Education

Richard Primrose – Assistant Director at Senior School at St. Michaels University School

Richard Primrose – Assistant Director at Senior School at St. Michaels University School
About Richard Primrose

Richard is an educator, school administrator, coach, athlete and father. He has been the Assistant Director at Senior School at St. Michaels University School for seven years, and has also worked as the Head of Physical Education and Acting Senior School Director. His professional interests include creating a positive school culture and student leadership development, and in his personal time he is a runner, a traveler, and is the father of two young boys.

Connect with Richard Primrose: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Michaels University 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
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. And today we are joined by Richard Primrose. You can’t see this because you’re listening virtually or in your ears. But Richard is currently wearing a Christmas hat with lights all across it because in a few hours is going to be a very exciting event happening at St. Mary’s University School in Victoria, BC, where Richard works. Richard is a runner, a father of two, a culture fanatic for amazing experiences for young people in school buildings. Richard, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Richard Primrose
Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam. I’m really excited. One small correction, the St. Michael’s University School.

Sam Demma
Oh, what am I saying? St. Michael’s University School. That’s a big correction. I appreciate it. And I actually love humanizing folks on the podcast, so I keep mistakes like that in the actual interviews as a way to just remind people that we all make little errors, and I think that’s what makes us more human. Thank you for that correction, and please tell us a little bit about yourself and what actually got you working in education in the first place.

Richard Primrose
Yeah, so my role at my school is assistant director of the senior school responsible for student life and leadership. So the student life aspect, I guess the most important thing I do at the school is creating a positive, safe environment

Richard Primrose
where students can come to school and feel safe and learn and feel like they belong and feel included. So that’s the important scope of my work. And then that involves, you know, all the things that a traditional vice principal, I guess you would say, would do,

Richard Primrose
ranging from all the conversations around discipline, because students do make bad choices, and the important thing is how they learn from them. And then the other end of that spectrum is the leadership, and that’s where a lot of the joy in this work comes, is supporting our student leaders

Richard Primrose
in making all the wonderful, awesome things that happen at the school come to fruition. And I really intentionally talk about supporting student leaders because at my school, one thing our leadership program really values is enabling students to act and giving students the support

Richard Primrose
and the resources and skills to actually get out there and do the real work. So a lot of the stuff you see happening at the school is almost entirely student-led with teachers in the background supporting them and coaching them. And it’s interesting, you talked about including that small error in the podcast. That’s part of our ethos at the school is that these things are not going to be perfect

Richard Primrose
and students are going to, along the way, make mistakes in their leadership and learn from them. So sometimes the events they put out are not 100% polished and necessarily world-class, but the real learning is in the students when they are in action and making small mistakes and getting better from those so that’s a part of our philosophy as well. Is there a reason

Sam Demma
you’re working in education today? Did you know when you were growing up that you would be serving young people?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, that’s a great question. My mom taught kindergarten and grade one. So from an early age, I was exposed to schools and she was a wonderful, beloved teacher. So I think that always planted a seed. Education runs deep in my family.

Richard Primrose
My grandma was a preschool teacher and I have other family members in education as administrators as well. So I suppose it’s in my blood in some ways and that seed was always planted. So at a young age, I suppose I could see myself doing it. And then I had my background growing up playing sports is just a huge part of my development.

Richard Primrose
As a younger kid, I played everything. And then as I got, you know, as a teenager, really focused on baseball and basketball. So a lot of seminal experiences there. And I think my background in sports sort of nudged me in the direction of education. I did go through a phase where I thought law school might be a good fit for me and kind of through university was I met up. But in the end, I did a physical education degree with a minor in geography. And I think one of the reasons I wanted to get into schools was to be involved in sports and be involved in coaching. And then as I got my job at St. Michael’s University School and I realized how much

Richard Primrose
I enjoyed it, how much fulfillment there is and how much purpose there is in education, I began to realize that this really is where I want to be. And my pathway has ranged from being a PE teacher, being a director of athletics for a year, and then kind of naturally led into administration when opportunities came up. So my job looks a lot different now, but it’s still working with kids, supporting kids as leaders.

Richard Primrose
So that’s sort of a bit of a rambling explanation as to how I got here. So I, yeah, I think the seed was always planted, but as I moved along in my education and sport career, I realized the place I wanted to be.

Sam Demma
And the role you’re in today allows you to work so closely with young people, despite the fact that you’re not sitting in their classroom. But the impact is massive. I was fortunate enough to visit the campus at St. Michael’s University School and meet many of the staff and the students who were all

Sam Demma
so kind and well-behaved and welcoming. These spaces are absolutely beautiful and also very inclusive. I felt like I was at home, despite the fact that I was pretty far away from home. So what do you think has contributed to that culture of belonging and kindness at school?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, that’s really great to hear, Sam. I appreciate that. It’s nice to hear that our students made you feel that way because that’s important to us. I think we’ve been very intentional about creating that kind of environment. Equity, diversity, and inclusion is a priority at our school and we’ve created a lot of language around that, that common language that we use. And right from the first day, our senior school students arrive on campus, they each are handed a little business card that’s got our equity, diversity, and inclusion statement on it. So right away, they’re seeing language around our beliefs surrounding creating a place where we feel like they belong and that we actually celebrate and embrace differences and diversity. So day one, they get the little card that’s got our statement on it, which was co-created with students, including our Pride Alliance. And then on the back of the card, there’s some resources that they can reach out to if they happen to be struggling with their mental health or with belonging. So I guess part of that is just when they get here, seeing the language, having people use it, and knowing right away that it’s one of our core values around belonging.

Sam Demma
The staff, I found, were also very welcoming and close-knit. I had a great experience with the lower school as well. I’m forgetting the individual’s name who was working with me at the time in this space, but everyone was so helpful and welcoming. And the educators themselves sometimes, in my experience, forget the impact they’re creating

Sam Demma
in the lives of young people. Maybe a student in their classroom doesn’t tell them until 10 years later when they graduate from the school and come back and let the teacher know. Or sometimes they never tell them, but the impact they’re creating is real. Do you have any words of advice or wisdom for an educator right now who’s heading into the holidays or starting the new year

Sam Demma
and is feeling a little bit burnt out, like they’re not making a difference?

Sam Demma
Yeah, have you ever felt like that before

Sam Demma
and what advice would you give them?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, you know, in education sometimes it feels like, I’ll use a bit of a training metaphor here, that we’re doing intervals. And, you know, we’re just coming out of a really intense interval here and now we’re about to get a break. So I think looking at it through that lens for educators taking your two or three weeks and really practicing self-care to recharge the batteries is important. So identifying the things that work for individuals to practice self-care. For me, it’s getting out for runs, it’s making sure I’m getting outside and moving. I love to run. I’m not necessarily very fast, but I get out there and do my best and it makes me feel good. It sharpens my thinking. It helps me manage my stress. So running and the other one is getting in the gym and throwing some weights around is good for me as well. But I think if people are looking at things that help them with their wellbeing, exercise has got to be one of them. And what else is it? You know, like, is it picking up a book and carving out time for yourself to read? And I like to read real old school paper books.

Richard Primrose
You know, that works for me getting off screens, but intentionally carving out that time. And then of course, spending time with family, friends, loved ones, Christmas is great for that. So I guess really it’s going into these holidays with a bit of intentionality to make sure you’re prioritizing the things that keep you well and make you feel good.

Sam Demma
Well, this is so important. Sometimes I neglect certain habits in my life. And when I return to them, it almost smacks me in the face like, oh my goodness, this is what I was missing this entire time because I was so focused on other things and work output that I forgot to pour into myself. And I think educators or any individuals who are in heart-centered work where you’re always trying to help and support others can sometimes fall into that trap as well. It sounds like running and exercise is one of those things for you. How do you balance the demands of work and also family? You know, you have two young kids.

Sam Demma
I’m sure they keep you busy. How do you manage the balance between everything?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, I mean, it’s a challenge. And to be honest, I probably would like to be spending more time doing my running and having workouts right now, but it’s just a matter of prioritizing and making sure you’re not finding yourself wasting too much time or procrastinating

Richard Primrose
and really trying to go in with a plan. And I talk to my my student leaders a lot about this being intentional, having a plan and then having some kind of system in place to to track that. So, again, with students, I talk a lot about how are you organizing yourself? Like, where are you making your notes? Where are you having your to do list and things of that nature.

Richard Primrose
So I think, obviously, leaders have to have some way of keeping track of their priorities. And if you can sort of weave in personal priorities as well and get that on your list of things to do, and even sometimes, if you can schedule things like that, schedule a workout, schedule a run,

Richard Primrose
schedule a coffee with a friend or a colleague, that can be a helpful way to make sure you’re including that in your healthy habits and routines. Because I think one thing is safe to say that everyone at some point in time slips out of their best, most positive routine and you have to reflect on how things are going and just make those small changes.

Richard Primrose
Sam, I know you’re big on small, consistent actions. And I think it’s a good thing to, when you’re reflecting on how things are going to go back to those small actions that help set you on the right track. You know, there’s a famous book, Atomic Habits, talks about habit stacking, right? So, if you can start off with small things, sometimes the big habits fall on top of that. People love to talk about the value of making your bed, for example, starting off the day

Richard Primrose
on a positive note and building upon that. I talked to our students at my school about wearing their uniform properly and how that starts the day off on a really positive note. You can check off something that you’ve accomplished, as small as putting on your uniform, and you can build upon that and it builds momentum.

Sam Demma
I had a soccer coach when I was 14, 15, 16, who would stop practice by blowing his whistle in the middle of a game if somebody’s shirt became untucked. And we wouldn’t know what was going on until everyone paused and looked down at their own shirts and one of my teammates would recognize, oh, his shirt fell out, so he’d tuck it back in

Sam Demma
and the game would continue. And this coach of mine had so many principles based around that nature. We would show up to practice and there was this long cobblestone pathway. If you walk the whole pathway,

Sam Demma
it would take you like two minutes to get to the field. If you just cut on the grass, it would take you like 15 seconds. So sometimes, you know, when I was first joining the team, I would naturally cut and I’d walk on the grass and maybe a few times my head coach didn’t notice, so he didn’t say anything, but there was one occasion where I guess you watched me walk along the grass instead of on the cobblestone path. And I got down to the field and I was shaking all the coach’s hand to say hello and he said, Sam, walk back up there and walk down the cobblestone path. And I laugh about it now, but in hindsight, I’m so grateful that I had those experiences because he really taught us that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And I think it’s important that we bring good intention to everything that we choose to do, especially when we’re young and we’re building our viewpoints and our perspectives of the world. So I think that’s such a valuable thing that you’re sharing with the students. Are there other principles or ideas that you often talk about with young people that maybe other educators can think about sharing with their students or their schools?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, well, first of all, I love that story. I love the idea as a sport, teaching life lessons, even small things like cutting corners. I talk about that with my rugby guys in training. Same thing, don’t cut small corners, right? I think the other theme that I’m really into these days is the idea that people, in particular students and teenagers, are anti-fragile. So the notion behind that is that not only are people resilient and able to overcome obstacles and challenges, the idea behind anti-fragility is that they actually need those obstacles and those challenges and some pressure and some stress to fully develop and to reach their full potential. And if we’re not experiencing those types of positive challenges, we’re not actually going to reach our full potential. So it’s the idea that people are anti-fragile and need those obstacles in life to overcome and learn from them and grow from them. So that’s like the next step, I think, from the idea of resilience.

Richard Primrose
And I think there, you know, sometimes we’re in a culture now where people tell a story to themselves that they are somewhat fragile, and I’m trying to push back a little bit on that and say that it’s okay to have experiences that stretch you, that push you, that are hard, and you’ll be better because of them and you need them.

Sam Demma
I think it’s such an important message. And the idea of challenges forming us is something that I resonate with because I had some major challenges in my life. And in hindsight, looking back, I wouldn’t change the challenges because they made me the person I am today. They also introduced me to so many other amazing human beings that I wouldn’t have met if I didn’t have

Sam Demma
that challenging experience. Can you think of challenges you’ve had in your life when you were a student or an educator or a parent that when you look back at, you say, wow, I really needed that in my life too because it changed my perspective or shifted something about the way I show up?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, when I have these types of conversations, I very often go back to my experiences playing sport when I was younger. So as a baseball player, so this is sort of when I’m, I guess, six years old to 15, baseball taught me so much about how to manage pressure and how to move beyond those types of things and be able to perform. And it taught me that I can do hard things. So I was a pitcher, so being up there, and as a pitcher, you’re controlling the game, you’re having to pitch strikes, everyone’s watching you. That was my first real bump in with pressure and stress. So that taught me what that feels like and that I was able to actually do it and do hard things. And now later on in my career, that transfers over to having to speak in big venues and things like that, that are still out of my comfort zone. But I often go back to those moments when I was pitching as a 13, 14, 15 year old and what that felt like, and then I was able to do that. So now I can do this. And then using another example from sport, I think about in high school basketball, I didn’t go to this school, I went to a different school. But I had two coaches with very, very different approaches and philosophies towards coaching. And I had one coach who really used fear as a motivator and I didn’t respond very well to that, but my other coach was much more focused on building relationships, being positive, caring about his players, also discipline as well. Like he was the tuck your shirt in type of guy, but I just responded so much better to the coach that really made the effort to build relationships and to serve his players and not lead with fear like the other coach. So that shaped me significantly in terms of how I approach
being an educator, being a leader and being a coach. I definitely move more towards being a relationship builder I think, or at least I try to be, and as much as I can being a servant leader.

Sam Demma
I can’t thank my coaches enough for the experiences they gave me in sports. I also had some absolutely phenomenal coaches who are foundational in my learning and growth and development, not only on the field, but also off the field as a human being.

Sam Demma
And I had some coaches whose style of leadership in some ways taught me what I don’t wanna do in terms of leading other human beings. And both were, I think both were valuable. You would talk about anti-fragility, this idea that we need challenges.

Sam Demma
I think one of the aspects of challenges a lot of people avoid these days are difficult conversations. You know, it’s hard to have certain conversations, but those are conversations that we need to have and they unlock so much opportunity and growth, personally, and within our relationships. You’re someone who has to have difficult conversations sometimes with students and also other staff members. How do you, how do you have a difficult conversation with someone that deep down you wish you didn’t have to have?

Richard Primrose
That’s a great question, Sam. I mean, I guess right from the outset, I’d say that they’re never going to be easy. They should challenge you and they shouldn’t feel natural, right? Those hard conversations.

Richard Primrose
But if I’m coaching students to have these conversations, it’s something I do myself is you have to be prepared. So the harder the conversation, the more time you should really think about exactly what you want to say, the points you want to make, even down to the point of if it’s a big one that you’re really feeling some trepidation about, getting someone who you trust who’s either a colleague or even a mentor and having a coaching type conversation with them before you even enter the conversation. One of the things that you can do entering a difficult conversation is you can really plan well how you want to open it and how you want to make the person feel as you start that conversation. And that’s important because if you make the person feel defensive or if you make them feel like they’re being attacked, that’s going to take the conversation down a path that is probably not going to lead to a positive outcome. So, you can control how you open up that conversation and make the other person feel. Now, where the conversation goes from there is where you have to be nimble and responsive. So, some of the advice I tend to give people as the conversations evolve is you have to really be focused on listening and trying to understand where the person is coming from when they are speaking.

Richard Primrose
Often, I think people go to a place of trying to think about their next move in the conversation or the next thing they’ll say, but really you have to move away from that as much as you can and try and be curious, ask open-ended, calibrating questions to the person and really find out where they’re coming from to try and get to a positive outcome as best you can. So those are a couple little tips I give my students when I’m working with them and coaching them on difficult conversations. The reality is very few people are masters of those conversations, and there are certainly tough ones that I have still, and often I will debrief after the conversation and can recognize things I would have done differently or things I said that maybe didn’t take it down the path that I wanted it to go. The key thing is preparation, going in really curious and asking questions, and reflecting and learning from those conversations as well. It does – it gets easier as you have experience with those conversations, but it never gets easy.

Sam Demma
It makes me think of the work of a stand-up comedian who prepares for their set, delivers it the best they possibly can, and then sits down with a blank piece of paper to rip apart how they said half of their jokes because they know they could do it better next time. And you do it over and over again. I’ve had a few difficult conversations in my life and it’s a skill that I’m continuously trying to improve. So I appreciate you sharing that information. I know that in a few hours here, you’re gonna be sitting in a student-led, student-created assembly. As you wrap up this conversation, do you wanna talk about that assembly very briefly and maybe some of the things you’re excited about into the new year?

Richard Primrose
Yeah, so this assembly is probably just the most fun, high-energy, crazy assembly we have at our school. So we have holiday dress all week long and kids are decked out in their tackiest Christmas sweaters today. There’s blinking lights everywhere,

Richard Primrose
Santa hats all over campus. And this is just a really fun one. Again, it’s going to be essentially emceed by our two head prefects. And they’re awesome. They’ve done a great job this year. But they run with it.

Richard Primrose
They’ve done the planning. And what you’ll see today is going to be, again, really fun, really engaging. It’s not going to be necessarily a polished professional level assembly, but it’s going to be great and you’re going to see the real work being done, like the authentic leadership in action from our students. So there’s lots of different student parts in the assembly.

Richard Primrose
Obviously we have students performing. And at our school, it’s a school tradition, we culminate with the 12 Days of Christmas song where each grade will sing one of the 12 days and for the grade 12s it’s almost a seminal moment in their career at SMU where they get to sing that 12th day Christmas and you’re going to see streamers flying and horns and drums, but what you actually see is pure joy from those grade 12s.

Richard Primrose
So it’s one of my favourite things we do at the school and I’m really excited about it. And in the new year, you know, well, I’m looking forward to more of that. Our grade 11 students are now thinking about What I kind of call our leadership season at the school. We have a whole program they go through in their grade 11 year building up to Applications to be leaders at the school whether that’s council heads Prefects which is our school leadership council or heads of houses for our boarders who live on campus and they will do an application, put their name forward, and ultimately, it’s students and faculty who vote on those positions. So it’s a democratic process that we have at our school. But for a lot of kids, they’re taking that courageous step right now to prepare their applications and put themselves out there and find out what that looks like.

Sam Demma
It sounds like an exciting time. I hope the assembly goes really well and the new year is off to an amazing start. Keep up the great work you’re doing, keep lacing up the running shoes when you have the time to do so and pushing those weights. And I hope to connect at some point in the new year. Richard, if someone is listening to this right now and they want to reach out or connect with you or have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Richard Primrose
They can probably find me on our school website. That’s www.smus.ca and reach out that way. That’s probably the easiest way to get in touch with me. I’m always happy to engage in conversations around life at schools, leadership, anything I’ve talked about today.

Richard Primrose
So yeah, that’d be great. And thanks so much for having me, Sam. What a pleasure. You know, when you came to our school, the energy you brought was really incredible. So if anyone’s listening and thinking about bringing Sam in, he was great. So thanks so much for what you gave to our school community.

Sam Demma
I appreciate it. I’ll talk to you soon my friend. Keep up the good work.

Richard Primrose

Yeah, thank you Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Richard Primrose

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.

February 6, 2025 by Education Educator School Administration 0

Michelle Jarvis – Teacher at Morrin School

Michelle Jarvis – Teacher at Morrin School
About Michelle Jarvis

Michelle Jarvis’s story begins in the small, rural community of Morrin, AB where she was born and raised. From her earliest memories, Morrin School was more than just a place of learning; it was a cornerstone of Michelle’s childhood. Michelle was a student in Morrin School for her K-12 schooling, moving through the grades with the help of dedicated teachers who nurtured her curiosity and encouraged her dreams.

Growing up, Michelle was the kind of student who thrived on the excitement of learning new things. These experiences planted the seeds of Michelle’s own desire to become an educator, and Morrin School was the backdrop of her formative years.

In 2005, after Michelle earned her teaching degrees and gained some experience in other schools, she felt a pull to return to her roots. The opportunity to teach at Morrin School was a dream come true. 

Michelle’s journey as an educator at Morrin School began with teaching grade one. It was a delight to witness the unfiltered enthusiasm and wonder of young children as they embarked on their educational journey. Over the years, Michelle has taught every grade from kindergarten through tenth, each level presenting its own unique challenges and rewards. Whether it was helping a kindergartener learn to read or guiding a high school student through choices that will impact their futures, every moment was a chance to make a difference.

Being deeply rooted in Morrin, Michelle understands that education extends beyond the classroom. She is committed to not only fostering academic growth but also to strengthening the ties between the school and the community. Over the years, Michelle has been actively involved in organizing and participating in various community events. From being an executive member of the Local ATA, Morrin Figure Skating Club, volunteer for Homecoming, to leading the after-school enrichment programs, Michelle’s role as a teacher has always intertwined with her passion for community service.

One of the most rewarding aspects of her career has been witnessing the growth and achievements of her students. Each year, as Michelle sees the development of students’ skills and confidence, she is reminded of the profound impact that education can have. Michelle cherishes the moments when a student who struggled with a concept suddenly grasps it, or when a hesitant young learner gains the courage to speak up in class.

In the end, teaching is about more than just imparting knowledge; it’s about building relationships, fostering a love for learning and helping each student realize their full potential. Michelle is honored to be a part of her student’s educational journey, and she looks forward to many more years of learning, teaching, and growing with the wonderful community of Morrin School.

Connect with Michelle Jarvis: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Morrin School
Alberta Teachers’ Association

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. And today I am joined by a good friend, Michelle Jarvis, who I met a few years ago and then had the pleasure of visiting her community at Morin School, whose t-shirt I now proudly wear while training for marathons. Michelle.

Michelle Jarvis
You recognize it.

Michelle Jarvis
Hi.

Sam Demma
Take a moment to introduce yourself. Hi, everyone.

Michelle Jarvis
I’m Michelle. I’ve been at this teaching gig for 26 years now and yeah, we saw Sam at a conference and wanted him to come share his info with our students. So, we came to the little town of Mourne, and we all see when you wear our school shirt proudly when you’re working out in training. We love it.

Sam Demma
One of your students, I remember when I came, gave me a chain to wear while I was speaking and I wore his necklace.

Michelle Jarvis
Yes, yeah.

Sam Demma
And the taco lunch was a big highlight after we finished too.

Michelle Jarvis
It was great. Yeah, the students still talk about that day. It was awesome.

Sam Demma
26 years ago, did you know that you were going to get into teaching or like, how did you find this vocation?

