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IT coordinator

Mike Thiessen – Instruction, Curriculum, & Technology Coordinator at Fort La Bosse School Division

Mike Thiessen - Instruction, Curriculum, & Technology Coordinator at Fort La Bosse School Division
About Mike Thiessen

Mike Thiessen (@MikeThiessen) is the Instruction, Curriculum and Technology Co-ordinator at Fort La Bosse School Division. Over the past 20+ years, he has worked in the field of education as a Curriculum Developer, Teacher, School Principal, and now in his current position as a Divisional Co-ordinator.

He has a deep passion to provide students with safe and enriching learning environments where they can learn to set and achieve goals.  As a husband and a father of four, he enjoys spending time coaching sports, making music, travelling, and golfing. 

Connect with Mike:  Email  |  Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Mike Thiessen
Resources Mentioned

Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast

The Heggerty Reading Curriculum

The OrtonGillingham Approach

Fort La Bosse School Divison

The BYTE 2022 Education Conference

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:01):
Mike welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here this morning. Start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your journey that brought you to where you are today in education.

Mike Thiessen (00:13):
Hey, thanks Sam. It’s really great to be here. When I heard about the opportunity to sit down with you and, and talk about what I do and also what, you know, have that conversation with you, because I’ve seen some of the stuff that you’re doing, and I was just excited because it’s, it’s an opportunity to be able to talk to people in education and maybe people that just wanna be inspired by educators. So when I heard about this, it was, yeah, pretty exciting. So thank you for inviting me here. Why do I do what I do? Why, what brought me to it here? Well, you know, I started out my career. Oh man, it’s gotta be over 20 years ago now. And so the reason why I’m in education is because I love people. I enjoy hanging out with people.

Mike Thiessen (00:56):
Relationships to me are number one. People are number one. That’s, that’s the most important thing in my life. And, and so when I was younger I worked at a summer camp when I was in my teens and I had the opportunity to work with young people. And I just saw how much of a difference that you can make in a, in a person’s life. If you’re having that opportunity to to speak life into them and to do positive things that are gonna make a difference in their life. And then you watch the changes that can take place and, and how that can actually affect a, a young person. And so that’s what inspired me. That’s why I became an educator because I felt, Hey, I wanna do this every day of my life. I wanna be able to impact kids.

Mike Thiessen (01:34):
I wanna impact young people. And so that’s, that’s the, the journey that took me here was, was starting out in a summer camp. And then obviously I had other major influence series of my life. Like, like my dad, my dad’s a, a teacher, his dad was a teacher. And so I saw the effect that they had and the impact that they had. And so because of that I was inspired to do that and, and, and it’s natural for me. I enjoy, I enjoy hanging out with people. I enjoy hearing people’s stories. I enjoy ma you know, starting relationships and, and making sure that you know, I actually take the time to listen to people and, and get to know who they are and, and, and why they are, who they are, you know? And so that’s, that would be why I’m an educator. Absolutely. Yeah.

Sam Demma (02:15):
Walk me through the camp experience, what that was like for you growing up. And it sounds like it had an emotional impact on, on you, if it really stuck with you and drove you towards wanting to work with kids, walk me through what it looked like.

Mike Thiessen (02:29):
Sure. Yeah. So working at a summer camp, it’s, it’s very unique. It’s not, it’s not your typical summer job. Obviously it’s, it’s one of those where it becomes 24 7, you know, and for me when I first started out, I was, I was 17 and as I was a counselor and, and it becomes a, a 24 7, like I said, you know, you go in and it’s a week. So you’re spending, you’re spending a full week with these, with these kids. And it could be a six year old, seven year old, eight year old, nine year olds, depending on the week. And so you’ve got these little, little guys running around and we’re going from one activity to the other, we’re swimming, you know, they’re, they’re doing archery, they’re riding horses playing games in the field. And it’s really, you know, it’s one of those experiences where you really can’t you can’t replicate it anywhere else.

Mike Thiessen (03:12):
Mm it’s it’s, it’s, it’s very unique and it is it’s own thing. And what we found was that these kids might be coming in from, from really tough backgrounds, you know, like they might be coming from, from areas where you know, where they’re with child and family services and they don’t have a mom and dad anymore. And so they’re, you know, in the foster system and that kind of thing. And so they’re coming in and they might be carrying a lot, a lot of baggage and a lot of hurts and a lot of other things, but they come in and they, all of a sudden they’re able to hear and have you speak life into them and say, Hey, you’re person, you know, like you are worth something. And I value you, you know, when they hear those words, all of a sudden you’d see that smile come on their face and you’d, you’d watch them at the beginning of the week, going from this person who’s, you know, obviously going through a hard time and sad and not, not, not doing well.

