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About Aaron Schmitt

Aaron Schmitt is the principal of Reitz Memorial High School in Evansville, Indiana. He and his wife are proud alumni of the school, and have two children who will also attend the school.

Aaron was hired as a social studies teacher in 2009, and spent thirteen years in the classroom and coaching baseball before moving into the principal role at the school. This is his third year, and he’s hoping to be around for at least another twenty-five to see the impact and the changes the school is making.

What Aaron loves most about being in education is seeing where the students are down the road. The impact that teachers make is long lasting and formational, and essential for character formation in young men and women. Without the educators in his own life who cared about him and taught him, he would not be where he is today.

Connect with Aaron Schmitt: Email

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Resources Mentioned

Reitz Memorial High 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
When you were talking about returning back to the school and the opportunity and the challenge that comes along with it in terms of how we perceive ourselves versus how our peers do, it made me think about when a student leaves for university and spends four years away from their parents

Sam Demma
and then comes back and it’s like, well, this is interesting.

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah.

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah.

Sam Demma
Tell me a little bit about those first few years. You mentioned before we started talking that the time in the classroom has a really special place in your heart. I’d love to know more about that.

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah. Oh gosh. You know, I mean, like I said, I was 23. I had proposed to my wife early on. I mean, if you asked any of my former homeroom kids, there’s like probably, you know, it’s interesting.

Aaron Schmitt
I have one of my favorite books is a book where the main character talks about, you know, the thing about a reputation is everybody knows your reputation except for you. Right. So that’s really insightful. Right.

Aaron Schmitt
So like there’s this always this kind of like everybody knows the reputation of Mr. Schmitt except for Mr. Schmitt. Like I don’t know necessarily what is I think I may know some things, but I don’t know everything. And one of the pieces of advice that I give to our new principal is, you know, as a young teacher, I was always terrified of being like, you know, there’s that friend or friendly. Right. And you want to be friendly with the kids, but not necessarily be a friend.

Aaron Schmitt
You want to be a mentor to them. You don’t want to you don’t want to cross that line where they don’t see you as anything other than their teacher, their instructor, their coach. There’s a professional relationship. And also one of the great things about teaching is kids are going to open up to you. They are going to come to you with stuff when they feel comfortable, when they’re struggling

Aaron Schmitt
with things at home or on the court or on the field or relationship stuff with their friends or with a boyfriend or girlfriend. They’re going to open up to you with those things or mental health struggles. I always felt like I had a lot of kids that would talk to me about things like that. And it’s always kind of that balance, right?

Aaron Schmitt
Like how do you give them an ear where they do that, but also make sure that they understand very professional, right? Like there’s a boundary and we will make sure that we can maintain that boundary. So, I don’t know, whenever I have our new staff, like I said, there were like three things that I was known for when I first started teaching. One was I would always just tell them that’s personal.

Aaron Schmitt
Anytime they would ask me a personal question, I would just say that’s personal and I would not answer it. And it drove them crazy, right? But I knew that the more I talked about myself, the less interested they would be in me. So I knew that if you hold certain things back and you only let them know certain things, right? Like you’re kind of also building out your reputation. Like you’re kind of building out like, okay, here’s the reputation that I want kids to be able to talk about me. Like Mr.

Aaron Schmitt
Schmitt’s class is really great. He really prides himself in academics. He puts a lot of time into his stuff, but also he’s a little standoffish. And so you gotta pay attention in class because every once in a while, he’ll tell something about himself. And they kind of latch onto that.

Aaron Schmitt
They’ll be like, wait, what did you just say? And you’ll go, and I would say, well, that’s personal. And I would just move on. It would drive them crazy, But it was a way to keep engagement up. It was kind of a little game you play in class, right? Like everybody plays a role, everybody plays a character in class. And so I used to always say that was personal.

Aaron Schmitt
And they would hate it. But then as the years would go on, like my homeroom kids, freshman year, nothing. Hey, Mr. Schmitt, are you married? That’s personal. Why are you asking about that?

Aaron Schmitt
That’s none of your business, you know, and it would just be like, I’m just asking. And, you know, you got to, you kind of play this kind of curmudgeon in class. And then over the years, you kind of lessen up a little bit, you let them know a little bit more, right, a little bit more and a little bit more. And you tell them some stories that were really meaningful and impactful to you, things that I had experienced, things know, that really helps set the tone for what was important, what I wanted them to walk away with from this class, right? Like when I wanted to walk away from this class, I wanted to know that I was

Aaron Schmitt
somebody who valued this place, cared deeply about it, appreciated the faith aspect that was more than just education, but was full formation as a human being, that I appreciated students that treated each other with respect. And, you know, I’d lay out these examples in my life where I’d seen stuff. And again, I’d tell them those contextual examples.

Aaron Schmitt
But really, that was, you know, those are years I really love that. It was easier to do it in the classroom because I had more opportunities to kind of build that up over time. As principal, I can’t do that now. You know, I can’t just walk around telling people that’s personal and then just walk away. They’re just like, this guy’s, I don’t know me well enough to do that. They’re just like, this guy’s a jerk.

Sam Demma
What would you say- the way you approach building those relationships in the administration role versus in the classroom. It sounds like in the classroom, playing the character, withholding some information, sharing stories every once in a while was one way. How has it shifted?

Aaron Schmitt
You know, I’m still learning.

