About Tom Stones
Tom Stones (@tstonesteacher) is a grade 8 teacher at Innisfail Middle School in Innisfail, Alberta. In 24 years, he has taught all core subjects and dozens of option courses in grades 4-8. When asked which is his favourite grade to teach, he struggles to choose one. There are amazing and challenging things about all grades. In all grades, his core belief is that relationship is the key component of working with middle years students. Tom has found that all students want a relationship with teachers, and making this a focus has been an emphasis of his career.
Another role Tom is proud of is his work as a member of the Middle Years Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association. He has helped plan numerous yearly conferences, which have provided quality professional development to many teachers from all over Canada.
Tom is passionate about promoting wellness in teachers and himself. He has found that any success that we help students to achieve is largely contingent upon our own well-being. His advice to others (and himself) is to look after yourself first and find ways to help others.
Connect with Tom: Email | Twitter
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Resources Mentioned
Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA)
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 to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.
Tom Stones (00:10):
My name is Tom Stones. I’m a teacher at Innisfail Middle School in Innisfail, Alberta. And this is, it’s on our last day of school here, so we’re it’s, this year is just about wrapped up. And I teach grade eight mostly science, a little bit of social studies, a little bit of health. And I’ve taught all kinds of different grades in from four to eight, I guess, so.
Sam Demma (00:33):
That’s awesome. When did you know growing up that you wanted to work in education? Like at what point did you make the decision and start moving that direction?
Tom Stones (00:45):
So, I got a funny pathway. I, I’d always kind of thought that was something I wanted to do but then when I graduated high school, didn’t feel super confident about going to university, so I didn’t, And then I got a job and it was, you know, got, kind of got too good of a job that I was getting paid decently to do it. And so stayed working. I was working in a warehouse running a warehouse for a printing company for about 12 years. And then my, that, that job was ending the, the, the business was shutting down. So I had to decide what I wanted to do. And I, I, you know, vividly recall my wife, one, I was married, had two, two kids at the time and my wife saying, Well, if you had to do something else, what would you really want to do? And I said, Well, I probably would wanna be a teacher. They, why don’t you just go to university and be a teacher? So, so I did
Sam Demma (01:34):
<Laugh>. That’s awesome. So you, you came from like a business that kinda like a business background, like you entered the world of work right after high school with the printing company and stayed with them?
Tom Stones (01:44):
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I mean I think it was 12 or or so year or something like that that I worked for them. That’s all. A few different spots, but mostly ran the warehouse most of the time.
Sam Demma (01:54):
Yeah. Very cool. And so you made the decision to go to school, you know, back to school to work on the teacher credentials. And then what did the journey look like from that day forward to where you are now? Give us a little summary of all the different places you’ve worked positioned and what brought you here.
Tom Stones (02:14):
Yeah, so I was the sort university. I had to do a, I did two years at a, a college, which was in the town in the city we were living in, which was Red Deer. So I did two years there. Nice. And then took two years, went to University of Calgary and sort of drove back and forth, which is about an hour away from where I lived. And, and I obviously that wasn’t real easy cuz I was, had a family and, and my wife had to do a lot of extra things during those two years. And then got a job shortly after graduating, but a year after, graduated a couple other things first and then got a job at an elementary school and then in a town real close by. And then so we moved to that town to Ink, which is where I teach now. And so taught the elementary school there for about six years, I think taught grade four and four and six. And then a, a new school opened up next door and I came over here to teach grade five at the school I’m at now. And I’ve taught grade five and then grade six and then moved up to grade seven and then moved up to grade eight. I’ve been here for three or four years, I think.
Sam Demma (03:16):
How, how did you get voluntold to go and help out with nyc? And for those folks who don’t know what that is, give us a little explanation. <Laugh>
Tom Stones (03:26):
Yeah, that’s Voluntold is a good good <laugh>. The Middle Years Council is the, the association is the Alberta Teachers Association. It’s a specialist council within the Alberta Teachers Association. And there’s, there’s various ones. There’s that language arts ones, there’s math ones, there’s religious education. And this one happens to be about middle years school schools or teachers, which is from grade, about grade four to grade nine is sort of our, our target people. And I had, I’d gone to a few of the conferences, knew a few of the people, but then had kind of gotten away from it. And then one of my colleagues at the school was, was helping when she was pretty involved in it and they were having some struggles and, and needed some help. And she said, Well, would you come and help us? And I went, I don’t know, I don’t know if I can be any help or not, but sure I’ll come for a free conference.