Mike Thiessen (03:53):
And all of a sudden at the end of the week, they’re, they’re smiling and they’re happy, and they’ve got this, this, this spring in their step. And so able to be part of that is, yeah, it’s really, it’s really unique. It’s really special. The other piece to that too, is the relationship with the other staff. They almost become your brothers and sisters, you know, because you’re working all together as a team and, and you’ve got one goal and that’s to be able to give that kid that came to that camp, the best experience that they can have. Right. And so to have a team of people doing that and, and hanging out together and, and being able to spend that time together as staff, those are they’re lifelong relationships. Like I’ve got one of my best friends is still, you know, I met him at camp, you know? Wow. And he was one that worked with me and he was a you know, one of those people that had major impact and continuously have a major impact on my life. And so, you know, I look at that period of time and I realize, Hey, that really shaped who I am today. And it’s also steered a lot of the, the career choices I’ve made and, and things that I do. So it’s, yeah, it’s a wonderful, been a wonderful experience for sure. That

Sam Demma (04:52):
Was at 17 years old. At what age did you make your mental decision that you wanted to get into education? Because it sounds like your passion for working with kids and working in a team could have taken you in many different directions, but it took you here. At what age did you make the decision? This is the path I wanna pursue. And what did making that decision look like?

Mike Thiessen (05:14):
I was 19 when I finally said, okay, this is what I’m doing. And so I actually went through a few different phases. I, I tried at a few different jobs. I worked in the area of carpentry, you know, I did some, some plumbing. I drove a truck for a while, so it was an in semi, you know, doing some, some short hauls. So I spent time working with my hands. I spent time doing those, those blue collar, you know, getting out there and, and working hard. And it, and I’m, I can, I can do that. I don’t hard work, like that’s, I grew up on the farm. So I, that that’s not an issue, you know, I actually enjoy it. I, I like working with my hands. But it was, yeah, it was through the experiences at camp.

Mike Thiessen (05:52):
And then it was through talking to other people. And then just realizing that you know, what, education holds an opportunity where you can make impact, and it can be a daily job. You can make a living in doing it, but at the same time, you’re actually able to make change. And so it’s not just going to a job and doing something so you can get a paycheck it’s actually going and making a difference. And then, yeah, the paycheck is it’s important, right? Cuz that’s what keeps you going. And it makes you can buy house and pay for food and all that. But that isn’t the main focus. The focus is actually what you do, you know, that, that daily getting outta bed, why do I do what I do well be so I can make an impact so I can make change.

Sam Demma (06:29):
You got me curious, because you mentioned your dad really inspired you to get into education. And then what I didn’t know about you was that you grew up on a farm. Did he do both roles? Like, was he a farmer and also an educator? Tell me a little bit about your father and how he had an impact on, you know, your decision to get into teaching.

Mike Thiessen (06:46):
Yeah, absolutely. So growing up, dad, he, he started out as a farmer. Yes. and then he went into university a little bit later in his career. He would’ve been in his thirties and it was, it was during that time when farming was getting a little bit tough, we had a few years of, of drought and then prices were getting a little higher and, and interest rates were getting higher. So dad had to go back to school and he actually became a teacher. He, he enjoys people. He, he, he actually was a, he worked as a, a minister as well, a pastor in a church. And so he did three things growing up. And so yeah, so the, the teaching piece was actually just it was, it was part of because he was very good at it and, and because he enjoyed it, but it was also because he needed to put bread on the table.

Mike Thiessen (07:27):
And so that was something that you know, he, he enjoyed doing it and he went and made it a career and he farmed at the same time. So for me growing up yeah, being on the farm, learned a lot of those skills, but then a also seen, has dad worked hard, you know, he’s give going hard every day. And, and so for him to be able to to do a good job teaching and do farming and, and take care of us as kids and, and mom obviously was a huge part of that as well. My mom obviously was his partner and, and, and working alongside of him with that too. But yeah, they, they definitely had an impact on, on the reason why I became, you know, a teacher and, and went into the education field for sure. Yeah.

