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Student Success

Sarah Daintrey – Teacher, Activities Advisor, Bear Wrestler and Service Education Advocate

Sarah Daintrey – Teacher, Activities Advisor, Bear Wrestler and Service Education Advocate
About Sarah Daintrey

Sarah Daintrey (@sdaintrey) has been teaching and doing student activities for 15 years at Clayton Heights Secondary in Surrey, British Columbia.

She is extremely passionate about service education whether that be inside the classroom or in extracurriculars. The time to do something good is always now. Starting Project Equal, her students have felt empowered by giving back and serving others, leaving a positive impact on the local and global community.

Connect with Sarah: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Clayton Heights Secondary

Project Equal

Cloverdale Community Kitchen

Surrey Urban Mission

United Way British Columbia

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. I’m your show host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Before we get into today’s awesome interview with another amazing educator, I have something of value that I wanna share. If you’ve ever struggled with teaching your students virtually, if you’ve ever struggled with getting them to turn their cameras on, I have have assembled all the information that I’ve learned and developed over the past six months of presenting to students virtually I’ve spoken at over 50 events since COVID hit back in March and I’ve taken my best tips, my gear list, and any special ninja tricks and assembled it all into a free five video mini course can go and get access to it right now www.highperformingeducator.com. And if you do pick it up, you will also get added to a private group of educators who tune into this show. People who have been interviewed on this show and you’ll have access to opportunities to network and meet like-minded individuals during this tough time.


Sam Demma (00:59):
So if that sounds like it might be helpful, go to www.highperformingeducator.com, grab the free course and get involved in the high performing educators. Network enough for me and onto the show. Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam demo. I am super excited to you. Today’s guest. Her name is Sarah, and she has been teaching and doing student activities for 15 years at Clayton Heights Secondary school in Surrey, BC. And I’m sure you’ll realize this very quickly, but she is extremely passionate about service, education, service leadership, whether that be inside the classroom or an extracurricular activities. And she wholeheartedly believes that time to do something good is always right now. You’ll be super surprised when you hear about the interesting and awesome club that she started, I believe 15 or 14 years ago at her school that is now making a huge impact on her community and the world at large. I can’t wait to see you on the other side of this interview. Enjoy this take notes and here’s Sarah Daintrey. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator Podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show, another ambassador for serving leadership and service work. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about why your, about the work you do in education today.


Sarah Daintrey (02:27):
Hi, I’m Sarah. So thank you very much for having me. I’m really excited to be here. So I am very, very passionate about service education and connecting service to curriculum and in extracurriculars as well as as in school. So I’m really, really passionate about that kind of stuff. I really want to create kids that graduate from high school that I’m not afraid to live next door to. I want them to be good neighbors that will help their neighbors in with their groceries. If they need to or go shovel their driveway. If it snows, I want them to be not afraid to be a part of a community. And I feel like service education is the pathway to that.


Sam Demma (03:08):
What inspired you to teach students about service work? I’m sure there was a reason why you got so involved with service work and now you preach it to all the students you teach. I’m curious about the, the story behind that.


Sarah Daintrey (03:21):
Okay, well that, one’s a big one, Sam, so when I was first actually, okay, so rewind to be being a child. My dad was really very diligent about making us good people. And so he, as weird as the sounds, he took Christmas from us when I was 12, he said, we will not have Christmases in this house anymore. We will donate all of the money we would’ve spent on you, kids to your charity and you get to pick this here, Sarah. Okay. and so it’s a, it was a, one of those things. It was just a life lesson like that. We, we surround ourself with all this stuff, but this stuff doesn’t really make, make us happy and giving to others can really make us happy. And so like my charity this year, I think that year, I think when I was 12, I gave a TV to a homeless shelter and I was like super jazzed about it.


Sarah Daintrey (04:09):
I think the next year my brother gave a couch to a family center. Like it was like, it was some cool stuff. So I can really thank my parents really for getting me into this. But if you really wanna go why I got into the deep, deep dive of the surface education. So when I was first started teaching, I was 22. So just a little bit older than you when you I was a young cat and I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about maybe four months after starting teaching. So I had double vision. And so I, it just took me into this crazy journey of like, what am I doing with my life? And I really poured myself deeper into service education at that point. Also like at a weird vote a year later, exactly. After I got diagnosed, my husband who was not my husband at the time was my live-in boyfriend got diagnosed with a muscle disease.


Sarah Daintrey (05:07):
And he has really rare form muscular dystrophy. He spent eight months in the hospital and I really, at that point I was teaching and I didn’t tell anybody what was really going on. I was I was teaching at my school that I’m at now and, and I was teaching from eight till three. And then I was at the hospital from three 30, till nine 30, every single day. But that was when the service club that I run at my school started, it was called Project Equal and it still is called that. And I really poured myself into that because if you got something that is bothering you, how helping others is a pathway out of that. And so I really grinded and, and put that club in. I put a lot of energy in my time into that club while I was at school. And it’s become a fairly successful thing after that. So it was one of those things. It was a dark time, but Project Equal was really, really one of those things that kind of got me through it.


Sam Demma (06:06):
People often think that they will give once they have, or they will be of service once they’re successful and have time, I think it’s and the reverse and you give, and the more you give the better you personally feel and the better others feel. Can you dispel that myth? And what are your thoughts around that idea that you have to wait till you graduate or wait till you have enough money or wait till you have more time?


Sarah Daintrey (06:33):
No. Now is always the time now is always like grasp the moment while you have it and help those while you can, because you never know what’s coming around the corner they’re pro tomorrow is promised to no one. So help somebody today.


Sam Demma (06:47):
I love that right now. What do you think are the benefits personally and selflessly for the people around you of getting involved in service work?


Sarah Daintrey (06:56):
Oh, I, I mean, there’s so many benefits I’ve seen. Okay. Like from like the kids who have been involved in my, in the program, in the service program that I run at school, I got one who’s working for the UN United Nations right now. And, and she’s in Kenya helping. Yeah, I know. And I’m not taking credit for that, but like who, that would nice to have like a little piece of that, right?


Sam Demma (07:21):
Spark the fire, you sparked the light.


Sarah Daintrey (07:24):
I got, I got a, the girl who started Project Equal, she’s running the Fraser Health Emergency Management right now. Wow. So she’s running COVID in our profits, its yeah, like there there’s like some functional skills that is learned and from not only like planning meetings and executing events, but it’s also like from like reaching out and giving to others, it’s unbelievable to see what, what the kids have been able to do. It’s it’s great. I got a lawyer, an environmental lawyer who came through our program who, when I coached him in cross country, he would never come back from a run without like a piece of garbage. And I’m like, dude, you could probably run a little faster. He’s like, yeah, but this garbage I’m like right. And so good.


Sam Demma (08:07):
That’s awesome. I love that. And, and you’re speaking to the benefits a student would get and what’s awesome is that service is a win-win win scenario. I like to say this student or the person doing it benefits, the whole world is a whole benefits and the person you’re doing it for also benefits and the more we can engage in win-win win activities, especially during a time like COVID where everyone’s a little bit upset or down the better everyone humanity as a whole will feel. Tell me more about Project Equal. So what is it, what does it look like? Like what do you do with these students? When do you meet, how do you meet? Tell me more, tell me all about it.


Sarah Daintrey (08:46):
Typically I, we meet on Mondays at lunch at school and it is our biggest club at school. So I like to okay. Say that I’m also a fun squelcher and sometimes in my nature. So I, if a kid comes to me and they say, oh, I wanna start a senior citizens club or I wanna start a dog club where we only help dogs. And I’m like, well, Project Equal helps all of those things, bring your idea to project equal and then we’re gonna, we’re gonna help you out there. And the, and the collective group comes together for project equal and we help all of these different causes instead of having 25 different clubs that are all reaching for the same cookie Sam. Like, do you get what I mean? Like if everyone’s hand is reaching into the jar for a cookie, ain’t nobody gonna get cookie.


Sarah Daintrey (09:35):
I would rather ask one at a time, reach in and then you can have your cookie this month and we’re gonna support you. So I think that that is the magic of Project Equal. Is that the collective good? And that it is not about who’s the president of this club. I don’t know if you, you probably have experienced this in your, or kind of foray into student leadership is that there are resume checkbox, people who say like I started my own club. Well, what did you do within that club? Equals is like an all encompassing service thing that if, if you wanna get involved in service, you can just come and join us and present your idea. So I don’t, I, I feel like it’s a, it’s more about the collective good.


Sam Demma (10:25):
I think it’s awesome because I also found that in school. Yeah, you’re right. Sometimes you start a club just for the sake of writing it on your resume for university applications or for a future job. I never got involved in anything at school, which I highly regret due to my own soccer passions. But if I could go back starting something like project equal at my school, sounds like a phenomenal idea. If an educator is listening and thinks, this is such a great idea, we don’t have a service club at our school. I would love to amalgamate all these clubs that are working towards awesome goals. What advice would you give them to get started with something like this?


Sarah Daintrey (11:02):
Sit down with the stakeholders and start to talk about bringing people together. Now, when I’ve, I’ve talked to many schools about this, Sam I’ve gone and brought this idea to the schools because sometimes as an educator, you feel like it’s yours. Hmm. Right. That’s my club. I run that. It’s mine project. Equals is not mine. Project Equal is the students club. And it’s for people who really wanna make a difference. So I don’t really feel like I own it even though it’s, it’s been a part of my life for 14 years now. Right. So, but it’s, it’s not, I don’t own it. It’s more of it, so like sometimes you get like a teacher and they feel like they, they, this is my club and these are my kids and this is what we do together. It’s like, well, that’s great and everything, but gotta put your ego aside and let’s talk about what is the collective good. Now sometimes it’s worked at schools like I’ve had a few people start a collective service club and it is working no like no problem, but sometimes egos get in the way and people want to have their hope for homeless or the pause for the cause. Or you, you, you know, you could name it any, anything, or BR or cancer awareness or like relay for life club, all of those kinds of things. But wouldn’t it be great if we could all come together and support each other?


Sam Demma (12:27):
Tell me how many students are involved is, is like you, you said it’s the biggest club in school and now you’ve peaked my care. How big is big?


Sarah Daintrey (12:35):
Well right now it’s hard. Okay. We can’t meet because of cohorts, we can’t get together, but on a regular, like if we’re in regular school, there’s between 150 to 200 kids that come and show up and do this stuff. Wow. And it’s not a pressure thing, Sam, like you come to equal one week and you’re like, yeah, this is awesome. Well, I had a lunch date next week. Okay. Well then you get, then you’re outta here. And we don’t have a president of project equal. Okay. We run through executive council. So if you wanna run our club, you come before school to my classroom on Mondays and we meet and we plan out the meetings together. What’s it gonna look like? What do we want to accomplish? And if you want a cause supported, you bring it to executive council and they talk about it together. Hmm. And they run the meetings together. It’s fantastic. I mean, sometimes this is a train wreck, but as you’re watching all students do what they do. But it mostly is very, very good.


Sam Demma (13:34):
No, that’s awesome. You, you reminded me like what we do with PickWaste. We don’t have a non-negotiable schedule and all students have to come. We have an email list to volunteers. They all get an email on Thursday saying, Hey, this is where we’re going on. Saturday. Feel free to come. If not, we’ll still part friends, you know? And sometimes someone shows up and then they don’t show up for another formal. We don’t bug them. It’s just drop in. If you’d like to give back today, you, you have the opportunity to do so. And I think that model is so it’s so great because there’s no pressure. And it it’s, there’s no one pushing you to do it. You just, you show up because you want to get involved. Which is awesome. How do you, how do you inspire a student to build that inner drive? To want to give back so much so that no one needs to push them, but they’re jumping at the opportunity to do so.


Sarah Daintrey (14:25):
So I mean, I, I think my, okay, okay. This is weird because I am like extremely shy and a totally humble person. But I think the fact that I’m willing to dive in. Mm I’m, I’m going to walk with them. I’m going to hand out the care packages with them. I’m going to do the things with them. I’m gonna be of like the I’m gonna dig the hole with them. I’m gonna be in the garden, planting the plants with them. I think that that is speaks to the, the fact that kids wanna get involved. Like one of my I’m at home this year, Sam. So because I have Ms. I don’t have an immune system. So I’m at home this year. I’m teaching kids online. I’m actually teaching socials and English right now, which is thrilling and great.


Sarah Daintrey (15:12):
Shout out to my socials and English kids. So I, but I’m at home this year. So it’s been a big lesson for me. I’m not at the school and it’s been very difficult, but my teaching partner in crime, she gave me a little piece of paper that I keep at my desk. And it says, what you lack in talent can be made up with this and giving a hundred percent all of the time. Mm. And I look at it every single day because it reminds me that I’m willing to grind and really get in there with kids. I just gotta wait for my opportunity to be able to do so.


Sam Demma (15:46):
I love that when I was in high school and I had my knee injuries, I was lucky enough to have a educator just like you, who helped me redefine what my self worth was attached to. I thought growing up that to be worth something, I had to be an incredible athlete because everyone around me praised me when I played good soccer. And when I lost the ability to play sports, I felt like I was absolutely worthless. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. And the reality is is that every student, whether they’re facing a soccer injury or not all attach their self worth to something, and it was Mike loud who stopped me and he said something very similar to what’s on that paper. He said, your self worth is attached to two things. Two decisions that you can make every day, the first being to show up and give a hundred percent of your effort so that when the day’s over and you look in the mirror, you can say, I’m proud of myself, despite the result, whatever happened happened.


Sam Demma (16:35):
But I gave a hundred percent of my effort. And the second decision was to be of service to others. And he actually used to reference Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali had a quote and he used to say you know, your rent here on earth, the rent that you pay, you pay it by service to others. And Mike loves that quote. And I love that quote. And I think it’s just so important for students to remember that they’re not their skills, talents, and abilities. They are their effort and their decision to give back to others. And I think that’s such an empowering message on the topic of giving back. What are some of the projects over the past 14 years that have been started within and project equal?


Sarah Daintrey (17:15):
Well, there’s some, some cool stuff. I mean, we did start out with like the typical raise money for free the children and buy schools in international communities. And we’ve been on trips with them as well. We kind of have distanced ourselves a little bit from that since the waters got a little bit muddy a couple years ago. So there, as with all things, Sam, things are both good and bad and you gotta take the good and then minimize the bad. So yeah, I, but this year alone I’m, I’m at home, but I’m still meddling as much as I possibly can. Nice. So we’re doing an art project with my senior art teacher. She’s created a 36 pieces of art that are going to the Brookside Lodge, which is our local seniors home that we usually have for Christmas dinner at our school.


Sarah Daintrey (18:09):
They come and we serve them a Turkey meal at our school. But they can’t come obviously because of COVID and we dropped off 36 pieces of art for them to have an art installation with pictures of the kids who created the art and why they created the art on the back to build a connection between those two people. That was a cool one that we were doing nice. What’s one of the, I really, I mean, we serve at local shelters quite often. So the Surrey Urban Mission or the Clovadoke Community Kitchen, we’re there three to four times a year, obviously not right now, but we’re itching to get back there. I’m trying to think of some cool things. There’s just been so many, I mean, and then the garbage cleanup we do invasive plant species removal. Those kinds- I got a environmental as mark likes to refer to me as a Birkenstock green, green thumb person, but that’s fine.


Sarah Daintrey (19:04):
I’m, I’ll take that as a compliment. yeah, so I, I, we do lots of environmental stuff. And, and cleanups, we ran beach cleanups as well. I took my biology, 11 kids on a field trip to go paddle boarding, but then the first part of the morning was all beach cleanup. Nice. So they had to clean up the intertitles zone, which is what you learn about in biology 11. Yeah. I mean, it’s really just integrated into my life. If I’m teaching you a course, you do service. If I am working with you in a club, you do, you do service . If you’re in my leadership class, you do service . So I don’t like the word volunteer hours anymore. Yeah. Sam, I don’t like it. I don’t know why I have an avert the word, but I prefer service.


Sam Demma (19:53):
Yeah, no, I’m I’m with you. I feel like volunteering is something that you’re forced to do. I think service is something you choose to do. Like, I think that’s, that might be the differentiation between the two, because when I hear the word volunteer, I, as a student associated with my principal, handing me a blue book and you need this to graduate, whereas it should be, this is something you should be doing for the rest of your life. Here’s a perfect time to start. So yeah, I think I agree with you on that one. And on that note, what do you think is the difference between the word leader and the word servant leader, if you had to define the two?


Sarah Daintrey (20:31):
Well, okay. I also run student council at my school, which is a big part of our school culture. Or I’m one of the teacher sponsors anyways. I don’t think I run it, the kids run it. But those leaders are more for getting people involved and like, and showing them the way to get involved at our school. Whereas servant leaders are more about I guess what I said before is diving in with people and working alongside people to create a, a better world and a change in their community. I think that that’s more a, what servant leadership is.


Sam Demma (21:09):
Love that. And I know that your school has partnered with large non non-national organizations. And you guys have brought in big partners. Has that been a difficult process or would you say it was surprisingly easy? I’m curious to know.


Sarah Daintrey (21:22):
Okay. So this was like, right. Top more sort of, was it preparation me talk opportunity. That’s like, OK. Yeah, that’s it. So these people came to our school because somebody was on a Facebook group ragging on how terrible our teens are in our area. So the United Way came to our school. And my principal said, well, I don’t, you should talk to our leadership teacher. You should talk to she’s one of our advisors. So they came and they sat and talked to me and she’s like, have you seen this Facebook group? I’m like, no. And she’s like, well, do you know what they’re saying? I’m like, no, she’s like, you wanna know? No, I don’t. And then I blurted out what we had just done this year. I’m like, we just had seniors. He, we had 80 seniors here. We served them a Turkey dinner.


Sarah Daintrey (22:11):
Did you guys know about that? No. I’m like, well, I like don’t judge our school about what some, sorry. Texting Susan or whatever her or him texting Tim does behind a computer screen. Yep. Okay. Not judge our school on that. And I have a really hard time shouting from the rooftops, all of the amazing things that our school does, because I don’t feel like that should be the reward. The reward should be the act itself. Mm-Hmm . So I have a really hard time with the celebration walls and the Instagram posts of all of the amazing things we do. I have a difficult time with that because it is not about that for me, it’s about the act itself. And so I, I, I do I’m right now. I’m doing my level two certification for CSLA and that’s the part I’m really struggling with is I’m know that we need to do that in our school. That’s something we need to do better is celebrate the things that we’re doing. But I, I, I, so I don’t know why it feels like I’m like getting the act gets tainted by the it’s not bragging, it’s celebrating, but it, I don’t I’m I struggle with that part of things.