Tom Stones (04:17):
So I, so I went and, and then just started helping out wherever I could. And then one, one year they said, Hey, you wanna run the conference? So I was, okay, sure. I had no idea what I was doing, but what we were, we just made it up, was who went along. But and then, you know, got to meet lots of really good people. And since then there’s been a few of us who’ve been on that committee for, I don’t know, about seven or eight years I guess. And so it’s, it’s now, it’s a whole lot easier than it was that first couple of years when we did what we were doing. But, and then we’ve been very fortunate to get some, you know, amazing people coming in to talk, including you and it’s just, it’s been a real great conference. And of course we had to shut down for two years and during pandemic and that was really disappointing. I remember that being one of the worst days of the early pandemic was when we had to make the decision. We, we just can’t go to ban this year. Cuz nobody could go anywhere, obviously. And then the next year we had to cancel as well, and then last year was our big return.
Sam Demma (05:16):
Yeah. You know, c has been a challenge for many people, many Ed especially people in education. I know personally you had some significant challenges as well. You know, what are some of the challenges that you face personally that maybe shifted your perspective a little bit and then also some of the opportunities that you think came out of it? Yeah,
Tom Stones (05:39):
That’s a really big question, Sam. So break
Sam Demma (05:42):
It down.
Tom Stones (05:43):
<Laugh>. Yeah, <laugh> early on in the, the pandemic, I, I don’t think we can, we can talk about it enough, what, what educators had to do. Like, we were March the 20th, I think was the day in Alberta here when they, with the Sunday afternoon we got a call or on email saying, Yeah, we’re not going to school tomorrow, we’re gonna be shut down for two weeks. And of course that was, I mean, nobody had any idea what that meant and then said, Oh, and by the way, we really want you to start teaching. Oh, we want you to come back to school. So we all went back to school and we all sort of hung around and cleaned out lockers and did report cards and all that stuff. And then there was a, a, the Wednesday afternoon we had a staff meeting and I remember the principal looking at his phone and he goes, Okay, it’s one o’clock.
Tom Stones (06:26):
I can tell you we start teaching on Monday morning online, but you can’t be in the school right now. You’ve got five minutes to get outta here. And we’re just like, what <laugh> and <laugh>. So we, well, and I think we end uping, you know, 15, 20 minutes. We just kind of sat down with the group of us that had to teach together and sat down for, what are we gonna do on Monday morning? Yeah, yeah. And of course there was a lot of, lot of Google meets in the next three days there. But, but we started teaching on Monday morning. So we, we had no idea what we were doing. Kids had no idea what we were doing. The parents had zero idea what we were doing. And, but we made it work. And then it turned into three and a half months in Alberta.
Tom Stones (07:04):
We spent the whole rest of the year online. And then the next year came back, started out back and then did the same thing again. We, in November we were told we had two days prepare to be online and we wrote did the same thing, you know, pulled it off again. And then that was right around Christmas time and just before Christmas, and this is a personal part you’re alluding to, just before Christmas, I ended up in the hospital with a heart attack, which had nothing to do with the, the stress, I don’t think. It was a, some genetic things, but, but I ended up with a heart attack and so I missed about two months of school. We kind of recovering from that and getting over all that stuff. But and it, you know, I told, I talked to the, the students who were in that class who were a very special group of kids, but and I, I just said, when I was laying in the hospital, I thought, I don’t wanna quit.
Tom Stones (08:00):
I want, I don’t want to be done cuz I wanna go back from work with these kids more. And so that really put a, a different spin on I guess some of that for me. But what really, what really you think affected me at that point was how, what, what that group of kids did. Like they were mean there 13 and 14 year olds and that they get a, that group of kids get a real bad rap, like 13 and 14 year olds, Aren be the best people in the world usually. But they, they, you know, they looked after me, they protected me, they supported me. And even now they’re into school next door and they, you know, I think I saw all of them all year long. They all come over and talk and, and we, they’re so we’ve got a, a connection that will not ever go away, I don’t think. But just that to me, just that, you know, when you ask kids to step up and do something amazing, they can do some, they can do amazing stuff. And I mean, they, they didn’t volunteer for this. They didn’t volunteer to <laugh> to get themselves involved in that, but they they were amazing. So
Sam Demma (09:04):
Yeah. Continue.
