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Teaching Tips

Debbie Hawkins – Campus Culture Director at Sunnyside High School in Fresno Unified

Debbie Hawkins - Campus Culture Director at Sunnyside High School in Fresno Unified
About Debbie Hawkins

Debbie Hawkins (@SHS_Leaders) is the Campus Culture Director at Sunnyside High School in Fresno Unified, but grew up in the south valley and is a first-generation college graduate who after attending Fresno State made her home in the greater Fresno Area.  Debbie is the wife to Jimmy and the mother to Jonah and Noah. Family is a defining factor in Debbie’s life and thus she reduced her teaching load to part-time status in order be home with her young boys while they were young.

Having raised her boys, she finds herself immersed in the work of student activities. This work has become her passion and her home.  Sunnyside is a school committed to the work of developing student relationships, establishing a college-going culture, and being a healthy student-centred environment.

Connect with Debbie: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Sunnyside High School

Fresno Unified School District

CAA Speakers

Capturing Kids’ Hears Program

Phil Boyte’s Podcast

School Culture by Design – Phil Boyte

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom – Miguel Ruiz

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 on the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Debbie Hawkins, who is the campus culture director at Sunnyside High School in Fresno Unified, but grew up on the south valley and is a first generation college graduate who after attending Fresno state, made her home in the greater Fresno area. Debbie is the wife to Jimmy and the mother of Jonah and Noah. Family is a defining factor in Debbie’s life and


Sam Demma (01:02):
thus, she reduced her teaching load to part-time status in order to be home with her young boys while they were young. Having raised her boys, she finds herself immersed back into the world of student activities. This work has become her passion and her home. Sunnyside is a school committed to the work of developing student relationships, establishing a college going culture, and being a healthy student centered environment. I know you’ll enjoy this interview with Debbie because I enjoyed chatting with her and I will see you on the other side. Debbie, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here this morning. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what brought you to where you are in education today?


Debbie Hawkins (01:40):
My name is Debbie Hawkins. I have a very fancy title called Campus Culture director at Fresno Unified’s largest high school in where I’m located, obviously in Fresno. Our, our student population pushes 3000 so we are the biggest. What brings me to the moment of campus culture or what other people would call student activities is when I first got into education I was a coach, but really everything I’ve ever done in education’s really about mentorship and mentoring kids and investing in kids like you know, who they would become as an adult. So I find myself in this world of student leadership, because that’s always kind of been my passion and it just, that trail led me here.


Sam Demma (02:24):
Did you have educators that kind of pushed you in this direction? Cause caring for kids could have brought you into different roles. I’m I’m wondering why it specifically brought you into a school


Debbie Hawkins (02:34):
I guess complicated childhood, but easiest to say that school was always safe for me. Mm. And I had hero teachers who very, I’m a, I’m a first generation college student. I’ll and if you knew my whole story and we had like a lot of time maybe perhaps some wouldn’t see me in the seat I’m in today because I probably never would’ve got go to college. So those teachers, those heroes of my childhood passed very much pushed me eventually into the classroom once in the classroom and coaching. I don’t know. I always found myself when the crowd of kids having a good time. And there was a point at which I was at a site and I was a little burned out with being an English teacher. If I’m being honest. And the principal flat out, looked in the eye and said, what, what, what can I do to keep you? And I said, I need to do something where I’m investing in kids as people where I care more about their story than whether or not they know a list of conjunctions. And she approached me with student activities and, and that’s where it started 16 years ago. It was just a principal trying to keep me on campus.


Sam Demma (03:48):
That’s amazing. And tell me more about how do you define a hero teacher? What does that teacher do for you that has such a big difference and impact on you?


Debbie Hawkins (03:58):
I think as much as you can, like strips down everything, I came from a really small town. Yeah. So like when you’re from a small town, everybody knows the legends of your family and your cousins and you know, all that stuff. But, so I think my hero teacher saw me individually as a person and, and none of the backstory. Mm. And like, let me start from that point on. And in a lot of ways, never saw me as broken, but saw me as having potential. Mm. So to me, a hero teacher, as somebody who gives you a clean slate from day one, and it it’s, it’s harder to do than it sounds like it really is because Def kids definitely come with stories and brothers and sisters and cousins. And you, you know, things about kids before you ever meet them. I mean, I can log into student profiles and read all sorts of things, which by the way, I don’t do intentionally and never did, even when I taught English. But I always appreciated those teachers who, who just gave me a chance to be me.


Sam Demma (05:02):
Yeah. That’s such a cool perspective. And if a teacher is listening to this in the classroom and you know, they wanna make, they wanna make their students feel the same way you felt in those classes, like what would you kind of advise or tell them that they could try and do you know, is it to make sure you set aside time to get to know each student make time to hear, hear their stories and share their experiences and upbringing or, well, how do you think that looks in the classroom or school?


Debbie Hawkins (05:30):
What I think it looks like in a classroom at a school in general is you have to be very people first. You have to be very relationships oriented first. My son’s high school English teacher, her name’s SCR and officially, and, and I will love her forever because she changed my son’s life. And what she did is in Fresno unified, we’re a restorative practices school, which has all sorts of things that go with it. But one of the things that happens within restorative practices is that the idea of circle time, which I use in my classroom every week, we call it family Fridays. But it really is, is a restorative circle where kids get an opportunity to have a voice. Well, miss officially at Bullard high school does that every week in her English class. So she pauses her curriculum to put kids in circle and, you know, really dive deep into who each other are as people and what they think and, and what I think miss officially does.


Debbie Hawkins (06:23):
And what I I do in my own leadership class too, is, you know, that whole idea of start slow to go fast. You, you gotta like slow down and let kids know you as they need to know us as people too, like as an instructor, they need to know things about me because that’s what builds trust. And you do, you have to slow down. And I think when you’re a core content teacher, it’s scary because you don’t have many instructional minutes and you have a lot of expectations of you. But I have found that in education that once a kid trusts me and they have put me in their corner as somebody who’s gonna defend them I can get 80% more out of them academically, cuz they follow me off a cliff. If I told ’em to go, you know, I guess a bad analogy, but it’s true. They’d follow me anywhere. And once you’ve built those relationships, where are kid gonna follow you anywhere? Because you’ve slowed down, you slowed down and you took that time. You actually get more done academically.


Sam Demma (07:21):
I love that. That’s such a unique way to look at it. And I think it’s so true. I had one educator come on here one time and tell me that there was one student in his class that he was struggling with and the way that he won the heart and mind of this student over was by giving the student responsibility that this student thought he would never give him. And the situation was the keys to his car to go grab his lunchbox in the front seat and you know, and it, the story just hit me in my core. I was like, wow, that’s such a cool example of building a human to human relationship, not a teacher to student one. I think that’s amazing. Where do you think these philosophies and ideas came from? Was it just from your personal experience from other teachers? Like how did you come up with these ideas and these teaching philosophies?


Debbie Hawkins (08:08):
Well, everything’s, I, I guess seated in personal experience to some extent, I mean, there’s great educators in my past when I was a student and then you get involved and you start listening. You know, you it’s, the organization, CAA is an amazing one. So many speakers there. I, I would say that on my personal journey for development as a, as a leadership teacher there’s a program called capturing kids’ hearts, which was an early program in my career that really drew me in. And then fast forward, I, I meet a guy named Phil Boyt who is Phil, boy’s amazing. He has his own podcast. Everyone should be listening to Phil Boyt, read his books. And then you, you know, there, there’s just speakers and that come into your life. And I have the privilege at working at Sunnyside. And when I was hired here, there was a man named Tim Lyles, who he lost this year.


Debbie Hawkins (09:03):
And men talk about just an amazing person to learn from what you find out in education, which I’m going to assume applies to any profession out there is that once you have an ideology of who you want to be and what you want within this setting, you surround yourself with people whose core values begin to align with yours, right? So like you go find your tribe. So I found my tribe, you know, I listen to T street speak at kata and, and now, now that I heard her at kata, I’m gonna follow every talk. I find of hers on YouTube, you know deep kindness by Houston craft my class, read that together last year. Nice. You just, you began to, you know, you hear of this person who tells you about this person who tells you about this book and you begin to seek it out. It’s personal work though. If, if you wanna be that kind of educator, it’s personal work, which I think it’s personal work, no matter where you are in life.


Sam Demma (10:01):
Yeah. I love it. And people leave behind such amazing principles and values. I think more than everything else, when someone, you know, passes on, we can look at the things that they left behind and something that sticks out for me, even, you know, you talk about service a little bit and great people to learn from like, after my grandfather passed away, I was 13 years old. And the thing that sticks out in my mind are the values that he passed on to me as a young child. And it, it sounds the same with your colleague who passed away. Sorry to hear about that. And yeah, I’m sure your school is doing a great job of celebrating his, his life and his legacy. That’s amazing though. And did you ever have any doubts growing up as a, as a young educator and what were some of the things that went through your mind? Because I think it’s a very common experience for all educators to go through.


Debbie Hawkins (10:47):
Well, I have an atypical educator story. I mean, I failed the third grade and I’m I’m dyslexic. Oh, so yeah, I I had some challenges and in, in high school I remember my very favorite high school, creative writing teacher, like on my college application to the educational opportunity program at Fresno state saying student has unlimited potential. If she can get some support with her writing. And interestingly enough, as soon as he said it, it became this quest to be good at it. And like academically after my freshman year in college writing became my strongest thing. Wow. So, you know, it’s, it’s almost like when someone shines a light on it in a way that is soft and trying to guide you rather than like light you up and blow you up, but rather a guiding light. Yeah. It inspires you to kind of go on that path and take that journey because ultimately as a, you know, a 16 year old kid, I, I wanted to be successful and change my family’s narrative. Yeah. You know, I, I wanted it badly. So this man whom I trusted his name was Greg Simpson from ex or high school, amazing educator just gently said unlimited potential with a little support in writing. So I joined writing lab. Like I went and found some people to help me and ended up being a game changer for me.


Sam Demma (12:10):
I find that. So fascinating how someone that you trust, very few words have such a powerful impact on your mindset of how you view yourself and also the actions you took in your future. And it goes to show us how important it is that we choose our words and our actions both extremely wisely when working with any human being, doesn’t matter if it’s a student in your class or a stranger on the street. Do you think that the words of educators and students have such a massive impact on each other? And have you seen in, in reverse scenario where your words or your colleagues’ words have had a huge impact on students in your school and do any stories stick out in your mind?


Debbie Hawkins (12:51):
Well, since you wanna call me on the carpet on that one today, yeah. Honestly I’ve only been at Sunnyside for four years and cool. My first year here, I, I received an email during homecoming because I did something a little different that how don’t know maybe it was because I was new or, you know, and when you’re new, you’re a little unsure and you know, I’d never been at a high school. It came from a middle school and man, that email shock me to the core. Like I never had anyone talk to me like that. So I became like this head trip thing I had to come over and I overcome like it taught me a lot though, like in reflection. Mm. I am extremely cautious about what I say to people via written communication. Mm. I try to not be short and if, if I’m gonna be short, I try and go walk over and speak to them face to face. Yeah. Like lesson learned. And then, so this week we actually had two rallies before we had a rally on day one and day two of the school year.


Sam Demma (13:51):
Nice.


Debbie Hawkins (13:51):
So day one of the school year, I told my, my little commissioner, Hey, you know, don’t play YouTube videos because the signal’s gonna drop when everybody comes into the gym. Yeah. And the hustle and bustle of it, I didn’t check in with him and he didn’t convert the file cuz he ran out of time. So sure enough, we get to this part where these very adorable little mom, girls are supposed to go dance to promote our diversity assembly. Mm. And the video wouldn’t play. so, yeah, I mean day one and I didn’t snap at him in the moment, but I also didn’t build him up. What I should have said was him and let it go. There’s always something that fails. This is our thing today. Of course. Yeah. And helped him like move through it. And I, you know, we haven’t been here for almost two years. Yeah. I didn’t coach him well enough. Like, so I’ve been spending the last I’ve spent the last week and a half now trying to build him back up, you know? Yeah. Cause it’s gonna take 20 or 30 interactions for him to be brave again.


Sam Demma (14:53):
Well, I applaud first of all, your responsibility. Thanks for sharing. I was also curious about the positive side of how words have affected students or


Debbie Hawkins (15:00):
Wouldn’t oh, positive. Okay. Positive side. Positive. Side’s easy. Yeah. I, I don’t know how I’ve become the, the teacher who, who attracts a lot of our foster and homeless youth kids. Mm. I don’t know how, but one, one philosophy I say leadership’s about what you do, not what class you have. Yeah. So a few years ago I had this one kid just show up in my room every day and just make artwork. And I just looked at him and I said, Hey, you, you have the ability to show up and be positive. You know, you should join my class. Mm. I don’t remember saying it to him, by the way. I just said it one day while they, I don’t know, coloring with markers. And anyway, Damien did join my class. The following year. He became my spirit commissioner. I didn’t know his whole story until almost the year was over. But wow. His words back to me were really powerful. He’s like, he, he basically said, your first impression of me is you should be a leader. Like you belong here. And for him, it, it made a difference cuz it came at a real critical time when he was doubting where he was. Mm. So I, I there’s, there’s a million instances where I could say I’ve said something to a kid, but here’s the funny thing. I very rarely remember the words I used.


Sam Demma (16:11):
Yeah.


Debbie Hawkins (16:12):
So you just always guard them and keep ’em positive. And, and the one thing I will say, and that I, I need to get back to doing, I used to keep a class list and I would mark down like an X mark, like, so for an for that week I had to give one overtly positive statement to each kid on my roster. Mm. And I made it like anecdotal where I would check it off.


Sam Demma (16:34):
Nice.


Debbie Hawkins (16:34):
Because you know, life’s busy. Yeah. So that’s one way that I I’m gonna get back to that this year, but that is huge. And I’ll tell you another huge one that we all overlook. I also try and call three parents a week just to tell ’em their kid’s amazing.


Sam Demma (16:48):
Ah I love that. That. And what is the, what is the, what is the usual parent response to those phone calls? how does the phone call start? I’m sure it starts with oh is everything okay?


Debbie Hawkins (17:00):
50% of the time. It’s what do you do?


Sam Demma (17:02):
yep.


Debbie Hawkins (17:04):
What’d she do now? What’s going on? It’s always guarded at first and it’s really funny that if I don’t use my personal cell phone, 50% of them don’t pick up. And then, and I give ’em my cell phone number and tell ’em, if you have any questions, feel free to call me. And it’s odd because I will get random sets of parents who will text me and ask me a general school question because I just called them to tell ’em, Hey, your kid’s amazing.


Sam Demma (17:28):
That’s awesome. That is so good. I,


Debbie Hawkins (17:29):
I, I try and I’ve, I try and do at least three kids a week for the first month of school till I get through everybody.


Sam Demma (17:35):
There’s a, there’s such a cool story behind the idea of appreciating other people that I heard on a recent podcast as well. There’s a, there’s a gentleman named Jay Sheti. Maybe you’ve actually heard of him. Heard the name. Okay. So he has a podcast. He was a monk. He went to the mountains for like three years, came back and now he makes what he says is it makes wisdom go viral. And he has all these like cool videos and that’s awesome. He has a podcast and he interviewed this guy named scooter bran and scooter, scooter bran is the music manager of Justin Bieber and Demi Lavato and all these like huge music artists. And he was on the podcast and he was saying that his grandma did something for him and his family that changed the trajectory of all the kids’ lives. He said there was four grandchildren.


Sam Demma (18:16):
And on separate occasion, she pulled each grandchild, each grandchild aside and said, I have to tell you something very important and very special. And you can’t tell any of your siblings about this. And she said, you’re the special one. and she did it to all four of them on separate occasions and scooter didn’t find out till the day of her funeral while the grandchildren were around. He said, guys, you know, grandma pulled me aside and told me when I was a young kid, that I was a special one. And then his brother said, no, me too. And me too. And, and all four of them went their whole life believing that they had this special ability that they were an amazing young person. And I thought, what a powerful way to plant a positive belief in the mind of a young person. And it sounds like you’re doing the same thing, not only with the students, but also with the parents.


Debbie Hawkins (19:01):
I’m trying. And that’s, that’s the whole thing that I will all educators like, it’s, it’s an awkward time. Yeah. Alls you can do is try and over the summer I read this book called the four agreements and, you know to Miguel


Debbie Hawkins (19:14):
. Yeah. So like, you know, in the four agreements where it says, take nothing personally. Yep. You know, that’s my challenge, this year’s cuz in this crazy world where everything’s, everything’s uneven right now, still, you know, like everything’s still uneven and people react daily at us, around us, within this organization out of a sense of fear and self protection. Yeah. So really take nothing personally. And I’m really talking to my leadership class about that. We’re actually gonna read the four agreements at the end of the year when we do our book study as a class. But Tim Wild’s favorite book, by the way. I, I just, that, that whole that’s resonating with me this year is don’t take things personally because I think when we take things personally, it, it, it holds us back. Right.


Sam Demma (20:01):
It’s true. So true. And I think that sometimes the words of other people are based on one, their past experiences and two, the current things they’re going through, you know, you, you mentioned about the email and writing a short email. It’s it’s funny because whenever we write an email communication, the other person reads it based off the current mental state that they are in. So if they’re extremely happy, they’re gonna assume that your email was, was a pretty happy one, but if they’re struggling and, and then they read a short email, that’s just to the point, they’re gonna think that you’re upset or something and you know, 90 something percent of communication is nonverbal. And so I think, you know, some of the times too, when people attack us or put us down or attack a student or an educator and put them down, it’s, it’s asking ourselves, you know, what do they have to be going through to be expressing this situation like this? And I think that’s where empathy wins, you know, but it’s tough when you’re in the experience. It’s like, it’s a tough one. So if you could travel back in time and speak to your younger self, when you were just getting into education, knowing what you know now based on the experiences that you’ve had, what would you tell your younger self? What couple pieces of advice would you give?


Debbie Hawkins (21:10):
Number one, I’d say quit keeping score. I came in as a coach. Like I was so competitive and not just about like when we were on a basketball court. Mm. You know, I wanted to be the teacher with the highest reading scores. I wanted to be the teacher with the most kids coming to, you know, this or I, I was so worried about being perceived as having value that I think it held me back. I would’ve been much better off to have been more concerned about if I was valuable to at least one kid, you know, let go of those public perceptions a little bit when you’re young and invest in people individually, like deeply in one person at a time, one staff member, one kid my younger self and I would say not to take things so personal. Yeah.


Debbie Hawkins (22:04):
I, I, I don’t know when I was young, I had a lot of pride and, and things would hurt. And, and when you let things hurt, like where they wound you, it literally prevents you from having relationships with kids and being available to kids who need you, because you’ve spent too much time in your own self hurt. Like it was a waste of my energy as a young educator, you know, I, I needed a, I, I, I would encourage every young educator to find a group of two or three teacher, friends who are safe. And when something hurts, you can tell them so you can let it go. Cause you know, there’s something about that whole, like, you know, the truth will set you free. We’ll find people to go tell your truth to yeah. So that you can be free of its damage and move on. Yeah. Sometimes I think your, our pride like makes us put in the negative stuff, cuz we don’t want other people to see it. Like go get that ne get a trusted crowd, share with them, all those, those like doubtful things so that, that you can just be set free from it and move on. Don’t let it hold you back.


Sam Demma (23:06):
I love that.


Debbie Hawkins (23:07):
Trust me. Nobody’s good at this job. I’m 26 years in every year. There’s 10 things I need to be better at.


Sam Demma (23:14):
Yeah.


Debbie Hawkins (23:15):
It, it, it, this job never, it’s a big beast. You will never be perfect. Hey, it’s messy.


Sam Demma (23:21):
Every job. That’s the mindset to have. I mean, the day you think you arrive is the day you shouldn’t ever do it again, you know?


Debbie Hawkins (23:28):
Amen.


Sam Demma (23:28):
We never arrive, you know, like we’re all human beings. We’re all messy individuals going through this experience called life and balancing everything, you know? That’s a cool mindset to have. I call what you just mentioned “Emptying my backpack.” When I feel like I’m holding onto too many thoughts and opinions of others or opinions and, and experiences and situations in my head, I call it emptying my backpack. I’m actually writing a poem about it for kids Yeah, that’s such a cool piece of advice to give yourself and I appreciate you being so honest, vulnerable, and open about this whole conversation. I think a lot of educators will listen to this and will really enjoy it and see a lot of their own experiences in what you’ve just shared. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Debbie, it’s been awesome. If someone wants to reach out, send you an email, bounce some ideas around or chat with you, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?


Debbie Hawkins (24:21):
Just use my staff email it’s debra.hawkins2@fresnounified.org. You could Google Fresno Unified in my name and find me honestly.


Sam Demma (24:41):
Cool. All right, Deb. Debbie, thank you so much. This was great, keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Debbie Hawkins (24:47):
Thank you very much for having me.


Sam Demma (24:50):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Debbie Hawkins

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.

May 19, 2022 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Lynda Burgess – Education Manager with Alberta Education

Lynda Burgess - Education Manager with Alberta Education
About Lynda Burgess

Lynda (@LyndaBurgess) is a relational leader and teacher first who has over 20 years of experience in teaching and leadership positions with St. Albert Public School.  She joined Alberta Education in 2013; working in the areas of technology, curriculum and First Nations, Metis and Inuit education.

Work-life aside she enjoys kayaking, hiking, cycling, golfing and lives in St. Albert with her 2 university-age children.

Connect with Lynda: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Albert Public School

Alberta Education

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey

The Coaching Habit by Michale Bungay Stanier

University of Alberta – Faculty of Education

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’m so excited to bring you today’s interview. It is with my good friend, Lynda Burgess. Lynda is a relational leader and teacher first, who has over 20 years of experience in teaching and leadership positions with St. Albert public school. She joined Alberta Education in 2013, working in the areas of technology curriculum, and first nations meti, and Inuit education. She enjoys kayaking, hiking, cycling, and golfing and lives in St. Albert with her two University aged children. I hope you enjoy this interview with Linda as much as I enjoy chatting with her, and I will see you on the other side. Lynda, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind the journey that brought you to where you are today in education?


Lynda Burgess (01:27):
Well, good morning, Sam. I’m so pleased to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation. Just delighted to be able to take part, what brought me here to this? My journey. Gosh. Okay. How far back can we go, Sam? I, I don’t know how much time you’ve got.


Sam Demma (01:42):
we can go as far back as you’d like


Lynda Burgess (01:45):
Got into teaching by default actually had always been teaching piano lessons to, to others when I was started teaching piano when I, I was about 12 and didn’t start in teaching that’s for certain, in terms of a degree started in science and, and biology and mathematics and those sorts of things, but actually ended up teaching math and science in the end, but just, you know, not sure where I was headed and someone suggested, Hey, why don’t you be a teacher? Cuz you’ve been doing that, a music teacher all along. So yeah, what the heck thought I’d give it a shot. So did, and thought I’d stay in it for a few years. Actually. It’s, it’s tough to keep teachers actually the average retention is about five years on average, which isn’t very high. So you know, but several decades later I was still teaching and loving it, absolutely loving it and continued to be inspired by and model actually I guess, teaches I’d had along the way. So Sam, I don’t know how much detail you want, but happy to chat more.


Sam Demma (02:41):
Yeah, that’s awesome. And you mentioned piano lessons. Did you play the piano growing up? Was music and art, a big part of your, your life?


Lynda Burgess (02:51):
Yeah. My mom was a music teacher. She was on the Royal conservatory board in the Western board of Canada. You know, really, I don’t know if you know much about the piano world or the, the instrument world, but she was really involved. And so we like, you know, some kids learned the first thing they put on as a pair of skates. First thing we had was piano lessons since we were, I can’t remember how old, but so did that did study seriously for, for a lot of years and actually was teaching others since I was about age 12 myself. So it was just always part of the world and I played the violin as well and studied that quite seriously for quite some time. So I guess it was kind of a fit, you know, why don’t you just be a music teacher? So , and actually that ended up being my major and I did of course, mathematics and business ed and science as well. And I’d already done somebody outta my science degree. So there was lots, lots to offer there, but it was music that got me my first teaching job. There’s no question.


Sam Demma (03:46):
Yeah, that’s awesome. Specialty. And, and people often say that you learn the most when you start teaching the thing you’re learning. And I think that’s so unique that at the age of 12, while you are probably still learning to play the piano and still, you know, honing your skills, you took on the role of teaching others, which would probably, I would assume help you also become a better piano player. I think that’s one of the unique aspects of being a teacher. The more you teach, the more you also learn, you’re always a student and I’m curious to know, you know, music could have brought you in all these different paths, but it brought you to the classroom. Was there inspirations in your life that directed you to the words of the classroom? Did you have some awesome teachers or educators growing up that really inspired you to take this path on? Or maybe even your mom


Lynda Burgess (04:31):
Well, she’s the one who suggested it actually, but okay. But I suppose not to inspire me to take that on, but they didn’t inspire me along the way. There’s no question. And then once I started teaching that I would, you know, reflect on often in terms of, you know, what I was doing in terms of modeling what I had seen from them. Some, some great leaders who really inspired me, you know, from a math teacher whose style I just loved in terms of, and I was ended up being a math teacher actually for, for a lot of my career. But, but others as well, you know, who just were so passionate about what they did or just how they approached people, you know, at the end of the day, it was always about relationship and what they were able to draw out of people and how they, how they, they got got you to certain places that you didn’t even know you could go to, you know, in terms of exploring your, your talents or your skills or your interests or just opportunities, and just really inspired by sort of positive people, amazing humans who just did great work.


Sam Demma (05:28):
Can you recount personal examples of something that might even happen to you? Like I can tell you for me sometimes to a fault when I was in high school, certain classes were just check boxes that I needed to check off on my resume to be, hopefully become a professional soccer player and get a full ride division one scholarship. Yes. And it was my grade 12 foot issues teacher, Michael loud foot who made this crazy intentional effort to get to know every student in the class, teach a lesson. And then at the end or throughout the lesson, he would call you out. He would say, Sam, mm-hmm for you. This means X and Kavon for you. This means Y and he, he knew us based on our personal passion, so would take his content and apply it to our personal lives. And I could tell you, like, that’s a personal example of something an educator did, did, for me, that made a huge difference that turned his class, not only from a checkbox, but into a, an engaging conversation that I always wanted to participate in. And I’m curious to know if you can recount like any specific personal examples, similar, not similar to that, but maybe with another teacher you had that really helped you,


Lynda Burgess (06:35):
You know, that’s a, that’s a great, great point, Sam and great examples. I love it. And it’s, you know, for me, I think if I can think of gosh, 3, 4, 5, the more, I think the more come to mind of, of instances where that happened. And it was probably more around the general theme of someone paying attention or someone seeing something and you that you didn’t even recognize that was there, you know, or didn’t know was there, I think of a, you know, option classes in high school, I took drama cuz all the buddies were taking drama, you know, really was I talented at acting cotton but, but once I was in there, this drama teacher who was, and they used to put on major operatic productions at high schools back in, they do still now too. But suddenly he was casting me as the lead role in this play.