Sam Demma (08:04):
The field itself looked a lot different over the past two years than maybe it did for your first 18 or 19 years, depending on how long you’ve been in education. What were some of the challenges that you personally faced and saw your colleagues and peers go going through? And now that we’re kind of coming outta that time period, a little bit slowly. Mm-Hmm what

Mike Thiessen (08:25):
Are some, we’re not there yet? We’re not there yet. but we are getting close. We’re getting close.

Sam Demma (08:30):
Yeah. What are some of the exciting things or opportunities you’re looking forward to, and then also some of the challenges you guys are all you’ve all been faced with.

Mike Thiessen (08:38):
I think for, for educators right now what I’m looking at and I’m, just, I, I feel very thankful for the people that are in the field, because I feel like they do have a heart for, for what they’re doing. Yeah. So that part, I, I wanna say first, I, I have full respect and unbelievable. I I’m blown away. Like I, I just, I, I, I, I, every day I look at what educators are doing and the things that they’ve done over the last year and a half, and I’ve just huge respect for every single one of those teachers who’s in that classroom and doing what they do, because it hasn’t been easy. It hasn’t been one of those where oh, just another day, you don’t like, know it’s every day you wake up and it could be different. You, you could be, you could be shifting, you could be changing something within your classroom.

Mike Thiessen (09:21):
You might have a new protocol that you have to put in place or a new rule or, or something physically that you have to change within the classroom. So I have huge, huge respect for teachers for that. I think the next big challenge that I see coming, and, and like I said, I, I totally respect everything that’s been done, but because of all these challenges that we face, I feel like there are some gaps in learning it’s that have come through this. And, and it’s because we’ve had to move to remote learning. We’ve had to you know, maybe change the way that we do our teaching within the classroom. And so what we’re seeing now is that there are some gap gap, and it’s not the full 20 students that are in classroom or 30 students that are in the classroom.

Mike Thiessen (10:00):
We’re seeing it, that it might be that 40% or, or 30% of the students have, have these gaps that normally probably wouldn’t have been there as predominantly. We wouldn’t have seen them as, as, as, as, as a big of a deal. And so I think that’s our next big challenge is how are we gonna find ways to hold those students and have them so that they can make make graduation so that they can get to level prior to even, you know, hopefully within the next couple of years and, and we can sprint and get them up to that spot where, where they need to be. And so I think that’s our next big two out is to find ways to, to, to bring those students up that, that need it, and that have already fallen behind a bit because of this, this last year and a half of COVID and, and the struggles that have gone through that.

Mike Thiessen (10:49):
The nether big thing is taking care of each other. We need staff to be able to pull together. We need to be teams. We need to make sure that we encourage each other and we’re looking out for each other. And we also need to realize that we’re gonna still need to work hard, you know, like we can’t, we can’t just take a whew, a breath and, and, and relax, like, yes, we do need to find ways to recharge, but let’s recharge so that we can run. Yeah. Not so that we can come back into the classroom and, and just kind of me and, and, or through the next year and a half, cuz we actually are gonna need to work. There’s a lot of work to be done and it can be great and it can be done. But we’re gonna have to recharge ourselves and make sure that we’re healthy ourselves in order to do

Sam Demma (11:27):
That on the flip side, what are some of the things you are extremely excited about seeing I know you’re hosting the bike conference. You sound like you’re somebody who’s extremely passionate about how technology can be integrated in the classroom. You’re also someone who loves hockey and is excited about the fact that students are slowly starting to get back into sports. Tell me about some of the exciting things you’re seeing and hoping will continue to happen in the future.

Mike Thiessen (11:58):
Yeah. So some of the stuff that’s going on in the, in the schools and with our students is that yes, we are doing, you know, we are doing school sports within the cohorts, of course. And obviously using, you know, COVID restrictions and doing what we need to do there. But we’re getting back into it, you know, like we’re actually being able to interact with each other a bit and, and we’re back in the classrooms. Yes, we’re wearing masks while we’re in the ma classrooms, but we are in the classrooms. It’s not remote. You know, those things are exciting to me like that, that means we’re actually able to, to be human. We’re able to be around each other relationships. I’ve said it before. They’re number one, it’s always about relationships. And without those relationships you can’t you can’t do the things that we do as educators.

