Sam Demma

Sam Demma is a best-selling author and one of the most in-demand keynote speakers in the Education and Association sectors. He co-founded the volunteer organization PickWaste, delivered two TEDx talks, and—as a result of his exceptional contributions to Canada—was awarded the prestigious Queens Platinum Jubilee Award. His work is often featured on national news shows like Marilyn Dennis, Breakfast Television, and most notably, his mom’s Facebook profile. Sam delivers hundreds of programs across North America annually, and his entertaining presentations address the topics of Mental Health, Leadership and Kindness. For more information: https://www.samdemma.com

Shianne Gammon – CTSO Manager, BPA & FFA

About Shianne Gammon

Shianne Gammon is a Student Leadership Manager in the Idaho Division of Career Technical Education. She serves both BPA (Business Professionals of America) and FFA. Before she started in her role, she was a high school business education teacher for five years. During her time as a teacher, she was also a BPA advisor and coached high school girls basketball and volleyball.

She is very passionate about CTE (career technical education) and CTSOs (career technical student organizations). Growing up, both of her parents were in education. Her dad a history/government teacher and football coach. Her mom a business education teacher, cheerleading coach and BPA Advisor. Following along in their footsteps just came naturally.

Shianne now has the pleasure of working with the State Officers for both student organizations and helping them to become incredible leaders. Although, she would argue that she has actually learned more from them and they continue helping her grow every day.

Connect with Shianne Gammon: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Idaho Division of Career Technical Education
BPA (Business Professionals of America)
FFA

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. And today I’m joined by Shianne Gammon, who introduced me to Chick-fil-A, ladies and gentlemen. She is a superstar. Shianne, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today. Please introduce yourself.

Shianne Gammon
Thanks for having me.

Shianne Gammon
I’m very excited to be here. My name is Shianne Gammon. I’m a student leadership manager at the Idaho Division of Career Technical Education. So I help support student organizations like BPA and FFA.

Sam Demma
How did you get into this work? Did you always know you were going to be a student in student leadership?

Shianne Gammon
I got into it through education. So both of my parents are educators. My dad is a, he was a high school government and history teacher and followed into politics and everything. And my mom was a high school business teacher.

Shianne Gammon
And so I followed right into her footsteps. I didn’t think I was going to, and then I did. So she was a BPA teacher or advisor. I was a part of BPA, which is Business Professionals of America. And so I got into teaching and loved it.

Shianne Gammon
I just think student organizations are incredible and a huge part of education. And so I love the idea of working at the state level, because then you also get to do like some event planning and coordinating and networking. And so when this position opened up, I just knew I had to be a part of it.

Sam Demma
So previous to this role, tell me about your own career journey.

Shianne Gammon
Yes.

Shianne Gammon
So, I went to college, not quite sure what I was going to do. I was not going to do education like my parents. And then after like a year or two of wandering around, I was like, wait, okay, I will. I got a general business degree and then I went an alternate route into teaching so you can get certified through the state for CTE teaching if you hold a valid credential. Like I had done enough work experience in business through various things and then I got that certificate so that I could teach.

Shianne Gammon
And so before that I worked for like a mortgage company, a title company, I worked for a radio group, and then I got into teaching and I taught for five years and loved it. And then I actually, the only reason I really left was just because I had three small kids and we were going through the pandemic and it was just a little too many things going on my plate at the time.

Shianne Gammon
So I stepped outside of it. And then when this position opened up, it was perfect because it was like back in education, but not fully back in education. And I could have a little bit of both.

Sam Demma
And you’re busier than ever now, traveling non-stop.

Shianne Gammon
Busier than ever.

Sam Demma
What do you love most about the work you get to do today?

Shianne Gammon
I love, I think my first answer honestly is working with the student organizations, especially the state officers. So I get to help coordinate the state officers for both of the orgs I work with, and they are just the most incredible kids.

Shianne Gammon
I always, I recently were getting ready to travel to DC with some of them, and I would, we’re planning a conference, and we’re doing these things, and I was like, I don’t know if I’ve given them what they need from me to be successful. And so we had a meeting, and they were going over their stuff, and I was like, oh, wow, you guys are incredible. Like, you knew exactly what you needed to do.

Shianne Gammon
And so really watching them, they just, their emotional intelligence, all the things that they have right now is just awesome to watch because I did not. I was not like that at 18, and I feel like I was pretty good, but they are just, kids are amazing, and they know exactly sometimes what they wanna do, what they wanna be, and how to do it.

Sam Demma
And it’s so impressive. How do you build rapport and relationships with young people that you support, like the state officers and anyone who’s a part of the associations?

Shianne Gammon
Yeah, I think building relationships is key to everything. It’s so, so important. So, especially like when I was teaching before, I would say that that was the best thing. The thing I was most successful with, was teaching, was I could build a relationship with a kid. And then I would learn all the rest of things, like how to manage a classroom and how to like go through the curriculum.

Shianne Gammon
But I was able to just build it just because I think it’s important to see them as people and they are, they come from all different walks of life. They’re all struggling with different things or maybe not, but they all have different things going on. And so I would just kind of, I’m not just there for them to come in the class, do their work and leave.

Shianne Gammon
I want them like to be seen and whether they’re my most high-performing kids, low-performing kids in the middle, like, and sometimes that’s obviously really hard in education because maybe you have like 35 kids in your classroom and you can’t sit there and talk to every single one every single day. But I would just try to like talk to each of them, get to know them.

Shianne Gammon
Some of my favorite things I would do my last year or two of teaching was I’d even always like, I’d have all the snacks in my room. They knew they could come in and get fed. And that’s the thing, like kids come in and maybe they haven’t eaten, maybe they haven’t, you know, there’s a lot of things going on. And so I’d make sure to have the snacks.

Shianne Gammon
It was a safe place. And I would just try to teach them. I think that was a good thing about being a business teacher was I was going more like, when you were put into the business environment as an adult, no one is teaching you, like how to, they don’t take your phone away, they don’t sit down, you know, like you have to learn how to live your life and get your job done.

Shianne Gammon
And so I would try to focus with that. And same with the state officers is, I’m like, it’s not just I’m with you for the year and then I never see or speak to you again. Like it is, no, we are connected for life. We’ve been through the trenches for the year, and I want to see them all do great, great things and I think they can just feel that from me.

Sam Demma
You mentioned right before we started recording, this is the second year and I remember when we collaborated for the Idaho BPA State Leadership Conference that it was your first and you were excited, you were elated, you were nervous, you were all the emotions, you know, everything was going on. Give us a peek behind the curtain of planning a statewide conference.

Shianne Gammon
Whew, it was a doozy. It is a lot and it is amazing. It’s an amazing thing to do and put on and it really put me through a big test because I’m definitely the planner person anyways. Like I love to plan things.

Shianne Gammon
If someone’s like, we’re going on a trip, I’m like, cool, here’s the itinerary. I planned it. I know what we’re doing. So I love that part of it. And it was, what I’ve learned from it, it was very, very important for networking just because there’s so many pieces that go into it.

Shianne Gammon
And one of the big key takeaways too is that you’re never going to do an event and have every single person so happy with it. There’s probably something that went wrong somewhere. And I want to be in control of the whole entire thing. And like, this next year, I’m like, okay, we’re going to delegate a little better. Put the right people that we trust, we find those people, we put them in the right place, they’re in charge of that, and then at the end I’ll be like, cool, how did that go?

Shianne Gammon
But I can’t be everywhere at once. And so planning the event was just, there’s a lot of logistics behind it, of course, and getting the right space, getting the right people, getting all the information out that everyone needs to have all the time. But I would say that the biggest things are making sure that you’ve delegated everything out and all of that, because it is a lot.

Shianne Gammon
And there’s a reason that people have teams doing events, that it’s not always one person can do it. It’s like, yes, one person can do everything. You’re gonna die doing it. So it is better for your own health and honestly for the event to be able to have all those people in it.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I could tell you from personal experience, I’ve managed my own business for the past six years and I have a few too many gray hairs as a result of that decision. And only recently did I finally stop being stupid and ask somebody for some help.

Sam Demma
And I have a really lovely team member named Renata now who has supported me in ways that I would never have imagined possible. And it’s freeing up my mental space to generate new creative ideas. And she’s doing a better job at half of the things than I would be doing myself. And it’s like it hits your ego, but it’s the truth, you know?

Sam Demma
Tell me a little bit about managing other people. I guess that’s a part of your role as a leader, and it’s something I’m new to. What have you found that works really well when you think about your own leadership style?

Shianne Gammon
Managing people can be very difficult, because especially I can be a little bit more of a people pleaser as well. And it’s hard to delegate stuff out because I’m like, wait, wait, wait, no, I can just do it, I can just do it. And so it is definitely uncomfortable depending on who you are and your personality.

Shianne Gammon
But for me, I feel like very clear communication helps a lot in knowing the expectations. And I’m learning that about managing state officers as well, is that sometimes things that I think are common sense or that don’t need to be explained, it’s like, no, still, you should probably, setting expectations is huge.

Shianne Gammon
People need to know what, where their vision is, what is going on, like, why are we doing this? Because if you’re just asking them to do something without the why behind it, that’s so hard to get everyone going in the same direction.

Shianne Gammon
And so that’s what I’ve found to be the most successful is really just like, okay, here are the expectations that I expect from you, here’s what you can expect from me, because that’s also being transparent and having your own integrity of like, no, whatever I’m asking you to do, I will also be doing it.