Tom Stones (09:06):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s all just that they were like, it was pretty cool what they did.
Sam Demma (09:12):
Do you remember some of the specific things they did that you think made a really big impact on you when you think back to some of the, those challenging moments?
Tom Stones (09:24):
I guess even just the, when I was getting, when I was recovering, the kids would send emails like, Hey, we’re really hope you’re right. Can’t wait for you to be back. That kind of thing. And there was actually, there was one day I don’t know if I can need to talk about this. One day we had an author visit Eric Walters, who’s an amazing author from Ontario was doing an author visit. And I had arranged that visit before I went, went off six. So I, and it was done all virtually, of course, at that time. And so I came on and the kids didn’t know that I was listening to the, the visit, like it was the whole school, but they didn’t realize that I was on there. You were there.
Tom Stones (10:07):
And, and I was in the background listening to it. And then when they, it was all over and that the teacher who realized that I was on there flipped the, the camera so they could see me and I could see them and that they just went wild. It was, it was pretty cool. I remember my wife texted me from work and she said, So how’s your day? And I said, I just, my kids just made me cry. Yeah. And yeah. So that was pretty cool. Just that. And that was about three weeks, I guess, before I went back Yeah. To school.
Sam Demma (10:41):
I can feel the emotion while you talk about it. Yeah.
Tom Stones (10:44):
<Laugh>, I know it, it’s, it that just comes back at me right now. It was crazy. And just others, just stuff like when I got back and the one, it was one day somebody said something about somebody having a heart attack and it was, he was just saying it as a throw away thing, Right. He wasn’t meaning anything. And this one girl just wheeled on says, We do not say as shit <laugh>. Mm. And the kids going, Oh, sorry. Didn’t think about it. And she’s going, Dad, you do not do that here. <Laugh>.
Sam Demma (11:11):
Yeah.
Tom Stones (11:12):
So, yeah. That’s cool. That’s
Sam Demma (11:14):
Awesome. That’s awesome man. Well, it, it sounds like you build such a great relationship with the students, which I think is the goal of every person in education to build relationships, to make an impact on the young minds that are sitting in front of them. How do you think we build relationships with the students in our classrooms? Like what are some of the things you try and do as teacher, teacher to ensure that we, you know, we build strong relationships.
Tom Stones (11:40):
There’s lots of stuff. Part of it I think is, is just getting to know them right. Or early, early on in the year, getting to know as much as you possibly can. Now I’m, I’m fortunate here, the school that I’m in, the grade seven wing is right beside the grade eight wing. We’re actually in the same hallway. Mm. So, so I can start to build some relationships with kids, you know, from April Mayon kind of thing, start to get them so that they’re, they, they know who I am even, you know, obviously they know my face, but they don’t know anything about me. Yeah. And I don’t know anything about them really, but start to build it just early on and, and just mostly I think just show them respect. That’s really all anybody wants is just to get respected. And if you show it to them and, and they, they, they’ll almost always give it back to you.
Tom Stones (12:32):
Now there’s always ones who don’t, obviously then, and those are ones that there’s other things going on in their world and that that’s something else to work with. But for, you know, the 99% of the kids, you give them some respect, they’ll give you respect back. And, and, and just showing interest in their lives, like what, what they’re doing, whether it’s hockey or dance or, you know, whatever. Or, or nothing. So I’m just like playing video games and I don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, but if I look like I do there,
Sam Demma (13:01):
<Laugh>, <laugh>,
Tom Stones (13:03):
I found my computer breaks down, I give it to them fix. And so yeah, just, yeah.
Sam Demma (13:09):
That’s cool. Yeah, I like that. When you, when you think about your journey in becoming the educator you are today with the beliefs you have, like, are there any resources that you have found helpful? And, you know, obviously the Middle Years Council has been a big source of per, you know, PD and professional development and maybe you can even recall some of the speakers that you think had a significant impact on you or some of the books or courses as a result of some of those speakers that you looked into. I’m curious if anything comes to mind that you think was helpful.