Lynda Burgess (07:21):
I was going, what, who were you calling on? you know, just, but he would give opportunities for these things cuz he saw something that I was like, I, are you sure that kind of thing. And then other, you know, other times too, with just like, I like the, like the comment you made there about connecting to you and to you personally. And you know, I just thinking back to a grade five teacher who was, you know, teaching science and talking about something and had seen me bring something in from recess and tied it into the lesson, it was like, wow, somebody’s paying attention here. You know, somebody’s connecting to something that I thought was, you know, neat or fun or important to me. And, and so it comes back to that whole relationship piece. It really does. So that’s really, what’s driven me over the years. Even now, you know, I’ve left teaching and gone to the government side of, of work in Alberta education, but still it’s all about the relationships and empowering other people.


Sam Demma (08:15):
I love it. And what does your work look like today and what are some of the exciting parts of the work that gets you up every day and move you to action?


Lynda Burgess (08:27):
love, it gets as excited up today and, and move to action. Love it. Well I we’ve been with Alberta education now for probably, oh gosh, how long now? Eight years maybe officially and been in many different roles there started there with the technology and then engagement curriculum. And now with the first nation maintain Inuit education directorate. And so, you know, I guess what inspires me all the way along to get up and come to work every day is the people I work with. Quite honestly, it comes back to that relationship piece and within the first nation maintaining education directorate, there’s just so much to learn and it’s a whole, it was a whole new world to me when I entered that, that work group about two and a half years ago. But it’s really about and what I’ve realized more and more as I’ve been there, it’s about still coming back to the relationship and having people, you know, where are they in their journey? Where are they in telling their story? And not that what’s going on with them that they own. There’s lots of other cultures who’ve been through many things. I won’t even get into any of that stuff. Yeah. But, but it’s really comes back to their perception of where they’re at at this moment in time really. And, and moving through that journey. So lots again, it comes back to the, the people and the relationships.


Sam Demma (09:39):
That’s awesome. And how did you find yourself in this role? Like what did the transition look like? And yeah, tell me more about that.


Lynda Burgess (09:47):
Well that was an interesting one. I was in curriculum for a few years and then they were looking to bring, wanted the leadership wanted to bring more educators into the directorate who had actually education experience in the field. And so I got tapped on the shoulder, did I, would I wanna come over and work with this group or work in this area? And it was a whole new world to me and I said, yeah, why not? How could I not? Right, right. There’s so much to be learned.


Sam Demma (10:12):
That’s awesome. And how did, and you probably got this question a few times, from other people, but how did, how did COVID and the pandemic shift plans change things or force you as a team to focus on some problems or things that are going on.


Lynda Burgess (10:28):
Yeah. Great, great question. And we’ve all lived it and still living it and it’s kind of UN unfolding a little bit. Now life is kind of returning to normal slowly. Right. But yeah, it was interesting cuz it brought to the forefront and some issues that were always there, but they weren’t as urgent particularly, you know, I think of the technology and the connection and being able to connect, you know, whether it’s having bandwidth or even having a device to connect through. And you know, we saw lots of that within our communities, you know, with the first nations communities and the met settlements, et cetera, but not, not, but even urban urban centers. You know, a lot of kids here, you might have four kids in the family and do you have four extra laptops at home? No, , you know, so lots of those kinds of issues and actually technology has always been a passion and love of mine that’s ever since I started teaching.


Lynda Burgess (11:18):
And it’s what brought me over to the government initially as a lead on projects, provincially and video conferencing was one of them. And so we’d been working on that for like over 15 years so this last year and a half has been really exciting for us because , we now see that everybody’s really embracing has a need to embrace it. Right. So it’s that, that need meets to, you know, that that need meets the technology that’s there. So just lots of adjustments like that, just lots of listening, lots of listening, lots of, you know helping folks to realize that they’re not alone, that they’re not taking this. They’re not the only ones dealing with that. There’s that there’s a lot of folks going through similar things and it’s okay to be feeling or dealing or whatever. Let’s just help each other out.


Sam Demma (12:06):
Love that. And what projects are you working on right now that you and your team are excited about and they get you up every day and get you moving


Lynda Burgess (12:16):
Well, in terms of the actual work, I guess where we work now is really about, you know, supporting indigenous education, the, the students. So there’s some different things we have going on. We have this one great committee that has representatives from all across the education system. We’ve got representatives from the superintendents group, from the professional development providers across the, across the province. We’ve got school boards, we’ve got university deans who sit on this there’s people from all across the education system, the teachers, the, a TAs represented as well. And we all come together when we work in what we call our indigenous education and reconciliation circle and just pulling together all of our expertise and knowledge to, you know, how can we continue to build capacity and understanding and, and support so that really trying to improve those outcomes for, for our indigenous students. So that’s, that’s that’s an exciting setting piece of work.


Sam Demma (13:10):
That’s awesome. Do you, or have you ever heard of Larissa Crawford,


Lynda Burgess (13:16):
Marisa


Sam Demma (13:16):
Crawford? She has a company called our future ancestors and it’s, she’s doing some phenomenal work in this space. That it’s sounds like you’re working in and she might be someone to connect with. You might have just a cool conversation.


Lynda Burgess (13:31):
Excellent. Yeah. Great to know. Thanks Sam. Thanks for sharing that. And, and could be too that our, my partners in the other side of our branch who connect more outward, could be, could have made connections with her already. And that’s good to know though, appreciate that. Yeah. Always looking for those connections.


Sam Demma (13:46):
I’ll, I’ll send you like a link and you can check out someone, her stuff. She, yeah, she’s, she’s awesome. I’ve seen her speak before and yeah, it’s really empowering and super powerful and she’s breaking a lot of different echo chambers and starting like really cool conversations. But if you could go back and you could speak to, you know, you’re not old, but younger Linda


Lynda Burgess (14:08):
I Sam ,


Sam Demma (14:12):
If you could, if you could go and speak to Linda when she first started teaching, knowing what you know now and what the experiences that you’ve had, what advice would you give your younger self?


Lynda Burgess (14:24):
I just say to trust your instincts and just believe in, in, in what your gut’s telling you. I mean, there’s just so many things that come flying down all the time, you know, let’s swing the pendulum this way and here’s the latest, greatest thing. And just, you know, you, it can be overwhelming at times and it it’s overwhelming anyway, that kind of a job that it is because it’s a service profession. There’s no question about it. And don’t enter it unless you really have that, you know, you really believe in to others because that’s the kind of profession that it is and requires that kind of hard in mind. And there’s so many great teachers out there who are, you know, and who are examples of that. But you know, just trust, trust your instincts and just, you know, believe in, in, in what you know, that, you know, if somebody else comes along and like, oh, well, should I, should I, could I, should I, what should I, you know what it’s like, you know, just disbelieve in yourself really mm-hmm and don’t be afraid to ask because nobody’s got all the answers and nobody’s an expert.


Lynda Burgess (15:25):
None of us are experts. None of us have arrived at that ultimate place on top of the hill where we know it all never gonna happen, not in this business. So yeah, just keep an open mind, you know, keep learning and you know, being that lifelong learner is so true, you know, that’s a passion of mine is that just, there’s always something more to know, you know, it’s one thing I go into I’ve, I’ve met a lot of people say, well, we’re the experts. And I go really, really? You mean you, you know, absolutely everything there is. How could you possibly, you were just amazing. Wow. and they often have lots of great stuff to offer, but it’s like, I mean, you never, you never get there. You never completely get there, which is exciting though.


Sam Demma (16:04):
Right’s


Lynda Burgess (16:05):
So much more waiting. The more, you know, the more you realize you don’t know. Right.


Sam Demma (16:08):
It’s the curse of knowledge. yes. It’s funny. Every time I ask an educator to come on the podcast, oh, you want me to share? I’m like, Hey, you know, lots of things, I’m not calling you an expert by any means, but you know, you know, lots of things. And sometimes people that know lots, they think they know little and, and that’s because they’re always continuing to learn. And I think that’s such an important thing to remember on that note. Some resources. Do you have any favorite books or things that you’ve read watched, listened to that have been impactful for you as an educator or even with the work that you do specifically with the government?


Lynda Burgess (16:47):
Oh my gosh. That’s, that’s a great question, Sam.


Sam Demma (16:51):
I’m putting you on spot and


Lynda Burgess (16:51):
That’s gonna be, you have, and you know, I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast. It’s that’s okay. So long ago, right? What did you do on the weekend? Oh gosh, let me think. It’s so long ago, but you know, just, just little tidbits. I like those sort of quick hits and quick little tidbits. I know there’s a lot of podcasts out there now that share good information. You know, just even little books on that you might think might not fit, but to me, communication is a big piece of it. It’s not, it’s not just what you say, but it is what you say, but it’s how you’re saying it too. And it is the what, yeah. You know, I see more people paying attention to that now, as opposed to, you know, just, you know, telling students as opposed to let’s rephrase that so that the student might be really thinking it’s about them or engaged.


Lynda Burgess (17:37):
And, you know, one little book I love is the coaching habit, which just talks about how to phrase different questions so that when you’re pulling out or you’re getting the person to, to think about as opposed to giving them the response as that’s one of the best PDs I ever did was called cognitive coaching. And it was all about that. All about different sort of questioning and different situations and how to get people to really think through. And it was all by choice of language all by the language that you’ve chosen and other great resources Covey, the seven habits. Yeah. you know, there’s a lot


Sam Demma (18:09):
Of good pieces.


Lynda Burgess (18:10):
Yeah. There’s a lot of great pieces in there, you know, and it’s something will come up and go like, oh yeah. Begin with the end in mind. Right. Or listen first, you know, as opposed to waiting your turn to talk, all of those kinds of things I, I find are just so important. They’re little nuggets, but they just really make a huge difference in terms of moving things along.


Sam Demma (18:29):
And a book I read when I was 15, 16 was the seven habits of highly effective teens. yeah. So teachers, teachers, if you’re listening, you can buy a set for your students. I’m not affiliated, we are not affiliated, but it is an awesome book with cool, really cool and effective principles and highly recommend checking it out. That’s awesome.


Lynda Burgess (18:51):
Yeah. Agreed. Absolutely


Sam Demma (18:53):
Cool. Linda. Well, thank


Lynda Burgess (18:54):
You. I’m affiliated either. I get your permission.


Sam Demma (18:56):
yeah, we have no affiliation here. Just trying to be helpful. Thank you so much for taking some time to chat on the show. I really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing the awesome work that you continue to do in the indigenous space. It’s so important. Keep it up and I hope to stay in touch and we’ll talk soon. If someone wants to reach out what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you to have a conversation?


Lynda Burgess (19:19):
On Twitter, it’s probably the best way or through email is good too. It’s been a pleasure, Sam, thanks so much for the opportunity. Best of luck to you. It’s been, it’s been super.


Sam Demma (19:28):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Lynda Burgess

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.

May 19, 2022 by Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Tracy Lockwood – Owner of PLAY Education Consulting

Tracy Lockwood - Owner of PLAY Education Consulting
About Tracy Lockwood

Tracy Lockwood (@PLAY_Educator) is a certified K-12 PE Teacher and has over 25 years of experience as an educator and has taught K-12 students in Alberta, British Columbia, Abu Dhabi and Macau. She was employed as an Education Consultant for nearly 10 years where she facilitated hundreds of workshops for thousands of professionals at the local, provincial, national and international levels.

Tracy is a Master Trainer for the National Coaching Certification Program & DANCEPL3Y (dance-play). She has her Masters in Educational Leadership and has a passion for all things physical education, physical literacy and physical activity.

Today, Tracy runs a successful business, PLAY Education, and works with thousands of children, youth and adults every year around the world to empower and inspire them to move, laugh, connect, and smile, while learning new ways to be physically active and develop physical literacy. 

Connect with Tracy: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

PLAY Education

Professional Development Workshops – PLAY Education

Resources from PLAY Education

PLAY Education Youtube Channel

National Coaching Certification Program

DANCEPL3Y (dance-play)

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’m super excited to bring you today’s interview with our special guest Tracy Lockwood, who is a certified K to 12 PE teacher. She has over 25 years of experience as an educator and has taught K to 12 students in Alberta, British Columbia, Abu Dhabi, and Macau.


Sam Demma (00:57):
She was employed as an educational consultant for nearly 10 years where she facilitated hundreds of workshops for thousands of professionals at the local, provincial, national, and international level. She is a master trainer for the national coaching certification program and dance play. She has her master’s in educational leadership and a passion for all things, physical education, physical literacy, and physical activity. Today, Tracy runs a successful business; play education and works with thousands of children, youth, and adults every year around the world to empower and inspire them to move, laugh, connect, and smile while learning new ways to be physically active and develop physical literacy. She has an awesome website and brand, which she’ll tell you about all throughout the interview. I’m super excited to bring you this. Can’t wait for you to hear what she has in store. So without further ado, let’s jump in to the interview with Tracy. Tracy, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here this afternoon, depending on where you’re tuning in from can you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what got you into education, and then also into the work you’re doing today?


Tracy Lockwood (02:06):
Awesome. Hi everybody. Hi Sam, thanks so much for having me. My name is Tracy Lockwood and some people may have, may know me as the play educator. I have a business called Play Education, but 25 years ago, I actually got into education. And, and really there’s, there’s only a few educators in my family so I, I don’t know the, I guess the reason why I got in, in thinking back is mainly because you know, it was, it was a degree program that allowed me in . And so back, you know 20, actually it was 27 years ago when I was in university, I, I really didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. And I, I was thinking that I wanted to follow in some footsteps of family members and I, I really, I played a lot of sports, so I thought I wanted to be a physiotherapist or something to do with physical activity.


Tracy Lockwood (03:13):
And, and then in my second year of university I actually played volleyball in my first year. And then in my second year changed schools and got into education. And it was honestly the best thing that, that happened to me in my schooling, because I actually realized, of course I love physical activity. I love physical education. And the fact that I could take physical activity courses that went towards a degree was just amazing to me. I had, I had a great experience in all of my courses and, and that just really helped, helped kind of springboard where I traveled and where I was able to take my EDU education degree. And I, I always say I, I actually teach at the university of Alberta and I always say to my students like this, this degree, this education degree is a passport if you want it to be.


Tracy Lockwood (04:11):
And, and I’m so thankful that I chose that, that career path. And I, I just commend anybody who has chosen that career path. It really turned out to be that I love working with kids. And then in the end, I really love working with adults as well. I just love, I don’t know, helping people. And I thought that I would always do something that was a helping career path and, and this just, just suited me the best. And yeah, I’m grateful that it that’s the way it turned out, got to work with adults as a consultant for many, many years. And of course teach kids for many, many years as well. Nice.


Sam Demma (04:48):
And when you think back to when you were in, you know, college and university and making the career decisions and choices, can you think back to like the finding moments, like you could have chose many different programs or many different options that would still allow you to teach and work with adults and kids? Like why specifically teaching or did you, do you think you fell into this and then realized how much you loved it?


Tracy Lockwood (05:11):
Yeah, I think it, I think it’s, I really fell into it. Based on the fact that when I went to high school, I went to high school to play. Like I was in high school of course, to, to get my diploma, but I really was playing sports. Me too. I, I, yeah. Yeah. And you’re a soccer player. I, I played all sports and did not focus so much on the academics. It was like, yeah, it’s gonna be, I’m gonna be fine. I’m always gonna be fine. And, and I think that hindered my opportunities when I got into university. My first year, I went to a smaller university and, and got to continue to play the sport. I love of volleyball, but then realized that I needed to get my marks up a little bit higher. I needed to actually work a little bit harder.


Tracy Lockwood (06:01):
It was, it was so not a focus. And and just a bit of a struggle. I struggled in certain subjects like math and different sciences. I, I really struggled and I needed that one-on-one attention. But even when I did get that attention, that one- one kind of tutoring in high school, I still struggled. And, and to this day it amazes me that I not only have a degree, not that I’m not smart enough to get a degree. I think I applied myself because I got into education, cuz I was accepted into that program based on my marks after my first year, I kind of brought them up a little bit, but really I am always amazed that I actually have a master’s degree because I always think, wow, I, I don’t, I never liked writing and research makes me wanna have a nap.


Tracy Lockwood (06:54):
so I’m just, I was just thinking, you know, wow, how did, how did I accomplish that? So I, I really believe that, you know, because of getting into education, it kind of, springboarded a lot of loves that I have with physical activity, physical education, specifically got to do my master’s around physical literacy and, and something that I was passionate about. And I think that’s the key now that we’re, we’re just talking that the key is to find that passion. And I think I was able to do that through getting into a program, through them, working through what I love the best, working with kids, working with adults, physical literacy development, all of those things kind of just began to build upon themselves, but they only did that because I have a love for it.


Sam Demma (07:40):
Yeah.


Tracy Lockwood (07:41):
Yeah.


Sam Demma (07:42):
So that’s awesome. Yeah. I’m inspired right now by this rapper it’s American rapper named Russell vitality stage name is Russ and he always talks about this idea that when he was growing up in school, he was terrible. He was a terrible student. He hated school. And if you judged him on his work ethic, based on how much work he put into his studies, you would’ve thought he was a lazy student, but it’s because he just wasn’t doing work that he loved. But the moment you judged him on his work ethic and his ability when it came to music, he was off the charts. And so it sounds like you’re echoing the same ideas when you find the work you love. You know, maybe originally writing was boring and research put you to sleep. But when it was writing, that was related to a topic you loved and research related to physical education, it probably became something that you wanted to pour your heart and soul into. And as a year that has been filled with challenge and burnout, how have you kept your flame going? Cause I know there’s a lot of teachers and educators who are not sure that this is the path they still want to go down because of the challenges they’ve faced.


Tracy Lockwood (08:51):
Yeah. I, it is so true. And so many people have so many stories just about what they’ve gone through in this past while we, our, our pandemic kind of hit a little bit earlier, cuz we were overseas in Southeast Asia. It hit there first. Yeah. And and then we made the choice to, to come back from overseas to come back here. I, I think during this last year and a half or so it’s, it’s kind of reinventing myself. I think that’s what I’ve always done my entire career. If I, after five years, I’m in a school I’m like, okay, I need to reevaluate. If I’m just not feeling that I can contribute as wholeheartedly as I want to. I need to change mm-hmm and I’m, I’m okay with change. I love change and I’m not like a specifically routine kind of person anyways, which so that really suits my personality.


Tracy Lockwood (09:48):
So changing on the fly, changing the way that I do things has had to really come into play this year. So move to virtual, just like most schools, my business was not going to thrive if I wasn’t able to get into schools in person. So did a ton of virtual activities ton of virtual programs and lots of professional development teachers just putting myself out there. It was not easy because this way of learning and this way of, of speaking with somebody and seeing yourself on the screen all the time is so not comfortable. And it definitely was uncomfortable at the beginning. Just like I know a lot of teachers went through some major uncomfortableness with with dealing with how do you get your kids engaged even? And even just to get them turn on their videos. Yeah. I think the more that you do something, the more that you get comfortable with it and that’s exactly what happened.


Tracy Lockwood (10:48):
And just, just knowing that I was helping teachers, I was helping educators with professional development and, and really I have, I had the time they were, they had to jump right in. I had the time to maybe to look at the research, look what was going on out there, just seeing what the best practices were and then to implement them and then to share them with my network that I have mostly in in, in Canada. And so that, you know, that was really key. I, I think just knowing that I could help somebody and, and then of course the, the feedback that you get back from others, whether you’re a teacher, you get those, that feedback from kids, it can help you just continue to, to want to, to do more. And I think that’s what I was getting back from others. Like thank you for this, wow.


Tracy Lockwood (11:42):
This resource, this is, this is great to see. Really in this time I, I just need something practical and that’s, I guess that’s what I’m all about is that, that practical piece, I just wanna give teachers tools. And then also like seeing students online I have had a couple of university classes, like I mentioned, elementary ed classes and I was teaching a physical education, health and pedagogy class. And so it’s all about movement and so uncomfortable as uncomfortable as it is. I, you know, invited them to turn on their cameras as part of participation, not as part of how you, you know, how much you’re going to develop your skill, but just how are you trying? And so I, I think that that really helped just inviting them to turn on their, their cameras. And I really had some great experiences and some amazing students in my classes that, that were so thankful for the course, even though we couldn’t be in person, which would’ve been way better. I guess I, I really get external feedback that external feedback helps me want to do more. Yes. Yeah, that’s, that’s a big part of it.


Sam Demma (12:58):
Yeah. You and I share that I actually have a binder that I’ve filled with a bunch of emails and messages that I’ve received from students after work and presentations. And I I’ll read it to myself before key moments because I find that it’s us stopping us. And most of the time it’s our own like self-belief or self doubt, even when we’ve done great job, a great job. And we know we’re making an impact sometimes just rereading those things and reminding yourself of the impact can have a huge effect. Now I know as a teacher though, specifically, sometimes the impact isn’t heard or seen for like 10 years and there’s these awesome stories where 15 years later, a student sent an email and is like, oh my goodness, miss Lockwood, you know, your class changed my life and your physical education training changed my life. Can you think about, can you think back to any of those specific stories or moments that stick out in your mind from teaching both in, in the classroom and now with your own business?


Tracy Lockwood (14:00):
Oh, that’s such a good question. You know my, my friend Shannon always says that I, I feel the same way that she retains water, not information. So I feel like , I’m kind of the same nice where I I have a hard time thinking about like what happened way in the past, but, you know, there are definitely students that have come forward in just, just recently that have come forward in my university classes just to be, you know, most recent. Yeah. that have said, you know, this is the best course in my degree. And that just is like, Ugh, that makes me feel so, so great. And, and I ha I do have students that because I taught both of my boys physical education when they’re in elementary. Nice. I see the, the kids that they have grown up with that are now adults.


Tracy Lockwood (14:55):
Nice. I see them, you know, and I hear from them based on the fact that they still hang out with my two sons and, and I do hear really great things that that they didn’t always say in elementary, you know, you get the hugs, you get the high fives. Yeah. once in a while you get cards from, from parents that are just saying how thankful they are. But it, it is, it, it is something that you wonder, you know, it, you have to have that self confidence because I always wonder, you know, is that true? But then I have to remind myself, you know, they wouldn’t be saying it if it’s not. And, and then it is hard to, to focus on that. If you get one negative comment, you know as teachers, I still think about, you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, when I first started teaching, I still think about the parent that was not happy with their child’s mark in physical education.


Tracy Lockwood (16:01):
And, and that just sticks out. And it, I think that’s just us as human. We’re always trying to get better. And we, we do take in that negative element. Sometimes it’s very hard to break through that negative thought pattern. Yeah. But it just takes practice. And truly, I I’ve been learning that and I still am at my age, I’m still learning to, to, to be positive. There’s a program that I get to be a part of and I hope it’s okay if I bring it up, it’s called dance. Okay, good. It’s called dance play. And to be honest, the, the positive element that just wraps around that program just it’s really all about three rules, be positive, be fun and be yourself. And whenever I teach it, it’s a reminder to myself. So when I say to kids, you know, it’s really easy to be negative.


Tracy Lockwood (17:00):
It’s really easy to, you know, put yourself down. It takes practice to be positive. So when you’re dancing or when you’re doing something, you know, that challenges you you have to say, you know, I got this, I can do this. I am awesome. I look great. It’s a constant reminder. And, and I think every time I teach that program, it has actually built up my confidence level. Because I remind kids all the time. It’s like, oh yeah, remind myself. Yeah. Or, or when I look, you know, I tell kids to look themselves in the mirror when they’re brushing their teeth, hopefully in the morning. And again, at night they say, you know, you are awesome. You’re a great friend. You’re a great you know, sister or whatever brother you’re, you are you know, really great at math or you really kind, whatever it is, you have to remind yourself. So a as I’m telling them, it’s, it’s just a great confidence booster for myself, just to say, yeah, if I’m telling kids to do this, I also need to do this and model it. Yeah. And I think as teachers, we’re always thinking about how we can model and, and those make the best teachers. And I think that’s why a lot of people go into education is because they want to model you know, what they wanna see in the world.


Sam Demma (18:22):
Yeah. Be an


Tracy Lockwood (18:22):
Example and yeah. Be an example, make a difference. So so I think that, yeah, education is, it is a calling, but it’s also a choice. And yeah. And I, I commend people for making that choice because it does take a lot of work and a lot of effort to be a teacher. Yes. Especially now we’ve seen, what’s been happening over the last year and a half with having to switch completely how you teach, but, but you know, it, it, people have gotten through it. And there’s so many ups and downs in that, in the profession as it is. Yeah. But we are super resilient and we teach kids to be resilient and following our own example is going to be, you know, the best for, for everyone.


Sam Demma (19:12):
And at what point in your own journey, did you start getting this inkling of entrepreneurship and decide to start your own thing? And, you know, you mentioned dance play very briefly, just, just in case anyone’s listening to this right now, or you can’t see the screen and you obviously didn’t see what happened before we started recording, but the call started with Tracy playing music and dancing . So just so you know, she is the perfect person to teach this curriculum. But tell us a little bit about, you know, your own company and, and dance play and how they tie together and where that came from.


Tracy Lockwood (19:50):
Yeah. I, I really, I think I have great role models. My, my parents are entrepreneurs. So when I was 11, my parents started a restaurant business and they kept that same restaurant for 30 years. Oh, wow. So I grew up with, with my parents working so hard being entrepreneurs, but then, you know really doing it for themselves. And I think that’s where I, I didn’t realize, but that’s where it kind of started. And when I was teacher for about 15 years, I ended up getting a position as a consultant and worked provincially in the province of Alberta and then elsewhere kind of delivering professional development to teachers creating programs working on curriculum and tying curriculum with health and physical education into all of our professional development. And so just doing that was, it was sort of like I was running my own business, but not quite, you know, being salary employed.


Tracy Lockwood (20:57):
And about seven years ago, dance play came into my life. We were hosting a conference and we needed something kind of fun and different, and we didn’t have anything dance related. So at our conference, we, I, I was just looking online and just found this dance play thing and thought, wow, this is amazing. And so the person who owns dance play Melanie, she said, why don’t you come to a, to an instructor training, had no idea what I was getting myself into. I really am not a dancer. I love music. I love moving to music, but I have never taken any formal dance training. So so when I was taking that, I, I thought this is gonna be super overwhelming. It was the best time of my life. I loved it so, so much. Awesome. And realized that, you know, maybe because I had been thinking about running my own business, I had been thinking about going on my own and consulting, just that idea of having my own hours working from home, just having control.


Tracy Lockwood (22:03):
Maybe I’m a bit of control freak. I don’t know , but I, I do love the idea of structuring my own day. And as hard as I work, that’s how hard my bus that’s, how much my business is going to grow. So, yeah, so I just decided when dance play came into my life, that this was the next thing, this was the additional thing that I needed in order to supplement my play education business. So started started that, you know, about seven years ago and became a region operator. So I can operate in schools and, and then started hiring some instructors and, and really did a lot of it on my own for a few years, and just poured myself into the business and not only dance play, but play education and still delivered professional development, but really wanted to focus on physical education, physical literacy, physical activity.


Tracy Lockwood (22:58):
And that gave me the ability to do that. I, I really feel like specializing is, is important because you become much better in that area. Mm. And and in my other consulting role, I learned so much, I learned so much about research and about government contracts and about school programming and, and just curriculum. And, and really, I wanted to just focus on physical education, physical literacy, and physical activity. And that gave me leaving that job scary as it was, cuz it was a salary job. I, I had a, I’ve had a salary. I had a salary up to that point for 21 years. Wow. And I wouldn’t have been able to leave if I, my husband was an administrator and principal at the time. So I could lean on him and his salary in order to do that. Cuz man, it was tough.


