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leadership

Michelle Gauthier – Principal of Frank Ryan Catholic Intermediate School and Principal of English as a Second Language Programs for the Ottawa Catholic School Board

Michelle Gauthier – Principal of Frank Ryan Catholic Intermediate School and Principal of English as a Second Language Programs for the Ottawa Catholic School Board
About Michelle Gauthier

Michelle Gauthier is the Principal of Frank Ryan Catholic Intermediate School and Principal of English as a Second Language Programs for the Ottawa Catholic School Board.  She has been an educator for 30 years in a variety of roles.  She began her teaching career as an ESL and Special Education teacher before completing a Master’s Degree in Counselling and beginning her work as a high school counsellor.  
Her experience supporting students with complex needs led her into administration where she continues to advocate to bring wellness, equity and inclusion to the forefront.  Michelle’s guiding principle remains that educators (administration, teachers, support staff – everyone in the building) must work to provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment where students feel loved and part of a community.  Once students feel cared for and safe, they are better prepared to take risks, embrace challenges, learn, and thrive.

As Principal, not only does Michelle make wellbeing and community building a priority for students but she also recognizes the importance of these for staff.  She works hard to ensure her staff feels supported and appreciated, providing an environment in which they feel inspired to bring their best to work each day.  Michelle is grateful for the opportunity to work with staff and students to create a community where young people can grow into their best selves.  She appreciates this privilege and recognizes the gift that she is given in her role as Principal.

Connect with Michelle Gauthier: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Frank Ryan Catholic Intermediate School

Ottawa Catholic School Board

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. Today we are joined by Michelle Gauthier, the principal of Frank Ryan Catholic Intermediate School. She is someone that I met, and I’m excited to have her back on the podcast, or have her on the podcast and see her again. Michelle, please take a moment to introduce yourself.

Michelle Gauthier
All right.

Michelle Gauthier
Well, it’s good to see you again, Sam. I have to tell you, when you invited me to do this, I was really honored. When you came to Frank Ryan, I didn’t really know entirely what to expect, but your energy and the way you interacted with our students was so vibrant. And I just I feel really honored to be here today. So, yeah, I don’t I didn’t really know what to expect, but I’m really honored that you invited me.

Sam Demma
Well, the energy in your school was just as palpable for me. And there’s something special about the community you’ve cultivated with the staff and the students. What are some of the key values or characteristics you strive to embed within your school culture and community?

Michelle Gauthier
Well, Frank Ryan’s a pretty special place.

Michelle Gauthier
So we’re an intermediate school, but only grades seven and eight. And it’s the last one in our school board that’s a standalone intermediate school. So the students are here; they’re not mixed with elementary kids, they’re not mixed with high school kids—it’s just for them. So it’s a really cool opportunity for us to help them develop their leadership skills. And for me, it’s a pretty special place because I went here.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, the kids get a kick out of that when I tell them. I say, “Yeah, I went here as a student,” and then when I tell them what year I graduated, I think all their jaws drop. So I graduated in 1984 from here. And even some of their parents, I don’t think, were born by then. So it’s a special place—Frank Ryan has a great history. But, you know, I feel really privileged to be in this role as a principal because I can impart what’s most important to me in a school. And I have that ability to decide, “This is what I want to focus on. This is what I want our staff to focus on.”

So to answer your question, what’s most important to me is that kids want to come to school, that they feel happy—not just the students, but the staff. I was just talking with my vice principal this morning and just saying, you know, if we can make sure staff feel good and they’re happy, then that’s going to translate to the students in their classrooms. So a big part for me is a real focus on community and people feeling like this is a home, this is a place where they belong and are cared for.

Sam Demma
What do you think makes a young person want to show up to school?

Michelle Gauthier
For me, it’s that we know them, that they’re known. And that’s, again, some of our schools are getting so big that students can get lost. So it’s a real challenge. We have some high schools right now, grades 7 to 12, that are sitting at 2,500 students. So I feel pretty blessed here that we have, we just have just under 500 students.

For us to be able to stand at the door every morning and say, “Good morning, welcome back,” and be able to say their names, and that they feel known—it’s like a home for them, you know. And that’s what I want from the teachers as well is that they’re greeting the kids at the door, they take an interest, you remember, you know, if they told you something about, you know, going for grandpa’s dinner on the weekend, then on Monday maybe say, “How was dinner?” Just that they really feel like they’re, you know, acknowledged as people.

Sam Demma
You started in counseling and you have a degree in counseling. Did you know you were going to end up in administration in the school or like how did your own pathway unfold as you were growing up?

Michelle Gauthier
Wow, that’s a good question because I don’t think I was ever one of those people that was saying, “This is exactly what I want to do,” or “This is exactly where I want to be.” I started university in math, and then that wasn’t working. So I had—my mom was a math teacher. My dad was an actuary. So math was a big part of our home. And—but I always had private tutors all through school.

So when I went off to university, it was like, “Okay, maybe this isn’t my passion.” And it took me a bit to find it. But in hindsight, it was always there. And I think I’m very close to my dad, and I think it was always clear to him. But second year university, I was really struggling with what my concentration would be, and I finally—my dad said, “You know what, you need to get into education. You know, you were always the one, like the cousin who would take care of the little cousins or the one to babysit.”

And I was a lifeguard, and I taught swimming, and he saw it in me. I don’t know that I was, you know, mature enough to see it in myself. But he encouraged me, and I joined the education department, and I just flew from there. All of a sudden, I was, you know, I loved school, I loved learning, I loved that whole area that I was studying in, and I was lucky to get a job right away. And I just love working with kids.

The counseling has always been there. So I had a bit of a different degree. I went to McGill University in Quebec. Their education program is a bit different. It’s a four-year program. My degree was in teaching English as a second language. And when I came back to Ontario, I got a job as an ESL teacher right away, which was really curious. But the way it works in Ontario back then was you are like a resource teacher, like a special education teacher. So I was the ESL teacher; that’s kind of the realm that I was in.

And what that became was really that support, that advocate for students. So the advocate, you know, as a special education teacher, which I was as well. So I started as an ESL teacher advocating for my newcomer students. Then I moved into special education and advocating for, you know, students with special needs.

I did my master’s in counseling and went into guidance counseling. Did I think I was going to go into admin? No. But I think as I moved through guidance, I realized the role of an administrator—there’s a lot of counseling that happens. And the work that we do with parents and families, reassuring them, supporting them, helping them through some difficult times—I felt I was really well-positioned with my skills of supporting newcomers, supporting families, and students with special needs as a guidance counselor.

So now as an administrator, I really get to help those families and use a lot of my counseling skills. It was a big decision for me to leave counseling and go into administration because I loved what I did. I had an opportunity to fill in for a vice principal who was off for a bit. And during that little term, I realized, “Wow, I’m using—probably my counseling skills were one of my number one skills to use in administration, whether it’s family, students, or staff.”

All those skills were so transferable. So now I get to, in a sense, lead the school. I decide on the direction. And for me, knowing that what’s most important to me is a school where people feel welcome, I really feel privileged that I can steer that boat.

Sam Demma
Young people and humans, in general, are carrying so much in their backpacks these days when it comes to struggles or challenges or changes in the world. How do you counsel well? How do you provide counsel to somebody? Or if they’re going through a challenge, how do you be there for them from the perspective of a counselor?

Michelle Gauthier
Yeah. You really have to be a good listener. And again, it comes down to making a person feel heard and cared for. Often people, you know, you go to counseling and think, “Okay, this person’s going to give me the answer.” And that’s not the case. That’s not what good counseling is. Good counseling is helping someone find their own answers.

So, for me, it’s number one—the fact that students share with you means they trust you. And so you’re there to just understand them, not to try to put your own understandings on them, but really give them the time and jump into their shoes.

Because the reality is, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and my reality is very different from theirs. I can’t begin to understand what they’re going through. I can, you know, I can do my best to empathize, but they need to teach me. So a good counselor is someone who really listens to make that person feel like, “Okay, share with me.” And as they’re sharing, they’re often coming to their own answers.

So, you know, that’s, I think, the best way to approach it.

Sam Demma
You support the staff, which supports the students, but I know from being in your school that you are in the building running around everywhere nonstop, appearing in classrooms, being a part of the assembly programs. Where did your leadership principles develop from? Did you have some really solid mentors, or have you learned over the years from your experiences? Where did you form your own principles?

Michelle Gauthier
And my leadership style, I guess, is what you’re looking at. So sometimes—and I’ve told this to some of my former mentors—you see people wearing the bracelets. You know, sometimes you’ll have a bracelet that says, “What would Jesus do?” or that type of thing. And that’s—my number one mentor would be, you know, just that whole idea of Jesus Christ as servant leader and servant leadership. I’m here to serve.

But I have other bracelets that I wear, and there are former principals that I’ve—you know, I sometimes think, “What would Steve do?” Oh, sorry, there’s our bell. You know, “What would Steve do?” or “What would Greg do?” or “What would Norma do?” And so, those people who—you know, I’ve worked with lots of different administrators, and I take bits from all of them that meant a lot to me. And I wear their bracelets on my wrist, and they help me when I’m in a difficult situation trying to think, “What’s the best approach here?”

And all leaders have different styles and personalities. So I’ll pull on each one of those when I know—“I know Norma would be able to deal with this well,” or “I know what Steve would do.” So that’s, yeah.

Sam Demma
I had a three-year experience with a coach in my life. His name’s Chris Cummins. And we would talk every Tuesday for about an hour and a half, and I would bring to him all of my problems and challenges in my professional pursuit. And he would bring to me questions that would help me uncover the answers I needed to hear—good counseling.

And you can’t see it, but off to the left of my office is a document on the wall that says “The Cummins Commandments.” And I actually created this as a gift to him when our coaching experience ended. And it was the principles that, from our three years of conversation, are things that I would carry forward in my life as a result of the time we had spent.

When you talk about Greg and Norma and Jesus, it makes me think of the time that I shared with Chris. And so I appreciate you sharing that. I think that learning from others is one of the best ways to form our own thoughts and ideas and principles.

One of the experiences that I think of the most in terms of my own education as a student was teachers who made me feel really special, who listened very well. And some of those experiences I had with those educators—they’re things that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Can you think of any experiences recently where a student has been recognized or celebrated and you think, “Gosh, this is going to be a moment that this young person remembers for the rest of their life”?

Michelle Gauthier
Absolutely. And there’s a few of them, and I have so many memories too. So I’ll just tell you one little story about—I was at a Starbucks, this was a number of years ago, maybe 10 years ago. And this young man stopped me, and he goes, “Miss Gauthier?”

And I’m like—and I’ve taught so many kids over the years. And he introduced himself, and he goes, “You might not remember me, but you taught me grade eight. And I used to like the environment. And you brought me a little flyer that you saw in the Body Shop. And you said it made you think of me, and you gave it to me, and you influenced me to go into environmental sciences.”

And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” We never know the tiny little things we do, the impact they have.

But to answer your question a little bit more about something more recent, I have a student—so I had an opportunity about three weeks ago. The principal of our Safe Schools program reached out to a few principals and said—“We have this opportunity to recognize a student who exemplifies kindness, leadership, and joy. Do you have a student in mind?”

And I was like, “Yes.”

And it was not hard for me to think of who. And it’s this young girl in our school. Her name is Favour. And, you know, she has made it her mission this year to bring joy. And I have to say, it’s been our focus at Frank Ryan on just building character and how important it is and the elements of character.

She’s in grade eight now, so it’s her second year. And she came to me early in the year and she asked, “Miss Gauthier, can I do the joke of the week?” Because we had—she loves jokes.

And I said, “Sure.”

And so she was putting jokes on our daily announcements. And then one day, I was walking through the hall and, geez, Favour is telling me a joke every day. And I asked her, “You know, Favour, you must really like jokes.”

And she said, “I do. Jokes make people happy and make people laugh. And I think that’s really important. And I want to make people laugh.”

So I wrote that up in that little quick blurb to the Safe Schools principal, who sent it to the police, and she was chosen for the bike.

And it was so sweet. When we went to the police station on the weekend—the Ride to Remember is just a ride that police officers across the province of Ontario do to remember fallen officers. And they ride all the way from Thunder Bay to Ottawa, and they stop along the way.

