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Student Leadership

Christina Raso – Experiential Learning Consultant for Sudbury Catholic School Board

Christina Raso, Experiential Lead Learner SCDSB
About Christina Raso

Entrepreneur and Educator, Christina Raso (@Christina_Raso), shares her journey in education from a new teacher to a special education consultant to most recently Experiential Learning Consultant for Sudbury Catholic Schools.

The past academic year was most memorable for Christina as she temporarily returned to the classroom to support the teacher shortage. In her teaching time, she entered her class and St. David Elementary School in the Mindshare Technology School of the Future Contest earning third prize in the national contest. 

Connect with Christina: Email | Twitter | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The YMCA of Northeastern Ontario

Skills Ontario & Ian Howcroft

Mindshare Technology Contest

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 an entrepreneur and educator and her name is Christina Raso. She shares her journey in education from new teacher to special education consultant to most recently experiential learning consultant for Sudbury Catholic schools. The past academic year was most memorable for Christina. As she temporarily returned to the classroom to support the teacher shortage. During her teaching time, she entered her class at St. David Elementary School in the Mindshare technology school of the future contest, earning third prize in the national competition. Change is something that Christina is familiar with, especially because she also has a roots in entrepreneurship, which she talks about a little bit on this podcast as well. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this interview and I will see you on the other side…


Sam Demma (01:24):
Christina, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today in education?


Christina Raso (01:35):
Well, first of all, thank you, Sam, for the opportunity to share my story. My name is Christina Raso and I am the experiential learning lead for Sudbury Catholic. And I guess if we talk about my journey it started a long time ago. Believe it or not, I’ve been in education for over 20 years and it was my second career. So I think it’s important to talk about where I started and having parents that were immigrants I think is really important because they value education. Not that other people don’t value education, but they really have a sense of you know, coming to a new country work ethic and the importance of going to school and having higher education. So my dream when I was younger was to own my own business and to be an entrepreneur.


Christina Raso (02:32):
And my parents said, yeah, of course, you can do about all of that, but first you need to get an education and a degree I, I received, but I had to get one. So I did that. So while I was going to university, I knew that I wanted to be a business owner. So I started selling women’s clothes at different you know, summer events and then flea markets and things like that. So it actually paid for my university. And then when I graduated with my degree, I was able to full force and I opened up for a ladies clothing store in Sudbury. And that’s kind of where things began for me in education is that I did that for over 10 years, but in that journey, I learned a lot about life skills, right. You know, working and all the challenges that go with that.


Christina Raso (03:26):
But I met a lot of young individuals and I had a lot of students that were coming for co-ops and then the teachers were giving me a little bit more of the heart to serve students, you know, the ones that were disengaged. And then it ended up that YMCA reached out to me and said, we have, you know, a group of young adults that you know, have, have quit school, but they really need some, some work experience. So I’m wondering if you can take a group and, you know, teach them how to use a cash register sales and, and work with them. So I did that. And and then, you know, I got a lot of praise and saying, you know, you’re really good at this, you know, have you ever thought of becoming a teacher because you’re really able to work with these kids and you know, teach them some things that a lot of them were able to catch on at school and things like that.


Christina Raso (04:22):
So you know, it’s just one person mentioned that, and actually I had never thought of that. And it happened that it was the day before admissions were due registration for a teacher’s college. And I put in an application and I decided that I would only apply to one school, which was, you know, an hour and a half away because I still had my business. So I figured if it was meant to be, I’d apply, I’d get in. I could do both. And lo and behold, I got accepted and I did that. And teacher’s college at that year at that time was one year. So I finished my one year and then I knew that that’s what I wanted to do. So I started to, you know, as my leases expired I closed my business down and I went into teaching full time.


Christina Raso (05:10):
And my first my first teaching assignment was a long-term assignment in a grade five class. And I did that from September to January and then a permanent position came up in the same school, but it was a special education resource teacher. And everyone says, well, you have to apply because it’s permanent. Right. And the position you’re in is not permanent. And then I felt, you know, as teacher, you get attached to your kids and I almost felt like I’m leaving these kids, but I’m still staying in the same school. I almost feel like I’m betraying them. Well, I felt that right. So you know, my colleagues convinced me saying, you know what? You have to, you know, think of yourself and your future, you’ll see the kids, you know, and things like that. So I did apply. And at that time, obviously, I didn’t know very much about special education other than what I learned in school and the little bit on life skills that I had working with some young individuals.


Christina Raso (06:08):
So I remember starting and the first day of that assignment, it would happen right after Christmas holidays. And I didn’t really even have an opportunity to say goodbye to the other students. So anyways, that all happened. And I had a father wait for me at the front of my classroom door and he wanted to meet me. So I came out and talked to me. And obviously you had heard that I was obviously a new teacher and I think he was concerned because I was taking over the class and he asked me if I’ve ever taught a student with down syndrome and I said, well, no, actually a habit. And you know, so he said to me, well, I’m going to give you a little bit of advice and tell you a little bit about my daughter who has down syndrome.


Christina Raso (06:56):
And he says, you know she’s very, very honest and she’s either going to love you or she’s not. And wow. You know, when your dad, when you have a parent that tells you that, and then, you know, you really have to perform. But anyways I stayed in that position for five years and that’s where I learned everything about teaching, because it was like a multi grade class, right. So I was teaching grade one to grade eight and it was basic literacy and numeracy skills. And it was a variety of learners. So it was students who had intellectual disabilities, but there was also some students who had a learning disability or who were a little bit behind. And, you know, the idea was for me to work with them and to get them up to a grade level or as close as possible.


Christina Raso (07:46):
So that in those five years, like I said, it really taught me almost everything. I think that I refer to back today about learning, you know, learning styles and students. And then that prepared me for my next journey, which was, I was a special education consultant for almost 13 years. So I did that for 13 years and I, and I loved it, just, you know, I felt like now, you know, I could do more, right. I had the students, I know how to work with them, but now I was at a different level. And I really, really enjoyed that. And then with all things, you know, you need to change, you know, and I most recently, so this’ll be my third year. I switched into experiential learning and as you know, experiential learning is, you know, learning by doing and reflecting and, you know, really becoming aware of maybe what careers you may want in the future with a push on the skills trades and computer science.


Christina Raso (08:50):
And actually, I really had a, a turning point in my career, again, this well, this academic year I I’m in well, you know, and I think this happened provincially teacher shortages, right. Especially, you know, with the smaller class sizes and then, you know, with both remote and in class being offered. So when we pivoted back to online there, I think it was close to the end of March. Was it well before Easter? Anyways? we were significant short in our board of teachers. And, you know, when you’re a team player, you know, you need to do what you need to do to, to make your organization move forward. So I I talked to my supervisor and I said, you know, put me in wherever you need. I, I don’t mind going in. And so I went into a grade one, two class. So at first, at first it’s very easy to say, Hey, boss, put me in where you want, but then when you that, then you’re like, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into right now? I haven’t been in a classroom since 2007. Right. So, and I was thinking about this the other day I was using VHS videos. Oh my goodness.


Christina Raso (10:08):
Well, no, but it really puts the stress on how things were different. I left using VHS videos and now I’m now I’m teaching a virtual classroom. Right. And I haven’t been working directly with kids for, you know what, 15, 16 years. So it was a challenge, but you know, as soon as you go in, it’s like, I never left. That’s how I felt it. Right. I felt like, yeah, I have been in education this whole time. I’ve just been doing different things. I’ve been in classrooms. I just haven’t been the person that the child sees every day to talk about. And I, you know, I really missed it. And I did that for three months until they found a new teacher. I actually wanted to stay to finish the year, but I had to go back to my job. But while I was, you know, I felt like I was there three months.


Christina Raso (11:05):
And I felt that I put in you know, the things that I’m taught or what we’re taught as experiential learning leads. I put that into action. And I think that’s really important because I I’m able to do what I said we should be doing. And it works, you know, and it was great to see kids doing that. And I also had the privilege to work in a school where your administration team is very, very supportive and you know, we had also sorts of ideas and they ran with it and we did, you know, all things that would keep our students engaged. And there was also a contest that I saw that was out by Mindshare. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Mindshare technologies. Well, they have a national contest every year and this year’s theme was create a under three minute video on things that teachers do to engage students.


Christina Raso (12:07):
So I entered that with my class, but not only with my class, but with the things that we did as a school in that three months. And actually we placed one of the top three schools in Canada with title of a school of the future. So yeah, so that’s one of my proudest moments. And I also feel like that was also a turning point because I’ve been out of the classroom for so long. And then I went in and we tried all these things that we know that works. And, you know, the days that we did hands-on activities where the days that we had the most enrollment like attendance, right. You know, that when kids aren’t fully engaged, they’re going to learn they’re present. So it was great. So like one day we made bird houses and you know, the students picked up the kids at school.


Christina Raso (13:00):
And then the other thing that it’s really, really important, especially during during this time with COVID is working with your community partners. Partners are invaluable at this time. So we worked with skills Ontario, and they actually taught the students and they actually provided the free bird houses for our kids. And they taught the lesson and these kids produced, you know, put together a birdhouse. And then our school principal held a contest on decorating your bird house, according to your personal identity. And you should see the beautiful artwork from these kids. So, you know it was a great opportunity and I feel humbled and I feel that kind of goes back to full circle. Right. You know, you started in a classroom and you did all this, and then you kind of ended up back in a classroom and then it makes your perspective better. Like, I feel like when I go back to work a couple of weeks I have a new insight and you know, I feel like it’s given me more of a drive and energy to continue the work in the area of experiential.


Sam Demma (14:08):
It reminds you how impactful experiential learning is. If you take those ideas into the classroom and see such a big impact, right. It’s, it’s a great reminder. And it also reminds you that the programs that you’re bringing into the schools are having a difference and an impact when you can see it firsthand with the students. I’m curious to know where, where did your entrepreneurial drive come from at such a young age? And what were your stores called? I’m just, just curious about that real quick.


Christina Raso (14:34):
You’re going to like that. Well first of all my mom, my parents split up several years after they arrived at Canada. And so my mum was a single parent and she raised me, but she became she went to college in Canada and then opened she bought a franchise of photography franchise and I worked with her for all those years. So from, I think it was 1985 to when I graduated first degree in 1993, I worked with my mom and she had four locations as well. So I ended up, you know, pretty much managing one location and she did the other three. And then I knew that that’s what I wanted to do. And a funny thing is I, I still have a business on the side, but we can talk about that later. But my businesses were called Sono Bella, because of what they’re.


Christina Raso (15:29):
So I’m beautiful because of what I wear. So I kept that email address for my personal, so that’s what I do, but yeah, and that’s, you know we worked you know, when you’re, self-employed, you can work any 12 hours of the day you pick, right. I can nine at that time, I was trying to tell my son, right. It’s different work ethic. Right. And, you know, he’s tired after working 16 hours a week and I’m like 16 hours a year age, you know, go to school, then work, it’s still do my homework and I wasn’t tired, but you know,


Sam Demma (16:00):
That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing.


Christina Raso (16:03):
No problem.


Sam Demma (16:05):
And what are some of the programs and things that you’ve brought to your schools over the past three years that you think have made a great impact and a difference, and maybe you can even talk to some of the impact that you’ve seen or heard, you know, based on a program that you’ve brought in.


Christina Raso (16:20):
So I think one of the biggest, biggest things that I was involved with was building a community partnership, especially with skills Ontario. I think if I look back in my three years and, you know, your first year you know, when, when you’re talking about my first year, it was COVID started too. Right. So even a full year, right. I, I think I started I didn’t even start in September. I think I started in November and then COVID hit in March. Right. So that year was kind of wasted and that not wasted, but it wasn’t a normal year for someone to go into a new role and to learn the position because it was completely a different position. But the biggest thing that I got from that is working with your community partners and they have so many programs and contests that engaged kids that you can’t go wrong.


Christina Raso (17:16):
So skills, Ontario, which started contests just after the pandemic kit. And we knew that students were learning remotely. So they started these contests called skills at home, and they were challenges for kids to do. And so what I was doing was I was promoting them and it was really important that I found that educators don’t always relate that some of these activities can be integrated into the curriculum. They’re not extras or add-ons, they’re things that you can do and make it part of learning. So they had all sorts of contests and our board, we had, I think we had five students place in CA in Ontario in their contests. So I was promoting those. So the last year and a half, I was promoting those contests. And then the contests, when I was a teacher in the classroom, I was pushing it.


Christina Raso (18:22):
So I’ll give you one example. So the one contest was on wacky hair. So I had a grade one, two class, and I said you know what, we are going to have some fun. We are going to work on wacky hair. And I made it into a procedural writing assignment. So I told the students that what we’re going to do is we are going to create a wacky hairdo. So we’re going to draw it. And then we’re going to write, how do you actually do that hair style? And during that week, so I did it over a week. So on Monday, you know, I read stories about you know, wacky hair, which Stephanie’s ponytail by Robert munch. And so we really did a lot of reading and writing that related to, you know, wacky hair. And then on the Friday we made it wacky hair day.


Christina Raso (19:12):
And like I said, I was very lucky to work in a school where the administration took that idea and made the entire school have a wacky hair day. Nice. So what ended up happening specifically on that one contest was we actually placed first, second and third in Ontario in one school. So I, my personal students placed first and third and then another student in the school place. Second. So it’s just something where you embrace your partnership. And again, hands-on right. Students are working hands-on and you have to see the hairdos that these students made. So the one student that plays first, she took a root beer pop bottle and put a ponytail through it and then put a cup on a headband. So her ponytail ran into the cup. So it looked awesome.


Christina Raso (20:07):
Hopefully you can cut that part out. No worries. That’s totally fine. I can cut it out. Sorry. so anyways, that’s one thing that we really worked with was the partnership, and then they provided us the bird houses, but I think a lot of things that I’m most proud of is is bringing hands-on activities to the classroom. And a lot of things are inexpensive too, right? So some of the ideas were making a bridge with marshmallows and straws. So a lot of times we feel that, you know, we don’t have the resources to make these things hands-on, or they cost too much, but, you know, when we look around, you know, we can find things that really work and engaged kids.


Sam Demma (20:53):
Yeah. I love that. I actually interviewed Ian Howcroft on the podcast as well, the director of skills, Ontario.


Christina Raso (20:59):
Awesome. Awesome. I was going to say that would be a, another guy to to invite because definitely doing a lot of things, but I feel that contests seem to really engaged our students. Like, you know, whether, whether it’s a big prize or a small prize, but it’s just a matter of you know, saying, Hey, you know, you know, we’re whether it’s a class contest or a school contest, I think that that helps us to engage kids, you know, a little bit of competition friendly, you know, is good.


Sam Demma (21:31):
And why do you think experiential learning is so important? You know, like if teachers are like, ah, yeah, I get it. But you know, we’re really busy and we have to get through the curriculum. Like, what would you say? Like why, why is this type of learning really important for life and also future aspirations?


Christina Raso (21:49):
Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons. And I think I’d start with the first one is that learning in a classroom is learning within the four walls, but not all students do well and not all students are made to go to university or college. Right. And hands-on, hands-on opportunities open the pathways to all those, right. You can be hands-on and still go to university and still go to college and still go into the trades and still go into the world of work. And I think when I think back of my experience working as a special education resource teacher, I think as some of those students that were disengaged, right, because they were having a hard time learning to read and to write. And I think if we gave them the hands-on activities we’re still meeting the curriculum because you still have to read instructions.


Christina Raso (22:42):
You’re still doing math, especially, you know, if, if you’re building something and I think that by giving students these experiential hands-on opportunities, we’re hitting a range of learners. Right. And you know, when, you know, you think of computer science, you know, it is hands-on, it is building, you know, and I think of the students that I had that, you know, a lot of them would be going to college and university, but there was also a large portion of those students that didn’t see themselves going to college or university and, you know, they were going to the world of work, or maybe they didn’t even see themselves going to the world of work. You know, maybe they thought, you know, they’d live on a disability pension, but when we’re looking at hands on activities and, you know, thinking of baking and cooking and, you know, there’s so many opportunities for our students that give them the opportunity to feel valued and needed in our community.


Christina Raso (23:42):
And I think of, you know, you know, chef helper or prep, you know, for these kids that thinking that, you know, they would just, you know, they, some of our students who have intellectual disability, you may stay at school until 21 because there’s really nothing else for them in our community. You know, we have one, you know, we’re at Northern community, so it’s not like we have all these big partnerships with companies and organizations. So we have one community partner that takes some of our students to work, but what about the other ones? So if we invest in them and they see themselves as, yeah, I, you know, I could do this, they could still get a disability pension and they still can work part time and feel valued. You know, every pathway is valued, but you know, if we can help kids see that there’s more for them and that they’re needed, especially in the skilled trades. Right. We know that we are already experiencing a shortage. Can you imagine five, seven years from now? So we really need to convince some of these kids who don’t see themselves going to post-secondary that there’s other pathways and there’s lots that they can do.


Sam Demma (24:52):
Every path is an option. Every student learner is unique, you know? I can agree with that more you yourself out of all the positions you’ve worked what are some of your favorites or not that you could rank them per se, but what are some of the roles that, you know, really stick out in your mind as like, this was such a great experience?


Christina Raso (25:16):
Well, I, I think one of the biggest things that I did and was when I was a special education consultant I ran some summer camps. The ministry of education gives us some funding to run summer camps for students who are behind in literacy and numeracy. And one thing that they really promoted was physical activity. It’s really important for our students to, to, you know exercise daily. And how can we incorporate that with summer camp, but still make, you know, literacy and numeracy the main focus of the program. So at that time my son was taking TaeKwonDo and he was doing it for a few years and he had a really, really awesome teacher as well. And TaeKwonDo, who’s actually a full-time stuck person now. Yeah. So I got him to teach our kids and he was doing just half an hour of physical activity in the morning, but it was TaeKwonDo.


Christina Raso (26:24):
So was kicking, you know kicking punching, but, you know, individual not and teaching the importance of self control at the same time. Right. and mindfulness. And we started every morning probably for a good six years with a half an hour of TaeKwonDo and mindfulness. And we felt that the students were better prepared to learn, you know, and, and, you know, and then the research does show, right? When students do exercise every morning that they’re, they become better learners. Whether they come to school then are not awake and then they become energized because they’re doing activity. So I felt that that was something that I really took away is that exercises important. And, and when I was teaching the grade one, two class most recently, you know, now we’re sitting in front of a computer for a long, long time.


Christina Raso (27:20):
And by the way, I can not teach TaeKwonDo. I did not do that, but, you know, grade one and two we got up a lot and we did a mind break, right? We needed mind breaks. And, you know, we did, you know, two or three minutes, I would say every 45 minutes an hour would be pushing it, but we would get up and we’d have a mind break. And I, I still think that if I was going back into the classroom and it was in a physical classroom, I still would incorporate that ability to get up and move because a lot of us, you know, I mean, I found it difficult to sit in front of the computer and I’m an adult. And you imagine, you know, these are little kids, like, I think of how old they are. And we’re asking them to sit in front of a computer, right.


Christina Raso (28:07):
First, really six hours, you know a day. And we’re asking them to do that. And they, they are doing it right. Like kids have stepped up to the challenge right. Of online learning whether they want to or not. So I think that that would be the other thing is incorporating physical activity, mindfulness and mind breaks into the classroom is really important. And it goes without saying the other thing that you know, I know you’re an advocate is positive reinforcement, right. And really, really motivating our students for them to be able to see themselves something great, right. Whatever they choose, they’re going to be great in life.


Sam Demma (28:50):
It’s so true. It’s so true. It reminds me, I’m working on a, and this is classified information, so don’t share it, but I’m working on a spoken word album. So it’s like 10 spoken word poems that I’m going to turn into videos as well. And one of them is called empty backpack. And the premise is that students and all humans carry around the thoughts and opinions of other people sometimes to a fault. And it weighs them down and a parts in our lives. We have to empty our metaphorical bag of the thoughts and opinions of everyone else and stop carrying it around. And yeah, I’m excited about it. It’s a, I have a six foot bag that I’m going to be bringing to schools with me and people are going to like drop it. Yeah, that’d be cool. Anyways, going on a tangent, this has been great. So if you could go back in time, Christina, and like talk to your younger self when you were in your first year, working with young people, knowing what you know now, and based on the experiences you’ve had and the learning you’ve had, what advice would you give your younger self?


Christina Raso (29:48):
My younger self. So my younger self when I first started teaching, I’m going to go back to to being a special education resource teacher. I think knowing what I know now I would have done more of the hands-on right. So I think that I would have brought in those opportunities being able to bring in those hands-on opportunities. I could see that, you know, I had a couple of boys that were really, really disengaged. And I think, you know, if I would have given them a couple of activities or a couple of assignments to say, Hey, here here’s some blocks, or here’s some things I want you to do work on this. Can you create this or give them a problem and give them, you know, some materials to figure it out, I think, and, and to promote the skilled trades. Because I think at that time, the group of students I had were really at risk of dropping out, right. Not finishing high school, there was a good percentage of them. And I think that if I would have given them more hands-on opportunities and maybe even promoted the skill traits so that they could see themselves in those roles I think that’s what I would have done know.


Sam Demma (31:04):
That’s awesome. And coming from a European family myself, all my uncles work in the trades, my dad is a plumber by trade, such a valid, an awesome career path. I couldn’t agree with that more. Oh, it’s awesome. Thank you so much for taking your time to come on the show, share your experiences or your, your ups and downs, the learnings, the journey. If another educator is listening and they just want to reach out and have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?


Christina Raso (31:30):
They can email me and I think that you started a community. So I guess my email would be there and then they could reach out or they can call me and anyway, whatever they want. And it’s definitely been truly an honor, actually, to meet you and to be on your show.


Sam Demma (31:49):
I appreciate it, Christina, thank you so much. Keep up with us and work and we’ll talk soon. Thank you.

Sam Demma (32:01):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and 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. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Christina Raso

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.

November 19, 2021 by Experiential Learning Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Alexandra (Allie) Raper – Signature Programs, Senior Specialist at Canadian Cancer Society

Allie Raper Youth Relay For Life, Canadian Cancer Society
About Allie Raper

A quote that has inspired Allie in all her pathways and endeavours…

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”. – Aristotle

Allie believes that when we learn, we grow and when we learn what we love, we are cultivating culture and wisdom. Allie has completed an Honors Bachelor of Arts in Justice, Political Philosophy, and Law and a minor in Political Science at McMaster University where she grew a passion for working with youth. In her time at McMaster, she worked with hundreds of students on an annual basis in a range of fields varying from advocacy, student experience, and athletics.

Now as the Senior Specialist on the Relay For Life Youth Team at the Canadian Cancer Society, Allie works to inspire, empower, and instill leadership in post-secondary students on a National level. On stage, Allie brings an energy that is infectious, a passion that’s undeniable, and a smiling face gazing back at you. And as a young professional, Allie embraces new challenges while also motivating others around her to do the same and become the changemakers that each of us is”.

Relay for Life hosts 260 schools across Canada (annually), and they are always trying to grow that number too. To get involved please visit www.relayforlife.ca/youth

Connect with Allie: Email | Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Candian Cancer Society

Youth Relay for Life

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 (00:03):
Allie welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by just introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about the journey that brought you into a position to working with young people today?


Allie Raper (00:16):
I definitely will. Thank you so much, Sam, for having me here today. I’m so excited to chat with you and about leadership and about relay for life and so much more that we’re going to dive into. So this is a loaded question, but for myself, it there’s a couple of different experiences that really inspired me to work with youth. But I think the one that stands out is that not too many years ago, I myself was a youth looking to get involved and to make a difference. And I think that is something that, you know, stuck with me being able to grow in leadership opportunities myself, and then being able to give that back to students as well has been a really full circle experience. And I think working with youth is so special in the sense that they can accomplish so many incredible things. And so many people unfortunately underestimate our youth, but when they put their mind to something and they’re passionate about creating change and they’re passionate about a cause what they’re able to do, the results are just incredible and so impressive. So definitely a full circle experience as to how I got to working with youth as definitely starting out as one of them. But I’ll get into a little bit more about my story. I think in some of the questions coming up.


Sam Demma (01:29):
I love that. That’s amazing. And at what age were you introduced or exposed to student leadership? Was it a high school thing for you? Like, take me back there and explain how it kind of came about for you.


Allie Raper (01:40):
So I remember even being as little as, you know, in recreational soccer teams and things like that. And my mom getting me off the field and saying, Allie, don’t boss people around on the field, or, you know, Allie, you guys are a team work together. And it’s one of those things where it has a little kid. I just always kind of loved that idea of working together and creating a team and kind of wanting to instill that sense of leadership on to other people as I, of course got older, that definitely shaped into more concrete examples. So when I was in elementary school, we had like a primary junior student council. And then I continued my involvement in high school in student council capacities. And then in university is really where my leadership journey took off. I was involved with residence life as a resident orientation advisor.


Allie Raper (02:34):
I was involved with different extracurriculars such as really for life, our student union. I was the manager at one of our student restaurants and so many more different opportunities like that. So it definitely started when I was younger, but it really, really shaped itself full circle when I was in university and came to fruition there. And I think the coolest part looking back on it as there’s a difference between being a leader and putting that hat on, you know, just to have a role or just to be in a position, but there’s a difference when you get to lead something that you are excited about. And I’ve really tried when I was in university to shape things that I was involved in into my interests. And that kind of catapulted me into the role that I am in today. Because cancer touched my life in a few different ways and it really inspired me to want to create a bigger change in leadership capacities to getting me to where we are today.