Tracy Lockwood (23:55):
At first I had zero income for at least the first five months and, and then just started growing and building my network. I, I had a, a fairly large network to begin with. So I, I really had to look at all the people that I have been working with for over the years. And that was, that was key, you know, leaning on those people as much as I felt like, ah, I don’t wanna be a leach. That’s the last thing I wanna be. But I also felt that, you know, I’ve, I’ve really built up great relationships with a lot of consultants and a lot of people around the province of Alberta anyways. So I felt comfortable that I could reach out to them. Yes. And, and a lot of them just really accepted the fact that I could bring maybe something different to the table and these practical tools and, and just started going from there.


Sam Demma (24:49):
That’s so awesome. And what is play like, tell us more about play education. Yeah. Why is, why is that the name of the company and what does it do?


Tracy Lockwood (25:00):
Good question. Good questions. Play education stands for physical literacy and you, mm. And originally I had a different name. I think it was energized consulting and I had all of these different names and it was, it wasn’t easy to come up with that. It seems easy now, but in, in hindsight, I, I remember having a journal. I still have a journal beside my bed cuz I wake up in the middle of the night and I have to write scribble messes down. I just have to write. So I don’t forget. nice. So I wrote down like why, what are the things that I wanna do? So, you know, practical, educational, physical activity, all of those things. And, and then it just turns out I was like physical literacy. You know, I did my master’s in that. I really believe in the fact that we have to give kids a foundation in order to build their skills for them to be confident and comfortable and competent and motivated to be active for life.


Tracy Lockwood (26:03):
So that kind of was, was the springboard physical literacy and you stands for play and it couldn’t just be play. So I’m an educator. So education came into play there, so play education and it turns out nobody else had that name. so nice that that I could see. So it worked out great and, and I could get the website, play education.ca that worked out great. And I really just focus on, on professional development for teachers in those three areas of PHS ed, physical activity and physical literacy. Nice. I focus on dance, play programming. And about how many years ago, I would say two years, three years ago, three years ago now I created a resource called focus on fundamentals and it’s supporting the development of physical literacy. And I really wanted something to be a lesson plan guide that had like warmup activities, main skill development activities, and cool down activities.


Tracy Lockwood (27:11):
So developed this after 10 years of thinking about it, it was a scribble mess at the beginning and it took me about 10 years to finally, you know, develop this resource. But it was a lot of work, but it, it really ties in nicely of what I like to do for people. And that is provide tools and practical ideas that can be used like right away. And, and I think, you know, every things have evolved of course to where I am now, but but that’s, I’m just so happy how things worked out, you know, just taking that risk, which I was, was a huge risk when I think about it now. But I, I said to my husband at the time when I was doing, going to do this, I said to him, it’s now or never. Yeah. You know? And, and so having that entrepreneurial spirit, I always kind of have, I, I, like I said, I believe it was from passed down for my parents. Yeah. I just really wanted to jump in with both feet. So it’s left my position.


Sam Demma (28:19):
That’s awesome. I love the story. I absolutely love it. I, I too grew up in a family that owned a restaurant. Funny enough, my mom and my grandfather owned an Italian Italian slash Greek food restaurant called Joey Bravos. and wow. I


Tracy Lockwood (28:34):
Love the


Sam Demma (28:34):
Name well, yeah. And it was apparently there was a TV show back in the day called Johnny Bravos as well. And so they kind of got inspiration from that, but named to Joey’s and it’s funny growing up there, I would always go in and I would walk into the kitchen. And the first thing I would ask for is one of the chefs’ name was Rav I’d say, Hey Ravi, can I please have the standard plate? And he would bring me at a little plate with cheese, olives, and sausage and I would go and sit in the back and eat them. And I remember going to my doctor’s appointment one time and my pediatrician, Dr. MOS saying, Sam, you gotta stop eating sausages. I had like, I was gaining weight anyways, I totally going off track here. But I, yeah, I so relate to the entrepreneurial spirit of parents, which is so awesome.


Sam Demma (29:19):
And really when we think about it, people that influence us could be anybody, not even just our parents, like as a teacher, you play that same role in your student’s lives as a parent does because you see them for so many hours per day, even when you think no one’s watching, someone could be watching and the actions you’re taking could influence them. For example, you following your dream and passion of starting the business and going down this path might even inspire other educators to believe that they could follow their own dreams and passions outside of the classroom as well. And I just think it’s a really cool story to share. And I’m glad that we carved out some time to share it. If you could go back in time. I think you said 25 years ago, is that when you first started teaching?


Tracy Lockwood (29:59):
Yes. About that 27?


Sam Demma (30:01):
Yeah. Okay. So if you could go SA shaving off two years there, I see you . So if you could, you know, snap your fingers travel back in time 27 years ago and basically give your younger self advice, knowing what you know now, and based on the experiences you’ve had, what advice would you give your younger self?


Tracy Lockwood (30:22):
Wow. I think just trust in the journey, you know, trust that things are gonna work out as planned. I really am an optimistic person. Yeah. But, but there are definite times that I’m like, oh, should I do this? You know, this is a really tough decision or worry about things. And I really believe that I, I, yeah, I, I would’ve told myself to trust and, and the fact that I actually didn’t do a lot of traveling until 45 years old. So my husband and I both, we, we didn’t go overseas until our sons were in grade eight and grade 12. Oh, wow. And so that the idea of like, thinking back when I first started teaching and thinking to overseas travel and teaching in a Canadian international school in Abu Dhabi and then in Macau, like I never imagined, never dreamed that that would happen thinking that I would have my own business, never imagined that that would be where my career would lead me, but I, I truly believe that having an education degree has just really opened a lot of doors has just like, kind of led me into these like different paths and, and, and the fact that I’ve connected with so many awesome people.


Tracy Lockwood (31:52):
My, my network of friends, my network of professional colleagues has, has just been more than I could imagine, but, but, you know, I think it’s based on you, who you attract in your life. And I am open to attracting positive people you know, people who, who want to be better that are constantly learning. I, I just, I feel that because I am like that, I feel like I attract those kind of people in my life and I that’s who I want my life. And, and, and I still have so many, so many friends that that are that way too. And yeah, I, I, I think that word trust is important. I I’m, and, and just kind of ride the ride the wave of life, I think just as it comes. And there’s definitely ups and downs along the way. for sure.


Tracy Lockwood (32:52):
Some stresses especially with living overseas and having to start your light life over. And, and then starting back, back in Canada a year ago earlier than we thought we would come back from the cow. We we had to start our life over in a different province where we chose to start our life over in a different province. I’m trying to network here now, still doing a lot of work back with my network in Alberta. But man, it’s it’s tough to, to build a network, but it’s starting. Yeah. And it’s like little by little, just put yourself out there. And, and maybe that’s the other thing I would’ve told myself, like put yourself out there, girl. , it’s all gonna be good.


Sam Demma (33:34):
I love that. We, we need to set up a part 2 to talk about the, the worldwide experiences, because that’s a whole other conversation The longer we talk, the more questions I ask, the more questions I have for you, but thank you so much for taking some time to, you know, share your intentional journey on the podcast. I noticed at the end, you just corrected yourself. We said, we, we chose to start again in a different province. And that’s so important because you’re taking the responsibility, and it seems like your whole journey has been very intentional. You know, now is the time, time is now I’m doing this. And yeah, I think that’s like a phrase that kind of comes to mind when I think about everything you’ve shared in the past 30 minutes, it’s already been 35 minutes; time flies. That was a good conversation. If someone wants to reach out an educator or principal superintendent’s listening and they just wanna, you know, shoot you an email and have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?


Tracy Lockwood (34:31):
They can definitely go to my website. It’s playeducation.ca and tracy.playeducator@gmail.com.


Sam Demma (34:41):
Love it, love it. Tracy, Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your summer. This will come out in September, so that’ll sound funny, but enjoy the rest of your summer and let’s stay in touch and I’ll, I’ll talk to you soon.


Tracy Lockwood (34:52):
Thank you so much, Sam. I really appreciate it. Love talking with you.


Sam Demma (34:55):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Tracy Lockwood

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.

May 14, 2022 by Founder and CEO Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Katrin Heim – Innovation Coach with Buffalo Trail Public Schools

Katrin Heim - Innovation Coach with Buffalo Trail Public Schools
About Katrin Heim

Katrin Heim (@HeimKatrin) is an Innovation Coach with Buffalo Trail Public Schools. Her rural roots and years of teaching, primarily in division one have shaped her approach to teaching and leadership. Katrin believes that people (students, families, and communities), are at the heart of our work as educators.   

Connect with Katrin: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Buffalo Trail Public Schools Website

What is an Innovation Coach?

Leadership and Mentorship

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest on this show is working in a position that we’ve never had the opportunity to interview before. Her name is Katrin, she is the innovation coach with the Buffalo Trail Public schools. Her rural roots and years in teaching, primarily in division one have shaped her approach to teaching and leadership.


Sam Demma (01:01):
Katrin believes that people, students, families, and communities are at the heart of our work as educators or those people who work in schools and in education. She is someone I have the awesome privilege and opportunity to work with for an event in September. I’m super excited about it, and I’m super excited about you listening to this interview with her. Enjoy this, I will see you on the other side. Talk soon. Kat, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by just introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind the journey that brought you into education?


Katrin Heim (01:40):
All right. Good morning. Thank you for having me, Sam. It’s wonderful to be here. As you said, my name is Katrin. I am an educator. I’ve taught for 11 years. This is my 11th year. I’ve worked primarily as a grade one and two teacher in a small rural school in Alberta where I also live and call home. And recently transitioned to our central office in the role of an innovation coach, and so that’s a fancy term for instructional coach support teacher brainstorm partner problem solver. And so my work partner and I work closely with the, the rest of our learning services department to support the teachers in Buffalo Trail Public Schools with anything teaching and learning related.


Sam Demma (02:40):
Now, how did you transition from kindergarten teacher to innovation coach? This sounds such a, this is so cool.


Katrin Heim (02:50):
Well, you know, I’ve, I’ve always loved working with other people. Okay. And so in my role as a grade one and two teacher in this small little school I was the only grade one and two teacher. And so I would often reach out to the other innovation coaches in our division as brainstorm partners or, Hey, this looks really cool. I’d like to try this, but I just don’t know how to get started. And so I just, I, as a classroom teacher, I started forming relationships with the innovation coaches we already had in Buffalo trail and loved it. I felt that I grew as a, as a professional. I felt that with their support, I became a better teacher. My lessons were more engaging and my students were impacted in a positive way. And so I just continued to develop those relationships and when the position became available, I just thought, yeah, you know what? I I’d like to do this and, and applied and here I am. So that’s awesome. Yeah.


Sam Demma (04:16):
And so at what point in your own career search, if we went back in time, 12 years, 13 years, like at what point in your own career journey and education, did you know that you wanted to become a teacher or an educator or at least work in education?


Katrin Heim (04:33):
it’s something that I’ve always known. Okay. From a very young age and it’s not like I can’t when I reflect back on even my childhood or my teenage years or deciding to go into education. I can’t recall a specific time in my life where I felt like this is what I needed to do or wanted to do with my life. It’s just always been what I wanted to do. My I’m a fourth generation teacher. There are, you know, great grandparents, grandparents, my dad, my sister is also an educator. And so it’s, I feel like it’s just in my DNA. But beyond that, I think going to university and coming home. So I went away to university in the city and then came back to this small rural, you know, Alberta community and decided to teach here. And the reason for that was that I wanted to make an impact in the lives of kids that I was closest to. Mm. I wanted to create opportunities for my own children, for my nieces, my nephews, my friends’ kids, the people who I love in my community. And that was really what what drove my decision to, to teach and to live here and still, what, what drives my, my work in central office, you know, these are, these are the people that I care about. And this is, these are the people, these are, people are the reason I do what I do. Mm.


Sam Demma (06:32):
Yeah. I love that. That’s awesome. And, you know, you mentioned the four generations of educators, which is phenomenal. did you also have teachers that taught you as a, when you were a student that had a huge impact on your decision to get into teaching? And do you remember who any of those people were?


Katrin Heim (06:51):
Yes. In fact there are. And I, I had the privilege to work with those people as a young teacher also.


Sam Demma (07:04):
Oh, cool.


Katrin Heim (07:05):
because I came back to the school that I graduated from in high school, I had the opportunity to learn and grow from those mentors as a teacher myself. And so, you know a couple of teachers that I can recall in particular really supported me as a new teacher when I was teaching my students to read, for example as a grade one and two teacher, that’s the biggest stressor perhaps even challenge in those years. And I never felt adequately prepared to teach children to read. Mm. Because it’s so complex. And and yes, and so I had one wonderful teacher who I would swing that, you know, swing into their classroom in the morning. And I would say, you know, I tried this yesterday and it’s just not working or this is what my kids are doing right now. How am I doing what do I need to know? Where do I go next? And having relationships with these, these individuals and having an opportunity to work alongside them and to be mentored by them on a daily basis was such a privilege and and really shaped how I taught. And yeah.


Sam Demma (08:55):
That’s awesome. Yeah. I was gonna ask you like those teachers that you had, even when you, do you remember even when you were a student, so like even before, when you were a young teacher, when you were, you know, grade seven grade eight high school, do you remember any of those educators, although I guess those are the same ones actually, that, that taught you as a teacher, when you were a student, what did they do that had an impact on you?


Katrin Heim (09:19):
Hmm. I think the greatest thing that I I can recall is that they created space for myself, my peers, my classmates, to be heard in their classrooms for each of us to be valued for who we were. We each of us had an identity and we, those teachers created the space for us to discover our identities and to to really shine in our own ways. I would say primarily, that’s what I remember from the teachers who had an impact. I mean, of course there were high expectations and there were beliefs that we, we could be successful and we would be successful and we were supported in those ways. But I really think that the teachers that I remember having the greatest impact created this space for each of us to shine and to be heard in their classrooms and believed in us.


Sam Demma (10:41):
Yeah. I love that. That’s awesome. And, you know, your problem solving skill set must have been highly effective and used a lot this past year because I’m assuming there was a lot of challenges. How have things, how have things been different this year teaching or working in education versus, you know, last year, in the years prior, because of COVID like, what are some of the challenges that you had to face and how did you try and overcome them?


Katrin Heim (11:11):
Yeah, there, there were many challenges. I mean, in my role as innovation coach my partner and I, my work partner, and I support all the teachers in Buffalo trail with, you know technology supports learning supports, like there’s a lot of different things that we help teachers work through. And prior to COVID, we spent a lot of time on the road and traveling between schools and meeting with teachers face to face. And that stopped very abruptly. And, you know, back in March, when we first transitioned to online learning, we we had to adapt very quickly to support our teachers in learning the skills that they needed to teach in an online environment. And so it meant you know, meeting with teachers using an online platform like Google meets or Google Hangouts to solve technology related problems so that they could get kids and families connected.


Katrin Heim (12:29):
That was the very quick sort of sudden shift back in March. And then it was just providing opportunities for teachers to learn these skills very rapidly because they needed them. And once the dust sort of settled there with that initial transition, it became a lot more our check-ins with teachers, there were, there were different levels to those check-ins I guess we could say because as innovation coaches, we were, we are supports to teachers so that they can, they can shine as teachers and they can create opportunities for learning with their students. And as we know, as teachers, as people, sometimes we need that social emotional check in. And so oftentimes when teachers would reach out with a question or a problem, or, Hey, could you help me with this? We’d set up a Google meet to solve, you know, a pretty straightforward question or problem, and we’d end up chatting for 15 or 20 minutes just about how’s life, like what’s going on.


Katrin Heim (13:55):
And so that was, I would say, also a change because people more than ever needed to feel connected. And so whenever we had an opportunity to connect with someone on a professional level to, to work through a problem or a challenge, that personal connection aspect almost became the priority, just very organically, like it wasn’t forced, it would just happen to be what people needed. So that was also, I would say, a change and the digital the way of connecting digitally with people saved us so much time traveling. Yeah. That we actually had amazing opportunities to connect with more people and perhaps people who we may not have connected with prior to COVID simply because there, the online learning aspect created the need for support, and then therefore we were able to connect. So I think, you know, in that sense, there’s a lot of good that has come from from COVID and online learning and for us in our work, the ability to connect with people online, you know?


Sam Demma (15:35):
Yeah, yeah. It changed a lot of gas too. Right. well, yeah.


Katrin Heim (15:40):
And, and time, and, and in so many ways it’s just as effective for someone to screen share or to talk through something and to bring people together.


Sam Demma (15:54):
Yeah. I agree. I mean, I would agree with the meetings, like the, the check-ins you can meet with so many people, I’m sure you find value in the, in person when you’re talking to a large group. Right. That’s where I think it makes a


Katrin Heim (16:07):
Absolutely


Sam Demma (16:08):
Absolutely makes a difference, but you’re right. Like, I, I mean, even myself, I was telling you earlier, like, this’ll be episode 120 something. Imagine I had to drive to every person’s school. Like , this should be impossible. Like I would have to fly to Alberta, you know? So there’s so many benefits that come with the technology, you know, and, and using it effectively, what are you forecasting for the next year? , it’s a hard question to ask, but I’m sure innovation, you know, I’m sure innovation focuses a little bit on the future, but do you think that the schools in Buffalo trail will be in person or a blend or a hybrid? Like we can’t, no one can really rub the magic ball and guess, but yeah. Curious what your thoughts are.


Katrin Heim (16:51):
I don’t know. I think honestly, it’s a it’s anyone’s guess at this point I don’t expect there will be a lot different from last year in terms of how we start in September, but again I don’t have a crystal ball, so it’s, I really hope that we can we can get back out into schools because spending time in classrooms, you know, anything online just doesn’t replace what it feels like to be in a classroom. So, yeah. I really hope that that’s in our future.


Sam Demma (17:36):
Love that. And in terms of your role, so I think you do a lot of supporting the schools, a lot of supporting the teachers. Does your role also include, like coming up with innovative ideas to build on, you know, programs that are already in schools? Like, what does the whole portfolio look like if someone’s listening to this thinking, this sounds pretty interesting innovation coach, and they wanna learn more, like, how would you break it down to a person that knows nothing about it?


Katrin Heim (18:01):
so I’ll just be starting my third year now as innovation coach. And there’s no


Sam Demma (18:11):
Set definition.


Katrin Heim (18:12):
I’ve never done the same thing twice. Let’s just put it that way. So when I started the focus of my role was a lot more around technology and innovative ways to weave technology into learning particularly with the lens of engagement student engagement. And as the role kind of shifted and progressed, we began to work more with the school based coaches. So we’ve got optimal learning coaches, inclusive learning coaches in our schools, in each of our schools. And of course our admin teams in our schools, our principals and assistant principals. And so as the role evolved, we, we shifted a little bit away from the technology side of things to the instructional aspect. And so a lot of our work and I say our, because I’m part of a team and we all sort of have that same focus.


Katrin Heim (19:30):
Nice. Although our portfolios are slightly different. And so we, we sort of shifted our focus to leading professional learning for our, our groups of teacher leaders in schools. Cool. And so we looked at pedagogy. So with our optimal learning coaches, the focus was on how do we create opportunities for student learning in our classrooms that are engaging rigorous and allow our kids to connect their learning so that they they have deeper understanding of the content and how it’s connected to all of the other content that they’re learning cool. So that they’re making connections and, and gaining that deep understanding and, and creating learning that allows students to transfer that understanding from, you know, between and amongst situations. And so back to your point, you know, so we’re leading this learning with optimal learning coaches in terms of our inclusive learning coaches, we’re supporting professional development for that group of teachers as well, looking doing some coaching with both of those cohorts in terms of supporting their work in schools, leading professional learning in their schools, but also supporting them with the work that they do with their teachers in their own schools.


Katrin Heim (21:19):
So nice sort of more about supporting the teacher leaders and the leaders in each of the schools so that they can then support their, their teachers instead of us like working individually you know, with teachers. So looking to have a bit of a, a larger impact by supporting those, those leaders and teacher leaders in, in schools. So that would be sort of the biggest shift that I’ve seen in my role. And I, yeah, I mean, I look forward to continuing to build relationships with those, those groups of teachers with our principals. Nice, because we find that those relationships that we build and we initiate and we nurture, and we support the work that is happening in schools. It allows leaders and, and teachers to do what they do best. And it creates again, just like, you know, the teacher that I reflected on having an impact on me in as a student in high school. Now we create the space for others to shine. We create the space for people to feel connected, to feel supported, to ask for help if they need to, or just simply to bounce an idea off. Because as we know, the more we talk through an idea and refine it the better it becomes. And so we really do our best work when we’re connected to others. And so that’s, that’s been a little bit of how my role has taken shape.


Sam Demma (23:20):
Yeah. It sounds like it involves a lot of people, teams of people. You never do the same task twice. You’re always solving problems and traveling a lot. Usually when there isn’t COVID that’s cool. Yeah, no, I, I, I just thought it’d be awesome to highlight what the role looks like in case someone wasn’t too sure about it or, or what it included. Now, if you could go back 11 years and give younger cat advice, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self in your first year of working in education?


Katrin Heim (23:55):
Education is really about people.


Sam Demma (23:57):
Hmm. What does that mean? Tell me more


Katrin Heim (24:04):
It’s about kids. It’s about family, it’s about community. And I think I always had this sense, but I don’t know that I knew it or could have articulated its value the same way, you know, 11 years ago, as I, as I can now, you know, I’ve my first my first group of grade one and twos have now graduated.


Sam Demma (24:36):
Stop aging yourself.


Katrin Heim (24:39):
Know. I know. But


Sam Demma (24:41):
That’s


Katrin Heim (24:43):
Awesome. And to see, and to still to see these kids graduate. Yeah. And to be, you know, grow into the people that they are. And to know that not just myself, but all of their teachers through their school careers have impacted who they are as people who they are as learners. We’ve, you know, the relationships that I, as a grade one teacher established with my families sets the tone for their school careers. Yeah. You know, and, and these are the same families and the same students who are part of our community. And so I just, I just think education is really about people. It’s, it’s about kids. It’s about families, it’s about community and, and, and learning of course. But those relationships and those connections need to be front and center for that learning to take place.


Sam Demma (26:01):
Mm. I love that. Mm-Hmm, , that’s awesome. And I couldn’t agree more. I have a, a mentor who always tells me people buy people. Like at the end of the day, people buy people, you know, and relationships are extremely important. And I think it’s not only true in education, but in life in general, it’s like, it’s, it’s all about community and families and, and other people. If someone wants to reach out and talk to you, another person because it’s all about people, what would be the best email address to share, or what would be the best way for someone listening to reach out to you if they have any questions or just want to connect after listening?


Katrin Heim (26:38):
Sure. people can email me at katrin.heim@btps.ca.


Sam Demma (26:53):
Awesome. Katrin, thank you so much for coming on the show again. It’s been a pleasure having you on and keep up the awesome work innovating, and we’ll talk soon.


Katrin Heim (27:01):
Thanks Sam.


Sam Demma (27:03):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Katrin Heim

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.

May 14, 2022 by Athletic Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Brian McKenzie – Principal at Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School

Brian McKenzie - Principal at Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School
About Brian McKenzie

Brian McKenzie (@pforilla)has more than 30 years of experience in elementary, secondary and post-secondary education. Armed with a B.Ed. From Western in 1992, he joined the staff of Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School in Orillia as an English teacher and enjoyed more than ten years of teaching everything from English to Philosophy to Data Processing.

He moved from the classroom to the school office in 2004 and since then, he has served as vice-principal and principal in 6 schools and at the board office in privacy and information management.

With his wife Christine, a teacher, he has three adult children, two standard-issue cats, and a beautiful backyard where he spends summers watching the Blue Jays. He is currently the Principal of Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School in Orillia, where his teaching career began.

Connect with Brian McKenzie: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School in Orillia

Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board

The Transcript

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

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


Brian McKenzie (00:08):
Sure. My name is Brian McKenzie and I’m principal of Patrick Fogerty Catholic Secondary School in Orilla Ontario.


Sam Demma (00:13):
When did you realize when you were a student pursuing careers, that education was gonna be the vocation for you?


Brian McKenzie (00:22):
Well, I think I’d began in high school. I had been kind of a student who liked to help other students with with tutoring and with helping out with courses. I I was I was never really one initially for public speaking or presentations, but I was as a result of taking one of my, one of my high school courses where I was forced to presentation. And I found that I actually had some skill and some talent that you know, leading a class and, and, and doing that kind of that kind of thing. When I got into when I got into university, I took a number of courses where having, again, having to do presentations and seminars, where a component of the course, and I found that I had to talent for it.


Brian McKenzie (01:07):
I became a, a TA in my in my fourth year and a graduate assistant. And I was working on my master’s degree. And then after I finished, I, I became a a session instructor at the university as well for a while. I found that you know, being in a classroom was a, was a natural fit for me. And I enjoyed it and I found that other people recognized my students and my colleagues and the other professors wanted to reinforce and and, and compliment my my, my classroom ability. I just found it was a good fit for me, a very natural fit. And I, and I have always enjoyed it.


Sam Demma (01:45):
Did you have educators tap you on the shoulder and tell you, you, you should consider getting into teaching? Was that something that ever came in your journey?


Brian McKenzie (01:55):
Yeah, I wouldn’t say explicitly. I think that became a little bit later you know, when I was in university where I was encouraged to, to apply, to be, you know, a session instructor and, and as a graduate assistant, I think that came a little bit later. I don’t think it was so much that somebody explicitly said to me in high school or, or university, you should be a school teacher or, you know, get into high school so much as just that I was good at what I was doing.


Sam Demma (02:23):
Got it. Yeah, that makes, that makes sense. For someone who’s listening to this who thinks might be the thing for them, but is on the edge in a nutshell, why do you think education is one of the best jobs in the world?


Brian McKenzie (02:42):
oh, simple question. Yeah. Well, I, I think people often get caught up in in believing that teaching is is, is kind of a day to day activity. And I think we’ve gotta look more holistically at what education is. Mm. I’d heard it described when I, when I was much younger as it’s the process of transferring civilization from one generation to the next we’re engaged in a huge, huge responsibility. And it’s not just about, you know, the, the individual subjects or the individual kinds, the things that we do on a daily basis, but it, it’s more holistically about the importance of ensuring that we’re creating a future that we all wanna live in and, and excuse me. And I, and I think education is, is is a tremendously important part of separating us from are, you know, from, from the distant past of, of of superstition and of primitivism and of a lot of a lot of a lot of attitudes and beliefs that we are best leading behind.


Brian McKenzie (04:00):
I, I, you know, I remember as a, as a younger teacher teaching north prize, the educated imagination, and, and he goes at in great detail into what is the importance of education. And it’s literally, it is about creating the world that we want to live in. And, and again, you know, I, I, I’ve often heard this one too. I, I, I gotta retire into the world that the younger generation’s gonna run. So I’ve got him make sure that I’m setting the conditions for a, for a, a comfortable life for my generation and ensuring that the world is better than we’ve been than I found it.


Sam Demma (04:36):
Hmm. I love that that’s a worthy pursuit. from the moment you decided you wanted to get into education what did the journey look like? So take me back and take me through the steps that brought you from where you started to where you are today.


Brian McKenzie (04:55):
Okay. So, as I mentioned I was working as a as a, as a professional instructor at the, I was at the university of Windsor where I graduated. Yep. And my initial intent was to be a lawyer. I had known a couple of a couple of classmates who had pursued the law. And it, it seemed like an interesting thing to me when I was in high school and when I was in my first couple of years at university. But as I, you know, as I progressed through, I realized that that wasn’t really a good fit for me. So it was it was in it was in my time that I was working as an instructor, that I started exploring what it, you know, what it was required to be, to get into the faculty of education.