Tom Stones (13:43):
Yeah, there, there’s lots. And we’ve, we’ve had over the years, have had lots and lots of really, like I said, really good speakers. And that’s, that’s kind of one of the things, one of the places that I get that from. Yeah. Also, just because of my role in that committee, going to some conferences and trying to, to connect with some people so that you can, you know, as potential speakers
Sam Demma (14:04):
Bring them back or whatever.
Tom Stones (14:05):
Yeah. Bring them back home. There’s, and has lots is it a psychologist from Alberta here at Dr. Jody Carrington? Like, she, we’ve had her a number a couple of times and she’s pretty in way. She’s taught me a lot about sticking up for kids and, and being, you know, an advocate for kids. So like Dave Burgess is the, the teach like a pirate you know, corporation basically now from San Diego. We’ve had him up and, and just, just doing crazy stuff with kids and just, yeah, doing whatever it takes to reach him. You know, wherever it takes to way outta your comfort zone kind of thing. So lots of people like that. And books, I’ve, you know, then tried to read books by different people and, and get ideas and just, I, I think on my Twitter account it says something like, I’m always looking for ideas to engage kids and just taking that from anywhere. And some of them, like there’s some people I would never do what they do. Ron Clark from Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta went, went to see him once, like, he stands up on the table and yells at people. Well that’s, that’s not my personality. I would never do that, but, but I’ve, you know, done some crazy things too, <laugh> with, with kids that are, that are at least I think crazy, But yeah. That’s awesome. Little bit from anybody, like really just taking stuff from everybody and building it.
Sam Demma (15:34):
I once heard a quote from Tony Robbins and he said, Approach every conversation as if you could learn something from the other person and you, you probably will. And yeah, the way he explained it is that you might be better at gardening, but they’re problem, They might be better at cooking. And so, you know, you could learn something from that person in relation to cooking. They could learn something from you about gardening. And if you kind of go into every situation trying to learn from other people’s strengths I think it, it just leads to a better conversation. And you walk away with new information, you know.
Tom Stones (16:08):
Yeah, Yeah. And, and I think being in the school, and I’ve been at the same school now for, I don’t know how many years, quite a few 15 or something, but just the people who have come through and, and just every one of those people, whether they’ve been here for a year or for 15 years you pick up something from those people you know, something that person does and you know, new person comes from another school or a new person just new to teaching and be, go, that’s something I can use right there. And or that’s something, you know, you think, well, I’m not sure that’s in my personality, but it can be, you know, I can use something like that. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. And just yeah, even from the kids, like, this is something that I, I don’t understand, but let’s, let’s go from there. Yeah.
Sam Demma (16:57):
Nice man. Nice, nice. When, when you think about students that you’ve worked with over the past 15 years it’s obvious that they’ve made an impact on you. And I appreciate you sharing those stories earlier of what they’ve done did for you, even during some of your challenging times to make you feel special and appreciated. I’m curious to know if you can think of a story where due to education, you saw a student transform, meaning maybe they started in your class one way and by the end they were totally different and they had different characteristics and built confidence. And if it’s, it’s a, if it’s a very serious story, you could also change their name just for privacy reasons. But I’m wondering if any story comes to mind that you wanna share
Tom Stones (17:37):
There. There is, and I’ve told this story quite a few times and I’ve actually talked to the, the student and he knows that I use his name. He’s okay with it. Okay. It’s a pretty common name. It’s Braden, so it’s not like there’s <laugh>,
Tom Stones (17:49):
50 million of them <laugh>. But he he was the toughest challenging kid that I’ve ever taught. And it wasn’t his, you know, his behavior wasn’t so extreme, but it was just every day. And like he, he pushed some button for somebody every single day of grade. I think I taught in grade six. And it was just like endless, endless, endless, endless. Mm. And I remember saying to the principal at the end of the year, not, not one of my better moments. So just saying that I don’t think I made any difference to that kid. Like he’s exactly the same, walking out the door in June as he walked in September. And and the principal didn’t really say anything. Jay didn’t really say anything to me, but then he moved, like, he moved up the upgrades and then went to another school that, and he eventually was doing some alternative school cause he was gonna fit into school. But then he started coming back and it was one day he I was walking down the hall and one of the teachers says Tom turn around.