Michelle Jarvis
Since I was a little kid, my mom had one of those memory books, you know, you put your school report card in and what you want to be when you grow up. I always said teacher. There’s other things on there, but teacher was always something I wanted to do. And I had teachers that I loved. I’m like, I want to be just like them. So that’s kind of where it came.

Sam Demma
After that realization, what did your path as a student and into an early professional look like?

Michelle Jarvis
As a student, I just tried to mainstream my courses for university or whatever I needed. And then I applied and got in, and just right from the get-go, I was like, I’m doing this. And I was so excited when I got into education. I volunteered and did different things for the community, working with students and youth. I picked up summer jobs like Summer Fund or working at a teen center and just hanging out with students and trying to build relationships that I thought would benefit me with my teaching career. And then, yeah, I went to the university and got my degrees.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. And after the university experience ended, did you come straight back to this community? Or where did you go?

Michelle Jarvis
I was hoping to come straight back. But the principal here, he was my principal at the time too, when I was in high school, he’s like, “You know what, you need to go somewhere else, experience different places.” So, no, I went to Northern Alberta to an amazing Mennonite community. There were a lot of First Nations up there also. I stayed there for seven years and then I moved back and just slowly started substitute teaching and doing some work at the school here until a position opened up and I applied and got it.

Sam Demma
That’s so cool. What was different about school in that community versus the school you’re at now?

Michelle Jarvis
Not too much because they’re both smaller communities. The Mennonites, they were just an amazing group of people. They have a very strong faith base and strong community, like togetherness, building things and doing stuff for the school, the churches, and just the town itself. So I guess the difference would be the faith-based community because I’m in a public school here now. They were just, they’re amazing. You just, if you needed anything or if there was some event, they’d try and include you in it and bring you into the community activities.

Sam Demma
And it’s just very closely knit, I guess. That’s awesome. When you did come back here, did kids start pointing at your graduation photo on the wall?

Michelle Jarvis
Yes.

Sam Demma
Wow, that was you?

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, they did. It’s really cool. We just moved into this new school, which you presented in. But in the old school, we had less glass with a lot of walls, and they had all the grad photos up from all the years. My mom and dad’s grad photos were in there and then myself and my siblings, and we loved it. We don’t have room for them here, but we downloaded them and we put them on the TV that we have in the school so students can still see them. They asked grades, and they were like, “You graduated when?”

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Sam Demma
When I arrived at the school for the performance, I remember walking into the office and there was a picture of six students on the wall. I was like, “Oh, are these your kids?” And the principal was like, “No, no, that’s our graduating class.” And I was like, “That’s awesome.” I think there’s such a unique thing that happens in smaller communities where the connections you make with kids are just that much deeper because you know their parents, their grandparents, where they shop. Everyone knows each other. What are some of the things you love about small tight-knit communities like the one you’re teaching in now?

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I like the small communities. I did some practicums in the cities, which is great, but because I grew up here, I think I’m just more comfortable. I guess the thing is, yeah, you know generations of families, you know, like their grandparents and their aunts and uncles, and you just have that relationship of family, even though you might not be related, blood-related. It’s just these deep roots, I guess, and the whole time going by and deep roots and connections that I really enjoy.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. And you also attended school at this school, which is super unique. I think it’s awesome that you’re serving the same school that served you growing up.

Michelle Jarvis
Kindergarten to grade 12.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Sam Demma
When you think about teachers you had that were super inspiring or made a big contribution in your development, who comes to mind and what did those people specifically do that made such a big impact?

Michelle Jarvis
I had great teachers. There wasn’t any that I, you know, sometimes you have favorites or whatever. I did enjoy all my teachers. Things that stuck out with some, like Mrs. Vahidi, she was our grade three teacher and she made memorizing multiplications a thing, and we had to do it in 15 seconds and rattle them off and just made it games. And then after junior high and high school, just they cared. They wanted you to do well. So if you weren’t or you were struggling, they were like, “What can I do to help? Where are you?” You know, they just reached out and being smaller classes, they had that time and the ability to do that. So just things like that, and they made it fun, project-based things, different. Our biology teacher did a huge bio project. You had to choose something – the study of the meadows and plants and life that lived there. Another couple in our class did one; they did a pig dissection because one of the pigs had died. So they rebuilt the whole skeletal system. Just really cool things like that, that we were able to do.

Sam Demma
It sounds like experiential learning was a big part of it.

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, definitely.

Sam Demma
When you think about students you’re serving today in your school, how do you go about trying to build rapport and relationships with young people?

Michelle Jarvis
My son would be embarrassed, but I try to get up on all their knowledge in slang and use it. Totally embarrasses them. I also try to do project-based stuff or learn what the students like or the way they like to learn. I know like, you know, note-taking is not really a thing anymore, or lecturing. It’s like, okay, how can we get into this deep thought? And I try to relate it to real-life situations. Like, you know, often as a student in math class, it’s like, “When are we ever going to use this, Mr. Haslam?” And he’d be like, “You just gotta do it.” So, when I get asked that, I’m like, “Okay, let’s see, when will we use this?” We try to relate it back to real-life situations where, yeah, you actually may need this someday.

Sam Demma
That’s a good strategy.

Sam Demma
I was the same student asking those questions to my teachers, and I think that extra step reinforces in a student’s mind that this matters and that you care as their teacher. And I just had some teachers that were so passionate. They could have been teaching me about anything, and I would have been locked in because I was just overwhelmed by how passionate they were about what they were teaching. They could have been teaching us about paint drying, and I would have been like, “Whoa, this is amazing.”

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, you can tell when it’s something they love, right? Like, there are certain units I teach that I really like, so they can tell because I’m excited, like body language and just everything. Yeah, you’re right. There’s those teachers that resonate with you because it’s like, yeah, you could definitely make anything exciting.

Sam Demma
Now, a lot of teachers at this time of year are excited because the school year is starting, but also overwhelmed because you’re coming out of the break of the summertime. This may be a tough time in your life based on things that are happening outside of the school. How do you get through those challenging moments as an educator?

Michelle Jarvis
Myself personally, we have a great staff, and I know there’s people I can talk to, even our men team. I can go and talk to them about things like that. So, yeah, when you’re just kind of stressed out or feeling burnt out because it’s so overwhelming – the excitement of coming back and, like you said, you’re off a break and that – but it’s also “whoosh,” here’s all this work now. Yeah, I’m very fortunate. All the schools I’ve ever worked at, the staff and the administrators have been phenomenal, and I’ve been grateful that I have those people and those supports that I can reach out to. They understand, and they’ll either listen or give me some resources or things that might help me in those times.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome that you have that support system.

Michelle Jarvis
It is.

Sam Demma
Outside of your experiences as a teacher, you’ve been involved in the community, and you’ve been involved in coaching, volunteering, and with teacher associations and conferences. Where does this never-ending energy come from?

Michelle Jarvis
Oh, there are days I’m a zombie, but I don’t know. It’s just, it’s a passion of mine. I love it. I love being a part of the community and the school. And it kind of feels like being a rock star. I went to Homecoming last year, and I ran an alumni volleyball tournament at the school. All the past students that I had came back, and people were like, “Wow.” They’re just so excited to see you, and I’m like, “No, I’m excited to see them too.” I don’t know. It’s just there. It’s just something in my heart, the passion about it. And, yeah, even when you’re tired, though, you just push through it because you know the benefits and the outcome are just so rewarding – to see them and to see the students succeed and grow up. And they come back and visit, and it’s amazing.

Sam Demma
When I talk to educators, I ask them why they got into this work, and most of them tell me they want to make a difference. They really want to support and amplify young people. Can you think of a student who was really struggling before you started teaching them, or even just someone you noticed? And through their experiences in school and in extracurricular activities, you saw them make a really big improvement. You can change their name if it’s a serious story, but the reason I bring it up is because I think a lot of educators forget how much of an impact they’re having on young people. And sometimes that young person doesn’t come and tell them right away. So hearing stories like these ones just remind them why they’re doing this work in the first place.

Michelle Jarvis
There are a few students that come to mind. I guess one is just struggle – came from a tough home, not, you know, just kind of didn’t have a high economic status. Maybe both parents had to work a lot of jobs. The kids came to school with what they could to eat. They liked to hunt and do different things to help provide for their family. School wasn’t his favorite thing, of course, but he got through it. He worked really hard, got his grades, and was able to graduate. After, like two or three years later, I ran into him at my niece’s graduation in another town. And I’m like, “Oh, hey, what are you doing here?” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m friends with this graduate.” And I’m like, “Oh, it’s great.” And he’s like, “You know, I gotta tell you, you made a difference in my life. You’re the reason I actually graduated and finished school, and I’ve gone on and done really well for myself.”

Michelle Jarvis
And teachers often don’t realize sometimes the impact we’re having on students. And I said, “Well, what did I do?” And he’s like, “You were just there, you listened, you tried to build relationships and connect with me. I don’t think you’re a big hunter, but you would ask me, like, ‘Oh, how did hunting go this weekend? What did you get? How many geese? Or did you get your deer or your moose or whatever?’ And you just always encouraged us to follow something, our dreams or something that we were passionate about.” And he’s like, “And I’ve done that.”

Now I haven’t talked to him in quite a few years, but I know he was working as a hunting guide. Visitors would come from the United States or different parts of Canada and come out here, and he would guide them, show them where to go, and get permission from the landowners. I didn’t realize sometimes that we, as teachers, impacted students in those ways. They don’t often always come back, but he just, despite some of the challenges in his life and growing up, continued on. He finished school, and he went on, and he’s successful and contributing to the community.

Sam Demma
That’s so awesome.

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah.

Sam Demma
It’s funny how sometimes we don’t even recognize we’re making the difference.

Michelle Jarvis
Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes it’s just even talking to them or saying hi. One principal we had said, “Okay, every morning, I want you to connect with certain kids.” So we kind of did like a hockey pool draft, and I’m like, “Okay, these are my kids.” We’d say hello to all of them, but I’d focus on these ones – just make sure they’re okay and check in with them. And it was great because then we got to see them, and they got to see us outside of just the classroom. Just saying, “Hey, Sam, how you doing today? How is your mom or dad?” Just, like, on a personal level – even two minutes every day – just kind of checking in on them and reaching out.

Sam Demma
I remember a time in my life where I was really struggling. I had just started my career as a speaker and convinced my parents that it was a good decision to put my post-secondary education on hold to give this a go. I hired a coach because if I wasn’t investing in the formal education path, I told myself I was going to invest in education. I found a gentleman who was 25 years ahead of me, who had been speaking for 20-plus years. Then COVID hit. I had 30 presentations canceled, and I was bawling my eyes out, sitting on this hill near my house.

I called him – his name’s Chris – and I said, “Chris, this is the worst decision I’ve ever made. I can’t work with you anymore. I should be back in school.” And, you know, the whole 40 minutes, this guy barely said anything. He just listened. By the end of the phone call, I felt like all my problems were solved, and he didn’t even really say anything. It made me realize that sometimes people aren’t actually looking for us to solve their problems; they’re just looking for us to listen. They’re looking for us to be there.

So when someone’s struggling and they start telling me about their struggles, I’ll try to remind myself to ask them, “Hey, are you looking for a solution, or do you just want me to be an ear?” I feel like 90% of the time, they just want you to be there and hear them out. Despite the fact that you’re not a hunter, you took interest in that young man’s passions. I think there’s nothing more impactful that we can do when talking to young people than to care about the things they care about.

Michelle Jarvis
And they teach us, too. There’s another student that’s into football, and I’ve watched football, but not a lot. I just ask, “Hey, how was the game on the weekend?” He’ll tell me what position he plays, and I learn something from them also daily. I agree with you – just listening sometimes to the person. Even myself, like you said, at the beginning of the year, we’re overwhelmed. I’ll go talk to my coworker, and she’ll just listen. Then, after, I’m like, “Oh, thanks, I feel better.” She’s like, “You’re welcome.”

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. When you think about conferences you’ve attended or events you’ve been to, which ones stick out in your mind that had a big impact on building community and also taking back some important lessons to bring to the school?

Michelle Jarvis
When I was in university, we did a leadership conference in education. I was part of the planning committee, and we just brought in these speakers. It was exciting to see it from that side as an organizer and see how much it takes and the organization required. But when it all came together, it was just an awesome experience.

Of course, when I saw you and Savio at the Middle Years Conference, I was like, “This is something that’s fun and entertaining, but also connects to real-life situations that everyone deals with.” Another one, I think you’ve met her – Dr. Jody Carrington. I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but she’s down-to-earth, and she says it like it is. That was another one. And Shelly Moore is another person that resonated with me. She struggled through school, and we just had her again the other day.

She’s there for those students who struggle. She says, “Hey, school isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. But while you have to be here, we’re going to make sure you succeed. We’re going to make accommodations. We’re going to find your strengths, and we’re going to focus on those, not on the areas where you may struggle, because you’re great just the way you are, and you have things to contribute to us, too.”

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, those are the people that resonate with me. I always want to attend their conferences or hear their speeches again.

Sam Demma
When you think about educators that may be struggling right now, if you could give them a word of advice, what would you share with them?

Michelle Jarvis
It gets better. Sometimes it just feels like it’s never-ending, but remember why you started. Yes, the paperwork, the files, the IPPs, and all these new systems for report cards are part of it. But remember why you started. You started because you love kids, you want to help them follow their dreams, and we’re here for them, not necessarily for all the administrative stuff.

So always refocus on that. Yes, that’s just part of our job, but what’s the reason we chose to do this job? That always helps me. I think, “I’m here for the students, and I want to be a good role model for them. I want to make this experience, from kindergarten to grade 12, a safe place where they feel comfortable and know I’m approachable.”

Sam Demma
Michelle, thank you so much for taking some time to come on the show, talk about your educational journey, your philosophies around building relationships with young people, the importance of listening, and the advice you’d share with someone who’s not feeling the greatest in the vocation right now. I hope you continue to find meaning in the work you’re doing and make a big contribution. I look forward to crossing paths with you again very soon.

Michelle Jarvis
Thank you for having me. Yes, I hope I can continue to do this for a few more years because I do love it and I love the relationships I build. So thanks for having me.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Michelle Jarvis

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

December 26, 2024 by Education Educator Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Uncategorized 0

Chrystal Colquhoun – E-learning and Classroom Teacher at Listowel District Secondary School

Chrystal Colquhoun – E-learning and Classroom Teacher at Listowel District Secondary School
About Chrystal Colquhoun

Chrystal Colquhoun is an educator and mental health advocate. Student overall wellbeing is at the core of her teaching practices and work within her schools. She has been teaching in AMDSB for 18 years now, and has worked a number of years in alternate education and student success style roles, helping students learn and practice different strategies to help them be successful in life beyond school, even when facing adversity. Chrystal has been involved in running mental health and wellness activities within her present and past schools, as well as sits on school teams for organizing literacy support and creating new equity initiatives within her school.

Chrystal’s interests include mental health and wellness, reading, music and dancing. She has two children, a 10 year old and 8 year old, who keep her very busy!

Connect with Chrystal Colquhoun: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

AMDSB

LivingWorks SafeTALK

LivingWorks ASIST

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. And today we have a very special guest, Chrystal Colquhoun. Chrystal is someone I met recently. She has a massive heart. She’s doing work in the mental health space in her school.

Sam Demma
She loves English. She just traveled out east this summer, but now we’re back in the classroom, and today she’s on the show. Chrystal, please take a moment just to introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about who you are.

Chrystal Colquhoun
Okay, well, yeah, I’ve been teaching in secondary school for 18 years now, I guess, and I’ve bounced around a little bit. I’ve been at two schools, luckily just two for most of my career, and I’ve sort of bounced around between teaching English and teaching jobs of like student success and alternate ed in that sort of style. Nothing like a lot of variety, right? But yeah, I’m back at the high school that I went to as a student actually, and I’m loving being there, back in the community that I grew up in.

Sam Demma
Do you see yourself on the wall?

Chrystal Colquhoun
To be honest, I’m too old, and I think they’ve taken those pictures down now.

Sam Demma
Oh my gosh.

Chrystal Colquhoun
But I was at one time.

Sam Demma
Yeah, that’s cool. Did you know when you were a student walking the same high school that you teach in now, or you taught in, that one day you would be in education, working in education?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Yes, I did think that at the time. Both my parents were teachers, and so I just kind of grew up from elementary school expecting to be a teacher. And I remember helping my mom do her marking and setting up her classrooms and thinking that that was great. When I graduated high school, I figured I would go on to be a teacher. And then I got to first year university and I was like, no, I want to do my own thing. So I scrapped that idea and decided I wanted to be like a counselor, go through psychology. And then I spent some time in some of my mom’s classrooms volunteering in elementary school, and I was like, no, like, I don’t want to do that.

Chrystal Colquhoun
It hadn’t even occurred to me that secondary school teaching was an option because I had just left secondary school, right? And then when it occurred to me that that was an option, and within secondary school, there were also opportunities for counseling and mental health work, that was where I was like, oh, okay. Maybe I want to do that where I can get both of those things that I enjoy together.

Sam Demma
What was it about counseling or mental health work that drew you in?

Chrystal Colquhoun
It’s a good question. I feel like just growing up, I did have a lot of support around that I was really grateful for, but also sort of recognized the times when maybe I didn’t feel as supported where I would have benefited from some more. And just like the figuring out, you know, motivation behind actions and ways to cope with things. I just found that really interesting and wanted to be able to sort of be someone that people felt comfortable coming to for help, then offering advice and just, you know, modeling how to exercise good self-care and that sort of thing, which I do sometimes.

Sam Demma
We all are doing our best, right?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Yeah.

Sam Demma
You have organized mental health and wellness initiatives in this school and previous schools. Have you always been involved in the mental health advocacy when you’ve been working in schools? And if so, tell us a little bit about some of the initiatives or things that get you really excited?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Yeah, I think it took me maybe a couple of years to get confident in my teaching roles before I started to step into the mental health spaces. But I’ve done a few different things. In my previous school, I had some students apply for a Speak Up grant for a mental health campaign. And so we had done a video campaign for the school and for the board that the purpose was to share student voice and experience.

Chrystal Colquhoun
I’d say that’s one of the bigger ones. And then coming back to the school that I’m at now, which I’m so happy to be there and doing these things at that school, last year we did sort of a bigger mental health week than we have in the past. We had you come in as a speaker, which was fantastic because we hadn’t had a good community-building speaker experience since before COVID. We had some community partners coming in to do self-care activities and some yoga.

Chrystal Colquhoun
Another activity that we did that my wellness student, who I work closely with, who’s super passionate about mental health, and I created was wellness bingo that we put out to all the classes. It was to be completed over the week, with an activity a day. The kids loved it, were getting into it, and the teachers were really enjoying it. A number of teachers actually told me afterward that because it was getting near the end of the year, they were going to keep it and do an activity a week to get them through to the end of June and to just keep encouraging this self-care throughout the rest of the year.

Sam Demma
So if there’s a school listening thinking, wellness bingo, that sounds amazing. How does that work?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Yeah, absolutely. We just looked up some different activities that we thought wouldn’t take a lot of time. At that time of year, teachers are stressed to get the curriculum done, students are stressed not to miss any material. So we brainstormed some ideas like a coloring activity, going for a walk as a class, having a class tea party (usually hot chocolate), or bringing your own snack. Just things that don’t take too much planning. It was also kind of giving teachers and students permission to take a five- or ten-minute break from what they were doing and everyone just took a breath that week, it seemed.

Sam Demma
I’m assuming there were some activities that students had maybe never done before?

Chrystal Colquhoun
I didn’t get specific feedback like that, but I did have a couple of my classes pick having a dance party. We put on some Just Dance, and I know for some people that was probably out of their comfort zone to be doing that in a classroom. But everyone was standing up, moving their bodies a little bit, and it was just a fun activity.

Sam Demma
And I think when you see someone else do something outside of their comfort zone, like dancing in front of everybody, it gives others permission to do the same. Sometimes the barrier is our own belief or being the first person to do it.

Sam Demma
I was in Kenya this summer, and while we were in Tanzania, there was this beautiful live music with a big spotlight in front of the band and no one dancing. I thought, let’s go start a dance party. I got so nervous because I had to be the first in the spotlight. But once I did it, 15 people joined within 30 seconds, and we had the best night of the trip. It’s so important to create these opportunities where young people can do things outside their comfort zone.

Chrystal Colquhoun
Yes, I was absolutely dancing at the dance party.

Sam Demma
You’ve worked with students in schools for a while now. How do you think you build a deep relationship with a young person?

Chrystal Colquhoun
To me, that’s the most important part of teaching. I enjoy the student success and alternate ed roles because they really allow for deeper relationships. Teaching a class of 30 kids can make it hard to get to know each one. One of my amazing colleagues shared the idea of an attendance question, not related to the class, like a “would you rather” question. Everyone gets a chance to answer, and by the end of the semester, it builds confidence and you get to know more about each kid.

Sam Demma
I think that’s a beautiful way to engage in the classroom. If educators listening aren’t currently doing that, they should try it out.

Chrystal Colquhoun
And I can’t take the credit for it!

Sam Demma
Are there any teachers you had growing up that had a big impact on you?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Honestly, the teachers that pop into my mind are the ones I had one-on-one conversations with about things unrelated to the work in front of me. I guess it just comes down to giving time.

Sam Demma
When you think of the students in your school today, what are some of the challenges they’re facing during this time?

Chrystal Colquhoun
There’s a lot, and I don’t even think I know what they all are. Cell phones are an obvious issue, but I think so many other challenges stem from that. There’s also been a shift in my 18 years of teaching, maybe related to technology, and another shift post-COVID. I think students are trying to figure out where their priorities lie.

Sam Demma
Sometimes teachers don’t know how to best support a student who might be struggling. When someone tells you they’re struggling, how do you best support them?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Teachers are specialized in subject areas, and not everyone has mental health training. We’re being asked to address students who are struggling because we have access to them, but we really need more social workers in schools or more mental health training for teachers. If a student comes to me, I feel comfortable helping them figure out where to go, like a guidance counselor or mental health counselor.

Sam Demma
I see educators burn out trying to put out every fire, and half the fires are for a different department. How do you ensure you don’t over-serve to take care of yourself?

Chrystal Colquhoun
I dance! Music and dancing are definitely helpful. Currently, I’ve chosen to work two-thirds time because I recognized that exactly what you described was happening. This allows me to give more because I know I have time to recoup and self-care.