Aaron Schmitt
I’m still learning that. I think that’s the tough part about bringing up principal. So I never wanted to be an administrator. You know, I’m still learning. I’m still learning that. I think that’s the tough part about bringing up principals. So I never wanted to be an administrator. I tell people that all the time. It wasn’t my goal in life.

Aaron Schmitt
Like my goal in life was to come in and stay in the classroom and be the classroom teacher and be the coach for, you know, God willing 40 years if I could spend that long in the classroom. And if I was doing a good job at it,

Aaron Schmitt
I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. But I think in from an administrator perspective, the relationships you’re building with kids, it takes a lot more effort to build relationships with kids. It’s not as easy as it used to be in the classroom. I don’t have them every other day for an hour and a half

Aaron Schmitt
like we do, like I did when I was in the classroom. And so kind of getting that targeted group, and I don’t see as many kids as I used to either, right? Like I used to see, I don’t know, six classes over every other day, 25 kids in each one, so 150 kids. And then they help build your reputation, right? Like I talked about building that reputation out. They would tell their friends, oh, to take this class or hey, don’t take that class. It’s way too hard. You know, they kind of would help build that out as well. So now from an administrative perspective, it’s a lot more of the faculty.

Aaron Schmitt
The focus is a lot more on the faculty and the focus is a lot more on community relations. And so, you know, adults are difficult. They’re not as easy as kids. They’ve got a lot more life experiences and the things that are maybe a little bit more novel to kids that are interesting, adults are just like, I’m not interested in that.

Aaron Schmitt
And they’re not as interested in the gimmicks and the stuff that maybe you would be able to get away with in the classroom and the kind of things that you would pull and the levers that you’d try to manipulate to get kids interested and stuff. So, but I feel that it’s important.

Aaron Schmitt
You know, ultimately that’s the reason I stepped into the role is just because I felt like I needed to be not where I wanted to be, but I felt like I needed to be where the school needed me to be. And so that was ultimately the reason for the shift. We’d seen a lot of turnover, a lot of change

Aaron Schmitt
in the past few years. And so I just felt like providing some consistency was

Sam Demma
important for the school. You mentioned the other time you had done a podcast format or something similar of this nature was on the side of a football field. You mentioned the desire to teach and coach for 40 years, God willing. Tell me more about the athletic side of building relationships with kids and how that shaped your whole experience.

Aaron Schmitt
No, I was a terrible coach. I will say that. So I was a pitcher only. I was a PO in baseball. I didn’t play the field through high school and then through college.

Aaron Schmitt
I was a pitcher only. And so I shouldn’t say I was a terrible coach. I knew one aspect of the game. Took me a while to realize there’s a lot that I didn’t know and I needed to turn that over to somebody else. One of my assistant coaches

Aaron Schmitt
who had actually batted through high school would be more helpful than me trying to, you know, do those things and work with those kids. I think, you know, there’s something great about coaching, right? Like when you sweat with the guys on the field because you’re running sprints with them, right? When they get to see a side of you that doesn’t come

Aaron Schmitt
through in the classroom, right? Something with maybe just, whether it’s a little bit more aggression, a little bit more passion, a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit more honest conversations than what you can have in the classroom when you’re one-on-one with a kid on the field. You know, those things really, they help you. We always, in our school, we’re blessed. We’ve got about 90% of our student bodies

Aaron Schmitt
involved in athletics. And so we’ve got a good chunk of our kids appreciate the coaches. And the other thing is it helps kids see you outside of the classroom too. Like they understand why. If they know how you are in the classroom

Aaron Schmitt
and they see that you don’t change when it comes to the field, that they’re just like, that’s who that person is. That’s how he is, that’s how she is. They expect, they demand, you know, they build and they hold the standard.

Aaron Schmitt
And that really makes a difference for our students, makes a difference for our teachers as well. So we always encourage our faculty to get involved, to try to coach if they can. We just made two hires over the past couple of weeks, and hopefully they’ll both end up coaching here as well. They mentioned that they wanted to. So that’s always good news for us to have more coaches in the building, and whether they’re

Aaron Schmitt
academic coaches or athletic coaches or theater or play coaches or band coaches, we want everybody to have those kids have the ability to see them outside of that aspect, outside the classroom aspect. For me, I always told them it was, I always said it was kind of like Batman and Bruce Wayne, right? Like Mr. Schmitt is different than Coach Schmitt. I always told them in the classroom I wanted to be called Mr. Schmitt and I’d have players that—

Aaron Schmitt
I always told them in the classroom, I want to be called Mr. Schmitt. And I’d have players that come in, they’d be like, hey coach. And I’d, you know, and they could tell, like it was one of those things to me, it would be like, hmm. And they’d go, oh, sorry, Mr. Schmitt.

Aaron Schmitt
I’d be like, I appreciate that. But, you know, I wanted them to understand that there is a difference between the classroom and the field, you know, especially with what we’re talking about. I didn’t want to talk about baseball all day long in the classroom, and I didn’t want to talk about academics on the field. I wanted each thing to have its place and to be able to put the attention and the focus on those things when the time was for those things. So the coaches made the biggest difference in my life. I mean, when I think of, you know, the guys I had growing up, whether I was playing, you know, little league stuff

Aaron Schmitt
or whether I was in high school, they always made the impact on me. They always helped me find confidence. They always helped me, you know, see myself and they always held you accountable in the classroom. I think that’s one of the things that we pride ourselves in a lot here. We do grade checks every two weeks for our athletes. Our coaches get a list of who’s not doing well in classes and they do study tables.