Brian McKenzie (05:40):
I don’t come from a family with with extensive education background my, on my mother and my father’s side most of the family were blue collar and and or semiprofessional workers that weren’t necessarily highly educated in terms of multiple, you know, secondary degrees had one uncle who’s who’s a university professor, but that was about, about it. So, so the notion of higher education and extensive multiple, you know, multiple degrees and going on to education, wasn’t really stressed, very highly in my band. This was kind of a, a, a process of self exploration and, and I found, you know, what’s involved in, in, in becoming a teachers, another, you know, going to school for another degree and spend more time. And, and that was very attractive to me, just when I, when I love that what was involved in, in the year of of, of the faculty of education.


Brian McKenzie (06:43):
And I saw what the courses were, they saw what it involved that was really attractive to me. And, and I applied to, I can’t remember what schools anymore. I ended up at the university of Western Ontario for the faculty of ed. And I, you know, I, I immersed myself in that. I had a great time there. And and you know, maybe I was very fortunate that you know, it was in the early nineties when teaching jobs were pretty scarce as they, as they have been for the last few years. But I was fortunate to end up getting a job right out of laid out of my graduate.


Sam Demma (07:23):
That’s awesome. And throughout the experience and the different roles and positions you played in education which of them have been from your perspective? Some of the most meaningful, and I, I’m sure it’s hard to compare the roles , but maybe the, the different pros and cons in different positions you’ve played throughout education.


Brian McKenzie (07:47):
Yeah, well, yeah, I started as a classroom teacher. I became in fact, I started as a classroom teacher at the school I’m currently at where I’m now principal 30 years ago. And, and I very much loved that being in a classroom and working with, especially in a smaller community is is very rewarding because you know, unlike unlike working in a larger city or a municipal school board where the schools are very large, this is a very, a relatively small school at the time. They only about 500 students when they started teaching the class were very small. The, it was very possible to get to know all the kids. It was a fairly close knit community because we are a Catholic high school. We’re the only Catholic high school in town. So we also had some tight integration with our church and with our parish and with our elementary school feeders schools.


Brian McKenzie (08:41):
And so you get to know each other very well and very closely. In fact, some of the students that I taught back in the nineties are parents of the school now. And so I, you know, I’ve known them for many, many years and that, that is a, that’s really exciting. And that’s really rewarding work because getting to know kids you know, not just in, in the classroom, but also seeing them out in the community, seeing them, the church, seeing ’em at the, you know, the Saturday morning market and all those kinds of things. It does foster a much greater sense of community. I left here and in 2002 and went on a, like a 17 year odysey of working in a number of different schools, as well as at our school board. And all of them brought different things in different rewards and, and had to create great advantages.


Brian McKenzie (09:33):
I worked in as an elementary principal, I’ve worked as a secondary principal. I’ve worked as a, as assistant to the superintendents at the board office. I’ve worked in information management and they’ve all brought the different perspectives on education. I you know, I, I, I feel that I’m much better running a school after having at some time working in the board off, being the bigger picture of how our system works from seeing things from the, from the, from the administrative side of the board, as well as from the, from the school side. And it’s given me the ability to, I think to provide a much I don’t wanna say more rational, but at at least a much more balanced approach to, to running a school and, and what kinds of programs and services I can offer to do.


Brian McKenzie (10:30):
I’ve never regretted, not, you know, leaving the classroom and beginning into administration. I miss being in a classroom sometimes. Mm. And I you know, I was a, I was a very dedicat English teacher when I was a teacher. And I know that I could walk into an English class right now today if I needed to and, and, and, and and lead the class and have a lot of fun with it. So I never really felt that I, I lost that that ability, but but I, I, I don’t see it as having lost in any of as much as having gained a lot more and having the, the responsibility for shaping the instruction across the entire school is very exciting. And, and it’s very rewarding work in and of itself because you can see over the course of a, of a school year, you can see the growth and you can see the the progress that the students make.


Sam Demma (11:22):
You’re probably a lot closer to viewing the future of education or how, you know, education is changing and shifting. What are some of the things that you think have changed over the past two years due to the, the global pandemic and moving forward that you think are positively changing in education.


Brian McKenzie (11:43):
But, well, definitely the pandemic has accelerated our, our efforts for what we’ve been calling 21st century learning. And what 21st century learning is about is using much more than just the traditional, you know, teacher in front of the classroom tools and and approaches to, to teaching and learning, and have many more influences on their ability to learn than just a classroom teacher. When I started teaching, if kids wanted to know something about Shakespeare, they had to go to their whole, their high school English teacher, or they had to go to the public library. And there wasn’t a whole lot of other ways, or, you know, or, you know, if their parents had invested in second Britanica, but there weren’t a whole lot of ways to obtain knowledge outside of traditional classroom structures. Now over the last you know, 20, 20, so years as, as with the rise of of the internet, and even more specifically with the rise of specific social media channels, there’s a much wider opportunity and, and much greater opportunity for students to, to, to learn things on their own or to be exposed to different perspectives.


Brian McKenzie (13:00):
So the job of schools now, and we’ve seen this very explicitly occurring over the last couple of years with the pandemic, the jobs of schools now is to harness that and to kind of filter it and to organize it in a way that makes it you know, I don’t wanna say constructivist, but you know, in a way that is provides some logical progression in learning, you know, I have kids of my own and, and, you know, long before they ever got to high school, my, my son’s in particular had in depth understanding and knowledge of physics from playing some some computer games and, and video games, and could rattle off all kinds of things about trajectory and speed and velocity, and, and a lot of, a lot of fairly advanced physics classes. They had no clue of the science behind it, or the math behind, but they kind of understood it.


Brian McKenzie (13:56):
So taking the time now to back up and explain how it all works, the math thing it is, is an important role for a classroom teacher. But we, we, we do have to do it in a, in a, in a very careful and structured way to ensure that the kids aren’t just coming away with, with the head of facts, without any understanding behind it, but going forward. What I, what I really see is, is the potential that’s going to be very positive is the opportunity for teachers to very much be instead of gatekeepers, very much facilitators and very much coaches who help the students to understand and, and and focus on how they acquire learning, as opposed to just simply learning things.


Sam Demma (14:47):
We talked a little bit about alternative pathways on our first planning call also. And it’s understanding that, you know, every pathway is a valid option and every learner might be a little bit different. How do you kind of foresee school supporting those students with the D streaming of, of courses and everything that’s changed now in education as well?


Brian McKenzie (15:14):
Well, pathways have been really important to us over the last 20 years. We’ve really focused a lot on shaping an, an education program for the individual student. Yeah. 30 credit sent out is is, is not any anymore, really the model for a lot of students. We have students who take some credits through the day program here at school. Some they take through e-learning outside of school. Some they take in summer school. We have the opportunity for students to get into apprenticeships, to get into reach ahead credits in their, in their postsecondary, through colleges. The idea of students, again, just sitting passively in the classroom and listening to teachers talk is, is, is long. You know, it’s pretty much long gone. I think even you may have experienced this in your own high school experience, but there there’s much more opportunity for kids to get out of the classroom and learn through experience.


Brian McKenzie (16:13):
So I, I think you know, some changes are coming from the ministry of education, include a greater emphasis on experiential learning, a greater emphasis on e-learning and a greater emphasis on, you know, exploring what not even state exploring of, of, of ensuring that there are stronger opportunities for the, the, or the skill trades. And and technology based programs is, is going to be, is going to be really important too many, too many years in Ontario. You know, and probably by extension, the rest of Canada, the perception has been that the only marker of secondary or post-secondary success is a university degree , and, and it’s an unfortunate belief. You know and, and then even, even in, in terms of a postsecondary degree, we tend to identify a very narrow slice of, of postsecondary education as being valid or valuable.


Brian McKenzie (17:15):
You know, I, I often when we have arts nights here at the school, we have a school called cert, or we have a drama presentation or something. I always remind the parents who are the people that we most admire in society. There are actors, there are musicians, there are artists of all different stripes, but when kids say to their parents, they’re interested in a career in the arts, the parents laugh at ’em and tell ’em, that’s a hobby. You, you get a real job being accountant. I, I think we need to make sure that we’re offering a much wider range of experiences for students and, and a, and a wider range of, of postsecondary pathways to help them arrive at what they see as personal success, as opposed to what somebody else measures as success based on something as narrow as a paycheck or, or a specific post secondary diploma.


Sam Demma (18:06):
Ah, I love it. I couldn’t agree more. I mean, pursuing this podcast is an artistic expression, and some people would say, you’re crazy. This is what you spend your days doing


Brian McKenzie (18:18):
But yeah, well, a hundred percent. Right. And, and, and the thing is, is that maybe you’re not using the specific education you receive, but yeah, I can guarantee that’s not a whole lot of what you’re doing that you, and doesn’t rely on education that you’re receiving


Sam Demma (18:32):
A hundred percent.


Brian McKenzie (18:32):
Do it without having been educated, but you don’t necessarily, you know, and that’s the same thing in my job. I, I don’t really, I was an English teacher, as I said, and a history teacher, I don’t really get to use a whole lot of my knowledge of you know, 17th century poetry in my daily job, but there’s no a way I could be doing my job right now. If I hadn’t been as a as well educated as I was. And education doesn’t necessarily mean, like I said, it doesn’t just necessarily mean a university degree in a very narrow slice of what are considered to be valid. Occupations. Education comes from a lot of different different sources. It includes, you know, like I said, includes hands on learning through the trades and or through technology programs, it includes travel. You know, you can see you know, your listeners won’t see, but you can see I’m wearing a a sweatshirt that says Kenya on it.


Brian McKenzie (19:23):
Our school board has been actively engaged for the last 15 years and what we call service learning, where we’ve taken students to a number overseas destinations to work on school projects. And and we integrated with a multi credit program here at the school, so that they’re understanding the global context with what they’re doing. We’ve had trips from everywhere from China to south America, to Africa, to India where students have explored you know, the opportunity to work in in, in community development project. And, and, and it’s, those, those experiences have changed their, their lives. They have into been the countries that they never could have imagined visiting and seeing things that they never could have imagined seen. And it’s changed. In many cases, it changed the trajectory of their own careers, and they became more involved in social justice and, and development work or, or law or other areas that that have provided them with a much more rewarding and much more rewarding career than they might have initial that they were going to have.


Sam Demma (20:34):
It’s amazing. I know your school does a great job with the social justice programming and programs. I’m curious though, for yourself over the course of your career, what resources, even maybe people resources, but what resources have you found helpful in building your own philosophy and also tangible actions that you’ve taken in education? What resources have helped shape those things?


Brian McKenzie (21:01):
Well, I, I think the the greatest resource that we have in education is our colleagues. Mm. There’s an old joke that that, you know, well, it’s too likely to get into here. It’s okay. But just spice it to say that, you know, that, that, you know, there’s the old joke that you know, those who can’t teach or those who can’t do teach. Right. And, and, and, and that’s not at all, and that’s not at all true. What I do know is that some of the smartest and some of the most capable people I’ve met in my life have been my colleagues in education and whatever, I think I know whatever I think I’m good at. I spend sometimes 15 minutes, 20 minutes chatting with somebody at a meeting or in a conference call or something like that. And, and I learn something new.


Brian McKenzie (21:51):
I come away having learned something new every time because everybody has their own everybody has their own kind of way of learning for themselves as well. So if we take, you know, me sitting home alone or sitting at night on, you know, browsing on my computer and I, and I, and two or three new facts multiply that times to thousands of teachers in, in the system and the thousands of kids. And we’re all bringing that information back to the back to school together you know, education, isn’t just a one way isn’t just a one way thing. Schools are a place for where everybody learn. And, you know, when I, when I, I talk to my colleagues, when I hear ideas, we’ll, we bounce ideas off. Each other people ask for advice and people give advice. There there’s a lot of a lot of really powerful learning that can take place just in a, in a, in a, you know, on a casual conversation more, you know, more formally as I said, I spent a couple of beers in, in information management and several years working, you know, at the board off level doing that kind of stuff.


Brian McKenzie (23:02):
And what I’ve learned from what happens around the world in other places. You know, again, we often have the perception that we’re, you know, here in Ontario, we’re doing everything right. We’re, we’re the, we’re the pinnacle of, of educational achievement, but there are other places around the world that are far ahead of Ontario in, in a lot of areas and and do a far better job than, than we do in, in, in a lot of things. You know, I think of some jurisdictions where kids don’t even start school until they’re seven, whereas the, in Ontario get them into school as early as possible, starting as you as three. And yet schools that start kids later, you know, at age seven, in many ways, our, our have better outcomes for, for students than, than what we have here. When we’re starting in that three.


Brian McKenzie (23:54):
You I’ve learned a lot from studying how, you know, those other jurisdictions do things, how they make up for the lost time that, well, the perception of lost time by having kids start four year later, well, what are they doing for that? You know, from the time between H three agent, what are they doing? What are they doing? yeah, I mean, we are, we all have to recognize that whatever it is that we think we do well, there are other people who do things, do things well and sometimes even better, we can’t be so high bound in our own way of doing things that we can’t we can’t learn from them.


Sam Demma (24:32):
I love that perspective. And even if you approach every situation, thinking, you can learn something from the other party, you’ll probably one enjoy the experience talking to someone else or being around someone else, or being exposed to something new. And the chances are, you probably will take something away from that interaction. So I think it’s a good perspective.


Brian McKenzie (24:56):
Yeah. You know, and I, and I, and I do try to approach things that way when I was, when I was younger, it was, I’m gonna tell you something , and, and now it’s gonna be, can you please tell me something? I, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve learned that as well is that I have to be, you know, much more in a receptive mode than in a transmi mode. And and, and, and that’s where I’ve I think that’s, like I said, by, by just by talking to people, that’s where I’ve gained the most. I used to, I used to go to a lot more, again, when in my information management, I used to go to a lot of conferences. That’s where, that’s where I had to learn to sit down and be quiet. Cause most of the people in the room were a lot smarter and more knowledgeable than I was. And if I was going to be of any value in the role I had to learn to listen more than than talk and then be able to bear my, you know, my, my, my new learnings with with my colleagues.


Sam Demma (25:53):
I love it. Th this probably dovetails really nicely with my next question, which is, if you were able to take all your experiences and in education bundle, ’em up, go back in time to the first class you taught, tap yourself on the shoulder and say, Hey, Brian, this is what you needed to hear when you were just starting, knowing what you know now and the experience you have, what would you have told your younger self?


Brian McKenzie (26:19):
Oh man. Well the same thing that I’m telling my, my teachers here in my school now is that you can’t push students to learn more than they’re ready you to learn at any given time. Mm-Hmm what does, you know? And, and I, and I, I guess what I’m referring to specifically is the experience that we’ve just gone through over the last two years. We have gotten into the, the, into the, you know, into a mindset where we think we’ve lost time. We’re losing time, we’re losing time. And, and that the solution to the lost time is to accelerate base accelerate the, you know, the rate of learning, but it doesn’t work that way. You can’t say to a student who’s behind, I’m gonna, you know, jam you with more work to get you caught up. It just, it just won’t work.


Brian McKenzie (27:20):
You know, back in the, in the early nineties, there was, again, the baby bit of a, a bit of a story. There’s old episode of the Simpsons where the, the family moves to Colorado and they, Homer takes a new job working in a new power plant. And Bart ends up in a, in a special ed cloth because he’s behind the other kids in, in the new school that he’s in and the teacher is doing, you know, it’s a, it’s a silly team. The teacher is doing a joke, or it’s a bunch of kids sitting around the table and she’s gonna teach them to letter a and Bart says, let me get this straight. We’re behind the other kids. And we’re going to catch up to them by going slower than they are. And I’ve always that that line has always stuck with me as a teacher and as an administrator.


Brian McKenzie (28:06):
I, you know, again, it’s a funny throw away kind of line, but there’s some wisdom in it too, because oftentimes this is what the situation we, we, we put our, our students into is that we think that you’re behind so that the, the, the better way, the best way thing we need to do is to jam you with more work, which means slowing you down when students are behind. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop the bus and figure out where are we, why are people being left behind? If, you know, if one or two kids are, are, are behind, okay. Yeah, we can, we can check into their, their work habits, or we can look into their, into their skills, but if an entire class or an entire school is behind, then maybe we gotta stop and figure out what it is we’re doing and are, you know, what is the, what is the source?


Brian McKenzie (28:57):
What is the cause? And what can we do to help get everybody back on track? Often use the, the metaphor of the, you know, if there’s an old story, I don’t know how true it is, but there’s an old story that you know, the British rail system at one point decided that in order to make sure the buses ran on time, it would stop picking up passengers. Right? So if the bus, if the bus had to, you know, left the Depot at 8:00 AM, and it was due at its first stop at 8 0 5 and then at eight, 10, and then eight 15, or something like that, if it saw too many passengers waiting to get on it, would, it wouldn’t stop and pick them up because it had to be at the next stop for, you know, five minutes later. And the joke is, of course, the, a bus driver would get to the end of the run and there’d be nobody on the bus, but he was on, at least he was on time.


Brian McKenzie (29:41):
And, and, and again, sometimes I think that’s what we do in the classroom. We get so intent on, you know, delivering curriculum and making sure we get all of our lessons in, and we make sure we hammer the kids with work on assignments and tests and, and on and on and on. And then, you know, you get to the end of the semester and you’ve lost the kids. They’re, you know, and, and there’s a lot of different ways that you know, again, you know, from your own experience, there’s a lot of different ways that kids show that they’re lost, right. They stop attending class or they’re, or they’re not doing their homework anymore. They, they shut down or they’re, you know, they’re acting out or there’s a lot of different kinds of indicators that the teacher has lost has lost the class. So we wanna make sure. And, and for me, , I wanna make sure that as we go forward, we’re not, you know, we’re not running the buses on time, we’re picking up passengers.


Sam Demma (30:31):
Mm. I love that. That’s such a cool analogy. And the Bart Simpson story, being someone who wants that every once in a while. that’s awesome. Well, if someone wants to reach out to you based on this interview, ask a question, talk about anything you discuss today, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?


Brian McKenzie (30:52):
You can, well, we have a social media channel for our school. It’s Instagram and on Twitter, it’s at @pforilla. Our school’s website is https://pfo.schools.smcdsb.on.ca/ and you know, there’s contact information for the school on there. And I’m, I’m, I’m I’m available through those channels primarily, cuz you know, I, I get too many emails to try to try to follow, but you know, there’s, there’s a couple of us that track the DMS on the, on the Instagram and on the Twitter channel. So we’ll be able to probably follow what best there.


Sam Demma (31:37):
Awesome. Brian, thank you so much for making the time to come on the show. I hope you enjoy the experience and keep up the great work and education.


Brian McKenzie (31:45):
Thanks a lot. And, and, and good luck to you with.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Brian McKenzie

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.

May 9, 2022 by Experiential Learning Principals Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Bluefield Leadership Class **Student Interview**

Ryan Laughlin – Leadership Teacher at Bluefield High School
About Ryan Laughlin

Ryan Laughlin (@stickr10) is a proud Bluefield Bobcat from Prince Edward Island. Ryan is a veteran Physical Education and Leadership educator at Bluefield High School.

Ryan prides himself on physical fitness, servant leadership, and teaching engaging lessons that serve to develop leadership skills.

Today we are joined by the students in his two leadership classes. We ask them all the questions you’d be interested in hearing as an educator.  

Connect with Ryan: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bluefield High School

PEI Teachers’ Federation

Physical Education Association of PEI

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 the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma, and I’m super excited to be joined again by Ryan. Ryan and I already did an interview. You haven’t heard it yet because it’s not live, but it’s coming out very soon, but today I won’t be actually interviewing him. I’m gonna be interviewing two of his leadership classes and the students inside those classes. And the reason I’m so excited about this conversation is that you’re gonna get the opportunity to hear from students, you know, from a different part of the world what their experience has been like going through school during this time. Ryan, why don’t you kick us off by just kind of explaining where this idea came from, and why you wanted to, why you wanted to do this?


Ryan Laughlin (01:15):
Sure. So like a lot of places in Canada, there’s been a lot of restrictions in what we’ve been able to do, especially with our leadership classes. So I was talking to a colleague, Melanie Headley, and we were brainstorming ideas where we could engage students with something creative and give ’em an experience that I have not been able to because of restrictions. So we were talking about podcasts, she mentioned your name and I reached out and we connected and here we are.


Sam Demma (01:39):
Yeah. And I’m excited; I’m super excited so thank you for taking this on. I mean, we could just jump right in. We’ve we’ve outlined some questions and you have some students selected so why don’t we just call Jordan up to get started? You know, Jordan, the first thing I’m curious to know is your experience, as a student, how has it been affected during COVID 19?


Jordan (02:01):
I feel that at the start of the year, it was the most challenging to try to get used to all the protocols and wearing the masks and stuff, but in the whole run of things, I guess it was really minor because they’re really adaptable and once you got in the routine of doing them you know, it’d feel very unnormal not to do them right now. But I feel I of the big thing that has been most challenging is the uncertainty that it’s brought to the school year. Like I found that not knowing whether or not the materials that were cut outta some of the classes this year will affect or make challenges next year, going into University.


Sam Demma (02:45):
Mm, yeah. Such a good point, and do you already know what you wanna study or what you wanna get into?


Jordan (02:50):
Yeah, I’m going into business next year.


Sam Demma (02:52):
Oh, nice. Very cool, thanks so much for sharing. I totally agree. The uncertainty, this situation has brought is not only thrown off school, but like literally everything. My heart also goes out to the athletes who spent years training for something and now it’s falling apart. Jayden, I’m curious to know your perspective, you know, how has COVID 19 affected you personally? And I see you’re all wearing masks, so I’ll virtually put mine on as well, but go ahead.


Jayden (03:19):
Well for like sports and stuff, it’s kind of taken away from some of the time that we could like spend doing that. Like the rugby season last year got taken away from like all the students so that was, that kind of sucked. And also like the normal prom and graduation, that’s also another thing that’s kind of taken away from a lot of the students. And also what Jordan said, the uncertainty of like, whether it’s gonna affect next year, or even if we’re gonna go into like another lockdown again, the first one was pretty rough for a lot of people. So, couldn’t imagine going into like another big one.


Sam Demma (04:00):
Yeah. I hear you, man. The mental toll that we all went through going through a lockdown is super real, and I don’t think it gets talked about a lot, but we’re not supposed to live inside our individual homes and never see other human beings. , you know, I, I think if we go through another lockdown, we’re all gonna become these socially awkward humans that don’t know how to interact and talk other people. But yeah, that’s so right. And, and thank you for sharing. We’ll move on, we’ll move on. Let’s go right to Grace or actually let’s, let’s go right to Grace Conley. What are some things Grace that you think your teacher or other teachers in your school have done that you think have been helpful during this time?


Grace Angel (04:40):
Well I’m Grace Angel. Grace Conley’s not here yet, so I’ll just, I’ll just go first.


Sam Demma (04:46):
Oh, perfect.


Grace Angel (04:48):
So I found it really helpful that teachers were, I thought of as kind to remind they’re very patient and they reminded us to sanitize and put our masks up like distance and they don’t tend to flip out over it. They know from the most part that we didn’t need to forget and they know how scary, stressful the situation is for us and adults, because they tend to have kids of their own. And they’ve given us like leeway on assignments and stuff. And they’re just, there’s overall very understanding of how hard this is for everyone.


Sam Demma (05:23):
And what does patients look like in your perspective? Like when you say they’ve been patient, what do you mean by that?


Grace Angel (05:30):
Well, they’ve like, okay. So every day, like they constantly tell us to pull up our masks cause we keep putting them down and nice. They’re not like send us to the office. They’re just like, they keep remind us over and over. And they’re not like getting frustrated with it right away. They there’s


Sam Demma (05:51):
No punishment


Grace Angel (05:52):
Learning curve.


Sam Demma (05:53):
Yeah. There’s no punishment. It’s almost like I remember when I was in high school, you show up to class late and then if you show up to class late a second time, it’s like go to the office. like, you know, I feel like in this time you’re right. Like that has been reversed. We’re a lot more understanding and empathetic of the situation because everyone’s going through this, this new learning. So I totally agree. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. We’ll move on right to you Cassie Casie. I’m really curious to know what do you want more of right now? Like what do you think would make your school experience more impactful or a little better?


Jordan (06:32):
Okay. I’m Charlie. I think this one was my question. Okay.


Jordan (06:36):
So right now, like kind of just want normalcy, especially since it is our graduation year. And we are really lucky here in P because we’re able to be in school and we’re able to do things that a lot of other students in, around the world in, in the, in the country aren’t able to do. And I do wanna of COVID-19 and like why there are certain measures in place, but honestly it just kinda sucks. Like not being able to graduate with the people that we’ve been in school with for the past 12 years and not being able have school activities that make school enjoyable, just kind of make it less than ideal.


Sam Demma (07:17):
Yeah, I agree. And I made a mistake, so everyone listening, I apologized I asked their own question to the wrong people. But yeah. Charlie, thank you so much for sharing Cora, what’s your perspective on this?


Jordan (07:31):
Okay, so what was the question again?


Sam Demma (07:35):
like, what do you want more of right now? What do you think would make your school experience better?


Jordan (07:40):
Okay. So for what I wrote is I kinda just thought that we’ve done what, like 12 years of school with the exact same people. And I just think that in our last, probably like month even, it’s just been a lot of actual school work and I really just wanna be here with the people. Well, like doing activities like we, our grad week, we barely basically have like, like the activities that some of the other students gone to do, like seniors in the past years, we didn’t get to do anything nearly as fun. But like I, Charlie said, it’s not really anything you can do because of COVID, but yeah. Yeah. I just wish that we got to be here with the people and not do as much school even while we’re in the school.


Jordan (08:34):
And you


Jordan (08:34):
Can do that.


Sam Demma (08:35):
That sounds like what I would’ve wanted if I was in grade 12 again.


Jordan (08:39):
Yeah, exactly.


Sam Demma (08:41):
All right. Thanks for sharing both of you. I appreciate that. Well now move on to Cassie for real Cassie, if, if you had to give me an idea, like, what do you think makes a, a strong student leader or a good student leader? Nice glasses, by the way.


Cassie (08:56):
Thank you very much. I think that a great student leader is someone who’s selfless and kind. It’s someone who genuinely cares about other people and shows dedication and all that they do. It’s someone who contributes and is very involved in their school and community, and when they see opportunity to help or make a change that they take it,


Sam Demma (09:19):
Love it. And do you think student leaders are individuals that wear like clout goggles and glasses?


Cassie (09:25):
Yes. Specifically clout goggles.


Sam Demma (09:27):
love it. All right. Thank you so much for sharing. Sam, you have the, you know, one of the most beautiful names in the world. Can you tell me your perspective?


Sam (09:37):
Well, I agree with everything that Cassie said, but also someone who isn’t afraid to go outside their comfort zone, maybe like wear clout passes to school and someone that looks at things in different ways and tries to make other people fit in. So like having a spirit day that maybe includes the athletes and another one that includes like a different group of people, not just into like one group of people in the school, having a chance for everyone to be included.


Sam Demma (09:59):
Love it, man. Love it. What does your hat say?


Sam (10:01):
My hat says PEI rugby.