Sam Demma
Dancing every day, a little bit of dancing with some good music just heals the heart and the soul.

Chrystal Colquhoun
Absolutely.

Sam Demma
We’re starting another academic year. There are lots of people stepping into school buildings for the first time. What do you think Chrystal needed to hear on day one of teaching that someone else could benefit from hearing?

Chrystal Colquhoun
It’s amazing to have a plan and feel organized, and then you need to be absolutely flexible to throw it all out the window.

Sam Demma
That’s wise.

Chrystal Colquhoun
And you’ve just got to see where the students are at in front of you. You can have the best lesson, but if they’re not in the space to take it in, it’s going to flop.

Sam Demma
In those moments, how do you pivot?

Chrystal Colquhoun
Some days you can pick one chunk and go down that path. There were days last year with a very academic group where they were stressed out, so we had a “do what you need to do” day. Some students went to practice dance, others studied for chemistry, and others caught up on reading. By the end of the period, everyone was more relaxed, and the next day we were back on track.

Sam Demma
This has been such a lovely conversation. I appreciate you taking the time to chat and share some of your experiences in education. If there’s an educator who wants to reach out to you, what’s the best way?

Chrystal Colquhoun
I’m not great with social media, so my email is probably best.

Sam Demma
Okay, awesome. We’ll make sure it’s linked on the podcast page in case someone wants to reach out.

Chrystal Colquhoun
Perfect, because it is long to spell out.

Sam Demma
No worries. Chrystal, thank you so much. This was lovely.

Chrystal Colquhoun
Thank you, Sam, so much for asking me to be here. This is great.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Chrystal Colquhoun

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

November 14, 2024 by Education Educator Mental Health Teachers 0

Bryan Burns – Principal at Matthew Halton High School 

Bryan Burns – Principal at Matthew Halton High School
About Bryan Burns

Bryan Burns is the Principal of Matthew Halton High School in Pincher Creek Alberta. This year is the second for Bryan as Principal, however prior to that he was the Assistant Principal for three years. This year will be his tenth year at Matthew Halton, where he spent eight years as the Learning Support Teacher, taught various levels of Social Studies and brought the first Hockey Academy ( which he still runs today) to Halton.

Culture and creating a positive environment where students, staff and members of the community want to be is the driving force behind his personal philosophy. Bryan can often be found interacting with students in his own classroom, participating in lunch intramural sports or walking through the halls to have personalized conversations with others. His desire to create positive experiences extends out of the classroom into extracurricular athletic activities. Currently he is the school cross country running coach and prior to admin life taking more time he also coached volleyball, baseball, basketball and other school sports.

Connect with Bryan Burns: Email | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Matthew Halton High School

Hockey Academy

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. And today we are joined by Bryan Burns. Bryan is the principal of Matthew Halton High School in Pincher Creek, Alberta. I had the pleasure of learning a little more about his community last year. And he just got back from a conference in Vegas.

Sam Demma
Bryan, how was it? Thanks for coming on the show. And how was your conference?

Bryan Burns
It was great, Sam. Thanks for having me. And yeah, lots of learning. The weather was fantastic. Here in Pincher Creek, it’s always windy, as I think you learned last year. So it was nice to get out of the wind.

Sam Demma
Did you know when you were a student yourself that you wanted to be in education? Or what brought you to this path?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, that’s a great question. I really – I was one of those kids in school who I didn’t know what I wanted to be. And truthfully, some of my friends, I was applying to university, I knew I was going. They said, “Hey, do you want to try out education?” And so I did a concurrent degree at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. And that way, I would have my Bachelor of Arts if I didn’t like teaching. And once I got more immersed into the teaching, I realized I liked it. Some of that started with coaching Timbits hockey, five-year-olds. And that was a cool experience. So from five-year-olds now, you know, we got some 18-year-olds in here, quite a mix.

Sam Demma
What was it about teaching itself that was something you became drawn to?

Bryan Burns
I think it was the idea of helping people, right? And when you kind of hit those aha moments, where whether it’s a big struggle or something really small, you kind of said this in some of your presentations too, right? Like you feel better when you help others. And to quote a great person, everyone’s got stuff in their backpack, right?

Sam Demma
I don’t know who I’m talking about, but…

Bryan Burns
It’s those pieces, right? It’s the wins that, with other people, you celebrate their successes, and then you feel great as well. So that’s the biggest rewarding part I find.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I think those actions of kindness and service to others also light us up, like you said. And I’m wondering, did you have other coaches or teachers in your life when you were a student, or even now, that helped you have some of those aha moments that showed you what was possible being a teacher?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, coaching. I played a lot of hockey just at a house league level growing up and had some good coaches with my dad, my uncle, friends’ parents as well. So gained a lot of good resources in terms of knowledge through them, not just on the ice, but also how to be a good teammate, how to be a good friend, how to be a decent person. And so those were the big ones from the sports side. But the teacher who made the most impression on me was my high school history teacher, Mr. Smith. He was also the football coach. So he was a mix of caring but that firm, stereotypical football coach approach. And he left an impression on me of, you can go out and do things if you really try, right? So that’s the biggest thing. Put a little effort into stuff and you’ll probably get some movement here, progress.

Sam Demma
It sounds like his philosophy around effort was a big thing that stuck with you. Was there anything else in specific that he did, or when you reflect on his leadership as a coach and a great teacher, that you think other educators listening may want to reflect on or think about modeling in their own classrooms or with their teams?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, the biggest thing was he always brought a sense of awareness to learning, and he made it engaging and fun in the way that, you know, he would bring history to life. History can be boring for some, but the way that he just presented it, you know, he’d be reenacting the French Revolution standing on desks. Not saying every day has to be that, but just something that puts a smile on your face.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. When you think about the teachers in Matthew Halton, you now are in a position where you’re not only helping students, but you’re supporting the staff, which in turn will serve and support the students in the building. How do you help the staff so that they can help the students?

Bryan Burns
Another great question. I think there’s lots of things you can do, right, from the academic standpoint, a sense of belonging. That was something that really our school focused on last year, was students walking in the door and staff feeling that, “Hey, I belong here.” Not to say everyone’s going to right off the bat; for some, it takes longer, but really pushing staff to create an environment and doing that myself of, “This is a pretty good place, I wanna be here.” Because if you come in and you’re already defeated, that “I don’t belong” or, “Hey, this doesn’t fit my mold,” it’s gonna be really, really difficult to do all the other things to your best potential.

Sam Demma
I can tell you as a guest of Matthew Halton, I felt welcomed warmly from the moment I walked in to the moment I continued on my way. From the students who met me in the office, Kevin spending the day making sure the tech was taken care of, the warm introduction, and the community members who showed up in addition to students to watch the performance – like every aspect of it was so thoughtful and well-planned. I think I know exactly what you’re referring to when you talk about walking in and feeling that sense of belonging, because I felt it when I arrived. Is that something that you’ve had to work on, or has it been present in the community for a long time?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, so I’m coming up on year 10 here at Halton. This is my fifth year in the office. So not to say I didn’t get to shape or have a perspective on that as a teacher before getting into the admin side of things. But I’ve always felt that sense of community here, but really trying to put a push to it the last two years within our school goals of, let’s really try and make a stamp on here and create this identity, right? And so shape it through values. That’s something we’re working on this year – how can we get the students to create values that they see as important and then actually live it each day so they’re not just, you know, five words on paper, but actually have some substance to it.

Sam Demma
I love that. You have a painting – no one can see it, but it’s behind you on the wall there. Is it student art, or is there a story behind it?

Bryan Burns
Are you talking on this side here? Yeah. That is not student art, but we definitely have lots of that around the school. I grew up in Ontario, and so my parents met an Indigenous artist, and they’ve created some work for them. It was actually a gift for my mom, and it’s fitting that I’m talking about my mom on your podcast because lots of your stories involve your family and your mom. So yeah, we’ll dive into this one. It was something when I became the principal, my mom wanted to get me something for my office. She said, “I know that there’s an Indigenous connection out here; we have the P’gani Reserve very close by.” And she wanted to put a little bit of home, Ontario, into my office. So yeah, it’s actually the artist who did it. My mom gave her a couple of ideas, and it’s actually called “Learning Through Halton Pass.” She created different things like my dog is incorporated in it, my wife, my family, some friends. Yeah, glad you picked up on that.

Sam Demma
I find that when you leave with curiosity or ask genuine, thoughtful questions about something, there’s usually cool stories or connections, and you find that we have more in common than we do different. You start to see humanity in other people. And so I noticed it from the time we started the call, and I wanted to make a point of asking you about it. I found when I ask young people similar questions, or I’ll notice something and I just genuinely ask about it, they start telling you stories, and you build a deeper relationship. I’m just curious, from your perspective, working in education for so long, how do you think you build those deep relationships with young people?

Bryan Burns
I think it’s exactly what you’re saying – through curiosity, right? And genuine curiosity. Our school is, you know, we’re under 300 students, grades seven to 12. So I have a pretty good sense of who the students are coming into our building. Last year, with our grade 7s coming over from our feeder elementary school, I wanted to get to know them. So I’m not just, you know, the guy in the office. I actually did one of our option classes with them, and I called it “leadership.” But really, that course was a chance for me to connect with them and get to know, you know, who’s doing ranching in the community, who likes to read, who you know – who are you? That’s the piece, right? Because in my mind, they’re going to be here for the next six years, and we spend lots of time together. So I want to get to know you so I can connect, as you’re saying, on that personal, genuine level.

Sam Demma
That sounds like getting to know the students is one big aspect of it. When you think about the culture you’re building of belonging in the school, how do the teachers play a big role in it as well?

Bryan Burns
I think a lot of it is being visible. Whenever a new staff member comes on, I always joke that if you come into our staff room, you’ll probably be the only one there. And they kind of look at me funny a little bit. So, you know, lots of staff are hanging out in the common area at lunch where all the students eat. We have intramural sports at lunch. There’s always a staff team involved within that. Sometimes we’re mixed in amongst the kids; sometimes I challenge the staff because what’s better than beating up on them in dodgeball, right? Really empowering them to realize the impact they have with their students, right? And admitting our flaws and our faults – that we’re all people, but also connecting with them in those authentic, fun ways.

Sam Demma
I love the idea of you being the only person in the staff room, because everyone’s out and about and supporting the community and engaging with the students and other staff members. The vocation of education is one where you have a big heart, you want to serve, and most educators want to give back and make a difference. Sometimes it’s hard to balance the service to others and the giving back with taking a reprieve and making sure your own cup is full. How do you personally balance the two extremes?

Bryan Burns
It’s a very difficult balance. I had a former colleague once tell me, “If you’re a lonely person, this is the career for you,” because there can always be something going on, right? Especially in a smaller tight-knit community. As much as I love being here, I love being with my family as well – my wife and my kid. We just had a baby New Year’s Eve last year, so that’s a totally new balance for me personally. Some of it is simple tips and tricks for myself, like having a calendar so I’m on time for the things I need to be here for, but also at home. There are ways to incorporate family into the school life as well. So just making sure that, like you’re saying, keeping your bucket full, doing the things you love that keep you happy. And sometimes it is tricky though. It’s a tricky profession in that regard.

Sam Demma
In those moments where you might be a little spent or burnt out because of all the different moving parts and things that are going on, how do your colleagues play a role in supporting or peer-to-peer support? How do you think about that?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, I mean, lots of techniques and humor, right? It’s not like I came into the admin role in a new school where I didn’t know the staff, so I was fortunate to have those existing relationships. I think it’s like any dynamic where you have that sense of trust, where you can call each other when you’re having a bad day, tell a joke – something small to change your mindset or perspective. I just had a staff member come in right before this and they just told me a feel-good story, and hey, what a way to put a smile on your face, right?

Sam Demma
Hey man, you made me laugh when you said the Oilers were a good hockey team just this past year.

Bryan Burns
Yeah, hey, they almost had it. But yeah, that’s fun. You gotta have some laughs for sure.

Sam Demma
Of course. I’m wondering, when you think of other resources that have helped you in your journey as an educator, so you can contribute more to students and other staff, are there any events you’ve attended or resources you found that have been a great help for you?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is connecting with people, right? It’s getting in touch with not only others in education but also seeing how you can make connections outside of the building. A couple of specific events – you just mentioned I got back from a conference in Las Vegas, and there were other members of our school division there. Lots of times, you know, at admin meetings, everything is tight deadlines or we have to go through this policy. Sometimes when you can spend some time outside of your normal environment with people who have similar roles or jobs, just trading stories. I’m definitely thankful for many people. A friend of mine and a colleague here – his dad was the superintendent of the school division years and years ago. He once told me, “Do you want one line of advice for education?” And I said, “Yeah, of course.” And he said, “If you’re making this decision and it’s not in the best interest of kids, don’t make it.” So just being able to communicate with people in that regard, I find, is much stronger than most of the books I’ve read or going to a conference for a weekend. Those are the things that make that lasting imprint on you.

Sam Demma
I think you’re so right about the connections with others – not only outside the school building like you mentioned but also your colleagues within the school building. I had a guest recently who told me that they built an arrangement with other teachers in their school who had the same lunch. They would sit down, eat, and share best practices or ideas or challenges, and then brainstorm together. It was almost like a daily mastermind so they could continue showing up the best they possibly could for their students and also have some humorous moments about things that were unfolding in their classrooms that each other weren’t aware of because they were in their own rooms. I think that camaraderie and the support is really important. There might be an educator listening to this right now who’s feeling burnt out or who’s struggling a little bit, or maybe it’s a teacher who’s just finishing their education degree or their bachelors and they’re excited about jumping into the world of education but feeling a little nervous. What do you think someone needs to hear on their first day working in a school?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, great question. A couple of things processing through my head here. I think it’s always kind of reminding yourself – and you asked me off the top, you know, “What’s the reason? How did you get into this?” Right? – and going back to your core values of, yeah, why did I get into this? It’s an amazing job. There are tons of rewards to it, tons of hardship. So I think when you’re in both of those times, just trying to refocus. “Hey, remember the other day it wasn’t like this.” Every educator has had times where this is a real tough gig or “Why am I doing it?” Like many other careers, too, right? But when you can refocus on that “why” and shift your energy, focus on those important values – like I mentioned, that’s the basic thing, right?

Sam Demma
I agree, and I have a question. Has your “why” shifted since you had a new child? That’s such a pivotal moment, and I’m curious, did it shift at all the way you think about education or educating kids? Mind you, they’re not in school yet, but they will be soon.

Bryan Burns
Yeah, everyone always told me, “Hey, once you have your own kid, it’s going to change your life in lots of ways.” And yeah, it definitely has. In terms of how I look at things within my career aspect, yeah, I would say it has. I went and toured a daycare the other day, outside of work, and you kind of think, well, actually, this is where learning starts after home, right? You’re really putting your trust in other people to take care of your kid, right? The most important thing in your life. So I’ve always heard that and felt that sense of honor, really, when you get to be responsible for others. But you look at things a little bit more closely, right? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice some safety things and thought, “Oh yeah, that corner looks kind of sharp here. Maybe I should…” So all the new dad things I’m enjoying.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome, man. Well, congrats again, and thank you so much for taking some time to chat on the podcast about some of your educational experiences and ideas. That one line you shared about making sure every decision we make is in the best interest of kids is gonna stick with me, and I hope it sticks with everyone who’s been tuning in to this show. If someone wants to reach out to you and ask a question or connect, what would be the best way for them to do so?

Bryan Burns
Yeah, absolutely. Totally welcome that. I’m not one of those Twitter or X users in the education world, but you can absolutely email me. So, burnsb@lrsd.ab.ca. And yeah, like I mentioned, connecting with people is the best way I find to learn and grow. I’m super thankful, Sam, for you asking me to be on here and getting the chance to know you. Because not only did your messaging impact all the students here, but some of them – you know, your message went really deep. I think others learned if you’re gonna ask for an autograph not to use a dry erase marker and use a Sharpie. I don’t know if you remember that. But yeah, I’ve appreciated what I’ve learned from you. I’ve listened to you speak publicly twice now and shared some messages. So thank you.

Sam Demma
Thank you, Bryan. I appreciate it, and I hope this next year is a really meaningful one with lots of impact. Keep doing the great work you’re doing, and I look forward to our next crossing or conversation.

Bryan Burns
Absolutely. Thank you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Bryan Burns

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

November 7, 2024 by Education Educator Principals Student Leadership Teachers 0

Rhae-Ann Holoien — Superintendent of Schools for the Battle River School Division

Rhae-Ann Holoien — Superintendent of Schools for the Battle River School Division
About Rhae-Ann Holoien

Rhae-Ann has over 30 years of experience as an educator and is in her second year as superintendent in the Battle River School Division. She is passionate about fostering educational excellence, supporting staff and students, and ensuring all students have access to high-quality learning opportunities. In addition to her professional role, Rhae-Ann is a dedicated mom, wife, daughter, sister, and grandma.

Connect with Rhae-Ann: Email | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Battle River School Division

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. Today we have a very special guest, Rhae-Ann Holoien. And I go back, I want to say a few years now. She is a ball of energy. She is someone who, if you speak to her long enough, you’ll want to run through a couple, not just one, but a couple of brick walls. She is passionate about education and has been serving young people and educators for a good amount of time now. Brianne, take a moment and just introduce yourself. Thank you, Sam.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
So I’ve been in education for 31 years and you are extremely kind in your introduction of me. I do try to ensure that I have a thought always on my mind that it’s about the students. It’s like that’s our end result. What kind of journey, what kind of experiences do our students have? And I think when you say people will join me, I think those of us in education, we always want to reflect back on that. And that’s why people join us on that journey so we can make it great for students in our schools.

Sam Demma
Did you grow up playing teacher to a dollhouse as a kid and knowing that you wanted to work in education?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
No, but I did grow up, I did a lot of coaching, I did swimming lessons, kind of all of those other things, but I thought I would be a lawyer. Yeah, it kind of changed in my post-secondary journey that I really decided that I loved being teaching and supporting students and being someone who could make a difference in somebody’s life.

Sam Demma
What changed for you in post-secondary that had you alter your pathway?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Maybe some life experiences, and knowing that we need great people in the classroom, and I’m very fortunate to work in a school division. We have great people in the classroom, but that was something that really kind of made my decision for me. I wanted to be one of those people that really stood up for all students and ensured that everyone had great opportunities in schools.

Sam Demma
I think the idea of making sure that every student feels like they belong, like they’re supported and advocated for is so important. Absolutely.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I think having my own children made me a little more humble. It kind of opened up my experiences as well because I’ve had to advocate for my own children as well and I think I know the education system and sometimes it’s difficult navigating and knowing where the answers are where the support can be so I think I really appreciate that we need to be that person for all the students in our schools and those students in our classrooms. We have to support them so they have those great opportunities to succeed and let the parents know how to advocate and how to ensure their kids are being successful.

Sam Demma
One of the things I observed with you and your team is you’re always looking for ways to improve student well-being and support the students in the classroom. It seems like every conversation you have relates to that and involves data and making the best possible decisions for young people. What drives that passion?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
What drives that mission? You know, and that has been something I can say that even prior to the pandemic, I have been very focused on ensuring we take care of ourselves, that we’re healthy. I come from a background where I was a student athlete and a university athlete. I’ve raised my kids to be healthy and think of their overall well-being. There’s not just one aspect of well-being. And I think, again, some of the things that I know I want to translate and support so all our students and staff can be healthy and ensure there’s positive well-being in our entire division. If we look after our staff, we obviously look after our students, but there’s some things that we can do along the way. And, you know, hopefully we make a big impact in that.

Sam Demma
You and I were just chatting before we started the podcast about some of the things we strive to do each day to make sure we can show up to the best of our abilities. I was telling you about blocking out lunch and making sure I honor that time on the calendar and having the humility to ask for help when you know you need it, but might not want to ask for it. What are some of the practices you put in place in your own life as a leader to ensure that you can show up at full capacity and to the best of your abilities?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I appreciate that question because last year I tried to do a few things and now I’m more intentional this year. So I wake up an hour early this year and I go for a walk. I’m trying to ensure that I can have a decent break and have that lunch or that reflection time as well. I like to, you know, a mentor once told me, we carry our weather. It’s leaders. People look at us. They look to you to see how a meeting is going to go or how you’re approaching. And so the quote is, we carry our weather. So before I enter the room, I like to check myself. We carry our weather. I want to be positive. I want people to know that we’ve got this. We’re a great team. We can support each other. And I hope when I go into the room, that’s the perception of the people in the room, that we’re supporting each other. And so, that is something that I do.

Sam Demma
I love that quote. I also was thinking, I had a young person walk up to me after a presentation recently at a school in Richmond Hill, and he said this quote to me. He said, “The way the world sees us is the way we see the world.” And you have such a positive outlook on the world and you have such an optimistic outlook on the world that I’m certain when people are perceiving you, they’re looking at you in the same way you’re looking at the world. So yeah, I have no doubt that every room you walk in, the perception is awesome.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Well, again, that is very kind because I do see the world as a very positive place. I feel that we can overcome our challenges and sometimes we just need a little more support to be able to do that, but I also believe we’re not alone in that. And as educators, as a leader in the school division, I honestly believe I can support people to overcome their challenges to be successful.

Sam Demma
And that’s really the role of a great leader, is to remove those obstacles from the people you serve, whether it’s the students or the teachers. How do you manage people effectively? What are some things you keep top of mind when dealing with other humans?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Well, one, I think deep in our hearts we have to value all the work that people do. People work very hard in our school division. I’m very proud of the work we do. I continue with the message that it’s every student every day of success. That’s the vision of Battle River School Division. And that’s honestly the message that I carry forward. We need to think of every student every day. So, part of it is just ensuring that people are valued, people are respected. If you’re having a conversation, sometimes they are tough conversations that we need to have, but it’s ensuring that people feel that we’re listening, we hear them, and we’ll work together for the best end result we can have.

Sam Demma
You have been in many different positions in education, in a few different school boards. What are some of the moments in your career that were pivotal for you? Maybe it was a mentor you’ve had or a change in a role that opened up your eyes to some new opportunity for impact and to be of service. Is there any pivotal moments in your educational journey that you think about?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
You know, I do have some amazing mentors that have been very positive and supportive and, you know, made me reflect and maybe do things a little bit differently. And so it’s great to know there’s other, there’s great adults out there that are looking after our students. But some of the pivotal moments are with the kids. And when the students notice that they can make a difference and they want to share that with us, and they want to share their learning and share celebrations of success, those are the pivotal moments that I know we are making a difference.