Sam Demma (23:30):
There’s a, a cool distinction. There’s a content creator named Gary Vee and he’s a marketer and he’s been creating videos like every other day, every day for the past, like four years, he has a huge marketing company. And he said something that really resonated with me that might help shift your perspective a little bit. He says, don’t create content, promoting yourself, just document the journey. And that for me was a cool distinction, cuz you don’t have to stand and say, look how great I am. You could just pick up a camera and be like, here’s what we’re doing today. And just post a short little video. But on that note you’re not alone. I feel the same way that you do so much so that I took a year off social media. I’m about six months in I used to post secondary school I went to on the stage saying, rah, rah, I’m speaking at a school.


Sam Demma (24:14):
And then I turned 21 and I sat down with myself and had an honest reflection and realized this isn’t helping anybody. I feel like an idiot doing this all the time. I’m probably gonna stop. And so I just stopped cold Turkey. And I haven’t posted on Instagram since. And I think for me, it’s helping dismantle like a little bit of my own personal ego and I’m still a young guy. And I think it’s important that we all ask ourselves. What’s the real reason behind why we’re posting something. And if the, if the reason is genuine and authentic and then I think it’s okay, but you have to be really, you have to be really clear and careful on what you put out and the reason behind why you put it out. So all that to say you’re not alone. I think, I think I, I kind of feel the same way sometimes too. And it feels weird when you do post it. So I will wait until the day comes, when someone figures out how to promote events and things that are happening without sounding selfish, self centered I’m with you on that.


Sarah Daintrey (25:08):
My bullying day today was I was two teachers from last year doing something goofy in pink. And I said, the pink is the first step, but the intentional kindness every single day is the hard work. Yeah. Let’s get there. Yeah. I agree. Actually, I think this is getting lost. Like this pink shirt is getting lost in the shuffle and the intentional kindness is where we need to get back to. Yeah. Yeah. Like it’s not about the dress up. It’s about the intentional kindness. Yeah. And not the confetti kindness, not the like sprinkles kindness. It it’s the deep, intentional kindness. Like my classes today, there’s a young girl in mission. I got this wonderful idea for my teaching partner at school. There’s a young girl in mission who was beaten up and bullied in January for being a transgender youth. Wow. And she was just like fully attacked. My kids today are writing her letters. Wow. Of encouragement. Nice. Because that’s deep, intentional kindness. I, I had them watch or read an article on her and we’re gonna reach out to her because I think it’s that that’s deep and intentional on their part and, and something that can make them feel powerful and good.


Sam Demma (26:25):
Mm-Hmm no, I agree so much. Like I, I couldn’t agree more. And I think it’s also important to know that sometimes it is the harder decision. Sometimes we convince ourselves that it’s easier to pass someone on the street and not do anything about it or to see a post like that and just keep scrolling on your feed. But you know, when you do take those actions, those deep, intentional acts of kindness, it has a positive impact on everyone else. That’s involved in the situation and you also feel great. Like, you know, whether you post about it or not, you selfishly feel good. That’s a cool thing about philanthropy is that everyone wins. You feel good? Other people feel good, so why not get involved? I think it’s so cool.


Sarah Daintrey (27:05):
That, yeah. I, people always say like, oh, there’s no unselfish act. That’s true. because if you do something good for somebody else, you intent, you feel good. And it is the only drug I want to be addicted to. Yeah. It is the only survey other people is the only drug I wanna be addicted to. And once you, I, I give people a taste of it. Like for example, in my math 10 class I usually teach math 10. Aw. Which is for kids who hate school or suck at math or even worse are the combination of both. And they have been told, and they’ve been told they’re not good at school and they can’t do it. I, you work with the United way and I bring them in and we do a project where we feed as many people as we can, for $1,500, they gotta do budgeting.


Sarah Daintrey (27:57):
They gotta do skill. Like they have some hard skills they gotta do with this. And then we go and we feed people on the downtown east side with help from save on meets. It’s a company on the downtown east side of Vancouver. Okay. These are kids who don’t feel like they can do anything. I’ve had four or five kids turn around from that class. And then they join leadership the next year. Or they come out to project equal and they come and they do stuff. Or I have kids who wanna be my peer tutor the next year. So they come on that field trip and feel good about themselves. So it’s not just for the leaders, it’s for everybody.


Sam Demma (28:32):
Mm. So true. And it’s the little things that matter most, the little acts of kindness. Right. I, I, I watched a movie the other day with Denzel Washington called the little things and he’s at a, he’s a hop and an investigator, and he’s trying to bust this criminal on some thing that he did. And, and multiple times in the film he stops and he looks at the camera and he says, it’s the little things that will get him caught. But I also think it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. Like writing someone, a handwritten note or smiling in the hallway or buying them a coffee. I also think that sometimes students get overwhelmed or teachers get overwhelmed with starting a club like this because they think that they have to go out and, and become the next Martin Luther king and change the world. And I think it’s 11 kids. Yeah. And I think it’s totally false. And I was gonna ask you, like, you know, what are some good benchmarks to think about in terms of project sizes and starting thing like this, for someone who’s listening to this whole conversation and is really interested in getting involved.


Sarah Daintrey (29:30):
OK. So I’m extremely competitive. OK. OK. mostly with myself. OK. Mostly I’m like kinda one up myself all of the time. Yeah. So I had a principal at the time who shall remain nameless because he is mostly good dad, but some people have some bad parts to them. He said, Margie equal is a stupid idea. It will never work and whatever else. Right. And he said, but go ahead. If you want to, and you can just do it with the grade 11th. So I had seven grade elevenths that first started out. And then, and by the end of the year, I think we grew to 11 kids. We bought our first school in Sierra Leon, because that was what the one of the kids wanted to do. And we served at the Sur remission. And we did some environmental projects where we like went and cleaned up garbage, all this kind of stuff.


Sarah Daintrey (30:14):
It was great year. I went and slapped the check on his desk personally. Yes, let’s go for, I love it. And then he went to the district and bragged about it, and then we became bigger after that, which was great. I guess I can thank him for speaking my praises, I guess. But I do think that small, intentional acts and small steps works. I mean, where equal even came from the word project equal young lady, it did some math, she had 236 people in her grade and she did some math if somebody gave up just $5 a month. So like going to Tim, Horton’s go to Starbucks even probably less than going to Starbucks. Now. if they gave up $5 a month, she could buy a school in a, in a third world country to that was her idea. And I said, that’s brilliant, but I want to help locally too, as much as we do globally. So as much as we do international, and then she, she agreed with me and literally we bought our first school within that year. And we helped we handed out meals at the Sur for a mission. We did care packages. Like there was so much we did, and that was just with her year. Wow. And then we expanded after that. It was incredible.


Sam Demma (31:27):
So the sky’s the limit and be creative.


Sarah Daintrey (31:28):
Basically truly is. And smart. Start small for goodness sake. Do not try to eat all the whole cake. Just take one bite.


Sam Demma (31:36):
Love it. That sounds great. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your passion about service work and servant leadership and project equal. I appreciate it. And if someone is listening right now, thinking this is an inspiring conversation and they’d love to chat with you further, what would be the best way for another educator to reach out and, and have a conversation?


Sarah Daintrey (31:55):
Oh, I’m super great at email. So if you wanna email me at daintrey_s@surreyschools.ca. You can email me. That would be super great. The rest of my forms of communication are very subpar. So email works. Haha!


Sam Demma (32:13):
That is perfect. Well, thank you so much for doing this. Again, I appreciate your time. Keep up the awesome work, whether or not you post about it will be secretly trying to figure out what you continue to do behind the seats. Thank you so much.


Sarah Daintrey (32:31):
I want you to come to my school. Okay. When this is over, I feel like you should come to my school. I, when I can go back there, we’ll meet. We’ll meet there. How does that sound?


Sam Demma (32:41):
Sounds ike a plan. I’ll get on a plane and I promise and we’ll make it happen.


Sarah Daintrey (32:44):
Yeah. You sound like you fit with my vibe. I like it.


Sam Demma (32:49):
No, I appreciate it, Sarah. Thank you again so much. And let’s stay in touch.


Sarah Daintrey (32:53):
All right. Sounds good. Thanks Sam.


Sam Demma (32:55):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sarah Daintrey

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

January 22, 2022 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Matteo Cianfrone – OCT, Physical Education Teacher and Soccer Coach

Matteo Cianfrone – OCT, Physical Education Teacher & Soccer Coach
About Matteo Cianfrone

Matteo Cianfrone is a second-year Health and Physical Education teacher at Bayview Glen. Being a Health and Physical Education teacher, as well as a high-performance soccer coach, Matteo explores the similarities and differences in both professions.

Along with sharing his motivations and journey through education, Matteo also shares a couple of fun and basic activities he uses to increase online engagement during these trying times.

Connect with Matteo: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bayview Glen Independent School

St. Michael’s College School

Ryerson University

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Tabata Workouts for Students

Active Scavenger Hunts for Students – Be Creative!

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. I’m your show host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Before we get into today’s awesome interview with another amazing educator, I have something of value that I wanna share. If you’ve ever struggled with teaching your students virtually, if you’ve ever struggled with getting them to turn their cameras on, I have have assembled all the information that I’ve learned and developed over the past six months of presenting to students virtually I’ve spoken at over 50 events since COVID hit back in March and I’ve taken my best tips, my gear list, and any special ninja tricks and assembled it all into a free five video mini course, you can go and get access to it right now www.highperformingeducator.com. And if you do pick it up, you will also get added to a private group of educators who tune into this show. People who have been interviewed on this show and you’ll have access to opportunities to network and meet like-minded individuals during this tough time.


Sam Demma (00:59):
So if that sounds like it might be helpful, go to www.highperformingeducator.com, grab the free course and get involved in the high performing educators. Network enough for me and onto the show. Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator. Today’s special guest is Matteo Cianfrone. Mateo is a second year health and physical education teacher at Bayview Glen Independent School. I had the pleasure of speaking to the school and we connected shortly thereafter being a health and physical education teacher, as well as a high performance soccer coach. Mateo explores the similarities and differences in both professions, especially in today’s interview, along with sharing his motivations and journey through our education. Mateo also shares a couple of fun and basic activities he uses to increase online engagement during these trying times. I hope you enjoy today’s episode and I will see you on the other side. Mateo, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and maybe how you got into the work you’re doing in education today.


Matteo Cianfrone (02:08):
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. So my name is Matteo Cianfrone. I’m currently teaching at Bayview Glen in the prep school there. So how did I get started? I mean I mean, there’s always those individuals that kind of inspire you. I, and that’s kind of how it all started. You always have either a coach either a teacher or just a colleague. It could be a pastor, it could be a priest, it could be absolutely anybody that influences you and you kind of look back on these people and you’re like, wow, what they’re doing is really, really awesome. And not only does it influence you, but it also kind of guides you towards maybe something that you want to do in the future. So I think that that’s kind of work all started and that’s where self subconsciously, like I kind of really thought what they were doing was awesome. And I just wanted to kind of go through that myself.


Sam Demma (02:54):
Tell me more like who were those people? I know there is some specific names or?


Matteo Cianfrone (02:59):
Specific names, specific names. So, so I mean, I’ve had I’ve had a couple coaches coaches like Dave Bottabo coaches like Soupa other ones. I have had some great teachers. I went to St. Mike’s, so I’ve had some fantastic teachers like like Niko Romano. I had an English teacher, Stokes, that the way that he talked and the way that he just would be able to relate with individuals, it was unbelievable. And something that I always kind of geared towards and always tried to move towards. Yeah. So if I were to say some names off the top of my head, those are definitely ones that stick out.


Sam Demma (03:40):
You started kind of answering my, my follow up question, what was gonna be like, what did they do that made them such an impactful individual in your life, you know, from the coaching perspective and the, the classroom perspective?


Matteo Cianfrone (03:51):
Yeah, so honestly, I think one thing that I’ve always tried strived to do in that each of them did in their own a way they relatability. I think that to almost sell someone a message, you have to be able to relate to them. You have to be able to kind of meet them on their level and just, and just maybe converse with them in the way that they’re gonna understand. And the way that, you know, they’ll be able to just get at what you’re saying and buy into what you’re saying as well. There’s that saying? That goes, you know, some, some students are never gonna remember what you, what you taught them, but they’ll always remember how you make them feel. So that’s something that I’ve always kind of gravitated towards and always held onto and always tried to put forth every single day.


Sam Demma (04:38):
Nah, I love that. And then what about on the soccer field? Because I know you have a whole idea about coaching and it’s that, you know, coaching is like teaching, but with shorts on and cleats shorts on. Yeah. yeah. How has that had an impact on how you teach or on your idea of mentorship in teaching?


Matteo Cianfrone (04:54):
Okay. Well, yeah, I mean the great thing about, yeah, like I, yeah, it’s, it’s teaching with shorts on it’s inspiring others. It’s it’s, you know, kind of scaffolding you’re learning and it’s just a whole, they go hand in hand really. But the one thing that I’ve really had to like hold onto is that before they are like, at least with my, my, my players or they are athletes before they’re anything, they are individuals much like my students before they are, you know, before they’re people that are trying to get grades before, they’re the ones that are writing the test they’re individuals. So making sure that you’re always tending towards what they, you know, what they need in their life and stuff like that. That’s, that’s something that always relate to and then when it can comes to kind of, but there are like dissimilarities as well, right?


Matteo Cianfrone (05:45):
Like with, with coaching, I have to gear my, you know, what, let’s start actually with the teaching side of it, with teaching being a phys. ed. teacher, I’m just happy to sometimes just get them moving. I’ll get everyone from the world class athlete to the kid who just simply just does not want to do anything. Mm. So I have to, I have to kind of put my teaching cap on, cuz I’ll have my coaching and my teaching cap. And then my teaching cap will kind of be geared more towards how are they, are they enjoying them to else? Are they moving? And that’s kind of like the extent of am I, am I teaching them properly? Because if I try to, with my soccer team, it’s a little bit more competitive. Kids are trying to get scholarships, trying to kids are trying to get professional looks and stuff like that.


Matteo Cianfrone (06:32):
So I kind of can’t take the same approach as, as teaching, because if I start trying to make everything execution based and performance based in my classroom, I’m gonna lose all of my kids. Whereas if I take the almost more nurturing standpoint with my players, they might not be pushed enough. So it’s kind of like, again, I’m just using two different hats. I kind of have to put two to different masks on every single touch. I time to touch a pitch to every single time I go into the classroom. Right. So there are similar similarities and there are differences.


Sam Demma (07:09):
Yea, no, I think that was a great explanation. And then through your own journey back when you were going through, you know, high school and university at what did you make the decision that you wanted to be a teacher like mm-hmm where did that all come from?


Matteo Cianfrone (07:24):
So it all kind of started. So I, I went, like I explained earlier, I went to St. Michael’s College School, all boys, Catholic school and Toronto. And that was fantastic, but every single year we would actually have, so in high school you have to do 40 hours of community service. I think everybody remembers those 40 hours. Yeah. But at St Mike’s, we actually had to do 20 hours for our high school tenure. So for grade nine, you would have to do 20 hours for grade 10. You would have to do 20 in 11 and 12. You have to do 20 each as well. So that accumulate to be 80 hours. So we were also very fortunate at same mics to have two weeks of March break which is, you know, I, I was complaining at all. But the, the fantastic thing about that was that the first week you would kind of use to see friends and, and you know, just to catch up and maybe just take a little bit of relaxed time.


Matteo Cianfrone (08:13):
And then that second week was geared more towards, okay, let’s get some homework done. Let’s and I would actually use that for my community that week to kind of get some community service hours and nice. My cousin, Luca , he’s a music teacher. He and I was always kind of like, oh, teaching’s really cool, but never really been in a classroom. So I said, Hey, you know, Luca, do you mind if I come, I’ll help you photocopy, I’ll arrange the instruments. I’ll do whatever you got. You need me to do. Just gimme me some hours. It’ll give me it’ll it’ll two days will get me 16 hours. If I do a third day, I’ll get 24. That’s more than I need. And we can move forward from there. So it kind of started from there in grade nine, I did two days, got my hours and was pretty happy.


Matteo Cianfrone (08:57):
And then this next year after I said, Hey, Luca, do you mind if I do it again? He was like, absolutely. And then, so I just continued to grade 9, 10, 11, 12, and then almost all the way to the grade 12. He, he had me actually teaching a couple of lessons. I had a very, I had a very basic piano background. So I was able to teach a couple things, but I remember there was this one lesson. It had nothing to do with music at all. But it was I was just teaching students about, I don’t know, you’re maybe a little young, but back when I was growing up all those years ago, I’m 28 right now. And we were we, there was like tectonic that was huge and would dance and listen to this music. And then, so I did a little lesson in which I showed them different songs and we were all dancing together.


Matteo Cianfrone (09:42):
And I remember it was just so inspiring and just such a cool feeling being in front of that class and being able to relate to individuals and seeing their smiles and seeing sometimes their inquisitive looks and all this stuff. So that’s kind of what, where it started. And then after that, I kind of knew that I wanted to get into teaching, but not really went through Ryerson. Did English and history as my two teachables went to OISE was fortunate to fortunate enough to do my master teaching there and then just got kind of a lucky break. And here I am at Bayview Glen teaching phys. ed. fulltime.


Sam Demma (10:14):
Ah, it’s a phenomenal story. And when you were doing your masters of teaching, did you have a bunch of awesome teacher mentors? Like, were there a bunch of people in your life who were kind of pushing you down that path and helping you along the way? Absolutely.


Matteo Cianfrone (10:26):
No. Yeah. I had some, I had some really, really great mentors, but honestly I think the people that I was in my class with pushed me the most there was some unbelievable individuals that were in my class and that we would push each other. We would convene, we would talk, we would. And I mean, when you have a, something like your cohort, so you kind of stay with your cohort, your entirety of the it’s unlike any undergrad or anything like that, you stick with that group for the entire two years that you’re there and you just, just get so close with these individuals. Like if I were to name off a couple like Christopher I think in Victoria like there’s just there’s. Oh my gosh. There’s Caleb. There’s John there’s. Oh, I’m going through memory real . But yeah, there just some unbelievable individuals that, again, we were there for one another when with things outside of school, but a also when it came to school we were just so helpful. And so those are some of my favorite individuals that I’ve ever met is just being there. And I’m not sure it’s again, cuz of that relatability, but I also think it’s just, they’re just unbelievable people just in general. Yeah.


Sam Demma (11:32):
No, very cool. And you know, your journey or your jump or transition from finishing the masters into teaching. Yeah. How was that like, what were, what you, what was you, what you were expecting as your first year, did it fulfill expectations based on what you learned about in school? And what lessons did you learn from that experience? Getting the masters in, getting into teaching that you thought, wow, like this really helped me with my teaching?