Sam Demma (10:03):
Ah, you play rugby. Yeah. Nice man. Love that. Love that. That’s awesome. Thank you both for sharing. Appreciate it. We will move on to Olivia. Olivia, what is one thing you’ve learned from this class ALA, you know, Ryan’s not listening that has had the biggest impact on you.


Jordan (10:20):
So one of the things I learned in this class that had a big impact on me was the meaning of servant leadership and what a servant leader is. It wasn’t really a philosophy I was very aware of before and knew much about, but we really dived into it here. And I really liked the project we did with it in class, where we like interviewed a servant of leader from a provincial organization, a provincial nonprofit, and we got to really meet them and connect them and share who they are to our class.


Sam Demma (10:45):
So if you had to, in your own words, describe what a servant leader is like from what you’ve learned. Like, how would you kinda, how would you explain it?


Jordan (10:53):
For me, a servant leader is someone who recognizes a problem in their community and takes charge by helping those people that are not as privileged or not, as, I don’t know, profitable in the community, like they’re taking charge and helping people that need it the most. Nice. And they’re serving by doing the work that they recognize that has to be done. They’re leading, they’re trying to build other leaders in the community. They’re not focused on having as much of the authority position as just trying to take charge and help others.


Sam Demma (11:22):
Yeah. They’re not focused on the CLO goggles. They’re focused on the work. love it. I’m just, that’s totally joking. thank you so much for sharing. That was a great answer. That another Sam, oh wow. We got lots of Sam. Sam, what do you think has been the most impactful thing you’ve learned from this class


Sam (11:39):
In this class? Definitely communication. Like throughout the semester, we’ve had like so many activities to focus on communication and working with others. Like we do nonverbal communication, like just like a month ago, we did one where we’d put in groups and like we’d have to put together shape without actually communicating like one person’s outta shape. Another person didn’t see shape. But anyways, the point is Mr. Locklin, I feel like, definitely focuses a lot on communicating, whether it be non-verbal or, you know, just like learning how to communicate as a leader. You know, like being polite and being respectful and like, you know, taking consideration, like reading the room or whatever, he taught us a lot, how to do that. Nice. which obviously is quite important in a leisure class. And of course, quite useful to assume the years in general,


Sam Demma (12:26):
Love that. Thanks for sharing. I think communication’s so important, like reading other people’s body language and also being able to express your idea is in a, in a succinct way, super, super valuable, especially in any future jobs you get into or any leadership position. So thank you both for sharing. Let’s move on to the next question. So if you could give your younger self, your younger high school self advice what would you say? Is Will here yet by the way? By the way, okay, so we’ll start with Will, ’cause I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask and see if he’s here and then we’ll move on.


Will (13:00):
I find everything kind of comes into your life for a reason whether you make mistakes, like you have to make mistakes and fail to like actually learn something. And I find that’s like one of the main things, if I like told like knew that whenever I was younger, like making mistakes is fine and like failing’s fine, but that’s like definitely the biggest one


Sam Demma (13:21):
For me. Yeah. I find that sometimes we attach our self worth to our school and our grades and our accomplishments. And if we don’t, you know, succeed, we feel like we’re worthless or like we, we failed when in reality failing to just you learn , you know, you’re realizing what you did wrong. So thank you so much for sharing. Is it Nalia?


Jordan (13:42):
Yeah. It’s Nalia


Sam Demma (13:43):
Perfect. What, what about, what’s your perspective? What’s something you’d share with your younger high school self?


Jordan (13:47):
If I could tell my younger high school self anything, it would be kind of just to enjoy the small thing. So like looking back as the class of 2021, we have one normal year of high school. So it was our grade 10 year. And I definitely took things for granted in my grade til year, if that was sports or social activities or just really the environment around the school. I do anything right now to go back to the way that was two years ago. So I think I just would really tell him not to take anything for granted and to every opportunity, but to make sure that you are making smart choices and you’re making the right choices because though we really think it’s not often the right time we learned this year that maybe you only have one time. So this world is so packed unknowns. I really just think you have to take advantage of every opportunity in front of you.


Sam Demma (14:33):
Yeah. I love that. It’s funny. Cause I read this post on online the other day was talking about when you talk about, you know, way back when, you know, when our parents are 40 years old and they say, oh, I remember back in high school, like these moments will still, we’ll still have those conversations, you know, so we should live it to the fullest of its potential regardless. And I, I agree. Totally. Thank you so much for sharing that and love the bucket hat by the way. super, super swaggy. All right. Last question. And we’ll start off with Matt, Matt mills, any final pieces of advice for another student who’s listening right now,


Will (15:08):
Some final pieces of advice would be don’t get too caught up in we’re about your future. Cause the people around you will be around you for a limited amount of time, cuz people go other high school or universities and go away for hockey. You know, you never know, right? So you gotta spend as much time with them as you can. And you don’t wanna be looking back thinking you could spend more time with them when you’re too busy, worry about your future.


Sam Demma (15:34):
Agreed. And I also think it’s important to stay like, you know, don’t let our egos get in between our friendships. Sometimes we hesitate or stop ourselves from reaching out to people that we haven’t talked to in a long time, because maybe there was something that happened five years ago and it’s like, yo, push that aside. You know that person and you could have a beautiful relief, you know, be the bigger person and reach out. I love that advice. And I’m giving you this advice as well and also sharing it to anyone watching, because I also need it at certain points. So thanks for sharing that. I appreciate it. And Grace, what about yourself?


Grace (16:08):
The most important advice I’d give to myself, I’d probably just to be more in high school. Like I found that if you’re more involved in your school and doing activities and spirit days and stuff like that, then it makes it a way better environment to grow up in. Yeah. And also like what said to not take your high school years for granted, like it’s some of the best years of your life. And I remember like when I was in grade 10, I was like, oh, be in grade 12. Like I just wanna graduate and stuff like that. But I think that the grade tens need to take this time and like actually experience high school and not just wish it away.


Sam Demma (16:45):
Yeah. Love that. Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it. Great job everyone. If everyone on three could yell. Thank you. Appreciate it. Are you ready? 1, 2, 3.


Ryan Laughlin (16:57):
Thank you


Sam Demma (16:58):
So great to hear from you guys from leadership class with Ryan at Bluefield, this, this has been a phenomenal podcast. Ryan, we wanna pop back in for one quick second, just to wrap this up. Thank you so much for organizing this for setting up the idea. We have another class coming on the afternoon and will be slapping these two episodes together as like a long masterclass from the students, any final words you wanna share or things you wanna express or, or say


Ryan Laughlin (17:23):
No, I think this was great. The new experience for the students and you could tell they were a little nervous yesterday leading into it, and I think they did a great job and it’s interesting to hear the different perspectives from different people and connected them together and giving them a new experience, which I think is valuable.


Sam Demma (17:38):
I agree. I agree. And if anyone, if anyone’s listening and was inspired by something your student said and wanted to reach out to one of them to ask them a follow up question what would be an email that they could send you to relay it to a student?


Ryan Laughlin (17:52):
Sure. Yeah. So my email is rjlaughlin@cloud.edu.pe.ca. So they wanted to fire me a message. I could forward it to the students for the next month to five weeks here and then they’re on their way into their new adventures.


Sam Demma (18:06):
Awesome. Ryan, thank you so much for organizing this really appreciate it. It’s been a pleasure and let’s stay in touch. It’ll talk soon.


Ryan Laughlin (18:12):
Awesome. Thanks.


Sam Demma (18:13):
And we’re back with Ryan’s second class, Ryan. Thank you again for being here and bringing your students. It’s super exciting.


Ryan Laughlin (18:20):
Yeah. It’s great to be here. I’m excited to see these students have a conversation with you.


Sam Demma (18:24):
All right. We’ll jump right in. We’ll start off with Amber, Amber, I’m curious to know has been the most challenging aspect of COVID 19 for yourself as a student.


Jordan (18:34):
Well, especially being a part of the graduating class of 2021, it is evident that COVID has faced off with like several challenges from wearing masks on a daily to not being able to see your friends as often. I mainly think that the most challenging part of like having COVID would have to be just planning all of our grad events and not being able to have the, the like expected graduation and prom and just all those fun events that we always looked up to. I definitely think though that this is something, even though we hated at the moment, it’ll be something that we look back on in the future and we’re gonna be grateful for eventually


Sam Demma (19:13):
adversity builds strength. Right. I, I totally agree. Emily, what about you? What’s your perspective on this?


Jordan (19:19):
So I kinda said the same thing, the most challenging part would be missing out on a lot of the things that we got to do without COVID. So this year we didn’t have a winter formal at our school and going on field trips was harder and our pro graduation is a lot different than it typically would be, but I’m glad that we got to do in person learning.


Sam Demma (19:38):
Nice love that. Thank you so much for sharing. And I totally agree. I know you got some, a virtual background of a beach. I really miss just traveling as well, right. yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. Perfect. Moving on. We will go right to Devon. I’m curious to know what is something your teacher or the teachers in your school have done this year that you think has been really helpful? Despite the situation


Will (20:01):
I would say they definitely helped a lot with the safety protocols because the start of the year, we were really good with sanitizing and everyone wearing their masks. And as the year just progressed, a lot of people on started lacking off with it. But for me, most of my teachers remind everyone when they come into class and since they’ve done that, everyone’s just kind of kept on track with it. So I’d say the teachers have definitely helped the most with that.


Sam Demma (20:24):
I love that. Love that. And I you’re all wearing your masks, so good job. Ellie, what about yourself?


Jordan (20:30):
So I my, my teachers have been really helpful as in, they’ve still tried to organize things to get us out of the classroom and just, they’re always smiling and always like understanding that we are going through a lot right now with COVID and it is a totally different experience than we ever would’ve expected. So we’re still going on some different forms of field trips and we’re getting outta the classroom and they’re organizing different events for us which is very helpful along with just them, them being nice in general as well.


Sam Demma (20:57):
Yeah. I hear you. It it’s like, I think teachers right now are working a hundred times harder to just even make school possible. You know what I mean? Yeah. So why don’t we on three? Just yell out loud. Thank you for everyone in your class for Ryan ready? 1, 2, 3. love it. Awesome. All right, moving on. We’ll move to Carla. Carla, I’m curious to know what do you want more of right now? Like what do you think would make your school experience better?


Jordan (21:28):
For me, it would be more gathering. So during COVID we didn’t get to have our winter formal, like Emily said earlier, our graduating like from is different this year. We didn’t like at the cafeteria table, we’re allowed to have four people in my group of friends is like a group of like eight or nine. So we can’t all sit together even just at school either.


Sam Demma (21:50):
Yeah. I hear you. Nice bucket hat by the way. Emma, what about yourself?


Jordan (21:57):
Yeah, so definitely right now is something I want is freedom. Of course, that’s almost physically impossible. We’re all trying to do our part with COVID, but ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always dreamed of a big graduate and a very big prom and going to all the high school parities, but of course, with the protocols we’re we aren’t able to do that, but I live by everything happens for a reason. So I choose to take COVID. And even though there’s a lot of negatives, I choose to take the positives and realize how much I’ve grown and matured from the challenges and adversity. Come


Sam Demma (22:29):
Love it. Love it also, by the way, nice bucket hat. appreciate the answers. It really feels like you’re on a beach, so it’s awesome. I love that. Yeah, that’s great. Cool. All right. Moving on to the next question. Sabrina, what do you think, what do you think makes a great student leader?


Jordan (22:49):
So me a great student leader is somebody who is very involved in school and I’m personally very involved in my school and I love to include as many people as I can. And I think that’s what makes Bluefield really good school for leadership, because we are very inclusive and that’s like my main thing and just be kind to everybody. Nice. Yeah. That’s


Sam Demma (23:15):
By the way, we don’t actually use the video, so don’t stress too much about it. but I would, I would say like, you’re a superhero, like bouncing in and out of the video. , you know, like when I was a kid, I always wanted to be invisible, but no, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate it. And again, don’t worry about it. We don’t, we don’t actually use the video. Jenaya what about yourself? And did I pronounce that correctly?


Jordan (23:38):
Yeah. Jenaya but that was pretty good, actually. So for me, like a great student leader would have to be someone who has like, I really like students interest and they’re like willing to hear everybody out. And recently we just picked like our Val Victorians. So like, I just like chose who I thought best like represented the school, but then also like every other student as well. They’re also the ones who make connections like in the hallway with like a simple, like, Hey, like how you doing? You know? And they just are really good, critical, cool thinkers and show like a lot of commitment and consistency within like the school as well.


Sam Demma (24:09):
Nice. It love it. Love it. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you both sharing. you ever seen that vine where the guy goes like this and he just disappears? that’s literally what’s happening right now. Thank you both for sure. I appreciate it. All right, next question. Let’s go with Beth. Beth, what do you think is something you’ve learned from this class that has had a big impact on you?


Jordan (24:34):
Well, just from this class, I learned kind of how to express my thoughts and opinions. I’m the type of person who’s more shy until you get to know me. So I don’t really open up to people unless I’m comfortable around them, but in this class we have like a lot of great leaders and a lot of social people. So it just kind of allowed me to open up and share, even if I’m not like comfortable with them necessarily. So it just kind of encouraged me to step outta my comfort zone.


Sam Demma (25:00):
Love it. Love it. Thank you for sharing. Awesome. And Neil, what about yourself?


Neil (25:04):
The biggest thing I learned would be skills of patience. So I play and also coach sports. Nice. So you have to learn how to be patient with cuz I coach little, 10 and 11 year olds. So you have to learn how to be patient with them. Cuz what I think as a 17 year old would be easy, might not be the same as what they find difficult. Like I, I had a little dude who could only make it to half court and that was a big accomplishment. But if I was to look at one of my high school teammates during a drill thinking, they can only do their drill to half court, then that wouldn’t be up to standards. So you just have to learn to be patient and know everyone’s situation to be able to adapt to it.


Sam Demma (25:42):
Love that adaptability sounds like empathy as well. Sounds like it could be put in. They’re empathizing with the skills of different players on your team and their situations. That’s awesome, man. Thanks for sharing. And do you have aspirations to continue coaching?


Neil (25:56):
Yeah, I would like to continue coaching. My dad’s coached me ever since I was a little dude and I would love to have kids someday and coached them. That would be, that’s a big dream of mine.


Sam Demma (26:05):
Nice man. Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. All right, perfect. Onto the next question. Let’s go with Gracie, if you could give your younger self advice, what would you say?


Jordan (26:18):
Basically just try and be optimistic, optimistic about things and things will like will change through time. I say this because looking back on myself, like in great and everything like I’ve developed more skills and knowledge and experiences throughout my whole high school experience. Also like I’m volunteer with my community. I’m able to keep a part-time job in overcoming struggles along the way through this, I’m able to reflect and change things through like experiences and everything. And back in grade 10, like I don’t think I would ever be able to do all the things I’ve done.


Sam Demma (26:53):
Love it. Great advice. Kaylee, what about yourself?


Jordan (26:56):
Yeah. If I could give my younger high school self advice, it would probably be to just live in the moment. Like you never know, the world’s always changing. You can’t really predict the future and you can’t change the past. You just gotta live in the moment. Focus on what’s right in front of you.


Sam Demma (27:12):
Yeah, love that. I think right now it’s a good reminder too, because we’re all striving to wait for the world to get back to normal. as opposed to live in life right now. So yeah, it’s great. Great advice. Thanks for sharing. All right. Onto the next question. You know, is there any final pieces of advice for students listening right now? Adele, anything you wanna share?


Jordan (27:33):
So I believe the path to enjoying high school is to get involved and not to be afraid to try new things. I always enjoyed musical theater, but I was always scared of what other people would think. But last year I was in a school musical and it was one of the best experiences of my life.


Sam Demma (27:51):
Oh, I love that. What did you act? Were you behind the scenes? Like what was your position?


Jordan (27:55):
Well I had quite a big role in the show, so I was involved in like all the choreography and like a huge part of harmonies and all that stuff, so yeah.


Sam Demma (28:06):
Oh cool. Love that. Awesome. Good stuff. And Jenna, what about yourself?


Jordan (28:10):
Well, mine’s kinda the same as Adele, but I think that high school will be like a treasure time of your life for the rest of your life. You know, you’ve heard from every wise woman, every grandma . So get involved, make friends study hard, but remember that your high school career isn’t soon, it’ll only be a memory that you look back on. So make it a memory that you want to look back on and appreciate.


Sam Demma (28:30):
Love it. Love it. Awesome. All right. Let’s yell. Thank you everyone. On, in on three for this episode, 1, 2, 3.


Ryan Laughlin (28:38):
Thank you.


Sam Demma (28:40):
Bluefield leadership. It was, it was a great chatting with you, Ryan, if you wanna hop back on for one quick second, we’ll wrap things up. Again, thank you so much for pointing to us together. It was awesome. Everyone already has your contact info for so no need to share it again, but I just wanted to say one final. Thank you. And keep up with the awesome work.


Ryan Laughlin (28:56):
I appreciate Sam. I’m glad that you were open to this and it was a really cool experience with the two classes. So I enjoyed it a lot. I wanna thank you for that.


Sam Demma (29:03):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Ryan Laughlin

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.

May 2, 2022 by Athletic Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Michael Straile – Assistant Principal Bonnyville Centralized High School

Michael Straile – Assistant Principal Bonnyville Centralized High School
About Michael Straile

Michael Straile has been the Assistant Principal of Bonnyville Centralized High School since 2018.  Previously, Michael taught grades 7 & 8 at H.E. Bourgoin Middle School in Bonnyville.  His passions outside of teaching include acting and film.  

Connect with Michael: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bonnyville Centralized High School

H.E. Bourgoin Middle School

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is someone that I actually met speaking at a teacher’s convention last May. And his name is Michael Stralie. He has been the assistant principal of Bonnyville Centralized High school since 2018. Previous to that role, Michael taught grade 7 and 8 at another high school in his city.


Sam Demma (00:58):
and aside from teaching, he’s really passionate about movies, acting, and all things film. In fact, he has his own role in a full length feature film , which is absolutely amazing. so stay tuned for that, but in the meantime, enjoy the conversation that we had about his journey into education and what it was like for him growing up as a high school student. I hope you enjoy this and I’ll see you on the other side. Michael, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show, literally after meeting you less than a week ago. why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and how you got into the work you’re doing in education today?


Michael Stralie (01:37):
Oh, that’s a long story actually. My name is Michael Stralie. Teaching, so my 12th year teaching and my 3rd year as a, as a assistant principal, actually. I’ve taught from middle school, so I’ve taught grade seven and eight social studies in English. And then when I moved to the high school, I’ve taught social 10/1, 20/1, and K&E, which is knowledge and employability, math, science, English, and social. So I’m kind of go wherever they tell me really.


Sam Demma (02:06):
that’s nice. Nice.


Michael Stralie (02:08):
Yeah.


Sam Demma (02:09):
And, and why education Mike? Like wh when you were younger, did you just know this is what you were gonna do? Did you have someone nudge you in this direction? Did you think that I being the class clown was the calling


Michael Stralie (02:23):
I had, I, this gonna sound bad. I had no thought of being a teacher growing up. Yeah. I wasn’t your strongest student. I was like sixties to seventies. If I really worked hard hit high school and then graduated high school. And it’s kind of, I did what everyone does when you graduate high school, but you don’t know what you’re supposed to do. So I took business school and I went, I did a two year program at gram Cuban imagine studies and nice. But my journey in education kind of begins in my summers in that one where I worked at this place in town called the do center. It’s our bottle Depot. There’s a wood shop. And the do center is people with special needs. And I was working as an educational facilitator for them. Family friend had offered me the job for the summer and you know, school’s not cheap.


Michael Stralie (03:13):
So I took the first job I can get nice. And working with my clients, I was the, I was doing just little educational things on computers and reading and math and all kinda stuff, and just found myself loving my summers more than my studies when I was in university. The weekends are fun. Don’t get me wrong. But so finished my first year and then finished my second year, went back to the do, and I did the same thing and, and tried to enter the workforce. And I ended, the only job I could find was I was a door-to-door salesman. That was wonderful experience. Not really. It was very embarrassing. I felt guilty every time I knocked on the door. So I didn’t last long there. And I ended up coming home to Ville where I live now and I was help running one of the electronics store and I had an amazing boss there, but it just, it wasn’t for me running a business, managing, just not my, not my style.


Michael Stralie (04:12):
Yeah. And I remember having a conversation with my brother who is a teacher and this isn’t a generational thing by the way, teachers just hit in this like generation. So anyways, we were talking in like, I think I was in a drug store when we were picking some stuff up getting ready for Christmas. And I was just talking I’m miserable. Like I, this isn’t what I wanna do. And he was questioned me on like, what were things I enjoyed? And I when I hit high school, I really started to love social studies. And up until grade 12, I actually, it was, I thought it was boring. It was just history. I didn’t really understand it. Grade 12, I had a teacher who made it mean something to me. And so I was like, well, I like social studies and I like movies, TVs, all kinda stuff.


Michael Stralie (04:53):
So I could do a drama minor. So I applied back to grandma. Cuan decided to give up, I was the, I was gonna go to live in Scotland for a year, but decided I’d go back to school instead. And applied, got accepted and started learning all the fantastic things that come with education. And when I got my first practicum, it was awesome. Second one was amazing. My mentor teachers were fantastic. People who taught me so much, and I, I ended up getting hired the day I graduated with the division I’m at now. So was, I had just finished student teaching there that school themselves had already hired me on to come as an educational assistant to finish off my year. But then the principal ATG Bergy had interviewed Meg Bergmans in middle school where I spent the first nine years of my career, interviewed me and offered me a job at their too. And it just, everything lined up. And here I am nine years later, I’m the assistant principal at the high school here. This is my third year doing that. And it’s,


Sam Demma (05:52):
I guess,


Michael Stralie (05:53):
Guess history in the making.


Sam Demma (05:54):
That’s a phenomenal story, right. I wanna go back though. I wanna go back to when you were in grade 12 and you had this social studies teacher who made social studies mean something to you, as you said it, who was that teacher and how did they, how did they grab your attention and deliver such an impactful? What sounds like a life changing so semester for you?


Michael Stralie (06:19):
Yeah. So his name was, he was actually also my football coach. I only played weird 12 year of that, but his name is mark bullion and he was not your conventional teacher. He wasn’t super strict sit in row, be quiet lecture, like, and not, not old teachers like that, but that’s kind of the old school style kind of things. He, he was the first t-shirt I had, that was so sarcastic. And it was just funny. I, I can be sarcastic sometimes I’m told I don’t know if that’s true but just the way he’d bring humor into his lessons, just capture my attention and, and just kind of explaining how social studies isn’t just about history. Like, I don’t know how many times you ask, why do we learn social studies and responses? Oh, so we don’t repeat our past history and I and I’m sorry if I upset social studies teaches on it, but that’s not it at all.


Michael Stralie (07:10):
We’re trying to teach students to understand how the world is the way it is now. Yeah. We’re not gonna repeat those mistakes, but understand who we are and what our role is as a citizen in this world. And we have to understand how we got here. I know the world still has so so much growth. But I think looking at Canada’s history 150 years ago to where we are now, we’ve pro like progressed so much in acceptance. And I’m not saying we have acceptance, there’s still a long way to go, but it’s, it’s the more our students learn to be a proper citizen and what it means to be an active, engaged citizen in the world, the better chance we have seeing that acceptance that should already be in existence.


Sam Demma (07:54):
No,


Michael Stralie (07:54):
That’s awesome. And, and that’s kind of where he started with that is just getting me an understanding why social studies is so important and ended up being my major because of it. Hmm. And yeah, the world wars are cool to talk about. Don’t get me wrong, all that, like the history. Aspect’s awesome, but it’s, it’s so much more, I mean, there’s a reason why this math and science teachers get upset. There’s a reason why social studies is a great 12 or to graduate.


Sam Demma (08:23):
I love it. I love it. Hit him where it hurts. Right?


Michael Stralie (08:26):
Well, no math and science super important. Don’t


Sam Demma (08:29):
Get me wrong. No, I’m just joking.


Michael Stralie (08:30):
Yeah. I don’t wanna get those emails sort of like people who know me, like, wait, what are you saying? My math and science. I think it’s wonderful. I think everything should be great. 12 requirement,


Sam Demma (08:38):
But that’s awesome. I love that. And do you still stay in touch with mark now?


Michael Stralie (08:44):
No. I did see him. We did before COVID hit, we were doing like an alumni football game kind of thing. Nice. And I did have a chance to touch base with him. And I kind of explained like, Hey, you know, like you’re one of the reasons I became a teacher and to which he responded. Yeah. Sorry about that. like I said, he’s, and he’s not the only one it’s like for social studies, that’s, that’s kind of him, but there’s also another teacher. His name is Glen Flyn and he was, he was my computer and teacher . But it was just how he made me feel as a human being, like playing the one year of football. I, my pictures in the paper and he had to hang up in his classroom. So it’s that relationship, that caring thing where you see like, teacher actually cares. Cause I remember autographing it for him and I, I came back a year later after I graduated, just say hi, and it was still up. So it’s like, and people have teachers like that. Have you just take a minute to like, look, you’ll see just how much your teachers like teachers actually care. And unfortunately it, it took me till grade 12 to realize this.


Sam Demma (09:46):
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it, it takes a student 30 years before they turn around, go find that teacher and say, Hey, I just wanted to let you know how much you change my life. You know, I’ve interviewed so many teachers who tell me that 10 years after a kid graduated or a student graduated, they heard from them. And sometimes the impact you have is never actually known as a teacher. They may, you may never hear from that kid again, but you know, you could have changed their life. And, and now they’re doing some great thing because of one thing you said in class or a lecture of totally changed their perspective. Right now, I would assume things are a little different and maybe different as an understatement but how are you striving to still build, you know, a great school culture and to make sure that students are feeling heard, seen, valued and appreciated, despite the challenges that the world is bringing us today.


Michael Stralie (10:40):
see, that’s a tough one because now you want me to like, talk about good things. I do. No,


Michael Stralie (10:47):
Not just me, but like, yeah. I’ll, I’ll talk about my school in general. Like so we, we do still have in class, like in-person learning going on. Cool. and I think like what most people are doing is just making sure you’re engaging with their students. Like I know personally, like you’ll see me often in like the eating area or the, the hub as we call in the morning and just saying hi to students. And last year, right before the school shut down, I had a group of kids who were like, Hey, do you wanna play Dungeons and dragons you? I was like, no, but okay, let’s try it. and ended up being a lot of fun. I was, I was actually, when COVID got like shut everything down, I was like, oh man, I was just getting into this.


Michael Stralie (11:27):
It was really cool. And I just noticed that like at our school in particular, teachers are starting to share like things that they’re interested in finding like students who, who, who are out for that. And there’s teachers who open up the classroom and me, it’s more just being goofy, walking around, chatting like it. I’m starting, like I said, a stress club, cuz I know it’s a lot of stress going on in the world right now. So students who are feeling stressed, I’m gonna have like new techniques every week that can build on different like remote meditation, yoga music and rhythm stuff. Just nice. Anything to help students find their center, I guess.


Sam Demma (12:04):
Yeah. No, that’s a phenomenal idea. And I know you got it from the convention. I did. Yeah. Yeah. That’s just, which is awesome. I think it’s so cool that there’s a space where teachers from around the province all come together and share unique and cool ideas. What is like one or two of the takeaways you had from the conference? Like any and all I know there are so many different sessions, but what, like I know the stress club was an awesome one, but what, what are some of the things you took away?


