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Teaching Tips

Michael Booth – Principal of Blyth Academy’s Yorkville and Orbit Campuses

Michael Booth - Principal of Blyth Academy’s Yorkville and Orbit Campuses
About Michael Booth

Michael Booth is the Principal of Blyth Academy’s Yorkville and Orbit Campuses. Previously, he taught undergraduate courses at Northwestern University, Loyola University and Indiana University while pursuing a Ph.D. in Film Studies. Michael has a B.A. from McGill University and an M.A. from New York University.

Connect with Michael: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Blyth Academy Website

Principles by Ray Dalio

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 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.highperformingeducator.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 Michael Booth. He is the Principal of the Blyth Academy, Yorkville and Orbit campuses. He has previously taught undergraduate courses at Northwestern University, Loyola University and Indiana University while pursuing his PhD in film studies. Michael has a BA from McGill University and an MA from New York University.


Sam Demma (01:06):
I had the pleasure of speaking at a couple of Blyth campuses over the past few years, and Michael’s energy really reflects the professionalism that all of the Blyth students and campuses have and contain and pass on to all of their students. I hope you enjoy this episode. I’ll see you on the other side. Michael, welcome to the High Performing Educator Podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show today. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself with the audience and explain why you got into the work you do with young people today?


Michael Booth (01:36):
I am the the Principal of Blyth Academy’s downtown Toronto campus. I started with Blyth Academy. We are a, a small boutique private high school in Southern Ontario with campuses across the province from, I think we have 10 campuses now stretching as far east, as London and west as Ottawa. I started with the school 11 years ago now when I was returning to Toronto with my family after the first half of my career was mostly in, in academia, in the states and I was doing my graduate work there. And we were coming back to Toronto. I was looking to come back to secondary education and they were opening a new campus at that time in Mississauga and asked if I would be interested in running that, which I did for eight years. And a couple of years ago go, move to the Toronto location, and this summer I’m also the principal of a new campus we’ve begun, which exists in the virtual hemisphere. Nice. Which is in following the model of what all of our bricks and mortar campuses did in the wake of the lockdown in March running classes face to face with teachers and students through the zoom platform on an entirely, but the, these classes are exclusively virtual for its students.


Sam Demma (03:17):
That’s awesome. And it’s slightly different than maybe what teaching was like last year in the past 11 for you. What has been working in your two locations, virtual and in person with your students right now, and what problems or challenges have you been faced with that you guys have slightly overcome or are still dealing with that someone listening might find valuable?


Michael Booth (03:38):
Well, we’ve been very fortunate at Blythe because I think that more than most, any other school in the province our existing, physical model the gap between that model and what we, we are doing virtually is I think smaller at our school than most any other. And the reasons for that is that we have always had very small class sizes. So in the physical campuses, our class sizes have always been capped at 16 students. The average class size is eight students in the virtual world. We cap them at 12 and they still average about eight. We also have what used to be a, a fairly unique academic calendar where most high schools in the province are either semester with two semesters of a full course load being four courses per student, per semester, after or full year with students taking all their courses from September, until June at the same time, we’ve always been on a quarter system which is in fact what most of the public schools in the province have now turned to.


Michael Booth (04:57):
And the quarter system means that a full course of students is two courses per what the public schools are calling quadmesters. We call them terms. So from September, until mid-November, you might take geography and math, and then you’ve completed those courses, and then you move on to science and history and, and so on. And so that that mix of two courses at a time plus small class sizes plus our school is everything we do and, and our entire structure is dedicated towards very rigorous, comprehensive communication between ourselves students and students, parents, and guardians. Mm. And so in the wake of, of COVID in, we, we were notified, I think, right before March break by the Tuesday after March break, we had resumed classes on the same schedule, same timetable, and didn’t miss a day for the rest of the, the year.


Michael Booth (06:13):
And we simply maybe not, but more simple for us. We were able to effectively mirror what we do in the physical campus, through the zoom platform, so that those are when students are only doing two classes a day, the duration of the classes is longer. So we have two hour and 15 minute time blocks for each class per day. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that students just, as in the physical campus, it’s a very rare, you virtually never would walk around our classrooms and see teach every teacher classroom after classroom standing at the front of the room and, and in a more of a lecture mode trying to pitch it down the middle and hoping that more advanced students aren’t bored and weaker students are following. We have two hour and 15 minutes with an average of eight students in the class to engage in different styles of teaching different styles of assessment.


Michael Booth (07:20):
A lot of one-on-one conferencing, a lot of group work. Our teachers float around the room and students have opportunities to engage in different learning activities in the same class. On the same day, we can do that through the zoom platform as well. So it’s not necessarily the case that our student are listening to a teacher drone on, as I am for two hours on end. They might have a half hour 45 minutes of more traditional classroom conversation, discussion, PowerPoint presentation, have a small break rejoin, and then they might be assigned independent work that they might in breakout rooms on zoom. They might do off camera and then come back. They might have conferences scheduled with the teachers in that second hour to do one on one work. And so our model is really equipped us well to, to carry on in, in that format, the physical school we have resumed physical classes in September and because of our class sizes we’ve been able to maintain social distancing and cohorting of 15 or fewer students.


Michael Booth (08:34):
So no student is exposed to more than 15 other students at any given time of the year. And if a student is unable to come to the school because of an illness in their household, or a situation of immunocompromised or something like that, there is a virtual option coupled with the physical option, always available mm-hmm . So teachers have cameras in their classrooms and you’ll see if a student’s not able to be there. The student will be projected onto a a screen through zoom and be able to interact with their classmates and the teacher.


Sam Demma (09:10):
That’s cool. That’s how awesome game plan. And I think you’re existing model sets you up and life up really well to adapt and evolve with the current situation. What has, what have the students really enjoyed about the changes? Have they given the school or teacher any feedback on what they’re liking and disliking or what they wanna see more of and less of?


Michael Booth (09:34):
Yeah, I think, I mean, I was, I was actually really impressed and we, because we are, we’re a small school community, very, very inclusive, very diverse, very supportive. We all last year, we already had, you know, a very strong community that proved quite resilient. And our approach was able to cater to students that were struggling to adapt to a virtual classroom. And they supported each other for some students they actually really, I mean, they like the fact that they don’t have a commute for some student into, might be struggling with anxiety for them, some of them, the virtual format has actually helped alleviate that. I think, but I, I don’t know that the students have really in the virtual school their are students that don’t live within commuting distance to our physical campuses.


Michael Booth (10:41):
And so we have students from Alberta, we have international students that, that appreciate being able to join our schools without being physically there. They appreciate that we’ve been able to maintain continuity. So where many students in the last half year have, have effectively lost quite a bit of their access to teachers and curriculum. So we’ve, we’ve really this year, for example, our grade 11 math class is struggling because many of the students did not gain the fifth foundations they needed in grade 10 math. So we’ve been kind of triple timing it to help those students through their grade 11 course. But the students that have been with our school ha have not had that struggle because they didn’t have that interruption. We still have the same flexibility and of time tabling. So students have as much course selection and of course, flexibility and adaptability through the year that they’ve always had with us, whereas in many schools, because of the, the challenges that they’re facing the timetables are pretty set and they’re not changing and they’re not adapting.


Michael Booth (11:59):
And and very often they don’t even know exactly what it’s going to be in the next quad master, much less the third or fourth quad master. I think that the challenges that we faced are, are again, they’re, they’re not dissimilar from what we face in the physical school, it’s just, they’re taking on digital forms. So for example, students being shy about or, or, or lazy about, or not wanting to turn their cameras on. And we, as with everything, we, we approach that with empathy and support, we reach out to the student and their families to try and have discussions about what’s happening. If it’s a case of something appreciable like, like anxiety or their, an internet connection, isn’t speedy, we’ll make arrangements where that, you know, that’s okay. But as, as the, as the weeks progress and the year progresses, we, we approach that not unlike we might, we would approach attendance.


Michael Booth (13:06):
So if a student is struggling to make it to class on time or to come to class that’s, that’s enters into the conversation that the school has with the student and their, and their parents or guardians. And unlike, I, I, I know again in the, I, I’m not meaning to I fully appreciate the challenges that, that some of the public schools and the province are facing. And I, I really admire the work they’ve done, but they simply don’t have the capacity to help students and, or require students to have their cameras on. So they’ve got, you know, 25 students in a class and all of their cameras are off. And we, that’s not the case with us. We, we might have one student that we’ve made an arrangement with, but otherwise their cameras are on, they’re engaged and we’re having daily lessons with all of the interactions that we normally would.


Sam Demma (13:57):
Nah, that’s fantastic. And I know your campus has a lot of athletes as well, and extra quicks are a big part. How are you navigating these students who were super involved in other areas, aside from academics, not being able to do those things anymore, is there some way to deal with that and manage with that that’s been successful?


Michael Booth (14:15):
I, Yeah, that’s the, the athletics part is, is more challenging. Where, where one of our strengths lies is with the four terms and three periods a day of which students take two they can manipulate the schedule so that if they’re doing athletics outside of the school, so we have competitive figure skaters, hockey players, soccer players track athletes who have been able to maintain their, their practice schedules. There’s not a lot of games going on, even outside the school. So that’s a nice option with, with our clubs and physical education classes. We, we ran PHY ed in the fourth turn in the spring last year. And it was actually a great course to run because it, it helped us to motivate the students to get outta their bedrooms, which I think initially, I mean, it’s still a problem, but it’s initially it was a serious problem.


Michael Booth (15:16):
And we were doing yoga classes online and we were doing fitness classes, or we were asking them to design their own health programs, but varsity soccer is not really happening. Unfortunately mm-hmm, with other extracurriculars and clubs, because we’re trying to maintain the cohorts of students on Wednesdays. We run a shortened academic day and then we have two periods in the afternoons dedicated to extracurriculars and clubs. So our student council is up and running. We have a math club, we have a model UN club. We have, I think about eight different clubs going and extracurriculars going on for a total student population of 150 students. And so weekly, they’re getting to do that, meet other students in the school. And and that’s how we’ve been able to


Sam Demma (16:10):
Do that. That’s awesome. No, it’s fantastic. There’s so many different challenges, but it seems like you guys have been very successful at managing it and pivoting and finding what works and sticking with it. I think a huge key was the empathy piece that you mentioned in meeting kids where they’re at and understanding their situation before trying to coach them through anything. And I’m curious to know when you were a young person, not that you’re old , but when you were younger and you were in school did you have an educator in your life that made a huge impact on you and what did that person do? That made a big difference. And how did that, like, how did that lead you into education? Was there a defining moment where you decided I want to be a teacher?


Michael Booth (16:53):
Yeah, I think grade seven. I was I was fortunate to go to a, an independent school in Toronto where not unlike many of my friends, my dad was in, in, on base street and banking. And I, I thought until grade seven that I would just do whatever it was he did when he put his suit on to go to work in the morning. But I had an English teacher who was that teacher that, that that touched a lot of us and made me even more excited about the humanities than, than I had been in the past. And really after that, it didn’t occur to me to do much of anything but teaching. And that was really twofold. One was, I always liked working with, with kids. I was a camp counselor but it was also the academic side of it.


Michael Booth (17:46):
So that was, you know, my first job was actually working at the high school. I went to I was working in the boarding house and I was and actually my high school teacher that really inspired me had to take a leap of absence for the second half of the year. So when I was in my second year out of undergrad, I took his, his courses. And that was that, that kind of sealed the deal. And then I wanted to pursue graduate work. But the thing I loved about the graduate work most was the teaching and the thing I didn’t like as much as it was not as conducive to raising a family and yeah, and, and engaging students as much as I wanted to focus on. So that, that was what prompted me to come back to Toronto and, and, and work with life.


Sam Demma (18:38):
That’s awesome. That’s a cool story. And was it just a push that he gave you that inspired you? Was it, what, what made him an impactful teacher? Because the educators listening who are thinking, how can I be more effective with my students? And I can tell you, I had a grade 12 world issues teacher named Mike loud foot who changed my life. And the thing for me with him was his passion. He really cared about what he taught, what he taught. And when he talked about it, you just wanted to listen because he was excited. And I I’m curious, what was it like, what was the qualities of your teacher that made it different from every other class?


Michael Booth (19:14):
In the, in the case of the grade seven teacher, that’s when we started talking about themes in the novels, we were reading of the story and that I’d never done that. And so it brought my level of engagement with the material and my level of thinking beyond what I knew existed. Mm. And then he, he taught like, instead of in, for the poetry unit, instead of only doing 19th century romantic poets, we studied pink, Floyd’s the wall. And we did, I, I think it, I think it was a three or four week unit on that. and so that made me realize that studying wasn’t just out of the textbook and it wasn’t remembering dates and so forth. Mm-Hmm . So in, in my, the case, my high school teacher he, he taught a course that was of his own design that he, that called modernism and I, I, and about modern the modernist movements in art and literature and and the arts in general and, and philosophy.


Michael Booth (20:20):
And I didn’t know that existed either when, when I was in grade that was grade 13. And like a lot of my teachers in high school, I, I would sit in class and I wanted to be as smart as they were. I wanted to be able to cite thinkers and I wanted to be able to interpret the world. I wanted to be able to give commentary and analysis at levels that I couldn’t at the time. Hmm. So that’s a little, that’s a little passe these days. I think, I think a lot of times when people, you know, the current pedagogical trends are more towards experiential learning and student driven learning, and finding ways to, to engage the students almost as if it’s your job to, to, to tap into what they are interested in. Mm. Whereas in my day it was more the case that you’d kind, it was, the teacher would stand there and just be so illuminating that you would be inspired.


Michael Booth (21:32):
And I, I think I, I, I think a mix of both is, is worthwhile. And I, I, I sometimes worry that we put we certainly do it Blyth and, and we put a lot of emphasis on making sure are that we are engaging, the students interests as they exist before they enter the classroom. And my feeling is there’s actually nothing wrong with challenging them to move outside of their, their the interests that they bring in to recognize connections between those interests and what the teacher may be talking about that day. Mm. And, and there’s nothing wrong with challenging them to exceed what their immediate knowledge is of. And I, I, I think particularly in the age of social media where their interests, their desires, their curiosities are being satisfied by the second. And it’s whatever they, they within themselves think to tap into quite literally they don’t have as much experience with feeling uncomfortable or challenged.


Michael Booth (22:47):
And so I fear that if we don’t, build those skills in them, that the world is a much harsher and crueler place to enter as an adult for them than it was for me in my generation. And I fear that when confronted with the challenges of having to meet the expectations of someone other than themselves, that they won’t have much practice in doing that. And so we’re constantly trying to find that balance with us and, and, you know, like with the black screens, like we start with empathy, we start with accommodations, but ultimately the goal is to work on resiliency and that may involve consequences. And we don’t lay them down at the outset. As a matter of course, we work with each student with each family to find what the, the line is. Yeah. But ultimately we’re working to wean them off of the accommodations and the need for degrees of empathy that they might need at the start.


Sam Demma (23:50):
That’s so true. And Ray Dalio, hedge fund manager wrote a book called principles, and he talks about problems and he says most often the bad outcome is just a root of a bigger issue. So having a screen is not actually the, the problem, it’s a symptom of a problem, which you have to uncover through conversations. So I think the approach that you guys take is a great one and it’s well thought out, and I think it can be applied to any problem a students facing. It’s probably not the real problem. Just a root, gotta dig a little bit deeper. That’s fascinating.


Michael Booth (24:25):
Yeah. One of my refrains to the teachers is 99.99, 9% of the time, whatever the behavior or posture a student is, is, is presenting is not what’s actually going on inside. So if it’s a boy that’s kind of fronting and pretending, or not pretend, but acting like he doesn’t care and he’s not interested and sometimes a little oppositional or what have you underlying that is actually some, probably some insecurity maybe you know, certain struggles in particular areas of processing or what have you mm-hmm . And so you always have to translate what’s in front of your face, into an understanding that you don’t actually know. And until you have a better sense of it, give the benefit of the doubt because otherwise they’ll shut down. Yeah. But then going back to my earlier point, ultimately, we’re going to work to get you to, to the place where we don’t have to do that translation, because we figured, figured out where, where the problem lies and what we can do about it.


Sam Demma (25:35):
Yeah. There’s a quote what people don’t or what kids or students don’t, what, what kids don’t speak out, they act out I think Josh ship was the speaker who said that once, and it really resonated with what you do is saying what you’ve learned so far on your educational journey. Maybe you, if you could, could you summarize your key learnings that if you could talk to your former self, when you just started, like what key learnings or pieces of advice would you give? Imagine there’s an educator listening. Who’s just starting teaching now, or is a little overwhelmed your experience over the past 11 years, what do you think are some key things to tell your younger self or a new educator?


Michael Booth (26:14):
Well, I think what we were just talking about is, is is probably the, the refrain that I, that I use the most and the, the way I can best explain it is there’s a great seminar that I’ve gone to a couple of times that my wife is a social worker. So she, she introduced me to this and it’s called walk of mile in my shoes. And it’s for parents of students with learning disabilities and what they do. They start the seminar by showing parents of student of children with, with learning disabilities, a problem on a, on a board and asking them to take five or 10 minutes to solve the problem. And, but the problem is pure gobbly go, and there is no solution. Yeah. And when the parents experience that, then the presenter says, so that’s what your child is going through 24/7.


Michael Booth (27:11):
Mm. And I’ve been to a couple, my wife has been to many and, and she says that she’s, and it happened when I was there. She’s never seen, been attended the seminar when one of the fall, others has not broken down in tears realizing that when he was brow eating his, his son or daughter, that they weren’t being lazy or resistant or whatever, just for the cuz they liked to do that. Cause they were having a struggle that was invisible to the parents. And I think it’s similar. We all fall into habits of, oh, they’re Johnny. So and so is struggling again and giving me a hard time because Johnny is lazy or unmotivated or what have you. And I’m not in the trenches in the classroom as much as I used to be. So I feel like it’s my job to remind teachers to try to walk a mile in their, their student shoes.


Michael Booth (28:07):
Mm that’s awesome. And, and then on the other token, I mean, it’s all about navigating these, these, these often conflicting or competing demands not necessarily only accommodating and this is parents and students. Yeah. We have the capacity at this school to be highly responsive to students struggling or trying to achieve a higher goal or what have you. And the, the immediate impulse is at times to, oh yeah, we can make that accommodation. So we will, and that’s fine at the start, but ultimately the end goal is always, how do we, how do we work ourselves off of needing that accommodation? Like if, if possible.


Sam Demma (28:57):
Yeah. That’s awesome. And a side note question before we wrap up today over your right shoulder, there’s a picture on the wall. It might it be Martin Luther king. I’m curious to know if this is your office or what that picture says.


Michael Booth (29:12):
No, that, that is my office. It’s it’s an album cover for a John QUT train jazz saxophone player.


Sam Demma (29:19):
Nice. yeah. Cool. Very cool.


Michael Booth (29:22):
Having a rough day. I’ll just turn around and look at that and it makes me feel a bit better.


Sam Demma (29:26):
Oh, I love it. Cool. That’s amazing. And if anyone wants to reach out, have a conversation, they think something you said was impactful or inspiring, what’s the best way for someone listening (an educator) to do so?


Michael Booth (29:39):
My email mbooth@blytheducation.com is, is great. And I can schedule zoom calls and, and phone calls and or email exchanges.


Sam Demma (29:48):
Awesome! Michael, thank you so much for taking some time today. I really appreciate it, it’s been really insightful. 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 wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com, and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Michael Booth

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.

December 28, 2021 by Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teaching Tips 0

Paola Di Fonzo – Chaplain All Saints Catholic Secondary School

Paola Di Fonzo - Chaplain All Saints Catholic Secondary School
About Paola Di Fonzo

Paola has over 10 years of work and volunteer experience in youth and adult faith formation in both the Catholic parish and Catholic school settings. Currently, she is the Chaplain at the All Saints Catholic Secondary School.

She recently finished her Masters in Theology at the University of Toronto.  

Connect with Paola: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

All Saints Catholic School website

BA in Christianity and Culture at the University of Toronto

Masters of Theological Studies at Regis College, University of Toronto

Meditation Basics

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.highperformingeducator.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 my good friend, Paola, Paola Di Fonzo is the chaplain at All Saints Secondary School. She just recently got her masters degree. So she’s still pursuing education, even while she’s teaching. She is a powerhouse. I had the opportunity to work with her last year with her entire school, doing keynotes for all four grades.


Sam Demma (01:06):
And this year I got to work with her again, to do a SHSM certification, a specialist high skills major with her with, with her students on public speaking, it went really, really well. It was awesome. This year she’s also responsible for OYAP, the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Programs coordinating that and SHSM programs, so she has a lot in her hands. Here’s my good friend, Paola. Paola thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educators podcast. It’s a pleasure to see you again, virtually not in person this time. Can you share with the audience who you are, how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today and yeah, I think that’d be a great way to kick this off.


Paola Di Fonzo (01:46):
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Sam. So my name is Paula Di Fonzo. I’m a chaplain out here on the east end with the Durham catholic school board and I’ve been here for about, I think it’s like two and a half years now. Before that I spent the last decade, the last 10 years, which sounds crazy, because I’m still such a baby. I’m still so young, but I started right after I graduated high school working in like churches, parish settings, and developing youth programs for young people. So I’ve been sort of doing this sort of faith formation work with young people for the last decade. And, and yeah, that’s, that’s what I do. And the reason really I got into this kind of work is because during those formative years for me, probably starting in grade five till well into high school, I had such a wonderful group of adults who took care of me and cared for me on that deeper level.


Paola Di Fonzo (02:43):
Like I played sports and I was in the musicals and I was on student council and I did that sort of stuff, but it was this one particular community that cared about me on a spiritual level that, that held me up throughout those major years where things get really tough and you’re changing so much and the world seems to evolve so quickly. And it was that group that really sustained me during that time. And, and the reason that I think that I’ve been successful and I don’t mean that in an academic or a career way, but just as a human being, it was that group that really held me up and all, all I wanted to do was do that for other people. Mm-Hmm and I didn’t know that at the time, I didn’t know that it was a career opportunity.


Paola Di Fonzo (03:26):
I always thought I, I get a job as a teacher. Not that that’s a, a bad job, but I thought I’ll do that and then on my evenings and weekends, I’ll work in this faith formation setting and I’ll work with young people and guide them in that way. And then as I grew up and started to branch out a network, I realized, oh, like I could get paid for this. This could be my livelihood. I would love that. So that’s what I did. I pursued it. I, you know, I studied Christianity and philosophy and my undergrad, I did my masters in this and, and here we are and I’m loving it. I’m really happy.


Sam Demma (03:58):
That’s awesome. I know you completed your masters recently, so congratulations again. Thank you. Going back to that group for a second, that really uplifted you through high school. What was it that they did for you that made a huge impact because whether you realize it or not, you kind of describe the current state of the world being that it’s changing and evolving and have a constant support, or I guess someone looking over your shoulder could have a huge impact. So I’m curious to know if you could boil down, you know, from that group, you know, what did they do that just made such a massive impact for you as a young person?


Paola Di Fonzo (04:33):
That’s a great question. And it’s hard to really reduce it to one thing, but the word that immediately came to mind for me was relationship. They, we built real relationship. It wasn’t, you know, you come and you listen to this message and you go home. It was a family so much so that you couldn’t wait until Friday night came along because you knew you were spending your weekend with these people. And it felt like a home you felt like that need for belonging was truly fulfilled them getting to know you getting to know like the deepest parts of you and still like loving you and caring for you through that is transformative. And, and I can only hope to replicate that in the roles that I’m in, but it’s really grounded in that relationship building. I think that’s what it was for me. If I could reduce it to one thing that was the major part.


Sam Demma (05:20):
That was awesome. And the way they, I guess, built those relationships was just asking questions. And like you said, getting to know you on a deeper level and you know, during COVID, that’s a huge challenge. I know usually you you’re in an office and the student walks right in and has a conversation with you. The state of the, the world in education right now is totally different. And I’m just curious to know, as you take in that big breath, what are, what are some of the challenges that have been presented? And I’m sure they’re very similar to everyone who’s listening. So you’re not alone here. I’m just curious to know what it looks like in your world.


Paola Di Fonzo (05:55):
Yeah. Like it’s exactly what you just said. I mean, as I was preparing some thoughts for our conversation today, I kept going back to that. The biggest challenge for me and my role right now is how limited we are in building relationship, real, authentic connection. Isn’t really happening virtually. Like that’s the one thing that I haven’t been able to translate to the virtual platform. I, I can’t have, you know, like the students would come in before and after school on lunches, we’d just hang like, it’s not, yeah. They certainly came in to, you know, seek guidance and some counseling and, you know, to pray together, we did that, but for sure, we’re the beauty lies more so than in any other.


Paola Di Fonzo (06:39):
I think interaction is like those casual Hangouts where we’re just chilling. Like we’re just being real with each other. We’re being human with each other and we get to know each other in that real way and that’s just not happening. And I, I haven’t been able to translate that again to the virtual platform just yet. So that’s been, that’s been a challenge that it’s something that I miss terribly. That’s something that without it makes my job really hard, really, really hard because there’s no relationship of trust being built and relationship of vulnerability being built. So how do we, how do we journey together in the faith without those things, right? How do we journey together as human beings, without connection and trust and vulnerability that can really only be established with human connection. Like we need to be around people and that’s been the hardest part I feel. Hmm.


Sam Demma (07:29):
Yeah. The reason I ask is because there’s a lot of educators listening who might have some great ideas and if they do at the end, we’ll share your email address for you. Two can connect, having been power in conversations and just bounce different ideas around on the other end of a challenge is I would say hope and overcoming it, which is obviously a great feeling during these difficult times. What sustains your personal hope? What keeps you hopeful? Although there’s lots of challenges and, and turbulent times right now.


Paola Di Fonzo (08:03):
Yeah. I, as difficult as it’s been, and as exhausted as I feel, I don’t feel like I’ve lost hope. Hmm. And that’s a major blessing. I’m so happy for that because as soon as you lose hope, like you’re in trouble, right. Things can get really, really dreadful. But for me, I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to get back to basics mm-hmm and what I mean by that is like reflect. So we can’t my role as chaplain, right? So some of the big things I would coordinate in our school are, are large scale school masses. That’s not happening. Our grade retreats not happening. Anyway, we gather for liturgy together not happening. So I have had to really reinvent the wheel here and ask myself, all right, what are the basic human needs that I can cater to? Mm-Hmm what can I do to really see, like going back to like the most primitive needs of human beings, right?


Paola Di Fonzo (08:57):
The need for rest, especially during this high emotion time, the need for community, the need for belonging. Like how can I cater to that? And just the opportunity to, to just strip away all the layers, you know, sometimes you can just build up so much around the base needs of a human being and we start to layer up just so it make it look like we’re doing something good or you know, it makes it look good to other people like, look how much I’m accomplishing all of that’s out the window. And we’re just, we’re down to the most basic needs of our, of human beings of our students and stuff. And that’s sort of been exciting. It’s so terrifying, but so exciting to have the opportunity to do that because I think it’s a gift to have that opportunity. And it’s gonna change the game from here on out. It’s gonna change how we do things going forward. It’s given us an opportunity to stop retreat, reflect and kind of come back stronger. And that’s, what’s giving me hope, knowing that we we’re learning a lot right now, we’re gonna learn a lot about ourselves, our communities, and how to do things better. And that’s exciting. That’s


Sam Demma (10:01):
Exciting. Yeah. That’s what you just explained is how I’ve even felt during this time, because I made the rash decision before even watching the social develop. I meant to take a year off social media and it’s been over a month and a half now. And that to me was the whole like, Hey, look what I’m doing. And Hey, let’s, you know, keep in touch and Hey, check out my life and there’s positives and negatives to social media. But, but you’re totally right in terms of, you know, the state of education right now, it’s, it’s going back to those basic needs. How are you reinforcing those things? Are you make, are you just ensuring students are getting enough rest by encouraging them to or what does that look like for you as a, as a teacher and an educator?