Sam Demma
When you think about students and the pivotal moments when they approach you or a teacher and share passionately their interests or their curiosities or their ability to make an impact, are there any students, and you don’t have to name any of them, but are there any student examples that really come to the forefront of your mind of a young person who maybe was really struggling and through education found a new beginning or made some great improvements?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Absolutely. I can think of a number of students who, and they might not have approached me, but they might have approached a teacher, a principal, an EA, a bus driver, and you hear those students, you hear that story. And it fills our hearts that somebody has made such a difference that they now feel successful, they now feel that they’re able to learn or able to go to school without a challenge. And someone has been there to support them, absolutely. I have a list of students who I’m so proud of the work staff have done to work with our students.

Sam Demma
What do you think some of the opportunities or challenges are that exist right now in education?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I think opportunities are, you know, the career pathways that students have. I reflect back to when I was graduating from school, and I’m not sure we were directed, you know, into all the various things that one could possibly, you know, do when they grow up. There’s so many opportunities for our students to be successful in life, and there’s different learning, different travel, different volunteerism, different ways to fill one’s heart to be successful for the rest of their life. And I think that’s a great opportunity for our students. I’m very positive about the future. I think we have great students in our schools, great student leaders, great teachers working with them, and I’m just very positive for the next generation of leaders and people in our world to take care of what’s going to happen.

Sam Demma
I think the challenges are also opportunities if you look at them as obstacles to be overcome. Are there any challenges that you think are prevalent today with young people or education?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Well, one of the challenges, you know, will be mental health. I think, you know, although I might see the world through rose-colored glasses, I think right now we’re living in a time where people need additional support and there’s probably not the support needed for mental health in our system. And hopefully we’re addressing it, hopefully we’re supporting our students, hopefully they know when they transition to adulthood, they know where to go to obtain support of the ways people need to be aware of to navigate life successfully.

Sam Demma
Yeah, it’s so true. And I think if people started thinking about their physical wellness the same way, thinking about their mental wellness and mental health the same way they do their physical health, we would have so many more conversations about those challenges and how we could improve that aspect of our lives. And you’re doing a great job with Stephen and the team to work on those things. And what are some of the things you’re excited about this school year with the Bow River School Division?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Oh, I am excited about the learning opportunities for our students. Last year, we revised our three-year education plan. So we are diving into well-being. That’s one of our priorities. So, I’m really excited about that. And supporting our team to be able to support our students in our schools under that well-being priority is great. Our other priority is student success for all, which is great because we continue, as you say, to look at data, make decisions based on where our gaps and where our weaknesses celebrate our successes. And our other priority is enhanced learning and working environments. And I’m very excited about that as well. We didn’t just want it to be the learning environment. We have so many schools and facilities that we also want a positive working environment. So then the adults know that that’s very important as well. So I’m excited about all of those things moving forward into this year. It’s some great work we are doing.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. I’m excited to hear about the improvements and iterations to programming, but also the physical spaces that students and staff and teachers are using. When you think about resources that have been helpful to you among your journey, I know you mentioned mentors have been pivotal. Has there been any resources that have also been really instrumental in your own learning or development that you’d like to share with others?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Absolutely, there have been some resources. Some of the same resources across our province, which is generally very supportive for collaboration. But a couple things that are near and dear to my heart, I have this book with me, it’s Beyond Monet, and it talks about pedagogy and high yield instructional strategies. And I’ve been probably using that book for 15 years. And that’s near and dear to my heart. We always want to talk about engaging students in the classroom and we talk about what is going to make a difference for each and every student. So that’s kind of a book I have near and dear but we do talk about other resources for engaging students in the classroom which is so very important to me.

Sam Demma
One of the things I remember is when I was with you and Stephen and we were doing some work, you enjoy every opportunity you have to visit the schools. What are those experiences like when you do step into the school buildings?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
So positive. I really like to get back to what are we about, we’re about the kids. So when I am in schools, I like to visit with students. I visit with staff. I ask them about like right now What are they excited about for the school year? What’s happening in their schools? How was summer? So that positive energy It makes it, you know, kind of goes back to I’m not just somebody working in an office, but I have the ability to impact all of these students and I like that. They know who I am. I like that they can have a conversation with me about the great things that are happening in the schools or what should we do differently. So I have already been up and out in our schools and talking to students and, you know, seeing what’s going to be exciting for them this year.

Sam Demma
Lots of exciting stuff going on this year? Or who you got?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I believe that in this office, I need to cheer for the Oilers because we have a lot of Oiler fans. We have a couple of brave Calgary flame fans and I give them lots of credit for wearing their flames jersey on the Jersey days. But my son probably wouldn’t forgive me either if I don’t say yay, Oilers.

Sam Demma
Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about the year ahead, some of your journeys and steps through education, the resources that have been helpful. If there is an educator listening to this right now who’s feeling a little bit burnt out, they are uncertain about the future or doubting their own abilities to make a difference, what words of advice would you share with them as we wrap up today’s conversation?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I would say to reflect and think about why they got into education in the first place and how can they make a difference in each student’s life because when you’re in the classroom, when you’re driving the bus, when you’re working with kids, there are some challenging things. But when we think that we have the ability to impact students every moment, every day, for all of their school career, we’re really making a difference, the work that we do. And they need to sometimes step back and enjoy those small moments of success.

Sam Demma
Brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I hope you have a phenomenal year ahead.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
You too, it’s been great chatting. I think you’re such a spark of positive energy that I always appreciate talking to you so I can get back to reflecting what’s important in our work and you help spread that message. So thanks, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Rhae-Ann Holoien

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

October 29, 2024 by Battle School Division Education Student Success Superintendent Uncategorized 0

Tom Hamer — Deputy Superintendent of Palliser School Division

Tom Hamer — Deputy Superintendent of Palliser School Division

About Tom Hamer

Tom Hamer, Deputy Superintendent of Palliser School Division, has been bringing his unique blend of big ideas, a growth mindset, and joyful warrior leadership to the role since August 2014. He believes in gently guiding his staff by “planting seeds” and fostering a workplace culture that embraces being “perfectly imperfect.”

Tom began his teaching career in Quebec, teaching math and science. Before attending university, he worked a patchwork of jobs and initially planned to study environmental sciences. However, his curiosity and love for learning led him to pursue education instead—a decision that would later shape his teaching approach.

Though he loved being in the classroom and building relationships with students and school communities, Tom’s desire to improve education on a broader scale naturally led him into leadership. His email signature, Semper ad meliore (Latin for “always to the better”), reflects this drive. He progressed from Vice Principal to Principal before joining Palliser as Director of Technology, where he championed educational technology, assessment, and inclusive practices to enhance learning environments for both students and staff. His innovative work earned him the 2015 AAESQ Award of Merit for outstanding local service.

As a passionate advocate for education and a lifelong learner, Tom holds multiple degrees: a Master of Education in Educational Leadership from Bishop’s University, a Bachelor of Science in Biology, a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, and a Diploma in Education.
Now residing in Coaldale, Alberta, Tom continues to inspire positive change in education through consensus building, while focusing much of his time on supporting diverse and effective learning strategies within his community.

Connect with Tom Hamer: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Palliser School Division
Bishop’s University

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 and today we are joined by Tom Hamer. Tom was connected to me through a friend, Marie. Tom, thank you so much for being here. Please just take a moment to introduce yourself.

Tom Hamer
My pleasure Sam. Thanks for having me on your show. I look forward to this. So my name is Tom Hamer. I am the Deputy Superintendent with Pallister School Division right now. Now that sounds like, what does a deputy superintendent do?

Tom Hamer
I guess would be the question most people are asking. And I actually oversee all of learning services for the district. I’ve been doing this role for the last five years. This is finished my sixth year now doing it. And I didn’t start out thinking I would be a deputy superintendent. I can, if you want, I’ll jump into a little bit of the origin story if you’d like.

Sam Demma
I don’t think there’s any person who knows exactly what they’re going to be doing, you know, 10, 15 years in the future. So I would love to know where you started and what brought you to where you are now.

Tom Hamer
Awesome. Yeah, I started, teaching was not actually the path I had thought I would end up on. I started in university in sciences with this dream of being a veterinarian, was volunteering at a vet clinic in the summers doing road trips, that house call type thing in a rural area in southeastern Quebec and did that for a couple of summers and realized, I don’t want to do this and had that, I guess, challenge of what else? So at the time, that was sort of early 90s, environmental sciences was just starting to pick up at universities and transferred to a beautiful little university, Bishops University in Southeastern Quebec. Loved it. Class sizes were great. And along the way there, going through my science degree, I thought I’d be a park ranger, work for Parks Canada.

Sam Demma
Oh, wow.

Tom Hamer
And then thought, you know what? Great way to get into that would be start volunteering with some youth. So I actually volunteered at a local youth center and saw a lot of troubled kids coming in and out. And the kids were troubled not in the sense that they had lives that were, I guess, any more difficult than anyone else. They just didn’t have a significant adult in their life that could help guide them. And that was sort of the common theme I kept hearing. And then the stories they would tell about school weren’t great either. They hadn’t connected with somebody at school. So, lo and behold, I ended up in an education program and started teaching math science in a rural community in English Quebec, English-speaking Quebec. So, we would have kids busing two hours into classes at the extremities each week. And it was sort of that, I guess, one place where kids could feel that they belonged. And that was the way I sort of approached it from teaching. It was, how do you connect with kids first? Because without that connection, there’s not going to be any learning going on. Or at least you’re not going to be able to influence the learning.

Sam Demma
That idea of having a caring adult in your life to guide you is such a powerful idea. I’ve been fortunate to have a really supportive family in my own life and some phenomenal educators. And I think when we take responsibility and ownership for our choices, and you combine that with beautiful support systems, magical things start to happen. How do you make sure you are that caring, guiding adult in a student’s life in your classroom if they don’t have that at home?

Tom Hamer
Well, I think, certainly, I’m a few steps removed from a classroom now. But one of the things that I constantly remind staff is you need to wait in. You need to meet kids where they are. And in fact, our opening address this year for staff may always have props for it. And one year I had a little headlamp because it was why you got to go find kids where they’re at. Some of them are going to be hiding from you. They’re not hiding from you as the teacher. They just don’t know which adults they can trust. So you need to seek them out and you need to help them. So this year’s piece Was hip waders because what I find certainly post pandemic what a lot of people are lacking is that human connection? We’ve we’ve drifted into getting our connection through quick text messages Social media doom scrolling all of that and we’ve lost some of that actual physical connection when we’re standing in each other’s space. And that can get messy, that can get difficult. So the message was, wade into the swamp, and I wore hip waders now. Piece of advice for anybody thinking that that’s a smart thing to do, don’t wear hip waders if you’re not in sort of six or eight degree water because you start to get pretty swampy in the waders.

Sam Demma
I might have to borrow those because my dad and I take out the docks around this time of year. That’s awesome. Yeah. They’re great in the water, not on land. You taught math and science in rural Quebec and then your life took you to Alberta? Like how did this all come about?

Tom Hamer
Yeah, that was sort of one of those odd circumstances that just serendipitously worked out wonderfully. The school I was working at the time, we were the first school district in Canada to go one-to-one MacBooks, one-to-one computers. Back in the early 2000s. So I’d had a lot of experience using like tech integration, getting teachers using technology and we were on the bleeding edge. So I can certainly give lots of advice on what not to do. For anybody wanting to venture down that path, I certainly learned a lot of lessons of what doesn’t work. But then an opportunity came up in Lethbridge, Alberta, where they were looking for a director of technology. And it was sort of, I won’t say a whim, but it wasn’t sort of that plan, because in fact, the recruiting office, when I spoke to them, I said, well, I’d sort of be open to some other opportunities, but definitely not Alberta, definitely not Saskatchewan, definitely not Manitoba. We’re the three provinces, I said, I really, in my own mental understanding of those areas, was not an area I thought I would want to go to. I came out for the interview. The interview went really well, and lo and behold, 30 days later, I was a resident of Alberta, and that was a division office position. So, very different. You’re one step removed from certainly direct contact with students. But one of the things that was very clear, that I made very clear in terms of my vision of technology was that people are most important.

Tom Hamer
When we’re doing education, we can’t lose sight of that nexus between teacher and student. And we have to have as many adults possible working with the students the technology is a tool in the background that helps facilitate some So we we jumped right in with Chromebooks which lower cost but they work Quite well actually and allow us to put more people in front of kids It’s awesome I have a mentor and he always

Sam Demma
says you build the people and the people build the business or the people run the impact. And I think it couldn’t be more true in a position like what you’re doing at the school division. When you think about managing and leading other people effectively, what are some of the things that are typically top of mind for you?

Tom Hamer
Top of mind for me would be identifying what some of the obstacles are. And some of those obstacles might be external to improvement. Like one of the things in my tagline I have in Latin, semper ad milior. Most people don’t read taglines, I always read, I always read to the bottom. So semper ad milior is always towards improvement and that’s something I’ve always lived by. And I always tell people, if I have a day where I didn’t make a mistake, I wasn’t trying hard enough that day, I wasn’t trying to do things differently or improve things. So that’s sort of the mindset I bring to conversations I have with teachers when we’re looking at trying to do something even better. Not to say that what we were doing was bad, but we want to do something even better. And with that, it’s identifying what are the obstacles to people or to systems that prevent us from doing it even better. And that’s the conversation I have, and I’ll have the same conversation with students when I get that opportunity. But the big thing is identifying what those obstacles are, and then, okay, how do we creatively resolve that obstacle or find a way to go around the obstacle?

Sam Demma
Sometimes those conversations can be challenging. I think of mistakes I’ve made in my life, and the conversation I have to have with another human being to fix that mistake is always a little bit uncomfortable, but I know it’s going to be better on the other side of it. How do you navigate those challenging conversations? I think you have to approach them with grace.

Tom Hamer
And I always approach them really with one of the things I always consider when I’m going into a conversation, I think it’s going to be a challenging conversation because we’re or either on different point sides of an issue or from my perception a mistake has been made, I always think, what if I’m the one that’s wrong? And I’m always listening, I always really make an effort to listen to what they’re saying and really stay away from the yeah buts. And listen to what they’re saying, listen to what the challenge is that they’re experiencing, listen to them describe the situation and most of the time, they’ll come up with an area and an area where they see they may do something differently moving forward or come up with an even better if scenario. So it’s really just for give people grace and don’t rub their noses in mistakes after the fact. Like I’ve seen so many leaders that I’ve worked with over the years bring back previous mistakes that were made when you’re having a conversation with someone about a mistake that was just made today that really has no bearing on this current situation, but it’s this, I gotcha moment. And then you introduce shame into the dynamic and now you create a culture where the individual that makes the mistake doesn’t want to feel shame. So you create a culture where people hide their mistakes or don’t talk about their mistakes in an objective, open way.

Sam Demma
Or like you said, stop trying. Like if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. And I think it’s such a beautiful culture to build, one where people are encouraged to make mistakes and then openly talk about them so they can grow, learn, and evolve from those moments. That’s a beautiful perspective and I appreciate you sharing it. When you think about some of the challenges that exist today in education, what are a few of those challenges and obstacles that you and the team are working to overcome?

Tom Hamer
I think the biggest challenge, I would say, is the speed at which information is transmitted. And the challenge with that is when you think about the way information was transmitted, and it’s also a blessing in the same, it’s a curse and a blessing at the same time. When you think about information and how we would come across information a hundred years ago, that was vetted, that was curated, that was edited by multiple people along the way. Now, that can be great, but it can also be a bit of a curse. So, the biggest challenge is the speed at which information gets out there, because misinformation is now as prevalent as correct information. So, the challenge is having individuals and having groups recognize information that, wait a minute, that doesn’t seem right, and being critical with the information they get versus just blindly consuming it. I would say that is a really big challenge. I think another big challenge is, and this comes right from that public display of how we treat one another. It has become acceptable for the media to show the mistreatment of each other. And that is almost glorified and encouraged. And you see it right with our leaders. When people stand up in our Parliament and say that the government is a fascist government, first of all it makes me feel like our social studies programs aren’t teaching people really well about what fascism is. And it’s also sad to hear people sort of say that when that’s not really accurate.

Sam Demma
Yeah. The idea of misinformation is such a big challenge. Even not only misinformation, but people’s trepidation around if a person is actually speaking to them now. I reached out to someone on LinkedIn recently and they responded back, I’m sorry, is this actually you or am I speaking to an AI robot? And I was like, I had to go film a video for this person to show them like, hey, it’s me, I’m a real human being here talking to you. And I just think the speed at which technology is evolving is so fast that it must be hard to keep up. Is there any other issues among, maybe not the students, but maybe even leadership or the school board that you think is something you’re all working towards?

Tom Hamer
I think a big issue is, again, it comes back to giving ourselves grace. Yeah. For whatever reason, we’ve gotten ourselves into that, onto that conveyor belt of perfection. And if it’s not perfect, we can’t share it. If it’s not perfect, we’re not going to try it. And what that leads to is, I’ll say, the social media pictures of classrooms and these perfect classrooms and the amount of time some people will spend making something perfect. And then seeing the next day that, oh, well, this person did even better and now you get that sort of defeating weight that lands upon you rather than saying, you know what, this is good enough for what it’s for. The main part of this is educating children. So children need to see that sometimes things are perfectly imperfect and you need to start the journey before everything is ready.

Sam Demma
And it’s an analogy for the rest of their lives because that’s going to be a trend as you age and grow up and get into the working world. And so that’s a cool perspective to share. When you think about resources that have been helpful in your own personal development in education or as a leader, is there anything that’s top of mind or maybe you’ve revisited a few times or maybe think about often.

Tom Hamer
Well, do you mean like resources like developed by specific authors, that sort of thing?

Sam Demma
Or… Yeah, any resources.

Tom Hamer
I think I would say nothing replaces the resources of colleagues within your building. Collectively, and that’s what I always found. Now there’s always great source materials out there and the availability of that now is at your fingertips. And I think about any of the resources, there’s companies that have turned it into a business like Solution Tree that have an abundance of resources for teachers. But the most important resource are the colleagues that you have within your building and the collaboration that can occur in a building, not just in terms of what’s cutting edge educational theory, but what is really important around how do we build positive relationships with kids? How do we form positive, lasting attachments with our colleagues and with students? And anything around that attachment theory, I think is really important too.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. I love the idea of people being the best resource. I was talking to an educator earlier today, I was doing another interview, and she was telling me she would have lunch with two of her colleagues every day and it was a stand-up meeting they would

Sam Demma
have and some days people would miss it but more often than not they would sit down and talk about what was going on in their classrooms that day. And I think it applies not only to teachers in classrooms but to any workplace because sometimes the idea is sitting in another and all we have to do is have a conversation. So that’s a great reminder.

Tom Hamer
And then just connecting with someone from that cubicle over the classroom down the hall and sharing stories. And I remember times coming into the staff room when I was a teacher where the lesson flopped and you walk in and you have this complete shoulders are down, you’re just defeated. And you walk in and inevitably a teacher and a staff from where I worked would pick up on that and then ask a couple questions or start sharing some funny story about something. And then you’re laughing and it recharges you and you go back out and try all over again.

Sam Demma
It lifts your spirits, right? Sometimes it’s a laugh. That’s all we need to get back on track for the rest of the day if things have gone sideways. You asked me before we started, why did you start the show? I was thinking about it a little bit while we were chatting just now. I had a teacher who had a tremendous impact on me when I was in grade 12, and he had no idea that he made a big difference in my life. I think a lot of the educators I’ve spoken to during times in their career have felt as if they don’t know if they’re making an impact. And the act of bringing someone on the show to have a conversation gives them the opportunity to reflect and think through those challenging situations and obstacles. And yeah, I think that was really what inspired me to get it started. And for any educator who’s listening to this right now that’s also feeling inspired, hearing a little bit about your journey, and some of the ideas you shared, is there a way they could reach out to you if they’re in a different school board or somewhere else in Alberta in education and they wanna just have a conversation?

Tom Hamer
Absolutely, best way to reach out to me is through email. I have a very limited social media presence because I struggle with some of the content and terrible things that go on in social media. So my email, I shared it, it’s tom.hamer@pallisersd.ab.ca.

Sam Demma
Awesome. Tom, thank you so much.

Tom Hamer
You’re welcome.

Sam Demma
This was a lovely conversation. Keep up the amazing work.

Tom Hamer
Thank you, and all the best to you, Sam, and hopefully we can meet face-to-face again sometime.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tom Hamer.

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

October 22, 2024 by Director of Education Education Educator Superintendent Uncategorized 0

Lynne Jenkinson — Executive Director of Flagstaff Family and Community Services

Lynne Jenkinson — Executive Director of Flagstaff Family and Community Services
About Lynne Jenkinson

Lynne has a diploma in Communication Arts; Broadcast Journalism and has had a varied career in private broadcasting and working many Government contracts for different levels of Provincial and Federal Governments. Lynne is currently the Executive Director of Flagstaff Family and Community Services and has been in this position since 2011.

Lynne is also an active FIRST Board member, FIRST is Flagstaff’s Informed Response Sharing Team. She is also an active member of the Flagstaff Food Bank Board and currently serves as Secretary and main fundraiser and grant writer. Lynne takes great pride in knowing what services are available not only in Flagstaff, but in outlying areas as well as what is available Provincially and Federally. Lynne writes many different grant proposals annually to introduce or sustain programs in Flagstaff and manages those many different Government grants through FFCS and FIRST.

Lynne is very community oriented and likes to be involved with projects that assist citizens live a successful life: mentally, physically and holistically.

On the personal side Lynne and her spouse Austin Hanson operate a year-round 10 site campsite in Camrose County that serves visiting workers and tourists. That operation continues to attract new people to Camrose County each year.