Shianne Gammon
Because there’s nothing worse than having a manager that you’re like, wait, you’re not doing that though. And so, doing that and having this really clear communication and trust, honestly, you know, that’s like, okay, if I gave you a task, I’m trusting that it got done.

Shianne Gammon
Otherwise, it’s so hard to delegate it out or anything like that. And so, just setting some really good, clear expectations and boundaries with people goes a long way.

Sam Demma
I was talking to one of my mentors about some of the frustrations I was having with working with other people. And he said, well, did you train them on that thing you’re asking them to do? And I was like, no, I didn’t. And he’s like, well, then how can you expect them to know how to do it?

Sam Demma
I was like, damn. And so that idea of sharing the expectations up front, or providing the training up front to just let people know, like, this is when you know this is done. This is how we do this.

Sam Demma
Then at least you’re on that equal ground where you can turn around and say, hey, we did show you how to do this and you did share that you understood. Tell me where you’re still stuck. So I think that’s been really helpful for me.

Sam Demma
I echo all the things you just shared as well. And what is the part of the job right now that’s bringing you the most joy and fulfillment and excitement?

Shianne Gammon
That’s a good one. I would say the things that bring me – I always go to the people, honestly. People are, they are just what is so motivating and keep you going. Whether it’s my coworkers here in the office, I know if I’m coming in the office, it’s gonna be a good day.

Shianne Gammon
Like we’re gonna have fun. And I might grumble the whole way I’m driving. Once I’m here, it’s so fun and it is a good time. It’s a good team that you build. And like event-wise, I actually just took state officers to DC for the first time.

Shianne Gammon
And that was our first, like, so for BPA, they hadn’t done a leadership summit before. And so this was the second year they did it. They just implemented it last year. And so taking students to that and seeing the, they were seeing the bigger picture, they were seeing, they were advocating for CTE and for their orgs. And that was just super powerful to be a part of.

Shianne Gammon
And so I loved that. And then we came back and I just feel like now planning our event for our conference in March, I’m like, oh, we have ideas, we have things going on. These kids are gonna fully leave this year of their service, just great kids. And that is super fun to watch.

Sam Demma
So the people is the thing that kind of keeps you moving forward. Always. Where do you see yourself in five years from now?

Shianne Gammon
You know, great question.

Sam Demma
No pressure.

Shianne Gammon
No pressure.

Shianne Gammon
I would really, I don’t see myself leaving the position I’m in. Like, if we get, our team could grow, and so then maybe I wouldn’t have two orgs under me. Sure. But I see myself growing, especially BPA and Idaho even more, because FFA is its own beast, and it grows all the time anyways.

Shianne Gammon
And BPA will need a little bit more love and attention.

Sam Demma
Fair.

Shianne Gammon
So I see myself just really, really knowing my stuff. Just doing some good things for the org and growing our membership more and more. For Idaho and BPA, we’re like the 10th largest nationally and I would love to break higher into that.

Shianne Gammon
Like there are a couple states that we can catch pretty easily and I would love to do that and just honestly keep putting on some really great conferences, grow the networking, grow our alumni even more. I kind of see myself doing that and just really growing into that as well.

Sam Demma
One of the things a lot of educators mention on the show is that you can’t pour from an empty cup. You’re someone who has high energy and I know because I’ve worked with you and I can also feel it on this call. What do you do in your own time to ensure that your cup is full so you can show up energetic and optimistic and ready to serve others?

Shianne Gammon
I’m not always really great about keeping my cup full. It’s pouring into lots of different things, of course, but honestly, I will bring it back again to people. People fill my cup all the time. I, of course, am continually working on filling my own cup and making sure that I’m taking the space and time I need and maybe setting boundaries of that.

Shianne Gammon
I actually even forgot to take my computer home yesterday. So that’s a nice way of taking the time, get it set. So having those boundaries of that you don’t have to be available 24-7 to people, that it’s okay and that maybe when I leave here I’m taking off that hat and now I’m putting on my mom hat and after that’s off that I’m doing this and not that the mom hat’s ever fully off me but you know, just where the time is.

Shianne Gammon
But I think just spending time with people that help fill my cup is huge. That I’ve surrounded myself with really good people inside the workplace, outside the workplace, wherever it’s at, that I know I can go to to talk to, that we can just go have fun together, and that it honestly just resets it so quickly.

Shianne Gammon
But I think just finding, just enjoying what you’re doing is huge, that you have to really enjoy it. And that not every day is gonna be like, wow, I did something really, really exciting today. But it was still something that I loved doing and being a part of, and those small little wins every day are amazing as well.

Sam Demma
Were you involved in any CTSOs when you were a student?

Shianne Gammon
I was, so I was actually, I was a part of BPA. I’m trying to think of my school, it was a smaller school, so we didn’t have a ton of the orgs in there yet, but I was a part of BPA, and actually my mom was my BPA advisor.

Shianne Gammon
And she still is a BPA advisor, so it’s funny now because she comes to the conference that I’m putting on.

Sam Demma
Was she in Idaho last year?

Shianne Gammon
She was.

Sam Demma
She was?

Shianne Gammon
Yeah, and so she was like, oh, you’re kind of like my boss. I’m like, well, not really. But she’s going into year 30 of being a BPA advisor and teacher. It’s almost done. She’s got like two years left. She’s so close.

Shianne Gammon
But yes, I was a part of BPA growing up and it was super fun because me and some of my best friends who are still best friends to this day, competed together and we’re a team together. And so it was amazing just because it got us out of our small little Idaho town.

Shianne Gammon
We came to the big city of Boise for the state conference and you networked and you met people and then I was able to go to nationals and compete and meet more people. And some of those connections, you know, you still have to this day. So it was amazing to be a part of for sure.

Sam Demma
I can say firsthand as a guest, like the connections continue. I got a message from Dallin the other day and Job and I connect every now and then over Instagram. The community that shows up are just such nice people that are all striving to improve and do good things. So I hope that the conferences do grow and not that it’s about competing against other states, but go Idaho, go.

Shianne Gammon
Go Idaho, go.

Sam Demma
If there’s an educator listening to this who is just forgetting their why a little bit, they started this academic year feeling burnt out and we all have those moments, what advice would you give? Sometimes it’s helpful to hear advice from people that don’t know us, or almost like confide in people that don’t know who we are. Like, what advice do you think an educator who’s struggling right now could benefit from hearing?

Shianne Gammon
I think that if you’re struggling with your why, so one is making sure you’re taking care of you first, you know your co-workers and they’re having a great time but especially in teaching the why is obviously going to be the students and so maybe looking at especially if you’ve been teaching for more than just this is your first year but looking at students that you’ve had previously and seeing those success stories and the things they’re doing that are incredible, that you were a part of getting that kid to where they are, and that is huge.

Shianne Gammon
So just seeing that, or even honestly if it is the first year, and so they started in August and what success have they had so far now? Like maybe they’re making really great friends, maybe they are going reading better, doing math better, you know all those things as well, but maybe they’re just growing as a person and that in turn is helping shape and grow you as a teacher, as a person.

Shianne Gammon
It’s just sometimes it’s those little small wins. It’s not going to be a huge thing every time, but just seeing the little growth in those students is amazing to see. And sometimes you need to, you can’t see it for yourself, but looking at, that’s why I think especially past students, I know I’ve had one of my best friends is a teacher and she got a letter from a student recently and it was like we were all crying because we were like, oh my gosh, it is powerful that the things you’re doing are powerful, even if it doesn’t seem like it in a day to day.

Shianne Gammon
But just take that time to reflect and see and maybe seeing the teachers that have gotten you to where you’re at is huge and maybe a talk with them could help honestly and help reshape your why.

Sam Demma
Shianne, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show, share some of your ideas, talk about your educational journey. It’s been a pleasure having you on. Keep up the amazing work and I hope to connect again soon.

Shianne Gammon
Awesome, thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Shianne Gammon

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.

Katie Paulson – South Dakota CTSO Center Director

About Katie Paulson

Katie Paulson is the South Dakota, Career & Technical Student Organization (CTSO) Center Director. Prior to this role, she has held positions in restaurant management, college admissions, and was the State Director for South Dakota SkillsUSA. As a product of many of the CTSO’s herself, she has a passion to grow and help thrive the great CTSO’s in South Dakota. Working closely with the State Directors of Educators Rising; Family, Career & Community Leaders of America; Future Business Leaders of America; FFA; Future Health Professionals HOSA; and SkillsUSA; to create professional development events and opportunities for growth at every turn. Katie has also found herself working with student members, board members, and industry to be a visionary for the work and growth of the future leaders of tomorrow.

Connect with Katie Paulson: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Career & Technical Student Organization (CTSO)
South Dakota SkillsUSA
Educators Rising
Family, Career & Community Leaders of America
Future Business Leaders of America
FFA
Future Health Professionals HOSA

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma, and today we are joined by Katie Paulson, who is in the middle of the harvesting season in South Dakota. Katie, please, just introduce yourself.

Katie Paulson
Yeah, I’m Katie Paulson. I am the director of the South Dakota CTSO Center. CTSO stands for Career and Technical Student Organizations. I oversee six of our statewide CTSOs. So, FBLA, FFA, FCCLA, Educators Rising, HOSA, and SkillsUSA. So, really excited about kind of starting off our school year. We’re actually in full swing here with everything going on. I have been in this position for a little over two years.

Katie Paulson
I had the awesome opportunity to start this position when we kind of started the CTSO Center. So I have a lot of previous experiences in CTSOs, and I love the work that I get to do now.