Sam Demma (03:30):
That’s amazing. And when you think back to your own educational journey, growing up, going through school, did you have teachers, educators that played a pivotal role in your development and believing in you, and maybe you can remember some of those stories or some of those individuals, and can you share something?


Allie Raper (03:48):
Of course. So I do remember my student council teacher I went to high school, might be Ontario and I had a wonderful student council advisor. And I remember being in grade 10 and a little bit nervous to take on a bigger role. I was a great liaison and didn’t know really what I wanted my role to kind of look like. And she saw something in me where I had a lot of interest in athletics. I have a lot of interest in extracurriculars and really trying to bridge that gap. And this teacher sat me down and actually together, we created a new role for student council that has been on a high school student council for 10 plus years. Now I want to say so since I’ve been out of high school and in that moment, it just kind of showed me that, wow, you know, leadership, isn’t fitting one box, it’s not checking off a few things to fit a certain mold, but it’s when someone sees something in you that they’re able to shape an opportunity together with you. And that year we were able to a lot of new things that our high school had never done before, just based on the capacity of that new role that was created. And I think the role was something along the lines of athletics communications officer, but still to this day is such a unique title in itself when you think about structures and whatnot. So pretty cool thing. And, and it was great that that teacher saw something in me that continued for years to come.


Sam Demma (05:10):
Yeah. Oh, that’s amazing. And a lot of the educators are listening to this. Sometimes they don’t even realize the impact they have. Like, you’re the perfect example of someone who was impacted as a young leader and then continue down that journey and is now doing such amazing work in the world. So for them, it’s just kind of gratifying to see it and hear it. So thanks for sharing. Yeah. And so like, tell me more about how you directly got involved with relay. So you ended university and did you know that you wanted to work for relay or how did that connection happen?


Allie Raper (05:40):
Yeah, so it kind of started when I was a little bit younger. My mum is a nurse in the ER and when I was growing up, she was always involved in different volunteer opportunities. And every year her and her coworkers would do relay for life and they would do it in the community. And I remember as a little kid, you know, going to the event with her for a couple hours and seeing people walking laps and understanding that they were fundraising for a cause, but not really understanding the bigger picture, fast forward a few years. And we had a couple of family members diagnosed with cancer. And as a little kid, I think that a lot of the time, you know, your family inevitably, it tries to shelter you from some of those serious conversations. So I knew what cancer was. I knew it was something bad and something serious when someone had it, but really didn’t know the impact that it had on someone as an individual or someone’s family and community.


Allie Raper (06:35):
So when I was in university, I saw relay for life being advertised. And I had a couple friends in first year and we were like, let’s participate. You know, it’s a great event. Let’s get involved, let’s meet some more people from the school and let’s raise money for a great cause because at the end of the day, whether indirectly or directly, we all know someone who’s been affected by cancer. And it was in that moment when I attended that event, I actually have goosebumps right now as I’m explaining this. But I went to my first event in that first year of university as a participant, I just, upon walking the laps around the track and hearing all the incredible stories of the different survivors speakers, I had this inkling that it was just something that I needed to be a bigger part of. And that same year actually I lost my grandfather to cancer.


Allie Raper (07:24):
And that was one of the first times where I was like, wow cancer really does have monumental effects that, you know, people don’t always talk about if there’s not an outlet to talk about. So that was kind of something that really inspired me to continue to be more involved. And then I was on our committee for the next couple of years. And then my final year at university, I was the head chair that led the event. And throughout those next three years, my other grandfather was also diagnosed. I had an aunt diagnosed and an uncle and a friend at university as well. So, you know, when it rains, it pours, they say, but it was definitely one of those moments where I felt like I was in the right spot at the right time and doing something that was really impacting the loved ones in my life that previously I hadn’t anticipated was going to affect me so close.


Allie Raper (08:16):
But I think that’s kind of with anything serious, you know, we all think it’s not affecting us right now. It’s not, it’s not going to, you know, we’re kind of in the clear until it happens to you. So cancer definitely has a close connection to my heart. And, and then coming out of university the gentlemen who was actually in my role previously, who worked with me as a student at McMaster kind of shoulder, tapped me upon graduation and said, Hey, Allie, you know, we’ve got some openings you should apply to work at the Canadian cancer society. And as a new grad, I’m, I’m sitting there thinking no way, I’m not qualified. I am not eligible like definitely. And a quick realization that, Nope, you, you are eligible. You are very well qualified to do this and take that jump and leap of faith and apply. And so I did, and that was just over three years ago as of last week. So it’s been three great years with the Canadian cancer society ever since.


Sam Demma (09:13):
What a story. Holy cow. Thanks for sharing.


Allie Raper (09:15):
No problem

.
Sam Demma (09:18):
So three years with the Canadian cancer society, how long running the relay program?


Allie Raper (09:24):
Yeah, so all three have been with relay on the relay for life youth team. However the difference has been I was working with high school programs up until this past June, and then since June, 2021, I’m now working with our national post-secondary program. So same concepts, just different audiences now, essentially, but the relay for life youth team for all three years.


Sam Demma (09:50):
Cool. And what is relate for people who have no idea what relay is? Maybe you can share a little bit about the impact.


Allie Raper (09:57):
Definitely. So relay is first and foremost, a fundraising event held through the Canadian cancer society. People might recognize the name from their communities from high schools, from universities and so forth. And the event is typically anywhere from six to 12 hours in a pre pandemic world. So we’ll explain a pre pandemic lens of relay first. So essentially what it is is it is an event where we come together to honor and celebrate the lives of those who’ve been affected by cancer. It’s centered around four different ceremonies. And what I love about it is that other than those four different ceremonies, every school has the ability to shape relay the way they best see fit for their school community. So the first ceremony that happens typically right at the beginning is what we call an opening ceremony. And this is where we have a cancer survivor in the community of the school or the community who comes and shares their story.


Allie Raper (10:59):
It could be a student, a staff, a parent and so forth who talks to everybody about how cancer’s impacted them shortly after that, we then go into what we call our survivor victory lap. And the idea was, this is throughout the six to 12 hours of your event. People are constantly walking the track and getting their laps in, but the survivor victory lap is the first lap of your event. So let’s imagine we are at a high school event and there’s 15 survivors. We get them yellow t-shirts to signify hope in the color of the daffodil and those 15 survivors do that first lap all by themselves while your whole school is on the sidelines, cheering them on. I can’t give it justice by just explaining it. I’m getting goosebumps again, explaining it, but it’s so powerful to see that happen. And just to see, you know, how much impact and support a school has given me survivors.


Allie Raper (11:55):
So that is the second part. Then later on in your event, probably the most signature feature of a relay is what we call the luminary ceremony. So people might otherwise know this as the white decorated paper bags, but everyone at your relay gets a luminary and they decorate on it, why they relay. So for example, mine, every year says I relay for both my grandfathers, my aunt and uncle, like I mentioned, and my friends. So that’s my personal luminary. And now picture later on lining a track with hundreds of decorated luminaries, with a little tea light in it, where later on you do a lap to a more slower song, and you’re reading the hundreds of reasons why your school is coming together and relaying it’s yeah, it’s very special and it’s, it’s incredible to really see that because no two stories are the same and, you know, we’re all connected by the same cause.


Allie Raper (12:49):
So that’s the third piece. And the last piece of the event is closing ceremonies. So what that typically looks like is a big thank you for coming to our event. And very exciting people announce what the school has raised in as their fundraising total, I’m going, it’s always great to see when schools exceed and reach their goals that they set. And then following that that’s the end of the event, but all throughout those six to 12 hours, the school can plan any form of entertainment they want to do any games, any kind of areas and so forth or different theme laps. So for example, staffer students games maybe, you know, like an arts corner maybe having a varsity sport, play a scrimmage or something like that, a talent show, the list goes on and on, and the students get to shape the whole event, which is really amazing.


Sam Demma (13:38):
That’s awesome. And how many events roughly happen per year if you keep like some stats on it?


Allie Raper (13:45):
Of course. So annually on average, you work with over 260 schools across Canada, and that we’re always trying to grow that number too. So we are working a lot more so in recent years to grow it nationally outside of Ontario. And that’s been really exciting to see other provinces and territories get really involved as well.


Sam Demma (14:03):
Awesome. And if a school is interested and wants to learn more like what would be the best way for them to do so?


Allie Raper (14:09):
So they can reach out to us via email qt relayyouth@cancer.ca so, relayyouth@cancer.ca or on our Instagram as well, which is just @youthrelay are the two easiest ways to get in touch with us.


Sam Demma (14:24):
Great. And, you know, you kind of brushed over the fact that COVID is here. So what are some of the challenges that relay has been faced with and the fundraising goals because of COVID and how are you guys striving to figure it out and still continue moving along?


Allie Raper (14:39):
Yeah. What a what a two plus years it’s been a, like, I don’t think any of us anticipated to be a miss landscape for this long, but here we are. So something I’ve been finding myself saying a lot and reflecting on has been, you know, COVID stopped and changed a lot of things, but it didn’t stop and change cancer. It didn’t stop and change leadership and it didn’t stop and change, you know, our means to be able to make a difference in an impact. Yeah. So it’s been really great to see students still rise to the occasion and just flip their mindset as to, you know, how can we still take the special parts of relay and incorporate them into a re-imagined event. So what our team did this year is we essentially took those four key parts of relay those four ceremonies and reflected on, you know, what makes relay really at its core.


Allie Raper (15:32):
How can we take those concepts and switch them into alternative methods? So this year we actually had four options for schools to choose from all across the country, depending on their restrictions. Of course, we had a restricted relay model, which was for areas who weren’t really impacted by lockdowns and didn’t have a ton of social distancing measures in place. But that was just a, yeah, it restricted relay in itself. Then we had some hybrid options as well for schools. So if they weren’t in cohorts, for example, maybe classes were taking time on their own, on their breaks to go outside and do some laps, but then you’re opening ceremonies, luminaries and so forth were all done via virtual videos that were sent out throughout the week. And then we also had a fully virtual option. So what we did in this one was we coached schools on having, you know, roughly an hour to two hour long virtual event, whether that was during school hours or after school hours, where the school’s hosted a broadcast and still had all the ceremonies and some entertainment, but just in a condensed virtual setting with the idea of going to walk in your own neighborhoods on your own time.


Allie Raper (16:42):
So it definitely was different, but something that was really cool this year, which definitely kind of inspired us, was we had a ton of new schools actually work with us this year. And it was interesting to see that because, you know, we were so nervous about asking schools to do something unknown that they’ve never done before, but schools were still so excited to take on something and seeing the resources and the options that we had outlined for them made it that much easier for them to put something into place. Yeah, so that was really, those are kind of the options.


Sam Demma (17:17):
Awesome. That’s amazing. And so for a school to get involved, do they have to pay a certain amount of money to get resources? Or how does it, what is it?


Allie Raper (17:27):
Yeah, absolutely not. So basically what it looks like is the program fully and relay in itself is student led and staff supported. And by that we mean, you know, we are giving the students and staff the tools to be successful, and we know that staff already has so much on their plates, especially in, you know, navigating to the landscape that we’re currently in, that we want students to really leverage that leadership and make relay what they want to make it. Because, you know, as a peer in high school, you’re going to be a lot more enticed to go to an event that your peers are planning as well, opposed to staff or myself planning, for example. So we actually provide schools with training resources and funding right off the bat as well. So if a school is hosting some sort of in-person or even a hybrid event in a typical year, we give schools a budget of 6% of their fundraising goal.


Allie Raper (18:24):
So it’s really nice to know that they don’t have to dip into school funds to kind of offset any event costs. And they don’t have to fundraise for the event themselves, but we want to invest in them because they’re investing in us and into the cause and into the program. So yeah, schools will set a fundraising goal and then we issue a 6% of that to them right off the bat. And then we also provide one of my favorite things actually is we provide a free leadership conference. So for high school level, we call it relay university where in a typical year, you know, we bring hundreds of people into conference centers all across the country. And they hear from survivors speakers, they network with other students and staff. They do breakouts. They go through mock ceremonies of relay and so much more, and they get a full complimentary conference day and last year to account for COVID.


Allie Raper (19:16):
We did our first ever national virtual relay university, which was really cool too. So, yeah. And then the other resource we provide to, to make things again, as easy as possible is we provide a full Google drive full of resources. So instead of having a student, you know, try to create a, to do list themselves, we’ve got a committee structure of 10 outlined or suggested roles for students to take on. They each come with a guidebook to keep them on track. They each come with resources as well. So let’s say I’m a student is a ceremonies captain for all of those ceremonies. I mentioned, we have scripts already outlined for them, and we have resources on, you know, how to have sensitive conversations and how to speak to people, living with cancer or sponsorship, for example, you know, we’ve got template letters and thank you’s that can go out to external vendors. So that way, again, students aren’t starting from scratch, but they have the resources to really then customize them and make them their own to be successful.


Sam Demma (20:15):
That’s awesome. And what keeps you motivated and inspired to continue doing this work?


Allie Raper (20:21):
I think it’s, you know, Sam, I think the easiest way to answer that is the students themselves. And when they come to me so excited to share an idea or to share a success that they had, that is why I love doing what I, what I do. You know, even the other day, I had a couple of conversations with students who did relay in high school, who have now gone on to the post-secondary level. And I was trying to see, you know, if their school, if they want to get involved through late at their school and whatnot, and they had a student text me and say, I wouldn’t miss out. I’ve already told all my friends relay was truly the highlight of my high school experience. And I want to get involved at my, at my new school. So it’s little things like that that you just kind of reflect back on.


Allie Raper (21:05):
And you’re like, you know, those conversations we had or those coaching sessions, when, you know, these students were in high school, they’ll stick with them. And the impact that they make are being able to reflect and look back and say, I ran an event that raised $80,000 at my high school. That’s not something that, you know, a lot of students can say, but for them to be able to put that on a resume and talk about that, it’s, it’s really incredible. And I think the other thing, as well as it’s rewarding, but it’s also a sensitive piece in the sense that seeing when students are able to grieve and process a loss through relay is also really special in the sense that, you know, if a school doesn’t do relay for life for having an outlet, some students, you know, maybe going through a loss in their family or in their life or undergoing a diagnosis of cancer themselves. But if they don’t have an outlet to share that with it can be really tough sometimes, but relay really unites everyone as to, you know, we’ve all been affected with, you know, one in two Canadians being affected by cancer. We truly have all been affected in our lifetimes. And when I’ve see those students kind of break out of their shell or share their personal vulnerable stories and, and be confident about that, that’s something that’s really, really special to me.


Sam Demma (22:20):
That’s awesome. This has been a phenomenal conversation, Allie, thank you so much for taking some time to chat about relay your own experience, growing up with it and what keeps you going and how schools can get involved. One more time, if anyone wants to reach out or get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to do so?


Allie Raper (22:36):
Yeah, I’m, I’m looking forward to hopefully getting some people to reach out. So this is great. So email relayyouth@cancer.ca, that’s relayyouth@cancer.ca and Instagram @youthrelay. So @youthrelay on Instagram and either one we will reach out to you and get back to you as soon as possible. And we hope to hear from many of you.


Sam Demma (22:58):
Awesome. Thanks so much, Allie, keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Allie Raper (23:01):
Awesome. Thanks so much, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Allie Raper

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.

November 19, 2021 by Experiential Learning Student Leadership Student Success 0

Shonna Barth – Principal of Crescent Heights High School

Shonna Barth - Principal CHHS
About Shonna Barth

Shonna Barth (@ShonnaBarth), is the Principal at Crescent Heights High School. She is a recipient of the 2020-2021 Distinguished Leadership Award presented by the Council for School Leadership of the Alberta Teachers’ Association. She started at Cresent Heights eight years ago as a counsellor and moved into her role as vice principal after three years and is now the Principal of the school. 

She cares and works with ALL students in the school. She enjoys all aspects of the Grade 7-12 life including student leadership, drama, band productions and athletics. She coaches volleyball and is an avid supporter of other CHHS extra-curricular events. Shonna believes it takes a variety of life experiences and a village to help students grow and develop into their best potential. Student and staff wellness is a passion of hers as she continues to work to find balance and fulfillment in her own life.

Connect with Shonna: Email | Twitter | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Council for School Leadership

Alberta Teachers’ Association

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):
Shonna, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind your journey that brought you to where you are today?


Shonna Barth (00:13):
Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. I am the principal of Crescent Heights High School and medicine hat Alberta. I have worked in kind of all levels of education. I spent a good chunk of the first part of my career in elementary, mainly grade six, and I really found with grade six. So you had that real opportunity to build student leaders at that age. They’re the oldest kids in the school, and they’re just really keen on giving back to the community and being part of the school as a whole. So I often led the student leadership with, through the schools and just try to really branch out with student experience to not just in the classroom. How can we impact their lives beyond that and how can we help them impact the world beyond that as well? So that’s been a passion of mine, right from probably about the third or fourth year when I started teaching before too long, I moved into the role of part-time counselor.


Shonna Barth (01:02):
So I was half-time teacher part-time school counselor, not a, I don’t have a mental health background per se, but just, I always told the kids, I’m an adult that gets along with kids. Well, and so through that platform, I was able to really get to know what some of the real concerns kids were going through. You have more time to sit and talk with kids and chat about what’s going on in their lives. And then from that, we could work with the student council kids to, okay, we’ve got a lot of kids going through this. What could we do to try to support those students? Although I still put a lot of time into my classroom and my teaching that side of my career started to really feel like a passion for me. So I spent about five or six years as a school counsellor.


Shonna Barth (01:41):
And then I moved into what we call mental health capacity building, project program in Alberta. So we had three for three years. We worked in the schools to try to work in the universal side of supporting our students and families. So we would go into classrooms with programs. We would work in small groups on things that were going on, and that was funded by Alberta health. Recognizing that teachers don’t go to school in order to be able to work with a lot of these things. We don’t get taught a lot of that. So we were building capacity within the teachers to support their students through some of these challenging times, the administrators, the families we’d offer family nights. So I was really immersed then in that whole world of mental health, then resiliency and building grit. So that has been an excellent resource for me moving into high school. I moved into that after that, with working with the grade nine through 12 counseling and teenagers are a whole different breed and, you know, just as exciting if not even more. So I think grade six and then I’ve been in administration the last about five years, I guess, and just moved into being a principal this year.


Sam Demma (02:43):
Awesome. And did you know, like from a young age that you wanted to get into education and teaching, or like what kind of steered you in that specific path?


Shonna Barth (02:51):
Well, my whole family, pretty much your teachers. My father was an administrator, my aunt uncle. So I actually didn’t want to be a teacher cause I was determined to do my own thing and make my own mark on the world, but it was fairly early. Obviously I wanted to work with people and that I am on that side of the spectrum of working with things. So I had at one point really wanted to be a social worker. And my mum was worried about my, my soft heart in that world. Cause that’s a real challenging world at times. And I big props to anybody who is doing that work has that is a, it’s a challenging area, but man, you can really make a difference. But once you got into education, I realized that that side of me could also come out through my teaching as well. Once I did my first round of student teaching, I was hooked when I got to know those kids. And there’s no looking back after that.


Sam Demma (03:39):
That’s awesome. And you mentioned at the beginning of your response that you thought grade six is like the perfect age to start introducing students to student leadership. Like what does that look like in grade six? Is it getting students involved and engaged in planning events? Yeah, like take me back there for a minute and kind of explain what that looked like or why you thought student leadership was so important to introduce at that age.


Shonna Barth (04:01):
Yeah. So in our curriculum, a big part of grade six, social studies is about government. So there’s kind of a natural fit to start forming some sort of student government. I was always reluctant though to do the whole voting thing. Like I know there’s some value in learning of that, but I also know there’s value in rejection and how bad that can feel to be begins a popularity thing. So my philosophy has always anybody who wants to get involved, come on, we just called it leadership. And yeah, it was a lot of planning, looking at the fun events in the school and the extra activities and really started with that part of it. Cause to me, that kind of gave them the hook with the other kids in the school. It also gave me a hook with the other kids in school. I never had to deal with discipline because kids knew I was the lady who planned the fun stuff.


Shonna Barth (04:42):
So they don’t want us to get in trouble with her. And then we kind of branched out as I got to see how these kids had influence in the school and really started to work with them on how can you use that, that for good, rather than for evil, because you don’t want these kids thinking they’re a big deal and bullying the grade fours because they’re in grade six leadership and taking a look at those kids who maybe didn’t have a buddy to sit with or that sort of thing, like really encouraging get some of them aren’t at that maturity to be able to think outside themselves. But there definitely was ones that good. So we kind of balanced it out between planning Western days and school, spirit days with also, okay. We’ve noticed a lot of kids like really kind of on their own, what can we do to help those kids?


Shonna Barth (05:24):
So try to balance that they were lunch hour meetings. We also rounded once I moved to a more of a six to eight school, we ran a leadership class. And so within that class, the students chose to come to that. So we could go in a little bit deeper about what it looks like to be a leader, looked at traditional leaders in our community as well as throughout history and just try to pull out some aspects of things they were doing. So just tried to really branch out on the interests that they already had past planning, school dances and fun days.


Sam Demma (05:54):
I love that. It’s amazing. And when did volleyball come into the picture? I know you also coached now. And did you play when you were younger or where’d that passion?


Shonna Barth (06:02):
I did. And that I told this story a few times, I guess, but I went to a smaller high school where my dad was a principal and I tried it on grade seven and I didn’t make the team, which if your dad’s a principal, you gotta be pretty bad not to make the team in grade eight. They brought me on as a manager, cause I think they felt sorry for me that I still kept coming out and trying. And I would go to camps in the summer and I kept working and I’ve made the team of grade nine. And by grade 12, I was the captain of the team and never have I ever received an MVP trophy. But through my, my years of volleyball and different sports, I played most improved or more sportsmanlike. And I tell it to these young kids that I coach a lot that a lot of the real rock star volleyball players that I played with, they’re not playing anymore.


Shonna Barth (06:47):
As soon as they came up against somebody that maybe was as good as them better, they got frustrated and they were done. I had always been in it because I love the game. I liked being part of a team. I like part of that atmosphere. So once I got out of university, I knew I wanted to provide that opportunity for other students. So the first, probably five or six years, I coached a team of the kids. Who’d been cut from other teams. So we would just form a team, our own little team and so that they still get to play and we’d go into the league and we didn’t win a whole lot, but the kids were just so happy to be there. Mandy of them still played right through, up till about grade 11. And now we’re playing as young adults and I’ve ran into them because I still play in the ladies league, not at tier one or anything anymore, but I still play and I’ll run into those kids and they quite regularly say like, thank you for providing that opportunity. So I, the reason I stay with it now, as much as it’s a little bit overwhelming time commitment wise is that’s where I really get to connect with kids. You don’t get to, you don’t have too many kids coming back to a school going, oh, I remember when you were my principal. Like, it’s more about the coaching and the times that we get to spend with them, then.


Sam Demma (07:55):
That’s amazing. And you know, it’s cool because you are a student who tried really hard and didn’t make the team. And I’m in a situation you’re probably in yourself is, you know, you have to bring on some kids and turn down others. How do you do that effectively? Like how do you know, how did it, how did, how did the other coach do that for you when you were in growing up and maybe your dad helped a lot there? Cause he was the principal. And, and how do you do that now? Just to make sure students still feel motivated like you were to keep trying.


Shonna Barth (08:22):
We we added another team here again this year, once we got to the cat. So we try to find as many adults as possible. There was a few that just, unfortunately there’s just not enough gym time and not enough coaches to enable everybody. We try to be as respectful as possible. We don’t post a list where somebody has to read it at eight in the morning and deal with rejection all day at school, you get a letter at the end of the day and you’d take it home. And we would list all the other things that are going on in the school that we encourage them to try out. So that we’re hopefully that if volleyball, wasn’t their thing, we have a really strong drama program. We have a cross-country program, things that there aren’t as many cuts having to be made. So we try to encourage them, okay, this wasn’t your thing, but that’s all right. Try something different. And on student council here too, we’re always like, Hey, come join us. You can still be part of things. So a lot of times when kids come and they don’t have the skills, you’re not necessarily coming because they love volleyball. They don’t necessarily even know volleyball. They just really want to be part of something and be part of a team.


Sam Demma (09:18):
And you mentioned that students, some of their fondest memories are with extra curricular activities and you know, that’s, that’s how you really get to connect with kids. Like, do you think it has a huge impact on students and like, have you seen the impact be realized like you have students come back and say like, oh, the volleyball team made a big difference. And were there any stories that may have been like very impactful that stick out to you and maybe even to the point where you could change the student’s name, if it’s something really serious?


Shonna Barth (09:44):
Yeah. Well, I am a for more, I guess the teaching has so much more one-on-one impact than you do as a principal in that sense. So I reflect back on that era, maybe a little more. So through that grade six era, like we would go for outdoor ed trips where we’d stay for two or three nights out at camp and be together, we’d go to Calgary and go to the Calgary science center. So you’re sitting on a bus, you’re walking around the science center with kids. You’re walking around the zoo with kids. We did a lot of just, oh, I used to have science sleepovers where the kids would stay overnight in the school. And we do science experiments and they get to have races up and down the hallway. And just like lot of work on my part, like I was tired, but the bucket feeling you get as an adult from that.


