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Catherine Hogan – English teacher and Student Leadership Advisor

Catherine Hogan – English teacher and Student Leadership Advisor
About Catherine Hogan

Catherine (@CatherineJHogan) is an English teacher and student leadership advisor at Westwood Senior High School. She is a high energy educator that consistently looks for new and exciting ways to give her students amazing opportunities. Enjoy this conversation with her.

 

Connect with Catherine: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Westwood Senior High School

Canadian Student Leadership Conference

Canadian Student Leadership Association

Ontario Student Leadership Conference

Global Student Leadership Summit

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want a network with like-minded individuals and meet other high performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and other special opportunities that will come out throughout 2021. I promise you, I will not fill your inbox. You might get one email a month. If that sounds interesting, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Catherine Hogan. Catherine is someone I was introduced to by my other good friend; Dave Conlin. She is a student leadership advisor and she teaches grade 11 English with the English department at Westwood Senior High School. Catherine has incredibly high energy. We had to, to reschedule our podcast a few times before we got the chance to record it, but I’m so happy we did because there’s so much value you can take away from this interview. I hope you enjoy this. I’ll see you on the other side. Catherine, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast, huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about who you are, and how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today?


Catherine Hogan (01:26):
Okay, well, so my name’s Catherine Hogan, and I’m a teacher here at Westwood Senior High School in Hudson Quebec, and that’s just right outside Montreal. We’re kind of in the country a little bit. It’s a regional high school so we have 36 buses that come from a really huge district all around the outside of the island of Montreal and they all get shipped here to my school. This is my 21st year teaching and it’s about my ninth year now doing leadership. So I spent most of my early career teaching English at Lindsay Place High School. That’s where I spent my first 16 years of my career. And I got really interested in student life and started working on student life there with the advisor who was already there and he was really familiar with CSLC and he would do all of that, but he was sort of thinking that he was ready to kind of start to move out of leadership, and he was hoping that somebody else would come in. And so we worked together at Lindsay place for the first couple of years, and then I took over student life from there and that’s how I really started working with young people in leadership capacity. And then I was really lucky to be able to participate in CSLC and then the global student leadership conference and OSLC. And that’s really where I found, I found my passion. I found my people and that’s where I’ve been. That’s how I’ve been involved ever since.


Sam Demma (02:55):
Why teaching? You said you spent your early career teaching English, but did you get into teaching as your first profession and did you know from a young age you wanted to be a teacher or what led you to this calling?


Catherine Hogan (03:05):
Oh, well, that’s actually an interesting question. So both of my parents were teachers. My mom was a high school teacher. My dad was a university professor, but I didn’t get to teaching right away. So my first degree I was actually working as a parliamentary page in Ottawa and I did my first degree in political science and planning on going to law school. And that was always sort of my plan. And then I began to think a little bit about social work. I thought between the two avenues, that’s the way that I would be going. But I decided in between my two degrees, I decided to take one year off just to make money, to pay for my second degree. And I started doing a bunch of jobs working. I had always worked at a summer camp and by then I was working as the coordinator and then a strange opportunity came available to teach a science class to elementary students.


Catherine Hogan (04:01):
So I said, okay, I could do that. And it came through the same it was a municipal camp that I worked for and they were having municipal classes for their elementary students during the school year. So I did a little elementary science class once a week, every day after school. And I really started to really enjoy it and kind of find my stride and find my pace. And I loved the vibe with the kids and the energy that they brought every single week. And then I decided, and this was a huge change in a decision. I thought, well, I’m gonna apply into education instead. And then funnily enough I, I, I spent all this time sort of soul searching and deciding, okay, no, I’m gonna choose education over law. And I had a philosophy where I told myself that the world does need good lawyers, but they need smart teachers as well.


Catherine Hogan (04:56):
And so I thought, Nope, you know what, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna become a teacher. And know that when I went to my interview for teachers college, they, they were very kind and they were looking through my portfolio and they looked through all my grades and everything and my letter of intent and they put it down and they said, no, we just have really one question, why are you going to law school? And I said, no, you’re not supposed to ask me that. Cause I made this soul searching decision. And because I’ve made this choice and I want to go into teaching because we need dedicated and exciting teachers, and this is what I wanna do. And actually I ended up sort of selling them on that. And they were really happy that I had changed my mind and made that decision. So it turned in out great.


