah.

Sam Demma (21:02):
Wow. That’s so powerful. You you’re telling this story. I immediately thought of this guy named Josh ship who was a foster kid himself. And he he would see it as a challenge, as he mentioned it in one of his talks where he, every house he got placed into, he would try and get kicked out as fast as he could. Yeah. And it was one caring adult who showed him. No, I don’t see you as a problem. I see you as an opportunity that totally changed his life. Yeah. And I think when we approach our students as if they’re opportunities, not that we’re the grand master and are gonna shape them, but we have the opportunity to plant a little seed that might be growing and watered 20 years in their future. You, you know, you mentioned about actions and how actions kind of speak louder than words. Sometimes a student doesn’t tell us that they’re feeling down or that something’s going on, but you can tell by their actions, by the way, they walk into the classroom, how do you approach a student and address a student who you think might be having something going on or something’s a little bit off

Camille Loken (22:01):
For, for that to even be able to happen. You need to have relationships established mm. Right. From the beginning, because you can’t just approach someone that you haven’t spent time with trying to get to know or have relationships or understand, you know, and it’s in the casual conversation. So, you know, so what happened this weekend? Or what did you work on? Or whatever. Like what do you, what are you watching TV, whatever, whatever they’re interested in is just kind of these, these conversations. And they, you have an understanding, you start to get, get to know them. You share a little bit about yourself as well, like the relationships and you tell ’em little stories and does anybody have a little story? Whatever that, that foundational piece of everything that we do, everything that we do is relationships. Mm. And if in, when you’ve established the relationships, then of course you can move into those conversations.

Camille Loken (22:47):
If you have established as a relationships and you try to move into that conversation, well, somebody’s gonna look at you and go I’m not talking to you. I don’t even trust you. Right. That’s not gonna happen. So that, that has to happen before you even approach. And then it is paying attention, right. Just paying attention. It it’s, there’s this, there’s this simple thing that teachers can do greeting students at the door. And it’s, you know, there’s research on this, about what difference that makes in students lives. So you’re just outside of your classroom drawer as they come in, you’re, you’re greeting them by name, or you have some kind of handshake, or whatever’s not now in the pandemic, but anyway, before some kind of whatever, whatever, as they go in, but wait, you’re doing is you’re paying attention to how, how, how they’re showing up that day.

Camille Loken (23:33):
What’s the energy they’re bringing in that day. And it gives you an opportunity to say, oh, Hey Sam, before I go in the classroom, let’s just have a little quick talk. And then the other kids go in, I go, Sam, you just, you just seem kind of, you know, not so great today is something I need to know. And then we have a relationship. Yeah. You know, this happened this morning and okay. Okay. Thanks for telling me about that. We’re gonna, we’re gonna try to cheer you up today or whatever. Right. It’s just, it’s just moving into those kind of conversations and setting a place that you can do that

Sam Demma (24:04):
Love that that’s great

Camille Loken (24:05):
Intentionality. It takes so much intentionality around those things.

Sam Demma (24:10):
And teaching is, is, is rewarding and challenging at the same time. You also have to make sure that you have fun doing it and it’s okay to have too much fun. Yeah, exactly. How do you ensure, how do you ensure that you enjoy the work and the vocation and the calling, even in those, in, even in those tough moments?

Camille Loken (24:34):
You know, I, I think it’s this, and this is probably a, a statement that may be overused, but it, its come to mind anyways, choose your attitude. Mm. So, so right from the beginning of my teaching career, well pretty close to the beginning of my teaching career, I thought, oh wow. How I show up on any given day actually influences that entire climate of the classroom. Yeah. And when I, when I first had that realization, it was, it scared me a little bit. And I thought, wow, that’s a lot of power. Like really? I mean, if I’m having a crappy day and I go in there and, and then everybody seems to be having a crappy day or so. Okay. Knowing that deeply understanding that, that I need to show up every day and be, and have the energy for the of work.

Camille Loken (25:27):
And it makes me think so I’ve I in university, I was a drama major. I was a drama teacher when you are doing a performance and you know, this you’ve done Ted talks, right. Or so, or you go and do a speech in front. So you are, you’re moving into this performance piece. And I don’t mean that in a, they you’re moving into this in an inauthentic way. So I wanna be really clear about this. Yeah. But you’re moving in front of an audience. And they’re there to listen to you. So let’s say on your way to, to there, I don’t know you got a flat tower and you had to change it or somebody cut you off or, or you and your partner had an argument with them or whatever. Cuz you’re a human being. This is gonna happen. However, you’re showing up in front of them. They don’t wanna know all about that. That’s not important to them. And so it is on teachers to really have an understanding of that and saying, I am going to choose my attitude every day. So the climate of the classroom is such right. That I have the energy for you. And I, I love this work and I love you and I have a passion for it. And here we go.

Sam Demma (26:32):
I love that. It’s a, it’s a reminder to stay present. It might something might have happened 20 minutes ago, but the moment we have is right now and what matters is the task at hand? Yeah. It’s funny, right? When you were talking about, you know, flat tire, I once had a speech two and a half hours from my house in London, Ontario. And we drove and we went to an on route, me and my buddy Dylan. And we had about an extra 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes. We were gonna show up pretty early and we pulled up to the on route and we went inside and got coffee and I came back outside my pockets. Oh, snap, where the heck are my keys? Look through the window, locked in my car. It’s like nine in the morning in the middle of like a random highway.

Sam Demma (27:14):
You know, I don’t have CAA, I call CAA, get them on the phone, like order the, the subscription for the next two years, they show up, we make it five minutes late. I remember running into the cloud assume going, Hey, my name’s Sam demo. Like just jumping into the presentation and yeah. Anyways, I just thought, you know what you sparked that thought. I thought it’d be a funny thing to mention, but I think you’re, you’re so right. And what’s interesting is our attitude is always in our control. Like it’s not sure it’s influenced by exterior events, but it’s, it’s up to us to choose how we, I, how we walk into the classroom. Right.

Camille Loken (27:45):
And we owe that to the children, the students that we serve to do that. Yeah. And I, I really like how you characterize that. Just staying in the present moment cuz that’s it let go of everything else. Cuz the present moment is always good. Really. I mean, you’re just right here. Just enjoy this present moment and the other things that you need to think about or worry about or whatever they will come. But right now this is where I’m at. Right. I’m

Sam Demma (28:09):
Gonna

Camille Loken (28:10):
Here.

Sam Demma (28:10):
Yeah. You wanna add another book to your list? The power of now it’s all about, oh

Camille Loken (28:14):
I love that book. I have read that book. Love

Sam Demma (28:16):
It. Okay. Yeah. Kar, Kar. Totally. I might be mispronouncing his last name, but no,

Camille Loken (28:21):
I think that’s right. Totally.

Sam Demma (28:23):
Okay. Yeah. So I found his book just awesome. And it’s a great reminder that there’s no other moment that exists. Like this is all we have.

Camille Loken (28:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So,

Sam Demma (28:32):
And, and if anyone’s been inspired so far, this has been an amazing conversation. We definitely have to do a part 2. But if anyone’s been inspired so far and wants to reach out to you, have a conversation, talk about equity or how to make the school more equitable or just to bounce ideas around what would be the best way for someone listening to reach out to you and get in touch.

Camille Loken (28:51):
Oh wow. Like, you know, I listen to podcasts and podcasters always ask that question. I love podcasts, and then people say things like, well I’m on Instagram and I’m on Facebook and I’m on LinkedIn and I’m not on any of those things.

Sam Demma (29:05):
That’s okay. Me either. I don’t use it much.

Camille Loken (29:07):
That’s great. I was gonna go, you can’t get a hold of me. My email address would be the best one. Yeah.

Sam Demma (29:14):
Do you wanna just spell it out for and like, and other educators are listening, so like you just might hear from some colleagues around the country hopefully.

Camille Loken (29:23):
Absolutely. So Camille.Loken@epsb.ca

Sam Demma (29:40):
Yeah. Awesome. Camille, thank you so much for doing this. It was a pleasure bringing you on and keep doing awesome work and good luck on the doctorate.

Camille Loken (29:48):
Well, thanks Sam. This has been awesome talking to you as well. This is fun, this conversation.

Sam Demma (29:56):
Oh, thank you. I appreciate it.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Camille Loken

April 4, 2022 by Sam Demma Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Jason Pratt – Principal at St. Martin Catholic Secondary School

About Jason Pratt

Jason Pratt (@jasonpratt) is the Principal at St. Martin Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga. He is in his 22^nd year in education, and working in his fifth school in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

An English and Special Education Teacher for 10 years, he spent 8 amazing and exciting years at two different schools as a vice-principal before being promoted to Principal at St. Martin, where he oversees a highly successful and exciting Regional Sports Program, which is run in conjunction with the mainstream neighbourhood school. He is passionate about all students and is involved in the community as a coach and volunteer. His experiences growing up and being involved in various community sports make him a great fit for the school.

Growing up the oldest of five boys and being a father to four active and energetic sons allows him the perspective of a parent and caregiver in his decisions running a school, and is something that informs his practice daily. Jason believes it takes a diverse and balanced set of opportunities, staff and experiences to support student success, and with a loving approach, students can grow and develop to their full potential.

Connect with Jason: Email | Twitter | Instagram

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

St. Martin Catholic Secondary School

Regional Sports Program DPCDSB

Naval Ravikant – The podcast and book

Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:01):
Jason welcome to the high performing educator. A pleasure to have you on the show here, please start by introducing yourself.

Jason Pratt (00:08):
Thanks, Sam. It’s a great honor to be part of this really interesting podcast. My name’s Jason Pratt. I am the principal at St. Martin Catholic secondary school in Mississauga Ontario. And this is my fourth year as a school principal. This is my first school that I’ve been a principal at. I was a vice-principal for eight years previous at two really fantastic schools as well. And before that I was a teacher for just about 10 years with a background, mostly I, I taught in English and special education before I got into administration. So it’s my 22nd year now in education.

Sam Demma (00:49):
Did you know since you were a child that you wanted to work in a school or what was the yeah. Journey to where you are now?

Jason Pratt (00:56):
Yeah, so like I was telling you before I, I had actually listened to a few of your podcasts and I had to stop because I didn’t wanna get too modeled. And you know what I reflected on that because I’d listened to some of your previous podcasts and it’s not something you’ll hear sometimes where people who wanna get education when they were really young. I knew all along for me, it was, it was a little bit more of a, a lengthy journey. I’m the oldest of five boys. And I ironically I have four sons, so I grew up with four younger brothers and now I have four younger sons. And we moved into a, a neighborhood in Mississauga, both neighborhoods I lived in, I was one of the older kids in the area because, you know it was the suburbs and we were moving in there and my parents were, were pretty early and moving into miss to, so, and I remember, you know playing right around where square one is now, and it wasn’t there.

Jason Pratt (01:49):
Then when I, when I was a kid and, you know, it was a lot of really cool experiences, but everywhere around me was all younger kids. And so I just naturally took on this leadership role of kind of organizing activities and games and, and we we would spend a lot of time in the outdoors and, and whether, you know, going to the park or going to like undeveloped areas, there was a lot of force in that area, if you can believe it back then. And we had tree houses and, and really cool things like that. And then when we moved our second time and I was, you know, in my, you know, early teens on, you know, I had these four younger brothers and we moved once again to a new development area, but we backed onto a park.

Jason Pratt (02:32):
We had tennis courts and, and, you know, baseball diamonds. And so I grew up with you know, a really good you know, an accessible space in which I could kind of organize and, and, and run these games. And my mom would often say to me, she was a teacher. She would say to me in the summer break, get these, you know, get your brothers out of the house, keep them outta the house for six hours. And I was the oldest one. So I’d organize, you know, tag or we’d play, you know, capture the flag or just different games. And a lot of kids in the area kind of you know jumped on, on board, right? So I would, I’d be kind of that organizing, you know, the organizer and I would get involved with a lot of these these activities with the kids.

Jason Pratt (03:57):
So I wasn’t a qualified teacher, but I got to, to spend some of time in a school. These were elementary schools at the time and got to be around kids. And I, and I said, you know what? This is actually pretty cool. So I, I finished my undergrad went to teachers college, and then I was lucky enough at the time the, the climate in the late nineties was such that you know, they were, they were offering permanent jobs right away. So it’s very different than it is now, where there’s a much more lengthy process of getting in, you know, on the supply teacher pool. And then you become an LTO. So I was actually fortunate enough to get hired permanently, right at a teacher’s college at a great school St. Francis, Xavier and Mississauga, that one of the bigger schools on the board with, you know, two housing plus kids at the time, and worked there for seven years and, and really enjoyed it.

Jason Pratt (03:13):
And then I think as I grew up, I, I didn’t necessarily, wasn’t drawn to toward teaching as much as I was coaching. So even at a young age, maybe 18, 19 years old, I started coaching my younger brothers, hockey teams and, and, and getting involved with being in that role. And I think it lent itself naturally to the position of teacher. And as I had mentioned, my mom was a teacher and my godmother, she was a teacher and the two of them were, were influential as going through my undergrad saying, you know, do some supply teaching. My godmother was actually a principal and she got me in as, as one of those emergency supply teachers. So actually before I finished university, I went in and it was like in a, you know, an emergency volunteer. And then I became an emergency instructor.

Jason Pratt (04:47):
And then while I was there, I got in with I wouldn’t say the wrong crowd, but the right crowd, a bunch of guys who were in and girls who were interested in getting into administration. And, and it kind of took me that way. So it was never something that I, I was, you know, you, people will say, I want to become a, a principal. I want to be everything just kind of happened with, with a certain natural flow. So I’ve really enjoyed the ride. It’s been great. And that’s kind of how I’ve ended up here.

Sam Demma (05:17):
Because this podcast is solely audio. No one can see the off, some metals hanging over your right shoulder there. How has sports impacted your journey in education and also your background?

Jason Pratt (05:32):
Well, as I had mentioned, I, I, before I wanted to become a teacher, I was a coach. And and I think the, one of the first things I did when I was a teacher is I signed up to coach hockey and we never had a strong team at St. Francis sea, but we were competitive, but we were never the elite hockey and Mississauga and hockey in particular, in the defer, in the, in the, in the robs league is, is, is pretty much just a handful of teams. It was back then, but I I, I truly enjoyed coaching. And, and, and one of the things I, I really enjoyed was organizing a lot of intramurals in the school. I thought that was almost as reward as, as coaching the school teams, because when you’re coaching the school team, I know if it was the same when you were playing same, but there was a lot of competing interests with the kids playing with club teams.

Jason Pratt (06:28):
So it was almost as if you were begging these kids to play on the school teams. Yeah. It’s very much different than the us model where the, at the, the high school teams, especially with hockey in Minnesota, they don’t even have club teams. It’s just, it’s, everything is high school, but I felt you know, with, with sports, it was a natural, it was a natural for me. I, I loved coaching. And so I coached all the way up until I became a vice principal. And even my first year as vice principal, I tried to help coach, but it was offer because, you know, the practices were right after school and you were busy dealing with stuff. So it was it was, it was, it was tough to, to have those competing interests. So, you know, I’ve gravitated more towards my role right now, as, as a school principal here at, St.

Jason Pratt (07:14):
Martin is, is really providing opportunities for these kids to to train in a, in a good safe environment. One that is financially available to a greater section of students. And that, that also comes from my experience as being a parent of my, of my kids. Two of them played at the triple a level, and I coached them both as a head coach, one with the Masaga rebels and one with the Masaga senators, both AAA organizations. And, and I took on that role as a head coach and loved it as well. But I also saw some of the, the, the pitfalls that parents can get into getting into that, that culture with with the sports and the training. So one of the thing, things we do here at this school is provide a really good opportunity for students to train and to earn credit phys ed credits, and some leadership pH ed credits, and some other elective credits while still training for their primary sport.

Jason Pratt (08:16):
Cool. And, and, and, and balancing them, playing on club teams versus is versus training. So it’s, it’s, it’s allowed us to win a lot of medals here, but that the championship medals and, and, and the, and the, the high school leagues per se, are almost a, a, a secondary now compared to these kids in their club teams. A lot of these kids go on to, to, to get a lot of success in sport because they they’re playing on club teams, whether it’s hockey, soccer, as you mentioned, like, you know, like the FC academies now, there’s, there’s a lot of different soccer academies, a lot of our basketball kids that are here our they play club basketball as well. In addition, high school is probably one of those last high school. Basketball is one of those last environments where it still is pretty competitive.

Jason Pratt (09:05):
And then now we have kids who are baseball, but we have kids that from our school have scholarships for tennis, golf swimming gymnastics, lots things. So we, we, we tend to bring a lot of kids in here. And, and so the relationship between sport and and schooling is, is so important to me. I, I did one of my master’s thesis proposals was on the relationship of sports and, and performance in school. And, and I, I it’s always been a passion of mine. So, like I had said, I’m, it’s a dream, you being at this school being surrounded by so many student athletes and, and their families and, and, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s been quite a ride so far. Well, but COVID is yeah. Yeah. That’s the other real part of it. I know. That’s, yeah. It’s kind of put everything on pause for a couple years.

Sam Demma (09:54):
Yeah. Athletes are being forced to get very creative, unfortunately, high school sports isn’t happening as much as it would have in the past, but, you know, I think as an athlete, you live, eat, and breathe or sport, you gotta figure out a way to continue training and stay sharp. And even if you gotta do it in your home basement for the time being, but you mentioned your school is one of the only re regional athletic schools. Can, can you explain a little bit about that?

Jason Pratt (10:21):
Yeah. So we are the only school in din peel that has a regional sports program. There is one offered in our determinist board, which is the PO district school board. So din peel. We are the only one and we’re located pretty far south we’re in the year on park valley, which is Mavis and, and Dunas which is really far south in considering our board goes all the way up to Dran county, which is right on the, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, pretty far up there. Like when you’re, when you’re looking at the board, it’s, it’s a very large geographical board. And so the way it, cuz the students apply out of grade eight, they apply to our program it’s regional. So we accept students from all around the region. They don’t have to live in our neighborhood area. Transportation is not provided so the students have to come here.

Jason Pratt (11:10):
So it’s a big commitment on, on the students and the parents to come to the school. They, they get references from their teachers of coaches and they, they themselves go through a discernment process. They apply just before the the winter break. And then when we get back, we, we have a selection committee that goes through all the applications and we take roughly 110 to 120 students each year. And those student in are in the regional sport program for two years. And in the regional sports program, the difference is, is that they do full year training in their sport of choice or if they don’t have a sport of choice, we do have a non-sport specific class. And they do that for the entire year from September to June and they get a PHY-ed credit and a leadership PHY-ed credit.

Jason Pratt (12:02):
So they get those two credits. And then in grade 10, we continue the, the program for the entire year, but those teachers are infusing the religion credit in with their PHY-ed credit. So the students will come to the school. They’ll, let’s say they select soccer, they’ll be in the soccer a focus course, which is large group activity course, but it focuses on soccer training. They’ll be with other kids of that same mindset. So the other kids who are in soccer and they’ll train for the entire year from September to June, but it’s not every day because they’ll intersperse the training with leadership activities and in class. And then in grade 10, they train once again for the whole year, but it’s interspersed with religion. So they may be the first two, three weeks. They be doing a lot of the religion work, then they’ll go on the ice or, and on the field.

Jason Pratt (12:50):
And then they’ll kind of do so it’s a real mix match. And like I had said before it back balances out all the training these kids do at night. So a lot of these kids are training 4, 5, 6 days a week with their clubs. Yeah. But we supplement a lot of that training. So I, I, you know, a lot of times when, when you’re playing, let’s say soccer or hockey at a high level, a lot of these clubs and teams that do a lot of systems and tactics they’re, they’re working on, let’s say, you know, their free kicks or their corn kicks. There’s a lot of stop. You know, let’s, let’s work this out a lot of Xs and O’s work, right. Especially at the high school level, these kids now are not doing dribbling activities or kicking. They’re expected to know that. So what we do is we supplement a lot of what these kids will be doing in their on their hockey teams and their soccer teams on their basketball teams with skills.

Jason Pratt (13:37):
So we don’t, we don’t, we don’t do the X’s and O’s here. We do a lot of skills development, but you can’t do that every day. The kids get, you know, burnt out. So we, we try to do it maybe two to three days a week, what then they’re doing their in class work. A lot of times we do yoga with them. We do nutrition with them. So they’re getting a lot of that training. They would get at a, you know, a secondary facility. And we do it for a fraction of the cost because the teachers that are teaching these programs are, are teachers and they’re getting excited. So the students don’t have to pay for it. The only thing they do have to pay for is a facility whether we’re renting ice or we’re going to an indoor bubble for soccer. This year we started a baseball pathways.

Jason Pratt (14:15):
So we have students now who are elite baseball players. So we, now we have the soccer, the hockey, the baseball, the basketball, and the non-sport specific pathways. Mm. So it, like I said, it’s a great program. We have kids from all around the region, as far up as Brampton. We have kids who come from the east and the west and they make it work. The parents make it work because a parent, myself, of, of high performing children, you’re willing to do what it takes to give your kid a good environment and a good opportunity for him to train or her to train and be successful. And then once again, when you have the culture is built around that the, the teachers here at the building are very supportive of these students. Yeah. A student may be gone for a week because they went to Florida to go to tennis tournament.

Jason Pratt (15:01):
And our, our teachers will work with that student and, and give ’em the work that, that he or she needs and, and welcome them when they’re back and not say, well, you missed the whole week of school. Now here’s a, a load of work for you to catch up on. So the culture here it’s, it’s wrapped around that, that mindset. Now, while we are a regional program, we all are still a neighborhood school. Yeah. But we do have kids that, that live in our area that come to our school. And that’s been, obviously not a challenge, but something we look forward, like, you know, something that we are looking for, of managing is managing our neighborhood school identity with our regional sport identity, because it’s, we’re not just a regional sports school. We’re about 50, 50 half of our kids are regional sports.

Jason Pratt (15:43):
And half of our kids are neighborhood kids. Yeah. A lot of them are new immigrants, new Canadians. And you know, they’re not interested in hyper a form sports. They’re just interested in, in learning what they need to do to be successful Canadians. And so it’s really managing all those intangibles and, and, and, and making it all work. And it, and it does. It’s a really good environment. The kids here are fantastic. We have very, very few behavioral issues because the kids are busy and they’re doing stuff they love to do. And then even if those kids are not in regional sports, they’re around those kids and those kids for the most part, as you know, of being a high performing athlete, when you’re in high school, they’re focused, they’re focused on their sport and being successful and not getting into trouble. Yeah. And eating relatively healthy and you know, and, and just, and they have parents or for family who backed them up and pushed them. So it’s great. It really is. It’s been good, but COVID has been like a real drawback on all this, but

Sam Demma (16:41):
You’re making me wish. I went to a regional sports program growing up, man.

Jason Pratt (16:46):
I’m the biggest ambassador for this school. I mean you know, it’s having son, like my oldest line is now in grade 11 and he’s actually in the us playing hockey with with, with a team around Pittsburgh. And he’s kind of in the same type of program, but the school and the, and the training are not related like we are. Yeah. and he would’ve loved to have come here. He really did. But at the time it was one of those things about having your son come to the school. But my other son now is, is a 2008 he’s he’s in grade eight and he’s very interested. And a lot of his friends are because they hear good things about the school. And like I said, it’s, it’s a fun place to be. It’s, it’s pretty exciting. It’s, it’s it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s been quite a ride, but like I said of it has really put a damper on things, but we’ve managed to still make it work, because like I said, it’s about training. And even though we haven’t had any teams to be able to compete, because this is part of their curriculum, the kids are still coming here and training and that’s, that’s important.

Sam Demma (17:49):
That’s super important. I was gonna ask how it’s continued, but you just answered it. Yeah,

Jason Pratt (17:54):
Yeah, yeah. So we, we don’t have a league, like our teams don’t compete, but like I said, these kids are all part of club teams anyway. So the parents aren’t coming here because they wanna win an off the championship or win robs is soccer. That’s a secondary thing. And that’s great if they do, but they’re coming here because of the training and because of the environment. And because, like I said, the culture here supports a student athlete, and I think that’s a huge part of its success.

Sam Demma (18:18):
You mentioned doing your masters in the connection between high performing athletics and education. What inspired you to do your masters in that and what was the learning, or what did you take away from that experience?

Jason Pratt (18:32):
Well, when I, I did my masters thesis in 2006 and at the time it was just an educational masters, but what I looked at was the connection at the time between student participation in sports and their academic performance, and essentially what all the, the studies had shown was that there was no difference. So a student who performed who was competing or participating in sports, their marks were not affected. So they did this cross-sectional study. And what that tells me is that, well, then that’s a good thing, because if these kids are, are able to keep their marks up and participate in, in sports then they that, I mean, the benefits are, are, are there, like we all know about the benefits of physical fitness in terms of, of mental fitness in terms of just being part of a social dynamic, being part of a team, you know, the, you can’t speak enough about how that’s so important for kids as they go through their high school years to be part of a team to be physically fit the connection between, you know, facing adversity, how to deal with loss, all that stuff.

Jason Pratt (19:41):
It’s, you know, team sports, individual sports, whatever it may be, the benefits way outweigh the the drawbacks of them competing. Since I’ve come to this school, I’ve actually started a second master’s degree in physical education. Nice. Because I thought it would be important for me to learn as much as I can about the phys ed side of it. So it’s, it’s, it’s a second master’s degree I’m working towards, but it’s a lot, it’s a lot harder this time around. It’s just, I can only tell, take one course at a time and it, it, it’s a lot of work and it’s gonna take me a couple more years and, and I think it’s gonna make me a better principle just having that background, but I think it’s important to kind of continue to learn. And it’s interesting being a student. I haven’t been a student, I started about two years ago, this second master’s degree. And, and it’s, it’s interesting how it’s tough being a student when you haven’t been a student in a while, but, but it’s fun and it’s good. And it’s good for me to, to, to stay grounded and, and to, you know, be that lifelong learner that a lot of us talk about being.

Sam Demma (20:44):
It’s rewarding. I was listening to a podcast with a tech investor, an entrepreneur named Naval, and he gave this analogy of climbing mountains and explained that every undertaking we embark upon, you know, think of it like climbing up a mountain. And when we reach the top, it’s, we’ve accomplished what the goal or that the desired outcome was. And he said, a lot of people climb a mountain, reach some form of success and get curious that, and wanna learn something else, but in order to do so, you have to climb down this mountain and start at the base of a new one yeah. And climb up it. And it’s so true that it could be overwhelming, but I think it’s such a rewarding experience. And it awesome that you’re also through your actions, not even by telling students or others, but just through your actions, proving that, you know, education happens at all ages and being a lifelong learner is extremely important. Yeah. So that’s, that’s awesome. What do you think some of the opportunities that exist today in education, there’s a lot of challenges and discussion about the cha like the, the negatives and things that are difficult right now. I’m curious to know what you think some of the opportunities are.