Michael Stralie (12:31):
Well I focused a lot on the stress ones. Nice. I, I did a couple of those and that was more just like learning how to, I think I said find your center and, and like in this world I think what people, people think teachers are stress, but I think most of our stress comes from the stress that students are feeling and, and us like, oh, like we gotta make sure that they know we’re here to make them sit, are helping them be successful. And so I think teachers, my nature or humans in general are greater showing empathy and you’re kind of taking on that stress and finding that balance of like, oh, I need to push you because you know, you’re, you’re heading off to university. I need to prepare you, but you’re also feeling all that stress and trying to find ways to help them out. So that’s why I focus so much on the stress. And I also saw this amazing one of social studies where she had basically talked about a whole year of a project. So every time you went through a new concept, you got to add to this big project that they’ll present at the end, at the end of the semester. And I thought that was the coolest thing, cuz I that’s something I wanna see in social studies is more engagement in more real life applications to it.


Sam Demma (13:38):
No, that’s awesome. I love that. Yeah.


Michael Stralie (13:40):
It’s well and of course your speech


Sam Demma (13:43):
Thanks.


Michael Stralie (13:43):
Clearly, clearly here I am. I I was actually thinking, cause I’m gonna talk about you for a second. Look, I’m hijacking your podcast that do that. Cause you talked about about your teacher, who’s also named Mike, so that’s obviously a super name full of cool people named Mike. Yep. And, and he, he would talk to you about like was it small, consistent actions yeah. To change the world. Yeah. And, and I was kind of thinking about this and I, I realized his small, consistent action was probably telling students to make small, consistent actions change the world and it, it worked right. Yeah. Like your story tells all that. So I, that, that really stucked with me is like reflecting on your career, you go back and like, am I being consistent and, and trying to deliver that message and no, I it’s really good. The only thing that sucked what teacher comp this year was not being able to like see people, people


Sam Demma (14:34):
See people. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I I’m totally with you. You and I do agree that the second best name in the world is Mike next to Sam. So , I’m just joking


Sam Demma (14:46):
But and mark would say the third best because it goes mark Sam, and then Mike.


Michael Stralie (14:51):
Whoa. What’s that?


Sam Demma (14:54):
Nah, just totally joking.


Michael Stralie (14:55):
I’ve never been bumped down to third plane. So it’s like when I’m running a race and there’s only three of us right now, I don’t know what


Sam Demma (15:00):
Happened, but no, I appreciate that. It, it was cool. Getting a chance to kind of share the story about how Mike loud fed my teacher kind of shaped my career and my life. And I was not someone who thought I’d ever be working in a school. I mean, I’m not formally a teacher, but a lot of my work is speaking to educators or speaking to students. And I thought I would’ve been a professional soccer player, hopefully, you know, playing in the MLS right now with four, my other teammates who are now playing pro. But things took a change. All thanks to a caring educator or someone like yourself who really cares about the things they’re teaching and, and tries their best to connect with students and build relationships. If you could go back in time though, to your first year teaching and kind of like give your younger self advice what would you say? What would have told your younger self as like a pep talk


Michael Stralie (15:56):
Oh, controversial. Here we go. So when you’re a teacher you’re kind of guided by curriculum. Yep. My advice to my younger self is I understand curriculum’s important. I don’t want teachers upset with me, but the most important thing is an educator’s relationship is getting to know your students and get, letting them know who you are. Not being a stranger, not just being an authority figure though. Yes. You should still be an authority figure, but getting to know them, building those relationships. And then once you have that, the curriculum can follow. Once you get to know your students, lets ’em get to know you. They’re more likely to want to hear what you have to say. You’re not just another adult coming, saying, sit down, shut up and listen to me. I got a story you’re gonna listen to. You’re gonna enjoy. You’re gonna learn from you gotta write test no, that works sometimes, but it’s, it’s about getting to know students even a little bit.


Michael Stralie (16:44):
Like you don’t need to know the whole life story, but like genuine caring is what they need. Mm. And I started middle school too, right? Like grade eight that’s hormones are all over the place. Yeah. so that’s, that’d be my, that’d be my advice is cuz that first year I’ll be the first five years for teachers is tough. Cuz you’re trying to figure out who you are as a teacher. I I, the strict one or I’m like the funny one, I’m like the cool one I’m at the laid back one and about, yeah, with within five years, you’re gonna, if you’re gonna make it or not, and you kind of fall into your own stride and, and then hopefully you get good results. And then also teaching myself that not everyone’s gonna like you


Sam Demma (17:25):
Yep.


Michael Stralie (17:26):
unless you’re me, cuz then you know,


Sam Demma (17:30):
No,


Michael Stralie (17:31):
You can’t win every student, but you can still find a way to relate to every. And so that they’ll at least want to hear what you have to say.


Sam Demma (17:37):
Yeah. I think it’s so, so true. And for teachers who are having the thoughts right now of, oh my goodness. This year has been insane in certain provinces. They haven’t even been in the classroom maybe at like at all and they’re, they’re struggling and they’re considering believing this vocation calling profession or they’re struggling to decide whether they wanna stay doing this. Did you ever have a moment in your career where you might have thought, I don’t know if I’m gonna do this again. And what did you tell yourself in those moments of maybe hardship or challenge?


Michael Stralie (18:13):
Cool. Since I’ve been teaching, I’ve never had that. I don’t want to teach anymore, but I have had days where like I just need a day off. Yeah. And normally I take the day off yeah, I like


Sam Demma (18:24):
It.


Michael Stralie (18:26):
That’s, that’s something that I think is right important is if, if you’re feeling that pressure as a teacher in Alberta anyways, we have personal days use a personal day. Don’t put your health at risk because really if you’re going in and you’re already defeated and you’re tired and you’re burnt out, you’re not helping yourself. You’re not helping your students. Take some time, find a way to calm yourself. Do whatever’s best for you and your students because you gotta find that that balance like a symbiotic relationship. Right. So if you’re not taking care of yourself, it’s going to eventually impact your students and possibly your school culture. So it’s taking that time and that’s my, the division I work for has before Christmas, it was almost directive where like, you guys have administrative, you need to take one before Christmas and I was like, yep. Booked


Sam Demma (19:18):
. So that’s awesome. That’s so cool. And for teachers who might be struggling right now and forgetting the reason why they got into teaching, you know, maybe the reason was they wanted to change a young person’s life or give back in the same way that a teacher, they had kind of mentored and, and, and taught them when they were in high school. Do you have any stories of transformation of students within schools that you’ve taught at or within the high school you’re at now where a student was going through a really tough time and maybe the style of a teacher or a relationship building thing kind of changed the students feelings, emotions, and, and led them down a, a, a brighter path. And the reason I ask is because one of those stories of transformation might remind an educator listening. That’s why I got into teaching and those moments still exist. So yeah, any, and I mean, if it’s a very personal story of a student that was really struggling, you can change their name, call them or whatever . But any of those stories come to mind.


Michael Stralie (20:18):
I, I’m gonna start with, if you are a struggling teacher you should know you’ve already, you already have a story. You just don’t know it yet. Yeah. It’s, it’s almost a thankless job and that’s okay. Cuz you’re doing a wonderful and sometimes like Sam said earlier, it could take 30 years for a kid to realize like just the impact that you’ve had. I, I haven’t gotten many, many letters, but I, I do remember the student when I was in grade eight and we’re just gonna call him Jimmy rough, rough life rough to teach. But liked my sense of humor. And we joked around and kind of gone through grade eight and he ended up moving away. Hadn’t heard from him, thought of him often wondering like, how’s this kid doing? Because I like, I get worried about students sometimes.


Michael Stralie (21:07):
Yeah. Run into him at seven 11. About a year ago, a kid had dropped like 150 pounds. He was in shape. And I’m kind of staring at him and didn’t recognize him. And he goes, STR, is that you like, yeah, yeah. Jimmy , he’s like, yeah. I’m like, well, how have you, how you been? He’s like, wow, really great. He’s like after grade eight, I, I moved to Emington and plea changed my life around started to focus more on school. And right now I’m upgrading and I plan on going to college and, or a trade school and, and try to find a proper career. And I thought that was great. And I thought that was the end of it. And then he had found my wife on, on Facebook. I don’t have social media. My wife does. And just like with the master, like, oh I hope you, Mr.


Michael Stralie (21:46):
Charley’s wife, like just, just wanted to say it was awesome catching up with him. It meant a lot for me to see him again. Hmm. And it’s just something so simple as just taking that rough kid and that getting a chance to know him. This is, this is where I would love to impart some wisdom that one of my best friends in the whole world, I have two of best friends, two best men at my wedding, by the way, one of ’em is famous for saying that the kids that are hardest of the love are the ones who need the love the most. Mm. So that kid that you think you hate, he’s just a pain in the butt and you’re like, oh, I gotta go deal with Jimmy today. Realize that Jimmy probably needs you more than anyone that day. Cuz people don’t with intention to harm anyone. Normally it’s a byproduct of what they’re going through themselves. So that’s the best thing I can say is just always remember a kid having a hard day and you know what you’re allowed a hard day too. It’s straining because those kids are also, like I said, the hardest love, and it’s going to take a lot of effort on your part and Don expect change in a day, but a good morning Jimmy can mean a lot.


Sam Demma (22:56):
Yeah.


Michael Stralie (22:56):
Just finding those things.


Sam Demma (22:58):
That’s awesome. And who’s the second best man.


Michael Stralie (23:01):
Another teacher actually. since Alise just when I moved here kind of met both them one of ’em I was working with he’s a ed teacher. Wonderful man, Dustin Blake. And then the other one my other best man. His name is Justin Barlow. Yeah. I’m using names. They they’re not, they better be listening to this when it comes out. I met him because we were coaching track and field one day and this random guy came out to me and said, Hey, can I live with you? And I was like, sure, I, their bedroom awesome. Justin, Justin Barlow and Dustin Blake had already known each other from all the Fette stuff. So Dustin had told him to go see me. And then yeah.


Sam Demma (23:39):
Long story short, he lives in your house.


Michael Stralie (23:42):
Used to, yeah. Now we’re both married. We have kids. But he’s literally half a block away from me. nice. So, and the other one lives in iron river. He’s been there always, ever since I’ve done him. But that’s another thing as a teacher, surround yourself with positive people who are like you, who can always get you through these tough things because I’ll give credit to those two guys, but, and many others, so many other people profession, but I’m just gonna sing. Cause they’re my best friends that having them like minded and be there definitely helped me progress. Because I’m also a little competitive. So it’s like, oh, you did that. Well, I’m gonna do this. so


Sam Demma (24:17):
That’s


Michael Stralie (24:18):
Awesome. Yeah. I would absolutely say that you need to follow it and then find other teachers another shout out to my friends. So who’s amazing. Social studies find his strategies to just surround yourself with those people you can learn from this guy. So is one of the greatest social studies teacher you’ll ever meet. I’d like to say second to me, but it’s not true. one day I hope that he’s almost as good as I am, but right now I’ve, I’ve, I’ve stole so much from his repertoire. So surrounding yourself as a, with people who are better than you and then try to be better than that.


Sam Demma (24:49):
Cool


Michael Stralie (24:49):
Love. And then list goes on. I, I probably have a hundred people who I can mention my mentor teachers when I came to the school division, taught me everything. I know. I don’t know if they wanna take credit for that or not. but they, they got me my start in this career. So like this just all over the place.


Sam Demma (25:05):
Cool. No, that that’s awesome. And when I think about mentorship, it’s, it’s so true. I, I have a whole list of people who helped me transition from school to work and selflessly just gave their time and energy to teach things and help with, you know, challenges. And I think it’s so true to wrap this up. Do you have any final parting words that you’d let like to share with a colleague maybe as a teacher who’s listening, you don’t even know who this person is and you just want to impart one last piece of sarcastic wisdom to this person.


Michael Stralie (25:38):
Yeah, so you guys will never be as good as me, but you might as well try no, that’s no, for real though, COVID sucks. And think that everything that you’re doing, that you’re struggling realize your students are, are doing it as well. And the best advice I could give, especially in an online classroom is don’t let them shut their cameras off. Mm it’s easy. It’s easy to shut off the camera and just disengage and, and be upset about the world and around it. I make my students turn it on because I wanna make it as, as possible. My camera’s always on, unless we’re doing just independent work. So it doesn’t matter if you’re in person online, just be there for them show ’em that you care, even if it’s something as simple as I don’t care. If you haven’t done your hair, turn on your camera. I wanna see you. I don’t wanna look at a black screen. I miss you guys to be genuine.


Sam Demma (26:24):
And also don’t forget to wear your mask. Right?


Michael Stralie (26:28):
that I was quick that filter. Do you? No. That’s you and your magic tricks, man. This is, this is all that started with your witchcraft.


Sam Demma (26:38):
Anyways, Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to to record this podcast. I so appreciate it and keep up the awesome work. If an educator wants to reach out, you know, crack a joke with you, have a conversation, hear about some of the different things that you’re doing in the school and maybe just learn from each other. What would be the best way for them to reach out to you?


Michael Stralie (26:57):
Well, I don’t have social media, but my personal email is fine. Throw it out there. That’s michael.straile@nlsd.ab.ca.


Sam Demma (27:09):
Perfect. Awesome, Mike, thank you so much for


Michael Stralie (27:11):
Thanks so much, this was awesome.


Sam Demma (27:13):
And we’ll keep in touch.


Michael Stralie (27:16):
For sure, man.


Sam Demma (27:17):
All right. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Straile

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.

May 2, 2022 by Principals Student Success Teaching Tips 0

Karen O’Brien – Re-Engagement Counsellor

Karen O'Brien - Re-Engagement Counsellor
About Karen O’Brien

Karen has worked in the education system for over 30 years. She began her career as a secondary school classroom teacher teaching multiple subjects. She continued her teaching career with the added responsibility of being a department head. With each new role and school, she developed a passion for helping students who face barriers to success. Her passion led her to the headship at an alternative high school site for students who struggle in mainstream schools.

Today, she is the Re-Engagement Counsellor at Halton District School Board where she helps youth aged 14 to 21 from all high schools in the board stay in school or return to school. Karen works with community agencies and schools to create a plan for each student, ensuring they’re able to finish their high school education and take the next step towards achieving their goals – whatever those may be.

In her personal life, Karen spends time with her family, friends, and at the cottage where she loves to be by the water. She is also a member of a book club that has been ongoing for over 10 years. Her group discusses books, cooks together, and shares many laughs and a few trips. As a mother of two, Karen also gets a great deal of joy watching her children develop their own career paths and passions.

Whether in her professional life or her personal life, Karen loves to learn, take on new challenges and support others as they pursue their goals.

Connect with Karen: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Halton District School Board

Western University – Bachelors of Education

Book Clubs in Ontario

Google Hangouts Guide for Teachers

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’m super excited to bring you today’s interview with Karen O’Brien. She has worked in the education system for over 30 years. She began her career as a secondary school classroom teacher teaching multiple subjects, and then continued her teaching career with the added responsibility of being a department head.


Sam Demma (01:00):
With each new role in school. She developed a passion for helping students who face barriers to success. Her passion led her to the headship of an alternative high school site for students who struggle in mainstream schools. Today, she is the re-engagement counselor at the Halton District School Board, where she helps youth age 14 to 21 from all high schools in the board, stay in school or return to school. And let me tell you Karen does an amazing job. I was fortunate enough to work with her on a project with some of those students, and it was a, a very in enjoyable experience working with her. Karen works with community agencies and schools to create a plan for each student, ensuring they’re able to finish their high school education and take the next step towards achieving their goals, whatever they might be. In her personal life, Karen spends time with her family, friends and at the cottage where she loves to be by the water.


Sam Demma (01:49):
She’s also a member of a book club that has been ongoing for over 10 years and her group discusses books, cooks together, and shares many laughs and a few trips. As a mother of two, Karen also gets a great deal of joy of watching her children develop their own career paths and passions. Whether in her professional life or her personal life, Karen loves to learn, take on new challenges, and support others as they pursue their goals. I hope you enjoy this interview with Karen O’Brien, and I will see you on the other side. Karen, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show this morning. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind the journey that led you into education?


Karen O’Brien (02:31):
Absolutely. So my name’s Karen O’Brien. I work for Halton District School Board; I’m the re-engagement counselor. So I work with youth 14-21 who have left school or are in, at risk of leaving school, and the 17 high schools board call me in to work with those youth one on one or in small groups to try and keep them in school and motivate them to not only finish high school, but to plan for their future and go beyond that. So I’ve been doing this particular job for 7 years. Before that I have been in seven different schools; a classroom teacher for the most part. Always looking for a new challenge, hence the move between schools and, and a variety of programs. I’ve taught alternative-ed, regular classroom, gifted, all sorts of different classrooms.


Karen O’Brien (03:26):
What, what got me here teaching? I, I always have sort of been looking to teach or did when I was younger. I thought teaching could, was a possibility and so definitely loved it when I got into the classroom, loved it, but what I really truly loved were those watching those kids who were struggling you know, had barriers to success, watching those kids succeed. Mm. And so tho those are the kids. I kept thinking, oh, those are the kids. Those are the kids I want, wanna work with. So so that’s probably what led me, led me first of all, into alternative education and then led me into this job when this job was advertised. I, I thought this is my dream job and talked to a couple people and they said, yes, yes, you’d be perfect. So I, I thought, oh, my worlds are coming together. This is exactly the work I wanna do.


Sam Demma (04:22):
Well, tell me more about the work itself with reengagement, you know, being a reengagement officer. I, I don’t know that many teachers and even principals are even aware of what it is that might be tuning in. So I would love for them to learn a little more about it.


Karen O’Brien (04:35):
No, yeah. So what I do, so there’s two parts of my job. So if kids have left school and disengaged completely been removed from the register, so 14 and up I contact them at least once a semester to try and talk to them about why they left school. I often look at what’s beyond school because often why they left school. It has nothing or very little to do with school has a lot more to do with what’s occurring in their lives. So I work with all sorts of community agencies whether it’s housing agencies or employment agencies or addiction agencies, I work with all sorts. So I’m work regionally with all of those. I’m on a couple of regional committees. So I have lots of connections. Mental health supports are huge. So I work with all of those agencies.


Karen O’Brien (05:27):
So if I have a youth and I think, okay, these are the barriers, these are the struggles we address those. I get them connected to those type of agencies if they’re not already connected and work hard for that, because that’s the first thing, that’s always the first thing, once they’re connected and on sort of a road to wellness and doing, starting to do better. And, and they start to also trust me and, and have a relationship with me within start to talk about school and what those school goals might be and how school can look for them. That school, isn’t always about sitting in a room of 30 kids in a classroom that school can be done very differently than what perhaps they had experienced. So we talk about how they can do school without that model, that they don’t feel they fit into.


Karen O’Brien (06:15):
And also after they’ve addressed some of their concerns. So a lot of the youth when I meet with them are not, they don’t really see themselves as students has, has potential graduates. So I try to reframe that and help the see themselves. Yes, you could absolutely be a student, maybe not the picture or you have in your head, but, but you can learn and you can be a student and you can go on. And the goal is to go on after high school. So you know, I also read a lot of data and studies, so I know that they’ll do better in life if they go beyond high school and, and post secondary. And that’s pretty, pretty critical for a lot of, of students is to find their passion and whatever that is. So to have either is certainly traditional post-secondary college or university, but there’s also apprentice.


Karen O’Brien (07:09):
There’s also work. There’s also like a dream, a passion. So, so having a plan beyond high school, getting the diplomas a huge win, but it’s, what’s the next step. So I always say, I don’t wanna just get you out of high school. I want to get you into something yeah. Beyond high school. And that’s my goal with them. So I work with them and then, yeah. And work with them, just one one-on-one for the most part, some small group stuff. But most part I do one on one because they’re all unique and need those, those supports. So those are the youth. So those of youth have left school. The other part of my job is I built a relationship with all the schools and the board. So they call me in when they have a kid who’s flounder ring, cuz I always say, please, please call me before they’ve left.


Karen O’Brien (07:56):
Oh, I have a much better chance of helping them. If you know, you introduce me because they know you and, and we meet and I start to work with them when they’re still in school has, you know, when they’re hanging by a thread I want in so the schools bring me in a lot for that too. And that’s that’s, to me, my has evolved so seven years ago, it was mostly kids who have left. Now it’s mostly kids who are disengaging, who are, and, and that’s the bulk of my days and most of my days, which, which I’m very happy for that shift.


Sam Demma (08:33):
Wow. I love that. And you mentioned trust no. Yes. The beginning, initially it might be a generic conversation about their life and what’s going on and listening to them until they trust you. How do you build that trust with a student who might be disengaging?


Karen O’Brien (08:48):
Well, a lot of it is just meeting them. So pre pandemic, I’d meet them near their house, whether that was, you know, at Tim Horton McDonald’s or in a park or the library, wherever, I’d say like, what’s easy for you, where can you walk to, can we just meet and, and either walk and talk or sit and talk. And, and just, and I build the trust, not by saying, tell me about your life as much as I tell them about my job and that I have the ability to help them, not just with school, but with other things, I, I can connect them with other things. So I start to talk about that. For the most part in that first conversation, we don’t talk as much about school we do about their lives and, and sort of what, they’re, what they’re looking for in this moment.


Karen O’Brien (09:41):
I need, you know, I have precarious housing in this moment. I need, I really wanna work in this moment. So I, whatever that one thing is, I work really hard off the initial meeting to make that connection and get them support in that, because then they trust me and then they go the next time. Okay, here’s this, here’s this, here’s this, we do get to the point where we talk about school. I talk about you know, I ask them about when they liked school, like, what do they remember? Even if they have to reach really far back, what is it that they remember to do they remember a class or a project or something? What do they remember? And, and every single time they end up talking about the teacher. So not, well, you know, they may say grade, whatever nine I did this, or with this, they’ll start with, but they talk about the teacher and I think, okay, this is, this is what teaching is.


Karen O’Brien (10:39):
This is relationships. So, and, and they inevitably, that’s the discussion that comes out, that they like that class because they like the teacher because the teacher respected and valued them. Mm-Hmm so that’s really inevitably where it comes from. So I try then to a nice soft place, I call it for them to land in the education system where they have that caring adult. So I don’t just say, go register. I take them, I work with the school, like who’s gonna work with them. Who’s the first teacher they’re gonna encounter. Who’s going to work with them. And let’s pick carefully so, so there’s a good connection or the, the chance of the good connection.


Sam Demma (11:22):
That’s awesome. I love that. And where did your passion come from to work with these, you know, these specific type of students, like, you know, did you have a teacher that impacted you as a student? Did you have a unique own, your own unique journey through school?


Karen O’Brien (11:37):
Definitely. I, well, I moved five times growing up, my father kept getting transferred, so that’s, that’s, you know, it creates a little little, now I look back, I think. Okay. You know, you had to make it the transition. It creates a little chaos in your life. Every time you move. The most difficult move for me was probably the middle grade 12. And so you know, that, that was a tough transition for me. I had an economics teacher who was awesome and really sort of looked out for me. I must say he, so I actually enrolled in economics initially when I went, you know, nice went to university ended up getting an English and economics degree. But, but I, I think that, that was because, and he was like, you know, just one of those teachers who was like, Hey, in the hallway and, you know, built the, like totally made me feel like, okay, I’m part of this.


Karen O’Brien (12:37):
Mm. Even though I don’t feel part of this school, I, I know in this class, I feel like I’m definitely part of this. So so I do think that I also think when I started out in teaching, I was really, really so super curriculum focused. Mm. Like, like that was my, like I knew the curriculum and I was like, you know, had my lesson plans and I was like, I was on it. And I had a, a great 10 class who was gifted in rich class and they were challenging. And so I stopped trying to make them fit my curriculum, that they taught me that that’s not gonna work. and started talking to them about what they want to do. So I’d say, okay though, this is what the curriculum says you have to do.


Karen O’Brien (13:32):
How do you wanna show me that you do that? And, and this was many, many years ago. So it was so my classroom probably appeared a bit chaotic in those days compared to other classrooms. But but like, I love that class. And I, and so that’s what started me on this journey thinking, okay, you know, this, this is yeah, this is, this is how, how you teach you. Don’t, you don’t teach curriculum, you teach kids, you teach students. And, and if you’re always focused on I’m teaching the student, whatever the curriculum is, we can bring in.


Sam Demma (14:10):
Hmm. I love that. You know, you mentioned your economics teacher as well. Sounds like they, they played a huge role. Can you PI point what they did specifically that made you feel like a part of the class? Like, I, I’m curious because I, I know I’ve had teachers like that in my own high school journey. And if you asked me my favorite class, I would tell you world issues, class with, you know, Michael loud foot . So what are some of those things that you think he did or they did for you?


Karen O’Brien (14:35):
Well, part of, so part is there’s twofolds. So the one is a passion for his subject. You know, he loved it. He loved, and he loved the world. So economics, I suspect like world issues. We didn’t have world issues, but economics gave us the opportunity to look at what was happening in the world and then interpret it through the economic lens, through what’s happening. And, and, and so everything seemed like you were getting this, this passionate person about his subject, but getting an understanding of the world and what’s going on in the, in the world that, you know, you’re about to enter as an adult. So though that combination of his passion for the subject and his understanding that students wanna see the relevance, right. We want like, like make this relevant for me, make me understand why this is important. So and he did the curriculum became very relevant to me.


Karen O’Brien (15:29):
The other piece was the, the constant one on one talks. When I look back, he was, he was, you know, he kind of would do a lesson at the front, but he was always, you know, beside me, or, you know, or checking or sitting or pulling a chair or grabbing two desks and putting two, like help this person with, like, he was constantly like, you know, his classroom evolved with relationships as well as with the curriculum. So it wasn’t like we weren’t all just getting the curriculum, getting information from her, from him. We were, we were you know, part of the learning journey as he circulated through and went. And I think that that’s the teachers who, who are on the learning journey with the students and, and meet the students at whatever step they’re at to get them to the next step or help get another student to help them get to the next step.


Karen O’Brien (16:25):
Like, that’s, that’s the learning journey. So if they’re part of it, rather than the, you know, purveyor of knowledge, it’s, to me, to me, that’s, that’s the key to, to really being excellent at your job and for students to then trust you. Because if you are the expert students, I don’t know. I just get the sense that students just sit and passively take it, and then they watch for, oh, did you make a mistake? I’m gonna watch for it kind of thing. Yeah. Like it becomes a little, little bit of a us, us versus him or her or them. But if you’re, if the teacher’s on the learning journey with the student, then I think, you know, everybody leaves.


Sam Demma (17:07):
Yeah. Cause they feel just like them. It’s like, we’re both learning, you know? Yeah.


Karen O’Brien (17:12):
Yeah. Yeah. My students taught me something every year. Like I, I was teaching English and I just still remember this one young person was so funny cuz I was, he was really struggling with the poetry unit and that day we divided everything. Anyway, he was struggling with the poetry unit. So I was explaining it and I was, you know, going, oh, this is so cool. And this is what the poetry’s doing. And he said, okay, I understand. He goes, you understand that? I’m never gonna love this stuff. Right. And I go, okay, hear you. I will, I will back. Like, like I thought, okay, I’m a little Mure. So I I’m, I’m okay with you not loving it. Let’s get down to what you need to know. Yeah. And move on. And he was like, okay, good. So we


Sam Demma (17:55):
Were good from


Karen O’Brien (17:56):
Then on like I thought, okay. Learning again. Right. I get that.


Sam Demma (18:01):
That is so funny. that’s awesome.