At each stop, they were going to gift a youth with a bike. So here we are on Saturday, and Favour was our chosen student for Ottawa. Her dad was there, her sister was there, and they’re not a family that has a lot.

And just the pride on their faces—the pride of her dad wanting to have his picture with her and the officer. When they did the presentation, they said a little bit about why she was chosen, that she likes to say jokes. And so they gave her an opportunity. She wasn’t shy at all, and she had a joke for the chief of police.

So here’s this grade eight student ready to tell the chief of police a joke. And she said, “What do you call a bike that can’t stand?”

And he looked at her, and she said, “Any guesses?”

And she’s so confident with him—I was so proud of her. And he’s like, “No.”

And she said, “Too tired.”

Michelle Gauthier
And everybody just laughed.

It was so perfect. But that is something I think she will remember. I will remember for sure. That’ll bring her forward, and we’re celebrating that as a community. We took pictures of her, and we put it on our daily announcements, celebrating her as a role model for the other students as well.

Just be a good person, and the world will work in your favour, you know. So, yeah, that was a really sweet, sweet memory that I’ll have for a long time, and I think she will too.

Sam Demma
The Starbucks experience is one that I think a lot of teachers can resonate with. And this story about Favour is one that I’ll also remember for a long time. While you were sharing it, it made me think of students’ pathways in life.

And maybe Favour will be a comedian in the future. If jokes are something that she is extremely passionate about, you just never know. I think it’s so important to give young people platforms to explore the things that make them excited. And maybe “Joke of the Week” becomes “Joke of the Day” if she has that much comedy or jokes to share.

Hearing that the family showed up and how happy, excited, and confident she was is such a beautiful story. So I appreciate you for sharing that on the show.

Michelle Gauthier
My pleasure.

Sam Demma
I know that there are likely many educators tuning in who are needing a little bit more joy and laughter in their life. If there’s an educator listening who’s feeling a little burnt out, and the start of the school year has been a little bit challenging, what advice would you share with them or words of support?

Michelle Gauthier
So I think the big one for me is to remember why you’re here. You’re here for the kids.

Find the joy, you know, find the joy in the kids. It’s been an intense start for us at Frank Ryan—just a lot going on, all good, but a lot going on. And last week, there was a moment where I was a little bit overwhelmed and feeling stuck in my office.

And I just said, “I gotta get out.”

And I went out, and I just—I went to the cafeteria where all the grade sevens—so 250, you know, 11- and 12-year-olds gathered in one room. You can imagine the chaos that that is. And I just stood in the middle of it.

And one of the teachers said to me, “Are you looking for someone?”

And I’m like, “No, no, I just needed to be here. I just needed to be in the middle of this chaos of these beautiful kids and just reconnect to the joy and reconnect to why we’re here.”

And all these kids, it may seem chaotic and crazy, but they’re all smiling. They’re having fun. And I think, you know, when we’re getting overwhelmed, it’s just to sit back and remember why we’re here.

These kids are just precious, and it’s not an easy road, especially pre-adolescence and intermediate school. It’s not an easy task. I’m not sure I’d want to go back to grade seven and eight. So just to remember that we are privileged to be educators, and we have a real privilege to be able to make a difference for these kids and help them when life is hard.

Life is not easy for kids these days when we look at all that they’re facing. So what a gift we have to bring joy. And when you’re feeling a bit depleted, find the kid that brings you joy.

Sam Demma
That’s such good advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show, Michelle, and share some of your ideas around counseling, being a good listener, your leadership style, some of the stories of impact in your schools, the importance of wellbeing, and supporting the staff in the building.

It’s been a privilege chatting with you. Keep up the amazing work, keep up the laughter and the joy in the building, and I look forward to crossing paths again very soon.

Michelle Gauthier
Yeah, we hope to have you back soon, Sam. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Michelle Gauthier

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 5, 2024 by Education Educator Principals School Administration School Counsellor Student Success Teachers 0

Martina Fasano – Principal at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School

Martina Fasano – Principal at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School
About Martina Fasano 

Martina Fasano began her teaching career in 2003 at YCDSB’s St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School. She also taught grade 8 at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Elementary School before returning to the secondary panel and eventually serving as the department head of Canadian and World Studies at St. Maximilian Kolbe, where she taught economics, law, and history. As a vice-principal, Martina has had the honour and privilege of serving both the Our Lady Queen of the World Catholic Academy as well as the St. Brother Andre Catholic High School communities prior to being appointed as the principal of St. Elizabeth.

Martina has served on various committees at the Board level, including the YSCPC (York Secondary Catholic President’s Council), Drug and Alcohol Awareness (DAW), and the Covid-19 Logistics and Planning Committee. She was also a member of the committee that developed teacher resources for the history curriculum revisions which focused on the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action to embed Indigenous history into the grade 10 history curriculum in Ontario. As a member of the Ontario History and Social Science Teacher’s Association (OHASSTA), Martina also developed curriculum-based teacher modules on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Education as part of a targeted project about the role of school trustees.

Throughout her career, Martina’s passion for engaging students has been at the forefront of her efforts toward forward thinking curriculum development in the social sciences, student leadership, school-based digital tool implementation, arts education, school/student safety, and data-informed school improvement. She has also had the opportunity to work with music industry professionals in the capacity of musician, author, social media manager, and public relations strategy. These experiences have allowed Martina to connect student learning to the world beyond the classroom, and bring exciting and dynamic opportunities to the school communities that she has served.

Connect with Martina Fasano: Email | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School

Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Elementary School

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Our Lady Queen of the World Catholic Academy

St. Brother Andre Catholic High School

St. Elizabeth Catholic High School

Ontario History and Social Science Teacher’s 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 we are joined by my good friend, Martina Fasano. Martina and I met just over a year ago now. She began her teaching career just over 20 years ago, and she is now a phenomenal principal of a school in the York Catholic District School Board. I’m going to allow her to introduce herself.

Sam Demma
Martina, please share a little bit about who you are with the audience.

Martina Fasano
Thank you so much for having me, Sam. Yeah, it’s been almost over a year now, which before you did your first gig here at St. E’s. So yes, I’m the principal here at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School, home of the Regional Arts Program as well, and having a great time.

Sam Demma
So you have one of the most interactive offices I’ve ever walked into in a school building. There are records hanging on the wall, guitars, and interesting objects on the shelves. Tell me a little bit about your own involvement in the arts that makes you so passionate about being at St. Elizabeth.

Martina Fasano
Absolutely, so I’ve been myself a musician probably since I was about maybe in the fifth grade or so. I’m not counting the drum set that I got when I was about four years old. But so that part is something very near and dear to my heart. Arts education in general for me was really something that helped shape who I am and the self-discipline that came from it. It was an even playing field, is what I would call it.

You start out where I was very fortunate. I was in a school board in Toronto, a Toronto Catholic as a student, and we started our music education programs there in grade 6 with a full band program. So that was the first time I had actually played music in a group, and you basically had a chance to start from scratch and learn an instrument, practice, and do all those things.

And I figured out very quickly that if you just practice and you play all the right notes at the right time, then everything sounds nice. So that’s kind of a metaphor too, for life in general, which is kind of where I took it. I started out as a saxophone player—that was my first instrument—together with piano. And then by the time I got to be a teenager, I added guitar in there because I was listening to a lot of rock, metal, and grunge at the time. It was the height of the grunge era, let’s say, with Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all those guys.

But definitely something that I carried into adulthood, into university. You jump from high school into post-secondary or into “What am I going to do with my life?” To quote Dee Snider from Twisted Sister, “What are you going to do with your life?” We want to rock, right? So I looked at going into the music industry from a more—not just the creative aspect—but looked into the business side of things.

That didn’t really resonate with me because I wasn’t doing anything that I enjoyed in my post-secondary program. I started out in business administration, and I thought, “I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I’m bored. There’s no creativity happening anywhere.” People work in cubicles. I can’t do that. And that’s why my office looks the way it does. It needs to have things in it that bring joy, make me happy, and serve as conversation pieces.

Because when a student walks in, for me, this is just my workspace. But for a student, especially if they’ve never been in trouble, they assume the principal is there to get you in trouble. So I don’t see it that way. But I noticed very early on in my career as an administrator, they see the title that’s on the door. And I noticed that having a lot of these little things around helped kind of put them at ease because they were conversation pieces.

So we get to that before we get to why the student was there. And most often, the student actually is not here because they’re in trouble. So it’s kind of a reputation thing—people think you only get sent to the principal’s office when you’re in trouble—but we’re dealing a lot more with supporting students as opposed to discipline.

Sam Demma
Well, you’re also the only principal that has a record on the wall with the plaque and their name on it. What is it all about?

Martina Fasano
So, the one that’s hanging in my office was actually when I left a school I was at, St. Maximilian Colby. The Canadian World Studies Department re-recorded Hotel California and changed all the lyrics as a goodbye gift. So that’s what’s hanging on the wall. And the little plaque actually has all of the changed lyrics, which are actually quite funny if you read them.

And it’s interesting because I do have a real one at home that 17-year-old me probably would have been really, really happy about. And, you know, wouldn’t have believed me if I said, “You’re going to end up getting a platinum record, but it’s not for what you think.” You’re not going to be in the band, you’re not going to be one of the producers, and you’re not going to be one of the managers, but it’s going to happen by way of your involvement in the music industry somehow.

And I would have laughed at you and said, “Sure, okay, whatever.” But I ended up being a ghostwriter for a rock musician, and that was the gift. The gift was the platinum record from the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack because the band that the artist originally recorded with, The Runaways, which is Joan Jett’s first band, had a number-one song, Cherry Bomb, which went to number one when Guardians of the Galaxy came out as a movie.

So, the record went platinum, and that person that I ghostwrote for was in that band. They got the platinum record and decided to also get me one because I was working on her book at the time. It was just about finished when that happened.

So that’s kind of cool. You’re right, I don’t know of any other principals that maybe came to education for the same reason. For me, it was like, “Why do you want to work with young people? Why do you want to specifically be around teenagers all day?” I get that question a lot.

And for me, it’s quite easy. There’s an energy to young people and a hope to young people that they naturally have that unfortunately, for a long time, schools have kind of almost stifled. And I thought in my wisdom as a young person myself when I made the decision, “If I can maybe change the way schools work, maybe it doesn’t have to be boring, maybe it doesn’t have to be something where there’s all these expectations, instead of actually cultivating a lifelong love of learning.”

Because when you look at, “My mom really wants me to do this and go to university to have this job, and I don’t want to do it, and I don’t know how to tell her,” I’ve had quite a few conversations with students and their parents about that. The fact that I switched my major halfway through from business administration to fine arts cultural studies, talk about a complete polar opposite.

But you have to find what brings you joy. You can make lots of money and maybe even be powerful in some cases doing something that you don’t enjoy. But you’re not going to be as good at it, in my view. You’re not going to be as fulfilled as a human being. And in the end, for me, it was like, I would like to be for young people what I would have needed at the age that I was at all along the way.

And that goes for why I became a vice principal or a principal as well. What did I need when I was a first-year teacher? So that’s what you try to be for somebody else.

Sam Demma
What do you think first-year teachers need to hear, specifically ones that are starting in the education space today, with so much change, especially coming out of the pandemic?

Martina Fasano
That they don’t need to be afraid to take a risk. That it is supposed to be difficult, that all great things are, but that they don’t have to do school and classrooms the way maybe they experienced and to not be afraid to be different.

Because right now, in my personal view, we’ve been doing education wrong for a long time. We have all the great people in the buildings, we have all the great programming in the buildings, we have a curriculum that helps us open those doors. But we are also based on a model that came to be in the 1800s as part of the Industrial Revolution.

Public education was meant to get everyone in line and trained to go to work. Sitting in rows, being obedient, and doing repetitive drills—memorization and all these things. Maybe for that world, those were the skills that were needed. But right now, we live in a world that schools haven’t caught up with yet, if that makes sense.

A perfect example: I was at the Billie Eilish concert last night, and you have the stereotype that young people are lazy, not passionate about things. I saw about 20,000 young people who were quite passionate about what they were seeing. They weren’t bored, they weren’t lazy—they were jumping up and down. The place was almost thunderous.

