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Deb Lawlor – Coordinator, Intermediate/Secondary Student Success OCSB

Deb Lawlor - Coordinator, Intermediate/Secondary Student Success OCSB
About Deb Lawlor

Deb Lawlor (@deb_lawlor) is the coordinator of student success at the Ottawa Catholic District School Board. 

Her interests include authentic learning experiences & inquiry.  She is also an avid outdoor enthusiast, photographer, traveler, optimist & cook.  In this episode, we talk about her educational journey and her travelling sabbatical. 

Connect with Deb: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

6 Modern Sabbatical Ideas

Specialist High Skills Major Program

Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program

Hapaweb Solutions

Smiths Falls

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest, I had the pleasure of working with back in 2019, and then in 2020, she took a sabbatical to go travel the world and she’s finally come back and I convinced her to come share some of her wisdom on the show. We talk a ton about her social sabbatical. Today’s guest is Deb Lawlor. Deb Lawlor is the coordinator of intermediate and secondary student success at the Ottawa Catholic school board. She also now has taken on the portfolio of helping to coordinate anything related to SHSM and OYAP, specialist high skills major, or the Ontario youth apprenticeship programs. And she is a powerhouse. She won’t be in education too much longer but while she’s here, we can learn a lot from her. I hope you enjoy today’s episode. I’ll see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (01:34):
Deb, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Can you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about how you got into the work that you do in education today?


Deb Lawlor (01:47):
Okay. Hi, I’m Deb Lawlor and I’m currently working at the Ottawa Catholic school board as a coordinator in the intermediate secondary student success department. And I have been an educator for about 25 years now. I started way back when, and I was able to leave from high school, get into university to take a teaching degree. I did my Phys ed degree first and was able to start yeah, actually with adults in the beginning, I sort of, I call it, I went through the back door to try and get a job at the time because there wasn’t anything available. And through, some people who were in a class of mine, they told me about it and I started teaching adults. So I was probably, I was in my, my mid twenties and I was actually teaching adults who were anywhere from 18 years old and my oldest student was 54.


Deb Lawlor (02:36):
I can remember Florian because he was his grandfather in my class trying to get his education after having left. I think he left like grade five, six and went to work on his farm and he was just trying to get his basic grade nine math and, and get his G E D at the time. And from there I moved on to teaching grade seven and eight. I wanted to get into working with the kids. I, I enjoyed working at adult Ted, but it was really, I wanted to do the extracurricular. I wanted to coach, I wanted to have activities beyond, you know, student council with the kids and work with them in that way. And so I was able to, to go into grade seven and eight. And from there I moved into a high school when, when St mother Teresa was opened up in the day when, when we were expand quite a bit in the Ottawa area for, for schools out in some of our outside the city areas.


Deb Lawlor (03:23):
And I taught there for almost 14 years teaching F ed mostly for anything from grade 9, 10, 11, 12 girls to mixed classes with grade 11 and 12 girls, boys and I, my last class I taught was actually a grade 10 boys class, which was quite fun. They, they, they made me laugh. and partway through that time, I started consulting at the school board as if I said consultant halftime and did that for about eight years. And after that, I moved on into being the coordinator within my department. And the section that I have is called specialized pathways, which really covers some programs for are students who are trying to get through high school and explore areas within options for them after high school, whether it’s apprenticeship going right into the workplace or if they take a college or university pathways.


Deb Lawlor (04:12):
So I have focus programs, dual credits, specialist, high skills, major or Chisholm program as we call it. And oh yeah, the Ontario, a youth apprenticeship program, which is some fascinating areas where you can really look at what are the options we can offer students today that are not just taking a class, you know sitting, listening, and, and learning, but they’re actually doing, they’re doing the hands on pieces, getting into job work experiences and finding out about what the work world would would be like in their career that they’re wanna choose and pursue.


Sam Demma (04:42):
I love that. And if you can think back for a moment to when you were younger and going through university or school and teachers college, when did you actually know, ah, I want to be a teacher. Was there like someone who pushed you down that path or did you just know at a young age that that was the calling for you?


Deb Lawlor (04:59):
It’s funny, you asked me because my path sort of, I had a very direct path and I meandered for many years and then I came back to it. So I actually, I wanted to be a teacher in grade four. I, I loved school as a kid. I wanted to that was all I wanted to do was to be a teacher. And, and then I hit grade six and all of a sudden I met somebody in my class and they were very well off. And when I looked at what she had, I wanted that and I thought, well, her dad’s a lawyer. I’m gonna be a lawyer. They’re rich. I’m gonna be a lawyer. I wanna get into them pursuing that. So from grade six, all the way to grade 11 until like took grade 11 law, and then I went, I don’t wanna be a lawyer anymore.


Deb Lawlor (05:37):
so a way too much detail and article and the, the research you had to do to look up stuff did not interest me. So then my brain went to the second thing. Okay. At the time I was in grade 11 and in grade nine, I got braces. So I went and had braces grade 9, 10, 11, 12. And again, I’m going, Hmm. My orthodontists are making a killing and not hurting people while doing it. So I thought, great. I wanna be an orthodontist. So I went down to see my guidance counselor and he’s like, yep, you’re gonna need to take this science and this science and this science and here’s, I said, oh, I don’t wanna do that. That’s not of an interest to me to take all the sciences. Yeah. And at the time I, then I was grade 12 by then I had started, I had started working at a summer camp when I was in grade 10 and I was working with kids mostly anywhere mostly preteens, like kind of like your 11, 12, 13.


Deb Lawlor (06:28):
And then I took over the program to work with kids who were counselors in training. They were the 15, 16 year old. So in working with them and I wasn’t very, and still am a strong athlete in, in my abilities. And so I was playing on all the school teams at school and it wasn’t until I finally talked to my dad. So if you talk about who was my influencer, it was my father. Hmm. He said a couple of things to me, one of the things was he, he told me, and this was really important to hear as a female back in 1980s, you, you can do anything you want to like, whatever you choose to do and to be, go for it. That’s, that’s your, your, your ability to try and do that. So that was one thing that was very important to hear.


Deb Lawlor (07:07):
The other thing was he’s, you know, I had this idea that, you know, I did well in school. I had good grades. I could be anything I wanted to be, I could apply to any program and probably get in. But when he said to me, think about this for a moment, if you’re gonna work for 30 years, you better darn well, like what you’re gonna do. And I kind of went, whoa, I’m like, yeah, like 30 years, that’s a long ti 30 years is a long time. Yeah. I have to try and imagine what I would wanna do for 30 years and was at a time when, like, people actually did the same thing for 30 years. That’s no longer the case anymore. But in thinking about that, I went, all right, well, look at your life, Deb, you are playing all these sports. You’re an athletic person.


Deb Lawlor (07:51):
You enjoy being active and you enjoy working with kids that you’ve been doing this at this camp, put the two together. And it was like, well, okay, yeah. Be a PHY ed teacher. And in my mind, at the time though, I was like, well, but you know, I could be more than a pH ed teacher, but I went back to the thought of, you had always wanted to be a teacher anyway. So it doesn’t matter what, you know, that stigma that might have been around it was, is I thought I could enjoy that for 30 years. And so, yeah, my dad was, was a very big influencer and what I could do and that I could choose anything I wanted to, whether I was male or female at the time. And also to say like, you wanna enjoy what you do. And I remember my first years of work going, I, I don’t, I didn’t work a day in my life because I didn’t feel like it was work, you know, in the beginning I, you know, I was doing with my physi and that, and I was kind of like, yeah, like I’m, I’m getting paid to play.


Deb Lawlor (08:43):
You know, now there’s a skill to making play interesting to kids and having them engaged. Yeah. Don’t get me wrong. But yeah, I, I, I really don’t feel for most of my career that I’ve really worked a day in my life in that sense that it, it it’s enjoyable. I, I love what I do.


Sam Demma (08:58):
That’s awesome. And it’s changed a lot over the past couple of years, specifically this year and something I’ve recently started to realize is that our beliefs lead to our emotions, our emotions lead to our actions and our actions lead to our results. And when we get a different world view, our beliefs change, then our emotions change, our actions changes and our results that we might even project onto our students change. You recently took a sabbatical and traveled the globe for a year, gained some new perspectives, came back to the classroom. And I would say arguably back to education, arguably more passionate, more inspired with a new clarity. Could you share a little bit about what prompted you to make that decision to travel and how it affected you as a professional in education?


Deb Lawlor (09:47):
Okay. I’ve always loved to travel. I, I started traveling in, in my mid twenties and the nice thing. I mean, it’s, it’s to double edge sword as a, as an educator, we are pegged into times that we have to travel mm-hmm. So we have to travel at March break. We have to travel at Christmas the two week time break. And then we, and we graciously have a summer time where we can choose to, to do some, some intensive traveling during that time on the flip side of that, it’s also very costly at all those high season times. But what sort of got me into wanting to pursue some sabbaticals and, and, and to travel in that way was in order to go to New Zealand in Australia. And I, and I did that on a sabbatical that I took back in oh 5 0 6. It was my first one.


Deb Lawlor (10:32):
I, I had that care at dangling in front of me for five or six years as I was on reduced pay in order to, to get to that goal. But what drove me was I wanted to see Australian New Zealand, but the time to see their summertime was in our wintertime and as a teacher, I wasn’t gonna be able to do that. Mm. And so that gave me the drive, the push to kind of go, okay, let’s try this, this sabbatical where I do a reduced pay. And it’s given, you know, I’m paid from a, that final year from my own money. And when I did that, it allowed me to see places. I, I, I had never, you know, had an opportunity to see. And this time when I went to go, my, my dream was to go to, to Asia. I wanted to go explore Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, and see cultures that I didn’t know very much at all about.


Deb Lawlor (11:16):
And it allowed me to immerse myself into a place that there was new things to see there was new things to taste. There were new people to get to know. And I traveled with people who were internationally spread across the world. There was people from the UK, people from Switzerland, people from Germany, I met people who were Dutch all over the globe. And I think just that exposure to people, you start seeing other perspectives. And I’m always very curious about the education systems in other places. And you talk to them about how long’s your school day and what do your kids do? You know, what are the sports that they might get involved in? What extracurriculars do they run? How do they do that? And it was very interesting to me going to Asia because it is very different in some ways to, to how we do things.


Deb Lawlor (12:04):
I, I had a really great opportunity. This little boy in Vietnam came and, and approached me while we were wa walking between PI places on, on the tour. And we had a chance to stop. And I was sitting on a bench and this little nine year old boy came up and he said to me, is it okay if I sit and talk with you? And I said, sure. And I kind of looked around for the parent and, and the parent and his father and his grandfather was sitting on the bench across from me. And what I had ended up finding out later from my guide was that this was how a lot of the children would try and learn English. They didn’t wanna learn from their teachers who were Vietnamese. They wanted to learn from English speaking first language people. So they were often encouraged to see, seek out the tourists and have conversation to practice through English.


Deb Lawlor (12:49):
And so I was fascinated because this little guy, he knew, knew more about Canada than some of the students that I knew. And he was like, he, I told him where I was from. And he started talking about, well, your population is approximately this million, this number million. And you have a very large country, and it’s very cold there. You know, he had all these, I, you are nine years old and can tell me about my country. It was very interesting. But then to ask and say, so, you know, like, what are the types of things you do? What do you like doing at school? And he liked computers and he liked reading. And I asked him about sports and I said, physical activity. I said, do they do it at your school? And it wasn’t popular among some of the kids. And there were some things that were happening, but it was very oriented to achieving and to practicing your lessons and working on those types of things.


Deb Lawlor (13:42):
So I always find it interesting to travel elsewhere, to find out what they, what they do. And, and can we learn anything from, from other other cultures and, and, and having other perspectives. I mean, just on the, on tour itself my tour in New Zealand that followed that was, I was probably the oldest on that tour for most of the time of that tour. I was probably 20 years senior, too, to most of the people on the tour. And again, to have that perspective of youth and say, you know, how do you see these things and what do you, think’s happening in the world? And is this working, and, and why would you do this? Or wouldn’t you do that? Was very interesting. And I met a, I met another teacher from the UK and she was 32 and, you know, worked at elementary.


Deb Lawlor (14:24):
So again, something different for me to kind of probe. And I’m actually still in contact with, with three of the four of the gals that I met. We’re still on, on WhatsApp together to, to connect and talk about things and see how, how we’re doing. So the opportunities. And then, so what that brings back with me then Sam, for coming back to work is, is a, a renewed vigor about what I do and, and listening then to finding those other perspectives when, when I’m dealing with what I deal with now and making sure that, you know, there’s not somebody in the room that’s not heard mm-hmm , and if I’m not hearing a voice, I start to look for it and thinking or asking myself, well, what would this person think? Or how would this impact this person? Whereas before, you know, if you, it might have just been a bit more narrow because you haven’t had all those other different perspectives to hear about.


Sam Demma (15:15):
That makes so much sense. And would you recommend other educators listening to travel?


Deb Lawlor (15:20):
Oh, absolutely. I highly recommend I’ve done three sabbaticals over my time. Nice. And my next one will be permanent but no, I, I think it’s a great, I think it’s a great opportunity. And you know, what, you, you also don’t need to travel extensively far away. I mean, I, I went to Asia, I went to New Zealand. Yeah. Those are big, big options to try and, and get away from. But what COVID OS taught me is that you can actually explore around the area you live. I’m actually trying to, now that I’m restricted in where I can go from auto it’s like, well, what new trails can I go check out? And what are the new, I went to a grocery store the other day that I, I kept seeing fruit for a long time, on my way to my, my physio appointments.


Deb Lawlor (16:02):
And I said, I that’s Adonis. I’m like, that’s telling me something. That’s not a Sobeys. It’s not a Loblaws. You know, I thought, well, what kind of, you know, what’s, what’s the type of foods and stuff. So I went in and I, I had a, a little mini exploration, you know, for half an hour of just walking through aisles and going, wow, okay. Like in their deli, they’ve got a whole bunch of chickpeas and they have nuts and they have different produce that I couldn’t normally find in the wintertime. And I thought, you know, looking at the different culture that’s been brought into a store and it was very exciting in that same way of just going something new, something different and something to try. So I absolutely, I, I would highly recommend travel for, for anyone to do, but it, it can be travel even to another province.


Deb Lawlor (16:42):
If you haven’t explored Canada, it could be to a, to a small town. We live in Ottawa here with my board. But I mean, there’s Smith falls around there’s, Almont, there’s Kingston, not far our way, there’s these small little town Smith falls, Richmond, like you can explore, you know, and I think that it adds to when we’re lifelong learners, mm-hmm, , you’re constantly in, in education, you are a lifelong learner. Whether you like it or not, because you’re not always gonna be teaching the same courses, the same grade level, you’re gonna change positions. You might go into advance, you’re always gonna need to learn. And if you keep open to that learning, then it makes it a lot easier for, for what you’re


Sam Demma (17:20):
Gonna do. I was speaking to an educator yesterday on a phone call, Michael Kelly from the Toronto Catholic district school board. He teaches a GLE learning strategies course. And he was telling me that he has a passion for history, and that’s what he got into education be cause of. And there was this opportunity to travel to Italy with his students and show them history. And he said, by going on that travel experience, it renewed his passion and reconfirmed for him that he does love history. And it’s so exciting to him. And it’s so cool. And he said, he came back to school with so much more passion to teach it. And I think it’s the same case for you, but in a slightly different position that you’re now working in with the school board. What new challenges though, have you been faced with over the past? I don’t know, a couple of months that you’ve been placed back into this position right after a global pandemic?


Deb Lawlor (18:11):
Yeah, definitely a, a change in in experiences coming back to this, I, I wasn’t, so therefore I wasn’t in, in place working when COVID hit in, in the spring when schools were, were, were adjusting that I think part of the challenge I’ve seen is trying to find ways to make activities. And this is activities with my teachers or the activities teachers are doing with students trying to make activities that we normally would do engaging. Now that they’ve a lot of it switched online. And I, I think the screen time is a challenge. I, I think it’s, it’s very difficult for people to be on screen, how they’re in school. And then, and then they go home on, in our board. They, they flip flopping days at high school and then go home and then you’re expected to be on screen all day long with that.


Deb Lawlor (18:59):
And then a lot of what people’s personal interests and hobbies are, is to be on social media or to be online on, on their device. So, so I think that’s the, the biggest change that I’m, I’m on screen now all day long and I’m on meetings and, and doing trying to connect with teachers through Google meets or individual Hangouts, or it it’s a lot of a lot of time that just sitting. So I just, you know, before I, I got online with you, I just came from my walk outta lunch that nice, you know, get outside dress for it. It’s a little chillier there today. Yeah. but, and, and I also thinking it’s trying to reach out to our students and, and our teachers for me, cuz I, I work with our staff to, in a meaningful way. It, it’s making sure that they’re is those human connections that we still need.


Deb Lawlor (19:54):
And so something, you know that you can try and create, that’s fun. Something that, you know, is lighthearted being able to make use of time. That’s precious for people being consistent in terms of what you want to try to accomplish and be clear about things. It, it’s a challenge to try and make sure that, you know, you’re not wasting people’s time for different pieces. And then also for me in the, the role that I have is I get funding to run some of these programs. And there’s a lot of funding this year that we’re not using it for buses. We’re not using it for supply release. We’re not using it for hospitality reasons. So now it’s like, well, what do we use that funding for? And it’s trying to find ways to brainstorm and to think outside the box of, okay, I can’t, I can’t bring a, a, a provider and to give a certification to students. So what am I gonna do instead? You know, we ask, we can do it online, but it’s like, well, can I give you kits that you can have someone zoom in live with you and you guys each now all have your individual piece to build a house and to work on that and understand the, the makings behind construction and, and, and the skills that go with that.


Sam Demma (21:08):
I love that that’s an amazing understanding and how things have changed and shifted what is going really well though. I, you talked about an online system that specifically the O C D S B or the OCS B is using that’s working really well for teachers and students and helping them keep track of their it’s. I believe it’s like a Google workflow or something along those lines.


Deb Lawlor (21:30):
So ha power workspace is what we use. Yep. And teachers are able to load up all of their different materials in there. But the nice thing about Hapa is that the students it’s already set up for them when they walk into their, into their, their, they say, walk into their class when they begin their class, when they get yeah. Virtually, if they sign in and the folders for each of their courses are already in Google drive. So if they had math history, religion, and English happening, then there’s already a folder that has all their documents that they need. So it kind of removes that need for a binder. You’re not losing papers, things aren’t falling out. If the teacher knows the student’s gonna be away, they know that that information is in there to access wherever they are remotely and be able to do that.


Deb Lawlor (22:13):
And that was a, a nice thing to be able to see happen where it really, I mean, COVID, that’s a plus side of it. Is it really accelerated how quickly our staff is using it and becoming comfortable with it? Because we had to last spring when everything went, went remote, now I could see in the future that, you know, let’s say a student has a lacrosse tournament that we can misses some of their classes, right? Yeah. Then they come back and they know everything’s already in there, or they’re on their bus, taking the ride out, or they’re driving to Toronto to, to do a tournament you know, in their personal life. And then they can be worth on the stuff and not miss anything that that’s gonna happen there. And Harara allows the students to actually add cards to it. So you can actually collect evidence and, and they might have something where say, you know, Sam, I want you to add, you know, your ideas to this slide and Deb, I want you to put your ideas in this slide and each student would have a slide to add into it.


Deb Lawlor (23:06):
So now you have collaboration happening between students, even though they’re in their different places or it could even be happening in the same classroom because now you can’t touch each other’s, you know, laptops and materials, et cetera, but they can still be collaborating on the same document together. And and the assessments are done there through there as well in track so that they teachers able to see their progress as they’re working on it, to see where they’re at and whether they need some little reminders to, you know, keep going at it, or if they, you know, need feedback and get some help and they can do that electronically as well.


Sam Demma (23:37):
I love it. And you mentioned that your, your next sabbatical will be your final one before that parting day mm-hmm . What, what keeps you hopeful and motivated when working in education with young people, despite the challenges that we’re facing?


Deb Lawlor (23:53):
There’s always hope if you look for it. It it’s, I, I have an attitude of gratitude and I think that alone really gives me hope because as even, even walking outside today, I was thinking, you know what, I, I can go outside and walk. I’m not sick with COVID right now. Yeah. And I have my health and I’m in an area that I can do this in. I think that the the ability to not give up that there is that there’s always going to be something kind. I see people being kind that’s hopeful to me. So when you see simple kind gestures during your day, someone opens the door for, for you at work, you’re out in the grocery store. And, you know, you can still see the smile of people’s eyes above the mask, right. If, if you look for it, if, if you, so it’s pain attention to the little details.


Deb Lawlor (24:47):
Sometimes watching that, you know, someone’s got a real joy for Christmas right now in my department, and they’re just, every decorations are going everywhere and it makes people smile. And I think the other thing too, is just knowing that this too shall pass like it, this isn’t gonna be forever. It’s inconvenient. Absolutely. it’s, it’s depressing for some at times it’s certainly financially impacting people and, but it’s not gonna last, it will, it will be done someday. And I think you, that having that belief, knowing that it, you know, when you think of something hard that you went through it, wasn’t forever mm-hmm . And at the same time, what gives hope is that there’s other people that you can, that you can be helpful to around you. And that in itself is very, oh, very inspiring to, to see others doing that, to, to watching, you know, students making things for others, for the can.


Deb Lawlor (25:46):
I mean, the can food drives aren’t happening in the same ways that they did before, but we’re still finding people who are thinking outside the box. And I think when I see that when I see people being innovative, when I see people being creative with the situations they’ve been given, and yet seeing really neat things that they’re doing with their students, that gives me hope within, you know what’s gonna happen. And, and you sort of get pushed outside your comfort zone. But I think that gives me hope in the sense too, that we’re doing things that we might not have done. Had we not been put in this position? Yeah. You know, there’s been a lot of quick changes. People are collaborating a lot more now because they need to. Yeah. And they’re seeking help out from other people. I, I, I put an all call out to my, to my Chim leads across the province, you know, back in October when I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do with this.


Deb Lawlor (26:35):
And, and I got 13, 14 responses. And then I connected with those people by phone and followed up. And then we chatted about things. And then I went, okay, I’m not the only one dealing with this. Someone else is feeling the same thing I am. And someone else is going through something similar. And as you talk to someone, you just kind of go, okay, I’m not alone in this. There there’s others who are going through the exact same thing. And then you stop being so hard on yourself in what you’re trying to deal with because others are doing the same thing.


Sam Demma (27:02):
Yeah. I love that. And your hope is hopefully rubbing off on your hope, the listener. I hope this reminds you that there is always a perspective shift that you can have, right? That’s the whole idea of change. What you’re believing about the situation. It will change how you feel. It will change your actions and you’ll get a totally different result. Deb, if you could travel back in time and speak to your younger self, when you just got into education, what would you say?


Deb Lawlor (27:30):
Oh, so if I’m, I’m speaking to myself from my perspective now to my younger self?


Sam Demma (27:34):
Yeah. In education. Okay.


Deb Lawlor (27:37):
Don’t take it personally. I love it. I think as young educator is we take everything personally. We are upset if they don’t do the homework, the student doesn’t do their homework in our class. We’re upset when they walk out and say, I hate you. That we’re upset when, you know you, you plan this great lesson, you put all this effort and it totally bombs. And the kids think it sucks. You know? Like I, I think you can’t take it personally. You do the best that you can with what you’ve got and that’s gonna develop over time. I think part of it is I would tell myself I would tell myself it doesn’t have to be perfect. I think there’s so much, we strive that, you know, you’ve gotta have that perfect lesson. It’s gotta be, everyone’s gotta receive it in the right way.


Deb Lawlor (28:20):
And, and everyone being happy with it. I’d probably tell myself not to work so many long hours. I burn the candles a lot when, you know, and you do as a young teacher because yeah, you just, you need to you until you get the experience until you, you know, figure out what it is you, and if you’re teaching something different all the time, it’s, it’s inevitable it’s gonna happen. What else would I tell myself? I would tell myself to, to enjoy the ride. Mm. But really enjoy the ride because it, it, and I think I did, I eventually, I, I started to do that to really, to, to it’s about the journey. It’s not about the endpoint really, to, and, and not to be afraid to, well, certainly to not worry so much about the content. And it’s more about, it’s more about the skills that you’re teaching the kids.