Jason Pratt (21:55):
Yeah. I mean, we all know about COVID and all those challenges, but you know, I, I think, I think the way that, that our, our planet is moving in, in be, you know, you can talk about globalization and, and, and that being obviously a huge factor in, in, in where students want to go. I, I think the fact that students have access to so much information and, and so much at their fingertips, it’s beneficial for them because they can look into whatever they want to, and they can research whatever they want to and, and have that, that kind of learning. But I I’m thinking the opportunities for students. I mean, we gotta think of where the world’s headed over the next couple years, next few years, and where these students are gonna, you know, where are they gonna graduate to?

Jason Pratt (22:49):
And I think a lot of it just comes down to the social piece, like how well do they work in, in team environments? How well do they work? You know, with, with their colleagues how can they manage to create a skillset that’s gonna be marketable when they, when they, when they graduate from wherever they do. And, and, and I think it’s, it’s so important right now, I’m, I’m seeing a lot of our students truly engaged. And I did mention the sports thing, but if I can put on the, the non regional sports hat principal for a second, and just talk about our specialist, high schools majors program, which is another big we pushed, which is the hospitality. A lot of our Stu you know, it’s, it’s at the last school I was at St. Marc Salinas. They had a highly successful baking program.

Jason Pratt (23:43):
And you would’ve never thought in a million years, like when I was going to school, like home EC was something you had to do and, and no one wanted to do it. I couldn’t believe it at the school, they had six full sections of baking. This is in hospitality. Hospitality is the cooking class where they learn a lot of those basics. This was a baking class. So when I got to this school, I said, let’s start a baking program. And now we had this year, we had two sections of baking. Now we’re a much smaller school than Marlins. But we had two full sections of baking. And I remember coming home one day and my kids were watching what was it, nailed it, the one where they have to bake cakes all the time. Yeah. It was reality show. And it’s just, it’s funny how kids will change.

Jason Pratt (24:24):
And, and so these are taking baking, and a lot of them will have this in their back pocket, you know, this skill. So it’s, you know, education, I, I think is, is about providing all these kind of student, you know, different kinds of students with opportunities to learn so many different skills in your traditional pen and paper textbook information. You know, there’s lots of great tech programs. We have a lot of kids who are successful in our, we have an electrical program, a lot of kids go into apprenticeship programs for electrical. We have an amazing construction class wood shop where the students are building, you know, excellent cabinetry. And, and they’re, they’re learning about you know, using the, the AutoCAD machine to kind of personalize wood. And they’re learning a lot of these principles and, and some of these kids are going on to university, but they’re keeping all these, these, these, these skills on the side.

Jason Pratt (25:16):
And I remember when I went to school, I didn’t do any of this, this hands on techy. I, I was more of a PhysEd guy and more of a pen and paper type kid, but I think we’re, we’re doing a good job at, in education by being, by diversifying the programs that are out there and giving students the opportunities to learn where, you know, what does success mean for you as you graduate? And, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go to university and get a degree, but it, it’s just doing things you’re interested in being happy doing. And I think those opportunities and, and allow, want students to see those opportunities in a safe environment where they can experiment with it. Another big, real, another big program we have here. One of the more successful programs on our board is our co-op program.

Jason Pratt (25:57):
And I think one of the reasons is our, our co-op teachers are amazing at going out and getting really interesting co-op placements, whether it’s working at a veterinarian clinic, or one of our students is working at a co cosmetic surgery clinic. And, and just learning about that industry. We have a lot of students who work in other schools as elementary teachers, a lot of them work at you know, your traditional like mechanics things like that. And they get to experiment these jobs and kind of get a little snippet of what it’s like to work in that in industry. And then come back to school and say, you know what? I hated it, or I loved it. And I think that’s what high school is becoming for. A lot of these kids is, is experimentation finding out what works for you.

Jason Pratt (26:40):
And, and it’s about us working with these students. We’ve de-streamed the math for grade nine. And, and I it’s coming that we’re gonna DStream a lot more. A lot more of high school subjects will be D streamed. And I think that’s a good thing because it gives students more of an opportunity to experi, you know, experience challenges and learn and mature in an environment where they can kind of go back, make mistakes, change their pathway. But it’s, it’s, it’s definitely changing a lot from when I went to school. It was, you know, you go to school and you either, you’re gonna go to university and get a degree, or you’re gonna go and start working. And there’s really like, we’re seeing it now with colleges and, and providing students with so many more opportunities. I think it’s, it’s, it’s a huge, huge thing. So I think it’s just about providing a whole range of opportunities, allowing students to feel comfortable, choosing what they think is, is what’s best for them and, and engaging those families in that discussion. It’s all, it’s a very organic process now where I think it wasn’t so much when I went to school, it was very much, you picked the lane and stayed in that lane and that’s where you went. And that was it.

Sam Demma (27:44):
Yeah. Now students got the signals and they’re changing their lanes like crazy. Oh yeah.

Jason Pratt (27:50):
One eighties going back. Yeah. Know, I know it’s great. And it’s great to see that. And when you’ve empowered students and give them some say in what they’re doing, I think it changes them as, as learners. They don’t feel like they’re being forced one way or the other. They don’t have that pressure. They, I think they feel that they’re they’re in charge and that’s a, that’s an important thing for kids to feel like they have some say and some voice that’s.

Sam Demma (28:13):
A big, I, as a student who took a fifth year, a gap year, went to school, took a different path after school. I, I can’t stress the importance of all that enough. Yeah.

Jason Pratt (28:25):
Well, I’ll tell you something when I, so, I mean, my first year of university was not good. I was playing junior hockey and that was, you know, late games till 11, 12 o’clock at night. Yeah. And I was a languages major in my first year, so I had Spanish, French. And then, and then I took English as a, like secondary. And you had labs at 8:00 AM, and you know what, after a, a junior hockey game and, you know, you’re 19 years old, you’re going out. Sometimes you go out afterwards after the game, you weren’t getting home. And, and by the time I, I was not serious about it. So that first year was a disaster. I took a year off worked two full-time job, but well, one full-time job and a part-time job that was full time hours. And went back after that, you know, that third year, and then did well after that had kind of my focus on what I wanted to do.

Jason Pratt (29:16):
But interestingly enough, one of the side things I did as I was a student was I was worked in the service industry. And I did that for many years after I became a teacher. And what, what I saw in the service industry was a lot of my ex students who had graduated and these were the students. So I traditionally taught a lot of the college level Englishes and, and, you know, not necessarily the kids who were the best, most successful students, but what I got to see was I got to see them almost like a longitudinal study. I got to see them five, 10 years after they graduated. And what became of them. Cause, you know, you’re always like, oh my God, good luck to this kid. When he, when he, when he gets in school, what’s he gonna do? And they were all successful.

Jason Pratt (30:00):
They were happy. They were successful. They had families, they had businesses. They, they were really nice people. And these were the kids that traditionally didn’t do well in school. They were the guys who were in trouble, or they were the guys who were skipping or the girls that were, you know, you know, you know, whatever that may be like, they weren’t serious students. You would’ve thought, but no one sees them after they go. We don’t follow up on these kids after they graduate. But because I worked in the service industry and I worked for good 10 years after I saw some of the, the early kids that I had taught go on to become amazing adults. Like they were great kids and they just had to get through school to, to, but now I think we’ve, we’ve come to realize that there’s, it’s not like that anymore.

Jason Pratt (30:46):
It it’s changed. And so I’ve, I’ve, I, I was fortunate enough to have that experience and I think it opened my eyes a lot to what a school could become. And that’s part of the reason why I became a, an administrator is I loved the culture in my classrooms. I thought the only way for me to influence the culture in a school is to become a principal. And then when you become a principal, you can influence that culture. You really can. And you actually could as a vice principal, because I remember one of my first schools I started at the, there was, there was a lot of not conflict between the student and the teachers. They didn’t know how to handle. The kids were sent down a lot to the office. And as a vice principal, I role played a lot with the kids.

Jason Pratt (31:31):
I’d be like, okay, let’s, let’s go through how this happened. So I’m, I’m the teacher, you’re the student. So tell me what happened. And we would workshop almost how to, how to, you know, manage this, this conflict. And then I would go back to the teacher and say, Hey, listen, I worked with them, give ’em a chance. And, and it worked. And I think when the teacher saw that you had the kid’s best interest at heart and you were advocating for them, and the kids believed that it worked well. And I mean, I loved, I loved being a vice principal. That was an amazing role in a school when you’re a, a vice principal and you’re suspending dozens and dozens and dozens of kids, but never, they’re never angry at you. You’re doing a good job because those kids know that you like, you care for them and you’re being supportive.

Jason Pratt (32:20):
But at the same time, they made a mistake. And that was a, that was a fantastic job. I loved being a vice principal. Principal was more of an adjustment because you weren’t working so closely with kids anymore. And I felt as a vice principal, you have these really tight relationships with families and kids, and you’re working for them and you’re working with them. You’re like, come on, you can do it. I just don’t want you getting in trouble anymore. And you can get through this and, and you kind of work through them. Whereas with a principal, you’re more, it’s, it’s more of a broad picture of a school and you’re dealing with budget and staffing and scheduling and, and you’re dealing more with the adults in the building than you are dealing with the kids in the building. And that’s a change, right? So it’s like climbing another, I, I’ve not got to the peak yet of that mountain.

Jason Pratt (33:02):
I think I was at the peak as a vice principal, and now I’ve gone down and had to climb this next mountain, which I don’t know, maybe I’m getting older and it’s, it’s whatever it may be, but both roles are great. But that, that was really good. And then being a parent, being a parent gives you perspective too, on how your kids and I have, like I said, four boys who are good, good kids in that, but you get to see the parent side of it and the frustrations with my wife. And, and, and the teachers that they may have just in terms of, you know, how do we get these guys to be motivated with school and why the teachers, you know, sending this work, they don’t understand. So it’s really interest giving you all these perspectives. And I think it really influences you as a leader in a school.

Jason Pratt (33:45):
So, you know, I’m very much with, with my staff here, I’m always keep the parents informed, be very transparent, be very forgiving and understanding and, and, you know, just work with, if, if parents know you care about their son or daughter are in the classroom, that makes all the difference. When, when the parents have the impression that you don’t, that their kid is just a number or, you know, it’s, it’s not it, it, it’s just, well, the, you know, the mark is the mark and that’s what they got. You’re, you’re, you’re gonna have issues. And I said, you know, I say to them all the time, just work with parents, talk to parents, give them a call that makes all the difference in the world. And, and it has in this school, like I said, it’s, it’s a great school. We don’t really have any issues. And if we do, we resolve them quick and the parents are happy and the teachers are happy and the kids are happy, which is the most important.

Sam Demma (34:35):
Yeah, that’s awesome. It really sounds like the culture is something you focused on you, your staff, the teachers. Yeah. Even the students cuz they participated it as well. If someone wanted to reach out, ask you a question about the programs, the sports program, the way you try and embed school culture into the school, or just, you know, tell you about something they heard on this podcast, they enjoyed what would be the best way for them to reach out and get in touch with you?

Jason Pratt (35:01):
Well, if they wanna know more about the programs we do have a pretty good website with, with has some videos because we’ve had to be online the last couple years with our open houses, we actually saved a lot of our videos. Nice. So if people wanna find out more about the program, that’s where they would go and there’s excellent speakers and they talk about our program. But my email address is (email). They’re welcome to send me an email and that’s the best way for me to get ahold of anyone who needs to reach out. And if they have questions about the program specifically, or what not, I can direct them to whoever that may be. I’m always, I’m always advocating for this program because I believe in it, I would never, if your son, daughter is an excellent athlete and they live and you know, you can make it work logistically. We do have kids who come here all the way from Toronto, north York. Like it’s, it’s, it’s pretty amazing what people will do to be part of a good program. And you do it for your kids because you know, that’s so important to them, but no, it’s I’m always willing to talk more and and, and, and, and this was really great.

Sam Demma (36:12):
Thank you, Jason, for taking the time to come on here, share a little bit about your school. You, it is obvious that you’re passionate about your work and we need lots of passionate educators, so keep it up. And I look forward to seeing what your school and yourself and your staff bring to life post COVID. Yeah. With the sport programs, keep it up.

Jason Pratt (36:33):
Thanks a lot, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Jason Pratt

April 4, 2022 by Sam Demma Athletic Director Experiential Learning Principals Student Leadership Student Success 0

Anthony Perrotta – Vice Principal, MEd Student, AQ Instructor & Filmmaker

About Anthony Perrotta

A graduate of Humber College’s prestigious Film and Television Production program, Anthony’s (@aperrottatweets) experience in Canadian film and new media production is extensive and diverse. From corporate film experience to independent film and new media works, Anthony’s love of film/new media led him to a career in teaching that has been equally and deeply rewarding.

With a specialization in Communications Technology and Broad-based Technological Studies, Anthony has been committed to providing students with culturally relevant learning experiences. From nurturing students to tell their own stories through video production and sharing their “why” through digital portfolio design and social media branding, Anthony continuously works to cultivate spaces of learning where students feel empowered to show what they know and who they are.

With a commitment to professional learning, Anthony has held a number of positions that allowed him to leverage his expertise in digital media to serve teacher professional development. From 2011 – 2014, Anthony was a Resource Teacher with 21st Century Learning and AICT at the Toronto Catholic District Board. In this role, Anthony worked to support teachers across the TCDSB with the integration of 21st Century teaching and learning strategies and skills with a focus on digital media production, media literacy and the implementation of eLearning. In this resource role, Anthony was the District eLearning Contact for the TCDSB and was the Principal of Continuing Education eClass for a number of years.

With a commitment to student learning and the love for the classroom, Anthony ventured back to the classroom where he became the Department Head of Business and ICT Studies at Chaminade College School. During his time as Department Head, Anthony was responsible for the development of a Communications Technology program enriched by experiential teaching and learning practices. From industry partnerships with Disney Canada to collaboration with film and new media academics and industry professionals, his goal was to provide students with an experience that transcended the traditional classroom space. Furthermore, while at Chaminade College School, Anthony worked with partners including design thinker Dr. Marlyn Morris to develop a culturally relevant pedagogy framework to empower students to become global citizens with a focus on efforts to address anti-Black and BIPOC racism.

With all of this, Anthony is now a Vice Principal with the Toronto Catholic District School Board and is committed to servant leadership with the goal to empower teachers and students to be leaders of change in school and beyond. Anthony is currently Vice Principal at St. Anne Catholic Academy, School of Virtual Learning. In this role he works to support nearly 30,000 FDK-12 students who are being schooled online during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Anthony holds an Honours Diploma in Film and Television Production from Humber College, a BA in Film Studies (with Distinction) and a Bachelor of Education in Communications Technology from Brock University. Currently, Anthony is completing his Master of Education in Media Literacy at Queen’s University.

Anthony has written media / technology curriculum for Niagara University, Queen’s University, OECTA, OPHEA, Nelson Education, Catholic Curriculum Corporation and other institutions across Canada and has presented at a number of leading educational conferences including Reading for the Love of It, STAO, Connect and When Faith Meets Pedagogy.

Connect with Anthony: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Anthony’s Personal Website

Film and Television Production at Humber College

Film Studies at Brock University

Media and Communication Studies at Brock University

Masters of Education at Queens University

Toronto Catholic District School Board

21st Century Learning and AICT at the Toronto Catholic District Board

Chaminade College School

St. Anne Catholic Academy, School of Virtual Learning

Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA)

OPHEA

Nelson Education

Catholic Curriculum Corporation

Reading for the Love of It Conference

Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario (STAO)

When Faith Meets Pedagogy Conference

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest Anthony Perrotta is actually someone that I connected with on Twitter. And I just, I’m just coming back from taking eight months off social media. I’ve been on Twitter for a little while and we met through mutual educator connections, and I asked him if he’d come on the show. He has a very unique that led him into education and he has some very grounded, genuine perspectives and experiences that I think would be super helpful to hear about. From the onset of his early career in education, Anthony Perrota has been compelled and dedicated to knowing and empowering students in telling their stories.

Sam Demma (01:21):
With no surprise, he has a huge interest in film as well. As Vice-Principal, Anthony continues in his journey as a leader, committed to creating safe, equitable and inclusive spaces for all students. All while intentionally addressing anti-black and BIPOC racism. Anthony has a very unique again, journey into education. You’re gonna get a ton out of this interview today. I can’t wait for you to hear it, and let me know what you think. Buckle up and I will see you on the other side.

Sam Demma (01:49):
Anthony, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing who you are; introducing yourself, and a little bit behind what led you to the work you’re doing in education today?

Anthony Perrotta (02:03):
Well, thanks for having me, Sam. I’m not sure how high performing I am but we’ll have a good conversation I’m sure. So right now I am a Vice-Principal, a secondary school Vice-Principal with the Toronto Catholic District School Board. I’m part of the St. Anne’s Catholic Academy school of virtual learning team. This was Toronto Catholic’s response to COVID impacted pandemic learning. This is a fully virtual school, K to 12. There’s over 25,000 students, and I see your mask jump up there. And, and there’s a, you know, great team of teachers, of educational support workers, secretaries, administrators; like it really is a fulsome school in terms of how we want to serve students. And it’s you know, been really, really quite a fulfilling experience to be part of this type of I guess mechanism. I hate to say that word, but it feels like it at times because it is so big.

Anthony Perrotta (03:13):
And prior to becoming an administrator, I was a very passionate and still very passionate about education, classroom teacher. My background’s in film and so I was fortunate to have experience in film production and then transition into the world of education, where I taught communications technology, media studies, and really engaged in a unique experience where I could learn from students and then provide them opportunities to share their story. And for me, becoming a teacher was really about leaning into my experience as a documentary filmmaker, which was really the, the forte that I, that I entered upon finishing film school in the early 2000s and where some people say, well, you went to become a teacher, perhaps because you couldn’t make it in film. Well, anyone who has any experience in Canadian film knows that it’s never about money. It’s, it’s, it’s not Hollywood.

Anthony Perrotta (04:24):
Especially when you make documentary films, you really aren’t making these, these movies for personal wealth. You’re making them because you’re passionate about a particular story you want to unlearn and relearn through the narrative that you’re hoping to bring to life. And it was through a documentary that I was producing in Tanzania, where I met a group of students where my thinking around education was really, I think, reaffirm that young people have a transformational power about them and similar to yourself with your volunteer work and, and your social your social initiatives. And I wanted to be part of, I think that world really, and, and getting to know kids through more of a mature lens, stripping away assumptions of what we think, especially about teenagers and really support the empowerment of their voice. And, and that’s where my mindset was when I became a teacher and, you know, finished schooling, University, teachers college, and all those types of things.

Sam Demma (05:35):
You know, you brushed over Tanzania and you got me so curious, like how, how did that experience reaffirm this idea that, that young people have this transformational power about them? What happened in Tanzania that really shifted or, or affirmed your perspective?

Anthony Perrotta (05:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me peel it back a bit. So I went, I grew up in Niagara falls and then I went to study film at hum college in Toronto. And I was there from 1999 to 2002. And during that three year period, two of my years was working as a resident assistant counselor within the student residence. So my first year as an 18 year old going to film school, living in residence was about the party. And, you know, it was a great first year being 18, 19 years old, living away from home. My gosh, I’m surprised that I could wake up for classes some days. But then second and third year, I really became invested in the culture of the community and wanted to give back. And so I was successful in becoming a resident, assistant a counselor and living in the residence as a student, but also supporting my, my peers on my floor.

Anthony Perrotta (06:46):
And that provided me, I think, with an affirmation that yes, being part of the film industry, learning how to tell these stories, learning how to leverage technology and economics and get something made was quite compelling, but there’s something quite human and relational about working with people. And even as an RA and as a counselor, I was really invested in that experience. I was like really motivated to engage with people, to help them and, you know, learn from them. And it was quite unique and it shaped me, I think, exponentially. And so when I finished film school and I was working in the film industry in Toronto and different unique experiences, I started leaning into documentary because I found I would have more creative control. I found that my political and social sensibilities could be addressed. I was, was an am still very politically minded. And there was an opportunity to work with a Catholic organization called the missionaries of the precious blood, where they wanted to document their work in Tanzania, developing water windmills.

Anthony Perrotta (08:03):
And it was a unique partnership because they helped fund the project. I received government funding outside of that particular group, it had a formal release, so to speak and tr terms of what a documentary would be a Canadian made documentary. So at 22, it was quite a significant project for me. And what was wonderful was I made really two films. One was the one for the missionaries. And then the other was mine, which was looking at the intersectionality between water international aid and pretty much mindsets around development. And so it was quite a unique piece. And when I was there, there was a group of teenagers from Camloops BC that were there traveling with me when I was making the film. So part of my film was then sh documenting some of their stories and perspectives. And it was amazing because here I am, as this 23 year old young filmmaker with, you know, independent and government funding, I, you know, it’s quite exciting.

Anthony Perrotta (09:16):
It was at the time where film was transitioning from cell, you know, from 16 millimeter to digital, like, you know, the little mini DV cams, like the new technology was exciting. It was expensive as hell, but it was exciting. And I just found myself really invested in finding out who these kids were, who I was traveling with. And I was really just amazed that at 15, 16, they were going to give up their summers and travel halfway across the world and come together as strangers, some of them and contribute to this cause. And then I thought about who I was at 15 and 16, and my experience was definitely not going to Tanzania to develop and work on windmills. I was working at Swiss and, you know, washing dishes on the tourism strip in ARA, which are humbled roots, but it was very, very separate from social consciousness and community engagement.

Anthony Perrotta (10:15):
So I was really, really motivated by these young people and just really admired how them being there, tore away at how sometimes adults think about teenagers and what they are able to contribute. And even, you know, within the world of education, there will be so much that we celebrate around teenagers, but there’s often times where they’re trapped within some type of stereotype. So I was motivated to peel back the stereotype. And I just had a sense that the idea of filmmaking was going to change quite rapidly, that how we make films and tell films and share stories and what we perceive a film to be was changing quite rapidly. And this was before YouTube. This was before Facebook, right? This is really us just recognizing digital technology with the birth of Napster, which would’ve been when I started film school at the end of my grade 13, that wait a minute, the mechanisms of production were going to shift.

Anthony Perrotta (11:22):
So when I became a teacher finally in 2005 and started in 2005 as a full-time teacher with the Negar Catholic district school board, that was really where I was introduced to not only my students, but this whole, whole new democracy around the telling of stories that now we had YouTube, which I never had as a student, for example. Right. So now the way I tell stories and the way I share them shifted the power game. So it was just a very, you know, transformational for me in awakening. So to speak when I met these young kids and just thought to myself, you know, I could still make films, the type of films I want to make that are small scale that are very personal, very intimate. And like when I was an RA at hum college residence play a different role. And, and that’s where the film world and the teaching world converged.

Sam Demma (12:25):
So filmmaking, is that something that you still do now

Anthony Perrotta (12:29):
And oh yeah. Yeah. So there’s no separation be between me and film. Like I happen to be a secondary school vice principal, but on the weekends, you’ll find me blogging about the MCU on Disney plus, or, you know, a film, a popular film that I’ve seen on TV. For me being a filmmaker as the priority, you will allows me to be a better educator. Mm. Because it’s my film making roots that allow me to be responsive to situations. And this is not to say that I look at life in some type of hyper real existence where life is like a movie, but I have to tell you studying how to make films, having a degree in film theory, going to teachers college. I’m just finishing my masters in media literacy at Queens university, looking at how popular film or any type of film, really media literacy, if you will, is very much cultural literacy allows me to be very, very open to the people I work with and the people I year to serve.

Anthony Perrotta (13:44):
So I’m a filmmaker first because that’s how I kind of see the world around me as story that everywhere I go, there’s a story, you know, right now there’s a gentleman in the backyard of my house putting together a Barbie, I’m terrible at putting together things. My wife is way better at instructional design and organizational matters than I am. I, I, I think I might have like undiagnosed ADHD. So I just kind of am outta control sometimes in terms of my thinking pattern. So if you say put together a barbecue, I’m just like, oh my gosh, like, this is not for me. Yeah. So I there’s a gentleman in the backyard now. And before he even started putting together the barbecue, like I chatted with him for about 45 minutes. So I don’t know if he’s gonna charge me for that 45 minutes that it was part of the the hourly fee. But that’s to say, I found his story so unique. Here’s this young guy coming, you know over to the house to put together a barbecue laid off during the COVID experience has leaned into taskrabbit.ca to it has made this as permanent gig. And so for 45 minutes, I was really just wanting to find out who’s this guy who’s over the house. He might be thinking, I just wanna put together your stuff and, and get outta your,

Anthony Perrotta (15:00):
But he had, you know what I have to say, we had a really nice, good conversation. And I could tell that he was like, whoa, this guy’s actually taking the time. Speak to me. Like, he’s not just, here’s my barbecue. And here’s, you know, a sectional that I want you to put together in the backyard. It was a, you know, we had gave him an espresso, he had a coffee and we chatted. And so that’s the filmmaker side of me that I love to dive into story. Right. And that makes you a great teacher. Hopefully I don’t wanna say that. I didn’t great by any means, but the greatest teachers I’ve had are the teachers that really wanted to know who Anthony Prada was.

Sam Demma (15:40):
Mm. You just basically answered the question that was bubbling up in sad while you were speaking, which was, why is stories so important? Why is understanding people’s stories super important?

Anthony Perrotta (15:53):
So when we think about story, even as a parent, I talk a lot about this with my own kids who are 10 and seven years old. There’s a humbling of one’s self. When you engage in story, it’s when you actually say, I want to listen. I want to observe. I want to unlearn and rele. And so when we provide, especially young people, safe and inclusive places to be who they are without prejudice, without judgment, without assumptions. When we start actually rumbling with the power structure of our institutions, our classrooms, for example, where we re eyes, it’s not about, you know, Anthony Prada, the classroom teacher it’s about who are potentially the 25, the 30 students in my classroom. Are they going to be given with intentionality, not by accident, not some morning chat that we start the week with. I mean, real instructional intentionality to ensure that the curriculum that I design is responsive to who they are.

Anthony Perrotta (16:59):
Mm. So the story means everything because it speaks to then as an educator, what type of content am I going to be engaging my students in? And that’s really the hot topic today. When you think about EC, when you think about the type of material that we are engaging in the whole debate around, for example, what is perceived to be a classic to kill a Mockingbird, right? Do we need to be teaching a kill a Mockingbird? Do we need to be using that artifact as a vessel to engage in conversations about equity and race? I would argue, no, I will argue no there’s many other books written by black authors, people of color that provide a more humanized and more representationally profound discourse to engage in story who are the students that compose our classrooms. There is once a time. Very recently, I remember I would often show one particular film with a group of great 10 students.

Anthony Perrotta (18:08):
And I would show back to the future and I would scream back to the future in class, peel it back, talk about its kind it’s dangers around representation. Because when you look at back to the future, everyone celebrates it as this classic eighties film, but it’s a Reagan night artifact. It rises out of 1985, Reagan America. It’s directed by Robert Zeus. Who’s, you know, quite conservative. And the film is really there to make a pronunciation around whiteness and classism that only at the end, when Marty’s father stands up to the bully, when Marty’s father asserts himself to be an American man, does he rewrite the history? And then Marty’s family, this white wealthy unit. And when they’re wealthy, then their problems don’t exist. And the only black character we see is the mayor who we don’t really get to know until, unless he’s serving in the diner.