Paola Di Fonzo (10:44):
Yeah. So in a very PR I, I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my time. At least in the first few months of transitioning back to school, it it’s looks very different. It’s not transitioning back to what we know school to be. It’s, it’s a totally different world, but I knew that I didn’t wanna do anything that would just be for the sake of doing them. Like I don’t operate like that. Right. nothing showy and nothing, you know, I just wanted to make sure I was caring for the person at the most basic level. And so what it’s and I’ll explain maybe one of the, the things we’re are trying to do around here, but I’ve developed something called tee time and meditation on the field. Mm-Hmm so classes sign up one class at a time and I do two slots a day in the morning.


Paola Di Fonzo (11:28):
And because they’re only here for a couple hours in the morning, right. Our students, and we go outside and we sit on the field, they’re six feet apart. So it’s a mask break. And I have, I have cookies with, for them. And we chill under the sun and we do some breathing exercises, some meditation, some stretching, and like, that’s it. And like, that’s just upping our self care game. And that’s really the, the extent of my connection with the students. But by the end of that hour together, they are just so relaxed. Some of them are asleep, which is like, I give them that permission. I’m like, I’m not gonna get offended, listen to your body. And mind here, allow yourself to just rest. And that has been so great, so fruitful, but we’re getting back to, to the basics, right. They just need time to check in with some deeper parts of them that maybe they don’t have the opportunity to, or even know how to, without some guidance. So those tee times have been a gift for, for me, for sure. And I hope for the students and staff and we’ve been doing that pretty much every day since mid-September, it’s


Sam Demma (12:30):
Been good. You must feel like a monk by now two hours a,


Paola Di Fonzo (12:33):
Well, that’s what someone says to me. They’re like, wow, you get to meditate for two hours every morning. And I’m like, you know what? I’m not really meditating. Like I’m guiding them in it. So I’m so like, okay, what’s next? And I’m in my head. So I’m really not relaxed when I do it. But but I hope they are. That’s the whole point.


Sam Demma (12:49):
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. Is there any common questions that come up that you use as prompts to have them reflect during that stuff?


Paola Di Fonzo (12:57):
Great question. It the whole time is really just them listening to their bodies and their minds. So I say to them, I always give them this. Disclaimer. I say, no matter what I demonstrate up here, whether it’s a type of breathing exercise or it’s a stretch that we’re doing, or, you know, I encourage you to lie down for the meditate, no matter what I demonstrate or model at the front of the space, if your body or your mind is saying, I’m not into that today, I don’t really want to, or I don’t feel comfortable or it hurts, listen to your body and give yourself the freedom to adjust, modify, or sit that one out and, and give yourself what you need. And that’s really, the only prompt for the morning is I just want you to learn to listen to yourself. And that’s not just for that hour.


Paola Di Fonzo (13:38):
It’s hopefully a skill that you take with you for the rest of your life. Like, I’m learning that I’m getting to the end of my twenties now, but like spend a lot of time listening to so many other things. So many other voices, so many other opinions, so many other, you know, expectations and, you know, social media is a whole other thing, but we don’t listen to what we need sometimes. Right. And so that’s really what I, I ground the whole exercise in learn to listen to yourself. Do you need to practice this breathing? Probably like, we, we all need some deep breaths every so often, but give yourself what you need. And I think that’s, I think that’s the message that we need right now as we transition back to school and figure it all out. Yeah.


Sam Demma (14:22):
So true. And sometimes an educator just needs a reminder that the work they’re doing is really important and it has a huge impact. It makes a huge difference. A lot of the educators that I’ve spoken to tell me that they have a file on their desk, they call it different name, but sometimes it’s called the bad day file. And it’s filled with all the notes that students sent them over the years or have written to them. And I’m curious to know, if you have a story of a student who has you have witnessed become, you know, become transformed into a, into a better version of themselves and maybe had a big breakthrough through school because of the work that you do and that your school does. And the reason I’m asking you to share is because another educator might be listening is a little burnt out, is forgetting why they got into education. and the impact you have, you can have in this, in this, in this work is tremendous. And you can change the student’s name if it’s a very personal story. But when I ask you that, is there any student or story that comes to mind?


Paola Di Fonzo (15:26):
There’s there’s names bouncing around in my head. But I’ll say this one thing about the work we do as chaplains and educators, and is we plant a lot of seeds. Mm. And sometimes we don’t get to see the fruit. Mm. Right. And so, like, I’m sure maybe some educators out there are like, I can’t even think of a name of a person who I’ve seen change because of my influence. And that can be so disheartening and you lose motivation, you lose hope. But something I was always told in this role was you just plant the seed. Right. And that might bloom in an hour, a day, five years three decades, who knows. Right. But it doesn’t mean that your impact wasn’t wasn’t relevant, wasn’t important. You plant the seeds and, and it’ll be watered, you know, and, and you might not see the fruits of it, but it doesn’t mean that you’re, that you’re any less effective as an educator, as a chaplain.


Paola Di Fonzo (16:30):
So that’s something I hold onto. Like, can you a specific example of students who, you know, their lives are transformed cuz of my influence? I don’t know. Like, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t even think that way sometimes. Like I don’t, I just hope that God’s doing something in their heart. Right. And I’m just here going, God loves you, you know? Right. In my role as chaplain, it’s very faith focused. So I just, I just plant that seed and I hope that it’s being watered down the road, but I love that. That’s that’s I think how I would respond to that.


Sam Demma (16:59):
Okay, cool. I love that. That’s a great, that’s a great way to look at it. And planting the seed is just as important as re you know, sewing the fruit. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. So I think that’s a brilliant way to look at it. Amazing. And if there’s an educator listening, who’s in their first year of teaching and they’re like, what the heck did I sign up for? This is very different than what I expected it to be. You know, what advice would you have for them? Think back to when you just got into teaching what advice do you wish you had someone tell you, or maybe they did tell you it and you think it’d be wise to share it with someone listening. Who’s also getting into this role,


Paola Di Fonzo (17:36):
Give it time, give it time. Like in the first I’m still so new at this. So I like, I feel kind of silly giving, sharing some wisdom, but if there was anything, like if there is anything I could have heard in the first few years of this kind of work, it’s, it’s gonna feel like a whirlwind of emotion and chaos in the beginning, and you’re gonna be so busy and tired and maybe unmotivated. Can you hear that? That’s okay. It’s okay. Oh, they’re even calling me. Perfect. So , we’ll wrap up here. Iming. No problem. No, it’s no, it’s not a big deal. I think it could be easy to quit the game because you’re so tired and you’re like, I don’t want this. I didn’t sign up for being this overworked and maybe feeling unmotivated because you’re not again, seeing those fruits from the seeds that you’re planting.


Paola Di Fonzo (18:35):
And it could be really easy to walk away, but over the years, as you, you know, you grow and you, you develop as a person. And as an educator and as a chaplain and whatever it is it gets easier and you start to maybe see those fruits and to just trust that you have gifts to offer, like we all do. Every single person on this planet is put here for a reason. And we have something to offer the world. It’s just discovering what that is. What are our gifts? What are our desires and how can we give that to the world? And we all, we all have that purpose. So that’s what I would say.


Sam Demma (19:09):
And if there’s, someone who wants to reach out and bounce ideas around or have a conversation, like I mentioned earlier, what would be the best way for someone to get in touch with you?


Paola Di Fonzo (19:18):
They can certainly reach out through my board email. Okay. So I don’t know if you wanna put that into the description or anything, but it’s paola.fraietta@dcdsb.ca.


Sam Demma (19:32):
All right. Perfect, Paola, thank you so much for taking some time to come on the show here and chat. I really appreciate it.


Paola Di Fonzo (19:37):
Thanks Sam. It was my pleasure.


Sam Demma (19:39):
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 wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Paola Di Fonzo

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.

December 24, 2021 by Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Julie Champagne – Co-Founder at the English Tutor and Teacher

Julie Champagne - Co-Founder at the English Tutor and Teacher
About Julie Champagne

Prior to settling in Toronto, Julie (@TheEngTutor1), an Ottawa native, studied at The University of Ottawa and Queen’s University. She is the Co-founder of the English Tutor as well as a teacher. In her ten years of teaching, Julie has taught everything (except math!) to a variety of age groups in a variety of locations including Kanata, Bradford West Yorkshire, and now at an independent school in midtown Toronto.

A proud Hufflepuff, Julie is an avid Harry Potter fan and has lost count of the number of times she’s read all seven books. Julie lives with her husband, young daughter, and dog named Pepper Potts. She eagerly shares her love of reading with her whole family. 

Connect with Melissa: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The English Tutor

Park Street Education

Blyth Academy school website

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 a 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.highperformingeducator.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 Julie Champagne. Prior to her settling in Toronto, she was from Ottawa. She studied at the University of Ottawa and Queens university and in her 10 years of teaching, she has taught everything except for math to a variety of age groups in a variety of locations, including Kanata, Bradford West Yorkshire, and now in an independent school in Midtown, Toronto. Julie and I met when she taught at Blyth academy, which is the private school in Midtown Toronto.


Sam Demma (01:20):
And now because of COVID, she took an entrepreneurial path into teaching, virtually, students from all around the world. She has a company with her business partner, Sam, and they have an amazing venture called the English Tutor. It’s a really interesting idea. They are very energized about the work they’re doing and having a huge impact. She has a ton of wisdom and ideas to share, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed recording it. I’ll see you on the other side. Julie, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you. I know we worked together. I, I wanna say over a year and a half ago now, and it’s really cool to connect with you virtually again. Share with the audience a little bit about who you are and why you initially got into the work you do with young people today.


Julie Champagne (02:07):
Sure. Yeah. Thanks so much. And I I’m so excited to be here. You’re right. It was about a year and a half ago with my foundation’s kids. So I mean, obviously I’m a teacher. I I teach high school primarily and you know, when the world changed, we had to all adapt very, very quickly. So I, I have my own tutoring business now that I own with my co-founder Sam, it’s called the English tutor and we teach kids all over the world, guided reading. And then I also am a middle school teacher with another school called park street. And I guess, you know, why do I do what I do? I, I honestly, I don’t think I could do anything else. I absolutely love my job. There are people let’s say there are jobs and vocations, and I truly feel that teaching for me is a vocation.


Julie Champagne (02:57):
You know, the, the joy I get from planning lessons that really get kids, right. Get them engaged, get them excited about something, especially if they’ve never been excited about something before. I mean, that is such an amazing moment. It’s so wonderful to be there, to be there supporting and talking them through the challenges too. Right. I mean, I do it because the kid like the kids, I not to sound cliche, but the kids are amazing. Right. They’re they’re the future and what they’re doing and who they’re becoming. I love that I can play a small part in that with them.


Sam Demma (03:36):
Yeah, no, it’s so true. And for, for some clarification, I’m not the Sam that she started the English tutor with. If anyone’s wondering no, it’s, it is a different Sam. That being said, you mentioned, you know, getting into teaching, being a V a vocation, and I’m curious to know, at what point in your journey did you decide teaching I’m gonna be a teacher was there a defining moment, a person who pushed you in that direction or when did you know?


Julie Champagne (04:03):
I mean, I think, I think there’s probably a few different things. I don’t know that I necessarily believe in one sort of sign that led me, led me down the path. And I think I probably took a few wrong turns along the way. Yeah. Before I, before I landed you know, but I think one of the primary ones that comes to mind for me is, is my brother mm-hmm . So my brother has what’s called Asperger’s and that’s it’s high functioning autism essentially. And so we’re going back 20 years now. Right? He, he hasn’t been in the school system in, in 10, 15 years. And as a kid I’m older than him and, and as kid, I just watched the school system, let him down. They just didn’t know how to reach him, you know? And to me that meant that the box of education, the box that I had somehow managed to make work for me, you know, I fit that mold somehow some way it wasn’t working for somebody else in my family.


Julie Champagne (05:02):
So it must not be working for everybody. Yeah. And, and I just, I was determined, especially when I got on the path to teachers college and, and my sort of first view teaching posts, I was determined to be the teacher that took the chance. Mm. Right. The teacher that, that said, okay, this box, doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be a box. We can push this. We can push against the constraints that the education field is, is throwing at us. You know, I think we’ve all got one or two teachers in our history that we remember. And if we’re lucky, one of the, one of the ones we remember is because they, they made a difference. Right. They, they pushed us in a really fantastic way. My brother doesn’t have that, you know, like he doesn’t have a teacher like that. And, and I do, I’ve got a couple like that. I’ve got teachers that took the time. And so that’s how I approach my own teaching. And, and it’s certainly when I look back at, you know, how did I get into this? Those are, those are the reasons that come up for me, for sure.


Sam Demma (06:04):
Yeah. That’s awesome. My teacher was Mike Lafa who changed my life, inspired me to go into the community and take his theory of small actions and put it to the test and totally change my life. And fact, I still stay in touch with him, him today. And he was a very principled man very alike, my own grandfather who taught me that if there’s a will, there’s a way. And you know, you are a perfect example of that. You were just telling me how as school was reopening. You made the decision, you know, I’m gonna fill a need here and make this work. And you were teaching at late hours. Can you share a little more about the English tutor and how it actually got formed and what it is today?


Julie Champagne (06:43):
Sure. Yeah. So my co-founder Sam when the school systems shut down all over the world, I mean, just absolutely wild. We started teaching these guided reading English courses to students in China. Mm. So we would be up at just ungodly hours, you know, five, six in the morning. And then again at eight o’clock or nine o’clock at night teaching these kids English and in a way it was, it was just so amazing and so wonderful to be doing this, but then we thought, how do we take this further? How do we really make this meaningful for the kids? So it’s not just a, it’s not just a bandaid for COVID, but legitimately something that they’re gonna get out of it. And we decided why not just read them books that are in their age level. Right. And, and not necessarily comprehension wise, you know, like they’re gonna struggle a little bit with a Royal doll text, but let’s break it down for them.


Julie Champagne (07:43):
Let’s create these beautiful resources that lead them through reading these books with us. Mm. You know, and so we’ve done all kinds. We’ve done Royal doll, we’ve done Charlotte’s web. Sam’s working her way through Harry Potter right now with her kids done nonfiction units and poetry units. I’m doing a nonfiction course at the moment with kids in Shanghai. Nice. so it’s been really, really incredible. And it’s been such an amazing thing for Sam and I to witness the equalizer that is a child. Mm. Right. All kids, it doesn’t matter. Culture, language, kids are kids. And, and they find the same things funny, and they they’re challenged by the same things. And so reaching a whole new set of kids has been super, super amazing and definitely a silver lining to COVID because it led us to form our, our business. And then when the school shut down here in, in Ontario, you know, we, we had, I think something like 200 hours worth of content worth of teaching content.


Julie Champagne (08:52):
And I happened to I happened to teach one of my grade 11 students. His mom is the CEO of the big brothers, big sisters organization in Toronto. Oh, cool. And so I reached out to her and I said, listen, like we have, we have all these teaching resources, we’ve got hours and hours of programming. We’d love to volunteer for your littles virtually. Mm. And so they created this amazing partnership with Rogers where Rogers dropped off all these devices to these kids. Holy and so since April Sam and I, five days a week have been doing these courses with the big brothers, big sister students ha. And it’s awesome again, like what an equalizer, right? Like kids are, the equalizer happens in China in the morning, happens again at 4:00 PM with kids in Toronto. You know, they’re laughing at the same joke from Willy Wonka, which is so cool.


Sam Demma (09:44):
That’s so awesome. And I just want to shed light on it because whether it’s facing a challenge with, you know, engaging students online or facing a challenge with hybrid learning where you have to go in class or room and back online, if there’s a will, there’s a way, and I just wanted you to showcase that story because I think it’s a great example. You know, you really pivoted and you’re teaching kids not only virtually, but across the freaking world. Like that is so cool. And I’m glad you, you got a chance to share it. I’m curious to know someone recently described education to me as the own spaghetti on the wall calculatedly and seeing what sticks is there any mistakes you’ve personally made or great successes you’ve had that you think are worth sharing with other educators who might be listening?


Julie Champagne (10:28):
Absolutely. I think that’s such a great analogy. I think one of the big mistakes I made when I first started teaching was being a little bit of a slave to the curriculum and overplanning, right. Just creating these absolutely gorgeous lesson plan and I recognize, I just said, I talked about how with the English tutor, we make these great lessons and these great resources and you need that. But you have to have some flexibility. You have to allow the classroom to derail sometimes and, and go off in these weird, fantastic sidebar conversations. Kids have so much to share if we let them. And it’s in those moments, it’s when you, when you pull back from the very regimented lesson that the real magic happens, but between a teacher and, and their PE and their students and, and the classroom community. So yeah, absolutely. The, the flexibility in the classroom is, is so important. It’s, it’s how you’re gonna build relationships with kids.


Sam Demma (11:32):
No, that’s awesome. I think that’s an amazing piece of advice even in life, you know, I have this weekly planner and no one can see this, cuz it’s not , it’s not, there’s no video here, but it just gives me a high level outline of the week. And so often I find myself not beating myself up, but realizing I didn’t complete everything I said I was gonna do, but then reminding myself that’s okay. And I, I think it’s the same for teaching. I’ve never actually taught, you know, for nine hours a day or eight hours a day for a whole year. But even with speaking, sometimes things don’t go as planned the person before you, you know, cuts you short 20 minutes and you gotta adjust on the fly and figure out how to fill the gaps. And it’s, I think it’s really cool. It’s a like painting, you know, I just gotta take the colors as they come and figure out how to paint the picture. And regardless of what you plan to, you know, create before you started painting.


Julie Champagne (12:21):
Absolutely. And I think more than ever this year, that holds true. Right. Mm-hmm and, and, and just being ready to meet kids where they’re at this year, you know, like you’re saying with your, your agenda, like feeling bad that I didn’t get through everything at the end of the week, you can feel like that teaching all the time. Right. Because, oh, I’ve gotta get to this piece of curriculum. Yeah. They need to learn how to write an essay and sure. They absolutely do. I’m not saying they don’t, but if it derails, because you know, there was a playground fight or some, some, one of your students saw something really spectacular on the news and they wanna talk through it. You have to allow space for that. You have to allow the air to come into your classroom. And, and this year, especially, right. We’re seeing kids who are, they’re just at varying degrees of readiness to learn. Yeah. Right. They are where, what they’ve experienced this year, what we’ve all experienced, the collective experience adults are going through. So we certainly can’t expect kids to, we certainly have to be ready to say, learning’s not happening today. Cuz they’re just not, they’re not ready for it. You know, and being okay with that being okay with saying, okay, but we’re gonna make some progress elsewhere. Mm-Hmm .


Sam Demma (13:40):
And that progress elsewhere is sometimes just showing kids you’re there to hear them and that you care and you’re paying attention. And I’m curious to know, how do teachers do that in a virtual scenario? You’ve done, it seems excellently with kids across the world. If an educator’s listening and you know, maybe the day comes where they decide today’s not gonna be a teaching day. It’s gonna be a, let me show you a care day. What does that day look like for a teacher?


Julie Champagne (14:05):
Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It is not without its challenges. This world, you know, student isolation is, it’s a big challenge this year. Isn’t it like it’s and, and teacher isolation. Right? Our, our we’ve all lost our communities. There’s, there’s no lunchroom to say, Hey, you know what, this wasn’t working for me today. What worked for you? Yeah. I think one of the ways that we’re doing it, so I, you know, I mentioned, I teach at a school called park street. It’s a grade four to grade eight school. So the kids are pretty little. And I think one of the ways that we’re addressing that and, and showing levels of care is, is recognizing that we have to treat the school day as though we were in person. Mm. And we have to be willing to work on the relationship and work on, on building the trust between teacher and student and, and student and student.


Julie Champagne (14:57):
Right. So all of our lessons are live. The kids are in zoom together, nice learning together, interacting. Right. So as much as we can taking that, that physical space and putting it virtually really helps to lay the groundwork for creating that level of care for kids. And, and then beyond that offering opportunities in class, right. You know, like next Friday, we’re gonna do we’re gonna do a Halloween costume and pumpkin carving contest over zoom, the whole gonna get together. You know, we’ll play, we’ll play the Halloween haunt music and nice. And we’ll all carve great photo, great pumpkins and, and just have some fun. Right. And that’s certainly what’s missing from the virtual space right now, right. Is the fun that comes with school. So we’re trying to find ways that you can inject that in. And that’s when the conversations where it’s let their guard down and, and tell you what’s really going on with them and tell you where they’re at and what they need from you. Right. Their hands are busy or having some fun. And then just all of a sudden that little, that little Mor, so is something that you wanna tease out of them a little bit more shows up, you know? But it doesn’t even have to be as big of an event as that. Right. What Sam’s last fry? She did feel good Friday in her class and all she had them do. I’m not kidding. All she had them do was change their zoom screen name to something that they love about themselves.


Sam Demma (16:23):
Oh, that’s a great idea.


Julie Champagne (16:24):
Right. And so this group of great eight boys, they’re all these great eight boys who are all very different person. And they’re reading about the hound of basketballs. They all, they all took it so seriously and really thought about what they were gonna put out. And we saw some just spectacular answers. That’s amazing, you know, like things like, I’m so glad I have courage or I really love that I can be the calm voice in the room. Mm. Like just what a reflective moment for these kids, but also allows the teacher to just get to know them really quite well and so simple to do. Right. It took two minutes. It didn’t detract from the lesson and the kids leave feeling pretty, pretty good about themselves.


Sam Demma (17:05):
Yeah. That’s so true. That’s an amazing idea. And like, I hope people listening right now are writing down in their own, you know, planner for the next day at class, because that’s an amazing idea. Not only does it encourage self-reflection, but it also allows you to honor your gifts and talents and maybe give you that feel good moment that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. Yeah. Which is phenomenal. And on the topic of student transformation or students being impacted as a direct result of over your dozens of years, you know, working as a teacher and teaching, I’m sure, you know, you’ve had students reach out and tell you, you know, Ms. Champagne, you made a huge impact on my life. And thank you so much for what you’ve done with me. And, you know, it’s really helped. Maybe some of your kids even stay in touch with you today and they’re older and you go out to the bar and have some food and catch up and talk life.


Sam Demma (17:53):
I’m curious to know if there’s any stories of transformation that stick out in your mind and you can change your name. If it’s a very profound story. The reason I’m asking is because a lot of teachers are burnt out. Some teachers are just getting into teaching some teachers plant, but don’t see them. They don’t see the, they don’t see the efforts or the sewing of that seed for 10 years down the road. And especially right now when that network of teachers is gone, I think it’s even more harder to stay motivated and hopeful. And a story of transformation might just be the thing to remind an educator, listening that you know, what they’re doing is important and they should keep pushing forward.


Julie Champagne (18:29):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think, I think those sort of impactful moments, they, you can have one really great one and then two, three weeks later, maybe that student takes a backside. Right. I, I, I really feel for new teachers this year. Mm-Hmm I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be in a silo. Right. Just without that sort of support without the sounding board. And to feel like you’re not making a difference, but honestly, any programming, I just, I will answer the question, but I just wanna say any programming that a teacher is providing right now, whether it’s a worksheet that they got up onto Google classroom, or they were hoarded a quick lesson for 10 minutes, or they threw up a cool video that they found on YouTube that is reaching kids. Yeah. And it’s making a difference and it’s, and it’s more than they’re getting otherwise.


Julie Champagne (19:22):
Yeah. Right. And so we just have to be okay with that and we have to celebrate that and recognize we’re all just doing our best, not just teachers, teacher of students, we’re all just doing our best this year. And, and muddling our way through it. Right. So if you know, any new teachers that are feeling that way, I, I, I think they, I, I hope that they just take a pause and realize this is quite honestly the hardest year they will ever teach. Yeah. Right. It’s it’s only gonna get easier from here. Yeah. But not for one second to think that they’re not having an impact. Yeah. Cause they are, even if they have to wait 10 years to get the email from, from the kid, I love it. I think for me, I mean, you, you met some of these kids.


Julie Champagne (20:06):
I, I taught the foundations program at, at my old school. It’s grade nine and 10, and you knew a little bit about them, their, their students who, for whatever reason, the, the mainstream wasn’t working out for them. And so a lot of them arrive with some pretty icy chips on their shoulder. Mm-Hmm . And I can think of one student in particular and, and you know, this student, we had lots of ups and, and downs. This was not, this was not a, a fixed by October. It was a, it wasn’t even a fixed by the time he graduated. Mm. You know? So he arrived in, in grade nine just all over the place, all over the place. He couldn’t predict his actions. You couldn’t, you couldn’t predict if he was gonna listen to your lesson that day or not, or if he was gonna show up or not, and wicked smart, wicked, wicked smart.


Julie Champagne (21:03):
And, you know, I just remember pulling my, a hair out in the staff room. Like, how am I gonna get through to this kid? How am I gonna reach him? He’s more than capable. He can do this. And then we’d have these breakthrough moments where he’d come in and be like, miss, I just read Richard the third, last night for fun. You’re like, wait, sorry. So you won’t read to kill a Mockingbird, but you’ll read Richard the third, your, okay. All right, well, let’s talk Richard III. I’ve read Richard. The third. Let’s do it. Let’s have that conversation. Right. And, and those little moments, I think go a really long way in helping that kid see that I believed in him and that I knew he was capable and I knew he could do it. And I think the real turning point was, was a, was a trip that we took.


Julie Champagne (21:50):
I took the foundation students on a Portage trip to Algonquin. Mm. And I saw a different side of all the students, but this student in particular, there was a confidence and a surety of himself in this environment that I’d not seen in the classroom walls. Mm. You know, the not tying ability, the fire building skills, naming of trees, the all get outta the canoe first to see if there’s any, any bear sightings on, on the site before we pitch our texts, right? Like this is, this was real roughen at camping. There was no glamping about it. And, and it really changed something in me for him. I came back to the classroom and, and just equipped him with so many more hands on things and told him, you know, okay, this is your seat, but this is your squad. Like, this is, you know, if you can’t sit in your seat, the whole class cool.


Julie Champagne (22:42):
But stay within the, stay within this squad that we’ve created. Mm-Hmm right. And, and he did it and, and, you know, to your, yeah, he is, he is a student that I stay in touch with that, you know, sent me a Christmas card last year, who, when he found out I was moving to Ottawa, asked if he could take me out for, for a, a goodbye drink and, and just wanted to say, thank you. And it’s incredible, like what a moment. Right. But at the end of it, like, he taught me so much about my teaching practice. Do you know what I mean? Like yeah, sure. I made an impact in his life. He’s off at Guelph. I mean, he’s home, but he’s not Guelph. Yeah. And, and he’s lighting it up and that’s a, my own practice because of what I went through with this student. Right. So he he’s, I he’s gonna go down in the history books for sure. That’s awesome. So cool. I think if he’s listen, if he listens, he’ll know it’s him too. That’s the funny thing, like he will know


Sam Demma (23:38):
, that’s awesome. I love that. Maybe you just send it to him. yeah, I will. There’s something about you in here, you know, we have to catch up and get a drink and it’s an excuse to have another conversation with a person. Exactly. in the, in the effort of making sure that we try and support teachers and educators, as much as we can and give them opportunities to connect and move away from the silos that they might be in right now, how could someone reach out to you if they wanna bounce ideas around, have cool conversations and just yeah. Talk and connect.


Julie Champagne (24:09):
Yeah, absolutely. I love, I love that. I love sharing resources. I love getting new resources and, and supporting each other. I think that’s the best. So you can find the English tutor on Instagram, just @theenglishtutoronline. You can email me at it’s julie@theenglishtutor.com. Or you can email me at park street, julie.champagne@parkstreetedu.com. Awesome. Would really welcome any anybody that wants to reach out and have a, have a chat I’d love to, I’d love to learn more. Cool,


Sam Demma (24:39):
Julie, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you and I can’t wait to see all the students you keep to mentor and teach and read to is really exciting.