Deb Lawlor (29:08):
And again, sort of my beginning year, my first, you know, five, six years that wasn’t in my mind as I, as I grew, and as I got more experienced, you, you start to enjoy those kids who who are the challenge, the kids who don’t agree with you, who, who will push and who have issues that you start to realize that you can help mold and help guide them. And it’s not all about having the kid who puts their hand up all the time and raises their hand and hands everything in and does everything you want them to. And doesn’t talk back to you. After a while I started seeking out the kids who I thought you’ll be okay without me, you’re gonna do fine and be all right, but you need a little more attention and, and, and you need in year and you need me to ask you, how are you doing today? You know, scale of one to 10, where are you at just doing a check in? Doesn’t need to tell me a, any information. I don’t need to know the details, but if I know you’re a four today, then I’m gonna deal with you a little bit different than if you’re at an eight, you know, and, and, and cut you a little slack and give you a little bit of room and be understanding that, Nope, you’re not gonna get that assignment into me today. And it’s not the end of the world.


Sam Demma (30:18):
I like that. That’s awesome. Deb, thank you so much for coming and sharing some of your wisdom and advice on the show here today, and some of your own personal journey through education. If another educator wants to reach out to you, what would be the best way for them to do so maybe Twitter or an email or whatever you prefer.


Deb Lawlor (30:35):
Yeah, they can, they can give me an email at debbie.lawlor@ocsb.ca. So debbie.lawlor@ocsb.ca. My Twitter handle is @deb_lawlor.


Sam Demma (30:55):
All right. Awesome. Thanks so much, Deb. I look forward to staying in touch and seeing where your travels take you next.


Deb Lawlor (31:02):
Sam’s it’s been a pleasure to be here.


Sam Demma (31:04):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you so soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Deb Lawlor

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

January 8, 2022 by Cooperative Education Experiential Learning OYAP Coordinator Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Hugues Bertrand – Social Studies and Leadership Teacher

Hugues Bertrand – Social Studies and Leadership Teacher
About Hugues Bertrand

Hugues Bertrand is a Social Studies and Leadership teacher at Pierrefonds Community High School in Pierrefonds Quebec for 26 years now. Long time Quebec leadership advisor, Canadian Student Leadership Conference (CSLC) 2010 chair and Canadian Student Leadership Association (CSLA) member. 

Hugues has always been a student life enthusiast helping students discover themselves and reaching their true potential. He truly believes in being open-minded when interacting with students and emphasizes the importance of simply listening to what they have to say.

Connect with Hugues: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Pierrefonds Community High School

Canadian Student Leadership Conference

Canadian Student Leadership Association

Speakers Bureau of Canada

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Hugh Bertrand. He’s been teaching for over 26 years. He’s also a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He had a virtual background on zoom during our interview, and he airs so many amazing insights into ideas to engage his students, to make them feel a little more appreciated and valued during this time. And he also shares this idea about keeping an envelope of all the notes he has been receiving over the years of teaching and calling it his bad day file, where if he’s not having a great day, he pulls a note out, reads it to remind him self, why you got into education. There’s so many other insightful ideas on this episode. I hope you enjoy it. Take notes, listen actively, and I’ll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule to come out onto the High Performing Educators podcast. I’m curious to know, can you share with the audience who you are and what you into the work that you do with youth today?


Hugues Bertrand (01:04):
Okay, well, I’m I’m Hugues, I’ve been teaching for 26 years. I got started teaching, I guess my dad was a teacher, so that that’s obviously I knew a bit about the job but definitely doing a lot of student life stuff that that’s just, you know, wanting to make a difference and helped kids reach their potential you know, overcome the roadblocks. That’s thrown at them like by themselves or by others. So that’s kind of been my motivation.


Sam Demma (01:31):
Awesome. When did you know a lot of teachers, I speak to say they, they knew at this super young age, some of them say they figured it out after going to university. What was the case for you?


Hugues Bertrand (01:39):
I think you know, what I decided just before, you know, university I had all these different jobs you know, from being a lawyer notary to dentist and and and then just before university, when I to decide, I, you know, decided to go into teaching first it was Phys. Ed. and then high school degree. And you know, and then I just kind of branched out to social studies and in high school. So that’s, that’s when I decided it.


Sam Demma (02:06):
That’s awesome. And you’ve been teaching longer than I’ve been alive. That just means that you’re a wise and, and you know, so much about it and can provide so much great insight. And I’m really curious to kind of dive a little bit more into that. Have you been at the same school for your entire 26 years? Have you bounced around what kind of different roles have you played in?


Hugues Bertrand (02:29):
I have been pretty lucky. I’ve been in two schools. I started in, in an inner city school in Montreal for four years. Yep. And then that school closed. And then I moved to the, the school I’m at now PCHS in Pierrefonds. And I’ve been there for while now it’s like 22 years.


Sam Demma (02:42):
Awesome. So cool. And there’s a lot of challenges this year in education. Things are definitely different. I don’t want to make it negative or seem like there’s roadblocks in every way we turn, but COVID presented us with opportunities and challenges. What are some of those challenges that you’re seeing day to day in your school and whether it’s virtually while you’re at home or sitting in an office?


Hugues Bertrand (03:04):
When I think about that question is it’s, you know, like overall, like the help, right? Like, that’s like, you gotta be conscious of your own health. And then your, and your student’s health and your own family. As I explained to my students, like on day one you know, guys, like, you know, I’m more, all this PPE welcome to the new normal this, this didn’t feel normal to me. And I was very honest with them. And know they were all wearing masks in class. I was very lucky. My students were pretty good. I mean, they don’t have to wear it. They can, they can take it off while they’re sitting, but most of them do which share reassuring. So that that’s definitely like some of the challenges, like the hell aspect of it, it kids being off for six months in Quebec, like that was like, you know, that was like, they’re rusty. So that’s something that we need to keep in mind. you know, and in the mix, my school, like the seniors mix one day at school, one day at home. So like juggling the online and, and in class you know, like you got to adapt, like they have to, but you also have to adapt.


Sam Demma (03:59):
Yeah. That’s so true. How do you find teaching virtually is it a challenge? How do you get cameras? How do you get students to turn their cameras on and raise their hands and, and speak in class is difficult?


Hugues Bertrand (04:10):
Right. I, I find it’s made me a better teacher. Like I realize that the other day, like you know, I was being ready for a session and, and I definitely keep it shorter. Our classes are 75 minutes school and, and, you know, I pants to myself, lecturing. I rarely lecture for 35 minutes at school anyway. So I try to like mix it up and you know, having them to have their cameras on is, is a challenge. You know, like I know like there’s some schools that have rules and they have to have it on, but then it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s facing a wall or, yeah. You know, I noticed this morning, I was, I was teach out a few online classes and some of their bad, they were, some of them were in their bedroom and it was really dark.


Hugues Bertrand (04:45):
Like I could see the shades were down and everything. And I, I made a few comments, like guys, like, you know, like, it’s almost like it’s night in your room. Like, , you know, let, let let in some lights. But yeah, it’s not easy. I, I try to to flip the classroom a bit. So I put some talking points up and then I, and I try to engage them. And even though like, when you share documents, depending on what you’re using, you don’t see them all, but like, I call out their names, so then they have to kind of be there. And and I, you know, I, I kind of like share, like, I usually share material with them ahead of class or during class. I’m like, Hey guys, there’s a video here. That’s 15 minutes when I’m done, you’re gonna know, watch this. And then be ready to talk about it next class. So I kind of like, it’s, it’s made me a better teacher, I think, cuz I have to think about delivery. I have to think about the material I’m using. Some of the things that I was using, I can’t use anymore in the same way. So I, I think like, you know, it’s forced me to be more creative.


Sam Demma (05:37):
That’s awesome. I think that’s a beautiful way to look at it. No, one’s given me a response like that yet. And I’ve done a dozen in interview so far making you a better teacher. So you look at it from the positive perspective. There’s so much challenges going on right now, but like you are looking at this from a positive angle. I’m curious to know what gives you hope personally despite the challenges, what keeps you going, what keeps you motivated and hopeful with the work that you’re doing?


Hugues Bertrand (06:03):
I think I, I believe in the end science will win. I mean I think that’s, you know, you have to think that this is gonna, this too shall pass is gonna end. If not, I think you just gotta go bonkers. So you gotta, you gotta believe that it’s gonna, there’s gonna be an, we don’t know when you know, I mean so, so, and I think it, it forced people to take a look at their own life. What really matters obviously when we were quarantined for like all these months in the winter last year, you know, like, I mean like my, my wife’s the teacher also, so we were both at home teaching from home. Our two kids were at home going to school at home. So, you know, so that forced us to kind of like, you know work around those things. But it’s a, it’s kind of like, you know, you gotta slow down. I think, I think it’s forced me to slow down and then, okay, so I can’t do this and this and this anymore. So I think, I think, you know, like I have the hope that it’s, you know, I, I hone, I, sorry, I hope I, I hold onto the hope that it’s it’s, you know, science will win. And then basically you know, and then I kind of like just kind of prioritize things.


Sam Demma (07:04):
That’s awesome. I love that. It makes perfect sense. There’s nothing else that we can do this. Stuff’s kind of out of our control and we have to just let it play. Its play its part and then we’ll get going when it’s done. I’ve spoken again to dozens of educators already. And I’ve asked them this question, you know, we’ve, you’ve been in education for 26 years. You’ve helped dozens of students, maybe not even academically, but also with their mental health, with their physical health. Maybe you’ve mentored them, gave them some life changing advice. And maybe once or twice someone’s written you a letter when they’re like 20 years older saying hug, you changed my life back in class. And now I’m doing this job because of what you said. And I’m curious to know what can we do during COVID that will ensure that the kids that are in your class right now have that same response 20 years later. Like how do we, how do we care for our kids right now?


Hugues Bertrand (07:56):
I think, I think we gotta be there and listen we gotta be patient. You know, I mean, I’m getting like, you know, they have lots of questions and, and they have a lot of things that they’re not sure about. And then so I think we gotta hear them out. I like, for example, like, you know, like I mentioned, there’s six months, like kind of rust that asked needs to be knocked off. So, you know, things like, you know, maybe you would’ve done three, three projects and from one and then maybe you’ll do two and maybe you’ll have to walk them through things. You know and then if they’re like, you go off topic, like you gotta, you know, like you ha you have to take the time to listen to them. And, and, and sometimes this is the best thing you can do is listen.


Hugues Bertrand (08:34):
You know when I think back of kids, who’ve gone back to me over the years. You know, and unfortunately I there’s been many in, in those are bonuses that I call as I call them. Mm-Hmm you know, I think, I think, yeah, what did I do while I listen? I gave him the time you know, and like we had a case at school yesterday, like it was announced, but the way it’s announced, it’s, it’s, you know, there’s a student in a class bubble that that’s positive. So that question, that kid was already at home, so they isolate the class and yet, but some other kids in the school were like, you know, they were, I, my grade 11 class, they were upset. We wanna know who it is. We wanna know what level. And I know I, and I stopped the lesson to kind of explain like what you can’t it’s privacy it’s, you know, how would you feel is of people knew your help you know, what, what goes on between you and the doctor?


Hugues Bertrand (09:18):
So, but I mean, I could have like, just pushed a lesson, but I stopped mm-hmm cause I think they, they were uneasy. They were nervous. They, they, they, they want, they were, they were reacting to this situation. So I think we need that’s what we need to do is we need to slow down. We need to listen to them. You know, we don’t all, maybe we don’t have all the answers, but at least if we’re listening to them and gave ’em a chance to like, like a platform you know, and, and, and also I think sometimes like we gotta you know, try to like, not steer away from it, but like, you know, there’s other things going on in COVID is everywhere in the social media. It’s, it’s in news, it’s everywhere. So I think they kind of need a bit of release from that.


Sam Demma (09:53):
Sometimes I love that we have two ears of one mouth. My mentor told me, it means you have to listen twice as much as we speak. And I think it’s a beautiful testament, especially in a classroom when student voice is being heard very little, especially right now with what’s going on. And aside from teachers, they’re the next in line being affected to a major degree. So I think that’s a beautiful point. And I appreciate you for sharing that in terms of, of students that have been impacted by your direct teaching and mentorship over the years, I would love for you to share a story or two that touches your heart deeply of a student you’ve impacted. You can change their name for the sake of privacy, but do you have a story you’d like to share of a, a student who’s maybe talked to you after they graduated and said, how big of an impact they had on, on, on their life?


Hugues Bertrand (10:39):
You know what, like, it’s funny, you mentioned that and I get emotional and then like having taught 26 years and you know, and, and I, I’m kind, I think I’m the same guy after 26 years. I’m a little bit wiser. I, I sometimes like you know, I’m better at what I do. But yeah, there’s a few that I can say I can think of, but I think like, you know, when I, I think back on my first four years of teaching in inner city you know, being like 23 and, and, and I remember like, like the kids I bonded well with the kids and, and them with me. And so I guess like 30 years later, like I get these, the Facebook you know, I mean, I’m old, so I’m on Facebook.


Hugues Bertrand (11:19):
And I got this Facebook messenger from, from an ex student. You know, who’s now as a family of five kids and says, look, I just wanted to let you know, thank you for impacting my life. And I wanna let you know that I have a job now. And, you know, and I got out of like where inner city, where we lived and I’m married, I have five kids and I’m working. And so that, that, that was really meaningful for me. And this is, this was the student I always said I was closed with. And I took under my wing and you know, spent a lot of time with listening and sometimes steering them in the, in the right direction. You know, I mean, if I come closer in, in, in, you know, to my career, like, like in the last 10 years, like I have students, I still, I have a group of students that I, I talk to well actually I it’s like a group of that.


Hugues Bertrand (12:03):
I, I, that I once in a while, I’ll, I’ll drop a message, like don’t need to respond and just, just you know, thanking them from like I on Facebook. So I get to see their life and I see what they’re doing and, you know, just kind of like tell ’em, they’re all success stories. And these are kids that I’ve like, you know, over the years, like reached out to me again with, with thank you for being there or thank you for you know, what you did for me. And you know, it’s, it’s nice to have that connection. I actually have nobody knows this , that’s cool. I have I have like a folder on my desk and it’s been like, I keep it on my desk every year. And it’s like letters or notes I’ve gotten from kids over the years.


Hugues Bertrand (12:41):
And you know, so I just know when, when you have an off day, you know, you’ll open that folder and like, you know, it sets you back. So nobody knows what that folder is, or at least now, but yeah, that’s that, that’s something for me. Like, I, I’ve been very AP very lucky, you know, I mean that the kids I always tell kids you know, not for me, but like, you know, you got to let people know, like, you know, if they made a difference in your life good or bad, you got to let them know. You know, cuz if you don’t let them know, they’ll never know that they made a difference. So, you know, yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been very, very lucky.


Sam Demma (13:12):
Yeah. Sometimes they don’t send those messages or write those letters until 20 years down the road. And I think educators sometimes, especially the younger ones who are just starting don’t realize the impact they’re having and half the purpose of this podcast is to remind them that no, what you’re doing is important, despite the challenges we’re currently facing the work is needed now more than ever. And the stories of impact do surface, maybe not right now, but they might 10, 15 years from now or when you least expect it. And I think that idea of having a folder on your desk is beautiful. Do you remember any of the letters that you recently have read?


Hugues Bertrand (13:49):
Well I had, I had one a student sent me a copy of a university paper that you were roles in sociology and it was like, you know, something shed done for in university and it was about me. So , so it was really, you know, it was I was very humbled. And, and this is someone who’s like now in their thirties with, you know, two kids, but you know, I mean, I, I, I think back I’ve done mean there’s I, you know, I guess there’s so many, like, you know, that that’s hard to pinpoint one, but they’re all, they’re all you know, they all touch me like, you know, I find it very touching, so and I, and you’re right. Like, you know, we have the power as teachers, like, you know, we can make or break a kids’ day.


Hugues Bertrand (14:33):
Like, and, and we need to remember that. Because sometimes, you know, like like kids, like you know, they, they they’re fragile even if they don’t show it. So, so, you know, we have that you know, like we, we may say something or do something that’s gonna turn off a kid completely and we might, and the worst thing is you may not notice. And then they’ll just go on you know, so good or bad. So I think we, we need to be mindful of that. You know, teaching teaching is, is an important profession and you know, and I think a lot of responsibility comes with that.


Sam Demma (15:07):
That’s so true. That’s awesome. I appreciate you sharing the story and the letters and the, the good moments. I can see the smile that you brought to your face, which is awesome. And it’s encouraging for anyone else to hear. And I love the idea. Again, if anyone’s listening, go make your own folder, we can call it the folder of appreciation or whatever you, you wanna label it and put it on your desk and put all your letters in it and revisit them. When you’re feeling down. I have a similar concept that a coach told me and it’s called that you done good list, and it’s not things that other people have given to me or said to me, but it’s things that I’m proud of that I’ve done. And when I feel like I’m not doing enough where I feel like I’m moving too slow, instead of focusing on where I want to go, I focus on where I’ve already gone, what I’ve already done, where I’ve already been, the people I’ve already impacted and met, and that change of focus leads to so much more positive decisions.


Sam Demma (15:57):
And I think it’s, it’s evident not only in education, but in all areas of life. So again, thanks for, for sharing that on a, a separate note. It’s really difficult right now to bring in powerful messages into a school. And I’m sure, or you’ve dealt with bringing in speakers for dozens of years right now. It’s harder than ever. If someone’s listening an educator that might be a little bit younger, not as wise just yet, , they’re building their wisdom. They wanna, you know, bring someone into their school to speak. How would you advise them to do so? Maybe even without COVID like, what do you look for in a person to bring in front of your students?


Hugues Bertrand (16:33):
I, I think whenever you’re gonna bring somebody in front of your student, like, you know, as one of my mentors always said, like, you have to have seen them or somebody you trust is seen them, like, so that’s school number one, like just bring in somebody just to bring somebody is the, is the bad idea. Yeah. So like you have to have like seen them or heard and, or, or somebody you trust. I seen them I think you gotta think of case this could be meaningful to my students and maybe you may find it’s really like, this is really good, but like, you know, you gotta know your students. Yeah. What, what they’re needing obviously right now it’s complicated. You know, I was, I know at school, like I was, you know, reaching out administration about maybe starting some student life this year, again, you know, and through, through the bubbles and, you know, and then the next day we have a case at school.


Hugues Bertrand (17:13):
So I’m like that didn’t get that, that fell down the list of things to do for the, for my principal by no fault of hit of his. So I think ask around, I mean, there’s some great organizations in Canada you know for, for leadership. So there’s Speakers Bureau. And so, so you can, like, you can see now with technology you can usually see clips of speakers and presenters. So like that that’s, I mean, do your homework, check it out, talk to people, ask questions you know, ask definitely there’s lots of good people to bring in like you know, kids, kids you know, they, they, sometimes you need to change it up and, and they respond you know, to somebody else, you you’d be saying the same thing, but you bring, somebody give the same message and sudden like, oh, it’s heard. But you know, by, by any means necessary, like that’s, that’s always one of, some of my mantra.


Sam Demma (18:00):
No, that’s awesome. And when it comes to speakers, what do you thinks the most important thing in relation to having impact on the students? Is it content the person shares? Is it the way they deliver it? Is it how they engage the students? Is it because it’s interactive? Is it their age?


Hugues Bertrand (18:16):
I think I’ve, I’ve been very fortunate again having been involved with leadership and, and, and going to conferences and hosting conferences. So I’ve been exposed to many, many speakers. I would say the delivery it’s not just the age. But I think the delivery, how they interact with the students is, is, is big because like, you know, you have to, you have to hook them as they, they say , but you’ll have a, it’s a mix of that, a message too, because if you have them, but then you don’t have a message or don’t deliver the message then it’s you know, once you have your attention. But I think, I think the interaction with student is, is very, very important.


Sam Demma (18:52):
Okay, cool. No, that’s awesome. And is there any plans, not, maybe not even in your school, but in other schools to do stuff virtually or is that totally out of the question?


Hugues Bertrand (19:01):
I think, I think the plan is there, the idea is there. I know I, I sit on the, our central student committee at the school board and give kids from all the, every school. And we were talking last week, you know, we usually have a senior leadership day. We have a junior leadership day and we said, well, you know, we could probably do it online you know, and bring in people. So I think the plan is there. I think it’s just right now, we’re kind of like, you know, as think cases are going up, like colors changing. So we’re just kind of like, yeah, you know, we’re gonna see where we’re gonna be with this. You know, and I think it’s one of things where we may have to adapt, but yeah, I think online for now, online speaking and is, is, is probably the way we’re gonna do this.


Sam Demma (19:38):
That’s awesome. It’s also encouraging to hear for other educators. It’s, it’s not the end, right? No, this is just a bump in the road. If someone’s listening right now, who’s a fellow educator who’s a little bit burnt out. Not maybe they just started this career. Imagine you were 23 years old and this was your first year of teaching and there was someone your age talking to you when you were 23, what would you tell that 23 year old who’s just starting in this industry?


Hugues Bertrand (20:04):
Be yourself, cuz kids will know like that’s kids kids will figure out pretty quick. So just be yourself, which I think is one of my strengths. When I talk to students that I’ve had that like, you know, what are 10 years ago, 20 years ago? You know, I’m like, you know, like, I haven’t changed. I mean, I’m, I’m more gray. I, the same haircut you, although it’s long now, but you know, like like at the same haircut I haven’t changed you know, they, they come to my classroom or if they, you know, green hackers. Yeah. That was my team when I was 16. So it’s not gonna change. You know, so like be yourself you know, be open open-minded listen, listen to them. You know kids don’t do well when you come in and just talk to them like that’s or anybody for that, for that, for that matter, don’t be shy to as for help.


Hugues Bertrand (20:51):
You know that’s that these are things that you know, but be yourself, be open-minded listen to them. You know, be fair. I think like kids will respond well to that and, and, you know, it’s, it’s a great job, but it’s not for everyone. I, and, and it’s not you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you gotta work, you know, you gotta, I mean, I I’ve been doing this 26 years and I still, still learning every day. Like, you’re, I still screw up sometimes. You know, and, and I, and I, I’m still learning, I was talking about how I adapted everything. I’ve been adapting and changing things don’t to, to, to be successful you know, and do the job, you know, in the last year or so. So now I think you just, you just gotta, you know, keep an open mind.


Sam Demma (21:34):
Love it. Open mind, listen, twice as much as you speak, ask for help, these are all great pieces of advice. Hugues, thank you so much for taking some time to do this interview today and inspire some fellow educators. I’m curious to know if anyone in the audience wants to reach out to you and maybe bounce some ideas around that’s another educator how can they reach you in, how can they do that?


Hugues Bertrand (21:54):
Well, I don’t I, I have a, I guess email would probably be the best way. I mean, I have a Facebook page, but that’d be hard to find me, so my email probably the best way to reach me. Okay. I was gonna make a joke and say mySpace, but I don’t even know what that is. So it has to be pretty old. So yeah, hbertrand@lbpearson.ca is probably the best way to reach me through email. And then we can go from there. I don’t have a website or anything, although you know so that, that’s probably the best way to reach me.


Sam Demma (22:24):
Okay. Awesome. Here again. Thank you so much, so much wisdom, so much to share, and I really appreciate you making some time. Oh, you’re welcome. I hope you enjoyed the episode with Hugues Bertrand so much practical advice and ideas to share. Please reach out to Hugues. He’d love to hear from you. He loves connecting with fellow educators and teachers like yourself. And as always, if you took something away from these interviews, if you’re taking something away from them and you’re learning something new, consider leaving a rating review. So more educators just like you can find this content and benefit from it. And if you have insightful stories or inspiring ideas that we can use in schools right now, please reach out at info@samdemma.com. So we can get you on the show and share those stories with your colleagues. Talk soon, see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Hugues Bertrand

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

January 7, 2022 by Student Leadership Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Richard Vissers – Director of Admissions at Holy Trinity School

Richard Vissers – Director of Admissions at Holy Trinity School
About Richard Vissers

Richard Vissers joined Holy Trinity School (HTS) in 1996 as the senior chemistry teacher. Since then, he has also served as the Grade 9 and 10 Coordinator, Guidance Counsellor, Director of HTS Camps, and Chair of the Miller Thomson Scholarship Committee. Whether coaching a team, guiding the yearbook, or organizing the House and Leadership programs, Richard has worked in all areas to provide opportunities for students to engage and develop pride in their school, which will stay with them for a lifetime.

Richard attended Trent University to achieve a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and then Queen’s University to achieve a Bachelors of Education.