Aaron Schmitt
I mean, we really put an emphasis on the academics because it takes everybody—parents, coaches, teachers, counselors—everybody has to be surrounding that kid if we want them to be successful and try to get them to where we want. We want them to know that no matter where they go, they’re loved and they’re cared for. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a coach, if it’s a teacher, if we all have the same message and we’re all in the same spot,

Aaron Schmitt
you know, they’re gonna be in a much better place at the end of their four

Sam Demma
years here at Memorial. I was reading a book this weekend called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. And he shared a story about Picasso. Someone bought a bunch of his paintings and hung them up in a gallery and invited him to come and see it once it was all set up. And Picasso arrives, takes a glance at all the paintings on the wall, grabs a razor or like a knife,

Sam Demma
and proceeds to cut them all up. And the guy in the gallery is like, Picasso, stop, please, what are you doing? And he said, it’s not my best work. And the chapter was about professionals being critical or ruthless about their quality of work.

Sam Demma
And the first thing you said when I said, hey, tell me about coaching was, I was a terrible coach. And maybe it’s because what you’ve learned about coaching has shifted over the years. And I think that’s a beautiful perspective to have—that when your first version of coaching

Sam Demma
is very different than your 50th. And you’ve made progress. That’s a good thing. And I’m curious, in your perspective now, what makes great coaching? Or what makes a great coach? And are there any aspects of that that teachers can even think about or utilize?

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, coaching is a lot like parenting, right? I think of coaching as more like parenting. When I think about parenting, my own mom and dad, consistency is the most important thing—that you’re consistent, that kids know. Kids thrive in an environment with structure, when they know the rules and they know the boundaries,

Aaron Schmitt
they know how to act, and they will tailor their actions based on the consistency and the expectations that are laid out, right? And if you are consistent, 95% or higher, kids will tailor themselves and they’ll tailor their behaviors to that. And it’s a lot like in the classroom—like if you tell them, you show up late in the classroom, you show up late on the field, here’s the consequence, here’s the

Aaron Schmitt
consequence—and you have to be willing to follow through on it. My dad, you know, he was not one to mince words. He’s a man of little patience. And it was always one of those things that when he said he was gonna do something, it didn’t matter how extreme it sounded. He was gonna follow through on it.

Aaron Schmitt
And he always told me, the worst thing you can do is make a statement—“If you do this, I’m going to do this”—and then not follow up on it, because people learn very quickly that you don’t mean what you say.

Aaron Schmitt
And kids, better than anybody—because kids are always testing the boundaries, right? Like, they’re always gonna push you to try to see what they can get away with. And that’s expected—they’re kids. So, you know, but you know,

Aaron Schmitt
there are things on the field. You’d see a kid suffering with low confidence on the field. They’re just like, “I don’t think I can get it done.” How do you build them up? How do you build them up? How do you build them up? Well, same thing in the classroom too.

Aaron Schmitt
Some of those kids, they think “I could never—” they walk in the room, “I’m not any good at history.” Are they not any good at history, or have they just not put the time into it? Right? Like, it’s just like any other subject. I mean, again, I taught social studies and I taught everything from our intro world history up through AP comparative government, which was an international politics class.

Aaron Schmitt
And so I really loved how I could build kids up and get them interested in it. You know, it’s a little bit different on the field than in baseball. They want to be there, right? Like they’ve already made that decision that they’re going to be there and they made the commitment. But in the classroom, I always took it as a point of pride—how many kids can I get that walk in here and say, “I don’t want to be part of this, I don’t like this,” to then go… and I’m hearing former students want to go back into social studies as a career

Aaron Schmitt
and make an impact in the world through that. So, or even better—be a teacher. That was always the win, was when they’d come back and say, “I’m going to be a teacher now.”

Sam Demma
I think that’s a beautiful measuring stick of giving yourself that personal challenge of responsibility. “How many students can I turn on to this subject or this topic?” What would that inform you to do differently as a result? Like, is there certain things that you would think about doing more of in the classroom to increase the probability of that happening?

Sam Demma
Because I think every teacher listening to this is like, “Oh, if I could only get my kids passionate about math, this would be brilliant.” And I know you can’t take full responsibility. But yeah, yeah. I’m curious if there’s any things you used to

Aaron Schmitt
do.

Aaron Schmitt
No, you know, I mean, I think the biggest thing—for if you love your subject area, that’s the first and foremost. Kids have got to see that you love what you do. If they walk in the room and you’re just, you know, if you’re just run-of-the-mill, just doing the same thing—I mean, gosh, that’s terrible. Like, you know, you can’t do that to kids. You can’t do that to them.

Aaron Schmitt
They’re still young and they still have joy, right? Like, you can’t walk in the room and be like, “Oh, we’re just gonna do the same thing we’ve been doing.” Right? But I don’t know. I used to have a goal in every class where I would try to—I had one thing every week in every class that I looked forward to: an activity, a debate, a discussion, some type of project that they were going to work on.

Aaron Schmitt
I always said if I wasn’t happy in the classroom, that’s my own fault. I have control of it. I mean, yeah, I might not have control over the, you know, the standards that have to be taught, but I definitely have control over how I want to teach those standards. Like, I have a lot of autonomy—especially in a Catholic school, I have a lot of autonomy to be able to handle that. You know, if you’re not happy with how things are going in your classroom, then change it.

Aaron Schmitt
You have that ability. You know, there’s so many great ideas and so many wonderful things out there. I mean, I’ve been working with our faculty on just using AI to help just jumpstart the same, you know, lesson you’ve been teaching for 25 years. Well, let’s give it a fresh take. Let’s give it a fresh take.