Matteo Cianfrone (11:58):
Yeah. So I mean, they, they, they always say that you never really know, like everything’s just a lesson until you get into the classroom. So again, there’s a reason why they have those practicums. There’s a reason why they have that in class experience kind of sewed in throughout your entire my masters and what would be a lot of people’s bachelor of education. Because going from classroom to like, everything just sounds so beautiful and poetic even when you’re in class, but then once you go you’re oh, this is the nitty gritty. We’re kind of in the trenches right now. So was it a wake up call? Absolutely. My first, I remember my first kind of, not so much, this was still kind of in my masters, but my first practicum was definitely an eye opener a lot of nerves, but then as you do it, it’s just one of those things, you know, like with anything, whether it’s soccer, whether it’s anything you more practice and more how can I say, like more exposure to what you’re doing?


Matteo Cianfrone (12:56):
That, that kind of like just takes over. But I mean, I’ve also, I had a lot of confidence. I mean, I was coaching from when I was, so I was playing on the U 21 team and my club and I was like captain there. And then I was also, I was like, how else can I kind of get back to the club? So I was also coaching at the same time time. So even from 21 all the way to when I got my like first teaching gig, quote unquote, which was like 26, 27 I was coaching for about like six years and I was always in front front and center and I felt very comfortable. So I mean, as much as there was a little bit of a transition and there were those nerves and stuff like that of getting first class I kind of felt like I was at home ready. I felt yeah. At home. Exactly. Like I want to say that, but yeah, no, that’s exactly what it is. Is that you feel at home, you don’t feel uncomfortable, you just kind of feel, feel good in the skin you’re in kind of right.


Sam Demma (13:48):
Yeah. And I mean, you’re 28 now. So you you’ve been teaching for?


Matteo Cianfrone (13:52):
Two years, three years, but yeah, this is my second year at Bayview Glen.


Sam Demma (13:55):
Yeah. Phenomenal. And if you could go back to day one and give yourself advice that you’ve gained over the past two years, what would you tell your 26 year old self?


Matteo Cianfrone (14:06):
My gosh. Be, be a little, be a little kinder to yourself. Because I, I am my, I am my own worst critic and when things don’t work perfectly, I, I can really, like, some people will sit back and feel say, oh, you did a really great job. And I’m like, no, no I didn’t. And again, it’s just, and this year I’ve had to learn it more than ever was the lessons that you run. Aren’t gonna be perfect. A lot of people are teaching like this for the first time. So, I mean, just being just being very, almost compassionate with yourself and not being so critical and just, you know what, this is a learning experience, you know, it didn’t run as well. That’s okay. You know, for the next time, cuz I’m I’m cuz I could already tell you this being my second year, my first year it was, it was okay.


Matteo Cianfrone (14:52):
But this second year now I just feel a lot more comfortable just being, just letting it like one, you almost have like the, the, the rehearsal and now like now it’s just now with and easy. Right. And I’ve had some great people like Lori Hillis, Melanie Day in my, in my, in my group right now that are just helping me along the way. And I always say like, thank God for you individuals, cuz I would be nowhere . But but yeah, that’s kind of just be kinda to yourself, be kinder to yourself for sure. Yeah.


Sam Demma (15:22):
Great advice. And I know like we talked a week after the presentation that I did at Bayview Glen and you were mentioning that we talked a week after the presentation at Bayview, Glen. And you were mentioning I don’t know why I just had the thought now it’s totally escaping me. Yeah. let me, let me think about this.


Matteo Cianfrone (15:42):
So yeah, no, so I, so I emailed you cuz you, you did your presentation man. I was we were joking about how I was talking my with my administrative head and she and I was like this kid, like I’m always critical of guest speakers. I really am. Cause I’ve again, being in soccer and stuff like that. We hop people, come talk to our club and this and the other I’ve been to different schools and I’ve see guest speakers. And sometimes I’m like, oh they’re they’re okay. Like, you know, and then there’s some that just like are really great and you are awesome the way that you’re able to relate with the kids again, relatability. Like I really take a huge ownership of that. And again, I’m not sure if cuz you’re in soccer, I’m in soccer where you said, you know we can relate. But I think that you just had a gray way of interacting with individuals, even though it was just over over Zoom and stuff like that. But you did a great job and I, like I told you earlier, I like to give credit where it’s due and you did a fantastic job and keep going.


Sam Demma (16:40):
I appreciate that. Thanks for filling the gap there.


Matteo Cianfrone (16:44):
Nice plug. It’s a nice plug for you. Yeah.


Sam Demma (16:46):
What I was gonna say was in terms of relatability and teaching online, we had a, we had that conversation and you know, you, we did talk about that. You also mentioned that you’re doing some unique things to engage your kids virtually on Zoom that I thought were really cool and interesting. Yeah. Some activities at which I think would be worth sharing with other educators. So what are some of the things you’ve tried in terms of engaging your students on over Zoom or Google meets or whatever software another here listening might be using and what was the learning from doing that stuff?


Matteo Cianfrone (17:17):
Okay. So yeah, online was online learning and phys. ed. like, it’s just two things that you never think you would say in one sentence. And it’s kind of like a weird little paradox. I always go, whenever people ask me, how do you do phys. ed. online and you just do your best. So like I kind of started off with just doing workouts in front of the camera, right. Where I would do them. They, but then I couldn’t see what they were doing and all this stuff. So doing the workouts and them and just watching them do the workouts was great. But you also want to, like you said, kind of increase engagement and make it fun for them. Like I like you, like we’ve talked about earlier. It’s not about really getting the best performing. It’s just like getting them moving and getting them out there and getting them doing stuff.


Matteo Cianfrone (17:59):
So little things that I would do is like fun day Fridays in which I would introduce a game of who wants to be a Phatillionaire and who wants to be a Phatilionaire is basically multiple choice. If you think, if who wants to be a millionaire, it’s multiple choice questions and based on the answer, so if you answer oh, what is Sam’s last name? It’s Demma, Joe, Smith and whatever. Right? And then if you get the right answer, then you do, or if you get a, if you chose a, then you do workout one. If you chose B, then you do workout two, three, and four. And it was just a little PowerPoint that I made. And I, in the background, I have the, the jeopardy music going on and it’s yeah, it’s a whole fun thing. And I mean, again, it’s just trying to increase engagement.


Matteo Cianfrone (18:43):
Then there’s another thing that again, Lori Hillis gave me a fantastic kind of template of a scavenger hunt, which you’re just going, their kids are going around the house and they’re trying to find different items and then they would do different workouts with that item. So for example, it’s go into your pantry and grab a jar of tomatoes and then do five reps with that jar of tomatoes. Now go to your wall go to a, a wall that is two feet. I don’t know. So like something crazy. And then you can do a wall sit on that wall. And again, it doesn’t have to be anything too strenuous. It doesn’t have to be anything too too intense, but again, just getting them, just walking around their house is, is much better than them just maybe watch something or or anything like that.


Matteo Cianfrone (19:29):
We’ve had to workouts. So we’ll do tabata workouts often and then we’ll also have them make their own tabata workouts and send it to the class and then everybody will do their workout that they just did. And it’s really, really, so again, we’ve kind of jumped outside of comfort zone. So I mean, COVID has been a blessing and a curse in that way that we’ve, we’ve been forced to think outside the box. It’s almost a, like in soccer, whenever you put a stipulation on something, it’s like, okay, I only play with your left. Right. Only one, two, like only two touches. So only in those moments when you’re pressured like that, can you sometimes make a diamond, right. So we’ve been able to to kind of create some pretty cool things out of this, which, which I think everyone’s enjoyed and hopefully yeah, somebody, somebody can definitely borrow that if you ever want it, like, I could send you my, who wants to be Aire stuff. I have no problems that, I mean, I it’s all about sharing. Right? Yeah. And that’s what teaching’s all about, I think is sharing. And I, I always say that, like, I’m almost like a combination of so many different teachers within one person. Right. Mm-Hmm, like, you’re just kind of borrowing and, and, and same with coaching. It’s just the exact same concept.


Sam Demma (20:35):
Yeah. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel at all. If the resources already exist, just, you know, find them and share them. Mm-Hmm when it comes to the past couple months with COVID, I’m sure there is moments where you’ve got outta bed and instead of being like, yeah, another day you were like another day. Yeah. how did you motivate yourself in those moments? I know a lot of educators listening have had those moments this year, or what do you do in those moments to honor yourself and your feelings and try and get your back on track to show up fully for your kids.


Matteo Cianfrone (21:11):
So I, it sounds corny, but it’s like, just think of the children, you know, , I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, I’ve been very fortunate enough that we I’ve grown up with some great teachers. I’ve grown up with some great opportunities. and these kids, the like some, like I had a pretty seamless upbringing, and I couldn’t imagine if I were them in this situation, what this would be like. Mm. So if I’m able, again, being a Phys. Ed. teacher, I’m so lucky that like a lot of the stuff we do is fun inherently. Like it’s not. So if I’m able to get up and show them the day of their life, like that’s kind of what I’m aiming towards to do it. Then, then maybe, then maybe I made it that much better for that individual. Right. And that’s, that’s something that’s definitely pushed me throughout this. It’s just making sure their experience, even at the roughest times right now is hopefully like something that they’ll always remember. And that’s kind of, what’s caught me up in the morning for sure.


Sam Demma (22:19):
Man. That’s awesome. I love that. I think I’m the same way when it comes to trying to stay motivated. I find that when you tie other people into your goals and aspirations, it no longer is only about you and that kind of drives you, when you don’t feel like doing stuff. Phenomenal. This is a great conversation. Thank you so much for, for doing this. If someone does wanna reach out to you, ask you about your fatilionaire exercise, how you ran the scavenger hunt, or just have a conversation with, with you and borrow some of your good energy, what would, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?


Matteo Cianfrone (22:53):
So the best way is so my number is no, I’m kidding. I’m not gonna get that. But my email is mcianfrone@bayviewglen.ca. Wow. I can’t believe I’m so happy. I just got that, right. Like that was like, wow. I surprised myself. Okay. Thank God. That’s probably the best way. I’m always on that email. And if I don’t answer in a day or two, I’ll definitely answer as soon as I can. And you, yeah, I think that’s probably the best way. And then if you guys wanna have even more conversations, then I could probably give you the number then. But I don’t want, I don’t want my students hearing this and then prank calling me. That’s the only, that’s the only thing, right?


Sam Demma (23:40):
Yea no, it’s funny you say that literally two weeks ago, I spoke at a school out in Port Hope a year ago, and two weeks ago I got 15 phone calls, one Saturday night saying, hi, this is pizza pizza from St. Catherine’s. Hi, this is pizza pizza from, and, and people were calling pizza, pizza places, ordering a pizza, using my 1-800 number and then having them call me to pay for it. And I felt so bad. I’m like, no, I don’t know. I don’t know. Who’s calling. I’m sorry. I apologize. But I didn’t know how to know pizza. I know I’m Italian, but I have enough for my Nunu. Yeah. Anyway, I thought that was funny. You mentioned that. So that’s very funny. I thought I’d end on that. No, but material, thank you so much again for doing this. It was a pleasure.


Sam Demma (24:17):
And I look forward to staying in touch. Yeah, of course, man. Thanks so much for this. This is awesome with your day. Appreciate it. And there you have another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating in review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Matteo Cianfrone

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

January 22, 2022 by Athletic Director Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Andrew Hall – Chaplaincy Leader at St. Johns College

Andrew Hall – Chaplaincy Leader at St. Johns College
About Andrew Hall

Andrew Hall (@drumjokes93) is a drummer and started a junior and senior worship band at St. Johns College. He challenges students to write a worship song every year and then takes them to a studio to record it. This year with all restrictions, he can’t do worship band but am still finding ways to give students opportunities.

Connect with Andrew: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Redeemer University

Mount Mary Ancaster

Junior and Senior Worship Band

St. Johns College

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want a network with like-minded individuals and meet other high performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and special opportunities that will come out throughout 2021. I promise you I will not fill your inbox. You might get one email a month. If that sounds interesting, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Welcome back to another episode on the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Andrew Hall. He is the chaplaincy leader at St John’s college, and he also runs a band, a worship band with his high school. He is a drummer and he started a junior and senior band and he challenges students to write a worship song year, and then he takes them to a studio to record it. Because this year’s COVID, unfortunately that’s been a little bit difficult, but he is still finding other ways to give students opportunities. And that’s what we talk about today on the show. So pop your headphones in and enjoy today’s interview with Andrew Hall. And I will see you on the other side. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. I love the Jersey you’re wearing. I would love for you to share with the audience who you are, the work that you do and why you originally got into the work you do with youth.


Andrew Hall (01:36):
All right. So my name is Andrew Hall. I’m a chaplaincy leader at St. John’s College in this is my seventh year at the high school. I also did three years of elementary chaplaincy in Niagra and one year as an onsite chaplain at Mount Mary Ancaster. So I’ve been in chaplaincy 10 years in total. And the reason why I got into it just was because I have a passion for the Catholic faith, and I love sharing that faith with teenagers and students. And one reason I’m I’m in this position as a chaplain is that I kind of love the freedom that comes with it. Like for example I don’t have to be at parent teacher interviews or grade or do things like that. There’s a lot of fun that comes with this job. So for example, in a normal year, like isn’t a normal year, so I know we’ll get that a bit later, but in a normal year I’d be taking kids to nursing homes. I’m a drummer, so I’d be jamming with the worship band at lunch be going to volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul doing community work. So, and having campus ministry meetings where we play games. And I try to make faith interactive for students because I think faith shouldn’t be boring. It should be fun. So that’s a huge part of why I’m in this job is just making faith fun for students and showing them that you can have fun in your faith.


Sam Demma (02:55):
I love that. And at what point in time did you know, I wanna be doing this specific work? Was it when you were in high school? Was it when you were in university? When did you decide this was gonna be your future?


Andrew Hall (03:07):
So I’d say right after university actually I wasn’t really planning to be a chaplain, so I can kind of tell you how I kind of maybe accidentally stumbled into that role if you want. Sure, sure. Yeah, sure. So anyway, I was planning to be a teacher. I was I got the degree from Redeemer University College and their teaching college program. And I also got an undergrad in theology and Phys. Ed. So I was planning to be a teacher. At the time I was planning a band. So I was trying to make that work. I was also doing landscaping on the side and had all of these different things going on. But one day I decided to go for a hike on a Bruce trail near Mount Mary Ancaster. And if you don’t know what Mount Mary is, it’s a modest area.


Andrew Hall (03:54):
It’s where, where nuns live. And anyway, I, I happened to bump into an none and we got to talking and I told her, you know, I go to Redeemer and you know, in Catholic. And she said, would you be interested in being an onsite chaplain here and running retreats for for grade eights from Kitchener, Waterloo? You know, I never really thought about it, but it was like a really it sounded really secure to me. Like, you know, I was guaranteed, like, you’re gonna run like 40 retreats that year. You’re guaranteed, like these are the days you’re working and, you know, with landscaping, you, you get rained out. , you know, things like that. And, you know, the band and the music industry, it’s a, it’s an awesome dream to have, but, you know it’s a tough gig, you know, so anyway, I said, sure, I’ll, I’ll come by for interview tomorrow. They gave me the job and basically by just going hiking and bumping into a nun that’s how I became a chaplain really. And now I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t do anything else. I love this.


Sam Demma (04:51):
Awesome, man. That’s really, really cool. And you mentioned earlier, there are some challenges that make this year a little bit different than the average year. What are some of the challenges that your current faced with and what do you, or what have you been trying to, to overcome them?


Andrew Hall (05:06):
So first I think our biggest challenge is at least for our Catholicity is we’re not allowed to have masses. So this is like the first time where, you know, our students are unable to gather for masses and see our priests, you know, face to face at school. As the musician too, you know, I do the worship band. This is like I said, it’s my seventh year, seventh year at St. John’s and we’ve had a worship band every year since I’ve been there. And I challenge the kids to write a song and we take them to the studio to record it. And that’s like a huge love that I have at that job, but we can’t have worship band this year because as you may know, like singing’s not allowed, right. I guess from what I know, it can spread germs during COVID, you know, so for those safety reasons, we can have worship band, like even my wife who sings sometimes at church has to sing behind glass, you know?


Andrew Hall (06:00):
So there’s a lot of precaution to go into music right now. If it’s gonna happen. So just outta safety, we’re not doing worship band. So what I’m doing instead is I’m challenging students to record songs at home. So if you’re a singer guitar player, Hey, record a song at home, send it to me and we’ll throw it in the liturgy. Even we’ll just throw it in as on a random day, like, Hey, here’s this person celebrating their faith at home. And other challenges too are just for example, we, we can’t go to nursing homes right now. Like that’s something I’ve done every year and the kids love it. I love how a big part of, of me is showing every person that they matter and that every stage of life matters. So we go to the nursing home.


Andrew Hall (06:43):
That’s the one thing I love about the work I do as well. So we can’t do that. So as an alternative, I talked to one of the nurses at the nursing home and we’re doing a pen pal program with them. Hmm. So for the month of October, November, I have about 35 students signed up and we are writing a letter to them once a week. Mm-Hmm and also it’s really cool for English teacher jumped on board. She’s getting her class to do it as well. So those are challenges I’m facing, but I guess one rule that I’m trying to come up with is, you know, if what I’m trying to say, I guess is if I’ve try to do something or, you know, the things I normally do, I’m just trying to try to find a different way to do them.


Sam Demma (07:24):
That’s a great perspective. Just adjust and pivot a little bit, still have the impact of the activity, but maybe in a slightly different way. That’s great. Yeah. I know sports have been, been impacted as well. Speaking of you’re wearing a Raptor’s Jersey are you a big Raptor?


Andrew Hall (07:39):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Big time mean that’s kind of, I guess, sidetracking, but yeah, no I have been a Raptors for, I’d say about four years now. Nice. I’ve always been a basketball fan, but like, I’ll admit, I I always love playing it more. I’m watching it. Yeah. but you know how I said, like I got really lucky and I happened to bump into that nun that day. Right. Well, an, an experience like that actually helped me to become a raps fan. I, I won this random contest and it was like, it’s a limo free hotel, like free food to the raps opening game of four years ago. Nice. And honestly, once I went and saw live for the first time my dad, I was hooked and yeah. I never missed a game now, pretty much on TV when that happened.


Sam Demma (08:26):
That’s nice, man. That’s really cool. , you’re someone who radiates hope and joy and positivity, and you can tell it in your responses. And I’m curious to know aside of the challenges that are happening right now, what keeps you personally motivated and hopeful with the work that you’re doing?