Connect with Richard: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Holy Trinity School

Trent University

Queen’s University

Prep Skills College Expo

Lifelong Learning

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is Richard Vissers. He is the Director of Admissions at Holy Trinity School. He joined Holy Trinity School in 1996 as the senior chemistry teacher. Since then, he has also served as the grade 9 and 10 coordinator guidance, counselor, Director of the Holy Trinity School camp and chair of the Miller Thomson Scholarship Committee. Whether coaching a team, guiding the yearbook or organizing the health and leadership programs, Richard has worked in all areas to provide opportunities for students to engage and develop pride in their school, which will stay with them for a lifetime. And I can tell you from my interview with Richard, there’s a ton of value he has to share and advice to provide. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed recording it. I’ll see you on the other side. Richard, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. I know we met at the beginning of the year, which for both of us felt like a long time. We go as a part of the Prep Skills College Expo, but tell the audience, why don’t you start by telling the audience a little bit more about yourself and how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today?


Richard Vissers (01:12):
Sure. Well, first off Sam, thanks so much for having me today. I really appreciate the opportunity and I have been teaching. I’m almost embarrassed to, I’ve been teaching for a long time now and I started at a boarding school over 20 years ago, and that was that was trial by fire. When you work at a boarding school, you have lots of different hats. And so I’ve been at the current school HTS right now for over 20 years. And I’ve had lots of great opportunities here. And as when, when you first reached out to me and invited me to participate, I started thinking about, you know, what got me into this role, what got me into teaching, I suppose. And really, I started to think about some of the people in my life back when I was in school, high school in particular, but even before that, you know, teachers that took an interest in me and that’s those of the memories that I have that are strongest and most positive and actually reflect a lot of what I’m doing now on a daily basis.


Richard Vissers (02:09):
So it was teachers that took the time to get to know you took an interest in you and, and came forward with ideas and, and kind of pushed me a little bit to, to try some new things that I probably you know, slightly she that I probably wouldn’t have done without some, some motivation, some encouragement and a little and a little bit of a push. So I think that’s probably, what’s mostly gotten me into what I, what I’m doing today. And those are the, some of the things that I thought about when you reached out.


Sam Demma (02:40):
Tell me more about those teachers and what they did or how they pushed you. I’d love to know.


Richard Vissers (02:48):
Let’s see you know, one of the people I had an English teacher, she reached out to me she said, you know, I’m really looking for someone to join and be a photographer, take some pictures around the school and get involved in that way. I had a, I, I tried in for the hockey team. I wasn’t the greatest hockey player, but I tried out, I didn’t make the team. But the coach you know, we had a good relationship. I was in a class that he was teaching. He, he connected with me a couple days later and said, you know, Richard saw you worked hard and we’d still like you to be involved. Could you help about and come along? And, you know, there’s managing and there’s on the bench and travel and all that. So you know, those are some people that really stuck their neck out for me and saw, you know, got me to be involved in the school.


Richard Vissers (03:30):
And, and so those are some of the things that kind of stuck with me. And I had some friends too at school that reached out and said, you know, you should really do this. And had a, one of my, one of my friends the track and field team was leaving. And I said, yeah, I’m doing track this year. And then I didn’t, I wasn’t gonna go. And she jumped in said, why aren’t you going, you know, that’s the best part of the day. You get to leave, you get to compete. And so I managed to get outta my class and jump on the bus and had a great day, and it was pretty successful and and kept at it for a few more years. So those are some memories of people kind of extending themselves to me. And, and that’s the, that’s the type of work that I’m doing now. I really think work in my position, Director of Admissions is really about finding kids and finding great families and providing some opportunity so they can come in and take advantage.


Sam Demma (04:17):
I love that that’s a, it’s an admirable role and every single player on the team, including the management, if you’re talking about hockey is super important, and I’m sure, you know, the school, the students, the administration is a little different this year in terms of the challenges you’re faced with as compared to maybe last year or time in the past. What, what are some of the challenges this school is facing right now? And how are they overcoming them or how are you overcoming them?


Richard Vissers (04:47):
It is a challenge, Sam. There’s no question about it. This is a different world a different environment and families, however, still are, are looking into finding a place for their children, finding a school for their children. And, and it’s a huge investment emotionally. It’s a, it is a huge investment financially as well, and they take a lot of time. They take it very seriously and you know, their children’s education is, is probably the single most important thing they’re going to consider as they, as they have children and, and their families grow. And it’s, it’s a very touchy, feely process. Families want to come into a school, they wanna see it, they want to feel it. They want to hear it. And the biggest challenge in, in my role and the people that I work with here the, the challenge is to replicate that somehow.


Richard Vissers (05:37):
And I’m very fortunate. I work in a school where I know that the students here take great pride. They love coming to school. They really do. They really, really do run to run to the doors when they get here in the morning, you know, they’re that excited to be with their teachers and their friends. And so how do you replicate that? How do you, how do you allow a family to look under the hood, so to speak and get a sense of how things work here and get, and get that feeling. That’ll make them feel good about their decision when they choose to apply or enroll at the school. And so those are the biggest challenges. That’s the number one challenge that that we’ve faced here. And every admissions office in every school’s faced with right now.


Sam Demma (06:18):
Yeah, no, that’s a, it’s a tough challenge, but it sounds like you’re doing a, a pretty great job at, at overcoming it. I’m curious to know what’s working in the school and with admissions what what’s working right now.


Richard Vissers (06:32):
Absolutely. Student voices are probably the big guess thing that we’ve leveraged. And we always have, but we’ve just had to find a new way to, to leverage that, you know, the parents would normally show up at school and say, hello, a few words to myself and my colleagues. And, and then we would pass them off to one of our student ambassadors, one of our tour guides and, and they take it from there. And invariably they’d come back 20 minutes later, half an hour later, an hour later, and there’s all smiles. And you can just tell that they’ve really gotten a sense of what the school looks like, and, and the kids here have done a great job. So it’s their voices that we want to include. And so, you know, just like you and I are chatting video conference now, we we’ve extended that.


Richard Vissers (07:14):
We’ve got lots of students that join us online to meet with families and to answer questions, we’ve run some student panels so that we have some of our student leaders all lined up with some questions ready to go, and parents are invited to log in and they’re, we invite them to make sure their children are paying attention to and with them. And so that they can hear these student voices. We really kind of leveraged friends as well. We wanna know when we, when we meet families who do you know, that might already be at the school and so that we can connect them and, and connect them with maybe students that are coming from a similar school, similar background. And so that you know, that there’s some credibility there that they’re not just seeing it virtually. They’re actually hearing it from people that, that they know and have some faith in already.


Richard Vissers (08:01):
And, and so those are ways we’ve also leveraged our parents in the same way. You know, most schools would say their parents are their biggest tool for marketing. You know, word of mouth is there’s, there’s no better form. And so we’ve gotten parents involved for in panels discussions like that as well, where they can come on board and answer questions, and the prospective families can, can listen in and hear their experience. And, and some of the thoughts and emotion that went into their decision making. And so it’s not rocket science. We’re putting people together online, virtually like this. But it it’s worked well. And I, and I think parents appreciate the effort and appreciate the access to some of these parents and students that are with us.


Sam Demma (08:45):
Oh, that’s awesome. And, you know, you mentioned people that, you know, and it, it jumped for me, it jumped to your colleagues like anyone in education would be, you know, happy to have a conversation with yourself, with anyone else who’s, you know, working in a school. I’m really curious to know, I know we touched upon it earlier about, you know, how you got into your role. Right now I’m curious to know what actually directed you to education though. And what, what emotions made you decide you wanted to get in, into, you know, the role of a teacher or admissions officer. Where did that come from?


Richard Vissers (09:20):
That’s a great question. And I had to think about that a little bit too and think about some of the influences earlier on in my life before I even got to university. And I mean, for, for so many people, it starts with their parents and, and my mom in particular manner, my, at her, right. And I’ve used that line with families that I meet every day, but it, my mom and instilled in me a sense of manners and, and respect for people. And that started out in an early job delivering papers. And I know that doesn’t happen very much anymore. So the car drives by and tosses the paper into my, into my driveway, but it made you, it made me get out there and meet people and talk to people and, and have to use my manners and develop some kind of customer service skills so to speak.


Richard Vissers (10:06):
And I found I was pretty good at it. And over the years, I had lots of jobs growing up that were, that were in kind of a customer service area. And so when I got through to university and I was looking around at things that might be a good fit for me, I thought, you know, I really enjoy working with people. I really enjoy working with students. And, and it was a really great teaching program at the school that I was at. And so I applied after my first year of university and I was accepted and had some great intern along the way. And so it took off from there and I’ve, and I’ve been doing it ever since.


Sam Demma (10:43):
And when you’re feeling down or unmotivated, what do you kind of reflect on to keep yourself going? What, what keeps you motivated during tough times?


Richard Vissers (10:51):
That’s an easy, easy answer here because I have the ability to still get up from my desk, walk down the, a hall and jump into the kindergarten classroom. Mm. And you don’t have to spend too many minutes with a group of four year olds and five year olds to understand why you’re in, why you’re in a school, why you’re teaching those kids. They look at you, you know, your, their friend right away. Right. big smile goes a long way and, and come. And so you end up reading with them, you end up sitting and talking with them. And so when I’m having a tough day at school or, you know, you kind of need some, some motivation it doesn’t hurt to wander down and, and see some of the youngsters, it really it’s better than a better than a cup of coffee.


Sam Demma (11:34):
I love that. And, and what, you know, that keeps you motivated, what keeps you hopeful? What, you know, what keeps you hopeful about the work that you’re doing in a school?


Richard Vissers (11:46):
Well, a school like this HTS that I work at it really truly is about opportunity. I think that’s the word that I’ll use with families and with students more often than, than most others. We want students that are gonna come in and take advantage. We have some really great facilities. We have really fantastic teachers. We have really fantastic programs and we want students that’ll come in and, and take advantage and, and look at this as an opportunity and kind of, we want them to come in with big dinner plates of eyes. Right. They’re so excited to, to jump in and, and to be able to try some of these things so forth. So that that’s something that resonates with, with most families when we’re sitting down.


Sam Demma (12:28):
No, that’s awesome. And you know, if I wanted to stop by of the school, would it be too much to ask to stop by the kindergarten section?


Richard Vissers (12:40):
I would love to. Absolutely. You know, I I’ll tell families. We have strategically placed the kindergarten classroom pretty much in the heart of the school. Nice. And whether you’re in grade 12 and coming down for lunch, or you are in our middle school heading to the gym you’re going to have to walk by those classrooms and they see and hear everything you say and do. And they, they, when they can, they wanna hug you and say hello to you and high five, you, they want you to stop in and, and be their friend. And and so absolutely Sam and when we can have visitors back in the building, you are most welcome to come in and have a, and I’ll take you by the kindergarten classroom. You’ll have 16 new friends just like that.


Sam Demma (13:18):
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And, you know, if you could go back in time, speak to your younger self and, you know, give advice you’ve been in education, you mentioned for over 20 years, I’m sure you’ve learned some things and gain some invaluable wisdom. If you could, your former self, what pieces of advice would you give knowing what you know now?


Richard Vissers (13:39):
Absolutely. you know, one of the, kind of the, the philosophy right now, the language at our school that we’re using every day is to be a lifelong learner. Hmm. And, you know, at times you, people are resistant, they’re set their path, you know, they’re, they’re comfortable with what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And change is always a challenge for people. But I really think that as I reflect especially now in a new technical world, digital world, you know, there’s lots of skills that that I can still be using and learning about and leveraging every day. And so you know, our message for our kids here is you’re gonna be learning for the rest of your life. Well, you know, that applies to me too. And so right now I’m kind of in the middle of it.


Richard Vissers (14:26):
This is something that I haven’t done before, you know, interviewing like this. And so you know, I want to take advantage of that and, and go through processes like that all the time and chow myself. So being a lifelong learner is something that I think everyone needs to have to kind of develop and, and come to grips with and have an understanding that it’s your benefit. You might try. You might, you might not love it. And that’s okay too, because then maybe you’ll go on and try something different that you do discover that you love.


Sam Demma (14:52):
And for every educator listening, I think it’s so relatable, especially right now, we’re being tasked with learning how to teach online or learning how to do interviews with families online, or, you know, learning how to run conferences online. It takes that perpetual learner’s mindset to continue, you know, figuring things out and learning along the journey. If a teacher wants to reach out to you to have a conversation was inspired by anything we talked about, what would be the best way for someone to get in touch with you?


Richard Vissers (15:21):
You’re most welcome to certainly call the school or send me an email. Those, those are probably the best ways. The admissions number is 905-737-1115 and my email is rvissers@hts.on.ca. But yeah, those are the best ways to get in touch with me. Unfortunately, I can’t say drop by the school, because right now in the world that we live in visitors are, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a tough situation.


Sam Demma (15:43):
The kindergarten kids don’t wanna see you right now, guys, don’t come. Haha!


Richard Vissers (15:47):
They wanna see you. They just they know they have to wait. Haha!


Sam Demma (15:51):
That’s true. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you and learning a little bit more about HTS and, and all the work you guys are up to, and the changes you’ve been making to adjust. I really appreciate it.


Richard Vissers (16:03):
Thank you, Sam. I appreciate the opportunity too. It’s a pleasure to have a conversation with you.


Sam Demma (16:07):
There’s the entire interview with Richard. I hope you enjoyed it. It inspired you to stop in front of the kindergarten class. If you have one in your school today, and maybe just look at the smiles on those little students’ faces and get re-energized about the real reason why he got into education in the first place. If you did enjoy this, consider leaving a rating and review, consider reaching out to Richard and having a conversation. And as always, if you have something that you need to share that you think should be heard from other educators around the world right now, please reach out at info@samdemma.com and we’ll schedule a time for you to come on the show as well until then I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Richard Vissers

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

January 7, 2022 by Guidance Counsellors Student Activity Director Student Success Teachers 0

Brent McDonald – Superintendent of Education and Information Technology UGDSB

Brent McDonald – Superintendent of Education and Information Technology UGDSB
About Brent McDonald

Brent McDonald (@Brent4ED) is currently a Superintendent of Education with the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB). For the past 10 years his portfolios in this role have included; Safe, Equitable and Inclusive Schools, Information and Technology, Parent Engagement, Leadership Development and Succession Planning and working with his Family of Schools within the district.  He’s also the President of Educating Computer Network of Ontario (ECNO).

Brent is passionate about student success and ensuring that all students have the resources and supports needed to be their best. He is also passionate about learning in the classroom, educational technology, and school leadership.

Connect with Brent: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Upper Grand District School Board

Educating Computer Network of Ontario

Ray Dalio, “Principles”

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest has now become a good friend of mine. His name is Brent McDonald. He’s the superintendent of education and it at the UGDSB the Upper Grand District School Board. He’s also the President of ECNO. They have a strong role in providing leadership and direction to school boards in regards to it, he’s also been a classroom teacher, a vice principal, a principal he’s done every single job you could imagine in a school maybe next to being a custodian. And he has so many valuable insights and ideas to share on the podcast today. I’m super excited because you’re going to learn so much from this interview. There are so many nuggets and so many insights. I’ll see you on the other side. Talk soon. Brent, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educators podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you take maybe, you know, one to two minutes to share with the audience who you are and why you initially got into the work you do with young people today.


Brent McDonald (01:03):
Yeah. Great, Sam, thanks so much for having me today to start with it’s a real pleasure and really appreciate the opportunity to do some reflection too, for for the podcast today and, and really pleased that you’ve got this series going, but I’ll, I’ll share a little bit about myself. First and foremost I’m a father to two youth as well. One is in second year, a university, and one just about to head into a post secondary experiences at a grade 12. So very interested in the work that you’re doing and I know we’ve we’ve spoken a past too about connecting with the youth in our school board and hope we get to continue that when we get on the other side of things here too. For me currently, I’m an educator by trade I guess.


Brent McDonald (01:48):
And I, my role right now is as a Superintendent of Education with the Upper Grand District School Board. So for those that aren’t sure where that is. That’s a Guelf and Orangeville area. And then kinda out to the four one, and then north up into some beautiful country around Mount forest and Harrison, just about an hour and a half hour west of Toronto. I’m so close to the city, but also some, some beautiful landscape that’s there. And what’s awesome is we’ve got a school board that is an incredible mix of diverse of students and families and a geography. So some very rural country areas, which are just beautiful and then some really vibrant more cities type centers, wealth in Orangeville, for example. So lots of, a lot of the challenges that we see around the province are replicated within the walls of our board and right now as a Superintendent of Education I get to get out into our schools and, and follow up with students and staff and our principals and vice principals that run our buildings.


Brent McDonald (02:49):
And that’s fantastic for me. I love that opportunity to get out and get into our schools. Previously I was for about 10 years of principal, myself to at about four different schools in our area. And just loved that opportunity to to lead and be part of incredible staff and student bodies that that were just full of motivation and energy to, to do things. And and I think part and parcel what I look back on the work that I’ve done. Those experiences as, as a teacher previous to that, it was a core French teacher and a science teacher, or an a grade one teacher. All of those experiences when I look back at what I like about my work, the most it’s the, the motivation and the, and the power and influence that we get from, from students and the communities who are charged up about doing incredible things.


Brent McDonald (03:40):
And I know we started just before the interview, talking about your project that you were working on around picking up garbage and, and making your communities better. And when you can harness sort of that spirit and that energy that people want to, to do better and to improve and be a part of that, it’s energizing. So for me I think back when I was more your age and kind of looking at where I wanted to go in life, I had, I had multiple jobs. I had all sorts of jobs and that was, I loved working and had a lot of different experiences to try and see where I wanted to land and what I wanted to be in. And I think when I started, started to reflect on where I wanted to land in terms of a career. I look back at the work that I had done and all the opportunities that I’d ever had to work with youth and students and to be inspired and humbled by their creativity and their hope and their optimism that they had.


Brent McDonald (04:38):
That’s what did it for me? And I said, no, I, I need to be involved in this. This is a very fulfilling for me personally and professionally but also what an opportunity to lead and to guide. And I think that was the second reason that I landed into the work that I did as a student, as a teacher and then a administrator. And now into the role that I’m in is that I had the great fortune to have some incredible role models as teachers, myself and not just around the content of the curriculum that we were being taught. And when I look back at what they taught me, yes, the curriculum was, was very important, but it was more those life lessons and the work that they taught me about the attitudes that are important to have going into life and the opportunities and the belief that they had. And I thought, you know, if I can turn around and rec replicate even a part of that for students in the work that I would do, what a great what a great opportunity to have and one that shouldn’t be squandered. So, so that’s probably where I got the idea and where I got the energy and sort of the push is, or, or influences or motivators that guided me down to the work that I get to do today.


Sam Demma (05:48):
I love that. And you mentioned the work you do today. A lot of it surrounds staying in touch with staff members, touring schools every 10 days or so to check in and see how everyone’s doing. What are you hearing from those teachers in those students, in those schools? What challenges are they currently being pressed with and faced with?


Brent McDonald (06:08):
Well, very similar to to the challenges that most industries are facing right now and, and your you’re right. Sam. So the work that we do it is I don’t work in a school. I worked out of an office right now. But I do have responsibilities for, for a group of schools, but I also lead our information technology department as well. And I’ve got a fantastic group of, of managers and staff and teams that help support that work. And so for me, it’s, it’s twofold. It’s I get to, I get to see what’s happening in our classrooms, and I get to have a hand and work with incredible people to help support students in schools and our staff that are trying to teach remotely and, and work remotely and, and get involved. So that’s pretty exciting work that we get to do.


Brent McDonald (06:57):
The other work I get to do is around leadership development and succession planning for the board. So working with with new teachers, young teachers, to encourage them into leadership pathways in whatever way they want to get involved in. And we talk a lot about reaching down to students and doing the same thing for them too. So we do try and get into our schools as, as often as I can. We, we dedicate usually one day a week to getting into our school buildings. We’ve pulled back on that a lot to this September and October, just out of respect for not getting too many people into our schools. But we reach out virtually. So it’s noon today, and I’ve probably talked to about five different schools already this morning about what’s happening and there’s ways that we can do that too.


Brent McDonald (07:40):
But the challenges I’d say that they are facing are very, very similar to to what other other industries and other sectors are. And for us, and, and Sam, you look back at your school career, I’d say the one thing about our profession and our sector is that it’s typically as predictable as anything it’s by clockwork. We’ve got school year calendars or regular year calendars that we fall on. And we have the school year calendar where sometimes looks the exact same year over year, over year for decades after decades. So, you know, the first week of school programs and initiatives that happen the, the fall activities that happen that Terry Fox runs that happen every September, the sports teams that always start in the same schedule, the graduation, the proms it’s as predictable as clockwork forever, and ever, and ever. And and kids, I think students look, look forward to that.


Brent McDonald (08:36):
I remember a student, myself being in grade five, thinking I get to have that grade six teacher next year, that everybody’s been talking about it’s finally my turn or it’s graduation. Next year, we get to go on the grade eight trip, or we get to do these milestones that that people look forward to. And all of a sudden that’s turned upside down and gone. And the predictability and the consistency that’s been involved in people’s lives forever. All of a sudden gets, it gets to be a very uncertain environment. And and that causes a lot of challenges for staff and students who built careers and, and expectations around what’s coming next and plans. Particularly for students who thrive on routines or who need routines and structure to be successful and to show their best their best efforts every single day for them not knowing is, is, is an incredible part of our incredible challenge them to overcome.


Brent McDonald (09:34):
So that I would say from a student’s point of view and staff, to some extent the, the uncertainty and the constant change throwing at a system that’s typically very traditional has been very, very difficult for folks. I’d say from a, from a system perspective too, and the work that I get to do, we’re typically a very, very collaborative organization. So before we launch an, a, an idea or an implementation, or, or think about how we’re going to implement a new idea or, or, or, or any type of new project there’s a lot of time that goes into the planning, the bringing different voices around the table to get input running it by students and staff and all of our different stakeholders that we have. And I’d say we have not had that luxury in the last four to five months to be able to do that.


Brent McDonald (10:31):
So for us, our, the way that we work has been changed an awful lot, and we’ve had to become, you know, I’ll use those words like nimble and agile that, that everybody talks about. And the, the dreaded pivot word that we’ve had to do so much more than than we ever have before. And for for our sector and our educators and students too. But at a system level, that’s probably been the most difficult pieces that are traditional consultative processes that we put in place in our collaborative efforts that we rely on have had to be speeded up in such greater fashion than we’re typically used to. And we’re doing a good job of it, but it is a change, right? It’s, it’s been a big change. So those would be some of the big the two big changes that I’d see from a student perspective. And then from a systemic perspective.


Sam Demma (11:22):
That’s awesome. Yeah, someone mentioned to me the other day, the state of education could be compared to throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. And I’m curious to know if there’s anything that has stuck so far for you, if you have any unique ideas that are working, or if teachers have reported back to you or any principals saying, you know, Brent, this has really worked or on the other side, you know, this was a total flop and we learned something from it. Either of those things are extremely valuable. And if you have any to share, that’d be awesome.


Brent McDonald (11:53):
Yeah, Sam, I’d say for us, the one thing that we have learned the most, or that’s been most apparent, and I’d say up until, you know, September or even October, we haven’t had a lot of time to be able to pause and reflect on what’s happened because it’s been so busy, we’ve been busy throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what happens. So we, we haven’t had a ton of time to reflect, but the reflections that we’ve done and when, and we’re starting to do them more and more now, which I’m pleased about. But what we, what I’d say we’ve learned a lot that we have seen is for the first time ever in, in my career in the spring everybody stopped doing everything and focused on one thing, and that was getting getting us to work remotely and to have teachers and students learn remotely when we in the spring, when everything was shut down.


Brent McDonald (12:47):
So all of a sudden 5,000 staff members and 34,000 students in our board had one goal that we had to do really quickly and had to make sure it happened. And we don’t do that very often. Usually we are juggling, you know, curriculum expectations, we’re judging or juggling technology expectations were juggling. A lot of the work that we’re doing around social justice and whether it’s our anti-oppression work that we’re doing, or anti-black racism, all of a sudden everything funneled into one, one project as an entire group. And and we had to be conscious of all those other things that we did, but really it was one, one goal. And we did it. And if someone had asked me back in January, you know, do you think everybody in this board could, could just walk out of the buildings and work remotely and live remotely in the next two months?


Brent McDonald (13:37):
I’d say, no, that’ll take us years to years to really pull off in any cohesive way, given what everything else is is on everyone’s plates. But all of a sudden we didn’t have anything else on our plates. We had one thing and watching everyone come together and work together and have that spirit of cooperation and collaboration was, was fantastic. So when I say what stuck and what, what worked back to your question? I’d say we learned a lot about what we can do if we really focus and have clear, consistent goals and and keep it simple and small we can move fast and as a big system. So that was exciting for me to see I think mistake wise, the, you asked that as well mistake wise. Yes, absolutely. It’s not perfect. What we’re working on and that’s okay.