Sam Demma (05:43):
That’s cool. My, my ex-girlfriend was going to go into law. And then she did some soul searching and now she’s in English and it’s like, she did three careers of law and switched over. So I think it’s never too late, which is awesome. It’s


Catherine Hogan (05:58):
Never too late. Great philosophy,21 years. You’ve been teaching as long as I’ve been alive. And I’m sure not to make you sound old at all, cuz you’re not. But that’s a long time with that amount of teaching comes a lot of wisdom and experience and I’m sure, you know, this year specifically has been very different than the first 20.


Sam Demma (06:02):
Yes. What sort of challenges are you and your school uniquely faced with during this time?


Catherine Hogan (06:30):
So one of the things I think that we’re finding the hardest is the changes that are coming continuously and we, without warning. So that’s been really hard. Teachers tend to be of a type personalities. We like to plan everything out. We like to make sure everything is perfectly organized and perfectly or orchestrated every single day for our little standup show each day. Right? But now we have this, this wrenched thrown into our plan where, where, where things change every single day. So we are teaching in person, then we’re teaching online. Now we’re teaching both a combination. We have an AB schedule now where we see the kids only one day. And then we see the other cohort on the opposite days. We also were just told by the minister that we need out communicate daily with all of our students who are out in quarantine.


Catherine Hogan (07:22):
We’re not entirely sure how we’re supposed to do this yet or how we’re supposed to communicate. What, what is our purpose? Are we reaching out for their mental health? Are we reaching out for their pedagogy? All of these things are really changing so quickly and without warning and, and teachers are really thinking on their feet every single minute of the day and trying to adapt. And, and this year, course, we just have so many challenges with, with just dealing with, with, with the kids themselves and how they’re doing and how they’re faring. And at my particular school, we are having a lot of challenges with mental health issues. By the middle of November, we had already had four students who had been admitted to the hospital for extreme mental health issues. And, and that usually we would have only four in an entire school year and we had four before October.


Catherine Hogan (08:18):
So, wow. We’re really at my school in particular, we’re trying to ease the anxiety and ease the stress of the kids and really focus on the day to day teaching and making sure that they are okay and faring well in, in such a difficult situation. They’re receiving really only half of the pedagogy time that they would’ve had, but yet they still have the same demands. They still have CJE applications waiting for them. They still have provincial exams at the end of the year. It’s a lot for them to manage. It’s a lot of stress. And sometimes I really think of that analogy of on planes. You know, when the plane’s going down, we’re supposed to put our mask on before we put on our children’s mask so we can help them. But teachers are also struggling in a lot of the same areas that the kids are. We’re also struggling with maintaining the balance of everything that’s changing and the health of our own families and the health of our own students and children and all of that. It just feels like we can’t quite put on our mask before we can put the masks on the kids to make sure they’re all doing okay as well. So that’s been, I think our biggest challenge here at my school this year,


Sam Demma (09:31):
And you’re not alone. I’ve reached out to dozens of educator who have responded back saying, Sam, this is a great opportunity, but usually I’d say yes right now I have to pass because I can’t even get my head above water. And yeah, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was how are you keeping your glass full? Cause you know, when your glass isn’t full, it’s hard to pour into others. And what have you been doing to cope that might be of value for another educator to, to hear about


Catherine Hogan (09:57):
We’re really, you know, I think here this year, I’m really relying on my colleagues quite a lot to pull me through the day. We have one pod group that really has a lot of both academic needs, but also a lot of emotional needs as well. So what we’ve done is the core teachers for that particular group this year, we’ve kind of made a little team of our own. We’ve made a little pod team of our own. So the core subjects being English, French, and math, those are the, the core for their group this year. We meet all the time just to make sure that we’re sharing our, our, our, or help stories for each other. We’re sharing like all of our information about each one of our child’s need children’s needs so that we can make sure that we’re on top of all of their needs, both, both academically and emotionally.