Julie Champagne (24:48):
Thank you so much.


Sam Demma (24:49):
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 wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities, and I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Julie Champagne

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.

December 22, 2021 by Founder and CEO Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Nicole Haire – BC Program Head Hayat Universal School Qatar

Nicole Haire - BC Program Head Hayat Universal School Qatar
About Nicole Haire

Nicole Haire (@NicoleHaire) is a powerhouse educator.  She worked in Canada for most of her career, but for the past five years in Qatar as the BC Program Head at the Hayat Universal School.  She has hosted the Canadian Student Leadership Conference and is a nerd for self-development books and literature.  Enjoy this interview.

Connect with Nicole: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Hayat Universal School Qatar Website

Canadian Student Leadership Conference (CSLC)

Activities that Teach

University of Toronto Education Programs

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.highperformingeducator.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 someone with an insane amount of energy. She geeks out on self-improvement books, just as much as I do. And she’s someone that knows everybody in this space of student leadership and, and student advisory. Nicole Haire is the British Columbia, the B C head of all the grade 8-12 students at Hyatt Universal School (HUBS), which is in Qatar.


Sam Demma (01:10):
She’s been in Qatar, I believe for the past five years and she’s doing amazing work, like absolutely phenomenal work. Previously, she’s hosted a CSLC, the Canadian student leadership conference at a school. She’s, she’s been around. She knows everyone in this industry. She’s someone that you should know if you don’t and she’s someone that has a lot of wisdom to share. I hope you enjoy today’s episode. Nicole, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. It’s a huge pleasure to have you on this show. Why don’t you start by telling everyone on listening, where you’re tuning in from and how you got into the work that you’re doing with young people today?


Nicole Haire (01:49):
Well, thank you, Sam. What a privilege to be with you. I’m tuning in from Doha, QAR in the middle east, which about six years ago, I had no idea that that was a place or where it was, but it’s attached to Saudi Arabia right next to the United Arab Emirates near a lot of people know Dubai, but Doha is a city of about 3 million people and it’s beautiful here. We’re actually hosting. We, we, because I live here now are hosting FIFA in 2022. So the whole place is under construction. There’s this go bigger, go home in Doha. So I work at a, a BC offshore school. I was a Principal in prince Edward island for Ooh, a lot of years, 25, 26 years. Single mom with three kids in University and I felt like I needed a challenge and an adventure and this opportunity fell into my lap and


Nicole Haire (02:45):
I decided to take a leap of faith and come to the sandbox. And I came for two years. And after a year and a half, when I had to make the decision, whether I would go back to Canada just yet, I wasn’t finished learning what I need to learn here so it’s been quite an adventure. I’ve done lots of traveling, but my students, my, my teachers are from mostly Canada, but also UK, South Africa. So lots of diversity and the students themselves are 98% Qatari nationals, which is unusual for an international school here. Usually they’re mixed, but our school is mostly kids from here. So it’s, I’ve learned so much and not really speaking fluent Arabic yet, but , I, I know the, I know the school where’s like Halas, like that’s enough and yallah get going. You’re late. They’re like, oh, Miss.Nicole, you speak Arabic. No, no, I just school, I speak


Sam Demma (03:40):
School. that’s so awesome. Tell me more about how this opportunity fell in your lap. I think, you know, especially in student leadership, we can talk about seizing opportunities, but the opportunities typically come when the students ready or prepared to take advantage of them. And I, I want a little more context on how this fell into your lap.


Nicole Haire (03:58):
That is so so true and it’s, it’s not that I hadn’t had, you know, little voices talking to me prior to that, but I wasn’t, I wasn’t ready to listen. And to be honest, as a single mom, I was working three jobs. I was a principal for all week long. I was a waitress on the weekends. I was teaching at the university and I was just going solid I all the time. I was also heavily involved with student leadership at my school and at the national level. And I just, I, I was passing myself on the highway. I was just running, running, running all the time. And one night I was driving home from the restaurant where I was waitressing at like two in the morning, cuz we, we closed late and I fell asleep at the wheel and I went off the, to the side of the road.


Nicole Haire (04:43):
I fell asleep and I almost hit a post wow. In a country road in prince Edward island. And I went home and I, I just thought I I’m out of control. Like I, I have to get a handle on this. And, and to be honest, I know everyone has different faith, but I wasn’t in a faithful place at the time. And I just said, I prayed. And I said, you gotta show me the way. And I put my name into a search agency and I had an opportunity to go to Toronto to a job fair. And I met the people from my school and because I had this leadership background and because they were building a high school and they wanted somebody experience with that, they offered me a job within like two months. My household, I had a job in Qatar.


Nicole Haire (05:27):
Nobody knew where Qatar was including me. I blindly went and everything inside of me just told me it was the right move and I needed to take the risk. I needed to take a leap of faith and I did. And it has just been in the best decision I’ve ever made in my life and, and was a one time in my life where I truly knew what I was doing was exactly right. So I think going with your, your gut instinct, whether you call it your gut instinct, your gut instinct, like I think we know when we’re doing the right thing for us mm-hmm and just to get over the fear is the biggest thing like to take, to take that leap of faith means to put the fear aside and just, and just trust and, and go for it. And that was what I did and it’s been the best. So,


Sam Demma (06:10):
Wow. That’s such an amazing story. You see, if I ask a simple question, we get a whole nother layer. So the decision and the move, and I absolutely love that. That’s that’s, that’s the truth. Yeah. I love it. And you know, you mentioned earlier that you were you’re super involved in student leadership. Mm-Hmm how has that translated into your role now in Qatar? Are you still striving to do things on campus? And where did that passion stem from to get involved in student leadership and be the president of C S a and, and really champion the leadership activities in Canada?


Nicole Haire (06:46):
Wow. Well, I, well, I laugh cuz I always say I’m a Leo , that’s part of my problem. nice. Yeah. Born in July, but also just as a, as a child growing up, like I, we can all trace our leadership roots back, you know, and I was the girl guide and in girl guides, I had leaders who saw the potential in me and I wasn’t right away a leader. You know, I had, I had adults in my life, take me aside and say, I think you have this skill. I think, I think we’re gonna put you in a position to practice. And they corrected me and they guided me guide ha ha girl guides. But you know, I got to, when I got into school, I was just always a, a person who was an extrovert and wanted to, I wanted to be happy and I wanted school to be happy.


Nicole Haire (07:30):
And so I was in student council and I, I did all those things. And then as a teacher, I think you, you kind of paid the, you know, so people did that for me. So I started being a student council advisor at my school in Toronto where I started my career. And then again, when I moved back to prince Edward island and then one day a friend of mine said, we’re going to take some kids to the Canadian student leadership conference. It’s in Sacville Nova Scotia, 2001 let’s just go. And I’m just, I think that’s part of my personality is I’m usually the one that jumps on the bus and says, where are we going? You know, it’s kinda like get on a plane to Qatar. Where am I going? You know? And I, I just always, I like that adventure and that, that sense of fun.


Nicole Haire (08:14):
And so we took kids to see SLC 2001 in the Sacville and it was right after nine 11, it was the whole thing was just serendipitous. But we got there and we had no idea. We got off the bus and everyone was screaming and our kids were just like, Deering the headlights. Like, what is this place? And by, by the middle of that conference oh no, actually it was the first night when they say, you know, soon. So see whatever first year and you know, Yorkton, Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan kid scream. So I’m saying to prince Edward island, get ready, get ready. We’re gonna, they’re gonna say PEI and we’re gonna scream. And they didn’t say PEI. They said every province except PEI. So I turned to Dave Conlin and I said, why didn’t they say PEI? And he said, PEI is the only province that hasn’t hosted.


Nicole Haire (09:03):
And I said, well, that’s unacceptable. We’re gonna host. So in 2008, they put me in the board and I was a director for PEI and in 2008, my, my school hosted the first CSLC in, in, in prince Rhode Island. Nice. And it was fabulous. And just, just memory will never forget. And a team building experience as a school that will never forget. Because when you have to bring a thousand people from across Canada to your school for five days, the best part was the ability because my mother in charge of billing with a friend of mine and, you know, a small town Summerside PEs 15,000 people, we had 45 extra families that didn’t get to host billets because everybody wanted to be part of it. And it was such a, yeah, it was such a feel good week. And so that, that kind of thing, like just seeing of people benefit from you know, just seeing them become leaders.


Nicole Haire (10:00):
I think that that’s why I love being a principal. It’s, it’s not about me being the leader. It’s, it’s finding leadership in my staff and empowering them and kind of working yourself out of a job. The best thing you can do as a leader is work yourself out of a job because every, everybody around you is, is doing their part and, and their body in, you know, so I think they’re all kind of different transferable skills. Some of the things I did in grow guides, I used in my school in, in Qatar, but when I got here, the school was not a high school and the oldest grade was grade nine. Mm. Were gender segregated as our community here is Muslim. And the boys and girls after grade from grade four on, they separate into boys classes and girls classes. So I came in kind of naive to that whole culture and religious tradition.


Nicole Haire (10:51):
And, and I decided I would bring the boys and girls together to train for student leadership my a first month here. And they tried it and then they both came, both sides, came to me and said, please, please don’t do that to us again. That’s not how we do things. and I realized that I, it was a good lesson for me because rather than coming into a place and imposing my view of what I thought things should be. I had to come in and, and be quiet and observe and be respectful and get feedback and find other ways to do some of the things that I wanted to do. So one one thing we’ve done when I was in my school in PEI, we dismantled student council because we found the same 20 kids were doing everything. They were, they were fundraising, they were spiriting.


Nicole Haire (11:40):
They were, you know, doing everything and exhausted. And about three teachers as their advisors were also exhausted. And student council runs from August to July. I don’t care what anybody says. It might take a couple of weeks off in July, but you’re all the time. So we dismantled our student council into into councils, like the ministry here, here. I did it. I brought the idea here and our students do it here as well. So here we have the ministry of sport. Nice. The ministry of the interior is the got government ministry of activities is student activities, ministry of finance. They all wanna be in that ministry of global citizenship because here in Qatar, they have ministries and ministry of the interior is actually the government. And we had just a boom of kids because some people do wanna be just finance. They don’t wanna rah and cheer and march in the parade, or do philanthropic things.


Nicole Haire (12:37):
They just want to count the money. And they wanna put that on their CV as going to university to study accounting say, and some kids are spear kids, and some kids are philanthropists and some kids are sport kids. And so each ministry has a mandate and we had 20 plus teachers involved and about 200 kids. And they had never had student leadership at the school because the school was never a high school. So they decided to, we didn’t have recycling in Qatar when I got here and our kids by their initiative came up with the reusable, like the wa water bottle stations. And they did a whole proposal and got the school to put in the water fountains so that the kids can use wow. And they banned, they banned plastic water bottles from the school. Nice. Like, and so kids are kids, you know, and that’s, that’s what I found when I came here, I was like, okay. So they may dress differently. They may have a religion. And that’s different than mine, which is often more, more like it than different from it. As we have more conversation with one another, but just kids or kids and they still love to lead and they want to have great schools and they’re excited about life and they care about this planet and they care about one another. And I just, potato potato, I just felt like I was home when I got here. You know? So I, I stayed because of the kids. Yeah.


Sam Demma (14:03):
That’s so cool. Mm-Hmm you mentioned over 20 teachers help with it and have participated. There’s other people I’ve spoken to on the podcast and outside of the podcast who sometimes tell me that these positions of student leadership or student council sometimes go vacant, cuz someone doesn’t wanna step up. How were you able to get 20 teachers interested, involved, and excited to help with this work?


Nicole Haire (14:29):
I think you have to be contagious. And I’m not saying that the people that struggle to get help are not contagious because I think people are exhausted right now. Mm-Hmm , especially in this time, like we haven’t launched our student ministry because everybody’s online and now we’re starting to, we’ve all got our legs under us. And it’s like, okay, let’s get student assemblies running virtually let’s, you know, there’s ways around a mountain, but you have to have energy to create energy. And when you’re running on low with your battery and everybody’s just in survival mode, because there’s so much new learning and teachers are learning technology while they’re trying to deliver curriculum and they’re trying to, you know, sleep. And it’s been D to try to do the proactive things, but it’s kind of like when you’re tired and you don’t exercise because you’re tired and then you eat potato chips because you’re tired.


Nicole Haire (15:21):
And then you exercise cause you’re tired. And it’s like a, a vortex of doom. I find that if you do the push and you get people rolling, the energy feeds the energy. And I think we, we were, it’s new also. There’s a little bit of a novelty attached to it here because we haven’t done it before. So people jumped in and were, were willing to get involved. And maybe I think in some schools, traditionally at home, the one person would be kind of tagged as you’re student advise, you know, the student council advisor and, and you’re stuck. It’s like a life sentence. And and other people might think, oh, that’s what they do. And there’s no room for me. And what I’ve always found with leadership is you have to sometimes ask, if you put out a, an email and say, anybody wanna be involved, you’re not going, you’re gonna get of crickets.


Nicole Haire (16:12):
Nobody’s gonna answer that. But when I’ve walked up to specific people and said, I’m just gonna tell you what I see in you. I see this, you know, trade in you. I think you have a lot to offer. Would you be interested? People are usually like really you see that in me because quite often they don’t see it in themselves and they would kind of like to, but they don’t really see themselves that way. And once they’re invited and once they get a chance to get their feet into it and, and the kids are, the kids are the energy. I mean, you can’t be in student leadership and not stay young for the rest of your life. You know, you go, you go to those leadership conferences and you just come back. Like the world is, is perfect. You know, you only took three kids with you and there’s always the crash, the crash that comes with, they go back to school and they’re like, ha, then the whole school’s like, , it’s always a bit of a downer. But then they, then they bounce back and they do great things. And it’s the same way that I think kids get other kids involved. It’s what adults do with adults, you know? And, and half the time it just takes an invitation.


Sam Demma (17:19):
Yeah. I love, I love that. Cause I think it applies to inviting anyone to do anything. Especially if you appeal to people’s your belief in their people’s abilities, especially like you mentioned when they don’t see it in themselves. Yeah. Have


Nicole Haire (17:33):
You, and to off and offer them support, I think is the other big thing mm-hmm , you know, like to just say to somebody, okay, you’re gonna do student council and take off and leave them with that big piece of, you know, the work to do. I think the, the scaffolding is important too. It’s sort of like a coaching mentorship gradual release, you know, you walk with them for a while and then they take off and do wonderful things without you. And that’s what I mean by working yourself out of a job.


Sam Demma (17:58):
Yeah, no, I like that. And it’s passing the Baton on really. You’re just sure.


Nicole Haire (18:03):
And building capacity, building capacity is huge.


Sam Demma (18:06):
You know, it’s like the relay the 4, 4, 100, you don’t just slap the Baton in their hand and just stop. It’s like you guys both run together and you slap it and then you slow down and they speed up.


Nicole Haire (18:15):
That’s an excellent analogy.


Sam Demma (18:17):
For sure. Yeah. And you know, this work is very transformative and sometimes you don’t see the transformation that a student or a teacher might have when being invited into student leadership. But I’m certain that over the years you’ve seen students change and transform and incredible, you know, you might be listening right now thinking that, you know, this year is different and you’re burnt out and you know, an educator listening might think, you know, they might, they might be thinking, what the heck did I get into if this is their first year teaching Uhhuh yeah. And a story of transformation might just be the thing they need to hear to remind them that this is really important work. And if it’s a serious transformational story that comes to mind you can change the name for privacy reasons, but I’m curious that you have any stories of transformation that you think are worth sharing with other educators to inspire them and remind the, then why they started teaching


Nicole Haire (19:12):
For, for teachers transforming or students,


Sam Demma (19:15):
Maybe one of each .


Nicole Haire (19:17):
Okay. Well, I can, I can tell a story about a teacher that was a first year teacher, I won’t say in which country. But that person came in sort of dear in the headlights, very, very fresh, very green and in a very challenging, you know, situation and was sort of thinking that she had to have it all figured out. You know, there’s some sort of false sense of, I don’t know what they teach you in teachers college, that if you show any, any weakness or any need or you know, need for support in your first year that you’re not gonna get your contract, or I don’t know what, but I never in my life have seen anybody start something new and not need that support. So I just keep, always saying to people, it’s smart. People who ask for help, like, don’t, don’t just take it on and try to do it by yourself.


Nicole Haire (20:07):
Let us know. And finally, she came to me in tears one day and she was just like, it much, I can’t handle, I’m gonna quit. I’m done. And I, we just sat down, we had a coffee and I told her the things that I saw that were strong and the things that I was willing to help her with. And I went into her classroom and I, I was in her classroom once a day for maybe two weeks and eventually still started extracting myself and she left her school because she was going to further her education go do her masters. And when she left, she was probably one of the strongest young teachers that I had. And she wouldn’t have said that about herself in the first year. And I think, I think we need to be kind to ourselves. Like I always say this to my children when they start, you know, talking badly, I’m always like, no, no, don’t talk about my daughter that way.


Nicole Haire (21:00):
Or don’t talk, you know, don’t say those things about my daughter to yourself. And, and I’ll just say, you know, you should treat your yourself and give yourself the same advice and the same cut yourself the same slack that you would your best friend, because you need to be your best friend. I think the biggest piece for teachers is to find some allies like Steven Covey says, you know, access your allies. And we’re not, we we’re in a very isolating profession in the sense that we surrounded by people all day. We have 150 kids on our rosters, but we go into our little silos and quite often we work in isolation. There isn’t great time for collaboration, you know, to get together, to talk things out. And I think it’s really important to carve time outta your day, to sit in this staff room, but only sit next to positive people.


Nicole Haire (21:50):
I’m sorry, I I’m, I everybody’s valuable, but if I only have 10 minutes to sit in the staff room, I’m gonna sit by someone who’s gonna feed my soul, not suck me dry. You know? So you have to be very strategic about who you talk to. And not just because not just likeminded people. I, I’m not saying not to open your mind a different points of view or, but some people are, are just negative because they’re negative. And you know, you can say a prayer for them and wish them the best, but you don’t have to allow them to steal your joy. And I always say, nobody gets to rent space in your head without your permission. So, you know, everything that happens, I choose how I react to it. I choose whether or not it ruins my day. I everything’s on a Richter scale of one to 10.


Nicole Haire (22:35):
I ask myself, is this a two or a 10? Quite often, it’s a one mm-hmm and just get on with it. You know? So I think we have to be patient with ourselves that our career is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And the teacher I am today was not the teacher. I was in my third year when I thought I knew everything. Mm-Hmm I was just smart enough to be dangerous. Mm-Hmm so I think, you know, it’s possible to, to learn and grow if you open your mind and your heart and you just be kind to others and to yourself as far as students to transforming, oh my God, like, that’s why I do the work I do. I it’s like caterpillars and butterflies. And, you know, I think the biggest thing that I see with the students, both here and at home is a generation of kids that have been protected from struggle or are afraid of struggle.


Nicole Haire (23:29):
And I always tell the story and I’m sure you’ve heard it of, you know, the moth and the cocoon and the little girl comes by and she sees this moth and it’s struggling. And she takes the screwdriver and pops it open and the moth falls out and dies. And when her grandfather says, you know, what did you do? She said, I tried to help him. And the grandfather said, you know what? It’s in the struggle that it learns how to fly. Mm. And you know, so I have a student right now, who’s struggling. And we zoom once a week for 45 minutes and he just wants to talk. He just wants to talk about the things that he thinks about. And, and I, I see his struggle, but it’s good struggle, you know? And, and I think we’re afraid of this struggle. We think I don’t wanna be sad.


Nicole Haire (24:13):
I don’t wanna be challenged. I don’t wanna be disappointed. I don’t want to grieve. I don’t want to feel these things, but it’s through working through the feelings of these things that we build our strength, so that the next thing that comes, we’re ready for it. And I’ve seen students that thought that they were, you know, victimized by everything, around them, terrible things in their lives and, and realized that inside of them was this strength and this, you know, capacity to be happy to, to move through things and around things. I always say there’s many ways around a mountain. Like you, we don’t just have to keep slamming into the mountain. Like we can go off road, we can blow it up. We can, dig a whole under it. We can, you know, there’s, there’s always a way through. But I think it’s okay to embrace the struggle. Like I, I, it’s not supposed to be easy all the time. There’s gonna be happy days and sad days. And, and when I see a, a student learn that lesson and, and just embrace their journey, that’s when I know they’re gonna be okay.


Sam Demma (25:21):
I love that. So that’s awesome. And you mentioned a lot of educators right now are working silos, and that’s the whole reason I started this, this project, this podcast, and the hope that I’m so happy to hear this. Yeah. And, you know, you shared so much great ideas and advice, even just the simple ministries idea of someone’s listening and wants to turn their student council into many governmental divide and conquer. Yeah. I think it’s a really unique idea.


Nicole Haire (25:49):
Yeah. And, and I think everybody’s willing, nobody really wants to take on except for crazy people. Like the people I know love want to say that they’re gonna take on the whole student council. I mean, that’s a big job and, and only crazy people like Dave Conlan and marking Lynn that, you know, those people do stuff with joy. But if you said to, like we did at home the lady that was usually used to counting the money for the student council is like, would you like to be the advisor for the finance council? She said, absolutely. I can do that. You know, and somebody else was like, well, I have an interest in sports. I have no interest in, you know, running student activities, but we could do Dodge ball at lunch and, and do healthy living stuff. And it’s like, but then those people became the advisor for that council.


Nicole Haire (26:39):
Mm. And all of a sudden I had all these leaders in my school and they weren’t leaders before they didn’t have the opportunity to practice being leaders. And they just had their little poss of people and they, you know, so each, each just to finish that, what that is each council here, we have ministries, we have prime ministers here, there, we had presidents. So funny, I’m in no sense with prime ministers and in Canada, I had presidents. But anyway, we had a president’s council here. It’s called the prime minister’s council. And so each it’s sort of the nights of the round table. So each council has a prime minister, has a leader. And it’s chosen by the people who work with him and her. And they come once a month around the table. So this is how it would work. There would be like a, a student activity week coming up like Qatar national week, we celebrate the birth of Qatar.


Nicole Haire (27:34):
And the, the activities council would say, we wanna have like an activity every day. And the sports people would say, we’ll take one of the days. We’ll do Dodge ball teachers against do, okay. That’s done. The finance people will say, does anybody need to buy anything for this? You need supplies. You need money. They’ll do a proposal. And they’ll tell them how much money they can have. The communications ministry will say, do you need like announcements, posters? What are we gonna do with that piece? And the global citizenship kids say, you know, we should have a food drive. And at our school be like, we have a dance and everybody brings food and we do something and, you know, hunger for whatever. And it just, they just collaborate. Mm-Hmm , and it’s like a, it’s like a network and it’s so cool. And they support one another and they all have a different piece, but together they’re a whole student body ministry of the interior is the voice of the school, the elected council that deals with policy and meets with the PRI meets with the principal once a month to talk about student issues.


Nicole Haire (28:34):
And they’re the student voice. So if something happens at the school, it’s the prime minister of the interior who speaks on behalf of the students because he’s elected by the students or she is.


Sam Demma (28:44):
That’s so awesome. I love that. Yeah. Very cool. It’s like a mini society in the school. Yeah.


Nicole Haire (28:50):
It’s and, and everybody’s invested, right? So the more kids who are involved, the more it’s just like everything. Like, if you wanna do something, you say, you have to do this. I may or may not. Mm-Hmm , but if you get me involved and I’m part of co-creating what’s happening, and I have invested interest in it, when an activity happens, our kids are like, get involved because this is something that I’m passionate about and I’m excited about, and, and it’s contagious. It just, yeah. And you, you start with things that kids are interested in and over time they just, they start to realize it’s the culture of their school. And that’s what they want. A, a good school culture.


Sam Demma (29:29):
Nice. Yeah. And for all the keen educators listening, the keeners, I know you mentioned Steven Covey, I’m curious to know what are some books or resources that you’ve really enjoyed that have helped with your own personal development that you think another educator might, might fancy , you


Nicole Haire (29:46):
Know, I, well, and to be honest, I’ve read all the, you know, the Gladwell and all these types of books. But for me, the, the books that I have used, and I’m not doing this as a pitch to make money for anybody, but the Canadian student leader association has resources. Dave Conlin has been overseeing that they have books that I’ve used in my classroom called ones called activities that teach. And what I loved about them was we would have fun day Fridays, and you would just open the book and it would be like an activity. It tells you how many minutes it’s gonna take, what you’re materials are, how to run it, what the debrief questions are. My kids used to just my students, like when I was a teacher, they’d be like, is that fun day, Friday? , you know, like we would always do these leadership activities.


Nicole Haire (30:32):
And then we had climate days at school where we brought together a hundred kids and did sort of breaking down the walls, kind of fill void style stuff. Which completely completely changed the culture of our school, getting kids, talking to kids, they didn’t usually talk to. And just understanding that everybody has a story and it’s hard to hate someone whose story, you know, and you know, so that wealth of resources, I took those books. And when I got over here, I couldn’t carry them all. Also then I ordered them and Dave shipped them over and we’ve been using them here, spirit activities and just, you know, kind of fundamental values type leadership activities that are fun. But at the end of it, you go, whoa, I didn’t know. I just learned something. You know, kids, kids are having fun. They don’t know what’s happening until you hit them with the message. And then they never forget it. It’s, it’s sneaky, sneak attack


Sam Demma (31:27):
but it works,


Nicole Haire (31:29):
But it works. And those resources are fabulous. I’ll, I’ll be honest. I’ve used those the most.


Sam Demma (31:34):
Okay, awesome. I’ll make sure to link those in the show notes as well. And if anyone wants to get outta their silo and visit another farm, maybe talk to you a little bit and connect and have a conversation.


Nicole Haire (31:45):
Yes, absolutely. And I mean, we zoom like to me, we are, we’re blessed in a way this whole COVID thing has been, you can look at it one of two ways you can look at it as the, you know, the disaster that everybody talks about. Well, I wish it would get back to normal. I hope it never goes back to normal. I hope we go back to what we were before, because I think this COVID this big stop and think that we have had where it’s like everybody go to your room and stop and think . Yeah. Seriously, it gives, it’s given us an opportunity to reflect on what’s important in our lives about our own personal health and wellbeing. About, you know, I, in the COVID time where we were completely online, I started walking again. I started eating healthy. I was sleeping more there, you know, it was different stress, but there were other stresses that weren’t there anymore.


Nicole Haire (32:39):
My kids and I started zooming every Sunday. Nice. And I’ve been here for five years. We had never zoomed all of us together. Now we have religiously every Sunday, got it. We have family time and we zoom them to catch up my sisters. So we are in silos, but we’re in silos by choice. There’s there no excuse for us to be in silos. And I would love to talk to anybody that wants to talk. So, you know, I’m, I’m a few hours ahead of you right now. It’s almost 11, o’clock my time. But we, we seem to be able to make connections. And I, I keep in touch all the time through zoom and WhatsApp and we’ve, we’ve got all this technology and it’s like nuclear energy. It can be a weapon or a tool. And if we start using, I think the tools at our fingertips to stay connected instead of to keep us separate we have a hope of , you know, it’s like everybody together.


Nicole Haire (33:35):
I always say to my team at school sticks in a bundle or unbreakable, it’s like a Kenyon proverb. It’s like, you can’t break a bundle of sticks. You can break individual sticks, but you can’t break as if we’re a bundle. And I see it over and over every time someone’s, we keep in touch with each other, we’re checking in, you know, there’s perpetual chocolate in my office. People have places that they can go one other person a day just to check you in on you and say, they see you. I think having mentors is very important. And just, just to say hi, just to know that, you know, if I didn’t show up today, somebody would call my house and see where I was. you know, so it’s, that’s awesome. It’s about relationships. I think that’s, if we have those relationships, we have, we have hope.