Brent McDonald (14:29):
We talk a lot about failure in our system and that failure is, is is a really good thing because you learn from it and if you’re failing and learning, that’s okay. That’s how you get better at it. And we have to be able to do that. And there, there’s a whole show that you could probably do on, on failure or a whole talk we can do on, on how you manage that. But I think we’ve created a culture of of safety for, for staff and students as best we can and by safety, I mean not necessarily physically safe, but really being able to say, Hey, you know what, we can try some things and if they don’t work, it’s okay, nobody’s going to get too upset. We’re going to fix it and move forward and learn from it.


Brent McDonald (15:10):
And I think that’s what we’ve done the last little bit. So from all of the granular mistakes that we make every day, and, you know, it’s seven months later and people are still not unmuting their mics on zoom calls, right. Those really small things that come to the, to the much bigger mistakes that we’re making. And for us, some of those have been trying to solve problems that really don’t exist. And and under estimating people in some respects too. So the example I use is we spent, we spent weeks worried about students three and four year olds having to wear masks all day and that, how can that possibly happen? Well, it did. We asked them and we provided resources and, and teaching to them. And I can go into a school at the end of the day on a Friday.


Brent McDonald (16:00):
And there’s a three-year-old has been there all week, all day, still wearing their mask and completely fine with that. So something that was a big worry for us in our planning turned out to not be a problem at all, and for most people but certainly not to the extent that we thought it was going to be as an example some of the other underestimations that we’ve made. And it’s just because it’s our first time through a lot of it, I’d say we planned. And we, we underestimated the amount of people that would take up remote learning, for example, through COVID. So, you know, our schools are open and we have options around remote, and we might’ve fought somewhere under 10%, five to 10% might pick that up and so we planned appropriately for that. And our board, we’re sitting more around 17% now, but there’s many boards that are sitting around 40 to 50% of their population that have opted for remote.


Brent McDonald (16:50):
Those numbers are staggeringly more than what we thought they would have been to start with. And we didn’t know. And again, didn’t have that time through the consultation to really find out. So it was best guesses. And so I’ve seen some areas where we have underestimated either whether it’s at the student level or systemically some of those pieces. And we’ll learn from that. And now, you know, the next time that we venture down this road we’ll know what’s a problem. What’s a real problem. And what’s not a real problem. So that’s been, that’s been interesting to watch, and I’d say we’ve learned from that.


Sam Demma (17:23):
There’s a gentleman named Ray Dalio wrote a book titled “Principles,” and we’re the most successful hedge fund managers in the world. And he has a concept known as the error log. And it’s a document shared by his entire company where every time a mistake is made instead of a manager, figuring it out, you personally log the mistake yourself, explain what happened and what you learned from it. And he says like every week, his old team reviews, this error discusses it publicly so that every single person in the company learns from one person’s mistake. And I thought it was a brilliant, brilliant concept. And you had so many other pieces of wisdom in this book. And you also mentioned, you know, the importance of resilience, which comes from overcoming challenges or going through failures and seeing the resilience of a three-year-old or a four-year-old must be a motivating site for you, especially for anybody. I’m curious to know, you know, those sites motivates you. What else keeps you motivated? What drives you to keep doing this work, even when times are really difficult and tough?


Brent McDonald (18:28):
Well, you, you, you nailed it right. There really is the youth that we have and their voices, and and seeing the hope that they have. So I’d say also the lessons that we learned from them and started the questions today, you know, why did I get into this work? And, and the other reason which lends into this motivator is, is that desire to keep learning. And we learn as much today from our youth, as I do from, from any professional development series or, or workshop. And, you know, when we look at the great work that’s happening around our environmental work that we’re doing, or around our anti-oppression anti black racism, anti-oppression work that we’re doing, our students are often the ones leading the charge and teaching us about about how things need to be. And, and sometimes we needed to take a step back and really look at at, at what they’re doing and what they’re asking and what they’re saying.


Brent McDonald (19:27):
And so those lessons that we learned from our, our youth and the questions that they put on the table holding us as the adults and the, the, the leaders and systems accountable for what we’re doing. That’s, that’s incredible. That’s a, that’s, that’s motivating for me and helps move us forward and think, yeah, these are the, these are the leaders of our future. So it’s up to us to get barriers out of the way so they can do the work that they want to see as they go forward. And, you know, I don’t know if it’s always been that way, but I’d say the student voice is, is, is alive and, and more present now than, than I’ve seen in years past. And there’s venues for it. And, you know, your, your show’s very much like that too. It’s bringing student voices and ideas for students forward. But we’re also seeing it in so many other places. So I think having that energy behind you, when you know that you’re in a school system that has 34,000 voices and opportunities ahead of them, that’s, that’s motivating you. Can’t not be motivated by that, that gets you out of bed in the morning.


Sam Demma (20:32):
I love that. That’s awesome. And for the educators who might be listening, hopefully they’re not struggling with motivation issues, but in the, in the case that they might be, and they’re struggling to get out of bed. Maybe in fact, it’s their first year in education. If I could take you back to your first year in education, and, you know, you, you started, you were a little bit uncertain, maybe really passionate to get going, but confused and overwhelmed with all the different systems and terminology. And there’s the, just, just the change of starting something new. What pieces of advice would you share with your past self and with other educators who are just starting to get into this role, especially during a year like like 2020 with the global pandemic.


Brent McDonald (21:16):
That’s a great question, Sam, in one night, we got to remind ourselves all the time and I alluded to it earlier, but I think if I went back to my first-year teaching self probably a lot of fear around failure and not doing things right. And I’d say I probably spent way too much energy worrying about that. Then just trying some things and seeing how it goes and being okay if it didn’t and moving forward. So I learned those lessons along the way, but I, I probably wish I learned those more quickly probably would have had a lot less sleepless nights as a, as a brand new teacher. I’d also say reaching out to, to colleagues and you know, when I first started, I think I remember my first email that I ever wrote as a teacher it’s we email was just coming on.


Brent McDonald (22:04):
And when that happened, which is a very sad thing to say, but I remember the first time that we got to do that as a teacher, and now the ability for teachers to connect and collaborate be outside the walls of their classroom is phenomenal. The, the PD that’s available on on social media, on Twitter feeds on, on that you can access at the, you know, whether it’s through podcasts, whatever it might be, you can get ideas and collaborate and make connections with people more than we ever could when I first started. So my advice would be not to encourage youth youth and new teachers to the profession, especially when you’re feeling up against the wall on something or worried about something, reach out and put the question out there. And I see it every day when I’m looking through feeds in the comments, the, the support that’s out there in the broader educational community for, for staff is fantastic and feels really supportive when you read it. And and there’s a, a great venue there for, for people, as opposed to just walking down the hall. There’s nothing wrong with walking down the hall and texting with your teaching partner down the way, but you have access to so much more than you ever did before. So use it would be my advice.


Sam Demma (23:16):
That’s awesome. And if someone wanted to get in touch with you, I know you’re busy and I have so much going on, but maybe there’s a fellow educator somewhere in the world who has ideas to share or wants to just bounce ideas around what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?


Brent McDonald (23:32):
Probably probably on Twitter. It would be the best way if if they’re looking for that. So my Twitter handles is @Brent4ED. So absolutely would be one of the best ways to reach out. You could do that or go into the Upper Grand District School Board website, and they can find me on there and make a connection. I just told people they should do it, just connect them and share ideas. And I think that’s what we have to keep on doing in this profession, especially as we’re all facing new challenges and new problems that we’ve never had before. We don’t need to solve it by ourselves. So it’s great to be able to bounce ideas off of each other and and see where we can go.


Sam Demma (24:14):
Right? That’s a great way to end this episode. Thank you so much for coming on here. I hope people reach out. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, and I look forward to seeing you again in person when all of this passes or starts to change and adjust.


Brent McDonald (24:26):
We’ll definitely make that happen. Sam, I was talking to folks today who we’re hoping that we can continue down that thread too. So we’ll look forward to having you back and a huge thanks again for allowing me to be on your show today.


Sam Demma (24:38):
Thanks a lot. You bet. And there you have it. Another amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and liked it, consider reaching out to Brent, he would love to hear from you. And if you have your own ideas and insights that you’d like to share, please shoot us an email at info@samdemma.com. So we can also get you on the podcast. And as always, if you’re benefiting from this content and you’re enjoying it, consider leaving a rating and review. So more people just like yourself can find it and also consume it and learn new things for their own students in schools. Anyways, I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Brent McDonald

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

January 7, 2022 by Student Leadership Student Success Superintendent 0

Adrian Del Monte – English Department Head and Leadership Coordinator

Adrian Del Monte – English Department Head & Leadership Coordinator
About Adrian Del Monte

Adrian (@adrian_delmonte) has been teaching for 13 years in the Toronto Catholic District School Board as an English Teacher, Department Head and Leadership Coordinator. Five years ago, he began a leadership development program at his school which emphasizes the importance of servant leadership for hundreds of students each year.

Adrian and his wife also founded Hopes Rise, a charity that works to help unprivileged children achieve fitness, literacy, and leadership goals.  He recently began a podcast called Wholehearted Teaching, which inspires teachers to bring their whole selves to the classroom. Adrian believes that there is no greater cause you can give your life to than serving others.

Connect with Adrian: Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Wholehearted Teaching

Tim Elmore, GIGO Principle – Garbage In Garbage Out

Harper Collins, “Good to Great” – Show Horse vs. Plow Horse

Jamboard

Kahoot

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest. Adrian actually reached out to me over email after hearing an episode on the podcast, just to let me know that he thought it was excellent content, and he’s really enjoying the interviews. And after read a little bit about himself and doing research on him, I realized that he should be someone who’s also interviewed on the show. And so we brought him on here today. Adrian has been teaching for 13 years in the Toronto Catholic District School Board as an English teacher, department head and leadership coordinator. Five years ago, he began a leadership development program at his which emphasizes the importance of servant leadership for hundreds of students each year. And you’ll see why servant leadership is so important to Adrian. In this episode, Adrian and his wife also founded Hopes Rise, a charity that works to help underprivileged children achieve fitness, literacy and leadership goals.


Sam Demma (01:01):
Adrian also recently began a podcast and is the host of Wholehearted Teaching, which inspires teachers to bring their whole selves to the classroom. A believes that there is no greater cause you can give in your life than serving others. Make sure you connect with him on Twitter at @adrian_delmonte at Hopes Rise. Hope you enjoy this episode. See you on the other side. Adrian, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself with the listener and sharing how you got that, the work that you do in education with young people today?


Adrian Del Monte (01:40):
Great. Well, thanks for having me, Sam I got into teaching maybe a little more unconventionally than, than others. I I didn’t have a great, great experience in high school that that’s totally on me. I I was pretty self-absorbed in high school. I had a lot of insecurities and and so I kind of buried my head in high school in my athletics. I was a competitive runner and was kind of angling for a scholarship. And when I look back on it now, there were so many teachers who were there with kind of their arms out and I didn’t really take advantage. I totally like got self-absorbed a bit focused on my, my sports so much. And, and I think I missed a lot of the high school experience. So I started studying at university and I figured I’d be a lawyer.


Adrian Del Monte (02:34):
My Nono said he would pay for . He would, he would pay for law school if one of us went. So it was like, all right. And then I realized, you know, in my third year of studying criminal justice, very few lawyers actually demand, you know, the truth like Tom, like Tom Cruise and a few good men. I want the truth. Lawyers don’t do that. Lawyers do a lot of paperwork. And so in my fourth year of university, I sort of started realizing, you know, what I feel like I want to give back. I want to give back, I want to create high school experiences for students that maybe, you know, maybe that I wasn’t aware of or, or that I, that I missed. And so I totally, in my fourth year I got into, I started, I had an in, I had enough teachables in, in English. But then I had to angle for a second one in my fourth year. And that’s really when I decided to go into teaching, but it took me a while to get there. I just, I don’t know why I think my sports while it added so much, it also kept me hidden a bit from the real world.


Sam Demma (03:32):
I feel the same way. I think we can. We’re very similar in many ways. My high school experience was so similar. In fact, I, I didn’t get involved in any activity throughout high school, aside from extracurricular soccer and rushing a soccer practice when the school bell went and I too missed out on all those abilities to serve and give back and learn more about myself with like-minded students and individuals. So I think the reason you got into teaching is, is amazing and it’s wholeheartedly centered that’s right? Yeah. Little pun there on your podcast title. Why don’t you share a little bit about your own show for educators and why you started it?


Adrian Del Monte (04:10):
Yeah, that’s that, that’s a good question. Thanks. the name of my podcast, Sam is, is Wholehearted Teaching just started maybe have half dozen episodes and you know, the biggest challenge in COVID I have found has been to keep your head in a good space. Mm. There is so many rabbit holes you can go down right now, right? Like I I’m driving into work this morning. I had the radio on from like 7:30 to 7:32. And in those two minutes, right. Car accidents on the 401, the, our, our premier is deceiving us. It’s global war. Like within seconds, your mind can just go the wrong way. You, you start letting your mind as a teacher, like, are the kids even listening on the other end of these Google meets? Are they, are they learning in this virtual school? And, and I’ve actually found the biggest challenge has been filling my mind with good stuff, like consciously going outta my way to fill it with good stuff.


Adrian Del Monte (05:09):
And so the podcast was a way that I could fill my mind with, you know, things above better things. Just, just filling my brain with one of our core principles with our leadership students is we took this from Tim Elmore, but the GIGO principle garbage in garbage out mm-hmm . And, and I think if you, whatever you put into your brain, that’s the kind of person you become. You are what you eat. Right. These puns make a lot of sense. Right. And so the podcast for me was just a way that we could sort of set up some, the content. Yeah. You know, you know, what was inspiring a little bit was I don’t know if you saw during COVID. One of my favorite shows is the office. Yeah. And John Kansky, the character who plays Jim started this some good news. I don’t know if you saw those episode, some good news. And his idea was to combat bad with good, because I think it’s so easy for us to like slip into these rabbit holes of despair. Right. And like, you start scrolling through Twitter. You’re like, oh my gosh, like the icebergs are melted. The world is over. Like everything’s. And so trying to find good to combat is really the reason for my podcast. It’s, it’s, it’s really what I’m trying to do with my, my mind, my mind right now.


Sam Demma (06:23):
And you mentioned that when you were in high school, you had teachers who extended an arm and a hand to you to try and help you, that you didn’t take. And I’m really curious to know, what do you think are the qualities, or maybe just one or two qualities of a wholehearted teacher of someone who is not only striving to teach curriculum, but really see, hear, and value and appreciate their students. How can educators listening, make sure that they are being those sorts of people, the people that reached out to help you when you were a kid?


Adrian Del Monte (06:54):
Yeah. You know what, I, I think we use this, it’s a little cliche, but, but the word is real mm-hmm or authentic or vulnerable. The subtitle of my podcast is bringing your whole self to the classroom. I think, I think, I think an, an attribute of, of, of the best kind of teacher is teaching. Isn’t a job, it’s it? It’s, it’s not something they come in, they check in, they check out it’s, it’s who they are. Yeah. This idea of their, their, they wanna learn not just in the classroom, but they wanna learn all the time. They wanna, they wanna have a growth mindset all the time, again, another cliche phrase. But I think a teacher is someone who recognizes that at my core, I’m a teacher. So I think that’s one thing, this authenticity, this integrity of, I learned recently that integrity is a math word.


Adrian Del Monte (07:51):
That just means whole it’s a whole number. And so integrity is a whole person, right. They don’t, they’re not a teacher. And then, so else later on they’re, that’s who they are. It’s just a, it’s, it’s a kind of a, a coming together of all parts of their being. And, and so that’s, that’s an attribute. I think another part of, of a great teacher is gratitude. I think that’s such a big one for teachers. I know there’s problems and, and I’m definitely not, I’m not sorry. I’m, I’m very aware of the problems mm-hmm and I think I’m also consciously aware of how grateful I am that I get to do this work. Yeah. That I get students in front of me who listen to me, who are interested in the things that I might see as important, and that I, I, I’m grateful that I get to work with the wonderful school community, wonderful colleagues. So, so I think those things, I try to keep gratitude high on my list, authenticity high on my list. I think those are some of the attributes of a, of a wholehearted teacher.


Sam Demma (08:55):
Totally agree. And when I think about Mike loud foot, who is the, not the one teacher, cuz there were so many, but one of many teachers who heavily impacted my career in life, his authenticity of being who he truly was. Yeah. Came out as some quirky mannerisms and extreme passion when teaching his curriculum to the point where it was hard not to listen to him and focus because he was just so into it. Yeah. And I think during tough times, some of that passion dwindles not that the, not that the candle ever gets unlit, but it might just, it might just reduce slightly I’m. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I’m curious to know if you have any stories of transformation and it doesn’t have to be a kid in your class. It could just be a story about how someone, you know, or someone you’ve taught or someone, you know, who’s taught, has transformed. A student has transformed due to, to teaching. And the reason I’m asking to share it is because it might relight or make that little handle, like it might make it brighter right now. And you can change the student’s name for privacy reasons if it’s a serious story.


Adrian Del Monte (10:04):
Hmm. Yeah. So, you know, Sam, I, I actually have never been brought to tears with my students over my curriculum. My curriculum, my, I know inside and out. I, I, I all day I can teach the books, but the stories that matter, I think that that inspire teachers are the ones that have outside the curriculum. Mm. I’ve cried with my students many times. Yeah, here’s a great example. A few years ago I had this particular class, it was a a grade 10 English class. And they were so openly curious about everything. And we went off book a ton of times. We, we went off book and we, this was maybe four or five years ago, but Google docs was just kind of getting a little bit big. And, and one of the things I started offering the students was editing, editing, help with them but because there were so many of them, I couldn’t meet with them each out after class.


Adrian Del Monte (11:01):
And, and so I started saying, I’ll edit with you, we’ll meet on your Google doc. That’s the beauty of a Google doc. You can collaborate in. So, so many ways. And, and they, they started taking me up on it. So we would edit at, in the evenings and we did parent consent forms and all those sorts of things cuz it was outside of class hours. But I started editing with the kids, giving them time outside of our class hours and, and on the last day of class and, and sorry, this is something, I think that even though it happened before COVID, this is, it is such a powerful tool. So showed out to Google docs, editing tools. So back on, back on this story, last eight class I walk in and they’ve got a cake and I get emotional thinking about it.


Adrian Del Monte (11:47):
And, and one of the things that year I really pushed was reading and Harry Potter became a huge reference. And at the very end of the very last Harry Potter, Harry Potter says to his mother as a ghost, will you stay with me? And she says, till the very end and the students on the cake had written, will you edit with me? till the very end. Right? That’s what they had written to me. Right. And it was like, what am my colleague poked her head in? And, and she saw me and she’s like, are you crying? Like, and I was like, I’m freaking crying. Like I’m crying right now because it just over it overcame me that this thing editing, editing their essays, their five paragraph essays mattered to them that I made time for them. And I can still see their faces. I, I can still see their faces is like holding the cake, them being emotional and over this simple thing of editing till the very end and, and yeah, man, those, those are the kind of things when you kind of go outside the curriculum and I think now is a time if there’s ever a time to leave your curriculum for your students, it’s 2020.


Adrian Del Monte (12:53):
And , and, and that, that story every time I think of it, I, I to use your language, ignites the fire a little bit. Mm. Ignites the fire. Yeah.


Sam Demma (13:02):
And you, you mentioned that you left and that’s a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing. And if anyone’s listening, I mean, I know you’re listening. If you are listening, actively please consider reaching out to Adrian. Maybe you can share a little bit about Google docs if you haven’t used it before. Mm-Hmm I know it’s really cool. Cuz you can change the colors of everyone who’s typing and you can have like 10, 15 people on the same doc typing things at the same time. Really cool tool to use. You mentioned your Nu though, made a promise to you that he pay for your education. If you went and became a lawyer. Yeah. I too Italian so I can wait for the pressures in the family. but you said that you actually wanted to give back and something that I know because of previous conversations we’ve had is that you deeply believe in the power of serving others and servant leadership. Where has that, where has that aspect of your life come into play in teaching and outside of the classroom that you think is worth sharing with others?.


Adrian Del Monte (14:04):
You know, a funny story about my no, no, I, I didn’t pursue law school, but when I was in, when I was doing my masters, I actually, I applied for, for my, for my doctorate. Yeah. And was accepted my doctorate and, and my no know said goes, that’s not a real doctor. That’s what he said. Cause he wasn’t a medical doctor. So, so anyways, you know, I gotta thank him cuz that actually pushed me a little further towards teachers college, but about servant leadership. You know, I think students have an image of a leader that is a little bit unrealistic. I think the image of, of, of leadership for most students is like someone up on a stage, right? With a mic commanding, the troops, MLK, you know Nelson men, someone, someone Barack Obama, someone up there with like power and influence.


Adrian Del Monte (14:57):
And I think that’s intimidating for a lot of students. And so when I got into leadership at the school, I realized that a more accurate representation of a leader was not someone with a Mike, but someone with a empty garbage bag. And I know this, I know this is something you, you and I connect on. Le leadership to me is, and I’m taking this from a great leadership book called Good to Great. And the author talks about the difference between a show horse and a plow horse. Right? And I think many leaders are show horses. They, they look good, right? They got the image, they got the confidence, they’re good on a mic. They can speak with a good deal of articulation. Right. And, and I think those leaders are good, but not great. Great leaders are the ones who are plow horses.


Adrian Del Monte (15:48):
Mm-Hmm right. The image in my mind of a show horse is like the one jumping over the barriers with like the fury tail. I don’t think, you know, like the eque all that, right. But the plow horse is the guy out in the field, pulling the, the, the S around his neck or pulling the yolk around his neck as he’s like grinding through the dirt. And that was a better image to me of leadership. And so one of the images that we always have highlight for our students is pick up a garbage bag, you know, pick, pick up a garbage before you get the mic. You’re gonna hold the garbage bag. And, you know, a couple years ago this, we, we played this amazing game at Muskoka woods on one of our leadership retreats. The game ended with students building these cardboard boats, sailed them through the lake.


Adrian Del Monte (16:33):
Hmm. So fun at the end of it, everyone’s got their spirit gear on, you got smoke, grenades going, you got all the it’s, a who music that wasn’t the highlight. The highlight was the six kids who stayed after and pulled that soggy cardboard out of the lake. Mm. To me, those were the kids that got it. The other kids are wonderful kids and they might have just missed the moment. But the images we posted on social media after were the garbage pickers. Mm. Not the kids with the smoke grenades. And I, and I think students need those images. Mm-Hmm, otherwise leader leadership too. It’s big of a concept for them to grasp. It’s like, well, I can’t do that. I’m I don’t wanna be on the stage. And many students don’t wanna be on in high school. I didn’t wanna be on the stage. And, and so I hid, or I found something that was a little more safe and I, and, and I think images like garbage picking are powerful, powerful metaphors for students. And so those are the kind of things that I, I try to give my students opportunities to pick up garbage. I love it. I love it. Yeah. And there’s no shortage of trash, so that’s right, right?


Sam Demma (17:49):
That’s right. It’s a great opportunity. And I love the story, man. I got goosebumps as you were explaining it because recently I’ve had a similar revelation. I mean, all throughout high school like yourself, I was very self-absorbed in, in soccer and not getting involved. And then my 21st birthday, which was September this year, I decided to take a year off social media and I haven’t logged on, it’s been over two months now. Wow. I’m I have a buddy who checks my messages for me and a high school intern who manages Twitter. And I, before I left the, the platform, I took down almost all of the pictures that I had. I had like over a hundred posts. And most of them were me standing on a stage saying basically, unconscious justly, look how great I am, you know, doing all these speeches. And, and I started to ask myself, is the message I’m spreading congruent with these posts, because I’m actually not doing young people, a service by sharing all these, highlighted all these highlights and, and huge moments because they’re gonna look at it and think, wow, I’m not doing that. I’m good enough. I could never be there. And so I took most of them down. Mm. And I started asking myself, why am I putting content out in the first place? Is it to help others or to validate my own insecurities? Mm. And yeah. So I deeply relate to you on that level. And when I come back to social media, if I do there’ll be a lot more garbage bags.