Mike Thiessen (12:41):
It’s not as effective. Yeah, it can, there can be teaching that takes place without relationships, but not effective teaching. Yeah, it has. We have, it starts there, it starts, it starts being able to interact and, and making a difference within people’s lives. And so when I look at at the future I get excited about the skills that we’ve built because of the challenges we faced. Right. Hmm. Cause there having been quite a few, like you talked about technology, we’ve learned a lot of new, great tools and we’ve learned how to use them. And as teachers I’m watching, as people who have never used Google classroom before, whereas a learning management system, all of a sudden became experts within a year and a half, you know, or people who with an office 365, they’re not afraid to, to fire up teams and have a, a meeting with, with other people and to be able to do that video conferencing call.

Mike Thiessen (13:27):
So and you and I we’re, we’re in different provinces right now, you know, and we’re sitting down and having a conversation and, and talking about education may not have happened two years ago. And so when I look at what COVID has, has presented as challenges yeah, that wasn’t fun. I don’t ever wanna go through that again. But I’m so thankful for the things that we’ve learned and the things that we can use as, as skills for the future. They may not be used every day. I hope they aren’t you, but let’s use them for the good that we have, you know, and, and not, and not just dismiss it as something that has passed, but it’s like, Hey, yeah, let’s build on that. And that’s, let’s continue to move forward on those things. One thing that I’ve noticed too, is with social media, taking off in the last five years and things like TikTok and, you know, shorts on YouTube and things like that.

Mike Thiessen (14:12):
I’m watching as, as students who are growing up, they’re almost becoming producers and editors and those types of things. I’m really excited to see what’s gonna happen when they walk into the classroom, you know, 10 years from now. And even some of these young teachers that are coming in, people that are your age, right. They’re gonna walk into the classroom and they’re gonna have this set of skills that I didn’t have because we didn’t have social media. When I was first starting out as an educator, we didn’t have a lot of these tools that you have even podcasts, things like that. Those weren’t even there back then. And so to be able to see all these great tools that have taken and broken down all these barriers in the walls, now we can use them in the classroom and, and use it for learning and it can be part of what we do.

Sam Demma (14:49):
And it’s just a different perspective, right? I think having access to different schools, going through different experiences gives you a different perspective and potentially a young, a younger teacher or the next wave of teachers will walk into the classroom and reimagine things too. Right. Absolutely. The same way that you would’ve reimagined things when you started 20 years ago or slight changed and adjusted, and along your journey, teaching, working in education, I’m sure there’s been some really helpful resources you’ve had along the way, whether it be people maybe even courses, books, like if you had to pick a couple of those things to share that have been very helpful for you and your own journey what would some of those things be?

Mike Thiessen (15:37):
For me, I would say wow, there’s so many of them, right? Like, and, and there’s people that have been involved in all of that. One that’s been really impactful for me this year. And I’ll, and I’ll stick to it. Cause I think it’s making a change currently in our, in our school division and within the, within our schools right now is that phenomic awareness and phonological awareness. And this is for early literacy. We’re talking about students that are just learning how to read. Mm. And if I was to ask somebody, what’s the most important skill that a child is gonna learn, whether they’re two years old, all the way, three to 21 years old, what is, what is gonna be the most important skill? And I think most or many people would say reading, we need to know how to read.

Mike Thiessen (16:20):
Like, that’s, I know it’s a basic skill and we kind of take it for granted sometimes, especially here in Canada, because our literacy rate is so high. Right. And so we look at reading as being something that is just, yeah, that’s gonna happen. Right. And so what we’re seeing is, and, and especially this fall and in even last year was we were, we were noticing that a lot of our, our students coming into our schools they were missing that ability to rhyme, to blend, you know, sounds. And it’s just those basic basic skills that we thought. We would just take them for granted and just assume that they would know how to do it. And so we’re watching as, as large chunks within our classroom, don’t have those skills. And so we’ve been looking at there’s a researcher Haggerty. Who’s been doing, doing research around anemic awareness and that’s program that honestly, it’s making an impact and it’s changing a lot of the, the teaching that’s going on in our, and it’s only, you know, it’s only taking 10 minutes, 15 minutes in a day with these students that are 5, 6, 7, 8, a nine years old.