Connect with Lynne: Email | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Flagstaff Website

YESS (Youth Employment & Skills Strategy) Program

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, keynote speaker, and author, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is my good friend from Daislin, Alberta, Lynne Jenkinson. Lynne has a diploma in communication arts, broadcast journalism, and has had a varied career in private broadcasting and working with many government contracts for different levels of provincial and federal governments. Lynne is currently the Executive Director of Flagstaff Family and Community Services and has been in the position since 2011. Lynne is also an active FIRST board member. FIRST is a Flagstaff’s informed response sharing team. She’s also an active member of the Flagstaff food bank board and currently serves as secretary and main fundraiser and grant writer. Lynne takes great pride in knowing what services are available not only in Flagstaff, but in outlying areas as well, as what is available provincially and federally. Lynne writes many different grant proposals annually to introduce or sustain programs in Flagstaff and manages those many different government grants through FFCS and FIRST. Lynne is very community-oriented and likes to be involved with projects that assist citizens in living a successful life mentally, physically, and holistically. On the personal side, Lynne and her spouse, Austin Hansen, operate a year-round tent site campsite in Camrose Country that serves visiting workers and tourists. That operation continues to attract new people to Camrose County each year, including myself and the backpack team in the spring of 2023. I hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation with my good friend Lynne, and I will see you on the other side. Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. Today we are joined by a very special guest, a guest that we met on the road as a part of the Empty Your Backpack Speaking Tour, Lynne Jenkinson from FIRST. Lynne, thank you so much for coming here and being on the show.

Lynne Jenkinson
Well, it’s always a thrill when people invite me to be on a podcast because to an old chick like me, this is kind of new stuff, but it’s also old stuff because we used to do documentaries all the time years ago when I was in radio. So yeah, podcasts are really becoming such a large and big thing. So it’s quite exciting for me. I’m excited

Sam Demma
I’m excited to have you on. Thanks for saying yes. Tell the audience a little bit more about yourself and what broughy outo where you are today.

Lynne Jenkinson
Well, I started way back in radio, Sam, way back in 1984, a long time before a lot of people were even thought of. And then I retired at the young age of 30 because I was kind of burnt out before burnout was even a term. And then I started just doing government contracts and now I’m the executive director of Flagstaff Family and Community Services and also the executive director of FIRST, which is a charity we run, which is Flagstaff’s Informed Response Sharing Team Society. And our mission in life is to promote healthy relationships. So we’re always looking for ideas and speakers to bring into our local schools through FIRST and the government grants that I get or grants from donors, grants from corporations. So we can leave, I guess, a footprint for the young people in the Flagstaff area. So I always say if I can bring a speaker in and they touch one person, we have done our job because from testimonials we see that people say, wow, like I learned that from that speaker and that is going to be maybe what I follow in life or I’m going to make sure I instill that in my life.

Sam Demma
When you finished in radio, how did you find this opportunity at first? Tell me more about the transition.

Lynne Jenkinson
Well, it took a long time because I was 30 years old and I thought, okay, I want to do more in life. So over about the next 14 years, I just looked for different jobs. Hey, I even worked in a liquor store, even worked as a cobbler. I shouldn’t choose for a while. I just went and learned new things and did things. I’m even a meat cutter by trade because I went to school for five months to learn how to be a journeyman meat cutter. I didn’t like meat cutting because you’re kind of a linsicle all day because it’s kind of a cool job you’re doing with the whole meat. But then I started getting just government contracts. I was working for this and that. And then I just kind of fell into a job at FFCS because they needed a teacher for a year for a federal government program to teach youth age 15 to 30 how to work and how to keep jobs. And then after that, it just seemed a good fit. And I got hired at Flagstaff Family and Community Services, which also partners with FIRST. So we sort of partner and run the charity as well. And then in 2009, I got a full-time job. And in 2011, I became the executive director. So that’s what happens in rural Alberta. When you decide to stay in a rural area, it’ll happen in rural Ontario too. You find the job that fits you, and you kind of figure out how it works into your life.

Sam Demma
Let’s talk a little more about that one year you spent teaching. What was that experience like for you?

Lynne Jenkinson
Well, that was a federal government-funded program. Right now it’s called the YESS program, Youth Employment Skills Strategy. Years ago it used to be called Skills Link. And the federal government will fund agencies to run programs, they call them interventions. And we had 15 students, and for six months, they were with me in a classroom, and we taught them how to do resumes. We even had one student teach others how to play chess, because that was once again, using your brain, right? So they learned how to do resumes, they learned how to find jobs, they learned how to keep jobs. And we said way back when, the old executive director, her name was Gail Watt. We said way back when what we’re teaching them to do is how to have coffee How to do coffee how to sit around and chat with people?

Sam Demma
And did you feel the work in the classroom was just as meaningful as the work you do now as an executive director Or what aspects of it did you really enjoy and found and on the reverse found challenging?

Lynne Jenkinson
Oh, very challenging is when you’re dealing with different people. Even think of a classroom with 15 people and they were aged 15 to 30 years old. Some were school dropouts. They didn’t call them school dropouts. They called those alternative schools and I think they still use that word now. And we had a lady who was 30. So you had people from age 15 to 30. So what was the most important thing is, wow, they’re all individuals. And I can’t imagine how teachers do it today, either grade 1, grade 8, grade 12, when you have 30 to 60 students in a classroom, because each of those people have a different personality, and they have different needs and wants. And how do you serve everyone? Very hard to serve everyone, but we talk about inclusive societies. societies, you have to figure out a way to connect with each of the people in that classroom. And me, that was 2003 and 20 years later, I still know where some of those youth are. 

Sam Demma
That’s incredible. What do you think helped you connect with the students in your classroom? How did you get to know them and tailor some of the content to their needs during the time in the room?

Lynne Jenkinson
Well, I’ll tell you this, Sam, I would never be able to be a teacher because I’m not politically correct. I connect with people by being honest and truthful and sometimes by swearing.

Sam Demma
And they receive it. They’re used to that. That’s their world, a lot of students.

Lynne Jenkinson
The one thing about youth is they can smell a fake as soon as they walk into a room and and the other thing we did I’ll tell you it’s If people well people are gonna hear this because I’m gonna say it there was Students in that classroom because they’re figuring out how to work for a living and stuff Yeah, if they weren’t there by 830, I knew where they lived. There was one couple. I literally Threw the sheets off their bed and dragged them out of bed in the house They lived in and said, you know, come on, I’m not playing this game and let’s go. You got to get up and go to work. You can’t do that for school, right? Teachers can’t do that, but you have to go that extra step. And that’s why 20 years later, some of these youth are still working. They have, gosh, one guy has grandchildren.

Sam Demma
Oh, wow.

Lynne Jenkinson
He had twins when he was 16 years old. And now 20 years later, one of those twins has had their own children. So that’s a huge thing when you… And they’ve been successful. They’ve stayed working. They’ve had families. These are federal government funded programs that no one really knows about because they run under the radar. And these are the changes that these federal government grants are making in people’s lives through educating and assisting them through the hard times in life.

Sam Demma
Without your guidance and the government funded program, that young man who now has grandkids, maybe you would have went on a totally different path in life. Thinking and hearing about his success story now, how does it make you feel?

Lynne Jenkinson
It makes me feel that we all work together as community, came together because in our program, we never had a problem finding employers who would take the youth that came through our program. Sometimes the youth in those six months that they worked and they were paid like the employers were paid a subsidy to take them on and that would still happen today if we had a current contract. Our last one ran out last year. But what happened was it really showed how community gets together to make sure that youth are successful. You can’t do it alone, Sam, and you know that, right? You know that from your speaker’s tour and building up all these relationships is that we cannot do it ourselves, and everyone has a story. And that’s the other thing that is so, so important. Listen to the story and see what you can pick out of that story as an educator to make a difference in that youth’s life.

Sam Demma
You mentioned that that one time you went to the individual’s house and pulled the sheets off and said, hey, let’s go. You know, today teachers wouldn’t be able to do that. It’s a different time. But the principle behind that action is you seriously believing and investing in these human beings’ success to the point where you’re willing to hold their hand and walk them to school, basically, or the facility, where does that principle or that level of belief in others come from for you?

Lynne Jenkinson
I think it comes from, I grew up on a Air Force base, CFB Cold Lake, and I think it comes from learning through life, watching my parents work. It comes through knowing that once we have discipline in our lives, and it’s not because I’m military, but it is. Like there’s a discipline and there’s rules that we must follow, and even if we don’t fit in, there’s still a way that everyone can fit in. Like right now I see a lot of youth struggling, and this is a post-pandemic, oops that bad word, but it is, struggling with anxiety. Well how can we give them the tools to live with that anxiety? How can we give them the tools to make sure they get out of bed every day feeling good? About themselves not just about everyone else. It’s about themselves It all starts with the way we feel in self, but I look at that the way I grew up It was it was discipline. It was accountability. It was responsibility to ourselves, but also to others.

Sam Demma
Did you have roles and responsibilities that were a part of your everyday life growing up, that was a part of your accountability to others, i.e. your parents?

Lynne Jenkinson
And I’m gonna say yes, but I’m the youngest of five and my oldest sisters would say, parents went way easier on me than they did on the first children in the family, right? And my dad-

Sam Demma
That’s what they always say.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I’m sorry.

Lynne Jenkinson
And my dad used to say to me when I was a teenager, he says, you can go do anything and it’s not gonna shock me because your brothers and sisters pretty much did everything except murder somebody. And I wasn’t going to shock them by doing that.

Sam Demma
No. Hopefully not.

Lynne Jenkinson
But it is, like when we have expectations, years ago somebody said to me, as like when you have, when you’re dealing with youth, are youth going to love the parent who has no expectations or are they going to love the parent who has expectations. And you’ll find that youth will really gear toward the parent with no expectations because that makes life easier. When you have to deal with the parent with expectations, it does make life harder. But once we have those expectations instilled in us, we keep growing to get out of that mediocre, adequate life. And we kind of want to have expectations for ourselves where we are a little bit better than we ever thought we could be.

Sam Demma
Would you say that mentality also applies in a classroom with teachers and their students? Should teachers have some sort of expectations or hold their students to some form of standards?

Lynne Jenkinson
I think they should, but for teachers, when you’re dealing with everything we’re dealing with today, is I think it’s hard to have expectations for everyone. And I think some teachers just say, you know, to have a good sleep at night, it’s like, oh, you know, I just got to wash that out of my brain because that would just add to so much stress. And teachers do have a lot of stress today. But you can see teachers that come in every day and flight staff and say, you know, my expectation is that today will be a better day than the last day. And, you know, I hang out with a grade one teacher, retired grade one teacher, and we just see a difference now in our schools. And, but boy, those teachers just shine who do have those expectations that each student will do what they can do or do better each day.

Sam Demma
And I think pouring self-belief into students is so important. One of the educators that changed my life had high standards for me. After I lost the ability to play soccer, he believed that I was going to do something else great in the world. And it was his expectation and the standards that he held me to that helped me find that belief in myself. And I can’t thank him enough. In fact, I invite him to speeches every once in a while and him and his wife come and hear about the impact he had on me and it makes them emotional. And I think every educator has that opportunity to hold their students to high standards in a non pressuring way, but in a very positive way. And you know, I’ve had many interactions with you, you seem to always be very optimistic and try and see things from a positive perspective. And I’m curious to know where that where that mindset comes from?

Lynne Jenkinson
I think it just comes, some people say, well, she’s the most negative person you ever met because she’s always talking politics and what’s happening in government and what’s affecting us. But it’s not that, you wouldn’t get through life if you didn’t have that thinking that everything can be better and will be better. And I’m always looking, always look to learn. And I did learn something and you will love this. I really think I went to an open house for the Battle River Community Foundation and an educator was speaking. His name was Patrick Whittleton. He lives in Daisland and works in Camrose and he said what’s happening right now because he’s um they’re doing like summer school to teach people to read or get better at reading. He says what’s happening right now is an acronym TLTR and it’s going to make people like me angry. It means too long to read. That is coming from our social media, right? And reading, and that’s how we learn. We continue to read, we continue to talk, we continue to converse. And that’s made a difference in my life that I took communications in college. Communication has changed over the years, but we still have to converse, we still have to be relational. You know yourself, when you’re out there speaking to the students, how they just glom onto you later. Remember, we ordered 200 books and we said, let’s just leave the books at the end rather than handing the books out to all the students. And the lineup at the end of your speech, we had 200 books. We left that day with only six books and then parents phoned us and we ran out of books because we gave away six books within the next week. Yeah. But that’s why, like the expectations are, that’s I guess the way I stay positive is I never have assumptions. People continually disappoint me but people always continually surprise me and the youth of today continually surprise me because a lot of people are negative about them saying this and this and this. It’s like, yeah, but they’re living in a way different world than I did 50 years ago with technology, everything else, but have the expectations that they will surprise you every day, they won’t disappoint you.

Sam Demma
You talked about the importance briefly there of being relational and building relationships. And it’s definitely something that I try and do when I’m working with students or delivering a keynote in front of an audience. How do you think you build a relationship with young people?

Lynne Jenkinson
I try so hard by getting the government grants that I can bring speakers in because that’s how the young people know me in this area. They know me as that lady from First or that lady from FCS, and parents begin to know. And then I think I build a relationship with the youth because we are here at FFCS, they begin to know that we’re here at FFCS and at first, and they know that they could pick up a phone. I’m not into texting. I will never give out my cell phone number because I like to sleep at night and other people don’t. And it’s the phone number and they just know that, hey, I can phone that office where that lady Lynn is and maybe I can ask her a question. I get people to phone about scholarships, those sorts of things. It’s not my job to know this and to help, but it’s my job to build my community. So I would never turn somebody away. It might take me two days to answer your phone call, and I want to talk to you. I want to hear your voice. I want to hear emotion. I want to meet you if I can. I want to see your face. I want to know your story.

Sam Demma
I love that you said it’s not my job to know, but it’s my job to build the community. And I think so often, not only in education, but in workplaces in general, people will say, well, that’s not a part of my job, so I’m not doing it. And I think if each of us were in positions that we were passionate about, and we always led with curiosity and the intent to build community and help the people around us. We would just have much more happy, optimistic places to work and employees to work with.

Lynne Jenkinson
And we would build better teams. We would build better teams. We would build better communities. But a lot of people are just scared sometimes to say what they really want to say so that’s that that’s that inclusive society We may disagree and I always say to the youth when we do our federal government programs You don’t have to like the people you work with but you have to work with them Yeah, like and hate is an emotion that really just sucks the wind right out of you So just figure out how to like people like the way their eyebrow goes, like their blue eyes, just like something about them and then you’ll get through the day and we will then continue to build our teams and build a community that is going to be successful.

Sam Demma
Great advice for a teacher who has one student that gets on their nerves. Find something to appreciate about them, find something to enjoy about them. There is always something even when it seems like there isn’t because we’re so similar as human beings, more ways than we are different. What is your wisdom for an educator who is just getting into the work, teaching young people who might be a little overwhelmed and intimidated by the current state of the profession and they came to you and said, Lynn, I’m really struggling, I just started doing this, I need some advice. What would you tell them?

Lynne Jenkinson
And I would say, I know it’s really hard because you all belong to a teacher’s association, but find somebody in your community, whether they’re a teacher or not, who can mentor you and that you can talk to and be honest with, that you can tell your story to without judgment. Judgment is so big these days, but let’s do no judgment and just find somebody you can talk to because we have to worry about FOIP and those sorts of things, but you can still tell a story without identifying anyone, no matter whether you’re in a small place or a big place, but find somebody to talk to because if you carry it within yourselves, which I see a lot of teachers do because they just feel they can’t share because it might identify that student or that issue, it won’t. If you tell your story, there’s no use of names, there’s no use of addresses, there’s no use of phone numbers. Just tell a story to somebody, but find that trusted individual that you can talk to.

Sam Demma
How have those types of conversations played a role in your own story?

Lynne Jenkinson
I’m very good at sharing, as you may have noticed already. But it is, as I said, I retired at 30 from radio because I was burnt out, but I didn’t stop. I took six months off. I could afford it at the time. I took six months off. I figured out what I wanted to do in my life. And counselling is a great thing too. I recommend counselling for everybody. But the other thing is you got to be able to pivot, and you got to be able to pivot in a positive way. But when you find a trusted individual, for me, I have a very good partner, right? So I can drop everything on Austin and he will be non-judgmental. He may not even have anything to say, but I dropped it on him and it’s just like a counselor. But that’s the most important thing, to be able to know that you can share and there’s always somebody else out there who is going to care.

Sam Demma
It’s so important that you mentioned he might have nothing to say but you can still share it all with him. I was listening to a podcast recently with a author named Simon Sinek and he was talking about the value of just sitting in the mud with people, not sitting beside them when they need you to give them advice or tell them what to do, but just to sit in the mud with them and be a shoulder. And sometimes that’s all we need. And sometimes that’s all students really need in their teacher or a mentor. And sometimes that’s all human beings need. And oftentimes when people tell me they’re going through a challenge or they’re struggling, my first gut reaction is to give them advice. And I stop myself and I remind myself, this is not what they need from me right now. They just need me to be here for them. If they need advice, they’ll ask for it. And they’ll make that request, or if they want my perspective. And if not, I’m just going to sit in the mud with them. And I think that’s one of the best ways to support young people. Have you had an experience where a young person was struggling and you kind of sat in the mud, the other thing that is so hard to do, Sam, is sit in silence.

Lynne Jenkinson
Sit in silence. There’s no judgment. There’s no nothing. And that eye contact, really important. You’re there with them in the room. And yes, I have numerous examples over the years, and it’s very hard for me to sit in silence. And people who know me and youth know that. And it’s like, so when you dump something on me and I just sit there with no look on my face not even you know and I just sit there and look at them and possibly you know just you sit in that silence you sit in that mud as you say and and that I guess numerous times and they know right then and there that that person has connected with them and they’re where I’m not even thinking anything anymore. I’m just sitting there with them and yeah, numerous times. And that is one of the best things you can do. And boy, does that build trust as well. No judgment, just silence. And then it’s, and as you say, no advice. Everyone has to figure out their own story.

Sam Demma
Such a good reminder.

Sam Demma
Because I mean, speaking about myself, I always feel the urge to jump in and connect the dots behind how what they’re explaining and experiencing connects to my own life. And the reality is, most of the time, people don’t wanna hear it. They just want you to be there. And I think being there is one of the characteristics or traits of a high-performing educator. Being willing to spend time with the student, having, as we said, high expectations for them, or just some standards that you believe this young human can grow into and the version of themselves that you think they can become, even if it’s a little higher than they have for themselves. That’s another high trait of a or another great trait of a high performing educator. What else do you think makes a high performing educator? What traits make a effective teacher or someone who influences you?

Lynne Jenkinson
One thing that I really find and it is so hard because of the stress on the educators, is just that ability to be present. The ability for those youth to know that you’re present, as I said earlier, they will call out a fake within seconds. But that ability to be present, whether it be speaking to them, just understanding where they’re at. at and in a classroom atmosphere it is that each youth knows you’re there. That you are not clicking on your phone and looking at your phone, you’re not looking at your watch as your watch is talking to you. It’s that ability to be present and more and more people are losing that ability because there’s just so much other stuff coming at them. So it is that ability just to know this is where I’m at right now and I’m here for you as an educator. And I’m here for you at break too, if you need me. But during that classroom too, to be present for every one of those youth, very, very difficult.

Sam Demma
There may be an educator listening, thinking, gosh, I wish we had FIRST in our community to support some of our schools, to bring in speakers and to help bring these programs in front of their youth. Are there similar organizations in different provinces that you’re aware of? If there’s an educator in Ontario listening to this or there’s an educator in BC or is it just in the Flagstaff area? 

Lynne Jenkinson
For what we do, I’ve just seen it in Flagstaff, but there are other groups. There’s charitable groups within any community, whether it be a Lions group or a Knights of Columbus, groups like that could help people bring in speakers. It’s always looking for partnerships, once again, relationships, once again, building community, and somebody with the passion. For me, I have the passion. I think bringing in speakers will change lives because it gives the students in our area, remember, we’re 8,440 people over 4,065 square kilometers. So bringing in a speaker, you from Ontario, a young man who has a message, that just knowing and if I can build that passion in somebody else to say, wow, if I go raise some money, maybe that school will work with me and we can bring in a speaker. Schools to me are very open to bringing in new ideas and new people. They will give you a couple hours of their day, and it may change the life of that one student in an audience of, around here it’s 200-600 students. In a large center, it could be 1,200 students listening to you, maybe more, Sam, right? You don’t know till later, that’s one thing about technology today. They can e-mail you later and ask questions, and teachers can get in contact with you. We have to share our knowledge and our passion and then we will build up the youth continually.

Sam Demma
I was so grateful for the opportunity to come to Daislin. It was such an amazing experience and I talk about it with Cross and Alion and Nina, the team, that it was so awesome because because although a small community, sometimes in the rural communities that we visited, including Daislin, there was so much gratitude, or at least that’s what it felt like from our perspective. And I just really enjoyed it, the hospitality, the experience, the location. So thank you for making it possible for us. And I hope to come back sometime soon. If there is one piece of advice you could give yourself when you were just starting your career, like you could travel back in time with the knowledge and the wisdom you have now and tap yourself on the shoulder and say, hey, I know you don’t think you need to hear this right now, but here’s what you need to hear. What would you tell your younger self?

Lynne Jenkinson
I would tell my younger self, and it’s interesting because I still see the same issue today, and I am a woman and I was entering a career that was very male dominated broadcasting at the time, I would say to myself still say it every day, you are worth it. Just keep going. No matter your gender, no matter, like you are worth it. Somebody else may not recognize that, but when you recognize it in yourself, you just keep moving forward. You are worth it.

Sam Demma
I love that. Lynne, thank you so much for coming on the show today. If there is an educator who wants to reach out to you, ask a question or share their thoughts about this interview, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Lynne Jenkinson
My best way to get in touch with me is via email. So it’s director@flagstafffcs.ca. I usually get back to people within a day on email. I do have a real life, but I will get back to you within a day because I do have my email hooked up to my phone and I believe that’s the best way and a lot of people have gotten a hold of me that way. And it’s a great way to build relationships and then when I email you back, you get my phone number.

Sam Demma
And if you’re ever camping in the Daisland area, she happens to have a beautiful campsite. So feel free to email her about that as well.

Lynne Jenkinson
Thank you, Sam. I really appreciate that. And I do hope that like with speakers, especially the youth, I hope to have you back in three to four years because then we get another group of students.

Sam Demma
I look forward to the day. Thank you for coming on the show again, Lynne. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.

Sam Demma
Thank you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Lynne Jenkinson

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.

January 5, 2024 by Executive Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips

Dan Wolfe – Assistant Principal at Sunray Elementary School in Pasco County, Florida

Dan Wolfe – Assistant Principal at at Sunray Elementary School in Pasco County, Florida
About Dan Wolfe

Dan Wolfe has served in Pasco County, Florida for more than 20 years. During this time, he has held roles as a teacher, instructional coach and administrator. He is currently an Assistant Principal at Sunray Elementary. He was selected as Pasco County’s District Teacher of the Year in 2011-2012 school year. He is a part of the district’s Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Committee that recently established Pre-K through Grade 12 SEL standards.