Tom Stones (18:51):
And this kid was running down the hall, wanted to talk to me, coming from the high school, wanted to talk to me. And I, so we, we chatted for a second and he says, I like to come be a work experience student in your room. Wow. And that’s what that’s kinda weird cuz you spend a lot of time trying to get outta my room in grade six. And he goes, Yeah, I know, but I wanna come be work in your room. And so he did. For semester, that was kind the thing we have at the high school beside is cause they come and do some work experience. And then I sort of lost track of, and I think it was last year or the year before last year, I think he came back he had just graduated from a computer animation program in Toronto was ready to start a job and he just wanted to come back and say hi.
Tom Stones (19:33):
And so we chatted a little bit and I said, and he says, I know I was tough. And I said, Yeah, you were really tough <laugh>. And he goes, you know, he had done everything online. It was during the pandemic, everything, his whole program was online. He said, when we got into when we did, did did the lesson, then we would go work with other students. And it was on Zoom I think he said. But they would put us in, they would call breakout rooms and he says, every single time I got put in a breakout room, I remember I thought of you because you put me in a breakout room every day in case was a physical breakout room. So we had a little room beside there, which the other kid basically called the Braden’s office cuz he was in there almost the whole day anyway, so it was like, that was pretty funny. But he says Andy, he’s successful, he’s gonna do really well. And I thought that’s now you’re playing a long game there cuz that’s about seven or eight years in between those two conversations, but Wow. But yeah, pretty cool to have that come and there’s lots of kids that come back like that, but he’s pretty, he’s pretty dramatic one, so.
Sam Demma (20:36):
Well, what do you think you did, like, you know, sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint like exactly why, but like what do you think if you reflect back on it that you did that had such a significant impact on him that he did feel the need to come back, even though in the present moment you thought you were, maybe you weren’t getting through to him. It sounds like you obviously were, you just didn’t realize it.
Tom Stones (20:54):
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. But I think most of it is consistency. Cause he knew he knew what he could do and he knew he was gonna cross the line every single day, but he knew where the line was. Yes. And lots of people, lots of kids, but don’t have, they’re not not sure where the line is. They’re not sure what, what the consist he is. And I, I think that’s it. And, and not just writing him off, like when he come back, when he came back in high school, you know, accepting him for where he was at in high school, even though he was still way off the charts. But yeah, it, it’s, it’s hard to know. Cause if you certainly, if you could, if you could do it, you could
Sam Demma (21:42):
Replicate
Tom Stones (21:43):
It’s a lot of money marketing that Yeah. <Laugh>.
Sam Demma (21:46):
Yeah. Just
Tom Stones (21:47):
Curious
Sam Demma (21:47):
More than anything. So I appreciate you sharing,
Tom Stones (21:50):
Asking. Yeah. I think just the consistency. Yeah.
Sam Demma (21:52):
Yeah. I like it. I love it. When, when you think about your journey throughout education and the lessons you’ve learned if you could go back in time but retain all of the experiences you’ve had and tap yourself on the shoulder in your first year of teaching, knowing what you know now, what would you have told yourself in the form of advice? Not because you wanted to change anything about the path you’ve taken or what you’re doing today, but because you thought it might have been helpful to hear certain things when you were just getting started.
Tom Stones (22:26):
Yeah, you know, I, I kind of thought that was a question you might ask. Just having listen to other podcasts, the ones I I’ve started cheating and trying to get some Yeah, yeah. Lines there. I think that I’d look after myself better. Hmm. Now early on you just, you just go and you go as hard as you possibly can. And sometimes that, you know, I, I was pretty careful not to let that get in the way of being, having a family on that, but, but just you know, put, don’t push quite so hard. The, the kids will be fine if you like, the students will be fine if you didn’t stay up till 11 o’clock. They’re probably better if you get, if you’re well rested and went for a walk. <Laugh> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And just the, yeah, just looking after yourself.