Mike Thiessen (17:14):
So grade 1, 2, 3, 4. And it’s only just doing a very short amount of time with these students. And we’re actually watching, as these students are making huge gains in their, their reading levels in their, their spelling. And then we’re also, we’re using a little bit of another program that we’re using as Orton Gillingham for, for dyslexia and we’re, and it’s actually using it with, in the classroom as a whole as well. And we’re watching as, as it’s making a difference in, in this reading. And it’s the, these two programs that right now for me are very exciting because it’s actually, I’m watching as, as we look at the research and we look at the numbers, it’s making a difference. It’s, it’s actually, it’s changing the abilities and the skills for these grade 1, 2, 3 students, and it’s making it so that as teachers we’re actually able to have some breakthroughs.

Mike Thiessen (17:59):
And I talked about sprinting earlier and about being able to move forward, this is gonna help us with some of those gaps. We’re gonna be able to move forward with that, cuz once the student’s not to read now dig the next step. You need that as that base. If you’re in grade three and you’re not able to read yet, it’s gonna be pretty tough to cover some of the science and social studies and some of the other curriculums that you, you need to cover. So yeah, so that’s, that’s a big one for me right now is that program right there.

Sam Demma (18:22):
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. It sounds like it’s making a massive impact. I can’t wait to continue to hear the ripples of that.

Mike Thiessen (18:31):
and it’s in early stages. Like we have some teachers that are really excited about it and jumping on board and I’m really hoping that it’ll and it, and, and it’s, we’ve got a good group and I’m hoping it’ll spill over into, you know, the, the rest of the school division, not just one or two schools, I think we were at about three or four schools that are working on these programs and it’s, it’s making an impact. It’s making a difference and it’s, it’s exciting and it, and it’s doing it because it is working. That’s why it’s spreading. That’s why it’s moving. And, and it’s because it is actually helping students be able to read.

Sam Demma (18:59):
Ahead from your experiences at camp. Yeah. You mentioned one aspect of it that was awesome. Was working together as a team and that’s something that leave is also so important in education, but in anything. Yeah. How do, how do you make sure that all the staff and like from a school are unified and on the same page, you know, working cohesively and together, is it about again building relationships and trust or like, how do we ensure that that happens in a, in a school

Mike Thiessen (19:33):
It’s, it’s a culture, right? It’s something that it happens within and it’s because, and, but it has to be done through effort. Yeah. You know, like we, we know that it does take effort. It does take, it does take some planning and it, and it’s interesting because leaders that, that do it well it ha happens naturally just because it’s who they are in, what they do. And part of that is like you talked about coming together as a team and what does that look like? Well, it’d be that conversation before or after class with a teacher between a school administrator and a teacher or between another teacher mm-hmm it’s that pre COVID that high five and the hall, you know, back when we could do fives, then we’ll get back there someday. I’m sure. It’s, it’s that you know, right after classes are done and one of those teachers, you can just see they’ve had a tough day and you walk over to them and you say like, Hey, Hey, how you doing?

Mike Thiessen (20:25):
You know, what can I help you with what’s what’s going on in your classroom? And it’s that, that reaching out and saying I need help in this area. What did you do with this day? And I noticed he was off today. What was, what was the methods or the, the strategies that you used it’s it’s that collaboration and teamwork. And like I said, though, it starts, it starts from leaders. It really does like leaders. We have to watch and see what’s going on within, within our staff. And we have to monitor that what’s that environment look like is there, is there, is there positively having, you know, are people encouraging each other? And then you have to take time as a leader. You have to either write that note and say, Hey, you’re doing a great job. You know, I really appreciate what you did.

Mike Thiessen (21:02):
I saw what you did with that student. And it was amazing keep doing that. You . And so when a person hears that and when it comes from a leader what happens is they feel inspired and they feel like tomorrow, I’m gonna do that again. You know? They might know, and you might say it verbally, too, that can make a difference as well. I, I listened to a leadership podcast and, and one of the, the gentleman that was talking about Greg Rochelle actually is, is the name of the gentleman. And, and one of the things he says is, you can’t say, thank you enough. You know, if you’ve, if you’ve said it, once you gotta say it again, like, it’s one of those where it’s like, if you think you’ve said it enough times, save it another 10 times, you know?