Anthony Perrotta (19:11):
So I was showing that film and having some conversations, but then I just recognized that the climate of my classroom was changing, that the students were, you know, perhaps not responding to that film. And I learned the value this many years ago of saying, Hey, what choice do you wanna make here? This is what we could watch. What, what, what, you know, connects to you and the students would guide the conversation. And so that’s all to say that the artifacts that we are using in class to engage in whatever type of, of experience we’re hoping to build, hopefully then allows students to be as real, if you will, as possible. So that’s why story to me matters story to me matters because it allows me to understand people. It allow me to kind of check my own biases, my own blind spots. You have to be open to that.

Anthony Perrotta (20:18):
That takes a lot of work, right? That takes a lot of work for you to be able to lean into your own vulnerability and say, yeah, you know, I need to change. Or my thinking in this way is not right. It’s potentially harmful and dangerous. And then when you’re thinking about young people, you are saying, Hey, I’m just the facilitator of this space. This space is yours. I’m here to serve you and people get rattled. When there’s this thinking around servitude in education that as a teacher, I’m here to serve you. And I’ve said that to colleagues, not as an administrator, I mean, teacher to teacher I’ve said, Hey, what’s the rigidness around assessment, or what’s the rigidness around being more culturally responsive in some of our or practices. Why are there these barriers when we’re there as public servants paid for by the ministry of education?

Anthony Perrotta (21:18):
Yeah. With taxpayers dollars, we are there to be in service to the child in front of us. And that child in front of us is perhaps the one thing that somebody else loves more than anything in the world. And I have the privilege to be in that shared space for 72 or 75 minutes a day. And it’s going to be about me. It can’t be when I send my own children to their Catholic elementary school, I’m sending to that school. The two things that I care about the most in the world. And I would hope when they’re there, they’re teachers who are fantastic. And I say this with utmost confidence, they respond to them in elementary school. Teachers, I think tend to do this more naturally with my, with my bias because they’re with students all year round from September to June, got it. In high school.

Anthony Perrotta (22:18):
We tend when we’re teaching to be so content driven. I’m in math. I need to get through the curriculum. I’m in comp tech. I need to get through the curriculum. I’m in geography. I need to get through the curriculum. And then the big daddy of them all, I have to prepare these students for post-secondary. Mm. Right? If I showed you Anthony Prada, transcripts from kindergarten, all the way to grade 13, it would seem as if nobody was preparing me for university. But Hey, at this point, come fall. When I finish my masters, I’ll have a college diploma, two university degrees in a master of education, not bad for someone who other people may have felt was falling through the cracks from K to grade 13. So that’s just to say that the experience of schooling has to really be about not the educator. What about the kids, student centric, student centric, and your work. When you talk about student servant leadership, that’s what it’s about. Mm it’s about saying, how am I going to help you? What is my time here really about? And unfortunately, if in the world of education within the classroom, there can exist a great ego. And sometimes the ego that exists is that of the teacher. It’s my space. It’s my I’m giving you a test. I’m giving you a quiz. Well, within that space, then where does the student fit? Is the student just a vessel to meet the, the end game that you’ve prescribed?

Anthony Perrotta (24:02):
Right? It it’s, these are challenging ideas. And this is not to say that teachers aren’t doing wonderful work. Oh my gosh. I know so many wonderful teachers. Okay. I, I I’ll, I will never say I ran into, or I’ve worked with a teacher that I don’t believe in because the potential that is exponential, the work I’ve witnessed is fantastic. It’s transformational. However, there are time where we have to ask some real critical questions about our lesson design, about our assessment strategies. Are we really there about the students now in that too comes another tough, tough one, especially when you think about high school. And we say, well, I’m preparing students for university or college. That one there kind of always gets me a little bit worked up in terms of having a good conversation, because if you’ve been an educator who’s been far removed from university or college, then how do you know what works?

Sam Demma (25:07):
Hmm.

Anthony Perrotta (25:09):
Why are we, you know, working within a prescribed near of preparing students for university and college, when act, and when in actuality, the college and university in the post-secondary world is evolving and it’s transforming that their, their game is starting to change Yet. We say, you know, I’m, I’m still working. I need to, I can’t make this change for example, because I have to fit this curriculum piece in because of college or university. I don’t know. I’ve never seen an Ontario piece of curriculum that actually states check mark, I’m prepared child, a child for college or university. I’ve never seen it.

Sam Demma (25:51):
And who’s to say that, you know, every single student in that classroom, that’s what they wanna be prepared for

Anthony Perrotta (25:58):
Ex exactly. Right. And if I look at myself as an example, my experience was not a positive one when it came to content. Mm. I didn’t really connect with material, especially in high school, other than in my art in media classes. Cause I was really, you know, very early on, very, very much grounded in where can I tell story? Where can I have control of the mechanisms of storytelling? And so visual arts media classes really spoke to my sensibilities. I knew enough to play the game of schooling. I was respectful. I would get my CS and maybe a couple of bees here and there. I knew enough that, of course I wasn’t going to flunk out by any measures. Okay. But content, the content wasn’t speaking to me and what really spoke to me more was learning about process. And luckily how having really good teachers in unique courses that allowed me opportunities to be resilient, to construct new knowledge on my own, to be curious.

Anthony Perrotta (27:17):
And when we think about education today and what’s called 21st century learning, or are learning that as grounded in global competencies, we think about the critical thinking. We think about the collaborators. We think about skilled communication, for example, using digital multimodal medias to show what students know, we’re talking about a lot of the things that make filmmaking so exciting to me. And then when that student arrives to their post-secondary space, wherever that is, they will be able to thrive. And, and I’m, you know, I’m kind of proof of that because when I went to film school, probably teachers that said goodbye to me in June of 1999, when I graduated, they probably never thought that I’d be showing up in 2005 as a colleague teaching in that same high school as my first full-time job. And you know, what I gained outside of content was what was really invaluable.

Anthony Perrotta (28:25):
It was all about the pro us. And so when we can provide students with the freedom to make mistakes, to grow, when we provide classroom cultures where we’re committed to feedback, ongoing feedback, so a student can rework and be committed to mastery when we provide these opportunities, what we’re also providing our unique spaces to get to know the students. Mm. And the type of feedback I give to student a, in student E is going to be perhaps quite different. The way they respond to that feedback is going to be quite different. And so within that difference, our unique stories. Mm. And that was what excites me when I was as an educator, when I was in the classroom. And as an administrator, that’s what excites me when it comes to helping students and their families get through pro perhaps difficult times or supporting students, you know, to go to the next level, it’s the opportunity to pause and ask myself, how can I help you? And before I can even help, I need to get to know you.

Sam Demma (29:44):
Yeah. Ah, that’s so powerful. I love that. And you, you know, at the beginning of this interview, you mentioned this idea that the school you’re at now is so large, you know, sometimes it feels mechanical or like a mechanism because of how big it is. Can you tell me more about what the school looks like? It’s, I’m assuming it it’s a fully virtual school.

Anthony Perrotta (30:02):
It’s a fully virtual school from K to 12. Got it. Over 25,000 students. And again, in response to, COVID a fantastic team at all levels, like really transformational, really doing something at a scale that was never done before. Yeah. And I can only speak for myself, but the main difference is when you’re in a building as an administrator and you believe like I did having my door open and being in the hallways very rarely when I was in a school as an administrator. And it was only a short time that I wasn’t an administrator in a school because then COVID hit. And I, and I made a transition to the virtual. I was in the hallways all the time cuz that’s where the action was. That’s where the students were. That’s where you get a sense of what’s happening. And when you’re in your school and you’re responsible to a particular community and you’re serving that community, you get to know that community.

Anthony Perrotta (30:57):
That’s the big difference between being in such a, when I said mechanical is I’m reaching sometimes to students who I don’t really know them. So the conversations perhaps don’t have the nuance that I would have with a student in my homeschool, in a physical building. Got it. But that just means that some of the conversations I have within the virtual space, they take a little bit longer that, you know, I take my time and I, and I, and I allow the conversation room. So if a parent wants to share a piece of their story in terms of why something is happening, for example, they have that safe place to do so. And I will say, I talk on the phone a lot throughout the day. And some of the conversations are longer than they perhaps need to be in terms of the more technical piece that I’m trying to solve.

Anthony Perrotta (31:52):
But if I call a parent and that parent perhaps senses in my voice or in my approach that this is a safe place to chat, maybe they just need the chat. And there’s been many times where I must have gotten a parent or even a student on a day where they felt maybe alone and unheard and they just needed to have someone listen. And that’s really the most exciting part of being an administrator is that you get the privilege to listen to all, all of these unique stories. And it’s not about me. These are, you know, these are opportunities that are free of bias of prejudice because I recognize really now fully mature in my 15 years of teaching, that I’ve been blessed with so much growing up, I’ve been blessed with the privilege of schooling. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful wife with wonderful children that there’s been so much privilege in my existence that it’s not for me to pass judgment on anyone else. Mm. Because my world is going to differ greatly than some of the worlds in which I’m trying to navigate with students and their families.

Sam Demma (33:16):
I love that. I got it. That’s a, that’s a great point. And 25,000 students, that’s like a, that’s like a university. You’re like a huge campus. Yeah,

Anthony Perrotta (33:30):
It’s massive, man. It’s massive. And there’s so many administrators. We have a wonderful lead principal, Joe Russo. Who’s at the helm like really great, great family, man, there’s job, a great team of administrators, elementary and secondary superintendents. But really it comes down to the teachers, the support workers, everyone who is in that trench with the child, so to speak, I hate to use that metaphor of the trench. Right. but in that playground then if you will, of the classroom, the digital classroom,

Sam Demma (34:01):
I get that makes sense.

Anthony Perrotta (34:02):
Thinking I lost you there a little bit. But it’s a, it’s a huge mechanism. Oh, can you hear me?

Sam Demma (34:11):
Yes.

Anthony Perrotta (34:13):
Can you hear me?

Sam Demma (34:14):
Yep.

Anthony Perrotta (34:15):
I can’t hear you.

Anthony Perrotta (34:19):
There you go. Now I can hear you. Okay.

Anthony Perrotta (34:22):
So when it goes, when it comes to the a virtual school, you know, it’s been a transformational experience in, in, so the Toronto Catholic school board has reasons to be proud in, in so many ways because it really is this collective effort coming together to support students in a time that none of us thought we would ever encounter, I, or thought that I would encounter in my educational career, let alone my life, something at this scale. And I think if you look at it through an objective point of view, it really is about recognizing that each student that we serve, each family is unique. So we want there to be the most holistic experience possible. That’s not to say that it’s not imperfect. It is by, you know, everything we’re we’re human beings. So none of us are, are perfect. Right. But the intentions are sound in regards to the work that I’m doing now with the virtual school and in regards to COVID teen and pandemic learning, I think we’re all in education going to really need to pause and reconfigure what teaching and learning really means.

Anthony Perrotta (35:38):
And you talked to me earlier about servant leadership, and I think we’re going to have to do a lot more around that and continue the good work we’re doing, because what COVID has shown us is it’s not about content. It’s not about tests and it’s not about quizzes. It really is out that relational human leadership that is needed. And I see it with the wonderful teachers that work with my son and daughter, they know how to gauge the kids. They know when it’s time to put away the work. And more importantly, they’ve created safe places for them. They go to school mask on happy. They don’t like when they’re put in quarantine or when they’re on lockdown, they wanna be in those spaces. Why not? Because of just the fact that they like to learn. They have my wife’s side. They are very much self-directed learners and, and, and love schooling.

Anthony Perrotta (36:37):
They do their homework. They’re excited about that type of stuff. I was excited about schooling because of the social side. I was never the tiny rule doing his homework. Yeah. but they love all aspects of, of schooling. And I think any educator that puts kids first truly first, like who is that child in front me and how can I best empower them to be the very best that they can be? And as a Catholic educator, what drives me is how can I support this student in being what God intends them to be, whatever that is. Am I providing the safe place for that? I always thought that as a teacher and imperfect, you know, there’d be times, you know, and if I had my students here, many of them would tell you, this is, you know, we’re a production classroom. Yeah. So we would produce movies.

Anthony Perrotta (37:39):
We had a end of year showcase. Every school I taught at was driven by this end of year, bigger than life showcase. And for the last six years, when I taught at an all boys school SHA not college school, the end of year showcase was happening at Yorkdale silver city. One of the biggest multiplexes in the city of Toronto and the whole year was guided towards the end of may, when all of our short films, digital movie posters, graphic media would be on display, not only projected on the big screen, but taking over the concession area. And it would be our end of your showcase on the most Grandes of scales, we had filmmakers who were partners. We were doing work with Disney Canada. We would have video with academics, with filmmakers. I mean like major Hollywood filmmakers. We would go see Steven Spielberg movie and then have a Skype with the screenwriter of that Steven Spielberg movie.

Anthony Perrotta (38:31):
Everything was exponential to the max, which was quite exciting as somebody who just loves that world. But within that space, there could be a lot of imperfection. I could lose my cool, I could pass judgment without perhaps thinking I could lose my patience. And one of the things I pride pride myself on, even as a parent, is my ability to apologize. And I would apologize to the students if there was a morning where we weren’t meeting the demands of production and, you know, I forgot where I was and maybe became impatient, right. And raised my voice, or maybe made someone feel unwelcome. Right. We’re all IM perfect. What mattered next was, do I respect that human being in a way that will make them feel welcomed and right. That will make them feel and know that I value them. And that would only happen with, Hey class yesterday. I lost my cool on Sam. That wasn’t cool of me. I apologize.

Sam Demma (39:38):
Mm.

Anthony Perrotta (39:39):
Right. Sam matters, Sam, I’m sorry, buddy. Right. I didn’t really have many high school teachers who would do that.

Sam Demma (39:46):
Yeah.

Anthony Perrotta (39:48):
And I would do that because I respected the kids, their stories, their uniqueness. So very much the first two of admit that I’m imperfect, but I will do the work to try to limit how many times that imperfections taint my journey.

Sam Demma (40:07):
I love that. That’s it’s, it’s, it’s so important I think, to own up to MI to mistakes or imperfections and we all have them. So it’s a great reminder, even for everyone listening, because it, I’m sure we could all, you know, point fingers at ourselves at those moments. But like, you’re right. What what’s important is that we, we acknowledge them and we bring them to light and apologize and make up for them. Right.

Anthony Perrotta (40:31):
Yeah. And you know, and I, no, I believe that even as a parent, you know, I, there’s been many times where, and what I love about Mike kids. They’re very, very, very self efficient as a 10 and 70 year old. And their self advocacy is like through the, through the, through the roofs, like level four, they will stand up for themselves. And that’s very much something. My wife and I have instilled in them. And that’s very much my extroverted personality where I will stand for what I believe in. I was the person in staff rooms that would say, Hey, you know, that’s perhaps not the conversation to have here. I’ve been in really courageous conversations in staff meetings where, you know, I would stand up and say, Hey, right, have we thought about this? Have we thought about this? Is it us? Are we not doing the job?

Anthony Perrotta (41:22):
And that can make people kind of uncomfortable, but that self advocacy or that willingness to engage in courageous dialogue is something I believe in and something I try to instill in my own children. So as a parent, if I discipline and let’s say, I raise my voice to my son, for example, he has no problem saying, Hey, this doesn’t make sense. Why are you raising your voice at me? Why am I being penalized when this, and this happened? And at 70 years old, old, he’ll say it. And he’s not saying it to be rude. He’s not talking back. He’s sharing what’s on his mind. And you know, I grew up first generation immigrant. My parents are Italian fresh off the boat and we didn’t talk back to our parents. Right. We didn’t as a child, I didn’t say to my dad, oh, by the way, I think you’re understanding of the, this this, this consequence is unfiting like, you’d be like, are you kidding me?

Anthony Perrotta (42:18):
Like it would be nuclear apocalypse. You know, we parent differently. And there’s been many times when I’ve said to my own children, Hey, you know what, sorry, I lost my temper there. Or you know what you were right. Right. I jumped to conclusions that didn’t happen the way it did, you know, let’s talk it out. And I think that shows my kids, hopefully that I actually do value, right. Their perspective and their sense of self worth. And that’s something I think we have to model in, in our everyday encounters with young people, the kids that are sent to us, right? These are not. So imagine the great responsibility we have when another parent or caring adults, guardian grandparents sends you this human being. It’s a huge responsibility. So we have to really ensure to check our ego out the door as much as we can.

Sam Demma (43:13):
I love it. And I think when you have those crazy conversations and you allow the other party, whether it’s a young person or, you know, any human being to, to give you feedback in any way, shape or form, it also shows in that there’s a safe space and that, you know, their opinion and voice matters. As much as it might be uncomfortable for you to hear it, you know, as it is for most of us to hear feedback that we don’t, you know want to hear at certain times, but that’s arguably when we need it most Anthony, this has been a great conversation. We talked about so many different things. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

Anthony Perrotta (43:49):
No, no problem. I hope by, you know, made sense to some of the ideas that I shared. I think to summarize who I am as an educator, and I’m still growing, I’m still growing really is shaped. Believe it or not by all of that film work. Hmm. You know, the two worlds are not disconnected. There’s a transcendence between the two, there’s an interconnectivity between to, and my mindset around teaching and learning. I don’t think it would be there without studying film production, knowing how to mobilize and tell the story and then sharing that with kids. I don’t think I would be where I am in terms of education and being an educator without living in a college dorm and being a counselor. I, I don’t think that the type of films I was working to tell and documentary, which were really community minded, really about being responsive to other people’s stories. Without those, I, I don’t think I’d be as open to making sure that my classroom wasn’t about me. And that’s really, for me, the end game about teaching and learning that it is not about me. It’s not about any type of prescribed rendering. I may have. It really needs to be responsive to who the student is, their families. And if that means I have to do a lot of unlearning, then that’s what I need to do. That’s what I’m called to do.

Sam Demma (45:32):
I love it. The, the student-centric like, that’s the main take. That’s my main takeaway, listening to this, you know, the students be the center of everything we do,

Anthony Perrotta (45:40):
It’s student, student students. And you know, that is could be complicated at times, especially when you’re working with adults. Right? Yeah. And I just live every day, whether I was a classroom teacher. And now as a vice principal, I’m still a teacher. I still see myself as a teacher, even though the roles are different. Yeah. Every day that I’m working, it really is what’s best for students. Got it. And that’s the guiding, that’s the guiding compass.

Sam Demma (46:09):
I love it. And if someone is listening to this and is inspired and just wants to have a conversation to dive deeper in some of your own philosophies and maybe exchange a, you know, a nice conversation, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Anthony Perrotta (46:23):
They could reach me on Twitter. I, I love using Twitter as a professional learning network, so many wonderful educators. So anyone who would like to chat and, you know, have a good dialogue about education and what teaching and learning is now and what is potentially going to need to be, please reach out. This is all part of the learning. There’s no right or wrong concept or thinking. It’s all about that shared experience of having a good dialogue. So yeah, look forward to it.

Sam Demma (46:49):
Awesome. Anthony, thank you so much. And keep up the great work.

Anthony Perrotta (46:52):
Thank you, buddy. Thanks so much.

Sam Demma (46:54):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; f you want meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Anthony Perrotta

April 2, 2022 by Sam Demma Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Eleanor McIntosh – Founding member of the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators (ONABSE) and the Principal of Ajax High School

About Eleanor McIntosh

Eleanor (@Eleanor27332035) is a secondary Principal within the Durham District School Board. She holds a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Administration and undergraduate degrees in Biochemistry and Kinesiology. She is an advocate for youth and the community.

Eleanor is one of the founding members of the Durham Black Educators’ Network (DBEN) since its inception in 2005. She has held executive positions of Treasurer, Vice-Chair and two terms as Chair. Eleanor is a founding member of the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators (ONABSE), where she lends her skills and experience to inform policy and programming for educators across the province.

Eleanor has been a panellist and presenter at 30 different speaking engagements and conferences since 2012. She has appeared on CTV, Rogers TV, and a variety of Metroland Media local newspapers. An avid global traveller, Eleanor has visited over 25 different countries around the world and is happy to call the Durham region home.

Connect with Eleanor: Email | Twitter | Linkedin

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Durham Black Educators’ Network (DBEN)

Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators (ONABSE)

Durham educators call for more inclusivity in wake of George Floyd’s death (Global News)

Ajax High School – Durham District School Board

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:01):
Eleanor welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.

Eleanor McIntosh (00:08):
Yeah, for sure. So good day, everyone. Eleanor McIntosh here, my pronouns are she her and hers. I am excited motivated, inspired to be here today for this podcast. I’m a principal in the Durham district school board at Ajax high school where I’ve been for the last five, almost five years doing, doing the good work, getting into some good trouble.

Sam Demma (00:37):
Why education? What drew you to teaching and education as a whole?

Eleanor McIntosh (00:42):
So interesting story. My pathway to education was not direct by any means. I, I always tell people that I kind of fell into it because I never really saw myself as an educator education found me. So after my post my undergraduate post-secondary adventures, which are more, mostly geared in the sciences, actually, that’s my undergraduate degree. I decided to put a pause in my life to try and sort things out, I guess you could say. And I traveled, I took I took a job teaching English, a overseas through the a program called the jet program, the Japan exchange and teaching program. So I applied got shortlisted and then got accepted to the program. And off, I went on my adventure to Asia. So I spent two years in Japan where I had never been that far away before, but, you know went along with many other educators from Canada and around the world and found myself in a small little town kind of like Pickering or Ajax in the Durham region.

Eleanor McIntosh (01:59):
And I taught English in a large academic high school cuz they do, they, they stream there in Japan. And in that experience I found my calling. I loved teaching. I loved connecting with kids. I loved being in a classroom and English is not my background, but I had to figure it out. And it wasn’t about the English, right? The English was just a part of it. It wasn’t about the English, it was about the connection and, and being in community and all, lots of other different things. And so it’s because of that experience that I applied to teachers college here in Ontario, came back and became an educator.

Sam Demma (02:42):
That is so awesome. Would you other educators who are teaching now or thinking about teaching to travel international and if so, why?

Eleanor McIntosh (02:53):
So again, a really good question because it was because of this experience that I really often encourage students and educators to travel and to use international travel or education as a gateway to learning and building, building our personal selves and verse building character because I really, we found that that experience, it, it was for me life changing. I will say that I say that all it was life changing for me. I grew as an individual. I grew as a professional at the time I didn’t really see myself at the professional, but I really grew into my professional self. And, and, and so, you know, I often talk about my international education experience as a stepping stone to to whatever you want to learning to growing. And I talk a lot about that, especially with students who are unsure, you know, take a year go and see, because you can gain so much from traveling around the world and connecting with people, which is what I found.

Sam Demma (04:06):
That’s so amazing. I found similar experiences traveling not to teach, but to play soccer. Yep. At the age of 13. So I think travel opens your mind and eyes to many things you might not hear or see, and it changes your perspectives. It gives you more tools to see the world through.

Eleanor McIntosh (04:27):
It does. It does. And it’s, it’s amazing. I think probably there was lots of aha moments in that, in that traveling. I was there for two years. Like I was overseas for two years. Didn’t come back to the Western world for two years. Because why I could come back, I’m gonna be back here eventually. Yeah. But you know, I really, I really saw the value of perspective because the world views the west their differently than the west views, the rest of the world. So that was eyeopening for me.

Sam Demma (05:09):
Tell me more about that. How does the rest of the world view the west versus us?

Eleanor McIntosh (05:15):
So we are very, as a Western society, we’re very, we’re new compared to the west of rest of the world, right. Because our, our civilization started much later than, than other countries. And I think we’re a little bit arrogant in the way that we believe the rest of the world operates or a ESP for the rest of the world to operate. And so it’s very Western centric. So, you know, it’s like the west is the center of the world and everybody else operates based on what the west does, but oh no. You know, you know, the west has its own ways of functioning and, and operating. And, and I found in particular I often got confused for being American. And so I was interrupting notions of discrimination and, and viewpoints of Americans or black Americans, even when I was traveling overseas.

Eleanor McIntosh (06:13):
But the minute I said that I was Canadian boy, the, at the viewpoint change. So the world welcomes and sees Canada as a very big partner for it around for its, for its citizens and a global participant positive global participant. Whereas it doesn’t view the Americans in the same way. Exactly. And so there was a lot of hate coming, you know, I, I heard a lot of hate for the west and we, you had to kind of separate Canada and America a little bit because really that hate was about America a lot. Right. Wow. So it was, it was really I opening yeah. Really eye opening.

Sam Demma (06:59):
Speaking of perspectives and the importance of gaining more, I’m grateful that lots of perspectives that have been very underrepresented are starting to, you know, hopefully bubble to the service and have over the past two years especially in the communities of a diversity equity. And you’ve been a champion of pushing that message forward as much as you can. What do you think are some of the challenges that have existed and to this day still exist, that you’re really passionate about speaking up and, and trying to make a change in that you think are underrepresented perspectives.

Eleanor McIntosh (07:38):
Really great question. So a couple of things come to mind I think for a long time education, public education was allowed to be ignorant yeah. To the realities of what was happening in its communities, where it was centered. You know, it was always seen as the powerhouse and there was a very clear, defined way of operating and still it’s still there. It’s absolutely still there. And so you know, George Floyd, the, the incidents and George Floyd a couple of years ago, I think served as a real catalyst for the world to wake up and for education to now participate in interrupting biased practices, discriminatory practices that have been going on forever and still continue. So it really allowed us to will no longer be silent. So those who were on the margins who were working in education, it gave them voice mm, gave them a space it gave and not them cuz I’m included in that.

Eleanor McIntosh (08:52):
It allowed us to advocate for the change that we knew we wanted to see for so long, but really we were silenced for for years. And I will say that specifically about my work in education. I never really saw a, an avenue where I could participate in challenge notions of, of racism, discrimination, oppression in the system. I felt that I really had to maintain the status quo because if I chose to speak up, then there, I would be for lack of a better word blacklisted, I would be I would limit my career possibilities, right. There would be, there would be impact to me personal impact and professional impact to me. But as the doors have widened more and more examples come to the forefront that have allowed the conversations of equity and diversity and more specifically anti-oppression to find its way into learning spaces.

Eleanor McIntosh (10:09):
And that was nothing that we ever wanted to participate in before you might have seen pockets, but they were quiet pockets. Yeah. They were people that would close their doors and do their thing quietly. But now people have opened their doors and let that freedom out into the entire school community. And that is bringing students joy because we’re not, we’re no longer harming, we’re not harming kids anymore. That harm. You’re giving students voice. You’re giving them the opportunity to say, no, I don’t want my education to be like this. I wanna make sure that it’s going to resonate with me fully and, and allow me to be my full self.

Sam Demma (10:54):
And represent the whole truth.

Eleanor McIntosh (10:58):
100%. Cause we were speaking partial truths for a long time.

Sam Demma (11:01):
There’s a book by Martin Luther king Jr. With the title. Why we can’t wait, it’s something, I might be butchering it a little bit, but it’s something along those lines. And the whole book is amazing and it talks about a lot of the movements he engaged in and why now was the time for change and why? Like we can’t be patient anymore. And I’m curious to know why you believe the reform that’s happening currently in education and, and hopefully continues to happen throughout north America and all over the west. Why is now the time and why can’t we be patient with this stuff anymore?