Adrian Del Monte (19:11):
Yeah. Right. You know what I think, I think it’s so important for kids to understand that leadership is not something you do yeah. For three days. Yeah. Right. And I think that’s typically the image, you sign up for a leadership experience and those things are powerful. Those are fire starters. I’m not, I’m not, you know, a trip to camp Olympia or Musk woods that those ignite the fire. But I think the kids have to really buy into a way of living. Yeah. And, and, and, and then it’s not so much about what I did for those three days. It’s about how I live the other 362 days. And, and that becomes, you know, then it’s about, I woke up this morning, the dishwasher was full. I’m an empty that even my mom doesn’t let me know that that’s or, you know, my friend my, my friend needs me. I’m gonna call her on the phone. Right. And, and I think then servant leadership is not about an event. It’s about a a way of life. And I really do think values.


Sam Demma (20:08):
Yeah. Right. Your values drive all your actions. And if you’re always asking yourself, how can I help others? Or how can I serve others? You don’t have to have talent skills, abilities, or God forbid sake, even education all the time to just be a great person to the people around you, as much as you can. Mm-Hmm and it’s funny, cuz you talk to what your Nuno. I, I think of mine when I think about this, because God bless his soul. He’s passed away now. I have the same name as him. Usually. I name you after your, your other father. Do you have the same name as your grandfather or middle?


Adrian Del Monte (20:40):
Middle name.


Sam Demma (20:41):
Middle. Yeah, of course. and and Sam, my Nuno though he would wake up 4:00 AM shovel, 10 to 12 streets driveways in the middle of the winter of people that he knew couldn’t shovel at themselves before going to work at a farm for pretty or sorry, not in the winter, but before going to work for a whole day in a factory when my dad was just growing up you know, one time I remember a story where he could called my dad because my dad knew he needed some help to cut a little spot in the grass to, to plant a garden. And they said they were gonna start the project at 7:00 AM. And my dad woke up to my grandfather, digging. The job was done when he…


Adrian Del Monte (21:20):
Got at seven..


Sam Demma (21:22):
He started at four, it came over like five. And was done by seven.


Adrian Del Monte (21:25):
Plow horse, man. That’s a plow. That’s that, that see the, those are the stories of servant leadership that servant leadership, servant leadership is not a mic. It’s not like spirit. It’s not, I think school spirit is great, but it’s not servant leadership. There, there, there there’s overlap, but they’re not the same thing. And your grandfather that’s that’s leadership. He led his family like, like how, how could, how could our, how, what better examples of that? Can we give to our students than that? Like that, that is just so powerful. That’s a great, great example. Sure. It was for you and your siblings. Like I’m sure that was a great example.


Sam Demma (22:01):
Well, I still remember it to this day, right? Mm-Hmm , it’s the stories that are memorable and stick in our mind. You know, we’ve talked a lot about servant leadership, a little, a little bit about what it means to be a wholehearted or high performing educator. Mm. You know, right now it’s, it’s challenging with COVID and I’m curious to know, not so much, I don’t wanna focus too much on the challenges, but I wanna focus on what you’ve tried that is working or is in progress and you think another educator might benefit from here?


Adrian Del Monte (22:26):
Yeah. That’s a great question. You, a, a lot of people are saying, you know, once we get this vaccine, we can get back to normal. And, and the reality is normal. Wasn’t that great? Like there was a lot of problems with normal. We had, we had, you know, again, I don’t wanna focus on the problems, but yeah, you had disengaged students, you had mental illness, you had systemic racism. There was a lot of thing. And that, that needed to be addressed. And I think COVID, I’m looking at it in a way of what opportunities does this now present us. Mm. So, so, so here, here’s an example, I think over the last several years, but particularly in a virtual learning space, teachers no longer need to hold information because the students have Google, right. Teachers used to be, if you wanted to know about what happens in the play Macbeth, you had to come to Mr. Delmonte’s class and I’ll tell you, they don’t need you for that anymore.


Adrian Del Monte (23:18):
They, they don’t need teachers to be the sage on stage. Right. They don’t need me up there with all my knowledge presented because they can Google it. So the first I’ve heard, this is the generation of kids that knows more than the adults. Now they don’t know what to do with it necessarily, but they, they have tons of information. And I think what COVID is giving us an opportunity to do is ask ourself, how can we really create opportunities for student voice student voice? And, and so when I’m designing a lesson, now I ask myself, is this experience about what I know or what the students can create? Mm, right. So, so let me give an example, cuz teachers are practical academic. So that, that sounds fine. But how do you design a lesson?


Adrian Del Monte (24:08):
So the way I would design the lesson, I’m gonna teach, right? When this interview’s over is, is I’ll start with a I’ll start with a Kahoot, right? A Kahoot is like a, a virtual game, a trivia game, but all the kids turn off their mics on their mics. So you can hear them as they play the game. Then they come into the conversation and we’ll read a story about actually, we’re, we’re reading a great piece today about it’s called dear white people. Great piece. Nice. And that’s gonna lead us into a journal entry where they’re creating a boat, asking the question of themselves. Am I not a racist or am I anti racist? And they’re, they’re different. And so they get to write a personal journal. They come back and they go into a breakout room where they’re in a conversation with a few of their a few of their classmates, an online small group.


Adrian Del Monte (24:57):
Then after that, they come back for a class discussion and then it ends with all of us contributing to like a interactive whiteboard called the Jamboard. And so when I look at, I would’ve never taught that way. Right. But what COVID is making me do is realize the kids have to stay engaged all the time. Cause there’s too many distractions in their bedrooms. Right. They’ve got Snapchat and yeah. And, and, and, and, and their bed, like things on the wall, right. They get distracted. Right. And so COVID is asking me to reconsider, how do I take the emphasis off knowledge and focus on what the students can create? And actually the homework tonight after this conversation is I’m gonna have them create like a, a poem, an original poem. And I, I think Google, while it’s a powerful source is crippling our kids a little bit. So teachers have a wonderful opportunity to innovate and, and try new things that are gonna shift the focus from what we know to what they can do. Yeah. I hope that answers your question.


Sam Demma (25:58):
A hundred percent. And if anyone’s curious about Jamboard or Kahoots or any of the resources you mentioned, including Google docs, how can someone reach out to you if they’re inspired by this and just wanna bounce some ideas around and have a conversation with yourself?


Adrian Del Monte (26:14):
Twitter’s probably the best way my handle on Twitter is @adrian_delmonte like the like the fruit cup, no relation. Yeah. Okay. Awesome.


Sam Demma (26:27):
Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Adrian, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It was such an insightful conversation. You’re doing amazing work and I hope to stay in touch and keep watching all the cool things that happen with your class and in your school.


Adrian Del Monte (26:38):
Sam, I have got to get you on Wholehearted Teaching.


Sam Demma (26:40):
Let’s do it. That’ll be great.


Adrian Del Monte (26:41):
Thanks Sam. All right. Talk soon.


Sam Demma (26:44):
This interview could be something that you actually share with your class. I think the stories that Adrian shared and the perspectives on reframing leadership is something that is so relevant, especially right now, when all of your students are spending an average of eight to nine hours per day, a on social media, believing that leadership might be being a professional YouTuber being, becoming famous on TikTok. But when in reality, it’s, it’s all wrong. Leadership is about service leadership. Leadership is about being a value to others. And Adrian did an amazing job highlighting that today. And I think it’s worth sharing maybe with even other colleagues, especially with your students. If you enjoyed this interview with Adrian, consider reaching out to him, also consider leaving a rating and review. So more teachers like yourself can find these episodes and benefit from the content. And if you have something that you’d want to share, shoot me an email at info@samdemma.com and will get you scheduled to come on the podcast as well. Anyways, I’ll see you on the other side. Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Adrian Del Monte

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

January 7, 2022 by Experiential Learning Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 1

Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. – Past School District Superintendent, Speaker, Author, and Leadership Consultant

Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. – School District Superintendent, Speaker, Author, and Leadership Consultant
About Darrin M Peppard Ed.D.

Darrin Peppard (@DarrinMPeppard) is an author, publisher, speaker, and consultant focused on what matters most in leadership and education. Darrin is an expert in school culture and climate, as well as coaching and growing emerging leaders, and is the author of the best-selling book Road to Awesome: Empower, Lead, Change the Game.

Darrin was named the 2016 Wyoming Secondary School Principal of the Year by WASSP/NASSP and was the 2015 Jostens Renaissance Educator of the Year. In 2017, Darrin earned his Doctorate Degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Wyoming. Darrin was inducted into the Jostens Renaissance Hall of Fame in 2019. 

Darrin now shares his experiences from over 25 years in education, specifically those learned as an education leader during the past 13 years. As a ‘recovering’ high school principal, Darrin shares lessons learned and effective strategies from over 25 years in public education to help leaders (both adults and students) to become more effective and positively impact the world around them.

Connect with Dr. Peppard: Website | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Road To Awesome

Jostens Renaissance

Bradley Skinner

Kid President

Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

Rock Springs High School

Dr. Ivan Joseph, The skill of self confidence – TEDxRyersonU

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. I’m super excited to share with you today’s interview. Darrin is someone that I was introduced to by another High Performing Educator, as someone they thought I should interview on the show. And after having the some conversation with him, I can wholeheartedly and honestly tell you, Darrin is one of the most kindhearted, most influential and most open people that I’ve ever had the chance to speak to and interview on this show. His stories are amazing. His passion, his energy, his lessons, his advice. There’s just so much wisdom packed in this man. I would say he’s made a dent in education, but I don’t think a dent is a big enough representation of the impact he’s made. Darrin Peppard is a school district superintendent, a speaker and author, and a consultant who focuses on what matters most in leadership.


Sam Demma (01:00):
Darrin’s an expert in school, culture and climate, as well as coaching and growing emerging leaders. He is known for his keen insight culture. First leadership style and dynamic personality. He’s won numerous awards, been named principle of the year. He’s been added into the Johnson’s Renaissance educator of the year, and then the hall of fame. There’s so many accolades this man has collected and achieved and accomplished over the years, but on all honesty, all those things aside, Darrin’s just an amazing human being who has a lot of great stories to share. And I hope you get just a peak into some of those stories listening to this episode. I hope you enjoy it. I’ll see you on the other side, Darrin, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. It’s a huge honor to have you on the show today. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and your recovering principle mindset and how you got into this work you’re doing in education today?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (01:57):
Yeah, absolutely. Sam, thanks so much for having me on this is this is really a treat. So, so yeah, I, I consider myself a recovering high school principal you know like you and I were talking before we came on. It’s a, it’s a winding journey. And you know, certainly an interesting road that has led me to where I am now and, you know, being being through being a coach being a, a principal and now superintendent that principal role, I is still the role that I look at. And you know, it’s, it’s the time that I probably cherish the most in my professional career. Certainly a great opportunity to impact kids, a great opportunity to, to impact adults. But then also to work, you know around systems and being able to work, you know, work in and affect systems.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (02:49):
You know, we were talking a again right before we started, you know, I go back to what really got me into education was when somebody asked me to help ’em coach a, a basketball team and I’m like, yeah, absolutely let’s do this. And it was a fifth grade girls basketball team. And so, you know, that is not a lot of high level in depth basketball, but it’s more, it’s just relationships and, and having some fun and, and, you know, just getting to be kids and work with kids. And that’s what hooked me to ultimately become, to become an educator. And so yeah, that’s, that’s I guess a little bit about me.


Sam Demma (03:28):
No, that’s awesome. And before your friend asked you to help coach the basketball team, where were you headed in life and was there anything else aside from that ask that he gave you that directed you in that direction?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (03:42):
Ah, man, that’s a great question. So, so, you know, when I when I started college you know, I, I, I played tennis and basketball in high school. I was a, I was a really good tennis player. I was a basketball player. I was not, I wasn’t a very good player. I was just on the team, but you know then I had some injuries and, and some of those kinds of things. And I honestly, I was a little bit lost when I got into college, you know the person I probably connected with the most, at my high school. At, at a point I’m gonna talk about staff I’m sure. And, and how everybody has an impact on kids, not just teachers. And , this actually even is, is true of my life. Our high school athletic trainer was the person who had the most profound impact on me.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (04:29):
I unfortunately during basketball, I spent more time in the training room than I did actually on the floor in games. I just was, you know, I just had the bad luck of getting injured a lot. And trainer John was, was somebody who really kind of inspired me. And so that’s where I thought I wanted to go. I wanted to be an athletic trainer and I don’t know, somewhere along the line, I kind of lost, lost my path. And, and to be honest with you, I, I actually dropped outta college and I got into the private sector. I was, I was working in retail sales. And yeah, fortunately when when my friend reached out to me and said, you know, Hey, I need somebody to help me coach this team. I don’t know what you know, it was it was a heck of an opportunity to inadvertently you know, or, or maybe there was some kind of destiny there to, to help me find that path. And know he, even after that, it was, you know, Hey, let’s, you know, notice this other team. And, and it really gave me a chance to connect with a passion. I didn’t know I had, and that was working with kids and supporting kids and helping kids as they, as they grow through life.


Sam Demma (05:40):
You’ve been able to experience some multiple roles, principal teacher now, superintendent as well. You just mentioned all staff have the ability to make a difference for educators listening, who might question that, that they have the power to also play a huge impact. What would you have to say? You alluded to the fact that you really believe that every member of staff can make a change.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (06:01):
Absolutely. I, I think every single member of of every staff, or again, like I say, staff, you know, staff plus faculty we don’t, we don’t separate ’em in our district. We, we make sure that everybody understands that we’re all in this together and we’re all part of something special. I just, you know, through the course of my career, I, and, and again, I even go back to, to when I was a student, you know, I’ve seen those moments where it’s the coach that is impacting a kid more than the classroom teacher. Certainly they’re classroom teachers that make profound, profound impacts on kids. I absolutely don’t want to downplay that, but I think about man, when, when I was a high school principal, one of the people in my building who was probably as impactful as anybody else was a guy named Cleve and Cleve was our maintenance guy.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (06:53):
Cleve was a retired engineer and just came to work at the, because he just wanted to make an impact to be around kids. And you know, so the role we gave him was in addition to just some general maintenance, he was our guy who set up for all of our athletic contests. And he was the guy who was there to, you know, make sure the water jugs were filled. And, and yeah, he did all of that, but man, that, that guy just, he just cheered his face off for every single one of our kids and our kids knew him and they loved him. He knew every kid by name. And then every one of our schools, there’s a Cleve, whether it’s a maintenance person or it’s somebody who’s working in food service, or it’s a bus driver we don’t, we don’t realize sometimes just because we get into routines and we get into our day to day, you know, I, I drive my bus and this is my route, or you know, I, I’m a special education para and these are the kids I go and work with.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (07:51):
And this is my schedule. We don’t realize just how many eyes are on us and how much the things that we do every day impact, impact kids. And, and you don’t know until, until years later I I’ll share a quick story with you that here probably I’m gonna say six months ago, I got a message on Facebook from a former student. And I mean, it’s a kid that I had as a high school student. I, I had him from one year. He was part of a group of kids that I actually had at both junior high. And then when I moved to high school, those kids then were there a year later, but I only had this student one year and I never really thought that we built much of a relationship. I mean, we knew each other, but you know, it wasn’t like some of the other kids in that group because I’d only once, but he reached out to me and it was a really profound thing that, that he said to me, he, he shared with me that he felt he owed me an apology over.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (08:55):
Just the way he had been as a student. He said, you know, I didn’t tell a lot of people this he said, in fact, you probably don’t remember me, but you’ll remember my girlfriend. And I, I mean, I remembered him instantly, but he said, what you don’t know is I was homeless. What you don’t know is I lived in a car and I was embarrassed. And, and so I acted out so that people didn’t know those other things about me. And I mean, this is, you know, I don’t know, 15 years later. And he felt compelled to reach out and tell me the story. Wow. And, you know, to know, to know that I had an impact on, on that young. And and for that matter that I still have an opportunity too. You know, we’re still, we’re still in contact. Yeah. What I, I guess I tell that story for this reason, whether you’re a teacher or in any other role office, secretary, principal, you don’t know the impact you have on kids until much, much later. And sometimes you never know, there’s so many hundreds and thousands of kids that every educator touches every day. And you’re making a difference and you know, right now it’s hard. Holy cow, is it hard right now, but you’re making a difference and you’re changing lives one kid at a time.


Sam Demma (10:20):
What a powerful story. Tell me how you felt when you read that message in your inbox.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (10:29):
Well, I mean, as we’re talking about it, six months later, I’m tearing up about it. So, I mean, you can probably imagine you know, first we’re and I saw his name, I thought, no way wow. I haven’t heard from him in forever. And and then as I started reading that, I, I just, you know, I had to sit down. I was like, oh my goodness. And certainly, you know, I was, I was grateful that he reached out to me is filled with a little bit of pride, you know, certainly that, that I had made an impact with him. But then I also, I guess, as I reflected through the, through the course of the next few days, I also kind of was maybe a little bit upset with myself or disappointed in myself because why didn’t I know, is it possible that I didn’t take the time?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (11:28):
I should have to maybe get to know him better? And I don’t know, maybe I could have helped him that because, you know, as he went forward in his life, there were some struggles with substance. There was some struggles with other things. And, and I don’t know, maybe I could have made a difference, maybe I could of to help him in that regard. But I don’t know. I guess I would say it was mixed emotions. But, but ultimately, you know, I still go back to what what I, what I cling to with that story is whether I realized it or not, I was making an impact on that kid.


Sam Demma (12:03):
Yeah. And sometimes we’re a harshest critic, so mm-hmm, , don’t be too critical on yourself. Yeah. How do we make sure as educators, we can be that cleave, we can be that Darrin for our students, especially in a time like COVID 19, how do we ensure our youth feel appreciated, cared for and heard?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (12:24):
Man, that’s a really good question because, you know, one of the most difficult things, I think all of us face right now is it’s really, it’s challenging, I guess, to fill the cups of others when your cup is empty. And so one of the most important things I would say, and, and I’m probably, I’m gonna say something and I’m not doing a good job of right now. And so I’m gonna challenge myself to, to, to refocus on this, but we’ve gotta take care of ourselves. If we want to continue to make a difference in this super challenging time, we have to take care of ourselves whether that’s, you know good eating habits or, you know, getting some exercise, getting enough, sleep, drinking enough water drinking enough water. So one, I’m not doing a good job with probably not getting enough exercise, but we have to be able to make sure that that physically and mentally we’re ready to answer the bell every morning.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (13:23):
And if we’re able to do that, then I would say the next thing is, you know, focus on relationships. You know, the academic piece doesn’t work without the relation anyway. And right now we probably need to put twice as much time into relationships. I mean, we, we hear the phrase, social, emotional learning right now. A lot. It is very much an in Vogue term. It’s an appropriate term but really at its core, it’s about having those relationships in place. So we recognize those challenges kids are going through. And so that kids feel comfortable reached out saying something, you know, or asking a question. I think that’s, that’s just the biggest, biggest things we can be doing for ourselves right now. You know, there’s, there’s all kinds of training and all kinds of, you know, other things we can do books we can read, but if we don’t number one, take care of ourselves and number two, build those relationships. None of that other stuff matters.


Sam Demma (14:23):
It’s foundational. It’s definitely foundational. Speaking of books, what is the Road to Awesome? What does, what does that mean to you and explain why you are compelled to write a book with that title?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (14:36):
Yeah. So Road to Awesome. And there’s, there is, there’s definitely a story behind that. So and it’s like, like the road awesome itself, it’s long and winding, but so I’ll tell you when, when I go back to my first year as a as an assistant principal, so my first administrative job we, we had a pretty challenging culture in, in our school. We really had well, I’ll just put it this way. The, the philosophy in our school was catch, ’em doing it wrong. And that might be kids and it might be adults. You know, we even as a leadership team and I don’t think we were intentional with this, but this is just how it worked. I mean, the phrase that the other administrators used and, and I, I know I picked up on it very quickly and fell right into the culture.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (15:30):
I’m not saying I, I stepped away from it. I fell right into it too, you know, was, I’m gonna ding that kid. I’m gonna ding that teacher. You know, it, it was all about catching people, doing things wrong. And we were in this staff meeting middle part of my first year. And this particular part of the meeting was mine to facilitate cuz we were talking about, you know, what are we gonna do about hats and cell phones? You know, really, you know, important stuff used foundational. So yeah, that’s yeah, facetiously that’s, it’s not foundational that’s, those are things we really should be wasting time on, but that’s, that’s what we were focused on. You know, kids have their cellphones out and you know, they’re wearing hats, what are we gonna do about it? So somewhere between, you know, if we start hanging ’em up on the little on the wall and those little calculator holders, or I don’t know, suspending kids or wherever, you know, people were chasing this, somebody raised their hand and just said, why does it always have to be about what they do wrong?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (16:28):
And I had it be about what they do. Right. and, and I looked back at that now in time and, and I can tell you, the lady’s name is spring. She’s a school social worker, a brilliant young lady. It was like, bang, you know, the, the road splitting two for me right there. You know, we, I can keep going down this path. You know, we, we focus on what people are doing wrong. You know, maybe, maybe we can, we can exit this path and try another one. And let’s, let’s try to focus on what they do. Right. it led me to the Josten’s Renaissance program and, you know, I mean that, that’s a philosophy of recognizing rewarding and reinforcing the things that you respect. And we put that in place and we started working really hard around that and changing the way we did our work and changing the way we focused on things.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (17:23):
And you know, it’s amazing how, you know, people will rise or fold whatever level of expectation you’re willing to hold them to. And if you’re using that recognition and reinforcement at a high level of expectation, they’re gonna meet that level of expectation. They’re gonna come right up to it. I mean adversity for stuff like that, you know? And I mean, let’s, let’s make it about, let’s make it about kids who are doing a great job in the classroom. Let’s make it about kids doing a great job in, in athletics or in activities or whatever, you know, in community service. You know, I mean, we shouldn’t just be focused on, you know, our football team or whatever, you know, know, I mean, we had one of the greatest bands I’ve ever been around as, as a high school principal. And I know a lot of that was we hired a great person for it, but he took that same philosophy.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (18:19):
And, you know, he went from like 60 kids to 130 kids in the band and, you know, superior ratings all the time. And so, so fast forward just a little bit. And I’m at a Josten’s Renaissance Conference and I’m presenting with somebody who at the time was was a teacher I had hired now just genuinely a, a, a true friend of mine a guy named Bradley Skinner. And we showed this little video clip Kid President, who everybody loves Kid President. And he said something along the lines of using the the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken” you know, what, what if there are two roads I want to be on the one that leads to awesome . And even though I’d been on this road for a long time, I’d never had a, I’d never had a phrase for it.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (19:06):
And Road to Awesome was born. And we, and we still are using that as a hashtag. It became a hashtag at our school. We had to paint it on our walls. I mean, it just like grew and grew and grew to where everybody knew, you know, Rock Spring High School is we’re all about the Road to Awesome. And when it came to west grand, it brought that with me and we’re on the road to, and so over the last year or two, I, I really had started thinking, thinking, and I really wanna write a book. And I, I wanted to write a book about leadership and about, about what the things that I think, not, not that everybody should follow, but just, I think these are the six things that truly make a difference in leadership. And, and that doesn’t mean being a principal leader.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (19:52):
I mean, that’s any leader that I’m a classroom teacher, teacher leader, I’m in the business world, I’m a leader, I’m whatever. So six things in the book really that I focused on you know, leading with a clear vision building positive culture and climate empowering your student, empowering your adults, telling your story as educators, man, we stink at that. We are not good at telling our story. You know, unfortunately it’s, it’s standardized test scores or, you know, things that people say on Facebook that determine story of our schools. And it shouldn’t, you know, we have great things happening in every school across not only the United States through Canada. I mean, everywhere, there are great things happening in schools and we just have to do a better job of telling them. And then the last one is, is coaching. And, and, and by that, I mean, everybody, everybody can benefit from a coach as a leader. I can benefit from another leader as a, as a principal, as a teacher, whatever I can benefit from an outside perspective supporting me and, and helping me to, to see things differently. So as we’re working through the book it only made sense that the book had to have the title Road to Awesome.


Sam Demma (21:13):
Awesome. No pun intended. Yeah, there you go. I was, I was really, I was really enjoying when you were speaking about the difference between pointing out what the students were doing wrong versus what they were doing. Right. I was actually watching a Ted talk yesterday by someone by the name of Dr. Ivan Joseph. Who’s a self confidence expert and he’s his talk has over 20 million views. It’s a great one. He took on two soccer teams to coach at Ryerson, which is a university here that were both on a five year losing streak. No one wanted the job. He stepped up and took it it and used basically what you just told me to create two winning teams that both won the national championship over the next five years. And what he said was so often coaches, and we can replace that for any human being points out what the athlete does wrong.