Mike Thiessen (21:37):
Yeah. Like it’s one of those things where you have to encourage people. And if you think you’ve done it enough, do it 10 more times because people need to hear that they need to hear that positive reinforcement. And they also have to hear that you do appreciate them. And so I think that’s where it starts from, and that’s where you’re gonna have that teamwork and, and that coming together. And then the other piece that I would encourage is those people that are part of a team, never, ever, ever tear somebody else apart. That’s part of your team, all that will do is just tear you apart because that’s, that’s your teammate. Like if you’re out there and there’s 20 people on a, on a hockey team and you decide you’re gonna go and hit one of your linemates while he’s out there on the ice with me and, and you decide, okay, you know what I’m gonna stop him from getting the puck, cuz I want the puck you’ve you’ve basically taken a team game and you turned it against itself.

Mike Thiessen (22:21):
It’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna lose the game, guaranteed. It’s exactly the same. If you ever tear somebody else down in the staff room, or if you talk behind somebody else, that’s exactly what you would be doing is you’d be destroying that team. And you’re actually destroying yourself when you’re destroying your team member. And so my biggest encouragement to, to staff members would be like, Hey, if you, if you have something that needs to be talked, yeah. Go talk to that person, but do it in a very constructive yeah. Way, but never behind their back or to somebody else or tear down the team because that’s, that’s the worst thing for it. And then it, it would just cause Ascension and it would cause make it so that it doesn’t work. So as a leader, you gotta be sensitive to that too, to make sure that you are always very much you can be truthful. Absolutely. But you have to be careful about who you tell things to or what you talk about to, to your, your staff members and, and, and the people that work for you. And, and make sure that it’s done in a very constructive and a, in a positive weight and, and where we’re moving forward and we’re doing, what’s what’s best for the team itself. And, and obviously at the end of the day, that’ll be the best for kids.

Sam Demma (23:17):
Rochelle sounds like a familiar name. Do you recall the, the name of the podcast?

Mike Thiessen (23:23):
Yep. It’s the leadership podcast.

Sam Demma (23:26):
Leadership podcast. Yeah. , that’s awesome.

Mike Thiessen (23:28):
Yeah. And he’s phenomenal. He’s got huge subscriber base and, and he does one every, I believe it’s once a month, he has a, a leadership podcast podcast and highly recommended it’s it’s very good.

Sam Demma (23:38):
All right. Awesome. Yeah. And if you could travel back in time, speak to, you know, 19, early, 20 year old, Mike, who’s just getting into teaching and education, but with the wisdom and advice you have now, mm-hmm, looking back. What would you tell yourself? Or what advice would you give yourself?

Mike Thiessen (23:59):
I would say the biggest one would be focus. That would be it. Yeah. Focus on your goals and make sure that when you spend your time doing what you’re doing, have purpose, purpose, and focus. I think we can do, there are so many opportunities and there are so many great things we could do. It’s important to actually sit down and say, okay, which one is the one that’s important? Yeah. Which is the one that’s gonna have, have the impact, which is, which is the opportunity that’s gonna, I’m gonna look back on and say, okay. But I’m glad I made that choice. I’m glad I did what I did. And so if that would be the advice I could, I would give that to the advice for the 40 year old Mike as well. , you know, like I don’t think that ever stops.

Mike Thiessen (24:43):
You know, just because we are gonna have our opportunities, we are gonna get up in the morning. We’re gonna look at their at our day and say, okay, what is it that we’re accomplishing or our week or a month? And I would say, let’s focus on, on what’s important. Let’s not let let distractions or, or things that could be good, get in our way or cause us to choose something that’s second best. Let’s let’s focus on what’s what’s best. And look at your vision. What is your vision? Is it accomplishing your vision?

Sam Demma (25:10):
That’s awesome. Focus is a huge component. I think of anyone striving towards any outcome. So, yeah, it’s a good constant reminder. Always. Mike, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing some of your experiences, stories, resources, this was a great conversation. If someone listening would like to get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to reach out, send you a message or ask a question?

Mike Thiessen (25:37):
Probably Twitter. I think that’s probably the…I don’t have a lot of social media. You know, so I think the one that’s that’s out there in public and people could probably access me the best would probably be Twitter and I’m @mikethiessen So that would probably be the best way to go. You can DM me on there or follow me on there.

Sam Demma (25:54):
Awesome. Mike sounds good. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.

Mike Thiessen (25:59):
That’s awesome. Thank you, Sam. It’s been fun.

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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.