Shonna Barth (10:25):
So what I’ve found now that I’m able to go out places where you can have adult beverages and things like that. And you run into students that you have taught at those ages. They come sit down and they had me a beverage and that like, they want to talk about, remember when we were walking on that hike and elk water, and we were talking about blah, blah, blah, like, and they can remember almost word for word in their mind what they felt. I said, I can barely remember the conversation. I can almost always remember the student, but those are the times you really get to have those real conversations with kids and they get to have a glimpse of you as a human. And you get to see them as a human as well. And I can count how many cards I’ve been sent over the years or kids who’ve stopped to have those conversations.


Shonna Barth (11:08):
Just about things that we talked about, the difference I made in their life. I’m like, wow, like you were such an easy kid. I never really felt like I was doing anything super impactful for you. Or on the flip side, sometimes the really challenging kids I’ll see them a year or two later. And they act like they’ve never met me before. And I do think some of that is they don’t want to remember who they were at that point in their life. And you’re kind of a reminder of that. We still kind of hope that some of the conversations you had maybe had some impact, you’re not going to affect every kid for sure. But yeah, I think this one young lady who I, I, I should move down for grade four, five and six on charter all three years. So I had got to know her very well.


Shonna Barth (11:49):
And then I remarried her again in grade 10. At that point, she was kind of going sideways in life, just making some bad choices and we just run into each other somewhere. I did not recognize her because she was pretty changed the makeup and the hair. And didn’t look quite as innocent as she did in grade six. And she just came over and talked and we talked for about an hour and I’ve heard from message from her about three years later about that, that conversation was that I’ve changed time for her. It just reminded her who she used to be, where she wanted to go. And she couldn’t. I asked her if she had any like specific thing that I said and said she couldn’t remember, but just having that conversation and that connection with the person that she was and where she wanted to go. And just that summer, I didn’t just walk away and ignore that. I spent some time with her time for a lot of these kids is, is a huge value. And it’s not always easy if you have 32 kids in your class to be able to have those one-on-one. So if you’re not able to do some of the extracurricular, you miss out on those really cool opportunities. Yeah.


Sam Demma (12:50):
Yeah. It’s so true. I even think back to my own high school experience and I play on the soccer team cause I was a big soccer player. And I remember building not only deeper relationships with the coaches of the team, but also the teammates I find that you don’t, unless you proactively schedule time with the friends in your class to hang out, you don’t really have another opportunity during class to build super deep relationships. Because if you talk, the teacher starts yelling at you and it’s like stop talking, I’m teaching, you know? And the soccer field enabled that as well. So I ended up building relationships with so many other students which is why looking back. I wish I got way more involved in high school. I was just way too focused on soccer that I didn’t really join anything except for the soccer team. And it’s like one of my regrets when I talk to students now and encourage them to get involved. But what are some of the, like, education has changed a lot in the past two years, it’s been a lot of challenges. What do you think some of the challenges are that your school and yourself as a principal are currently faced with? And then how are you trying to overcome those things?


Shonna Barth (13:52):
I think, I guess from a personal part I’ve really pride myself a year and a half, two years ago that even with 1300 kids in the student school, somebody walked down the hall that wasn’t part of our school. I would recognize that. And now with the masks, it’s just, it feels like we’re so much more anonymous. Like kids, I normally smile everybody that walks by, they can’t tell if you’re smiling and like, we’re just losing that personal connection. And I worry about that because for some kids that just those little conversations in the hall might be the only time they talk to an adult during that day, like on a one-on-one sort of thing. Definitely the loss of some of those extracurricular this last year has been really concerning. Like they we’ve had kids not come back. Finding jobs has been really important part of high school because for some of them they’re the sole breadwinner in their home.


Shonna Barth (14:43):
So they’re, excuse me, they’re not going to leave their job and come back and play soccer or volleyball or join the band cause their family needs them. So it’s become kind of a place right now of just come get your education because that’s what you have to do. And then go back to your real life. So we don’t have the pep rallies. We don’t have this th the school assemblies everything’s done over zoom. And I do think that depersonalizes us. It’s also on the positive side, it’s encouraged us to be creative and try to find some new ways to connect with kids. I think some students, when we were online, being able to talk one-on-one with their teacher over screen was a little less intimidating than having to put your hand up in class and potentially say something down with your teacher can only hear you when you can only hear them.


Shonna Barth (15:31):
It’s it allows for some really positive relationships, but I do worry just about the students’ physical health, their emotional health. It’s been a lot of sitting in front of screens these last two years, and that becomes very easy to do. It’s when you’re a teenager, especially there are junior high kids who struggle a bit with anxiety to start with staying at home can feel really comfortable and safe, but then learning how to push through that and learning how to deal with difficult kids is, is unfortunately, this is a skill that we need, like adults, don’t all of a sudden become nice. When you turn 18, 19, you’re still gonna have difficult coworkers or difficult bosses. And so I think we’re missing out on some of those skills as well, that would benefit them in the work world.


Sam Demma (16:15):
And like what I know this has been ongoing for two years. What, what are some programs or things that you did in the past year that were successful despite the challenges or things that the school adjusted or that the teachers might’ve tried that worked out kind of well.


Shonna Barth (16:32):
Oh, we still through our school student council still been trying to organize some sort of spirit day. Sometimes it’s like, even when we were at home, like dress up and we’ll take pictures of you over zoom, like we’ve tried to encourage that sort of thing at home. We really tried to keep up with our any sort of justice projects that we can to make sure that the kids aren’t getting so insulated into their own world, that they’re forgetting what’s going on in the world. So within our English and social programs, they do a lot of work in, in those areas. We still managed to pull off a musical at the hand of last year. Our she was just amazing, like they’d practice over zoom, which of course is delayed and backwards trying to do dance. Like the creativity that they have come up with has been just incredible.


Shonna Barth (17:15):
So the last two days of June parents were able to come in and watch a performance. So those grade twelves who’ve been part of musical theater since grade seven, got to still have their, their audience, which meant a lot to them. We still ran some sports in the fall and the winter when we were in the real lockdown, not so much, but we just kept it to more of an intramural type things. We didn’t go play schools from other places, but we took more kids. So we had a guy coach guy seven last year, we had like 30 grade seven kids that came out. We just broke them into teams and they played against each other where in the past, we would’ve broke back down to only 12 students. So we had 30 students that, you know, maybe the only time in their life, we’re part of a team and got to have the shirt and take home the shirts and that sort of thing.


Shonna Barth (17:59):
So just really trying to keep things as normal as possible. We did manage to pull off a graduation both years. First year was very, I felt very personal and we had a lot of positive feedback from that group of parents took us about three days to get through it. But each parent and students and their parents and family come up on the stage, the parents handed the diploma to the student. We stood in the back and clap for them to pictures. So the parent didn’t have to sit through 200 other kids getting their diploma was very personal. We had a couple of photo booth set up and then this year was more of a traditional one in our, one of our larger convention centers, which I know the parents and kids appreciated my, the kids appreciate it because they got to have their peers with them. But it last year definitely was very, it was kinda heartwarming. Cause we, we got to those kids that really had a tough time getting to that diploma and worked their butt off together. We could really celebrate that student heart and cheer and congratulate them and made it really personal. So those are some good things have come out of this.


Sam Demma (18:57):
Yeah, I agree. I think with every adversity, there’s an equal opportunity somewhere. It’s got to be creative to find it and figure it out. What keeps you hopeful? Like what, what do you think inspires you to continue doing this work with a big smile on your face and show up every day and lead others and coach and try and make an impact in these young people’s lives?


Shonna Barth (19:18):
Definitely from the, I picked the hardship of missing my first seven days as a principal cause I was home with COVID and not being able to see people face-to-face and having to do it all over zoom or just join into assemblies, made me appreciate the energy of the kids, the resiliency of the kids. They continually amazes me. Like we really thought coming back to school this fall with mass mandate being implemented again, we had thought when we left in June, we’re kind of done with all this and we’re going to be more back to normal. And we’re really our numbers are really high mess. Not right now. We thought the kids were we’re going to be fighting with the kids and they’ve been amazing. They’ve just, I just continue to remind you why you’re doing what they’re doing. You’re doing, they’re so positive.


Shonna Barth (20:01):
And they are sometimes they’re teenagers and they’re going to grumble about things. But honestly I find the adults gumball more than the kids do. So I just, I think being able to watch those kids walk across the stage, being in a seven to 12 school where we get to Washington through their junior high axed and struggles. And then by the time they come to grade 12 and I know every one of those kids walking across the stage and like this time, we’re like, oh man, I wish I could give you a hug. Like, you know what so many of them have been through. So I think being able to watch the growth and how they learned to be grateful, even by the end of grade 12, not always grateful and grade eight, but by the time they hit grade 12, like know to just recognize what everybody in the school is doing for them of that.


Sam Demma (20:42):
I love it. And there’s a lot of younger educators listening to this podcast as well, who might be just getting into education. And I think there’s a lot of value in sharing your experiences and also your mistakes. You know, like when I talked to high school, because when I talked to high school students, I say like one of the mistakes I made was not getting involved enough and I can reflect on that and encourage students to get more involved as an educator and like a, you know, a teacher. Do you have any mistakes that you’ve made or actually learning opportunities that you’ve experienced that you think are worth sharing with other educators that are listening?


Shonna Barth (21:14):
Yeah. I think for new educators, a couple of things that I would stress is get involved. Like I’m not going to say this one mistake, cause I definitely I’ve been involved. I’ve been doing things my whole career. It is a balance though, of your personal wellness and the students. I worry sometimes now where we’re putting our personal wellness. So high up on the scale that we’re missing out on opportunities that would make us feel better. I think we don’t necessarily recognize that. Yes, physically. I was tired Saturday night when I walked home at 7, 7 30 at night after coaching all day, but just sit and reflect on how the kids improved throughout the day, playing volleyball and their excitement and their cheering, that bucket feeling kind of stuff really can. It makes you feel really good too. So I guess that’s been a vice like mistake can be thinking that putting time in equates to being tired, you gotta put your time in the right places.


Shonna Barth (22:10):
I know when I first started, I was, I’m not artistic, but I put insane amount of time into my bulletin boards in my classrooms. Like every month I’d completely change the theme of the room where I spend five hours on a Sunday, making a game of some sort for the kids to play that would take them about three minutes to play. They would never appreciate it as much as I felt they should, because I knew how much time I had put in to making that thing. I thought they should be bowing to me and saying like, you’re just the greatest teacher ever. They don’t value that stuff as much as they value the one-on-one the time you spend with them. So a beginning teacher having that Pinterest perfect classroom might make you feel good. Your kids don’t really value that as much. You know, they don’t want to come in and see a bare walls or a total disaster either. But thinking about where you spend your time, like time spent with kids will always pay off. Always time, spent marking all that stuff has to happen. But if you can find ways to make that less in your life and time one-on-one connecting with kids, you’ll have a great career.


Sam Demma (23:15):
I love that. That’s awesome. That’s amazing advice. Well, Shauna, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a great conversation. If another educator is listening and wants to reach out, ask you a question, bounce, some ideas around what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you.


Shonna Barth (23:31):
Probably email. And I would love that. I really love exchanging ideas. People always tell me I’m a creative person, but I’m an idea stealer. I like to take stuff from people and adapt it from where it’s at and I’m more than willing to share that we’ve done as well. So my email address is Shonna.Barth@sd76.abb.ca. I think what you’re doing is great here, Sam. I really appreciate it. I think we need more people spreading the positive things that are happening in education and sharing ideas. So I really appreciate you taking the time to be doing this.


Sam Demma (24:07):
Pleasure, and it’s been great chatting with you. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Shonna Barth (24:12):
Sounds great.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Shonna Barth

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.

November 17, 2021 by Principals Student Leadership Teachers 0

Dulcie Belchior-Demedeiros – Principal of Student Success at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board

Dulcie Belchior
About Dulcie Belchior-Demedeiros

Dulcie Belchior (@MsDBelchior) has been in education for the past 20 years. She is currently the Principal of Student Success, Learning to 18 and Secondary Program at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board where she is able to share her passion for instructional leadership, teacher development and student success. Wife, mother, educator, and bookworm!

Connect with Dulcie: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Specialist High Skills Major Programs

Principal’s Qualification Courses

The Edwin Platform

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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):
Dulcie, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind what brought you to where you are in education today?


Dulcie Belchior (00:14):
Sure. Thank you for having me, Sam. So my name is Dulcie Belchior. I’m currently the principal of student success learning to 18 and secondary program at Dufferin-Peel Catholic district school board. And how I got here. Wow. That’s very complicated. I think sometimes when you talk to teachers in terms of how they, you know, they decide on their vocation, it’s kind of a twisty, twisty, turny path, and there’s so many different things that happened in their life that, you know, make them reflect on the fact that, you know, you know, I can, I can do this type of job. I can work with kids. I can be a teacher and for me, I think it, it did start early. And I think if you ask a lot of teachers and starts early, when you’re a small child, when I was four years old going into JK, I grew up in a family that spoke Portuguese.


Dulcie Belchior (01:16):
So I went to school, basically. I was born in Canada. I was born in Toronto, but I only spoke Portuguese. So I basically entered school as an ELL student. And what happened from there is I did, was able to learn the English language quickly. And so in JK, I became a mentor for the other ELL students by the end of the year, trying to teach them to speaking with, Hey, you say this, do this. This is how you say that. So I think I remember that experience even though I was very young because I think it was very important to how I became a teacher. And so it started very early there, I think in elementary school too. I was that student that kids could go to for help. So if you didn’t want to go, you know, some kids don’t want to ask the teacher, they want to ask a friend or student.


Dulcie Belchior (02:11):
So I was that kind of go-to student, but they knew that if you went to Dulcey, you weren’t going to get the answer. That’s not what you went to Dawson. I was like, I’m not going to give you the answer. I will show you how to do this. For me. That’s very important. I think as a teacher, as a person, you know, that old saying where if you teach a person to fish, you know, they will be able to survive their entire life. You don’t just give them a fish. And so even in elementary school, I, I would show them how to do it. This is how you do the math problem, for example. And I think that was, you know, that helped them more than just giving them an answer and them walking away. So I think that’s another as to, you know, my reflection as, so I can be a teacher.


Dulcie Belchior (03:03):
I, I think that’s a good vocation for me in grade seven and eight, I helped in the JK class, you know, yours do that volunteer work in, in junior kindergarten class. When I was in university, I took a bachelor of science. But throughout university, I, you know, I was able to be lucky enough to teach international language program. So I taught elementary school kids, Portuguese. So I was doing that, not as a teacher, but as a late person, teaching them the language working for Dufferin-Peel at the time. And and I am a student of deaf from as well. I know a lot of teachers go back to the board that they were a student at and that’s the same with me. So I’m a different field graduate and very proud of that. And also in university at that time, they still had emergency supply teachers.


Dulcie Belchior (03:53):
So I was doing that throughout university, even though I was taking my bachelor of science. And after graduating with a bachelor of science, then you decide, okay, well, what can I do with the bachelor of science? What, or where am I going to go? So I had my eyes set on probably maybe pharmacy. I did work at shopper’s drug Mart in the pharmacy as an assistant pharmacy assistant for my whole entire high school career in university career. So again, you know, you’re doing something, you know, you can do it, you fall into that. Maybe I’ll be a pharmacist. So that was a choice that, you know, and in life sometimes you have disappointments and that was a disappointment because I was never able to get into the program. So I did apply then to nursing and I applied to teaching. So I did have a choice then between teaching and nursing.


Dulcie Belchior (04:52):
And that’s, I think, you know, where you get to that point where you really truly have to reflect, this is my future. One of my best stat. And I think both of those careers, their careers, where you can help people in different ways, but you can help people. So I, you know, there was a lot of conversations with family, with my fiance. Who’s now my husband with some teachers. And I did decide that teaching was probably the best vocation for me. And so with all of that that long journey, I went into the bachelor of education program at York university. So that is my complicated story of how I got into teaching.


Sam Demma (05:34):
Oh, that’s not such an awesome story. I’ve never had someone tell me about mentoring other students in JK. So that’s such a cool, like origin for the story. Thank you so much for sharing. No problem. Like what happened after university? So you go into your bachelor’s at York, did you return directly to Dufferin-Peel and what different positions did you work in before getting into student success? Right.


Dulcie Belchior (05:57):
So after I graduated from New York with my bachelor of education, I was lucky enough to get a position as a teacher at Jefferson Peele. So I started my career teaching grade seven and eight at a school which no longer exists in the board. So it was near the airport in Mississauga, and it was actually called our lady of the airways, which I think is such a beautiful name for a school. But that school sends closed down. So I taught grade seven and eight for two years, and I was teaching science as well. So I was doing some rotation science because I was lucky enough to have that background. So that was an opportunity to share my talent and my joy, because I love science with the students there. So I did that for two years and in those two years, I decided to apply for the master’s program at Boise.


Dulcie Belchior (06:53):
So I started doing that part-time within the first two years of me starting teaching. So I got my master’s a couple of years later, curriculum teaching, learning department and specialized in teacher development. So I started that in my first couple of years of teaching. After that, I I applied for a position at St. Francis Xavier secondary school in Mississauga. So I was successful with the interview. So I became a high school teacher teaching science, which I love. So I was able to teach chemistry, biology grade nine and 10 science. And I was also trained to teach in the international baccalaureate program there. So I taught biology with the students there. So I got a lot of different types of experience there as well. I was able to help support the student council there cause I love student council because I was the president of student council at father Michael Gates when I was a high school student.


Dulcie Belchior (07:57):
So I thought, you know, I think that’s something that I can help students with. So I supported them there as well after teaching at St. Francis Xavier for many years, I decided it was time for a change time for another challenge. So I started taking my principal’s qualification courses and I got my PQP part one and part two. And I went into the interviews for a vice principal position at the board and was successful. And my first position as a vice principal was at St. Margaritaville secondary school in Brampton. So I worked there for approximately four years, and then I was a vice principal at father Michael Gates. The school that I actually graduated high school from, which was a little weird sometimes, sometimes going back as a VP within some of the teachers who were still there, but it was a great experience. So I was a VP there for years. Then I became a principal and I was a principal at St. A Dustin secondary school in Brampton for one year. And from there, I became the, my current time in the current position. Now the principal student success learning to 18 and secondary program. So that’s how, again, I found myself where I am to.


Sam Demma (09:18):
That’s awesome. What does the role entail? You know, student success and secondary programs, you know, certain educators are sitting might not be familiar with it, especially if they’re outside of Canada. So what does it, what does it entail? What does it look like and why are you passionate about it? What do you think student success means?


Dulcie Belchior (09:38):
I’m passionate about student success because my model, or, you know, what motivates me is that I want to inspire a love of learning in every student. Students need to see themselves in the learning. They need to see themselves be successful in the learning and our jobs. As teachers, as educators, is to provide the environment where they will be successful, not where they can meet, where they will be successful. And I think having this position at a system level really helps me help the principals, the administrators in the schools, and helps the teachers in the schools as well to provide professional development, to provide resources, to provide critical and culturally responsive resources for schools that will have students be able to number one, see themselves in the learning and number two, be successful at that learning. So again, that student success encompasses a lot of things that are in campuses, programs like, oh, yeah.


Dulcie Belchior (10:45):
Program programs like SHSM and even programs where students who may not have been successful in the past, I may have left school without graduating can come back and we invite them back to finish and to graduate and to get that opportunity to do that at a time in their life where they’re ready to do that. So I think there’s so many layers to this job where it it’s exciting. It’s exciting. And it’s a job where you can show people that teaching is not just filling a bucket full of knowledge. And here you go, that’s your knowledge, okay. It’s igniting a flame in students and in teachers and in all educators where everyone loves to learn, they see themselves as learners, they see themselves being successful and they can move forward and do what they are passionate about. So they have an opportunity to actually see what they’re passionate about, to experience things, different things so that they can make choices for their future, which is the most important thing.


Sam Demma (11:54):
I love that. And where did your passion for student success come from? Was it originally something that you wanted to explore and try, or did you know that it was something you were, you know, extremely passionate about?


Dulcie Belchior (12:07):
It’s something I’ve always been extremely passionate about. And as you know, when I became an administrator was an opportunity to become that instructional leader for teachers. And so when I started having that opportunity to pass on this passion, I guess, for students success for, you know, instructional leadership for assessment, for evaluation, for rich tasks, just doing a lot of great teaching whenever I had the opportunity to share that with others, I took it. And I think now in this position, it’s, it’s just a perfect place where I’d love to share different experiences, different resources, different opportunities, different types of professional development so that our educators can, you know, we’ll be able to ignite that flame in all of our students.


Sam Demma (13:05):
I love that. That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And what do you think right now are some of the challenges that we’re faced with in education and on the other coin, also some of the opportunities that these challenges may be bringing to us and, you know, a very difficult scenario.


Dulcie Belchior (13:23):
Well, I think, you know, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, which is COVID-19. And I think that’s been a huge challenge in education, especially since we’ve had to pivot sometimes on a daily basis and where educators have had to really, really change their mindset on what teaching and learning looks like. And students have had to change their mindset on what learning looks like. And, you know, going into a digital type, only learning has really pushed everyone to a new level. We really have been forced to become 21st century learners. And I think that is an opportunity in itself. So it is a great positive where we’ve learned how we can leverage digital technology as a wonderful tool to help students learn because that’s how they learn. That’s how they interact. That’s how they socialize. So it’s something they’re familiar with, which helps them be successful.


Dulcie Belchior (14:29):
Now, I don’t think that it should become the only thing that’s not what teaching and learning is about, but it is a wonderful tool that we can leverage in our classrooms. And I think so that’s been a challenge in itself, and I think it’s also an opportunity for the future. I think coming back in September, some of the challenges are going to be that, you know, students and staff, even though, and we’ve heard this before, we’ve all been in the same storm of COVID-19. People have been traveling through this storm in different vessels, different boats, sometimes a dinghy, sometimes a piece of driftwood. And now they’re coming back and we’re all going to be interacting with each other and we need to be kind, we need to be compassionate. We need to listen, and we need to understand that everyone is coming from a different place.


Dulcie Belchior (15:26):
So we are, we cannot, we cannot come back into our classrooms and expect everyone to be at the same level of learning at the same level of knowledge, at the same level of mental health and wellbeing, we are going to all be in different places. And I think so we have to come back with that understanding. And I think that’s the most important thing is to go slow, move slowly, listen, talk to students, get to know your learners, who’s in your classroom and what are the needs of every student in your classroom. We’re not going to go forward until we know what the needs of all of these students are because they’re all going to be different. And I think we have to change our mindset. We can’t think about it as a deficit. So, you know, the knowledge that they don’t bring in now because of COVID, that’s a deficit.


Dulcie Belchior (16:18):
No, we have to look at it as what are they coming in with and how can we move them forward? So how will we move them forward from where they’re at? So it’s not a deficit model, it’s a model of where are you at? We’re going to move you forward from there and we’re going to move everyone forward. And we’re going to use the best of our abilities to do that, but we have to do that with kindness and we have to do that with patients. And we have to know that it’s not going to happen in a day and it’s going to take a long time and that’s okay. That’s okay. Because we need to ensure that our students in our classrooms are healthy and that their well-being is taken care of and also our educators. Okay.


Sam Demma (17:06):
That’s amazing. The, you know, the cool thing, I think about student successes, that you have an opportunity to really impact a young person and not to not to say that, you know, every educator doesn’t have that opportunity. They all do, but when you’re focused solely on the success of the students, it’s, it’s a cool opportunity to make a big difference. Have you, you know, over the past couple of years being able to see the impact of some of the programs on the students directly and maybe you can share a story of one in particular that sticks out in your mind, and if it’s a serious individual, you can just change their name or just use Bob or something. Yeah.


Dulcie Belchior (17:45):
And, and in general, you’re right. It’s a great opportunity to see success and to see successes everywhere in the board. So it’s not just, you know, in one school it’s, if you have a, a program that you introduce, it’s how this supports a larger group of students or educators. So some of the things that we have done through program, number one, it has been we introduced the Edwin platform in our board for elementary students. So for grade seven and eight students, and what this platform did was actually provide students with one-on-one technology. So every student gets a laptop, a Chromebook, and the amazing things that I have been able to see, the amazing presentations, the research projects, just everything that’s coming out of the ability to change the mindset of learning and having students able to work together in a different way. And to have that one-to-one technology as a tool, it’s also helped the teachers change their mindset in how they teach in the classroom.


Dulcie Belchior (18:59):
And this was introduced before COVID. And I think that it benefited when we went into COVID with students already being kind of immersed in this type of learning. So it changes the way that they learn. It changes the way that they can present their ideas. You can do so many rich tasks using technology when students have it one on one. So I think that’s been great. And you see it, I see it in a large capacity, right? And students in general, families in general teachers saying how wonderful it is to have these things in their classrooms and how it has opened their minds to so many different ways of teaching and the different things that students can do. Students in JK, for example, coding, using the computers, we introduced a lot of different types of coding resources. And we, for example, the Bee-Bots, so it’s a little B that junior kindergarten students can actually code to move around a carpet or a floor.