Andrew Hall (08:43):
Oh, so what keeps me motivated and hopeful. Yeah. Okay. I guess right now seeing students buy into it, like even in the times we’re in like knowing that students are still willing and wanting to be involved. And I guess what gave me hope walking into September was knowing that during last year’s, you know, last school year’s pandemic when we were off that I still had students participate, even though we weren’t at school. So I thought if I can get students to do that, then I have a shot going into this year. You know? So for example, when we were off last year I challenged students to create like virtual liturgy. So the word, and every morning I would have a student film, a prayer video, we’d send it up to staff every single morning. So we even did like we had a virtual grad retreat for example, last year.


Andrew Hall (09:41):
So that even gave me hope. So for, and you even asked me, I think maybe I was looking at some of the questions, so I’m kind was right to jump ahead, maybe yeah. Go for it. Right. Right. Well, all right. No, I was just thinking about that. I mentioned virtual retreat and you know, I was thinking about I guess one of those questions that we were talking about before we started recording was just like do I have any mistakes that I’ve made maybe, or would I do anything differently? And I think when I look back to virtual grad retreat, I almost didn’t do it. I thought there’s no way kids are gonna do that. They’re off from school, what are the chances? And I thought, you know, I’m just gonna go for it. So virtual grab retreat actually gave me a lot of hope and this happened in may last year. I just thought, you know, if this 27 students can sign up in may. And that just made me think, you know, if we go back September, then I know if things can work. Yeah.


Sam Demma (10:39):
Yeah. How, how did you do that? How, like, if you were to share a little bit about how that was possible for someone who might be listening, would you be open to sharing?


Andrew Hall (10:48):
Yeah, sure. Like how did I actually get it off the ground? Virtual grad retreat?


Sam Demma (10:51):
How did you do it?


Andrew Hall (10:52):
Sure. So basically I didn’t even have any idea what I was doing, but I, I kind of came up with I thought, okay, first off, what would you do in a virtual grad retreat? So I came up, I wanted to keep it simple. So I contacted our parish priest, that’s connected to the school and I said, Hey, can you start the retreat off with a a blessing for our grads? So we did that. We had an activity like where I asked students to reflect on their four years at St. John’s college and write a letter to a teacher that impacted them. Because our theme, we have a free year theme at our school board, and last year’s theme was encounter. So I wanted to, to reflect on that theme of encounter and how has a, a teacher that you’ve encountered impacted your life.


Andrew Hall (11:38):
And then, then we did a a big song at our school’s awesome God, the the worship man is always requested to play it out song. So we did like an awesome God challenge, where I challenged students to listen to the song, maybe do something funny or goofy, take a picture and host it on social media, just with the hashtag awesome. God. And then the last thing was just taking a selfie with saying SJC virtual grab retreat as a hashtag. And that was pretty much it. So it’s just, honestly that took an hour and students really appreciate it. I think one way I know that is just I was actually, I didn’t know what to do with the letters the kids wrote to their favorite teachers. Right. So I actually went and delivered them to the teachers and with my kids, I familiar two oldest kids in the car and we went out, we delivered letters and it really made it was really nice to see just the impact on the teachers, not seeing those students to get those letters.


Sam Demma (12:36):
Yeah, that’s awesome. And during this time you mentioned 27 kids showing up in may. I’m sure you’ve been impacting a lot of students right now during this time as well. I’m curious to know if there’s a story in your mind. It doesn’t have to be of right now, maybe in the past years of, of your work a story that might, you’ve impacted a young person’s life through your own work. And the reason I’m asking you to share the story and you can change the student’s name if you’d like to, for the sake of privacy. But the reason I’m asking you to share the story is because if there’s another educator out there listening to this, thinking to them themselves, you know, it’s been really tough year this year. Sometimes it’s hard to remember why my work important to hear a story that you have. It might inspire them to remember, you know, their, their purpose.


Andrew Hall (13:20):
Okay. You might hear a baby in the background there. We’ll see, but that’s okay. It’s like school, there’s always something going on. Right. That’s all good. Right. So anyway I guess a story about how I’ve impacted someone’s life. Just let’s go back to virtual grad retreat. I didn’t expect to get a letter from a student. But I did I had a grade 12 girl write me a letter just saying, Hey, you know, without you, as our chaplain, I don’t think I would be as close to God as I am right now. So that actually that really I just made me reassured me that even in these toughest times, I can still be effective as a chaplain even going into September our new board theme has transformed. So I reached out to a few graduates and I asked, Hey, you know, can you record videos?


Andrew Hall (14:17):
Cause I think it’d be awesome for our staff to be witness to by students who have graduated and just saying how your faith is transformed at St. John’s. so this one girl she won’t even mind me saying her name, but her name’s Ella and she filmed the video saying how much to worship band impact impacted her life, how it helped her to overcome shyness and just be more outgoing. And she, she said in the video that, you know, if you would’ve told her in grade nine, that she’d be singing in front of like 1200 kids, she would’ve never believed you. But it happened. And to me, I think that says that sometimes people are just looking for an invitation to get involved. And I think that’s my role to give people opportunities and hope they take advantage of them.


Sam Demma (15:04):
That’s awesome. I was gonna ask you as a follow up question, like how do we, you know, knowing that students write these letters to their teachers and their chaplains, you know, what do we do proactively to get those? Not, not that you’re looking to get that response from a student you wanna, you know, impact their life. Is it just tapping ’em on the shoulder and providing them with an opportunity or what do you proactively do to make students feel cared and appreciated?


Andrew Hall (15:30):
Let’s see. Well, I guess providing those opportunities is my way of showing I care. Nice. You know? Yeah. And I also think like the personal touch is like something you gotta do. Like it’s not just going on announcements and saying, Hey, come out. Like it’s for me going into those classrooms and being face to face with kids and saying, you know, I’m not just on announcements, I’m actually going into classrooms. And I think that students, when they see you like walking around the hallway or not just this, not just a chaplain in your office, that you’re actually out there and doing things, it shows that you care. So that’s how I try to show students that I care just by being present and giving them that opportunity.


Sam Demma (16:13):
Awesome. I love that so much. And it was a teacher who taught me on the shoulder and said, Hey, Sam, go do this in the community. That totally transformed my experience in a high school. So I, I can totally agree to that. If someone listening who’s an educator wants to reach out to you and maybe just bounce some ideas around, what’s the best way for them to do that.


Andrew Hall (16:32):
Oh sure. As, so they can contact me at my email, which is ahall@bhncdsb.ca. That’s where they can talk, contact, and reach out. They can also Google my name in St. John’s College and I’m sure my email will pop up.


Sam Demma (16:58):
Okay. Awesome. Andrew, thanks so much for coming on the show. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you and I can’t wait to hear some of your new student music.


Andrew Hall (17:05):
Awesome. Thanks. Yeah, we got music coming out next week for doing something different for Thanksgiving. Like I said, we can’t have our Thanksgiving mass. So we’re actually having we have our schedule set up in four different blocks right now, just with COVID. So at the end of each block, we’re gonna pause and have something to celebrate our faith and give thanks for Thanksgiving. So I actually have students recording songs at home for Thanksgiving. So yeah, we’re gonna have some music coming out next week.


Sam Demma (17:38):
Awesome. Well, I’ll look forward to it and I’ll talk to you soon.


Andrew Hall (17:41):
Awesome. Thanks Sam.


Sam Demma (17:43):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating in review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Andrew Hall

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

January 22, 2022 by Music Educator Student Success Teachers 0

Karl Mercuri – Social and Emotional Learning Coordinator at The Priory Elementary School

Karl Mercuri – Social and Emotional Learning Coordinator at The Priory Elementary School
About Karl Mercuri

Karl Mercuri (@Karl_Mercuri) is the Social and Emotional Coordinator at The Priory School in Montreal, QC, Canada and a grade 4 teacher. This allows him to actively implement innovative SEL practices amongst the students, staff, and community at The Priory.

He has passion for social and emotional learning, ei, positive psychology, behavior, and educational leadership. Over the last 19 years, he’s thrived as a teacher, educator, consultant, and leader.

Connect with Karl: Email | Website | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Erika Rath – Director of Student Services The Sacred Heart School of Montreal

The Priory School

Mood Meter

Casel – Advancing Social and Emotional Learning

SEL in Edu

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want a network with like-minded individuals and meet other high performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and special opportunities that will come out throughout 2021. I promise you I will not fill your inbox. you might get one email a month. If that sounds interesting. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker today’s guest is Karl Mercuri. Karl is the social and emotional learning coordinator at an elementary school out in the greater Montreal metropolitan area, but originally his journey into education. As here on this show, started back in Melbourne Australia, and he is obsessed with SEL social, emotional learning and, and answering the questions.


Sam Demma (01:06):
What do students really need and how do we teach the whole child? And how can we get our students to have a positive impact on society when leaving the walls of this classroom? The reason why I wanted to bring Karl on the show is because one, he was recommended by a past. And we give a shout out to Erika Rath during the interview. So Erika, if you’re listening, thank you so much, but also because I’m obsessed with the exact same things that Karl is, although he formally works on solving these problems day in and day out within one school, specifically working with grade four students with that being said, if you don’t already have a pen and paper nearby, definitely grab it because Karl shares so many resources, ideas, and exercises that you can use to make sure that your students are thriving mentally and emotionally during this trying time, I’ll see you on the other side, enjoy today’s interview talk soon, Karl, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. We were introduced by past guest, Erika. You didn’t know me. I didn’t know you. And now here we are on this podcast. Why don’t you start by sharing with the audience who you are and how you got into the work you’re doing with young students and young people today?


Karl Mercuri (02:24):
Hey Sam, thank thanks for having me and a shout out to Erika for actually putting us in contact. Yeah, just a little bit about me. You, you can probably tell with the accent I’m not from, from Canada. I I arrived about two and a half years ago. I met my wife in Australia. I’m originally for, from Australia and my educational journey started 19 years ago. So I originally started as a gym teacher or we call ’em gym teachers here, but we call ’em PE teachers back at home. And and then halfway through my journey, I was really lucky. I had a great administrator who’s who was able to see a little bit of potential, I would say, and turn around and said, Karl, it’s about time you get into the classroom. So I shifted from the, the gym teachers to the classroom.


Karl Mercuri (03:19):
And from there, a lot of doors opened for me and especially a passion for wellbeing, student wellbeing, social, emotional learning. And I was really lucky. I was chosen to go and be trained in what we call a, it was a mental health and wellbeing course about 10 years ago in Australia, which was a, a, a framework called kids matter. And it was across Australia. And so I become a facilitator of that at my school. And then just everything basically flourished from there. All the passion started. So I went back and I did a little bit of studying behavior, been studying in I’m still studying at the moment in leadership. I’ve got a lot of, I would say training in SCL, social-emotional learning emotional intelligence, positive psychology, and then the world is easier oyster as they say. So I, so for me right now I, I hold a job at a beautiful little elementary school in Montreal called the Priory.


Karl Mercuri (04:22):
My role there is on the I’m the SEL coordinator. And I also, so day today, I’m, I’m the grade four teacher and the school SEL coordinator. Nice. And then week to week and month to month, I actually go out and consulting schools across Montreal. So I, you know, elementary or high and just help these schools really make social, emotional learning a priority. And how do we integrate it and how does it just become part of everyday teaching instead of just an extra. So I think that’s the really big thing at the moment and what we’re going through now, we need it more than ever.


Sam Demma (05:04):
It’s so true. It’s, it’s so, so true. You, you mentioned something that piqued my interest. You said after you did the training, that’s when the passion started flowing and you went back and got additional training and behaviors and you started learning a lot more, the, what clicked after that initial certification that you did about kids matter? Like what clicked after that, that made you kind of shift your perspective and decide to go down this new path?


Karl Mercuri (05:34):
Yeah, I, I would say there was, you know, the initial training, there was so many aha moments, you know, it’s like, ah, is this, this is why a child behaves this way, or this is why I’m getting these reactions in the classroom. Or this is why this you know, this, this, this 16 year old boy is telling me to get lost basically, you know, and, or, or girl, and, and, and just understanding the fundamentals of, of, of, you know, developmental stages of in life and, and why things happen. And, and yeah, I just wanted to know more, I wanted more answers really. And the only way you can do that is by being a lifelong learner. You know, if you, if you’re not a lifelong learner, you’re gonna really just basically plateau aren’t you. So it’s, I, I feel like as an educator, it’s our duty to continue prospering and, and, and setting that example for the, for the rest of the, our students basically.


Sam Demma (06:39):
And I think one of the best ways to ensure you keep learning is of course, to take on the role of the student, but then as you learn new content, teach it to others, because I find that teaching to others is one of the quickest ways to also learn the things. If you are speaking to your younger self before the certifi, giving yourself a mini masterclass, per se, on emotional intelligence and social, emotional learning, how would you define the two buckets? And what would you say to ensure that someone understood how important these two things are?


Karl Mercuri (07:13):
Yeah. If I was to te if I was to talk to my 16 year old, say, I would say, firstly, that it’s okay to feel the way you feel. Mm. You know and that emotions, you know, are, if you could look at an emotion as a form of communication and not as this daunting thing, that’s happening, this daunting cloud, that’s ha hovering over your head or this, these these crazy thoughts that are going on. You know, so I would say that, you know, a thought is actually not, it’s not tangible, is it? I would teach myself, it’s not gonna be there forever. And, and how do we reframe things? And, and that’s where I would go down that path. Yeah, definitely.


Sam Demma (08:06):
I love that, that, that makes so much sense. And it, it’s a important lesson to learn and reinforce right now because there’s so many different negative thoughts and thousands of thoughts that go through our minds every single a day, and being stuck at home, I think even increases the number of thoughts we’re having.


Karl Mercuri (08:25):
I would even go down the path when you’re saying this is, you know, we actually have to go out of our way right now to find a positive thought. We have to go out of our way right now to find a positive feeling. And, and it’s so essential, you know, like we know that the negative thoughts and the negative feelings, and I’m putting my con you know, my knowledge of AI and, and, and SCL that, that hat on right now, but we know the negative to they’re so strong and powerful and prevalent because that’s what we you know, that’s our makeup as a human being, where we are out to look out for the negatives as a survival mechanism, you know, but, but right now we need to actually physically and mentally actually look out for what is the positive to then reframe everything that’s going on right now, or ask, we’re just gonna really struggle up. You’re really not gonna see the, the light at the end of the tunnel, as they say.


Sam Demma (09:30):
It’s so true. And I’ve read that, that your beliefs or your thought, that’s the things that you hold true lead to your emotions, how you feel those emotions lead to your actions, what you do in any given moment, which then leads to the result you get. And so when we’re not getting that result that we want, you know, the first thing to do isn’t to change our action, but to ask ourselves, what am I choosing to believe? What am I thinking about? What thoughts are going through my head? I, how do you explain emotional intelligence? What is like, if you could define emotional intelligence, like, how would you do so what is emotional intelligence?


Karl Mercuri (10:04):
Yeah. That’s a big, oh my goodness. That’s a really big, I guess question. And it’s a great one, you know, but for me, it’s the awareness. Mm. Having an internal awareness of one’s self. Yep. having a really clear, not clear, but an understanding of social awareness of others. So what is my impact? What am I doing right now? That’s having an impact on someone else. Mm. You know, establishing that form of empathy for yourself. Also, we always say that empathy is about others looking at others, but even having some empathy about yourself, you know, it’s really, really powerful. It’s and that’s, that’s a lifelong skill, basically. Yeah. And then the last one is what, what really motivates you as a person? How are you gonna achieve these goals? You know, how, through this awareness, through this understanding of others through this empathy, how do I actually achieve these?


Sam Demma (10:59):
And for the educator for you listening right now, to this podcast you know, how does that, how does that person listening, take this idea and try and help their students become more social, emotionally aware and more emotionally intelligent, like is there, of course you do this, like you can consult with schools and you help them. But if someone wanted to take a quick nugget away that they could take back to their kids right now, what are, what is a low hanging fruit or something they could do to kickstart this conversation and put their kids on this path to developing that emotional intelligence?


Karl Mercuri (11:35):
I, I’m gonna be really honest. There’s this one tool called a mood meter. The mood meter is a super cool tool that comes out of it comes out of Yale university under the ruler approach. These guys are like doing some work in the field of social, emotional learning. And the reason why I love the mood meter is because it appeals to five year olds, but it also appeals to 18 year olds. Mm. And the mood meter is, is a, a resource where it’s a quadrant. It’s actually it’s a quadrant. We it’s broken up into sections. And the mood meter basically helps our students through understanding the amount of energy that’s running through their body, how pleasant they’re feeling to then find the emotional vocabulary. So you can actually a, a spot on the mood meter, which then replicates a, a, a specific emotive word.


Karl Mercuri (12:41):
So you gotta think this is an amazing tool, especially for 16, you know, 17 year olds or 15 year olds. Because if you have a check-in, you are about to start your, you go, all right, guys, you know, get your mood meter out or whatever. And let’s see where you’re at on the, the colored quadrants and the mood meter. The yellow is, is high energy, high pleasantness. So we are finding the happy, the excited, the motivated, the elated type of emotions. You got the red, which is high energy, but really unpleasant. That’s where you find the S the annoyed, the peeved, the, the, you know furious type of emotions. And then you’ve got the bottom, you’ve got low energy, super unpleasant. That’s where you find the sad, the that’s blue, the SADS, the, the press, the, the you know, really kind of like solid type of emotions.


Karl Mercuri (13:44):
And then you’ve got low energy, but high pleasantness. And that’s where you find calm, grateful, and so on. And the thing is with these guys, is if we can have check in these students can start to, they come in and they make this connection, right. I’ve walked into class right now. I’ve bumped into someone on the way through, I’ve forgotten my books. I haven’t had breakfast. I’m gonna do this check in right now. And I’m gonna put everything into context as to how I’m feeling and actually find the correct emotive word. Mm. And the, the reason why I love it is because if you ask someone right now, how you’re feeling, I’m happy, mad, or sad, , that’s all we have as vocabulary, or I’m like, oh, okay. But if we can extend that vocabulary, which is, that’s what the role of the mood meter is, then a teacher can actually accommodate and, and, and, and get to, to what they need to do for these students.


Karl Mercuri (14:51):
You know, if the student turns around and says to me, you know what, I am like super peeved right now, there’s a difference between peeved and annoyed. Cause peeved is you’re going little bit more unpleasant than what annoyed would be. So I would deal with that certain situation different to what annoyed would be. Mm. Does that make sense? If I, you know, got an answer from a child I’m feeling elated right now, compared to excited, well, then it’s, I’m gonna, I’m gonna deal. I’m gonna provide them with, you know, the interventions or whatever that they need, or the advice in a different manner. Cause it’ll be way more specific too.