For the past two years Dan has written a blog and recorded a podcast called Becoming The Change (formerly Our Moral Compass) which focuses on a different quote each day and how we can best apply it towards becoming the change through our own moral compass and the five areas in SEL. 

Connect with Dan: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Sunray Elementary Elementary School

Pasco County Schools

Pasco County Schools Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Committee

Becoming The Change Podcast

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):

Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast.

Sam Demma (00:59):

This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest on the podcast is Dan Wolfe. Dan has served in Pasco County, Florida for more than 20 years. During this time, he has held roles as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator. He is currently an assistant principal at Sunray elementary. He was selected as Pasco County’s district teacher of the year in the 2011/2012 school year. He is a part of the district’s Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Committee that recently established Pre-K through Grade 12 SEL standards. For the past two years, Dan has written a blog and recorded a podcast called becoming the change, which focuses on a different quote each day, and how we can best apply it towards becoming the change through our own moral compass in the five areas in social/emotional learning. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dan Wolfe and I will see you on the other side. Dan, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.

Dan Wolfe (02:00):

All right. Thank you so much for having me on Sam. I really appreciate it. My name is Dan Wolfe and I’m assistant principal at Sunray elementary in Pasco County, Florida. I just completed my 25th year in education where I have held multiple roles as a classroom teacher, instructional math coach, district math specialist, where I supported 18 title one schools kindergarten through 12th grade, and then also as an administrator. And my next step after assistant principal is hopefully to be a principal within the next year or so.

Sam Demma (02:32):

That’s awesome, man. When did you realize growing up that you wanted to work in education?

Dan Wolfe (02:38):

Well it started actually in high school, we actually, in my, in my high school, we had a child development course where three days a week we had pre-K students that would come visit and we got to teach lessons and things that we had planned out for learning how to do all that from, from our teachers and interact with the kids and work with them. And it just, it was just kind of like a bug that just kind of bit me and just that it was something I knew I wanted to do. And then in the summers I would go ahead and be a camp counselor, like a sports camp counselor and just enjoyed educating the kids, even in sports. And I said, this is, this is definitely my calling. So

Sam Demma (03:14):

That’s awesome. From, from the moments you realize it was your calling, what did the journey look like that brought you to where you are today?

Dan Wolfe (03:23):

Well, at the time it was kind of unclear. I, I, you know, I just took, you know, one step at a time. I mean, once I, I was blessed enough once I, I interned in a kindergarten classroom, which is, is kind of weird having a male and a kindergarten class, cuz a lot of the kids didn’t speak to me for the first couple weeks. They’re like, what’s this guy doing in here, but then they really warmed up towards the end of my, you know, middle and end of my internship and just really enjoyed it. And I was blessed to actually be hired at that school too. Mid-Year so I got a, a mini contract to finish out the year and then was able to be a part of the staff for the the next few years. And then that’s when I, I kind of got was interested in the leadership aspect.

Dan Wolfe (04:06):

I had been team leader, things like that. So that’s where you know, the, the administrative act aspect really came into focus. And one of the you know, after I had become a coach for a while and things like that, what I always wanted to promise myself was never to forget what it was like to be in the classroom. So when I became an administrator, cuz I feel like sometimes not, not all administrators, but there’s some that do forget and they don’t look at it through that lens anymore of what it’s like to be in the classroom. And I always had told my staff and I tell my staff to this day, if I ever forget or anything like that, please remind me because that’s, I, I wanna keep myself in check too, because it it’s very important for me to have that.

Dan Wolfe (04:49):

We ask the teachers to have that vividness in the classroom. I think as an administrator, you’ve gotta have that vividness with your staff and your students as well. So but yeah, so it just, you know, and it’s just as, you know, leaving no stone unturned I think is, is just very important in the field of education is just finding out cuz you, you only go through this life once mm-hmm <affirmative> and you don’t wanna have any regrets. And you just wanna it’s kind of like the saying go big or go home and that’s what you wanna do in, in this life and in this field of education, cuz there’s so many opportunities out there,

Sam Demma (05:24):

Most people on their 25th anniversary of anything probably cut a cake and have a party. And maybe you did that, but you’re you also wrote a book <laugh> so can we talk about it for a second? What inspired you to write the book and, and what is it all about?

Dan Wolfe (05:42):

Sure. so yes. Yeah. So I just recently had a book called becoming the change five essential elements for being your best self. And it’s it came out June 1st and it’s it’s available on Amazon and how it all came to be was our, our county was really big into social, emotional learning otherwise known as SEL since we have a million different acronyms, but just in case for listeners that did know what SEL was, that’s what it stands for. And what we decided to do as a district was develop pre-K through 12 SDL standards. So we could have that continuum just like we do for the academics. We wanna do it for the social emotional part because it’s like that Maslow before bloom philosophy, you can’t get to that bloom part. And so you have the Maslow mm.

Dan Wolfe (06:31):

You have to Maslow before you bloom is what they say. So so what we did is we developed standards in the there’s five elements or areas there’s self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making. And while I was interacting with the group and everything, I I’m a big fan of quotes. And I came across a quote by Michelle Obama. And she referred to things as you know always reflecting on your own moral compass. And I just had this visual of that, those five elements are like our, our own moral compass within each of us. You might not even even know you’ve had it, you’ve always had it within you. They’ve kind of guided you through life cert during certain things, you know, whether it’s making responsible decisions or enhancing those relationships or, you know, or, or just knowing where you stand in the world, that self-awareness piece.

Dan Wolfe (07:26):

So what I decided to do is I decided to write a daily blog. I originally titled it, our moral compass, which eventually got changed to becoming the change just cuz it just, it kind of fit better into, you know, we were talking about that trajectory in life and things. So that was kind of like one of these things, you start off one thing, but that’s, you’re always open the change. So so I, I, what I did with the blog is I went ahead and took different quotes by different famous people. And then I would analyze them how it, how what it meant to me. Mm. And then I would go ahead and write about it and then ask the, the the reader, what it meant to them. Because when you look at a quote that you might have read 10 years ago, and then you read it again today, I’m sure it probably means something different, entirely different than it did back then because of your experiences, you know, and whatever you do, not just education, but just in life in general, you you’ve grown that much more.

Dan Wolfe (08:19):

So it’s gonna mean something different to you. So that’s what I started with and then decided, you know, why don’t I turn that into a podcast? So all was all I did was just re you know, record previous readings that I had done. And then just put it out there for the, you know, social media for the listeners, just, just for fun, just, you know, people listen to it. Great. If they didn’t that’s okay, too, if it, if it had some kind of impact on somebody that’s all that mattered. Hmm. And then all of a sudden the pandemic hit as it did for everybody <laugh>. And, and so I wanted to do something, you know, once I was done with my school day, I said, you know, know, I feel like I need to do something more, a way to kind of give back.

Dan Wolfe (08:58):

So I decided then to go ahead and write this book called becoming the change. And what it essentially has is it has a self-assessment within there where you go ahead and a, it has questions that, or statements that you go ahead and answer based on the five elements of where you are currently. And you’ve gotta be, this is where you have to be vulnerable. You know, we ask our students in education to be vulnerable. We, as educators are just, as people have to be vulnerable too. And the only way it change is ever gonna happen is if we’re honest with ourselves. So you have to be honest when you answer these questions within there. And then it’s gonna show you your strengths and it’s gonna show you your limitations. I don’t like to use the word weaknesses because I feel like it has a negative connotation where limit limitations, you know, you still have that area for, for, for growth.

Dan Wolfe (09:49):

And sometimes the limits we have are the ones that we put on ourselves. So you know, so within that what you’re able to go ahead and do is you go ahead and read it. Each chapter is broken down for each of the different elements. And what I have at the end of each chapter is if there, if your listeners remember in the seventies, eighties and nineties, there was a choose your own adventure book where you’d get to certain pages in the book. And then you, if you flip to this page, you know, there could have been a fire breathing dragon, or you, you know, went to another page. It was like treasure. Well, I don’t have any of that in my book, but what, what you’re able to go ahead and do is it’s your life, it’s your own adventure.

Dan Wolfe (10:30):

You get to choose a pathway. So if you’re strong and let’s say self-management, and you want to deepen, you know yourself in that area, you would read that chapter and then you get to choose what next, you can choose another strength, or you could choose a limitation and then eventually be able to read the whole book, but again, in the order that you want and I’ve throughout the book, I’ve got a lot of I have what are called compass checks along the way. And they’re basically things I, I pulled some of my blogs that I’d written from a couple years ago and put those throughout for each of the different areas. You know, so, so it’s got different facets, and then I have an image of that compass, just like you have a compass when you if you get lost in the woods, you, you look at that compass, it’s got the north south, east and west.

Dan Wolfe (11:17):

Well, that’s how the moral compass is set up with the five elements in the center at, at the epicenter is self-awareness. And then at each of the other four Cardinal directions are the other four elements. Mm. So it all comes back to self-awareness and some, and some days you lean on other elements more than than others. And but it, the one thing that’s good about the self-assessment is you can take it multiple times after you’ve, you know, focused on some different strategies that are within the book and everything, and then see if you’ve grown in those areas and, you know so it’s, it, it’s something you can use time and time again.

Sam Demma (11:54):

That’s awesome, man. How long did it take you to pull this resource together? Was it something you worked on throughout the entire pandemic? I’m just curious to hear a little bit about the process.

Dan Wolfe (12:03):

Yeah. Yeah. So it it went ahead and since, like I said, I had a lot of time on my hands when I wasn’t, you know, at school, I, I was just, I, I just had something, you know, just it’s, it’s just like anything else when you get really passionate about something and you just can’t stop, you know, there were times that kind of felt like I was back in college, again, pulling all nighters or whatever, trying to, because I just had to get these thoughts out. Yeah. And then probably, you know it I’d say it took a good, you know, five or six months to go ahead and, and write it and, you know, edit, and, and then it was just trying to learn the process. I mean, I had no idea once I thought that part was hard, just writing the book itself, which it was don’t don’t don’t get me wrong.

Dan Wolfe (12:44):

It definitely was. But then trying to have someone take a chance on you and wanna publish it cuz you know, you know, if you don’t have a lot big social media following or, you know, whatever it is, you’re just not that famous person. You know, they’re not always apt to go ahead and, you know, take a chance on you. I had over 40 rejections it wasn’t until ID finished the book probably in, you know, close to the summer of 2020. And I didn’t get have an interest in it until probably the fall of 2021. And that is when rode awesome, who I’m forever grateful and blessed to, to have taken a chance on me went ahead and showed some interest and we met and everything and you know I got to learn so much within the process.

Dan Wolfe (13:36):

Just even self-promoting and doing, which is not something I normally do. I’m very, I like to keep to myself and everything, but I said, you only go, this might be my only time I ever get the chance to go through something like this. So just pull out all the stops. But this, this was just important to me also to also not only prove to myself, but prove to my students and to prove to my daughter too, you know, about never giving up perseverance and just being able to overcome. And though though, I wasn’t, you know, I was confident that it was, it was gonna happen one day. I just didn’t know when, but I’m just glad I I’m glad I didn’t give up. And yeah,

Sam Demma (14:14):

That’s awesome, man. I love it. When you’re not working on the book or working at school, how do you fill up your own cup? What are some of the things that you do to ensure that you’re showing up to the best of your abilities at work?

Dan Wolfe (14:29):

Well, I think first and foremost, I, I wouldn’t be here without my family love and support of my wife and, and my daughter. And just having that time with them being able to, you know we live down here in Florida, so we’ve got the advantage of going to Disney world or, or things like that, cuz we’re pretty close to it. So that’s kind of like our vice as a family and we’ve done that, that always since she was little. So it’s just, it’s, that’s just, that’s just our thing and being able to do that. And I think it’s just important to always stay grounded to, they talk about work life balance, which is it’s very hard to do. And I don’t know if you can ever really, truly find that balance, but you can definitely put in the effort to make sure.

Dan Wolfe (15:10):

I, I, I think that that’s very important and also just the self care. I, I think, you know taking time, whether it’s, you know, you know, going to the gym, exercising, listening, the podcasts, reading just some of meditating, whatever else, you know, just some of those kinds of things, because if you’re not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of others in the field of education. And that, that’s a, that’s a huge thing. Otherwise, cuz if you’re burning the bridge at both ends you’re not, you’re not being a benefit to anybody. So that, that’s huge.

Sam Demma (15:42):

When you think about the field of education, who are some individuals in your life personally, who have had a significant impact on you? Obviously your family you’ve mentioned them, but when you think about work, have you had, you know, mentors or people who have changed your beliefs helped you identified your blind spots and limiting beliefs and helped you grow into the school leader you are today?

Dan Wolfe (16:04):

Yeah. So one of ’em was definitely one of my college professors actually in graduate school Dr. Clint Wright he just, he just said it like it was and just told the importance of it. Wasn’t all just about what was in the textbook or anything else like that. He just, he just spoke to you as you would hope an administrator would and you could kind of look at it through the lens of what he was talking about. There are two quotes. Actually, yeah, there’s two quotes that he, that really stood out to me from him. One of ’em was if it’s to be it’s up to me that anything you want in life you’ve gotta go out and get it life. Isn’t gonna give you, gonna put it out on, on a silver platter for you.

Dan Wolfe (16:47):

You need to go out and get it. In my 25 years most of my time has been spent at title one schools, which are the lower socioeconomic status. And I, I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. Because just being able to tell the students there, the potentials that they have, that their, their life script has not been written yet. They get to write it themselves and being able to tell them if it’s to be it’s up to them, I’ll be there as that guide on the side, but in kind of giving them that push, but they’re the ones that can really make it to that next level. And then he said another quote as an administrator that I ha I try to always remember it’s a poor frog that doesn’t praise its own pond and it’s always letting others know how grateful you are for them.

Dan Wolfe (17:36):

And again, showing ’em, you know, telling ’em specifically, not just saying thank you, but thank you for what, what is it that, you know, to let them know that they matter? And again, it, it doesn’t matter what the position teacher, custodian, food and nutrition, office staff, whoever they’re everybody’s of value and they’re of equal value. And I always look at titles as just titles. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s what you do behind the title. That is what that is, what truly means something so that Dr. Clint Wright was for one thing a big mentor in my life. And then another one is Todd Cluff. He just recently retired from our county. He’s still doing consulting for leadership and everything else like that. But he really showed me what it’s all about to be that servant leader.

Dan Wolfe (18:25):

I had mentioned earlier in, in the podcast that I was part of like I did, I was a curriculum specialist where I supported 18 different schools, kindergarten through 12th grade that we had at one time in our county, what were called regional teams. We were the Northwest regional team and we all 18 schools were title one. And what we were able to do is kind of flip the script as far as showing schools that we were supporting them, that we were all family, that it wasn’t like uhoh, district’s coming out, cuz we’re all part of the same district. It was never, and he led the charge and all of that, just to show that grace that compassion it just, it, it was all about those relationships because that’s, what’s really gonna push you through any any challenges or obstacles that are in the way it’s the, it’s the trust and everything.

Dan Wolfe (19:15):

And, and he was able to show that and serve first and lead second and just, just his teachings and just watching him do what he, what he did just always amazed me and I did. And he was always still positive. And just try to it, it was, it went beyond data scores and things like that. It was about the people, it was about the kids. It was about the culture E each school. There’s no title one school, just like there’s no, non-Title one school, that’s the same. You can cross the street and you’re gonna have a different kind of culture, a different dynamic, a different need. And we were able to differentiate between those 18 schools over, you know, the, the time that we were a regional team and it’s definitely memories. I’d never, you know, trade for the world and it just, it made he made me a better leader because of it. So I’m a forever grateful to him.

Sam Demma (20:09):

Hmm. It sounds like they both had a significant impact on you. And I think having a significant impact on others is really one of the main reasons why people get into education. Everyone hopes they can help inspire young minds and guide them on their path and be a resource. I’m curious if there are any stories that come to mind of students who have been impacted by, you know, your leadership or the leadership of the staff around you that you have watched kind of soar. And the reason I ask is because sometimes educators forget why they started teaching, especially during very difficult moments. And I think at the heart of it sometimes the heart of the reason why they get into education is because they wanna make a positive change. So these stories of transformation in the student might help rekindle that fire in their, in their heart to keep going. Do you have any stories that come to mind of, of students or

Dan Wolfe (21:06):

Yes, I actually have. I have two, one as a teacher and then one as an administrator. Cool. And what’s interesting is, you know, both had a significant impact, but it’s from a different lens. And I think that that’s the and with the teacher one, it was early on in my educational career. It was a a girl in my class that could not read. Her mom had said her last couple of teachers that she’s had told her, told her already your, your daughter’s probably never going to read. So basically, you know, kind of like, I mean, again, I wasn’t there to hear it, but she basically told me it was like, kind of like the throw in towel. And she was like third grade. And that wasn’t, you know, again, I was in my second or third year.

Dan Wolfe (21:49):

I mean, something like that, throwing in the towel was not in my vocabulary to go ahead and do that. And I said, we’re, I’m gonna do all that I can. So what I even did is I went ahead and tutored her after school as well. And we continued to work on, we did site words. We did a lot with phonics and things like that, all those things to go ahead and build up her confidence within there. And I just told her I would be there every step of the way. And long story short, she was able to read. And she even, we had, we had a state test that year, where in Florida, if they don’t pass the state test and reading they’re automatically retained in third grade. So, but she passed. Mm. So she was able to, and the mom just was so thrilled, not because of the passing part, but the fact that her child could sit with her now and read and everything.

Dan Wolfe (22:40):

And I mean, I, and again, I don’t, I don’t ever take the credit for those kinds of things. I, I, that’s just, cuz it’s a team effort and you know, she put as much work into it as well. But it was just showing her that never quit attitude. And you know, I, I’m not sure what ha you know, it is been quite some time now, so I’m hoping she’s doing quite well, but I mean, just that, that right there, that that’s your why to be able to do that. Now from an administrator lens, it was a little bit different. Of course, fast forward, you know, quite a few years and a lot of things that as you know, across across the world, the nation, everything like that is a lot with mental health and the importance behind that. And we have within our district like threat assessments and things like that that we have to do, whether it’s threat to others or threat to themselves.

Dan Wolfe (23:31):

I had a student that was in fourth grade just a few years ago. He just had a lot of just threats to self and I mean, it never only, you know, once or twice did they have to, you know, you know be baker acted or things like that to be able to get the help, but there was a program called safe and home that, that is within our county and within our state where they have intensive services, where they even the counselors push into the home, help with coping skills and strategies. And you have to put in a lot of, you know, it’s not, you have to put in a lot of paperwork and requests to kind of get to that point and be able to, but I, I just knew that we needed to do all we could as a school to get him on cuz he had, so he had so much potential and, you know, just, just because of whether it was home life or whatever else or just his own self-esteem was suffering because of all this.

Dan Wolfe (24:29):

And you know, like I said, counselors would push in, they would go ahead and show skills self coping skills for the students they’d even work with the, the family as well of how the, you know, best help, you know, parenting strategies, cuz again, they don’t have those handbooks or things just to hand to the parents to say, here he goes, this is how you raise your child or anything like that. But fast forward a year later in fifth grade we have turnaround student awards and he was a turnaround student in his class and just the confidence in things like that. And you know, he was very closed off and everything. And one of the things that he even did when he, when he saw me recently is even just, he gave me a hug, he just came right up and I mean, I never would’ve expected that or anything else like that, but it’s just, I saw such a side to him that I always knew was there, but I was just, I would just hope that I just was able to help be that glimmer, that flicker of hope in his life to, you know, to, to show him that that, that things are possible.

Dan Wolfe (25:32):

You know, so those are two examples, you know, you know, of the kind of impact and it just kind of always rekindles that why, and, you know, just, just to be there and just just one of the sayings that we have at our school is my job is to keep you safe and your job is to help keep it safe and that’s not just physically safe, but that’s socially and emotionally safe. And I think one of the biggest things is educators out of the five elements is that social awareness piece where you try to look at it through the lens of others and it’s not just for the kids, but for your staff or whatever. It’s more about empathizing more than sympathizing within there. And it’s just, I, I think that’s just an attribute or an element that I think needs to be more pervasive as a society now more than ever with all that’s going on in the world right now is that social awareness piece. But yeah, so,

Sam Demma (26:26):

Ah, I love it, man. Thank you for sharing those stories. I know that whoever is listening is definitely feeling inspired or reminded about the impact education can have when you lead with self-awareness and as a servant leader, like your mentor, would’ve taught you and, and you know Clint yeah, your professor. When you think about your experiences in education, if you could bundle them all up, travel back in time to the first year, you stepped into a classroom to teach knowing what you know now, what advice would you have, you know, shared with you younger self, not because you wanted to change something about your path or journey, but because you thought it might have been helpful to hear at the start of your career

Dan Wolfe (27:10):

Perfectionism is a myth and it it’s important to be vulnerable. I think those are, I mean, it it’s something that you, you think that everything has, has to go a certain way. And you you’ve got your, your, your script or whatever your lesson plans in front of you, but they never go according to plan. And if they, you know, and you know, sometimes they go better than expected and then other times you think it was gonna be an awesome lesson and then it crashes and burns and that’s okay. The way that I look at it is in, in our county, we are, you know, in our state we have 180 school days. So I look at it and I tell a lot of today’s younger teachers too. It’s weird to me to say younger teachers now because I used to be one of ’em and <laugh>, I remember I had veteran teachers saying, Dan, you’ll be there one day soon.

Dan Wolfe (28:01):

And they were right. But I look at it there’s 180 or like 180 performances kind of like on stage, you know, not, you, you think of it as actors and actresses, not every play or performance goes well, but if one doesn’t go, well, you got 179 more to, to do better and you always try to, you know, you’re never gonna have that perfect one and that’s okay, but that’s what strives you to try to get to that. But when I, and that vulnerability that’s something not only as a beginning teacher, but even as a veteran teacher, it’s okay to have that. I, I even have it as an administrator, if I don’t know the answer to something or I make a mistake in something I’ll either, you know, I’m definitely gonna own up to it. If it’s a mistake or whatever, and say, I’ll fix that.