Aaron Schmitt
How do you do that, right? Like just, “Hey, I’m looking for a 20-minute activity, you know, for the start of class that puts them in groups of six,” or whatever it is, right? Like, you can be so specific and you can generate so many ideas. And it’s not about letting it do all the work for you, but it is about just helping take the creativity burden off, right? Like, at least you get a starting point, you go, “Oh, that’s good, but what if we did this instead?” Right? I always think, you know, again, I try to build in one activity that I look forward to—but that takes time. It takes a lot of time.

Aaron Schmitt
Like, you start out like, “Okay, hey, one a chapter,” right? And then the next year, you’re like, “Okay, the one activity that kids really love,” and you ask them for their feedback. That’s, you know, if there’s one piece of advice I could give new teachers—I’ve been talking about this a lot with our staff right now—is don’t be afraid to ask the kids what they think. Like, that is your client. That is who you’re working with every day.

Aaron Schmitt
And they know you better. I, as an administrator, I get into the classroom twice a year for two hours. Like, as much as I’d love to say I have the best idea of everything that goes on every day, there’s no way I could do that, right? The kids know though. They know every day whether you put your best foot forward,

Aaron Schmitt
whether you are happy or joyful, whether you’re giving a good effort. And they know too like, “Hey, this activity isn’t landing as good as it used to five years ago,” right? Like it’s old news, you know, that kind of thing. And so they’ll keep you straight if you have a good relationship with them. I know that with some teachers, it’s always terrifying, right? When you ask for self-awareness

Aaron Schmitt
and you ask for feedback from people, it’s always terrifying because they’re going to be honest, especially if you allow them to do it anonymously. They’re gonna be brutal. And they’re gonna tell you things that bother you and drive you crazy. But if you can focus on the things that you consistently see patterns in and not the outliers—it’s easy to get hung up on the one kid who’s like,

Aaron Schmitt
“This one day you said this one thing to me and it really bothered me. And so you’re a terrible person.” Well, if that’s one out of 150 kids, you apologize. It’s good to have awareness of that. It might help form your opinion later on with what you’re doing the next year. But I think it’s kind of said earlier, like focus on the negative and being critical, right? Like it’s easy to get that way and get in your own head. But if you see 95% of your students are, “I really

Aaron Schmitt
value you because you make me feel like I can speak freely without being criticized. You make the room into a team atmosphere that makes people feel welcome.” If you say, if they say, “I feel respected,” or “I feel like you know your content really well,”

Aaron Schmitt
“I feel that you love your subject,” it’s easy to focus on the negative. But if you can also focus on the positive and the things you do really well and put a lot of energy to the things you do really well so you do them even better, then that helps compensate for maybe where you’re

Aaron Schmitt
falling a little bit short. But you don’t ignore those areas, but you don’t hyper-focus on what you do poorly. It’s way too easy to just get caught up in that and be in a bad spot and just being self-critical and then driving yourself into the ground because you’re not perfect at it.

Aaron Schmitt
I think as teachers, we’re always—like a lot of us were great students. And so if we’re not perfect at it, if we get any negative feedback, like we’re immediately like, “Oh, I must not be any good at this” because I didn’t get a perfect score. Like, we have to drop that mentality.

Sam Demma
The mistakes are necessary. And they’re just there. They’re learning moments if we look at it from that perspective. One of the other things I really appreciated about the community is how value-driven and value-based it is. There are a lot of schools that have values—not many that live them out and practice them every single day, try their best to and make that attempt. Is there anything from an administrative perspective or that you share with the staff to try

Sam Demma
to keep those values front and center? Because it feels like you do a really good job.

Aaron Schmitt
Oh, well, I appreciate that. Again, that’s part of the learning as well. I knew how to build culture in the classroom. Like I knew how to do that. After 13 years, I knew how to, you know, the kid that might get picked on in class

Aaron Schmitt
or might get ostracized because maybe they’re a little bit odd or they’re a little bit different or they maybe say something that, you know, people walk in the room and they always are like, “I don’t want to have class with this kid again,” right? Like I knew how to make that kid like a champion in the room. I knew how to make that kid celebrated that they were in the room. I’m still learning how to do that at the building level.

Aaron Schmitt
That’s tough. I have a lot of ideas. I always have a lot of ideas. It’s whether or not they’ll come to fruition and whether they’ll be—you know, they’ll sit well with everybody. Again, when you’re working with adults and a bigger community, it’s tougher to get everybody on board. When I’m in a class with 30 kids, I can do that.

Aaron Schmitt
I can set the tone and control everything, and I can get them where I want them to be within, you know, three, four weeks—I can get them where I want them to be. Yeah, you know, it’s just—you have to trust other people. You have to trust other people. You have to let them in on the process, and you have to let them know why you think it’s important for the things that you’re doing, why they matter.

Aaron Schmitt
We’re very lucky. I have inherited a culture that’s 100 years long at the school from the Brothers of Holy Cross out of South Bend, Indiana, St. Joseph, and Notre Dame. And I was a recipient of the education that they left for me. And the core values—we really spent a lot of time kind of looking back, because all the

Aaron Schmitt
brothers have passed away. I know we talked about that whenever you were down here. And the last brother, Brother Eugene, passed away in 2009. He was the reason I wanted to be a teacher—or one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher. I mean, just—the man was an amazing human being who gave selflessly of himself and just loved this school and made you really appreciate this school.