Sam Demma
What is the work that you get to do now in supporting these amazing organizations?

Katie Paulson
Yes. So, I work to collaborate as much as possible. So, each one of our organizations are very different. They have a very different identity. They have a very different set of career clusters that they focus on. And different CTE courses in the high schools and the middle schools and even some of our technical colleges that they are the leadership aspect on top of that. And so, I get to work day in and day out with the directors and leaders of these organizations to really bring our similarities to the forefront and provide really awesome premier leadership opportunities for these students.

Katie Paulson
You know, like I said, whether it’s professional development or, you know, bringing in different trainings or speakers or providing opportunities via monetary donations, really working to just enhance and move forward and just get bigger and better with these organizations. These students, they do a lot, right? So students are typically involved in a lot of things on top of trying to have a part-time job and all those other things. And so these students really, they’re doing it all. And they’re hungry for leadership opportunities and really gaining the knowledge to these career paths and preparing themselves for college. So it’s also, I build a lot of partnerships with a lot of different companies.

Katie Paulson
But the cool thing is, is everybody is really in it for the same reason, right? We all need these new future leaders. And just being strategic and I guess creative on how we can make that work together. You’re providing experiences that change…

Sam Demma
…the trajectory of young people’s lives. The work is so valuable and so important. Did you have a positive experience being a part of a CTSO as a student yourself, or what actually brought you down this path in your own career?

Katie Paulson
I was very involved in different CTSOs throughout high school. I was in FFA all through high school, so in my high school, and it still really continues, if you’re in any sort of agriculture education course, you’re automatically an FFA student. So that’s a great partnership that the Ag education has with FFA. And so I learned a lot, you know, it was a very different chapter, you know, very male heavy, which is also to be a female in that it’s great because sometimes that’s where life takes you in a career too. I was also involved in FCCLA, so that is Family, leaders of America. So more so on family and consumer science education type stuff. A lot of community service type projects that I was involved in. But I was most deeply involved in FBLA, Future Business Leaders of America. I really found my niche there. I was a state officer my junior year of high school for South Dakota FBLA. And some of those, the state director at the time is still a mentor of mine. Some of those other state officers that I kind of had our year of service with, we still, you know, our professional lives still collide. So really great things come about my CTSO journey. And so when I, I work out of Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, South Dakota.

Katie Paulson
And when I started here, I was an admissions representative. So I was a college recruiter. And one of my additional duties as assigned was being the college Skills USA advisor. And I was so excited about that. My boss was actually dreading telling me that I was the advisor. And I was so excited because this was my, like, I love CTSOs. I love everything they’re about. I was so excited. And I think she was kind of shocked that I was as excited as I was. But that led me into, a year after that, I became the state director for South Dakota Skills USA. And then the Department of Education kind of worked together with the different colleges around South Dakota to host these state director positions, and they wanted to put it all together under one umbrella of a CTSO center. And so when this idea came about, I knew that it was really something that I’m very passionate about. I love all of the CTSOs and just to do the work and to enhance and to be there to help the other state directors and really move these organizations forward was something I knew I’d be very passionate about. So that’s really my journey through CTSOs and the influence has been huge, tremendous on my life. But just working, getting to work with a lot of the other alumni too, to really in their professional lives, how great these CTSOs can really be a pipeline for future workers and leaders is truly amazing to be a part of.

Sam Demma
When you were a state officer yourself, can you think of a moment where your advisor or a mentor in your life really changed the way you saw yourself or how much you believed in your abilities or just a moment that was very pivotal in your development and what do you think that caring adult did that had such a big difference for you?

Katie Paulson
Yeah, you know, there are actually quite a few. So I was super lucky to be in a high school where I don’t know how our organizations were funded, but we didn’t have to like fight tooth and nail to fundraise. And I know that’s always a deterrent for a lot of these organizations, and it’s just such a big weight on these advisors.

Katie Paulson
So the fact that we had to just very minimally fundraise, but our advisors were always like, you’re going to do the best you can do. You’re going to win at the state conference, and you’re going to go to nationals. And you’re going to, you know, kick butt, and it’s going to be amazing.

Katie Paulson
And so just the fact of like, not like, well, you got to raise $3,000 before you can even think about making it to nationals. That was never a conversation. And so, and that’s really what we deal with a little bit today. But I remember being at the school until 9, 10 o’clock at night.

Katie Paulson
Our advisors were there helping us. We just, the crazy things that we came up with, like even running for state office, we had a campaign manager and you had a whole campaign. I still have my stuff. Don’t monkey around. I gave out lollipops with monkeys on them.

Katie Paulson
I mean, it’s just, it was just a lot of memories, but really just having advisors that were so supportive in your ideas, but also like in their time. Like I think about that now and I’m like, that would be hard for me to stay here till 9 p.m. at night when you have family things going, like to help your students. And I mean, it was multiple…

Katie Paulson
…nights. Like we were there all the time. And so, yeah, just the support that I look back on was like, I probably took that for granted a little bit, like the amount of extra time that they put into us, because they really did believe in us. And I did, you know, we made it to nationals and multiple different things. And like those experiences were absolutely amazing as well.

Sam Demma
It sounds like the belief or the support in terms of kind words and time is one of the ways that these mentors and advisors played a big role in supporting you growing up. How do you think you build relationships with young people today? Times are different, things are a little different. How do you build rapport and support young people?

Katie Paulson
Yeah, and you’re right. It’s very different. And I think especially with our teacher landscape right now, there’s a lot of pressure on teachers, not a ton of support. South Dakota has one of the lowest teacher wages in the nation. And so putting that also on advisors…

Katie Paulson
…every school operates a little bit differently on what like an advisor gets for a stipend when they’re a CTSO advisor. And so I really, you know, I try to really relate to our leaders and I get the privilege of working…

Katie Paulson
…with the state officer teams of all six of our organizations multiple times throughout the year. And they are just amazing, right? So I get to do like a first training with them the summer after they are elected. And then, so that’s in June. And then I take them to our legislature at our Capitol during our session.

Katie Paulson
So that’s in February. And then just seeing them, I attend all of their state conferences. And so just seeing their transformation during their service year, I think is super important. But I love to connect with them also, you know, whenever they’re doing other things, right? So if they ever come to campus for something else, or, you know, they’re involved in a…

Katie Paulson
…lot of things, right? I try very hard just to be someone who they can go to as well. I’m not a direct rapport for them or any of them actually, but I just want to be someone that they know when they’re somewhere, to shake hands and to cheer them on and kind of be their support, encourage them to attend their national conferences and do all those things. Because really, the time flies so fast.

Katie Paulson
You know, these opportunities, they really are there for a second. And so just really trying to be with them during their journeys and help them out. And it’s crazy how much I see them outside of their roles and their organizations, just in the different circles that they’re also involved in. Just really being a support system and somebody always cheering them on has been my way of really continuing to encourage them.

Katie Paulson
Hopefully, that does work and hopefully, they are super supportive alumni. That’s just hoping it all comes full circle is really my goal for being their support system.

Sam Demma
Tell me about the transition you made into this role two years ago. How did this chapter of your life unfold and come about?

Katie Paulson
Yeah, so it was very different…

Katie Paulson
…because it was a brand new role. I was new to it. Nobody really knew. There were a lot of places we could take it. And there were some skeptics. The Department of Education secretary…

Katie Paulson
…at the time was one of them. She’s a huge FFA advocate alumni, had been a past state director. And so she was nervous about keeping the identity of each CTSO alive, right? Because they are so different in what they are…

Katie Paulson
…Yes, their foundations of leadership and teamwork and professional development and all of that great stuff are there, but they’re all very different in a lot of components. And so how are we going to keep the identity of those alive? And so that was really my big telling…

Katie Paulson
…Like, I racked my brain a lot. I listened to a lot of different podcasts and books and some different things. But what we ended up doing was we brought in a… just like a moderator, essentially to form a one- to two-year strategic plan with my state directors, the Department of Education team. And I think it was really great. Some frustrations came out, some initial, you know, thoughts of like, if this happens, this would be bad. Or, you know, if this is what we can do, great.

Katie Paulson
Do we have funds to do this? Maybe not. You know, like, how big can we go? And so that was really a great starting point and I think we’ve advanced maybe not exactly how that plan was laid out, but really how it best fits us right now. So we’re kind of on a good roll.

Katie Paulson
I have a great team and we’re all kind of working through it together, right? There’s a lot of teacher turnover, even some open jobs. And so, filling those gaps and really being there for the advisors, because without advisors, none of us would be anything, right? And so, trying to fill into them, but also trying to get to the school boards and the higher up, like to create the importance of this within their minds and to really maybe help adjust budgets…

Katie Paulson
…and things like that. We talked to legislators a lot, those types of things. And so I think we’re still learning for sure. And just the different landscapes of the economy as well as like the education outlay of these teachers and advisors…

Katie Paulson
…we’ll continue to navigate kind of where we go. But I think our organizations are very strong and we just continue to build industry partnerships and that has been huge for us. These industries really, they come out in full force. They open their pocketbooks for us.

Katie Paulson
They do a lot of great things, because again, the money is super tight. And fundraisers are, you know, it’s just crazy what kind of needs to happen in a year for a student. And so we kind of take it, you know, kind of, I would say quarter by quarter, honestly.