Dulcie Belchior (20:15):
And they are learning coding at four years old, five years old. And that’s just, it’s amazing. So when you see videos that teacher’s tweaked videos, that teachers send us of their students working together in groups using these, Bee-Bots knowing that number one, they’re having fun. You can see that they’re having fun. Number two, they love to do it. And they’re learning a new language. This is a completely new language, and they’re learning it at four years old. It’s just amazing to that happening. So that was another thing that we did. I think another important thing in program that we’ve worked on is ensuring that, you know, we’re working on getting co culturally responsive and relevant resources into our secondary classrooms and our elementary libraries as well. But especially into our English classes, getting books where students can feel like they’re being represented, like they’re being reflected in the learning different characters relevant topics.


Dulcie Belchior (21:25):
And, you know, the letters that we have received from different students who were asked, here’s a book, let’s read it as a class. Give us your feedback on the book. What do you think, do you think students in your grade will like this book? Do you think it’s culturally responsive? Do you think it’s relevant to your generation right now? And the letters that I received from students saying, wow, thank you for actually asking that question. Thank you for having students involved in what we’re going to learn. You know, thank you for asking us, is this relevant to me as a student? And so again, I come back to that listening, understanding, knowing where kids are and, and asking the questions, you know, is this good for you? Will this help you learn? Will this help you love learning? Will this help you be successful? And I think that’s one of the biggest things that we’ve worked on that I find has been very rewarding. And we’re still working on that. It’s a large project obviously, and, you know, it takes time, but we’re working on it. So I think that’s been wonderful.


Sam Demma (22:37):
That’s amazing. And if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, like, you know, first year teaching, but what the advice and knowledge you have now, what advice would you give to your younger self?


Dulcie Belchior (22:50):
I think when you’re when you’re a new teacher, and I think back when I was a new teacher, it’s almost like you’re in survival mode and you, you think, oh, I just got to get through all of this information. I just have to teach, you know, I have to ensure that everything in this book is done and the kids get it and they all understand it. And it’s all good and done. So if I’ve covered it, I’m good. I think the advice that I will give is to take it slow, to take that time, to talk to every student, to get to know every student. So get to know what they love, what they’re interested in, how they learn, what they like to learn. What’s their favorite subjects and base your whole year. Everything based on that, because you can teach whatever. It doesn’t matter what you teach, but if you are not connecting with your students, they will not learn.


Dulcie Belchior (23:48):
They will not learn. So I think taking that extra time, cause I know time is always an issue and it is time is always an issue for everyone in every career. But that is so important that time that you take initially with those students will make a difference for the rest of the year and for years to come, they’ll come back. And I think that’s the one thing that students will come back and say is you took the time to know me so that I could be successful. So that’s the advice I give to any new teacher.


Sam Demma (24:21):
Love that. Awesome. They’ll see. Thank you so much for sharing some of your stories, philosophies, perspectives. If another educator is listening right now and wants to reach out to you and bounce some ideas around, talk about cool programs, what would be the best way to get in touch?


Dulcie Belchior (24:36):
Well, they can get in touch with me on Twitter. So it’s at @MsDBelchior, or they can email me at dulcie.belchior@dpcdsb.org.


Sam Demma (24:55):
Keep up the amazing work. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Best of luck with the next school year.


Dulcie Belchior (25:02):
Thanks so much, Sam. Have a great day.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Dulcie Belchior-Demedeiros

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.

November 15, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Peter Prochilo – Superintendent of School Effectiveness, Sudbury Catholic District School Board

Peter Prochilo
About Peter Prochilo

Peter Prochilo (@PeterProchilo) is currently a Superintendent of Education with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board. His portfolio includes the supervision of all Secondary Schools, Secondary Curriculum, Alternative and Adult Education, International Education and the Remote/Virtual School

Peter leads with a passion for equity of access and enhanced student pathways as he supports students, staff and school communities as they collectively strive for improved outcomes for all. 

Connect with Peter: Email | Twitter | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Time Blocking

Marzano’s Evaluation Method

It’s all in your head

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 Peter Prochilo. Peter is currently a superintendent of education with the Sudbury Catholic district school board. His portfolio includes the supervision of all secondary schools, secondary curriculum, alternative and adult education, international education, and the remote slash virtual school. Peter leads with a passion for equity of access and enhance student pathways. As he supports students, staff, and school communities, as they collectively strive for improved outcomes for all. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Peter. It was an engaging one with lots of actionable ideas and insights.


Sam Demma (00:45):
Peter, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Each pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your upbringing and what brought you to where you are today?


Peter Prochilo (01:39):
Okay. Thanks Sam. Good to be here. So my name is Peter Prochilo and i’m the superintendent of education for the Sudbury Catholic district school board with primary responsibilities around secondary programming in schools. So my educational journey began back, I guess when we can go further way back started with my, one of my older sisters being an educator and, and watching what she was doing I’m the youngest of five. And there was a large gap between me and that sister. And so I watched her and the joy education and working with children and young adults brought her. And that was sort of my, my end, if you will. And then through university, it just became more and more clear through my involvement either in coaching various sports and just my involvement in the community that it was, it was going to be my path. And so that brings me to, you know, education. I had 26 years as a, as a teacher and then a special education resource teacher consultant program principal and school principal, and then the arose to apply to my present position here in Sudbury. And it became a big big shift at at my age to to take that leap and take that leap and come and take on this role and the challenges of the role. And it’s been it’s been great.


Sam Demma (03:19):
Wow. That’s amazing. And aside from your own sister, which must’ve been a huge inspiration and motivation for you, do you recall other educators or teachers that you had when you were a student that also played a pivotal role in your, you know, your own development as a student, but maybe even inspired you to consider education as well?


Peter Prochilo (03:39):
For sure. I think a lot of those came during my years in high school where we had a number of teachers that you know, it was sort of that unwritten rule. I didn’t need to be set. They were there for students. And we were able to students were able to connect with them and B became, they became mentors if you will. And then they and, and so they were, there were some go-to people that definitely paved the way, if you will, to see what, what a career in education would be like and, and what that looks like to help others. And so at that stage, it became for me realizing that, you know, educators are really the, the gatekeepers of equity and my friends and I, my, my peer group at that time were from a certain socioeconomic status.


Peter Prochilo (04:36):
And we were able to see how, regardless of your background, regardless of where you come from everyone was treated equally. And, and I was lucky to be in a school that that was espoused, but, you know, certainly for the mentors that I reflect back on as mentors, they were really championing that idea of equity before it became it became an entity, as we know it today, right. Being immersed in curriculum, immersed in policy they were living, they were living that idea of equity. It doesn’t matter. Who’s in front of me who comes through that door, we’re all treated the same and they should all have the same opportunities to succeed.


Sam Demma (05:22):
That’s amazing. And when you think about those educators that also had a big impact on you personally, like, what do you think they did for you? Like if you had to think back, and you’re not that old, so you can definitely think back to high school for a quick second, but if you had to put yourself back into a high school classroom, like, what do you think teachers do or can do to make sure that their students feel seen, heard and appreciated and, you know, make an impact on the students in their classroom? And what did your students do for you or your teachers do for you?


Peter Prochilo (05:54):
Well, I think, you know, reflecting back, I can, I can identify it now, but in the moment it was just accessibility. They were accessible. I think when you, when I reflect back on what it means to me now is that they were really showing their humanity. Right. We saw these people in the community, they were my coaches for soccer. They were like, we’ve seen them in, you know, community events or my church, or, you know what I mean? Like they showed the human face of service really, in a nutshell, they were, they were really exemplary in putting themselves forward. And we knew, you know, even at that age and everyone comes from different backgrounds, everyone has different experiences. Everyone has different challenges. Everyone is carrying things with them that we may not know right. Or that they’re dealing with, but they came into that classroom and that building everyday best foot forward, smile on their face. It’s old time, you know what I mean? I’m really cool with that. But it was like, it was, it was game time for them. Right. And so they knew being in that space, what they, what they could meet to the students that they serve. And that really shine through because you can see the, you can easily see the difference between those that ended up being mentors of mine, to those that were not as approachable.


Sam Demma (07:16):
Yeah. I think that’s really important, you know, making your students aware that you’re there for them and that you have time for them. My, one of the things my teacher did that had a huge impact on me was get to know me on a personal level so much so that he could understand my motivation for being in his class, right. For every student, the reason you might be sitting in biology class is different. One student might want to become a scientist. Maybe I just want to take biology so I could get into kinesiology in university. Like every student had a different reason. And if you know, the reason why a student is sitting in your class, it allows you to, you know, appeal to their motivation and interests. Yeah, accessibility getting to know the student were things that had a huge impact on me as well. So thank you for sharing that. What do you think are some of the challenges we’re faced with an education right now? I mean, obviously because of COVID, there are some huge ones. But what do you think are some of the challenges we’re faced with and what are some of the opportunities within the challenging?


Peter Prochilo (08:15):
I’m glad you said that Sam, because I see COVID as presenting, of course, the challenges that we all have come to understand, but it also provides a lot of opportunities, a lot of opportunities to meet those challenges. And one of the big challenges that we’re dealing with now, and I keep coming back to the idea of equity is, is equity of access. And so it’s really important in my role and for my colleagues and for all of our system leaders and school leaders is to really look at what are what are the, what are the impediments to equity of access in a remote situation when we’ve had to cycle into remote learning and you, it really becomes a parent students that, that need need more support than others. And there’s that you’re, you’re trying to try to bridge that gap, right.


Peter Prochilo (09:06):
In terms of providing and providing access, whether it be access to technology access to, to us. And just making sure that you are always acting as a community, right? Because you, you, you tend to a situation like COVID can quickly make people think in a, more of a siloed situation, right? This is, you know, this is my department, this is what I do. And the trick has been the push has been to make sure that everyone acts continues to act and they do to act as though we’re all, we’re all together because it’s more important to be together. Especially during this time, the opportunity comes in the realization that we’ve been able to very quickly and effectively leverage technology. And so for the last 10 years in education, we’ve been looking for ways to effectively use technology in a classroom setting.


Peter Prochilo (10:07):
Face-To-Face whether you’re a fan of Marzano’s work on, you know, the triad and using technology one, you know, one piece of technology for three students working collaboratively. And now you, you see that a lot of that change has that a lot of that shift has to happen because students are either at home working right. And trying to connect. And so the beauty came out in leveraging technology effectively to maintain that community feeling. And I think that’s one of the successes that, that shines through whether it was students in the elementary panel that had a complete remote school, and may we still partnered them with their homeschool. So they have that, that connectivity, and even for secondary students, right. Because in my, in my specific role, we’re going to go into this year where students have high school students that have a four year career, I’ve had two years jumping in and out of remote situation.


Peter Prochilo (11:04):
Yeah. And so now the opportunity is to really, when they come back face to face is to really, you know, show them what that community is all about because it’s been disjointed. Right. And so the opportunity and the challenge, you know, two-sided coin, the challenge is to you know, of course, all of our colleagues and, and, and my staff are ready to do so is to welcome them back with open arms, make them feel you know, deal with that, that, that little bit of trepidation, that little bit of anxiety will coming back face-to-face and really using that as an opportunity to showcase what a school community can be. All can be all about point.


Sam Demma (11:48):
Yeah. That’s awesome. And what personally, what personally motivates you every day to continue doing this work?


Peter Prochilo (11:57):
You must have a personal driver as well. They wakes you up and keeps you going as well. Yeah. It’s a number of things, but primarily that, that idea of being a guardian of equity, right. That’s the piece for me that, you know, it’s kind of the lens. I see a lot of problems through, you know, where, where is the equity piece in this? How can we make sure that the challenges challenges are met with that, with that lens you know, we have a group of students will always have a group of students that will do very well. We’ll always have a group of students that need extra support, but sometimes I find from my own experience is that we really need to connect with all students and making sure that they all have voice choice and see themselves as learners. Right. And it’s not only, and so you’re thinking not only for these four years that we have them in high school, but we need to help all of them see themselves or the next part, right. You’re preparing them for a few weeks that you, we may not see, but you, you, you want to make sure that we give them all the, all the tools that they need to make those choices. And, and to know that they’re better for having had us in their lives through grandiose.


Sam Demma (13:23):
Makes sense. My grandfather… I think you’re Italian? I come from an Italian background in Greek as well. And my Italian grandfather Salvato was a big gardener. And he would always bring me to his backyard, gardens, tomatoes, everywhere, cucumbers, zucchini, like everything. And the more I started working with students, I realized that educators or anyone that works with youth are kind of like gardeners and you plant the seed and you do what you can to water it. And, you know, sometimes, you know, you show up one day and the tomatoes fully there, you didn’t even see it grow. Sometimes it never grows until, you know, 20 years later and you don’t even realize it. And I think that’s the same with students. You know, you, you do everything you can to set them up for success. And you know, maybe 10 years later, they come up to you and say, Hey, Pete, I remember what you told me. I remember what you told me 12 years ago and, you know, whatever class. And you’re like, I don’t even remember what I told you. How do you remember what I told you? But I’m curious to know, do you have any stories that come to mind of, you know, programs that have impacted young people within the schools you’ve worked in, or students that have come up to you or teachers that, you know, and let them know about the impact of the work has had on them?


Peter Prochilo (14:36):
I’ve been lucky to have a number of really unique experiences. And I’ve been blessed with students that have sought either sought me out or met me by happens happenstance. And you either invited me to their wedding or made a you know, a king to came to my office to show me their first born child, you know, and they wanted me to meet there and see what they become. So at one point in my career I was facilitator, I mean, educator in a classroom that was purposely designed around students who always found themselves in physical altercations. So it was a standalone class where students came to me from different schools and we worked on we worked on an educational and a social plan for six weeks at a time. Okay. And so benchmarks were six weeks and we would, we assess work with the student and the family and have them go back to their home school.


Peter Prochilo (15:45):
Right. And so these students as you can imagine, were either on the verge of being expelled have multiple multiple incidents of physical altercations and the like, and I had I can remember each of their means for the two years that I taught that class. And I can remember even up to about four or five years ago, where one of those, one of those in this case, it was a young young man. Now an adult came to me and wanted to show me his, his welding, his new truck, right. Because he’s now, he’s now an underwater welder. So he took it to you know, and he wanted he came, he sought me out at the school where I was at and made the appointment to come and see me and want to, want me to see where he, he where he, where he’s been, what he’s been doing, that was great, you know, and it was I just stopped everything right there and made time for him.


Peter Prochilo (16:57):
And and we had a good, we had a good talk and I was good, you know, it’s, it was really good to see that some of those things that we, you know, we take each of the students’ interests to heart, of course, and you, you, you deal with each student individually, but it’s, it was good to see that sort of the cumulative effect of things that I stick to and say, you know, it goes back to your garden analogy. Cause my dad was a gardener as well. And so, you know, regardless of what produced that year, I knew that my dad did the same thing to that garden every year. She might tweak a couple of things, but the care that he put into that garden was the same every year, regardless. So the same thing in this case, this young man who came back in that, you know, it may have been at that point in time, I’m teaching this young person in that, in that immediate role when he was in that class, through these steps. Right. But sometimes we don’t think that, you know, we think it’s just a process, but it’s really a a connection that you’re making with the students. Right. And we, even though we might do it repeatedly, like you say, you don’t know that effect. Right. We may wonder what happens, but it was really great that the student came back to show me yeah. He was more proud of the certificate or his truck.


Sam Demma (18:29):
That’s awesome. That’s amazing. Yeah. The phrase that my teacher taught me that had a big impact that aligns with what you just said was you just got to take consistent action and forget about the result, take the actions and forget about the results. And his phrase was small, consistent actions. And I actually wear it on my wrist on this little wristband. I’ve actually, if you give them to the students too, but yeah, it was something my grade 12 older shoes teacher taught me and it’s such a good reminder. Yeah, you’re right. Like the process some years you stick to it, but the produce might not be as great, but you did everything that you needed to do. Same thing with teaching, you know, sometimes people forget that, you know, especially students forget that educators also have families and problems and challenges, and they’re also human beings themselves. You know, when they’re standing at the front of the classrooms, what are some of your own personal hobbies and passions? I know guitar is one of them, but maybe you can share a couple of those things.


Peter Prochilo (19:26):
You know, it’s really been trying to, like you say, try to stay consistent with things. So those are my own hobbies outside of, outside of my work, including my family. It would be certainly the outdoors is a big part of that, whether I’m golfing or I’m just out on a hike even, or for a run or even just a walk, especially around the lake here, it’s always, always trying to do new stuff like that. I’m always branching out that way. And also I know I mentioned golf even though it’s, it’s more of a long walk interrupted by hitting a light balls many times.


Sam Demma (20:06):
And swimming sometimes.


Peter Prochilo (20:10):
Yeah. And then, you know, for me, even one of the sort of escapes, if you will, is, is kind of the, the last few years has been reading nice items. Cause we’re always confronted with reading for for our occupation for work. And it’s there, but you know, making the time to read other items, right. Other other works, it’s always been non-fiction for me. I sort of been musically sort of the, the genre of music and biographies and the like, because music is certainly a big part of, there’s always a song in my head, said my staff one or two that are you humming today, right there. Yeah. So it’s just, it’s, it’s a sort of a combination of things, but certainly even with a busy schedule, just trying to maintain a level of physical activity as we get older, those opportunities for team sports seem to dwindle, but you know other than other than personal fitness getting out into nature is really.


Sam Demma (21:25):
I love that. Well, it’s on the topic of books about music. Here’s the one that I read recently that maybe you can check out. It might be a different genre than you’re used to, but I think you’d like it. So, this book is called it’s all in your head. Get out of your way by Russ Russ, Russell Vitaly is actually a Sicilian rapper from the U S yeah, funny. And I love his book. So he’s an independent artist and basically outlines the story of how he went from nothing to something. And what makes this story very unique is he never ended up joining a record label, turned them all down and kind of did it himself. And it just outlines this whole journey and story and what he overcame and how he got to where he is now and yeah, different genre, but you should check it out.


Sam Demma (22:10):
It might be something that you can listen to. And I think you’re so right about music too. Like when I think back to high school and every kid has different hobbies and they all play different sports and different activities, but I think something that every student has in common is they’ve listened to some form of music Friday. It’s like, it might be a different genre, but they all have a band or an artist or something that they like listening to. An art has such a way of connecting with young people so much so that I’m actually myself trying to work on a spoken word album to appeal to students as well. And yeah, you just really, you just nailed that connection in my own head. And I was like, ah, that makes a lot of sense. I think everyone has a piece of music that they’re always looking forward to. If you could go back Peter and speak to yourself in your first year of teaching, you know, when you’re, but, but with the knowledge and experience you have now looking back, what advice would you give your younger self?


Peter Prochilo (23:05):
Two things. One develop consistent habits right away. Okay. You know, because even the mentors at that time would tell me, you’re going to find your, you know, you’re going to find your way. Right. But you know, it’s really good to compare what you do. I always use the term skeleton, right. It ask my staff or Caitlin let’s deal with the skeleton and we’ll fill in the fill in the parts. You know what I mean? We’ll fill in the rest. But to have that starting point is really important. And I think if I would be able to go back, I would dig deeper in some of the literature and it would be non-educational. I would really go back and look at sort of the, the, the thoughts from the business world, how they manage time and how they, how you schedule your day and all those kinds of things. Because I still do that to this day.


Sam Demma (24:11):
Yeah.


Peter Prochilo (24:13):
I don’t know if you’ve seen time-blocking before.


Sam Demma (24:16):
I’m a huge fan.


Peter Prochilo (24:19):
And so I see this.


Sam Demma (24:22):
This is awesome.


Peter Prochilo (24:23):
I have one of these people make fun of me for it. That’s fine. But it’s my it’s my time blocking from five in the morning, till midnight. And what are my top priorities? What are my secondary priorities? And then a certain light rain.


Sam Demma (24:40):
Where did you grab the idea from originally?


Peter Prochilo (24:43):
There was a couple that floated around one strong Elon Musk that uses something similar. And then there were a few versions online and I just modified what I saw to fit, to fit. What’s going to work for me, but that’s what I mean by a skeleton. Right. So if I had something like that, when I started, that’d be number one, you know, searching for those elements that help you organize yourself and stay consistent. That’s the first, the second thing I would tell myself is don’t take yourself too serious. Yeah. Have a little, and I did have fun. Like, don’t get me wrong. There’s my stories are pretty hilarious from when I started teaching, you know, I had fun, I had fun with colleagues. I had fun working with students got involved. You know, I coached, I did some after-school group. Like we did a, I did a bunch of things, but not to take yourself seriously and just really enjoy where you are in that moment. Don’t think ahead too far.


Sam Demma (25:44):
I love that that’s, those are awesome pieces of advice. And you got me thinking again about the organizational techniques and tactics and ideas. Have you read any books that have been foundational in terms of your self-leadership stuff that you think you should, you know, would be valuable for another educator to check out or read or listen to?


Peter Prochilo (26:02):
Well, my experience has been fairly unique well in Ontario, because it’s always been through Catholic schools. I got in counted organization. And so I’ve always taken the Ignation view. So that’s been sort of my guidepost, spiritually and organizationally. Right. And so I really that kind of did that on my own for awhile. Yeah. Seeing that ignition thought. And then the concept of servant leadership really came forward in a boat 15 years ago, perhaps. Nice to forefront in terms of what, you know, green leaf had a whole series on servant leadership. And that was sort of the solidifying moment where it was, oh, this is a thing it’s not just something that’s rattling around in my head.


Peter Prochilo (27:01):
And and then just, you know, reading as much as I could about that and, and sort of identifying the items that I, the things that I already do, and then looking at what else I can incorporate, you can incorporate everything because you, you know, this is year 30 for me in education, 30, 31. So you know, educators take, you never abandoned the good stuff, right? Like it’s like a snowball, right. You start off with your core beliefs and then this comes along, right? This, this new thought, this new approach and you incorporate it into what you’re already doing, but you never let go of what’s at your core is getting bigger. But that in the center is still the center, still the center. Right. And you, you all, you pick up the great things and you know, some things go by the wayside, but you’re always, you’re always developing. You’re always adding to that core.


Sam Demma (27:58):
Love that. Awesome. Well, this has been a very awesome conversation. I really appreciate you taking some time to come on the show and share some of your philosophies, resources, stories it’s been. Yeah. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you. If, if there’s another educator listening right now who feels a little inspired or just wants to, you know, reach out will be the best way for them to get in touch with you.


Peter Prochilo (28:21):
Probably just through, email’s probably the easiest at this point. And I can share that with you, if you want me to, to share.


Sam Demma (28:28):
Sure. You can actually say it now, or I can put it in the show notes of the episode as well.


Peter Prochilo (28:32):
Yeah. So it’s just peter.prochilo@sudburycatholicschools.ca.


Sam Demma (28:45):
Awesome. Peter again, thank you so much. This has been great.


Peter Prochilo (28:47):
It’s been great. Thank you for the opportunity. It’s been great talking to you and I look forward to listening to the rest of your series.


Sam Demma (28:57):
Now 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. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Peter Prochilo

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.

November 12, 2021 by Principals Student Leadership Superintendent Teachers 0

Eric Windeler – Founder & Executive Director of Jack.org

Eric Windeler Founder and Executive Director of Jack.org
About Eric Windeler

Eric (@EricWindeler) started Jack.org with his wife Sandra Hanington and their closest friends in May 2010 after losing their son Jack to suicide. Since then, Eric has put aside his business interests and leads Jack.org full-time. Eric works tirelessly to inspire discussion about mental health, especially among young people. In 2013, Eric received the Champion of Mental Health award from CAMIMH and the QE Diamond Jubilee Medal.

In 2015, Eric was honoured by Queen’s University, receiving an honorary degree (LLD) recognizing his work in the field of mental health. In 2017, Eric and Sandra Hanington received the Meritorious Service Cross (Civil Division) from the office of the Governor-General. Most recently, Eric was selected as one of the 150 CAMH Difference Makers for mental health in Canada. Eric is also the recipient of the 2018 Queen’s Alumni Humanitarian of the Year Award and the 2020 Ontario Psychiatric Association’s Mental Health Advocate of the Year Award. Eric sits on the board of Frayme, a youth mental health best practices charity.

Connect with Eric: Email | Twitter | Linkedin | Website | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

www.bethere.org

Jack Chapters

Jack Talks

Jack Summits

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):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want to network with like-minded individuals and meet other high-performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and other special opportunities that will come out throughout 2021. I promise you I will not fill your inbox. You might get one email a month. If that sounds interesting. Go to www dot high-performing educator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the high-performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Eric Windeler. Eric started jack.org with his wife, Sandra Hanington and their closest friends in May, 2010 after losing their son Jack to suicide. Since then, Eric has put aside his business interests and leads jack.org. Full-Time. Eric works tirelessly to inspire discussions about mental health, especially among young people.