Sam Demma (22:04):
You know, you’re not kicking in the ball, right? Get your knee over the ball and lean, you know, lean back and stare down before you kick the ball, or it’s always gonna go too high. And he’s like, instead of doing that, you can point out what someone else on the team did really well. So John goes and does a terrible job, but then, you know, Stacy goes and scores and, you know, beautiful form. He can say, Stacy, well done. Your, you kept your head down. Your knee was over the ball and the student or the soccer player, John who didn’t kick it well is taking in what he’s saying, but not having his ego hurt or feeling bad about himself. And that hit me so hard because, you know, even with pick the, the volunteer initiative, I run, we manage six or seven people. And sometimes we, we don’t think before we SP be to that degree and we can be critical to too hard sometimes on the people we manage or even ourselves.


Sam Demma (22:55):
And I just wanted to highlight that. Cause I think the point you raised is so, so important. I can even pinpoint as a young person when my coach spoke negatively to me and how it affected me personally which is, which is really, really powerful. Anyways, Darrin, this has been a very fruitful conversation. There’s so many nuggets and things that are coming out of this. If you could sum up your entire brain, all the wisdom that you’ve gained over the past, I think you said 26 years teaching and give advice to your younger self when you were just starting in education, what, you know, couple points of advice would you give yourself that you think would be helpful along the journey?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (23:37):
Well, you know, not, not to keep hammering on the same thing, but I go right back to what you were just talking about. I know there were times where as a classroom teacher or, or as a coach where yeah, I probably focused more on, you know, what we were doing wrong. Mm-Hmm and you know, I think I would, I would remind myself or tell myself that don’t take yourself so seriously, you know, take, take a breath, remember that it’s about relationships. And at the end, at the end of the day, when you’re, when the students that you have in the classroom now, or the kids that you’re coaching on the court are 30 years old. They’re not gonna remember whether or not we won this game or that game. They’re gonna remember how you made ’em feel. Mm they’re gonna remember.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (24:27):
And they’re gonna reach out to you because of the relationships that you built with them. And I mean, I, I know that I did that well, but I know there’s always, you know, I look back there’s ones. I know I could have done better. And so that would be one of them would be to, to just, you know, Don worry about the wins and losses, worry about the relationships because that’s, that’s what it’s really all about. And I don’t know, maybe I would tell myself, maybe you should journal what you’re doing because, because I was writing this book, I know there were stories that slowly came back to me, but I know there’s just hundreds and hundreds and more stories that you know, both good and bad, you know, one’s where I certainly don’t look very good because of, because of what I did, but there’s a lesson that came from it. Mm-Hmm and you know, I, I wish that you know, I would’ve written all that stuff down, you know, but I guess those are probably the two things I would, I would go back and tell myself.


Sam Demma (25:25):
Cool. I love that. That’s so awesome. And I’m guessing you journal every day now.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (25:29):
I do as much as I can. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s, it’s mostly, it’s mostly the old you know voice journal nice as, as much as it is writing.


Sam Demma (25:39):
Awesome. Well, Darrin, thank you so much for taking the time to chat today. If another educator listening wants to reach out, talk, talk about your book, talk about idea is, and what’s working in your schools right now. What would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (25:53):
So I would say there’s two different ways you know, any and all social media, I’m Darrin M Peppard just write like that, whether it’s Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, that’s, that’s how you can find me. The other thing too, is, is on my a website. I mean, there’s a way to contract me through the website, which is shockingly roadtoawesome.net. So absolutely those are, those are two great ways to get in touch with me. And by all means, if there’s anything I could do, somebody needs somebody to vent to talk to. If I can share a little bit of advice or wisdom or, you know, even if somebody’s just got a great where they wanna share with me, I’d love to hear it.


Sam Demma (26:30):
Awesome. Darrin, thank you so much for coming on the show today.


Darrin M Peppard Ed.D. (26:33):
Yeah. Thank you, Sam. I really appreciate it.


Sam Demma (26:36):
Such impactful stories. I don’t know if your eyes like mine almost leaked while listening to this episode, but if it touched you, if it moved you, if it inspired you in any way, shape or form, please consider reaching out to Darrin. He’s someone who would love to connect to you. He’s someone who would love to have a conversation. He’s someone who would love to share ideas with and bounce things around and be a soundboard for you. And if you found this valuable considered leaving a rating and review on the podcast, it will help more educators. Like you find these episodes during these times, so they can benefit from the content and the inspiration in the stories. And if you personally have something you, you think should be shared with other educators around the world, please reach out at info@samdemma.com and will get you a spot on the, a podcast. Anyways, I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Darrin M Peppard Ed.D.

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

January 7, 2022 by Education Consultant Principals Student Leadership Superintendent Teachers 0

Dr. Bridget Weiss – TIME featured Educator and Superintendent of the Juneau School District

Bridget Weiss - TIME featured Educator and Superintendent of the Juneau School District
About Dr. Bridget Weiss

Dr. Bridget Weiss is the Superintendent of the Juneau School District. After graduating high school in Juneau, Bridget graduated from Whitworth University in 1984, with a Bachelors’s in Mathematics, a Minor in Physical Education and a secondary teaching certificate. Following graduation, she spent the next 26 years in Spokane as a high school math teacher, coach, high school assistant principal, elementary principal, Executive Director of Instructional Programs and Superintendent. 

Once back in Alaska, Bridget spent four years as principal of North Pole High School and four years as Director of Student Services at the Juneau School District.  She started this year as the Interim Superintendent and was hired for the position permanently in January.  Bridget attained her Masters in Mathematics from Eastern Washington University and her Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Washington State University.  Her work has been in districts as small as 1,800 and as large as 29,000 students.

Bridget is completing her 38th year in education at the start of 2022 was named Alaska’s Superintedent of the Year!

Connect with Bridget: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources And Related Media

From Teachers to Custodians, Meet the Educators Who Saved A Pandemic School Year

Juneau’s Bridget Weiss named Alaska’s Superintendent of the Year

Juneau School District

Superintendent of the Year

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Dr. Bridget Weiss. She is the superintendent of the Juneau school district. After graduating high school in Juneau, Bridget graduated from Whitworth university in 1984 with a bachelor’s in mathematics, a minor in physical education and a secondary teaching. Following graduation, she spent the next 26 years in Spokane as a high school math teacher coach high school assistant principal elementary principal, executive director of instructional programs and superintendent. Once back in Alaska, Bridget spent four years as principal of north pole high school and four years as director of student services at the Juneau school district. She started this year as the interim superintendent and was hired for the position permanently in January. Bridget attained her masters in mathematics from Eastern Washington university and her doctorate in educational leadership from Washington state university. Her work has been in districts as small as 1800 and as large as 29,000 students. And Bridget is currently completing her 38th year in education. This conversation was phenomenal. You are gonna take away some amazing ideas. I hope you enjoy it. And I will see you on the other side, Bridget, welcome to thehigh performing educator podcast. It’s a huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.


Bridget Weiss (02:35):
Thank you, Sam. I am Bridget Weiss. I am the superintendent in Juneau school district in Juneau, Alaska.


Sam Demma (02:43):
That is amazing. Tell me more about your journey into education. What got you started and then, brought you to where you are today?


Bridget Weiss (02:53):
Yeah, well, I’m super lucky. I actually am born and raised in Juneau, so I’m a third Juneau white and I went left Juneau to go to school college in Spokane and I Wentworth university. And just really knew from a pretty young age that education was what I wanted to do and spend my life committed to. I had a couple of really cool experiences with teachers that really inspired me. And so I started out as a teacher. I spent 16 years as a teacher teaching junior high and high school math and coaching and all of that. And I’ve spent the balance of 38 years being in a administrator since then.


Sam Demma (03:41):
I’m just gonna give you a round of applause for your service. you mentioned you’re welcome. You mentioned having some really cool experiences with educators and teachers. Can you expand on that and tell me a little bit more how those experiences shape a decision to get into education?


Bridget Weiss (04:02):
You know, I was in junior high and seventh grade and I met a teacher who the best way I can really explain it is he saw me, like, I just, he knew me, got to know me. He was a math teacher my basketball all coach. And he was always checking in to see how I was doing. He had a great, has a great sense of humor and he was one that just really inspired me to be my best self, you know, which was what we would say now as a seventh grader, I would never, ever have been able to articulate that. But he really did. And he used his sense of humor and his ability to build relationships, really genuine relationships with kids. And so it inspired me and it certainly also impacted the type of educator that I wanted to be. And so I, I just feel really fortunate to have had some of those experiences that steered me in this direction,


Sam Demma (05:09):
Being seen and heard is such an important thing for every educator to do with their own students in their classrooms. How do you think in terms of tangible actions, he did that for you when you were in grade seven, was it by asking questions by being interested in your hobbies? Like what did that look like as a student?


Bridget Weiss (05:33):
I think for me through the eyes of a seventh grader again, it’s one thing looking back it’s another, but he, he did get to know me, you know, personally he knew who I was. I still remember. I, I can, I can look out my office window right now and see the building, my elementary school and the building that I went to junior high end. And I can still go to the corner of the hallway where his classroom was, and I can picture myself walking by not even going to his class, but he was always standing outside interacting his hallway or his classroom interacting with kids saying, hello, you know, making sure that we were on our way to class on time. And and, and he, his humor again, was really a key player for him. And and it was always very supportive humor and it was humor that was specific to who we were, if that makes sense. It, it, it really made you feel again, heard and seen. And, and I think it’s really hard to do that sometimes in education, the more kids that a teacher is serving the, you know, the larger, the class sizes. And I have really tried to emulate that sense that a student could get in whether they were in trouble or doing something fantastic that I saw them, that, that I knew them and that I was there to help them either through something that was negative or encouraged them because they were doing amazing things.


Sam Demma (07:07):
That’s an amazing teaching philosophy. And it’s so cool that you not even realizing it learnt it when you were a student in grade seven. so awesome. And speaking of difficulty in doing that even to this day, I’m sure with COVID, it took that challenge to a whole new level. And you’re someone who was very crafty and resourceful during COVID to try and keep things functional and not only functional, but for the students in your school board. You’re one of the only educators. In fact, the only educator who has been featured in time magazine for your effectiveness during COVID, that’s been on this podcast I’d love for you to share a little bit about what happened during COVID and how you and your team at the board transitioned and adapted.


Bridget Weiss (07:59):
Yeah. You know, we, I, one blessing that I’ve had is, I don’t know if it’s my mathematical background or just how my brain works, but I am definitely a problem solver, a solution finder and that’s how I’ve always focused. Here’s a challenge. What is the best next step? How do I get this only the resources they need? What does this kid need if this isn’t working? What options do we have for this kid? You know, so I, that’s just, my frame of thought always is finding solution and being prepared for situations that we might not know about yet. So here comes along the pandemic. And really one of the things that happened to us is that we ended up with a potential COVID case in one of our elementary schools really early in March. And we had to act quickly to know to, because we, again, in March, 2020, we knew so little about COVID.


Bridget Weiss (08:57):
We didn’t even, we couldn’t even spell the word mask yet. Right. We, we, we were just, it was, we just did not know anything. What I had done about three weeks before that we were hearing the talk about this virus and, you know, what, what it might mean in other countries. And wow. I was sitting up and paying attention. So I pulled all our department leaders together. This was in early February and said, Hmm, let’s start thinking about this. What might we need to do? This is something we just couldn’t even have imagined a even February, 2020. And so each department, it, food services teaching and learning health services counselors. I had, ’em all the leads there. And we trouble shot through each department, what this could look like and what we, what should we be doing now to think about that?


Bridget Weiss (09:56):
And so when we were shut down on a Friday, March 13th, on Monday morning, we were delivering food to kids. We had, we had meals available. We had Chromebooks ready to be delivered to kids or picked up to try to build distant and delivery learning on the spot. It was quite something so literally from a Friday shutdown to a Monday we were able to deliver services to kids. And, and that was really meaningful to our families. Many of whom rely on the free, hot breakfast that we serve every morning to our elementary kids and so forth. So it, it was very quick turnaround operation.


Sam Demma (10:39):
That’s amazing. If you were to take the experience and make it a blueprint for another superintendent or educator, who’s interested in the creativity that went into solving this problem, what would the through line be? Would it be that you have to in advance or, you know, the moment something changes, give it attention in time? Like, how would you distill this down to a principal that another board or educator could use?


Bridget Weiss (11:07):
I think a couple of things, one is definitely being as prepared as possible for the unknown, which we had an emergency response plan and it had at four levels and we busted through those four levels. In the first day we were responding and normally those four levels are extended over a period of time a month, you know, months we blew through those four levels in one day. And so then you have to rely on your instincts your courage your team. So I’m a huge team advocate. So I partnered with my chief of staff who we, we do crisis response together and have for a number of years. And we sat at this desk in my office for hours and started designing what we thought next steps were making lists of who needed, what information how were we gonna support our custodial team?


Bridget Weiss (12:03):
So when I pulled those leaders together, again, because it was such an inclusive group, everybody had a heads up, everybody understood at least that we didn’t know everything and that we were going to be working really hard. And we didn’t know for sure the, so what of all that yet? But everybody was on point. Everybody was thinking through our custodial lead was thinking about what supplies we did have on hand. So we knew right away where to start looking for, for the next round of supplies. And, and, and again, food service, they were already contacting for the state for what waivers we might need. You know, so again, having the right people, you can’t do it alone. So making sure that you’re really including your full team is, and that just takes some intention and building that team in advance so that everybody feels confident in themselves, equipped and UN and knows that you do believe in them in doing some hard creative work, when the time comes,


Sam Demma (13:06):
It’s such a Testament to the power of a team and unified messaging. If everyone was to get different messaging, it would’ve caused a mass amount of chaos. amongst everyone, because everyone would’ve been unclear on what their roles and responsibilities were. And I see that there’s a whiteboard for everyone who’s listening. They can’t see it, but there’s a whiteboard behind you. I’m, I’m sure you erase that a couple hundred times. Would that be true?


Bridget Weiss (13:30):
but that is so true. I had lists on, I have two whiteboards, a in my office, I had lists of so many different action steps. I had lists of groups of people. So I had the board of education. What did they need? Teachers, staff, what did they need? Parents, families, what did they need to know? Because some of it was different. Some of it was the same information, but some of it was different. So we would do that. And then we would commute out. Then we’d erase it and we’d start over. As soon as something happened that we thought we need to alert them, we would write it on the list. And then we would use that to craft our, our messages. So, and, and all of a sudden, all of our normal tools that we use didn’t work anymore, right. We, we couldn’t call staff meetings together.


Bridget Weiss (14:14):
Our, our app wasn’t allowed to come into the building for a while. You know it just, so we had to rely on video. I had never made a video as a, as an administrator. I don’t have a, a communication department but, but we did that. We started just right away because I knew people needed to hear my voice and see my face versus email that was void of emotion, void, you know, void of the voice inflection that you can give gratitude with and so forth. So we immediately started in this office right here, my one person, chief of staff videoed on her phone a message that I could give staff right before they went away for their their week. So you know, just relying on, on your, on your skills and your team, and we just, nobody can do it alone. And, and really that’s true in a pandemic, extraordinarily true in a pandemic, but it’s really true on a day to day basis as well. We’re only as good as the people around us and, and those that we commit to lifting up and supporting along the journey with us.


Sam Demma (15:25):
You mentioned the importance of filming a video, so the educators could feel your grad to, and hear your voice inflections. Can we talk about that for a second? What is the purpose or what went through your mind to come to that conclusion that you needed to send a video?


Bridget Weiss (15:43):
To me community has always been really important. So whatever role I’ve had, I, as when I was a teacher, I was a coach. I, my classrooms were communities. My teams were communities as an administrator. My building became my community and really nurturing and developing that community ended up in good results for kids. And so what I found was all of a sudden, I felt so responsible for 700 people that I couldn’t talk with. I couldn’t run to a, a building and go to a staff meeting and share, which is what we normally do in crisis, because crises usually are very point based. They’re they’re involved in geographical school. Yeah. One school or another school. I go to the staff meeting. I tell them it’s gonna be okay. This is what we’re doing well, now it was everywhere. . And, and so I thought, I just need to do this, and it needs to be really lighthearted.


Bridget Weiss (16:37):
So I put, I’m a big diet Coke and peanut M and M fans and every fan, and everybody knows it. So I made sure somebody had delivered some to me. I had that in the backdrop and I they were going away for spring break. This was like one week after we closed down. And I also had a video that two elementary teachers had done that one in one week. They had gotten words from their kindergarten classroom about a song. They, they worked together to build lyrics and these two teachers sang this song. It’s gonna be okay, was the main lyric. So I tacked that on to the end of the video and had my message and then that video, and it really was. I needed to tell them it’s gonna be okay. I, I don’t know the future. I’m not sure what we’re gonna do next week when you get back from break, but we’re gonna be ready for you. And, you know, we can do this because we can do it together. And so that, that was in my mind what I just needed to express to them. And I knew that the written word wouldn’t quite get at it.


Sam Demma (17:42):
I love that. And filming that video sounds like it was an action on one of your personal to-do lists. You mentioned having all these lists of teachers needs and student needs and parent needs and communicating to them accordingly. What are some tools that you use to organize yourself? Whether that’s to do lists or software or anything that might be helpful for organizing your day and your tasks?


Bridget Weiss (18:08):
Yeah, I, I am, I’m a list maker. I, as you would imagine, I have a very logical sequential brain. And so I do a lot of lists. And really my calendar is a huge organizer for me. And it sounds funny, but that really is a tool. I use it in planning. I use it in tracking what this week is gonna look like, what I need to have done, what I need to prepare for. There are some other programs out there. I have just found that I, with the pace at which I work, the fewer layers of programs that I have on top of me, the more effective I am. So the, the scheduling nature of a account calendar really becomes almost a project board. You know, when I’m looking out a couple weeks ahead and, and so forth. So, so I really am driven by lists by calendar and you know, and again, having a strong cabinet team that, that reminds us all, when something’s coming up, that we need to be, we’re working on


Sam Demma (19:11):
Amazing. And on the topic of resources to do lists sound really important to you. what are resources that have helped you as an administrator and an educator, whether it be trainings you’ve been a part of or books you’ve read, or programs you’ve taken, or even simple advice that you think might be helpful for other


Bridget Weiss (19:32):
Well, I know that I am similar to so many and maybe all educators we have all this drive to improve, you know, there’s never a moment rest of wanting to do more or wanting to do differ. And, and sometimes it’s, it is exhausting because it, it is just literally a constant layer. You never quite get there. There’s always something more that you want to do, or a problem you haven’t figured out a gap, you haven’t figured out how to resolve. And so I think that’s a good thing, you know, I, I, I absolutely think it is what makes us better as we go. And so I think the skill of dissatisfaction that the, the characteristic of dissatisfaction is really critical to an effective leader. You, you must really be hungry and there’s so much work to do. There was work to do before the pandemic.


Bridget Weiss (20:35):
So right now, what I feel is a huge sense of urgency. And I’m, I’m in my 38th year in education. And so I’m getting anxious because I know I don’t have a lot of time left and there’s so much work to do. Our country has demonstrated that in the last year through the pandemic and the losses related to that, but our social justice issues, you know, are the, the needs of, so many of our kids have grown in the social and emotional area. And so I just, I feel like we, the drive is really important because what the drive does is it helps you continue to ask questions. Why aren’t we getting the results we want? What is it that we’re not doing that should be doing? You know, what is it that we’re doing that is not effective that we need to, or harmful in some cases, right?


Bridget Weiss (21:34):
Where, where are those places in our institution that are simply not working for some of our kids and some of our families, what do we need to stop doing? And, and right now, everyone is a also operating with such fatigue. Our teachers, our staff, our I just met this morning with our bus drivers. And it’s just everywhere. You know, our principles, everyone is, is so exhausted. So how we go about our business is really important, trying to focused on our priorities what, what do we stand for and how do we manage growth in those areas with limited resources, limited time, and a greater set of needs. And I think inspiring people to stay the fight, you know, to stay the course is really an important skill that a leader needs to have right now. And nobody needs to hear that we’re exhausted. Nobody needs to hear that we don’t have enough time. It, it, it simply, it is a way of life as a leader. And it certainly is before the pandemic. It is more now, it’s not that we shouldn’t take care of ourselves, but as a leader we really need to project optimism and hope for us to get through this next year, two, three years that we’ve got coming ahead of us in recovery,


Sam Demma (23:05):
How do you fill up your own cup? What are the things that you do outside of the walls of your boardroom or office to make sure you can show up optimistically and hopefully for not only your staff, but also all the students and families in the board?


Bridget Weiss (23:20):
Well, a lot of diet Coke and a lot of peanut M and MSS, the first step. After that I live in the most gorgeous area of the country in Southeast Alaska. And so I thrive in the out of doors. And so for me, personally, fresh air running, being on trails that fills my bucket. It’s really important for me. And I know when I haven’t gotten enough of it. So I think it is super important for everyone to find what fills their bucket. And we have an obligation to do that because we cannot fill others buckets if we don’t fill our own. And it is really a conscious decision and finding ways to fit it in. So I run early in the morning because if I don’t, it won’t happen. So it’s pitch dark this morning, probably 29 degrees . And but I was out there and and it was a great way to start the day. So everybody really has to fill their own bucket in, in whatever way does that for them. Awesome.


Sam Demma (24:24):
And, and if you want to share one or two final parting words or resources you think might be helpful for an educator listening, now’s a perfect time to do so.


Bridget Weiss (24:38):
I, I would say that one I’m, I’m not a big program person because I find that the heart of the work is so often in strategies and a mindset that and skill sets. However, I will say that one, as we move through this pandemic, and we have students with such increasing needs, our work around equity and social, emotional learning we use restorative practices here and it has made a huge difference in our, in our children and our families as we approach this work through the restorative practice lens. And and that is a, I think ill changer for many, many school institutions. But we have to keep looking at our, through our equity lens that there is no question that school is not still, it’s so frustrating to me, but it is still not the same experience for all kids.


Bridget Weiss (25:44):
And we have to keep fighting to change. When I hear that a child feels unseen, it breaks my heart. It is it is completely a travesty that we would have children show up and feel unseen. And so the work that we’re doing around equity and really partnering with our tribal agencies and, and other groups here to design systems that are very welcoming and socially just is, is really just important work. So I just encourage everybody to, to keep their priorities. You know, there’s a lot of noise. There’s a lot of tractors and a, a lot of anxiety in our country right now is and pointed towards schools. And we need to, as educators hold tight, stay the course with our priorities that we know our students and our families need and stand up for that and continue to, to take charge of what we do best for kids.


Sam Demma (26:53):
Bridget, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to come on the high performing educator podcast. It’s been a phenomenal conversation. If an educator listening wants to reach out to you or mail you some diet Coke and M and Ms and peanuts, what would be the best email address or point of contact that they could send you a note or a question or a comment?


Bridget Weiss (27:17):
Sure. Email would probably be best. Send it to: bridget.weiss@juneauschools.org


Sam Demma (27:33):
Bridget, thank you so much. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Bridget Weiss (27:38):
Sounds great. Thank you, Sam.


Sam Demma (27:41):
Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that in amazing conversation on the high performing educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in education, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards, go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you or someone, you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Bridget

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

January 7, 2022 by Director of Education Experiential Learning Student Success Superintendent Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Melanie Headley – Teacher and student council advisor at Bluefield High School

Melanie Headley - Teacher and student council advisor at Bluefield High School
About Melanie Headley

Melanie (@MelanieHeadley) is a teacher, student council advisor, lifelong learner and the #1 Springsteen fan :).  She has an infectiously positive aura and is constantly striving to provide her students with the support they need to reach their full potential.  

Connect with Melanie: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bluefield High School

Canadian Student Leadership Association (CSLA)

Canadian Student Leadership Conference (CSLC)

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s high performing educator guest on the show is Melanie Headley. Melanie is a educator. She is a teacher and the student council advisor at Bluefield High School. She is an islander by choice, a mom, a wife, a friend, a bobcat, a teacher, a server, a lifelong learner, a runner, and the number one Springsteen fan Melanie has so much energy and so much wisdom and so much insight to provide that she, that she gives in this episode.


Sam Demma (01:14):
And she’s one of the most, I would say, energetic and highly engaged and caring educators that I’ve had the chance to speak to. So I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed the conversation I had with Melanie. And I will see you on the other side. Melanie, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. It’s a huge honor and pleasure to have you. I know we just talked about the fact that we know so many similar people. You know, maybe you can even start by sharing this story that you just told me and the hope that Mark might hear it and be a little inspired that people are talking about him.