Katie Paulson
But I do meet with my state director team monthly. And I do, they bring great things to the table. You know, all of their organizations have different maybe issues, fires, or like potential. And so we try to wrap that all up and like, what can we do to help all of us? And so it’s ever changing, which is also awesome. No two days at my desk are really the same, which is great in some aspects and pretty challenging in others.

Katie Paulson
But, you know, for what we’re doing and what we provide, it is so worth it, you know, in the end, to really keep fighting for what’s best for our organizations.

Sam Demma
The work you’re doing is amazing. And it sounds from how much passion you have while you talk about it, that it feels fulfilling and meaningful for you. And I think that’s what matters most, that everyone is doing work that they believe is important and that gets them excited because then you end up doing your best work. And I know that the thousands of members among the different organizations and the CTSOs within South Dakota. That’s why they are…

Sam Demma
…different so that every student can find that pathway that best suits their unique skills and abilities and talents. When you think about the future, what are you excited about? Like, you know, we just started the last quarter of this year, coming up into the fall and the spring, looking forward to?

Katie Paulson
I’m super excited just for all of our CTSOs. So we’re all growing, even though FFA and South Dakota is planning to celebrate their 100th year in a couple of years. Yes. And so been around for a long time, really a cornerstone organization for South Dakota, but just like they’re still growing.

Katie Paulson
And so it’s amazing to see kind of what’s all happening in schools. We’re trying really hard to get in front of, like I said, administration for schools to really see the importance of our organizations and to really just help them, you know, financially if they can, but also give their advisors a little bit of grace on, like, attending these events, right? You don’t just get the professional development and the teamwork and the camaraderie…

Katie Paulson
…and all of the connections by staying in your classroom. And so just really moving the needle forward on how important CTSOs are for schools and their CT programs and their graduates. You know, there’s a lot of research that shows any more, especially like in South Dakota, our graduates within five years after high school graduation, it’s like a higher number, like 80% of them move back to their hometown around like 50 miles. So it’s really great, yes, and like the teacher pipeline and all of those things for these communities to really build these leaders in high school, send them to college, bring them…

Katie Paulson
…back when they become professionals, and have them build their families in these communities. And so very important kind of the work that we do on that front to really understand like putting, you know, effort and time and skills into these students is important for these local communities. They’re not just going to lose them all, you know, when they go to college and things like that. So very cool stuff. But yes, I mean, our job and our the landscape of kind of what that looks like will be continuing to change. But we’re trying our best to really get these students back to their hometowns and get them…

Sam Demma
…into careers and helping them build families. The work, again, I said it a few times, the work is so exciting and you’re doing a phenomenal job and I hope that all the CTSOs continue to grow and make a significant contribution to their members. I hope that at some point we’ll cross paths and until we do keep serving and keep up the amazing work.

Sam Demma
Thank you so much for coming on the show to talk a little bit about your own journey professionally, your experience with CTSOs, and some of the ways you think we can better connect and serve young people today.

Katie Paulson
Thank you so much, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Katie Paulson

December 17, 2024 by Sam Demma CSTO Education Executive Director Student Leadership 0

Tahnia Getson – Executive Director at NWPSA

About Tahnia Getson

Tahnia Getson has been working in nonprofits, advocacy and social change for the better part of ten years. They are an active part of the Grande Prairie and surrounding community and have been integrated into the arts scene for most of their adult life. They are constantly seeking out new education about the society that we live in, and are eager to have a better understanding of the community with each passing day.

In 2022, Tahnia was selected as a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for their work in the community. They were selected based on their extensive work researching and targeting systemic inequities that were preventing youth from accessing resources while on their academic and work oriented journeys. In 2023, Tahnia was selected as the Young Womxn of Influence in the Grande Prairie and surrounding area for their continued work in the community.

Tahnia is an energetic part of NWPSA and brings extended knowledge on systemic barriers, effective advocacy and activism, non profit structures and an extensive knowledge on dinosaurs. They are eager to learn something new daily and strive to grow in the work that they do every year.

Connect with Tahnia Getson: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

NWPSA

Young Womxn of Influence

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host and speaker, Sam Demma. Today I have the pleasure of introducing and welcoming a very special guest to the show, Tahnia Getson. They are the Executive Director of the NWPSA. Tahnia, thank you very much for taking the time.

Sam Demma
Please take a moment to introduce yourself.

Tahnia Getson
Thanks so much for having me. We actually refer to the NWPSA in-house as NWPSA, so that’s probably what you’ll hear me say, mostly because it’s way more fun to say that way. And breaking it down in the acronym, honestly, just takes more fun or more time. It’s less fun than just saying NWPSA. So I’ve been the Executive Director here with NWPSA going on 4 years now and somehow it feels like the beat of an eyelash in 85 years all at once. I say all the time that I love the work that I do and I love the job that I have, and I can’t imagine trading it in. It’s been an absolute delight working with students year in and year out, being able to bring them in and mentor them and figure out where it is that they want to go and being the person who gets to help them get there. And so I’m really happy to be here, and I’m happy to be in the position that I am, working with, I’d like to say young minds, but it’s not just young minds. We get students of all ages and all brain developments, and yeah, it’s just an exciting job.

Sam Demma
What do you love most about the work that you get to do every single day?

Tahnia Getson
I think the thing that brings me the most joy is that it’s never the same. Every student that you meet with has a different idea of where they’re going in the world and what they’re seeing in the world. And the fact that you’re always working with different perspectives is really refreshing. We live in this world where everybody has a different vantage point and a different perspective on even just one problem. And so the fact that you get to look at the exact same problem with so many different perspectives is refreshing. And so nothing is ever stale. And that brings its own challenges, like the fact that you perpetually have different boards and you perpetually have, you know, different voices at the table has its own challenges. But I think that when you accept that it’s never going to be exactly the same and you are always going to have changes in front of you, it’s really refreshing and exciting. And I think that that’s my favorite part: it’s never going to be stagnant, it’s never going to be stale, and you always have a learning opportunity in front of you.

Sam Demma
The sign behind your desk could not be more true.

Tahnia Getson
“Chaos Coordinator.” I joke all the time. I’ve been trying to petition my board to change my title. Executive Director is a very fancy job title, and the work that I do, I never got into for the job title or the paycheck. When you work in non-profits, you kind of know that you’re not in it for the money. And I have a firm belief that money’s made up, which is a whole thing that we talk about all the time. And so I keep joking that my job title should really be Chaos Coordinator or Chaos Enabler.

Tahnia Getson
And that sign actually came just last year at our awards ceremony. They managed to find it somewhere—I can’t remember where—and they gifted it to me at the awards ceremony. And so now it’s officially behind my desk. And we do have a label maker in the office. And so we made a little label, and it’s above my nameplate outside my office as well. So it says, “Chaos Enabler, Executive Director.” And so it’s quite funny.

Sam Demma
I love that.

Sam Demma
I noticed it and wanted to ask or better understand where it came from.

Tahnia Getson
Yeah, it came from my team.

Sam Demma
You mentioned that in the nonprofit space, people are typically driven by impact, not by monetary means or gains. Did you know when you were growing up that you wanted to work in the nonprofit space or more specifically with a student association? Or what journey in your own life brought you here?

Tahnia Getson
No, not at all. When I was very young—honestly, when I was five—I wanted to grow up to be a dinosaur. And so it turns out that wasn’t actually a practical career path. You couldn’t actually grow up to be a dinosaur, so that didn’t work out for me, unfortunately. And then for a little while, I think I wanted to be a lawyer. That also didn’t work out for me. Desk jobs weren’t really my forte. And I thought that I was going to be a teacher for a little while.

Tahnia Getson
And so there were a lot of really practical career paths that I wanted to do when I was younger. And then what actually wound up happening is, when I was 18, I started teaching an out-of-school theater program. And I found a lot of love in my youth in the fine arts. And when I started going to post-secondary, I found a lot of love in the fine arts. And so officially my degrees—and I do have a few of them—are actually all in the fine arts.

Tahnia Getson
So I have a performance diploma as well as a visual arts diploma. And then my bachelor’s is actually in theater arts as well as psychology. And that was always a weird mix for people. Like, I was having this conversation yesterday with somebody, and they were like, “That’s a weird mix.” And I was like, “When you start breaking it down, it’s really not.” Because one of the things that I learned so much about when I was looking at theater is that when you’re reading a play and when you’re looking at a play, what you’re actually doing is you’re looking at the world through somebody else’s eyes.

Tahnia Getson
And you’re effectively studying someone else’s psyche while looking at a conflict, because the arts all came out of periods of political unrest. And we look at music, and we look at visual arts, and we look at workers’ union theater, and that all came from a point of trying to push social movements forward. And so I started working with these young minds, and I thought of how cool it was that these young minds were starting to experience their own voices in the arts world.

Tahnia Getson
And that was such an impactful place for me to be, working with all of these young minds who were starting to experience their own identity and finding it in the arts. And that’s actually what shifted a lot of the work that I did with youth. And so as I was exploring that, and I was exploring that through psychology and the way that the world worked, I kind of started to find that love in nonprofit work.

Tahnia Getson
And so then I did graduate with my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Lethbridge, actually. And then immediately after graduating, I went to work with a grassroots movement that works specifically with youth on identifying and researching systemic barriers that were preventing them from graduating from secondary school—so high school—and moving on to post-secondary and the workforce, and what it was that was stopping them from being able to access those resources.

Tahnia Getson
And so I did that work for a couple of years and found a lot of passion in that. And then from there, I became the Executive Director of the Students’ Association. And funnily enough, there was a point in my time where I had run for student leadership while attending GPRC, which is actually the school that I’m the Executive Director of now.