Tom Stones (23:19):
Our actually our superintendents talked about this a bit and he says like, there’s three pieces to self the wellness and one of ’em is the division has a little bit of input into it. Like, we can put some things in to help you. The school has a little bit, but the, the biggest pieces yourself and you’ve gotta decide how to look after yourself. And that’s since, since I’ve been sick that that’s become, you know, pretty important to me. Obviously just looking after in my own boundaries. Even just thinking, No, I’m not doing that tonight. I’m going to play with my grandchildren and instead, or, you know and I don’t think that young teachers that they think they have to push real hard and then they do better if they didn’t.
Sam Demma (24:00):
Hmm. That’s a great piece of advice. And I think it’s not only for young educators, but young professionals in general, I think,
Tom Stones (24:06):
You know. Yeah, I think so. Like
Sam Demma (24:08):
You, I sound, it feels like you’re talking to me sometimes because I, sometimes I’m doing that and then I don’t get good sleep and then I don’t show up too well the next morning. And it’s a really great piece of advice. You know, so often after people have experiences that are traumatic and sometimes even challenging just like you did with the, with the heart attack sometimes. And oftentimes they have this big realization that maybe they weren’t doing the thing that they wanted to do and they make this grand life change and they’re like, I’m now gonna chart my path in the direction that I really wanted to go in because life is fragile and I’m getting goosebumps just hearing you speak. Because I think what’s so amazing is that when you were in the hospital on the bed, the thought running through your mind was, how can I get myself healthy enough to get back in the classroom?
Sam Demma (25:00):
And that to me is a signal and a symbol that you’re doing the work that you should be doing. And it’s so obvious that you’re passionate about this work and that it’s making a difference. And I just wanted to say, keep doing it because it’s so important that we have people who on their deathbed will say, I did the work that I wanted to do that I loved doing. And if, you know, if education, if you’re in it right now and you’re not enjoying it, that’s okay too. May, you know, maybe it’s time to change, but it’s really refreshing to speak to you today and hear from someone who wouldn’t change a thing about the path you’ve taken. And
Tom Stones (25:39):
Yeah, I a year ago today, basically when I said goodbye to that group of kids Yep. I said that, that you were, like I said, I could’ve walked away. Nobody would’ve said a word. I could’ve quit. And I said, but I didn’t want to. Like, I thought I was, I I wanted to come back and work with you some more and then, and continue to this year and my plan is to continue for next year. But, but yeah. And I, if it’s, I guess maybe just to follow up what you said there, if you don’t have that, then you, you should quit. You should get out. But if you’ve got that, that don’t do what you’re supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen seen lots of people hang on too long cuz they, they should quit. For lots of reasons. I don’t, I don’t wanna do that, but I also want don’t wanna quit too early either, so.
Sam Demma (26:40):
Yeah. No, and I, we appreciate it and I think if you haven’t found the thing that gets you super excited as well yet, keep searching, you know, it’s out there. I’m glad that you found it in education and teaching and really enjoy it every day. Tom, this has been a phenomenal conversation. I just wanna say thank you so much for spending, you know, 30 minutes on the show, talking about your experiences, talking about how your students have made a difference in your life and how you strive to make a difference in theirs. Talking about Braden yeah. Really has been a really impactful conversation. If someone’s listening and wants to reach out to you, ask you a question, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?
Tom Stones (27:19):
By email, its tstones@cesd73.ca and I, I have a Twitter account, but I don’t actually avoid is <laugh>, it’s @tstonesteacher I think on, on Twitter.
Sam Demma (27:35):
Awesome. Perfect. Perfect. Tom, thank you again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Keep up the amazing work, and we’ll, we’ll talk soon.
Tom Stones (27:43):
Yeah. I think, are we planning to see you in September? Has that got set up yet? Or is it
Sam Demma (27:48):
I hope so. It hasn’t happened yet, but if fingers crossed I’ll hear, I’ll hear from them and we’ll, we’ll make it happen.
Tom Stones (27:55):
Okay. Awesome. Sounds great.
Sam Demma (27:56):
Awesome.
Sam Demma (27:56):
Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation on the High Performing Educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in education, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you, or someone you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.
Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tom Stones
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.