Sam Demma (01:10):
In 2013, Eric received the champion of mental health award from CAMH and the QE diamond Jubilee medal. In 2015, Eric was honored by Queens university receiving an honorary degree, recognizing his work in the field of mental health. Eric and his wife, Sandra have been acknowledged and recognized by the office of the governor general. Eric was selected as one of the 150 CAMH different makers in mental health in all throughout Canada. He was the recipient of the 2018 Queens alumni, humanitarian of the year award and the 2020 Ontario psychiatric associations, mental health advocate of the year award. Everything that Eric and his wife, Sandra and the entire team at jack.org do is helping to create the future of mental health in Canada. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Eric. It’s filled with actionable ideas and resources to start mental health conversations in your schools. We’ll see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (02:11):
Eric, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today.


Eric Windeler (02:18):
Yeah, it’s my honor, Sam, to have talked with you before and seen you in action and just a real pleasure to be here and represent our work at checkout over. So thank you.


Sam Demma (02:28):
Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and maybe sharing a little bit about your upbringing and what brought you to where you are today?


Eric Windeler (02:34):
Sure. So you know, I’m an old guy, not like you Sam. Ive been around for awhile. I often say, you know, kind of start with humble beginnings to come from a large family. My dad was from a very rural part of Nova Scotia. My mom was from Cape Breton and my dad had six brothers and sisters and I have five brothers and said, I’m sorry, he had five brothers and sisters. I do too. So so grew up with a big family. I was the second youngest and we were at Halifax when I was born, but we, we did move all over the country. So live for Halifax for a while. Then in Calgary then just outside of Ottawa, you probably have heard of Canasta. It was just a, you know, just a little tiny suburb, but those times it’s grown now.


Eric Windeler (03:23):
And then back to Halifax for high school. And then I went on to Queens university. That was, that was in the time that was sort of a little bit you know reaching because you may not remember this, but Ontario used to have grade 13, but most of the rest of the country didn’t sound. So you know, I arrived having you know, gone through grade 12 and I did fine. And but everybody else sort of had one more year and they had, some of them had taken pre-calculus and things like that. But so first year it was a little challenging for me at university, but I caught up and then I went on to I did business school eCommerce at Queens, and then I always had the desire to be an entrepreneur.


Eric Windeler (04:10):
My dad always told me about how he wished he had tried to start something. And so I had a paper route when I was like 11 years old. And then I started a little paint contracting company when I was in high school. And so I worked in consulting for four years, right out of university. But then I got involved and started up an automotive firm with, with another fellow. And then we brought in a junior partner and kind of a firm that backed us. And that from that, that that company grew rather large. And that kept me busy until 2003. We sold the business at that point and then got into the software space and that really taught me a lot about that aspect of it. And I mentioned that in particular, because the, the entrepreneurial background, but also the business, you know, getting involved in software and internet related things has really helped our work at jack.org. But I was about seven years into into the software business when we lost my son, Jack, and that really, you know, appended and changed my, my life that was in March of 2010.


Sam Demma (05:24):
Wow. Let’s, let’s, let’s explore the startup jack.org for a second. So, you know, Jack passes away, what did the weeks, months, years, you know, immediately after the event, like, like how did that all lead up to jack.org starting?


Eric Windeler (05:40):
Yeah. Well, thanks for asking that. And it’s, it’s heavy. Obviously we, we didn’t even know my son Jack was struggling. I often say, you know, intellectually, it took after my, my wife, because he did great in school. He actually streamed gifted no trouble getting into his university of choice, which happened to be Queens university. And and yet you may know this, but these transition years, age 15 to 24, roughly where jack.org focuses that’s the time of about 75% of the onset of mental illness. So, you know, back in 2010 people, weren’t really weren’t really talking too much about mental health. It was just getting going. And frankly, we weren’t talking about it as a family and we didn’t even know he was struggling. And I’m assuming he was feeling very bad about the fact that he couldn’t go to class class and, and was probably going to lose this year, et cetera.


Eric Windeler (06:35):
And, you know, then we got a call from a police officer. So unfortunately you know, our tragic story is they found him in his residence room. He had died by suicide and it’s devastating for any family as you can appreciate and you know, to lose, to lose a young person in any way, shape or form, but, but straight out of the blue like that. But, you know, I often say as we, as we started to pick ourselves up, we started to look into it. And I feel very fortunate that my co-founder Sandra Hannington, my wife, and a really close family, friends were kind of behind me to kind of look into it. And Sandra and I made a significant Memorial donation to kids help phone in Jack’s memory, you know, just thinking that would do some good, but that led to me not going back to my business career.


Eric Windeler (07:32):
But I actually you know, every day I went to the kids help phone office as a volunteer and we, we decided, and they were really, really helpful in guiding me to think through this, to not just plunge in and do something, but to really do a landscape scan and see what was going on out there and find out where we could really make a difference. And so that pilot study led to what has become the jack.org model. We found out that young people were both at the highest risk, but really being left out of this mental health conversation. So that has led to so for two years of our kids help phone, we, at that time, we were called the Jack project at kids help phone. Cause we were technically a project we weren’t a charity.


Eric Windeler (08:21):
And then we tested our model by shifting our funds and our initiative to Queens university. And the young leaders there supported our work to reach out to young people all across the country. And then we said, no, we’ve got something here. So and we had raised quite a bit of money by then. So we we started we did the application process. You, you actually incorporate, and then you apply to be a chair of a charity. And because we had done all that, pre-work with kids help phone and Queens, we got our charitable status literally in less than 60 days, which is a is a bit of a record. And and we’ve been growing ever since. So it was very, very critical and we still work closely with kids help phone, but to get the guidance of that organization.


Eric Windeler (09:10):
And then the support at Queens to help us launch as an independent charity and you know, fast forward to today, we have over 60 staff and there’s about 3000 young people who volunteer in our programs because we are all about engaging young people and using what we call a peer to peer model of it, upstream education of young people to really help them you know learn about the mental health situation that they may face, or one of their friends or family, you know, brothers and sister may face you know, learn about resources. And it has the effect of both reducing stigma and increasing help seeking, you know, so to, to make it personal again for a moment you know, Jack received none of that type of training, nor did the residents dawns or the students on his floor.


Eric Windeler (10:03):
So they didn’t know how to reach out to support, nor did he know how to reach out for, for assistance. And you know, it, it kind of reminds me of a study that was done I think about 2016. And at that time 53% of young people were having their first interaction with the mental health system when they were in crisis. And so they were taken to an emergency room and, you know, probably, you know, or having suicidal thoughts, et cetera, and you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to have your first interaction in that kind of situation you want to you wanna, you know, learn about mental health, learn how to build your own coping mechanisms and figure out where you can get more of what we call community care. That is more appropriate because we also have learned that if you get help early the outcomes are very good.


Eric Windeler (10:57):
So we feel that if we had, if we had known enough to talk to Jack about it, if those around him who were at, you know, seeing his change in behavior had known we more, more than likely would have had a much different outcome. Yes, he may have lost a year of school, but we would have figured out a way to get him some support and, and you know, once a year in a long lifetime, right. You know, it’s almost just like taking a gap year. So unfortunately that didn’t happen for us, but we’re committed to, to helping other young people and communities all over Canada with our work and happy to explain more, if you’d like to know more about about the work we do.


Sam Demma (11:37):
Absolutely. this is phenomenal. I was actually going to start by asking you, can you clarify for everyone listening, what mental health actually is? Because I feel like sometimes there is still this idea that it’s, you know, mental health is having a, a challenge or a mental problem. And it’s like, no, I think mental health is something we all experience. So what is like the jack.org view on mental health?


Eric Windeler (12:00):
I will, I’ll, I’ll just qualify that by saying, you know, I am an advocate okay. With a business background and yes, I’ve been in the space for 11 years, but I’m not a trained psychiatrist, but what I have learned is we all have mental health, just like you alluded to, you know, we all can have good days and bad days. But at least one in five of us will live with a mental illness and people often, you know, conflate or confuse those terms. You know, like someone will say, oh, that person has a mental health. I mean, it’s just wrong. And that person may live with a mental illness. So it’s really on a spectrum and this actually happens in our Jack talks. We teach the youth audience about the spectrum of, of, you know, from healthy to struggling from you know, all and all about how you may be in, in, you’re not in one place all the time.


Eric Windeler (12:59):
And what’s really interesting about mental health and mental illness is you can actually live with a mental illness, a diagnosable mental illness, but you, if you have the right care and that may, in some cases be talk therapy, it may be your own you know toolkit that you’ve built to take care of your own mental health and maybe medication, et cetera. But you can, you can actually thrive. And the flip side of that is you can really struggle if you, if you’re not taking care of your mental health appropriately, even though you might not have a diagnosable mental illness. And you know, I’ve come across so many young people in our, in our journey that have, have learned how to take care of their mental health. And they may have even been in a place previously where they were actually hospitalized, but they’ve learned how to take care of their mental health if got the appropriate care.


Eric Windeler (13:53):
And now they’re doing just great. And many of our young leaders in our network are amongst them because they, they also get a benefit of giving back. And that really, you know, I’ll say it’s really helped me in our family to be open about this and to help others. It, it, it has a payback in, I always see the same thing with our young leaders that when they’re helping their peers it really also helps them you know, in their journey as well. I don’t know if that totally answers your question, Sam, but, but people should really understand we all have mental health and some of us live with a mental illness that is at a diagnosable level, but in any event, we all should be learning how to recognize those signs and symptoms and learn how to take care of our own mental health and do our best to support those around us ourselves, but also to help them navigate to to the appropriate care. Should they need it?


Sam Demma (14:51):
You alluded to a couple of things I want to go a little deeper on. You talked about Jack talks. So what is a, or what is it, what is Jack toxin? Yeah. Tell, tell me more about that. Why you think it’s so important and how it’s been going so far in the schools that you’re affected.


Eric Windeler (15:06):
So as an authentic youth engagement youth leadership charity, we have always developed our programmatic work by listening to young people and and incorporating, you know, what they what they wanted to see and bringing their voice to the table. So very early on in the process, it was actually in March, 2013, we had our first national what we call Jack summit. So it was a national conference where we had at that time 200 youth speakers or not youth speakers, young people from every province and territory brought them to Toronto for a conference. And I distinctly remember two things that I’ll share with you. One was that a lovely young person who was giving a speech and sharing her story on stage was actually telling her story in a way that triggered the audience. And it was in such a way that several of the audience members left the room.


Eric Windeler (16:05):
They were, it, it was upsetting to them. And so we learned from that experience, but a lot of the youth started telling us, we’d like to learn how to share our story, but I’m not trying to blame that young woman, but not like that. We want to do it in a safe and appropriate way. So we did the research and have followed the evidence and ever since then, our Jack talks program has existed in evolve each year. So in short, a Jack talk is a peer to peer mental health education. Each, each summer, we train about 150 young people who volunteer to go through about 50 hours of public speaking training. And remember Sam, not, not all young people are naturals like yourself.


Eric Windeler (16:53):
I didn’t know you had that technology, but I’m serious about that. You know, I happen to be fairly comfortable with public speaking when I was your age. And, you know did, did some talks and that sort of thing, but not everybody is, but we take them through public speaking and teach them how to learn how to safely and in a hopeful way share their mental health story. So a typical Jack talk is delivered by two of these trained and certified youth speakers. They each share their story, which is a small part of this hour long presentation, but they also educate youth all about mental health and how to recognize those signs and symptoms and how to support people. And overall, it’s just a very engaging way. You can imagine. In typical times, two youth speakers up on the stage of a high school auditorium.


Eric Windeler (17:49):
It’s very engaging for those youth to, to, to to learn about mental health from their peers. It’s way more impactful than, you know, an old guy like me preaching at them, or even a physician preaching at them that peer-to-peer is known to be a very effective way to transfer that information. So this year actually starting last year, we had to pivot our JAG talks and now we do them in digital format. And soon we hope we’ll be returning to both in-person talks and we’ll continue the digital format. So we actually provide schools and school boards with options. They can either share like a personal Jack talk, which a young person could watch on their own time. We also have a classroom addition that the teacher can take their classroom through. And we also offer livestream Jack talks.


Eric Windeler (18:44):
So some schools or communities might prefer them to be delivered in this format over, over zoom or another platform where they, they are alive. And we do a whole number of other things related to that other workshops, et cetera. And we’re continually evolving the program because we evaluated each year and we evolve at each year to, to be that much better. But you know, it’s, it’s an incredible way to, and it’s just one of, one of our key programs that really kind of opens the door and gets a young people, more aware of mental health and and, you know, starts them on that journey of learning. We have lots of ambitions about how we’ll get into things like curriculum development and so on, but, but that was the very first program that started.


Sam Demma (19:34):
That’s amazing. And, you know, you mentioned the impact of peer to peer, and when you’re in high school, a lot of interactions with mental health and mental illness, hopefully, you know, are seen between friends and groups of friends, and maybe you have a friend that’s struggling. I remember when I was in high school, we had one friend who’s struggled a lot, and we all tried to be there for that person. And sometimes you’re not sure, you know, how to be there for the person. What the correct thing to do is you don’t want to do the wrong thing. And I know that, you know, jack.org and you and the team have put together an incredible resource that not only teaches you how to be there, but it takes you through, you know, what you need to do and how to identify, you know, the situation. And can you talk a little bit about that resource and share what inspired the creation of it and the impact it’s having today?


Eric Windeler (20:20):
Yeah. And that’s, that’s one of our four key programmatic pillars. And you use the words be there. That’s exactly what young people started saying to us. And again, it was back about four years ago as, as their audiences of the, of the JAG chapters and the JAG talks you know, it was making young people more comfortable disclosing what they’re going through to each other. So many of our young leaders started saying we need some additional training for how to be there for, for our peers. And so again, we started with, you know, like we were taught back in the early day, we started with a landscape scan to see what was out there. And we couldn’t find either nationally or globally anything that was really engaging and also relevant for young people. There’s other good programs. I’m not trying to discredit them, but there was a real opportunity for us to make a contribution here.


Eric Windeler (21:18):
So we put out a request to our funders and literally in about three months raised about 600,000. And I only mentioned that because we didn’t sort of build this off the side of our desk in 15 minutes. It was a very thoughtful process to see what was out there, do the evidence. And we landed on something, we call the five golden rules, which, which help you learn about mental health recognize signs and symptoms, and, and learn how to kind of weigh into these difficult conversations and to do so in a way that also protects your own mental health on the way. So that digital resource, which is called, be there, and it’s at our, we only have two websites, jack.org, and be there.org. It’s a free available website. It’s been, it’s been used by over 800,000 young people to date in just over two years.


Eric Windeler (22:13):
And we’re really excited about the next phase of be there because it’s a, it’s a resource and that you can go and check out, but a lot of young people frankly, would go and quickly check it out, might spend five or 10 minutes on the site, but to learn all the content you need several hours. And so we’re developing what we’re calling a B their certificate program. And this is really for people like residents dawns. So they, you know, that their employer, the university could say, you know, we don’t want you to just check out that site. We want you to learn all this content. And we’re partnered with a us foundation. I think I told you on our warmup call, it’s their founders, a little better known than me lady Gaga and her mother founded born this way foundation.


Eric Windeler (23:02):
And they reached out to us when the pandemic hit and asked if they could get involved with the meta resource. And at that time it was just the regular, resouce. bethere.org. But they’re helping us fund, we’re doing the development work, but they’re helping us fund and they will be spreading the, be their certificate program across the U S while we’re doing it here across Canada. And we’re really excited about that. And looking forward to launch that in early 20, 22, so another, you know, five or six months. So that’s the resource and it’s, it’s not just for young people to help other young people. It’s really for anybody who wants to learn how to support a young person in their life. And you know, not everybody is as passionate about mental health as our young leaders. And I know you have a big passion for it, Sam, but if they know about it and they see one of their friends struggling, it’s a place they can go and learn how to, you know, weigh into those difficult conversations. So it’s made up of a bunch of engaging videos of really storytelling of how one, you know maybe one friend was there for his or her friend how a parent was there for their or their child. You know, how you know how one, one peer can support another. So, thanks for asking about that.


Sam Demma (24:26):
It’s a phenomenal resource. And I enjoyed hearing about it the first time we chatted and I thought it would be something worth highlighting and sharing as well. Those were, those were the two of the four pillars. So now we’ve talked about Jack talks, we’ve talked about be there, you mentioned there being four key pillars. What are the other two? And can you speak on those very briefly as well?


Eric Windeler (24:45):
Absolutely. So the, the next program after Jack talks is something called Jack chapters. So these are youth led groups at high schools, colleges, universities, and in community settings. And now they exist all over the country and every province and territory. And you know, it probably makes sense to you that if you just do one Jack talk and then the school does nothing else, period, things just sort of settle back to normal. And that’s why, you know you know, we have the vision of creating more content and more curriculum down the road. And we’re in the early stages of planning that, but chapters are a way that a youth led group conform at one of these schools or in one of these communities and kind of keep that conversation going all year long. So a typical job chapter, and there’s, there’s about 250 of them.


Eric Windeler (25:41):
It has been the most difficult program to operate during the pandemic. So a little under 200 of them have been very active during the pandemic, but at a lot of schools and some of the harder hit areas extracurricular activities have just been put on hold. But they’re really trying to share share resources, share engagements in a typical time, they’ll get together with, with peers, you know, and it could be a sporting based event. It could be an art based event. We try to reach out to different parts of the community, and then we’ve the importance of mental health into those conversations. So it’s we’re, it often call it the real core because yes, it’s great that we have, you know, 250 chapters, but there’s over 3000 high schools in Canada, Sam. So we really need to expand that program. And it is so fantastic to see what many of these chapters have done.


Eric Windeler (26:38):
And we now are evolving the program so we can have what we call sort of low and high engagement chapters. So some of the chapters do just fun little initiatives to kind of get the awareness going lower stigma. Some of the more advanced, mainly post-secondary chapters are doing some very sophisticated things. We have now a youth informed campus assessment tool, for example. So they actually learn how to partner with our administration, do a landscape scan on their campus and really interview students about the resources that are on campus. Do you know about it? Does it work for you what could what’s missing, et cetera, and that underpinned some of their advocacy work to have a kind of an evidence-based informed way of, of advocating for, you know, better services you know, in their, their school or in their community.


Eric Windeler (27:32):
So that’s the Jack chapters program the file program actually maybe I should have started with that because it actually came first and that’s called the Jack’s summit program. So these are you know, we’re trying to reach a very broad audience, but we do have these young leaders in our network and the Jack summits are a way to bring together these young leaders to train them really connect them to one another, let them learn from one another, have collaboration sessions, bring in expert speakers, et cetera. And this year there’s about I think about 25 of these summits across the country. Obviously sadly, they all had to be virtual this year, but that program has worked very well virtually. So we have the national Jack summit, as I alluded to earlier, we have six large regional Jack summits one in BC, one in the far north with students from all three territories involved one in the Prairie’s one in Ontario, one a Francophone one that I used to say was based in Quebec, but it’s really just for any Francophone students, cause there’s many Francophone students outside of Quebec.


Eric Windeler (28:43):
And then there’s one in Atlantic, Canada, and then the local Jackson mitts are smaller events where like one high school may invite the student leaders from the neighboring high schools. And they’ll have a smaller event really focused on their, their community, wherever that might be. So that’s the four programs talks chapter summits, and then the digital resource be there. We do a lot of other things, but I think that’s you know, that that will be the, a good summary for your amazing audience.


Sam Demma (29:13):
I never forget after we first connected and I asked you for more information and you sent me over the email with documentaries and videos and programs, and it was like a never ending resource. That’s what it felt like when I opened it. And it just so cool to see how many things are getting done behind the scenes that soon will no longer be behind the scenes. And yeah, I, I just, I can’t wait to see the continued impact. What personally keeps you motivated? Like what personally keeps you motivated and hopeful to continue doing this work?


Eric Windeler (29:48):
Well, it’s you know, often put it in another way. I’d say I’m incredibly, obviously we had a tragedy which got this all started, but I’m incredibly fortunate. And I, I, I would wish for others who are in the later stages of their career to have an opportunity to give back. So just giving back period is a very motivating thing. But you know, I had a successful business career and all I could really say was, well, we created lots of jobs and that is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. But this is truly helping people and, and in many respects changing the trajectory of their life. And in some cases, you know, we don’t have, I can’t point to exact evidence, but, but you know, it is a public health initiative and we kind of think, you know, if you, I may have used this analogy when we spoke earlier, but if you can help somebody learn not to start smoking you can probably have an impact on the health of them, their physical health later in life.


Eric Windeler (30:51):
And it’s the same with mental health. If you can provide that knowledge upstream, you will change the trajectory. And yes, suicide remains the the leading health-related cause of death of young people, which is completely unacceptable. But it’s still a fairly you know, it’s not happening it’s happening far too often, but it’s, it’s fairly infrequent, but it’s just a marker for the amount of struggle that is out there. And if you think about, you know, living with a mental illness and, you know, you’re having trouble getting out of bed, you can’t go to class, you can’t maintain employment, you can’t do relationships. There’s also a huge payback to, to the economy by, by letting young people sort of perform at their best. Because then they’re going to be gainfully employed. They’re going to be paying taxes, all those sorts of things, their, their relationships will be better. Their schooling will be better. So it’s tremendously satisfying. I’ve frankly never worked harder, but never never also wanted to work harder than this it’s, it’s, it’s been very gratifying to be involved in. And we’re so grateful for the supportive community that we’ve created not only of young people, but of, you know, donors and sponsors and volunteers who support that work that we do to allow it to happen.


Sam Demma (32:18):
Amazing. That’s awesome. And I can’t, yeah, I can’t wait for the future and to continue to see the impact and the implementation of the pillars and the curriculum as well. I think it’d be so cool if there was a mental health class in every high school, maybe that’s something that you guys are working with.


Eric Windeler (32:33):
It’s kind of hard to believe that there isn’t, when you thinkbout it, it doesn’t make sense. You know, it’s interesting, we’ve started discussing things cause there are curriculum organizations. And so we’re, we’re thinking about how we might, we’ve been in touch with a few of them, how we might either partner with those kinds of organizations, because frankly they don’t have much expertise in mental health. And we think we would be very well positioned to you know, I have a bit of a vision. I’m probably talking a little out of turn, but to pilot that with a school board or ideally a provincial ministry and really test it. But, but you know, definitely, there should be, there should be some mental health basics even before high school, but by the time you get to high school, there should be a content because we’re reaching lots of young people, hundreds of thousands of young people, but we’re not reaching every school in every community. And you should learn about something this important to your life, just like you should learn how to read and write and do arithmetic, you know, and it will be there. It will, it will happen. And we’ve got a lot of the content that will help inform that and be part of it. So that’s part of the big plans that are out there. It’s just a matter of when, right? It’s not what just as a one. But this has been a great conversation, Eric, thank you so much for taking some time to chat about jack.org, the pillars, what you’re working on. You know, the view on mental health, how it differs from mental illness and just the whole conversation.

Sam Demma (33:19):
I hope that now you listening right now, taking something valuable away from this. And if you want to get in touch with Eric, Eric, please share how an educator can reach out or get ahold of you guys.


Eric Windeler (34:18):
Well, I mentioned earlier, obviously, we have two websites to check out, jack.org, and bethere.org. There’s, there’s a way you can reach out generically to the organization. And we monitor that, that it’s, it’s we call it the whole inbox. It’s just hello@jack.org. But you can also, for example, a great way for schools or educators to start is with a Jack talk. And, you know, you can just go to jack.org/talks and it lays out, you know, if you’d like to arrange a talk, there’s a way you can get in touch with us there. We, we are on socials quite active and I would say disproportionately active for a mental health organization. We have bigger followings than most. We’re at, we’re at jack.org, but it’s spelled out its jackdotorg on most platforms, but probably most active on, on Instagram because that’s where a lot of young people are.


Eric Windeler (35:17):
One of our interns this summer got us just barely kicked off on TikTok. We’ve always been active obviously on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. But Instagram is probably the quick way to start. I’m at Eric Windeler. But so if people wanted to reach out by socials, they could do that. I’m easy to find online eric@jack.org. So you know, obviously I don’t necessarily, can’t keep up with a thousand emails, but I’d love to hear from educators and I would guide them to the right person on the team, for more information. So thanks, for offering that up to Sam.


Sam Demma (35:55):
Again, Eric, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you, keep up the great work it’s very needed. And I look forward to talking to you again soon.


Eric Windeler (36:02):
Absolutely. Sam, just a pleasure and thanks again and congrats again for the amazing grad talk you gave, I really found that incredible.


Sam Demma (36:13):
And there you have it, another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high-performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoyed 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. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Eric Windeler

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.

November 10, 2021 by Experiential Learning Founder and CEO President Student Leadership 0

Melissa Wright – New Brunswick Student Leadership Association President

Melissa Wright New Brunswick Student Leadership Association President
About Melissa Wright

Melissa Wright (@WrightMelissa_)is a passionate educator and speaker that is driven to help schools create a place where students belong and everyone feels like they matter. Melissa is also the president of the New Brunswick Student Leadership Association President.

By sharing ideas that work in her school, she helps educators and students see they can improve their culture and climate. She is known for her passion and desire to see students succeed, and find their inner leader.