Tahnia Getson
They just did a rebrand, so now it’s Northwestern Polytechnic. And I think that I was 19 when I did that, and I did not get elected. I was not successful in any way, shape, or form in that. I think that I actually came in last in the election. But I didn’t have a really firm idea of who I was at that time. And I think it was a really good learning lesson for me.

Tahnia Getson
And somewhere in that very long-winded journey that I just talked about, I realized that part of that process was that I hadn’t seen people like myself in leadership. I hadn’t seen anybody that I felt represented who I was as a person. And when I was working with all of those youth who weren’t moving on to post-secondary or the workforce, I was seeing that they were seeing the same things—that they weren’t seeing themselves reflected in leadership for, you know, a lot of reasons associated with systemic marginalization.

Tahnia Getson
And so that became the driver. That became the “why” for me: there needs to be more people in those positions that are driving that bus forward to make space.

Sam Demma
You are inspiring so many people, most of whom you may not even have a conversation with on a day-to-day basis. I think it is so important that you allow that to continue to fuel the reason that you show up. Did you have your own challenges with education as a student growing up, which has inspired you to work to change some of those things? Or was it a later realization in your life, as you described?

Tahnia Getson
It was a little bit of both.

Tahnia Getson
I’m going to take a second to self-position just because I didn’t do that yet. I am a queer non-binary activist, and so I do a lot of that work in the community. And I often position myself—I am neurodivergent, I do have a chronic illness, and all of those things. And they all kind of compound onto each other. And I did have a little bit of a rough childhood in terms of family upbringing and stuff like that. I am the first person in my family who went to post-secondary and graduated.

Tahnia Getson
And so in terms of all of those things—when you don’t have that in your household, you don’t have people to help you navigate those systems. And so I had to navigate a lot of those systems on my own. And, you know, being in the academic world, this became really apparent for me. I am in the process of getting my master’s degree right now. And it became really apparent when I was researching my master’s program that academics can be a little hierarchical.

Tahnia Getson
And if you don’t have someone to help you navigate that process, you don’t really know where to go. The undergraduate degree was a little bit easier because you had access to high school counselors to help you navigate that process. But the graduate degree program was a lot more difficult because it’s almost like it’s kept behind a gate, and you have to find a back way in there.

Tahnia Getson
And so if you don’t have people at home who have done a master’s program, you have no idea how to find a supervisor, how to write a letter of intent. And so I had to navigate that whole system by myself. In order to do that, I was emailing all of my prior professors being like, “Where do you even find these people?” Because there are all these secret rules that they don’t tell you about.

Tahnia Getson
And so, yeah, for myself, I was like, “I don’t even know where to begin on half of this.” And so if I was facing it—and I’m a really determined person—I knew with the way that I grew up and the way that my identity compounded on each other that if I was facing that, there are so many other people who are facing that.

Tahnia Getson
Because I’m very fortunate in the fact that I am white, and so the color of my skin has never impacted how that’s prevented me from having access to rooms or spaces. And so I can see all of those things compounding on top of each other and how that prevents people from accessing these other areas. And so it’s so frustrating to me that these areas where you’re supposed to grow and have access to, in air quotations—because I know we’re not going to see my video and I’m a hand talker—to “better yourself” and get the leg up, how there are still so many gates.

Tahnia Getson
And so for me, yes, some of those pieces of my identity came later, and some of the ways that they compounded on themselves—the self-actualization—came later. But they were obviously all there from the beginning. Access to resources, I didn’t have. Like, I didn’t find out that I was neurodivergent until I was 28 years old. And so I didn’t have access to resources to help me earlier on. And so I kind of just navigated them all on my own.

Tahnia Getson
And being in a space now where I can advocate for that earlier for students and help other students learn how to navigate for other students, I think is really impactful. Because it’s not about me going out and doing the work. It’s not my job. I’m not the face of the Students’ Association. It’s about helping these other students learn how to not only empower themselves but to empower students around them to be able to go out and do that. And I think that’s what’s fresh about it—it’s not about me. And I never wanted it to be about me.

Tahnia Getson
I wanted it to be about community and coming together as a community and learning as a collective on how to do that.

Sam Demma
One thing that resonated with me was that your entire career or life, once you started working, has been about supporting and helping young minds. And you’re doing it now; you were doing it before your role at the school. How do you think you successfully build a deep relationship with a young mind, a young person—and maybe not even just young people, but how do you build rapport with others and support people in finding their identities and creating safe spaces?

Tahnia Getson
I think this is so funny because I talk about safe spaces all the time. We talk about safe spaces versus brave spaces a lot. I think those are probably the two terms that…

Sam Demma
What’s the difference?

Tahnia Getson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the question, right? And so I differentiate them, and this is actually something that came alongside a colleague of mine who worked in that grassroots movement with me, and that was something that we talked about a lot. The safe space that you create is the space that people can come to without fear of judgment. And so they can come, they can be themselves. They don’t have to worry about masking. They don’t have to worry about pretending to be anybody but who they are authentically in that moment.

Tahnia Getson
And when you build spaces where people can show up to be authentically themselves, you get to learn people on a completely different front. You get to learn what they’re passionate about, what brings light to their eyes, what they’re genuinely excited about. And you get to meet somebody in a way that you’ve never actually met them before.

Tahnia Getson
I think that’s the coolest thing about building a safe space—if you think that you know people and you’ve just talked to them and you’ve met them in the hallway, and you say, “Hey, how are you?” and they’re like, “Yeah, I’m good. How are you?”—you think you know that person? You don’t know that person.

Tahnia Getson
But when you get to meet somebody and you get to see all of their quirks and tendencies and the way their face lights up when they’re talking about the smallest niche thing that they’re into, you really get to know somebody. And you connect with them authentically. And then that authentic connection is something completely different than anything else.

Tahnia Getson
Then you start to learn about the things that really, really, really drive them. And then you can take them as far as they’re willing to go because they trust you. And then they’re eager to learn. And then you can get them into the space that I refer to as the brave space.

Tahnia Getson
And that’s the learning space. And that’s the really, really powerful space because that’s where you can make effective change. And so the brave space is the space that you go to. This is the space that’s really important when you’re doing advocacy work because advocacy work is scary, and it’s hard, and it’s difficult.

Tahnia Getson
And that’s the space that we’re all really in, and have been in for a while, whether or not we’ve known it. The socio-political world has shifted a lot, and we’ve all seen it, and we see that we’re kind of in this point of tension. And that’s because we’re starting to shift things forward. And that’s really scary for people because they don’t know what change looks like, and they don’t know if change means that they’re losing something. And people are scared of losing things, even though that doesn’t actually mean that they’re losing anything. It just means that we’re giving space for other people to be on the same level as everyone else.

Tahnia Getson
It’s that equity space. So that brave space becomes really important because that’s where you educate people, and that’s where you take them from where they are and you move them ten steps forward. If you don’t have a brave space, you haven’t created a space where people can ask the questions without fear of judgment.

Tahnia Getson
And so we call them—for lack of a better terminology—we call them the “silly questions.” And it’s the questions that people are scared to ask because they’re scared they’re going to be judged for asking them. But they don’t necessarily know where to find resources. Now, I say that I’m happy—and I’m going to use the queer community as an example of this. And I use queer as an umbrella term; most people will use 2SLGBTQIA+ world.

Tahnia Getson
And so I tell people that they’re free to come ask me questions, and I’ve offered that. But you can’t do that with all marginalized communities because a lot of people are still working from their own points of trauma, and you can’t ask people to educate while they’re also trying to heal their trauma. That’s not fair to do to them. But I’ve offered that to people.

Tahnia Getson
And so I tell them to come ask me their questions because I’m happy to educate. And so I’ve offered them a space to come ask the questions because if I don’t give them the space, then they’re not going to ask the question and educate themselves. And so the brave space is the space where they can ask the question that they’re scared to ask so that way they can receive the education to then move themselves forward.

Tahnia Getson
And that brave space is a collective space, so that way, that education component is never falling on one singular person’s shoulders. And so that’s the difference between the safe space and the brave space. They do build off of each other, but they’re not identical to each other.

Sam Demma
How do you cultivate a safe space?

Tahnia Getson
It’s a lot of small practices that happen over time. And so part of it is—I’m going to use my office as an example because we have a safe space office. And part of it is that idea that you can show up wherever you’re at on that day, and we have an understanding in the office.

Tahnia Getson
And so part of it is that we reflect on our practices in the office and we go, “Is this still working? Is it not?” And those practices come from everybody. And so, for example, my student leaders this year came up with the idea of—yeah, I’m going to call it exactly how we called it—a safe word. I was deciding whether or not I wanted to say it exactly like that. It’s a safe word, essentially.

Tahnia Getson
So if someone’s having a bad day, because we are all very close in the office, and they do kind of, like, almost like to pick on each other like siblings sometimes. So if someone’s having a bad day and it’s not a day where we can, like, tease each other or something like that, they each have a safe word that they can implement: “Today’s not that day.”

Tahnia Getson
And so they know to respect that space and to understand that we are emotionally heightened that day.

Tahnia Getson
But we all also build co-guidelines together. And so in terms of, like, how we show up to meetings, how we practice accountability, how we like to be held accountable—all of those things are created together.