Sam Demma (15:32):
I think it’s such a cool exercise because like, I’m even thinking about myself while you’re saying this and I don’t use many of those other emotions that I, that are probably on this chart. And to further that point, sometimes I just say, I I’m not feeling great, but I’m not like, I’m not even sure what it is. But if I had a menu in front of me, of all different emotions and options, I think it would make it a lot easier to, to pinpoint something down, which also, I think makes us feel better because when you’re not sure what it is, uncertainty like that breeds fear, and it breeds so many other negative emotions. But if you’re certain that you’re feeling a specific emotion, I think it makes you feel even more human. So it gives students the, the space to identify what the emotion is, understand that it might be a negative one, but at least they’re able to pinpoint why it is that and, and what’s happening.


Karl Mercuri (16:25):
And you, you just actually said by doing this by actually identifying a spec specific emotion, you are naturally self-regulating. Mm. So you’ve just said it in a roundabout way just then, but that’s what you do. You actually do reg self-regulate because you, you are actually now have the answer to why you’re feeling somewhere with that specific word.


Sam Demma (16:46):
Yeah. It makes sense because if I’m gonna pinpoint, oh, the emotion I’m looking for is that I’m angry. When I, when I say that I’m gonna like question myself and be like, I am I angry? Why am I angry? Like what’s going on right now? And that’s right. It starts this dialogue as opposed to maybe getting in trouble or yelling at a teacher. I’m having this little inner conversation with myself.


Karl Mercuri (17:06):
Yeah, am I really angry? Or am I just like, maybe I’m really jealous right now of something that’s happened between that’s and then you can really. Yeah. And then it’s that dialogue, that internal dialogue, but it’s also the external dialogue. Mm. Because that’s really important. Cause when you start to have that conversation and you go through that conversation, you’re like, you start to, to, to basically problem solve aren’t you you’re like, oh, this is why. Oh, okay. I get it now.


Sam Demma (17:36):
And yeah, I would say it even makes like, I haven’t done this yet, but I would, I would assume. And, and guess that it even makes the student or the person doing this more open to talking about the emotion with another person than if they didn’t do this exercise first. Very cool tool. I’m gonna link it in the show notes. While you said it, I very quickly searched it. And I, I found an image of it. It looks really cool that it looks like there’s over a hundered.


Karl Mercuri (18:02):
There’s a hundred, there’s a hundred I think it’s a hundred word. So there’s two of them. There’s one, which is the, the one without the word. So that’s where, that’s where you’ll actually use the grid. And then once you’ve found your spot, then you use the one with the word and you go, oh, okay. So this spot means this word. Cool. Yeah. I highly advise when you do that and I’ll, I’ll give you the link. There’s actually an app and it’s really cool. And then you can track your days and see what quadrant are you in on most days and what words are coming up really often. And you can, it’s really cool.


Sam Demma (18:37):
When would you recommend a, a, a educator uses this? Would it be at the beginning of a day of school? Obviously, I don’t. I mean, you, you could do it every day, I guess, but one would be ideal times to use this sort of an exercise?


Karl Mercuri (18:47):
I generally would do it any like transitional times on the arrival to school after like a lunch time, you know, when the kids come back cause you don’t know what’s happened. Yep. And that always has an impact on your class afterwards. It depends even, you know, I’ve even used it as a reflective tool after a lesson, you know, how, how are you feeling now after we’ve feel this? Yeah. Gives me a bit of feedback as to how the lesson’s gone too, you know? So yeah. So many different ways to use it, like yeah. And, and, and it just needs, this is where where my passion is, this, this kind of stuff needs to be incorporated as part of just everyday teaching. Yeah. It shouldn’t just be an extra, it should be part of, of what we do, you know.


Sam Demma (19:31):
That’s so true. It’s so, so true. And if there’s an educator listening who wants to learn more about SEL and emotional intelligence, what are some learning resources or tools that you found helpful that you think they should look into or start reading.


Karl Mercuri (19:46):
Your number one? I guess web, well, your number one, I guess website that you would go to is the Casel website. Mm. These guys are at the forefront of social, emotional learning research. They actually have within the website, they have categorized programs. Very cool. So you can go there, you can, you can look up and, and look at the competencies, the SEL, the five SEL competencies, and look at a program that fits certain competencies to meet your school’s needs. Mm. So there’s, there’s a lot of that, but I would even say, go, as far as saying before you do any of that, it’s really important to just look into only and see what you’re already doing. Cuz you’ll be very surprised. Schools are already doing a lot of this. Yeah. They just haven’t actually labeled it as, oh, this is part of SEL. We didn’t really know, you know? And so maybe do a little bit of auditing as to what you’re doing already and then just plug the holes basically and whatever you’re not doing, then go out and find the answers.


Sam Demma (20:55):
Love it. Very cool. Yeah. and through, through social, emotional learning, I’m certain that you’ve seen students transform. Now you work with younger students but I’m sure you’ve, you’ve seen many breakthroughs or when kids work through something emotionally themselves and they come out the other side maybe there’s even been some dramatic examples where this has had a huge impact on a young person. I’m curious to know if any of those stories come to mind and if it’s a very serious story, you can change a student’s name. And if they’re, if it isn’t actually even, or student, but some something you’ve heard of before, I would love to hear it as well. The reason I’m asking is because, you know, the person listening might be considering quitting this vocation or calling of teaching, do the, the challenges that they’re faced with this year and a story of transformation gets to the heart of the reason why most educators start teaching. You have an ability to change a young person’s life to put them on a totally different trajectory. And hearing that story could get them back on track and back bought into the reason why they started again, you work with really young kids. So it’s a little different when I ask a high school teacher. But do any of those stories stick out to you?


Karl Mercuri (22:04):
Yeah. I’m just trying to think of something that is, I would say before I go onto a story, I would say that just being vulnerable. Yeah. And real is probably the most powerful thing that you can do in a classroom. Yeah. With the children actually admitting when you make mistakes. Actually, you know, saying that, you know what, I, I don’t know the answer to this. Yeah. Let’s find it out together. You know, actually explaining how you’re feeling is to me is the most powerful because then these, and, and especially if adolescents like youth, they will respect you all because they actually know that you are not this robotic person that has all the answers. And so the vulnerability to me is probably the, the, the biggest and most important aspect for me, of, of, of teaching in terms of from an SEL perspective and just from an engagement perspective too. So yeah. But I’m trying to think. Yeah. I think you’ve put me on a swap here with, a bit of a, a, a story I’m not really sure right now.


Sam Demma (23:27):
No, that’s totally fine.


Karl Mercuri (23:28):
Maybe leave it with me while we’re speaking. If something comes up.


Sam Demma (23:33):
Yeah, that sounds great. Like, even if you’ve seen a moment where a kid looks confused and then after an exercise thinks, whoa, like this makes so much sense, you know? Yeah. like those aha moments are really interesting. Yeah.


Karl Mercuri (23:45):
Actually, something’s come up just now. Just see, there we go. I knew it would it was funny. I was, I was doing a lesson called expected and unexpected Hmm. And teaching my, my class. And it was, it was quite funny, actually, this is more of a funny one teaching my class that, that that if you do something expected from a social perspective and from an understanding, if I’m gonna do something expected, then the impact that it has on somebody else, else. Right. They will have a, a positive type feeling towards me or understanding towards me or they will, they, you know, the, the, the reception would be more accommodating, I guess like that. And so I’m in the class and I, and I, and I’m explaining that to them. And then halfway through the class, I just fall on the floor, fall down.


Karl Mercuri (24:59):
I start rolling on, on the ground, rolling everywhere and just doing absolutely crazy stuff and getting it up. And I I’m throwing things everywhere. And the, and turning tables upside down. And then the, the children look at me and they , and then I put the word unexpected up. And so my advice to them, and, and this was a huge, like big aha moment to them because I said, what did I just do? The in like, that was really unexpected. Okay. If that was unexpected, how did that make you feel? Oh, I was feeling really uncomfortable. I didn’t know what you were doing. I had some doubtful thoughts and, and, and I was starting to think, is this got crazy? You know? And, and, and so we, we started to put things together, right. We started to put kind of like scenarios together, and this is where the kids really got it, as I said to them.


Karl Mercuri (26:01):
And this was probably the thing that got to me. I said to ’em, if I’m walking down the, the street and someone’s walking in front of me and, and they drop a $5 bill or a $10 bill, what would be expected. And the scary thing is not all of them said, I’d give the money back. And so me, that was a bit of a, wow, we have a, we now have the most important job right now is to teach our kids and our youth, that it is expected to do those things that then will have a positive impact, like this snowball effect. Mm. Because if I just pick up that $5 bill and put it in my pocket, that’s super unexpected, but what happened? So the next person, if they put the $5 bill in their pocket and the next person, if they put the $5, you know, we are starting to create this kind of unexpected type scenarios and culture and world. And it’s just not what we wanna, what we wanna do.


Sam Demma (27:18):
Yeah, I love that. I love that analogy so much. My, my world issues teacher in grades 12 have taught me a lesson that a small, consistent action can make a massive global change. And it goes both ways. Like you’re saying a small positive action can compound and snowball to a massive positive impact, but the reverse is also true. And his, his theory led both a good friend of mine and myself to start our, our own theory, like our own hands on project to see if his, his lesson was correct by picking up garbage. Yeah. And it led to filling almost 2,500 bags so far, and we’re still going so it’s yeah. Cool analogy just made me think of my teacher. And I love that lesson so much. If, if people are, if you’re listening right now, maybe you can’t even do this in your school, even if it’s virtually. Yeah. I love that. That was so powerful. If someone wants to reach out to you, which at this point should be expected with all the amazing information you’re sharing what would be the best way for someone to get in touch with you? Can they email you?


Karl Mercuri (28:25):
Email or I’m on Twitter? I’m pretty active on Twitter and LinkedIn. Email is kmercuri@priory.qc.ca, LinkedIn is Karl Mercuri and Twitter is @Karl_Mercuri. They are probably the best three platforms. Perfect. and, and to be honest, if there’s any those educators out there, if you want a little bit of a heads up in terms of SEL, there’s a really, really cool Facebook group for those educators called SEL in Edu. And so it’s just a great place to start and a lot of active people, and they’re just willing to help out and give some advice, but I would really love, yeah. I’m happy to help out in any way possible.


Sam Demma (29:06):
I love that. Karl, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I appreciate the insight into your brain and the research you’ve done and the work you’re doing. And it’s really cool to see you doing this. I appreciate it because I wish I had someone like you in my school when I was growing up and hopefully 20 years from now, we can see every single school having a person like you doing the work you’re doing. It’s really cool.


Karl Mercuri (29:28):
Thanks for having me. That’s, it’s been an awesome experience and a great discussion.


Sam Demma (29:34):
Cool. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Karl Mercuri

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

January 22, 2022 by Education Consultant Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Antonio Morra – Leadership Teacher at All Saints Catholic Secondary School

Antonio Morra - Leadership Teacher at All Saints Catholic Secondary School
About Antonio Morra

Antonio Morra is the Leadership Teacher at All Saints Catholic Secondary School and he is always looking for unique ways to provide his students with experiences that will shift their perspectives, challenge their beliefs and ultimately help them grow into better people. 

Connect with Antonio: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

All Saints Catholic Secondary School

What is a GSA club?

City of Vaughan Recreation Camps

What is a Social Media Detox and how to take it

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Antonio Morra. Tony is someone who taught at St. Mary when I was also a high school student. He was someone who a lot of the kids enjoyed being taught by. He was a teacher who was well liked, was respected and did amazing work with students.


Sam Demma (00:59):
Unfortunately, he wasn’t my teacher but I’m so glad that we got a chance to talk today because he has such important, such important life experiences that will help you reshape and re rethink about the things that are going on in the world right now and the struggles you might be facing. He is now a grade 11 leadership teacher at a school in Whitby known as all saints, and he is striving every single day to give his students unforgettable experiences. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it. I’ll see you on the other side. Tony, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you. You taught at the school that I grew up in, and it’s nice to, to see you a couple years later again, why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about the work you do and why you got into this work with young people today?


Antonio Morra (01:50):
Okay. Thank you very much, Sam. It’s a pleasure to be on. I’ve been inspired by my family for the most part, as far as why I got into education. I was a first born child in my family, not only in my own household, but also within my own extended family by a few years. I kind of grew up with a lot of young kids around all the time and my family; parents, the adults, they were, they were always busy, kind of chatting and, and having fun and eating and preparing. And I was always left with the responsibility of looking after the young ones. And I kind of really enjoyed that. I, I always felt kind of responsible to nurture, to protect, to mentor, to inspire. So I’ve kind of grown into that by, you know fulfilling that role for my family and I kind of extended that out with that lending hand to my, you know, family and neighbors. It kind of has always been a, you know, a part of me as far as, you know, helping others fixing problem solving. You know, I’m always there to kind of lend a hand and I always feel kind of restless when I’m, when I’m not needed. I, I really don’t know what to do with myself. So I find a lot of purpose in serving others and, and working with others.


Sam Demma (03:05):
No, that’s awesome. What, what part, or what moment in your journey did you know, ah, I’m gonna be working in a school, like I know you nurtured and you grew up in a family where you took care of a lot of the younger cousins and kids. At what moment did that experience translate into I’m gonna be a teacher.


Antonio Morra (03:24):
Yeah, well, it, it, it was born out of failure to be honest with you, Sam. I, I really had a lot of struggle back in high school and you know, I wasn’t connected academically to my to my experience. I was more there for social experience, but it was actually more or less a a, a response to how I did not feel like I belonged. I, I didn’t feel as if I belonged in my classes because I struggled with learning difficulties that at the time were undiagnosed. And my parents usually he chalked up to me being lazy or not working hard enough. Only now as an adult, I kind of am able to look back through my life and, you know, as a father with, with daughters and looking at them as learners, I see a lot of myself in them.


Antonio Morra (04:14):
So I, I struggled quite a bit and I, I really didn’t have a place or feel like I had a place. I gravitated to the social circles. But I didn’t even belong within them. I felt like I was always kind of on the fringes. And so breaking through into those social circles was more of a priority to me at that point than breaking through academically. It was more of an attainable goal at the time. So I skipped a lot of class and I screwed round and I didn’t hang hand in much work. And the result was I failed my entire grade 11 year all eight courses. And you know, as you would probably anticipate my parents were pretty off and they, they were pretty much ready to disown me at that point.


Antonio Morra (04:59):
Luckily I had an aunt which were, was nine years older than me, my, my, you know, my closest as far as relative to my own age. She really advocated for me. She saw a lot of herself in me. She spoke with my parents, she took me under her wing that summer. You know, she said, you know, it’s probably time away from home and, and kind of stayed with me. And so I stayed with her and my grand parents. But it wasn’t a free ride I had to work. During that time of screwing around, I, I also found out that I had a bank account and I started drawing money out of an account. So I had to pay my parents back for all the money I took out. So that summer my, my aunt got me a job with VA with the city of VA summer camps.


Antonio Morra (05:43):
She was a director there and she was able to get me a job as a camp counselor. And, and it was because of what she recognized in me and what I, what I was to my, my younger cousins, as far as a good influence and a nurturer that she thought I’d be really good at doing this. And that was my first real experience in a paid kind of position in a professional in a professional sense working with kids and, and I really loved it. It, it, it gave me, you know a sense of purpose again you know, working with people, giving of myself helping them develop. And also knowing that I had a lot of struggles connecting with individuals, had me or was gave me an ability to see that in others. So, you know, helping people working with their own struggles socially and academically was always something that I, you know, was committed to, to so essentially it was because of my own my own failures that had me want to get into education, to help people like myself who were confused, who were alone, who were scared, who were unsure to give them a sense of, you know of purpose to also will give them a sense that they are worthy, that they do have the ability that they do have the capability not to give up, to keep working in themselves.


Antonio Morra (07:06):
And and, and basically that our life journeys are, are, are not always marked by the same successes in the same order as everybody else. You know, one thing that always stuck with me was my aunt telling me, you know, Tony, did you start talking at the same time as all the other kids? Did you start walking at the same time as everyone else? So why, why do you think that you are gonna, you know, read and, and graduate and, and, you know, meet these other hurdles at the same time as everyone else, we all develop in our own time based our own maturity and our maturity level. And so that’s kind of the message I take with my students today. I kind of just really want them to understand that I’m here for them. I understand them. I, I wanna support them. And I recognize that we all develop at our own at our own pace and our own journey.


Sam Demma (07:55):
I absolutely love the story. It’s so refreshing. And I know that educator listening to this right now is thinking like, wow, this is such a touching story. And some of them might be even having the same feelings, which is usually the case when people get vulnerable and share stories. So I really appreciate you sharing, and it’s really cool how your life has come full circle. And now you are the person believing in young people. And I’m curious to know during this tough time, school is very different these years. How are you able or striving to make your students feel heard and make them feel appreciated and make sure they know you believe in them, despite the fact that education is a little different this year.


Antonio Morra (08:33):
Yeah. Thanks. That’s a really good question. I believe relationship building is, is key for that. If if you take to time in your day put aside the curriculum just for a bit and get to know your kids and more importantly, allow them an opportunity to get to know you personally. I, I really think all of those other barriers, those fears the the unwillingness to become vulnerable and share kind of melts away. I, I was able to in a new environment, I, I moved from my old school of 16 years of St. Mary I’m in a new community now. And so trying to develop those relationships was my key goal during this one quad master these are kids that I’ve never met before. And to be honest with you after two months of spending time with them it feels like I’ve known them since they were in grade nine.


Antonio Morra (09:26):
So, you know, taking the time to develop those relationships, be vulnerable share your own personal struggles, your own personal, your own personal successes with your students and provide them with an opportunity to kind of share with you what’s going on in their life, their celebrations, their failures, their struggles so that you come to know them on a, on a deeper level. And so that they can trust you to speak to you about their concerns. We’ve also created a lot of student groups here. We started to develop a LGBTQ GT GSA Alliance group cuz we felt that that was something that was necessary. We also are in the process of creating a girls and boys empowerment group. They’re going to be known as the unity group they’re gonna work to together, but separately kind of tackle the same issues, but within their own within their own groups.


Antonio Morra (10:22):
So that’s another way of kind of, you know, building up students to communicate with each other, but also we’ll have teacher moderators so that we’re there to ensure that the space is safe, caring, and inclusive. The last group that we’re working towards is a a black indigenous and people of color group. So basically a group of racialized students and allies to combat the you know, the second pandemic that we’re living in today and that’s of racial inequality. So just to kind of work towards racial justice.