Aaron Schmitt
And so we look back at like, if you had somebody who graduated in 1925, 1950, 1975, 2000, and 2025, what would be the values that would stand the test of time? And, you know, looking at Basil Moreau and his work in it,

Aaron Schmitt
which is titled Christian Education, it’s really amazing. It was written after the French Revolution, which, if you know, France was in chaos trying to rebuild after all the massacres and everything that had happened. And Basil Moreau is like, “Education is important and education really matters. Academics matter.”

Aaron Schmitt
“But formation of individuals really, really matters a lot.” And having good people really matters. Academics matter, but formation of individuals really matters. And having good people really matters. Really good, really intelligent people matters. I always think that’s kind of the hallmark of Catholic education—is values and academics both together.

Aaron Schmitt
And so, you know, when we looked at our list of values, you know, we came up with a list and then we kind of narrowed it down to eight, which is a lot. I voted for like three or four because I was like, “You have to have—” I know like, memory,

Aaron Schmitt
teaching psychology, right? You know, it’s like seven plus or minus two or five plus or minus two—I can’t remember because I haven’t taught it for three years now—but I know there’s a short-term memory that will work. But I know acronyms and mnemonics help, and some of our kids have tried to come up with mnemonics and stuff to help remember them. But we found a lot of value in our eight core values—

Aaron Schmitt
coincides really nicely with the calendar year. You know, the first month is introducing them in an all-school assembly, talk about what it means. And then every month we focus on one and our kids, our students nominate other students for those core values. And we have a committee that meets and reads through: Why does this kid get a nomination?

Aaron Schmitt
What is it that they’ve done that embodies or says that they embody the core value? February’s integrity. So after Mass on Wednesday this week, we’re getting ready to announce our winners and celebrate. We’ll bring them up and we’ll talk to them about,

Aaron Schmitt
you know, read a little bit of what other people submitted and why they feel this person displays integrity. And those are slow steps. And they take time. I’m kind of impatient, right? Like I’m used to the classroom where I can control and have control of the room for, you know, 30—

Aaron Schmitt
for an hour and a half and get them there within. And here it’s, you know, talk about generations in the sense of each graduating class is a generation, right? So it takes four years to get through that cycle. Well, we’re really in year one with the focus on core values. And so it’s going to take another two or three years before we see kind of the full fruits of our labor for what it means to have those core values and how we’re implementing them every day and kind of holding kids to standards. But we’re still working at it and we’ve got great partners with other Holy Cross schools from around the country that we’re working with.

Aaron Schmitt
And they always provide a lot of insight because they’ve been there before, before we have in the sense of truly being affiliated with Holy Cross.

Sam Demma
Well, it was a lovely experience visiting the school and I felt the culture when I entered. And if I lived in Indiana, I would have my kids attend the school.

Aaron Schmitt
I appreciate that. We’re so far south. It’s, you know, we’re often forgotten about because we’re so far south of Indianapolis. There’s not too much a little bit beyond the southern part of Indy. So I appreciate that. And I’m sorry we didn’t get you a soccer game. We were excited for it.

Aaron Schmitt
But then I think we had that hurricane or whatever it was that flow ended up in southern Indiana that day and I know it was terrible. So—

Sam Demma
No, it was a lovely experience. And thank you so much for taking the time to share some of your beliefs and philosophies around building culture in the classroom and the entire school, and building relationships with young people, and some of the things you think about when it comes to getting students more engaged in the curriculum or the stuff you’re teaching in the class,

Sam Demma
and for your vulnerability to share that it’s a big learning experience and we don’t have to have all the answers right from the jump. If there’s someone listening to this and wants to ask you a question, Mr. Schmitt, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Aaron Schmitt
Uh, probably email because that’s the one I’ll answer. And if they end up saying it in passing, or if I get a phone call, I might not call them back with just everything through the day-to-day. But my email is my name, aaronschmitt@evdio.org. That’s the Evansville Diocese, evdio.org. And that’s my name, Aaron Schmitt, which is A-A-R-O-N S-C-H-M-I-T-T.

Sam Demma
Aaron, thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it and keep up the amazing work.

Aaron Schmitt
Thanks, Sam. I appreciate you asking me to be involved. And thanks again for coming down and seeing our kids.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Aaron Schmitt

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.

About Christine Preece

Christine Preece has over 30 years of experience working in child and youth holistic health. Presently she is the Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead and Manager for Student Mental Health Services for the St. Clair Catholic District School Board supporting a system-wide approach to adopting evidence-based mental health strategies through a tiered approach.

Previously Christine worked in public health as a Manager of School Health and a Health Promoter at Middlesex-London and Lambton Public Health Units. In all these roles she has facilitated and guided many disciplines to work together to better the lives of others in our schools and communities.

She firmly believes that youth can move mountains when given the proper learning conditions and opportunities to make change for the better, regardless of their personal situations. She believes that schools need to safe spaces of belonging for every student and staff member. 

Connect with Christine Preece: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Clair Catholic District School Board

Middlesex-London Public Unit

Lambton Public Health Units

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
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma, and today we are joined by Christine Preece. Christine brings over 30 years of experience in child and youth holistic health to her role as the Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead and Manager for Student Mental Health Services at the St. Clair Catholic District School Board. A registered Ontario social worker with dual master’s degrees in health science and as a certified health education specialist, she implements evidence-based mental health strategies through a tiered approach. Her career spanning public health management and school health promotion reflects her core belief that schools must be safe spaces of belonging for all students and staff. While her extensive volunteer work with organizations from Water Polo Canada to the Ministry of Education Ontario Wellbeing Advisory Committee, demonstrates her commitment to giving back to the community.