Connect with Melissa: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Kennebascis Valley High School

Jostens Renaissance Program

www.melissawright.ca

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):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today we have on a very special guest. Her name is Melissa Wright. She is a passionate educator and speaker that is driven to help schools create a place where students can belong. And everyone feels like they matter by sharing ideas that work in her school. She helps educators and students see they can improve their culture and school climate. She is known for her passion and desire to see students succeed and find their own inner leader. Along with all this, Melissa is also the new Brunswick student leadership association president. And on today’s episode, she has so many unique ideas and inspiring moments to share. I hope you enjoy it. Let’s get in with the interview, Melissa. Thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educator podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you here. We were just talking about some salsa and bachata and dancing early morning. Can you share with the audience who you are and why you got into the work that you do with youth today?


Melissa Wright (01:08):
Yeah. Thanks so much, Sam, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you’re doing this. I’m so kudos to you. But yeah, a little bit about me. I’m a high school educator at Kennebascis Valley High School. This is year 16. I’ve been fortunate enough to have my whole career here and I mostly teach math, but I also have a local option of dance. So that’s super fun to teach because, you know, we do classical styles like tap and jazz, but then we also have a vice principal in our school that had learned but shadow from a previous relationship. And I had never done that style before. So he taught me and then we taught it to the class. So now he comes in and guest teaches that.


Melissa Wright (01:47):
So that’s a super fun class, but you know, it’s so great every day to be able to come and do something that you love. You know, I got into teaching because of dance. So when I was about 13 or so, I started assisting at my local dance school. And then by the time I was 16, I was teaching classes on my own. So that’s where I fell in love with teaching. And then, you know, I love math as well in school. So I said, well, I’ll become a teacher. And then once I became a teacher saw that, Hey, there’s an opportunity. You can write your own curriculum because in new Brunswick don’t have a dance course it’s written by the province. So I took that opportunity to, to write that and got it approved. So it’s great that we, that we have that here, but also part of what I do in love is, is student leadership as well.


Melissa Wright (02:30):
So when I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to have an educator and she always gets embarrassed every time I say this, but Heather Malco was my student council advisor in high school. And she really, really inspired me to be a teacher and pushed me to be the best version of myself. I could be. She was my, she taught me French in grade 10, but she was my student council advisor in high school. And, you know, it’s just amazing that she got me into that and pushed me to go through that. And we now work together, actually the pneumonic student leadership association. So it’s come completely full circle. And you know, it’s so great to have those people that inspire you to do those things that you know, that you love and that they sometimes can see in you that you can’t see in yourself.


Sam Demma (03:14):
I love that. That’s amazing. I have a similar story with the educator in my school named Michael loud foot. He just retired, although we don’t stay in touch to this day. So I think it’s awesome. And shout out to Heather and make sure you reach out to her after this and tell her that her name’s on another show. I was reading on your website before this interview that you want an award and your whole, your whole messaging in schools and for students is to help them feel like they matter. And I’m curious to know how do we make students feel like they matter during a time like COVID-19?


Melissa Wright (03:50):
Well, you know, it all comes down to relationships. It really, it really, really does. And, you know, I was fortunate enough when we closed in the spring during COVID that, you know, we’d had some time to build those relationships in the classroom so that the students trust you you know, coming into a new school year, that can be a little bit more difficult if you haven’t taught the students before. But I think it’s the fact of, you know, if they know that you’re there and that’s, you’re supporting them, you know if they have things going on outside of school and they come to you and say, you know, can I have an extra day to write before I have this test? You know, give them some grace, right. Then that’s really going to help them feel comfortable. And the thing of it is we are, we’re finding that so many of our kids with this whole cause we’re a hybrid, right?


Melissa Wright (04:35):
We’re there one day in the classroom and then the next day at home. So they’re getting stressed out about, you know, the workload and that sort of thing. But you know, sometimes we just have to take them aside and say, listen, you know, you have this math assignment, but what’s going on outside of school because this math assignment pales in comparison to perhaps the thing that you have going on in your personal life, or, you know, and I always tell the kids, they always ask me, you know, like, where am I ever gonna use this math? And I said, you know sad as it sounds, you might never learn, need to know how to graph a parabola in your everyday life. But I said, the skills that you use to do that, like grit and perseverance, and you know, this is a challenge and working hard, all of those skills, I guarantee you, you can use in any field that you go into. So I think we need to build those relationships with kids and show them that these skills and the resiliency it’s going to take them to get through this situation. And this school year is going to be something that’s going to stick with them for a lifetime.


Sam Demma (05:34):
Awesome. I love it so much that the social emotional learning side of subjects is not talked about enough and you did a great job just now explaining that. So other educators, if you get that objection by your students, definitely quote Melissa, what did Heather do for you when you were a student that pushed you? Did she tap you on the shoulder and tell you to get involved? What was it that she did if he could travel back in time that lit a fire within you that maybe another educator listening might think, wow, let me try and embody that thing, whatever she did to also light a fire under their, their own students.


Melissa Wright (06:10):
Well, when I first had her, she came into our school when I was in grade 10 and I had her for grade 10 fringe and she was just, she was a young teacher, bubbly personality, full of energy. So obviously, you know, her personality for one I gravitated towards right away. But the second thing was, you know, she, I had been involved in student council in grade nine and you know, I was lucky enough to be involved again in grade 10 and she ended up coming to take over. So, but when it came to grade 12, I was like, oh, you know, maybe cause I’d been a rep in grade 9, 10, 11. I was like, well, you know, maybe I’ll run for an executive position, but you know, I’d be okay with just being grateful type thing. And she’s like, no, you know, Melissa, I think you should run for president.


Melissa Wright (06:52):
So she was kind of the one that just said, you know, like the, what if you take those what ifs and turn them into, you know, I can’t, you know what I mean? So she was the one that said, you know, why don’t you run for president? I said, well, I’ll give it a shot. Cause you know, if I didn’t get elected, then the recollections were after that. Right. So I had a, I had a second chance type thing. So because of her just saying, you know, like, why don’t you do this or try this sometimes it’s just planting that little seed and that idea in a person’s head that makes them think a little differently, that things, wow. Maybe I should take this opportunity.


Sam Demma (07:28):
Yeah. That’s a great point. And I think back to my story as well, and my teacher did the same thing, it was a challenge. He challenged us. I think young people love challenges. They always want to show other people up, especially their teachers. So a little tap on the shoulder. A challenge is a great way to do that. Speaking of challenges during COVID, there has been many, I know you’re doing hybrid learning. Has there been a challenge that you have overcome that you think is worth sharing with another educator? Maybe you had a unique idea to solve a certain problem. And then I’ll ask you a follow-up question about, have you had any students who have been impacted during this time in a major way, and you can change their name if you want, but share a story and it doesn’t have to be during COVID.


Sam Demma (08:09):
It could be in your whole journey of education, share a story of a student who has been deeply impacted by something that’s happened in the school. Because another educator might be starting school this year and this might be their first year teaching and they might be thinking, oh my goodness, like what did I just sign up for? And a story like that might just light a fire in their belly to remember, no, the reason we do this is to change lives. And although it’s tough, we develop that grit and resiliency. So long question, first part share some unique ideas about overcoming COVID challenges. Second part student story changed their name for privacy reasons if you’d like,


Melissa Wright (08:43):
Okay. So yeah, ideas for, for COVID. So when I’m actually, I’m involved here at school, we have what’s called a Renaissance. So it’s all about school, culture and climate. So Jocelyn’s, everybody knows Jocelyn’s further rings in yearbooks. They’re kind of the ones that they don’t like determine what your program is, but they help with resources and that sort of thing. So we’re lucky enough to have the Renaissance team here at the school that I, that I run. And the big thing that we did was to make sure that the kids were still connected. So in those first two weeks, when for here in new Brunswick, when they closed in the spring, the first two weeks were kind of treated like snow days. Everybody was just home. There was no schoolwork, but as the advisor, one of the advisors, I have another advisor, we felt it was still important for us to stay connected to our team.


Melissa Wright (09:33):
So we kept continue to meet virtually, even though we didn’t really know what was going to happen in terms of our events and that sort of thing, we said, okay, we still need to meet with you guys because it’s just a, check-in say, Hey, how you doing? Do you need anything? But then the kids were the ones that said we’d brought in a guest speaker and a fellow educator, friend of mine from Wyoming Bradley Skinner. And he sparked them to say, why can’t we still do what we were going to do, but do it virtually. And I’m like, that’s phenomenal. Let’s do it guys. How do you want to do this? So we did all, like, we still did almost all of our events that we would have in the spring virtually. So we did things like in the springtime, we always do something called Kisa grad goodbye.


Melissa Wright (10:15):
So it’s, it’s quite cute. It’s normally it’s a piece of cardstock with a grad cap on it and people can purchase them for 50 cents. They write who it’s to who it’s from. And then they can write a little note on the back and we stick a Hershey’s kiss to it. So, and we usually deliver it to their homeroom class, but we weren’t physically in the building to do that, but we still want it to be able to have that because that’s become a tradition for our grads that, cause it doesn’t matter what grades you have, you know, how long it’s taken you to get to the finish line. Anybody can get a kiss goodbye. And our advisory teachers love it because it’s very affordable because you have the same kids until they graduate. And it’s a nice little, just a little something that they can that they can get.


Melissa Wright (10:59):
And so we said, well, we have to do it digitally. So we set up a Google form and people filled it out and we thought, you know, we shared it on social media. We thought, okay, you know, teachers will fill that out. Probably some students, but it was amazing because not only teachers and students did it, but there were also, you know, grandparents or aunts or uncles or friends that, you know, they might not even have been coming home for graduation, but they were like had normal time, but they were even still able to send those wishes and congratulations virtually. So the, and then we did the opt to look like they did on the paper copy and we emailed them to all their advisory teachers. And then that way they could send them to them through email or teams or however they can get ahold of them.


Melissa Wright (11:40):
So that was something that became very positive. And because of that, I think now this year we’re still, you know, in the building, we will do it like we normally do on paper, but then there’ll be an option for people to also it virtually, it won’t be as fancy. We won’t do it as fancy because it takes a lot of time, but it’ll still be an option. And I think, you know, it’s something important that we give those options because it’s important to celebrate our grads. It’s important to celebrate our students and our staff. So any way that we can continue to do that even during the, especially during these times is, is gonna make a huge impact. Another thing that we normally do in person is called thank a staff number. And we do this in may because everybody knows that may is a grind and educator.


Melissa Wright (12:26):
It really, really is. Everybody is exhausted and you know, they’re looking towards summer vacation. So what we usually do when we’re in the building is in advisory, people get slips of paper and they can write a nice note about any staff member in the building. It could be teacher custodian, cafeteria worker, you know, office staff, anybody that works here at K VHS and kids are allowed to fill up more than one. So, and the kids were like, well, we still have to do this, especially now because the teachers are working like mega overtime more than they normally would. So same thing, we set up a Google form, people filled it out. And then we even had parents that were filling it out, you know, not just students and teachers for other teachers. And it was just so nice to see the appreciation that everybody had and we thought, okay, so we’ll do these up and email them out.


Melissa Wright (13:16):
But we were lucky that teachers came back, just teachers in new Brunswick came back to the building in June. So as the advisors, we were able to hand deliver those, the teachers and some of them were like, what? This still happened. I didn’t even know. Right. And we make sure that every, every single staff member in the building gets at least one, because if, if there isn’t one for them, then members of our Renaissance team take minute, a few minutes and write one for everybody that doesn’t have one. So, you know, I have, I have stacks of them. I found them when we were home at a stacks in the home, I keep them in my desk. Teachers have told us when they’re having a bad day, they pull out and read those notes. And sometimes they’re not signed. Sometimes they’re anonymous and that’s perfectly fine.


Melissa Wright (13:57):
We tell the kids, you don’t have to put your name on it if you don’t want to, but if you want to that’s good. And there’s one other idea I’m going to share with you. And that leads into my student story. So we always do something in the spring called Crusader champion and what that is. It’s a ceremony to recognize students that have made improvement in their attendance, their their behavior or their attendance. So students are nominated by their teachers to come. So we have a population of approximately 1100 students. And the last one that we did in-person we were at about 120 kids. So that’s over 10% of our population got nominated to go to this, which was amazing. So, and they, so they get an invitation in their homeroom class and they don’t know. It just says, you’re invited on this date to the mini gym at this time to be celebrated as a Crusader champion.


Melissa Wright (14:45):
And the kids are like, I thought after 15 years they would start to catch on. They always forget. It’s okay though. So they get the little card and they get to get out a third period class. And they, they love that part, first of all, but they have to have the invitation to show their teacher and to give it to us when they come to the ceremony. So they come to the ceremony and they get free lunch and there’s, you know, door prizes that we draw for, but they also get a bunch of swag. So our parents school support committee sports, we have a little rewards card and they’re the only kids that get that for that month in the school. And there’s six spaces on it. So there’s two that are one more day on a homework assignment, pretty simple. Two of them are best seat in the house.


Melissa Wright (15:24):
So they get to choose where they sit for that class. Most of the time in my class, if they use it, they get, take my teacher comfy chair to their desk. That’s usually what happens, but in the middle of the two in the middle are the favorite. So there’s one, that’s a fi it’s just a five minute break away so they can leave one class five minutes early. But the other one, which is the most coveted square on that card, and I’ve actually had kids try to get their cards early because of it it’s called a KD quick pass because the church at the top of the hill, every Wednesday serves free craft dinner for our whole school population for anybody that wants to come. So after third period, it is a mad rush to get up that hill, get Kraft dinner, like the beat the line.


Melissa Wright (16:07):
So if they have that one space, they get to leave once on a Wednesday, five minutes early to beat the rush. Now, unfortunately this year because of COVID, the church is not doing craft dinner, but we’re hoping that eventually we’ll be able be able to get back to that. And then there’s usually, you know, swag from, we have sponsors like dairy queen gives us gift certificates and that sort of thing that we give them. And then usually there’s some sort of cavies way, whether it’s a t-shirt or a bag or a water bottle or something like that. But they’re kind of when they come into that ceremony, like the deer in the headlights thing, cause one year they walked in and our superintendent was there and a bunch of officials from district office and they were kind of like what’s going on here. So, but when they, when they find out why they’re there and that a teacher has nominated them to be there, it completely changes everything.


Melissa Wright (16:51):
You just see the smiles, you know, on their faces and we, and the wonderful thing about that ceremony, it doesn’t matter what your academics are. Right. You know, teachers just want to nominate you for your improvement. Right. We’ve had all different kinds of students there, you know, from students, you know, special needs students to our we’ve had high academic Florence, but we’ve also had those kids that are the middle of the road, you know, that are working their tail off, making an improvement little by little. But yeah, like I was saying that that leads into my story and I will change the student’s name for privacy. And where’s the student probably, oh gosh, probably three years ago now. And we’ll just call him John. And he, he was having, he was having a rough go. So I had him, I had him first semester in math and his mom came in.


Melissa Wright (17:35):
She said, you know, for me, the teacher, I’m very worried about him. And when I said, you know, don’t worry, we’ll do whatever we can to help them to try to get through. And so the semester came and his attendance wasn’t that great. But when he was in the classroom, like he worked hard, but he wasn’t a behavior problem, but he just missed a lot of time. And so, and you miss so much that, unfortunately he wasn’t going to get the course, but he still came and he wrote the exam and he wrote a note on the exam. You said, you’ll see, I’ll do better next semester. Cause you knew I had the repeater class. So second semester came, he was doing great. He had like 85 working hard. And then one day he came into class and something just seemed off, you know, how you can tell when one of your friends or something that just seems something’s off.


Melissa Wright (18:24):
So I said, you know what, I’m going to call mom and do a positive phone call. So I called her and I said, hello, this is Mrs. Wright calling from KVA. Jess, do you have a moment to talk? Oh yes. Just a second. You can hear like running down a hallway and she’s like, okay, I’m somewhere quiet is everything. Okay. And I said, everything is wonderful. I’m just calling to let you know how proud I am of John and the work he’s doing. And you know, when the improvement and the turnaround that he’s made, and she said, you do not know how much this phone call means to me today. She said, this weekend, John saw his father for the last time. You will not see his dad again. And she said, you know, we’re in the process of selling our house. And this morning, you know, when he went to leave for school, there was a big kerfuffle and he couldn’t find his cell phone.


Melissa Wright (19:11):
She said the things that you guys have done for him, like, cause when they go to that Crusader champion, he had been invited there, they get a certificate. She said, he’s a grade 11 boy. He came home and put that certificate on the fridge. He said he didn’t even do that in elementary school. So we never know what impact, like it was a, it was a piece of paper that we photocopied a slice of pizza at a lunch ceremony. You know what I mean? And our little rewards card, but we don’t, to us, it seems so insignificant. But to that kid, it was everything right. You, you don’t realize the impact sometimes your ha having. And sometimes we don’t hear those types of stories, but when we do, man, those are the little golden nuggets that you, that you have to hold on to. Wow.


Sam Demma (19:59):
A phone call,


Melissa Wright (20:00):
Just a phone call, one simple phone call.


Sam Demma (20:04):
That’s so amazing. And I think even just thinking about most calls home are for negative news. Changing that script and doing, doing a positive phone call can make a huge impact as well. And that’s an amazing story. And for anyone listening, who’s just getting into education. Those stories happen. I spoke to dozens of educators on this show. Melissa is not an anomaly. That’s a great story. But you’re going to change lives. It’s, it’s, it’s a part of this job. You’re not just a teacher, you’re a mentor. You’re sometimes a perinatal figure to some students. I would even believe in a certain to a certain degree and you never know what a student’s going through. So that small action like Mike lab would set a action can make a massive global change. That’s an amazing story. I honestly think we should just end the podcast right here. This is, this is a phenomenal way to close it up. If if another educator is listening, do you have any last words you might want to share with them? Imagine, let me put it this way. Imagine you were starting teaching this year and you wanted to be Heather for yourself and you would give yourself some advice. And this is a crazy first year of teaching. What would you say?


Melissa Wright (21:18):
First of all, just in the teaching world, give yourself some grace. You’re not going to be able to do it all. And that’s okay because those students need you in the classroom. So like you might not have the perfect lesson plan, you know, try something new and if it flops it flops, but you have to take care of yourself so you can take care of your kids. And be there if you have a family as well for your family. You know, and the biggest thing of it is if you see that potential in a student, tap them on the shoulder because you don’t want to regret not doing that. You know, it’s sometimes, you know, sometimes it’s a, it’s a hard thing to approach. Like you’re not sure how to do it. And it might take a couple of times a tapping the kid on the shoulder, but don’t lose sight of that.


Melissa Wright (22:06):
Like seriously do that. And you know what I mean? You have to find when you’re a teacher, especially in your first couple of years, find your thing and find your people. Like you need to find those people that lift you up and inspire you to want to be better every single day in that building because yeah, teaching is tough. Teaching and COVID-19 is even tougher. It’s seriously, seriously is. And those people that support you and are going to be there for you. Those are the ones you always want to have around you. If they inspire you to be better, those are the people you need to be hanging out with. And don’t, and don’t lose, lose sight of who you are. You know, if ever, you know, I’m myself, I’m a very positive person. And in these times it’s so easy to get sucked into the negative.


Melissa Wright (22:53):
Try not to find the joy and every single day that you can, even if it’s one little nugget, like maybe a kid told a funny joke in class, I had a kid last week, somehow he got off topic and was talking about Donald Trump and his dad sent him a text and said, stop talking about Donald Trump in class. So he was short. So that was a funny for me that day that I took home and was laughing about it. You got to find those little moments of joy and seriously, seriously, you will make an impact even though you might not hear about it until years later. So they take it one day at a time and drink lots of water.


Sam Demma (23:33):
That’s awesome. I did a recent podcast with Dr. Greg Wells. It’s like a performance expert and he said the biggest biohack is a drinking water, drink, more water. I, that was a great way to close it. Make students feel like they matter small actions, small acts of kindness. This episode has been amazing. Listen, thank you so much for spending some time on the show with me. If another educator, maybe from another province or country is listening and wants to reach out to you to just bounce some ideas around and borrow some of your joy and enthusiasm. How can they do that?


Melissa Wright (24:07):
Well first they can, you can find me on my website, just www.melissawright.ca, or you can find me on social media. I’m on Twitter and Instagram. It’s @wrightmelissa_ on both Twitter and Instagram, or if I’m on Facebook, I’m under Melissa Sue Right.


Sam Demma (24:24):
Awesome. Thank you so much, Melissa. It’s been a pleasure.


Melissa Wright (24:26):
My pleasure. Thanks


Sam Demma (24:28):
There you have it. Another action packed interview on the high performing educator podcast, Melissa would love to hear for you from you and have a conversation. So definitely reach out if you have the time and also consider leaving a review on the podcast so that more educators like yourself can find these conversations and benefit from the inspiration and ideas. And if you are someone who has either of those things to share on this podcast, either inspiration or ideas, or, you know, somebody who would be a perfect guest, please email us, info@samdemma.com. So we can share those stories and ideas on the show until then I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Melissa Wright

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.

November 1, 2021 by Association Director Student Activity Director Student Leadership Teachers 0

Paul Dols – Climate & Culture Coordinator at Monrovia High School in Southern California

Paul Dols Student Leadership
About Paul Dols


Paul Dols (@PaulDWildcat) is the Climate & Culture Coordinator at Monrovia High School in Southern California. His responsibilities include being Activities Director, Renaissance Coordinator, and Link Crew Coordinator. 

A classroom teacher for 26 years, his passion and goal are to create a school that every student and staffulty member calls home and no one wants to leave.  Paul believes that education is the noblest of professions and provides the opportunity to “Sow the Seeds” each and every day.

Connect with Paul: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

Josten’s Renaissance leadership program

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):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want to network with like-minded individuals and meet other high-performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and other special opportunities that will come out throughout 2021. I promise you I will not fill your inbox. You might get one email a month. If that sounds interesting. Go to www dot high-performing educator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the high-performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Paul Dols. He is the climate and culture coordinator at Monrovia high school in Southern California. His responsibilities include being activities, director Renaissance coordinator, and link crew coordinator, a classroom teacher for 26 years. His passion and goal is to create a school that every student and Staffold T member calls home. And no one wants to leave. Paul believes that education is the noblest of professions and provides the opportunity to sow the seeds each and every day. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Paul and I will see you on the other side, Paul, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by just introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about why you do the work you do today in education?


Paul Dols (01:34):
Sure, sure. Sam, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I’m flattered. So I I’ve started in education back in the previous century. I had my first classroom in 95, 96 at a middle school in Northridge, California. I did middle school for a couple of years. And then in 1997, I moved to Monrovia high school. For those who don’t know where Monrovia is, we are in the foothills of Los Angeles about 10 miles from Pasadena in the rose bowl, which is kind of our GeoCenter for everybody. Who’s not sure where we are. And I’ve been at Monrovia ever since. It is a home away from home for both my wife and me. She’s an elementary teacher in the district. She’s my reason for being in Monrovia. And we, we have been invested in the kids and the families of this community now for gosh, 23, 24 years.


Paul Dols (02:26):
And it’s a passion, it’s a passion for, for this community. And especially for the kids who grew up in this community. I was social studies teacher by training and, and love government and, and politics and that kind of stuff. So that was what I taught for a long time. In 2008, I got tapped to take over something called the Josten’s Renaissance leadership program from a friend and mentor of mine who moved into administration. And that kind of started my divergent journey a little bit towards student leadership and towards reaching into the more social, emotional side of things which is where I’ve kind of been ever since. I, in 2017, I picked up activities as the activities director created a title for myself. I started calling myself the climate and culture coordinator and, and encompasses the Renaissance side of things and the activity side as to do our link crew program for our freshmen mentor project.


Paul Dols (03:25):
And I’m all about the social emotional side of education now. And it’s something that I didn’t think about when I started, I was all about the curriculum. And now it’s complete 180 and I am preaching for the mountaintops that we’ve got to take care of our kids on the social emotional side first and throwing out the, you know, the Maslow before bloom phrases become very popular lately. We’ve got to take care of what our kids need first before we give them that curriculum. So in a nutshell, that’s me, man. I I love what I do. I’m super spoiled here that I get to focus on that side of things almost exclusively. And that’s it, man. That’s, that’s the, that’s the nutshell version.


Sam Demma (04:09):
It’s it seems like social, emotional learning is finally coming to the table of discussion in all schools, across the, hopefully the world for an educator out there. That’s still unsure why it’s important and what it’s all about. Like how do you explain social emotional learning to someone and why you think it’s so important?


Paul Dols (04:27):
You know, I think the easiest way to do it. And I think one of the most important things to understand with there’s such a wide range of where teachers are and educators are on the spectrum of this is it’s okay, wherever you’re at. For some folks, they get into this, this job and it is it’s the, the subject they teach that they love. And they come to realize that they love the kids even more than they love the subjects that they’re teaching. And, but it can be hard for people. People have had all these different life experiences and maybe being a little bit more open with their own life with students is not something that they’re really comfortable doing. But the way I, the way I try to, to bring people to my side of things is basically just to reminding them that the world that we’re creating for these kids now, the businesses that are looking to hire these kids, when they get out of high school and college, the corporations that are trying to grow, they’re now looking at what used to be called the soft skills and it’s everything that they’re looking for.