Dan Wolfe (28:48):

And I’m sorry that, you know, whatever it was, didn’t turn out the way that, whether it was a decision I made or, or anything else like that, that I thought would’ve turned out better. And it didn’t, or if I didn’t know the answer to something, I will go ahead and ask somebody that does, cuz I won’t have all the answers and I’m not gonna pretend like I do because you give the wrong answer, you get into a, a deeper hole than you started and, and you might as well just come out and say, okay, I don’t really know, but let me find out. I, I think as, as my advice to, you know my younger self would just be, you know trust the process and just be vulnerable.

Sam Demma (29:23):

Love that. It’s awesome. Thank you so much Dan for taking the time to come on the show and share a little bit about your book and your beliefs around education. If someone’s listening, wants to reach out, get in touch, what would be the best way for them to send you a message?

Dan Wolfe (29:39):

So probably the best way, I’m definitely Twitter is definitely my social media jam or whatever in regards to it. So my Twitter handle is @servleadinspire. So it doesn’t have the “e” on “serve” and it’s not that I can’t spell. It’s just that it won’t allow that many characters within the handle. So I said, so I do know how to spell serve. I just can’t spell it the way I want to on Twitter, but anyways <laugh>, but that’s, that’s probably the best way to definitely feel free to follow you know, or, you know, send me a DM, whatever, you know, anything I can do to help, you know we’re all, we’re all in this together.

Sam Demma (30:23):

Awesome. Dan, thank you again. Keep up with the great work and we’ll talk soon my friend.

Dan Wolfe (30:28):

All right, thanks so much, Sam.

Sam Demma (30:29):

Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation on the High Performing Educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in education, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you, or someone you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Dan Wolfe

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.

September 24, 2022 by Principals Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Scott Johnson – Principal at Bowmanville High School

Scott Johnson – Principal at Bowmanville High School
About Scott Johnson

Scott Johnson (@ScottJohnsonP) is the principal at Bowmanville High School. He started his career as a high school physical education teacher in Ontario and after a 2 year move to Alberta, returned home to a variety of teaching roles.

He has taught every grade other than Kindergarten and Grade 5 and has been fortunate to work in several different school communities. After working in Special Education, Scott became a vice principal and is thrilled to be back at BHS as principal. 

Scott is known for his innovative approach to teaching and for his work in integrating technology and pedagogy. Scott is passionate about equity and student success and works to ensure that all students are supported throughout the school.

Connect with Scott: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bowmanville High School

Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)

Cult of Pedagogy

Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell

Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasts: A New Generation of Web-based Tools for Virtual Collaborative Clinical Practice and Education by Applied Research Press

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):

Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast.

Sam Demma (01:00):

This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is Scott Johnson. Scott Johnson is the principal at Bowmanville high school. He started his career as a high school physical education teacher in Ontario, and after a two year move to Alberta returned home to a variety of teaching roles. He has taught every grade other than kindergarten and grade five and has been fortunate to work in several different school communities. After working in special education, Scott became a vice principal and is thrilled to be back at Bowmanville high school as the principal. Scott is known for his innovative approach to teaching, and for his work in integrating technology and pedagogy. Scott is passionate about equity and student success, and works to ensure that all students are supported throughout the school. I hope you enjoy this interview and I will see you on the other side. Scott, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.

Scott Johnson (01:58):

Thanks Sam, and, and thank you very much for for having me on the podcast. My name is Scott Johnson. I am currently the principal of Bowmanville high school in Bowmanville, Ontario. We are a 9-12 school with approximately a thousand students located right in central Bowmanville.

Sam Demma (02:18):

When did you realize in your career journey growing up that education was the field you wanted to pursue and work in?

Scott Johnson (02:26):

Well, to be honest with you, I, I would be, I, I think I’m fairly late to the game in terms of determining what I I wanted to do. I was a PHS ed student at the university of Toronto and had the opportunity towards the end of my degree to do some work in some local high schools in downtown Toronto. And really, really enjoyed the experience I got to work with. I actually played hockey at the university of Toronto and I got to work with a, a former teammate of mine who had moved on to become a teacher. And I just really enjoyed the experience and thought to myself, this might be a, a, a good career move for me. I, I really enjoyed Fette as a, as a student and played all kinds of sports growing up and thought, you know, maybe I could join the ranks of the PHED teachers of the world.

Scott Johnson (03:19):

And so that’s sort of what got me into education and lots happened between then and now sort of over the last 17 years to get me you know, into the role of principal. And I, I, I’ll be honest, I’ve, I’ve enjoyed every, every step along the way. So I think the goal was to be a PhysEd teacher. I’m not sure if I ever actually realized that because I, I was his ed teacher for a very brief period of time, but I’ve got to do a lot of interesting things in a lot of interesting places and yeah, I’ve really enjoyed all, all the steps along the way.

Sam Demma (03:52):

Let’s unpack some of that journey, the 17 year journey from the start to where you are now, what was the start? What role were you in? What school take us through the journey from then to where you are today?

Scott Johnson (04:06):

Well, it was an interesting journey. I actually went to teachers college directly after university and then took a year off after university to go play hockey over in Germany for a year. Wow. Which was a great experience. It was tons of fun. But probably three quarters of the way through that hockey season. I, I kind of got the itch to, you know, I wanted to get started on this career in teaching. And so made the decision, you know, towards the end of the hockey season that I was gonna try and pursue this, this teaching career more seriously and ended up <laugh> I ended up actually accepting, I was so excited to be a full-time PHED teacher that I applied for and took a job at a school that I, I didn’t know really what the school was. And it turned out that it was a PHED teacher job in a youth correctional facility where I worked for a year.

Scott Johnson (05:03):

And, and I, I, I, it was a, a very bizarre way to start my career in terms of just not being something that I would’ve expected, but it, it couldn’t have been a better start to my career. I learned a ton working in that setting and working with those students and that I, you know, can say quite clearly, that, that had a significant impact on helping me get to where I I am today. You know, just, just dealing with students who had obviously been in conflict with the law and, and had lots going on in all assets or all aspects of their lives and, and seeing how school could, could be a, a positive influence on their life, really, you know, set me on a, a, a, I think a good track teacher wise after that. My, my now wife and I decided to move out to Alberta for a couple of years.

Scott Johnson (05:56):

And so we moved to a very, very rural community in, in Alberta. And I actually ended up teaching at a, at a incredibly small school, K to nine 160 students in a town that didn’t have a single stoplight. And it was just another great experience, just great kids, great families got the opportunity to teach a whole bunch of different grades. And again, really enjoyed the experience after a couple years, my wife and I decided to come back and I ended up teaching grade seven, and then I taught a little bit of special education in high school. And then I taught at an alternative education school. Then I moved to a, a lead teacher of special education role, and then moved into being a vice principal at an ed school, and then vice principal at a large rural school. And then at a small rural school. And now principal here at, at one of the larger urban schools and in our school board. So it kind of bounced around a lot, a lot of it by choice, but I, I think having that varied experience has been very helpful in the role that I’m in today.

Sam Demma (07:08):

What do you think you took away from your time working at the correctional facility with students who might have been in trouble with the law? What are some of the things you learned from those experiences that maybe informed the way that you show up today and in, in the high school you work in now

Scott Johnson (07:26):

To put it in its simplest terms? I learned very clearly that every student has a story, and I can’t tell you how much that has impacted me in my teaching career. It, it, it, I just working with those students, learning, you know, you work very closely with them, you work with them every single day. And you just, you learn so much about their story and you start to understand that there’s so much more to a student than what you, you may see, or what they may present, you know, in, in a 75 minute class. And, you know, now in my role as a principal, every single student, or every single issue that that comes across my desk, I, I get, get taken right back to that sort of touch point. That is, what’s the story here there, you know, you talk about, you know, you might hear things that for every misbehavior, there’s a reason, or, or, you know, if a student’s not being successful, as we think they could be there’s, you know, peeling back the layers of the onion kind of thing, to, to try and sort out why.

Scott Johnson (08:39):

And I go back to that very first year, really starting to recognize there is a story here for every student and it’s our job to try and work with them on, on all levels to try and help them be as successful as they can. And, and that, that lesson, like I said, you know, for, for, to get that as a first year teacher, I think was, it was difficult in the moment but has served me well over the last 17 years and, and will continue to serve me well for the rest of my career.

Sam Demma (09:09):

What resources, including people have been very instrumental or helpful in your own development, professional development in this career and job, maybe it’s some people you can think of who have mentored you along the way, some books you’ve read or courses you’ve been a part of, like, what has helped you show up at your best every day at work. And obviously you’re a human being. So there’s days where you don’t feel your best, but what do you think helps you show up to the best of your ability every day?

Scott Johnson (09:39):

Well, I, I think there’s a lot of things. And, and you mentioned, you know, the human aspect of it. The one great part about teaching is that you get to see a lot of people every day. And I mean, you know, we’ve dealt with this, the COVID pandemic over the last couple of years. And I think if you talk to, to any student, any educator, anybody involved in education, or even outside of it, the thing that they miss is that human interaction. Mm. So, you know, as a principal, I love being out in the halls. I love chatting with kids. I love chatting with teachers. I love you know, having conversations with parents, sometimes those conversations with any of those groups are not the easiest conversations, but they’re, you know, we’re all working in the best interest of students. And that’s, that’s kind of what gets me to work with a smile on my face every day.

Scott Johnson (10:31):

In terms of, of long term impact. I mean, I’ll go right back. They, they, they make you do a cheesy kind of assignment back when you were in teacher’s college, talking about your, you know, the favorite teacher or the teacher that, that inspired you. And I, I can think of a couple of teachers that I had along the way, you know, my grade two teacher, Mr. Jameson, my grade six teacher, Mr. Black, just people that had significant impacts on me growing up and, and, you know, having the hope that maybe I could replicate that experience for, you know, a young person growing up was certainly part of my motivation in terms of getting to where I am today, I’ve had all kinds of people who have been incredibly helpful. I, I, from principals to teachers just people and, and I think this goes back to you, you really can’t underestimate the impact that your words can have on another person.

Scott Johnson (11:29):

You know, I can think back to one of my principals who encouraged me to be a vice principal back when I had never really thought about being a vice principal. And, and she put that in my head and I was just like, oh, and I, I just got a sense of her belief in me and, you know, the, a small conversation on her part at a, you know, a lasting and, and significant impact on my life. So those are things that, that I try and pay it forward for lack of a better term, but there’s definitely been, been tons of people along the way, who, who just through their, their words and conversations have a, have had a big impact.

Sam Demma (12:04):

You’re one of the only guests we’ve had on who pulled out a blue ye USB microphone, and sounds like a radio host. <Laugh> gonna,

Scott Johnson (12:13):

I have been told that I have a face and a voice for radio. So I’m I’m good with that.

Sam Demma (12:18):

It leads me to believe that you might listen to a few other podcasts. Is there any educational podcasts that you’ve tuned into, or people that you’ve listened to that have helped as well as a resource?

Scott Johnson (12:30):

Well, to be honest, Sam, if, if you knew me as an educator one of the things that I like to draw upon is other other areas and bring those into education. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, I like that you know, I’ve listened to lots of, of great educational podcasts. I mean, I started, I think my first educational podcast was the cults of pedagogy which is a, you know, a wonderful series, but what I’ve really, what I’ve really tried to bring in is some more, some different parts of, of the world and how they relate to education. So you talk about a guy like Simon Sinek you know, and, and his start with why book and, and, you know, he has a podcast. Seth golden, I think has a, a lot to say about leadership that is applicable across disciplines. I mean, a lot of it’s into business and marketing, but you take that and apply some of it to a school setting.

Scott Johnson (13:34):

Those are a couple of the podcasts. I’m sure you’ve heard of revisionist history with Malcolm Gladwell in the way that he, he can look at a seemingly straightforward issue and sort of flip it on its ear and, and you kind of, wow, I never looked at it from that perspective. And those are the kinds of things that I think are important in education. I mean, we’re faced with some fairly unique problems in this day and age. And if you’ve just, you know, that old saying, if you always do what you always done, you’ll always get what you always got, sort of thing. And, and, you know, trying to do things differently, cuz these kids are growing up in a different world in a, in a world that we really haven’t seen before. And I like to, to bring those other discipline in, in just to, to try and get a fresh perspective on some of the issues that we’re facing. And, and I find those people have, have some really quality ideas that can be translated directly to the work we do each day.

Sam Demma (14:36):

I love that if you could travel back in time to your first instance of teaching in a classroom, in a school setting and tap yourself on the shoulder and say, Hey Scott, not that you need any advice right now. Not that you wanna change anything about what’s gonna happen in your future, but this is what I think would’ve been helpful for you to hear when you were just beginning your career in teaching, what advice would you have given to your younger self or another educator listening who might be just starting this work?

Scott Johnson (15:09):

Well, I’ll tell you, I, I, I don’t have to necessarily go back in time because I got that, that the piece of advice that was critical to me. Mm. I got that from another person. And the lady’s name is Dr. Kathy Bruce. And she is I don’t know her exact role at Trent university right now, but she was the Dean of education. And I had the very fortunate opportunity at my old grade eight school to be her final teacher’s college associate teacher before she ended her teaching career and moved on to the world of teacher’s college at university. And I remember Kathy is a bit of a math guru, not a bit. She is a, a definitely a math guru and, and has done lots in the, the world of mathematics. But she had tasked me with teaching a math lesson to her grade seven class.

Scott Johnson (16:03):

And the question I asked her was, okay, where’s the textbook that you use? And she said, we don’t use a textbook. And that to me, that moment, and I’ve used that moment over and over again, over, over the last couple of decades was the, the first, the, the seed that was planted that said the education for these students does not have to look the same as your education. And I think that is the piece of advice. We, most people that go into teaching go into it because they love school and they had a, a great positive experience at school. And so oftentimes we will default to the experience that we had at school and that moment, which terrified me and sent waves of anxiety through my body saying, how am I ever going to teach math to grade sevens without a textbook? Because that’s what I was used to.

Scott Johnson (17:00):

And that’s what I was comfortable with. That is the piece of advice that I needed to say. We can do things differently. And I remember, you know, I use that again, when, when will Richardson I don’t know if you know, will Richardson, but he wrote a book in the mid two thousands called Wiki’s blogs and podcasts. You know, you, you, you mentioned the microphone. And I was, I was presented that by a teacher here at the school and I immediately was like, I’m gonna do a podcast. And I, I look back to that, you know, with my students and we’re gonna start a podcast and we’re going to do those things. And we’re talking, this is back in, you know, 2008, 2009. But it was that moment with Kathy Bruce that said do things differently. It’s okay to do things differently.

Scott Johnson (17:52):

So not only did she challenge me, but it was almost like she gave me permission. It was like, oh, okay. We can bring some of these innovative ideas, you know, into the classroom. And so, you know, I don’t know, going back to my former self, listen to your elders, listen to those people who have experience. I mean, you know, they’re the people who are doing it. And there’s lots of great stuff out there. And, and I, you know, I think of if I was a new teacher starting in 2022, you know, between Twitter accounts and podcasts and you know, other social media groups and websites, there’s tons of great resources to draw on. It’s just trying to find your niche in finding those people that that can help you. And, and I was fortunate to have a couple of those people really early on in my career.

Sam Demma (18:36):

One of the things that I believe is attractive about education is impact on young minds, shaping future change makers and seeing a student progress from potentially struggling to success or some form of clarity where they have this aha moment and a breakthrough because of years of help and support from caring adults in their lives. Could you think of a moment in one of your schools that you’ve worked in, or maybe even when you were teaching where you saw a student go from serious struggle to some clarity and some success that really brought a smile to your face, and if it’s a serious story you can change their name just for the sake of privacy. And the reason I ask you to share is because I think it will remind other educators listening, why this work is so important and inspire those who haven’t got into this work yet to seriously consider it as a pot, a potential career path in the future.

Scott Johnson (19:33):

Yeah, well, I can, I can, I can share an example of one that just happened recently. And as I, I think I started off saying that my dream was to, to be a, a PhysEd teacher and, and, you know, I, I didn’t really elaborate, but I, I, I never really made it as a PhysEd teacher because I think that first experience in the, in the correctional facility led me down a path towards special education which turned into student success, where you’re often dealing with students who have stories and those stories are often, you know, incredibly challenging. They have led incredibly difficult lives and, and have overcome so much just to even be with you in front of you know, in the classroom with you each day. And so I can think of a student and I won’t mention their name, but very difficult life history.

Scott Johnson (20:36):

Very challenging. I met this student back in, I believe their grade nine year obviously had difficulties in school, but again, having that ability to recognize the story there is more to this than what you are seeing each day, and just working with that student day by day getting to know them, working with some community agencies, just reaching out and trying to be that person. And it wasn’t certainly just me. There was a whole team of people that, that got to impact this student over the course of their high school career. And I, I ended up switching schools and, and we ended up reconnecting at, at the, the new school. And again, just continuing to be patient and working with that person. And I, I actually got news just a little while ago that they had graduated high school and were starting college in January.

Scott Johnson (21:40):

And, you know, if you, that, would’ve been a tough picture to imagine way back when we met in grade nine. And I think that’s the power of education. It’s the power of you know, in, in, in my context high school is we, we get four years to work with someone and we can do a lot in those four years. It doesn’t have to all be accomplished right away. But if you look at the, the growth that all students experience, you know, coming in at grade nine at 13, 14 years old and, and leaving high school at, at 1718 we, we have the opportunity to make a significant impact and, and in a lot of cases you know, I, I think we’re able to really help students get on the trajectory that they want to get on. And, and hopefully we, we do our best to, to bring the best out of them. And again, that’s, that’s kind of why we’re here and if you’re interested in helping people out with that, then education is definitely a career that will, you’ll find very fulfilling.

Sam Demma (22:46):

If someone is listening to this inspired, wants to reach out, ask you a question, or get in touch, what would be the best way for them to get in contact with you?

Scott Johnson (22:58):

Just send me an email. I’m on Twitter @ScottJohnsonP, not as active as I once was as, as other things have, have caught up and we’ll see where things go with Twitter, given the, the recent, the news of recently, but yeah. You, you know, my email address is, is checkout Bowmanville high school. My email address is, is there along with my picture and I’d be happy to chat. You know, one of the things that got me involved in education was some chats with some people who were in the business. At the time I was fortunate to go to the University of Toronto and be close to OISE and, and know lots of people that were in education so if anyone’s interested, I’d be, be, I’d be happy to chat. It’s a, it’s a great career. It’s got its ups and downs as all careers do, but at the end of the day, I’m, I, I, couldn’t be more happy with the decision that I made way back when

Sam Demma (23:55):

Scott, it’s a pleasure to bring you on the show here today, to talk about the journey, some of the ups and downs, some of the learnings and philosophies you hold about teaching. I cannot wait to see where the next five years of your career take you and, and what you’ll be working on and doing. Keep up the great work and don’t ever hesitate to reach out again in the future and thanks again for coming on, coming on the show.

Scott Johnson (24:19):

No problem Sam. Thanks for having me and thanks for doing what you’re doing. It’s, it’s a pleasure listening to your show and, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Sam Demma (24:27):

Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation on the High Performing Educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in education, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you, or someone you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Scott Johnson

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.

September 20, 2022 by Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Peter Sovran – Director of Education at the Upper Grand District School Board

Peter Sovran – Director of Education at the Upper Grand District School Board
About Peter Sovran

Peter Sovran’s career portfolio over the past twenty-seven years has included a variety of high profile, extensive and demanding senior leadership positions with the Hamilton-Wentworth, York Region and Toronto District School Boards and the Ontario Ministry of Education.

He has a proven track record of strategic, transformative leadership that has resulted in impactful changes to public education in Ontario, with a particular focus on improving
student achievement, well-being and equity of outcomes. His commitment to addressing the gaps in student learning that exist due to systemic and historic barriers was further cemented during his two years working with the Anishinaabeg of Kabapikotawangag Resource Council First Nations School in north-western Ontario.

Peter is currently one of the longest serving Associate Directors of Education in the province. Prior to this role Peter was an Executive Superintendent and a Superintendent of Student Achievement. He has served as a Senior Manager and Senior Policy Advisor with the Ministry of Education, leading the provincial eLearning program and Early Reading/Early Math initiatives.

Peter has been an elementary school principal and vice-principal and has taught in all grade divisions, elementary and secondary, including adult education. A lifelong learner, Peter is pursuing his doctorate in educational leadership and policy at OISE/UofT. He holds a Master of Science in Behavioural Neuroscience from McGill University, a Bachelor of Education (Science and Math) and Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Biomedical Ethics from the University of Toronto.

An avid runner and cyclist, Peter has completed several races including seven marathons. He and his wife carve out time from their busy schedules to enjoy tennis, hikes and finding new local artisan shops. They have two adult children.

“I am very humbled and excited about the opportunity to work with the dedicated trustees, staff, and community partners that serve the students of the Upper Grand District School Board. Together, we will ensure that UGDSB continues its well-established position as a leader in learning, service excellence, and environmental literacy and is proudly reflective of the distinct communities within its boundaries.”

Peter officially commences in the role of Director of Education and Secretary-Treasurer on September 1, 2021. He will begin his transition process over the coming months.

Connect with Peter: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB)

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB)

York Region District School Board (YRDSB)

Toronto District School Board (TDSB)

Ontario Ministry of Education

Anishinaabeg of Kabapikotawangag Resource Council First Nations School (AKRC)

Ontario Provincial eLearning program

Doctorate in educational leadership and policy at OISE/UofT

Behavioural Neuroscience at McGill University

Bachelor of Education at University of Toronto

Bachelor of Science in Psychology at University of Toronto

Biomedical Ethics at the University of Toronto

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):

Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast.

Sam Demma (00:59):

This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is Peter Sovran. Peter Sovran’s career portfolio over the past 27 years has included a variety of high profile, extensive, and demanding senior leadership positions with the Hamilton Wentworth York region and Toronto district school boards, and the Ontario ministry of education. He has a proven track record of strategic transformative leadership that has resulted in impactful changes to public education in Ontario, with a particular focus on improving student achievement, wellbeing and equity of outcomes. His commitment to addressing the gaps in student learning that exist due to systemic and historic barriers was further cemented during his two years, working with the Anishinaabeg of Kabapikotawangag Resource Council First Nations School in north-western Ontario. Peter is currently one of the longest serving associate directors of education in the province. Prior to his role, Peter was an executive superintendent and a superintendent of student achievement.