Sam Demma (10:55):
That’s awesome. And on those topic of sharing with your students and allowing them to share all the struggles, but also the, the joyful moments, what makes, what gives you joy and what keeps you motivated to keep doing what you’re doing despite the challenges.


Antonio Morra (11:10):
Yeah. You know, what really gives me joy and keeps you motivated is hearing from people like you, Sam for us in our profession, we, we don’t really see the fruits mature, we plant seeds and, and we hope that those fruits ma front, we see glimmers of it. We see glimmers of the, you know, the plants starting to come out of the, of the ground, but we never see it fully becoming what it will be. And it’s when we encounter our students many years later and seeing what they’re doing and seeing how our ideas, these, these seeds that we planted start to mature in what they do in their actions in their lives and how their lives kind of are directed through those conversations we had. So seeing the, the great works of our students like yourself really gives me inspiration to continue to do what I’m doing to know that what we do has long lasting positive effects on our students.


Sam Demma (12:06):
I love that. That’s a great piece of advice, and I think I get the same feeling when I see a kid that I’ve spoken to or something I haven’t had much time as you have to watch them grow, but it’s a really, it’s a really cool feeling. If you could go back in time to your first year in education and give your younger self advice the same way you would’ve give yourself advice, looking back at when you were in school, I want you to think back to right when you started teaching, you know, after all the ways you’ve gained so far, what pieces of advice would you give to yourself before starting again?


Antonio Morra (12:37):
You know, that’s, that’s a really good question because I’m kind of there right now. Mm-Hmm, , I, I feel like I’m right back to the, to the beginning point. First of all, like I said, I’m in a new community, but more than just that I, I I’m dealing with a new way of educating within the COVID reality that we’re facing. A lot of what I did in the past just doesn’t fit this model. There’s online learning that I need to kinda attack and, and try to, you know, devise a, a plan that it would be meaningful. And again, someone who really focuses on relat building, it’s so hard to do this through a screen. Now I do see my students every other day when they are in class, but when they’re not in class I see them online for a week straight to go through all of my curriculum, everything I’ve developed and try to kind of piece it all out again, mm-hmm, you know, and take out, what’s not going to work, take out maybe what may have been used as, as you know, filler and really try to rethink my, my, my strategy with a lens of equity of inclusivity leveraging the stories of the minorities in, in our school, so that their voice and their images being reflected in my curriculum to remove a more colonialist history or perspective in the curriculum and, and to create a more inclusive curriculum has been my, my real focus this year.


Antonio Morra (14:13):
So I, I I’m really am reinventing my curriculum. And so as far as advice, advice, I, I feel the same anxiety, Sam. I I’m up late at night. I don’t sleep because I’m constantly wrestling with ideas and not sure of, you know, of myself. And, and so I’m, I’m walking with ease, I’m walking uneasy. But one thing that I have now that I didn’t have then is is my practice in, in meditation. My practice in mindfulness my practice in connecting with breath movement in yoga just to kinda help me when I’m feeling anxious. So I, I kind of return to my breath every time I feel that that kind of bubbling and building and, and I, and I have this new kind of way of, of talking to myself, not out of you know, fear of, so you can’t do it.


Antonio Morra (15:11):
What, what do you think you’re doing? You know, you can’t do this. Yeah. And, and I, and I just tell myself, you know, you can do this and, and just do your best and whatever your best is, that will be good enough. You know, knowing that it’s not all going to happen all at once, knowing that it’s a pro build on it, and this is just, you know, the first run through it and, and my next run will get better and just, just kind of survive. It just survive it, man, you can do it do your best and whatever it is, if it’s good enough, great. And if it’s not good enough, we’ll so be it, there’s nothing I can change. You know, this is what I can offer and, and I, I’m just gonna have to be okay with that.


Sam Demma (15:50):
That’s awesome. And Antonio, if someone wants to reach out, maybe they have some ideas for your fillers that might be useful based off anything you said in this episode, or if they just wanna bounce ideas around and share some good energy, what would be the best way for an educator listening to reach out and chat with you?


Antonio Morra (16:05):
Yeah. So my email’s probably the best way. It’s what I use. The most one thing that I’ve been feeling is, is just, there’s been a lot of information right now being shared. And that’s great, but one thing that I don’t have much of is time. So trying to, you know, manage my time and, and read through all of this information that’s being you know, is being sent my way is, is, is very challenging. I, I feel like I’m constantly responding to dings and buzzes and chimes. My cell phone, it, it doesn’t help. Social media doesn’t help, you know, we try to connect with people, so we’re using social media to do so, but it’s also pulling me away from the people in front of me. So I, I think the best way, and, and the one platform that I do check often is my email. So if you were to email me at Antonio.Morra@dcdsb.ca, I would be able to best respond that way.


Sam Demma (17:15):
Awesome. That, that sounds great. And you know, it’s funny, you mentioned social media. I actually decided to take a year off and it’s been almost two months now and there’s a lot less dings and buzzes, I can tell you that


Antonio Morra (17:26):
Yeah, I, I can’t wait to do the same. I’ve committed to two, two months a leadership course in the first quad mess. So I had to kinda be engaged in it. But now I I’m, I’ve just delete them off my, my phone and I’m really looking forward to some head space. Nice.


Sam Demma (17:43):
Just like the app. awesome. And Antonio, Tony, thank you so much for taking some time today. Really, really appreciate it. And keep up with the amazing work.


Antonio Morra (17:52):
Thanks Sam, for thinking of me and God bless you to continue doing your amazing work as well.


Sam Demma (17:58):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Antonio Morra

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

January 22, 2022 by Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Katherine Luellen – Executive Dean, Enrollment Management, Interlochen Center for the Arts

Katherine Luellen - Executive Dean, Enrollment Management, Interlochen Center for the Arts
About Katherine Luellen

A Chicago native, Katherine Drago Luellen (@kidrago329) has previously served as Director of Admissions at Boston University School of Music, Director of Recruitment & Enrollment for Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, Assistant Dean of Admission & Student Services for Longy School of Music of Bard College, and Assistant Director of Admission/Music Admission Coordinator for University of Puget Sound.

Ms. Drago has spent over 10 years performing professionally in opera, concert, and musical theater appearing with the Santa Fe Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Broadway National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera, and many more. She was most recently seen in the title role of Tobias Picker’s Therese Raquin with Microscopic Opera in Pittsburgh and Mercedes in Carmen with Bay Chamber Concerts.

Mrs. Luellen has been a guest speaker with the Pacific Northwest Association of College Admission Counselors, Decision Desk U, Music Admission Roundtable, Classical Singer, and Opera America.

Connect with Katherine: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Interlochen Center for the Arts

Boston University School of Music

Carnegie Mellon University School of Music

Longy School of Music of Bard College

University of Puget Sound

Pacific Northwest Association of College Admission Counselors (PNACAC)

Music Admissions Roundtable

Classical Singer

Opera America

Santa Fe Opera

Pittsburgh Opera

Chicago Opera Theater

Broadway National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera

Tobias Picker’s Therese Raquin

Bay Chamber Concerts

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Katherine Luellen. She is the executive Dean enrollment manager at the Interlochen Centre for the Arts. A Chicago native, Katherine has previously served as Director of Admissions at Boston University School of Music, Director of Recruitment & Enrollment for Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, Assistant Dean of Admission & Student Services for Longy School of Music.


Sam Demma (01:05):
Every position she’s been in over the past 10 years, she’s been involved in professionally, you know, setting up opera in concert, in musical theater, appearing on the Santa Fe Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Chicago Opera, Broadway National Tour of the Phantom of the Opera, and so much more. She is a music fanatic and the heart of her passion is helping young talent reach extraordinary stages and heights. This is an amazing interview. She helps so many young people get into amazing positions for success. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed recording it. I will see you on the other side. Katie, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. It is a huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by telling our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got into your work with education?


Katherine Luellen (01:55):
Great. Well, thank you Sam, for having me. I’m delighted to be here. I am the executive Dean of Enrollment Management at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and Interlochen in Michigan. So we are known for a world class summer arts camp that was found in 1928 that serves 3000 students in seven arts areas every summer. We also have our Arts Boarding High School here. We have our College for Creative Arts serving lifelong education and some programming virtually in the Interlochen online space. So I manage recruitment and enrollment for all of the education units at Interlochen and I found myself here quite by accident. And I am an, a recovering opera singer is what I like to say. I was trained in opera and musical theater and had a, a nice run and a wonderful time performing and traveling and being on the stage and


Katherine Luellen (02:55):
At a certain point in time, I took a breath and really wanted to make an impact in a different way. Hmm. And I wasn’t sure what that way was. But I thought about what skills I had and what experiences I had and through my education, actually, one of the ways I supported my education was working in the admission office at the various colleges and institutions I attended. And that was a way I thought to connect with young people and their families to help talk about what a creative education can do for a young person. So I pivoted, I guess that might be the buzzword of 2020 to enrollment. And I worked at a small liberal arts college on the west coast. I’ve worked at a large research institution. I’ve worked at a small boutique conservatory, all usually within the arts realm. And so when Interlochen called me, I thought, well, this is interesting because this isn’t just college. This is, this is really little ones, right? Third grade, this is grownups. This is really fostering that lifelong support of the arts and creative energy. So it’s been a really cool ride and a really nice fit for me.


Sam Demma (04:11):
Tell me more about that moment, where you took a new breath and decided you wanted to make an impact, where exactly were you at that point in your career and what really prompted you to make that decision?


Katherine Luellen (04:22):
Oh my gosh, it was crazy. I was sitting in my apartment in New York. I had about a year’s worth of work scheduled ahead of me. I was in the finals of a major international opera competition and I didn’t feel like I was making any of my own artistic decisions. Mm. I was on stage watching a human with Dick monitoring the music I was dressed as, you know, indicated by the costume designer. I was, you know, told where to go by the director. And so that’s not always the case. Right. Mm-hmm , these, these artistic experiences are much more collaborative than what I just outlined. But for me, I felt like I just, you know, you can’t see the odd there’s that fourth wall. And I wanted to have a deeper connection with the arts and with young people to create a generation that would collaborate differently on stage, that would be, that would push the arts to new audiences.


Katherine Luellen (05:22):
And I think we’re seeing that. But it felt like my role wasn’t correct in that journey yet at that moment that it wasn’t maybe all facets of my brain, weren’t firing cause of what I was being given. And so I, I jumped off a moving train and onto another train that was cool and fun. And and I learned really like in the fire, you know, I actually remember my first admission job and calling my father who’s a finance person. And I literally said to him, dad, I, I have so many Excel questions. I just I’m, I’m just drowning Excel questions. Cause I’ve been an artist for 10 years. And so here is this just sort of skill I’m that I, I need to catch up on. I need to catch up on databases, I’m Excel. And but it was fun and your enrollment is inherently creative. It’s about communicating. It’s about being intuitive and the connections you’re making. And and I talk about the arts every day. And so I’m very, very lucky.


Sam Demma (06:35):
The process you outlined about jumping a, off a moving train and onto another one in the fire is what education is like right now. It feels like everyone was jumping off a moving train going in one direction and we’re going a totally opposite direction with the challenges we’re currently faced with. Can you speak a little bit to the challenges that you guys are facing? Some maybe that you’ve overcome and some that you’re still dealing with?


Katherine Luellen (06:59):
Now for sure. So just to, I guess, outline this pandemic season of education for interlock and in the springtime we transitioned our 93rd summer season to a fully virtual experience interlock and online. If we took 98 programs for grades three through 12 and distilled them into 13 programs that were three weeks long in a virtual platform and it was wildly successful, we had almost 1500 students. And we really leaned on our alumni across the world in industry seminars to offer students experiences, to talk and engage and feel inspired with professionals that they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise that only interlocking could give them. And so, you know, that paired with the foundational training in all of our arts areas was really something that was special about our program. We even sent everyone a camp in a box, everybody got a shirt and a lanyard and an ID card and camp fire like activity for and friendship bracelets.


Katherine Luellen (08:10):
And, you know, we wanted students to feel engaged in the community and our virtual cabins and that social connection was something that was really successful and has actually still continued even to now there’s a core group of hardcore virtual cabins from rock and online that are still going. So we learned a lot from that experience and we had our interlock and arts academy, high school students went home in March a little early for spring break, packed up and we had hoped, of course they’d come back, but they weren’t able to, but we were very lucky this fall to be able to welcome almost 500 students to our campus for live instruction. Nice. So we’ve created kind of a contained community as we are calling it, cuz faculty and staff are coming and going, but we’ve partnered with the broad Institute at MIT for testing and we have significant safety protocols in place and it’s not easy and it hasn’t been for these young people.


Katherine Luellen (09:05):
Mm-Hmm I think that, you know, we, when you think of the silver lining that these people are here, that they’ve persevered, that they’re showing that grit that gosh, we’ve been talking to met in college admission for year. Right. How do you, how do you show the grit show? The perseverance? Well, this proves it. Yeah. You know, I went to boarding school in Northern Michigan in a pandemic because I knew I wanted to create art and I knew I wanted to be amongst a, a community of likeminded people and it, you know, by golly the pandemic wasn’t gonna stop me. And so that’s the kind of students we have here. And they’re, they’re joyfully working and that’s what we like to say here and, and creating that art. But it’s not easy. Staying six feet apart wearing a mask is not easy for a grownup let alone a teenager.


Katherine Luellen (09:52):
So every day we like to say is day one in our fighting COVID 19. And we’ve learned, you know, just a ton about safety. basically in health and we’ve leaned on professionals in our community. Of course. We also have 50 students international who are learning virtually with us who are not able to get to our campus. So we’ve created, created a hybrid model. So, you know, when I talk to families, they’ll say, well, it’s like a virtual high school. It’s not, we haven’t created a virtual high school. We are really serving our students and accommodating the conditions that we’re in. That’s a whole different, you know, ball of wax. But yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s an adventure certainly. Not where we thought we would be probably right.


Sam Demma (10:40):
No. So true. I love the camp and a box idea. I thought that was very unique and no wonder it’s a huge success. I’m curious to know if you have any other things like that that have been widely successful so far maybe little insights or ideas that another educator listening might say, wow, this is a great idea. Let me try this. Any come to mind?


Katherine Luellen (11:00):
For sure. I mean, in the summertime our most popular elective course for any student was something called college bootcamp college prep bootcamp. And of course that’s on everyone’s mind. And these students who are looking for colleges right now in a virtual space, it it’s totally different. How higher ed is reacting in the United States and across the world to, you know, finding the right fit or students engaging with them and how that demonstrated interest plays into decision making. This is totally a new landscape. We see lots of institutions thriving and we see some floundering a little bit in it. And so I think students really were hungry to engage with professionals in the college counseling space and utilize some of the excellent pathway curriculum we have for our academy students. But so they could feel a sense of, I don’t wanna say control, but more just calm perhaps mm-hmm about the process. I have a plan, I have some things to think about. I know it’s going to be different, let’s acknowledge what’s different about it and make a plan. And so that was really successful and actually we’ve launched a bootcamp for college audition prep in November nice, which is gonna be really awesome for music and theater students. But I think that just creating that calm for students in a high stress decision making time was really helpful for them.


Sam Demma (12:30):
That’s awesome. That’s really cool. And, and, you know, you talked about moving from opera to education and I wanna touch upon one thing real quick. When you were a student, did you have any teachers in your life or educators in your life that made a profound impact on you? And the reason I’m asking is because there’s a couple that stick out in my mind for my whole experience in school, one being Mike loud foot, my world issue teacher who put me on a totally different path in life. But the reason I’m asking is because I wanna know what it was that your educators in your life did and what their character traits were or what the things they did for you that had a huge impact. So maybe during this time another educator listening might try to adopt those same character traits so they can, you know, impact their students the same way. Does any educator come to mind for you?


Katherine Luellen (13:19):
There? I mean, there are so, so many, I’ll be honest with you that it’s, I think education is, is the I don’t know, I hold it in the highest esteem in terms of what faculty do. And I come from a, a long line of educators. And so I’ve seen both sides of the desk and the classroom experience and really personally, and, and the work and intuition and gut and heart that go into it is really amazing. You know, what’s funny for me and it could just be a personality trait. Mm-Hmm, the, the educators that come to mind for me that were most influential are the ones that really told me the truth. Mm. And especially in the arts, I think that’s, those are hard conversations. Yeah. Sometimes you know but even, I think of like my freshman, sophomore year English teachers in high school, who I attribute to helping me learn to write, which I now do every day as a part of my job.


Katherine Luellen (14:19):
Yeah. And they were really, really honest with me, you know, and it wasn’t a good grade always. And that pushed me to learn and pushed me to try and pushed me to maybe it’s again, taking that breath to say, I didn’t, I didn’t do this well. And why, why didn’t I do this? Well, mm-hmm, like, what, what were the barriers that are keeping me from making that to the next level? And even with the arts, right. It’s having those conversations of taking potential and passion and how do you mold that into the right purpose? Mm. And that doesn’t always mean the Broadway stage or the metropolitan and opera, the schau pair it’s, there are so many ways that can make a difference. So I have one quick line, my voice teacher in grad school always used to say, Katie, you gotta do it again. And you gotta put it in the talent, put it in the talent. And I kind of think about that all the time. Like, come on Kate, put it in the talent. Like, where’s your talent, where’s your, your space that, that helps you make the best decisions succeed the most, you know, put it there. And I dunno, that probably was not very succinct answer.


Sam Demma (15:37):
No, that’s awesome. And I hope everyone can, cuz when you were saying that I was envisioning my soft spot and my sweet spots and where I can put it in the talent. So I hope everyone else takes that to heart and thinks about it personally, or maybe shares it with their class and their students. if you could give advice to your former self, when you just started working in education, what advice would you have given knowing what you know now?


Katherine Luellen (16:04):
Oh my gosh. In education. I think what I know now is that I never have all the information nice. And I think that I, I didn’t always think that way early on. I thought, well, here’s all the information. Here’s everything about this applicant. Here’s everything I know about the finances of this family. If I’m looking at financial aid or about this event or whatever it is, but you never have all information. And so every decision you’re making, you’re making in a, in a space where you’re trying to do the right thing based on the information you have. Mm. Understanding that there’s nimbleness to that there’s flex to that there’s gray area. And especially in the work that I do where talented young people are trying to make the right next choice for them. And financial aid is a part of that and family commitment and family circumstances and all of those things are wildly complicated. I used to joke in college that on April 1st, everyone loses their mind, like all families that were lovely students who, you know, just stay in the course and then the dollars and cents become involved and people lose their minds. Cause it’s personal, it’s complicated and we don’t have all the information. So you just have to kind of listen and give people a space to give you the information they can or are able or willing to in many decision making situations and go from there.