Melanie Headley (01:49):
Hi, Sam. So nice to meet you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Before actually that I shared that specific story with you, I also want to include that when Maddie Campbell from CSLA, when she emailed me saying that she had shared my name with you I actually had to go back and read the email a couple times to make sure that it was actually me. But anyway, so I’m very honored to be a part of this. So last Thursday night I had tuned in a little late to the meet the maestros session that CSLA was putting on. And at the end, when, just before we had all signed off and I think it was Dave Conlan who had said, is there any, you know, any final comments, anything else that, you know, we need to share with each other before we sign off.


Melanie Headley (02:45):
And I hope I remember correctly, but I’m pretty sure. It was Lenora that had said, if you haven’t tuned into the High Performance Educator podcast with Sam Demma, put it on your to-do list. She also said Mark England’s was uploaded today. So that was, that was really, really neat and the second that I logged off, stayed up a little later than I probably should have that night, but it was cause I was, I was listening to the lovely and kind gentle soul of Mark England. So that was really sweet because you know, not having had the opportunity to attend CSLC this year, it’s just so, so important that we we have these opportunities and whether it’s through your podcast or through a virtual meet the maestros you know, that we can still connect in those ways.


Sam Demma (03:44):
And now you’re a guest on the show. So why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about who you are and how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today?


Melanie Headley (03:53):
Sure. so again, my name is Melanie Headley and I teach at Bluefield high school Bluefield high, a school is located in the community of Hampshire. But it is about 10 minutes west of Charlottetown. So if you’re familiar with the capital of PEI Bluefield is a school just outside of Charlottetown. And I actually grew up in am Nova Scotia. So I’m not, I’m a CSA, I’m a come from away as it’s called. But the island is my home now. But I grew up in am Nova Scotia and I did my first degree at Mount Allison university. And when I went to Mount a, I was going because my end goal at that time was to be a lawyer. So my path was to go to law school and I took clinical science history and English. And in my third year I started the process of applying to law school.


Melanie Headley (04:57):
Hmm. And that included reference. So I needed two professors to write references and both agreed nice. And however, there’s a little bit of a twist. The day after I had actually crossed paths with one of the two professors that had agreed to, to support me. And when we crossed paths, he said, I need to speak to you for a second. And of course I was like, no, what, what does he wanna tell me? He doesn’t wanna write this, this reference letter. And he says to me, and, and I could honestly, I can still hear his voice in my head. And he says, Melanie, while I think that you would make a good lawyer, I think that you would make a great teacher. Hmm.


Melanie Headley (05:47):
So after I graduated from Mount a, I did not go to law school. I moved to Halifax where I worked for the year. But even more so than working, I volunteered at a junior high school. And it was through that volunteer work that I made the decision to apply to the education program at U P I. So the following September I started the program and later that my, we found out where our teaching practicums would be. And when I was told Bluefield high school, I had no idea where it was located, how I was gonna get there. So lo and behold, I did my practicum at Bluefield with two fabulous list educators who to this day have become great friends of mine. So Jennifer Gill and Brett wood both took me under their wing. And I completed my first teaching practicum with the two of them. I went on to do two more practicums, cuz at that time, U P E I, the education program was two years. And then in my second year, right before, about a week before convocation I would, I was now certified and so I was very, very keen to start substituting. So I came out to Bluefield to let them know that I would be available and the vice principal here at the time she says to me, can you start tomorrow?


Melanie Headley (07:27):
And that was in may of 2002. Mm. And I have been here ever since. Wow. And my current teaching assignment includes grade 10 English and grade 11 law.


Sam Demma (07:41):
Nice.


Melanie Headley (07:44):
Best of both worlds is right. It’s pretty great. So that’s a little bit of my my back story in terms of how we came to be an is or live on PEI anyway. And and teaching at Bluefield high school.


Sam Demma (07:58):
And at what point did you get involved in student leadership? You know, you attended the Mero session with Dave Conlan, you’re involved with the CSLA, where did all that passion and desire and decision come from?


Melanie Headley (08:11):
So even before becoming a teacher when I was in high school I was involved with student and council. Nice. And when I started teaching you know, initially my priority was the classroom. It really, really was to ensure that I delivered the curriculum well and that it was meaningful and that I, I knew my subject area. And as, as soon as I really had a grasp on that then I started to venture outside the classroom and to see where I could where I could commit outside the classroom. Right. So my, my first real commitment was actually with our, our prom, our graduation dance. Oh, cool. So myself and a few other teachers we were the teacher advisors for the grad dance for a number of years. And actually in 2015 our students, parents took over the grad dance, but that was my first, that was really my first commitment outside the classroom.


Melanie Headley (09:21):
In addition to that and this I hope to connect this to student leadership mm-hmm but prior to my involvement with our student council is myself and a few other teacher, Jennifer Gill, who I had mentioned earlier as being one of my my practicum teachers. We started what was called the rap team. Hmm. And rap stands for respect accept and protect, and the crew of us along with a group of students, we develop a program and a presentations or assembly, so to speak mm-hmm that addressed anti-bullying and character development. I love it. I love it. So we did that for a number of years. We did it within our own school, but then when other island schools started to find out what we, they wanted us to come to their schools and to present. I see.


Melanie Headley (10:21):
So kind of that character development you know, servant, servant leadership was definitely a big part of that initiative. And then about 10 years ago, the student council advisors at that time who are absolutely fantastic people and have been incredible mentors to me one of whom was presented with this year CS, a leader of distinction award for PEI. Oh, wow. Wow. His name’s Paul MCCA and yes, students call students, call him P Mac. So he had run our student council for a number of years. But then when he stepped down, he still, he, you know, I took it over. He still helped me and continues to help me to this, this day. And he’s an incredible mentor. You know, any ideas that we have, he’s always available, you know, to listen and, and run things by. And he’s been great, but 10 years ago he was ready for a break.


Melanie Headley (11:27):
So I took that on, but then I was really, really, really quick to realize I can’t do this on my own, you know, student council. It’s, it’s even like, not just even a September to June commitment, it’s really, it can be full it’s full time. Yeah. Year round. But I love it. Yeah. So Lynn cl she came on board to support me and the two of us do it together. And without her we wouldn’t be able to do, to do the things that we do. Hmm. I dunno. Did that answer the question?


Sam Demma (12:04):
Yeah. I asked how you got involved and told me that you started off by putting basketballs in between young women and men, so they don’t get too close us while they dance right. That’s awesome. I love that story and I’m sure the work that you’re doing in the school right now, it’s a little different than it was years ago, or even one year ago. Can you shed some light on what, you know, challenges you currently face with, and maybe some challenges your school or certain classrooms have been able to over, and maybe there’s some unique ideas you can share.


Melanie Headley (12:36):
So, first of all, to answer that question is living on PEI. We are very, very, very fortunate. So we’ve, we’ve only had, I shouldn’t say only, but we’ve had 66 cases of COVID 19. Oh, wow. So prince Edward island is probably not only the best place to live in our country, but probably probably in the world worldly . Yeah. So we are in school full time. Okay. And after March break last year, so March 13th, Friday, the we were, it was pretty soon to find out that we wouldn’t be returning. Yeah. And then I guess it was around may early may that we found out that we wouldn’t be returning for the rest of the year. But then in August we found out that we would be coming back to school full time. So we are in, in classes full time.


Melanie Headley (13:37):
But with, with, with that said, there’s still guidelines in place, right. So there’s no large gatherings at lunchtime. So anything that student council did in the past where, you know, large groups of students could come together was in our cafeteria or outside or in the gymnasium, those things are not, are not happening. But we’re making it work. Hmm. Yep. We’re definitely making it work. Our student council has been absolutely fantastic in the way that they embrace the op opportunity to do things differently. They’ve been really creative and the, the feedback, the feedback has been terrific as well.


Sam Demma (14:24):
That’s awesome. And you know, what are those things specifically that are working? How have some of the things shifted you, does any examples or ideas come to mind that wow. You and make you say, wow, great job. That’s really cool.


Melanie Headley (14:38):
So right outta the gate our frost week, so we have an annual week where Monday to Friday, it’s usually the first full week that we’re back at school. Every single day at lunch, there would be activities in the past, there’d be activities to welcome our grade 10 students. So what we’ve done this year to abide by the guidelines is that other than having the activities at lunchtime, our homeroom teachers have graciously allowed student council to command to their classes about 15 minutes before classes over. Mm. And they’re, they’re running those activities during home room. And so when I see the feedback has been really great, what teachers are coming to me and saying is that the, the bonds that are being formed in their home room are like never before, because in the past, when they would leave their morning class to go, you know, participate in the, the lunchtime activity, maybe they wouldn’t even go to participate.


Melanie Headley (15:57):
Right. And if they did, they were going with the people that they already know, right. They’re going with their friends this way in the homeroom. Everybody’s participating for the most part and the homeroom teach and the student council a person that’s assigned to that specific room. They’re just forming these bonds that they wouldn’t form otherwise. Yeah, that’s awesome. So what we did is on the Monday of frost week, we had what was called movie Monday. Nice. So every grade 10 in homeroom when the student council representative would come into the homeroom, and again, it was like the last 10 or 15 minutes of class and our student council has a Google classroom. So all of the events are that students just have to access it through Google classroom. Cool. And there was 10 different movie images. Hmm. So the student council member would lead the activity, but then the class as a collective would just have to decide on the title of that movie.


Melanie Headley (17:05):
Cool. And then, so we have 12 different grade 10 home rooms, and so student council would get together at lunchtime at add up, you know, their scores. And then we go over the announcements to say, for example, miss MC Nevins, homeroom had 10 outta 10, or, you know, Mr. Craig’s homeroom had nine outta 10. And that sort of thing then on the Tuesday was trivia. So trivia Tuesday, we like our alliteration. Nice. So movie Mon movie, Monday trivia Tuesday, Wednesday was Wes wisdom Wednesday. Mm. Where a quote or a song lyric or a saying would be posted. And again, the students would have to decide who said that piece of wisdom? Thursday, we didn’t name that tune. Nice. And then on Friday what we were able to do is in the Friday, we wanted to do something really fun and memorable to kind of wrap up the week, but we would call two homeroom outside at a time. And we had pylons in the shape of a 23. Cause our grade tens will be the class of 20, 23. Yeah. So we, so we had the students they would stand beside a pylon and then another teacher who’s also a photographer. He had agreed to take class photos with his drone. Nice.

Melanie Headley (18:34):
So we might have 240 grade tens, but we weren’t able to bring those 240 together to do that. Yeah. But what we were able to do the alternative was to bring out two class at a time. So one class would be the two, the other class would be the three and then we’ll get their picture taken.


Sam Demma (18:52):
I think the important things that you made them feel appreciated and welcomed, and Maya angel always says it, you know, they don’t remember what you did, but they remember how you made them feel. And I’m sure you made them feel really special. And I’m curious to know, as a teacher during this time, how do we ensure your students feel appreciate and, and feel heard and cared for during this time? Should we be taking extra care of touching them on the shoulder and saying, not physically, but of saying, Hey, is everything okay? Or, you know, what’s working right now for you in your class? Well,


Melanie Headley (19:24):
Just in the example that I gave with fr week. Yeah. I think that, you know, some of our, our new as Bobcats were the Bobcats Bluefield Bobcats. Nice. So when they came into grade 10, you know, they had, perhaps they had siblings who had gone through Bluefield or, or still here for that matter, but they had experienced fresh week, you know, like it had under how it unfolded in the past and you, some of them didn’t know what it was gonna look like for them, or even if it was gonna happen at all. Mm. So I think that they were very grateful for the fact that we were able to make it happen. Yeah. So and then continuing to do these things and, you know, just setting up opportunities to, you know, say rather than saying we can’t do that finding alternative ways. So for example we just finished at the end of October, our annual October Fest.


Melanie Headley (20:28):
Mm. So we have a courtyard, a beautiful courtyard that of in the center of our school and each year during Octoberfest we decorate kind of this photo opportunity. Nice. And we had kind of toyed with perhaps not doing that because would it encourage large groups? Our students still wanna get it well, they wanna get their picture taken with a mask on mm-hmm well, they still wanna get their picture taken if they have to be six feet apart from their, from their friend. So we still did it, but instead of doing it for the five days of October Fest, we did it for two. Nice. So I think that they were still grateful that, that we did it rather than not at all. And then another thing that we had to do differently, but again, we were happy. And the results were good was normally during October Fest, we serve hot chocolate, nice in our courtyards.


Melanie Headley (21:26):
And we call it B by L one, bring your own mug. the students need to, they bring their own mug in as long as they do their served hot chocolate. Nice. So this year due to the guidelines we weren’t allowed to do that. So instead we discussed as a council what we could do as an, and knowing that the alternative had to be a prepackaged item of some sort, that’s where our focus went and actually a current member of a council. And he’s in grade 10. His family part of their business includes these very, very well known on PEI anyway, these cinnamon bun. Ah, and anyway, they’re delicious and they’re amazing. And so I said to him, do you think we could do those anyway? So we, we sold a hun, but 110 pre, then they were all prepackaged nice have these amazing cinnamon bonds. And they sold out in about 10 minutes. right. So it wasn’t a hot chocolate, but this was still, still fantastic and memorable.


Sam Demma (22:41):
Yeah. It’s that, it’s that mentality of, we’re not gonna cancel it this year. We’re gonna figure it out. Right. It might be something different, but let’s, let’s still an effort and not just say, okay, it’s canceled and we’ll just wait till next year. It’s like, no, right. We can’t do this, but what can we do? And I think you did a great job and the school has done a great job of, of taking that question and asking themselves and yourself that very often and coming up with new solutions. You know, if, if someone’s listening and is loving these ideas and maybe wants to connect with you and dive a little deeper and ask some questions and connect what would be the best way for them to do so?


Melanie Headley (23:18):
My email is meheadley@edu.pe.ca. So that is my email. Perfect. I’m also on Twitter and Instagram. Nice. So, yeah.


Sam Demma (23:38):
Okay, awesome. And if you could travel back in time to wrap up this episode and give your younger self advice in education, what pieces of advice, knowing what, you know now, would you give your younger self?


Melanie Headley (23:50):
Hands down? Not to take myself so seriously. Yeah, honestly that is really, really, but at the same time when I say that looking back like and I, I hope that I teach this to young people as well. And I currently have a student teacher from U P E I nice. But that’s part of growing up. Right. You kind of have to grow through that. And, but I am, I would definitely try not to take, take myself so seriously and yeah, that’s awesome.


Sam Demma (24:20):
Awesome, Melanie, thank you so much for coming on the show. So many actionable ideas. I really, really appreciate it. I appreciate the energy and the, the openness to share, and I hope someone listening does reach out to you and start a conversation.


Melanie Headley (24:34):
Thank you. And thank you for the great work that you’re doing


Sam Demma (24:37):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Melanie Headley

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

January 6, 2022 by Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Joanna Severino – CEO and Founder of PrepSkills and the US College Expo

Joanna Severino - CEO and Founder of PrepSkills and the US College Expo
About Joanna Severino

Joanna Severino (@joanna_severino) is the Founder & President of PREPSKILLS and the US College Expo. Joanna has been an educator for over 25 years, helping students to excel in achieving important milestones in education. For many Canadian families, applying to private schools and US colleges can be daunting.

PREPSKILLS helps navigate this process by giving families the tools, resources and connections to maximize opportunities. Joanna created the US College Expo in Canada and PrepConnect events to help families explore their educational pathways. Education is really about resourcefulness.

As a certified teacher and passionate mom-preneur, Joanna is always looking for ways to ensure that students connect with these opportunities and get the valuable information they need to make informed decisions about education.

Connect with Joanna: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

PREPSKILLS

US College Expo

Prep Connect – Private School Admissions Networking Event

PREPSKILLS Franchise

OSCA Conference Speaker

School & Athletic Seminars

Wings of Hope

PMH Mentorship

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is my good friend, Joanna. Joanna Severino is the founder and CEO of prep skills and the US college expo. She helps students prepare for their SATs SSATs, any of their standardized tests that they might need to get into a school in the US or a specific program here in Canada.


Sam Demma (01:00):
She also, I mentioned runs the US college expo, which helps to connect US admissions reps with students who are interested in going to their schools in the states. She’s been in education for over 20 years. She’s a powerhouse. She is a mother of her sons and she just, she never runs out of energy. As someone described it, she is a trailblazer and I hope you enjoy this interview and get something valuable from it. I’ll see you on the other side. Joanna, thank you so much for coming on to the High Performing Educators podcast. It seems like forever ago, I was sitting in your workshop with my dad, prepping for my SAT to hopefully get a scholarship back when I was just a young man and you’ve continued that work ever since then. And recently we’ve reconnected. I’m curious to know, and I’m sure everyone listening is as well. Who are you? I’d love you to share a little bit about yourself and what got you into the work that you do with youth today.


Joanna Severino (01:56):
Thanks Sam. Thanks for having me and I, and I remember, I think I, I tossed a stress toy at you. It was a soccer ball, wasn’t it?


Sam Demma (02:06):
Still have it!


Joanna Severino (02:08):
Love it. Hope you’re using it. My name’s Joanna Severino and I’m the founder and president of prep skills and the US college expo. So I’ve been an educator for over 25 years and a mother of three incredible boys; ages 14, 11, and eight. And really what we’re here to do is help students through their transformative years essentially, and support them as they embark on their journey through the middle and high school years.


Sam Demma (02:43):
That’s awesome. What prompted you to do the work that you do? Was there an experience you had, if you could go back to 25 years, I’m asking you to go back a long time. what prompted you to get involved in this sort of work with youth?


Joanna Severino (02:58):
Well, really, I, I, I was an educator and, and loved it. And from a very young age, I had this entrepreneurial spirit. My, my father passed when I was 11 and my mother was left to raise four children on her own, through social assistance. And, and we really built resilience and confidence through that process. But what I did know is that education was really key to recreating essentially my narrative and that’s really what I wanted to do. And so as an educator, when I graduated and then became a teacher, was super passionate about that. However, I felt like I could do more, more globally as an educator and found myself thinking about that a lot and then life threw me a curve ball. So really it was my experience with cancer and having gone through chemotherapy and an autologous stem cell transplant, that that was really the launchpad to creating prep skills today.


Sam Demma (03:34):
Wow. That’s, that’s crazy. I didn’t know that about you, so I appreciate you sharing. And I’m certain, there’s so many educators listening who have gone through tough challenges, just like the ones you all outline, and I’m hoping they’re, they’re hearing what comes up after you get through it, especially if someone’s going through the same sort of challenge right now, and speaking of challenges and getting through them right now. So many educators, so many schools, so many companies are faced with the instrumental challenge, which is COVID having to very quick pivot and shift and do things virtually. I know you’ve done a great job with the virtual prep skills connect event, where I showed the little stress ball live and you’re doing the expo virtually, you’re doing school tours virtually. How have you overcome the challenges of COVID and what was that experience like for you in education?


Joanna Severino (05:02):
Well, I think we’re still overcoming challenges on a, on a daily basis minute by minute. And really, I think what’s important is, is taking action. Action is super important and not worrying so much about perfection. I’ve I’ve been known as the trailblazer in the space. And so I tend to pave the way for, for a lot of people in a, in a lot of innovative things that occur in education, it was a pleasure actually to hear from a few of the educators that reached out to us before the prep connect. And they said, can we join and just watch and learn from what you due? And, and sort of referenced me as being the best in, in the space, which was a wonderful compliment, but really, I, I think rooted from my childhood and my resilience and, you know, having lost my father at a young age surviving cancer I’m, I’m pretty resilient and, and love to turn no to yeses. So I think that’s really what drives me. It’s, it’s sort of like, what’s the worst that could happen. Let’s go. And I think that’s an important mindset to have during COVID, especially.


Sam Demma (06:20):
No, that’s amazing. And you did a great job with the virtual event. I was there, I CEED. And I’m curious to know what do you think? Awesome. Thank you. what do you think are some unique, unique ways to engage people during COVID? You know, if you, if you could put the mindset on of an educator, maybe more classical that works in a school, and they’re struggling a little bit right now, you know, what can we do to help these young people during this time?


Joanna Severino (06:47):
Well, you know, I think we underestimate these, these students and they are resourceful and resilient. And, and I think this online world is, is more familiar to them than it is to us. Mm. So getting them involved in really activities, such as the ones that we’re hosting, there are lots of opportunities to volunteer virtually. Your program is fantastic. Sam, you know, top performing students to really engage and connect online. And they’re, they’re very familiar with this world. So I, I don’t know, you know, outside of there being challenges, especially through the early stages with mental health and, and really being and lockdown at home, I think that this is actually progressing in a positive way where students are now back at school, back with the structure, back with their peers and teachers. And, and I see that with my own boys. So I, I think, I think we’re moving in a good direction.


Sam Demma (07:58):
And you’re somewhat who radiates joy. You radiate hope, even through tough times, you have this positive mindset and mentality, and it’s so evident even if people are listening to this right now, what gives you hope to keep going to trail blaze away, as you said, even when everyone else might be stopping or hesitating?


Joanna Severino (08:18):
Well, I think life experience and a mindset. And you know, I, I, I really attach myself to the symbolism of a butterfly mm-hmm and a butterfly in a cocoon that then transforms into this lovely butterfly the, the caterpillar to the butterfly scenario is something that I revisit a lot of days of my life . And so looking at the, that transformation and seeing it as every ending has a new beginning, and there’s a reason why this is happening. And how do you overcome obstacles? How do you strengthen your core? These are all important things that I think we need to do and reflect on. And what can you personally control? Because there’s so many UN outside of yourself and you really shouldn’t be worried about those things. Mm. You know, what is it about you that you can really tap into your core strengths and be able to, to support your growth, your mindset, and then through that process, you can help others. So it really begin with you.


Sam Demma (09:36):
I love that. And the focus on the core strength is so important. And I know from working with you and, and watching you do your amazing work, one of your core strengths is helping young people prepare for post-secondary education for getting into the schools, their dream schools. We talked about Kevin who went to UCLA and, and I believe it was Sam who went to Haga and had a great experience at boarding school. You know, can you share an experience of a young person who’s been directly impacted by your work, maybe when they came to you, they were uncertain. They were unclear. They didn’t know where they were going. Didn’t know how to do what they needed to do to get to where they wanted to go. And through your work, you had a tremendous impact hacked on them, not only with their schooling, but maybe even their mentality or their mental health. And if you wanna share a, a touching story, you can also change the name for the sake of privacy totally up to you.


Joanna Severino (10:27):
Well, there, there’s so many stories and, and that’s really what I love about what I do. And because I’m a trailblazer and I keep moving, how I, I know that I’m leaving a footprint and I know that there are people that are being supported and helped. I, I have to admit I don’t always stop and, you know, analyze the, the situation. Yeah. Until later when someone tells me that. So, and so has been impacted by whether it was a, a war, a statement I made or has successfully been admitted to, you know, their, their school of choice. Just this week. I discovered that one of our students from many years ago must be probably at least 10 years. And he’s currently studying at brown university. And I remember him, I thought, oh, wow, that’s amazing. I’m getting older. but there’s no stories because what happens is you don’t know what you don’t know.


Joanna Severino (11:26):
And, and really success is a group project. So I found myself dealing with students and parents who are maybe limiting themselves mm-hmm . And I remember a situation where a parent came in and she wanted her son to apply to a particular school. And I asked her why. And at that point, the sticker price in terms of tuition was a little lower than some of the other school choices. And I said, so you’re not considering these other schools. And she said, no, I couldn’t afford it. That’s, that’s just completely out of our realm. And I said, well, did you know about this and this and this, these financial opportunities that you could take advantage of? And she said, no, I, I didn’t know about that. So we embarked on this journey together. He obviously ended his reach in terms of school options.


Joanna Severino (12:15):
And then he was admitted to all the schools and offered financial support at all of them. And guess what? He ended up at a school that was different from the initial choice that he had when he and his mother came to me. And I think that’s so awesome. And he’s since graduated and loved the experience, and that was the right fit for him. So I I’m really here to crush obstacles for parents and, and families, if they, if they’re concerned. I, I wanna be able to help there are so many incredible stories. A family that, that came into the city recently was during COVID and was looking for a school. And and really, it seemed like an impossibility, like how can you possibly get into a school for September and it’s June? And I love those challenges. . So there, I went and I, I went door knocking for, for the family and lo and behold it happened. And so we were able to get them into a school. So that that’s really, what I love to do is I, I really love to, to create things that don’t exist and to create opportunities that don’t exist and support families in that way.