Sam Demma (34:19):
That’s awesome. I, and if someone does wanna reach you and build a relationship what would be the best way for them to do so? Is there an email that’s best or?


Nicole Haire (34:27):
Or, yeah, sure. Yeah. I it’s it’s easy for me. It’s hairenicole2@gmail.com and it’s H A I R E like hair on your head with an E, but yeah, they can just email me and then if they wanna chat further, we can and chat or share resources or share stories, whatever. But I think I think people should, I mean, I’m not saying don’t contact me, but I think people haven’t even tapped into the resources that are right beside them. Yeah. The teacher next door. I always, in my notes, I give a challenge each week to my staff and a quote of the week and the challenge this week was go find somebody, spend 10 minutes with them and ask them how they are. And just reach out to that teacher next door. And we don’t know what they’re going through, you know, and, and you’d be surprised sometimes you have things in common with people that you think you don’t. Take 10 minutes to talk. Yeah.


Sam Demma (35:22):
Love that. That’s awesome. Well, thank you, Nicole so much for coming on here. So much positive energy, and I know everyone listening can feel it as well. I really do appreciate it, and I wish you all the best and I’ll, I’ll definitely keep in touch. And I, you know, one day maybe I can come to Qatar and say, hello.


Nicole Haire (35:38):
But I would, I would pay to work with you, Sam. I’m really, I have to say that when I meet young people, that just, you can, when you say you see potential, I’m just sitting here going, I’m gonna keep track of Sam, cause someday I’m gonna say I talked to him in 2020, but I think you’re a phenomenal person and congratulations for the work you’re doing. Thank you. I appreciate it. You’re most welcome.


Sam Demma (36:02):
I’ll talk soon, Nicole. Okay. 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 wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Nichole Haire

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.

December 22, 2021 by Principals Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Christa Ray – Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) Coordinator at the Algonquin Lakeshore Catholic District School Board (ALCDSB)

Christa Ray - Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Coordinator at ALCDSB
About Christa Ray

Christa is passionate not only about teaching & guiding the next generation but also intently interested in anything related to sustainability and the environment. She is also an Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Coordinator(OYAP) at the ALCDSB. Her career path has been very rewarding so far and she always looks forward to the lifelong learning afforded by having a job in the education sector! 

Connect with Christa: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program

Queens University Bachelor of Education Degree

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.highperformingeducator.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 Christa Ray. Christa is the Ontario youth apprenticeship coordinator at the ALCDSB, the Algonquin Lakeshore Catholic District School Board. She’s passionate, not only about teaching and guiding the next generation, but also interested in anything related to sustainability and the environment.


Sam Demma (01:01):
Her career path has been very rewarding so far, and she’s always looking forward to the lifelong learning afforded by having a job in the education sector. I hope you enjoy today’s interview as much as I enjoy doing it and I’ll see you on the other side. Christa, 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 with the audience a little bit about who you are and how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today?


Christa Ray (01:27):
Sure. Thanks Sam. It’s it’s great to be here with you today. I, I’ve been in education for about 17 years now. I started at the high school that I actually graduated from and initially I was a geography teacher among a few other things, and then I jumped into guidance shortly after my career started. So I was a guidance counselor for about 10 years and then I decided to take a leap of faith and I left the school that I loved and a job that I loved and I came to the board office. And now for the last three years I’ve been working with five high schools and a couple of college, local colleges. And for the first two years, I worked with student success teachers mainly. And this year starting in September, I have a new role called the OYAP(Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program) coordinator. So those that’s rounded out the last three years of my career.


Sam Demma (02:20):
Awesome. And what made you take, tell me more about what made you take the leap of faith. Why did you make that decision? Was there anything behind that?


Christa Ray (02:30):
Oh, that’s a good question. I, I loved what I was doing in the high school and I was coaching and I was doing a few clubs, but I was getting tired and I had needed a change of scenery and had young children at home. And so I thought I would try a different venue. And it was very nerve wracking, actually. I, I didn’t, you know, normally people change jobs when they don’t like something, but I was leaving something that I really liked to the unknown. And so it, it turned out it’s been really great for not just myself. And I’ve learned probably more in the last three years than I have in the, in the full 17 years that I’ve been teaching. So it’s, it’s been a good, a good move for me.


Sam Demma (03:16):
 Oh, that’s awesome. And at what point in your own career journey, did you know, I wanna work in education. Was this something you knew from a young age? Did you stumble upon it? Did someone kind of guide you in that direction? Or how did you come to that decision that you wanted to work in schools?


Christa Ray (03:31):
You know, my sister and I always had a little Blackboard in our house growing up and we would always play school as I’m sure a lot of people do. So that was a something that we just enjoyed. But I don’t think it was really until my third or fourth year of university that I had confirmed with myself that I wanted to get into education. And my main driver was was geography actually, because I had an amazing geography teacher in high school who really propelled me into not, not the world of teaching, but the world of geography. Thanks and sustainability. And I mean, I know you have your pick waste initiative. Those, those were all things that I really wanted to to talk about with students. And I felt that the, maybe the biggest way I could have an impact on the world would be to spread my love for the environment with kids. So that’s why I mainly got into it and I didn’t foresee myself getting into guidance, but that just sort of fell into my lap. And I love that just as much so.


Sam Demma (04:29):
Oh, that’s awesome. And I’m sure the first 10, 15 years are a lot different than what school looks like specifically this year. as you exhale that’s right. I’m curious. What, what is different? I mean, what, what are the challenges that you’ve been currently faced with? I know you you’ve put put in a slightly different role this year, but what are the challenges specifically that your school board is facing?


Christa Ray (04:54):
Being the OYAP coordinator? I really rely heavily on hands on activities with students you know, bill building things and talking about the trades and the importance of tools. And so that’s probably my personal big, biggest challenge would be not being able to do the traditional activities with students. We generally try and work with our two local colleges, as I mentioned earlier, and we get students bused into the colleges to see the programs there. We’re not allowed to be busing students. So we are really having to think outside the box and do some alternative planning. And I have been going into schools and I’ve been doing like smaller presentations because I’m still allowed to travel into schools. But I find even just a small thing would be students wearing masks and myself wearing a mask while I present. It’s very unusual for teachers to see a room full of masks in front of you. And you don’t really necessarily get I mean, I’m only in a classroom for an hour at a time doing my presentation. So I feel like I don’t get to know the students very well, especially when they’re have their faces half covered.


Sam Demma (06:11):
No, that’s so true. yeah. It’s so, so true. I, I know they come out with these masks and now called mingle mask, which is like a, it’s like a clear visor. Okay. But then it has other problems, like it’s not close to the nose. It’s like, it’s a whole disaster , but it might be too early to ask, but someone described to me education, like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. And I’m curious to know if there’s anything that your school board has done or tried that has stuck so far. Maybe there’s maybe one little nugget or one thing you might share about teaching online or something the schools have tried.


Christa Ray (06:49):
Yeah, I, I feel like our school is still forging ahead with some plans we have to downscale it a little bit and because we can’t get together in large groups due to COVID we are targeting a smaller classroom type activities. So for example, there’s an activity that we’re going to be doing in December, just building a birdhouse with some grade seven, eight students. Oh, cool. And hopefully they’ll be able to, to put that together. It prefab kit actually from one of our local colleges and we’ll take those out and then students can build them and maybe wrap them up and put them under the Christmas tree as gifts. Nice. And and that’ll tie in nicely with when I have my OAP presentation and where I, you know, cuz my job this year is to promote the trades with students.


Christa Ray (07:37):
And oftentimes college and university pathways are really well spoken about in school with guidance counselors, but sometimes the apprenticeship doesn’t doesn’t get highlighted the way it should. So that’s one thing that I feel even though we’re not be allowed to have 300 kids in a room at a time building a bird house, we can still have 20 or 25 building. Yeah. And, and you know, we might have to sanitize things a little more frequently than we normally would, but it’s just one of those challenges that we will, we will overcome.


Sam Demma (08:10):
That’s awesome. I love that. Mm-Hmm and I wanna go back to your geography teacher for a second. What made that teacher really impactful for you? I’m sure the content was great and, and they taught it really well, but there was probably some other characteristics that made this teacher really impactful for you personally. Is there any traits that stick out when you think about this teacher that you think made it such an impactful class?


Christa Ray (08:32):
Yeah, actually as you’re asking that question, I just got goosebumps because he was pretty amazing and I still work with him. Oh fun. Because the irony is he was my geography teacher. I went away for five years. Got my geography degree, came back to the same high school and he was still teaching. Nice. So I was his student and his colleague and I just saw him the other day, but he, I don’t know, he just made learning really fun because he was a storyteller. Mm. He had a story for almost anything and everything, any of our lessons, he, he had done a lot of traveling and I just thought that that was really really interesting. And he was very passionate. Even when he talked about things, places that he had never traveled, he, he made you feel like you were there anyway.


Christa Ray (09:19):
Mm. And so I just felt like you know, that was something that he really instilled in us was to become knowledgeable global citizens. Even though, even if you’re not traveling, you can still do a lot of research. And obviously the worldwide web is really good for checking out initiatives across across the world. And I tried to do that with my students as well. You know, we talked about some of the people that really make a difference. I mean, I was so interested to read a little bit more about your pick waste initiative that you did with your friend and you know, that it’s just two high school students picking up trash. It seems insignificant, but when you get a, when you get a bit of a following, especially now with social media, mm-hmm, you find out that you can really make a difference really fast. Yeah.


Sam Demma (10:08):
So, so small actions compounded over time. Right? Small, consistent actions. exactly. Yeah. That’s awesome. And you know, your teacher had a huge impact on you. I’m sure there’s so many stories that you’ve seen of students transforming due to education. And I’m curious to know if any story that you know of, whether it’s a student that you had, or it’s a student that you’ve heard of that had a huge transformation due to the support and care of a teacher. And the reason I ask is because there might be an educator listening right now, who’s a little bit burnt out who is maybe on the edge of even getting out of this calling and, and getting into a new job or career because they’re totally stressed out, but those stories are transformation might remind them why it’s extremely important and why the work they’re doing is so necessary and needed now more than ever. And if it’s a serious story, feel free to totally change the name to John DOE or whatever. You’d like . And anyways, yeah. Does any story come to mind?


Christa Ray (11:09):
Oh, I have a few. But one in particular that really sticks out in my mind was a student that came to our high school. He was a, a grade 12 student at the time. He came from Toronto to a small town in Beville to finish up his high school diploma. And when he came to my class, he was a grade 12 student in my grade nine geography class, cuz he had failed geography a few years prior and I’d never had a Stu an old, older student in my class and I was a little worried, but I realized really soon that he became he was kind of like a role model for the younger students. So even though the everybody else was in grade nine and he was in grade 12 and about a foot taller than everybody I, I realized that he was a really good resource for me to have.


Christa Ray (11:58):
And I mean, as a guidance counselor, I could see his transcript and I knew that it wasn’t very shiny. He hadn’t been doing really well. Due to many circumstances his life in Toronto was very difficult and not to get into too many details. He, he was trying to make his life better for himself. Hence the reason why he had moved to Bellville. And so when he came I, I think my biggest mistake was kind of pre-judging him, mm-hmm , you know, this is, this is gonna be a student where I’m really gonna have a lot of troubles and I actually didn’t at all. So near the end of his grade 12 year when he had accumulated his geography credit, which is a prerequisite to graduate in Ontario. Yeah. And he had accumulated other credits. He, he, I was so proud of him and I think he was proud of himself.


Christa Ray (12:52):
And I, I told him specifically that I don’t know what I would’ve done without him because he was a good motivator. He always had his homework done. When other students didn’t, he would sit with them and ex like, say, you know, I, I like to help you, which baffled my mind because I thought that he would just stick to himself, but he literally was a, like an older role model for the students. And he helped a few other students get through my class as well. It was like having a peer helper. Yeah. Actually, and I he went on to do welding at a college program. That’s and I’ve since lost track of him. I, I always wonder what he’s up to, but I don’t know. He, he is definitely one story that sticks out in my mind and I will remember him for as long as I live, actually.


Sam Demma (13:42):
That’s awesome. That’s such a beautiful story. And maybe this podcast is a reason to try and reach out and figure out what he’s up to these days. And if, you know, if you’re listening to this, remember that these stories are not far in between that, I think so much transformation happens inside schools or even outside the school walls with conversations because you, as an educator, you take on the role of parent. Sometimes you take on the role of teacher. Sometimes you take on the role of coach. It’s like, you’re so many things to these young minds and you can have such a huge impact. And it sometimes transforms students lives, which is pretty cool. Anyways, this has been really, really awesome. If you could travel back in time and speak to your younger self, when you were just starting teaching with all the wisdom you have now, what advice would you, would you share when you were just starting?


Christa Ray (14:36):
Hmm. I think, well, I mean, you learn more and more each year. So even though I’ve been teaching for quite some time I would tell my younger self that you’re, you’re basically on a journey. You’re not gonna know all of the answers. You’re not gonna have it all figured out in your first fifth or even 10th year of teaching. And as we all are very aware of this year has thrown everybody for a loop and we’ve had to change our teaching style significantly, especially earlier in the spring when we went to remote learning. But I just think that teachers need to not be so hard on themselves. Mm. They need to you know they need to take care of themselves so that they can take care of their classrooms. Yeah. And you might not be able to get it all done in a day.


Christa Ray (15:28):
So try not to be too overworked because I know a lot of teachers and myself included, we bring our work home with us. We try to make things as good as we can make them. And sometimes we can’t have perfection a hundred percent of the time. And I think that’s probably the biggest piece of advice I’d give people is you know, doing a good job is okay. You don’t need to do an awesome job every day because it can get very tiring. And so just do as best as you can do. And that’s good enough.


Sam Demma (15:59):
I love that. That’s great advice. And I think it applies in all areas of life. Like if you’re tr if you’re trying to be perfect, 24 7, you’re gonna burn out fast. And then instead of being great each day, you’re gonna be poor on a couple of them now, because you’re not actually able to physically perform and show up for your kids. Correct.


Christa Ray (16:18):
We, we talk a lot about, sorry to interrupt. Like, we talk a lot about mental health with students mm-hmm , but we really should also focus a mental health with teachers because I know a in particular this year, a lot of teachers are feeling very strapped. Our, our schooling system right now is in an Okta master system. So yeah. Credits are being accumulated at a very rapid pace in 23 days. And that’s, it, it’s a very different reality from what we’ve been experiencing in the past. And so I think teachers need to get sleep. They need to eat. Right. they need to do something fun on the weekend yeah. To re-energize their batteries.


Sam Demma (16:59):
 So, yeah, I think it’s true. Almost like a teacher retreat or something


Christa Ray (17:03):
If yes, that’s right.


Sam Demma (17:04):
Yeah. That’s awesome. Cool. Well, Christa, thank you so much for taking some time and to come on the show, I really appreciate you sharing some stories and ideas. If another educator listening wants to reach out, have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to do so?


Christa Ray (17:18):
Well, they can email me. My email is raychris@alcdsb.on.ca. And if they want to email me, I can, I can do what I can to help.


Sam Demma (17:34):
Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Again, I look forward to staying in touch and watching all the cool things you do with the school board.


Christa Ray (17:40):
Oh, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.


Sam Demma (17:43):
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 wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Christa Ray

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.

December 22, 2021 by Cooperative Education Experiential Learning Guidance Counsellors Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Dr. Seth Goldsweig – Vice Principal at The Leo Baeck Day School and PhD in Educational Leadership

Dr. Seth Goldsweig - Vice Principal at The Leo Baeck Day School and PhD in Educational Leadership
About Seth Goldsweig

Dr. Seth Goldsweig(@SGoldsweig) is the vice principal at The Leo Baeck Day School in Toronto. He has been in formal education for 17 years. His PhD is in educational leadership and believes that education is a tool to help students find their voice and change the world.

Connect with Seth: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Leo Baek Day School Website

Padlet

Easy Baking Recipes for Kids

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.highperformingeducator.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 Dr. Seth Goldsweig. He is the vice principal of the Leo Baeck day school in Toronto. I had the pleasure of speaking in front of his entire student body last year before COVID 19. And it is my absolute pleasure to bring him back on the show here for you today.


Sam Demma (00:59):
He has been in formal education for 17 years, has a PhD in education leadership, and thinks that education is a tool, a very strong tool to help help students find their voice and change the world. The other day, he sent me an email telling me that one of his students at his school is working on building the reactor that’s in the middle of iron man’s chest, and he’s supporting this kid on his venture to learn about technology and bring this project together. And I’m sure in this interview, you will hear Dr. Seth’s energy just shine through in his responses. I hope you enjoy this, I’ll see you on the other side. Seth, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educators podcast. It’s a, it’s a pleasure to have you.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (01:42):
You it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.


Sam Demma (01:45):
Can you share with the audience who you are and what got you into the work you do with young people today?


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (01:52):
Sure. My name is Seth gold. So I’m the vice principal at the Leo Baeck day school in Toronto. And I’ve been, this is my, I think 11th year as a vice principal. I started a school before, now is my eighth year at this school. And I’ve been in education for I think, 17 or 18 years. What got me into it. I mean, many things. Certainly, I love that feeling when when you see a kid starting to feel really good about him or herself and know you played a part in that, it’s just, it, it, it makes you feel warm all over. It’s just a really special feeling. You know, you had a part in, in someone’s success. There’s a selfish reason. I think kids are our future and and I’m only gonna be in this business until, until I retire and I wanna make sure we’re in, we’re in good shape for the future.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (02:44):
So I, you know, I wanna make sure that they’re set up to succeed and then I think the most important one though Sam, is that kids are amazing. Can I tell you a short story about something that happened to me today? Absolutely. I hear that a student we’ll call him Ben. Ben is looking for me, right? Dr. G Dr. Goldsweig. Ben needs you. Okay. So I like, he’s not in my waiting for me in my office. I go, finally, I find him outside Ben, you know, what’s going on? Oh, I had to ask you something. I made a pinata for my friend; it’s her birthday. And I wanted to know if I could hang up my pinata and so she could hit it. So here I’m worried, like there’s some big, like major thing going on. He had a fight or he’s upset about something stress, but no it’s cuz he had made a pinata for his friend and they wanted to to set it up. It was her birthday, I think, hours making the pinata. It was, you know, it’s things like that, that happened every day that you’re surprised by their creativity and what they do. And it just, it makes it really special.


Sam Demma (03:44):
How do you cultivate a school culture where kids decide to make pinatas and ask you to help them and hang it up? I think that’s a very unique culture you’ve built. And I’m curious to know if you think there’s any specific traits of students that you’ve encouraged in them to have them doing things like that.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (04:05):
I think it, listen, it all starts with the teachers. You know, if it’s happening in the classroom, that’s happening elsewhere to try to, you have to cultivate a, a love of experimentation and learning and, and inquiry. And, and if you are interested in what the kids have to share, then I think they’re gonna keep sharing. There, there’s a study that shows about creativity and the most creative people are kids in SK and then every year we get less and less and less creative. And and they did this by asking about paper clips, how many different things can you do with a paper clip? Mm. And adults will come up with a few things, you know, I can put paper in it. Maybe I can use it to like, hang my keys or something. Kids start asking, well, what color can it be?


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (04:51):
What’s it made out of, can it be different sizes? Can it, and so, so if you, if you use the kids imagination as a model and you just keep keep encouraging it, then I think you end up with a, a school culture that does that the other day, a kid comes up to me that Mr. Gold or Dr. Goldstein, I’m trying to figure out how to build an arc reactor from Ironman. And so he showed me, had this this whole diagram and he’s trying to figure out the technology for reactor every day. He says he gets a little closer. He shows me the updates and my job’s simple. I just have to listen and say, that’s amazing. Keep going. I can’t wait to hear the updates. So I think if you just show an interest in the kids, they’re gonna, they’re gonna thrive.


Sam Demma (05:35):
That’s awesome. And times are different right now with COVID we’ve been presented with unique challenges. What are some challenges that you’ve been faced with as a school that you’ve overcome and maybe even a mistake or two that you’ve made that you’ve learned from that you think is valuable to share?


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (05:52):
The the challenges are numerous. The mistakes are numerous and learning is numerous. You know, one of the, one of the challenges community is really big at my school. And we, we were very lucky for, for many, many years that you could physically come into contact with people and community physically, whether it’s having a school barbecue or, or having a new parent breakfast all of these things that, that make community possible. And so now we find ourselves in a situation where we still wanna build community, but everyone has to be physically separate. And so we’ve had to get creative in how we do that. So some of it is doing things online. Some of it is, you know, for our new parent breakfast, we had a as online zoom, but we still, we, we wanted the breakfast to be part of it.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (06:38):
So when they dropped their kids off at school, we gave them boxed breakfast as a way of saying, you know, sit down, eat when we have our, our our orientation. Let’s try it, let’s try and make it special. You know buddies, we have a whole buddy program where big, our older kids are with our younger kids, which is really, I think, an important part of our school, that kids, when they go into grade four and they they suddenly become up till grade three, they’re the little buddies. And then at grade four, they become the big buddies. It’s a big, important moment for them. And how do you do that when you can’t have kids come into contact with each other? So we’re trying new things, we’re trying a pen pal system, or we might do an introduction over zoom, and then they start perhaps creating a, a Padlet together, which is an online program.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (07:22):
So we have to look at it at new ways. You know, I think another challenge is we have some kids who are learning in class and some kids who are learning at home and how do you meet the needs of everyone at the same time the teacher are finding it very it’s time. It’s really hard to be there for, for so many different people. And I think so part of it is trying things and as I said, failing miserably, and I think that’s an important part of the learning process. Part of it is just getting used to the routine. And part of it is sort of giving teachers the space to, to know that I support them and that , you know, I can only ask you to try as hard as you can. I can’t ask more than that. And so if if they’re trying things and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, you know, hopefully they know that that that I, I, I support them.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (08:12):
And as long as we just keep trying to, to meet everyone’s needs the best of our ability, then we’ll, we’ll get there. It’s not the same as being in person. But, but there’s a, a certain understanding the times are different. So there’s a flexibility that, that comes on, you know, and I think the, the other piece is, is the things that make school amazing outside of the classroom mm. Where it’s clubs, sports teams, field trips and, and those rethinking how we’re doing them. So we, we thought figured out a way to do student council. So that’s gonna come back. Some of our field trips now are virtual field trips. There’s a definite loss. You know, we have kids in grade eight who are, you know, ready to be the stars of the basketball team or the hockey team. And, and it’s a loss for them that, that they’re not able to do that. And, and so some things we don’t have answers for, we’ve not yet figured out how to create a basketball team to compete against other schools. But we’ll, we’ll keep working at it.


Sam Demma (09:04):
I had a conversation with another educator who said, maybe this year, we just do e-sport tournaments and play against other schools on PlayStation or Xbox. And I thought it was a pretty unique idea, but it, it takes out the physical aspect of it. And a kid who may have been dedicated to basketball’s whole life. Maybe I didn’t play video games, and isn’t a good online eSports gamer, but so many unique ideas. You have kids hanging pinatas and building iron man suits. What, what can you share in terms of a story? I’m sure you have dozens over the years. What, what can you share of a story where a student has been impacted by something you’ve done in the school? And maybe it’s totally changed their life and education. Oftentimes we don’t even know the impact we’re having until 10, 15 years down the line. And they write us this letter that we keep in a folder on our desk. Have you had a story like that of a student and you can change their name for the purpose of this podcast? The reason I’m asking you to share is because an educator might be listening, who’s a little burnt out and lacking hope. And I think it’s those stories that remind us why education is so important.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (10:14):
So I had a unique opportunity. I’ve been out of the classroom for 10 years mm-hmm and last year we had a need for for some, for some teachers. So I went back into the classroom and I was speaking specifically when we went online. So from April, till the end of the year, I was teaching grade four classroom. So on top of it being the highlight of my day I got to connect with the students in, in in a different way that you don’t get to as an administrator, as an administrator, you’re sort of over, you know, you’re trying to oversee the whole school and making sure everyone’s safe and happy, but you don’t develop those personal relationships that you do if you’re the classroom teacher. So along the way we read, you know, I’ll share sort of a general thing, I think about the class, but then some feedback a student even gave to me that, that I think I didn’t even realize it had an impact.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (11:02):
Hmm. So in terms of the overall students, you know, I, I, I want my kids to be creative and, and explore, and we had read a story and they had to show the ups and downs of the main character in a way that, that worked for them. So one of them is into baking and he created, created a sheet of brownies and then showed the ups and downs to the icing that he did on, on the brownies that he took pictures and presented. It was amazing. Another one we, we, we played around with a program called Flipgrid. And so she made a video where she did like spoken monologue. I, I gave 10 minutes as the time limit for the video and that wasn’t enough time. So she had to do two videos where she went through the whole story just spoken model.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (11:45):
It was incredible. Other students, you know, created posters and, and other students like created these Lego cities to show what they did and they spent hours and hours on it. And so, you know, I hope that for all of my students, you know, I was able to help them find a love and education and, and finding their own voice in these projects and, and feeling that they put in their time and express themselves in the way that that that sort of meant to them. Now, I also had a policy where you, if students didn’t do great on the first try, I would give feedback and say, you know, here’s, here’s what I think you need to do to make it better. If you wanna do that, I’ll, I’ll take a look and give you a new grade. And I had one student who kept on doing that and she would say, you know, thanks.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (12:27):
I really appreciate that. And, and this and that, and, and she would always take the work and the feedback and then send it back to me. And at the end of the year, she wrote me a letter and just said, you know I really appreciated the fact that you gave me a chance to do stuff second time and, and make it better. Mm. I felt like I learned and grew. And and that made, I don’t know, it made school better for me. So it’s not like an amazing life changing story, Sam, but, you know, I think that little thing kind of made my day. I didn’t even realize that that had an impact on her. And here she’s telling me that that one little policy I had was, was a very impactful experience for at.


Sam Demma (13:02):
School, small, consistent actions make the biggest changes. Right.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (13:07):
Oh, I heard you say that. Absolutely.


Sam Demma (13:10):
That’s, that’s awesome. And when it comes to you know, bringing people in, you’ve been teaching now at the vice principal level for 11 years, how do you decide what specific types of messages to bring into your school, whether it’s in person or virtually you, you’re obviously very specific with the, the, the messages that you put in front of a young mind. So I’m curious to know there might be an educator listening who wants to understand that a little bit better, and maybe you have some insight to share?


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (13:39):
Well, in terms of messages that we bring. I guess, you know, we, it’s never something I decide on my own. We, we haven’t seen I would say one message that keeps coming back in terms of this current COVID time is we’ve been so overwhelmed by the resilience of the kids, the the commitment of the teachers and the appreciation of the parents. Mm. And so, you know, that that is a message that I want out there, you know, loud and, and clear like it, you know, there’s always, there’s always some issue here and there that we have to work through, but all in all, like the kids are just so happy to be back. They like every kid I’ve asked, do you like it better here with all the protocol for COVID or do you prefer to be at home, online learning every kid I speak to says that I’d rather be here wearing a mask so much better.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (14:27):
Teachers come to me every day and say, can I try this? Can I try that this didn’t work. So let you know, maybe this will be better. They want it to be a good experience for the kids. They really wanna do everything they can to help make the, the experience better for the kids and, and the parents. I get emails on a daily basis that, that say we are beyond impressed with how hard you guys are working to try and make this possible. And so, you know, the appreciation also goes a long way. They’re in a way they’re sort of our clients, right. We’re trying to make them happy and give ’em a program that I am at a private school. So we’re trying to make a program that they feel good about that they’re happy about. So I, I guess that’s the main COVID message, again, the resilience of the kids, the commitment of the teachers and the appreciation of the parents.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (15:14):
But then other messages, it has, it’s the same, whether it’s COVID or not, I mean, be a good person, be kind explore the world learn from differences. Have an open mind, have a growth mindset. Like the, these are all things that are common. Like we just want our kids in many, I, I, I say to teachers often, we’re trying to teach ourselves out of a job, right. We know we’ve done well. If we can set the stage where kids are, have the tools to learn on their own and that we’re on their side, maybe to guide them, but that really they’re driving the learning. And that takes a long to get there, but that that’s really our goal is to give kids the tools to, to learn.