Karen O’Brien (18:04):
It was so funny.


Sam Demma (18:05):
Yeah. And so no thinking about your role again, as a, you know, the re-engagement officer in the past couple of years versus this year, how has it changed? Like has there been a huge need for it during like, you know, COVID and what are some of the challenges you’ve been faced with and how have you tried to overcome them?


Karen O’Brien (18:24):
So huge challenges cuz I’m used to going and meeting with the student face to face. So arranging a phone call or a Google hangout as, you know, students don’t turn on their cameras and you know, there’s, there’s, they don’t always attend. Not that they always attend it in person, but so huge struggle. So I have so what I’ve done is I’ve primary to use the staff in the school. So is there someone in the school they were connected to? And I talked to the school and so then I try a three-way Google hangout or a three-way phone conversation because if they had a student success teacher or a guidance counselor or somebody or a math teacher, whomever that they really connected with and that teacher feels they can help. Then, then we were on setting up the Google meet with them, with them to sort of introduce me.


Karen O’Brien (19:19):
So we work a lot of the administrators do that. A lot of the vice principals know these kids really well. So they, we did a lot of three-way Google meets initially. So we worked with that. I got a cell phone numbers whenever I could for kids and would start texting because I can get a response, even if it’s short initially from texting. So just lots of texting check-ins really looking again for that agent, like what, what can I get to help them not necessarily school, but what can I get to help them? So I’ve used, yeah. The Google meet with, with a, a caring adult who introduces us texting some kids I’ve just driven to and said, will you just meet me outside? And we can talk. So some kids I’ve just said, you know, are you willing to do this?


Karen O’Brien (20:10):
So if they are, yeah, we just, we, you know, safety protocols stay distant and stuff, but we’d you know, go walk in a park or, you know, whatever, or just stand outside their house and they’d stand in the doorway and I’d stand back and talk to them. So I did a number of those too, just to try, I you know, used whatever I could, we have Halton learning foundation here. There’s a barriers account. So if a student is struggling, their family’s struggling financially, you can we can give them grocery gift cards. So in some, sometimes I deliberate those and that was my way so, so that was my way in with some of the kids to, to try and engage them in that conversation. I definitely used that a lot. Because a lot of these kids yeah, don’t don’t have much, so that was my way in. So rather than yeah, so I just, yeah, showing up, I mean, I really just have to show up where whatever way they’re willing to show up, if it’s a Google meet or texting or a phone call or on their front porch or, you know, at the door of their building, whatever. Yeah. I just try to show up and be there.


Sam Demma (21:27):
That’s awesome. And did you find that this year there was more support, but you were able to still, you know, do the same type of work, but it was just more difficult and more work or did you find that it was a lot, like it was a lot harder and maybe more students might have slipped through the cracks as a result of the challenges that


Karen O’Brien (21:50):
I felt that more students were slipping through the cracks this year. Although I I’ve been doing my tracking this week and, and summarizing, so we, I feel as a board, we have a good handle on our students. So I, I worried that they were flipping a slipping through the cracks, but that’s partly because I wasn’t seeing them. Oh, picture man. I’m so, so accustomed to seeing them and doing the check-ins that way. But, but I feel we have a good handle on them. There are definitely more suffering from mental health challenges all sorts of other challenges. So we have social worker workers working through the summer mental health, there’s all those things. So I’m feeling like the kids are, they struggle more. Yeah, definitely struggle more, but I’m feeling like they’re connected. You know, we see how, how well they stay connected throughout the summer, but I’m, I’m hoping that we have enough connections that we’re hanging on to them and, and we’ll get them back in September. I’m so looking forward to face to face in September, I’m feeling like we just need to hang onto them and get them back and then support them once they’re back.


Sam Demma (23:06):
Yeah. Couldn’t agree more. It’s it’s so different. I even think about the work that I do speaking this students and doing it virtual is one thing doing it in person is a totally different thing, you know? Totally. So, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And if you could go back seven years and speak to Karen when she was just getting into this role, what, like what advice would you give your younger self and knowing what you know now?


Karen O’Brien (23:31):
When I I think knowing what I know now, when I first got into this role, I tried to cover everything like do it all, but that brought no depth to my work. Right. So, so, so cover every possible thing. And what I learned is I personally don’t need to cover every PO. I need to make sure everyone’s covered all the kids are covered, but I don’t personally, like I’m not the only person, I’m the only person in my role. And there’s no other role this in the board, but that doesn’t mean there. Aren’t a lot of other people out there who I can tap on and say, Hey, can you connect with these kids? Or even people in the community you know, informal, informal mentors in the community. Like there’s so many people. So I think, I think what I’ve learned is to build that network over the years.


Karen O’Brien (24:22):
So even if I’m not the person you know, diving deep with that kid and helping them every step of the way, I’ve got them connected to somebody who can help them navigate that. And, and they may cycle back in and ask me questions the odd time. But I, I think, I think that I would tell myself to just like focus on not focus on the kids, but focus on your network and who can help and, and who you need to tap on because the, the faster you do that, the more help you’re gonna get for these kids.


Sam Demma (24:55):
Yeah, love that. Such a good piece of advice. Well, Karen, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. If someone’s been listening and they’re interested in the conversation, or just wants to chat with you, what would be the best way for them to reach out?


Karen O’Brien (25:09):
They’re welcome to email me. So obrienk@hdsb.ca.


Sam Demma (25:18):
Cool, awesome. Karen again, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your summer. This is probably coming out in September so if you’re listening now, you’re probably wondering what the heck, but , we filmed it in the beginning of July, so enjoy your summer and I’ll talk to you soon.


Karen O’Brien (25:33):
Okay. Thank you so much, Sam.


Sam Demma (25:35):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Karen O’Brien

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.

April 30, 2022 by Alternative Education Department Head Experiential Learning Guidance Counsellors School Counsellor Social Worker Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Dr. Adam Browning – Director of Learning Palliser School Division

Dr. Adam Browning – Director of Learning Palliser School Division
About Dr. Adam Browning

Dr. Adam Browning (@AdamLBrowning) has been an educator for 17 years. As a system-level leader, he is primarily responsible for curriculum and diversity supports for a school division of over 40 schools and approximately 9000 students.  

He is a researcher in applied linguistics and an instructor at the University of Lethbridge. Much of his research focused on early literacy and language skills and how students transition to more academic uses of literacy.  He is especially interested in motivation and how we can better engage students with literacy.  

Connect with Adam: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Palliser Regional Schools

University of Victoria – BA in History

University of Calgary – Doctorate of Education in Applied Linguistics

Malcolm X Autobiography

The Power of Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart

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, I have the distinct honor of interviewing Adam Browning; Dr. Adam Browning. He’s been an educator for 17 years and as a systems leader, his primary responsibility is for curriculum and diversity supports for a school division for over 40 schools and approximately 9,000 students. He is a researcher in implied linguistics, and an instructor at the University of Lethbridge. Much of his research focused on early literacy and language skills, and how students transition to more academic uses of literacy.


Sam Demma (01:13):
He’s especially interested in motivation and how we can better engage students through and using literacy. I hope you enjoy this interview. It was very interesting and intriguing, and I will see you on the other side of the episode. Adam, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on this show. We had a great chat last week, and I’m glad that we, we made some time to make this happen. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind how you got into the role and education you’re in today.


Dr. Adam Browning (01:42):
Awesome. Thanks for having me and connecting me. I’m glad to be, this is my first podcast. That’s new for me, so just excited for the opportunity. So I guess the question is kind of what brought me into education. It’s a long story and I know that it’s probably longer than what I could cover in your podcast, but I’ll admit this you know, at the expense of some of my colleagues hearing it. I don’t think I was a great student. I wasn’t an engaged student, you know, I struggled throughout K-12, and I remember in grade one, you know, my mom will tell me now that maybe they thought I had a learning disability that I just I wasn’t really clueing in areas of literacy and other pieces of language that they thought I should be at that time. And looking back, you know, out of all the time that I was in school and that I struggled, I can think about a few times where I was successful. And I think a lot of that success came from connection with a great teacher and, and that’s what brought me here is being a struggling student, and then to somebody who’s become a teacher, principal, and a director of education and a, I guess, a, an instructor at the university, I just see such an opportunity for what an awesome role model adult and a teacher can do to make a profound difference in the lives of kids. Yeah, that’s kind of what brought me here.


Sam Demma (03:07):
Well, tell me more about your own experience as a student. You know, you mentioned struggling a little as well. Did you have any educators in your, in your journey as a student that showed you the importance of having a caring adult in your life?


Dr. Adam Browning (03:25):
Totally. And I think back to, you know, who those educators were and just how impactful they were. I had a principal in elementary school named Dr. Farran and I guess I became a doctor around vocabulary and I remember Dr. Fe always being in the library and he’d looking at a dictionary and pulling up words and just kinda showing me the power of language. I remember in grade six and this is a student, you know, who I wasn’t really engaged was always struggling being compared to my older siblings, that there was time for us to memorize or to about a poem and be able to, to say that poem and speak the poem. And I memorized the poem. This offered Lord tenons, the charge of light brigade, probably can’t fully recite now, but no, still lot that, but just felt empowered by him, not through wrote memorization, but just the power of learning about words, learning about literacy, about poetry and being proud that I could do something and he really celebrated it.


Dr. Adam Browning (04:23):
And I was that student who probably didn’t have as much confidence. I didn’t have as much confidence and just having that opportunity to, to do something and do it well. And, and have it be known in the school, made a huge difference for me. And I think about, you know, in junior high, as it got tougher, as it does is for many students just running into that one teacher, Mr. Whitmore, social studies, grade 11, who just made content accessible for me, showed me that I could have a passion about it. I would probably say that history. And then land-based learning outdoor education are some of my most favorite subjects to teach and he just made it cool. I could talk about contemporary topics. I could really look at it critically. I could access it. It wasn’t learning from a worksheet. It wasn’t learning from a textbook.


Dr. Adam Browning (05:11):
And I found success as this student in those classes. And I just thought that that’s something that if I was to become a teacher, I could bring and I hope that’s what I brought to education. I, I, you know, I think that kindergarten to 12, that system probably university too, it’s like a race. Mm. And any given year, I’ve heard this before a student can fall behind and then they have like cumulative disadvantage cuz you fall behind and you going to learn the next thing and it just gets harder and harder. And so I think that a obviously there’s changes that people can make at the system to be more inclusive of students. But at any given year student can meet that one teacher who will have such an impact on them that their, their growth, you know, either as people or as students is gonna grow more than a year and you can have that type of impact on a student so that they don’t become disadvantaged.


Dr. Adam Browning (06:03):
I know that researchers and other people are gonna talk about just how important education is. And there’s always exceptions to that role where some people don’t have education. They do great things. I think largely education is super important and not just on a, about how we form as people and being able to be part of that, I think is fundamental to who I am. You know, I’ve always been into social justice and wanting to create meaningful change as a student university. And I thought about ways to do that. And I’ve had these pivotal moments in my life where I’ve thought about my career choices. Was I gonna go on to be a lawyer or was I gonna, you know, stay in school and be a teacher? And I chose the education path. I don’t regret it. It’s been awesome.


Sam Demma (06:46):
You know, people sometimes say, I can’t hear you because your actions are speaking so loud. Right. I can’t hear what you’re saying because your actions are speaking so loud and you’re somebody who has been in school practically your entire life. Is that correct?


Dr. Adam Browning (07:00):
yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It’s probably probably like a few months at a time where I’ve had some reprieve for it. But up until about January of this year, I’ve been a student my entire life.


Sam Demma (07:12):
that’s awesome. So you, you know, you’ve lived that philosophy of the importance of education in your own actions, which I think is so important, but bridge the gap for me, you know, how did you go from not the best student struggling in school to getting into teaching, you know, understanding that having a, an adult figure in your life who believes in you is really important, could have taken you in many different paths. You could have become a coach. You could have worked with young people in, into different capacities. Why teaching? Like when did you know that you were gonna get into teaching and what did that journey look like?


Dr. Adam Browning (07:46):
It’s a funny one. I was in a Tim Hortons, probably in like the early two thousands and I was studying for an exam and I just found myself working there late night. And I had a conversation with this guy who was a teacher who I had never met. I didn’t know. And I’ve never seen since I wish I could thank them. Wow. And I had written my LSATs at the time, my law school entrance exam. And I’d done well well enough to go to law school. And I thought about it at that time of what I was gonna do. And I was either gonna go to this teachering education program where I’d been offered acceptance into or into law school. And we just ended up having this generic conversation where he talked about his life as an educator and what learned and what he was able to do.


Dr. Adam Browning (08:30):
And, and I mean, the biggest piece was, he said, you’re gonna give up some income, there’ll be some challenges, but the impact that you’re gonna make on lives of kids and what you’re gonna be able to do like in society is gonna be something that is so awesome for you. So I really took that away and I thought about it and I had turned around and I had these three choices of either going to do a master’s degree going into teaching or going into law school. So at that point, I said, well, I’m gonna take a little bit of the best of both. I’m gonna do a master’s degree, but I’m also gonna go into teaching. And I started teaching in the middle school and the tougher school in the city where I, you know, I started teaching it was a community school and a really diverse school.


Dr. Adam Browning (09:16):
And it had that reputation with some of the kids of being the place where maybe they had had some trouble kids to learn. And I just found it to be an awesome experience. Like day one, just the connections that I was able to start making with students. I started my practicum there and then I was able to work there shortly. But the connections I was able to make with students about things that matter to them and be friendly with them. And, you know, I still have students who reach out to me today near 20 years later. And it’s reminding me that I’m getting older, but it’s just awesome to see what they’re doing in their journey, because they were able to find something that they were passionate about. And I feel like as a teacher I was able to do that, find something that a kid is passionate, find something that a kid does well and work from there, and anyone can grow. I have that firm belief that anyone can do better. And anyone can be successful. It’s not just a catchphrase. It I’ve seen it. And so I’ve lived my my work life around that.


Sam Demma (10:10):
I love it. And when you first started, you were teaching, I assumed then you moved into a pre position and now you’re, you know, you’re working at a, a little bit of a higher level and you might be responsible for different tasks. What do the differences look like? And what did you enjoy working, you know, in the classrooms versus what you’re doing now and vice versa, what do you enjoy what you do now versus working in the classrooms?


Dr. Adam Browning (10:33):
I missed the classroom and this was the first year where I’ve really been and able to kind of get back into the classroom as a teacher. But classroom was awesome. You know, that direct connection with kids and you’re involved in their learning. It’s exciting. You learning can be fun. I remember, you know, teaching grade eight science and we were building bios and it was messy and it was loud and there was lots of tables. And my principal would walk in the room and kids were bios, or they were doing these Ru Goldberg experiments to learn about motion and science. And I felt like a topic that I learned from a textbook at times was a topic that I could teach through experience and kids would enjoy it. And so I really missed that part of education. But I moved up into administration fairly quickly was, and two years after teaching, I was an administrator and did that for about 10 years.


Dr. Adam Browning (11:22):
What I liked about that is that I could really take what I was doing in a classroom and build support for that at a school level. I could see as an administrator, tangible areas where I could build relationships with all kids throughout the school. And I remember being that student who was in the hallway, who would be sitting as flush against the wall as you could, so that the principal didn’t see you, cuz you’d be in trouble. You know, I always enjoyed dealing with those students because I could find out what was going on with them at home. You know, I had probably not the easiest family life or the easiest life growing up. And so I know that behavior’s really communicative of what a student has going on. So finding that way to be that support, to be that listening ear. That was really cool.


Dr. Adam Browning (12:07):
And I could see that as tangible differences that I could make for a student every day, you know, and I wasn’t always coming to teach a class. Sometimes it was like, this is how you tie a tie. I remember some great six kids who were celebrating, I guess, a mini graduation and they were fascinated with it. And just being that first person to teach them that I felt I felt honored. And so that was really cool. Those were the positives, I think in this role that I have now, I have a greater opportunity to make system change things that I’m passionate about with literacy or with language. I have an opportunity to advocate for that and do that at the system level. Like I didn’t during a school, the challenges, I don’t always see the tangible impact it takes. Sometimes when you’re looking at dealing with 40 something schools and, you know, over a thousand staff and 9,000 students seeing that tangible difference in that individual student’s life take time at a system level and something I’m adjusting to,


Sam Demma (13:10):
You mentioned me able to make system ch system change at this level at that sometimes you can’t see the change that’s happening or the impact that’s having on the direct student, or maybe even the direct staff member. But I had one educator to tell me, and you meant, you actually alluded to it earlier that sometimes your job as an educator is to plant this seed and water it. And sometimes that doesn’t grow or you don’t see it grow for 15, 20 years. Like you mentioned, now, you’re having students email you and tell you, you know, how great it was to learn X, Y, or Z, or that they’re working in a specific field or industry. And that probably lights you up. So I would, I would encourage you to just keep doing it with a, with a open heart, knowing that it’s still making a change, whether you’re here, it or not. Tell me more about the, the initial years in administration, if there’s someone else listening who would love to also make that jump, like what do you think helped you, you know, make the jump as well,


Dr. Adam Browning (14:12):
Make the jump to teaching to administrator.


Sam Demma (14:16):
Yeah,


Dr. Adam Browning (14:19):
I think when you work on as a staff, as a teacher and you see what a great principal can do, it really makes you enthusiastic about the potential now unquestionably. And I’ll say, I think that being a principal is probably the toughest job in education. Certainly I think it’s tougher than my, a job and you deal with a lot and you support a big staff of teachers, but the benefits of it and the positives of it are unparalleled. You know, I look at the time that I was a teacher and I, I started as a principal at the age of 26. So I was somewhat younger and I had some teachers on my staff, some of whom were in their fifties, they were closer to retirement. And I just had such a supportive group of teachers to help me learn along as a principal. You know, there’s no class that prepares a principal.


Dr. Adam Browning (15:05):
People will say that masters programs prepare principal or leadership quality programs. I think they help, but a lot of it is just lessons that you learn as you go and that you learn working with others from teachers. And I feel like a good piece of being a principal and a good piece of advice I would give to principals is to listen to your teachers. Mm. You always looked at books and their slogans like feed the teachers or to lead the kids or, or ways to distribute your leadership so that you’re empowering teachers to lead a school with you. Not just being led by you, but leading with you. And I feel like, you know, doing those things and seeing those things, every, just like every student had a positive teacher, teachers who have had a positive principle and they see what a difference it can make for a school community for them and for, or students, you know, maybe enthusiastic about taking that step.


Dr. Adam Browning (15:56):
It is a big jump. It’s not one that you get paid substantially for. And you have a tougher job, but you can make a difference for people. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, one of those, those things that I’ve taken away and I, I, I don’t usually push or market catch for raises or slow group slogans or programs, but this has been something big for me is like servant leadership. The idea that you can lead by helping others just finding ways to give a teacher that release time so they can go get a coffee. And then you’re spending that time reading with their kids, things like that are really cool. As a principal, you get a lot of flexibility in your, your schedule that you didn’t have when you were a teacher, but it’s an opportunity for you not to sit in your office. I’ve always heard, you know, people say, you know, you have an open door policy. I don’t have an open door policy. I mean, my policy is I gonna be out there or I won’t let my door hit me in the ass on the way out. You know, I think that we’re gonna out in classrooms and talking to parents and talking to students and just being really visible. Favorite part of being a principal, playing Dodge ball with the kids.


Sam Demma (17:00):
Mm love that. That’s awesome. And being that you’re a, someone who loves literacy, I’m sure you also read books. And I would love to know if, if any of the reads you’ve come across over the years as an educator have been really foundational or impactful for you, maybe in some of your own philosophies or principles as a leader.


Dr. Adam Browning (17:22):
That’s a great question.


Sam Demma (17:24):
I’m putting you on the spot here.


Dr. Adam Browning (17:26):
No, that’s great. Because then you, I think about, you know, what I’m endorsing or really what made that difference for me in terms of what I read, you know, I’ve read a ton of things about research, about literacy. And it’s not a book per se, but I’ve had some, some fundamental things that have changed my, my thoughts. So I’ll share two things, I’ll share a book and then I’ll share a thought changing experience if that’s okay. Yeah, that’s perfect. I think one of the more recent things that I’ve been looking at and I’ve been reading, that’s been impactful on my work is this book called making, thinking visible by Ron Richards. So he’s written a series of books, making, thinking visible and creating cultures of thinking. And it’s very focused on, I would say almost the relationships that we have and the dialogue behind learning.


Dr. Adam Browning (18:17):
I look at the challenges that we faced with the pandemic and learning, moving online. And I think that a lot of what we experienced in education before is challenges like student engagement. It’s just been exacerbated. It’s basically all of those challenge, but it’s created this sense of urgency and made it really apparent. And, you know, Ron Richard takes this approach to learning and these learning routines about having these, you know, not question and answer, but more of this rich dialogue with students and this rich learning routine that makes you know, learning transfer results in deep, deeper thinking and more critical thinking from students. And I’ve been big about that lately and reading it and then seeing the opportunities for it. And so that’s something that I feel like has helped definitely shift my, my thinking, think some other things that I’ve looked at that have really shifted the way that I felt on vocabulary and language learning my dissertation, my doctorates around vocabulary acquisition.


Dr. Adam Browning (19:18):
Cool. One of the biggest areas that I look at with language that really impacts the student is your vocabulary and part of what really delves the student to read. So, you know, to kind of put it into, I hope no linguists or list to this, cuz they’ll say he just did a really rough job with it from K to 12, by the time a kid gets to university, they gotta have around 80,000 words, 15 to 18,000 word families, 10,000 of these words are gonna be these heavier academic words. And these words that we get taught directly the next 20,000 are gonna be words that we hear in context through good conversation. And this last 40,040 to 50,000 are gonna be words that you have through your experiences and deeper and wider reading. Hmm. So the more you read, the more you experience, the better it’s gonna make your vocabulary and linguists won’t always agree on a lot.


Dr. Adam Browning (20:12):
I think most to them would agree that a kid’s early vocabulary is probably gonna be the best predictor of their academic success. And so, you know, I was speaking to a mentor of mine and saying, well, if only 10,000 are these first ones, the words that were taught explicitly, but the rest are reading. Why do we focus on that, that vocabulary acquisition so much that explicit, direct vocabulary acquisition. And so I’ve spent a lot of time researching that and looking at that of just how do we get kids engaged in language? And I used to take this approach as a researcher of being more on the cognitive side of language, where you count on the amount of vocabulary, you profile students language, to look at it. So much of what I’m seeing now can easily be measured. Mm it’s like the engagement factor for a student to wanna learn about something that they’re engaged in.


Dr. Adam Browning (21:02):
So they show their own agency and their own interest to get into a subject. Doesn’t always have to be through reading. Sometimes it’s through video or other media forms. It’s powerful and it’s something that’s tougher to measure and it’s really changing the way I’m thinking. So here’s the experience part. I was in a, a session with a a friend of mine and I would almost say an informal mentor, but David Bouchard, the very well known Metty author and David, you know, has had a profound impact on because I’m met, you know, his area’s literacy. That’s my area. He is much more well known than I am, but you know, someone that I aspire to be like, and he said something to the audience and I felt like it was almost calling me out. And he said not, everyone’s gonna be a doctor and drive Mercedes.


Dr. Adam Browning (21:50):
And we all found that funny, but then he said it needs three things. They need a hero in literacy like that positive adult role model who makes them like learning. They need a, they need time and they need a good book. Not everything is easily measured. And remember when he was saying that I was in the midst of writing my doctorate dissertation and I’m thinking about counting words, and I still believe in that aspect, but he just really opened some doors for me to, to think about literacy differently. And so not everything’s that that’s shaping who I’m becoming as an educator is books I read, but it’s also experiences called conversations. They have a big impact.


Sam Demma (22:31):
And what experiences did you have as a student that also built the beliefs about servant leadership and social justice? Like where did that passion or where did that? Yeah. Where did that passion come from to also focus on that aspect of education? Not only as a teacher, but also maybe when you were a student,


Dr. Adam Browning (22:54):
It probably didn’t come in until high school, but it came in that one social studies class where, you know, the teacher was teaching us in a way about contemporary history where I didn’t have to read a textbook that I didn’t see myself reflected in. You know, I grew up you know, my mother’s met and my family’s met my met individual. And I remember learning about history and it being so far removed from what I knew of my mother’s background, you know, we used to learn about the met resistance and we would hear it be called insurrection and that Lou re was a trait. And it was just such a difficult learning path. And so to make history accessible and take ownership over it was that really tough part. And this one teacher where I felt so alienated as a student learning, especially from that cultural aspect, he had just made it open where I didn’t have to read from a textbook.


Dr. Adam Browning (23:47):
I could go and find other things. And he’d challenge you. He’d tell you go to the public library and pick up sources that you wanted read on a topic. I mean, he, let me read Malcolm X. It changed my life, reading that book. That’s awesome. And you know, very much, even though Malcolm X was in teacher, brought me into education, I felt really empowered to learn about different topics and just to see the power of the pen and what learning can do to advance a social cause. And that’s really, I’d probably say the fundamental moment where I saw that difference I could make in education, but just the power of information and the access to information. Mm


Sam Demma (24:28):
That’s a great book. I love Malcolm X’s autobiography. There’s a part where talks about one of his first jobs being shoe shining along with hustling, but that, yeah, this that’s so cool. When you’re talking about this teacher, it instantly makes me think of my own world issues teacher. Like the teacher hand is down that had the biggest impact on me was my, his class was called world issues, but I guess it was social studies and he also didn’t have a textbook. In fact, he just had this white binder that had probably close to three or 4,000 sheets of paper in it. And he started the semester by walking in front of the class and saying, I wanna introduce myself, but I also wanna say, don’t listen or take word by word anything that I’m gonna tell you as the truth. If something makes you interested or curious, I want you to go and verify all the facts yourself.


Sam Demma (25:20):
And I remember being a student thinking this guy’s crazy. Like he’s the teacher, you know? But then it started to make so much sense and it became my most enjoyable class. You know, you talked about earlier, the idea of your student or your teacher making lessons accessible as well and making you feel culturally, and also just overall included in the, in the class. He was someone who would get to know us on, on such a, a level that he would teach a lesson and then say, oh, Sam, by the way, to you, this means X and oh, Adam to you, this lesson means X and oh, Koon to you because you’re interested in X, Y, and Z. This means X. And he would take the lesson and paint it with our interests so that we become interested in it. And I’ll never, yeah, I’ll never forget his class.


Sam Demma (26:10):
And he was someone who led by example, but without telling you, you know, I didn’t know that while I was in school, Mike for the past 24 years, ran the food drive and helped you know, bring a million pounds of food and goods to local shelters or that he collected enough pop, can tabs to build a eight wheelchairs and no one, he didn’t talk about it, but he would just, you know, he would teach his lessons, was super passionate about the content and then would be doing all this great work and living out what he thought was a, was a great life. And he’s retired now. And I’m curious to know well actually wanna wrap this up, but on two final notes, when you, when you retire know and you’re not that old, so hopefully got some years left , but, but when you step away from, you know, teaching, what is the legacy that you wanna leave or the, the impact you wanna leave behind. And then I’ll ask you one follow up question before we wrap up.