Sam Demma (13:33):
I wanna highlight the fact that you said you hadn’t seen this young person for 10 years, and the first story you just shared, or maybe 10 years had gone by, and you vividly remember who the person was. And now they’re at their dream school at Browns college. That’s so cool, because I think so often in education or in any service based business, sometimes you don’t realize the impact of your contribution until a decade down the road. When they write you a handwritten note, or you see them standing on some podium, delivering a talk, and it’s such a, oh my gosh moment where you realize your impact has been, has been realized through that person’s life and their activity, these, and any educator who’s listening. I want you to take Joanna’s story as a, a reminder to yourself that maybe you’re not seeing the impact of your teaching or your perseverance right now, but maybe 10 years down the road, like she did, you’ll have a crazy experience where someone reaches back out to you and tells you how much it meant to you that you, you kept pushing through and, and you kept going Joanna you’re someone who has worked with so many schools has worked with so many organizers and events and planned a dozen different opportunities, hundreds by now for young people, you’ve hired dozens of speakers.


Sam Demma (14:52):
I’m curious to know how do you choose who to bring onto your stages and, and who to work with because you brought on Mike Weaver, former NHL player, Jillian apps, Olympian, you know, what, what makes a good presenter and how do you choose someone to put in front of young minds?


Joanna Severino (15:08):
Well, first, you know, as I said, I really love a great challenge. And so, you know, oftentimes we look to these, these individuals, and we think that it’s almost impossible to connect with them, right? Mm-Hmm oh, former NHL player Olympian. We had Dr Chopra from Harvard medical school, like all of these great, great inspirational speakers. And it becomes a little bit like, you know, how, how do we engage? How do we interact with them? And I, as I said, love to create opportunities that don’t exist. And so, you know, I, I find ways to connect and make sure that it’s of value to these speaker, the individual, and a value to the families that we serve. And so, you know, the, the speakers that we selected for, for example, the us college expo primarily graduated from a us college, their Canadians. And so we wanted them to reflect that story, that journey and that inspiration. That’s really how we, we go about selecting our our speakers and you of course have transformed so many students in lives. And, and with your positive, inspirational enthusiasm, we thought Sam Demma is our guy for CE this event. So thank you for doing that.


Sam Demma (16:37):
No, I appreciate it. And I was gonna say, it sounds like it’s a needs basis. You know, if there’s a need in your school, if there’s a need for the event, you find the person who can fill it, which is, sounds like a very logical way to approach the, the conversation, which is awesome. This has been an amazing conversation. I have a couple more questions for you. I’m curious to know what keeps you motivated. So we talked a little bit about what gets you hopeful, and I know you’re very obstacle oriented and you love crushing obstacles and you love creating opportunities. What motivates you to keep going? Is there someone in your life that motivates you? Do you, who do you look up? Who do you get inspiration from?


Joanna Severino (17:16):
Well, it, you know, my father passed when I was 11. I, I didn’t really get a chance to, to know him, but I do know that he, he was an entrepreneur and mm-hmm, he did you know, start a business that that was not successful actually over the course of a 10 year period, apparently in Australia. . So I, you know, I, I don’t know much about that, but I do know that there is this, this entrepreneurial spirit inside of me where I feel like what I do can impact the world globally. And, and that’s what motivates and drives me. So this, this, this spirit that I have and connection with my father, definitely. And then the miraculous transformation through the restoration of my health through cancer and then having these three wonderful boys. So, you know, I have a, a 14, 11 and eight year old, and they drive me every single day, along with my, my great husband, but the, the boys really tell the story. I can see it and live it every single as to what they’re going through, what their needs are, how the world is changing. And and, and, and it’s, it’s really motivating for me to support them. And in turn support all these families that we serve on a daily basis,


Sam Demma (18:44):
If you went on ancestry.com, I’m sure you’re a whole lineage was people that were all entrepreneurs. doing amazing know.


Sam Demma (18:56):
Educators are listening, principals, teachers, parents who wanna apply the same mindset to school. I know a while back, not too long, maybe 20 years, my age , you were once a teacher, how can a teacher or an educator that works in a more formal scenario apply that entrepreneurial mindset? Is it just, you know, doing things that are outrageous and crazy you know, what would you tell an educator in a more classic scenario how they can use an entrepreneurial spirit maybe in their classrooms or schools?


Joanna Severino (19:26):
Well, I was a, a business and computer studies teacher, and so I always bought, brought the world outside, inside mm-hmm . And so it wasn’t traditional textbook type teacher. So with, with the teachers that we serve, I think they’re doing a tremendous job because they actually do reach out to me to prep skills for the support that they need to be able to better serve the student. I mean, the American university admissions process, for example, there are over 4,000 options in the us. It’s, it’s impossible for any one person to really understand that entire system. And so they, through professional development, reach out to us they engage in the counselor day and event. And I think what they’re doing is, is fantastic. And and we see that with, with the students that we serve that foundationally and primarily come from these schools and the teachers are, are supporting them. So they’re the, the real heroes. And I just come in to, you know, to, to sort of, of finesse that and, and support them as they move on to their next stage.


Sam Demma (20:37):
That’s awesome. I love that. And you mentioned educators reach out a lot to wrap this up. I would love for you to share where they can reach you if they wanna bounce ideas around chat with you, connect, use prep skills for some preparation for students, or just to connect with you and chat about some things that you’ve done in your life. Where can they do that?


Joanna Severino (20:56):
They can, they can do that by connecting through prepskills.com or uscollegeexpo.com. And I’d be happy to, to, to meet with them or connect with them and support their process for sure.


Sam Demma (21:12):
Awesome. Joanna, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. It’s been a pleasure and I wish you all the best in the future, and I’ll be watching you behind your car as you trail blaze through this industry. I can’t wait to see what comes up next.


Joanna Severino (21:27):
Thank you, Sam pleasure.


Sam Demma (21:30):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of this show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities and I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Joanna Severino

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

January 6, 2022 by Founder and CEO President Student Success 0

Michelle Lemaire – System Principal at the Halton District School Board Welcome Centre

Michelle Lemaire - System Principal at the Halton District School Board Welcome Centre
About Michelle Lemaire

Michelle Lemaire (@MsLemaire) is an educator for over 20 years, starting her teaching career as a math teacher in Seoul, Korea. Born in Singapore, Michelle spent her formative years there and continued her high school education in Ontario, followed by earning bachelor’s degrees from Queen’s University and a Master of Education from the University of Toronto. Today, she is the system Principal at the Halton District School Board Welcome Centre.  In this role, she is responsible for newcomer students and their families.

She is a proud mum of two children, a partner to her best friend of 25 years, and sister to four crazy siblings – all of whom keep her grounded in her journey through life.  Michelle is a self-proclaimed foodie, news junkie and world traveller who seeks every opportunity to learn and be the best version of herself every day.

Connect with Michelle: Email | Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources And Related Media

HDSB Welcome Centre

Ontario Principal Council Feature

Halton District 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 (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today I have the privilege of interviewing Michelle Lemaire. Michelle and I had the opportunity over a year ago now to work together at her old school. Ushe has now moved on to a new position. She is a systems principal at the Halton district school board. Michelle is a school administrator, who has worked in various roles in different countries with a demonstrated history in building community, through positive relationships, collaboration, and innovation. She is skilled in curriculum leadership, capacity building and data informed decision making. She has her Masters of Education focused in measurement and evaluation from the university of Toronto. She brings a genuine passion, curiosity and authenticity to her work in education, which I think is so, so important. I hope you enjoy this amazing conversation with Michelle and I will see you on the other side. Michelle, welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what you do in education?


Michelle Lemaire (02:15):
Well, thank you very much, Sam, for this opportunity. My name is Michelle Lemaire and I’m currently the system principal of the Halton district school board at the welcome center, which serves newcomer families. So new to Halton as well as international students who come to visit our schools and live with us for as long as four years or as short as one year or even six months. So this is where I am now. And I’ve only been in this role for couple of months formally. And it’s been a great ride so far and I’m pretty excited to, to stay on this journey.


Sam Demma (02:53):
Well, let’s speaking of journeys, let’s, let’s break down your own journey to where you are today. Okay. You know, how did you get into education growing up? Did you know that you wanted to be a teacher or how did you stumble across this vocation?


Michelle Lemaire (03:06):
Well, that’s a great question. Inevitably somebody would always ask me that question along the way, and my response has always been the same because it’s true. I, I’m the oldest of in my family. So the, the duty and responsibility to care for my siblings has always fallen on me and that’s okay. Because I really enjoy it and it fulfills me. I mean, there are times where I wanna pull my hair out right. And get super frustrated. I mean, they are your siblings after all, but at the end of the day, it really fills me up. When I see young people being successful at what they’re doing, or at least taking steps towards achieving their goals or achieving what I see as their potential. So that’s what really fills me up and drives me in my job and in my role. So that’s how I kind of fell into cheat teaching.


Sam Demma (04:03):
That’s amazing. That’s so cool. I, I mean, you could have got into coaching, you could have got into, it sounds like anything related to caring for, and working with youth along the way. Did you have teachers or educators kind of tap you on the shoulder and say, it’s so obvious that you love caring for young people, you should get into teaching. Was there any mentors in your life or did you just know? Yeah.


Michelle Lemaire (04:23):
You know what, that’s a great question. There weren’t any explicit taps, but I did have teachers and principals who looked out for me and I’ve always been so grateful for that. I saw like they had direct impact on how I did at school. And that really kind of made me think about, gosh, you know, if they can do this for me, how awesome would it be if I could do this too, for, for others, for young people. So, you know, as I went through high school, I remember my grade 10 grade nine music teacher, and he was my music teacher all through high school. Right. And he was the best like Mr. AFAO. I can just tell you now, like he is cool and quirky and funny, but strict. And I always knew that he’s got my back and he’s always looked out for me and one of what’s best for me.


Michelle Lemaire (05:16):
And he would check in on me, which I really deeply appreciated. I had a principal, a high school principal who was always curious about what I thought and would always talk to me about stuff. And I’m like, me, you wanna talk to me about this and I thought, gosh, you know, how, how awesome it was to feel that my voice matters. And so to me that was so empowering and that really fueled me and really got me towards the journey of, of educating. So it was kind of like one step led to another, right. You’ve got my home life where I’m, I’m helping my siblings and I’ve got, I’m being at school and I’ve got these teachers who mentored me and cared for me and asked me for my thoughts. And so those two kinda came together in a, in a very what’s the word in a beautiful way, harmonic way, that kind of led me to, to my path in education.


Sam Demma (06:17):
So inspiring teachers. I think it’s, it’s so funny. We can all think back to a teacher we had in high school who really poured into us. I hope. Yeah. Everyone had that experience. And every educator I ask on the show has a similar answer. They can pinpoint who those people were and why they had an impact fast, fast, you know, moving forward, you, you finished high school, I’m assuming you went to teachers college. What was that first role that you got into an education? And how was that experience as a new educator for you?


Michelle Lemaire (06:46):
Oh my gosh. , you know what, my first teaching job, I actually taught overseas. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I, and I would not change it. One, it was really hard. It was super hard. I taught in Korea. Wow. So I taught in an international school there in English. I taught math there and it was really, really hard because as a new teacher and I reflect upon that now I was so caught up with the curriculum, the math, you know, like, I’m like you guys, you guys need to know this. And, and the focus as I think about that now, and, and with my experience, it’s always about the relationships, right? It’s always about the connections that you make with other human beings. And that’s what gets through to each other to it, to all of us. I mean, you mentioned earlier, you know, you talk to people and every teacher you talk to have always said, I had this one teacher who really looked out for me, but I bet if you to everybody else, who’s not an education.


Michelle Lemaire (07:50):
They would have a, they would have a, of people who would say I had this really awesome teacher, or I had this really horrible teacher. And to me, that’s, that’s what I would like to change. I want, I want more of that. I had this awesome teacher and less of the, I had a really crappy teacher. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I think so you’re, I, back to the original question, like what, what was my first couple of years as a new teacher? It was really hard as I got caught up with curriculum and I mean, I built relationships along the way. And by the end of my first year, I realized that, you know what, like, I really need to focus on the relationships as well as the curriculum, if not more with the relationships so that kids can trust me.


Michelle Lemaire (08:41):
I, it boils down to trust, right? Like the kids can trust, like the teacher’s got my back. And I need to do what they ask me because I trust that when they tell me to do these things, it’s for my own good. And it will come back to help me out. So in subsequent years I took that to heart and I really worked at making sure that I built those good relationships with kids. And with my colleagues too, because it takes a village. Right. We get to lean on each other. And I certainly don’t have all of the answers and I’m not perfect. And I’m not highly skilled in every single area. Yeah. I need my colleagues to help me out in my blind spots.


Sam Demma (09:25):
That’s amazing. So you said something that was interesting, you said it was really hard and then you said, but I wouldn’t change a thing. And typically those two sentences don’t go hand in hand, you know? Yeah. So tell me more about the aspect of that experience that made it so desirable that you wouldn’t change a thing, because I think other educators might benefit from teaching overseas as well, or maybe it’s something that they should all look into or consider. Yeah.


Michelle Lemaire (09:52):
The really hard part was a couple of things. So one was one is the fact that you’re living in a foreign country and you’re not familiar with the culture with the way things work. In, in Korea, I did, I don’t speak Korean, so I, I, I’m not fluent in the dominant language and culture. So I was an outsider from the very get go. And to me that really reminded me of what it’s like to be vulnerable, right. And to not have all those things, those privileges with you all the time. And cause of that, I think I’m a better teacher. I’m a better human being because it taught me the value of kindness and the value of empathy and patience. Right. the other hard part was I think just cuz you would start any new job, a new something is always hard.


Michelle Lemaire (10:55):
And I needed to work through that. I needed to go through that process and allow that to happen and go on the other side and said, you know what I put on all that hard work and you know, what it was worth it. Yeah. And I learned so much about it. I mean, you, I’m sure you can relate to that Sam as, as an athlete, a professional athlete and going through your own personal journey. I’m sure you relate to that too. So that’s why I feel that it’s, it was so hard, but I wouldn’t change it because it made, made me who I am today.


Sam Demma (11:27):
That’s amazing. I love that. I I’ve had so many experiences from traveling too. I, I haven’t taught overseas. That’s a totally different ballgame, but just the experience of being immersed different culture can be so eyeopening and world view broadening, you know, you could change your perspectives very quickly. So you came back from teaching and then what did you start doing here?


Michelle Lemaire (11:51):
I, I, everything was so serendipitous. I came back. I was so fortunate to be able to find a full-time job upon returning back to Canada. And I just started teaching right away in high school again at high school where I didn’t even expect to land. Like I didn’t even think I could, would get the job, but I did. I was so lucky. And I, so teaching math again at that high school, the first year again, was another new journey because I’m suddenly flipped back to an English speaking country and you know, I’m teaching math. And then the following year I was swapped and taught. I taught in a different program where I was working with a lot of in risk youth. And that itself taught me a lot too. About the privileges that I enjoyed growing up and realizing that not everybody comes to the table with the same social and cultural capital.


Michelle Lemaire (12:50):
So again, that really built my character. And, and my values would solidified what it was that I got into this profession for right. There were days of course, pulling my hair up, just like I’m helping my siblings, I’m ready to like scream. But then at the end of the day, when you go back and you, and you, you talk to the kids at the end of the year and you would say, you know what, guys, that was a really hard year. And they’re like, yeah, miss, that was hard. But they would say, but it’s okay, miss, we got your back. And I’m like, and this is why I’m here. Right. so yeah, that was my, my journey back here in the health.


Sam Demma (13:35):
That’s awesome. And at some point you made the decision to not leave the classroom, but take on a different role in the school of principal. Yeah. What every educator I’ve talked to always says, principal is great, but I miss being in the classroom. and I know that leaving the classroom is a very difficult decision. What was the impetus or the inspiration for you to, you know, reach for that different role in the school? And how did you enjoy both of the roles?


Michelle Lemaire (14:04):
Well, it, it’s funny, you should ask because I never thought of myself being a principal, right? Like it was not something that I actively thought of to say, and by this time I’m gonna be that what provided the impetus was I was working with a principal and I had this idea. I was like, so what do you think if we did this, we can really engage kids this way and really move them forward in their learning. What do you think about that? And my principal said, huh, yeah, let’s try it. And I’m like, oh my gosh, did you actually just say yes. And the fact that he was able to empower me with this idea and make a difference with kids in the learning, I thought, gosh, how awesome would it be if I could be in that chair and, and empower other staff to say, yes, you can do this. That’s a great idea for kids. It’s a great idea to help kids cuz it’s good for them. And that really was what pushed me over to, to really go after this, this position of being an administrator.


Sam Demma (15:16):
It’s funny when you were saying or explaining the idea yeah. Of him giving you permission or telling you to go for it. Yeah. The word that came to mind was like enabler. It sounds like a principal as someone who enables potential, you know, a hundred percent.


Michelle Lemaire (15:30):
and that exactly it just like a classroom teacher would enable or empower their classroom, their students. Yeah. The principal’s job is to empower students and their staff to make the, to give them that permission, to try things in the spirit of helping students be the best that they can be. Right. And unleashing that, that potential.


Sam Demma (15:56):
Love that. What do you think are some of the programs that you’ve run in the past in your schools that, that you think were a success or that some of the, or maybe even some of the teachers approached you and said, Hey, Michelle I have enough idea yeah. And you kind of enabled and some good things happened.


Michelle Lemaire (16:18):
That’s a great question. I don’t know if I can nail down to one or two programs that were good for kids, but there were, I can give you a few examples from last year, even though last year was a really different year for us in schools. Right. and despite the challenging year, last year, we had lots of great things happening in our school, not my school now, but lots of great things that happened. So for example, we had one teacher come to me and said, you know, what, how cool would it be if this is my, I wanna get kids to redraw the red dress, the red dress pro project on a murdered, missing in indigenous women. But we draw them using lines that we can define using math, linear equations on Desmos, create these dresses and then hang them up for display to commemorate the murdered and missing indigenous women.


Michelle Lemaire (17:23):
And I said, yes, how awesome would that be? Let’s do it. And let’s bring in our indigenous instructional program. The, to help us through with this, let’s bring in our shift team to think about how we’ve been creatively display this while still honoring this project, the, the initiative behind the re the redress project. So that’s one idea. And, and in this entire journey, our kids benefited and that was the main thing, right. They benefited in so many different ways, you know, of course they learned math, but what’s more important was they truly understood and really dug into the issue of the miss and indigenous women in a math class, which seems so out of context by why not, like, why can’t we have these interdisciplinary learning, right. Yeah. So that was that’s an example of a project I’m really proud of. I’m proud of my staff for doing it. I’m proud of our students for participating in it. And for the other periphery staff that came together to allow it and, and help it along its way.


Sam Demma (18:35):
That’s the new phrase educators will take away from this episode that they can bring back to their principles or, you know, admin saying, wouldn’t it be cool if , yeah. That’s such a, yeah. Such a great way to put it because is I think every, every movement, every, you know, event starts with one of those sentences, right? How do you, how do we build like a community and a culture where principals or sorry, where teachers in their schools feel connected enough and a part of the community to come to you with the idea and actually share. Do you think it’s about letting them know that every, every idea is a good idea or yeah. How do you build a community where staff are willing to come and, and ask those questions?


Michelle Lemaire (19:23):
I, I think first I think you need to model it as a leader that, that you are willing to take risks yourself. And I don’t mean like risks that are, you know, uncalculated. Yeah. And, you know, like, because there is always a threshold of risk that we have to manage. It’s a real, the real part of our job. Right. so there are always some kind of what I call non-negotiables. Yeah. Right. You can never put a student at risk. You must always maintain the privacy of our children. You must always keep learning at the forefront. Those are the, the non-negotiables you need to always honor the individuality of each student and honor their voice, et cetera. So once those foundational pieces are set in, in, in place, then as a leader, you model and you ask questions. Right. And what I have learned in my journey, and I continue to learn because I, I don’t think I’ll ever get it right.


Michelle Lemaire (20:28):
Is to always ask questions, but it’s not about just asking any question, you need to ask the right questions. Mm. And you spend the time trying to find what are the right questions, because once you have the right questions, then you can better define a problem. Right. So my hope is, and, and my you know, my mantra as a leader has always been all, given the non-negotiables, here are my things that here are the things that I wanna go after, which is engaging students, making sure that they are reaching their full potential, that they all always feel included. They’re never left out. The table’s always set for them. Come what may given all of that? What can we do? And how can we, how can we do it in, in a way that would engage kids? And what I have learned is that you ask the kids, the kids would tell you. And that to me is a form of sharing power, a form of including voice. And at the end of the day, our jobs as educators is to facilitate that, how do we share it while maintaining all of those?


Sam Demma (21:47):
Non-Negotiables. That’s an amazing philosophy. yeah. Thanks. And, and a way to look at it. Yeah. Thanks. Usually I think about non-negotiables as like taking out the trash and doing the dishes in my house for my parents, you know..


Michelle Lemaire (22:00):
That’s the same in my house. It’s true.


Sam Demma (22:03):
That’s awesome. I love it. Yeah. And so, if you could know, there might be some new educators who are just getting into teaching, listening to this interview. If you could like, basically take the experience and knowledge you have now and give advice to first year teacher Michelle, knowing what, you know, what would you tell your younger self?


Michelle Lemaire (22:26):
That’s a great question. I would tell my younger self and, or new teachers that it’s O it’s okay to not know everything. Mm. Cause when you start, you feel like you need to know everything. And I, and I maybe that’s a function of youth, right. I will, would, I would say it’s okay to not know everything and you will continue to not know everything. And the key thing is to always be curious and to approach situations with both curiosity, curiosity, and humility. Right. And then the next step is to look for common ground, always look for common ground, cuz differences will always be there. Yeah. It’s the common ground that gets you through stuff and you can walk through things. So once you look for common ground, you build that relationship, then you can move forward. Right. Mm-Hmm so I think that would be the advice kind of be kind to yourself. It’s okay. To not know. And it’s actually better that you don’t know everything because that keeps you humble. But please continue to be curious and be kind and look for common ground.


Sam Demma (23:45):
Now we have common ground because you and my mom make us do dishes and yes, the clothes , it’s funny. That’s awesome on your right behind you. No one can see this cuz it’s audio, but there’s a little quote that says, be yourself, everyone else has already taken. What about that phrase? Kind of stuck out to you so much so that you put it on the shelf.


Michelle Lemaire (24:04):
I love that you picked that up because from, from the time I’ve been a teenager and my dad always kind of said that to me and I, you know how parents say up to you and you’re like, okay, whatever. Yeah. You’re my dad. Like as if you would know anything, you’re my mom. Like as if, and they would always just tell me like, who cares, what I other people say or what other other people think. And I would just kind of dismiss it. And as I got older, I mean, I wasn’t a shop one day and I saw that and I got, I said, you know, that’s it. I need to be me. And I need to be okay with being me. And I get to define me because nobody else gets to define me. Everybody else is already taken. And not me because why I define me. That’s why that, that statement really resonated with me.


Sam Demma (24:58):
Love that. I think encouraging authenticity and just defining your own self worth is so important because when you realize that you’re one of one it’s like when you can trust in your intuition and your own creative ideas, you can bring things to the table that no one else could because no one has your unique experiences and no one’s taught, you know, no one’s taught in the same school at the same time in Korea, teaching English, you know, like all those things build up the person you are. Yeah. So such, such an important reminder also for kids, you know, but hundred percent, Michelle, this has been an amazing conversation. Thanks so much for coming on the, the show here today. If, if there’s an educator listening that wants to reach out or get in touch, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?


Michelle Lemaire (25:44):
Different ways through email (lemairem@hdsb.ca) and through Twitter (@MsLemaire), I have an Instagram account (@mslemaire) that I created for kids. They can reach out to me through Instagram if they want, if that’s their thing, but you know, any of those three different ways would work.


Sam Demma (26:00):
Okay, perfect. And I’ll put your, if you’re okay with it, an email totally on the Twitter, in the show, note to the episode. Yeah.


Michelle Lemaire (26:06):
Sounds good.


Sam Demma (26:08):
All right. Thank you so much again for coming on the show! Keep up with the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Michelle Lemaire (26:12):
Yeah, you bet.


Sam Demma (26:14):
Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation on the high performing educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards, go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you or someone, you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.

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

January 5, 2022 by Experiential Learning Principals Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

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