Sam Demma
Christine, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Christine Preece
Thank you for having me.

Sam Demma
Please tell us a little bit about what got you into the work that you do today with young people. Oh, wow, that’s a big, heavy question.

Christine Preece
You know, it just kind of, my journey has been very interesting, Sam, because I started out in recreation. And when I was in recreation, I was a rec director before these years that you talked about. I learned the importance of youth voice and youth engagement and how when you actually listen and hear the words of youth and their ideas, they can actually make such a difference in the lives of other people, but also themselves. So that kind of brought me in over to public health where we were doing a lot of work with children and youth because, you know, we have a really big role to play as adults in their lives and was looking at how we can really make a difference related to that. And I started off in public health working in the area of physical activity. And that is a passion of mine. And just looking at some of the programs that were done way back then, which is still running today in our school board, which was Playground Leadership Program, and it was done for youth by youth. And so, you know, you really can make a difference. And I was involved years ago with the Canadian Intramural Recreation Association. And we had a whole student leadership program within that where we actually trained students to run and organize intramurals in schools. That was years ago, obviously.

Christine Preece
And just the power of that and seeing how youth can really make a difference. So I really am passionate about children and youth holistic health and how we can help them make a difference in their own lives. That’s kind of a short story.

Sam Demma
You mentioned the power of actually listening and hearing the words of young people. It’s such a difficult skill sometimes because so many people listen just to respond or share their thoughts. But when you really truly listen, you uncover things that you probably wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Where does that skill come from and how do we build more of that? Because I think it’s needed in society.

Christine Preece
I don’t know where the skill comes from. I think it’s really having an understanding understanding of, you know, where children and youth are at, and being able to hear them out about their needs and wants. Often, when we’re adults, and I did this as a mother, is we think we know what’s best for them. But do we really if we aren’t listening to them and hearing what their needs are?

Christine Preece
And it’s not about giving in to them and not making them entitled. It’s about giving them the power to self-advocate, to do the best they can for themselves, and to have the tools in their toolbox to become a successful adult. And that’s where I was way back when, even around when we were in recreation, right? right, because I saw the power of youth and how they could make a difference, you know, whether it be organizing recreation activities for their peers or becoming a leader at a camp or wanting to inspire others through some advocacy initiatives. I just really believe in the power of youth and having that skill of listening and understanding where they’re at is so crucial in helping human growth and development really for children and youth, right? And it should be as even when they’re little, right? It doesn’t mean they get everything, but you have to hear what they want and hear what they’re saying.

Sam Demma
Do you believe that schools need to be safe spaces? And I couldn’t agree more. I think that if a school is not a safe space of belonging for every student and staff member, whether we intend to listen or not, a student or another human being might not be comfortable actually sharing their genuine thoughts if they don’t feel it’s a safe space of belonging. How do we cultivate those safe spaces of belonging for students and staff and school buildings?

Christine Preece
You know, it’s about setting a culture, a positive school culture where people feel safe and that takes a lot of effort. We know that when we have our school climate surveys, students want a safe place they can go to with a caring adult that they can talk to who’s going to listen to them. We don’t always have to have the answer, Sam. We just need to listen. And if they want help, then we can support them and advise them about where to get help. But it’s really not rocket science. I remember working years ago on a global youth health promotion program with a few agencies, and Dr. Bruce Ferguson was on there, but also Robert Blum from John Hopkins, and he said that an adult listening in a school to a youth for 10 minutes and not judging, not providing their thoughts or giving advice or can really change the trajectory of a youth’s life. So hearing them out, listening to them and being that caring person and inspiring them to help themselves through very creative ways, right? Because some kids have, or some students, I shouldn’t say kids, some students just don’t have those skills and we haven’t developed those skills. I’m a real firm believer that they just aren’t born with them, they develop them. We teach them that. So we are responsible for their skill development in schools. And I think that is one of those skill developments, right? And you know, with the whole stigma piece and all that kind of stuff that goes on around mental health, because I know this podcast is about mental health, we really can play an important role to break down those barriers and to help our children and youth to reach out for support. Because we know that children and youth won’t reach out for support because one, they don’t know how to, and number two, they don’t know who to go to. And so we need to be able to support that.

Sam Demma
Speaking on the mental health challenges faced by young people today, you’re very close with those challenges within your specific school board and many other initiatives that you’ve been a part of in the past. What do you think are some of the challenges, main challenges facing young people today?

Christine Preece
Oh boy. You know, since the pandemic, it’s growing. I’m not saying it wasn’t there before, but I’ve seen a significant change since the pandemic. Anxiety is really number one. And when we don’t teach them the skills of how to deal with their anxiety, and that is skill development, by the way, if we don’t teach them those skills, it can lead into depression in older years. And so we see a lot of anxiety and the world events that are happening now, and that’s spread through social media.

Christine Preece
So there’s been some really big shifts in children’s mental health, one being the iPhone and social media. We cannot deny that. There’s good things to it. I’m not saying it’s all bad, because it’s never going to go away. But we, I think, as a society, and education particularly, we have a role to play in teaching them how to use it in a positive way, to be aware of the impact that it can have on your mental health. And when children are young and people are saying stuff over social media and then it comes into school, which we see a lot, that hurts them. And they don’t have the skills to learn on how to develop that, do you know what I mean? Or how to support that or how to help themselves with that. Their brains aren’t fully formed. I mean, they’re not fully formed until they’re 25 or 30. Yet we’re giving kids these tools when we haven’t given them the tools of how to use that particular resource. I kind of went all over the map, didn’t I? Sorry.