And in my view, I thought to myself, “This is what school should be like with all these young people in a building. Why are we trying to make everybody so quiet?” It doesn’t make sense to me. So part of being here at St. Elizabeth and having the Regional Arts Program here is that you get to showcase that. You get to see people being creative all day long.

Even if someone’s not in the Regional Arts Program, they still get the benefit of being in that space where creativity is free to flow and to happen. It has an impact on the children that surround those kids that are in the program.

So that’s definitely what I say to a first-year teacher: Don’t be afraid to take the risk. Don’t be afraid to be authentic. The students will see right through you if you’re not.

Sam Demma
I perform at many schools, and I intentionally call it a performance for the same reason you think students shouldn’t be quiet. Like, it needs to be an experience where they have a say and a voice in it, and it speaks to them on an emotional level—not just an educational level—and evokes emotion.

So many times, I’ll finish a speech or a performance, and one of the teachers will walk over and go, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry that the students were so loud.” And I say, “No, I encourage it! I egg them on throughout the performance. I want that. Yes, this is what we want. We don’t want them to just sit there with their legs crossed and hands on their lap, just looking in silence.”

Martina Fasano
Yep. You don’t learn if you’re being passive; there’s no learning happening. I distinctly remember being in my second year of teaching, and I was teaching English at the time. The play we were doing was Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

I always had a problem with Shakespeare being taught the way it was. I used to say, “Us reading Shakespeare like a book is the same as showing children a movie by reading the screenplay.” It’s a play—you’re not supposed to be reading it; you’re supposed to be acting it out.

So, I had a relatively rowdy class. I remember that distinctly. I said, “I can’t do this to these kids. The things my department gave me to use, this is not what we’re going to do. We can’t do this. These children will not only get nothing out of this and miss the complete point of the story, but you cannot expect a young person to want to read that old English text as a dramatic piece and not ask them to act it out and see what’s going on.”

So, we constructed this day where we said, “First, we have to figure out what this section of the play is about. Where are we? What’s going on? Romeo and Juliet meet at the party.” So, we basically said, “We’re going to make it a masquerade party.”

We made masks and everything else. I had the vice principal, bless her heart, come by. There was all this noise coming out of my classroom. She knocks on the door, and I opened it, horrified. I thought, “Oh my God, someone must have complained, or something happened.”

I explained, “We’re acting it out because it’s a play.” And there was this pause, and I thought, “This is it; I’m in trouble.” But then she said, “I’m so glad that all this noise is coming out of here because it means the kids are learning. Keep it up and have a nice day.”

The kids thought they were in trouble too! What does that say? If we’re learning stuff and having a good time, we must be in trouble? So, as a classroom teacher, I made it a point to do things that are fun. You have to because if you don’t, you don’t learn. Even if some of them are cheesy or purposely cheesy, they’ll remember them because they’re memorable.

Sam Demma
I couldn’t agree more. I absolutely love that you shared that story, and I hope the educator listening to this reshapes how they think about student engagement. There’s a phenomenal book I’ve been reading called The Advantage by a guy named Patrick Lencioni. He talks about the difference between really successful organizations and ones that fall flat on their face.

One thing he mentions is cohesion among the leadership team. It could be cohesion in a classroom or a staff room. He says the whole team needs to weigh in their thoughts and have constructive disagreements. If the whole team doesn’t weigh in, they won’t buy in.

So, if there’s no weigh-in, there’s no buy-in. That stuck out in my head. When you think about a classroom, students weigh in by using their voice. You don’t want silent people silently agreeing. Silent agreement means they’ll leave the classroom and tell their friends, “I disagree with everything we just talked about in the classroom.”

You want thoughtful disagreement to come up with the best ideas. I love that you shared that story. Thank you so much.

Martina Fasano
Absolutely. There’s a lot more where that came from. I eventually got the hint that if you don’t engage them, they won’t learn. Some of those kids in that class had repeated referrals to the office when they were in someone else’s class—repeated.

I knew that coming in because sometimes, unfortunately, I’d get warned and told, “Oh, you have so-and-so; watch out.” I did my best to know my audience. The best thing about teaching is the powerful, real-time feedback.

If you’re teaching a lesson and everyone’s asleep, guess what? You’re not reaching anybody. But you have that feedback in front of you. If you’re willing to step away from what you think you should be, because maybe that’s what you were used to or how you learned, you can adjust.

We’re preparing students for a world that doesn’t even exist yet, using methods and tools from an era long gone. Then we wonder why students aren’t engaged or willing to take creative risks. Starting from when they’re four years old, we teach them compliance. Line up in a straight line, or you get in trouble.

Structure is important because people thrive in it, but there’s a difference between structure for compliance and structure for growth. They’re two very different things.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I love that. It’s like having a fence that keeps people in a space, but within that fence, there’s freedom. Is there any experience you’ve had as an educator or principal where you’ve had a big learning experience—something you tried that didn’t work out the way you thought but became a pivotal learning moment?

Martina Fasano
Absolutely. One of the first things I learned as an administrator was related to communication. Let’s say there’s an initiative or a memo you put out, and a couple of teachers don’t follow through or do something different.

It’s easy to send a staff-wide email saying, “Remember to do this,” when really, you’re talking to just two people. I learned from doing that once that it’s not the best approach.

As a classroom teacher, how would I feel if I got that email and I was already doing everything right? So now, when I communicate, I think about the high-performing teachers doing amazing work. I base my decisions on the best people in the organization, not the outliers who didn’t follow through this week.

That applies to classroom management too. If you punish the whole class for one student’s behavior, it affects everyone’s morale. Make decisions based on your best people—it goes a long way.

Sam Demma
That’s such good feedback. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, and I know the person listening feels the same. If they want to reach out, is it okay to put your email on the podcast page?

Martina Fasano
Absolutely. They can also follow me on Instagram, where we post about our school’s Regional Arts Program, performances, exhibits, and more. There’s always a lot going on, which is why the hive metaphor works—it’s always buzzing, and that’s a good thing.

Sam Demma
It’s been such a pleasure. Keep up the great work, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.

Martina Fasano
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Sam. All the best.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Martina Fasano

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 3, 2024 by Education Educator Mental Health Principals School Administration Student Leadership Teachers 0

Sylvain Bastien – High school teacher/guidance counsellor at École Secondaire Catholique Renaissance

Sylvain Bastien – High school teacher/guidance counsellor at École Secondaire Catholique Renaissance
About Sylvain Bastien

Sylvain Bastien is a high school teacher/guidance counsellor at École Secondaire Catholique Renaissance in Aurora, Ontario.  He is a proud franco-ontarian, born and raised in northern Ontario who enjoys the little things in life, or “petits bonheurs” as he likes to call them.  Former camp counsellor, gymnastics coach and national-level athlete, Sylvain spent most of his time growing up in a leadership role or working with kids.  He knew from a young age that he would become a teacher and continues to be a leader in his school community.  

For the first part of his career, Sylvain was a physical education teacher and shared his passion for a healthy and active lifestyle with students in courses like Fitness and Kinesiology.  He then moved to a guidance position before the pandemic and, with the help of his colleague, is continuously finding new ways to improve student well-being, student engagement and school spirit, all with the end goal of helping students become the very best version of themselves. 

Sylvain coaches the cross-country and track and field teams, works with the student council and helps with many other clubs and activities at the school.  He leads the SHSM Program at the school and has been a department lead for many years.  He is always seeking personal and professional growth by running, reading and balancing the demands of a chaotic life with three kids in sports! 

Connect with Sylvain Bastien: Email

Listen Now


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Resources Mentioned

École Secondaire Catholique Renaissance

SHSM 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, Sam Demma. And today we are joined by Sylvain Bastien. He’s a high school teacher, guidance counselor, and one of my good friends. He is someone who I met just over a year ago now, and he’s running a lot, so you should follow him on Strava. But he’s doing a lot of good work. Sylvain, please take a moment to introduce yourself.

Sylvain Bastien
Hey, Sam. Thank you very much for having me on the show. This is a pretty cool experience, and I’m happy to be here. Like Sam said, my name is Sylvain. I’m a high school teacher. I’ve been in the education world for over 15 years now. I started out with phys ed courses, fitness classes, teaching kinesiology. And then, I’d say about seven or eight years ago, I moved over into guidance, which was a big change for me. So I have since been a full-time guidance counselor with the odd course here and there, kind of keeping my foot in the classroom, which is really what lights me up the most. So yeah, that’s pretty much where I’m at in my professional world.

Sam Demma
When you were a national-level athlete, did you think you were one day going to work in education? Like, what was your own path like as a student?

Sylvain Bastien
I feel like education was always calling my name. I’ve always been involved with different activities that involved kids or teenagers and communities. It started out, even myself when I was in high school. Every opportunity I had to do something fun and be around my peers, that would just light me up. Then I kind of took the initiative of leading different activities and kind of took over some activities, and that just lit up the fire even more.

This led me to work at summer camps for seven summers, where kids would come spend their Monday to Friday with us. It was a residential camp, so they’d stay overnight. My involvement in gymnastics obviously always had me around young athletes and kids of all ages aspiring to be the next best gymnast. So, I was always around kids, and that always kind of fueled me. I knew that once I would have to move on to my career, the education world was where I was heading.

Sam Demma
How did your own involvement in sports growing up shape your future?

Sylvain Bastien
Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I talk about that all the time. Whether it be sport or any extracurricular, I feel like that really is what shapes you as a person. And I credit many people for that in my situation. It definitely did shape me because I had the pleasure of being surrounded by individuals with the same mentality and vision as myself.

It pushes you to learn things that you don’t always learn in a school setting or at home. It makes you develop certain habits and discover new things about yourself. I feel like all those years were definitely the good years. I owe a lot of who I am today to what I did back then.

Sam Demma
Sports still continue to be a massive part of your life because you’re in the parking lot of swimming pools a few times a week, and you’re also spending lots of time running. How important do you feel exercise is in ensuring you show up to the best of your ability at school?

Sylvain Bastien
It’s always been a big part of my life. Every day I had something active or an activity going on. Because of everything that gave me as a person, I feel like I want to give it back to as many people as possible.

In the early years of my career, when I was in the fitness classes teaching kids, we’d start with a group of 15 kids who had never run before, and they didn’t want to run. All they wanted to do was lift weights. I put them on a mission and said, “Guys, we can do something pretty cool if we set our minds to it.”

My tradition with my fitness class was always to plan to run a 10k with the students. We would have the semester to do it. At the beginning of the semester, the kids were always unsure if they could do it. But then they got into the swing of things, discovered a lot about themselves, and realized they were capable of pretty big things.

Sam Demma
One of the consistent things about your career has been working with young people, whether as a coach, guidance counselor, or teacher. How do you think you build effective rapport and relationships with young people?

Sylvain Bastien
I feel like it’s a lot in what we do and what we display as a person. We have to be the leader and set the example we expect our students or kids to follow. I strive to show students that it’s okay to have fun and be yourself.

We live in a world now where everything could be made easy, but I really try to build on the satisfaction and reward factor of putting in the work and seeing progression. That feeling of pride and accomplishment is what I want them to chase.

Sam Demma
Would you be willing to share one of those moments that reminded you why you started doing this work in the first place?

Sylvain Bastien
One of my favorite moments is at the beginning of the school year, when we host a traditional camp to welcome new students. Senior students lead activities for younger students, and it’s always a highlight. It’s amazing to see students from different social circles come together, be themselves, and shine. It reminds me why I love doing this work.

Sam Demma
In a world where students are constantly comparing themselves to others on social media, what challenges do you see students carrying on their shoulders?

Sylvain Bastien
A big challenge is students being afraid to be their authentic selves. In guidance, we focus on creating an environment where students feel it’s okay to have fun and be themselves. It’s a constant effort to help them build the skills they need to succeed and thrive.

Sam Demma
You also spearhead the SHSM programs at your school. Can you explain what SHSM is?

Sylvain Bastien
SHSM stands for Specialist High Skills Major. It allows students in grades 11 and 12 to earn certifications and participate in reach-ahead experiences with college and university partners, all while earning a specialized diploma in sectors like health and wellness or business. It’s a great way for students to build skills and network in their field of interest.

Sam Demma
How do you balance your professional responsibilities with your personal life?