Paul Dols (05:27):
It’s no longer about their GPA or their sat scores. And people are finally beginning to realize that those measurements really only measure one very small part of who a person is. And when you’ve got corporations like Google and Microsoft and, and even the banking firms are looking for people, AI that can work well together, that can critically think and analyze a problem and then work with other people to solve them. These are things that we don’t teach that well in America, we don’t really focus on it. It’s more about that rugged individualism still, but I think coming through COVID especially, and I don’t think we’re completely through it obviously, but through what we’ve experienced over the last 18 months, I think we realized that that individual I’m just going to get through this on my own kind of mentality is actually really detrimental to what we’re trying to accomplish.


Paul Dols (06:18):
And once we kind of realized that, and for me, I tried to instill in my kids as the leadership kids on our campus, to demonstrate that through how they act you know, practicing kindness above everything else, putting other people first taking and putting themselves in somebody else’s shoes, that empathy gap that Michelle Barbara talks about in her book, selfie is just incredibly true. And you know, that she cites a statistic that says that the more that we have less, less empathy, we have, the more anxiety we have, and we’re seeing this huge uptick in anxiety in kids. And we’re lucky enough, we came back. This is our second or first day of our second week back to school and we’re back fully in person and God-willing we get to stay there. But the anxiety that I see on kids’ faces and the concern and the unsuredness of what they’re doing is very, very real. And if, if that is the case, then we have to practice that empathy with, for those kids. And that is where I come at with, with staff work question, you know, I don’t know if I want to do this or not. We have to remind them that they’re not going to learn if they don’t feel safe. And like my buddy, Phil Campbell says, if they’re not seeing her in love, they’re not going to learn. How do we make them feel seen, heard, and loved.


Sam Demma (07:40):
That’s awesome. I love that. And the, the principles are so important. And you even have one behind you right now. I know this is only an audio podcast, so most people won’t see it, but it says leadership is an action, not a position. What does that line mean to you? And how do you use that to help students understand that we can all be leaders?


Paul Dols (08:00):
You know, I think it’s, we, we put that up there right before the pandemic. It was, it was ironic, but we so often, especially with, with like the ASB mentality or the Renaissance mentality of kids who come in and I’m lucky enough that I have classes, I have an ASB class, I have a Renaissance class. So it’s about 75 kids who are in our leadership program for a lot of people. Sometimes it’s a title. It’s something that they drop on a college application. It’s I was the senior class president. I was the ASB treasurer. I remind them on a daily basis. It’s not who you are. It’s what you do. It’s, there’s a, there’s a poster, the Maya Angelou quote up above me. You know, they’re not going to remember, you know what you say, they’re not going to remember what you do, but they’re going to remember how you made them feel.


Paul Dols (08:50):
For me, that is, you know, I just hung that up. We came back to school because I needed to see every day to remind myself or my kids leaving the room feeling better than when they came in. And for my student leaders, that same challenge as the case when they go into, when they’re in here and in my classroom, our classroom, it’s easy. It’s easy to, to be that empathetic kind soul. But what are you doing in math class and hour later, what are you doing at lunchtime to make other people in your campus feel important, feel connected, feel seen. And so it is that’s there to remind them and they see it. They can’t help, but see it cause it’s right above the board. And you know, it’s also to remind them that people watch them. I think it’s really important that, you know, there’s, I don’t, I can’t attribute the quote to somebody, but it characters what you do when people aren’t watching. And I think that is important for students to realize, even when you’re out in the community, your actions that you’re taking is going to determine who you are.


Sam Demma (09:53):
And they also impact other people, whether we know it or not driving by and looking over, right. One of the reasons why we would, we would always pick up trash on Saturday morning in large groups in very populated areas is because our hope was that someone would drive by look and instead of throwing their cigarette butt out the window, say, oh, maybe I should actually not. When you see 20 young kids picking up their garbage, you know it’s true. Every action has an influence. And I’m curious to know if something influenced you when you were growing up that directed you towards education. Like, did you know from a young age, on your own career journey that you were going to be a teacher, or did you like fall into this? What was the story behind your own career journey?


Paul Dols (10:33):
You know, I, I just told the story yesterday in class. That’s kind of funny. So I knew from the sixth grade off I was, I was blessed and I use that word very carefully, but I was blessed with incredible teachers from the little tiny private school that my brother that I went to in Baltimore through my middle school journey and then high school out here in California, I was blessed with teachers that just got it. They cared, they, they were invested in me as a person, not as a number on a roll book. And I I’d had a natural love for learning that I think came from my mom and dad that that really kind of drove me. I love to read. I love to learn about stuff. I don’t know. And that’s from a very young age, you know, I remember this is going to date me, but there was a huge deal when my parents bought the world book encyclopedia.


Paul Dols (11:26):
So for all the young people listed here, there used to be these books that took the place of the internet, the internet replaced the encyclopedia. But I just remember every year that we would get an update of everything that was new for the year. And I thrived on that book, I would page through it and just, it was amazing. So that love for learning drove me. In my brain, I always thought I was gonna coach basketball and teach U S history. That was, those are my two loves. The history part kept growing and the love for basketball is still there, but the idea of coaching and, you know, to all of the coaches out there, God bless you for what you do for the small amount of compensation that comes to you financially. And the time you give it’s amazing. But I made a decision when our, when our first child was born, that I can’t give up that kind of time with the family to do that.


Paul Dols (12:19):
But I just knew from the first time I stepped into a classroom as an educator, this was it. This was what I was supposed to do. I don’t have a ton of stuff left over from my time at a middle school, but there’s one picture in my office that it was my very first class and it’s just a class picture. It was super weird eighth graders, like, what are we doing, dude? But still hanging in my office to remind me of that day. And, you know, I think it is just, it’s such a privilege to do this job. When you realized that, you know, anywhere from 120 to 180 kids a year, you, you have somebody’s most precious possession and what you do with that can shape their entire life and you never know. See, and that’s the funny part. You never know when you’re going to influence somebody.


Paul Dols (13:13):
And when you’re going to say something that just sticks, that’s a little scary. Cause it gave me as I have a first period conference I’m blessed to be blessed. You know, I think it’s, it can be really intimidating when you realize that if you’re not in the right Ted space and you say something to a kid, it could send them the other direction. And there are days where that could happen. Cause because as human beings, man, we people forget that the teacher in the front of the room may be having a bad day too. And it may have nothing to do with anybody in the room. It could be something going on at home. It could be something that happened on the freeway. It could be an illness, especially, you know, with everything going on now. And so I think it is if you maintain that idea of being a privilege to serve and you approach it that way, you get so much back in return and these, these kids that I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years.


Paul Dols (14:13):
I mean, they’ve gotten me through some really hard times. I’ve lost both of my parents in the last five years, six years now. But other than my wife and two children, the people that got me through it were my students, their reaction to when I came back the way they would lift me up and, and just kind of carry me through and just messages of encouragement that periodically see, and they give it to you. And they, you know, there was a kid who left me a note on my desk just the other day. She said, Hey, you look tired. I noticed the first week, but thank you for who you are. I don’t know who sent it. I don’t know who left it on my desk, but I was like, Ugh. So they give as much as we probably more than what we give. And it’s a, it’s a need for us to be able to look at a kid regardless of where we’re at right now and say, okay, that kid has a story. They’re writing their story right now. And we were lucky enough to be a part of it. And because of that, you have to take that role seriously. You have to step into it and embrace it and cherish it really.


Sam Demma (15:16):
I love that. That’s so awesome. That’s so cool. The note on the desk too, and it’s so true that every student is writing their own story chapter by chapter. And the coolest part is that the things that you say, the way that you hold yourself could actually alter the way they write their chapter. Right? That’s the, that’s the coolest privilege. You know, you mentioned you had, you were blessed to have teachers that just got it. What does that look like? Like what did those teachers do? That another educator listening could strive to do something similar in their own classroom to have a, you know, a positive effect on their students. Can you recall any of the things that those teachers did for you that made a huge difference?


Paul Dols (15:55):
You know, I think for, for, to have an impact on a kid, you have to be real with them, be authentic with them. And it’s, it’s, it’s not simple, but it sounds simple. And it’s, it’s being open with them about who you are as a person and making sure that you see them as people, not just as kids, the, the phrase you’d all well, kids these days, and then you fill in the blank. It’s, it’s always irked me a little bit when, when people talk about, oh, how could you teach high school? They’re so hard. They’re, they’re, they’re just disrespectful then. I’m like, no, they’re not, they’re not. You know, I think, you know, Diane dollar was my AP us history teacher and inventor at point of high school. And she had a passion for history and she taught her butt off every single day.


Paul Dols (16:49):
And she held us to a really high standard and it was hard. It was the only AP class I took in high school. I wasn’t one of, I was an okay student. I wasn’t a great student, but, you know, I took it because I wanted to have her as a teacher because I had heard you’re going to learn more than you ever can imagine. So I took that challenge and it was hard. And, but, you know, I still have contact with her and we still periodically, we’ll sit down every couple of years and have a cup of coffee and, and I get messages from her on Facebook and to just be encouraging, I mean, and that’s been good Lord, it’s 30 plus years now that I was in her class and you know, not every teacher is going to be like that. And I don’t think there’s a mold to create what that looks like, except for the fact that if, if you care about your kids as people first and you really delve delve into who they are as people and realize that those stories that they’re writing, that you’re just lucky to be in it.


Paul Dols (17:54):
And in operate from that mentality. I think one of the hardest things is there was always this idea of classroom management that we get taught in teacher school, which you know, is kind of the worst and giant waste of time that we do because you can’t really teach how to teach. You just have to get in there and do it. But you know, it was always, I’m going to respect you as the students, when you respect me first. And that’s actually the reverse of which had happened. And it’s hard for adults, especially the longer you do this. It’s, it’s hard to look at a 13 or 14 year old kid and say, I’m going to respect you for first. And then eventually you’re going to come back and respect me as the older person in the room, because that’s the opposite of what we teach in society, respect your elders, respect your elders, respect your elders, which is true.


Paul Dols (18:46):
And they should. But when you’re coming at an adolescent, who’s dealing with his own stuff at home and has a 50 to 60% chance of coming from a broken home where there’s, you know, one parent or there’s a divorce or whatever they’re dealing with and you add onto it, their mental health and their mental wellbeing. And if you come at a student and you say, look, respect me in their brain, the question should automatically be, why would I respect you? What, why is that required of me? But if you come at them with love and you come at them with compassion and you come at them with empathy, they can’t help, but respect you. I have a couple of kids that I’ve been working with for three years now. And it’s been a three-year battle for me to break down the walls that they’ve put up.


Paul Dols (19:33):
I’m starting to see that happening with them. And it’s just persistence. It’s an unwillingness to give up on, on that relationship. And I think when we throw that word into it, when you throw the relationship word into it, it gives some people back off a little bit because they believe there has to be this barrier between the teacher and the student. But if you build that barrier, you’re putting up an unnatural obstacle to the relationship. And so I think for me, that is, is what I focus on a lot. When I was teaching my content back in the day, I was never the most effective AP government teacher. You know, back, we used to have rate your teacher.com. I think they still have it. I would periodically be brave enough to go out there and read what they said. And, you know, my comments were always positive for the most part, but that was kind of said the same thing.


Paul Dols (20:24):
I may not have learned a lot, but I know he loved me. And I don’t know if as a, as a teacher, maybe that’s not the best compliment in the world for some, but for me, I’m okay with that. If, if kids leave here and they know what it means to be a good person and if know what it means to be kind to others and how to work with each other and to work their way through problems critically, I’m okay with that because I think that’s what the world needs. The world doesn’t need somebody, you know, that, you know, understands how the war of 18, 12 formed had happened and what was the relative salt of it because they live in a world now where that information is at their fingertips. They need to know how to relate to each other because that’s what honestly, that’s, what’s missing right now.


Paul Dols (21:17):
We’ve messed this place up so badly collectively as the adult for young people that we can’t fix it, the young people are going to have to fix it. And the only way it’s gonna get fixed is if they learn how to communicate, how to compromise and realize that it’s okay to have divergent opinions, if you’re willing to listen to each other and not see each other as that person is my enemy, they may have a different belief system. They may have a different faith. They may have a different opinion on masks. They may have a different opinion on a vaccine, but they’re still human. They still are writing their own story. And if we just talk to each other respectfully, we may not agree, but we have to be okay with that. And the adults in the room, whether it’s Congress or your state legislature, or your school board, or whoever, the adults in the room, aren’t modeling that. And because of that, what kids are seeing is society embracing conflict instead of compromise yeah.


Sam Demma (22:22):
Or discussion, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s so true. It’s so, so true. If something that someone else says triggers you, it’s, it’s a, it’s an opportunity to go internal as well because people can’t make you angry. You know, they can say things, but at the end of the day, you’re, you’re in control of your emotions. And of course, sometimes, you know, we get upset and we say things, and again, that goes back to the idea that we’re all human, but, and then that all ties back to the importance of social, emotional learning and regulating your emotions. This has been such a great broad conversation. Paul, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your journey into education, some of your own beliefs and principles that have served you and also the other teachers that had an impact on you growing up, if someone’s listening and wants to reach out and just have a conversation, another educator from somewhere in the world, what would be the best email to, to, to send or to get in touch with?


Paul Dols (23:15):
No, I would love that. I love talking about this stuff, man. I think, you know, one of the biggest, it’s a community of learners who do this job. I learn more from colleagues and from people all over the country that I’ve been lucky to meet through some of the stuff that I’ve done that social network and that, that PLC or that personal learning community. So yeah, you can reach out to me pdols@monroviaschools.net. I’m also on Instagram and Twitter at Paul D Wildcat. And I’m not on social media as much anymore because I watched the social dilemma. I am out there a couple of times a week posting some stuff and reposting some of the encouraging stuff that I see. But yeah, I would love to connect to anyone who wants to talk about social, emotional learning, what we do and why we do it and share stories. Cause I think it is incredibly important to pursue that.


Sam Demma (24:22):
Awesome. Paul, this was amazing. Thanks so much. Keep up the great work and I will talk soon. Thanks brother. Appreciate it. And there you have it. Another amazing guest and 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. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 Paul Dols

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.

November 1, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Teachers 0

Michelle Dittmer – President and Co-Founder at Canadian Gap Year Association

Michelle Dittmer Gap Year Association
About Michelle Dittmer

Michelle is an Ontario Certified Teacher and holds a B.Sc. from McMaster in Biology, a B.Ed. from the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology and an M.A. in Leadership from Royal Roads University.

As a high school teacher, she realized that many of the essential skills to thrive as a young adult were being squeezed out by hard curriculum, leaving students feeling stressed, rushed, without direction and purpose and a sense of being unprepared for life outside of the classroom.

Searching for a way to make an impact, she has worked in youth policy development, leadership development, experiential learning, educational travel and educational partnerships.

All of these experiences have culminated in 10+ years of gap year advocacy and gap year planning support and led to the founding of CanGap.

She believes that gap years are a truly educational experience and should be part of more young people’s educational and career journeys.

Connect with Michelle: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Canadian Gap Year Frosh Week

Gap Year Planning Toolkit

Can Gap Year Podcast

Endy Mattresses

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 Denma. I am excited about today’s conversation! Michelle Dittmer, and I have spoken multiple times. We’ve worked together multiple times and the energy and purpose that she’s bringing to the world is so important. Michelle is the co-founder and president of the Canadian gap year association.


Sam Demma (01:04):
As a high school teacher herself, she realized that many of the essential skills to thrive as a young adult were being squeezed out of the hard curriculum, leaving students, feeling stressed, rushed without direction and purpose, and a sense of being unprepared for life outside of the classroom, searching for a way to make an impact. She has worked with youth in policy development, leadership development, experiential learning, educational travel, and educational partnerships. All of these experiences have culminated in 10 plus years of gap, year advocacy and gap year planning, support and led to the founding of Ken gap. She believes that gap years are an educational experience. That should be part of more young people’s educational and career journeys. As a gap year, student, myself, I have to say the work that Michelle is doing is so important and the chances are you have students in your classrooms who might think their best option is to take a gap year, but have no idea how to pursue it. And if that’s true for you, this episode is a must. Listen to, I will see you on the other side of this conversation with Michelle. Enjoy it. Take notes.


Sam Demma (02:19):
Michelle. Welcome back for a second episode on the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you back. How’s it going?


Michelle Dittmer (02:29):
I’m doing really well. You can’t keep me away. You’re just like a little magnet that I can’t get enough of.


Sam Demma (02:34):
Well, anyone who’s promoting experiential learning opportunities and gap years and fifth years to students are people that I want to surround myself with because, you know, I was someone who took that path and found it extremely rewarding. So I can’t thank you enough for the opportunities and doors you’re opening for thousands of other students who might feel uncomfortable to pursue that path due to societal pressures and everything else. What, what prompted you? And at what point in your journey, did you become such a huge advocate for gap years and what prompted you to start the Canadian gap year association?


Michelle Dittmer (03:07):
Well, I started my career off as a teacher, actually a high school biology chemistry teacher, believe it or not. And so that’s where, that’s where my career went. And what I found when I was in the classroom was that students were missing out on a lot of life lessons that we have taken education. And we have squeezed out a lot of things to make more space for curriculum and for grades and for testing. And we took out a lot of that personal development and that personal awareness of the high school experience. It became less about self discovery and more about checking boxes and achieving grades. And now this was a while ago. So things have evolved a little bit since I left the classroom, but that’s really where it was when I was a teacher and I stepped back and I said, this is not for me.


Michelle Dittmer (04:02):
This is not serving students. And I decided that I needed to figure out another way to make space for that. And so I left and I did everything from outdoor education to international service learning to youth policy. And what I kept coming back to is how are we going to make these students, these young people ready for life after graduation. And I kept coming back to this idea of what what’s happening elsewhere in the world. And gap years kept coming up and I kept asking myself, well, why is this not part of our Canadian culture? What is getting in the way? Why is it popular in the UK or in Europe or in Australia, New Zealand? What is it about the north American culture that says do not stop, do not pass, go do not take a break, keep going, keep pushing. And I realized that there was nobody out there strongly advocating for that intentional pause for that purposeful pause. And that there were no resources for the students who needed that and nobody to say, you know what it’s okay. And that’s where I started to make some space for it and founded the Canadian gap year association so that people in essentially had permission to, to take the steps that, that they needed in their lives. And to make a gap year an okay decision, if not a really, really positive one.


Sam Demma (05:33):
And in your exploration of understanding why it’s not as popular in Canada and north America, as opposed to Europe and other places, have you come to any conclusions or like figured out why it’s not, you know, celebrated here as much.


Michelle Dittmer (05:48):
Yeah, we are victim to the American dream. And there is this notion that you have to go fast and you have to go hard. And the harder you work, the more you will achieve, the more successful you will be, the happier you will be. And that you can see that through the burnout culture that we have. You can see that through the gig economy that’s emerging. You can see that idea of hustling. And if you’re not hustling hard enough, you need a side hustle to make sure your hustle level is at like an a plus. And, and so that’s part of it is, is that that push to go forward. We also have such a beautiful mosaic of cultures here in Canada. And with a lot of immigrant families, they come to Canada specifically for the education. And so new families to Canada’s or say, hell, no, you are not going back where I came from.


Michelle Dittmer (06:46):
I came here so you could have an education. And so that’s another piece where young people growing up with a Canadian identity have a conflict sometimes with their parents’ values and their parents’ vision for them. So those are kind of the two main factors that, that make it a little bit different here. Along with the cost of travel to get out of our country is extremely expensive. Whereas in Europe you can just pay a hundred bucks and hop on a flight and end up in another country. But that’s not the total excuse because Australia New Zealand make it happen all the time and they are equally large and equally far away from other countries.


Sam Demma (07:27):
And the further you plan in advance as my mom always tells me the cheaper the flights are. That’s so awesome. And on the, on the other hand, why is fifth year and gap years so celebrated in the European countries? Like explain to me and the educators listening, why you think that students need and should experience gap years?


Michelle Dittmer (07:51):
Yeah. I think that I had a really interesting conversation with somebody the other day that kind of flipped everything on their head. We always hear life is short. Life is short, do all these things. And she actually said to me, she said, life is long. What is one year? What is one year in the rest of your adult life? And you’re in the grand scheme of your career. And, and it’s not that long. And I think that that is more part of a European culture where we have a laid back view that there is a holistic version of happiness. We’ve got siesta time. We’ve got we’ve got the, the relaxed culture of that, that European vibe is very different than the north American hustle. And so that is incorporated all throughout their life. They’re taught to evolve at a slower pace and that those, those pieces will come.


Michelle Dittmer (08:54):
They just not come as lightning fast as our accelerated advanced yourself as fast as you can, north American culture. So I think that’s, that’s where it comes from over there. But the reality is that we need that time to slow down, especially when we’ve been put on this accelerated track. Because we forget to connect and figure out who we are. We’re too busy, checking boxes. We’re too busy getting those top grades for those top schools that we forget about our hobbies. We forget about the other subjects that interest us, but aren’t a prerequisite for that course. We push all of those things to the side and it’s like, flexing your muscles. Like if you only ever worked your bicep and you never worked your tricep, you’re going to not be able to move because you need both muscles. And that’s like the way that we are, we are pushing the academic side of things and we’re not developing that tricep. We’re not allowing these young people to develop all parts of them. And that’s why it’s so essential to so that they understand and they can feel fulfilled in every part of who they are and to discover things and new pathways that really interests them and light them up, especially after the pandemic where they’ve been drained that time to reinvigorate themselves and to connect with a pathway that actually makes sense with, for them and not necessarily just what they’re taught. Mark was there. There’s just so much value to getting some real world experience.


Sam Demma (10:31):
And I find it funny. I was listening to a poem recently by this, this poet named Shane. I can’t remember his last name. It’s escaping me. It starts with a K and in the poem, he says, I mean, that stuck out to me. He said, when I was young, you know, my, my school always asks me who I want it to be, and I would answer, but then they would tell me what I can’t do. Like, that’s so true. Like w like we can’t tell a student, you know, ah, you know, dream big and, you know, set goals for yourself. And then also, but you know what, you can’t do this and you can’t do that. It’s like, you know give the kid the free expression and know, encourage them to take the new opportunities to get new perspectives right now, though, schools all around the world, I would say, are in a state of uncertainty or unsure of what the future is gonna look like. Their, their, their students are unsure of what the features are going to look like. There are big problems being raised to the surface. There’s lots of questions. And question marks. How do you think educators can like calm down a little bit during this time and be that grounded source for their students?


Michelle Dittmer (11:33):
Yeah. I think one of the things that I know about students on a gap year and it’s paralleled in the educators that are supporting them is an extreme discomfort with uncertainty because we are creatures of, we evolved to avoid danger. We, once we found a cave that was safe with no lion in it, like we stayed in that cave because it was safe. We aren’t going to go out and we, aren’t going to start digging around in other caves because there might be a lion out there. And so that defaults to want to feel comfortable, to want things, to be predictable, to want things to be structured is innate to who we are as humans, because it was a survival technique when it, when, when we needed it to be a survival technique. But some of those things don’t necessarily serve us when we take it to the nth degree.


Michelle Dittmer (12:37):
When we start overprotecting, when we start, over-scheduling, when we start over predicting or over over supporting people and funneling them into whatever we think the next step is for them. So really embracing that discomfort with uncertainty is such an amazing gift, that and skill that we need to practice. So as educators, we need to be okay with uncertainty. We need to be okay with not having the answer we need to be okay with being uncomfortable and just waiting. When I was in teacher’s college, I always remember, you had to, you told you had to wait seven seconds in silence to allow people to process, and then, and then come up with an answer. And that was so uncomfortable. And it’s the same thing when we’re talking about young people’s future, if they don’t have an answer to what do you want to do next?


Michelle Dittmer (13:39):
Our default is to fill that silence with something to say, oh, you’re really good in science. You should be an engineer, or you’re a really compassionate person. You should be a social worker. And, and it’s our default to want to solve that problem instead of waiting that proverbial seven seconds and giving them time to come up with the answer, we’re rushed to try and fill that. And I think that’s what we’re doing with a gap year is giving them that seven seconds, allowing them to connect the dots, allowing them to reflect back, well, what actually lights me up, what subjects did I like? What did I not like? What are some of my hobbies? What are some of my interests? And giving them a little bit of space to connect the dots so that they can then come up with their own answer. And I think it’s important that we need to, to give them that space, even though it makes us uncomfortable, even though we would like to rush and solve all the world’s problems for them, that’s not serving them. And that’s not a good place for us. And that’s not our role as educators.


Sam Demma (14:47):
Most, I would argue that most people from north America, when they hear the words gap year, assume you’re going to get some boots and a bag. And I camping van and do a road trip and traveled to another country. Like it seems like the gap year has gotten placed in this container of traveling experiences. And I, I know from personal experience, that’s totally false and the gap year can be used for hundreds of different activities and exploration in your own personal life. Can you share a couple stories of students of yours that you have mentored through gap year that have what they’ve done and how it became a meaningful experience for them? Just to provide examples that a gap year is not just about travel, but it’s about broadening your experiences, your perspective, and helping you make a better next decision.


Michelle Dittmer (15:36):
Yeah. I’ll talk about a particular young woman that I just talked to this year actually. And she knew that she wanted to get into the beauty industry. That’s the direction that she, she wanted to head and her family was pushing her to go to business school. And you want to be in bed. You want to be in beauty, you got to make a business out of it. So you got to start with the business side of things and the rest will come after. And my hunch was that they actually hope that she would not go into the industry, that interest interested her, that she would get some sort of other enlightening experience. But once we started talking about this and she had convinced her parents that she was going to take a gap year, what we actually worked on with her was that each month she was going to explore a different area of the beauty industry.