Sam Demma (17:39):
Yeah. That’s awesome. It’s an amazing piece of advice. And not only does it apply to, you know, getting people in through admission, but it also applies to, you know, everyday students. I don’t think we ever have all the information as, as good as we try to get to know somebody. So, you know, try and make as little assumptions as you can and listen twice as much as you speak. You know, one of my teachers told me you have two ears in one mouth, you know, it means you have to listen twice as much as you talk.


Katherine Luellen (18:03):
absolutely. I agree. And you know, it’s funny with these young artists too, they be so hard on themselves counting the number of mistakes they made and a performance or an audition. And I often will tell them you’re never a hundred percent. There’s my dog friends. That’s OK. Life at home. So you know, you’re never in any performance, a hundred percent, you’re, you’re always you’re always fighting something. And so maybe it’s a dog barking, you know? And so you just have to take it with a grain of salt.


Sam Demma (18:38):
Oh, that’s true. Awesome. Katie, if someone wants to reach out, bounce some ideas around, share some good vibes and energy, where can they reach out to you and have those conversations?


Katherine Luellen (18:48):
Oh my gosh, I would love to do the I’m so eager to just be a sounding board and have other sounding board friends out there in the universe who do good work or who seek to do good work. So I’m easy to reach. I’m just katie@interlochen.org. I’m super here for, for everybody who wants to talk our arts or education or opera or musical theater or dogs, you know.


Sam Demma (19:16):
awesome. Katie, thanks so much for coming on the show. It’s been a real pleasure having this conversation with you. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episode, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Katherine Luellen

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

January 22, 2022 by Director of Education Experiential Learning Music Educator Student Success Teachers 0

Tali Aziza M.S.W., R.S.W. – School Counsellor at Netivot HaTorah Day School

Tali Aziza M.S.W., R.S.W. - School Counsellor at Netivot HaTorah Day School
About Tali Aziza

Tali is a Registered Social Worker who works at a Modern Orthodox Jewish Day School in Thornhill Ontario. She works specifically with students in Pre-Nursery through to Grade Three providing one on one counselling, consultative services and social-emotional learning program development and implementation.

Tali earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree at IDC in Herzliya, Israel. She then completed her certification in holistic nutrition through The Institute of Holistic Nutrition in Toronto and then her Master of Social Work at Wurzweiler School of Social Work in New York.   

Connect with Tali: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Zones of Regulation (SEL resource)

Netivot Hatorah Day School

The Ruler Program (SEL resource)

YALE Center for Emotional Intelligence

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:01):
Tali welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what brought you to the work you’re doing today with young people?


Tali Aziza (00:13):
First of all, thank you so much for having me on I’m so excited to be talking to you today. So I am a registered social worker. I sort of came to my work now in schools through it, wasn’t always my, my path to end up in the school system. Really, I started, I did my undergraduate degree in psychology. I always knew I wanted to work with children. But more specifically at the time I wanted to work with children with eating disorders. So after my undergrad degree I went and did my degree in holistic nutrition. So I became a certified holistic nutritionist with the goal of combining the two together and working in eating disorders. I started my masters of social work and did my placements my first one in the school system and my second one really specializing in eating disorders.


Tali Aziza (01:07):
And then after graduating, I really, I tried out a little bit of different things, but I really found that I loved working in schools. And the reason being is that you get the opportunity to work with such a wide variety of different presentations and, and different kids dealing with different things. And what’s really neat about being in the school system is you really get to be on the front lines and really have a very strong impact. I find on the kids that you’re working with. So I didn’t land working specialized with eating disorders. I sort of work from a more holistic perspective. But I do feel that the work ties in because we get to work from a preventative model. And, and even in the work that I do, I try and interweave making sure that we’re doing all the protective factors to ensure that people have healthy, strong relationships with food moving forward, but also are, you know, protective from anxiety and things like, like that as they grow older.


Sam Demma (02:06):
Can you take us back to your first experience working in a school setting and explain kind of how you fell in love with working in a school?


Tali Aziza (02:17):
So what’s interesting about my, my position in the work that I do is I work really with very young kids. And so from a social work perspective, it, it almost seems like a little counterintuitive. The youngest age group I work with are kids who are, you know, 18 months almost. And I work with the kids up until grade three. So when I started, I, I, in hindsight, like I was completely sort of out of my comfort zone working with kids who are so young is not really something that you get a lot of experience with in, in social work school. But immediately I saw how we had the opportunity or I had the, to become part of the framework of the school. So right immediately, like first day you’re, you’re not locked up in your office as this like very fancy formal school social worker. You’re really in the hallways, in the classrooms out on recess duty, welcoming the kids as they come into will. And so you get the ability to like sort of infuse some of this social and emotional support into the school day in so many different ways. And then the added bonus is it’s, it’s wonderful working with kids who are, who are younger, you get to it’s so gratifying and it’s, so they’re so sweet and, and welcoming of any sort of interventions or anything like that. So that’s been really positive too.


Sam Demma (03:44):
And tell me more about your journey into social work as a profession. Did you know, growing up that you wanted to be a social worker or what led you down that path?


Tali Aziza (03:54):
So it’s an interesting question. I always knew I wanted to work with children. I, and after finishing my degree in psychology, I was looking into a master’s in psychology, but really with a master’s in psychology, you almost sort of need to go down the road of a PhD to be able to really do the work that I wanted to do. And then my dad actually said to me, one day, he said, like, I think you’re over complicating things here. What’s the end goal. And let’s think about up the most direct route you can take to get there. And so my end goal was I wanna work with children. I wanna support children, social and emotional wellbeing. And the most direct route was through a master’s in social work. Because that really allows you to be on the ground, working with kids, doing the work. And you know, maybe some of the other things are, you know, come into play later down the road, but that was like the most direct route to get me to my end goal. So it really, it really never had to do with social work per se. It was always more about working with children.


Sam Demma (04:53):
Cool. And what do you find are some of the challenges that students are faced with? I mean, you probably see them before most people do. You might even be the first adult in a young child’s life to hear a challenge before they even tell a parent or a family member, what are some of the common challenges that you’re seeing in young kids and how do you as a caring adult support those challenges and those young, those young learners and human beings?


Tali Aziza (05:20):
So it differs, I mean, you, you see different things at different age groups. So really when you’re talking about really, really young kids a lot of the times you’ll see more of the behavioral or the social side of things. So you’ll be, might, you might be seeing more tangible, like outbursts tantrum, like behavior some social, some signs like that. But as you work with children and as they get older, you start to see different things coming out. So I work with up to grade three. So as you approach the grades you start, you do start to see a lot more of the anxiety, be it social anxiety generalized anxiety things like that. More, more social issues coming out. Self-Esteem issues, things like that. And this has all been of course, really complicated by the pandemic also.


Tali Aziza (06:14):
And one of the things that I spent a lot out of time worrying about when we first transitioned to being in lockdown and being online is that for a lot of these kids, these are really pivotal years and nobody has eyes on these children. So be it from, you know, whatever perspective, but sometimes when you’re living with your kid day in and day out, you don’t know necessarily notice some of the things that might be going on for them. It’s important for them to be in a school setting, to have different people with different perspectives, looking out for your kids. So that’s, that’s a big thing. And, and now we are seeing, I mean, I do, I do find that we do see more anxiety kids struggling more socially, definitely struggling more academically, which plays into all of the social and emotional stuff as well.


Tali Aziza (07:01):
So where I come in and you ask, like, what do we do about it? It of course differs from kid to kid, but really I think that the most powerful work that, that I do in that the department does is really being an advocate and a cheerleader for these kids. I think going into school every, every day. And knowing that you have someone in the building who is on your team, no matter what they want you to do. Well, you know, I, I have kids come in and they’ll sit in my office for a few minutes and even just color and talk. There’s not any huge social work intervention happening, but just knowing that there’s somebody there who cares about you, you have a space to go. If you, you know, if you’re feeling really overwhelmed or you have a fight with a friend, or you’re just not feeling great that day I think really makes a huge difference. And I don’t think it needs to be big or fancy or, you know, super well researched interventions, I think. And even, you know, for, for you and I like growing up in a different time, we didn’t necessarily have that. And so having someone that, you know, is there for you in the building, like just that in and of itself, I think is really impactful.


Sam Demma (08:11):
It’s not like you have some grade one walking into your office and you hand them this white sheet of paper with check boxes on it. And you’re like, put you diagnose yourself and that’s correct. Check off your problem, or right. It sounds like you’re more focused on building relationships. Mm-Hmm and really showing that these students, that you care about them as human beings. Mm-Hmm how do you think you build that relationship? Obviously, accessibility is a big thing, like being accessible and having this space open, but once they enter the space, how do you go about building their relationships and ensuring these young kids know you are on their team?


Tali Aziza (08:47):
Right. So it really starts so much even before they come into the office. Mm-Hmm , and what’s really neat about being able to be in a school system. And, and the school that I work in is that there really is no stigma around going to see the social worker. We call, call ourselves the school counselor to make it a little bit more friendly. But like I mentioned before, you know, I’m outside on the playground every day, when the kids come in, I agree, read them outside. I’m outside on recess duty. I’m very visible within built into the framework of the school. So they don’t see me as like someone you go to when you have a quote unquote problem or something like that. And, and we often joke that we sometimes have the opposite issue that like, after recess, everyone wants to come speak to the school counselor cuz you know, someone took my ball or this or that.


Tali Aziza (09:38):
Which is amazing because there’s really no stigma around it. So it starts in the hallways. It starts in creating that rapport in, in the safe spaces that the kids are comfortable in. And then the other important piece of it, which can get sometimes a little tricky in a school based setting is I’m really careful to really distinguish between discipline and social work. Mm. Which can be tricky because sometimes the kids that you’re dealing with, you know, can struggle from both angles. Right. And so they, there might be a discipline component and there’s a social and emotional component, but it’s really important that I’m not the, the discipline in person. Because then the kids will shut down and won’t wanna relate or talk to me. So it’s really important that I stay neutral from that perspective. And then once the kid comes in the room and, and you know, you don’t have any negative association from anything else beyond that point.


Tali Aziza (10:36):
It really, at first from kid to kid, I like to find out what the kids like to do. And, and you know, the first few sessions, I really just focus on building a relationship because if there’s no relationship there, then the rest of the work won’t land, it won’t work. So depending on the kid and what their interests are, we do different sort of things to ensure that we’re building that relationship. And from there that like sort of lays the foundation for all the other things, to be able to permeate so much better.


Sam Demma (11:04):
I love that. And there’s definitely an educator listening right now who loves the ideas you’re sharing, but does not have a social worker in their school currently. Mm-Hmm how would you apply these same mindsets for an educator or a classroom teacher? Or do you have any tips for like a, just a classroom teacher on how they could use some of these same ideas to help their own students if they don’t have a social worker in their school and not, not that they can be the teacher and the social worker that’s not possible, but maybe there’s some mindsets or some ideas that they could use in their, in their classrooms when situ arise.


Tali Aziza (11:40):
Oh, sorry. I just cut out for a second. That’s okay. Absolutely. I think first of all, it doesn’t need to be a social worker. I think the biggest gift that the students have coming into the building is the teachers themselves. They have the most impact on the children. And the biggest thing the teachers can do is ensure that each and every child feels seen and recognized by the teachers. So something that I know that within my school, but in general teachers have been more cognizant of in recent years is, is how we greet students. Ah so for example, instead of the kids rushing into the classroom and the teacher standing at the front of the room and saying, okay, things away, take out your books. You know, we have the teachers, a lot of teachers standing outside the classroom and looking at each kid as they come in and saying their name and saying, hi, how are you or giving them a smile or even giving the kids the opportunity to do that to each other, just creating that like one small moment in a day where the kid is looked at and feels seen and recognized and genuinely cared about.


Tali Aziza (12:42):
We never know what’s going on for these kids at home. And so that one small moment could be huge. That could be all they’re getting in their day. So not to underestimate the power that you have. And, and I know that isn’t time, there, there is no time as a teacher it’s, you can’t make it appear from nowhere, but in those transitions, in those moments and then something that we’ve created that, that my school has taken on is something where we carve out time every day to address the social and emotional needs of our student. So there’s 15 minutes, there’s supposed to be 15 minutes with each teacher we’re dual curriculum school. So in the morning and in the afternoon where they take time to check in and find out how the kids are doing either, or they, you know, something as simple as talking about recessing kids, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down some sort of a reflect or carving out time just to do some sort of social and emotional learning anything like that, but even in just creating that space and opening that door to talking about feelings and things like that for some kid that could signal to them, okay, this is someone that I can open up to.


Tali Aziza (13:53):
And it doesn’t need to be big ways or in, you know, in fancy ways or in taking time to meet with every student, you can’t do that as a teacher. But there all are small things. Something else that I’ve done in the past that I think is, is really amazing to do if you have the time or the resources is journaling with students. So it it’s amazing because it gets students also working on their writing working on their thought and idea formation. But it is also a really nice way to build relationships with students. So you can give a prompt, give a question and then have students write their response and you don’t need to answer every single student every single time, but each time you can go through and write a response to some of the students and, you know, maybe ask them a little bit more. And then through this journaling exercise, which can become part of the framework and the structure of your class you’re, you’re first of all, tackling so many things you’re tackling, you know, you’re giving space to gratitude. You’re giving space to mindfulness, you’re giving space to relationship formation, but through all of those things, you can also be opening the door for kids to be able to confide in you or share with you if they need to.


Sam Demma (15:06):
It sounds like all these activities lend themselves like creating a safe space or a space where there’s more communication mm-hmm . Do you have any tools, resources, fun games that you’ve leveraged or used when it comes to mindfulness, social, emotional learning or even things that have helped you learn more about the topic that you think teachers or other social workers might find helpful?


Tali Aziza (15:30):
Mm-Hmm yeah, so there’s, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There’s really great, well research programs out there for all of these things. So for example, the zones of regulation program is a great program. It was developed by an OT and it’s a great program that’s aimed at teaching children, how to identify their feelings, label their feelings and what to do to maneuver through their feelings in a comfortable and expected, appropriate way. So there’s a whole program that exists around that it’s very well researched, very well founded, and the, it, it’s not complicated or hugely costly. You buy the book, it comes with the CD and there’s a lot of information about it widely available online as well. Another program similar to that is the social thinking program that has books and, and all sorts of follow up activities that can really guide you in, in relating this conversation and bringing it in there’s something similar called the ruler program.


Tali Aziza (16:29):
Some of these are more expensive and, and more complicated to, to take off than others. But the zones is a really easy one to start with. The other thing is, is that there’s a lot of really great literature out there. And by literature, I mean like books for the kids themselves. Cool. So, and, and what’s really great now is you don’t need to go out and necessarily buy all of these books. They have so many read alouds on YouTube. So just even knowing some of the books that are really great for bringing up that conversation, teaching kids about their emotions. And, and that’s the important piece is we have to teach them. We can’t just assume that they know, right. So a lot of kids feel anger, but they don’t know that that’s to anger. They just know it’s a really uncomfortable feeling in their body.


Tali Aziza (17:17):
Mm-Hmm so there’s an education piece that has to come into play here too. And there’s a lot of great books that do just that. So for example, the color monster is an amazing book that can be adopted to different ages and teaches about that. And there’s for sure many read, read aloud for that on the you to yeah. So that’s the great, those are great things to do. The other thing that I like to tell teachers to do is we like to, we like to tell students that, you know, at times they need to be calm or they need to, they need a break or to calm down, but we can’t just assume that kids know what it looks like and what it feels like to calm down. We have to practice that with them. Mm. So even just taking five minutes in a day and having like five minutes of mindfulness time, you can put on some relaxing music, you can have some mindfulness come coloring sheets. You can have time to take a book. You can have time to write in a journal, but all of these things, they need practice with getting into that state to be able to then access it when they need it. We can’t just go about the hustle and bust of our day all the time, and then expect that kids know how to calm down when they’re told to calm down.


Sam Demma (18:27):
Yeah. That’s such a good, that’s such a good piece of advice, even for parents. Like, because I know that like teachers, a parent often tells their child calm down or stop doing this or do that. And like, yeah, a kid might be totally confused as to what that looks like. And you know, they’re not gonna sometimes listen to your words, but they’re gonna follow what you are doing. And if you’re screaming at them to calm down, kinda goes against the whole thing you’re asking them to do.


Tali Aziza (18:55):
Right. And then if they don’t know what to do, then that’s frustrating and that can further contribute to whatever behavior you’re already seeing. So I like to tell parents very often I tell parents to like model calm and to practice calm. So take five minute. It and, and sometimes even just as you come in the door after school is a great time and it’s important for whatever their calming activity is to be something they can access independently. Mm-Hmm , if it’s something that they need a lot of support with, it’s less likely that that’s gonna be effective in the moment that it’s needed. But if you have a space that’s, and it doesn’t need to be, be designated to calm as in nothing else happens there, that’s not feasible for most people, but a space that’s associated with a calming activity. You practice that calming activity, they get comfortable with accessing it independently. It’s gonna be much more effective in the moment.


Sam Demma (19:45):
That’s awesome. And examples, you mentioned, if you journaling mind for, with some music, there’s also so many great apps. There’s an app literally called calm mm-hmm, , there’s an app called the Headspace or insight timer. If you wanted to introduce your students to meditation or some form of mindfulness, mm-hmm, , the list just goes on and on. I’m sure you could find videos and even guided meditations or guided mindfulness act activities on YouTube. Mm-hmm . Uthese are all very cool things to implement. What do you think is one or a few of the opportunities that exist in education today, or, I, I know there’s a bunch of challenges that have come along with COVID that’s very clear and obvious, but on the other side, what do you think some of the opportunities are?


Tali Aziza (20:30):
Hmm. I think that’s a, that’s an interesting question. I think we spend so much time talking about yeah. What, you know, how it set us back in so many ways. I think in, in some ways, access to resources is, is changing. And for some people it’s, it’s easier. And for some people it’s harder. So for example, you know, there’s therapists now who are meeting with kids online, so that might make therapy more accessible to some kids OT, more accessible to some kids. It also hinders the process in a lot of ways too. So that’s a whole, whole Def different conversation. I think that the time at home has really allowed parents to get to know their children. Mm-Hmm . And so I think that as educators and I’m sure a lot of educators would feel this way. A lot of times we’re trying to help parents see some of the things that we’re seeing at school and what’s come as a result of the time at home is that a lot of parents, you know, are really seeing it.