Sam Demma (15:55):
Awesome. And if you could go back in time to your first year in education, but still know everything that you know now what pieces of advice would you share with yourself? There’s a bunch of educators listening who may just be getting into education, and this is their, or first year teaching. And they’re thinking to themselves, what the heck did I sign up for? what can you share with them through the years of, of, of accumulated wisdom through teaching?


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (16:24):
So if if you’re, if you see this as a job, you’re not in the right profession, mm-hmm, , it’s more than a job teaching the, the commitment you, you don’t go home, leave it behind you. And I’ve been reminded of that every day of my career. Mm-Hmm so that’s something that I, I would keep in mind and just, it would reinforce in me saying, well, you know, you’re doing the right thing, cuz you, you feel good about what you’re doing. Relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships, that is the most important thing in teaching have a in good curriculum is great. Having a cool technology that you use is great, but if you don’t have a relationship with the students, then it’s gonna be really hard to teach. And so that, that, that, that is sort of the, the main thing that, that drives everything else that I do.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (17:09):
So how do you do that? You gotta get to know the kids, you gotta ask and learn new things about them. And I keep asking them questions about it. So that is certainly something I would, I would remind myself as a, as a new year teacher who has the wisdom of someone who’s been teaching for a long time. And then, you know, the final thing is every day is different. Mm. Every day is different. And that sometimes the different is great and sometimes the different is, is brutal. But you know, if one day’s bad then, well, probably the next day is gonna be great. And so just a, a reminder that you never, if you feel stuck, you know, you’re not gonna be stuck forever.


Sam Demma (17:45):
Yeah. You went as an educator, you’re the main character in that story that you shared in grade four and you’re gonna have ups and downs. Right. And that’s a good thing to remind yourself of often, Seth, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat. If another educator is listening, wants to reach out to you, bounce some ideas around what is the best way for them to do so.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (18:08):
What I, what do I do? Do I give you my email? Do I tell you the school that I’m at? Whatever, whatever works. My email is sgoldsweig@leobaeck.ca I’d have be, you know, more than joy to bounce ideas. That’s that that’s education, right? We keep, we keep learning from one another. And so the more ideas we have, the, the more positive we can do. Awesome.


Sam Demma (18:39):
I look forward to hearing about the finished iron man suit and more birthday parties in your school. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Dr.Seth Goldsweig (18:46):
Okay. Thanks, Sam, take care.


Sam Demma (18:48):
Awesome. 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 wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Dr.Seth Goldsweig

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.

December 21, 2021 by Experiential Learning Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teaching Tips 0

John Dennison – Student Success Teacher at Corner Brook Regional High School

John Dennison - Student Success Teacher at Corner Brook Regional High
About John Dennison

John(@Jnosinned) is an experienced Special Education Teacher and Student Success Teacher, at Corner Brook Regional High in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, with a demonstrated history of working with Student Leadership in Newfoundland and nationally with the Canadian Student Leadership Association.

John is a graduate from Memorial University of Newfoundland with bachelors and Masters degrees in Education. He is also skilled in Nonprofit Organizations, Coaching, Facilitation, Management, public speaking and Social Media.

John is a very proud father of his son Tyler, a business graduate, working in Corner Brook, and his daughter Andressa who is currently teaching in Alberta. John is retiring from his current position at the end of this current school year, and is looking forward to the unwritten adventures that await him and his wife Katherine in the future.

Connect with John: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Cornerbrook Regional High School Website

Canadian Student Leadership Conference

Memorial University of Newfoundland Programs

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):
Of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is all the way from Newfoundland and Labrador. He is the student success teacher at Cornerbrook Regional High Western school district. He manages dozens of students who might need just a little additional support, or that might be learning in a slightly different way. Today’s guest John Denson has made a huge impact on students within his region. And what makes his story so inspiring is that the work he’s doing for these young people is very similar to the work that he had and support he had back when he was a student going through a very traumatic time in his own life. You’ll hear his humor, his, his jokes. They’re, they’re pretty good. You’ll also hear his dog barking a little bit. In this episode, it’s a very authentic down to earth interview, and I’m super excited to bring it to you today. John has a heart of gold and you’ll hear about it in this episode. Hope you enjoy this, I’ll see you on the other side. Okay, John, thank you so much for coming onto the high performing educators podcast. Tell the audience where you’re from, the little island that you’re from, that you’re super passionate about. You just told me about, please also explain who you all are and how you got into the work that you’re doing and have done over the past 30 years, almost congratulations in education


John Dennison (01:30):
So, okay, so I’m, I’m like I said to you, I’m, I’m honored to be included in this program again, I’m not quite sure how how I got chosen, but it’s certainly an honor to be included in this wonderful podcast with you. I’m from a little tiny island called Twillingate, off the Northeast coast of Newfoundland. Also known by Readers Digest, pegged it as the iceberg capital of the world, believe it or not. And of course, Newfoundland is the tiny little island off the Northeast coast of North America, half an hour ahead of everybody else, which can sometimes cause glitches when you’re doing podcast interviews, apparently . But anyway, I’m a student success teacher in Corner Brook on the west coast of Newfoundland. And I’ve been engaged with this program for about 10 years now.


John Dennison (02:21):
I’m a special education teacher but this program is designed to work with students who are at risk for whatever reason of not being successful in school. So it’s my task to motivate and try to get them through school with whatever means it takes whatever we can do to support them, their families, whatever, to get them through high school. As compared to who, you know, my special education teacher background, who is who we have the students assigned to us based on exceptionalities, those kinds of things. These, the students I work with now are just students that for whatever reason are not getting through school and are at risk and not being successful all in living through the cracks. But in the meantime, I was introduced 13 years ago, this, this September to the Canadian student leadership conference, just by being asked to tag along as a, a van driver to take some students to St.


John Dennison (03:13):
John’s to a national conference. And and I got hooked, I got hooked line and sinker by as a Newfoundland expression by the whole philosophy of student leadership through council school spirit you know, the motivational pieces of, of watching and motivating students go beyond what they ever thought they were capable of. And as myself as a teacher seeing at this conference you know, motivational speakers like mine, who, who knew that they, their engagement in school was more than just textbooks and notes and, and assignments and tests and quizzes, that there was a bigger role for us all to play in the life of the school and through motivating our students to, to go above and beyond. So, you know, I came back from that conference, totally pumped and, and fueled up, ready to go. I watched my students the same that year as well as my teacher comrade room in Austin, who, who was there with me.


John Dennison (04:18):
And anyway, I kind of like quietly evolved into taking over the student council from my friend Ruben to the point that became, you know, my second passion along with the students that I worked with. And, and we were fortunate enough in 2011, myself and Ruben to host our own student leadership national conference here in Cornerbrook. And and again, that just fueled us and our staff F at the time. And and you know, it’s just been wonderful experience. And, you know, it’s, it’s something that has certainly made the last 13 years of my career a much more enjoyable component and, and aspect to, to being the teacher that I guess I never really knew I was, but found a, that I could be all through student leadership and student engagement and all these wonderful things.


Sam Demma (05:06):
It’s so cool. They say that the teacher learns the most, right. And you know, you’re at the same time, you’re also the student. And it sounds like you embody that philosophy, which I think is so important, you know, remind ourselves that, you know, even though we’re teaching, we’re still growing. And I think that’s a, a beautiful mindset to have, especially during a difficult time you’ve been doing this on the cusp for 30 years. that’s yeah. 10 years older than I’ve been alive.


John Dennison (05:33):
I’m yeah. Fortunately you can’t see the gray in my beard because this is all on this is just an audio version, but yeah. But yeah, I still look like I’m like 19 years old, to be honest, my voice sounds a little more mature, but no, just kidding. You got anyway. Yeah. 30 years.


Sam Demma (05:50):
Yeah. You got the energy of a young person. And that’s a huge compliment


John Dennison (05:55):
well, thank you. It is only Wednesday though. so talk to me Friday.


Sam Demma (06:02):
Depends when people tune in, but you’re so right. What keeps you going 30 years? What keeps you motivated and hopeful and inspired?


John Dennison (06:11):
It’s funny. I, I, I, I don’t wanna talk about myself a lot. I, I, I left high school. I was 16 when I graduated from high school, believe it or not, because my birthday is at the end of December. Mm. And when I left high school, my dad passed away when I was 12. And, and quite, quite ultimately I became lost soul as well. And I know now looking back that I was depressed, I was getting had marks, and I was wishing I was getting higher marks with all my good friends sitting around the back of the class with me kind of thing. And somehow, and, and I won’t get into the whole story, but I stumbled into education. And you know, I landed myself in this position and then all these different pieces of puzzle came together that, that put me in the opportunity to work with students who were me ultimately, you know, like I, I, I, when I did my special education degree, I had the goal to to diagnose myself as a gifted underachiever.


John Dennison (07:10):
And I think that’s probably a lot more common than what we realize is that, you know, there are a lot of gifted underachievers out there who just need somehow to see the light. And I guess, through a number of different things that came away, I landed in a perfect job for me. And it’s, it’s just fueled me to reach out to those people that need reach, to be reached out to, and you know, like even today, and, you know, in, in my 29th and so many months, year, I met a young fellow today, two young fellows today, actually, who are down and out, and they’ve got their issues at home and they’re struggling to get through school. I had the conversation with them about me. I reflected back to me who would, you know, my situation, which is too many years ago, for me to even tell you, you know, and, and they connected and I managed to connect with them.


John Dennison (07:59):
So those connections are really the opportunity each day. So I can’t wait to go to school again tomorrow just to see if he came back and they came back. And if they’re there and if they’re not trying to figure out what I can do to, to bring them back, you know, and, and I’ve realized over the years, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned, I think is a teacher is a that I can’t win them all. I can’t win all the battles. It, it takes more than me wanting it. It has to be, the student has to want it. Somehow. I have to instill it in their heart. That it’s one that an education of being successful has to be one of their top three priorities. It has to be beyond getting the drugs and the hits. And, and sometimes it has to be number four, getting fed for that day or whatever the case may be. So you know, it’s just, it’s just that fuel and that passion is still in there. And I don’t think it’ll ever leave me. When I do retire, I’ll find something to help somebody somewhere, you know, just kind of build to me. And again, that’ll lose back to my parents and all those kinds of things, but that’s amazing. It’s just, it’s just an important thing. My dog’s barking in the background. I think she wants to come in, but anyway, that’s okay.


Sam Demma (09:12):
<Laugh>


John Dennison (09:13):
I was gonna, I could go on a complete, other tangent on how a Labrador retriever has changed my life and view perspectives on everything too, but


Sam Demma (09:20):
We can talk dogs for sure. I love that. You mentioned, could


John Dennison (09:25):
We, well, I’ll just throw this at you very quick. I’ve had two Labrador retrievers and they’ve taught no matter who shows up at our front door. And this is something that I try to take in perspective, no matter who shows up in my front door, and you could be colored, you could be wearing a turbine. You could be a police officer. You could be looking for food for the food bag, my dog, my Labrador retrievers each and every one of em have always just want to be there. Friends. If you just wanna pet, they wanna lie down. I’ll let you rub their belly. And it really doesn’t matter what color you are, what gender you are, what, what, you know, what, what LGBTQ status you are or who you are that you are welcome to them for a rub on their belly or a pat on their head. And it’s just kind of like something that I’ve watched and realized that yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you, Molly. Thank you, candy. So I love that.


Sam Demma (10:17):
That’s so cool. Anyway, that’s awesome. There you, do. You still have them both.


John Dennison (10:21):
Actually candy passed away, but now I have Malia chocolate lab and I have Marley who’s a little Heese, which in, interestingly enough, I brought back to Newfoundland from CSLC 2009. Wow. In Cochran, Alberta, they both flew down on the plane with me. So they’re my CSLC dogs. Yeah.


Sam Demma (10:38):
So they’re just ingrained in leadership as much as you are. yeah.


John Dennison (10:42):
Yeah. Cool. Yep. It’s is they they’ve taught us a lot. Molly’s chocolate lab, the little Heese is still only 15 pounds. And I’ve learned some things about bullying. Interestingly enough, from the dogs and, and size does matter when it comes to nature. And in some respect bullying, because my chocolate lab will just push the little white dog out of the way, and she’s gonna get, you know, the treat first or whatever. And her little white dog just has to succumb to that. So there’s, I’ve talked about this to some of the kids and, and, you know, like my, my white dog has just accepted it, but still has kept the big chocolate lab as being his best friend. You know? So there’s like, there’s a way to accept, like you’re not really being bullied necessary and it’s not so much the order of size in the species. It’s just kind of like coming to grip, you know, you’re not all gonna be in first place. And, you know, sometimes you have good to make way for the big guy that’s bumbling by first and those kinds of things. Yeah, no, that’s fine. I dunno, sidetrack, you can delete that part if you want to.


Sam Demma (11:50):
Nah, I wanna leave it in the, the authentic stories make this thing so relatable and interesting and you need, especially to your own life.


John Dennison (11:56):
And, and I don’t know if it’s a, it’s like an answer for anybody who’s being bullied, but I think its just, you just realize, you know, this stuff goes on in nature and I’m sure that, you know, in our woods right now and it’s moose hunting season inland that a big gold moose is gonna make with the, the, the pretty female moose over the smaller bull moose just because he is bigger and that’s the way nature works and yeah, you’re right. But in nature sometimes that’s the way things play out anyway. Yeah. Maybe we overthink things too much. Maybe I spent too much time wondering about my chocolate lab pushing my little white thing away from the tree bowl anyway.


Sam Demma (12:33):
That’s okay. I love it. Can you, I know you food for lots of food for thought you would definitely have, you know, dozens, if not dozens, hundreds, if not hundreds, thousands of stories of young people who have come across your classroom, come across your experience, who have had an impact on, do you mind sharing a story and it could be a story that’s you deeply and you can change the student’s name in the sake of privacy. But the reason I want, I want you to share the story is because an educator might be listening. Maybe this is their first year in education and things are so different where they’re living and they’re getting the whole wrong view of what an educator can do for a young person’s life and the impact they can have. Yeah. And, and inspiring story about impacting and changing a young person’s life will remind them by the work they’re getting into is needed now more than ever and really important. Do you have any stories that come to mind?


John Dennison (13:27):
Yeah. And again, it’s hard because , it’s people aren’t naturally, well, I shouldn’t say people because I, I guess Donald Trump is sorry Donald, I threw that out there, but it, but it’s hard to, it’s hard to, I guess, talk about my successes without, you know, trying to become the all end all, but yeah, but anyway, I’ll, I’ll share a couple of stories. I know one of the very first and, and the two stories I can think of that really popped in my head are we have time for two, of course of, I guess if I don’t ramble one has to do with my student success position and the other has to do with my role as a leadership teacher, I guess, and, and student council advisor. I, I remember one of the first students I ever had way back in 2000 leadership role just sort of showed up at our, our high school.


John Dennison (14:20):
Cause I also help early school leaders. We call them now back in the day there were dropouts, but the early school lever term is the nice friendly term for a student who dropped outta school. But this is a student who, this was a young girl who left the high school. And at the time when she left high school, she was babysitting for a local owner and, and she kind of just walked out of school and started a babysitting for, for this particular family. And as when she reached 19, he kind of offered her a job as a bartender or, or his wife did or whatever. And, and she kind of like, she kind of did both things. She was so she was doing making money and stuff and she was content. Anyway, she came knocking on our door one, one September because she was gonna apply to go back to school, to do her early childhood education in training to kind of like open a daycare or, or work at a daycare because she en enjoyed the babysitting and wanted to get outta the bar business because who doesn’t wanna get outta the bar business.


John Dennison (15:22):
Anyway, she realized when she came in that she’d never graduated of all these years, there was probably three years after high school that she thought she had graduated. She was missing one in, in English. Now in, in Newfoundland, we have a general graduation and we have academic and there’s an honors graduation. And she was tr she was looking to graduate generally, which is kinda like, which will get you into community college and an opportunity to upgrade if you wanted to go to university. So anyway, long story short, she ended up doing an English course with kind of online because back then I did have some courses that were not, not virtual, quite like today’s virtual, but there were courses that she could do from home online with a couple of textbooks and email me assignments. So she didn’t have to come into the building to continue working at home.


John Dennison (16:07):
And, and we could, you know, establish that re teacher, student relationship. She was successful. She graduated and she’s now, you know, a proud mom, she’s gotta open her own daycare and been super successful. And, and she always knocks on my door at Christmas time and, and brings me something. A lot of, lot of people know me will appreciate the fact that nine times outta 10, it’s a liquor store give. But anyway you know, and it’s not about the gift, but it’s the fact that she comes in and she has that smile on her face, the same smile that she had the day that I told her. Sure, we can fix this and this is how we’re gonna do it and you’re gonna be fine. You know, it’s just, it’s, it’s just amazing to think back that you know of myself and, you know, wishing that I had somebody who could have reached out to me like that and provided me that opportunity, cuz I was 2% away from getting into university when I left high school.


John Dennison (17:05):
And you know, it took me three years to convince Memorial university to take me. And if I just had somebody at that, that that to go to bat for me and help me figure out how to get those two percents, you know, and anyway, I’m over it now doesn’t sound like it, but I’m over it so anyway, that that’s that, but those are the aspects. Those are the, those are the, the pieces of the puzzle that really help. And, and there’s been quite a few, like you said, there’s, there’s, there’s been well almost 10 years now of, of working with students that, you know, were down and out and needed a little extra something. But, but for the, the teacher that may be listening that’s that, you know, is also got, I am in a unique position cuz the teacher is listening is also worried, most likely worried about, you know, the government exams, the final exams, tests and scores admit wanting, you know, how the overall percentage is for their class.


John Dennison (18:03):
I’m in a very unique position in the sense that I really get to know I’m paid, get to know at, you know, sure. Maybe 80, 90 kids a year, but, but I held them and find out what makes them tick and really be able to, you know, use a priv, whatever it takes to get them up after a and up running or whatever the case may be to start making right decisions and some, some support in making some good choices, those kinds of things. So I get that. I’m unique in that, but I think just connecting with students is so, so, so important and being able to identify a little bit of who they are and what they are and find out where they want to go and, you know, instill on their, and that even if it is a biology or a science or a math or an English class, you’re teaching them, making them somehow connect those little steps and you know, that they’re making in those classes and doing those assignments leads to the bigger steps and the bigger picture that, that whatever their future is that they want.


John Dennison (19:08):
And it’s mind boggling to me to think that so many of the kids in high school right now, the careers aren’t even invented at this point that they’ll be doing, I haven’t got my head around that, but I see it because I’ve the 30 years I’ve taught, we’ve gone from having two or three computers in a school to everybody has a phone now. And everybody has the technology that, that, that 30 years ago we never thought we’d have. And I often think back too about, you know, if I could show my dad who died in 78, I remember he was big on this calculator. He had, that had memory. He bought that summer and an old Polaroid SX, 70 camera that, that, that spit out picture right in front of him. If he could see the photography that a cell phone, the technology in a cell phone and what things are now, I mean, it’s just mindboggling to think what’s happened in my lifetime.


John Dennison (19:59):
You know, the, so anyway, another bit you can cut out if you feel the need later on. The story I have is from a student council, president of mine who who’s got a very special place in my heart. She, her mother passed away. She found her mother dead on her kitchen floor. When she was in grade nine, I think it was, it was the year before we hosted our national conference. And she came to our school as a grade 10 student just after losing her mom, put her, I encouraged her to get involved with student council only because I knew, I knew a little bit of her family. I knew who she had been, not I’d known her, her sisters before. And I knew that she had a spark in her just because of her mom really, and having known her family, that she was to any student council that I was part of and, you know, lock story short.


John Dennison (21:00):
She, she did get involved. She became the president in her grade 12 year and, and she led like many, I’ve had some really strong leaders. She definitely was one of the top, you know, three to five for sure. Went on to become a, a nursing student at Dalhousie has just finished a road scholarship at Oxford and has just been accepted. I hope Micah hope you don’t hear this cause I might get it wrong. I think Berkeley in California to start med school. So she’s a nurse, she’s got a PhD in psychology and she’s off the med school in California and this girl she’s done Ted talks. She, she organized a charity in her mother’s name under the, the cancer society after biking across the province and then hosting, I think it was the equivalent of 10 marathons in 10 days. She organized a charity in her mom’s name that provides money for the transportation of families to be with their family member who’s receiving treatment in St.


John Dennison (22:11):
John’s or in Halifax. She’s got two chapters when she opened it in. She opened the chapter as well in, in a, in Nova Scotia. And she’s just a phenomenal young lady. She always you know, pays homage to me as being a contributor in that which I’m, you know, humbled by because, you know, I just, I really just did what I did for her, what I tried to do for all my students. And that’s just chat and say hello and find out what ticks and help support them and point them in whatever direction it is they wanna go and they need help to find. So that’s kind of, so anyway, it’s, it’s every, every student isn’t a opportunity and every student has something to offer and every student needs an adult in their life and they may already have it, but they also need a teacher just to say, good morning to them in the morning and goodbye to them in the afternoon.


John Dennison (23:06):
And we’ll see you tomorrow more kind of thing. And I think little bits and pieces are important and I don’t stand in the entrance of the building every day and, you know, greet everybody. I don’t, you know, go outta my way to say hello to everybody. But if I’m in the hall and I see people, then I will make sure that they feel if they look uncomfortable or whatever, that, that they’re happy to be there. And you know, if they don’t need me, they’re not going to hear from me. But if, if I get a vibe that maybe they need to say hello, or how are you doing? Is everything okay? Then they’re gonna hear that too. And I think just, you know, making that extra connection besides assigning tests and quizzes and assignments and those kinds of things, but yeah, it was good. It’s a big task. It’s a tall order. It’s huge, but very rewarding.


Sam Demma (23:52):
I was, I was gonna ask you, how do we make young people feel cared for and how do we make them feel appreciated? Is it by those small gestures? Like if there’s a teacher listening right now,


John Dennison (24:03):
It can be, it can be everything. I think from a wink to a smile, wink works well these days with COVID mass on the go knows if it smiles. But, and then of course it is 2020. A wink can be misinterpreted, but usually if it’s coming from a 55 or old bald man, that’s a teacher in your school is probably okay. anyway, it’s, I’ve gotten away with it anyway. But it’s usually followed up with some conversation. But I think it can be anything from, you know the breakfast club, making sure students, you know, just walking through and just connecting, just saying, hello, just how are things going? What are you doing? What can I, you know, it’s just a, a welcome mat. It’s just, I mean, I don’t, I’m not, I don’t take all the advice for my Labrador retriever.


John Dennison (24:55):
I don’t roll around on the floor, expecting people to Rob and tickle my belly, but somehow, you know, my dog could do that. And that, that somehow makes a connection. So it’s just figuring out what to do, then lie down and roll and ask people to pick your tickle, your belly, that that makes them connected somehow. You know another instance that just happened today, for example, a young girl who I knew, I know she ran for student council last year. Didn’t get on, she didn’t get elected. And I just happened to see her today. And we had our meetings today of, of, for our, any students interested in running. And I said to her, I said, you didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t come to our meeting today. Are you not interested in running for student council this year? And she said, well, no. She said, I struggled with it a little bit last year.


John Dennison (25:43):
And you know, she said, I didn’t get elected and I was kind of, and that kind of stuff. And I said, okay. I said, I totally get that. I said, you know, there’s my daughter ran. She didn’t get elected. And she, she really was uncomfortable with the whole student council thing for a while. But I said, if you stop and think about it, look at you right now. You’re a year older. You’re, you’re more mature. You’re alive. You’re doing well in school. You seem happy cuz every time I see you have a smile on your face. So it wasn’t really that bad you got over it. You’re a little bit stronger for it. Believe it or not. You went through adversity and you’re still smiling and you’re able to talk to me about it. So I would be more than happy to see you throw your hat in the ring again, listen, you remember, you’ve got nothing to lose next year, this time we could potentially be having the same conversation.


John Dennison (26:31):
Sure. You didn’t make it, but you stuck your neck out there and you tried and you gave it your best shot. So if you’re, you know, I just said, if you’re not really interested and it’s not something you want this year don’t bother. But if you think you’ve still got something to offer, well, give it a shot. And don’t forget. We also have two positions on each grade level that are teacher nominee positions. So maybe, you know, you could come and ask a teacher to nominate you and you could be part of the council that way. So anyway, five story short that was at lunch and sometimes you’re wrote the afternoon. She came and sat in the chair next to my desk and she said, you’ve got me thinking about it and she might just run. But anyway, my fingers are crossed. I better not say it secretly for her to run.


John Dennison (27:13):
Oh darn I can’t, I can’t be too supportive. Anyway. I just hope that she runs and we will. Let’s just say, if she’ll be more than welcome if she wins, how does that sound anyway? That’s awesome. It’s you know, it’s just, it’s just making those connections, you know, remembering a face from last year, remembering seeing somebody down and asking them how they are or just, you know, having the opportunity to reach out awesome. Again, it’s, it’s, they’re all different. You know, the, the government tends to, and this is advice for teachers. The government tends to come now with blanket policies that expect every round student to fit in a square hole. And it just doesn’t work in education. We’re a gray science education is a gray science and one size does not fit all. And as a matter of fact, one of the sizes looks really stupid on some. So, you know, it’s, it’s just the, it is. But if we can get the best out of each of them, that’s all we can ask for, but we don’t get paid. We get paid to set up the trough for success, but we don’t get paid for pushing their heads down in the water or in the, so we just gotta roll with that. And every second Thursday we get paid. So there’s that bonus. Yeah.


Sam Demma (28:27):
True. That’s awesome. John, look, I could talk to you for hours on hours. There’s so much wisdom, so many stories to share. I’m sure we’ll do a part two and a part three. If there’s an educator listening right now, who’s thinking, you know, I just got into, this is my first year. This isn’t what I signed up for. This seems crazy. What was advice? Do you wanna end this episode sharing with them?


John Dennison (28:50):
Oh, it’s crazy. No doubt. It’s crazy. Hang on for the ride of your life. It’s interesting because my daughter, I love her she’s high school trained, but she’s in year two of teaching primary elementary in Alberta and she you know, she’s struggling this year. She taught out grade three last year and like I said, she’s high school trained. And this year she’s teaching grade four, so a second lot of curriculum. So I, I know we’ve talked and she’s struggling a little bit with the whole idea of am I cut out to be a teacher? And you know, the reality is you’re not everybody is. I remember I love this little Tibit my mom at my wedding. She, she stood up at the microphone. This was the, this was the year actually I had just started teaching. I had six months in and she said there were two reasons that she knew of that I became a teacher and one was July and the other was August and, and, you know, looking back, there’s nothing wrong with those summer vacations.


John Dennison (29:49):
But I think it’s like everything. It’s like every career I’ve been so fortunate that I’ve gotten this gone to work every morning with a smile on my face. And I’ve left with a smile on my face the last day of the summer before each day of school in September, I have trouble falling asleep because it’s, it’s more about, it’s not anxiety. It’s more about and maybe it’s anxious, but it’s more an excited, anxious about what we’re gonna do. Who am I gonna face? Who the new kids are, you know? And if you can get that passion for your teaching career somehow and real every, we have the opportunity to influence thousands of students in our careers, but the reality is if we do it right, we’re influencing generations upon generat upon generations. Because if I did my job right, 30 years ago, then those parents now something I said or something I entrenched deeply inside them is influencing their kids and so on and so forth.