Sylvain Bastien
It’s definitely challenging, but my wife and I make a good team. Living an active lifestyle helps us manage everything. We’ve been fortunate to find supportive communities in our kids’ sports, and that’s been a blessing. It takes a village, and we’re lucky to have one.

Sam Demma
It’s inspiring to see how you manage everything and still make time for what’s important. If an educator wants to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Sylvain Bastien
The best way would be via email. I’m happy to connect with anyone looking for information.

Sam Demma
Thank you, Sylvain. Keep up the amazing work, and I look forward to running with you soon.

Sylvain Bastien
Thank you very much, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sylvain Bastien

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 28, 2024 by Education Educator Mental Health Student Leadership Teachers 0

Sheena Tupper – Administrative Assistant to Fred Svoboda & Clayton Ulrich at Cenovus

Sheena Tupper – Administrative Assistant to Fred Svoboda & Clayton Ulrich at Cenovus
About Sheena Tupper

Sheena Tupper has been a dedicated member of the Cenovus team since 2010, starting her career as a field administrator. Over the past four years, she has taken on the role of assistant to two Senior Managers, where she has continued to thrive in a dynamic work environment. While Sheena enjoys the responsibilities of her job, it is her passion for fostering a positive workplace culture that truly sets her apart.

As an introverted extrovert, Sheena is deeply invested in the well-being of her colleagues. She believes that a supportive and engaging work environment is essential, as many spend a significant portion of their day at the office. This belief has inspired her to initiate various workplace events aimed at enhancing job satisfaction and camaraderie among staff.

A strong advocate for health and well-being, Sheena is a passionate gym-goer and food enthusiast, making fitness and nutrition a significant part of her life. She encourages her colleagues to embrace a healthy lifestyle, reflecting her commitment to promoting overall wellness.

Sheena’s dedication to her colleagues extends beyond the workplace; she strives to create a sense of comfort and community in all aspects of her life. Looking ahead, she is excited to continue planning events and supporting her team, always with the goal of making Cenovus a better place for everyone.

Connect with Sheena Tupper: Instagram | Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Cenovus Energy

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’m joined by my good friend, Sheena Tupper. Sheena has been a dedicated member of the Cenovus team since 2010. We met last year and we’ve stayed in touch. She knows about all the little coffee shops in some rural parts in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Sam Demma
And I’m super grateful to have her on the show today. Sheena, just quickly introduce yourself and thanks so much for being here.

Sheena Tupper
Yeah, of course, I’m super excited. I guess the why we connected was through your friend, Cross, and I’m so happy that you guys could come to our community and have that conversation. As for myself, I guess, yeah, like you said, I’ve been working at Cenovus for, yeah, 14 years. And why I got into the industry was when you’re in Lloydminster, like oil and gas is, this is what you do.

Sheena Tupper
I think it’s like when you’re born, it’s like put into your bloodstream, perhaps. I don’t know. But anyways, yeah, I started at a young age and throughout my career, I had lots of different opportunities and I guess meeting with tons of different people. And now I’m an assistant to two senior managers. It’s been a whirlwind.

Sheena Tupper
There’s lots of ups and downs, especially when oil crashes. We go through all of that. The main thing that keeps me going, to be honest, some days are definitely hard and stressful, but the people are huge and that’s where I do really good at.

Sam Demma
You mentioned they put oil and gas in your bloodstream. Did you know from a young age that you were going to work in oil and gas or what did you have envisioned for your future?

Sheena Tupper
Well, honestly, when I started, I didn’t even know. Like, my spouse’s dad worked at Husky Energy, like what Cenovus used to be. And I didn’t even know, like, he was like, “Oh yeah, he checks wells.” I’m like, “What’s that?” Like I didn’t know because my family, they weren’t in oil and gas. And then, yeah, I had a job interview, and I went downstairs, and they told me about like all these—this is where like the gas is and the oil field and all of this. I’m like, “Oh, okay.” I had no clue.

Sheena Tupper
And like, once you’re in, like, good luck getting out because that’s what Lloyd is. And that’s like the main, yeah, hub of jobs, and it pays well. So it’s hard to, it’s hard to get out, that’s for sure.

Sheena Tupper
Yeah, fair. It was—I was so grateful that we were able to come. Luckily, we escaped and were able to come home. Yeah, well, the community, I think it’s such a good community and like, it’s so nice. So I’m not surprised you didn’t stay, especially with everyone like who you were connected to, right?

Sam Demma
Yeah, no, it was so cool to meet members of the team and work out locally. I can’t remember the name of the gym, but it was such an awesome… Oh, Viking! Shout out to Viking! Yeah. You’re someone who’s a big advocate for mental wellness and mental health and you bring it into your work at Cenovus, which is so important.

Sam Demma
Where did that passion or advocacy for mental health come from for you?

Sheena Tupper
I think I guess growing up, I just felt like I was such an emotional person, like super sensitive and I always had that on the back of my mind, so I felt like it needed a little extra attention. And once I got into working, there were times when I’d be stressed. I knew the right avenues to go, and I wasn’t afraid to reach out. And I feel like the stigma, obviously, is when you’re going through stuff, a lot of people keep it internalized.

Sheena Tupper
I just wanted it to make the new norm, and obviously, it’s helping with time. But I just think it’s super important. And then when I started going to the gym, it just came hand in hand. I initially went—it was probably 12 years ago—I was like, “Oh, I need to lose a little bit of weight. I was feeling a little fluffy.” So yeah, it just came hand in hand.

Sheena Tupper
I was losing all this weight and I was feeling so good. I can’t even describe it, what was going through me, but it just felt so good. I talked to my friends about it and then I was talking to people at work about it and they were noticing just such a change in me, not physically but mentally too. I’m in a position now that I can help the staff and I think it’s a really cool—even though, you know, I’m an assistant and like that’s fun and all; it’s what I have to do—but it’s just like another side that I can do and like help all of our staff and just make it.

Sheena Tupper
You know, we spend so much time at work. It’s so nice to be able to connect and just have that. So I’m trying to do whatever I can to help people.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. I think you’re in such a cool position where you have the opportunity to provide experiences to other human beings that could use the support and use the celebration and the cool moments that are not always just sitting at the cubicle.

Sheena Tupper
Oh, exactly. And I would have never thought, you know, like luckily we do work for a great company that I never thought that I could ever bring like you from Toronto to come to Lloydminster on the border and do this. I was just like, wow, this is cool. Like we’re so lucky. And like people, you know, were hearing about it at different companies and they were hearing about it at schools, and they’re just like, wow, you guys are so fortunate.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. And I mean, if it wasn’t for you and the conversations we had, it wouldn’t have happened. And what other things do you have planned or what are you looking forward to or excited about this year?

Sheena Tupper
Oh, jeez.
And I kind of go by the seat of my pants sometimes. I know last year we did a lot of, we had like a nutritionist come in. We actually had Viking come in and do a, just like a little chat about working out and like your mental health.

Sheena Tupper
And then I did chat with them, and I’m hoping to get them in for like a—because now our gym is upgraded downstairs, so that’s nice. So I just wanted them to come in and do like a, where people can do kind of bookings of time slots and then they can do a little bit of a workout and just show them how, like, what they’re doing. Cause I can’t be booked all the time. I think that’d be cool.

Sheena Tupper
And what else? Nothing yet. Like, we recently had someone come in and do a suicide awareness session. And we actually had someone from our construction team, Tammy, who did a chat about her journey. And it was such a huge, huge chat. It took a lot of courage for her to do that, and she just told her story so well. And that was a really good—not awakening—but it was really intense, that topic obviously. They went through all the stats and gas and oil fields and people, so it was pretty deep, but it was a really good conversation, and I think it needed to happen.

Sam Demma
I think there’s so many conversations that need to happen that are a little difficult to have, not only in terms of sharing our personal stories but even conversations with colleagues. And you deal with those types of conversations all the time. How do you approach difficult conversations? Like what are your strategies for that?

Sheena Tupper
I don’t have to—people come to me, so they’re approaching me, and I’m like, okay. It’s a lot to take in for all these people, but I just listen, more or less, and ask them, “How can I help you?” Because half the time, like, you know, you’re not going to see any changes unless you do something about it, but half the time they don’t want that, you know? They’re just talking it through.

Sheena Tupper
And like, say when I talk to Fred, I’ll be like, “Hey, I don’t want you to do anything with this topic that I’m going to bring up, but I just—I need you to hear me out. I might be bawling my eyes out, but I just need someone to bounce this off of and have this conversation and just to see like kind of where I stand or where—you know, am I in the wrong? Or help me out.” So he’s like, “Yeah, no, that’s all good.”

Sheena Tupper
Because I had someone in the past that I wanted that to happen to, and he ended up taking it way above, and I didn’t want that. I wasn’t in that state of mind that it needed to escalate. So yeah, I kind of lost a little bit of trust in that. So right out of the get-go, I say like, “Hey, this is what I just want,” you know? Because he was just like, oh my gosh, like he couldn’t handle what I brought to him. It was just something minor, but yeah, it was kind of crappy because then I ended up having to take some time off.

Sam Demma
Hard to say. I think it’s cool that you now share your expectations at the forefront. “Okay, I just want you to listen to this. It’s nothing to escalate. It’s just I need an ear right now.”

Sheena Tupper
Yes, absolutely. I had a conversation with a friend named Chris, who was also like a mentor to me. And I was very emotional. I just had 30 presentations canceled after COVID hit, and I called him on my phone, and I was bawling my eyes out. And he just spent 40 minutes listening. He didn’t say nothing. Like you said, he just listened. And I got off the phone call like, this guy just solved all my problems. And he didn’t even say anything the whole time.

Sam Demma
Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, I thought like, you know, when someone comes and asks me for help now, like you said, I’ll ask them, “Hey, are you looking for help brainstorming a solution, or do you just want me to be here with you?” And I think you’re right. Like most of the time, people would just say, “Yeah, I just—I just want you to be here.” Someone is willing to listen.

Sheena Tupper
And it’s nice to have that—like share kind of similar stories too. So they make that like—I have a friend that was going through that, and she just—I’m like, “I get it. I, you know, I have ups and downs too.”

Sheena Tupper
And yeah, do what you can. And then on the days that you think that is a struggle…you know, tomorrow’s a new day. Brush it off, move on.

Sam Demma
This has been such a lovely conversation about well-being, positive habits, and supporting colleagues. Thank you, Sheena, for being so open and honest. Keep doing the good work!

Sheena Tupper
Thanks so much, Sam!

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sheena Tupper

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 21, 2024 by Administrative Support Mental Health 0

Brian Robson – Executive Director of the Ontario Tech Student Union (OTSU) at Ontario Tech University 

Brian Robson – Executive Director of the Ontario Tech Student Union (OTSU) at Ontario Tech University
About Brian Robson

Brian Robson is the Executive Director of the Ontario Tech Student Union (OTSU) at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Ontario, where he leads a team of full-time, part-time and student staff who strive to enhance the campus experience for nearly 11,000 students. At the OTSU, Brian steward policies, mentors student executives, oversees elections, oversees numerous services, programs and events as well as over 100 Clubs & Societies, liaises with University Senior Leaders, and charts long-term strategic planning.

Prior to joining OTSU in late 2023, Brian was a Director of Training Programs and Business Development at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) for several years. There, he directed the action-research teams leading entrepreneurship and skills-training programs at local, provincial and national levels. He has presented papers on this work at international and national conferences. Prior to TMU, Brian served in previous roles in Financial Services, education and non-profit organizations. He earned a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Toronto, and an MBA (Globalization) from the Ted Rogers School of Management at TMU. His passion is shaping emerging leaders and diverse teams for the future of work in a changing economy.

Connect with Brian Robson: Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Ontario Tech Student Union (OTSU)

Ontario Tech University

Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)

Ted Rogers School of Management

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 on the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma, and today we are joined by Brian Robson. Brian is the Executive Director of the Ontario Tech Student Union for the Ontario Tech University in Oshawa. It is the university of the Durham region, and that’s where I’m from. Brian, it’s so awesome to have someone on the show today that’s basically from the backyard. How are you?

Brian Robson
Good, thank you. You’re my homie here today.

Sam Demma
It’s good. Yeah, man. Did you grow up in the Durham region or where is home for you?