Tahnia Getson
One of the standard practices that I have with my staff, my student council, and my executive leaders is I like to check in with them and ask them how they like to receive gratitude because much like love languages, the way that you receive gratitude is different than the way that I receive gratitude. And if I’m showing you gratitude in the way that you don’t receive it, you’re never going to feel thanks for the work that you do.

Tahnia Getson
We bring in customary practices, like ensuring that everybody has the opportunity to share personal pronouns and preferred names, and that that’s always respected, and that there are regular check-ins should that ever change for somebody.

Tahnia Getson
We have the space where people can ask a question if they don’t understand what those personal pronouns are. But whenever we introduce people in meeting spaces, for example, I tend to give a little prelude of, like, “Hey, we’re going to do check-ins, we’re going to give names, positions, and pronouns. Just as a reminder, if you’ve forgotten what pronouns are, that’s just how you prefer to be introduced, such as she/her, he/him, they/them.”

Tahnia Getson
Because sometimes someone doesn’t want to admit that they don’t remember what a pronoun is. And so I just get ahead of it by saying it because no one wants to be the person that’s like, “I don’t remember what a pronoun is.” Even though that is commonplace practice now, there are still people who just don’t remember because it hasn’t been practiced for them for whatever reason.

Tahnia Getson
And so it’s just little things that you put into place that compound over time, and you kind of just learn them with your group. So there isn’t really one set way to do it. You just learn them with your group and reflect on them and whether or not they’re working.

Sam Demma
I love where this conversation went. I think it’s so applicable, especially for a lot of educators who tune in that work in high school spaces. And there aren’t enough safe and brave spaces in their buildings or in their institutions. So thank you so much for sharing a little bit of the ideas you have around cultivating those safe spaces and some of the practices.

Sam Demma
If there is another educator listening to this who is inspired by you and wants to reach out and ask a question or connect, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Tahnia Getson
Work is actually probably easier, which is just my first name, last name at gmail.com. And so that one’s the best, or you can just find me on LinkedIn. I’m generally the only Tahnia on there.

Sam Demma
Tahnia, thank you so much for taking the time to put the “Do Not Disturb” poster on your door and keep your colleagues out of your room for 30 minutes.

Sam Demma
I appreciate it a lot, and I hope you continue to create safe and brave spaces for students on campus.

Tahnia Getson
Thank you so much for having me.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tahnia Getson

December 12, 2024 by Sam Demma Education Executive Director NWPSA 0

Stephen Hoyland – Assistant Superintendent Education Services at Battle River School Division

About Stephen Hoyland

Stephen Hoyland is the Assistant Superintendent -Education Services at Battle River School Division in Camrose, Alberta. Over his career, Stephen has taught Grades 4 to 12 ranging in subjects from Art, English, Social Studies and French.
Stephen was a school administrator for thirteen years. He took on the role of Director of Human Resources for three years and now is in his second year as Assistant Superintent – Education Services.

Throughout his career, Stephen has worked closely with students to promote their voice and ideas through student councils. Stephen believes that teachers succeed by listening to and learning from their students, as their voices shape meaningful impact in our schools. In order to make a difference in the lives of students and teachers, Stephen strives to be relationship focused, collaborative, energetic and hopeful.

Connect with Stephen Hoyland: Email | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Battle River School Division

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. Today we are joined by my friend, Stephen Hoyland. Stephen is the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services with the Battle River School Division. Stephen, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Stephen Hoyland
Oh, Sam, I’m so excited. Thanks for having me. It means a lot just to spend some time with you today.

Sam Demma
I’m so excited to chat with you. Did you know when you were a student yourself that one day you’d be working supporting staff and students?

Stephen Hoyland
You know, for when I was a kid, no. When I actually did become a teacher, a lot of my friends that I went to high school with, they couldn’t believe that I was the guy that actually became the teacher from the class. I knew, Sam, like I had some great teachers and that made some impact in me when I was young.

Stephen Hoyland
I remember I was in grade six and I was struggling with my spelling, and the teacher sent me to a remedial room, and I just remember how that felt—like I was being pulled out. The teacher in there, after about a week, he came up to me, and this wouldn’t be said now in a class, but he said, “Stephen, are you stupid?” And I—it was a shock. And I said, “Pardon?” He goes, “Like, honestly, are you stupid?” And I said, “No.” And he goes, “Exactly. Don’t ever, ever forget that. And I never want to see you back here.”

Stephen Hoyland
For me, that was one of those moments where I went, okay. I wasn’t expecting a teacher to say that. Like I said, a teacher would never say that now, but for me, it was pivotal. I saw somebody that believed that I could actually do what I needed to do. That was one of those moments where I went, okay, I can build on this, and I can have faith in myself. And yeah, in grade six, I really started to realize, hey, I can do this.

Stephen Hoyland
I had some teachers along the lines that really challenged me in high school and made me realize my potential. And so what I did, Sam, is I love challenges. When I finished high school, I came from a small town in Alberta where nobody spoke French, and I wanted to be bilingual. I just—I wanted to be bilingual.

Stephen Hoyland
I wanted to be able to be that Canadian that could speak French and English. So I enrolled in what was called the Faculty Saint-Jean through the University of Alberta. I took my degree there, and I did not know hardly any French. I was just someone that was supported by a lot of different people, whether they were from Quebec or Francois-Breton. They really helped me and made me realize that, okay, if I have a challenge, if I have a dream, there are going to be people there that can help me. And yeah, I became bilingual, and that really opened up many doors for me in my career.

Sam Demma
You said you love challenges. Was it always like that for you, or where did that come from?

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, it has always been—I love challenges. Coming from a small town, knowing that post-secondary was the key to opening a lot of doors, I just knew that if I wanted to do something that was going to be enriching and bring me happiness, I needed to set goals. Setting the goal to become bilingual, even though I hardly knew any French—I took three years of French in high school—and deciding, okay, I want to become bilingual, immerse myself, go to Quebec, take university there, and travel the world. That mindset of creating new goals was huge for me.

Stephen Hoyland
When I became a teacher, I started thinking outside of the box. I began teaching new courses, courses I had absolutely no reference to, and learned from that. I just kept on pushing myself to do what I needed to do. Eventually, Sam, it came to going to different schools and being identified as, “Hey, are you interested in administration? We think you’d be a great fit.” I threw myself out there. One thing I said when I was young in my career was, “I love being a teacher. I don’t want to be an administrator.” Then I became an assistant principal—I loved it. After a while, I decided, “Okay, I’m going to become a principal.” During that time, I also pursued my master’s, which I said I never wanted to go back to university for. But I learned from that and kept setting those goals. That was important.

Sam Demma
How important do you think it is for young people to set goals? It sounds like it had a big impact on you.

Stephen Hoyland
You know, when you’re young—I mean middle school—you’re really enjoying your friends, your peer groups, and at that point, the goals aren’t at the forefront. But I really do believe that if you have a bit of an idea of what’s going to make you happy, what’s going to give you contentment in life, then focus on a goal at that age. Once you get into high school, I think this can be difficult for young people too. Often, family or neighbors are asking, “What are you going to do when you’re done school? What do you want to do?” That puts a lot of pressure on kids.

Stephen Hoyland
I think if kids have a bit of an idea of what they might like to do, that makes a big difference. Starting with a small goal, and then life experiences can really build upon that and direct you into something that’s going to bring you happiness.

Sam Demma
You’ve offered an insight into your own story of the goal you set. Typically, when we think about goals, we think about students’ career-path-related goals. But your goal was to learn French. You didn’t say, “I want to be a French teacher,” or “I want to teach a language in the future.” You said, “There’s a skill out there that I’m curious about, and I want to improve at it and learn.” And it opened doors for you. I think if we can encourage more young people to set goals related to their curiosities or just building skills, the building of a skill will open doors or pathways in the future.

Sam Demma
Most of the time, when you become proficient or good at something, you can add value—and we need people that can add value. And I still suck at French. So if I met your grade six teacher, he would probably be like, “Sam, are you stupid?”

Stephen Hoyland
Oh, and you know, yeah, and it’s—you’ve nailed it. It’s just about finding those things, those skill sets, that bring you that fulfillment and, at the same time, challenge you. Run with it and grow as a person.

Sam Demma
There’s a book that I was recently recommended by my godfather. I played golf with him and my dad recently, and he manages lots of people in his role. So I was asking him about leadership and managing others, and he told me to check out this book called Principles by Ray Dalio. He said it was foundational in the way he leads his teams.

Sam Demma
I was reading the book, and one of the statements stuck out to me. It said, “The success doesn’t come from achieving the goal; it comes from struggling well in the pursuit of the goal.” And I thought, you know, there are so many times in my life where I’ve reached the outcome that I thought was going to make me feel good. And when I hit the thing or achieve the quote-unquote goal, I actually felt kind of lost—like, because now I’m not struggling towards anything anymore.

Sam Demma
In your own journey, do you have any other goals? What are things that are causing you to struggle these days? What’s pulling Stephen forward?

Stephen Hoyland
Oh, that’s such a great question. In my role right now, Sam, I’m responsible for the learning that takes place in our school division. Over the last year, I’ve learned a lot about math and numeracy. As I said, I learned French and then became a humanities teacher. Now, in my new role, I am learning an awful lot around math and numeracy. I had to create some goals for myself last year.

Stephen Hoyland
One of them was to become more proficient at understanding what math and numeracy are and how I can support teachers. Over the last year, I’ve really dived into data and become a lot more data-informed with my team. Now I can look at results and say, “Oh my gosh, take a look at where these results are. This is what we need to do.”