Catherine Hogan (10:50):
And, and then at the same time, we are there for each other. Each time we have a setback in that group come together, the three of us and we try to make a plan together. And I think that this is one of the nice changes this year about the fact that we don’t have our own classrooms this year. So our, we had to sort of give up our, our classes. And my principal told, it, told us that it was as though we were putting our classes on Airbnb this year, we were sort of, we are moving out and everybody else was moving in. And then we moved class to class because of that this year, we’re not staying just in our own classrooms. We are congregating together as teachers and we’ve, we’re really standing by each other and we’re working through these, these issues as a real good team.


Catherine Hogan (11:36):
And sometimes it’s a full school team. And sometimes it’s just, as I said, our little pod team, just to make sure that our individual class is still feeling successful and St their needs are being met. And I think that even though we have COVID this year, it’s brought us a lot closer because we really are working together for these kids this year. And I, I feel, I feel a great sense of community. That’s, that’s developing in my school this year. And I think we’re actually becoming a lot closer as a team. And for me that has saved my mental health. That is what is doing it for me every day. I know I can come in and even though it might be a hard day, I know that that the other teachers here have really kind of got, got my back and they’ll work through things with me this year. And it it’s been so helpful, even as somebody who is experienced. I have a lot of years, you know, sometimes I need just the ed energy from the new young teachers to get me through the day. So,


Sam Demma (12:36):
Well, your passion. Yeah. Your passion and energy is, is evident even now through this podcast, as I’m sure you’re listening, you can feel it too. What keeps you motivated and hopeful personally? Like you, you sound like you’re a teacher who’s just started teaching and is SOS excited to teach. Like, it seems like your passion has never left you. Where does that motivation, inspiration and hope come from?


Catherine Hogan (12:59):
Oh, well, thank you. That’s such a nice compliment, Sam. Thank you. Do you know what I, I really find teach teenagers to be so incredibly fascinating and so much fun. I love the way we get to see them begin to emerge into these young adults. And we get to see how they navigate or begin to navigate the world. And that really, it energizes me. I love the language of teenagers. I love to be around them for their energy, their curiosity, their ex excitement for the next stages of their life. I find that I can feed off that All day long, and I always Still kinda


Catherine Hogan (14:02):
Working ourselves like a herd of animals. And I find the teenagers they’re so interesting because they want to be adult and they want to go off on their own way and their own path, but they’re not secure yet these tiny little herds. And, and as they become more comfortable they’ll as a herd, they’ll try out new things and they’ll go and try different things, different challenges together. And I, I kind of love watching how they begin to navigate the world around them as little young adults and how they, how they grow and change from the time that they come in as seventh graders, the way up until the time that they graduate, when they are really ready to kind of leave the herd a little bit and become kind of the independent zebra, right. The one that can go off to the watering hole all by himself.


Catherine Hogan (14:50):
And I just, I just love it. I love watching them take those steps. It’s like watching, I think little children take toddler steps for the first time. It’s really quite the same when they come in from at grade seven and then they leave as seniors. And they’ve done all of these little steps by themselves. And I think that’s really where I, a lot of energy when people say, oh, you teach seniors in high school. Oh, that must be terrible. I think, no, that’s the best time to teach them because they’re really just on the cusp of becoming these amazing adults themselves. And I get to witness that and I get to witness all the little steps that got them there. And, you know, those are really special little moments, their first, their first heartbreaks their first talking about prom and what they’re gonna wear, and who’s who they’re gonna go with and, you know, all of the activities and all of the things that they go through. And they’re applying to these programs that so exciting. And I think, you know, all these steps that I get to witness and see happen every single day. It it’s like it’s like living all of these careers myself. It’s really fun. It’s, it’s really energizing for me.


Sam Demma (16:05):
And you took a pivotable pivotal step nine years ago when you decided to start teaching leadership, how did that decision fall onto your lap and unfold in your journey?


Catherine Hogan (16:17):
Well, it has unfolded in such a monumental way. I really think that I always love to be part of extracurricular activities and to be able to to lead activities that I know that the kids are going to remember. I loved high school. I think a lot of people that do go into teaching, they themselves really liked high school. And I really did too. And I think back to all of the memories that I had, that I made of being on school teams or being in the school play or being on student council, and I just really wanted to recreate those exact same feelings for students today. And I wanted to provide those kind of activities for them because I wanted them to be able to know that, you know, school is part academics, but I think it’s also part arts and part athletics and part activities.