Brian Robson
I did not. I actually grew up out west. I’ve lived in three different provinces in Canada, four different city centers, but I have been in Durham region for a number of years now. I bought my first house out here and still here, and I’ve lived in Pickering, Whitby, Ajax. So, it has been home now for a long time.

Sam Demma
Did you know when you were growing up, living in different provinces or different cities that one day you would work in education? Or what brought you here in your own career pathway?

Brian Robson
Yeah, that’s a great question. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I did get a sense of that, I guess, sort of mid to late teens. Mid to late teens, just with some stuff that I was involved in, kind of like you, I discovered that I was good at public speaking. And so I had a chance to use that and to be involved in different things where I had a chance to do that. People would say to me, they say, “You’re a teacher. That’s kind of your thing. You’re a teacher kind of guy.” And I sort of stuck and I realized, yeah, I guess that’s kind of what I am. So then when I started my post-secondary education journey, which has been long, I kind of realized that that is where I would like to be, is in the post-secondary space. I don’t want to be a high school teacher, elementary school teacher. I want post-secondary. So I went on then to earn several degrees, including a PhD from the University of Toronto with the intention of being a professor. So that was my goal, that was my career objective. But the reason I wanted to become a professor is because I didn’t want to just be a subject matter expert and I didn’t want to just teach a subject. I wanted to shape students. So my tagline for a long, long time has been empowering or emerging leaders. So I wanted to build leaders. I wanted to educate and empower emerging leaders. And I thought I would do that in the classroom. Now, long story short, that’s actually not how it turned out, but I am doing that. I’m just doing it now outside the classroom in a university context rather than inside the classroom. So things took a turn from where I thought they would go, but I did end up meeting the same objective that I had set out to do.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. It’s interesting that you’ve kind of discerned the age group you wanted to work with while you were still going through school on who you wanted to serve. Why leadership? Why developing leaders? Was there something about your upbringing or childhood that made that a central theme for you?

Brian Robson
Oh man, that’s a really good question. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything explicit, but I was aware, I am aware, I’ve always been aware, all of us are shaped by who our leaders are, right? So whether it’s our parents, or whether it’s our bosses at work, or whether it’s in the school context, whatever, we’re all shaped by our leaders for better or for worse. Even though there’s a trillion books on leadership and all kinds of literature and courses and workshops and resources, we still have, I think, a dearth of really good leaders in our society. And so it’s up to the emerging generations to kind of take up that mantle and to learn how to do it right. And so to learn what true, you know, effective, empowering leadership is really all about. I just sort of knew from, I guess, in my own educational journey that the power of education is where you can do that. It’s a great context for shaping people, not just academically with their courses and with their knowledge, with their academic programs, but way beyond that into sort of more people-building, cultivating values and principles, and finding your place in the world, right?

Sam Demma
When you think of good leaders or great leaders, what are some of the things you think they do differently? Or they do that other not-so-effective leaders might not be doing? I ask it from a personal perspective because, for the first time in my life, I find myself leading others in my own work, and I want to improve myself. I want to become a better leader myself.

Brian Robson
That’s another fantastic question. I think that it’s sort of a mindset and a perspective. What differentiates great leaders from mediocre leaders or poor leaders is really having the right mindset regarding what leadership is. Leadership is not about power or wielding power or having authority over other people. It is about empowerment. There’s a very common term that’s very prevalent in leadership literature, and it’s been around for a long time—even since ancient times. It’s called servant leadership, right? So true, really good leaders are servants. They’re not masters. They are humble, not arrogant. Somebody once asked me—it was actually in a job interview process for a post-secondary school position—they asked me a great question: “What’s the best leadership advice you’ve ever received?” And something came to me quickly. The best leadership advice I ever got was: Don’t own it. What he meant by that was, it’s not actually yours. You have to separate yourself from the thing that you are leading. Great leaders don’t own it because leadership is temporary. You’re going to be replaced someday. You’re not going to be leading that group of people, organization, or company forever. It’s temporary. So don’t own it; instead, see it as something you are stewarding for a while. When you adopt that mindset, it puts you in a better state to treat people well, make the right decisions, avoid selfishness, think big picture, and build things the right way.

Sam Demma
As a leader, you have conversations with so many people every day, and you want to equip them to succeed, move things forward, and feel supported. Sometimes, naturally, you have difficult conversations. How do you approach those as a leader with the people you serve?

Brian Robson
Yeah, that’s another very good question. For me, it’s a lifelong journey. Leadership is a journey, for sure. I’ll be honest—by nature, I hate conflict. As a fifth-generation Canadian, I avoid conflict by instinct. So difficult conversations, the ones you just described, go against the grain of my personality. But you approach them with wisdom. Again, you do it from the perspective that you’re not defending your turf or trying to win a battle for the sake of winning. It’s about doing what’s best for the organization and the person you’re in conflict with. You approach these conversations with humility. It’s not about winning but about reaching a better place in the situation. Listening is crucial. My academic background has trained me to reason and connect the dots with facts. That’s my approach—stick to the facts. Avoid getting personal or emotional, and focus on reasoning through the situation. When you have a conflict, let the facts win. If I’m wrong, the facts will prove it. If the other person is wrong, the facts will show it. And ideally, both of us can come to a shared understanding based on the truth.

Sam Demma
That’s such a great perspective. I ask because I’ve noticed in myself, when I’m having challenging conversations, I sometimes feel the need to win or defend my turf. But I’m recognizing that and trying to improve. So, I really appreciate your insights. You’re clearly passionate about serving students. Although Ontario Tech has a smaller student population, I imagine that creates a lot of beautiful, intimate opportunities. Tell me a little about the school and why you love it so much.

Brian Robson
Yeah, so we talked a little bit off-air about this, but you’re familiar with Durham Region and how multicultural it is. The university reflects that diversity. We’re located in Oshawa, with two campuses: North Oshawa and downtown. It’s largely a commuter school, so most students live off-campus and commute to class. We do have some out-of-province and international students, but the majority are local—people from Durham, East GTA, or York Region. Our student body is incredibly diverse—culturally, academically, and religiously. We’re branded as a STEM university, but we also emphasize “Tech with a Conscience,” which reflects our focus on ethical and social responsibility in technology. As the student union, we serve everyone, meeting them where they are and supporting their unique needs and interests. That’s what makes this role so fulfilling.

Sam Demma
Before your time at Ontario Tech, you were at TMU. What was the difference in your roles of service at each of these universities?

Brian Robson
Very different. TMU is a larger school, also a commuter school, and similarly diverse with many first-generation students. I loved working with both TMU and Ontario Tech students because they’re trailblazers—grateful, hardworking, and not entitled. At TMU, I had various roles, but my focus was on programs for specific populations. These included skills-building and entrepreneurship programs for groups like newcomers, women, Black youth, and students aged 15 to 29. Some programs were federally funded, so we partnered with universities across Canada to deliver them nationally. Here at Ontario Tech, my role is more centralized, focused on serving the entire student body through the union. Both experiences are rewarding but very different in scope and focus.

Sam Demma
Have you always been passionate about entrepreneurship, business, and STEM, or is that just how your career unfolded?

Brian Robson
That’s just how the career unfolded. It wasn’t intentional, but it all fits under my personal mission of empowering emerging leaders. Entrepreneurs are leaders, so it aligned perfectly with my goal of shaping future leaders, even though it happened outside the classroom.

Sam Demma
What are you most excited about this academic year?

Brian Robson
We’ve had the largest first-year class in Ontario Tech’s history, which is exciting. Their energy and enthusiasm are infectious, and we want to build on that momentum. This is my first year seeing a class come in, and I’m looking forward to watching them grow and develop over the next four or five years. They’re the next leaders of the student union, and it’s exciting to be part of their journey.

Sam Demma
Education shapes humans and the future. The work you’re doing is so important. If someone listening wants to connect or ask a question, what’s the best way to reach you?

Brian Robson
LinkedIn is probably the best place to start. I included my LinkedIn profile in the bio I sent you. From there, I’m happy to share my email and connect further.

Sam Demma
Brian, my Oshawa homie, thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences, insights on leadership, and passion for education. I hope this academic year is one of the best yet. Keep up the great work, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Brian Robson
Thank you so much for having me, Sam. This has been great—I’ve really enjoyed it. Keep it going!

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Brian Robson

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 19, 2024 by Education School Administration Student Leadership Student Success 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

Lisa Dunnigan — Veteran Educator and Co-Founder of Teach Your Heart Out

Lisa Dunnigan — Veteran Educator and Co-Founder of Teach Your Heart Out
About Lisa Dunnigan

Elisa began her educational career over thirty years ago. She started out teaching seventh grade and quickly realized that she wanted to work with younger children. After three years of middle school, her family moved to Gainesville, GA, and she started teaching fourth grade. This was heaven for her. She also worked part-time at Laurelwood Mental Health with middle school-aged children as a Mental Health Technician.

After four years of living in Gainesville, her family moved back to Douglasville, GA, where she became an elementary school counselor. She worked as a school counselor for three years and then became the assistant principal at Eastside Elementary School. After three years, she was named the principal of Eastside Elementary School where she was labeled as a turnaround school principal. The school won several academic awards under her leadership. The school was a Title I School but outscored many Non-Title I Schools in the school district.

In 2012, Elisa was named the Executive Director of Federal Programs. Elisa also taught education preservice and master level classes at Mercer University, West GA University, and Kennesaw State University from 2012-2018. In 2020, she retired from the Douglas County School System.

In 2017, she and her twin daughters started The Wright Stuff Chics, an e-commerce company that created graphic t-shirts and gifts for educators. In 2018, they also started hosting professional development conferences all over the United States. The company is called Teach Your Heart Out.

In 2019, they started hosting an annual teacher cruise where they also visit a local school in one of the ports. The companies have made well over eleven million dollars since starting.

In 2015, one of the twins, Elise, was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. She passed away in 2018. Tosha, Elisa’s other daughter, is now an elementary principal in the Douglas County School System.

In 2017, the family started a non-profit, The Pink Santa Hat Movement, where they send out care packages to educators, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and EMTs who are battling breast cancer.

Connect with Lisa Dunnigan: Email | Instagram | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Teach Your Heart Out Conferences

Pink Santa Hat Movement

The Wright Stuff Chics

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 Lisa Dunnigan. Lisa and I connected recently because of a friend named Tom who is a phenomenal speaker and magician and MC who made this beautiful connection. We had a lovely conversation about all the work they’re doing with the Teach Your Heart Out Conference, the cruise in Orlando. I mean, can you introduce yourself and talk about how you’re bringing educators on a cruise ship for their PD? Absolutely.

Lisa Dunnigan:
My name is Lisa Dunnigan, and I’m actually a 30-year veteran educator. I started out teaching middle school. It was not for me. Seventh grade was not my friend. Then I taught fourth grade. Then I was a school counselor, an assistant principal, a principal. And then I ended my career. I was an executive director over federal programs for my local school district. I absolutely love helping educators, helping administrators just to be better with the work that they’re doing in the world.

I know that last year, 537,000 educators left the field of education. And so we’re trying to help to be able to provide a community where like-minded educators can come together, work together, and, you know, celebrate the profession, remind each other why they went into the profession. With Teach Your Heart Out, that is one of our main goals – just to be able to help teachers, to be a resource for them and to let them know that we appreciate what they’re doing.

We want to provide practical teaching strategies that they can easily implement into their classroom. In my 30-year tenure, of course, I went to thousands of professional developments, some good, many bad. That was always on my bucket list – to have a teacher conference where educators come together. And of course, we also don’t want to leave out the fun component of it because self-care is so important. We want teachers to have a good work-life balance, and we want to remind them to also let their hair down and have a great time. That is so important to us as well.

Sam Demma:
You spent time in a few or at least one Title I funded school.

Lisa Dunnigan:
Actually, my whole career I worked in Title I schools. Even when I taught, I worked in Title I schools, and then I ended up actually, one of my jobs was to be over Title I as well for my school system. So I feel very strongly about closing that gap, leveraging the playing field. But at the same time, keeping expectations very high. When I was a principal, I was a turnaround principal. And I attribute that to expectations. We always had high expectations.

We gave our kids so many life experiences that we knew they would not have gotten otherwise, but we also did not accept that they couldn’t do it because they were poor. We never accepted that at all. We still held them to high expectations, and every single time they rose to those expectations. So I think that’s one thing that’s so important.