John Dennison (31:01):
And that’s some something that, that I know it sounds awfully conceded or perhaps a little, you know, top heavy. But if we do our jobs, right, we’re not just teaching them how to go on to university and do better in sciences or English or math or become doctors or lawyers. We’re in, we’re influencing them and how to be become good strong members of society. And I also believe that it takes welders. It takes pipefiters. It takes Walmart greeters, Tim Horton’s workers, doctors, and lawyers, and politicians to change the world and to do good things in the world. It’s not just the high end. It’s, it’s all, it’s all perspective. It’s every student in the building has an opportunity and has just needs a catalyst and just needs to realize that their potential is huge. And we’ve seen that was some of the, you know, some of the protests worldwide, that it’s a shame that some of the incidents that have happened have the result has had to have been protests and those kinds of things.


John Dennison (32:17):
But, but you know, there’s definitely voices out there. There are definitely voices that we need to hear. And a lot of them are young voices. So anyway, because I I’ve always felt it a bit cliche to say that you are the next generation, you, your generation can change the world, whereas they can’t. Yeah. And we’re starting to see that in 20, 20, 20, 21, because hopefully because my, my generation, you know, has helped them in instill that in them, hopefully. True. So anyway, your job next, putting all the pressure on, and you’re doing your part, you’re doing your part, but yeah, no, we can definitely do another part down the road. Well, actually comfortable than I thought.


Sam Demma (32:59):
You’re, you’re a pro. This seems awesome. If anyone wants to reach out to you and talk about some of the stories or just connect, maybe it’s another educator from a different province. What’s the best way for them to get in touch?


John Dennison (33:09):
With you? So I, I’m not a huge fan of Facebook only because I found that it just became too much of what the randomness people do in their day. That that really, I don’t have time to pull around with. I’m on Twitter @Jnosinned, which is Dennison backwards. That was something I maybe we’ll save that story for another time. It’s a good story. It’s something that, that young teachers could do with their with their students sometime for entertainment. Is all about putting your name backwards anyway @Jnosinned. But if you look for John Dennison, I think you’ll find me. My email, school email is johndennison@nlesd.ca ,newfound Labrador English school district cell phone. Now won’t go there. school phone school phone is (709) 634-5828.


John Dennison (34:12):
Cool. they want meal find Google’s amazing that way. Yeah. But definitely reach out. I certainly don’t don’t mind sharing anything, you know, if there’s any future employers out there, by the way I may be looking for, Hey here, I never thought about this before. , here’s, here’s an opportunity to have me come to your school and work for a living or somewhere else. I’ve noted actually that the prison system in Hawaii apparently hires retired teachers to come and work. So the idea of moving from the iceberg capital, the world to probably the volcano capital of the world is kind of appealing, but anyway, we’ll see, but there’s anyway, it suits the, maybe you’ve heard enough for me today.


Sam Demma (34:59):
No, man, I can’t get enough. I’m loving is one of my favorite conversations, but we will, we will wrap it up there and I’m gonna thank you, John, for taking some time to chat and I’ll have you on again soon. This has been a pleasure.


John Dennison (35:11):
Ah, no sweat. I’m I’m here. I’m here. Maybe we’ll start doing a monthly report from the rock


Sam Demma (35:18):
I’m so I’m so down.


John Dennison (35:19):
Cool. And when Dave, when Dave con listens to this and I’m sure my good friend, Dave will listen there will be no screeching involved, Dave, and I don’t think we’ll be doing a, a pod screech in either. So unless, unless Sam, unless you get lots of requests, maybe we could do an after 10?


Sam Demma (35:37):
I’m I’m open to it. love it, John. All right. Thank you so much. Okay. Take care of my friend, such an impactful interview. So many amazing stories. John has so much wisdom to share so much positive energy. I really hope that I can go and meet him soon in person after COVID passes. I think we’d have amazing conversations and I encourage you to reach out to him as well. He would probably love to hear from you. In fact, I’m sure he would absolutely love to hear from you. And I would, I would love for, for you to connect with him. If you did enjoy this, please take two seconds to consider leaving a rating and review. It’ll help more educators, just like you find this content and benefit from it. And if you are someone who has ideas and inspiring stories in education, shoot us an email at info@samdemma.com so we can get you on the show as well. Anyways, I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with John Dennison

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.

December 19, 2021 by Experiential Learning Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Jeff Gerber – Speaker, Teacher, Relationship Advocate

Jeff Gerber - Speaker, Teacher, Relationship Advocate
About Jeff Gerber

Jeff (@jeffgpresents) has a natural way of connecting with people and moving them to action.  He was a leader on his high school campus, active in Student Council, won a bronze medal at the Canadian National High School Debating Championships, and was voted by his peers to be Valedictorian of their graduating class.  

At the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) he remained active in public speaking, being recognized as an Outstanding Delegate to the prestigious Harvard National Model UN and broadcasting on campus radio.  He also played several seasons with the football Mustangs earning a varsity athletic letter.

​As an educator, Jeff is blessed to teach at his alma mater.  ​As the Student Activities Council Advisor and Leadership Teacher at Waterloo-Oxford DSS, he leads one of the largest and most impactful leadership programs in the province of Ontario.  The school’s inclusive programs to welcome new students are a model for the region.  Their school-wide Relay for Life fundraising events for the Canadian Cancer Society have raised over $625,000 in the last decade. He further gives his time coaching several varsity school sports teams, and has led teams to league championship teams in two different sports.

Jeff and his wife Julie and their three children (twin daughters Brookelynn and Katherine and son Jackson) live outside Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario where they are active leaders and volunteers in their schools and community.   Jeff has served on numerous local boards, is currently a member of his local government Township Council (serving his fourth elected term), and has coached numerous local travel teams in baseball and hockey.   For his efforts and expertise in guiding young people, and their parents, he was recognized as Rep Hockey Coach of the Year for the local ​New Hamburg Hockey Association.

Jeff is a genuine motivator, always striving to learn more and do more.  He is excited to meet you and work alongside you to better your school, association, conference, or corporate community.

Connect with Jeff: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Jeff Gerber Website

Waterloo-Oxford DSS

Canadian Cancer Society

YLCC programs

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. I met today’s guest just over a year ago at a conference in Waterloo, Ontario called horizons. Jeff was there with a group of his students watching me and a couple other people speak, but you should also know Jeff himself is a keynote speaker along with being a teacher, a husband, a father, and a student leadership advisor. I’m sure you’ll realize this in the interview, but Jeff has a very natural way of connecting with people and moving them to action. Back when he was in high school, he was a leader, someone who was very involved in, he was even the valedictorian of his graduating class. And then in his university career at Western university, he remained very active in public speaking. He was recognized as an outstanding delegate at the prestigious Harvard national model UN competition.

Sam Demma (00:57):

And he also was an athlete on the football Mustangs team, earning a varsity athletic letter, very, very involved throughout all of his education. Especially now as an educator, Jeff is blessed to teach at his Alma mater where he went to school at the student activity council advisor, as the advisor and leadership teacher at Waterloo, Oxford DSS, he leads one of the larger and most impactful leadership programs in the province of Ontario. The school’s inclusive programs to welcome new students are a model for the whole region. Their schoolwide relay for life fundraising event for the Canadian cancer society has raised over $625,000 in the last decade. And further gives his time coaching several varsity school sports teams and has led teams to league championships in two different sports. Now this man needs no more introduction his ideas, his insights, his passion, his energy really shines bright and comes through during this interview.

Sam Demma (02:01):

There’s so much on building relationships that he provides, and I really hope you have a pen and paper nearby because you’re gonna be using it in this episode without further ado. Let’s get into the interview with Jeff. I’ll see you on the other side, Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you, we talked a little bit about your Bower shirt, your at the school. Can you share with the audience who you are, what you do and why you’re passionate about the work you do with you

Jeff Gerber (02:31):

Today? Yeah, that’s awesome. Thanks. thanks so much for having me Sam, great opportunity. I’ve heard some of your stuff appreciate the work that you’re doing with high performing students and now with with high performing educators yeah, Jeff Gerber, as you may, I’m a, I’m an educator. So I’ve been at the I’m blessed to serve at the same school I attended. I’ve been there over 20 years now, been involved in teaching leadership and student activities. And that’s sort of been my main role within the school coach, a bunch of different sports and all those kinds of things. Just ways to build connections with students. And then outside of school active in my active, in my local church and a member of our local township council. And and I’ve gotten started sort of dabbling into speaking and presenting myself over the last over the last couple of years as well. So that’s been a fun a fun chapter to explore too.

Sam Demma (03:17):

And a father, correct? Oh

Jeff Gerber (03:18):

Yeah, yeah. Father, husband, brother, son. Yeah. All that sort of stuff. Sorry.

Sam Demma (03:22):

<Laugh> cool. Cool. the only reason I ask is cuz you mentioned shoehorning your own kids into hockey and they were growing up. <Laugh> what gets you passionate about the work you do with youth though? Is, is there a reason you got into education? Every time I talk with an educator and I, them that question, they usually say it was, you know, a tap on the shoulder or something happened, but I find everyone has a unique story. What, what, what got you into this? Yeah,

Jeff Gerber (03:47):

I think, I think probably for me it was, it was the opportunity to give back. I, as I mentioned, I’m blessed to serve at the school that I went to. I had a number of educators who, who built into my life, who gave me opportu to, to try things and do things and explore and discover, you know, talents and interests that I might not have known I had otherwise. And, and the opportunity to sort of, you know, do that in return and sort of, you know, pay it forward, pay it back. However you will was sort of you know, was certainly alluring to me. I mean, selfishly I mean the lifestyle for, you know, for families and, and for kids and all that sort of stuff is awesome as well. But I mean it, it’s hard work harder now than ever obviously. But yeah, I think mainly that chance to sort of, you know, just to sort of give back and, and give students an opportunity just to, just to flourish and, and, and discover themselves and grow.

Sam Demma (04:37):

Hmm. I love that. And I’m, I’m sure I’m certain, you have unique perspectives being both the father and a teacher as do many educators in talking about hard times right now, things are different and they are difficult. What are some of the challenges you’ve been seeing and how have you overcome them or, you know, went around them or dug under them, you know, got, got over them in some way, shape or form. Yeah.

Jeff Gerber (04:59):

I, I mean, obviously the challenge challenges and this isn’t just an education, but, but isolation is, is one of the huge challenges that we’re all dealing with right now. In school we see that just in a loss of the activities and the things that would normally give students an opportunity to connect. Yeah. So you just, you know, so you try to continue to provide those opportunities just in the, just in the new you know, just in the new realm. And certainly one thing I think, think that we’re finding this fall is, I mean, last spring was tough, right? We sort of, we, it’s funny. We had, we, we went back and found one of our, like our outdoor sign binder at school. When we put up the new sign in September, we had had a message in there, you know, March 15th you know, happy March break classes resume April 6th, right?

Jeff Gerber (05:39):

Because when we left for those two weeks after March break, that’s what we all thought was happening. So what we’re learning, I think is it’s, it’s a lot harder starting the year, this way than it is than it was ending the year mm-hmm <affirmative> wrapping things up in April, may and June, at least had seven months under your belt of working with students every day and knowing them and getting to know them and educating ’em, all that sort of stuff, starting it from scratch, launching it from scratch is, is a, is a different kettle of fish. We’re sort of in hybrid quad Mester. I mean, all the new words are so, so there’s a lot of unintended consequences of just the way the timetables set up and how often you’re seeing kids are not seeing kids. And it just takes a lot of your assumptions and ways you’ve done things. And you just have to, you know, you’re almost like starting over almost like being a new teacher in a way.

Sam Demma (06:23):

Yeah. Have you experimented with anything or maybe not yourself, but have seen other people try some things, a lot of people mention throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks has any spaghetti stuck for you so far. And maybe you could share that experience.

Jeff Gerber (06:39):

Well, I think, I think one of the, one of the opportunities that sort of come outta this are, I’m not sure if it, you know, if we’ve got sort of specifics down pat, but yeah. But one of the things I think is the idea that in, in the old, you know, in, in normally you’d have your leadership students, which is the people I’d be involved with, you know, running large scale events and giving all sorts of opportunities for people to connect with each other that they don’t normally connect with. Right. and now, so I sort of, I, we just talked about this at a, at a staff meeting last night, I sort of said, you know, normally we’d be crop dusting and, you know, providing all these opportunities out there for people to plug in and meet each other. Well, right now we don’t have any of those, right.

Jeff Gerber (07:16):

We’re not allowed to meet beyond the 15 kids in our cohort, in our classroom. So now instead of crop dusting, we’re doing all the weeding by hand. So it’s basically each individual teacher has those 15 kids. And, and you’re the ones that need to provide those opportunities for kids to connect and get to know each other. You need to maybe be a bit more, more vulnerable than you’ve normally been. You need to maybe take a bit of your academic time, set it aside to, to, to build connections. Because I think any of those opportunities and now people are sort of realizing that, yeah, I can’t just, there isn’t just a, a pumpkin car contest or some, or some charity thing, or, you know, what we call it sock pack at our school. Other schools call it link crew, whatever. Like there aren’t all these other things going on that are connecting people. I’m all they got. So, you know, so we’re just trying at our school anyway, to just empower the educators in our school and give them some of the tools and the resources and free them up to do some of the stuff that, you know, leadership or activities or other people might have done before. And, and that’s sort of neat to see and everybody’s sort of doing it their way. We’ve provided them with some tools and some resources, but yeah,

Sam Demma (08:19):

I know you do a lot of speaking on building relationships on student leadership. Why is these opportunities given to students so important and impactful?

Jeff Gerber (08:30):

Yeah. well, I have a little saying the, the biggest ship in leadership is relationships. So to me it all comes down to sort of connecting people, like I said before, the analogy I like to you uses we’re sort of and this is an old movie reference. I sometimes make old movie references, which I, I don’t wanna date myself, but I love the movie hitch and will Smith plays Alex Hitchens and his job is to let people meet who might not otherwise have met and give them opportunities to sort of build relationships. And I think in a school that’s sort of what activities and leadership is all about. It’s letting people at again, whatever event you’re running, that’s sort of the backdrop for just allowing these people to meet and get to know each other that might not otherwise have connected.

Jeff Gerber (09:09):

And it’s interesting just to see how, how people’s relationships and friendships and things form the opportunities to get at school. Like, it’s always interesting to me to read, you know, students who are writing sort of their last sort of letter in, in a, in a leadership class at the end of grade 12, reflecting back on the people they met in their group at grade nine night and how the friendships that came out of that you know, the opportunities to have a microphone in your hand, in front of a group of people know the opportunity to, to come up with a slogan or pick a theme song or somehow influence or shape things that are happening. And I, you know, I, I think that’s exciting and, you know, that’s sort of, you know, like we talked about at the beginning and that sort of motivates me, and I think it’s an important, and it’s an important part of school, right? There’s so much more to school. I mean, we could go on about how much, you know, in academics is it’s important to, it’s probably half of what kids need to succeed in their life outside of school. There’s a lot of other pieces there. And you know, and, and activities, athletics clubs, teams I’ll provide that. I’m I’m, I mean, I’m, I’m sure it made a difference in your life, you know, in, in your time as a student.

Sam Demma (10:09):

Yeah. I mean, my whole life changed because of, of an educator who believed in me when I was in a tough situation, which is why I wanted to actually ask you, I’m sure. In the dozens of years you’ve been teaching, you’ve had students write you those letters that you mentioned at the end of leadership class that probably bring you to tears sometimes and really show you why the job you do is so important. There’s some educators listening who might feel burnt out and may have a loss of hope. Right, right. Now, can you think of a story of a student who was so impacted by leadership activities by school culture, by relationships that were built that you’d like to share and the more open and vulnerable the story is, the more it’ll resonate. So feel free to change a student’s name for a privacy reason. But does any story kind of stick out in your yeah, I mean

Jeff Gerber (10:56):

I mean, I, I, there’s so many I mean, it’s funny, we’re just like, well, I, I wanna ask you about your social media freeze later, but <laugh> I, I, I haven’t been on it as much lately as I normally am, but I just saw a former student just posting their story. They’re running the relay for life for Carlton university. So I just sent them a quick note, Hey, congrats. You know, they were involved in relay at our school, you know, this is three years later. And they just sort of messes me back quick. Hey, it’s just neat to put into practice all the things that you know, that we had a chance to learn in school. But I think, I think the story I’ll share is one of the things I’ve started learning to do this in the last year or so is check in with students on a more regular basis.

Jeff Gerber (11:32):

And I got this idea from another organization that I’ve started doing some work with called character strong. And it’s called it, it just, it’s just a, it’s just a check in, you can either do it daily or weekly. It’s just a Google form. Hey, how are you today? One to five. Why do you feel this way? And you don’t have to answer right. That’s totally optional. And I had a, I had a group that I started with in the real classroom and ended up in the virtual world and we’ll call ’em the three Amigos. And they were just, well, you just sort of knew going in, just so sometimes you just look at your class list and, you know, okay. I, you know, I’ve got these three they’re in the same room and the first day did not go well.

Jeff Gerber (12:10):

And I just sort of closed the, I just asked them stay, cuz you don’t want to, you know, confront people in front of other people. Like it’s not about, you know, it’s not about power. It’s not about, it’s about, Hey, you know, we’re gonna get through this. How are we gonna do it? I just sort of closed the door. And I said, I know maybe you’re used to, you know, getting sent to the office a lot, cuz I, I know that you’re I see you there. But I just want you to know that whatever happens here, this, this room is like Vegas, whatever happens in this room stays. So we’re gonna deal with whatever happens in here. I’m not setting you off somewhere else. I’m not, you know, you’re not anybody else’s concern right now except except mine. Mm. And that was sort of just to sort of set the tone that, Hey, I, you know, I care about you and we’re gonna, you know, whatever is bothering you right now, or today or the next day, we’ll sort of get through it together.

Jeff Gerber (12:53):

And through the check-ins you sort of start to learn a little bit more about people’s backgrounds. And then the one day the one guy was just sort of, you know, he was, he was on his phone and looking down and I could see he was sort of troubled and he, he eventually left the room and I just sort of fall out in the hall. I said, Hey, what’s wrong? And he started crying and he was having some problems with his dad and you know, his dad was sort of disowning him, sounded like, and, and we just had a, a real, just a real good conversation about that. And then when we went to the virtual world, we were able to sort of, again, through the check-ins and through Google meets and through, you know, emails back and forth, just sort of just sort of keep in touch.

Jeff Gerber (13:27):

And it was interesting. We had this huge spreadsheet of of kids who were just sort of dropping off the end of the map, you know, dropping off the end of the, of the know, like it’s April and may and they’re not connecting, they’re not. And it was interesting just tracking him through this process. And it was at one point there was a note beside his file just said, civics with Gerber is the only class he’s doing <laugh> and, and he had, he had already told everybody else he had. And, and the only reason I think that was, was because we had taken some time in to look a little bit deeper into each other’s lives and understand each other a little better and find out what each other are going through. So I think that was sort of, you know, that sort of extended into COVID and that was just a simple daily, check-in just an opportunity.

Jeff Gerber (14:08):

Hey, and again, you don’t have to write anything, but you know, what’s going on. And and it just opens the doors to so many other things. And, and that’s one of the things we’ve been doing at our school. And I, we’ve sort of launched character strong at our school this fall. And, you know, just trying to get some again, what I talked about before, give each individual teacher the chance to build those relationships and connections, because I mean, the research shows that it’s the number one thing that that’s gonna, you know, that’s gonna turn a kid around or, or help a kid stay engaged.

Sam Demma (14:34):

Speaking of character strong, I know Houston talks so much about kindness. Yes. I’m curious to know how do we, how do we make sure students feel and receive those acts of kindness even a, even in a virtual world?

Jeff Gerber (14:47):

Yeah. I mean, you gotta keep it, you gotta keep it front and center. Right. I mean, you, you also have to model it, right. I mean, that’s one of the things, I mean, it’s one of the things I like about, I like about, about, about character strong is it’s not something it’s not, it’s not something to do to students. It’s something done with students like the adult work in the building, you know, what the adults are modeling as far as their relationships with students, their relationships with each other. I mean, that’s all that also important. And there, and what the other thing about, I mean, and anybody who’s listened to Houston knows this, like there’s so many other, like, I know he hates the phrase, you know, throw kindness, throw kindness around like, like confetti, right. He hates that because he thinks it sort of cheapens, you know, there’s, there’s a little bit more to it than that, right?

Jeff Gerber (15:26):

There’s a, a few things that undermine kindness, right? Some skills you need to know. Empathy’s a big one, right. And, and we know kids today research tells us, I mean, they’re more anxious, you know, than ever. Right. Michelle BBA and her book on selfie talks about the relationship between anxiety and empathy, right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> as anxiety increases, empathy decreases. So you’ve got a whole, you know, you’ve got a generation that’s generally for a whole other set of reasons, preexisting COVID, you know, who are already perhaps more isolated, more lonely, less connected, and more anxious in previous generations. And then you throw this into the mix. So just, you know, just sort of being able to, to remind students that, you know, we’re all in our, we’re all on our own ship during this storm <laugh> and we’re all experiencing it differently. Right.

Jeff Gerber (16:12):

So the storm’s big, but you know, some of us are in a rowboat. Some of us are, you know, some of us are in yachts and it hasn’t really affected us at all. And others are, are sinking every day. And you know, just sort of keeping that first and foremost, another need another need analogy. I mean, this kind of, you know, focusing on these kinds of things, it’s, it’s like parenting, like, it’s not like a, it’s not like a 10 minute lesson, or it’s not like an assembly where, okay, we’ve checked it off. We’ve, we’ve talked about kindness today. We put up the poster, it’s all done, you know, it’s you have to do it, you know, it’s gotta be part of, it’s gotta just be built right in there. It’s like, you know, the weeding that we’re doing every day, those, you know, showing grace and, you know, there a couple little sayings in the COVID world that, I mean, people in education have probably seen them, but, you know, relationships before rigor, you know, connection before content, grace, before grades, you know Maslow before bloom, like there’s a lot of different sort of phrases to sort of remind us all that, you know, as much as we’re as much as we’re worried that, Hey, I’m not getting through my, my grade 11 university math CU, right.

Jeff Gerber (17:14):

We’ve got students in front of us who have a whole lot of other things going on in their lives right now. And focusing on those is actually gonna help us teach the curriculum. Right. Sometimes we see these two things as opposing each other, right? Like socially emotional learning or character development and academics. They actually, they actually work together really well, which again, is someone who’s been involved in leader. If you see that, right. The more kids are engaged and connected to other people, the better they’re gonna do. So, you know, some people say, well, you know, that assembly just cost me an hour of, you know, time in the lab. Right. Well, yeah, it did. But you know, we might have, we might have done some other stuff in that time as well. And, and you know that from being in schools and how important that time is, and those messages are

Sam Demma (17:54):

It’s true. And you were the perfect example with your student in class, that little conversation that you had with him in the hallway led to him staying in only your class. And I think that’s half the reason why student leadership is so effective, you make, so someone feel like they’re a part of the family and they’re gonna contribute to the family and not slack off as much. Yeah. Speaking about student leadership, I know you’ve worked in it for so long events. This year are canceled. Not maybe not canceled. Totally. We’re gonna get unique about it and do things differently. Yep. What do you, think’s gonna happen in the next couple of months with events, with speaking, with all those sorts to things?

Jeff Gerber (18:29):

Yeah. I mean, there’s certainly some opportunities to do things in the virtual world. And I know a number of, I mean, I know you’ve been involved in a number of those virtual events and, and run a number of them yourself. And we’ve been involved in a couple of them together. I know that when they took GSL S or GSL D and when Y L C C, who does so many awesome things across the country for students both LCC and CSLA, I know you had Dave Conlan on on your show as well. You know, they’re both providing great frameworks for, for virtual materials to be delivered and, and entrepreneurs and speakers and, you know, leadership, examples like yourselves are also doing that. So even OS L C I know, is gonna be running virtual this you know this fall. So there’s, there is certainly lots of opportunities and ways to connect with people, you know, that you wouldn’t have had that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Jeff Gerber (19:17):

And, and, and in your building, you know, there’s ways to, you know, there’s ways to do that as well. You know, you know, virtual, pep rallies, and, you know, you’re bringing people together and having live hosts or recording it and, you know, all the, all those things are good. It, it is also uncharted territory. And, and for, you know, to sort of say right now, Hey, I got this idea and it’s gonna work. Nobody, you know, nobody really knows yet. And, and even, and it’s hard to even gauge, you know? Yeah. I guess you can see if you’re posting, you know, if your school’s posting stories on it to Instagram, you know, you can see how many people are viewing it and all that kind of stuff. There’s some ways, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s different. That’s all there is to it.

Sam Demma (19:53):

Yeah. No, it’s all true. Very different. And I think anyone who’s in their first year of teaching is thinking, what the heck did I just sign up for? Yeah, exactly. If you could sit down with an educator, just let’s say, it’s yourself, you know, 20 something years ago, and you’re speaking to your younger self, and this was your first year of teaching and it’s crazy. It’s different. What advice would you give that younger self or that new educator?

Jeff Gerber (20:18):

Yeah, I mean, I would, I would just sort of reiterate some of the things we’ve been talking about is, you know, focusing on relationships, focusing on connections, looking for opportunities to, to put yourself out there and to give students a chance to share a little, a bit, you know, off, off topic. And, and there’s so many ways to build it in, like in, in addition to being involved in leadership. I mean, I’m, I’m lucky I’m into social sciences. So people always say, well, it’s a little easier, but you still have to, you still have to intentionally do it. Like when I’m teaching civics and I’m talking about, you know, civics is really, you know, how people live together in groups. Yeah. Well, what personal characteristics help people live together in groups better? And that’s a launching point to talk about some of these things like, you know, kindness and respect and forgiveness and all that other stuff you know, in careers, yeah.

Jeff Gerber (21:01):

Careers is about what do you want to be when you grow up? But let’s talk about what kind of, you know, how do you want to be when you grow up, what person you want to be when you grow up? Mm. So whatever subject area you’re in, you know, find those opportunities to, you know, to bring in something, to bring in something from today, or to bring in something from, you know, current and, and, and just have a conversation about it. I mean, you know, I think that’s what people, I think that’s what people remember. You know, I mean, there’s a famous Maya Angelou quote, right. People, you know, they might not remember what you say or what you do, but they’re always gonna remember how you make them feel. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. So if you, as an educator can sort of focus on, you know, how are my students gonna feel when they’re, you know, when they leave this interaction with me or when they leave this class, or when they leave this Google meet, right. Or this zoom meeting, you know, are they gonna feel like they were heard to listen to, or are they gonna feel like, you know, I was just so, you know, I was just in such a to get through the quadratic equation that I didn’t even, you know, that I didn’t even realize what was going on, you know, in the room or, you know,

Sam Demma (21:53):

Whatever. That’s awesome. This has been a great conversation, Jeff, I’m sure we could talk for hours. If any other educator wants to reach out to you, bounce a conversation around, share some ideas, how can they do that? Yeah, for

Jeff Gerber (22:06):

Sure. Yeah. email like jeffgerber.ca works. I am on Instagram and Twitter, @jeffgpresents. So those are all ways to ways to sort of connect and, and, and speaking of social now, I know you’re the interviewer, but I know I know let’s see about two or three weeks ago, you sort of, you sort of made this to you know, to social media free year, which I think is amazing. And I’m just curious and I don’t know, maybe you have a whole other, a whole other way to update your, your listeners as to how it’s coming, but just between me and you, I’m curious.