Catherine Hogan (17:09):
I, I just love that for A’s because I think that’s what makes school a great school. And so I thought this is exactly what I wanna be part of. And I remember the first year that I went to CSLC I was new. I was nervous. I didn’t know anyone it’s really overwhelming your first few years at, at CSLC, but I remember like this amazing sense of comfort and acceptance feeling like I had met people that had the same feelings as me and people who understood that they like the same things that I did. They wanted to be part of those activities too. They, they wanted to bring enthusiasm to their school and you don’t find that those people, those people exist at every school, but they’re not your entire staff. Right. But when you get to go to CSLC or to OSLC or some of these big conferences, it’s, every teacher are there.


Catherine Hogan (18:09):
And it’s just so motivating to hear the ideas that they’re doing at their schools, and to learn how different schools across the country manage their activities, or manage their student life and, and, and what they bring to their schools, and then try to replicate those same amazing ideas in your own way at your own school. And, and I really feel like I’m so lucky to have met some of these people who are so inspiring to me as educators, and to feel that I’m a little bit a part of their world and, and share that with them has honestly changed my life. And I really feel like in my own, out, outside life, I’m so happy that I have these leadership advisors in my life because they’ve, they’ve tr they’ve taught me as well, how to deal with things in my own life and how to, you know, like bring, bring the best to every single day. I really feel lucky for that.


Sam Demma (19:07):
No, that’s amazing. And that’s the main reason I started this podcast. So we could continue building community for educators that are doing unique things in their school, or are throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks and on the topic of running your school and student life and leadership events, what’s going on this year, how are you and your team managing to do things? What have you ride what’s working? What’s not tell me more about the experiment.


Catherine Hogan (19:35):
Okay. Well, yeah, we are trying like all schools, we are trying desperately to keep any sort of student life activities working that we can, but also staying within a little bit of the parameters and framework and protocols of COVID. So we’re, we’re thinking out of the box this year, one of the things that I decided this year was okay, I’m gonna learn the language of my students. And that I have realized is TikTok. Now as somebody, my age TikTok makes zero sense. I have tried everything to try to figure out and understand TikTok, but my kids, my students have, have to me, they, we have TikTok challenges between our classes and our pods. And so a lot of the teachers, we started getting into it as well, and filming talks as well. And the minute the kids saw our tos, because of course we said, okay, we’re gonna bring this.


Catherine Hogan (20:30):
They just thought this was, is amazing. And then they would challenge us further. And so that is one way we, that we are definitely bringing spirit here this year. We’re trying to use some of the online platforms and social media in a way that can, can be engaging and fun for the kids. So that’s one thing that we’ve really tried to do this year. We are trying to do well, we have brought back our big morning announcements and we’ve made it into sort of like a little radio show in the morning to showcase all of our students because we don’t get to see their games. So we don’t have, you know, we don’t have, or Scholastic sports now. So we’re still highlighting some of our athletes each day. We’re doing shoutouts for them. We do our birthday shoutouts every day to make sure everybody’s feeling good about that.


Catherine Hogan (21:17):
And then we started incorporating sort of just fun ways to start the day. So we did a dad joke challenge for two weeks where the kids could submit their best and most cringeworthy dad jokes. And then the winners would get to come on to the morning show and tell their jokes to the whole school. And we would figure out who was the funniest student at Westwood. And so that made everybody laugh. Just simple, simple pleasures. We’re trying to bring back again, a lot of, sort of the simple, fun that we’d sort of forgotten and, and try to bring it back in such a way that we can do it safely and, and do it where we can get as much student involvement as we can. So we’re trying to do as much as we can virtually. We’ve done full game challenges.