Sam Demma
You did answer that. And I’m curious, as a follow-up, when you think of the resources or tools that have been most helpful within your specific school board. Are there anything that comes to mind that you think this has been helpful, that this has helped many students that another educator listening might look into or think about striving to implement within their own organization or school?

Christine Preece
So we have taken a real comprehensive approach, Sam, to social emotional learning. And it started about 2017. We brought in the MindUp program, which is from Goldie Hawn Foundation. Goldie created this program with Kim Schonert-Reichel, who was out of University of British Columbia, and Dr. Molly Lawler, and they developed this program because Goldie saw after 911, the anxiety levels go up for children and youth. And she had a real concern around that. So MindUp teaches children about their brains and how their brain, they can use their brains to become empowered to make decisions, but also understand how it impacts their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Christine Preece
And we teach that to kids. And so we started that program and we see, we evaluate it every year, Sam, and we see that those skills are going up. And if you ask our attendance counselors, where students are attending for various reasons, mostly mental health, they see that those, they bring them back to that. Remember when you learned this skill when you were in elementary school. But we’ve taken on a whole comprehensive approach to that around helping kids develop these skills so they can help themselves when they’re older. It’s not perfect, but we are seeing some great outcomes from that because we’re teaching kids, number one, most important skill of social emotional learning is self-awareness.

Christine Preece
If you don’t have self-awareness and understand who you are, what your values and beliefs are, how you impact others, you will never be able to self-regulate, develop healthy relationships, make wise decisions. It all comes together.

Christine Preece
So we’ve really broken it down and taken a really comprehensive approach to social emotional learning. And we’ve got our whole team of social workers, and child and youth workers, but then we also have educators that are supporting the educators in the classroom. And it doesn’t take a lot of work, Sam, to implement social emotional learning, you can do it two minutes before lunch, two minutes after lunch, like it really, but if you do it consistently every day all week for the year, you’re going to see a huge change in your students. We did a pilot program two years ago, and we saw a huge change in our students.

Christine Preece
We actually focused in on certain schools and classes. We actually had a teacher who wanted to quit, and she said, this changed my life. This changed the way I taught. So we’ve made some really good in ways in, but we still have, we have places to go to, right? It’s not perfect. But we have a real passion in our board to move this forward because we know it works. We’ve seen it work. We’ve seen it work in small scale. Now we just need to have it larger scale, like everybody doing it in every school and every board. And you can do them school-wide events, you can do it classroom events, and we’re doing it as well individually through our work with social workers and child and youth workers and small groups. So it’s been interesting. It’s been an interesting ride, that’s for sure.

Sam Demma
It sounds like it’s been impactful with the students that have been exposed to it so far. So I hope the reach continues to expand and the uptake from schools and teachers continues to expand. It’s a tough challenge that we’re all facing, especially in the education space right now. And I think every action and every attempt to help matters.

Christine Preece
Yeah, have you watched the movie, American Tragedy? And it’s the story of the two boys in Columbine. And at the end of the show, the mom of one of those boys said, this should be taught in every school. And they’re actually, she’s promoting social emotional learning, starting in kindergarten, going all the way up. She feels that if every child had these skills, then we would lessen many things, right? Situations, right? So yeah, that really hit home for me because I’m really passionate about it. And so is our board. So is our director, our superintendents, everybody in our school board.

Sam Demma
Thank you for sharing that. Are there any other resources or things you’ve come across that have shifted the way that you think about supporting young people that an educator listening might want to also watch or look into?

Christine Preece
Yes, thanks for asking that. Well, School Mental Health Ontario is an excellent resource. It has resources in French and English, and it is led by Dr. Kathy Short and Dr. Teresa Kennedy, and every school board has one of me. And we have a mandate to actually do youth engagement, parent engagement, mental health literacy, mental health supports. And School Mental Health Ontario has been a great resource. And everything we do there, Sam, is evidence-based. It’s not like we go on Dr. Google and pull this strategy because we know that some of the work that was done pre-School Mental Health Ontario was actually doing harm to kids. We were bringing in programs that weren’t based on evidence, weren’t based, and all good intentions, don’t get me wrong, but all good intentions, but actually they were harming children when they left, right? So that’s why Dr. Bruce Ferguson and Kathy Short actually went to the ministry and said, you need this in your mind in Canada. We’re actually one of a kind, I think, around the world. And it’s been instrumental in my learning, because they have professional training. Constantly, they’re putting out resources constantly and a teacher, they have a lot of resources, which I would call add, water, stir, you open it up, you do the you do the activity, and there you there you go, you’re done, right. So it’s a really, really good resource that people can Google online if they wanted to or go into online.

Sam Demma
You said earlier in the interview that if an adult listens to a young person for 10 minutes, based on research that you cited, that it could really change the trajectory of their life. And I’m curious to know, when you were going through school, or even in the start of your professional career, or even now, was there an adult or caring mentor that listened to you and had a big impact on you?

Sam Demma
And if so, who was that person or who were a few of those people and what did they do for you?

Christine Preece
Well, that’s a really good question. I’ve had a few, yes, I’ve had a few. I had my former director of public health, Diane Buick, was so instrumental in my work in public health in Middlesex, London. She taught me so much about having quality standards for work and implementing those quality standards to the best of your ability, but also how it impacts others.