Sam Demma (22:41):

Yeah. So we’re still live so everyone can hear this as well. There was three reasons that I decided to take a break. The, the last reason I’ll go from the third to the first, the last reason was just to try and experiment. Everyone is spending so much more time on their devices now because of COVID, especially, and screen times through the roof. I, I was like thinking to myself, what would happen if I do the exact opposite and instead of spending way more time spend no, and kind of get lost in my boredom and live life as if I was growing up in your generation, <laugh> without a cell phone. And <laugh> see what it’s like. This, the second reason in the middle was a personal reason. I found that on social media, it’s one so easy to compare yourself to others, but two, it’s also so easy to fall into this trap of always feeling like you need to tell everybody what you’re doing.

Sam Demma (23:35):

Yeah. And if I’m being vulnerable and honest right now on the podcast, I think I didn’t use social media as effectively as I could. Not every single one of my posts were about, Hey, look at me. And here’s what I’m doing. But a majority of them were, whereas they could have been of service to others. Hey, here’s something that can help you. If it’s a picture of me speaking in a school, it’s not just, Hey, I spoke to all these kids. It’s I spoken to school today. And this girl came up to me and taught me this lesson that I think might be of service. And so I thought, let me not just back in with this new mindset and get back on the app right away. Let me take a break and try and dismantle that ego that I have. I’m still a young guy.

Sam Demma (24:10):

I’m figuring it out. The first reason was related to business. I always convinced myself that I was on social media for business, and I did it myself, an audit and found that I spend an average of three hours per day on social that equates to about 1,095 hours in a year. And I had about two speeches booked through social media. And I asked myself is 1,095 hours worth the two talks. And on the very surface level, the answer is no. But what it made me realize was if I spend that 1,095 hours trying to instead be of service level up me, my life, and work on myself, read more books, relating to self leadership for young people that I can actually use to help others. And like you said, build relationships, real relationships with real people, as opposed to staring at a picture online, maybe in a year from now, my life will be totally different and I’ll have something unique to share. So

Jeff Gerber (25:02):

Yeah, no, that’s no, that’s real great. I, I really appreciate you sharing that. That’s yeah, I, I, yeah, I like it.

Sam Demma (25:09):

I like it. Yeah. And it’s, it’s weird. It’s odd. It’s out there. It’s a big decision. I thought like, let, just look for it all <laugh> and

Jeff Gerber (25:16):

It’s a year, like a lot of people will, you know, you’ll, you’ll see people, Hey, I’m gonna stay on social media until tomorrow. Right. Or I, or I gonna give it a week or a month, I mean, a year. That’s awesome.

Sam Demma (25:25):

Yeah. So we’ll see how it goes, but I will be staying up to date through this podcast. People can register and sign up to get all the new episodes. And maybe Jeff will be the messenger. <Laugh> putting it out there. But

Jeff Gerber (25:38):

Now I have dilemma. I haven’t posted, I haven’t posted for, I don’t know when the last time was sometime this summer, I had a fair, how do I post I can’t, if I tag you, you’re not even gonna repost. So I, but let the world discover us.

Sam Demma (25:48):

It’s true. Anyways, Jeff, thanks so much for coming on this show, man. It’s been a real pleasure.

Jeff Gerber (25:52):

Hey, thanks for having me, Sam loved it. Thank you. Keep up the great work.

Sam Demma (25:55):

Awesome. And there you have it. The full interview with Jeff Gerber, he would love for you to reach out and connect and talk about relationships and different ideas that are working in your schools or to pick his, his brain and ask him something related to the interview that you just listened to. But as always, if you have some ideas and insights that you would love to share on this show, we would love to have you on and share them for you. So please shoot us an email at info@samdemma.com. So we can get you on the show and as always, please consider leaving a rating and review because if you do, it would help more educators, just like you find this content and benefit from the ideas and the network. Anyways, I will see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Jeff Gerber

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.

December 11, 2021 by Professor Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Lenora Poulin – English teacher, Librarian and Student Leadership Advisor

Lenora Poulin - English teacher, Librarian and Student Leadership Advisor
About Lenora Poulin

Lenora (@LenoraPoulin) has been teaching for 29 years in the Fraser-Cascade School District in Hope, British Columbia. She began her career as an English and Social Studies teacher but after an inspiring professional development conference about student leadership, she changed her path.

She and her husband began the student leadership program at Hope Secondary in 1997 and she hasn’t looked back since. Lenora is a mother to two incredible girls and is also now the Teacher-Librarian at HSS. She believes in encouraging her students to be “good people” and the rest of what they need for life will follow.

Connect with Lenora: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Hope Secondary School

Lean in – Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Brené Brown – Daring Greatly

Angela Duckworth – Grit

Mitch Albom – Tuesdays with Morrie

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 we have on another amazing guest Lenora Poulin, she’s an English teacher. She’s also a teacher librarian and the student leadership advisor at Hope Secondary School. Its 180 kilometers, just north of Vancouver, at a small school of 350 kids. She’s been teaching at this school since she was 23 years old. You’re going to hear all of this and a lot more in the interview. Leanora is someone who has high energy. She’s someone who strives to give her students amazing experiences that will boost their hope, right? Hope secondary school, doing things that boost their hope, it’s really what’s needed right now in education. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I’ll see you on the other side. Enjoy. Lenora, thank you so much for joining the high performing educators podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you. I know we’re separated physically and by distance, but thanks to technology, we can connect. Dave, someone who we both mutually know introduced me to you. And just briefly talking to you before this interview, I can tell you have super high energy. I’m super excited to have you, can you just share with the audience, you know, what work you do with young people and why you actually got into this work in the first place?


Lenora Poulin (01:18):
Awesome. Well, I’m really excited to be here and I’m honored that Dave mentioned me. It’s awesome. So I’ve been a teacher for 29 years in the Fraser cascade school district, which I teach in the town called hope, which is about 180 kilometers east of Vancouver, small town, small school. We have 350 kids. But I have taught here since I was like 23 years old. You can do the math. And yeah, I, you know, in the beginning, when I first became a teacher, it was for all of the really cliched reasons. Right. I wanted to make a difference. You know when I first got the job here at Hope Secondary School, I was the first new teacher in about five years. And so it was kind of exciting. The school was growing and we’ve declined now, but it was, it was amazing.


Lenora Poulin (02:12):
And then in about 1997, my husband whom I met here we got married and we decided we wanted to take over the student council and turn it into a leadership class. And that’s what we did that summer of 1997. And we haven’t looked back since, although he doesn’t teach here any longer, he teaches at a different school and I have a different teaching partner, but getting to teach leadership students is I think Dave said that he feels like he has the best job. And I think I actually have the best job. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I teach English as well. And I’m also the school librarian. So you can tell we’re a really small school cause I wear lots of hats, but it’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing work.


Sam Demma (02:55):
Hope secondary. I think the name of your school is what’s needed now more than ever in education.


Lenora Poulin (03:02):
We can play with that name a lot. It’s awesome.


Sam Demma (03:05):
That’s really, really cool. And you sound like someone who’s full of hope and I’m curious to know what makes you a hopeful, what, what keeps you going during tough times? Like the challenges we’re facing right now with COVID?


Lenora Poulin (03:18):
Oh, you know, it’s funny because even without COVID we get asked this question a lot, like, why do you keep doing what you’re doing? And you know, it, honestly it takes just one kid and it can just be a one thing that they said you know, you can be having the worst year and believe me in my 29 years of teaching, I’ve had years where I did not want to be a teacher very much. But then you have that one kid who lets you know, that, you know, your class was their favorite or for me coming to the library, these kids that come in here every single day to sign out a book or to just read and hear and or the leadership kids who are excited about an event that they’re trying to do. And that’s, that’s what gives me hope. Right? That’s what keeps it going every single year. Why I keep coming back because they make it worth it. For sure.


Sam Demma (04:14):
I love that. And you’re right. What the statement of putting on many hats that you mentioned earlier that you run the role of a teacher, you run the role of a library and you’re on the role of the head of the leadership class. One of the things that changed my life when I was a student and brought me a lot of hope again, playing on that hope theme was reading books. I started reading books when I was 16 and it’s changed my life ever since. And I’m sure you can attest to the same thing. Do you have any books? This is off topic question, but do you have any books that you think are worth reading for other educators and other students?


Lenora Poulin (04:52):
Oh, there are so many. Currently for me it changes all the time, right? Depending on people that I’ve heard speak or other books that I’ve read. One of the ones that’s impacted me the most, probably in the last 10 years is Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean in” which she’s the COO of Facebook. And it spoke to me because it’s about women in the workplace and I recommend it to so many young female leadership students and people that I work with because it reminds me that as women, we need to lean into the table. So often because we have these other roles as women in society to take care of our families and have the baby back the day, we back away from these positions because, oh, I’m going to have a baby in the next couple of years. So I shouldn’t take this job or you know, I’m going to be going on maternity leave or, you know, my family is doing this and, and we, we back away from the table instead of leaning in.


Lenora Poulin (05:57):
So that’s one of my favorites to recommend to young women. Bernay, Brown’s, didn’t daring greatly as, you know, a phenomenal read for anyone. And I also really like Angela Duckworth’s grit. There are some things in there that I don’t totally agree with, but our school is really trying to work on our students’ resilience and their grit. So we read it as a staff and that was really important because it gave us some common vocabulary and it was really cool. And it’s awesome because any of these books that I read for my own professional development just instantly become lessons for us to use in our leadership class, which is great.


Sam Demma (06:31):
Th that’s what I was going to ask you. When you mentioned all the staff, reading those books, did you spearhead that initiative after reading that book?


Lenora Poulin (06:39):
A little bit. The grit one came from my principal. It was funny because she came with it and I was literally holding the book in my hand and I’m like this one, which was awesome. And last year we actually got to hear Angela Duckworth speak at the California convention which was really cool. Unfortunate. It was virtually, but not because of COVID just because she couldn’t be there. But I try to give, actually every summer I get the start of the summer. I give every staff member, a book to read over the summer, sometimes it’s fiction. Sometimes it’s nonfiction, some of them might read them and some of them don’t, but I just think it’s just such an amazing way to be constantly learning and growing. And I think that that’s what makes me happy and satisfied in my job is because I’m always looking for ways to be better.


Sam Demma (07:30):
I love that so much. And I think it’s important in education. That’s a needed, that’s a needed feeling and I applaud you for that. And teachers that have impacted my life embody the same philosophy. And this conversation has reminded me of a book. I read one time called Tuesdays with Morrie. I don’t know.


Lenora Poulin (07:46):
That’s a favorite.


Sam Demma (07:47):
Ah, okay. That’s so cool. So I had an educator tell me to read it. And I think the actual storyline of the book with the student visiting you tell us every Tuesday, before he passes away and I’m not going to spoil it too much. I guess I just gave away the


Lenora Poulin (08:05):
It’s been around for a long for a while now. And I think that it’s just, it sings to so many people. It’s awesome.


Sam Demma (08:12):
And it’s so I think it’s so applicable to any teacher, whether you work in a school outside of school, you teach people something it’s, it’s so cool to see the relationship between an educator and a student. And you get to, you get to drive those relationships every day. And like you mentioned earlier, sometimes you don’t see the impact, but maybe 10 years down the road, someone tells you something or in the middle of a terrible year, one kid says something that just makes the whole year worthwhile. Yeah. Those moments are so important for educators to remind them why they do what they do. And there’s so many educators listening to this inspired by you already. And I want you to sh I want you to share one of those stories in as much detail as you can, except you can change the student’s name. You can replace the name so you can keep it private, but the more open and vulnerable we share it, the more able it will be an impact and influence someone else. So I’m curious to know you have a story where something you’ve done is it’s had a huge impact on a student and would you be willing to share it.


Lenora Poulin (09:09):
As story


Lenora Poulin (09:16):
To favorites? Okay. The first one, I’m not going to change their names because they’re amazing. So the first one with was with a student named Jessica a few years ago. One of the perks of being a leadership teacher is we often get to travel with students. We take them to conferences all over the country. And our favorite obviously is the Canadian student leadership conference. And a few years ago the conference was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which for us VC girls, that’s an amazing experience. And my teaching partner and I took three young women that year to Halifax. And we always go early because we think if we’re going to travel all that way, we need to get the most out of this experience. And the interesting thing that students on the west coast don’t experience in the same way as the east coast is the actual history of our country starts on that east coast.


Lenora Poulin (10:10):
And so there’s so much for them to learn back there. So we arrived in Halifax on the Saturday and the conference started on the Tuesday and on, I believe it was the Sunday. We decided we were going to do three provinces in one day. So we were going to drive all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to prince Edward island. And we’re like, we can do this. It’ll be awesome. And D people think nothing of driving, like it’s two hours for us to drive to Vancouver. That’s a day trip. Like we don’t think anything about that. Yeah. So we drove, it was awesome. We got lost a couple of times. This is before GPS was as good as it is now. I don’t think our data plans included the east coast, so we might not have had our phones. Anyways, we made it to prince Edward island is about two o’clock in the afternoon.


Lenora Poulin (10:56):
We’re having lunch on the water on this dock and we’re eating mussels. And Jessica says there are kids back at school right now in a math class that they will never remember. And I am sitting here having a day. I will never forget. And like, I just get goosebumps every time I think about her saying it. I tell everybody that I know about that experience because it truly captures what is so amazing about leadership class and about the stuff that we do at our school, because we’re always telling kids that we get to create the stuff that kids remember about high school. You don’t remember a math lesson. I teach Shakespeare, no one is ever going to remember my McBath lesson. You know, maybe the time I wear a goofy hat and dressed as a witch, I don’t know, but they will remember those experiences. Right? Remember the time we participate in the pumpkin pie, eating contest, remember the time we went to Halifax and everyone else was in school and we were together learning about our history and having this great experience. And that is, that’s just, that’s my favorite story to tell about how important it is, what we do in connecting with kids. So, wow.


Sam Demma (12:16):
Absolutely love that I might be wrong. So correct me if I’m wrong. You mentioned there’s two stories and that one was phenomenal. I’m curious to know about the other one. Now


Lenora Poulin (12:26):
I’ll call you the other one too, cause it’s really so in, in my teaching career, unfortunately, because I’ve been teaching for 29 years, we’ve had some tumultuous political times and I have been on strike a few times in the last time was in 2014 when it was really bad. And we were on strike from the beginning of June until the end of September. It was, it was a terrible time. And I received a letter from a former leadership student who was just finishing up her teaching program at that time. And it was, I started this hashtag at that time on my social media called this is why. And it was exactly why she just talked about how, and I didn’t know this about her when she was in my class. And she was just this really cool person, super smart, very, very focused and driven goal oriented.


Lenora Poulin (13:24):
You never had to remind her about anything. But she was quirky funny and just really quick witted. And I loved being around her. And I loved watching her from grade eight, till grade 12, growing as a leader, you know, she never would have held a microphone or spoken in front of the school and those earlier days, and by the end of it, you know, you could just hand it and walk away. And she wrote me this letter about, and she talked about how her parents had these really high expectations for her at home. And she felt a lot of pressure. And she came from a great family. It wasn’t like that, but they just had really, really super high expectations. But that she was thanking us for bringing out these qualities in her that she didn’t know she had, that were more about, more than about the academics.


Lenora Poulin (14:12):
And it’s led her in this amazing career that she has now, and she’s actually not even teaching anymore. She’s doing she has her own private practice in counseling, which is really super amazing. And, but it was just so nice of her to just to get that acknowledgement and remind you that, you know, even when you’re in these terrible times that there are lots of people out there who you impacted. And for every Jessica and Sierra, there are hundreds more who just, you know, maybe don’t have the courage to let you know or think about you often, but they just haven’t reached out yet. And I just remind myself of that all the time, because I think about the teachers that I have, that I have never contacted and there have been some that I have. But I just had such positive school experiences. And I think about those people all the time. So I remind myself of that.


Sam Demma (15:04):
And now you have an excuse to reach out to those educators that were in your life. You can say, I was, I was talking on this podcast and you know what, you’re someone who changed my life. And I want you, I want you to know that now this is what I’m doing. And I’m sure it would bring a huge smile to their faces. You mentioned, you know, Sarah and Jessica at the beginning of their leadership journey would not in a million years, grab a mic and speak in front of the room or speak in front of the school. I’m sure now things are totally different. And I’m curious to know, you’ve actually, you’ve been doing this for longer than I’m alive, which is pretty cool. You, you know, you’ve definitely worked with dozens of speakers. You mentioned going to California, maybe it was CATA. I’m assuming maybe I can call you. I know you go to CSLC, you’ve probably been to OSSE before and all the other leadership conferences, and you’ve probably brought speakers into your school as well. I’m curious to know other educators that are listening are wondering how do you choose someone to bring into your school in front of young people?


Lenora Poulin (16:08):
Can I say the cost for a small school actually, unfortunately, that is a huge part of it, but I, you know, I, I listened to what Dave said about this and, and it really rings true for me as well. I really want an authentic message and it’s interesting because I’ve been doing this for so long and we have had, so we’ve had amazing speakers at our school and seeing some incredible speakers at national and provincial conferences. But it’s interesting when you get to see a speaker 2, 3, 4 times, and you start to realize that it’s a script, and I do understand that that is necessary in, in public speaking, for sure. You have your talking points, you have your things that you want to say, but I want to feel like that moment where you teared up is genuine. Not that it’s part of what you’re saying.


Lenora Poulin (17:08):
And so I really rely on the other people that I trust as leadership advisors in the province and in the country. And I trust my own instincts as well. And, you know, sometimes they’re not always right down. I do have to remember that because I’ve seen a speaker three or four times, they’re kind of stale to me, but for our kids that have seen them the first time it’s powerful. And it only has to, you know, the speaker only has to really connect with a couple of kids and I’m happy, right. Because they’ve made a difference, which is really cool. But yeah, I do really look for that authentic piece. And that when they’re talking to me as the person that’s looking to hire them that they’re going to work with our small school situation within our parameters, you know, especially, you know, when I, I mentioned cost, but that is a real factor for small schools and so many of us, and we often try to double up together and, you know, piggyback, okay, this person’s coming out here. Where else can we get them to come in? Even for horizons for CSLA right. Trying to work geographically with that, because there isn’t another high school close to us to, you know, that you could get to in the afternoon. And so, you know, those kinds of things are important, but yeah, I really liked that authentic story.


Sam Demma (18:29):
Hmm. I love that. I think authenticity is so important in anything that you choose to do, right? Not only speaking, but whatever your work is, whatever your project is, be authentic with it. Have you experimented with trying virtual stuff? I know a lot of educators are scrambling, not, not only with bringing in speakers, but just teaching online. I know you’re a smaller school. I talked to Jenna Fisher, who’s an advisor out in Saskatchewan and they’re doing a hybrid model in school, out of school. What are some things you’ve noticed that help your students participate in engage virtually.


Lenora Poulin (19:00):
The virtual thing? I mean, personally, that’s actually a real struggle for me. I, one of the things I learned the most in the spring is that I am an in-person teacher. I need to see people’s faces. And now we’re, we are actually back in person here. But we’re all wearing masks. So I’m really learning to look into people’s eyes. But the, like some of the speakers have really adapted well to the the virtual platform. And I really appreciate that. One of the things that’s the hardest is learning to look into the camera on your face and not at the picture in the zoom or whatever. And I, again, got to participate in the virtual global conference that Stu Saunders did. And it was really interesting to, to watch the different speakers and see, and that was right at the early beginnings of us, all kind of transitioning, watching the speakers who were quite gifted at looking at the camera.


Lenora Poulin (20:03):
And you felt like you were actually there while they were talking and maybe just looking at a screen off to the side, but then there were the other people who obviously had another screen next to them and were kind of just reading off that screen. So those are the kinds of things. We, we haven’t taken advantage too much of the virtual presentations yet. It’s actually one of my, I don’t know one of the things that’s bothering me about this, there’s this sense of urgency that we, we are all bored and we all need to be super engaged during this time instead of just letting people kind of figure it out. And I, I don’t want more meetings and virtual and, you know, I don’t want pro D virtually. So I need to figure out other ways to adopt and what work.


Sam Demma (20:52):
Yeah, no, I love that. That’s an awesome point. And if, if you’re listening right now and I mean, if you hear me say that you are, that one tip is, is gold to make sure you’re saying it the camera, and it’s a, it’s a constant struggle. Something you can do to help is get a sticky note and draw a smiley face on it and stick it above the camera. And


Lenora Poulin (21:16):
He’s very good out of it.


Sam Demma (21:17):
Oh, cool. I love that because it does make the world of a difference. If your audience feels like you are staring, whether it’s a whole auditorium or a classroom, it doesn’t make a difference. It feels more personal, which is, which is a great point. So thank you for sharing. This has been a great conversation. You’ve shared stories. You’ve shared tips. You shared why you got into education. I’m curious to know a little bit more about your decision to get into teaching. I know we talked about it briefly at the beginning, but was there a moment when you were in school? I know you mentioned that there was educators that had an impact on your life. Was your decision to get into teaching made at a young age when you were still a student, or was it something that happened after?


Lenora Poulin (22:01):
Actually I probably right from the very beginning of school my mom was a school secretary and so it was school was glamorous to me. Like it was just this awesome place. My mom loved her job and she was very good at it. And so I was always surrounded by this positive experiences of school, which is interesting because like my father didn’t graduate from high school. My mom did, but had no post-secondary different generations. Right. my grandparents didn’t graduate. And so all through school, I I’m the oldest of the children as well. So I like to boss people around. And so, you know, I just, I wanted, I liked school so much. I always wanted to please, my teachers, their jobs seemed so cool. And then I got to high school and same thing I did well you know, had a really positive high school experience.


Lenora Poulin (22:55):
But by about grade 11 or 12 my dad was, you know, you talk so much, you should be a lawyer. And my grades were great. Not as like, oh yeah, I should be a lawyer. And so I got into UBC and I was like, I’m going to be a lawyer. And then I took stuff that I had to take to be a lawyer. And I did not like that. All I can Nomex and yeah, I actually failed out my first year of university, which is always a good story for me to tell my grade 12 students I failed economics, I failed math and I failed French. I know it’s terrible. I should have taken French 12. That’s always my advice. I didn’t take it in high school, so I take it in university. And so I sat back and so I didn’t give up, I didn’t quit school.


Lenora Poulin (23:39):
I, I was, it says on my transcript forever failed year retreat required to, so I went to, at that time was community college. There weren’t as many universities then. So I went to community college and I was like, what are you doing? What do you like? And I love to read, I love English and I loved history. And so I started taking English classes and I’m like, Hey, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be a teacher. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. So I had to write a letter to get back to UBC and I did, and it turned out for the best and I just never looked back. Like it was what I was supposed to do. And I remember when I was student teaching in Burnaby, which is a very large district here in British Columbia.


Lenora Poulin (24:22):
And there were actually 13 student teachers at the high school that I was at at the same time, which is a lot. And this were sitting in the staff room and this girl looked at me and she said, you really love this, don’t you? And I’m like, oh yeah. I said, I never want it to be anything else. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. And it’s really sad. But the next day she wasn’t there. She actually quit. But but it was good because, you know, she realized that she didn’t love it. And it’s one of the keys. Teaching’s not a job. It’s not something that just pays the bills. And, and I am not somebody who like, I am so happy with the money that I make and what I can provide for my family. I’m so fortunate. My husband’s a teacher as well. So of course our lifestyle just goes together so well. But this is a passion. This is, this is a lifestyle there. Isn’t a moment in the year that I do not think about school even, you know, in the summer, you know, I’m out with my friends, we’re talking about school. We, you know, I’m in a bookstore. I see us, I see advertising signs that I take pictures of. Cause I think that will be great for leadership. So yeah, like that, that’s why I do it. It’s, it’s what I’m supposed to do.


Sam Demma (25:40):
I love that. So so much. And this is actually really crazy. And as you were speaking, it kind of was coming together in my mind, my girlfriend, her name’s Nikki. And if she listens to this and I tell her, I’ll tell her to shout out to Nicki, Nicki. She went to LA pre-loss school at Carlton U for two years before I met her. And then she basically decided to take a break because she was following her parents’ passion for her. And the reason that the reason we got in touch is because she watched my TEDx talk on YouTube and she reached out to saying, Hey, can we chat? Because I think a very informal route after post-secondary or sorry, after secondary. And she ended up talking to me and I dunno, one coffee chat led to the next. Then we started dating. And now she’s in school for English. Like, I don’t know when he told me the story, I was like, wow, this is so aligned. And she doesn’t know what she wants to do with it yet. And she’s doing English and power of politics, which is close to history. It’s like, you know, kind of but after I saw, I saw the resemblance when you explain that, which is.


Lenora Poulin (26:45):
And often people think, you know, oh, what am I going to do with an English degree? But just like I say to the kids today, you know, like sure, I went a traditional way and became a teacher, but there are really cool jobs out there. Heck you should just be an editor on social media and correct. Everyone’s grammar. That would be awesome. But you know, there are so many jobs and careers and passions that you don’t even know yet. Like they don’t even exist yet. So why not study what you want to study? And then, you know, look out there and say, well, where could I use this? And, and, and, you know, like I have a student who, you know, works for a very large company, but she does their social media and she has English and history degree. Right. But she understands how people think and how they want their information. And she’s a strong communicator. And, you know, there’s so many different ways that, that, that can go.


Sam Demma (27:41):
I once had a mentor who was an educator, tell me that there’s opportunities in every field. You don’t find them, you create them. And I think it’s, it’s so true. Lenora, this has been an amazing conversation. I could talk to you for hours and I’m sure everyone listening, can say the same. And I’m curious to know if an educator wants to bounce some ideas around with you have a cool energetic conversation and maybe from even another country or another province how can they reach out to you?


Lenora Poulin (28:10):
Well, the great thing about having an uncommon name is I’m actually fairly easy to find. Because I didn’t have to have weird email addresses and things like that. So even Twitter, I’m just, @LenoraPoulin. Facebook is the same, although I probably wouldn’t add you as a friend, because I only have friends on Facebook that I actually know. And young people don’t use Facebook anymore. Same with my Insta, my Instagram, but Instagram is mostly books for me. But also my email is lenora.poulin@sd78.bc.ca. Or you can just Google my high school and the Hope Secondary School website and all of our contact information is there as well.


Sam Demma (28:53):
Awesome. Laura, this has been awesome. Thank you so so much. And I would love to know, you know, you can shoot me an email afterwards about some books to read cause it would be, it would be cool.


Lenora Poulin (29:03):
That’d be great, Sam. I love that.


Sam Demma (29:06):
Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.


Lenora Poulin (29:08):
Thank you.


Sam Demma (29:09):
Another episode of the high-performing educator and the books. I hope you enjoyed this fruitful conversation with Lenora, So much amazing insights. She had to share so much inspiration in her own journey into education. I hope you really took something away from this and took notes. And as always, if you are enjoying these interviews, please consider leaving a rating and review. It helps more high-performing educators, just like you find these, this content, and benefit from it. And of course, if you are someone who has ideas and insights to share, send me an email at info@samdema.com and we’ll get you on the show 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.

December 4, 2021 by Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Marc England – Teacher and Leadership Advisor at Fleetwood Park Secondary School

Marc England
About Marc England

Marc England (@mreteacher) is a teacher and Leadership Advisor at Fleetwood Park Secondary School in Surrey, British Columbia. He is now in his 23rd year of teaching. For 20 years, he has been involved in Student Leadership as a Student Council Advisor and leadership educator. He is a strong believer of “people first” in schools, and that if we have strong school cultures, the rest will look after itself.  

Marc has presented for many years across Canada at various Student Leadership events. He has worked with the BC Association of Activity Advisors and worked with his students to host a BC Student Leadership Conference in 2017. Since 2008 he has been involved with the Canadian Student Leadership Association in various capacities and helped develop their Leadership Advisor Certification Program. 

He is a husband, an uncle to his amazing nephews and nieces, a sports nut, and still thinks he has the best job in the world. 