Stephen Hoyland
So for me, as a goal right now, it is to better understand how I can support students to become better math and numeracy learners in our school division—and, with that, what I need to do to support our teachers. So right now, math and numeracy are something I am totally immersed in, learning more than I’ve ever known.

Sam Demma
Wow, that’s awesome, man. I think those are skills that benefit anybody, no matter what pathway they pursue in the future as well.

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Sam Demma
One of the things that stood out to me when we collaborated with some of your schools and with Rayanne, your colleague, was that all the decisions you were making were based on data. And I think it’s so important that we make decisions based on data, not our personal assumptions or opinions.

Sam Demma
In fact, I’m making all these connections because now I’m reading this book. But this gentleman, Ray, was running a hedge fund, and that was the majority of his career. The decisions they were making were based on all the data they collected on the stock markets and different companies. They would input equations that would take all the previous data of years of financial numbers and projections and say, “If we made this decision based on all the previous data, what would our outcome be?”

Sam Demma
Then people would argue about it, saying, “Well, no, we need to do this.” Their philosophy was, “We have constructive disagreements, and then we test our ideas on data. Whatever the best outcome the data shows us, we move forward with that.” I think that’s kind of how you operate and how Rayanne and your team operate. Has the data surprised you in any way, shape, or form based on student needs or things that are happening in the schools?

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, it has. There have definitely been some great surprises. Last year, we created a new survey that we shared with parents, guardians, students, teachers—basically anybody that was a stakeholder. We put it out there and had a great response. There was a lot of positive feedback around where our school division has been and what we were doing to move forward.

Stephen Hoyland
It was kind of an affirmation of the positive things that have been happening in our school division for probably the last several years. Then there was also that voice saying, “Hey, have you considered this?” That’s the point, Sam, where we’re at right now—like, okay, we’ve done some really good things, but now it’s time to look at what other things we have to try. That came out of the data as well.

Stephen Hoyland
The thing I’ve learned with it is, if you’re going to ask people’s opinions—if you’re going to say, “We need this data”—you have to do something with it. You have to let everybody know that you’re actually doing something with it. Because it’s meaningless if you just take it in and don’t share those results or the next steps. That’s the biggest takeaway for me: if you want people’s opinions, if you want their voice, you have to make sure you value it and follow through with it.

Sam Demma
We have interacted three or four times now—three, maybe two or three times on Zoom calls, and once in person. There’s been a couple of consistent things every time: we’ve always laughed in some capacity, we’ve always smiled, and we’ve always shared stories. I’m wondering—you strike me as someone who’s very optimistic and someone who looks for the positive sides of things in life, because it is a choice. Is that something you taught yourself to do? Was it passed down from your parents? In a world filled with challenges, we could choose to focus on anything. You hold this really positive energy—where does it come from?

Stephen Hoyland
You know, yeah, I definitely grew up in a home where there was lots of love. There was always support from my parents. And then I married a wonderful, wonderful high school sweetheart, I guess you could say. We’ve tried to create a family where our kids know there’s always love, and we try to be optimistic about everything.

Stephen Hoyland
One thing I try to do, Sam, every day when I walk into this building is—people ask me how I’m doing, and I’m honest, and I’m usually excellent. And I’m excellent because my drive in could have been a wonderful sunrise, I had a great coffee, I listened to some great songs—I listened to The Lumineers this morning, man, that woke me up, it was fantastic. Just finding those little nuggets in life that really bring you contentment, because life is good. There’s a lot of great things. If you can find that and be that example for other people, you can spread that optimism and that energy.

Stephen Hoyland
It’s much easier to have a smile than a frown. And you know what? Hurt is contagious too, but people need energy, people need positivity. If I can come across as authentic—which is my goal—I want people to understand that there’s a lot of good things happening in life, and I try to find that every day.

Sam Demma
I think it also models the behavior for students. Like you said, it’s contagious, and especially as an adult or a teacher. I remember some of my teachers—I’d walk into the room and hear, “Good morning, how’s everyone doing?” Some kids were still waking up, but I’d reply, “Good morning, sir, how are you?” It really wakes you up.

Sam Demma
I’ve even had experiences in my own life where I was feeling upset or frustrated, and I walked onto a bus where the driver was singing music and cracking jokes. The way other people show up and the energy they carry has an impact on how I feel. I think it’s the same in the workplace or in school buildings. When you think of people who have had a big impact on you, who comes to mind? I’m assuming your parents, it sounds like. But have you had any other mentors or role models who have really shaped the way you think about things? When you think about your own journey, who are the people whose names you can’t leave out?

Stephen Hoyland
I was really fortunate growing up in a small town, so I got to know a lot of people who made a difference in my life—neighbors who were like grandparents. But as time went by, I’ve had the privilege of working with some wonderful, wonderful teachers and other administrators—assistant principals who have given me great inspiration and affirmation around the work we were doing together.

Stephen Hoyland
For me, it’s about being part of a team and surrounding yourself with people who challenge you, inspire you, and feed you with their energy and great ideas. Right now, I’m on a team that fills my bucket every day, brings me energy, and challenges me to think and do better. So to answer your question, it’s surrounding yourself with people who lift you up and are open to great suggestions—while you’re also open to theirs—and you work collaboratively. And honestly, my kids. I have three kids, and they give me a lot of inspiration, great ideas, and they inspire me to do better.

Sam Demma
One of the things my godfather told me while golfing was this: “You have to create an environment that encourages mistakes but doesn’t tolerate not learning from them.” So when a mistake is made, it’s like, “Congratulations, let’s talk about this,” and then you have an open conversation.

Sam Demma
In your own career, are there any quote-unquote “mistakes” or learning lessons that have been instrumental for you—aside from the fact that you cheer for the wrong hockey team? Is there anything else that sticks out?

Stephen Hoyland
You know, yeah, over my career, I’ve definitely made some mistakes. I’m just trying to pinpoint something… Well, you know what? It kind of ties to mistakes and challenges. I wanted to become bilingual, so I went to the Faculté Saint-Jean. After a year, I realized, “I can’t do this. I just cannot. I don’t have what it takes.” And my dad said, “Well, you know what, son? If it’s something you can’t do, then look at other options.”

Stephen Hoyland
So what I did was I applied to another faculty that was all in English. At that time, I thought it was a great idea. I got accepted and was ready to leave the Faculté Saint-Jean. But something pivotal happened. I went to Quebec for a summer. I went to university there for three months, and during that time, I realized, “I can do this. I do have what it takes.”

Stephen Hoyland
During that summer, I was writing letters back to the university, saying, “Please, I don’t want to leave. I want to stay. This is where I want to be.” Thankfully, I was able to stay. At the time, I thought it was too much, but stepping back and reflecting helped me realize I could do it. Sometimes you need to put things in perspective and understand you’re not alone—there are people who will help you. Part of it is believing in yourself.

Stephen Hoyland
What happened, Sam, is I actually took an extra year to get my first degree. That’s because it was all in French, and I look back at that now—it was probably the best thing I ever did.

Sam Demma
Year well spent.

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, it sure was.

Sam Demma
Your role now is having such a great impact on so many—you’re supporting staff, whole school buildings, and students and their families. What is your leadership style? How do you believe you effectively lead other people?

Stephen Hoyland
You know, I really believe, Sam, that it’s about the team. I believe I need to be in contact with administrators, principals, and assistant principals. I need to be talking with teachers. For me, it’s about getting their voice and weighing their ideas with my own thoughts. I want to consider what I think is best versus what’s practical.

Stephen Hoyland
For me, my approach is transparency. To be transparent, I need to listen and collaborate with those people who are walking the walk and learning every day. Being very collaborative is the basis of how I lead.

Sam Demma
Outside of the work you do with the school board, what do you do personally to ensure your own cup is full so you’re showing up laughing, smiling, and supporting others?

Stephen Hoyland
One thing my wife and I truly love to do is hiking. We live on the prairies, but we have beautiful access to land where we can hike. On those hikes, we’ll see elk, deer, and all sorts of birds and animals. That really grounds me—it brings me peace and contentment.

Stephen Hoyland
Spending time with my family is also huge. My kids live in Edmonton and Calgary, so we visit them as much as possible. That brings a sense of connection and fulfillment. Talking a lot with my wife is important too—having someone who understands life and listens to you makes a big difference.

Stephen Hoyland
And one more thing, Sam—I’ve been trying meditation. I’ve been doing it for about two months now, and I’m a huge fan of it.

Sam Demma
Ah, that’s awesome, man. I’m so glad it’s going well.

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, it’s great.

Sam Demma
I’ve had good experiences myself, and when things feel more challenging, I notice I haven’t meditated in a while. Maybe there’s a correlation.

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, I totally get that. Meditation is very peaceful—it’s kind of like a reboot.

Sam Demma
Yeah, it helps you. One of my friends said meditation is not about calming your mind, it’s about losing your mind. Recognizing that some of your thoughts aren’t even yours, and you can let them pass by.

Stephen Hoyland
Yeah, absolutely.

Sam Demma
This whole conversation felt like a nice reset or reboot for me. I appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas, philosophies, and stories. I hope we have another chance to cross paths soon. And when we do, hopefully, there won’t be any bears or elk around—I don’t care much for those things. But keep up the great work, my friend. It’s a pleasure to chat.