Eleanor McIntosh (11:36):
We can’t be patient because all kids are not succeeding. Mm.

Eleanor McIntosh (11:43):
All, all students, that’s what publication is grounded in. Yeah. Right. The success of all students, Nelson Mandela talks about that education is the powerful equalizer. Right. But it hasn’t been yeah. For so long. And so we can’t wait for more and more students to be harmed for black students, particularly black males to be pushed out of the system to end up into this pipeline into activity because they don’t feel a sense of belonging that no one is there advocating for them. So you’re right. We can’t wait. And sadly for those who hold privilege and those who have, have garnered that privilege through just by who they are, we can no longer allow those loud voices to control the outcomes of students cannot. Right. It’s time now for those who have been silenced underrepresented or marginalized to bring those perspectives back to the forefront so that we are there to, to advocate, that’s what public educators are for. They’re there to advocate for all students, not just some and the ones on the margins need us the most. And so we need to stand up for them. Now, the data’s clear, kids are not succeeding and we can’t do it anymore.

Sam Demma (13:11):
It seems like the motivation and motivation is very fleeting because it might last for a minute. It might last for a month. It might last for two months, six months. Yep. But the motivation and excitement of something happening in the world and our initial reaction seems to fade very fast. Yes. How do we sustain this change? How do we move away from motivation and decide to commit and discipline ourselves to follow through with these things? Even when it’s hard, even when the doors are open and the conversations are extremely uncomfortable, I’m not asking you for the key of this whole solution here, I’m putting on the spot, but how do we bring this back to the forefront of the conversation and continue it?

Eleanor McIntosh (13:59):
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a, there’s a number of different ways that that can happen. From a, from a professional standpoint, I think it’s, it’s twofold, right? So from a professional standpoint we have a responsibility in schools, right. And so for this question leans more towards what is our responsibility and, and not just, not just in the way that we believe that this should be, but what is the legal responsibility? Because there is a legality, right? What is the legal responsibility that we have to make sure that this that we’re not closing these doors, that we’re keeping that at the forefront, right. So that’s the first thing. And there’s been a couple of really strong moves made by the government in order to make sure that, that that, that responsibility is clear for educators. And I’ll give you an example.

Eleanor McIntosh (14:55):
So one example is, is that the Ontario college of teachers has now advised it has now become as part of the education act that discriminatory practices are now an act misconduct for educators. That’s a bold move. That was a necessary move to legitimize the work and keep that responsibility very ever present for educators. Right. they’ve also put out an advisory relating to anti-black racism, right? Again, another bold step that allows for that high level of accountability for educators. Right. So no longer. So now as a system, we have some, some very clear lines to lean on, right? Should people decide that they no do not want to participate, that they want to give up their responsibilities to the students that we serve. Right. but I also think it goes deeper than that because we have to also lean on ed administrators, like leaders in the right leaders, leaders have to participate in, in making the space for this change to happen.

Eleanor McIntosh (16:07):
Right. We are part of that responsibility because we are also we’re educator at heart. And so from, from middle to upper management and the executive level, how are we making sure that the policies, procedures and frontline work of leaders make sure that we are advocating, educating, building awareness, right. With our staff so that it doesn’t fall to the wayside so that our, our educators feel not just empowered, but confident to entertain and engage in conversation of injustice in the classroom. Right. Because it’s not just about teaching you know, literacy and numeracy, that’s important, but we want to make sure that we are creating a world that we, that is not reflective of the current day. We wanna create a world that is reflective of what we want to see in the future. We do that through opening up these conversations in the classroom.

Eleanor McIntosh (17:21):
Right. And so that, I think it’s so it’s, it’s multiple things. And then on a personal level for people, people have to also feel as though that they are not comp that they’re not complicit in racist practice or discriminatory practices. Right. So, you know, you know, they have to choose to educate themselves, right. So how do they, how do they, why, why would I, as an educator, as a human being choose to participate in, in learning more, right. People don’t want to feel as though that they are creating barriers for people or upholding white supremacy. They don’t wanna feel that way. And so it’s also playing into people’s compassion and right. We wanna make sure that people understand that justice is for everyone, from every location, from every identity. And so by putting that and making that as a priority, right. Going, leaning on the moral compass, if you will, the compassion that everybody holds, I think it’s how you also get to educators or people to buy in right into these circum, into these conversations, even when it’s hard. Right? Yeah. Even it’s hard.

Sam Demma (18:40):
It sounds like we really can’t afford spectation or spectators anymore.

Eleanor McIntosh (18:46):
You can’t, you can’t afford to be a bystander anymore. Yeah. If you’re a by, in, or someone’s gonna call you out, like this is the thing now, right. People aren’t gonna stay silent, somebody’s going to call you out. And I have had to on many occasions, you know, engage in conversations, sometimes difficult conversations with staff about something they may have said or whatever. And again, not ill intention. I would never think that anybody is doing something maliciously. We are gonna make these mistakes, but it’s up to me and, and everybody else in the building to make sure that we are all moving this forward together, nobody left behind.

Sam Demma (19:26):
Hmm.

Eleanor McIntosh (19:26):
Nobody left behind.

Sam Demma (19:28):
What have you found helpful in terms of educational resources? So there’s an educator listening right now who is mentally deciding, not because they’re just motivated due to your passion for this topic. Yep. But they’re mentally deciding right now. Okay. I don’t wanna bystand I don’t wanna spectate. I wanna join this conversation and participate. Where should they start with their own self education or what have you heard, or even read yourself or heard other educators reading, going through, watching to learn more about the situation to inform themselves?

Eleanor McIntosh (20:07):
So reading is a lot of what I’ve been doing over the past little while, and also, you know, encouraging my staff to read as well. Right. Yeah. And presenting them with choices and options to help build their awareness cuz you’re right. We can’t do it all right. As I so a couple of, so in terms of titles, you know me and white supremacy by Lelas Asad white fragility, lot of, so I read white fragility by Delo. So a lot of DeAngelo’s work. A lot of Kent’s work you know, anti-racist education. Anything by Kent DLO Leila, sod is all very important readings to participate in because it allows us to connect with that personal side of us and push a little in terms of our thinking around what it means to be just a human being, not even just for educators, just a human being. So those are some of the things that we’ve engaged in here. And then of course there’s any number of videos and media pieces that are all put together by again, people who are doing this work that allows us to build more awareness about the issues that are at the, the forefront of this. Right.

Sam Demma (21:25):
Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for sure. What personally on all fronts of life and education, not only with this topic, but what keeps you personally motivated and hopeful to show up every day with your energy and continue doing this work?

Eleanor McIntosh (21:40):
Yeah, so a few things, when I, I decided to become an educator, I came back to Durham where I part when I, where I went to school and, and was raised, I came back to Durham because I wanted to make sure that other students who were in our system didn’t have to experience some of the injustices that I experienced as a, as a young woman. Mm. The young black woman growing up in, in the Durham region. So it was really important for me to be active as an active advocate, right. To interrupt those, those injustices, that was really important. You know, I wanna make sure that I’m actively participating in state in change and not being complicit. And that, that, that, those aha moments, those, that feedback I get from teachers, from students that what we are doing is working definitely keeps, keeps the fire lit for me.

Eleanor McIntosh (22:41):
Mm. You know, when I hear that positivity, when I hear, you know, student voice coming to the forefront, definitely that that warms my heart. It really does to know that I’m, that I’m making those connections really strongly for, for our students. When I, when I see a student turn the corner that’s huge, huge for me because I I do this work for students. I do this for that next generation who is going to do amazing things very much like yourself, Sam, right, who are doing these amazing things that you know, 10, 15 years ago, we couldn’t even imagine, right. It is students that are going to create change for the future, right. We, it is, it is, it is this generation, your generat that, that are going to make that change. And so it’s really important that we empower them to do so. And the last piece in particular is at some point in my career, I became a parent and I have a young daughter a young queen. And you know, I definitely, I’m a young queen. And you know, I wanna make sure that the path is very clear for her coming in, into a system where I know there is injustice. So she is my light every day. And the one who helps to make sure that I am staying focused on the work that needs to be done, because I don’t wanna ever ha have my daughter to come home and tell me that she wants to have blonde hair and blue eyes again.

Sam Demma (24:24):
Amen. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that.

Eleanor McIntosh (24:28):
Yeah, no problem.

Sam Demma (24:30):
If you could if you could take all the experience you’ve had in education, bundle it up, walk back to when you first started teaching, tap yourself on the shoulder and say, Hey, this is what you need to hear right now. What, what advice would you have given your younger self?

Eleanor McIntosh (24:54):
Yeah, that’s another good question. I always, I always ask myself, I have learned, I, you know, when you, when you know better, you do better. And I, and I definitely have done better. So I was gonna go back to myself. I would definitely say, make room for, to connect with students, build community it’s community that signals belonging and value for kids. When you have that belonging and value, you get engagement. When you have engagement in the classroom, learning happens when learning happens, success happens. So I would make sure that I would tell my younger self to put aside. There are times when you need to put aside your plan and you need to make sure that you are bringing conversations that matter into the classroom.

Sam Demma (25:48):
Mm.

Eleanor McIntosh (25:49):
I really wanna encourage, I would really spend that time. I was a math and science teacher. So sometimes it can be very linear right in the way that we think. But I think, you know, sometimes we have to take risks, right? I I’ve, I’ve become a risk taker as I’ve, as I’ve matured in the profession. And I would, I would try to take more risks a little bit. I would try to make sure that I’m also using my voice, cuz I didn’t use my voice in those early years. I was too worried. I would use my voice as a vehicle and a platform to advocate even when it was difficult. Even when I fell, felt scared, even when I was fearful.

Sam Demma (26:32):
That’s awesome. Right.

Eleanor McIntosh (26:34):
I would do that.

Sam Demma (26:35):
Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Talk about your experiences, talk about your beliefs and philosophies and share some important follow up on all the things that have happened over the past year or two years. If someone’s listening, wants to reach out, collaborate with you, ask a question, brainstorm some things. What would be the best way for them to get in touch with you.

Eleanor McIntosh (26:59):
Best way is to reach out to I’m not see super huge on social media to be truthful. So I’m on LinkedIn. That’s the one platform that I’m on. So you can look me up on LinkedIn for sure. And then look me up at Ajax high school for now or through the DDSB email’s always great. I’m always open to doing the good work and getting into good trouble with anybody who wants to do that.

Sam Demma (27:22):
Cool. Oh no. It’s thank you so much. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.

Eleanor McIntosh (27:26):
Sam, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Eleanor McIntosh

March 25, 2022 by Sam Demma Association Director Experiential Learning Founder and CEO Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Andrea Taylor – Principal at Gary Allan Learning Centres for Adult, Alternative & Continuing Education

About Andrea Taylor

Andrea Taylor (@GaryAllanSchool) is a Secondary Principal with the Halton District School Board and she is presently responsible for the Gary Allan Learning Centres that offer Adult, Alternative and Continuing Education at 5 different locations across the region. Andrea began her career 32 years ago as an elementary school teacher before moving to the secondary level as a biology teacher and department head.

In 2003, Andrea was promoted to the role of Secondary Vice-Principal and in 2012, she became the Principal of M.M. Robinson High School in Burlington where in 2017 she was recognized as one of Canada’s Outstanding Principals. As an outdoor enthusiast, Andrea believes that experiential learning can lead to some of the best educational moments for any learner at any age.

Taking learning outside, or even out of a classroom, can allow a student to think more broadly and creatively about the world around them.

Connect with Andrea: Email | Twitter | Website

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Gary Allan Learning Centres

Halton District School Board

Bridges to Success Programs (BTS)

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:01):
Andrea welcome to the high-performing educator. Huge pleasure to have you on the show this morning, please start by introducing yourself.

Andrea Taylor (00:10):
Well, hello, I’m Andrea Taylor. I’m the principal of Gary Allen learning centers within the Halton district school board. So I oversee four campuses, five campuses across the region that deal with adult alternative and continuing education for the school board.

Sam Demma (00:24):
How did you get into adult education? Tell me a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are now.

Andrea Taylor (00:31):
Well, it’s not my first principalship. My first principalship was at a regular high school M.M. Robinson from 2012 to 2017. And this is my 32nd year in education. So I guess after my five years there, I wanted something a little different. And so this was one of my career profile choices. And so I came here in 2017, so I’m in my fifth year of it. So I’m not really sure that I had any vision for adult education. However, it has been a really nice experience for this time in my career. So I’m, I’m really enjoying seeing how adults who may not have enjoyed their high school experience, know that there’s a way in which they can come back and get their diploma. It’s a, a very very inspirational job when you give them a diploma and they’re 45, 55, 65 years old. And you’re never too old to, to get the diploma.

Sam Demma (01:33):
So that’s awesome. I think it’s such a unique school to be working in filled with inspiration. It sounds like it’s a very rewarding position. What it’s tell me a little bit more about the position itself and what you do in the school and why, why, why it’s been inspirational for you?

Andrea Taylor (01:52):
Well, I think it’s been inspirational because alternative education is what we run in our day school, plus adult credit programming. So alternative education for those students who are completely disengaged with the high school career for many different reasons. And they need to be, you know, they benefit from being out of that sort of trigger environment, quote unquote. So we have a step program which is secondary teen engagement program here in Halton, across four campuses, one in Burlington, Oakville, Milton and Georgetown. We probably have a hundred and about 150 you know, spread out throughout the region who do face to face instruction. We also run an alternative program called bridges to success for the over 18 year olds who may start to be a little older than wanting to be in high school. And, but they’re close to graduating. So it’s completely online.

Andrea Taylor (02:48):
So between those two programs, we really work to help students get their diploma. And we’re very well supported. The school board is very supportive of the alternative education and students who may have been lost and, and not return know that they have a safe place to come and and, and, and learn skills, learn coping skills and develop some positive confidence to then, you know, face the world. And a lot of these students, not all of them, but some of them, you know, live on their own and we assist them in navigating those social organizations and community supports and keep that diploma as a focus for them. And then they also know that if they age out because one under the age of 21 has a right to an education in a, in a school, but they know if they age out and they’re over 21, they can stay with Gary Allen learning centers and become one of our adults to get their credits and finish off so many, many success stories in many different ways.

Andrea Taylor (03:55):
Some say, you know, that’s, that’s it Ms. Taylor? I’m 18. I gotta go work. I’m like, okay, well you go work, but then you come back to us because they know they get equivalency credits for their life experiences too. So there’s inspiration everywhere and the way the teachers work with the students. So stories of adults who come back, they may have developed a career. You know, they left school early, but they now have their own children and they don’t wanna be a hypocrite and say, you go get your diploma. You need to get your diploma. And they turn around and say, well, mom, you haven’t gotten yours. And I’ve had parents and children graduate together. And I sh you know, to shake their hands at commencement. So yeah, a lot of different things that happened. And then the new program that we brought into our learning center is for newcomers. It’s the language acquisition programs link ESL FSL for newcomers. And within a year and half, we already have over a thousand learners. And that’s non-credit, but allows them to, to gain language proficiency, which then would allow them to move into our adult credit program. So newcomers can then get their Ontario diploma. So we have a number of different vehicles and avenues within the school board to meet the needs of a wide variety of learners.

Sam Demma (05:12):
What is the step or steps program? Tell me a little bit more about that as well.

Andrea Taylor (05:16):
So the step program is the secondary team engagement program. It’s been with the board for an number of decades now. It has been fine tuned over the last couple of years. It’s it has about two or three classrooms, two classrooms at each site, smaller setting it’s supported with child, youth counselors and social workers. And EA our staff are very well trained in trauma informed classroom instruction restorative practice. And we welcome students. It’s it’s continual intake. So we run it as a positive parallel program to your traditional high school, so that our colleagues, when they know that they have a student who is not engaging, has high absenteeism has sometimes high social anxieties can’t handle the big craziness of the high schools. They’ll do a referral to our program and the first year that we have them, the step, the E and step really stands for engagement.

Andrea Taylor (06:20):
We try to engage them, build trust relationships. A lot of times the students don’t trust the educational system. It hasn’t helped them. It’s been more of a burden. And so we really work on that people to people skills. The next step is to in sort of expand them and into experiential learning. We have a TRX program, which is for trades. It’s a, it’s a woodworking shop here at the main campus in Burlington. And so the students become very creative, build everything from paddles to desks, to whatever they want. And some have gone on to the trades of that, that encouragement. And then the final step to it is when we’ve had them for a few years, we expand them into experiential co-op community co-op they may go into the bridges program to do digital learning. So they see what it’s gonna be like at college and university.

Andrea Taylor (07:15):
And many of our students will have post-secondary plans, but we really have to unpack, I guess, the harm or the, the reason for being disengaged from high school any distress or anxieties, we try to, to work with the student and the families to, to make it better for them. And and, and then, so we do get a, a number of really good success stories. Yeah, I could, I, I could spend all day telling you a number of the stories, so that’s step and, and some students do come to, to us and they feel better and they have those skills to go back into their homeschool. So they may reengage. So that’s why we’re a parallel program for the high schools, but other students stay with us and graduate from, from here as well, or they go onto the BTS or they, they may become our adult credit students as well. So we never really say goodbye to them. We really help them until they, until they graduat. And even when they’ve graduated, they’ve come back and been speakers sometimes for our kids. Just say, there’s hope don’t give up.

Sam Demma (08:23):
That’s awesome. Is BTS the bridges program. And how does that differ from the step program?

Andrea Taylor (08:28):
So bridges to success is really for the 18 to 2021 year olds it’s completely online so that you need to be of a more independent student. And self-directed, it is continual intake as well. So our teachers have a combination of step classes and a bridge class completely working online. And and so some of those students may have already graduated high school. They may be an an OSS D grad already, but they’ve found that they don’t like the pathway they’re on. So they, they come back and they change their pathway, change their courses, do their upgrading. Maybe they’ve taken a year off before post-secondary and wanna get their marks to be higher. And so those students are older and, but they’re still under the age of 21. And and so again, it’s a nice piece for us. If we’ve had a student for a number of years and they’ve developed independence and reliability and they can get their work done, then we move them on to a bridges program because that’s kind of what they’re going to see. And we didn’t know when we devised that, that the world would be at one point a hundred percent online. Yeah. So we were kind of positioned well for that, but our teachers and our students have really done well by that program.

Sam Demma (09:48):
At what point in your own career journey did you realize education is what you wanted to do with your life and how did you come to that realization?

Andrea Taylor (10:00):
Oh, I don’t know. I was a competitive athlete when I was younger and did all the sports in school and I’ve coached and I’ve always coached when I was younger, you know, I’ve, I’ve just been helping others and instructing since I was probably 14. And when I was at university, I I really wanted to go into med school because I had some really good doctors, sports medicine, doctors help me. So that’s what I really wanted to do. But in third year university, I realized I couldn’t afford med school. So I went my other love of sports and PhysEd and health biology. So I went on to teachers college with no regrets and have a, you know, my specialty, my specialists are in phys ed and biology. And that’s what I became. I actually started in elementary school.

Andrea Taylor (10:48):
So you know, sometimes things work out for you and you don’t even know why until you look back. And so I don’t regret going into education. You know, I started in, in elementary, so I I’ve taught every grade from grade five to OAC or to 12 U biology. Nice. before going into administration. So it’s it’s been a nice journey. And as I said, you don’t always know. So you know, I got into education kind of by default, and then I’ve been blessed along the way that opportunity has just come up. And, and I’m a person that doesn’t wanna say what if down the road. So, you know, you give it your best shot and you do in my mantra is to live, do well by the people I’m responsible for. So, you know, as a teacher, you’re responsible for the kids. And as, as an administrator, you’re responsible for staff and kids and parents. So you just, if you continue to do well by the P people you’re responsible for, then I find it’s worked out well.

Sam Demma (11:42):
Steve jobs has this quote in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, where he says, you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that at some point in your future, the dots will connect and what you just shared made me think of that. And it makes total sense. When you think back on your career in education and all the different roles you’ve worked in, what are some of the experiences you went through courses, mentors, you came across, anything that’s been, you think helpful over the yeah. That’s, you know, putting you on the spot here and that’s a, a long career to pull from, but I

Andrea Taylor (12:22):
Wasn’t one of your questions that were, you gave me.

Sam Demma (12:25):
I know

Andrea Taylor (12:27):
But that’s okay. I still have a good memory. I was just, just speaking to one of my, I mentors this morning, you know people that I I have known throughout my 30 plus years here at the board. And you just learn, you, you learn who it is that are your critical friends and people that you can rely on and, you know, our role of, of maintaining pro professionalism, but we also are still human. So there’s times where you need those critical friends and, and safe places to just be you because you have to, to let it out. But I guess, I guess the, the, I would say, and I said this to some people, but I think back the most pivotal year I had was my fifth year of teaching at the end of my fifth year a teacher, I was surplus.

Andrea Taylor (13:21):
And I was told I had, you know, I got picked up at another elementary school and I was teaching grade five and, oh my goodness. So I had to go and get my junior qualifications. And I thought after my first day of teaching grade five, I was about to quit. And I was like, oh my gosh, a little old, I don’t, I don’t know what to do with these 10 year olds. And they ended up being the best class that I had. I have had former students from that class contact me and they’re doing well, but what I learned from that and surviving that year with these grade fives and then moving on into secondary, and then moving on to adult tell you, is that everybody’s a 10 year old, they’re just in bigger bodies. So, you know, they all need purpose and, and belonging.

Andrea Taylor (14:06):
And you know, I had to take a special ed course because I had so many identified students and I had a couple students with cerebral palsy. And in that class, you know, we just lowered the net to play volleyball. One person was in a wheelchair. Just learned so many things from that class and that experience and that’s taking special ed one is why I was able to move into secondary, to, to teach a course for students, with autism in science. And so things happen along the way. And, and as I said, you just do well by the students you’re responsible for, but I, I still think of that sometimes I’m the 10 year old and I’m like, I need, I need to talk to someone. So, you know, we’re all we’re all 10 year olds just in bigger bodies. And we just need to remember to listen to each other and, and not judge. And they taught me so much. I, I did not know that 10 year olds could be so responsible.

Sam Demma (14:58):
Yeah. They’re

Andrea Taylor (14:59):
Just amazing, amazing age.

Sam Demma (15:01):
I love that. And right now education looks a lot different, maybe not so much for the online learners that you’ve already had in the past, but for the in person with the challenges of the pandemic and the rise of so many important conversations education looks different. What do you think some of the opportunities are maybe to change or to improve over the next couple of years?

Andrea Taylor (15:29):
Well, anytime you’re, you’re given challenges you know, it’s kind of almost like a, not a correction factor, but when you’re given challenges, you really have to back up and, and, and take a look at the big picture. And a number of my colleagues will laugh, cuz I always have sayings for things, but sometimes when you have challenges, you hang on too tight, you’re hugging the tree too close. You’re looking at the bark and you can see the ants, you know, mark through the Bart and, and it’s really cuz you feel like you have to hang onto something where sometimes, you know what this is maybe out of our control. So I’m gonna back up completely and go and see the whole forest. I’m gonna get to higher ground. And I’m gonna look at the whole forest and say, you know what, I, I need to take a different path.

Andrea Taylor (16:07):
I need to go this way now. And so I’m hoping that with education, we’re not hanging on all so tight. And we, we look at it and say, okay, what have we learned? What are the good and, and the good thing is that, you know, when I taught three or four U biology and I had a student with mono, they might lose the whole semester because they couldn’t, they were in the hospital and they didn’t have the energy and, and they had to come back and have to drop out for a bit and come back the next semester, we didn’t have a way to just move and maneuver things online and keep the work going to them. Right. so the hybrid approach to, to education is important. But I, I also think when you back up, you start to look at what are the priorities and what is education.

Andrea Taylor (16:50):
What’s the difference between teaching and transferring knowledge to educating the mind and education doesn’t have to come out of a book education, doesn’t have to come out of a digital screen education, you know, looking at how you best learn and wanna be a lifelong learner. And we need to take the opportunity right now to say, okay, what has worked really well? What can we change? And, and what can we continue to do that the students really need to learn about themselves and others to be contributing citizens to a society once they graduate. So I think the opportunity is, is to step back and just go, okay, like, you know, we’re gonna, it’s a virus, we’re gonna have to live with it. We’re gonna have to learn to manage it. But in that, how do we continue to, to help the child’s mind develop the youth’s mind, develop stay positive. Things will get better. They may be different, but will be okay and people need to, to know that. And and we will get through it. And, and so education has the opportunity to, to open its mind and go, how do we deliver this information? Are we doing it in the best possible way?

Sam Demma (18:02):
You mentioned near the beginning of the interview, sometimes you would have former students alone come in and share their stories with the current students. And it would generate some hope. I think hearing about success stories during challenging times is a great way to generate hope. And I’m sure there’s so many success stories that have come out of your, you know, school at the adult learning education center. But when you think of some of the students who have made significant changes and improvements are there any specific stories that stand out and you, if it’s a serious story, you can change their name for privacy reasons. But I’m wondering if there’s any specific story that sticks out in your mind about a student who had a serious change, and positive change.

Andrea Taylor (18:52):
Oh yeah. There’s, there’s there’s many, but I have to be very mindful. I, I do wanna protect privacy. Yeah. but what I will say I think because of the way our, our step program is with continual intake and itself pace, so students go at their own, right. And so some of them that come to us that are completely credit deficit as we call it we’ve had there’s one in particular. I won’t go into details cuz I don’t want anyone to be a BA because it’s quite unique coming out of the, you know, the GTA, the Toronto scene. Yeah. you know, know getting towards 18 and having very minimal credits. And I don’t even know if they were double digit credits, but once we were able to get through that step one of relationships and you can trust us and we’re here for you and we’re not gonna give up on you.

Andrea Taylor (19:50):
And we’re, you know, we’re working with your family as well. And they be, wow, these people are not just bail on me. They’re not just saying, you know he was able to get 10 credits in a year. He was able to do some equivalencies. He was with us for about two years and came to us with no, no sense of purpose or where he wanted to be. And when last year in the middle of COVID, of course we had couldn’t have commencement of how all was virtual, but we did have some students who were able to come back and, and get their diploma and I would have my mask on and I would meet them outside and I would give them their diploma and F them. And it was very rewarding to go from a young man that you worried would’ve ended up maybe incarcerated or, you know, there’s sometimes I worry about if my students are going even make it to their 20th birthday or 21st birthday, but because of our staff and, and, and our support staff, social workers, everybody who works around these, these very you know, challenging students are, but they’re just products of their, of their their environment in sense.

Andrea Taylor (21:09):
Anyway, it was just so heartwarming to give this young man his diploma. And I asked, what do you wanna do now? And he says, I think I wanna be a plumber and I’m absolutely go and do it. The people are so needed. Everybody has

Sam Demma (21:24):
Well, its

Andrea Taylor (21:24):
It’s awesome. And, and so, you know, that, that gives our staff hope because some of our students are so fragile and, and they’re human and you, you, you just wanna wrap around them. And that’s, our focus is to do wrap around learning and support and, and get them to that graduation where they can then stay and articulate to you. This is what I wanna do. This is what I wanna be, where when they first come here, they’re like, I don’t know. I don’t know. Right. I don’t know. And that’s, that’s the beauty of education is, is helping a young person know where they may wanna go. Now it might change that journey might PA you know, like mine, I thought I might be going into med school, but I went into education, but they need that first encouragement, nudge, and support to do that. They don’t have all the answers right now. And that’s what as role models as adults, as educators, we need to do that for them.