Connect with Marc: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Canadian student leadership website
Fleetwood park secondary
Canadian student leadership conference (CSLC)

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 student podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Marc England. Marc is a teacher as well as a student leadership advisor and a director for the Canadian student leadership association. He teaches out in Surrey, BC. In this episode, he talks a lot about school culture and a dozen actionable ideas that you can take with your students in your school to boost student morale, to increase engagement, and bring everyone together to build some real community during this tough, challenging time professional life aside, marc loves hockey, specifically the New York Rangers, his grandfather played in the league and he even draws some parallels along the lines of hockey and student leadership. In this episode. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s packed with nuggets and gems. Get a pen and a sheet of paper and enjoy the interview. I’ll see you on the other side, marc. Thank you so much for coming on the high performing educators podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you. We just chatted a little bit about your family lineage with the New York Rangers. Please let everyone know who you are, where you teach and why you got into the work you do with young people today.


Marc England (01:16):
Awesome. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, this is a great opportunity and you know, to give you a little bit of a shadow before we even start, you were part of the global loose to the global student leadership day therein may, that Stu put on. And when I asked her my kids’ reflections, you were on more than a few about what they had to say about the day. So something about what you said is surely identifying with our kids and that’s important. So a little tip of the hat to you, my friend. So yeah, my name’s Marc England and I work in Surrey, British Columbia at Fleetwood park secondary, and I started out as a humanities and social studies teacher and evolved into student leadership. And right now that’s kind of the hat I wear is teach a little bit of humanities, but run our student leadership program and teach a couple of blocks to that and leadership department head and, and work with some other things around here too.


Marc England (02:06):
So yeah, that’s, that’s my job. And as far as why I do what I do, you know, Conlon always says it best Dave Conlin, a fellow I work with with the Canadian student leadership association says we have the best job in the world. So why would, why would you not want to do and not do the work when you have the best job in the world? I think like most teachers were really in this to see and help kids succeed and to really see their journey. And for our case in BC, at least in Surrey, we don’t have a middle school model. So for five years, we get to see that evolution and see that success grow including the bumps in the road sometimes, but that makes it rewarding at the end. So whatever that might be most for some, it might be graduation and some of it might be a full-ride scholarship to uni.


Marc England (02:51):
Whatever that success is when they leave, that’s what we want. And that’s why we love what we do. I love working with student leaders. It’s honestly, that’s, that’s the part of the job that keeps me going every day still. I mean, I love teaching and teaching humanities and social studies, but 23 years in, I’ve been doing that. And student leadership is different every day and it’s a different group of kids all the time. Those are the kids that are engaged. Those are the kids that are, that want to contribute to their community, contribute to their schools. I mean, who would want to work with those kids? And you know, to be honest with you, I’ve always kind of asked for, for us, we started at eight and go to 12 and I’ve always wanted to have great 8, 10, 12’s, because I, I don’t like just teaching seniors. I want to have the newbies, cause I want to try and get them excited about our school and make them feel, feel belong. So those are a whole bunch of reasons, kind of why I do what I do.


Sam Demma (03:44):
At what point in your life did you make the decision I’m going to be a teacher? Was it because someone else tapped you on the shoulder? Was it because your parents told you to, or was there just an innate feeling that you wanted to teach? One day?


Marc England (03:59):
It’s funny. I didn’t really set out to be a teacher. I went to school, my mom was an instructor in the psychiatric nursing department at a local college university. And so she was fairly academic and there was that pressure to go to school. But I didn’t really set out to be an educator. I kind of was working in the business for a buddy who had his own business. And I pretty soon realized that that wasn’t really something that I wanted to do. Not because I didn’t enjoy the work and being part of a business, but I just didn’t really find it that rewarding profession. Like, you know, you go to work, you kind of go do the grind and, and it just, wasn’t what I kind of was looking for. And I could feel that in my soul. But I had been working, I, part of my youth was working at, with softball, Canada.


Marc England (04:46):
I played ball and then I started umpiring at the age of 11. And as I kind of got older, I got, we got to climb the ranks of the empire world. And I got to work with kids as I got older in a mentor capacity and a local kind of park empire and chief. And so part of that was teaching the clinics. And part of that was working with kids and something with that, just kind of jived with me and being able to see them learn and then see them apply skills. I thought you know what? This is kind of cool. Maybe this is something that I want to do. And a lot of the guys that I kind of hung out with within that world were educators, or either already established, dedicated educators or going in to be educators. And so I thought, well, you know what, this, this might be cool.


Marc England (05:26):
So I reached out to a, to a local, to one of my favorite teachers. And I mean, I think we all have those people in our school lives that really kind of pushed us and drove us and got us and, and really inspired us to do what we do with kids. And for me, the first guy like that was Mr. Jamison in grade five, you know, the brand new kid from Winnipeg just made me feel welcome and was, probably one of the best teachers that I’ve ever seen in my life. And then my 10 English teacher grade eight and 10 English teacher, Mrs. Hilman. I approached her and she was hard. Oh, she was hard, but she was good. And talk about keeping kids at the center of what she did. And I think that’s why I reached out to her and said, you know, I’d like to maybe think about this. She said, come on in. We did some volunteer work. And from then I was hooked. It was, it was, that’s what I wanted to do. So it wasn’t necessarily that I’ve always felt this string, but there is no doubt in my mind that I have ended up doing what I was meant to do.


Sam Demma (06:28):
What did those teachers in your life do for you that made all the difference? Jamison and the teacher you just alluded to?


Marc England (06:35):
Oh, man. Mrs. Hellman. Both of them I’ll tell you the one thing, and this is what I draw. This is what this is at the center is, is relating to kids and keeping it’s the relationships piece, right? Like everything on, you know, Phil boy talks about the relationship pyramid or the leadership pyramid. And at the bottom of it is this is the relationships, it’s the foundation of everything we do. So there was never any, like the first day I walked into school. It wasn’t like, you know, I remember as the new kid from, from December too wasn’t, even in September, I remember he’s like, Hey, how are you? Tell me about yourself. Who are you? Where do you come from? What’s your story? So that was huge, right? What’s your story? Who are the, who are you coming into my room here? And it wasn’t a bad thing.


Marc England (07:13):
It was like, I just want to know you and the other stuff took a back seat. And then the other Mrs. Hilman same thing. But boy, like I said, she was tough. She was firm, she was a hard teacher, a hard marker, but at the center of it was relationships. And you talk to, you know, she sadly passed away a few years ago, but you talk to anybody who went through that school. And some people, you know, didn’t like her class because it was hard, but I don’t think you’d find too many people that didn’t love her. Right. And that’s the key is that you know, it, if you keep the kids at the center of what we do and every kid at the center of what we do, it’s that it’s the success. That’s awesome. That’s the common denominator between those two. I like that.


Sam Demma (08:01):
And during COVID it’s a challenging time. How do we still keep students at the center? There are so many things to worry about. There are some challenges you’ve been faced with, how do we make sure students still stay at the center of our focus during these tough times?


Marc England (08:15):
You know, it’s an interesting calm kind of question because we’ve talked about this. One of my hats that I wear is I work with the Canadian student leadership association. I’m part of their board of directors, but you know, really I’ve been working with them for 15 years on, at the board level anyway. And, and, and I’ve been, you know, to go back to your, how did I get into this work question? Can I go back and answer something on that? Of course I just, you know, that I F I feel like there are things in our lives and in our, in our careers, that when they happen, they happen for a reason. And I was in about 2001 as a brand new, not brand new teacher, but new to a school teacher who, and they, the principal said, you know, what would you mind taking over student council?


Marc England (09:07):
And I had never been, I was a wannabe student leader in, in high school. And I, you know, my best friend, she was on student council and I always kind of admired it from afar. And I thought you know what? That would be cool. I would really, that that’s something that I would like to do. And I liked all the events that we were running at the school. I liked the planning stuff. I thought it would be just something that would be right up my alley little did I know that I would be still doing it this many years later? The thing is too, is that the average leadership life teacher’s lifespan is about what Dave says. It’s about three to five years, just simply because it’s all-encompassing, right. And you’re running events all the time and doing all these things, but it’s so amazing.


Marc England (09:51):
And I fluently kind of fell into what I do. So this one principal just kind of said, Hey, do you wanna? I said, sure. And then what, like go back to the empire thing. One of the guys that I was umpiring with when we were kids, he was doing a leadership program in hope, British Columbia, and he and his wife were planning a national conference or part of a committee. And they said, do you want to join us here? And that was, that was how I got hooked into CSLC and the Canadian conference, and the Canadian student leadership association. And that was 2002. So here we are in 2020. And, and it’s something that still is amazing. So, you know, sometimes it’s people that tap you on the shoulder, and sometimes it’s people that you have things in common and, you know, some things just happen at the right time in your life and really guide you in what your path might be.


Marc England (10:37):
So going back to your COVID question. Yeah. You’re the COVID question, you know, it’s I think the struggle question is, is the hardest piece. And the biggest piece that in schools is culture. School culture right now is really, really suffering during COVID-19 and it’s nobody’s fault. Honestly, everybody’s doing the very best that they can, but most events in schools that bring people, kids, staff together are not happening. Yeah. So you have some instances of a little bit of student culture where the kids are interacting and, you know, there may be hanging out at lunch and this kind of thing, and you have some instances of staff culture where the adults in the building might be hanging out, but there’s very little beyond the actual dynamics of the classroom. There’s very little activity between staff and students in those events that really form the basis of school culture. So I think that’s probably our biggest struggle within the school system right now.


Sam Demma (11:38):
Great point. And not that I was going to ask if the school has done anything or had any unique ideas that they’ve tried, maybe you’ve tried something, it hasn’t worked out. Maybe it’s been a home run. I’m just curious to know if you had any ideas that you thought were good or that tried so far.


Marc England (11:53):
Well, you know, it’s interesting. We I have to backtrack and we have to kind of figure out where people are at and now we’re, we’re kind of almost, we’re a month into school out here. We’re in Surrey, we’re three weeks into full-time. This is week four of like full-time classes. We’re on a quarter system. So we’re basically, we switched over and kids are taking two classes at a time for basically two and a half, three hours a day. And one in the morning, one in the afternoon, seniors are remote in the afternoon, except for one day. So, you know, kids are overwhelmed a little bit it’s nobody’s fault. Like I said, it’s kind of the only system that we can make work. And so I think anything that we plan has to work around that, and, you know, the kids we forget about the kids that might have algebra, or, you know, they might have pre-calculus 12 and chemistry 12 in the same quarter and or English 12.


Marc England (12:49):
You know, I have one of my leadership kids has chemistry 12 and English 12, and that’s hard. She’s going home and doing a lot of work right now. So kids are overwhelmed a little bit and especially the seniors. And, you know, the one thing that we have to have to look at when we’re starting to plan how we can make this work is how do we build collegiality? How do we build back that collegiality with kids that collegiality with our colleagues in the building, we have, you know, a hundred plus adults in this building? How do we build that collegiality back? How do we get out of our isolation? Cause it’s easy to stay in, want to be safe in your classroom and close the door and do those kinds of things. And again, Phil boy talks about silos, but how do we do that?


Marc England (13:31):
We don’t have big lunches. You know our PE department, you know, I give them credit. Our PE office was always kind of a magnet for lunch. People went down there and ate lunch. So what they’ve done is, you know, spread some tables out in the small gym so that adults can come and eat lunch together. Our library and our teacher-librarian said you know what, I’ll open up the library. So rather than small prep rooms, people can space out and start to have that collegiality. Because I think by week two, we recognized that it was missing in building our staff culture. So I think in terms of how do we overcome things and creative ideas? I’m lucky that I work in a district with a director of instruction who, I don’t know whether a principal tapped her on the shoulder or somebody that she knew, but she is such a phenomenal educator herself.


Marc England (14:23):
And she you know, Gloria is, was beloved as a principal and now she’s working in the district office and she just said, you know what? I’m going to gather as many people as I can safely together at the district center. And let’s have a brainstorm as to how we can run events safely. So last week, in fact, she held two days where she brought together elementary schools and secondary schools, one administrator and perhaps a leadership teacher, but two people from each school. And she had a list of kind of the main events that would happen. So starting with the Terry Fox run right through to Halloween, right through to Christmas, right through to Valentine’s day. And we kind of the whole year, and you could, it was, she ran it almost like a speed dating thing where you could sit six feet apart and talk safely, but from other schools.


Marc England (15:08):
And then she kept a live document as to how, you know when you get a hundred people brainstorming, how we could do these things safely. And man, some of the ideas that came out of there, you know, Terry Fox run, for example. So rather than having somebody, having the whole school out on the field and say, go and collecting coins that are, you know, we can’t do so how can we do that safely? Well, most schools now have an online payment system. So encouraging your kids to, if the, if they can make a donation through the online payment system, let’s do that. So that’s safe. And then some schools ran staggered walks where the different cohorts were going off at different areas. And they were going at different times and they were starting at different places and they were ending at different places and the teachers were walking with them.


Marc England (15:52):
But they were all in the community and there was kind of marker posts around and it was all done with that Terry Fox run mentality in mind. So it wouldn’t be lost. Hope secondary did something I just found out about yesterday called T Terry Fox 40, this being the 40th year, of course, rather than, you know, they didn’t do their run, but what they had was they contributed each kind of classroom contributed something around 40. So the woodshop made 40 pieces of, you know, their project, the cooking class made 40 cookies. And so they did whatever their kind of curriculum area was, you know, the French class conjugated, 40 verbs, whatever it was, they were doing things around 40. And they made that their number for the day that they were, they were honoring Terry Fox’s purpose.


Marc England (16:43):
And so all sorts of creative ideas that you, you may not be able to do the event that you’ve way you’ve done it. But if there’s a purpose to the event, is there a way that we can do the event and still honor that purpose? So I think that’s kind of the nugget that I took away from last week and through conversations with people and, you know I think I give all the credit in our world to ours, my staff that I work with. I’m fortunate to work with some amazing people. Our biggest event here at the fluid park is something we have run for our grade eight. It’s called the grade eight retreat. And essentially every year we take 250 or 300-grade eights away to camp. And so half of them go have one night and half of them go the next night.


Marc England (17:26):
And it’s just a day of activities, fun team building activities and what it means to be a dragon, and how they give back to their school. Here are the clubs, but it’s all run by our student leaders and they run the sessions. They do the, they do the breakout things. They run the games, you know, teachers, are there, basically to serve lasagna and kind of supervise. It’s awesome. So you talk to any kids when they graduate. What do you remember about the fluid park? It’s always, you know, I wish I may be gotten involved more, but man graded retreat that’s and the kids, the amount of kids that want to sign up when they’re grade 10, 11, 12 to be mentors is incredible. So it truly is one of, it’s probably our secret event. It’s our traditional it’s, it’s rooted in our, in our traditions. And it is part of our culture.


Marc England (18:12):
So obviously we can’t go to camp. We can’t put kids on buses, we can’t do things like trust falls. We can’t do things that are, you know even, even team-building hot potato games where they’re touching the same thing, we can’t do that. How do we, so we asked ourselves, how can we take the mentorship piece? Because when we looked, I said to the colleagues that I was working with on this what’s our purpose with this? What, what purpose does this serve? Well, it really came down to mentorship and it came down to basically having our grades have something coming into our school. So we decided the purpose has to be well, let’s still have them. They’re Fleetwood park shirts that they’re going to wear with pride, and let’s try and do something where we can still have that mentorship piece. So through some creativity our team sat down and they hammered out.


Marc England (18:59):
Basically, each graded cohort of 30 kids is going to have two hours with senior leadership kids this week in, and it’s not retreat at camp, but it’s retreat activities outside on one of our fields. Cause the weather is supposed to be nice. So every grade eight is still going to get two hours of team building and what it means to be a dragon, but it’s going to be done safely. It’s going to be done at a distance. It’s going to be done, but we haven’t lost our purpose. So when I think when you step back and ask you that what’s the purpose of the event, I think that’s, that’s something that you can sometimes overcome.


Sam Demma (19:30):
Tony, Tony Robbins always says the quality of our life is determined by the questions we ask. And when you ask yourself those questions that leads to a positive outcome. If you have enough brains in a room like you did with your brainstorm with your school board and Gloria, of course, you’re going to have some amazing ideas. I think this is a great takeaway for any educator listening, who might be out of province, struggling to come up with ideas. The classic mastermind principle is so key and your school is evident of that. Marc, you’ve obviously built over the past dozen years, an amazing school culture at Fleetwood. I’m sure there’s been dozens of stories of students when they graduate writing you letters and reaching out that you didn’t even know you impacted, but telling you how big of an impact that you had on their life.


Sam Demma (20:16):
Can you think of a story, maybe the first story that pops into your mind of a student who’s been deeply impacted by student leadership work by your work, by your colleagues work. And can you share that student’s story? You can change their name for privacy reasons. If it’s a very deep story, the purpose of sharing, this is in the hope that another educator might be inspired to remember why the work that you do, that we do is so important, especially if this is their first year in education and they’re thinking, oh my goodness, what did I sign up for? So what stories come to mind?


Marc England (20:47):
Oh, Man! You know, so student leadership, like I said, that I keep you’re right. I have, I mean, I hate talking about myself, Sam, I’m not going to lie, but I sometimes show my kids this, when we get too stressful points, I keep what I call my bad day file. And it’s literally, it’s probably too big for one file now, but it’s every card, every note, every piece of every letter that I’ve ever gotten, I just keep it in the file. And then that’s 20 years now of, of stuff. I keep a wall of fame in my classroom with kids that have graduated from various things that we do as far as specific kids there, there’s a few I think, let me, let me answer your question through a little bit of a different lens if that’s okay. Of course.


Marc England (21:40):
Let me tell you about why student leadership’s rewarding for me. And it, it is, it is along the same lines of your question, but here. So I had a kid Brittany that came into my classroom in grade eight and you know, she was like any other grade eight and nervous and self-conscious and all of those things that go along with your first year in high school. And, you know, I think it was grade nine. We tapped her on the shoulder to get involved with the student council and she just started her journey. And, you know, she came from a family of four kids with a single mom. I taught, attended up. I taught all the kids, the whole family, and she, her mom was such a hard worker. Oh, just worked so hard for those kids. And she was always at school doing what she needed to do. A good student.


Marc England (22:30):
You know, she was a good academic student, but just jived on the student council stuff, grade 12, we can, she came to PEI with us, for Canadian student leadership conference. And for her, I could just see the light bulb go off for her. And that was something that she loved. So she’s a great example of, you know, sometimes all it takes is to ask that kid to alter or find a way to get them involved. And it takes them through four or five years of their high school journey. And the reason Brittany’s story is special to me is that, you know, she was one that wrote me this beautiful letter upon her graduation that I put into my bad day file. And it sat there for 5, 6, 7 years and last year or two years ago, I guess it was because she wasn’t here last year.


Marc England (23:21):
Brittany ended up as a colleague at my school and she’s become a teacher. And so here we were from mentor and teacher and student relationship to now colleagues. And, you know, she’s still a pretty special person. She came to my wedding last year. But you know, I showed her, I said, you know, when you’re doubting your purpose as a teacher, don’t forget that you never know what somebody’s journey is. And I pulled that out and I showed her, and I think that reaffirmed for her that because she’s with the student council here and working on some things here in student leadership. So for me, that was a special moment. That’s a special kid that, that I was able to see, go and end up, you know, doing something similar, but just she’s similar to me. And she just loves what she does and keeps kids at the center.


Marc England (24:13):
So there’s been others, there’s been other kids that I’ve seen. You know, I have a student who was with me and was my student council president. Who’s now, you know, one of the local managers, team management, a high up management team with one of the most successful restaurant chains locally. And she’s doing well and succeeding and you know, and those are skills that she learned through student leadership. So whether it’s a kind of personal story and you see the personal growth or whether it’s a professional story and you see the professional growth of these kids, to me, that’s worth everything.


Sam Demma (24:46):
That’s awesome. So cool, marc. I absolutely love the story. And again, I wanted to ask because there might be a teacher who’s starting their first year thinking, what the heck did I sign up for here? And if you could travel back in time to when you were starting your first year, what would you have told your younger self? What pieces of advice would you give your younger self?


Marc England (25:09):
I would say don’t get frustrated by policy and don’t get frustrated by people or things that seem to be in your way. You know, they’re there for a reason I would say, keep working at finding solutions. And I think that’s something that I’ve always pushed for. You know, if something I find, if something frustrates me, I just ask my principal, how can we make this work? What can we do? And nine times out of 10, we find a way to make it work. You know, it may not look as exactly as it is in my brain, but I think, honestly, your question, if I were to go back, I would tell myself, you know, don’t ever stop keeping kids in the center of what you do. When I first started, I was young I was easily relatable to kids and it was easy to kind of get them, right?


Marc England (26:05):
And I got kids, kids got me. And, but now, you know, here we are 23 years later and I still find it relatively easy to relate to kids. And so why is that? Well, I think it’s because kids are the purpose of what we do and it doesn’t necessarily matter that I’m going to get through a, to Z of the curriculum. I’m going to teach all the skills and I’m going to do as much as I can, but some days, some days it’s more important to just ask kids how they’re doing rather than teach that one lesson.


Sam Demma (26:37):
That’s Awesome. I love that so much. And as an off-topic question to wrap this up, your grandfather, New York Rangers mentioned at the beginning, it looks like you’re also wearing a hockey Jersey. First of all, do you see any connection between hockey and student leadership? Could you draw any connections between the sport and the game and two, what makes you so passionate about hockey?


Marc England (27:00):
Well, I grew up, I grew up partly in Winnipeg so, you know, there’s not much else to do besides the sports there, but, yeah, you know what I was, my grandfather played in the New York Rangers, he’s in the hockey hall of fame and, you know, it’s always been, it’s something that as a kid, we took for granted, I won’t make any bones about it. He’s my hero. And my role model. I was lucky to grow up with three incredible male role models in my life. My grandfather and my stepdad and my dad, all three of them had such a profound impact on where I am in life. But for my grandfather, though, hockey player, what, what I learned from him is how to treat people. And he, we would be with him and he would stop. And whether it was somebody that wanted an autograph or somebody that just wanted to chat, he made time for everybody.


Marc England (27:45):
And he was never in a rush, drove my grandmother nuts, but he made time for people. And I think that’s the lesson learned is that I might need to get out the door, but there’s a kid standing at my door that wants to talk, and I need to give that kid that time. Right. And make time for people. And people will make time for you. The other thing I learned about that is his teamwork. You know he was a goaltender, he was kind of the backstop of that team, but it really took, you know, five other guys on the ice at the time or 15 other guys on the bench at the time to find any kind of level of success. And always said that he said, you know what, we, we did, we had didn’t have the greatest the clubs as he would say, but he said, we really got along and we worked hard and we did well together that year.


Marc England (28:31):
And they made it to the Stanley cup final game seven-double overtime. And so he, that’s something that I even take to education is that I’m, you know, I’m part of a team, I’m part of a team of adults in this building. I’m part of a team with our student leadership family around the country. I’m part of a team with my kids. I always say to my kids in class, I’m like, listen, what I do reflects you, what you do reflects me. And so, we’re in this journey together. It’s not me, the teacher, it’s us as this group. And I think the final piece around what I would say from hockey to, and sports to this is that nobody’s bigger than a game and, you know great hockey players retire, and yeah, they’ve made an impact and they’ve done some things, but there’s always somebody else that’s going to move into that position.


Marc England (29:24):
And I’ve learned that I’ve learned that, you know, in my young days I thought, oh, I’m, I’m good at what I do. And, and there was some swagger, but there’s always somebody that’s going to, if I were to be gone tomorrow, somebody would roll into my chair and do a good job and make it different and make it better. And nobody’s bigger than the game. And so sometimes we need to check ourselves as teachers and revisit that relationship piece and revisit that purpose piece. And what drives us. We were talking about this with you know, part of the thing that kind of pushes me as I move forward. And it’s not just kid’s success, but seeing all of our leadership friends, we didn’t get to go to the CSLC this year with Canadian leadership conference. But seeing people post about how special our jobs are and how, how awesome it is to work with kids and, but work with each other and get ideas from all around the country. So, yeah, it’s pretty, pretty awesome.


Sam Demma (30:21):
I think what you said about nobody’s bigger than the game, not only applies to the teacher, but about anyone in life, and it’s a beautiful analogy and I’m glad you pulled it from the sport. And I love the Jersey. I love the backdrop. It’s cool to see the passion for it. Anyways, this has been an incredible interview. The audio sounds great. Shout out to your headphones that no one can see right now, but those are awesome.


Marc England (30:44):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And you know, oh, sorry. Go ahead, Sam.


Sam Demma (30:48):
I was going to ask you if an educator from around the country wants to reach out and bounce some ideas around what would be the best way for them to do so.


Marc England (30:56):
Oh, probably email. It can be reached at, if you go to the Canadian student leadership website: student leadership.ca under the contact, the team I’m there, or just, my email is england_m@surreyschools.ca that’s, that’s easy as well or DM through Twitter at @mreteacher or Instagram mreteacher27.


Sam Demma (31:19):
Awesome. And any last thoughts? Any last thoughts to share?


Marc England (31:23):
Yeah. You know what I do I’ll share a story a little bit about the struggles that we’re kind of working on. And, and as we kind of, I, you know, this isn’t going away, Sam COVID is not going away anytime soon. And so when I started this, this year, coming back to school, there was a lot of uncertainty, myself included. I was anxious. Like everybody else, there’s a lot of anxiety in our buildings. There’s a lot of anxiety amongst staff. There’s a lot of anxiety amongst kids. My advice and what I, my, I think as we navigate this together, as we are, we are in together. Stu likes to say, we’re all in the same ocean, different boats, which is a good analogy, but we all are on our journey. Kind of experiencing different things in the same way, like the same ocean as he says.


Marc England (32:10):
So, you know, I think for me, it’s about helping colleagues and just say, let’s, let’s not give up. Let’s focus on the, let’s revisit the purpose. When we were in the spring, we had a kid, and again, you kind of your COVID question. You know, we had an email from a dad and this is a shout-out to my colleagues at our school here. We had an email from a dad that said, thank you. And the reason he was saying, thank you was that there was a lot of discussion as to whether you do a synchronous session or an asynchronous session for your academic classes. And the dad simply said you know what, thank you for not making everything synchronous because I have four kids. I’m a single dad. I got four kids in one laptop. And that to me, he really made me step back and say, okay, you know what? Everybody’s circumstances are different, but when we truly are appreciative and we understand, and we help each other through their journey through this, I think we can overcome what we need to overcome. Right? School’s not going to be the same, but let’s revisit our purpose, our events, our culture, and find ways that we can try to make things happen as best we can. If it’s virtual, it’s virtual, if it’s six feet apart is six feet apart, but let’s always kind of keep that purpose at the root of what we do.


Sam Demma (33:29):
Awesome. Thanks so much, marc. This has been a phenomenal interview. I really appreciate you taking some time to share some ideas on the show.


Marc England (33:36):
Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me, Sam, I look forward to, I’ve been listening to some of your work with the student podcasts. So you know, keep doing what you do as well. It’s, it’s inspirational to the kids. And like I said, you’ve made an impact even on my kids, just through your work with the global student leadership day.


Sam Demma (33:52):
Appreciate It, marc. I’ll talk to you soon.


Marc England (33:53):
Okay. Thanks, man.


Sam Demma (33:56):
Wow. What a jam-packed interview with Marc England. He has so much to offer and so much to provide. I’m sure you took so many notes away from this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was valuable and worth the investment of the time you put in to listen to it. And if you did enjoy it, consider leaving a rating and review on the show. So more educators like yourself, find this. And as always, if you have something to share, please reach out to us at info@samdemma.com so we can get your stories and actionable ideas on the podcast for your colleagues around the world to hear, learn from and implement and as always, 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.

November 26, 2021 by Guidance Counsellors Student Activity Director Student Leadership Teachers Teaching Tips 0

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