Sam Demma:
For the Canadian folks north of the border, can you explain very briefly what Title I is?

Lisa Dunnigan:
Absolutely. Title I is where your school has more than 75% of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Once you get to that threshold, it’s mandated that your school becomes a Title I school. You receive extra funding from the federal government, and that can go towards resources, tutoring, extra staff, professional development, and parent engagement, which is a mandated part of Title I.

Sam Demma:
I worked with a few Title I schools in New Jersey, and I had such a beautiful time in all of the schools I visited. What you’re sharing about your Title I school even outperforming other non-Title I schools is exceptional. How do you, as an educator, share expectations with a student in a way that pushes them to live up to them?

Lisa Dunnigan:
I think it’s important to expose them to things they’ve never been exposed to, which opens up a whole new world for them. Also, it’s about making sure they understand the expectations at school versus at home. At school, there’s a certain way we do things, and helping them understand that is key. Letting them know that just because they haven’t had certain life experiences yet doesn’t mean they’ll never have them.

Sam Demma:
I’ve never had someone in my life hold me to high standards and expectations without trying my best to fulfill them. I think it’s one of the biggest gifts we can give to young people.

Lisa Dunnigan:
Yeah, I think every single time students will rise to the expectation. Rita Pierson, when she was alive, talked about telling kids they were the smartest in the school, and guess what? They rose to that expectation. There’s so much research that shows the importance of keeping expectations high.

Sam Demma:
When you think about your time in classrooms across the country over the past 30 years in administration, do you remember any stories of students who were really struggling and then grew and flourished over time? Is there a particular story that sticks out in your mind?

Lisa Dunnigan:
Yeah, when I taught fourth grade, classroom management was my jam. Any difficult student would end up in my class because they knew I could handle it. I had a student named Ronald. I remember going home and telling my ex-husband that Ronald needed to come live with us. Ronald’s mom wasn’t present in his life, and the highlight of his year was when she got her income tax refund, and they could stay in a hotel for the weekend.

I developed a relationship with Ronald, and he would do anything I asked him to do. He had a lot of built-up anger, but we talked about it. I was also getting my counseling degree at the time, so I’d practice with Ronald, letting him vent his frustrations. Ronald ended up in the gifted and talented program. I feel like I have to take some credit for that because I poured into him when others couldn’t. I still think about him to this day.

Sam Demma:
What do you think most people misunderstand about challenging students in their classrooms?

Lisa Dunnigan:
I think they forget that sometimes students act out because of academic deficits. Kids would rather be seen as bad than dumb. They don’t care if other kids think they’re bad, but being thought of as dumb is a big deal. Teachers need to understand the root cause of the behavior.

Sam Demma:
Your passion is just exuding through the screen. When you finished your time in classrooms and administration, how long did you wait before starting the Teach Your Heart Out conference company?

Lisa Dunnigan:
We did our first conference in 2018. In 2017, we started The Wright Stuff Chics, which sold t-shirts. I’ve always been an entrepreneur, and I’ve always had more than one thing going on. But in 2015, my daughter Elise was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. That changed everything. We also started a nonprofit called the Pink Santa Hat Movement, where we send care packages to people battling breast cancer.

Sam Demma:
When do you sleep?

Lisa Dunnigan:
I don’t sleep very much. I had to wake up this morning at 2:50 am, and I had a lot to do today.

Sam Demma:
The work you’re doing and the team you’ve built is incredible. What do you think?

Lisa Dunnigan:
Being an entrepreneur isn’t for the faint of heart. I know what my purpose is and what God has called me to do. People always say, “It’s none of your business what others think of you.” That’s my mantra. I know who I am and whose I am.

Sam Demma:
I can feel your heart in this podcast. The same walls that keep in our emotions also keep out happiness. You’re doing phenomenal work, and if others try to bring you down, you have to empty your backpack and let it go.

Lisa Dunnigan:
We feel a responsibility to help educators, which in turn helps students. Mental health is a huge issue, and the answer is not arming teachers with guns. We need to do something about mental health, and I feel a responsibility toward that.

Sam Demma:
How can educators get involved with the Teach Your Heart Out events?

Lisa Dunnigan:
They can visit our website, teachyourheartout.com. We host events like our summer summit in Ontario, Oregon, and we do Teach Your Heart Out minis, where we come to your school or district.

Sam Demma:
Do you have any last words of wisdom for an educator who might be tuning in, especially those feeling burnt out or losing their sense of purpose?

Lisa Dunnigan:
Focus on things you can control. Don’t spend energy on what you can’t. You can decide if you’ll have a good day or a bad day. Don’t feed into negativity, and think about things that fill your cup, not deplete it.

Sam Demma:
I love it. And that advice is hitting me. I feel like I need to hear that. This has been such a phenomenal conversation. I can’t wait to share it with the world. Lisa, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show here today.

Sam Demma:
I appreciate it.

Lisa Dunnigan:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Lisa Dunnigan

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 15, 2024 by Educator Entrepreneur Executive Director Founder and CEO Student Leadership 0

Claire Kelly (OCT) — Assistant Head of School: Student Life at Appleby College, an independent grades 7-12 school in Oakville, Ontario

Claire Kelly (OCT) — Assistant Head of School: Student Life at Appleby College, an independent grades 7-12 school in Oakville, Ontario
About Claire Kelly

Claire Kelly (@ClearGreenDay) serves as Assistant Head of School: Student Life, at Appleby College, an independent grades 7-12 school in Oakville, Ontario. Her responsibilities include leading a portfolio of outstanding student-centric experiences in Arts, Athletics, Service, Student Leadership, and Boarding Life, supporting coaching and leadership development experiences for faculty and students, and facilitating opportunities for student growth and school culture.

Claire teaches English and AP Capstone Research, where she has supervised over 70 academic Research studies, an array of which have been published in external peer-reviewed journals. Claire earned her PhD from OISE/UT (’19), in Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education.

Her interests include leadership development and organization change, career patterns, and gender representation, and Independent school headships in Canada. Claire has co-led affinity groups for women leaders and taught the Women in Leadership module each summer since 2019 with Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS). She has written three children’s books (Rubicon) that combine her love of travel with her passion for Arts, Literature, and Social Sciences, all designed to cultivate young readers.

Claire loves to run, paddle, dance, and play sports. Her love of learning continues beyond the classroom with hobbies such as learning guitar, enjoying music, and travelling. She lives with her husband, Nicholas, also, an educator, two sons, Julian and James, and mini-Doodle, Piper, on the beautiful Appleby campus.

Connect with Claire: Email | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Appleby College

Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education – OISE/UT

Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS)

Rubicon Publishing

Student Leadership – Appleby College

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 I’m very excited, we have a special guest, Dr. Claire Kelly. Dr. Kelly, please take a moment to introduce yourself to everyone who’s tuning in today.

Claire Kelly
Hi Sam, it’s great to be here. Please call me Claire. I am a teacher going into my 25th year of teaching, which is amazing to me. I don’t know how that happened. And I am currently an assistant head of school at Appleby College, and I’m head of student life there. So I work a lot with students and very closely with all aspects of the student experience.

Sam Demma
When did you realize in your journey as a student and young professional that you wanted to work in education?

Claire Kelly
Yeah, that’s a great question. As in like what got me into this work?

Sam Demma
Yeah, well, everyone has a very different pathway. Some people tell me they built dollhouses in their basement and taught the toys class. Some people told me that their family worked in education and they followed that pathway. What was your journey into working in schools?

Claire Kelly
Yeah, I guess, you know, ultimately, I started, I became a teacher because I love working with students, with children, with adolescents. You know, unlike many people, I love adolescents. I think they’re really amazing and they have so much to teach us. So, but yeah, going back to the start, I guess my father was a professor, my aunt was a school teacher, so I had some familial influences. However, yeah, I think, you know, teachers in high school certainly left strong impressions on me. I had some great teachers, they helped me better understand myself. I was also an athlete for much of my schooling. I spent a lot of time out of school in some ways, but a lot of time with coaches. And I loved working with people to accomplish goals, like whether it was as an athlete or as whether it was like individual athlete or on a team. I just loved being able to make those connections through sport. And I love the drama that you get from, you know, going through a game together or I was a figure skater for a long time, so like a four minute solo and all the preparation and all the people that go into making that happen. Yeah, and I think, you know, ultimately I like movement, I like variety, I love that teaching is never the same day twice. And we have this incredible ability to meet so many people, which is incredible. And I love the rhythms of the days and the years. So, yeah, I have to say I’m really happy where I am. I’m really glad I chose this. It just seemed like a natural part of – natural place I would end up.

Sam Demma
The rhythm and changes and movement as a school teacher are very vast. I’m sure it’s very similar with the role you’re in right now in student life. What does being the head of student life look like? What is the day-to-day in this position currently, what does it entail for someone who’s never been in that position or doesn’t know too much about it?

Claire Kelly
Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s an incredible role. I absolutely love it. I’ve been, this is my third year in that role. So I’m relatively new and it involves arts, athletics, service opportunities and running the co-curricular program for students, which is at our school is mandatory. So we have a very robust co-curricular program with, you know, approximately 60 different opportunities for kids. We also have a student leadership and a fantastic student leadership program with, you know, so many formalized responsibilities that are graduated really from grade 9 to grade 12. And then we have the Boarding Life program, which is, you know, our school is a day school, but it’s also a boarding school and we’re one of the only schools in North America that has mandatory boarding program for all their grade 12 students, so they move on campus and then they and then they get they stay and they live that year and understand you know a little bit more about themselves and what they need to prepare for classes and get ready in the morning and you know feed themselves and all sorts of life skills, as well as a fantastic university prep experience. So, a lot of our parents will say things like, you know, this is almost like the dress rehearsal for going off to university, which is really an incredible opportunity. So student life looks like having a sense of really getting to know students really, really well from breakfast in the morning through study in the evenings, certainly at this school, and having a good sense of what they need and what drives them to be the best they can be.

Sam Demma
I felt very honored that I was able to visit the school and tour campus when it was around Thanksgiving time and I had this beautiful potato lunch. And it was delicious. It sounds like there- I love this thing.

Claire Kelly
There’s an exo group that runs our dining hall. It’s incredible.

Sam Demma
It sounds like there are so many unique opportunities for the students, even the staff, as a part of student life on campus. One of my favorite authors is a gentleman named Jim Rohn. He talks about the seasons of life and how they can be tied to the seasons of business or just like the idea that there’s rhythms to things. And he has a phrase, he says, you know, after opportunity is always adversity in some way, shape or form. You know, with lots of opportunities, there’s also challenges. And I’m curious, what are some of the challenges that you think you’re faced with right now at school or on campus?

Claire Kelly
Yeah, that’s such a great question. How long do we have? Yeah, I mean, there are always challenges. So we could name off. There are some significant challenges that our students are facing. There’s eco-anxiety, there’s mental health, there’s DEIB, how to better integrate and have a more just world. There’s Indigenous reconciliation, especially in Canada. It’s hard not to think of that as top of mind. University admissions, that might be not as grand a scale as some of the other challenges, but it’s certainly a significant landscape for our students and it’s a very changing landscape right now and with the latest news from federal government and it will be interesting to see what that means in terms of the impact even on undergrad students and the available programming. So, kind of watching that closely. Socioeconomics, you know, it’s really hard to buy a house right now. It’s hard to buy a house anytime, but certainly it’s very challenging for any student growing up in this generation is looking at some big challenges, how to fund the life that they want to lead. You know, increasingly VUCA world every time I turn on the news. So, there are some big, big challenges.