Catherine Hogan (22:03):
So we’re, we’re start, we’re gonna have a full school bingo that we’re gonna to run through zoom. And I know lots of the other schools have tried that as well. We used to have it at my other school and a teacher, Alex, Kate, and she used to do it, and she did such a great job. She inspired me to try that here. So I thought, all right, we’re gonna give that a go here. And it it’s really, really been, it’s fun for us, a staff to see because the kids are really able to guide us through a lot of these online activities, cuz they’re so much more familiar with the platforms than we are. And so they’ll set it all up. Oh, we got a hashtag for our new, our new TikTok challenge and this is how we’re gonna roll it out to the student body. And


Catherine Hogan (22:49):
They’re really tech savvy. So that’s been one area that we’re really able to kind of develop a little bit this year during COVID is to run as much as we can virtually. And to just try to think out of the box as much as we can think out of the ordinary and, and be open to trying it, try it, we’ll just see it might work. It might not. And, and I’ve always had a philosophy that if we try it and, and I, I try to make, take away the hard part sometimes for the kids. I’ll try to take away the embarrassing part so they don’t feel embarrassed. So in the morning if the Anthem, cuz we listen to the Anthem at our school in the morning, but sometimes is so old school. The CD tends to break in the middle of the Anthem.


Catherine Hogan (23:36):
So now I’ve just taken to like hitting onto the morning announcements and I’ll sing the rest of the Anthem for the kids. And, and so I do it to just show them like, just don’t be embarrassed, be you, do you. And, and don’t worry about feeling embarrassed about these things. So I try to kind of put myself out in embarrassing situations as much as possible so that they don’t feel intimidated or embarrassed. I kind of call it. I always, and Justin Timberlake saying, he always said he was bringing sexy back. I say that I’m bringing nerdy back. I’m making it cool to be kind of nerdy around my school and, and the kids kind of, they embrace it. They’re like miss you own that. You own that. You’re not afraid to be like nerdy or whatever. And I’m like, no, I’m not.


Catherine Hogan (24:24):
And so it makes them also feel comfortable because then they don’t feel that when they do something that feels out of their comfort zone, they don’t worry as much. Cuz they sort of feel like, oh, well we can laugh at ourselves and we can have some fun and we don’t always have to be like super cool or like super popular. Like, you know, sometimes I I to just take that edge off so they don’t have to worry about those things so that they can just have fun and feel comfortable being themselves. And, and I really try to just be me at school and that’s just who I am. And I, I tell the kids, I am nerdy, man. I am gonna own that. I’m owning that. And, and I think they kind of appreciate that.


Sam Demma (25:09):
Yeah. I think they would too. If, if you were my teacher, I definitely would. Every single one of us has our own insecurities and yes. Funky traits. And if someone’s embracing theirs, it gives everyone else permission to do the same. Yeah.


Catherine Hogan (25:22):
That’s what I’m


Sam Demma (25:23):
Hoping. Yeah. Keep doing that. Over the 21 years of embarrassing moments and funky experiences and embracing nerdiness, what have you learned as an educator for yourself that if you could go back in time and speak to younger Catherine, when she just started teaching, what would you tell her? What would you share? There might be an educator listening who could benefit from hearing that.


Catherine Hogan (25:47):
Yeah. You know I think that the single most pivotal thing that has changed me as a teacher was when I did have children of my own. Mm. I, my expectations changed. My understanding of children changed a little bit. I, I have a daughter who has special needs and it’s really allowed me to see from an inside perspective how these kids function in a classroom. And I feel that I’m able to be honest with them. And I tell them all the time, you know, if you have trouble reading, cuz I teach English, I tell them a right away. I’m one person you don’t have to be embarrassed about cuz you know what, my daughter, I’m just gonna be honest. She’s about five grades behind in reading because she’s severely dyslexic and you know what I’m used to, people stumbling over words when they read to me and you don’t have to be shy about that.


Catherine Hogan (26:47):
And I really try to kind of let them know like I, I hear you. I get you. And, and I wanna make this experience not difficult for you, but comfortable for you. I, I want them to know that I understand them. I think that it, it, to me also become more flexible into understanding that there can’t be a one size fits all for education. Even if it’s a whole grade level, every kid is so incredibly different and their needs coming into classrooms are so incredibly different. And, and as a mom, I, I really try sometimes to, to teach them as though they were my own kids and how I would try to deal with things in my, with my own kids. And that’s helped me so much during COVID because I’m just gonna be honest. Like a lot of teachers, I’m an a type personality. So it’s like we have gotta cover this much curriculum on before the provincial exam and


Catherine Hogan (27:48):
Has to work hard, cuz everybody, I want you all getting into exactly the programs you wanna be in next year for CJ. But this year I’ve really learned that for some, sometimes in your life, mental health has to come first and, and other are things can wait and they’re not as critical. And it’s allowed me to step back and say, okay, I may not be able to teach all of a fellow this year because it is just too long. And I don’t see the kids every single day and where every other year I might have said, but a fellow is the best play I have to teach it. I’m realizing that it’s better to be a little bit flexible sometimes. And to make sure that what I am doing is fully effective and I can get the most out of my kids when they feel safe and secure.