Sam Demma (22:20):
That’s such a heartwarming story. Thanks so much for sharing that.

Andrea Taylor (22:24):
Yeah. Yeah. There’s been other ones where I’ve run across a student and you know, heard, they had been in, had done some time. And, but I was just so pleased to see that they were alive at sometimes you have students that go through and you’re like, I’m just happy. You’re here with me right now. So it’s, it’s, it’s all good. And and that’s, you know, education is around out the people and that’s the important part of it.

Sam Demma (22:52):
Hmm. When you think about your experience throughout education, you’ve already shared some great learnings and feedback, but if you could take all of your experience, go back in time to your first and second year, third year teaching, you know, tap yourself on the shoulder and say, and this is what you needed to hear. What advice would you have given your younger self or also someone who’s just starting to get into this profession?

Andrea Taylor (23:26):
I think that kind of goes with one of the questions you gave me about, you know, mistakes that you made and what I’ve learned from the, I think I would tell myself more and more, listen, listen more. Sometimes the things we think in our head, people aren’t always ready to hear it and you have to listen to the people, whether they’re peers or your, your superiors or your students, wherever you fit within the educational system, but really listen without judgment and don’t jump to conclusions. And but then know if you have something that that’s important to say, you plan out and pick the proper time to say it and in, in what manner to say it. So I have had mentors and people along the way who you know, jokingly, I can come out like a bulldog sometimes and because I become passionate about some things.

Andrea Taylor (24:21):
And I think if I’m so passionate about it, I’m gonna make you so passionate about it, but they are not ready to hear it in a way. And so I’ve, I’ve learned to, to slow down my conversation. So if I could go back to, oh my God, when I was turning to, I was 24 turning 25 when I started, oh Lord. I would be just saying, slow it down, Andrew, just slow it down and listen. And, and you know, not wanna qua the passion cuz that’s just who I am. But yeah, we sometimes in education always have answers for things and sometimes we don’t have the answers and we need to give ourselves permission not to have the answers and listen for it. Someone else may have it. Right. And that’s what I would say. It’s just slow it down and and, and listen for sure.

Sam Demma (25:08):
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for digging back. That was also for anyone wondering a non-planned question.

Andrea Taylor (25:17):
You like, you just put me on, you put me on the spot, which is kinda like my job, you know, there’s you come thinking you have your day planned or nothing planned or whatever, and all of a sudden it, it takes own path. Right. And you just gotta go with it.

Sam Demma (25:28):
Okay. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing and taking the time today to come on the show. Talk about your experiences, a little, a little bit about the school you work at and some of your philosophies around teaching and education. If someone is listening has a question for you or wants to reach out what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Andrea Taylor (25:47):
Best to email me (taylora@hdsb.ca)

Sam Demma (25:49):
Okay, perfect. I will make sure to include your email in the show notes of the episode as well, or the article that we put together and they can, they can find the email there when it does get released. Thank you so much again for doing this. Keep up to great work.

Andrea Taylor (26:02):
And thank you. It’s been a pleasure. It’s made my morning. I think it’s made my day. So I thank you, Sam.

Sam Demma (26:07):
You’re welcome!

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Andrea Taylor

March 23, 2022 by Sam Demma Alternative Education Department Head Experiential Learning Principals Student Leadership Student Success 0

Nicholas Varricchio – Principal at M.M. Robinson High School (HDSB)

About Nicholas Varricchio

Nicholas Varricchio (@MMrPrincipal) is the current Principal of M.M. Robinson High School of the Halton District School Board located in Burlington Ontario. Nick’s career in education has spanned 24 years – 12 of which as a Principal. Nick has taught in 3 different school boards across Ontario both in the Catholic and Public systems, with experience in both the elementary and secondary panels.

Nick has earned a Master’s of Education from York University, a BEd. from the University of Windsor and his Honors BA. from the University of Waterloo.

Connect with Nicholas: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

M.M. Robinson High School

Dr. Frank J Hayden High School

Solution Tree – K12 Professional Development

Halton District School Board

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:02):
Nick welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here, please start by introducing yourself.

Nicholas Varricchio (00:11):
Well, my name isNicholas Varricchio. I am a secondary school principal with the Halton district school board, and my current work location or school is M.M. Robinson high school. And thank you Sam, for allowing me to participate in my very, very first podcast. So if I stumble and hum and hall a little bit, please excuse that, but I’m excited about this opportunity and thank you for hearing my story.

Sam Demma (00:38):
Thank you for saying yes to this opportunity. I appreciate you may the time to come on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about what brought you into education and maybe even explain how you came to realize that education was the career that you wanted to get into?

Nicholas Varricchio (00:58):
Well to be quite honest, I stumbled into education. It wasn’t something that I had planned as a, as a, as a kid or as a teenager, I, I stumbled into it. And you know, the reason why I, I like doing what I do is not because I’m crazy because a lot of people do think being a teacher or a principal today is to, especially during the pandemic, we ought to be crazy. Yeah, but I’m not, I can assure you. I feel that there’s no better place to stay young, energetic, and in tune with the world and the direction of the world, other than being in a school, you learn a lot from kids. They are, are the future. And if you enjoy working in a very fast paced environment with complex situations and you enjoy inspiring others to help evolve the world to be a better place, then absolutely.

Nicholas Varricchio (02:02):
There’s no better place to work than being in a school. What, whether it’s a teacher or a principal secretary, or even custodian, the kids of today will definitely keep you hoping and young and who doesn’t wanna stay young nowadays. Right. But I stumbled into this particular job, you know, as a, as a kid, I, wanted to be a rock star. I’m a musician and a drummer and still have music as part of my life. And although on the surface people might think that, you know, being a principal and a drummer and a, and a rock band are totally different you know, practices or careers, but, you know, I’ve thought about this for many years. You and I come to realize that, you know, I, came into schooling or education because of music, really, even though I’m not a mu I wasn’t a music teacher you know, musicians have a story to tell they like making connections through their music, which is a language and, and teachers and educators have a story to tell both musicians, both educators feel that their stories can inspire and make the world a better place.

Nicholas Varricchio (03:18):
So I think it, it, for me, it’s a, a very good metaphor to help explain how I stumbled into education.

Sam Demma (03:26):
I appreciate you sharing and think it’s so awesome that you still pursue your passion of music. Do you actively continue to play in bands today?

Nicholas Varricchio (03:38):
I do not as my much as I used to when, you know I, I was a young teacher or even a vice principal, but as a principal, I still do. Of course, the, the music industry is somewhat shut down today and has been for the last 18 months or so. So obviously no currently, but it’s definitely a something I continue to to do in my own house on my downtime gives me a definite a definite outlet. My wife is also a singer professionally, although she, she works for a, a big bank as well. She tends to be more active in music today, despite the pandemic challenges than, than myself. But you, yes, to answer your question, I, I still have music on, on, on the radar and hoping to sort of get back into that a little bit more formally once we’re behind once the pandemic is behind us,

Sam Demma (04:32):
You mentioned stumbling into education. You know, your first dream was to get into music, but you stumbled into education. Can you explain a little bit behind that stumbling journey or at what point you realized education is something I would like to do? And then what did the path look like from that moment?

Nicholas Varricchio (04:51):
So you know, I, believe that kids fall into two camps when they’re you know, pursuing their education or the school system one camp is that kids know exactly what they wanna do, or, or at least they think they know what they want to do post secondary, you know and they pursue it. And then there’s the other camp where, you know, kids have no idea what they wanna do post Canary and both camps are okay. I was in the latter camp. I did not know that I wanted to be a teacher. I did like music and wanted to dabble into that a little bit knowing full well that, you know, to make a real good go as a, as a career to let live off that most certainly would be a challenge for many people. And so I decided to, you know, continue with schooling after high school while I still played music.

Nicholas Varricchio (05:58):
And while, you know, I had my part-time job in the retail sector. And you know, when I entered university, I dabbled into all subject areas because I didn’t really know you know, what I wanted to do. And I wanted to see if I could keep as many doors open as possible, should the music not play out the way I thought and hoped it would. So that was in around the time where it was very difficult to get a teaching job. There was a surplus of teachers. And so I decided to take some time off after my four year degree, just to kind of play music, supplement my income with the retail sector and go from there and see what happens. And then after about a year and a half doing that, I kind of got tired of being around a bunch of Grammy guys, playing music in some bars.

Nicholas Varricchio (06:53):
And so I thought, okay, I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you know, apply to teachers college. And just the, to see where that goes. And it was very competitive to get into teachers college, but I made a commitment to myself that should I get, go get into a, a, a program, I’ll give it a shot. I got nothing to lose. And so I did you know after I completed my four year degree at the university of Waterloo you know, I, I eventually got into the university of Windsor for teachers college and during my first practice teaching assignment at WD low in Windsor, Ontario, I loved it. It was, it was the kids. The kids kept me hopping. I shared with them, you know, some of my, my, some of my journey with music and made a connection through them. And, and and that helped me, you know you know, get through the curriculum with the kids and keep them engaged, you know, developing those personal relationships.

Nicholas Varricchio (07:44):
So being able to, you know, share some personal stories with kids to, to engage them and using those stories to you know, work through the curriculum, I think was is key and was key for me. And so that’s how I kind of stumbled into it. Once, once I finished teachers college, again, there was still that shortage of of teaching opportunities. So again, went back into music into retail and did that for a few months. And then I thought, okay, I, I think I’m ready to at least apply. I think I have the maturity now to apply and let’s see where it goes. And so I applied to, you know, pretty much all the GTA boards and the Halton Catholic board was the first board to give me a chance. And you know, I supply taught and then quickly got out, got, got an LTO that evolved into, and to an, a, a, a position in an elementary school.

Nicholas Varricchio (08:45):
And I, I took it, you know, even though my passion was more of secondary and my experience in teachers college was secondary. I took the opportunity and, and it was a great opportunity that is for sure, but strange enough you know, a few months later I got a call from the principal at St. Francis Xavier, which is in Mississauga for a full-time geography position at their high school. And I never applied to that school. I applied to the Catholic board for a supply teaching gig, you know, several months before, but you know, the principal called me and I thought, man, that was pretty strange. And it was an odd time of year. It was like, you know, the third week of February and, you know, the teachers across the province were just coming off the major strike during the Harris days.

Nicholas Varricchio (09:37):
And so I went for the interview and, you know got the job. And I was in din field for quite a few years. And it was strange because that opportunity presented itself because the the permanent teacher, I guess, decided to marry some guy overseas and didn’t return to the teaching job. So, you know, the, the, I got that opportunity and I, because of somebody else’s best luck in a marriage. And it was a strange time. And I was with din peel for six, seven years. And you know, I was I taught at C I was just gonna zag another big, big high school in Mississauga. And then from there, I came to the Halton ditches school board, which which is actually home for me, I’m a product of the Halton district school board. My K through 12 experience was through the Halton ditches school board. And ironically very ironically the high school at, I graduated from 25 years later. I became the principal of that school at a time when many of my teachers were still there. And I, I wasn’t the best student. And most certainly, if you had asked those teachers if they thought that I would become a teacher or a principal at the school where they worked at, they would look at you like you’re crazy, but the world is a crazy place and a funny place. And that’s my stumbling into education journey.

Sam Demma (11:10):
You mentioned your belief about this idea that students fall into two categories, those that are so certain and, and know what they wanna do with their future and those that are not so certain and like yourself, I feel like I fell into the latter category of not a hundred percent being sure. How do you think we help those students that are unsure, you know, as a principal and as a teacher, how do we also support those students who are unsure, think about maybe what you would’ve needed when you were a student.

Nicholas Varricchio (11:45):
So, you know, and I know there’s gonna be some people who hear this podcast, who, who will adamantly disagree with me, but I, believe that it’s perfectly fine not to know exactly what you want to do as a young person. Mm. And I also believe that to help those young people who are not certain, what they wanna do is to highlight for them that it’s perfectly okay, because that will help take the edge off in some of the anxiety that they might be experience experiencing on not knowing exactly what they want to do. I always say to the kids, Hey, look at it this way. If you’re not sure what you want to do, and you spend an extra year at school, that means one less year that you’re, you’re having to work for a living. So, you know, I, say to kids, don’t worry about it.

Nicholas Varricchio (12:38):
Just, you know, if you’re not sure, just try a little bit of everything, something will, something will spark your interest and, you know, and once that spark happens, continue to spend more time and energy in that area. And it, it, something will emerge for you most certainly. So I, I think, you know, to help kids understand that it’s perfectly fine, you know, say that to them, be transparent with them. And again, you know, some people will disagree with that. Because you know, there’s so much pressure on kids nowadays in selecting the right courses is early on in their career to leave the doors open, which, you know, you wanna leave doors open for sure. But I think it’s perfectly fine and normal not to have a concrete plan for your next step in university, but I think if you, if you prepare kids and, you know, take that layer of pressure off of them I think they will appreciate that and understand that that’s just a normal process of growing and learning and moving on in life.

Sam Demma (13:45):
I personally agree with you and relate, because again, I was the student who wasn’t sure who maybe got three years of no work because I, I took a great third a gap year and a year off before deciding what I wanted to pursue professionally. So it’s really refreshing to hear that perspective coming from a principal as well. What do you find most rewarding about your work in education?

Nicholas Varricchio (14:18):
I, think, and often the reward is not an immediate reward. It could come days, weeks, months, and maybe even years after it’s, it’s seeing hearing or understanding that some of the work that you’ve done, whether it was directly with a student or a specific class or some of the work that you’ve done with the staff in your building or some of the work that you’ve done collaborating with central board staff, the reward for me is that I see that some of the energy input and voice has been acted upon and, and influenced others, processes, products or paths for kids or for staff that evolves schools systems and helps kids grow to be better people. Hmm. So I, that is, to me, the most rewarding bit is seeing that, yes, my work, my voice had a positive change for the better in education for kids.

Sam Demma (15:41):
And along your journey as an educator, I’m sure there’s been teachers, mentors, people that have poured into you and, and helped you, who are some of those people that come to mind and what did they teach you or share with you that you think was impactful in your journey of, you know, becoming the best educator and role model or, or principal that you possibly can be.

Nicholas Varricchio (16:07):
So, you know, I two things I’ve always had connections with teachers who am evolve themselves outside the classroom like through extracurricular, for sure. But also those teachers who had incredible stories and a gift to tell a story, to engage kids, to keep them captivated and listening and learning and class. I also, I also think that you know, my parents and I think this is probably, this will probably echo for a lot of people too. My parents were probably my best teachers throughout my life, and my mom Conti continues to be my best teacher in my life and together between, you know, my parents and my parents and my teachers throughout my school journey have always encouraged and, and foster this sense of, to ask some real crew critical questions. And don’t be shy from asking real critical questions.

Nicholas Varricchio (17:24):
That’s what I’ve learned. And, you know the power of partnerships are very important. And I I’ll give you two, two examples of, of partnerships with team parents and teachers that as, as a, as a kid, you know, if something happened in the school and I was directly involved in this incident, I tell ya I would go home. And of course, I’m not gonna say anything to, to my parents. And my mom would say, well, anything happened at school today? And I’d be like, Nope, Nope, no. And then she would throw it in my face. Right. And I would always wonder, how did she know? You know? And you know, she all always used to say, and I remember never lie to your mother. Your mother will know everything. The fact is my mother used to work for Loblaws and she was a cashier and the teachers would deliberately go through her line to share some of the things that were occurring in the class.

Nicholas Varricchio (18:25):
Now, whether they op, whether they deliberately shared to throw me under the, a bus or my mom would ask them, you know, keep the pulse of of of what was happening in schools, either way the partnership was there. And you know, funny enough, you know, again, when I came back to be a principal at the school we had a good chuckle with some, some, some of that, you know, cuz you know, here’s me being the principal and of the school and knowing that office space quite well from 25 years earlier. So very interesting. That is for sure. So the power of partnerships is definitely important. And in fact, my mom also volunteered in, when I was a, a high school kid, volunteered with the auto shop teacher. Now she claims she just volunteered because my dad was useless and didn’t know how to change a tire. But I have a feeling that I have a, I have a feeling, she did that to kind of keep an eye on what was happening in the school. So, you know you know, those teachers who had good connection or I felt I had a good connection with were those who actively got involved with my life, both inside and outside the classroom and through building partnerships with my parents.

Sam Demma (19:37):
That’s awesome. I totally relate to having parents as mentors, I’m even inspired deeply by my grandparents as well. Both who I think like yourself, are, are you a Italian? Is that your background?

Nicholas Varricchio (19:53):
Yes, I am. Yeah. Yeah. My mom and dad were both born in Italy. My, my grand, my grandparents of course were born in Italy. My, my grandfather was a world war II vet. Oh. They immigrated in the, in the fifties and you know, my grandpa other worked in the mines in Northern Ontario and the subways in in in Toronto and then actually later on in life, he, he worked for the the Toronto school board and he was a, he was a custodian for the for the for the Toronto school board. And for any Toronto district board central staff, one of his grievances was, you know, staff members leaving half coffee cups in the garbage cans. And at the time they weren’t using garbage bags and all that used to bother him. So if there’s any central staff listening, they won’t leave your half, your cup, half full in the garbage can for the custodians.

Sam Demma (20:49):
I love it. Leave it there. That’s a, that’s a very good point, but yeah. You know,

Nicholas Varricchio (20:53):
Yeah, don’t do that. Don’t do that. So, but anyway, that little, little funny story, but a true story.

Sam Demma (20:59):
Yeah. And my grandparents are both from Italy as well. My parents are born a year, but my grandparents are born there and grandfather’s name Salvato. And he, yeah, he passed when I was 12, but yeah, he was a big, you know, mentor, not even through his words because I was so young and you know, didn’t really, you know, understand a lot of the meaning of mentorship back then, but through his actions and his hard work really taught me a lot. So I think partnership is really important. And having people in your life who you can bounce ideas off of, or who you can share, the honest, authentic truth, no matter how bad it sounds and, and know that the person you’re sharing it with is gonna be giving you advice from their heart with your best interest in mind. So, yeah, I think what you’re mentioning with your mom and just with, with partnership in general is so important throughout your career in education have you come across any resources, any programs anything you’ve attended or things you’ve brought into your school that you think were really valuable for the community that another educator listening could also benefit from?

Nicholas Varricchio (22:10):
So, you know, some, some of the, some of the PD that I’ve participated in both through my board, the Hal and ditch school board, and, you know, other PD that I participated in outside our board through solution tree, I, I have the opportunity to, to hear a fellow, his, his name is Anthony Mohamed and he’s, he’s well known in education circles and a lot of his work centers on the importance of culture and really understanding culture of a school to, to, to navigate the culture and how to evolve culture in a way that best serves every single kid. And, you know, some of the messages and the, and the thoughts through his research and, and and work really resonates with me because, you know, understanding culture is understanding people and you know, and, and trying to inspire them to get them side and doing that takes time doing that, you know requires you to build trust lead with empathy. But also, and as my dad would say is, you know, approach relationships by being fair firm and friendly. Mm. So, you know, very simple. But I think it, it, you know, if you keep that in mind being fair firm and friendly you know, I think it, you’re in the right, you’re taking the right steps to, to, to build trust to get people to buy in, to feel supported and see the bigger picture on, on what you’re trying to do.

Sam Demma (23:56):
Got it. That’s awesome. Do you know, what’s a solution tree, like a organization that has some speakers or what, what is solution tree?

Nicholas Varricchio (24:07):
Yeah, so it, it, it’s a network of professional speakers that that, you know, they have, they put on conferences throughout the world really. And and I’ve attended a few conferences in the United States that one here too, as well in the past. And, you know, school will, boards will often tap into solution three to bring speakers to the, to their boards of education. And, and, and quite a few colleagues. I’m not the only one who will, you know you know, participate in these conferences with solution three. And of course, you know, they, they promote the, the the speakers and their books. You know, so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s well known in the education world for sure. And the speakers that are engaged in solution tree are, are well known as well and experienced in school systems. They’re not just, you know they have experiences in schools. Let’s put it that way before they, before they became on the speaking circuit. So, yep.

Sam Demma (25:13):
Yeah, absolutely. That sounds awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I’ll definitely make sure to include a link to their stuff in the show notes of the episode. If you could take your knowledge and experience, and maybe this will be reiterating something you’ve already shared, but if you could take your knowledge and experience, wrap it all up and travel back in time, walk into the first couple of years of teaching that you did as a young educator. Not that you’re old now, but when you were fresh into your career if you had all the advice and wisdom now could give it to your younger self, what would you have told young Nick?

Nicholas Varricchio (26:00):
I would say that do recognize that everyone has a different starting point. Mm don’t don’t don’t assume that, so I don’t that as a, as a teacher that just because a student had graduated or moved on to the next level, they will, they, they do most, certainly have the same skill, knowledge experience, even though they formally have moved on, on to the next grade or the next course. So rec recognizing that, despite what it says on a transcript, know that when you are in the classroom with the kids, that despite what is said on their previous report card, for the course, they are coming with a diff or they both are starting your class with a different starting point. And I think also as well is you know, when they, when a student starts, starts a course with you as a teacher you know, you you’ll hear, you’ll hear things.

Nicholas Varricchio (27:16):
And if you review the OSR, which, you know, teachers are teachers, do, you know, just have that as a background, but, you know understand that it is a, it is a, a blank canvas and you have an opportunity to to work with that student from the beginning. Mm. So, you know, and we are approaching a new beginning, you know, February 4th is the start of semester two. And so every student and every teacher has a fresh start here in the next week or so. So I think, I think as a young Nick remembering and highlighting that, that every student that’s sitting in your class, despite what it said on a report card is starting from a different point in, in, in their, in their learning.

Sam Demma (28:11):
Hmm. That is a very good piece of advice. Thank you so much for, for sharing that if someone is listening to this, wants to reach out, ask you a question about anything we talked about during the podcast, maybe even inquire about hearing some of your music so they could find it online. What would be the best way for somebody to reach out and get in contact with you?

Nicholas Varricchio (28:34):
So I am on Twitter, (@MMrPrincipal). So that’s a good way to kind of remember, MMR principal. I am on Twitter and actually some of the, some you’ll see some music video clips on, on Twitter too where you’ll see me playing with some of the kids at my previous school and some good classic hard rock, a little bit of Metallica, Black Sabbath Motley Crew, which is not usual picks for your principles nowadays, but nonetheless, you’ll see it on my Twitter and those videos. Actually they, they came about in a very interesting way at my previous school before, before before, mm Robinson, I was a school, I was at a school called Dr. Frank J. Hayden. And it had a a common lunch and often kids would go into the music room at Hayden and just jam.

Nicholas Varricchio (29:27):
And so, you know, when I first got there, I, I kind of made a point just to kind of go in there, listen to what the kids were jamming with. And of course they’re jamming some hard rock songs and, you know, I just tap the drummer on the shoulder and say, Hey, do you mind if I kind of try a little bit? And they’re like, sure. And I’m like, what’s on, you know and, you know, just, you know, they started playing some stuff and I just played along. And all of a sudden, you know, kids started coming in and taking some videos and, you know, thought, Hey, look at this. This is really neat. And so I had them share the videos with me and, you know, just at the time I thought, you know, a good little memory of my experience at this school when I eventually move on.

Nicholas Varricchio (30:03):
But then when the pandemic hit you know, one, the first lockdown, you know, there was a lot of concern around about kids and staff becoming disconnected with the school. And so, you know, as an admin team, we would think about ways of somehow keeping the staff and students engaged with us or engaged together. And so, you know, at the time I thought, you know what, I, I, I’m gonna try, you know, some learning, some editing software that were free on the Google play store, downloaded them video editing software. And I decided to, you know, upload those videos that some of the kids took and shared with me. And, and and I started editing them a little bit and I thought, you know, how can I use this to engage the community? And so, and then I started tweeting them out and created a music trivia challenge and saying, okay, if anyone can guess what song I’m playing here with these students, you know, hit me back first, first, correct.

Nicholas Varricchio (31:00):
Answer. You pick up your hard prize when the school reopens, and I would do this on a weekly basis and sure enough, you know, kids were keeping engaged. And the whole point of that was ensuring that our school community remained connected. So another kind of innovative way to weave in music, to, you know, to share a story and, and work in partnership with kids. So, yeah, I share all that because some of my music’s on my Twitter handle and you can see how music can be weaved in as an educator and not just a music teacher.

Sam Demma (31:31):
Absolutely. that sounds awesome. I’ll, I’ll be following you after this as well, and digging for some of those videos. So I appreciate you sharing. Yeah.

Nicholas Varricchio (31:39):
Yeah, no problem. They’re buried in the Twitter. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Demma (31:42):
Awesome. Well, Nick, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show here. I look forward to staying in touch with all the amazing things you do. Keep up with the great work and, and we’ll talk soon.

Nicholas Varricchio (31:53):
Sam, nice meeting you. Nice talking with you and best of luck and stay safe. My friend.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Nicholas Varricchio

March 21, 2022 by Sam Demma Experiential Learning Music Educator Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Tim Cavey – Founder of Teachers on Fire, 8th-grade teacher and assistant principal

About Tim Cavey

Tim Cavey (@MisterCavey) is a husband, stepfather of two, 8th-grade teacher, assistant principal, and the host of the Teachers on Fire podcast. In 2019, he completed a Master’s in Educational Leadership degree that re-ignited his fire for teaching and put him on a new path of growth, professional reflection, and content creation.

Tim’s a firm believer in the growth mindset and advocates often for the kinds of informal professional learning that can be found on social media and in blogs, vlogs, or podcasts. When he’s not creating content or spending time with his family, you’ll find Tim hiking, flying his drone, or paddle boarding in the chilly waters of the pacific northwest.

Connect with Tim: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Vancouver Christian School

Masters of Education in Educational Leadership at Vancouver Island University

Teachers on Fire Podcast

Mindset by Carol Dweck

EdPuzzle

StreamYard

FlipGrid

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome come back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is Tim Cavey. He is a husband, stepfather of two, eighth grade teacher, assistant principal, and the host of the Teachers on Fire podcast. In 2019, he completed a masters in educational leadership degree that reignited his fire for teaching and put him on a new path of growth, professional reflection, and content creation.

Sam Demma (01:05):
Tim is a firm believer in the growth mindset and advocates often for the kinds of informal professional learning that can be found on social media and in blogs, blogs, or podcasts, just like this one or his own. When he is not creating content or spending time with his family, you’ll find Tim hiking, flying his drone, or paddle boarding in the chilly waters of the Pacific Northwest. Tim is a brilliant, brilliant educator and an awesome human being. I’m so glad that he agreed to come on the show and I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I enjoyed chatting with Tim. I will see you on the other side, talk soon. Tim, super excited to you on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself in whatever way you choose to do so and share why you’re so passionate about the work you do in education and with young people.