Michelle Dittmer (16:31):
And so she would spend the first month focusing on aesthetics. So she’d find a free online course, she’d volunteer in an aesthetics like, like in a salon somewhere. And she would learn all she could for that first month. And then in month two, she was going to get into hair care. And so she would look at, she would take some free online courses. She would attend some tutorials. She would move into a hair salon and see what she could learn there. And we did this for about six months, different areas of the industry that she could explore so that she could get some clarity on which direction she wanted to go. And not only that in each step, along the way, she built a network of people that are going to support her later in the future. So if she decided that she wanted to get into hair care, she could then go back to those people that she had volunteered with, or those people that she had done informational interviews with and, and start to build her business or build her network, or find a job because she had that lived experience.


Michelle Dittmer (17:35):
So in terms of getting clarity on, on next steps, it’s a really great way to test things out. I call it your risk-free trial on life. And I talk about the, the Endy mattresses, like who their right mind would buy a mattress online without testing it like nobody, right? Like you guys sleep on it every night, they’re super expensive, but they come with this money back guarantee. And that’s what the gap year is. So before you’re investing all your money and all of your time and your studies get out there and test it out, and you might realize you are exactly on the right path, or you might realize that it doesn’t work for you all. And then you’ve saved yourself thousands of dollars and years of your life to figure it out. So that’s a particular one that really stands out for me.


Michelle Dittmer (18:24):
And we’ve got I have another person that I’m working with right now, and she has an incredible desire to find her place. She grew up in a small town and she herself is very, very passionate about sustainability, she’s vegan. She has a lot of those values that she doesn’t necessarily see in her community, and that’s really isolating for her. So she’s using that year to find her people, to find her place and to find a way where she can live out her values in a way that feels really healthy to her. And that’s really powerful when you feel misplaced your whole life to actually find that connection. And we’ve got people who want to get out and explore the world. People that are very self-aware and they say, you know what? I’ve lived in this town, the rest of my life. And there’s more out there. I just don’t know what it is. I want to see how other people live. I want to talk to other people, I want to hear other languages and they want to get out there and get some sort of perspective on what their life is like at home so that they can, they can make better decisions for themselves. And they can frame it in a more global context, which is really cool as well.


Sam Demma (19:44):
So awesome. Like I traveled a little bit in my gap year. I volunteered a lot in my gap year. I interviewed a lot of people as well in my gap year. And I feel like if I didn’t have my gap year, I would a hundred percent not be the person I am today. I’m doing the work I am doing and, and happy, you know, because I see a lot of, even my peers and my friends that went to school right away without being certain of what they wanted to do. And, you know, they’re finishing their degrees now. And a lot of them are back where they could have been right after high school is saying, I’m not really sure, like what I want to do or what I’m like excited about and this, because there was no inflection, there was no reflection. There was no break. There was no pause. There’s no seven second pause. So I can’t stress enough how important I think this is for students. And if an educator listening right now is realizing that there are some seniors or students in their classes that they think would love this experience. And they also sense that there might be some uncertainty or nervousness about their own futures. How would you recommend an educator, like approach a student in their class and be like, Hey, like, this is for you. And like, you should try this and here are some resources. Okay.


Michelle Dittmer (20:56):
Yeah. I think it’s to present it as an option. I think when we talk about post-secondary pathways, we’ve created a hierarchy where like university is at the top. And then if you never, if you can’t do university, then it’s college. And if you can do college, then it’s apprenticeship in the workplace and gap year isn’t even part of that. So we really need to shake up that, that mentality because that’s not true. So when you’re presenting options, talk about all the pathways and, and put gap year in there as an option right off the bat. And then in having those conversations, if they are uncertain about what steps they need to take, you can tell them that a gap year is not replacing higher education. It is a step on your life journey. And for some that means after your gap year, you returned to school for other people.


Michelle Dittmer (21:53):
That means that you you, you continue on out into the workforce because you found your passion. And when educators get out of their comfort zone in this conversation, that’s what the Canadian gap year association is here for. We have these conversations with students and their parents on a daily basis, and we have tons of free resources to help them decide if a gap year is the right thing for them. And if it is how you make it purposeful, how do you not sit on the couch for a year? How do you connect with the right organizations and opportunities that are going to help them achieve their own goals? Not the goals you want for them, but what are their own goals and how are they going to achieve it? So that’s what we do. And tons of resources on our website, which has, cangap.ca Instagram, we’ve got all sorts of events that we have. So just a plethora of resources, not only for families, but also for educators as well.


Sam Demma (22:51):
Awesome. This has been such an invigorating conversation about gap years, why they’re important, why they’re frowned upon in north America or looked at from a different angle, as opposed to European countries. So much great information. If someone is listening and is just inspired by it, or wants more, what’s an email address or a website that they can, you know, go to, to get in touch with you. Yeah.


Michelle Dittmer (23:13):
Of course www.cangap.ca, we’ve got all sorts of free resources there. You can send me an email directly. It’s michelle@cangap.ca. More than happy to support you and your students in any way that you might possibly need.


Sam Demma (23:30):
Awesome. Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show, keep up the great work and I’ll see you soon.


Michelle Dittmer (23:35):
Take care.


Sam Demma (23:36):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and 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. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 Michelle Dittmer

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.

October 29, 2021 by Association Director Student Leadership Teachers 0

Daniel Horgan – CEO and Founder of CoLabl and the Talent Accelerator

Daniel Horgan Founder and CEO CoLabL
About Daniel Horgan

A volunteer role with a YMCA summer camp at the age of 12 sparked Daniel’s passion for service and building community. At the age of 18, Daniel pioneered the first youth-led Community of Promise in Pittsburgh under Retired General Colin Powell’s national America’s Promise movement, landing him a seat on the national board of directors and recognition from President George W. Bush.

Daniel (@HorganDaniel) has over 20 years of experience working in the business and nonprofit sectors, fueled by his commitment to increasing others’ access to relationships and opportunities that transform their lives.

He has worked with companies of all sizes including the world’s largest global brands like Nike, Starbucks, and LinkedIn, some of the largest school districts, national and local nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Daniel has proudly served on several nonprofit boards and advisory councils including City Year DC, the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, Team Kids, and the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership.

Named one of Pittsburgh’s 40 Under 40 Honorees, Daniel has keynoted dozens of conferences and training seminars and is the author of Tell Me I Can’t…and I Will. He currently resides in Arlington VA.

Connect with Daniel: Email | Linkedin | Website | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Zig Ziglar

The YMCA

The Talent Accelerator

Situational based leadership

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 Daniel Horgan is someone who I had the chance to work very closely with throughout the entire summer of 2020. He contracted me to do some facilitation, some keynote speaking, and some workshops for his programs that you hear a lot about in today’s episode. And as our working relationship built our personal relationship built as well. And today I’m super, super honored and excited to call Daniel a close friend, and you’ll see why on this episode, he’s up to some amazing work and doing some great things, a volunteer role with the YMCA summer camp at the age of 12 is what sparked Daniel’s passion for service and building community at the age of 18 Daniel pioneered the first youth led community of promise in Pittsburgh under the retired general Colin Powell, his national America’s promise movement, landing him a seat on the national board of directors and recognition from president George W. Bush.


Sam Demma (01:02):
Daniel has over 20 years of experience working in the business and nonprofit sectors fueled by his commitment to increasing others, access to relationships and opportunities that transform their lives at CoLabL. Daniel is working at the intersection of talent development and community building with this specific focus on creating and facilitating brand relationship and skill building experiences that support existing and future talent. He has worked with some of the world’s largest brands, including Starbucks, Nike, apple, LinkedIn, school districts, national and local nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Daniel has proudly served on several nonprofit boards and advisory councils, including city year DC, the community foundation of the national capital region team kids and the greater Pittsburgh nonprofit partnership. He was named one of Pittsburgh’s top 40 under 40 honorees, and he has keynoted and facilitated hundreds of conferences and training experiences, published several articles on forbes.com and is the author of “tell me I can’t, and I will.“


Sam Demma (01:59):
I’ll tell you, Daniel works very closely with a lot of youth, and if you don’t have a pen and a paper beside you right now, I will encourage you to grab one because you’re going to have a whole page of notes. Here’s the episode with Daniel Horrigan I’ll see you on the other side…


Sam Demma (02:15):
Daniel, thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educator podcast. It’s a huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and why you got into the work you do with young people today? I know it’s a long question.


Daniel Horgan (02:28):
No, absolutely. Well, Sam, first and foremost, thanks so much for having me. I’m a huge fan of the work that you’re doing and I’ve enjoyed collaborating with you. So thanks again for, for having me on quick high-level overview of me. Like, so I started my, I say when I was 11 years old, YMCA summer camp, where my two older brothers were camp counselors. I convinced them to let me not just come to camp, but let me volunteer with the six year olds. And I would say that that really sparked my interest in service and really it sort of set me out on this path to really think about the unique contributions that I have to offer. And, you know, through the years I’ve worked in nonprofit management, running nonprofits, locally and nationally here in the U S spent some time in corporate social responsibility looking at the corporate philanthropy space.


Daniel Horgan (03:14):
And I think employee engagement with capital one and then launched my own consulting company CoLabL which I’ve been running really to help apply all of the lessons that I’ve learned, frankly, over the last 20 years. Like what drives me to do this work is that I see so many young people, especially just not have the social capital that unlocks their awareness of new opportunities or awareness of different paths or experiences that they can take on. And so I just tried to get in front of as many young people as possible, connect them to as many professionals in different pathways and see where it goes from there.


Sam Demma (03:47):
Speaking of connecting young people to professionals, you have a huge milestone to celebrate literally this morning as we’re recording this you want to share a little bit about it and how it kind of came to be.


Daniel Horgan (03:58):
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m super excited for this morning. We crossed a major milestone in matching 278 in Canada, Deloitte volunteers with young leaders all across Canada. Most of these young leaders are ages 18 to around 24. Some of them are in college, some of them were in sort of non traditional post-secondary education pathways. And the goal is that we work to connect these diverse employees with them to explore their career pathways, to share their insights that they’ve gathered through their deployed experiences. You think about like a traditional, the, what employee. They had the opportunity to work with a lot of different clients and a lot of different projects. So they were able to glean a lot of lessons from those experiences. And so we want to create this experience where for one hour, that’s a minimum commitment. We’re asking these Deloitte volunteers to share what they’ve learned and really at the same time, learn from the young people, like let the young leaders shared their questions, share their own unique experiences.


Daniel Horgan (04:57):
And if it sparks something beyond that one hour, that’s amazing. I’ve already gotten a bunch of emails from people that were like, are we allowed to like follow up and have a second meeting? And I was like, yes, you’re absolutely allowed to do that. And so it’s been a pretty cool project. As you can imagine, we sort of skyrocketed when we first launched the program to about 200 volunteers signed up right away, which shows us, I think that there’s a huge appetite and interest among a lot of people to give back and to positively contribute to young leaders on their own.


Sam Demma (05:28):
And you had mentors, I would suppose back when you were going through high school and, and university, and some of those were people that you probably didn’t even meet. I.E. Zig Ziglar, which I read about in your book, do you want to share a little bit about how like mentorship and mentors in your life have played a huge role in your development?


Daniel Horgan (05:48):
Yeah, absolutely. So Sam, it’s so funny, you mentioned Ziglar. I was doing a training last week where this big Ziglar quote came to mind in the middle of this training based on what somebody was saying. And I shared it and somebody was like, oh, tell me, how did you connect them? Like, here’s the story? 20 years ago, I was working all day taking night classes and I lived about 47 minutes away from the university I went to. So my nitride home, I would listen to cassette tapes and they were like, what? But yes, I would pick the set tapes in my car to listen to Zig Ziglar on tape, basically like, you know, just learning and trying to get as much as I could from, from all of his amazing lessons. But what’s interesting about your question to me is when I reflect, I do so much work in the mentorship space.


Daniel Horgan (06:32):
And I think that so many people work here in mentor. They think traditional like big brothers, big sisters one-on-one matches oftentimes for a long period of time. And when I look back on my own life, I don’t think I really had people that I would say, quote unquote, were my mentors. I never referred to them like formal advocates, coaches, devil’s advocates, like people that just challenged me in all sorts of ways and cheered me on when I succeeded, helped me troubleshoot when I was failing at something. And so I think that, you know, whether it was my student council advisor, who would never answer a question with a straight answer, he would always return a question with a question which taught me to be curious or people like the, the Zigler or Oprah or Les brown, who I just, I studied their craft in a way that they were inspiring people and the way that they were serving through their words and through their coaching and trainings. And I think those people had probably the biggest impact on me.


Sam Demma (07:35):
And that’s awesome. And what pushed you into the direction of starting your own work? I think lots of people listening educators are like, had a defining moment when they decided I’m going to get into this work that I’m doing with young people, because it lights a fire in my soul. It’s meaningful. It’s building tomorrow’s leaders. Why did you decide to not pursue corporate work? I know you did for a while, but then take the leap into entrepreneurship and try go full on with this youth empowerment stuff.


Daniel Horgan (08:05):
I think there’s two quick stories I’ll share with you. One is when I volunteered at the YMCA, you, I told you I did it because I was home for like the first two weeks, the one summer where my both of my brothers went to work. And I was like, this is not fun anymore. Like I’m all by myself. I convinced them. And like, I always wanted to follow in their footsteps. And for the first year that I volunteered at the camp, that’s what I did. It was the second year that I went back to the camp when I was 12, I was matched with a young kid named Patrick who had down syndrome. And the entire summer I was matched one-on-one with Patrick. And my goal was to make sure Patrick had like the best summer experience possible. And it was that summer, honestly, that like I learned that it wasn’t about following in someone else’s footsteps, but it was about basically carving out my own path and part of carving out your own path.


Daniel Horgan (08:51):
I think if you’re going to be successful is learning how to the needs, the wants the desires of others so that you can serve in the fullest way possible. And so with Patrick, you know, Patrick parents were super protective and rightfully so. They wanted to make sure that like, he didn’t get hurt, that he was only engaging the things that they thought he could or wanted to do. But then I would see Patrick, while we were sitting on the sidelines and the rest of the kids were playing a game of kickball and Patrick had this look in his eye and they’d be like, do you want to play? Right? And he’s like, yeah. And I’m like, well, let’s play. And he’s like, well, my parents don’t want me to play. They don’t want me to get hurt, like, but you want to play. So let’s just test it.


Daniel Horgan (09:30):
Let’s just see, like, can you bring this to life? Can you bring this interest, this passion for life? And we got them to play. And he had an amazing time. And even his parents over the course of the summer started to realize that you have to make this switch at some point where you’re not following someone else’s chosen path for you, that you are creating and, and, and sort of designing your own experience. And so fast forward in time, you know, I worked in lots of different contexts locally and nationally and incorporate a nonprofit. And I had a coach when I was at capital one who taught me essentially the skill of taking a step back and zooming out to see where in my career at that point was like 15 years in, was I most happy. And what she made me realize was I was most happy when I was creating an entrepreneurial. And so coming out and doing my own thing for me was the space where I could be the most creative, I’m a fast paced person. So like, I like to move quickly. If I see a problem, I want to fix it. I don’t want to like talk about it forever. And so like the ability to test and learn and iterate has been something that I would say continues to fuel. The entrepreneurial spirit within me.


Sam Demma (10:44):
That’s such an amazing, it’s such an amazing story and example to highlight that point. And I think a lot of educators can relate in the sense that, you know, in life they might’ve been going along. And then they had a defining moment where they decided, you know what? I want to teach these young people. When they first start teaching, they have this idea that, you know, I have to follow the curriculum a hundred percent and make sure I get all of these lessons done in this amount of time. And then as I, as they progressed, and as I’ve talked to more veteran educators, they tell me, you know, if I could go back, the piece of advice I would give myself was to go off. The beaten path was to serve the students, not really, and not relating to what’s on the agenda today, but for what they need today, if during our discussion, something came up, you know, I had to veer off track is that’s the best way to serve them.


Sam Demma (11:32):
And it’s like you said, you have to stop following the rubric or the agenda or the footsteps of others, and just carve your own path based on those desires and needs of others, which is a, such a sort of fascinating point. And all the educators listening could probably relate. If you could think back to when you were in school, did you have any teachers or educators in your life who deeply impacted you? For me, it was my grade toll road issues teacher who opened up my eyes to different possibilities and social impact. I know you’re not that old, so it’s not too long ago, but is there anyone that comes to mind?


Daniel Horgan (12:11):
Yeah, I mean, I would say I mentioned him earlier within my student council advisor, who also taught a leadership class at my high school. So it’s, it’s funny, like doing the work I do now. I am a naturally introverted to where I get my energy is like through my own sort of individual reflection and sort of learning process. And so I was like re and I also went to like a much, much smaller school and then transitioned to a campus style high school that had like 1500 people in my class. So it was like a very big learning curve for me and an adjustment. And I were not like my first year and a half, I was pretty much like just went to class, you know, did well in school and just like do what I needed to do. And like, just didn’t want to be noticed to be honest.


Daniel Horgan (12:55):
And my locker was right outside of Mr. Meyers is his name, Mr. Myers, his office. And like halfway through that school year, my sophomore year, he started talking to me about student council and like all these activities. And he’s like, Hey, you know, you should get involved in some of this stuff. And I was like me, like, why would I go? Like, I just didn’t see it. But like, I think he saw something in me and the way that like we interacted each day. And then we, I said hi to him and have small chat. And I think what I would share with you in terms of that question is Mr. Meyers convinced me this next semester to take his leadership class, which unlocked for me, like an entirely different understanding of leadership. We, I remember clearly the handouts on situational based leadership and how you apply different leadership strategies to different contexts.


Daniel Horgan (13:40):
And it made me realize that, like, I don’t have to be the, you know, the outspoken person in charge all the time. Like I can be in different contexts playing different roles. Then he also got me, encouraged me to take forensics, which was like speech and debate where I started like taking on different acting roles and competing on the weekends in these states. And what high would in hindsight, like, I didn’t know it at the time, but when he was doing with getting me to come out of my shell and he was trying to do it in a way that was like, take on a different character and like compete in the acting thing. Right. It’s not, you it’s like somebody else that your TA and I would take on these crazy characters because it was totally not me. And it felt like I could do that.


Daniel Horgan (14:20):
Right. But then I started translating it to leading workshops, but he had me do it like the local and then state level. And I went on to like lead a statewide camp for middle school kids. And it was all about his training, right. He was slowly patiently coaching me, seeing within me something I didn’t see in myself and challenging me with questions instead of telling me what to do, which is today is like my top advice for educators and mentors is lead with questions and curiosity and bring the answers out of people because oftentimes students and young people, especially they have the answer, they know what they want to do. They just haven’t given them themselves permission to do it.


Sam Demma (15:04):
That’s such a good reflection. And I’m thinking about situations in my life, even like on a personal note where you might want to tell someone your advice, but it’s probably a lot wiser and more impactful to ask a question and help that person come to a realization themselves. Even if it’s not the answer you were looking for. That’s a great piece of advice and I need to hear, and I hope anyone listening needs to hear it as well.


Daniel Horgan (15:25):
Yeah. It’s hard to do, but you can do it with practice.


Sam Demma (15:29):
Small patient challenges like your teacher. That’s amazing. Since then, you know, and you’ve developed, you’ve developed and delivered, I’m sure hundreds of sessions, you know, maybe even thousands by now, what have you learned one about facilitating to young people and impacting youth, but also virtually cause I know you’ve, you’ve been doing a lot of work virtually and one of the things that educators are struggling with is engaging young people virtually and you know, you know, every time you do a presentation, you probably learn something new, learn something different, the more online presentation you give, you learn something new. Have you had any realizations, has anything stuck that you’ve, you’ve figured out that you think might be worth sharing with an educator who teaches a virtual class?


Daniel Horgan (16:14):
Yeah. I mean, my number one tip that I’ve been sharing lately is when, when COVID hit and so much of the world, I mean, my business completely went from being in person. I was in like three different cities a week. So like all of a sudden doing everything a hundred percent virtually. So like I got stuck in the trap in the very first, I would say months where I was just like constantly researching and trying to find like every trick in the book around virtual learning, virtual engagement and like tested things out in different, in different formats. And what I realized was that it’s not about the tricks. It really is about an authentic connection with the audience, quote unquote, right? With the students, if the students feel your vulnerability and the way that you’re teaching, coaching, being curious, they will connect with you and stay engaged with you in whatever experience you’re creating.


Daniel Horgan (17:07):
And so I would say, you know, focus less on like the tricks and more on the authentic connection. And then second I would say, which is one of my favorite Maya Angelo quotes, you know, peop students, well, from an educator’s perspective, students will forget what you said. They’ll forget what you did, but they’ll never forget the way you made them feel. And so what I always try to reflect on when I create, or I’m speaking or doing training experiences, if it’s the experience that you’re creating, that is going to pull them in to, how do you want that student to feel in that virtual context? And how are you tapping into, by being curious how they’re feeling? Right. So like if you’re a student who now all of a sudden can’t see their friends as much and don’t have the social interaction in the school building and are trying to adjust to this whole new virtual world as well, like lean into the fact that we’re all in this together, lean into the authentic stories of what you’re navigating and what you’re going through and where you fail or where you try something that doesn’t work and share those funny stories and what you’ve learned from it, with your students and invite them to share with you in return.


Daniel Horgan (18:17):
And it creates a common bond. And I always say that common bond recreates the foundation upon which you can build that relationship. And that relationship is so pivotal for, I think, any educator to be, you know, an effective instructor and an effective mentor to these students.


Sam Demma (18:32):
That’s awesome. I love that. And you’ve been doing this for a while. I had the pleasure of working with you on the talent accelerator, which is a phenomenal program for young people who are working on their professional development and career development. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that specific program and how it works?


Daniel Horgan (18:50):
Yeah, totally. So the talent accelerator was launched. I say the silver lining of COVID, right? So a lot of the companies that I work with in a lot of the communities around the U S they were canceling their summer internships or job opportunities for young people. And the reality is just economically. A lot of young people rely on these experiences for the funds to support their next semester of school or the miscellaneous expenses tied to books or transportation, things like that. And also these experiences are what gives young people an opportunity to test different career pathways and decide what they want to pursue or don’t want to pursue. And so the town accelerator, we created a virtual experience where students are engaging in project based learning assignments related to different career pathways. Each project takes about 10 to 15 hours and students, they pick their course.


Daniel Horgan (19:38):
So they pick which projects they’re most interested in. They work through the project, learning about in the research section, all about the context, seeing examples, then they get to create something, their own original work, which is a way for students to build up their portfolio and sort of showcase the value that they can bring to potential employers. And then the opportunity to gather feedback. So every student is matched with a group of coaches who are employee volunteers from different companies, representing different industries, functions and levels. And so the idea again, is that students are, are creating something. They’re getting feedback, they’re getting coaching. The number one takeaway that you know, Sam and I, when we work on this over the summer as a pilot with 460, that’s quite a pilot, we learned to let Mike one of the key takeaways, then the student’s feedback was so many of them had not had practice or a lot of experience presenting.


Daniel Horgan (20:30):
And so the idea of presenting in front of their peers, presenting in front of professionals, getting real time, coaching and feedback. It enabled them to not just develop that skillset, but boost their confidence, knowing that their voice mattered and their creative ideas could unlock other opportunities. And so again, I think the most educators listening I’m sure will relate to the experiential learning. The project based learning design of the talent accelerator is I think what really pulls the students in because it’s not somebody just lecturing at them. It’s a real experience. Self-Directed learning. Like we’re not teaching them. It they’re sort of teaching themselves. And then reflecting back to us, their application of learning


Sam Demma (21:10):
So true. And you can see the improvement of these students after they finished and the smile on their face after they finished their presentation, the, the feeling of teaching and seeing a student or young person grow is such a fulfilling feeling. And the TA talent accelerator does a great job at just allowing kids to build themselves up in all areas of their life. And if someone’s listening and thinking, you know, Daniel’s a really cool guy. I would agree. What would be the best way for them to reach out? Maybe just ask a question or have a conversation with you.


Daniel Horgan (21:43):
Yeah. So they could definitely reach me by email. It’s just Daniel@colabl.com, or they can check out our website, colabl.com or on Twitter @HortonDaniel. So love to connect with anyone who’s interested in.


Sam Demma (21:57):
Awesome. Dan, thanks so much for coming on the show. It’s been a huge pleasure having you on and we’ll stay in touch and hopefully do some more work in the future.


Daniel Horgan (22:04):
Absolutely. Thanks Sam.


Sam Demma (22:06):
And there you have it. The full interview and conversation with my good friend, Daniel Horgan. If you enjoyed this episode, consider taking two seconds to leave a rating and review on the show. It’ll help more high performing educators, just like you find this content and benefit from hearing it. And if you do have something that you want to share, some insights or inspirational stories of transformation in education, please shoot me an email info@samdemma.com and we’ll get you on the show as a guest as well. Anyways, I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

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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.

October 28, 2021 by Experiential Learning Founder and CEO Student Leadership 0

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