Claire Kelly
I guess how do we deal with that? Well, you know, day by day as much as possible. We hope there’s a strategic plan of some sort. And that helps. And like ultimately, like, I guess a lot of people have seen opportunity in challenge and there is always opportunity in challenge. You know, the Dalai Lama talks about that. Whenever there’s a challenge, there’s an opportunity to face it, to demonstrate it, to develop our will and determination. I’d also say, like, as school teachers, we’re kind of right in the rhubarb. We’re dealing with some of this every day because this is the student world. And I’d say that, you know, humbly, we continue to work on these. We have time, we have space, and we have these incredible moments of dialogue that we get to sit and work with a huge collective of youth. And that’s a pretty magical place. So we learn from them, they learn from us. It’s a pretty neat thing. So and then, you know, we have these great opportunities as well, certainly at our school, where we bring in highly motivated and motivational speakers like yourself. So that was really wonderful to have. But, you know, I think, you know, I work with some really incredible people. I work with motivated, kind, talented people, and they see challenges as opportunities to do things better. That’s really the only thing we can do is try to find the opportunity in it. We think certainly for teenagers, challenge is an inherent part of being a teenager. You’re always challenging, challenging yourself, you’re challenging other people, you’re pushing boundaries, you’re trying to find that light. It’s a pretty exciting space when you think about it. It’s like that liminality, you know, you’re in the middle of something. And it’s really essential to growth. So the question is really for me is how do we tackle the challenges and how can we have impact in our school’s culture? How can we arm these kids with the skills that, you know, they have nascent within them? How do we, how do we develop those and give them to them so that they can have an impact on their larger worlds? So I don’t know if I fully answered that, but that’s kind of what we do. I try to do everything.

Sam Demma
Yeah. I love the idea of seeing opportunities within the challenges. The same author I mentioned, Jim Rohn, he always says, we can’t change the seasons, but we can change ourselves. And if we do change ourselves, everything changes. And it’s like the challenges are gonna be there, but it’s our perception of them that makes all the difference. What of the programs you ran last year, or even in the past couple of years, do you remember having a really positive impact if there are other people tuning in thinking, oh, maybe they can consider this for their school or their community as well?

Claire Kelly
Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, as I mentioned, we have a very robust co-curricular program, so that’s pretty amazing. Students can choose from, you know, participating in a sports team or joining an all-school play, or trying their hand at robotics or design or working with seniors. We have a group, or several groups, that go out actually into the community and work with seniors and work with school children and try to find time and space to work together and learn from each other. So that’s pretty neat. Other programs that were really successful, I did mention the Student Leadership Program which certainly I’m really proud of, spending a lot of time with motivated kids gives me a great deal of hope. I think, yeah, when we talk about programming, it’s really about giving students opportunities, especially I think in that early teen time, you know, that tween, pre-teens or tween time, when they don’t really know who they are, finding time, finding space, finding people who will give them something to help them think a little bit more or discover something new. So one of the things we do pretty well at our school is we have a significant breadth of opportunity and we try to offer, we offer so much. Sometimes it’s challenging to do so, but the breadth is really to really offer students an opportunity to try something new, get to know themselves, get to maybe change their mindset about things they thought they didn’t like or areas where they didn’t think they that, yeah, give them that time to really dive in. And it’s okay if you don’t like it, it’s kind of a, it’s a very low risk, very safe opportunity. But really finding those moments to, yeah, to realize that, hey, you know what, I’m not just an athlete, I really like singing, or I want to try stand-up comedy, or I want to try to see if I can plant a sustainable garden. So how are you going to spend your time? How are you going to spend your life? That’s really it in a nutshell. So we try to challenge them through opportunities to help them discover a little bit more about themselves. And it’s pretty neat to see in a teenager’s life to change from say, grade eight to grade 12. It’s sometimes it’s, well, it’s always remarkable. And sometimes it’s really, really surprising.

Sam Demma
When you think about seeing those changes in students, what does that look like? Is it a change in behavior? Is it, they start very shy or uninvolved and the time they’re graduating the school, they’re involved in everything? What does that actually tangibly look like in your experience?

Claire Kelly
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. It is all of those things. I guess it’s a change very much in confidence, and it’s that confidence to, it’s okay to be myself, it’s okay to try things, it’s okay if I’m not cool, because actually like embracing that and recognizing that you’re trying something new and there’s a chance you could fail, that makes you really brave, that makes you really cool, ironically, right? And then it’s really neat to see the shift in students, both in terms of individual but also in collectives where they’re like, oh, that is, it’s amazing what you did. It’s incredible that, you know, you want to lead the academic council. Good for you. Let’s all jump on board because you’re doing some really neat things there and I want to be part of it. And I think that’s something that comes with confidence. I think, you know, grade seven, grade eight, grade nine can be tough. Those are tough years for students. And we need to give them a lot of support. We need to remind them that they should be trying new things. They don’t know everything about the world yet and challenge them to engage. And I think as long as we can keep them engaged and keep them talking and keep them with an eye towards the future, that they can really start to thrive. Yeah, so I would say that students… I’ve seen… well, last week, let me think of an Last week I was at a karaoke show that was run by some students and we had significant participation from students in the evening, it was a fundraiser, and they had to do a little bit of preparation. And we must have had 12 acts that were coordinated, planned, choreographed, and I guess the thing that struck me, and several of the other teachers there, if I can speak on behalf of a few of us in the audience was some of the students that I saw in grade 9 who were quiet and shy and reserved and really trying to find their place. We’re up there in the middle of it all, taking the lead, feeling comfortable, really owning that stage and you know that would be, that’s a very visual example.

Claire Kelly
It doesn’t always have to be, you know, someone who seems introverted becoming an extrovert because that’s not necessarily what we want either. You know, I have a lot of time for introverts and I think being able to stand on stage and perform is not necessarily what everyone needs to do, but I do think that it was a pretty great reminder of how confidence can propel students to new heights and give them the self-awareness that hey maybe I already had that in me. I had those those really nascent performing skills or I really wanted to show off my dancing and having my friends around me doing the same thing allowed me to do that or the environment was safe and it was low risk and I could do this. And maybe it took four years to get there, but it’s a memory that they’re going to have. And I think it’s also a skill that’s going to propel them forward. So that’s really what I saw. I think about a little talent show I had when I was in elementary school and I rapped a song by Eminem with two of my friends

Sam Demma
I think about a little talent show I had when I was in elementary school and I rapped a song by Eminem with two of my friends. It was absolutely terrible but I still think about it and I remember the feeling I had personally when I walked off stage and felt so proud that I did it Knowing that I was really nervous knowing that I was really Embarrassed even a little bit about the performance, but that I still showed up anyway. And I’m sure so many students built so much confidence as a result of that event. And if you’re listening right now, thinking about doing something similar, use this as a case study. I think it provides such a unique opportunity for students and staff to introspect and reflect being a part of the experience. Something you said earlier was that students throughout school are learning so much about themselves. And I believe that all humans are consistently learning things about themselves as they go through life. And one of the greatest teachers is our own mistakes, our own learnings. And I think about myself, you know, I just organized a cross candidate trip, and I was a pretty terrible manager of others. I tried with my limited skill set managing others, and it all went well from other people’s perspectives, including the people I managed, but I learned a lot. And there’s a lot of things I would do differently if I did something like that again. I’m curious, what are some of your learnings in education as an educator that other educators tuning in might be able to learn from your experiences?

Claire Kelly
Wow, well that’s a great question, Sam. And thank you. I like your little anecdote of bringing everyone across Canada. That’s really, that sounds like an amazing trip. That was cool. I guess in terms of mistakes, I’m sure I’ve made many and probably on a daily basis. So I’m pretty comfortable with most of them, I think. I think, you know, there are always an opportunity for learning. And as educators, you know, I think we go into education because we like learning, we were lifelong learners and there’s nothing like experience. So I think like personally, yes, of course, lots of mistakes professionally. I’d say that, you know, one that comes to mind for me is in the beginning of my career, I taught English and history. I still teach English, but not history. And I teach a little bit, not as much as I used to now that I’m in an assistant head role, but in the, yeah, at the very beginning, in the first few years, I talked far too much. I just, I thought, I don’t know what I thought. I, I, I, you know, too much lecturing, too much standing in front of the class or sitting in, sitting with the class and, um, you know, too much, uh, stage on the stage behavior. And what I think I, like, I think I know why. There’s a sense, certainly when you’re starting out, you want to show these kids who you’re not that separated from age or you don’t think you are, although I think they always think, oh, she’s so old. She is as old, even though I was probably 25. I think I wanted to show that I knew what I was doing and that I belonged there. I belonged I belong there with my own classroom. And I had knowledge and yeah, I’m sure that’s where it was coming from. But certainly in the last 20 years or so, I’ve been using the Harkness method as an English teacher, certainly at our school, and it’s really changed the way I teach English. And it’s one of our certainly foundational programs at the school that we’re very proud of, but it’s really changed the way I think I do a lot of things. Harkness, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, it’s a very constructivist and democratic sort of way of teaching, where you’re all sitting around a table and I facilitate, so I set it up, I draw maps, I keep track of who said what, and I inject things here and there just to kind of prompt and see where the conversation will go. But ultimately, it’s not about me. It’s really all about the students and how they build on each other and what they’re able to share and debate and critique and extend and all that. And I think the best conversations really happen when I’ve set the stage, but when I just sit back and listen.

Sam Demma
What a powerful lesson in teaching. I drew some parallels immediately to speaking on stage and how powerful silence is for audience members because it gives them an opportunity to digest the information you’re sharing or answer the questions you’re asking and engage with the stories. And I think there’s a cool parallel there too. I was at Crofton House in Vancouver. They had a lot of classrooms with oval shaped tables and they’d have these really cool conversations where everyone feels engaged because you’re all looking at each other. There’s a formal name for it and I’m forgetting it, but maybe you know.

Claire Kelly
Yeah, it might be like the Harkness Method. 

Sam Demma
Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I appreciate you sharing that and I love the reflection of speaking less and allowing the students to be more involved with the content and with each other. What is something that keeps you hopeful, like keeps you motivated and keeps you showing up? 

Claire Kelly
Yeah, that’s a great question. Another great question. So, like what gets me out of bed in the morning? I think you always have to have an answer for that, right? And it’s a good reminder, especially as you get further on in your career. I think for me, this is going to sound really Pollyanna-ish, but I love my life. I love what I do. I love that, as I mentioned earlier, like every day is different. So even though I’ve been at this school, I’ve worked at two big schools in my career, and I can honestly say like every day is different. I’ve never had the same job two years in a row. Not because I keep moving around in any way, but just the job is different. It’s so dynamic to work with students and to work with children and to have, you know, we must have 150-200 interactions a day. So, what, you know, there’s the plan and then there’s the reality of the up and down and the crossfire dialogue and and all the things that happen and it’s just a, you know, it’s really an incredible experience to work in a school if you like students and I think, you know, they just have so much to offer. I love working with teenagers. Yeah, you know, also I have a family that I love. I love my husband, my kids. One of my sons goes to our school as well. He just started, so that’s been really powerful for me to see my world through his eyes and to experience a little bit more. I feel like I get the full student experience through him. And he’s new this year. He’s, I guess if our school had used those terms, he would be a freshman. He’s brand new and he’s in the first year we offer. He’s in grade seven. So he’s learning all about the rhythms of the school day, but rhythms of the year, the programming, the teachers, the other students, what to expect, what he should be striving for, what he really likes himself. So it’s been really, really, really, yeah, it’s just an incredible education for me to see that through his eyes, and I’m really looking forward to this journey together, if you will.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. You get to hear about the impact of the structure of the school and the opportunities and the programs in student life, right in front of your own eyes with your son, which is awesome.

Claire Kelly
Absolutely, and you know he tells me if I’m wrong too, which is also really important.

Sam Demma
That’s cool. I really appreciate you taking the time just to talk a little bit about your journey, some of your beliefs around education, some of the opportunities you believe that exist right now, some of the challenges. You’re doing a phenomenal job and there’s probably educators right now listening to this thinking to themselves, wow, this, Claire’s inspiring, you know, especially those that are just starting in the journey themselves. If there is an educator listening to this thinking that and they want to reach out and ask a question or just share some gratitude after hearing this interview, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Claire Kelly
Oh, thanks, Sam. Those are really kind words, first of all. And yeah, I love connecting with people. So I’m always happy to answer emails or, you know, be on social media. So probably through my email is the best way, ckelly@appleby.on.ca or through LinkedIn. Yeah, those are probably my go-to’s.

Sam Demma
Awesome. Claire, Dr. Kelly, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a pleasure. Keep up the amazing work and I look forward to crossing paths again soon.