Dr. Adam Browning (27:07):
I got a ton of thoughts I wanna leave behind. I think the biggest thing that I’ve tried to leave behind right now, and no I’m not ready to retire, and it’s not even an age until I see that. I mean, I’ve wanted a number of students to just go on and come back and share their success and see enough of it that they’re making that change in the world, either becoming educators or just being passionate about something. And I don’t, I, I feel it and I see it, but I haven’t coming off. And that’s really the Testament to the work that you do is that kid in kindergarten, grade one who come back and they see you and you see that they’re just doing something wonderful. And they let you know, the more I see of that I might get there. And I haven’t been in education long enough to see enough of that.


Dr. Adam Browning (27:47):
Nice. I’m starting to see students of mine who become teachers, and I’m starting to see teachers of mine who are becoming administrators. And I’m proud of it. Think on one of my last schools, you know, the staff, at least three of those people have become administrators. And I just feel like that’s something that I want to continue to see. So now I’m focused really on building leadership opportunities for people to become leaders in various capacities. That’s something that I want to see behind that I’ve created this ongoing system of sincere leaders and learners who are giving back to the, to the community. And I think that I hope I lead behind a Testament of literacy where so much of what we do is just having students engage in positive literacy experiences. And I remember as a student going to the library and picking up things that I wasn’t necessarily connected in class, but I was connected to ideas and to have someone who can value that, and then just encouraged that, that literacy learning or students creating things and those natural opportunities for it. I would like to leave that behind on a system where we celebrate literacy, we don’t just measure it. That’s something I’m looking forward to leaving behind


Sam Demma (28:59):
You. You made me think about what, what informal path I took to start liking literacy or just books and reading as well. I’ll share really quickly. I hated reading. growing up. You couldn’t get me to read a book. I just, I was too focused on soccer and sports. And it was when I was 16 years old and got diagnosed with a condition in my hip known as FAI. It stands for ephemeral acid, tabular impingement, essentially the head of my femur wasn’t round. Then it was tearing up the cartilage in my right hip. And I just got diagnosed with it. I was taking six months off soccer. And while I was taking the time off, I told my dad, I wanted to build a gym in my basement. And he said, great, I’ll help you pick up the equipment, but you have to find a way to pay for it.


Sam Demma (29:44):
And so I started a Salvato grass, cutting service, and started cutting my neighbors lawns and awesome. I started flipping gym equipment on Kijiji. I’d buy rusted plates, you know, scratch them with an iron brush to get the rust off spray, paint them, sell them for full price. I was pretty excited about it. And you know, after a couple, once I had enough money to blast some equipment and I found a gym that was closing down in Toronto, and I connected with the person, we agreed on a price. I got my dad to deliver on his promise and drive me to downtown Toronto. And, you know, I spent 45 minutes going up and down these flights of stairs, grabbing these dumbbells. And I was just having a conversation with the guy who sold it to me and asking him, oh, why are you was in your gym?


Sam Demma (30:22):
And he was like, you know, I have this dream and vision to coach people. And I’m writing this book right now. And he, you know, went down this long explanation of how he’s changing his life. And he’s super inspired by different work. And he’s like, oh, do you like reading? And I was like, no, you know, I, I, I actually, he hate reading. I don’t read too much. And he was like, oh, you should read a couple books. In fact, you know, maybe start with these. And he gave me a short little list and I remember being inspired because I kind of looked up to this guy. He seemed like a very cool individual. He was selling me Jim equipment. So I thought, you know what, I’m gonna give this a shot. And I remember going to indigo and buying, you know, two or three of the books on the list and reading them, not understanding too much of the books because they were not, they were self-help books and they weren’t really related to anything I was experiencing or going through in my life.


Sam Demma (31:13):
So it was a little out of context, but I remember reading them and thinking, wow, this is pretty cool. And I ended up making value village, a thrift store, my biggest bookstore. And, you know, if you buy I four books to get the fifth one free and I would go there every couple months and buy some new books anyways, I’m going on a long path to say that I think sometimes students get inspired to read and to get more involved with literacy when it’s coming from someone outside of the actual educational system or walls, because when their teacher tells ’em to do it, maybe it’s not so cool. But when someone you look up to does, it’s a different story, you know? But yeah, that was my experience. Anyways. I think what you mentioned about leaving behind is, is awesome. And now, if, if I could ask you the reverse question and take you back to your first year of teaching, knowing what you know now, you know, based on the experiences you’ve had and the learnings you had, what advice would you give your younger self when you were just starting? If you could give yourself a handful of pointers,


Dr. Adam Browning (32:16):
I would tell myself to take the time to walk around and see what’s working. Right. I moved into administration really quick, and I felt this to challenge right off the bat to help every student and to help every teacher in education. And so rarely in the day, you know, when you’re dealing with, especially my current role, I end up dealing with lots of issues. But that’s always been that case throughout education. I think I would go back and I remind myself to find opportunities to see what is working, right. So that you’re not just, you know, immersed in issues because there’s so many success stories that are out there in schools, whether it’s a student, that’s doing something excellent or a passion that they have. And if you’re focused too much on the on challenges, sometimes you miss those, those opportunities. Mm.


Dr. Adam Browning (33:01):
And so I’d tell a younger, less patient version of myself. I give ’em the grasshopper speak and speech and say, this is something that, you know, you’re gonna come to learn. And, and I would’ve tried, I probably wouldn’t have been ready to hear it at the time, but I would’ve learned, I would’ve stated that. And just to your point, I think that, you know, we all need to do that. I think back in myself as a student, I can’t remember how many books I read that were part of a course that were something that I remember fundamentally, as you know, this was that book that really made me love literacy. And so we talked about things that I’m reading that have influenced me. I read a ton of stuff in my field. Some of it’s great. I, I don’t know if it’s always that book that really influenced me, but I can think back to grade nine to a book that I read, that wasn’t part of the course or any class.


Dr. Adam Browning (33:49):
And I was a struggling learner, but I was reading things. And I think if we find opportunities for students about things that they’re reading or things that they’re passionate about, that they can connect with literacy multimedia literacy, if we can find that and bring it into school so that it’s not the other way around, we can just push those opportunities even sooner so that when you’re out there shopping for something and you’re looking, and you’ve gone and purchased these books at indigo, like your experience, because it was something that you were interested in, let’s bring that into school. Yeah. And then find a way for you to connect that to a subject that you’re working. I find that too often, we’re too regimented on what kids should learn, read, and not giving enough flexibility. And if we don’t do that, students may not have those opportunities to have like a sincere learning experience and a celebration. And it’s just a missed opportunity. So we need to bring more of that in. I appreciate you sharing that. That’s awesome.


Sam Demma (34:42):
Yeah, of course. Well, one more thing to share before we wrap up, I’ve started thinking a lot about what influences and inspires young people recently. And when I get to the heart of it, a lot of it comes down to music and art. I think like every student, no matter if they listen to different genres, all love and listen to some form of music. And, and I’m speaking on behalf of myself, which is a little biased, but I think in high school, we all have certain rappers or musicians or pop stars or rock bands that we like listening to and are inspired by. So I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I could try and inspire students to deepen their learnings or think about new things through a different art. And so I’ve been, and speaking, you know since I was 17 and just recently decided, let me try a different form of art. And so I’m writing a spoken word album and it’ll come out in the middle of 20, 22, it’s gonna be called dear high school me, and it’ll be all about conversations and challenges. I went through as a, as a high school student in the hopes that this different form of literacy might inspire other conversations or, you know, learnings. So we should connect again, closer to that. I would love to share with you and see what your thoughts are.


Dr. Adam Browning (35:51):
I’d love to take a look at it. That sounds, that sounds great. See lots of students doing that. I mean, I wish I had that opportunity in school, and I’m glad that you have that and hopefully more students do, but I’m looking forward to seeing that. Cool.


Sam Demma (36:03):
Cool. Well, Adam, thank you so much for taking the time outta your day to come on the show. I really appreciate it. If anyone’s listening, people are listening for those who are listening what would be the best way for them to reach out if they, if, if they wanna engage in a conversation with you?


Dr. Adam Browning (36:19):
I’m on Twitter, @AdamLBrowning on Twitter, easy to find and says educator. And that’s probably the best way or just Palliser Schools division; that’s where I work.


Sam Demma (36:30):
Okay, perfect. All right, Adam, thank you so much. Stay in touch and keep up with the great work.


Dr. Adam Browning (36:34):
Thanks Sam.


Sam Demma (36:35):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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 Adam Browning

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.

April 30, 2022 by Director of Education Student Success Teaching Tips 0

Natasha Bathgate – Director of Learning and Innovation at West Island College

Natasha Bathgate - Director of Learning and Innovation at West Island College
About Natasha Bathgate

Natasha Bathgate (@NLBathgate) is the Director of Learning and Innovation at West Island College, Calgary. An educator for 17 years, she is passionate about people, nature, and good design.

Natasha was born in Wales, emigrated to Canada in 2008, and lived in Vancouver for 10 years. Currently in Calgary with her husband and twins aged 10, Natasha is driven by a need for continuous growth, new experiences, and feeling strong.

Connect with Natasha: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

West Island College

Royal Road University – Masters of Arts in Educational Leadership and Management

IB Leadership Certificates

Choose your Own Adventure Books

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Natasha Bathgate. She is the director of learning and innovation at West Island College in Calgary. An educator for 17 years, she is passionate about people, nature and good design. Natasha was born in Wales, emigrated to Canada in 2008, and lived in Vancouver for 10 years. She’s currently in Calgary with her husband and twins who are age 10, and Natasha is driven by a need for continuous growth, new experiences, and feeling strong. And I know you will take all of that and so much more away from our conversation today, so enjoy. Natasha, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show this morning. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit of the reason behind why you’re so passionate about the work you do in education today?


Natasha Bathgate (01:34):
Sure. So I’m originally from Wales in the UK which is the kind of land of daffodils and male voice choirs and rugby. And I came to Canada over 20 years ago now and just first of all, moved to Vancouver and fell in love with Vancouver and decided that at some point in my life I wanted to, to be living there permanently. So I’ve now been living in Canada as a Canadian citizen since 2008 I think; 2007/2008. And funnily enough, I didn’t actually get into work in education for many of the reasons that other people may have. My pathway was not exactly traditional. I, the reason I got into education is because I wanted to get permanent residency in Canada and when I was looking to, when I was looking to fill out all of my papers to come, to, to move to Canada they had a list of careers that were on that were, were acceptable to get a get permanent residency.


Natasha Bathgate (02:38):
And at the time I was working as a travel consultant and travel consultant originally was on the list. And then at that time, September 11th happened and the Canadian government took all travel related careers off the list. So I was ready to put my code in the code of the job I was doing. And and then it was no longer there. So I just was chatting with a few friends in Wales and around in a pub one day. And and I said, look, I really wanna move to Canada. What am I gonna do? I looked at all the list of things and I considered vending machine repair technician. Yeah. I thought, okay, I can train in that pretty quickly. So maybe I could do that. And then one of my friends said, Hey, why don’t you go into teaching? I think you’d be pretty good at teaching.


Natasha Bathgate (03:21):
And I just thought, no, like why would no never considered that? Why would I do that? Yeah. And she said, well, and I thought, what would I even teach? And anyway, I was, I was quite good at art at school and I I yeah, I enjoyed drawing and painting, so I thought, okay, I’ll just go and see if I can do that. So I started, I arranged to I arranged to shadow my old art teacher in Wales and I just thought, okay, well, I’ll see if I see if I would be interested in doing this. So I shadowed her for a little while. Then I submitted my application to do a a postgraduate for kit in education so that I could become qualified to teach. And anyway, kind of fast forward a few, a number of years, cuz it still took a long time to get the actual qualification, the work experience, the visas, et cetera. But finally I, I managed to move to Canada and that’s what got me into teaching.


Sam Demma (04:19):
That’s so that’s, that’s such an,


Natasha Bathgate (04:21):
But I did actually. Yeah. And it turns out I I do, I mean, I’m not teaching right now. I’m director of learning and innovation, but I for the last like fif 16 years, I’ve been teaching and I love it because it’s even though I’m not directly teaching, I’m still obviously very closely connected to it. I just it’s, it’s so interesting. It’s never boring. Like there’s never, you know, you, you never go into the school or the classroom thinking, oh God, it’s gonna be another boring day. There’s never a dull moment. And because every student is different and every student has different backgrounds and different experiences and different little quirks and it’s just such a great fun place to work.


Sam Demma (05:03):
Well, I was gonna ask you like, what was your first role? And maybe you could explain what director of learning and innovation looks like as well, because I’m sure many people are wondering that sounds like a cool role and I’ve never heard of it before. So yeah,


Natasha Bathgate (05:16):
I know. It’s funny. Yeah. So well, yeah, so originally I was an art team, so I was teaching art for a number of years. And then I became the kind of department head of, of a, of a department that had a bunch of different subjects to do with arts and technology graphic design, computer science, all that. And then I started to become really interested in educational leadership and about I think five years ago now I did my masters in educational leadership and management at a really awesome university called Royal Rhode university in Victoria, Vancouver island. Nice. And the reason I kind of chose that university is because they really have a very kind of future focused, collaborative, innovative approach to teaching leaders to become leaders. Hmm. And so, so yeah, so I got into educational leadership because I really just wanted to be able to have a bit more impact and influence on the future of education.


Natasha Bathgate (06:18):
And I think that I was able to influence the students in my classroom on a daily basis, but I got to a point where I thought, you know, I want to be able to be part of decision making at a, a broader level. So that’s why I got into educational leadership. So my role is really, I feel I found myself, I felt I’m quite lucky Rudy, cuz my role is about, you know, I get involved in educational research. I continually sort of observe teaching and learning in the classroom. I work with teachers and ask them like, you know, what do you need to be at your best? Like how, how can I support you to be the best teacher and the best person? And then I, and then I just I guess building relationships with teachers to help them be the best teachers they can be.


Natasha Bathgate (07:04):
And some people, some schools will call this role director of academics. So it has different job titles, but it really is about making sure that the, the teaching and learning that’s going on in your school is aligned with, you know, your vision, mission and values it’s aligned with where you believe the future of education should be. And and it’s just kind of, you know, if we say we want students to be curious, then what does teaching and learning look like for students to be curious? And what does the teacher look like if they, if you, if you want that teacher to infuse curiosity in students, then what should that teacher be doing? So I don’t get involved with the day to day. I don’t get too involved with the day to day kind of operational stuff. Like that’s why I think I’m quite lucky. I really do love this job. Yeah. but yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s it up.


Sam Demma (08:00):
That’s awesome. And you know, from talking to Jim and from also just reading a ton on the website, I found that you take like the school takes a very personalized approach, tries to create a very personalized approach for every single student and learner. I would assume like that’s a big part of your work as well is like, would I be correct in saying that? And what does that look like? Like for you or for the school?


Natasha Bathgate (08:21):
Yeah. With teachers, cuz I guess I, because I work closely with teachers. Yeah. So I’m trying to per I’m trying to personalize the professional growth for teachers. Hmm. So it starts off with, it starts off with a one-on-one conversation towards the beginning of the year and setting goals. And the goal is of course aligned with, you know, the teaching and learning quality standards for the province. But once we’ve had that conversation, then I, I make notes about what that person has said. And I, and I work hard to try to find things that I think would interest them. So if I’m suggesting professional development activities, I might suggest books. I might suggest connecting them with certain people. Like I, I try and I try and build capacity in individuals by really connecting them with other people as well, who could, who could support them. Nice. And that’s kind of also the, my approach that was my approach to teaching as well. When I was, when I was teaching, that was my same approach. I just want to find out, you know, what is it that person needs, wants enjoys and how can I build their capacity by drawing upon those, those things.


Sam Demma (09:37):
I love that. And you know, you mentioned goal setting as well. Has that been a foundational pillar in your own personal life? Like think back to when you were still in whales, like is one of the first things you did is sit down with a pen and paper and like write out your own personal goals. Like tell, tell me more about that.


Natasha Bathgate (09:52):
So I don’t necessarily write them down and I know that’s key thing that if you write them down, then it’s, you’re more likely to achieve them. But I do, I’m very, very goal orientated oriented. I’m very driven by goals. And even if I don’t write them down, I’m kind of quite determined to achieve them. So, so for example, I was determined to move to Canada no matter what. And I knew it was gonna take a long time and I, and it, it did take an extraordinary long time because even once I got my teaching qualification, I, I still had to get a couple of years experience teaching in Wales before I could even submit my application to, to move here. And I think the same with, with getting the right to become an educational leader. I originally had applied to a university in, in Vancouver that I thought was gonna be good to UBC and and no disrespect to UBC anyones listening this, but , I, I had an application to, to, to go onto their educational leadership program, their masters I was accepted.


Natasha Bathgate (10:58):
And then as I was choosing the different courses, I was, I couldn’t choose the courses until after I’d been accepted. And then once I chose the different modules, I was reading the descriptions and thinking, I don’t know, this doesn’t sound like a particularly future focused, you know, innovative learning environment for me. And, and I was so set on being an innovative future oriented leader. I realized then that, that university wasn’t gonna be right for me. So I withdrew and that meant I was back a year. I, I, I kind of wasted a year, I suppose, cuz I then had to submit an application to another place that did fit what I was looking for. So I, so that’s an example, I suppose I am very goal, goal oriented and, and I’m, I’m prepared to, you know, to take a side step if it means taking longer to get the right thing.


Sam Demma (11:51):
And it sounds like with your work supporting educators, one of the goals is to really make a huge impact on the, on the students because that’s kind of like the end results you’re hoping for by helping the teachers become better and more equipped to, to teach their students. Like if that’s the end goal, how do you think right now we, we make students feel seen, heard and appreciated in this, the, you know, very different and difficult situation.


Natasha Bathgate (12:15):
Well, you know what I think actually I’ve been reading a little bit about like generation Z and what, what gen what, what your generation the characteristics, I guess, and one thing that I’ve noticed is that I don’t even know if they need much help, like your generation is so, so driven. And so so intent on making an impact and not afraid to speak up about things that they believe need to be talked about. And I’ve noticed in my I’ve noticed in recent years that that students are this generation all they need is the space to be, to, to be heard. Yeah, they don’t need, they don’t even need much encouragement. They don’t even need to be, you know, it’s like, here’s a space, here’s the time we’re gonna have this meeting come and say what you need to say. And, and, and I, I think that the students right now, the generation right now are incredibly capable and brave.


Natasha Bathgate (13:20):
And I think that, I know it sounds kinda corny, but I do think the future’s safe. Like I think the future is safe in, in your hands and, and this generation. So, so back to your question, I guess it’s I think it’s really important to know what it is that to, to be constantly aware of the issues of today that we need to make sure that we’re getting voices around the table. So, you know, for example, obviously a, a big piece of a, a big, I, it’s not issue, but a, a big topic, I guess at the moment in education and around the world is, is diversity, equity and inclusion. And how can we make sure that, that everybody feels safe and included and valued and respected and honored and appreciated. And they’re all fairly, you know, you wouldn’t think that would be too difficult, but, but I’ve realized that some students don’t feel safe and valued and honored. And when you ask students, if you just have the courage to ask them, what’s your experience like what’s going on for you? Mm-Hmm and what, what should we be doing differently then, then it’s, I guess it’s that sense of my moral, I, I feel a sense of moral responsibility. I feel as an educational leader, I feel a moral responsibility to, to give these students a voice and to actually act on it, you know?


Sam Demma (14:52):
Yeah. I, I, I think that’s so important and I’m assuming over this past year, those conversations have started to happen and have been happening. That’s, that’s amazing. And is it usually in the form of a one-on-one conversation or do you find it being more of a group conversation? Like how’s it working?


Natasha Bathgate (15:09):
Well, I mean, I’ll give you an example. I think earlier on in the year I had sent, I had sent a communication out to our alumni saying just really kind of an invitation, I suppose, to anybody who’s, who has expertise in advancing your organization or, or your community with diversity, equity and inclusion, or anyone who has an interest in this area, or anyone who has experiences at, at w that they want to share with me, please reach out. So it was just an open invitation. And I, and from that, I had just a small number, but six people contacted me. Some of them met, some of them kind of contacted me as a group. And I, so I met with them as a group and then one of them was just as an individual and that, that started in January. And it’s really kind of built in momentum to the point now where I’m now.


Natasha Bathgate (16:03):
So I, I meet with this kind of group of alumni only once a month, but but I’m also meeting with some students from us within the school who are sharing their experiences and, and sadly their experiences have not been, you know, have not been great. And and it’s, it’s, it’s been very difficult to hear, you know, when you’ve, I’ve only been at school for two years, but I know that other people who have been there longer feel, feel terrible, that, that some people have not out great being at the school for the last number of years. And also not also not necessarily realizing and not knowing that, but now that the stories are kind of out now that we have that awareness. Now we can start to develop an understanding around, well, what contributed to that? Like, what as leaders, what, what should, and could we be doing to, to to make everybody feel, you know, to help everyone feel safe and included in the school.


Natasha Bathgate (17:01):
And now we’re at the point where, I guess I, I’ve also introduced some of the alumni to our, some of our current students, so they’ve kind of met and shared their experiences. And now this week, hopefully we are about to start a student pluralism group, which is really around, let’s start having discussions about, about how we can, how we can make the school, I guess, a more inclusive place. Nice. But we have incredibly intelligent, passionate, brave individuals at the school who they just need, you just need to unlock. And they’re like jumping into there. , it’s just a case of turning the key. You don’t even need to open the door, like they’re ready. So it’s, it’s an exciting place to be in education right now, I think.


Sam Demma (17:48):
And it takes a ton of self awareness as a school community, as educational leaders to address those things, because it’s uncomfortable. Right’s not, it’s, it’s not a uncomfortable thing to do, but it’s definitely the right thing to do. And I think it’s cool that, you know, you’re very passionate about addressing those things and, and kickstarting those conversations and unlocking those doors. So the conversations can happen. You, you mentioned that, you know, you didn’t go to UBC because it didn’t feel like they had the right training materials that would lead to the innovative approach you were hoping to take. What, what do you think the future of education looks like being someone who sounds super passionate about innovation in the future? Like if, you know, if you could jump into time machine in travel there, what would you suspect to change or be different in the future?


Natasha Bathgate (18:34):
Well, I think that I think that we really need to explore a bit more about where learning happens and to be more open, to learning happening in different places other than a school building. And I know that already takes place. I know that people go on, you know, experiential learning trips to different parts of the country or different countries. And you know, and we have, there’ll be sort of work experience. And at our school, we have few experts come in. So it does happen to a certain extent, but I think we need to have much greater flexibility in mainstream education. So for example, my kids are homeschooled. I’ve got twins who age 10 and my husband was really passionate about homeschooling them, which was kind of funny, cuz I I’ve been a teacher for a long time. So I was like,


Sam Demma (19:23):
You sure,


Natasha Bathgate (19:24):
I wasn’t. I know I was thinking, well, this is strange. Is this like a sort of slap in the face of my profession here? But anyway, he, he really wants to do it, so I’m going along with it right now. But so they he’s been homeschooling them for, for just over a year and it, and it turns out that because of COVID, it’s fine. It, it makes sense. But what I’m noticing though, is that what he does is he pieces together. They’re learning experience through all different things. So they go, they go to a place in Calgary called Phoenix foundation, which is kind of like a school for homeschool. And you can choose what day of the week you go, depending on what what’s happening on that day. So they, they go once a week to that, then they meet up with a huge homeschool network group and they have different activities outside.


Natasha Bathgate (20:09):
And then they share like the parents will share expertise and do little workshops. So, so anyway, there’s that flexibility and, and choice over learning that is also about homeschooling. But what I think would be even better is if they could also have a consistency of going to choosing to go to a particular place for a couple of days where they’re gonna meet the same people all the time and build up those relationships and have that consistency and have, have that expertise from teachers. But then to be able to say, actually for like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I’m gonna go to this place here and learn from these different experiences. So this is a bit of a long-winded answer, but I think the key really with, with learning is, is flexibility of where the learning happens. And, and to, to make it normal because it, in so many places right now, like there’s, you know, there’s schools that are outdoor schools, there’s schools that specialize in project based learning there’s schools that specialize in the arts there’s schools that specialize in everything. But, but if you want, you kind of have to be all in, like, you know, if you choose to go to an outdoor school or a, or a school that it specialize in project that only does project based learning, then you’re kind of, you’re invested in that one thing. But I think the future of education and mainstream education, I think needs to be that that those options become, become commonplace.


Sam Demma (21:40):
Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot,


Natasha Bathgate (21:41):
It’s only a subtle, it’s only a subtle change. It’s kinda like, you know, they should be able to create their own adventure, you know, create your learning adventure and, and you know, what, what works for you.


Sam Demma (21:51):
And I think that comes back to what you mentioned earlier about, you know, sparking curiosity. Like I think back to books I used to read and the choose your own adventure books were the funnest, you know, I would say flip to page 70, if you want to try this. And, and I’d much rather read those than reading a blank book just right through. And I younger. So yeah, I think we could definitely pull that model into education. Yeah. Which is a really interesting idea. And if you could go back in time and speak to younger Natasha, the first year you got into teaching, like knowing what you know now, what pieces of advice would you give your younger self?


Natasha Bathgate (22:26):
Oh my gosh. It’s tough one. I think just yeah, I think, I think probably just to have


Natasha Bathgate (22:43):
Just to, to learn from other people, like I was terrible at classroom management at the start and, and, and I think learn from other people, observe other people watch what’s going on, watch the experts and learn from the experts. It’s not to say that I didn’t, but I didn’t get looking back. I think if I had made more of an effort to ask another teacher, can I come and can I come and watch your class? I know you’ve been teaching for 10 years. I’ve heard that you’re really good at this, that and the other. Can I come and watch? So I think seeing each seeing really learning from learning from people who are better than you at something and not being, not being embarrassed to, to say, I’m, I really suck at this. I need to get better at it. Can you show me, can I learn from you? Mm. I think that’s something that I would probably do because I, there was a time when I think I did struggle with, I was working in a school in, you know, terrible schools in Wales and England, where, where they throw paper balls at you, like as a teacher, you you’re, you know, yeah. I had things thrown at me. I had a garbage can thrown at me. Wow. so it’s really about survival in that, in that, in that situation. And I think I needed some more survival tactics.


Sam Demma (24:00):
Being, being a soccer fan. I was gonna ask you, are, were they hooligans? yeah,


Natasha Bathgate (24:07):
That’s funny. They were, they would wanna be hooligans. They were, they were hooligans in training for sure. Yeah.


Sam Demma (24:11):
That’s funny, that’s funny. Awesome. Well, this has been a phenomenal conversation. If someone’s listening right now and has been inspired in any way, shape or form and wants to just have a conversation, what would be the best way for someone to, you know, get in touch with you and reach out?


Natasha Bathgate (24:26):
Well, I do use Twitter and I use LinkedIn. I think my Twitter is just @NLBathgate I think, and then I don’t use LinkedIn as much, but yeah. Twitter or LinkedIn or even yeah, I think those would be the best. I would just put those, you can incorporate those into the podcast.


Sam Demma (24:43):
Sounds good, Natasha. Thank you so much.


Natasha Bathgate (24:45):
And then I, and I’d be happy to have a conversation with anybody for sure.


Sam Demma (24:48):
Perfect. Thank you so much for doing this and coming on the show, I appreciate you sharing some insights and some of your experiences. Keep doing great work and I’ll, I’ll see you soon.


Natasha Bathgate (24:56):
Thank you, Sam. Thanks a lot. Okay, bye.


Sam Demma (24:59):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; if you want 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.

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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.

April 23, 2022 by Department Head Director of Education Teachers Teaching Tips 0

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