Catherine Hogan (28:36):
And I’m really, I, I think almost in a way I have COVID to thank for that because it’s allowed me to step down a little and, and change, not drop down my expectations, but change my expectations. And also this was the first year I ended up just by accident of the way that our classes were scheduled this year. I was put teaching the alt class. So the alternative education class now I would’ve said from the, on, from the outset, like, wow, I, I am not gonna be good at this because of course I’m like super like organized and demanding. And I had to learn from them. And I learned from them on how to work in a way that worked for them. And, and they have showed me that they’ve so load me down. And they’ve, they’ve said we need more steps.


Catherine Hogan (29:30):
We need more time. And I’ve really through teaching this class, something that I thought would be so incredibly challenging. And it has been in a lot of ways, but I, I have seen a whole other side of what being successful means, teaching these guys and sometimes being successful isn’t that we got a great mark or we got into our university program that we wanted to get into sometimes being successful is we, we wrote a, an essay like we did that. We did that step by step and we were successful. And, and that has really taught me a lot that I’m gonna carry through my education career. And, and I have, I have my alternative students to thank for that. They’ve taught me this year and I bet they would never in a million years think that they were teaching their teacher, but they are, they really are.


Catherine Hogan (30:26):
And, and I tell them that, I tell them that all the time that I’m learning from them, I learn from them every day. And, and my first goal in there, I said, okay, my first goal is to learn. I’m gonna just learn how to love these guys before I can learn how to teach these guys. And, and that was the best thing that I think I’ve ever tried to do because man, I miss them every day when I’m not teaching that all class and every day there’s turmoil and every day there’s some kind of explosion of some sort, but we’re a team. We are a team in there and, and we are all going to through together. And I really feel like they’ve, they’ve shown me how to do that. Cuz they’re used to working in a team they’re used to being together all day, the same class. I’m not used to that. And they’ve really shown me how, how to teach in that environment and how to be a different teacher, a different teacher. And I, I appreciate that.


Sam Demma (31:21):
I love that. That’s a, it’s such a great response and you know, if you’re not in a place right now where you’re about to have kids, you can still take that advice by loving your students before teaching them. And I think that’s a beautiful way to put it. If someone’s listening to this and wants to reach out and bounce ideas around, share some of your energy, talk about TikTok or the other funky things going on, what would be the best way for another educator to reach out to you?


Catherine Hogan (31:46):
Ooh. They could reach out to me a whole bunch of different ways. They could definitely always email me and that’s easy. I always tell the students it’s easy to remember my email because it’s just C Hogan, which becomes Chogan. So I just tell them it’s chogan@lbpearson.ca. So just like Lester B Pearson. So chogan@lbpearson.ca; that’s my email. And absolutely, I, because I’m old, of course I’m a Facebooker. So absolutely add me on Facebook; it’s captain Hogan and it’s a picture of me riding my horse so you can find me that way, and they can always private message me as well through Facebook as well. And always reach out anytime, anytime. I’m happy to reach out with other educators for sure.


Sam Demma (32:32):
Awesome. Katherine, thank you so much for making some time to do this. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom, your insights, and above all your energy with all of your colleagues on this show. I, I really do appreciate it.


Catherine Hogan (32:43):
Oh my gosh. I feel like I should be thanking you Sam. This has given me a great opportunity to think about some of the things that we’re doing this year and, and challenge myself to think a little bit differently and you know, just think out of the box. So I, I feel like I should be thanking you because I, it, this has given me really an opportunity to kind of stop and think over some of the things that we’ve been through this year going forward and how to use them better going into the next phase of this pandemic at schools. It’s, it’s a challenging one. So I’m hoping to learn new things each day.


Sam Demma (33:18):
No, cool. The feelings mutual and I’ll make sure to stay in touch and keep watching all the things that you’re working on. Yeah. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show; f you want meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

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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.

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