Tim Cavey (01:56):
Thanks so much, Sam, what an honor to be here. You inspire me so much. So thanks for having me on I’m an eighth grade teacher, assistant Princip, both rookie assistant principal this year, and the host of the teachers on fire podcast. You asked about where my fire comes from, and I always point back to the start of my master’s program a few years ago, and reading Mindset by Carol Dweck as, as kind of a couple of really pivotal moments in my academic journey, my education journey. So those together with launching the podcast have really sort of set me on fire, and gotten me excited about learning again and sharing what I’m finding with other educators.

Sam Demma (02:37):
Love that you mentioned the book mindset, I’m a big fan, and I sure you could riff about the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset. I’m curious to know what would those two perspectives of a growth and a fixed mindset look at today’s current situation of education and, and take away from it. So looking at the challenge of COVID 19, what would the fixed mindset person think say or do versus the growth mindset?

Tim Cavey (03:02):
I think the fixed mindset would look at all of the problems and sort of stop there and attach labels to the problems. Talk about the, just the difficulties we face the, the, the way states and districts are not really listening to the needs of educators, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and, and like I said, kind of stop there. I think the growth mindset recognizes the adversity we’re facing, but actually says, okay, what are the takeaways? What can we learn from this? How can we actually move education forward and transform it in a permanent way based on what we’re finding. So educators have learned so much and grown so much and fully mindful that the last year has been a nightmare for a lot of teachers. I, I do see tweets about teachers leaving the profession and so forth, but on the other hand, teachers have really gained a lot of knowledge. Teachers who really didn’t spend much time online a year ago are now fully embracing these ed tech tools, getting into new spaces, covering better strategies for delivering formative assessment to their learners. And it’s super exciting. So the fixed mindset is all about labels. The growth mindset is all about saying, how can I evolve? How can I adapt? How can I move forward based on what I’m facing

Sam Demma (04:16):
And what are the opportunities that you personally have discovered? I know you, you know, you teach grade eight and rookie vice principal in those two roles, what are some of the opportunities that, that have surfaced for you that you think have been very transformational in your own learning and growth?

Tim Cavey (04:33):
I think some of the most growth that I experienced was actually last spring during the lockdown when I was forced to go virtual along with a lot of my colleagues and I did get into some new tech tools that were pretty transformative. So I, I started to experiment with ed puzzle and I’m, I’ll forever be an evangelist for ed puzzle. I think it’s such an underrated tool. Pad is an another one, Flipgrid wake lit some of the tools that I, I, to that point I sort of knew about, but hadn’t really played with too much. Now this past school year we’ve been face to face. And so I’m sort of going back in some ways, but still a, as I said earlier, like trying to implement those new tools in the old spaces, if that makes sense. So trying not to go right back to the way things always were and bring some of those new insights and strategies into my practice. And I would say to some extent I’ve been successful now this year has been really tough in other ways in terms of masking and COVID protocols and, and no field trips and no assemblies, and just a lot of things that kill the joy of school. And so in that process, we’ve learned how to, within our school building livestream assemblies in and deliver them into every class and, and bring about or livestream parent teacher conferences. So those are some things that in terms of access we can move forward with as well.

Sam Demma (05:55):
I love that. And you do a phenomenal job with your own podcast, which we’ll talk about later on today. It’s a huge, amazing resource, not just the podcast, but you have thousands of links on your website to different books and, and past episodes in blog posts. And I was getting overwhelmed with how much you provide, like, it’s just, it’s phenomenal. And I see that you use streamy have like multiple educators on the screen at once, which is amazing. You know, you mentioned a bunch of awesome tools and you said you’re a huge evangelist for the ed puzzle. Can you explain what that is? And also maybe explain what streamy yard is if anyone’s curious about using that for their own virtual assemblies.

Tim Cavey (06:32):
Sure. So full disclosure on ed puzzle, I’m at a new school this year and I, I have not yet convinced my it department to get on board with ed puzzle. So that’s still, that’s still a discussion that is ongoing, but ed puzzle is basically a way to engage and to monitor student engagement with video content. So if you think about the flip classroom, if you think about asynchronous learning resources, we know that our students re night with video, we’re creating more and more tutorials all the time, whether you are a math teacher, English, whatever you’re working in, hopefully you’re starting to do a little bit more screen casting. And so thinking about that, ed puzzle is that tool that actually shows you have my students viewed the content. Have they responded? You can integrate questions really well. And so I it’s, it’s simple. It, it’s not an elaborate tool, but it’s so effective.

Tim Cavey (07:24):
You also mentioned stream yard, which is something pretty different, but I’m having a lot of fun with that one Sam a year ago, I, I started seeing teach better and other friends streaming. And at first I was like, this content is not so great. Like what, what sort of educators gonna sit around and watch this grainy video one on one interview, right on YouTube or whatever platform. But I started to warm up to it. And I realized that there are certain things going on there that are actually really powerful and impactful. So the live Q and a, the live connections relationships are actually forming around some of those streams. So yeah, I, I made the decision to start streaming every Saturday morning on streamy yard, which you mentioned, and it has a free base level that you can just experiment with. And then there are tiered levels above that, that allow you to stream on multiple platforms and get rid of watermarks and so forth.

Tim Cavey (08:17):
But the goal is really just to share ideas and amplify voices. That’s what I do on my podcast. And so now I’m starting to do so by video. And, you know, just last Saturday, I had the pleasure, the honor of hosting five Latina superintendents from California. Nice. And that was such a fun conversation. I was way out of my depth, but it was a really fun conversation. And I learned a lot. I left super inspired, so it benefits my professional practice I find, but it also just gets the word out and shares ideas as well.

Sam Demma (08:50):
My mind immediately jumped to three years ago, being in Costa Rica, dancing the Beata and salsa with people in, in Costa Rica. When you said that that’s so cool ideas, spreading ideas, such an impactful way to share content, to share practices again, your podcast teachers on fire and your whole platform does a lot of that. I’m curious to know out of the, I don’t know, hundreds of conversations that you’ve you’ve kick started and had so far, what are some of the ideas you’re hearing that you think are important to listen to important to try and maybe implement during these crazy times?

Tim Cavey (09:30):
There are so many different directions I could take that. I mean, I guess my brain is still stuck on the virtual sort of hybrid mediums and platforms. So another part of my work, something I’ll be engaging in later this afternoon is is connecting with a virtual conference presentation platform and looking at what they can offer educators in terms of a local conference happening in this area. And so I, you know, I look ahead to the future and I think, yes, I look forward to getting back to face to face. I mean, who doesn’t love those face to face conferences, but as I mentioned earlier, I think we have to really improve our access at, especially when I think of rural educators, international educators, we, we need to think about how we can scale our learning and share it a little bit better. And so virtual conference presentation platforms that that’s one way to do it. And, and then I think your part of your question related to the classroom as well, right? Could you just reframe it for me?

Sam Demma (10:29):
Yeah, absolutely. So a, a teacher right now might be listening or an educator who is struggling. I think the basis of all change stems from an idea, right? Like the water bottle that’s beside me on my desk was an idea in someone’s mind before they created it. You’ve heard hundreds, if not thousands of ideas within your conversations. And I’m curious to know if there’s been any ideas educators have shared that you think might help a classroom teacher or principal or educator in any sense.

Tim Cavey (10:56):
Yeah. Wow. So you just opened the door for me. One, one example that is fresh in my mind that I was just talking about yesterday is there’s an educator on Twitter by the name of Tyler Roblin. I hope I’m seeing his name correctly. And he is experimenting with different forms of assessment and some really progressive practices in his high, high school English classroom. Something he has done is built a rubric for his high school English writers. That is it. It’s got those proficiency columns. So it’s grade list in that sense. And then each of the proficiency levels is actually hyperlinked out to a YouTube video that explains exactly what that student needs to be focused on. And I saw that Sam and I was like, wow. If we can start to hyperlink rubrics like that, then students can on their own time asynchronously actually dig into exactly how to take that next step.

Tim Cavey (11:54):
And so when I think about tools like that, when I think about tools like moat that are offering audio feedback embedded right in Google classroom and other learning management systems, it’s a pretty exciting time just for better feedback, because we know students learn best when they have immediate precise feedback. If you just think about the coaching the coaching metaphor, right? Like a basketball player doesn’t benefit too much from a review of a game two weeks later. Yeah. They benefit from some coaching right in the moment. So looking at the tools that allow us to do that faster and, and more precisely like moat or, you know, deliver that pinpointed advice to take the next step, like the hyperlinked Google docs that really excites me. And I think moving ahead, teachers teachers are going to be adopting more of those practices. And, and it’s a good time to be a student.

Sam Demma (12:47):
Teachers are also struggling to find balance between work and life. And I, I mean, I saw your recent post that said in, in 48 hours, you had 858 emails. And I was, I was blown away and I was curious to know personally, what tools and management systems you use to organize your own time you know, to separate work in life. What is your own system to look like when it comes to time management? Do you have something that’s that you try and follow? That’s been helping you?

Tim Cavey (13:19):
Usually my answer to that is just obviously using a calendar. I shouldn’t say obviously. So using a calendar cementing in those times that are non-negotiables. So, you know, I’ve got Friday family fun night, make sure to connect with my boy and my wife, and actually have some quality family time. Saturday is really date day or date night. Nice. For sure. So spending some quality time with my wife device, free dinners, shutting it down, usually weeknights, we try to shut it down around 9:00 PM and those are all just guardrails that sort of help to put some structure around my life, make sure I’m getting decent sleep, make sure that I’m cultivating relationships and not neglecting them. But other than that, Sam, it’s an ongoing struggle. And so yeah, you saw that tweet where I, I mentioned, I just sort of ignored email for a few days and of the emails piled up and I ended up blowing a couple of appointments and one of them was use and my heartfelt to apologies.

Tim Cavey (14:15):
They, no. So it is, it is tricky. And, and to that point, let me just say about email. I hear some educators or I see it sometimes on Twitter saying like, yeah, I just step away from email and completely ignore it for a while. And I think, yeah, well, yeah, that kind of works. But on the other hand, when you, when you know that the emails are piling up, it, it is going to stress. It’s going to add more people to get back to you. So I, I think email alone is just such a difficult space to manage effectively. One more thing I’ll pass on that might be helpful to somebody in your audience is I keep, I keep my iPhone on, do not disturb twenty four seven. So if you’re not in my favorites list, you probably won’t reach me by phone or by call or by text, at least in real time.

Tim Cavey (15:00):
You’ll sort of have to wait until the next time I actually look at my phone, but to me that just slows down the mountain. Well, it does more than slow down. It kind of eliminates the mountain, the avalanche of notifications. And, you know, I look at some of my colleagues who get a notification every time they receive an email. Yeah. I, I just think that would drive me crazy in a short amount of time. So try, do not disturb on your phone if you are getting a snowed under by notifications. That really that was a game changer for me.

Sam Demma (15:30):
I love that. It’s a great piece of feedback. I saw this funny tweet the other day as well. And it was this girl explaining how you could hang up the phone without letting the other person know that you hung up and essentially you just slide up and you hit the airplane mode button and on the person calling you screen, it’ll say call disconnected or did not go through as opposed to, as opposed to hang up. So if you have to avoid a phone call too there’s this little strategy for you.

Tim Cavey (15:57):
Nice, nice, bad connection.

Sam Demma (15:59):
Yeah. Right, exactly. I’m curious to dive a little more into Tim, your passion for education. Like, you know, you could have taken many different paths back when you were in school. What, with the passion you have for technology with the, in the, the entrepreneurial spirit that you obviously have starting these ventures, what drove you specifically to teaching?

Tim Cavey (16:24):
I think at the time it was a love of people. I knew I, I enjoyed working with kids and a love of the classroom. And I, I will say too, like some really impactful teachers that influenced me. And I just thought, like, I can see myself in this space and teaching has sort of a sense of autonomy, at least within the classroom. Most teachers have a sense of autonomy and independence in the sense that you can really make what you want of the day. Yeah. You’re you caring for these kids of different ages, but you can shape the learning experience and, and you can impact your own level of fun. And I, I get excited when teachers are actually teaching to their passion and that is very evident to their learners. They’re teaching to their strength and they can bring in things from the outside, whether it’s a side hustle or other passions, bring that right into their practice.

Tim Cavey (17:16):
I think on, so another answer to your question, Sam, I look at you at, at, you know, 21 years old, you blow my mind. And I think if I could do it all over again you know, if, if that was my generation, I would take a, a really hard look at content creation as a path to act, actually developing and building your own career. And that may involve some level of being in the school system. It may not, but you, you really excite me because you have that whole, you have your whole career track in front of you. You’re making all the right moves. My Matt,

Sam Demma (17:49):
I appreciate that. And I, I’m learning from gracious educators like yourself, who give their time to chat with me on this podcast. You know, one of the reasons I started it was because I don’t have all the answers to give educators, but I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I could just invite them on the show to chat about what’s working for them in the hope that other educators might listen. I want to go back though, still to those teachers that you said deeply impacted you when you were in school. Mm. What did they do? Like, what was it that those teachers did that had such an impact on you that it drove you to go to education? Because I know I had teachers that changed my life and I can pinpoint the reasons why, and I feel like for every person it’s a little bit different. And if you can pinpoint those things, it’s essentially teaching other educators what they can do to also impact their kids. So I’m curious to know if you can pinpoint the characteristics or things that those teachers did for you.

Tim Cavey (18:39):
I think one of the teachers, I always look back to his name was Mr. Bergen and I had him in eighth grade. And it’s kind of funny that I’m an eighth grade teacher today. Yeah. And although my, my teaching assignment is sort of going to evolve a little bit next year, but I, I teach eighth grade. And so Mr. Bergen was such a supporter. And, and like, you always hear, I mean, I don’t remember a ton of specific moments or lessons that he taught, but I remember the way that I felt in his class. And I remember the way that he encouraged me. I came to Mr. Bergen. Now this is going to sound so nerdy, but I came to Mr. Bergen as a really passionate writer and content creator. Pre-Internet nice. And I was, I was, I, I had fun like working with word processors at the time, there was one called print master.

Tim Cavey (19:28):
I I’m sure no one has ever heard of it. That was, this is the time of word perfect. And corre draw and some really primitive tools now. But I was, I was excited to play with these tools and I had the vision of creating a class newspaper. And Mr. Bergen actually trusted me enough or gave me enough space to actually print a few additions of my newspaper and put them up on the bulletin board. And just something like that. I know I, I look back and I’m like, okay, he was giving me that commendation and that encouragement, that, that approval at 13 years old and now you know, much, much later I am writing blog posts. I’m creating content, I’m doing writing all the time. And I look back at him as a really key you figure in that journey. So there were others in my high school experience as well, but I will shout out Mr. Bergen. I haven’t had contact with him in decades, so I hope he’s still around, but, but I will, I will shout him out as someone who just, just gave me that encouragement and gave me the space. Like he took a risk, right. Because I could have, I don’t know, put something really awkward or inappropriate up on the bulletin board or sort of made him look bad somehow. But he, he gave me the space to try that and he cheered me on and I think it shaped who I am today.

Sam Demma (20:46):
I think giving students responsibility is such an impactful way to build trust. I had a pass guest on, who told me that he had a student in his class that was giving him issues or giving them issues. I can’t remember exactly who the guest was, but they told me that after a couple months of of struggle and he took his car keys and said, can you go into the parking lot into the front seat of my car and grabbed the jug for me? And the kid was like, do you want me to do it? And, you know, gave this kid his trust and his responsibility. And he went and he got the thing, he brought it back into the school. And it was like, he said, it was like a flip switch. The kid changed from this problem to this. Wow. I was useful to the teacher.

Sam Demma (21:28):
He trusted me enough to give me his car keys. I kind of crashed the car. And so, you know, hitting on that piece of, of responsibility is so huge. When I look back at my experience, when I was in grade 12, Mike loud foot was the name of the teacher for me, who’s now retired. And you mentioned it already, but he was so passionate about his, that it just rubbed off on me. Like I felt like he was doing his life SQUI teaching was his ministry. And it was so evident. And you mentioned that, you know, you loved when teachers are passionate about their content. Do you think that’s also a, I wanna say a trait of a high performing educator or a teacher on fire. Like you, you need to be passionate about the material that you’re deliver in teaching

Tim Cavey (22:10):
100%. And if you don’t have the passion, maybe you’re stuck with an assignment that you didn’t really want. I mean, try to generate that passion, dig into it, lean into it try to, to bring that curiosity to life. But absolutely if you’re, if you’re in a situation where you have no passion for your content, it, it really is to think about maybe moving on or changing context, right? You don’t necessarily need to leave education, but as I’ve interviewed educators, one story that I didn’t see coming, Sam was this idea that for many teachers, it was just finding a different situation that actually better aligned with their passions and that brought their fire back to life. So I, I do have a, a concern or a passion for those teachers that are burning out or don’t have much fire left. And I think one of the solutions, one of the answers sometimes is just finding a, a situation that fits their passions and aligns with their values a little better.

Sam Demma (23:06):
And how long have you personally been teaching or in educational?

Tim Cavey (23:11):
Well, I’m embarrassed to say beside you, but that’s okay. I started, I actually entered the field in 2001. That was my first fall.

Sam Demma (23:19):
So 20, 20 years now.

Tim Cavey (23:21):
Yes,

Sam Demma (23:21):
That’s awesome. And if you could, if you could like go back in time and speak to younger Tim and give yourself advice relating to the practice of education and teaching, what advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now?

Tim Cavey (23:36):
Oh, man. Well, my thinking has evolved in the area of assessment quite a bit. Okay. And so the way that I collect grades or, or marks, whatever you wanna call them that would evolve considerably. I would make sure to clarify I could talk about that quite at length, but basically it would be keep the focus of assessment on the learning and not any not any of these old compliance measures that we used to keep in mind. So, you know, that’s a whole other topic, but you know, that’s something I would definitely bring back. And again, Sam, if I could go back to the beginning, I would say just from a content creator perspective and just a growing professional, like just write one blog post a week. And that would be absolutely transformative over the, the decades. Not just for any kind of an audience, although that audience would certainly come.

Tim Cavey (24:30):
And, and that brings a whole lot of opportunity and, and fun growth as well. But just simply for my own professional practice, there is power in self-reflection. We know that from the classroom, we call it metacognition. We think about it all the time. We want students self-assessing more today. We want them reflecting on their learning. Why aren’t we doing more of that as educators? Right. George Kus actually said when he was principal in Alberta, he made his staff take two hours and write a blog post about their learning. I don’t know if a lot of teachers are ready for that. Yet. There, there might be some rebellions in some staff meetings, if, if, if principals tried to force that, but there’s so much power, right. In actually reflecting on what we’re learning and how we’re doing. So I think that’s, my answer is more reflection along the way.

Sam Demma (25:17):
I have to ask, cuz you sound super fired up about assessment. As a young student myself, I struggled with my self worth because I had to hatched it to my talents, achievements and accomplishments, which sometimes was my grades. Because as an athlete, if I did get a 95% average, it would lead to a potentially higher scholarship at a university or a school. I also attached myself with, to soccer because my whole family praised me as an athlete growing up. And I thought if I wasn’t a great athlete or student, I would be worth nothing as a human being, which looking back now I realize is totally crazy, but it seems like the assessment system is set up that way. When a soccer game get a trophy, everyone praises you do well in school, get high grades, everyone praises you. But what makes it scary is that if the opposite is true, if you fail, which is supposed to be something that teaches you a lesson, you get reprimanded. And I’m curious to know how you think assessments could be changed, adjusted or altered to remove that, that issue of failure being a bad thing. And what you think about the whole idea of failure.

Tim Cavey (26:22):
Wow. Well, I mean, it goes back to the growth mindset, right? Do we see failure? I mean, you could spell the word fail as first. Why am I forgetting it now? It’s okay. First attempt, first attempt in learning. There we go. First attempt in learning, but yeah. But I think it goes back to the growth mindset. And as you say, how do we look at failure? Do we look at it as a stepping stone? Do we look at it as a, an inevitable part of the journey as a sign that we’re actually stepping out and taking risks? Do we believe that the most learning and growth happens when we leave the comfort zone? I mean, to take it into sports or into the gym, I, you know, our physical ball is only really grow and develop when we’re pushing them to their limits and the same is true of our brains.

Tim Cavey (27:08):
So to bring that back to assessment, yes. I mean, traditional assessment systems have done a great job of ranking and sorting and yes, traditional grades motivate a certain number of students, but they also demotivate a great number of students. And what they do is assign labels and validate people to say, either you’re smart or you’re dumb or whatever, fill in the blank. I mean, as educators, we cringe at those terms, but that’s the way people tend to interpret grades or have traditionally, as, you know, this, this X pathway is not for me or that kind of thing. We put ourselves into boxes. So all kinds of limitations come with those labels of letter grades and percentages. And as we can start to move away from that and actually put the focus on learning and growth and standards, the, the curricular standards then we start to create some space for students to take risks and not worry about being penalized, but try new things and move forward and move into unfamiliar territory. So there’s so much we could talk about there Sam, but yeah. I’m not a fan. I understand the difficulty. You mentioned scholarships and that’s tricky. I mean, we’ve got some big question to sort of resolve at the high school levels in terms of college and university acceptance. And we, we’re not about to convert the whole system overnight, but that’s where we want to get to in my mind is really put, putting the focus on the learning and the assessment, the feedback on growth.

Sam Demma (28:41):
I love that that’s it’s great to hear from an educator, first of all. And I would, I’d love to see how you test the different theories with the students and classrooms that you work within. And on that note, I’m curious to know, like, have you tried anything unique with your own students with your own grade eights? That’s a little different or outside of the box per se? Over the years,

Tim Cavey (29:03):
I mean, this won’t shock any edge educators in British Columbia, but I have not entered a number in my grade book in math or English in three years. So all I, all I track is proficiency levels and you know, that, and so there’s, I condition the cells in my, in my Google sheet or Excel, whatever to reflect, you know, the color code. And so I can see at a glance how a student is doing on these different learning standards. And that’s just one small answer to your question is I just don’t use numbers. I refuse to put overall assessments on math, you know, summative assessments anymore, because I know that students will just look at that overall assessment and they’ll tend to say, oh, I did, I did great. Or I, I did terrible. And then the, the quiz or the test goes in the garbage and they’re not really moving, not learning forward at all. So yeah. Keeping the focus on the standards, getting away from grades is, is one thing for sure. But does that answer your question?

Sam Demma (30:06):
Yeah, I was actually curious to know when you mentioned people in BC, wouldn’t be surprised by it. Is this like a province-wide initiative that’s been started or tell me more.

Tim Cavey (30:16):
Yeah. So I, I mean, across the province and, and you raise a good question, had know the answer to this in terms of, is it actually provincial policy? Okay. but, but the, just the, you know, if you look across all of the districts K to eight, basically there are no, there are very few holdout schools or districts at this point who are not in a proficiency scale model, you know, moving from emerging to developing, to proficient, to extending and teachers and educators are measuring, learning against that framework. And that’s gonna look different. I mean, there, there are sort of experiments happening and different variations and you see one point rubrics and things like that. But by and large, no very, very few schools would have letter grades and percentages in British Columbia at this point. And I know we’re pretty progressive on that front, so it’s not going to be the same in every state in province, but it’s a, it’s exciting. It’s a great place to teach right now.

Sam Demma (31:17):
It’s innovative, it’s disruptive. It’s, it’s leading the cha change. It, I even fascinating when you mentioned the four words, you know, the, the one at the bottom is emerging. That’s a very positive word. Like I remember getting my report card and it, you know, if you did something bad, it was needs, improve needs, improvement or satisfactory. And the use of positive wording, even if you are on the lower level, you know, of where you maybe should be in terms of the I’m an emerging student, that still sounds amazing. And, you know, the student will probably remain, remain positive in that grading. Yeah, there’s a great book called catch them. Why they’re catch them while they’re good, which talks about the importance of, you know, praising the positive behavior instead of coaching the negative and how sometimes coaching the negative diminishes or is the student’s confidence. And right. I think that system does a great job of ensuring students still feel confident despite where they’re at. Yeah. What, what has your experience been with that? Like, I mean, if you had to grade a student lower or, or as an emerging student what does their feedback, like, how does a student react to respond?

Tim Cavey (32:22):
I mean, so full disclosure, I mean, students do try to sort of compare our current system to their older models. And so they, they will interpret that typically as you know, as, as failing or we try not to use that word, but yeah, I mean that they, they tend to go there, but you’re right. It is a positive word. And the more we can use that proficiency language, it really puts the focus on learning as growth, right? This is where you are now, but it’s not static. I think that’s the key difference. You’re not an F student you’re learning on this particular standard is a urging or developing. It’s going to move forward to proficient. How can we get you there? Got, and I’ve, I’ve got a good friend on Twitter Jeffrey Fri from California who talks about getting rid of, as you said, deficit based assessment. A lot of our assessment looks for the faults. What if we focus on what if we focus on the growth? What if we focus on what we see and sort of fan those flames and work from there. So, yeah, I love it.

Sam Demma (33:25):
Cool. I love this. And I, I wanna wrap up today’s conversation highlighting your role Adex of resources, if, if you’re okay with me calling it that sure. Where can people go and listen to your podcast, give a brief explanation of the cast itself and why it started and, and where all the resources are housed.

Tim Cavey (33:44):
So thank you so much, Sam. I really appreciate this opportunity. You have a brilliant future. My man, and I’m so grateful to be connected with you today and going forward. So I started the podcast on anchor. I would encourage all budding podcasters to consider it. I actually don’t know where you’re hosted, but anchor is free. It, it distributes my podcast to 12 different apps and platforms for free, which is phenomenal. Can’t beat that value. Nice. And you can, so you can find teachers on fire on just about any podcast app, wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can also find my website, which is badly out dated and needs and overhauled, but I do have some posts happening there @teachersonfire.net. And you’ll also find me on any social media platform, including clubhouse at teachers on fire.

Sam Demma (34:32):
Awesome. Tim, thank you so much. And personally you already have enough emails, so I won’t direct people there, but if someone wanted to just shoot you a question or a message, what would be the best way? Would Twitter be the best or what social platform should they gravitate towards?

Tim Cavey (34:48):
Yeah, sure. Like I said, you could probably reach me on your favorite platform, but I am most active on @TeachersOnFire and yeah, you can reach me there. I’ll definitely get back to you.

Sam Demma (35:00):
All right. Cool, Tim, thank you so much for coming on the show. Keep lighting educators on fire in a metaphorical sense and thank you so much. It was an awesome conversation.

Tim Cavey (35:09):
Thank you for having me, Sam. It was a pleasure.

Sam Demma (35:12):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; f you want meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tim Cavey

March 18, 2022 by Sam Demma Founder and CEO Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Peter LeBlanc – Author and Retired Ontario and International principal

About Peter LeBlanc

Peter LeBlanc (@LeBlancPeter) is a retired Ontario and International principal. His most recent work was as principal of the Canadian Section of the SHAPE International School for the Canadian Armed Forces in Casteau, Belgium. This was his fourth and final school as principal and was certainly his most unique. Peter has also served as a system-level principal and spent 11 years teaching at the elementary level. Peter currently works as a Provincial Trainer for Behaviour Management Systems / Systèmes de Gestion du comportement.