Stephen Hoyland
Thanks so much, Sam, and thanks for making a difference in so many lives.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Stephen Hoyland

December 10, 2024 by Sam Demma Battle School Division Education Educator Student Leadership Student Success 0

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

About Michelle Gauthier

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

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

Connect with Michelle Gauthier: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Frank Ryan Catholic Intermediate School

Ottawa Catholic School Board

The Transcript

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

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

Michelle Gauthier
All right.

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

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

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

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

Oh, wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I was like, “Yes.”

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

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

And I said, “Sure.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And she said, “Too tired.”

Michelle Gauthier
And everybody just laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

Michelle Gauthier
My pleasure.

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

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

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

And I just said, “I gotta get out.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Michelle Gauthier

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

Martina Fasano – Principal at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School

About Martina Fasano

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

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

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

Connect with Martina Fasano: Email | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School

Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Elementary School

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Our Lady Queen of the World Catholic Academy

St. Brother Andre Catholic High School

St. Elizabeth Catholic High School

Ontario History and Social Science Teacher’s Association

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma, and today we are joined by my good friend, Martina Fasano. Martina and I met just over a year ago now. She began her teaching career just over 20 years ago, and she is now a phenomenal principal of a school in the York Catholic District School Board. I’m going to allow her to introduce herself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Martina Fasano

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

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

About Sylvain Bastien

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

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

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

Connect with Sylvain Bastien: Email

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Resources Mentioned

École Secondaire Catholique Renaissance

SHSM Program

The Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sylvain Bastien
Thank you very much, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sylvain Bastien

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

Danielle Desjardins – Principal at St. Thomas of Villanova High School

About Danielle Desjardins

Dr. Danielle Desjardins is the Principal at St. Thomas of Villanova High School and a sessional instructor at The University of Windsor. Throughout her 26 years in education, she has explored many roles including high school teacher, instructional coach, vice principal, and safe and equitable schools principal.

Dr. Desjardins’ research and professional passions are rooted in critical, emancipatory theory and practices. She has dedicated much time and interest in working with underrepresented communities in challenging policies and practices that pose barriers. Her current research interest is in policies and practices that impact the educational trajectories of newcomer students with interrupted or limited formal education. She is currently a member of Windsor Pride Board of Directors and has dedicated much time and interest in advocating for 2SLGBTQI+ needs and education in secondary schools.

Connect with Danielle Desjardins: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Thomas of Villanova High School

The University of Windsor

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma, and today, we are joined by a very special guest, Danielle Desjardins. Danielle is the principal of Saint Thomas of Villanova High School in Windsor, Ontario, and she’s a friend of mine. She is trailblazing the way. She never stops educating herself and learning. She loves school so much that she recently finished some more education. Danielle, why don’t you take a moment to introduce yourself?

Danielle Desjardins
Hi, Sam. Thanks for having me here. I’m an administrator, currently a high school principal. I was born in 1997 and worked as an English teacher, English second language, teaching multilingual learners, department head, and a consultant for differentiated instruction. Then I became a principal of Safe Schools and Equity, and later a vice principal and principal. For the past six years, I finished a PhD, which was on my bucket list. And I’m currently also an instructor at the University of Windsor.

Sam Demma
What keeps you driven and moving forward and pursuing more and learning more?

Danielle Desjardins
I think I’m just an inquiry-based approach. When you work with so many different people from all different backgrounds and lived experiences, and you see youth who are full of hope and often facing barriers, I’m a problem solver. I want to learn more about the nature of those barriers. I want to hear more stories. I want to explore maybe new ways of thinking or approaching and working with community to find solutions. So, I’m just an inquisitive person, I suppose.

Sam Demma
What questions are you asking yourself right now in regards to young people and supporting them?

Danielle Desjardins
Yeah, I think I’ve always been a critical analyst or critical theorist, and so I’m very interested in populations that are historically disadvantaged and kind of emancipatory frameworks. We have the responsibility as educators to be problem solvers and creative thinkers, aligning with 21st-century learning that we’re espousing for these youth. So, collaborating, listening to stories, checking our own biases, and challenging ourselves to imagine walking in someone else’s shoes. You spoke about this before, Sam, for sure.

And also to work with community members who might have a better understanding through their own lived experiences to guide us through that ally process. I’ve done a lot of work. For instance, I’ve been on the board of directors of Windsor Pride, supporting 2SLGBTQI+ youth facing barriers in educational systems.

Sam Demma
Do you think about all these questions when you leave the school building? Is it like a non-stop thing that runs through your head?

Danielle Desjardins
Yes, I do. I think about it and try to expose myself to others who have those same passions and curiosities. That’s why I love teaching at night, joining in book talks, or reading scholarly journals to see what the latest research is. It’s a global academic conversation. What are people doing in other countries and places in the world? I was just speaking with a leader from Mexico who ran a school based on SEL (social-emotional learning). The school’s core curriculum was SEL, and everything else was layered out from there. That makes sense to me because what we want is someone who can look at a problem with a knowledge foundation and say, “No problem is too big.” It’s about believing you can solve it and using resources in a world that’s becoming even smaller and more accessible.

Sam Demma
I asked if you think about it outside the school building because your passion is so obvious. You can hear it, you can feel it through the podcast. When you’re walking through the school hallways of Villanova and talking to students or engaging with teachers, what are some of the challenges they tell you they’re currently experiencing or facing?

Danielle Desjardins
I often hear from students that they struggle to balance the expectations placed upon them from various sources. They internalize these expectations and adopt them as their own, which makes them lose sight of what they truly want. Sam, I know you’ve expressed this to our students before. That’s why you’re celebrated—you’re right on. Our students are saying things, and we’re focusing this year on managing stress and strategies. We’ve created a committee to identify and name emotions beyond “I feel sad” or “I feel happy.” We’re identifying the sources of stress and implementing quick strategies in all our classes. It might be meditation, breathing exercises, square breathing, or visualizing. We’re doing this in math, science, history—it’s not curriculum-specific.

Danielle Desjardins
We’ve also realized that some students face external pressures, like having to contribute to family income or excel at extracurriculars to secure scholarships. Social media also weighs heavily on them. They wonder, “Do I look the right way? How do people perceive me?”

Sam Demma
A teacher recently shared a line with me that stuck: “Teachers aren’t just supposed to teach the curriculum; they’re supposed to teach character.” It’s hard to figure out how to help young people solve these challenges. How do we teach empathy or help them unpack the burdens they carry in their metaphorical backpacks? What are some initiatives at Villanova that you’re excited about and anticipating cool results from?

Danielle Desjardins
Every school does fundraisers and gives back to the community, but what makes it enriching is ensuring inclusivity. We run a fantastic Best Buddies program to ensure all students are included in school activities. Recently, we noticed tension in the junior class. To address this, we called upon all grades to facilitate a fun day, ensuring representation from art-focused students, STEM-focused students, music, and tech. We also have initiatives that combine different departments, like building structures for charity events. For example, we’re planning a “Canstruction” event at the local mall. It requires engineering, artistry, and collaboration among robotics teams, tech, and art students. This breaks down silos, allowing students to explore new areas and appreciate diversity. We also started a course this year on positive media communication. Students promote their peers through social media and other mediums, ensuring no voices are left out. It’s been exciting to see how this course unfolds.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. There’s so much happening at Villanova this year. Thank you for sharing some of the initiatives and your thoughts on wellness. You’ve mentioned a lot about students, but educators’ well-being is equally important. What do you do to make sure your cup is full so you can show up for others?

Danielle Desjardins
Great question, Sam. I think educators often neglect themselves. As a leader, I prioritize creating opportunities and safe spaces for teachers to express their needs. I ensure they feel valued and listened to, even if an idea doesn’t seem feasible at first. I challenge myself to say, “I don’t know that it won’t work.” Flexibility and recognizing when someone’s having a tough day go a long way. Sometimes, it’s as simple as our demeanor and openness. We also do fun activities, like participating in student events. For example, during Fun Day, staff joined students on the slip-and-slide. It’s about building community through shared experiences. Personally, I find wellness in volunteering and spending time with students outside formal settings. For example, last weekend, I volunteered at a community event with students, which left me feeling great. I also run and model the importance of balance for students, joining them on cross-country runs or simply being visible and approachable.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. I think it’s so important for students to see teachers as human beings—laughing, playing, and participating alongside them. It builds a community that can’t be replicated. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights, Danielle. From the bottom of my heart, I hope this academic year is filled with impactful moments and meaningful experiences.

Danielle Desjardins
Right back at you, Sam. Thank you for this opportunity. I’m humbled to participate, and our students still talk about your presentations. We’ll definitely get you back.

Sam Demma
Thank you so much, my friend.

Danielle Desjardins
Take care.

Sam Demma
Take care. See you soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Danielle Desjardins

November 26, 2024 by Sam Demma Education Education Consultant Educator Principals School Counsellor Student Leadership Student Success 0

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

About Sheena Tupper

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

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

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

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

Connect with Sheena Tupper: Instagram | Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Cenovus Energy

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host Sam Demma. And today I’m joined by my good friend, Sheena Tupper. Sheena has been a dedicated member of the Cenovus team since 2010. We met last year and we’ve stayed in touch. She knows about all the little coffee shops in some rural parts in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sheena Tupper
Thanks so much, Sam!

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sheena Tupper

November 21, 2024 by Sam Demma Administrative Support Mental Health 0

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

About Brian Robson

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

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

Connect with Brian Robson: Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Ontario Tech Student Union (OTSU)

Ontario Tech University

Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)

Ted Rogers School of Management

The Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Brian Robson

November 19, 2024 by Sam Demma Education School Administration Student Leadership Student Success 0

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