Sam Demma (01:58):

He has served as a senior manager and senior policy advisor with the ministry of education, leading the provincial eLearning program in early reading, early math initiatives. Peter has been an elementary school principal and vice principal, and is taught in all grade divisions,; elementary and secondary, including adult education. A lifelong learner. Peter is pursuing his doctorate in educational leadership and policy at OISE, University of Toronto. He holds a master of science and behavioral neuroscience from McGill University, a bachelor of education, science and math, and a bachelor of science in psychology and biomedical ethics from the University of Toronto. An avid runner and cyclist, Peter has completed several races, including seven marathons. He and his wife carve out time for their busy schedule to enjoy tennis, hikes, and finding new local artesian shops. They also have two adult children. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Peter. It was a pleasure to speak with him and I will see you on the other side. Peter, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Please start by introducing yourself.

Peter Sovran (03:01):

Well, hi Sam. So pleased to be here. So I’m Peter Sovran. I’m the director of education for the Upper Grand District School Board.

Sam Demma (03:10):

When did you realize as a young professional, or even as a student that you wanted to work in education when you grew up?

Peter Sovran (03:19):

Huh? That’s right. That is a great question. My my career and and career aspirations have taken many, many turns. I think I started off wanted to be a professional baseball player. So that was that didn’t happen. And so then I then I pursued you know my postsecondary education and thought I’d be a, a neuroscientist. Wow. Went, went off to to do my graduate work. And and then I, I realized a couple of things. One was sort of a force of nature and that is that I’m severely, severely allergic to the particular animals that I was working with when I was doing experiments. Wow. <laugh> and so I got to thinking, do I wanna do this for the rest of my life? And while I was in graduate school, I really enjoyed you know, the teaching side of things. And so I started looking into that and talked to a bunch of people and started doing some some volunteering in schools. And, you know, as they say, kind of the rest is history,

Sam Demma (04:39):

Take me back for a moment to the baseball days. When did that dream become something you chased and at what time in your life did you put it on the shelf in terms of the aspiration to one day play professionally?

Peter Sovran (04:55):

Oh, I think pretty quickly. I think I was you know, sort of a young teenager and realized that while I was a pretty good pitcher I was a pretty good pitcher for, you know, my local league had a tryout with the under 18 team Canada. Didn’t make it. And I thought, well, if I didn’t make it past the preliminary stages of that triad camp, then I’m not sure I wanted to spend my entire early twenties traveling in minor league ballparks.

Sam Demma (05:32):

Nice. I love it. You mentioned severe allergies as well to the animals. Was this a physical response that you would experience or what was the paint, the picture? What did it look like?

Peter Sovran (05:43):

<Laugh> it, it was, yeah, I I had packed my bags. I had moved to, to Montreal to attend McGill university deliberately picked it because, you know, it’s one of our great Canadian postsecondary institutions, particularly in the area of neuroscience. And as I began working with the rats that I was gonna be doing experiments with, cuz they’re great at running around mazes and you know as you’re studying learning and memory systems, which is what I was really interested in in, in looking at I had a severe allergic reaction and so had a hard time breathing and spent the next couple of years running the experiments with you know, seems like people would be so used to it today, but I had to wear an industrial mask. And and so it wasn’t, it wasn’t all that pleasant. And as I said, it was probably a sign that I wasn’t meant to do this.

Sam Demma (06:49):

So you made the decision to get the teaching degree because you enjoyed the teaching aspect of the job. What did the journey look like from that moment forward that brought you to where you are today?

Peter Sovran (07:01):

Yeah, so began my teaching career and I began in high schools and I was math science teacher, which sort of goes hand in hand with studying neuroscience. Weren’t too many jobs at that time. So my first job I took was actually in an elementary school, my former elementary school to be precise. And I started working alongside some teachers who had taught me. So that was that was pretty interesting. <Laugh> and and back then whenever you had the lowest seniority in a school, you were let go from that school and you were let go from the school board. And so that happened year after year. And even though that seems like a horrible way to start off your career, it provided opportunities, provided opportunities to go to different schools and teach in different grades, meet different people.

Peter Sovran (08:02):

And I think that that also helped you know, develop my my real interest for not only teaching in high schools and in elementary schools, but all grades. So by the time I moved in to becoming a principal, I had pretty well taught every grade or experienced every grade. And as I look back now, that was just a, a great opportunity. So I did that. And and then I had this unique opportunity to go work on a project with the ministry of education. And that connected me back to, you know, my science roots. I went there and I stayed for about six and a half years. Wow. Took on a whole bunch of different jobs there became a senior policy advisor. So I learned that side of things as well as education, I learned all of the, the policy side of the work.

Peter Sovran (09:01):

And then became a principal went back to the ministry of education and ran e-learning Ontario, which is sort of the online learning for the for the province. That was really cool. And and then I became a superintendent of education. Did that for a number of years became an associate director. And and then this past September became the director here on the upper grant district school board. So as I said, lots of twists and turns, but each one of them was a learning opportunity. And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about is continuously learning.

Sam Demma (09:40):

What, first of all, remarkable pathway, everyone I ask has a totally different journey to where they are today. It sounds like you’ve had your interests and curiosity pull you in so many different directions, which gives you such a broad perspective and diverse set of skills. What though keeps you curious and motivated to get up every day and continuously pursue new knowledge and do this work?

Peter Sovran (10:07):

Yeah, it’s that’s a great question. And it’s you know, that’ss, that’s the key, right? Is why, why do we get up each day and wanna keep doing what we’re doing? And so you’ll see from from my background, this is my office. You know, my office has a nice a chalkboard. If you were to see my desk, it’s it’s an old wooden teacher’s desk and I’ve got all the modern features there as well, but the reason why I’ve, I’ve, I’ve always wanted to set up my office in this way, is that each and every day, I need to be reminded the reason I come to work, the reason why the so-called corner office exists is to make sure that the decisions that we make help students with their pathways. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, that’s the passion, that’s the drive and sort of the blend of the, the modern and, you know, some of the traditional is also one of those things that drives me.

Peter Sovran (11:07):

What, what else can we do? That’s, that’s different, that’s new, that’s exciting, like doing a podcast with you you know, over zoom, right. We wouldn’t have done this a couple of years ago. Yeah. But you know, so that to me is still super exciting. Until every student can fulfill their own pathway, their own desires, then there’s work to do mm-hmm, <affirmative>, there’s something interesting to pursue, and it doesn’t have to be, you know, graduating from, from high school. But you know I had, I had a group of students a couple weekends ago, I went out to a performance that three of our high school bands had gone together and, and were doing this charity event. And so I had the opportunity to to speak with them as they were rehearsing in the afternoon.

Peter Sovran (12:01):

And you know, one of them asked me a question and they said, if you had a magic button, you could press and change things, you know, for the better what would you do? And I thought that was a great question. And, you know, my answer was I would press that button and enable every student to pursue what they wanted to learn and how they wanted to learn it. Mm. That would be one magic button. So that, but that, that’s what keeps it coming every day to to the job, because it’s the pursuit of that magic button. Really.

Sam Demma (12:39):

I love that perspective as someone who spent most of their life, chasing a dream that other people happen to deem as unrealistic. I, I will, I grew up on to play professional soccer. And by the age of 17, after three career ending, knee injuries realized it wasn’t gonna happen. Found myself lost. And I valued school very high up until that point, because it was a means to me getting a better soccer scholarship. If I had higher grades and the athletics, I could get a full ride scholarship to a school in the states. And after it fell apart, I felt a little lost and didn’t know what I wanted to pursue and ended up taking a fifth year of high school and then a gap year both of which made me feel like maybe I was following behind or making the wrong choice. And I think it was so important that I had people in my life who during those moments reminded me that every pathway is a valid option, you know, in every learner, it takes a slightly different path. And if every student could be encouraged to pursue their path and help help to realize that there is no correct or right or wrong choice, I think that would take a lot of weight off their shoulders.

Peter Sovran (13:52):

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that, that’s that’s, the goal is you know, find what your passion is, what your interest is, and that can change, you know, you don’t have to set your course and, and have your learning driven that way. And through that passion and that interest, as opposed to it’s Tuesday, you know, so we have to learn this.

Sam Demma (14:15):

Mm, got it. When you think about educators who have been impactful in your life, who comes to mind and maybe it’s, it could be a formal classroom teacher, but it could also be anyone you’ve crossed path with who has had a significant impact on who you are and the way you see the world today.

Peter Sovran (14:34):

Yeah. It’s I, I think about that a lot. I had I had a great teacher grade seven and eight. Mm. And music teacher. And and while I don’t consider myself a musician that was a turning point in my life. It was an opportunity to be part of something bigger, which was a band and to, to play in a band. And and this teacher, you know saw something in me that suggested that I had some leadership qualities. And so I became the band leader in, in grade eight after spending grade seven, you know, really studying and learning the instrument for the very first time. And you know, I look back and that was one of those turning points. You know, this this belief that you could be a leader and someone who not only said it, but then, you know, work to develop some of those leadership skills.

Peter Sovran (15:34):

So I think of I think of that teacher, I think of you know, some some principles who I had both as a student but then also as a, as a teacher and then as a principal, myself, you know, colleagues who were just great listeners. Mm. And and you know, when I look back, I always think of the people who made the most impact on me were the ones who you know, let me take a chance, let me, they, they actually allowed me to, to fail, but with kinda a safety net. Hmm. And you know, and that’s something I, I always wanna carry with me and, and hope to, you know, inspire others with as well that you learn, you learn so much from taking a risk and taking a chance and sometimes yeah. Making mistakes.

Sam Demma (16:37):

You mentioned listening as one of the qualities of a leader, you know, people in your life that listened really intently, left an impact on you. What are some of the other qualities you think make up a great school leader, whether it be a principal or a superintendent or a teacher. Cause I think everyone in the school is a leader in some way, shape or form whether it’s leading colleagues or leading students. Yeah. I’m curious to know your thoughts on, on some of the qualities.

Peter Sovran (17:08):

Yeah. and again, your, your point around everyone’s a leader in, in one way or another. And so leadership qualities aren’t reserved just for those formal leadership positions. Yep. And so definitely listening is a real key. But also, you know making sure that as you listen, and as you, as you gather, people’s voice that your decisions are informed decisions that people are involved in decisions that you make together. Mm. And I think that that is such an important quality for, for anyone in a leadership position is that you know, you involve people not, not at the end, but at the beginning. And then, you know, I, I would say strong leaders also need to be decisive. Strong leaders need to be accountable. And you know, in, in a lot of the reading that I, I do about leadership some of the the things that would always stand out would be that you know, great leaders are the ones who take the responsibility when things don’t go well, always, always, and they always keep the praise on everyone else when things go well, because inevitably it’s the team effort that gets you, you know your results.

Peter Sovran (18:37):

So take the responsibility when it doesn’t go well and give credit when it does to the others.

Sam Demma (18:44):

Ah, I love that. You mentioned reading when in your life did reading nonfiction books become, and maybe it’s your whole life, but what, was there a tipping point where you fell in love with books on a continuous pursuit of knowledge? And if, if there was, I’m curious to know along the journey, what, what are some books that have stood out to you if you can recall some of them?

Peter Sovran (19:05):

Yeah, absolutely. So the one that I would just referenced would be Jim Collins. Good to great. You would come into my office, you would see it prominently displayed in my office. I refer back to it a whole lot. And I’m

Sam Demma (19:20):

Surprised you don’t have some fly wheels on your board back there. <Laugh> yeah,

Peter Sovran (19:26):

I I’ve always preferred nonfiction. I’ve really thoroughly enjoy reading biographies. Yes. About about politicians, about athletes, about, you know, inspirational leaders about people in general you know, people’s lives are fascinating. And I think as you, as you dig in whether it’s an autobiography or a biography and, and you learn about you know, people’s journeys there’s so much to glean from that. And for me, it, it’s just a reminder that nobody does anything on their own. It’s all in a context, it’s a context of, you know, whether it’s your family, whether it’s your friends, whether it’s your colleagues, whether it’s your, you know people that surround you, then nobody, nobody ever does anything on their own. And and so as I read these nonfiction and particularly these biographies, I’m always intrigued by, you know, what people have had to overcome and how they’ve you know, relied on others or as you described, you know, some of these important people in your life that you just go to and you think, wow, see, I always thought that person just was completely self made and became this instant, you know, in inspirational leader and successful person.

Peter Sovran (20:52):

And yet even they had that turning point or they had that person that they lean on.

Sam Demma (20:58):

Hmm. Yeah. I, I think you’re absolutely correct. Every, even the ones that appear like an overnight success often have so many things to share in interviews and that can disprove those assumptions about the people that helped them, how long it took for them to build what they did build. There’s a book called principles by Ray Dalio. And he has this one, maybe have you read it.

Peter Sovran (21:23):

I know it. Yep.

Sam Demma (21:24):

Yeah. So there’s one chapter and the title is, you know, you can have anything, but you can’t have everything. And I think this same applies to whatever you choose to pursue in life, but there should be an ad that you can have anything but not alone. <Laugh> yeah. Good point. Yeah. Because I think you’re absolutely right in saying it’s always the result of a collective effort or in some way, the influence of other people that you’ve met along your own journey. When you think about the people that impacted you you know, your grade seven teacher the colleagues and principals you have ha have had along the way, are there any that you still stay in touch with closely to this day?

Peter Sovran (22:09):

Well, that, that great seven teacher, I still stay connected with him. Nice. And still have a friendship after all of these years. And it’s been many, many years. Wow. I would say pretty well, everyone who I would describe as having had an impact if they’re if they’re still with us I make an effort to to stay connected with them. And and, and also, you know whether it’s this new role that I took on last September. And perhaps I had, you know, connected with someone for a little while I’d reach out and say you know, I’m doing what I’m doing right now, largely because of the impact you had on my life. And I think it’s so important to remind people of that.

Sam Demma (22:58):

I, I love it. I try and stay in touch with my grade 12 world issues teacher who had a big impact on me. And I can tell that every time I reach out to him, he has this sense of gratitude because maybe sometimes educators don’t hear it often enough from their students or their colleagues, the difference that their actions and choices make in the lives of others. Books have been a big part of your life. How else do you fill your own cup when you’re not working in the office?

Peter Sovran (23:27):

Hmm. So a couple of things. I for my own self care, I I run and I try and run usually four or five times a week with that comes the other setbacks with injuries which I’m dealing with right now. Oh, no. And you know, and so, and, and I run both for my mental wellbeing and for my physical wellbeing. But when it comes to the work I deliberately don’t spend a whole lot of time in my physical office. I spend time in different places within our school board. And I make a point there’s one day a week that I spend in schools and in classrooms. And sometimes it’s two days a week. And I always say the reason I have to be in schools and in classrooms to interact with students and with teachers and, you know, office administrators and caretakers is that that’s where the rubber hits the road. That’s where the action happens. That’s where the impact is. And as the leader of the organization, I need to be right there and see it and, and hear it. And so that absolutely fills my cup. I will say to people best part of my week is always when I’m in schools.

Sam Demma (24:58):

Hmm. There’s so many amazing things happening in schools. I’m sure you’re quite inspired by walking through the hallways, stopping in classrooms, hearing the discussions, but over the past two years, there’s also been an equal affair of challenges with shifts. And, you know, I shouldn’t say the word cuz they’re moving out of it now, but COVID, <laugh> I’m sure there’s been moments where teachers have maybe even reached out to you burnt out people that you’ve inspired looking for some advice or insights. If you were to paint a hypothetical situation of a teacher walking into your, your office, which you’re very rarely in any ways, which makes us more hypothetical and they sat down and tears in their eyes telling you, you know, this has been one of the hardest years of my life. I’m feeling burnt out. I’m not feeling inspired. You know, do you have any words of advice for me, if you could kind of share a quick little blurb for teachers who might be feeling this way right now, what would you share or tell them?

Peter Sovran (25:59):

Yeah. so it, it’s not even a hypothetical Sam it’s it’s, it’s the reality that you know, going back to, you know, the context everybody’s lived in the context of of COVID and the global pandemic for you know, since March of 2020, I remember that day leaving March 20, 20 thinking okay. A couple of weeks we’ll, we’ll be back, we’ll be back. And we’ll just pick things up. And here we are June of two and you know, the, as difficult as it’s been for students the absolute champions of education have been all of the educators, you know, the teachers, the educational assistants, everybody that works in the system they managed to leave in March of 2020, and within two weeks went from, you know, a physical classroom to, to this, to, you know, a laptop, maybe a camera and all of a sudden they had to take their craft and completely reinvent how they engage with students.

Peter Sovran (27:19):

So I’d say, you know, what you’ve done over the last two years has made a difference. It’s made a huge difference, you know? Yeah. I, when I was a principal, I used to always end my, the, the staff meetings with this one slide, what you do matters. And it’s so true what you do in a school, connecting with a student, listening, teaching it matters and it’s mattered more so in the last two years than probably ever before, because teachers and everyone that works with students, they’ve not only been able to connect with them, but they’ve also shown them that despite a global pandemic, despite the biggest curve ball, if I could use a, a baseball analogy that was that was thrown at you you know, we persevere, we, we pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves off and we focus on what matters the most, which is that human connection.

Peter Sovran (28:33):

And so, yeah, it’s been incredibly tough. There is no question about it. And you know, the other reminder is that, you know, our, our leaders in our schools, our teachers or principals, and, you know, again, our caretakers are off staff. They also have lives outside of school. Yeah. That have been, that have been impacted, you know, they’re caring for other people. They’re worried about other people they’re, they’re worried about themselves. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s been so incredibly difficult, but I would say that, you know our sector in education, I mean, you know, our, our healthcare workers have been heroes through this, but I would put our educators, you know, right up there. You’ve made the difference. You’ve been the ones who have been on the other side of the screen for your students who have otherwise felt, you know, disconnected and lost. So I’m just like everyone, you know, planning for a return in September that will not go back to the way things work. Cause I think we shouldn’t do that. We should never try and go back. We should always, you know, learn from the situations that we’re in take, what’s worked and, and keep moving forward. But I really do hope that September and the fall looks different than it has these last two falls.

Sam Demma (30:08):

You positioned it perfectly. <Laugh> different is a good, good way to put it. I know it’s been a challenge, not only for staff in schools, but for superintendents like yourself, anyone who worked in education. And in fact, I would say humanity as a whole has had a challenge, no matter what industry or, you know, vocation, you worked in. The challenge that I sometimes think about often is those educators that just began teaching and their first year was in the middle of the pandemic who didn’t have, you know, 10 years of previous teaching experience to compare it to, and maybe had been thinking to themselves, what the heck did I sign up for? I, I’m curious to know if you could go back in time to your first few years working in education with the experience you have now, what advice would you have given to your younger self when you were just starting that you think may have been helpful to hear, and maybe it’s something we’ve already chatted about that you can reiterate or some new thoughts?

Peter Sovran (31:14):

Hmm. Yeah. I I would definitely say to myself, you don’t have all the answers, so look to others <laugh> mm. Number one, number two it, it’s okay to, to make a mistake and to take a risk and you know, within, within reason. Right. and and if it’s because you’re, you’re trying to do something to, you know, I improve the lives of others then you’re always on the right side of that. And and so I, I would, I would definitely say that, you know, those who have come into the profession during the pandemic or into a new position and, you know, I include myself as one of those people. You know, I became the director of education here in the upper grand district school board on September, the first of, in the midst of a pandemic.

Peter Sovran (32:19):

You realized though that even though you were teaching or leading, you know, with a mask on perhaps and sanitizing your hands more than you’ve probably ever done in your life <laugh> and that you were, you know, shifting from being in person to then being back in lockdown to doing things virtually that fundamentally one thing has not changed. And that connecting with people has always number one, the number was that teacher that I was, you know, almost 30 years ago to someone who’s just now started just remember that whether you’re connecting through zoom or teams or in person always keep those connections open, build those networks you know talk to talk to others who, you know, have, have walked in your path before I’ll share this story. When I first started this job you know, I I, I took over for Dr.

Peter Sovran (33:30):

Martha Rogers, who had been the director of education, the only director of education that the upper district school board had ever had. Wow. She had been, she had been in the role for 26 and a years. She was the founding director of education, you know, the, the first and only ever CEO that the organization had. And you know, sadly we lost DRS in December. So I had a really short period of time where I had that opportunity to connect with her. And every two weeks we would have coffee together and and conversation and lots of conversation. And it was my chance to, you know, pick her brain about you know, her 26 and a half years of, of running the organization. And it was also her opportunity to pick my brain about what’s this guy gonna be doing now that I’ve handed over this organization after 26 and a half years.

Peter Sovran (34:33):

And what it speaks to is, you know, that human connection and realizing that we can all learn from each other all the time. And as long as you’re open to that, you have to be open to that. You’ll keep moving forward. Once you start thinking you have all the answers that nobody can tell you how might be able so or different then it’s, then it’s time to take a really hard look at am I, am I really coming into the job each and every day, because I love doing it still or is it time to do something else? And it doesn’t matter what profession or what job you’re in. Everybody gets to that point

Sam Demma (35:18):

What a great piece of advice, especially towards the start or end of a new academic year to reflect on, I think to set our sales in the correct direction and be honest, if it’s not something that lights your soul then it’s okay to shift your sail as well. We need people who really want to be in education to be in education and it sounds like your conversations with Martha had a significant impact on you and testament to her and the human connection that I hope everyone strives to have with their colleagues and their students. This has been an awesome conversation Peter. Thank you so much for taking the time to call on the podcast. If someone wants to reach out to you, ask a question pick your brain, <laugh> absorb some of your genius, what would be the best way for them to reach out or get in touch?

Peter Sovran (36:11):

You know we’re always available at the Upper Grand District School Board. You just drop a line to our general inquiry. Give us a phone call you know, we’re, we’re on the web at ugdsb.on.ca. You’ll able to find you know, our contact information. And I love working with people who who are interested in, in leadership in, in any capacity and it doesn’t have to be just in education. And of course I will shamelessly say, I’m always, always looking for people who are, are passionate about working with students. And you know, this school board is an amazing place to work. So if you want reach out and you know, share your, share your passion for for working with students and making their lives better because that’s what it’s all about.

Sam Demma (37:13):

Awesome. Peter, thanks again for doing this. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Keep up the amazing work and I look forward to chatting with you soon.

Peter Sovran (37:21):

My pleasure.

Sam Demma (37:23):

Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation on the High Performing Educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in education, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you, or someone you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.

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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.

September 12, 2022 by Association Director Director of Education Principals Student Success 0

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