Peter is currently writing his first book on visible educational leadership to be published sometime in 2022 via CodeBreakerEdu! He is involved in the leadership branch of The Mentoree. He is an occasional podcast guest both in Canada and internationally. He delivered a TEDx Talk in 2016 about a teacher’s role as the master of relationship, relevancy and pedagogy and was a recipient of The Learning Partnership’s Outstanding Principal Award in 2015.

He is now an ‘extreme snowbird’, spending the winter months in Australia and the rest of his time in southern Ontario. He is the proud father of two adult children and is also an avid amateur musician, currently vying for the title of either Synthesizer Master or Acoustic Rock King and has more musical toys than he knows what to do with!

You can learn more about Peter and follow along as he reflects on his most recent work overseas at www.peterjleblanc.com

Connect with Peter: Email | Twitter | Website

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Education: moving at the speed of…? | Peter LeBlanc | TEDxKitchenerED

SHAPE International School

CodeBreakerEdu

Principal Learning Blog

Rita Pearson TED Talk – Every kid needs a champion

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:01):
Peter welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show all the way from Australia. Please introduce yourself.

Peter LeBlanc (00:11):
Okay. Thanks Sam. So my name is Peter LeBlanc, and I’m a retired principal, although I I’m trying to figure out almost a better title cause I mean, it, it’s what I was and not necessarily what I am, but I’m struggling with that. So I’ll stick with the retired principal for now. I spent 28 years in education, you know, like a lot of people I started out as a classroom teacher, I, I taught extended French, French immersion, special education, core French mostly in the elementary area. So grades three to, to eight seven and eight was my absolute passion while teaching. And then I moved into a I moved boards and then moved into a vice principal role and, and spent the last 17 years doing that. And again, you know, varied positions, small schools, large schools system level principal for two years.

Peter LeBlanc (01:02):
And then my last, but I always think was, you know, my my most unique, I was on loan with the Canadian military and was the principal of their overseas school in Belgium. So that’s a school that actually sits on NATO’s headquarter base and services, the children of Canadian military, who are either working directly for NATO or serving in some kind of capacity as well as other international students who kind of applied to come to the Canadian section. So it, it was a really unique experience. It’s, it’s actually all, almost all Ontario educators that are on loan from their school boards, from Catholic boards, public awards, French boards. And, and yeah, that’s, I finished my last two years off there and then moved back to Ontario in July. And I know, you know, you said from Australia I’m, I do live in Ontario, but my wife is Australian. So I do the, what I call extreme snowbirding. And we’re now committed for me in retirement while you know, work is, is looking a little bit differently spending two or three months of the Australian summer here. So anyways, that’s, that’s kind of that’s me in a nutshell. So thank you for asking

Sam Demma (02:16):
Before our interview started. Just so you know, Peter showed me the view outside his window, freaking beautiful place, no snow, no bus cancellations because of the snow. It’s, it’s really awesome. And I’m glad that technology can make this possible. What do you think is the most rewarding aspect of your career in education or some of the most rewarding aspects of your career in education?

Peter LeBlanc (02:44):
Wow. So, so, so for me, and, and, you know, having, you know, just retired eight months ago, I, I reflected a lot on, well, you know, what, what is it that, you know, brought me joy and, and I’d have to say it, it is probably the individual connections with students and, and with teachers and, and even sometimes those, those experiences where you find out that a small action of yours, you know, made, made a difference. So, you know, I always think if it’s a, if it’s a staff member, you know, it might be, you know, mentoring them into, you know, something different, whether it’s a practice inside their classroom, whether it’s an actual position change and then hearing afterwards and saying, you know, Peter, I just wanted to let you know that, you know, the permission you gave me to do X, Y, and Z really had an impact on the direction of my career or a student.

Peter LeBlanc (03:34):
And, and, and if I can, you know, just a, a kind of a brief story, I got a, I got a, an X student who, you know, fell into my DM on, on, on Instagram and just said, you know, and look, it was a student. I was at the school for a year, and this was a student who I, you know, provided support for, but more in the way of, you know, just making the office a safe space for them to come when, when they needed it. I didn’t think that I had done to anything of any great significance. You know, other than like I said, you know, being, being an ear and, and a space, and I got a lovely message that, that said, you know, I just wanted to let you know this was, you know, a few years after I had been at the school, I just wanted to let you know Mr.

Peter LeBlanc (04:17):
LeBlanc, I have just been made the valedictorian of my school. And I wanted to thank you for your support. I, I, I knew exactly who the student was, but the the sentiment that came from them, it was both genuine and unexpected. I, I was like, I had them reflect, oh my goodness. Well, well, what did I do? And then when I thought about it you know, it, it really did. It brought me way. So it’s those kinds of things. It’s students that I connect with on, you know, on Facebook and on Instagram. And my son tells me I should go on TikTok, not there, you know, yet, but on, on, in, in spaces who, who talk about the impact of the work that we would have done together and, and, you know, with teaching staff, the same thing, and, and now people who are going into to more leadership roles, you know, that same thing.

Peter LeBlanc (05:05):
So it it’s to be able to provide that, that sort of support, even mentorship, you know, that, that I get to reflect on and, and, and may have changed either the course, you know, the path of their careers, or, you know, it, it, to, to not, it almost sounds arrogant when you say it that the path of lives, but, you know, like really to have to have kind of guided them in particular direction and, and to be able to have been a positive impact on that. I, I think that’s probably brought me the biggest joy, you know, of all the positions I’ve done, whether it’s, you know, classroom teacher, classroom support, whether vice principal, principal system level, like whatever it happens to be,

Sam Demma (05:41):
You’re a huge relationship advocate. You talk about it in your TEDx talk as well. Why do you think building relationships should be the heart of this work? And what do you think the impact of building a relationship is on a student or staff?

Peter LeBlanc (05:56):
Well, yeah, I, I think it’s critical. I always, I kind of go back to, you know, thank you for mentioning my TEDx talk. I always laugh, cuz I say, you know, my goal would be to have a million views. And I always say, you know, right now I’m 999,000 away from that goal.

Peter LeBlanc (06:14):
It, it, but yeah, I, I think relat ships are, are critical. And I go back to a, a Ted talk by by an American teacher who has now passed R Pearson who, who has the line kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. And, and, and I think that idea of like, you know, we kind of think of that from an adult perspective, right. Well, you know, do they like me? Do they know? And I think for a student, I think that like is broader than that. It’s, it may be, it, it encompasses respect, but I think it encompasses a place where students feel safe and secure perhaps to be themselves. And I think it’s incumbent on a teacher to be able to establish that through the relationship that they have with a student. And then I think, you know, as, as, as a teacher moves into perhaps a more formal role of leadership, whether it’s a vice principal or a principal or a superintendent or director that they, they still have that responsibility to foster those relationships.

Peter LeBlanc (07:12):
And, and, and that’s, that’s hard work, but I think it’s absolutely critical to learning in a school environment. You know, you, I was listening to, to, to some of your past podcasts and you were talking to, I think it was Mr. O’neil, who is now a superintendent with the Durham board and, you know, was, was your principal. And you described him as you know, and, and you were very respectful. And I, you know, I appreciate that, but you said, you know, he was probably the most fun principal you had. And, and, and I think, you know, that’s, that’s a word that a student might use to describe somebody who’s like, Hey, you know, we might say, well, that’s approachable or it’s accessible, or it’s visible. And, you know, you wouldn’t have known fun or not. If the principal had been sitting in their office doing their job from there, it, it sounds like this would’ve been a person who would’ve been inside the building, fostering relationships, knowing a little bit about you, you know, he talk about your love of the soccer ball and how would he have known that if he had have been sitting in his office kind of leading the school.

Peter LeBlanc (08:12):
Yeah. So, you know, and same right. Teachers are the same thing when, when they’re inside the classroom, when, when they’re fostering a relat should with their students. I think the students know that they know that the teacher, you know, that they, they care about them as a person. And when they know that, then I think there’s an openness to be able to learn whatever learning happens to be. Right. So, you know, and if I just, one more thing, like you talk about my Ted talks, I always think, you know, one of the other premises to that is although we have to master the relationship, we have to master pedagogy too. In the end, we are experts in learning. So we have to figure out how students learn best. And we have to sharpen that skill. We gotta make sure that, you know, that, that we are at our best in that regard, but, but we do that so much better when, when it’s based on when it’s based on the relationships that we have with our students and then with our staff and then our communities and the, you know, students, caregivers, and their, their families, whatever that looks like that, that is absolutely critical

Sam Demma (09:07):
As an educator. It’s almost like you have two jobs, one to teach and build a relationship with a student, but secondly, to be on a lifelong journey of education yourself, or consistently learning, how did you balance the pursuit of knowledge yourself with, you know, teaching every day?

Peter LeBlanc (09:30):
Yeah. I, my kids would probably say, I, you know, it cost me my, my home life balance for, for the longest time. I, I just I, I don’t, how did I manage, I, I don’t know. I made time and space to, to try and continue, you know, my own learning both formally. So, you know, I would say I don’t have a master’s degree, but I think I have 16 or 17 master’s degree credits in five different programs. So, you know, it’s like at one point, I’d say, all right, I’m gonna start formal education. Ah, it’s not quite for me. And then I go, I’m gonna try it again. Nah, not quite for me. But you know, I, I try and find resources or people to just always, you know, dig into different kinds of learning. Sometimes it was hard. You know like being a teacher, you know, in whatever could, whether it’s teacher in a classroom, whether it’s no teacher in, in a principal’s office is a, is a hard job.

Peter LeBlanc (10:22):
So there are times when the job itself is all encompassing. I would think now, you know, with teachers sort of leading in, in a very uncertain time trying to, you know, go back and forth, I won’t use the word pivot, cuz it’s not pivot it’s, you know, teaching an online model, all teaching an in-person model, which are two different things. That’s a huge amount of work. So I would imagine that the kind of learning that happens outside of, you know outside of your classroom hours is probably, you know, maybe happening a lot less or not at all for people. Cause they’re focused on their own wellbeing of their job. Would’ve been the same for me. There would’ve been times where it’s like, I can’t do the learning, but I think I’ve always been, I’ve always enjoyed learning it, it, you know, like right now I’m, I’m not working.

Peter LeBlanc (11:06):
There’s no, I have no work obligation. I’m I’m, I’m not an active principal. I don’t work for a particular school board. I do some, you know, kind of, you know, work whether it’s, you know volunteering and advising on the side or, you know, whether it’s paid work, but I’m still, I’m still involved in learning. I, I enjoyed, you know, this, this particular experience cuz I’ll learn from you and our interaction. I, you know, I’m picking up books all the time. I I’m just trying to continuously make my own mindset as an educator better even though my kind of practice as an educator has changed. I, I don’t know if that Sam don’t know if that answered your question or if, you know, I went in a different direction or if not, you’ll, you’ll pull me back in and ask me to follow up and

Sam Demma (11:45):
Yeah, you did answer it. It sounds like your life is your life and all the pieces are always fluctuating, right? There’s certain times where learning is very high and there’s certain times where learning is a little lesser and you’re focused on teaching. And I feel like that will change throughout your entire career. And it sounds like it, it did for you too.

Peter LeBlanc (12:08):
Yeah. And doesn’t it change throughout everyone’s, you know, almost life. And I think, you know, to go back to the idea of a relationship, right? So if I’m, if I’m in a school working with staff or I’m in a school working with students and if I know them and I know a piece of their life, then I’m going to be attuned to those kind of needs as well. Sometimes the students that are in front of us in our classrooms are not at their best when it comes to learning. So, you know, maybe they have an awful lot on their plate and maybe right now is not the time for them to dig into of learning. And, and other times it is you know, a good time for them to learn. So I think we all have those sort of learning cycles. So, you know, I just, I, I think for me, I just, I did what I could when I could you know, to try and, and, and, and hone, you know, my own skill.

Peter LeBlanc (12:49):
And, and then I would surround myself with people who knew an awful lot. Like I’ve been lucky through social media to, you know, connect with some incredible, you know, incredible people that are exceptionally knowledgeable about their craft, whether you know, it’s math education or, you know, whether it’s you know, decolonizing the curriculum. I think of somebody like a client in Ontario, who’s just doing some incredible work around making, you know, around awareness and action, you know, the inequities in, in, in education, you know? It is just, yeah. So, I mean, I think I could go on because I am passionate about learning it. I think that’s probably why I went into education. Yeah. you know, so I’m still passionate about it.

Sam Demma (13:32):
You, you quoted an to start this interview, you also just mentioned the importance of people who are some of the educators whose work has really inspired you. And why.

Peter LeBlanc (13:48):
Okay. Well, that’s a, that’s a good question. So it’s probably changed over the course of my over the course of my career. Right now I, I look at, so there’d be a few people Sunil sing whose work on, on sort of really thinking outside the box in mathematical education has been a huge impact on, on me. Yeah. And then some of the work that, you know, I, I, that I’m involved in, but also learning from, in, in the mentoree, which is, you know sort of a, a mentorship environment that connects different kinds of, of people. I don’t know, like I are there, there people out there, there probably are. And when we’re done talking, I probably have a list of about 20. But I, I don’t know. So, and, and sometimes it, you know, you, you, you, you, you sort of find someone, you know, I talk about the rabbit hole on online, right?

Peter LeBlanc (14:50):
You, you find somebody online and you’re like, oh, I’m gonna go and take a look. I might download a sample of their book. I’m gonna go and take a look at their, their website. And then sometimes the learning doesn’t stick. Sometimes it sticks for a little bit, and then sometimes it has a significant impact, you know, on, on career. You know, so I, like, I know for me in the early stages of leadership development, I, I, would’ve taken a lot a look at a lot of the work of Steven Covey, for example. So, you know, the idea of the you know, seven sort of steps to effective leadership, the idea of, you know, everything from sharpening the saw to begin with the end in mind that would’ve had a big impact on the early stages of, of, you know, my own leadership development, but then I would’ve looked at it less and less and, you know, found, you know, a kind of other, you know, other things as well. Robin Jackson, who is an American principal, and probably now superintendent whatnot had some work around, you know, moving people from a, to B inside of a school. And, you know, the idea of you know, of, of, of leadership and coaching. But, but again, right. You know, tho those kind of influence they, they come and go depending on, on the need to stare though.

Sam Demma (15:54):
Yeah. I think if your influence stayed the same, your whole life too, you wouldn’t be exercising that muscle of curiosity, you know, and being curious about new things that you aren’t already learning about. Yeah. You also have a blog at what stage in your educational journey. Did you start writing that blog? Oh, and what was the purpose for starting it?

Peter LeBlanc (16:17):
Well, I, I think the purpose for starting it, and this would’ve been another one of these, you know, kind of names that would’ve had an influence on my career. George Kuro, who at the time, you know, was I think the principle of it was, might have been innovation in technology G for, I think the Parkland school you know, in Alberta, I know he shifted now he’s written, you know, three or four books. He, you know, has all kinds of things that are going on, but he would’ve talked about the idea of a digital portfolio. And, and I thought that was fascinating. The idea that, you know, we can sort of reflect and write about our experiences in it education and that someone might actually be interested, you know, or might be even curious enough to, to read about it. So I’m, I’m not a prolific blogger, but I probably, it’s probably been close to 10 years since I would’ve written my first blog post.

Peter LeBlanc (17:08):
It might even be longer than that. Right now I’m focused on reflecting on the experience of kind of leading a, a very unique school and trying to be as upfront as I can. So, you know, sometimes as well, and, and, you know, we do this on, on whatever social media platform we’re on, or we do it on our blogs. We, we put our best self forward. And what I’m trying to do in this reflection is, is, you know, without going into significant detail is, is talk about both the, the things that went well, and then the things that might not have gone, you know, so well upon reflection and, you know, the, the, those opportunities that, oh, if I could do it over again, you know, I would, and I’m, I’m about halfway through the journey. I, you know, I was thinking I’d be six or seven blog posts, and I sort of wrote an outline and then life gets in the way, and I’ve done three of those six posts.

Peter LeBlanc (18:00):
And, you know, the fourth one is, is, is kind of ready to go soon. But, you know, as you said, I’m, I’m in Australia for a couple of months right now and trying to enjoy of that experience too. So I dunno, I would, I would encourage I know when I was working with staff at one point in time, you know, we had talked about trying to share our experiences with each other and, you know, it, it, it comes to the idea that when we work inside of a school, whether it’s the students or, or, or the staff or, or the greater community, we have experts on all kinds of things. And if we don’t give them an opportunity to be able to express themselves, whether that’s through through a written blog or, you know, I think of the work that you know, cha and pav do on the the staff from podcast.

Peter LeBlanc (18:42):
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with them or not, but they’re incredible educators. They just put themselves out there and that they, they genuinely share the work that they do. And by that simple act of putting their work out there, other people are both learning from and inspired by the work that happens. So, you know, why not give students the opportunity to do that? Why not take on that opportunity, you know, ourselves. So the blog kind of came from that. It came from, you know, creation of digital portfolio. It came from trying to model the idea of putting your learning out there, even though, you know, nobody, but my mom and my wife might read it, you know?

Sam Demma (19:17):
Yeah. Well, plus another 3,500 people now!

Peter LeBlanc (19:22):
Oh, there you go.

Sam Demma (19:23):
Then when you first started, there was perfect. But so what has writing done for you personally? I am a big advocate of journaling because I find that one, it sharpens my thoughts and ideas, and two, it gets certain emotions also out of my head. Yeah. I don’t have to deal with them as much. How, what has your experience been with longform writing and posting blog?

Peter LeBlanc (19:49):
Yeah, it probably very similar. It, it, it takes it, you know, if, if, if, and I tend to be somebody who sits in my head a lot you know, it, I guess the negative side of that would be, you know, a Mueller or a Brer, but, you know, I, I think the positive side of that is, you know you know, I won’t say visionary cuz that’s that I think has a different connotation, but you know, somebody who’s always trying to think of, of big ideas and, and I think it allows me at the pace of writing to take my ideas and to put them down. So, so there’s no, there’s no rush to it. I can, I can take my time and I can think about what I’m gonna say. I can kind of, you know, Smith my words a little bit. And, and I like you, I love the written word for, for kind of getting my ideas out there.

Peter LeBlanc (20:35):
You, you talk about journaling and, and you know, almost, it’s almost the way of emptying your head and kind of putting it, putting it on paper and, you know, sometimes I’ll go back over it and all, it’s not quite what I had wanted to say. So it, it, it’s a, it’s a great place to record thoughts and then maybe go back on them and, and reflect on them. You know, I talk about my, my children, my, I have a son who’s probably just a little bit older than you are, but not much. And for Christmas, one of the things I bought him was actually the men’s journal. Cause I said, you know, nobody had talked to me as a young man about the, the idea of trying to put my thoughts down in writing. And I wish they had, because as a, you know, as a less young man that, that idea of being able to put those, those ideas down has been exceptionally, exceptionally helpful.

Peter LeBlanc (21:22):
Exceptionally helpful, cuz I, I think it’s, it’s both a productive practice, you know, and of course I’m, you know, I’m, I’m currently working on on a book on visible educational leadership, which, you know, lets me sort of, you know, work on my, my writing craft, but you know, it’s also going slower than I had anticipated because I wanna make sure that, you know, the words are there in, in a way I anticipate it, but that they’re also, you know, helpful to others who may, you know, who may pick up the book at some point, you know, when it’s done that it that it reflects my passion about, you know, being out there in a community, you know, you use the word fun to describe a principle. I would do the same thing, but I talk about, you know, accessible and visible and supportive and you know, and kind of out there so that, you know, people sort of know who you are.

Peter LeBlanc (22:04):
Yeah. And I wanna make sure that, that, that, that process, you know, that, that writing process supports that. But you know, I also think too, like right now what you are doing, so, you know, the idea of, of any kind of recording of ideas. So, you know, if it’s a podcast or of log, you know, even if it’s reals, if it’s, you know you know, if, if it’s, you know you know, TikTok videos, whatever it happens to be, it allows people able to be able to record, you know what they’re, they’re what they’re thinking. It, it lets ’em kind of put them a little piece of themselves out there and then maybe go back and sort of reflect on it that I think that’s a good thing if we do it cautious, sometimes it’s not necessarily a good thing when we’ve got a record of, you know, everything we’re thinking and everything we’re doing, but, but I think it has the potential to, to be, to be great, no,

Sam Demma (22:50):
Right around the holiday season, I started seeing these sponsored ads for this new book. And it’s a book you buy for your parents and the book every single day has a question that prompts your parents to write about stories throughout their life. And when the book is done, they hand it to you. And the goal is that you have 365 stories that they may have never told you before. So that by the end of their life, when they do pass away every single year, you give them one of these books, you have like a recollection of all of their experiences. And I thought it was such a cool idea. And it reminded me of the fact, you know, when you mentioned that you bought your, your son a journal and my, my question for you is if you could take all the experience you’ve had in education, you haven’t potentially written it all down in books every single year, but you could take the experience you have in education transport back in time and walk into your own classroom. One of the first classes that you taught in, tap yourself on the shoulder and say, Hey Peter, this is what you needed to know. What advice would you have given your younger self? Wow,

Peter LeBlanc (24:04):
Wow. So to me, I guess that the, the first thing I would probably tell myself would be, you know, one is don’t, don’t doubt yourself. When you think that the relationship with students is critical. Because I think sometimes the, the push for covering curriculum or, you know, and, and I’m not, I’m not saying that isn’t important. I think we have to revise what it is that we, what we talk about is being important. But I tap myself on the shoulder and say, you know, when you are thinking that all students need is, is you to kind of support them that that’s enough that, you know, don’t beat yourself up if you know, X does and get covered in the way that you want it to, because that’s not what the students sitting in front of you needs now. And, and the other thing I, I would tell myself is you’re gonna, you’re gonna make mistakes, that there are some things that you’re gonna do that you’re gonna go, whoa, like O you’re gonna have some cringe worth moments and you’re gonna come out.

Peter LeBlanc (25:11):
Okay. You know, in, in the end, you’re gonna come out. Okay. Those cringeworthy moments will, you know, will, will, will shape you and might push you in different directions, but you’re gonna be all right. So I, I probably do that. I, I I’d let myself know right. At the beginning, the importance of relationship, I think I, it took me a while to develop up that, that understanding. I I’d make sure that I knew that right from the get go that, that, that students want and need really need to feel that that support system from, from you, you know, in, in some ways is one of the primary adults in their lives for 10 months. They need to feel that from you. So don’t, you know, don’t don’t diminish or dismiss the importance of that, of that role. Does that, does that make sense, Sam? Is that,

Sam Demma (26:01):
Yeah. Three key words that keep coming to mind and throwout this entire conversation are visibility, accessibility, and relationships. Yeah. And I’m sure there’s many more, ah, some ideas and topics that will come out in your book for people who are interested in following along your journey. One, where can they find your blog and two, where can they reach out if they have some questions or like to stay up to date about the book?

Peter LeBlanc (26:25):
Okay. So I’ll talk about the reaching out first. So I, I always say I’m more or less physic, well, I was thinking at one point in time, I was probably more visible on social media or more, you know but as always happens, you’ve got innovators and people who push practice forward. So I’m, I’m there but less visible. I would encourage people to reach out as a matter of fact when the school systems in Ontario kind of, you know, shifted and made a, a very quick decision to go, you know, back online, I’d actually put an invitation out there to, to school leaders and said, look, you know, I’m sitting on the sidelines, I’m not connected to any school, or, you know, jumping into my DM on Twitter and message me. I’m happy to help out in any way I can. I’ve got 28 years of experience, 17 of them, you know, at the helm of the school.

Peter LeBlanc (27:11):
So, you know, I don’t work for your school board. So, you know, if you trust me, go ahead and ask those questions. So I’m happy to have people reach out in any capacity, as far as where to reach me from a social media perspective, I’m probably more active professionally on Twitter than anywhere else. My Twitter handle is just my last name. So @LeBlancPeter. So LeBlanc Peter I’m, I’m on Instagram as well. And I would say, you know, those are two sort of open channels. They’re, they’re public, Instagram is sort more a blend of personal and professional life. If you’re gonna feel bad sitting in minus 20 degree weather in Toronto, about me putting pictures up, you know, of Sydney Harbor in January, then don’t, don’t go to @PeterJLAN on Instagram. That’s not the place to go.

Peter LeBlanc (27:59):
And as far as my, my blog goes, my blog and, and, and website, it would just be www.peterjleblanc.com. Right now I’m three parts into sort of that reflection on my work being SED by the Canadian military, which like I said, was an absolutely incredible and unique work experience. There really are only two Ontario prince schools on the planet, you know, who do that job. And, and then I, you know, I, I did it like, I, I, I worked with, you know, staff and with the military community, you know, in the, at the start of, and, you know, all basically through 18 months, the global pandemic. So that presented its kind of leadership challenges. So, you know, I invite people along to, to come and read about that experience. I’m writing about that.

Peter LeBlanc (28:45):
And then the book, I mean the working title is, is visible educational leadership. And interesting. You talk about the idea of, you know, of accessibility and visibility. Because that, that really is the, the, the, the premise of the book itself, it’s it it’s being published by Codebreaker EDU, which is organiz that’s you know kind of run by Brian aspenall and Davene MCNA MC and you know, it has a, a wealth of and a, you know, a large group of, of kind of educational, you know, leaders and thinkers and, and, and, and people including, you know, chain PAB on the, on the staff and podcast and, you know, all just all kinds of all kinds of people all kinds of people to learn from that book should be published at some point in 2022.

Peter LeBlanc (29:35):
I have to finish writing it first. I but it will be, you know, it, it kind of be the focus of the who, what, where, when, why, and how you know, of, of visible leadership and, and not just the idea of being visible inside your school, but, you know, how do you support teaching staff inside a classroom? How are you there for students? How do you amplify a student’s voice, particularly students who need you as a principal to be the amplifier, you know, of, of, of their voice. How do you do that in your, your community? You know, how can you, you know, take on that truly visible leadership role. Cause I always say, you know, do you really want to be the opposite of a visible leader? Cuz the opposite of a visible leader is an invisible leader and that’s, I, it’s impossible to have that stance as a leader, you cannot lead and be invisible.

Peter LeBlanc (30:18):
That’s that’s impossible. So I just wanna make sure of that. So yeah, Twitter primarily and, and you know, my I mean my email address is on my website, so you can always go there, but if you wanted to jump into my email address by all means, go ahead. It’s principallearning@gmail.com note that, you know, right now my time zone is 16 hours ahead. So there’s pretty good luck likelihood that you know, I’ll be sleeping when you’re awake, but yeah, I’m, even if it’s just a question even just to say, Hey, you know, you know, I, I heard what you had to say, you know, with, with Sam and you know, I enjoy that. Or you know, even, even people questioning and pushing my own learning, I always open to that as well. When we, if, if yeah, we’re not pushing our own learning, then we’re not we learning.

Sam Demma (31:03):
I agree, Peter, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for making the time. I know you could be outside this morning sitting on a beach, but you chose to be here. I appreciate it. And well, I look forward to picking up a copy of your book when it comes out, by the time this episode gets released, your blog series should be done as well. So people will be able to check out the whole thing. So keep it up and stay in touch and we’ll talk to indeed.