Claire Kelly
Thanks so much, Sam. It was a pleasure and really nice to see you again.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Claire Kelly

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

April 29, 2024 by Assistant Head Author Department Head Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Charle Peck — Keynote Speaker and School Mental Health Consultant

Charle Peck — Keynote Speaker and School Mental Health Consultant
About Charle Peck

Charle Peck (@CharlePeck) is the co-creator of Thriving School Community, a revolutionary program designed for schools to improve the mental health of staff and students. She holds an MS in Education and an MS in Social Work as a 20+ year veteran in education (K-12).

As a global keynote speaker, she delivers powerful messages of hope to educators and facilitates meaningful professional development to equip adults with tools that integrate into everyday practice. Her unique lens as a high school teacher turned clinical therapist who has worked closely with adolescents and families in crisis makes her stories relevant and captivating to those struggling in today’s system.

You can purchase her book “Improving School Mental Health: The Thriving School Community Solution” on Amazon. You can also listen to Charle’s podcast “Thriving Educator” and connect with her via email charle@thrivingeducator.org, on Twitter + LinkedIn @CharlePeck.

Connect with Charle: Email | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Thriving School Community Program

Graduate Programs at Niagara University

Master of Social Work (MSW) – Wilfrid Laurier University

Improving School Mental Health: The Thriving School Community Solution

Thriving Educator Podcast

TSC Virtual Summit

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode on the High Performing Educator podcast. Today I am so excited. I was connected to this amazing human author and speaker through a past guest named Darren. Today’s special guest is Charle Peck. Charle, please take a moment to introduce yourself to all the educators who will be tuning in today.

Charle Peck
Hi, you guys. Sam, thank you so much for having me. It’s so nice to be connected by people who are genuinely good people like Darren. And, you know, I’m just coming to everybody from a background in education, K through 12, for the past 20 years but I taught high school for 18 years, really saw my students struggling. So I got a Master of Social Work, became a clinical therapist, and I’ve been working with schools and districts across the country to help them solve this darn youth mental health problem. So I’m coming to you with that lens. I’m also a parent. I’ve got three boys, and I just want to make sure that our educators have simple tools and strategies that they can just infuse into everyday practice to manage their own mental health and well-being and then respond effectively to their student needs. That’s what they need the most.

Sam Demma
Well, something that makes you very unique is your specialization in trauma in becoming a clinical therapist. Tell me a little bit about that journey of yours.

Charle Peck
You know, I realized that understanding that brain-body connection through a trauma lens was essential to help mitigate the problems our students are having. And by the way, our educators are coming into our buildings with these same problems that are unprocessed. So once I learned what that was all about neurologically and emotionally how people are responding with that emotional charge as a result. It helped me develop the skills and tools that could actually adapt to the classroom setting. And that’s why I love doing what I’m doing, because it does work. And it works even in crisis. I worked at a crisis unit in a hospital, Sam, and I worked with teens who were really struggling and with their parents and families. And these skills and tools work with them too. So I’m excited to roll it out.

Sam Demma
Tell me more about the tools. As someone who’s excited to hear some of the things that you’re sharing, I’m sure the educators are also.

Charle Peck
Yeah, well, I developed them with Dr. Cameron Caswell. She’s an adolescent psychologist and she and I hooked up because we knew the problems were very similar with what we were each working with. And we had to come up with something that was evidence-based, so they absolutely are evidence-based, but something that would easily be able to recall and use and have visuals that can work for not only the adults, but the kids. So they can work with kids as five years old, but also 15 years old and adults. And I’ll give you an example, Sam. So one of the problems we have is dealing with anxiety, right? Anxiety and then avoidance and so in therapeutic sessions what I would do is talk with talk with people about this and they have what’s called their own narrative now We all know what narrative is right? It’s a story that we tell ourselves And there’s lots of things that are brought into that story But oftentimes they are just a bunch a bunch of lies like we’re not basing them on facts And so we’re walking around our buildings, emotionally charged with these unresolved traumas and all of these thoughts and feelings that are triggering us throughout the day. And it’s based on a story that we’re telling ourselves. So I teach them about the story spiral and how our thoughts and emotions, our responses, or really reactions, are all linked together. And then how people are responding to us can keep a spiraling into that story. Again, that’s not based on fact. We might think somebody is upset with us or mad at us or think that we’re dumb or incompetent, but they’re not actually thinking about us. They’re thinking mostly about who? Who are they thinking about, Sam?

Sam Demma
Themselves.

Charle Peck
Yes, of course, of course. But we’re all egotistical as human beings. And so helping people reframe their thoughts and feelings, emotions around those stories. And really unraveling that story can be so helpful with anxiety, which can apply to anybody. So that’s just one little tool that we use.

Sam Demma
One of many tools that you and many other educators and speakers will be sharing at your upcoming virtual conference. Can you please tell us a little bit about the summit happening on April 16th and how educators can get involved if they’re interested in learning more

Charle Peck
Yes. Okay. So Dr. Kim and I said, listen, we’ve got to provide support to people free, virtually, easily, anything that’s accessible. We’ve got to get it out there as much as we can. And so we decided that we’re going to do a virtual summit. We’ve done it several times before. It’s been great. And so we’ve got eight awesome speakers. We’ve got a speaker talking about crisis response, like how do we respond to youth in crisis? We’ve got a speaker talking about how to manage big emotions so that it will help us as educators, but also we can translate that to parents and students easily. Also leaders are a part of this too. They need to help with that as well. And they absolutely can.

Charle Peck
And so we just, we have like one of my sessions is about how to assert your authority without being mean because we do have struggles with students in that authority position, but we still have to stay connected, Sam. And if we don’t, we’re shutting them down, shutting them out and helping create that disconnect and that divide that is not working in our education system. We need to bring people together and have trust and connection. And so the expert speakers we have are there bringing their true insight and skills and tools, but briefly. So each of them have 20 minutes to talk and share resources. We’re doing giveaways. It’s fun. Dr. Kim and I engage people and people leave with real tools that they can immediately use. And so if anybody wants to register again, it’s absolutely free. You can be a parent or an educator or leader. And if you just go to thrivingschool.org forward slash TSC summit, you can just register for free. So thanks for bringing that up because we do want to support our teachers big time.

Sam Demma
And I know it’s not the first. So there’s a lot of people that are already involved. You’re building the momentum and doing such an amazing job at providing all these resources to so many educators across the country. I think everyone listening right now should pause this recording and go and check it out. It’s a amazing experience from what I’ve heard and I’m excited to hear more about how it goes this year. Tell us a little bit about why. Like why do you do this work that you do? You’ve done a great job explaining some of the things that you do and the tools. Tell me the reason behind it all.

Charle Peck
Oh my gosh, okay. So when I got to teach, I loved what I taught. I got to teach kids about their brain. I got to teach them about their development. I got to teach them about why the heck they were feeling what they were feeling and experiencing what they were feeling and experiencing based on their developmental stage of life. And also all of those influences that they got along the way. And so what that did for them is it helped them learn about who they were, and a lot of forgiveness happened with themselves. So they weren’t carrying the weight of the guilt and the shame and pain that society has put on them, and they were able to make sense of it. And so I knew that after I became a therapist, I knew that this work had to be done on a more massive scale because the youth mental health crisis is everywhere. I mean, it’s global. It’s global.

Charle Peck
And so when I realized I had some great tools that could easily infuse into everyday practice and really work well in a classroom and support staff at the same time with their own mental health, because they’re struggling too, I knew I had to step out of the classroom and just do this work. So I do get to speak around the nation about, and internationally about these tools. One of my sessions is called SOS for School Mental Health, Strategies for Staff and Students in Crisis, because we’ve got to address it. We’ve got to give relief to the whole system. So that is my why I’ve got to do this on a massive scale and help others get the relief that I was seeing in my own students.

Sam Demma
And did you struggle with mental health growing up or have you seen it in your family? Like, I would love to hear a little bit of your personal story as well that brought you into education and even brought you here.

Charle Peck
Yeah, you know, first of all, I’m the baby of six kids. So I had some interesting experiences in the position of my family. And even we had a great, I had a great childhood and a great family system, but I felt alone a lot. And I had a lot of people around me a lot And I was involved in a lot of sports Informing my identity. I wasn’t really sure like am I Only good when I’m playing well in my sport in my I didn’t think I was a good student I could have been but I thought I was dumb and there were lots of things that went on I absolutely struggled with mental health and I think adolescence is something that I always knew I would participate in, in the learning piece there to help adolescents because it’s such a tricky time of life and I think there’s such a disservice out there that they’re not involved in understanding what’s going on with themselves. So I was always compelled to work with teens, but I also have a child development background so that I understand not only as a young child, like what’s important for us to do to support them when we’re pregnant. And I’m not afraid to say that because it’s super important that people understand how impactful it is forever. Okay. And so that’s one of the things that’s a disservice I think I’m doing by not being in a classroom again with teenagers.

Charle Peck
I don’t get to teach them every day about healthy and unhealthy relationships Because we had some really important Conversations there that I wish I would have had So that’s something else that I’m trying to do on a global scale is help Adults teach kids about these healthy and unhealthy relationships and friendships And what does that look like because I don’t want anyone else getting stuck, you know, my first year of teaching. I was not only planning sessions for my students, I was planning an escape to a women’s shelter. And I did that while I was still teaching and holding it together. But I was able to do that because I felt confident about who I was and I had a ton of supports. So yes, I struggled, but the good news is, Sam, we can prevent these problems from happening in the first place. And we can also help people manage that when they’re in it and learn to step out of wherever they are if they’ve reached their limits. I mean, there’s a way to do that and still feel good about who you are. And so that’s why I’m doing this work too.

Sam Demma
There’s the speaking, there’s the summits, and then there’s the book. Tell us a little bit about the journey of the book and what you’re hoping that resource will do in the world.

Charle Peck
Well, it’s meant to be something simple that has a framework that’s easy to relate to, especially in the education world. And so there are nine skills. And the reason there are nine is because we identified nine different areas that were contributing to the youth mental health crisis. For example, insecurity, not recognizing our own strengths and getting stuck in that. Like when I was felt like I was a poor student, I got stuck there. And so that shapes how I performed in school. I mean, I later went on and did better, but that was what I wish I had is that particular skill or polarization, right? There’s so many of us who are polarized and guess what? We can actually work and engage with others, even if we don’t like each other or believe in the same things. But there’s a way to do that, to meet our own needs in that exchange. So that’s another thing. So all of the skills are in the book that explains the rationale, but also we wanted people to walk away being able to use them immediately. So it’s kind of a reference guide that way. That’s what the book is, so anybody can use it, parents, students, but we say educators, you need this. We need to start with you because I think our schools are absolutely the keys to make any kind of change, like, in the masses.

Sam Demma
What can people listening expect from you and the team in the near future?

Charle Peck
Well, we’re doing a lot of professional development in equipping our teachers across the nation with these tools. So if anybody wants that, please, please, let’s help. Like we all need to help you. There’s something for every budget. I know budget is certainly an issue, but there’s something for every budget. And in fact, we want to promote sustainability and autonomy in the schools we work with. And so we have a program for that so that we can equip school counselors, school mental health team members, so they can roll it out. And it’s not even as big as train the trainers, Sam. That’s way too much for people to handle right now. So we know what we can provide is affordable, but also sustainable. So that’s one of the things we’re doing. And I’m also doing some keynotes.

Charle Peck
And so if anybody wants that message of hope, that’s one of the things I’m doing, but I’m really excited to share, and I haven’t said it too much yet, but I’m actually working on another book with a former principal who has a trauma lens and is a foster parent and understands the system really well too. And we’re actually talking more about behavior and how to respond to behavior and where the heck it’s coming from. So I’m excited about that because people need those tangible tools and principles to kind of go by. So yeah, that’s coming up too.

Sam Demma
And if they wanna reach out, ask a question, follow your journey online, what would be the best place for them to get in touch?

Charle Peck
They can just email me charle@thrivingeducator.org or they can just go to my website thriving educator.org. I’m on social media. You can find me @CharlePeck. Just connect. The thing is, don’t let this go. Like if you need some support, let me help you.

Sam Demma
Charlie, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for taking the time. I look forward to our paths crossing at some point in real life offline. And I’m so excited for your new book, your educator summit, everything that is yet to come.

Charle Peck
Thank you so much for all you do too, Sam, thank you. Thank you so much for all you do too, Sam, thank you.

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

April 28, 2024 by Speaker Student Success Teachers 0

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