Christine Preece
It’s not about me and my, what I think is best and what I want. And sometimes I see that we can get caught up in that in society. well, I need this, I need that. But what are the, what do those people that you service need? And how are you helping them? So for in public health, she was always putting what we call the client at the center, right? The client was at the center. Now over in school health, and I did work primarily in school health in public health, but now over here in our school board is the student at the center. And we have to bring people back to that because it’s a tough job in education, right? It’s a tough job. And I’m not gonna say that it’s easy to do. It’s a tough job. And there’s a lot of things that are coming into education that weren’t here before. And as I would give an example, Sam, is we are a microcosm of larger society, right? So you see larger society and what’s happening in larger society in the world, we’re a microcosm of that because we have our own community.

Christine Preece
And you see those things coming into our schools and it’s how do we help support and build the best environment possible for the people that are in that system? And that doesn’t just mean students, but it also means staff. They need to be well in order to teach students. The support staff, the EAs, the ECEs, the custodians, the secretaries, the bus drivers, the yard supervisors, they all need to be supported and know how to support students as well through their own actions. So it’s a big role. And education is definitely, it’s changed since COVID. That’s all I can say.

Sam Demma
Yeah, you echoed similar thoughts and sentiments that a lot of people I’ve talked to regarding that on the show or in private conversations. One thing I’ve noticed about your career journey from what I know about you and what I’ve read and others who have spoken on the show before is that volunteer work has had a positive impact on their lives. Tell me a little bit more about your volunteer work and do you think there’s a connection between volunteering and even feeling good?

Christine Preece
Oh, yes. Definitely. Bruce Ferguson did. I don’t know if you know who Dr. Bruce Ferguson is. He was also a person who changed my life, but he wrote the early leaders report. And in his data, in his report, he found that students that volunteer actually have better mental health, right?

Christine Preece
And so if you’re giving, and we know that around mental health, it’s not about receiving, it’s about being able to give, it’s about gratitude, it’s about forgiving, those kinds of things. And volunteering has taught me a lot of that, is that I don’t need to be paid all the time to do this work. I have volunteered for a long, long time. I first started, as I mentioned, on the Canadian Intramural Recreation Association, and then went to the Ontario one. Then I was a chair of the Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition. And I’m still continuing to volunteer.

Christine Preece
I’m locally volunteering and then on Water Polo Canada. I really believe, one, for me, it helps you grow and become much more open-minded and have a growth mindset as opposed to a closed mindset. But it also helps you realize that there’s so many different kinds of people out there. And what I love is I meet many different people that aren’t always from the same field or background, right? You know you meet people that are Financial advisors or you meet people that are lawyers or you meet and they’re all very different and they think very differently But when you come together for common goal, you can make a collective impact and through volunteering and so it’s made a huge huge, huge difference in my life. I would never, ever say I’ve regretted one minute of it.

Sam Demma
The Early Leavers Report, is it something that is accessible or do you have to purchase it to read it?

Christine Preece
I don’t think so. If you Google it, Dr. Bruce Ferguson, he wrote about the Early Leavers Report and why students left school early. He talked about having part-time jobs, volunteering, I forget the other things. There were some key areas in his report that actually inspired the development of School Mental Health Ontario as well. And Bruce, I mean, I think he’s retired now, living somewhere in Ottawa, has been really an angel in my eyes to children and youth and what they need in their school system. Because he’s shown a lot of research that students who may be involved in, are involved in youth engagement are less likely to think about self-harm and suicide, those kinds of things. So he’s really taught me a lot about children, youth, and mental health and what they need, those positive, positive protective factors and how we can develop and support those through education. I mean, education, as you can see, Sam, plays a very important role in the knowledge and development of children. And right now, what we’re seeing is people have a lot of information through social media and internet and all that, but do they have the knowledge? Do they have the factual knowledge, right? And I think that’s really key, and that’s a really important part of education to give children those skills and youth.

Sam Demma
I had a teacher who fundamentally changed the course of my life, who listened to me at a time where I was struggling, and almost no one at school really knew about it except for this individual. And if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

Sam Demma
And I can’t thank him enough. I fortunately stay in touch with him and his wife and have lunch with him in Bowmanville on their porch at least once a year. And it’s almost always the highlight. And we have such a lovely conversation. And one of the things he taught us is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Sam Demma
And I didn’t realize that maybe there was something going on in my brain at the time, but I always felt so good doing it. And I believe it’s one of the ways I refound myself after my own adversity when I was a senior in high school. And so I’m looking forward to reading this report. I appreciate you sharing it. Yeah, he’s a ruthless.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I mean, not was. He’s still alive, but he really was a trendsetter for sure around this area and particularly in education because he worked out of Sick Kids Hospital, right? He was a child psychiatrist, right? So he saw a lot when he, people that came through his door. So.

Christine Preece
I got you.

Sam Demma
This has been such a stimulating and informative conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time, Christine. If there’s someone listening to this that wants to connect with you or ask a question, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Christine Preece
They could email me at my email. It’s been a pleasure. I thought you’re gonna ask me about Hawaiian pizzas because you had that question on you. And it was I was gonna say well Sam. Did you know they were invented in Chatham? They were. Which is you know where my school board is.

Sam Demma
I have been to Chatham. I want to say someone told me because I strongly dislike them I may have had selective memory. I don’t like them.

Christine Preece
I love, I love Hawaiian pizzas.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Christine Preece
That’s so funny. That’s so funny. I was waiting for the question.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Christine Preece

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.