Peter LeBlanc (31:30):
All right. So sign copy for you then Sam, when it’s done. All right.

Sam Demma (31:33):
Sounds good.

Peter LeBlanc (31:35):
Thanks.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Peter LeBlanc

March 12, 2022 by Sam Demma Principals Student Leadership Student Success 0

Nicola Whitehouse – Vice-Principal at St. Peter High School (OCSB)

About Nicola Whitehouse

Nicola Whitehouse (@MrsNWhitehouse), is Vice-Principal at St. Peter Catholic High School in Orleans. The first nine years of her teaching career were in London, UK and combined with her time spent in Canada she has over ten years experience as a school administrator. Nicola has worked in both private and public education systems here in Canada. She has worked as a vice-principal with the Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB) for the last four years.

Nicola is deeply passionate about championing student voices to lead change. She believes that demonstrating respect for students and their families by listening to their ideas, being open to those ideas and genuinely considering their value is key. She is an advocate for student associations that provide opportunities for youth to find places of affinity as well as collaborate on solution-based approaches that are essential to providing mentally healthy and supportive education for all. Nicola is married with two children, aged 8 and 10.

Connect with Nicola: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Gholdy Muhammad

St. Peter High School (OCSB)

Ottawa Catholic School Board

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:01):
Nicola welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.

Nicola Whitehouse (00:09):
Thanks Sam. I’m really happy to be with you today. Thanks so much for the invite. This is gonna be awesome. My name’s Nicola Whitehouse. I am currently a vice principal with the Ottawa Catholic school board. I am fourth year as a vice principal with St. Peter’s Catholic high school out in Orleans. I have been an educator for over 20 years now, which is pretty crazy. Nice to think about that. And about, yeah, I’m just hitting my 10th year of administration. It’s been a pretty awesome so far. I’m a mom and I have two kids who are 10 and eight. And my husband is also in education, so yeah, lots of, lots of chat about school. And being a teacher, being a principal in our house, for sure.

Sam Demma (00:57):
How did you get into education? Did you know from a young age, this is what you want, wanted to do? Tell us a little bit about the path.

Nicola Whitehouse (01:04):
Yeah. You know, it’s so it’s so funny because I saw that question, you know, and you gave me a heads up that we’re gonna chat about it. And it’s one of those things. I sometimes pause to think, how did this happen? And it, it has always been this way for me. Mm. My mother was in education. She finished out her career as the head of student services. My father was an engineer in math and science was like a big part of his life. I have three younger brothers and they kind of took that path and I just felt this natural affinity for education. I enjoyed school. I loved the community sense, the social aspect of, of what school offered me. I really liked leading and, and working with others. And so it just felt like a natural fit that that was gonna be, you know, where I was gonna go.

Nicola Whitehouse (01:54):
I think when I was young in high school, I was, I really gravitated towards the student leadership programs, the mentorship opportunities to work with younger kids to help them, you know, with their learning. And, and then off I went and I, I did my undergrad at Trent university and I was part of their concurrent education program, which saw my last year at Queens, which was amazing. And Queens was phenomenal in opening up opportunities for international teaching experiences. And, and then, you know, off, I went to the UK to a brand new school. It had been in existence for about a year. And, and then my career started there, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s just sometimes you just know, and I’ve never thought for a second that I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do different things in education, but like that is always felt home to me and really natural. So yeah, I don’t have like a, you know, sometimes we finds like, oh, I was doing this and I was doing that. And then I ended up in education. My path has been like pretty straight on that being the, the, the, what, what is it? The, the path I’m meant to be on, essentially, I guess if that a better word.

Sam Demma (03:01):
And, and off you went to the UK. Yeah,

Nicola Whitehouse (03:05):
I know. Right.

Sam Demma (03:07):
That’s a big, that’s a big statement. Can you bring us back to that point in your journey and tell, share a little bit more about what inspired you to move there, what you did in the UK and how it influenced you.

Nicola Whitehouse (03:22):
Cool. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I go, that sounds so simplistic. Right. But I, you know, at 18 I had the amazing opportunity. The school boards in Ontario are pretty phenomenal. I think they run similar type opportunities now, but you were able to go and do a credit, you know, for your final years of high school in, in England was the opportunity. And so I went for the summer and I did a modern Western history course and lived in residence up near Regents park in London. And it was one of those memories that I had stick with me for a really long time. And it was almost always my goal to go back. I think we all maybe feel a connection to our heritage and our ancestry. And I come from an Irish British background and there was something that I wanted to go and connect with, you know, in my future.

Nicola Whitehouse (04:14):
So education offered the opportunity, you know, it was at a time in education where the teaching lists were full. You know, I graduated in 2003. I was ready to start teaching and people were looking for opportunities to kind of take their profession around the world. And so this new school came up and what was really cool too for me was that I wasn’t going to go through the supply to aging agencies. Right. So when you would go over to Europe as a young teacher in your first five years, trying to prove yourself and make connections, you were often picked up by these agencies. And it was day to day as, as, as it would be for supply teacher, but they get kind of complicated and it wasn’t necessarily secure. So there was this new school, it was in the east far east part of London, an area called Beckton.

Nicola Whitehouse (05:03):
So anybody who knows who’s listening, who knows London they run this train aboveground train called the DLR, and we were the final stop, you know, in the east part. And it was in an area that was going through some regrowth and redevelopment. And the school had had a lot of funding put behind it to create this really great opportunity for the kids in the area. And I, Sam, I turned up, I got off the flight. I’m an overp packer. I’m ridiculous. Like I had bags upon bags, pump bags. And my buddy that I was traveling with, looked at me and like, you, you’re not gonna be like, carry all that. Like, I don’t understand where you think this is going. Right. And so I was the safety concern. I had people on the tube, you know, the modern, the, the guys running the tube, kind of on the speaker saying, ma’am do you need somebody to help you?

Nicola Whitehouse (05:53):
Like, it was just like a full, like, depository of all my things, my life, I dragged it into a, a house where I roomed with four or five other educators. And it was, it was crazy Sam, like, it was such a, this is a fun part about when you’re in the beginning of your career and you’re just starting out and you have all these hopes and dreams for what you want it to be. And you’re looking to make these professional connections. And you’re looking to learn to start out with young people in the same situation was phenomenal, you know, and we were put in situations that trusted us, you know, gave us like great amounts of leadership, working with families, working with kids, working on projects that were building this school up from its beginnings to, to what it is a legacy to now, you know, of being a really great institution and you were doing it on the daily with young people who were your age in their, in their twenties.

Nicola Whitehouse (06:45):
And some were a bit older, you know, in their thirties and, and had been in the careers maybe 15, 20 years that you were getting mentorship from, but it created this really unique environment of experiences that I have carried with me, you know because you don’t know what you’re doing when you get in there right away. And you’ve, you’ve been interviewing a lot of educators and a lot of individuals that are in maybe formal education in a, in a high school or in elementary school in other ways doing education. But you don’t know when you start and that’s that you’re learning, you are a learner and that’s, what’s so key to being, I think good and, and high performing and successful as an educator is that when you take that stance as a learner, and you’re constantly seeking out the next opportunity in the next moment to grow, that’s where I think we see the greatest success as a teacher.

Nicola Whitehouse (07:34):
And so a big part of what was going on for me in the U and the experiences I was having there with, you know, limited kind of knowledge of how to do this properly. That’s I think how I became so great, cause I had to learn, I had to figure it out. I had to survive, right. And it was about survival and people listening again that were, are in their first five years of teaching. When you’re growing your resources, you’re growing your skills, behavior management, you’re learning how to develop yourself like pedagogically, but also on how you build relationships with families and with their kids. Those first five years are hard. And they’re some that are like, I’m out. I can’t, this is like too much emotionally it’s too much work long to all that kind of stuff. And then there’s others that really flourish and, and they become incredibly strong. You know, it’s those first five years, we always say, you have to make it through.

Sam Demma (08:28):
Did

Nicola Whitehouse (08:28):
You, I dunno if that’s like what you’re looking for there.

Sam Demma (08:30):
Yeah. That was a phenomenal response. Did you pick up any slang while you were in the UK?

Nicola Whitehouse (08:37):
Not words necessarily. I can use on this podcast right now, but yeah,

Sam Demma (08:42):
That’s awesome.

Nicola Whitehouse (08:43):
But yeah, things like, you know, trash was rubbish or you know, the trunk was the boots. You were going going to the Offie, which was the off license you know, to start out your Friday nights, you know, they, there were lot loads of words and the VNA, I never developed the accent. I had some Canadian friends that picked up a LT and maybe I had a little bit of a LT to the way that I would finish off sentences speak in a certain way. But definitely the language when I would, when I moved back to, to Ottawa and was in conversation with friends or with new colleagues, they were like the what? And I’m like, oh yeah, right case. So just put it in the garbage, put it in the trash, you know, that, that was a big one. And so I still carry some of that with me. Yeah.

Sam Demma (09:29):
So you picked up some slang. Did you also meet your husband on this trip? Or how did you get in contact? Yeah, yeah.

Nicola Whitehouse (09:36):
Right. Picked up the slave, picked up the husband and then moved myself back, you know, to Canada. Yeah, I did. I absolutely did. I met my husband who’s British teaching. He was part of this new school that was being built in shaped. He had finished his university at Middlesex in London. And we were friends like that was that’s another, like you had this network of young people that were dating that were friends that were support for each other. And so we knew each other for a big chunk of our career and it was about six or seven years into working together that, you know, we realized that it was more and that you know, we, it was a love interest and yeah, we, and we married and we had our son Oliver in in London.

Nicola Whitehouse (10:24):
So I just say his name because yes, it definitely has that Dickens connection and the whole kinda Oliver to thing. Yeah. For his birth, his birth space. Yeah. And we did a year as he was an associate head teacher and I was ahead of year. So we had administrative roles and it was hard cause we didn’t have family. Right. And so this balance that as educators, we try to keep with our family life and what we need to give to ourselves personally on a, on a wellness level, on a capacity level to what then what we give careers, which is very also personal and very emotional and very dedicated. We found it hard to not have a N or a grandpa, you know, around to help us with the load. So we moved back after our first year and started our careers here in Ottawa. Yeah.

Sam Demma (11:12):
That’s amazing. There’s a, there’s a song called Oliver twist and me and my good friend, not my good friend, my cousin, his name’s Daniel. Yeah. Every once in a while will play FIFA. I just love soccer. We’ll play video games. Yeah. And in the loading screen of the game, there’s soft music in the background and I heard this like British rap and was so intrigued by it that I Shaza it. And it was from the UK and some song called Oliver twist. And it was so awesome.

Nicola Whitehouse (11:41):
Hilarious. It just

Sam Demma (11:42):
Reminded you when you, when you said that, but

Nicola Whitehouse (11:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The connection he’s, he’s the London boy. That’s right. And there’s many references that that’s pretty cool to hear that it got picked up as the name of the track as well. That’s

Sam Demma (11:54):
Oh, cool. And, and you had one rule for your husband when he came to Canada, what was it?

Nicola Whitehouse (11:59):
He had to learn to ski.

Sam Demma (12:03):
That’s awesome.

Nicola Whitehouse (12:04):
He had to learn to ski. Yeah, exactly. I said, listen, you know, they, and I was able to do that out there in Europe as well. I got to go and check out the Alps and do Italy and do France. And it was, it was super fun. So he knew that about me. I was snowboarding at that time. I, you know, when I snowboarding, since I was 16, but when you have kids, you gotta get back on the skis to teach them. And I said, I can’t do this alone. You gotta, you gotta be part of this. So he did like a trooper that you and he put himself on skis taught himself because be the supportive wife that I was, I was like, yeah, you just go figure that out over there. We’re gonna go and do some, you know, diamonds, but you go over to that bunny hill and he did. And he is amazing. He’s six, six too. So call guy and it’s, that’s no feat right. To figure out the ski, but that’s a fun comedian family thing to do. It’s a good destressor. Yeah.

Sam Demma (12:52):
You mentioned one of, of the traits of a fulfilled, successful high performing educator is this endless curiosity. I would argue forcing yourself to learn a new skill. You know, not that forties is old, but at any age, you know, forcing yourself to learn a new skill, is, is that trait, in example have you remain curious or how have you fed your own curiosity throughout your journey of education?

Nicola Whitehouse (13:20):
Oh, that’s a good question. I, yeah. You know, it’s, how have I fed my curiosity? I think just to, just to recognize that in that stance as learner and constantly seeking out that new information means that you’ve always got the understanding of what does it mean to learn something new. Mm. You know, and it helps you appreciate what you, who, what the individuals you’re trying to support might be going through. Mm. You know, as you try to design learning for them to be successful, you can reflect on what it is that, you know, you need to do, whether it’s, you know, an audio visual piece, whether it is the amount of practice that you need to have to master fill, you’re always keeping that in mind, in order to support the communities that you serve. You know, for me, Sam, it’s interesting, a big curiosity that I’ve had is how are we making education equitable?

Nicola Whitehouse (14:11):
You know? And it was something that I, you have had to spend a lot of time reading and unlearning to be fair, a lot of what I believe to be true and what I thought to be the right way of doing something to really understand how it was DISA, managing, and short changing the people. I was so dedicated to get it right with. So my curiosity is being fed right now by a lot by large communities that are really investing in having this dialogue about, you know, are we getting this right? You know, and who is holding the power and who is benefiting from the systems that we’re saying are the ways that you need to participate in so that you could be successful. And so, and my curiosity is said, because I’m constantly needing new people with new perspectives and we’re challenging, you know, me to make sure that I am being the best as a principal, as an educator, as a mom, who’s raising children, you know, in this world today to ensure that, you know, that curiosity that you’re talking about is actually making a difference. I’m kind of taking this somewhere else right now, Sam, but like, oh, that’s good. You know, that curiosity is good. And it, and it Def taking that stance of a learner, but what are you gonna do with that to, to make a difference to make that change you know, to help others, I think is, is a huge part of that question that you’re asking.

Sam Demma (15:35):
Yeah. It sounds like what you’re explaining is how curiosity is the first step, but then taking action based on the new knowledge you pick up is even more important than just being curious. Do you have any resources that you have read or do these communities, you mentioned that you have pulled from, that you think other educators should know about maybe a book or an article or a group that you followed or learned from that someone else should also check out if they wanna be a little more curious about the equity space right now?

Nicola Whitehouse (16:06):
Yeah. oh my gosh, I have so many, and I thought about that. I started writing things down and I just, you know, one of the kind of fundamental drop-ins for me, you know, as an educator was really the work of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad. Mm. And, you know, she, if, I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, but she’s written this book and she’s written many books and she’s just phenomenal. She’s one of these, I’m gonna say educators that is constantly planning and constantly designing and sharing with everyone so that they can see how to do it. And I find her work in cultivating genius is it was my starting point to be honest, looking at an equity framework that was going to allow each personalized student, each individual student that was in our care to be able to be seen and to be understood for who they were.

Nicola Whitehouse (16:58):
And I, and I love that when she talks about culturally, who they are, historically, who they are and how do we respond to them in a way that really maximizes the person that you’re serving, not what you’re trying to shape them to be when it comes to the system that we’re working in, but how are you manipulating the system? How are you dismantling even breaking apart the system so that these kids, these students are really coming through as the individuals that they are. And so her work really opened my eyes to assessment and evaluation. You know, what, what grading, you know, what do we need to look at when we’re applying those grades to individuals and the definition of their success? And then it, you know, it introduced me into a community of educators in the us. She’s, she’s an American you know, who is really doing a lot of prolific work in the communities over there, but it, having it come over here into Canada, it’s really created a tidal wave of what we’re trying to look at in education, in regards to the personalization of making sure that what we’re doing for kids, you know, is really seeing them for who they are and meeting them where they’re to make them the best that they can be.

Nicola Whitehouse (18:11):
So I, I will name that one text as being something that’s always been on my mind, connecting me to other pieces. And then, you know, through the pandemic, Sam, what was so amazing was the amount of virtual learning that was going on and conferences and spaces that you could jump into and vibe with people and, and discuss, and plan and commit to action without leaving the comfort of your couch. Yeah. You know, and that was, you know, for some people frustrating, they were missing like their trips off to the, the hotels and all that conference experience. But for me, it was as a mom and, and all the things that you had to manage in the pandemic and knowing I had this learning and curiosity that needed to, we said I had immediate access to so much that was you know, so helpful and Twitter with all of its downfalls, you know, and you have to be careful. Yeah. Because it does have an emotional toll and you have to really check with yourself about what are you reading and, and the reality of it, it for educators, there’s an incredible C global that I have really thrived on in the last two years, which has been really powerful. Yeah.

Sam Demma (19:15):
Awesome. Thanks for sharing those resources. You, yeah. You took us to the UK and then you brought us back. What happened when you got back? You, you handed your son over to N and what did the rest of the career journey look like to bring you to where you are now?

Nicola Whitehouse (19:33):
Yeah, so that’s, that’s interesting. It was really humbling, right? Because to come back to Canada again, hitting a time where we were not at, at a shortage of educators to transfer my experience that I had had in the UK as an administrator back year to the Canadian system, to the Ontario system was a tough journey. You know, it, it was, we are in a system right now where it’s changing. I have to say the last five years, we’ve seen a real shift of honoring the international experience of educators and finding them places equal. It’s not just education too. It’s it’s medicine. It would be it’s any type of system that has a lot of competition in it. So what ended up happen to me is I went back to supply teaching day to day, you know, and I made my application to the auto Catholic school board.

Nicola Whitehouse (20:24):
My husband had been able to make a connection with a private school here that was looking for new leadership. And so he, he got a position as an assistant head teacher there, which was phenomenal. It was a deputy head teacher at the time. And so he had some connections to private schools in the city. And so I started supply teaching day to day, and I was frustrated. I was at the time because you have pride as to how long it took you to work in your career to get to certain stages. And you wanna, you wanna keep going, you wanna keep moving forward. But, and then to come back into supply teaching, though, it was awesome. It was awesome because it was really fun to move out of you know, a high level experience of kind of what I was doing on a system level of management.

Nicola Whitehouse (21:10):
Just get back in there with the kids and, and to be in about four or five different communities every other week was really cool. So I met a lot of teachers that were doing the same thing. I met a lot of teachers in the building and I did that for about two years and then ended up with a permanent position at a private school. And so was there for about a year and a half, two years. My timing is kind of off now from the pandemic. So forgive me on that. And then I went and got myself qualified to become an administrator. I did the principal’s qualification course here in Ontario. Nice. and applied with the Catholic school board. And I was known to them through the work I’d been doing already. And I was successful.

Nicola Whitehouse (21:53):
And so, yeah, my first placement as principal with the board was here at St. Peter’s, which has been amazing. So it took some time and it worked out, you know, as a mom, who’s raising two young kids. I, you know, I had my daughter while I was supply teaching. That also was a good and work life balance. And, you know, Hey, I had, I been given the job that I was looking for straight out of moving from the UK. I don’t know, maybe my daughter wouldn’t have come along so soon. So, you know, there’s blessings in the way that life kind of works out for you. And you have to reflect on that and know that there’s a, there’s a path. There’s a reason why things are happening there.

Sam Demma (22:27):
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. I, and you’re one of the first people that have moved to the UK and taught there that I’ve had on the podcast. So I appreciate you sharing the entire journey on the show. I think it may even inspire some other young educators or anyone actually to explore teaching in other areas as it means to see more of the world. It sounds like you’ve done a lot of traveling, not only in the UK which is awesome. Yeah. Thinking about, oh, go.

Nicola Whitehouse (22:54):
Ahead. You know what, so just to add to that, right? Because I think that we can get ourselves into a system or a a journey that seems guaranteed, right? There’s a lot of young people that wanna be employed, right. And they wanna make sure that they have that next step locked down. And I think I encourage young educators to take a risk and take a jump, as you’re saying, go and see another part of the world and experience that and gather everything you can from that, whether it’s only for a year, six months, and that’s all you do and bring that back to where you wanna be permanently. I find that I am interviewing now looking for diversity in experience. Yeah. You know, and if I can find a candidate that knows how distant different systems work, not just the one they grew up in that is phenomenal, you know, and obviously again, working in public education, there are ways that we have to go about with our hiring and employment.

Nicola Whitehouse (23:44):
But when I have the capacity to select somebody that may have had that international experience, that is a big win. And, and so forget about the hiring piece, but, but personally, you know, if you truly believe that your career as an educator is a calling and you are passionate about that, you wanna go and collect as many of those experiences possible. So I really, when I, when I’m working with young educators who are still in the program for teaching, and they’re considering, you know, where am I gonna go to apply for gods? I’m always pushing that option. I’m always saying, go and see what’s the offered internationally. Even if it’s just across the board of the us and check out how these differences work. I think it’s super important. Yeah.

Sam Demma (24:23):
You mentioned I, that’s an awesome point. I think back to when I was 13 and moved to Italy for six months, not to teach, but just to pursue my dreams and living in a different country was such an eye opening eye opening experience. And at that age, I couldn’t even leave the college by myself. I was so young and my mom was FaceTiming me every night. So I definitely didn’t even get the full survival experience. Didn’t have four or five bags on the train and people yelling at me for my safety.

Sam Demma (24:55):
It was, it was such an eye opening experience just to see a different culture and how life was lived in a, in a different place on the world. Thinking about, you know, you said earlier that one part of education is building relationships, thinking about building relationships with students and also staff. How do you think that happens? Like how do you build a relationship with a student to the point where they trust you and, you know, they, they are excited to be in your class or be your student.

Nicola Whitehouse (25:30):
I, yeah, I think it is really about, and it’s an interesting balance that you have to say, you have to navigate because it is about vulnerability and it is about being open to who is in front of you. Right? So we think about working with young people, you know, being vulnerable, but at the same time, obviously still create keeping your professional boundaries and, and keeping your understanding that you are the adult there of the child, that kind of thing. But you can make yourself vulnerable in the sense of saying, I don’t have the answers and what I’m hearing from you, and what I’m seeing you bring to the table is definitely part of the learning that I would like to as your teacher. It is, I definitely see the capacity for you to be in control of what we’re doing here. And you know, when you’re building relationships, you wanna feel like you have a partner in that relationship. So when you’re, when you’re trying to get to know young people, you’ve got a champion where they’re at, what they know as being true and powerful.

Nicola Whitehouse (26:33):
And you have to give voice and space to that. And I think when young people feel seen and heard, you know, and, and feel empowered by the fact that you’re gonna say to them, you know, in grade 10 that they absolutely can take the lead and we’re gonna hear what they have to say and then make decisions from that. That’s a huge relationship builder, you know, and consistency is a big part of that too, right? When we are exhausted, when we’re overwhelmed, being consistent in your approach with young people, so that they can rely on you for that, that is a huge relationship builder as well, you know, and it, and it’s the same with staff as well is to also see and hear them. You have priorities as a leader or anybody when you’re working, even just as colleagues as to what you wanna achieve, but you’re only going to achieve that as well as you can hear and see the others that you need to work with, you know, and they have to feel that investment in, in whatever the project is or whatever it, the problem that needs to be solved might be.

Nicola Whitehouse (27:28):
And I think what’s so cool about education. Is there a strong bond, like family level bonds between teachers that grow up together? Like I said, in those first five years, and they stay connected in their careers or go through some really like intense kind of projects or things together, and really achieve something big or go through a really tough time, you know, as human beings, you know you are bonded and it’s, and it’s, again, through that vulnerability and through that openness to accept that I need you to be successful. And, and so that I can be successful. And you, you teamwork on that. I think that that’s a huge part of making successful connections and relationships and, and it’s all empowerment, right. When we all feel empowered to make that difference, that you’ve talked a lot about, right. In your journey, that’s where you see, I think true positive relationships and difference making, you know, happening. That makes sense. Yeah.

Sam Demma (28:24):
Yeah. A hundred percent. I think behind every success story is carrying human beings. There’s so many people that, you know, play into all of our paths there’s and sometimes it’s like, it’s a miracle, like God put this person in my path. Like how, how did it happen that we crossed at this exact moment? There’s such a small chance. So yeah, there’s, it’s so true that people play such a massive role behind any difference making if you could walk into the first class you ever taught, or the first couple years of education yeah. With all the advice and knowledge you have now, and top your younger self on the shoulder and say is what you needed to hear. What advice would you have given your younger self?

Nicola Whitehouse (29:12):
I, yeah, this is not personal. Yep. These these kids are carrying a lot and they are some of them in crisis. And what you experienced in that first 50 minutes, which had you close your door and burst into tears from the shock of it. And that was truly my first day on the job to now know, you know, how young people function, you know, in, in a classroom to, to be patient with them and to always keep. And I was, I was doing that, I think at the time, but I don’t think I realized it. Listen, listen, listen, listen, and don’t give up and continue to look at the problem in different ways. And, and consider, there are gonna be many ways to kind of solve and support these kids. But I think the biggest thing Sam was we as educators wanna get it.

Nicola Whitehouse (30:08):
Right, right. We are, we are often in these careers as people pleasers as ones that wanna be known to be handling things and when we’re we can lead. And so we take it personally when it of fails. Right. And I would look back now and say there were a lot of failures, there were a lot of mistakes. There were things said that you look back and go, Ooh. Yeah, that was not the right thing. But, but give yourself grace on that. And as long as you were still committed to learning from that mistake and making the changes and not getting stuck in saying, no, I’m standing on this, like I’m gonna stick with it. This is how it has to be. But being open to that flexibility and vulnerability I think that that is a, a big thing that you need when you’re first starting out. And, you know, that’s what I would be going back to remind myself of, I think, in those early days, yeah.

Sam Demma (30:59):
That’s such a, and

Nicola Whitehouse (31:00):
Get some more sleep guess some more sleep, stop staying up till two in the morning, planning these lessons. They don’t need you to work that hard. You just go in there and listen to them. They don’t already tell you what they need from you. You don’t need to be up till two. O’clock trying to get this unit ready for that. That’s what I’d say.

Sam Demma (31:16):
If I made 15 second promo videos for each of these podcasts, that would be the promo for this one. Yeah.

Nicola Whitehouse (31:24):
Pretty much, pretty much. Oh gosh.

Sam Demma (31:27):
Thank you for doing this. This has been such a fun and enjoyable and reflective conversation. If someone is tuning in, wants to reach out, ask you a question, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Nicola Whitehouse (31:41):
I think on, yeah, Twitter, I’m pretty active. I did I take a little bit of a break, I think probably through the holidays, but yeah, I’m @MrsNWhitehouse on Twitter. And you can always reach out to me at my school board email as well, which is nicola.whitehouse@ocsb.ca. And I love meeting new people and I love making connections, super passionate about student voice and the unique and different ways that we’re making sure that’s centered in our school communities. So if there are people listening today that would love to collaborate internationally or even down in Toronto I would love to make those connections. That would be great.

Sam Demma (32:19):
Awesome. Thanks again, Cola for coming on the show. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.

Nicola Whitehouse (32:24):
Thanks, Sam. It’s awesome.

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March 12, 2022 by Sam Demma Experiential Learning Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

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