Tali Aziza (21:28):
And I know specifically that year where we transitioned from being totally in school to being fully blindsided by all of this and then being at home, I, I know, and I suspect that globally, a lot of parents were calling teachers and saying, oh my goodness, I, I see it now. Like I get what you were telling me. I didn’t know it before. So I think there is this awareness and there’s partnership that comes from parents re really being part of the classroom, you know, be really being the ones who are, are spearheading it in a lot of ways. So there’s, first of all, an added appreciate that I think always needed to be there for the incredible work that teachers are doing. And that with that has come greater partnership and greater awareness from the parent perspective. So I think that that allows us to go so much further in how we can support and help children,


Sam Demma (22:24):
Speaking of gratitude and appreciation, not only educators, but everyone that works with young people, including yourself and other social workers. If you haven’t heard it recently, thank you so much for the work that you have done and continue to do. If parents aren’t telling you our students it’s making a massive impact. And I appreciate it. Because I know when I was in school, I could have definitely used a teacher that I could celebrate my wins with. Also share my challenges in a very safe environment. Thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation. If someone is listening and wants to reach out, ask a question or share some feedback, what would be the best way for them to reach out and get in touch with you?


Tali Aziza (23:05):
Yeah, absolutely. And I’m always happy if anyone sort of wants to come up with some ideas or is maybe struggling with something please feel free to reach out. I’m happy to brainstorm together. I can be reached by email and it is taliazizacnp@gmail.com


Sam Demma (23:25):
Awesome. Tally, thank you so much. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Tali Aziza (23:30):
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tali Aziza

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

January 19, 2022 by School Counsellor Social Worker Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Elijah Johnson – Secondary Division National President Business Professionals of America

Elijah Johnson - Secondary Division National President Business Professionals of America
About Elijah Johnson

Elijah Johnson (@BPAPresident) is a 17-year-old senior at Blaine High School, in Blaine, Minnesota. Although he’s involved in a variety of extracurriculars, he’s most proud to serve as the National Secondary Division President of Business Professionals of America (BPA), a business education non-profit that changes the lives of students all around the world. 

This year, he, along with the BPA Executive Council, has worked tirelessly to tackle some of the issues that the coronavirus has created for students. By the end of his term, he hopes to create a variety of positive opportunities for both students and teachers. 

Elijah will be pursuing his post-secondary education at Harvard as part of the class of 2026.

Connect with Elijah: Email | Twitter | Instagram | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Business Professionals of America (BPA)

How to Win Friends and Influence People (book)

Minnesota BPA

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:01):
Elijah, welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing with the audience a little bit about who you are?


Elijah Johnson (00:12):
Sure. My name’s Elijah Johnson or I go by Eli and I’m the national secondary division president of business profess of America, which is a business education nonprofit mainly based in the United States, but also with an international presence in Haiti, Peru, China as well as Puerto Rico.


Sam Demma (00:32):
That’s awesome. What led you down this path to get involved in BPA and these different leadership opportunities?


Elijah Johnson (00:41):
Sure. So at my high school I’m a part of the, the engineering program that’s called Sims. And one of the things that some students have to do freshman year is do a computer skills class and the computer skills class is taught by bla high school’s resident. Overly friendly, super boldly, like always super cheerful teacher, miss Bosman. And she’s actually one of the VP’s core advisors at Lynn high school. So she eventually pulled me in to BPA just through talking to me and knowing what my interests were. So I eventually joined BPA through miss Bosman. And then when I was a junior, I started becoming an officer in the organization. And then a couple of months ago in may, I was elected as the national president.


Sam Demma (01:27):
That’s so amazing. And when you were in high school, was it that teacher’s bubbly personality that kind of drew you into BPA? Did she tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, you should get involved or tell me more about how that unfolded.


Elijah Johnson (01:41):
Sure. It was exactly like that she’d burst into class and then she’d start pointing at people and she’d be like, you should join BPA and you should join BPA. I was one of the students that she pointed at and eventually like kind of just gave in and I was like, okay, sure. I guess I’ll, I’ll try it out for a little bit and see how it goes. And four years later and still in my…


Sam Demma (02:04):
That’s. Awesome. Tell me more about miss. Is it bossman?


Elijah Johnson (02:08):
Yes. Miss bossman. Yeah.


Sam Demma (02:09):
What was it like being a student in her class? Was she tell me more about her? I’m curious.


Elijah Johnson (02:15):
Sure. At times it was a little scary that you’d walk into a class cuz I had her first hour and somebody was already that hot be and like excited to start the day. like, especially as a freshman who was just getting orientated into high school. Just having that, that personality. I mean I’m, I’m being sarcastic. Obviously. I love miss Bosman and she was super fun, brought a lot of energy to teaching. Being a student in her class was pretty refresh she to start out your day with someone that was that supportive of everybody’s future and their education. Because one of the reasons that she’s an advisor is because she cares about students that much that she’s willing to put in all the time, it takes to be a VP advisor.


Sam Demma (03:02):
So what do you think makes a good leader? It sounds like miss bossman was a, a great leader for yourself and many of the students in your classroom. And now that you’re in a leadership position, I’m sure you are trying to live out certain characteristics and traits and mindsets yourself to make sure that you’re all a good leader. So what do you think some of those traits and characteristics are?


Elijah Johnson (03:23):
Right. Definitely the ability to relate to other people. I feel like you can’t be a leader of anything if you’re not able to connect to the people that you’re serving you need to know what their issues are. What’s important to them. Some of their problems are because then you need to work to be able to solve those problems and create solutions to the things that they need help with. I’d also say being a very open-minded person because as a leader you’re obviously exposed through different types of personalities, different types of socioeconomic backgrounds and, and such. So just having an open mindset and being able to work with anybody I think is really important.


Sam Demma (04:07):
And have you learned these things through your own personal experience or do you also have mentors and leaders that have poured into you at the, you know, at BPA or in other areas of your life?


Elijah Johnson (04:20):
I’d say both. A lot of my, my what’s the word kind of like not traits but values. Sorry. A lot of my values come from my family. And just being raised by my mom and dad, but for sure a lot of my professional values have definitely come from VP experiences. VP mentors, like miss Bosman, another one of my advisors, supposedly, and then also just the students that I work with getting able to interact with them and learning through them.


Sam Demma (04:52):
That’s awesome. And as a student yourself, like thinking about your whole journey through high school, just your whole journey as a student, what do you think has been the most helpful in terms of what teachers and educators have done for you? I think we all have teachers who pour a lot into us and maybe believe in ourselves sometimes more than we do. And those teachers can shape our future and, you know, push to make decisions that are helpful. What do you think some things are that educators have done for you that have made a massive impact?


Elijah Johnson (05:28):
Definitely being accessible. I’d say that’s the biggest thing that’s impacted me personally. Getting into the position that I’m in right now and running for national office was hands down, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And I know for a fact that I would not have been successful as I’ve been, if it wasn’t for another one of my advisors, Ms. Boley I would text her questions at all hours of the night. Like, how do you do this? How am I supposed to do this? You have any idea what I’m gonna be asked in the caucuses. So just being there having that presence for students is one of the most important things in my opinions that a teacher can do to support their students of that.


Sam Demma (06:12):
I think presence is so important, not only in the classroom, but also in every conversation you can tell when someone’s mind is elsewhere and not paying attention to the words that you’re saying. and I think we both know what it feels like to have those conversations. How do you, like, how do as a leader, do you ensure you stay present when someone is sharing or, you know, speak to you because there’s not, not only now being that you’re involved in BPA, but for the rest of your life, there will always be thousands of things pulling you, your attention and your energy and your thoughts away from the present moment. How do you like kind of remind yourself to stay present?


Elijah Johnson (06:54):
Right. So that’s a great question. And what I personally do is I try to ask questions. So if the, the person saying something that I don’t really understand or if I feel myself starting to drift away from what they’re saying, I try to write down mental questions of clarifying points that I can ask to kind of show that I am paying attention and also force myself to go back to paying attention with him, starting to drift away a little bit.


Sam Demma (07:21):
That’s amazing. There’s there’s a really great book called how to win friends and influence people written by this guy named Dale Carnegie. And he talks about the importance of being interested in somebody else rather than being interesting or trying to be interesting. Your, and I think that aligns so much with your idea of asking questions, which is awesome. On the topic of books, like, have you found any resources helpful for you as a leader and as a student that you think are worth sharing or do you watch any YouTube channels or listen to any podcast that you wanna give a shout out to?


Elijah Johnson (07:56):
Unfortunately I don’t honestly, the only book that I live by as a leader is Robert Robert’s rules. Cause that’s kinda elementary procedure that runs all over board trustees meetings. I see in terms of leadership development, really what I turn to is people that I can interact with. So different mentors within the organization that I can go to and say, Hey, how do you do this? How could I get better at this? So for sure books and, and different types of videos and YouTube series is something that I can start personally. Looking more into,


Sam Demma (08:33):
I, I would argue if you have access to the people who are doing exactly what you wanna do, then they’re probably your best source of learning anyway, like something that I always remind myself is that like all opinions are not created equally, that if you wanna learn how to fly a plane, you know, go and find the pilot instead of asking an attendant or somebody else. And if you have access to those people that are doing what you wanna do, then you don’t have to read books or watch YouTube videos. Anyway, you could just go ask them questions. I’m sure that along your journey, you’ve had so many supportive people, people that have propelled you forward and given you beliefs that were empowering, but there’s probably been situations or the opposite has occurred, or someone told you that your dreams are too big or that it was not gonna be possible or wasn’t gonna work out or you weren’t smart enough or you weren’t good enough. How do you deal with the limiting opinions and beliefs that other people place on you?


Elijah Johnson (09:32):
Honestly, just by moving on, you have to, to be thick skin sometimes and not care about what other people say to you. I remember very, very clear when I told my dad that I was gonna run for national office, he kind of just looked at me and went, okay. And then brushed me off and kind of forgot that I had said anything. He didn’t really start taking me seriously until I ended up becoming middle soda’s candidate in the national elections. And he was like, oh, you are serious about that. And then also kinda similarly, I tried to run for state office in Minnesota and one of my advisors told me that I was too young to run. So I, I actually didn’t end up running. And that kind of impacted me personally a lot because my VP journey almost stopped there. Being told that I couldn’t do something that I had been trying to work towards to, to work towards for years was really, really impactful. But I kind of did what I suggested and I just brushed that off, collected my thoughts. And I ended up asking if I, I could run for nationals and because the limitations that apply to my school regarding age don’t apply at nationals and I ended up completely skipping state and just ran in the national election.


Sam Demma (10:49):
that is such a good story, man. Do you tell this on stage at BPA events?


Elijah Johnson (10:55):
I have told it a bunch in online meetings like this, but not at any conferences so far


Sam Demma (11:00):
Sometimes we get so worried or upset when something doesn’t work out, but oftentimes it’s because there’s something better just waiting around the corner. I, I read this quote online recently that said, you know, when a door closes it’s because the universe, God faith wanna call it is telling you, you just have to walk up the hall and open the next one. And there might be something better behind that door than you had ever expected. I think that’s such a beautiful story that explains the importance of persistence, but also staying true to your vision. Like most people maybe would’ve hit that first limitation of age and decide, you know what, I’ll just wait, I’ll just wait till I’m older. But you know, you continued staying true to your, your dream and your vision, which was to get involved with BPA as an officer and you kind of founded a loophole with the national level and it worked out. What advice do you have for students who are dreamers, who might be dealing with the opinions of other people trying to make their own unique dreams, a reality. Do you have any general advice or feedback for someone trying to do something that might seem a little unrealistic to those around them?


Elijah Johnson (12:11):
Yeah, for sure. What I say is create a plan because especially if you’re dealing with external forces regarding a, a lack of belief that other people have in you, I’d say, if you can articulate what your goal is and the steps that it’ll take to reach that goal, then it’s a lot easier for people to start taking U seriously and for other people to say, okay, maybe they do have a chance. And also it’s easier for you because the steps that you need to take to get from where you are to where you want to go, are that much clearer when you have them running down and you know what you need to do.


Sam Demma (12:48):
Can you bring us back to your own plan? like, what, what was your plan after telling your pops? I wanna get involved ATPA as an officer


Elijah Johnson (12:59):
Sure. So I was sitting at the kitchen table. We were eating lunch. I think it was, we were eating sandwiches from Jersey mics and I was like, Hey dad, I’m gonna run for chapter office. Then I’m gonna run for regional office. Then I’m gonna run for state office. And then I’m gonna try to be elected as a national officer. And like I said, he kind of just looked at me and went whatever and rolled his eyes. The chapter in regional office went good, but then like we just talked about, I kind of hit a wall at state, but everything ended up working out in the end. So kind of like you said, when doors close others open that’s for sure.


Sam Demma (13:37):
That’s awesome. Sounds like your plan was to just start small and continue moving up from there. I think like sometimes what stops people is, you know, maybe the first goal they said is I’m gonna be represented by national office. I think, which was really helpful in your journey in your own plan was, let me start in my school, let me then go to regional, let me then go to state and let me then try and crack the national board. And I think when you break it down like that, you’re setting yourself up for more success. Because even if the first one or two levels of your plan are a little easier to accomplish, just the fact that you accomplish something is gonna give you the confidence to continue going and the momentum to continue moving forward. And it’s very clear that you’re someone who has lots of confidence and you speak very passionately. And clearly you brought, you know, one of your own dreams and goals that you told to your dad to life, despite the odds, where do you think your confidence comes from? And how do, how have you developed that as a young person?


Elijah Johnson (14:40):
Definitely by failing a lot. Like there’s absolutely no way to be successful if you don’t fail. I remember when, when I was elected as a chapter officer, I was actually the treasurer of my school. And at first I was a little upset cuz I’m like, how am I gonna eventually reach my goals if I’m starting out as just a treasurer? I mean, of course that position meant absolutely nothing. Like it didn’t matter that I was the treasurer. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was the president. The fact the only important part was that I had accomplished a part of what I wanted to do. So I just took that and moved forward and went on with my life. And there’s a lot of other areas of my life, where I failed like in sports where maybe I had a performance on guitar, that didn’t the way I wanted to. You just take the experiences and lessons that you learned, you pick yourself up and you move on.


Sam Demma (15:39):
One of my favorite, speaking of music, one of my favorite artists is this rapper named Russ. He has very affirmational music and one of the lyrics is that he takes his failures and uses as stepping stones. Like almost, you know, each of them is like a learning. And I think, especially in today’s society, we spend so much time focused on how successful people are and how great their life is. And it gets so, so much more like pronounced when you go on media, because everyone’s only highlighting the best parts of themselves. What is something or an area in your life or a situation where you, you defined to yourself that you failed that you’ve learned from that you think might be helpful for other people listening?


Elijah Johnson (16:28):
Yeah, I think that’s a very, very important question, cuz like you said, especially since everybody’s on social media now and really all we see on those platforms is perfect worlds with perfect people in them and you don’t really see the imperfections that make up who those people really are. So I’d say an area that I’ve definitely failed at, especially being a student leaders in the early months of my term, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Like I was going to meetings, voting on things that I barely had an understanding of. And I was having all this, these difficult conversations with only a surface level knowledge or some of the topics that I needed to know because for better or for worse, one of the things that BPA likes to do is throw their students into things. So I was thrown into overseeing a $2.1 million budget thrown into an advocacy committee, thrown into policies and procedures.


Elijah Johnson (17:28):
So definitely struggling in those first few months, I’d say was a failure because not knowing the things that I need to know to effectively serve the students that I represent. That was definitely something that I look back on and wish that I was more prepared. So that, that didn’t happen. But like we talked about, you take your failures and you use them as stepping stones. So I, I went back and I said Hey, what could I have done to be better prepared? And then I worked on the areas that I was deficient at. And now that’s something that isn’t as much of a problem anymore.


Sam Demma (18:05):
That’s awesome. I love that. I was gonna ask you if you didn’t ask, what would you have done differently, but you did a great job answering that yourself. So thank you. I’m writing a book right now and the title of the book is gonna be called dear high school. Me and the premises that a lot of people that write books that contain advice for high school students are so far removed from the student life. That it’s hard to kind of give or accept advice from those people. Like if someone is 45 or 50 years old, yeah. Their advice is relevant, but it’s so far removed from what a student life might look like today. And so I thought it would be a unique idea to talk to people like yourself and also use my own experiences to write a book of advice for my younger or high school self. And if you could give one or two pieces of advice to your high school self, even right now, what would you tell yourself? Like if you could go back to the first year of high school and give yourself a one or two pieces of advice.


Elijah Johnson (19:05):
Number one, the biggest thing of all is don’t procrastinate. That’s something that I still struggle with as a senior in high school. Getting worked done when you get it initially is the best way to go. Cuz it’s immediately off your plate. You don’t have to worry about it two weeks later. It’s not gonna come back to haunt you. So just being proactive in the work that you’re given and the things that you need to get done and is for sure, one of the things that I wish I would’ve had drilled into my mind as a freshman in high school. And then also another piece of advice I give is just surround yourself with friends and students that you want to be like, cuz I can, I can say personally I’m still develop. And for sure, when I started out in high school, I was nowhere near the person that I am now. And I’ve partially developed because of BPA, but I’ve also developed because of the people that I’ve been surrounded by who I’ve admired and they’ve pushed me to become a better person. So I’d say lean on your friends. They’re the people who are gonna support you the most in addition to your family and other people. So procrastination and the importance of the people you surround yourself with are for sure the two pieces of advice I’d give.


Sam Demma (20:22):
All right. Love it. Awesome. Well, thank you again, Elijah, for coming on the podcast here, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. If someone wants to reach out or connect with you we’ll would be the best way for them to get in touch.


Elijah Johnson (20:34):
Sure. So if you went to the bpa.org website, you just type in bpa.org you can go to a tab called the executive council and then right on that is my email. So ejohnson@bpa.org. You can reach out to me at any time you wish.


Sam Demma (20:51):
Awesome, Elijah, thank you so much. Keep up the great work with yourself, your future endeavors and BPA. And we’ll talk soon.


Elijah Johnson (21:01):
Thanks for having me.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Elijah Johnson

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

January 17, 2022 by Association Director Experiential Learning President Student Leadership Student Success 0

Ian Howcroft – CEO of Skills Ontario

Ian Howcroft - CEO of Skills Ontario
About Ian Howcroft

Ian Howcroft (@IanSkillsON) is an action-oriented leader and decision-maker with a focus on customer needs and service. He is the CEO of skills Ontario and one who can lead a team and is able to build consensus to maximize and leverage the strengths of team members to the overall benefit of the organization. Ian has a strong background and interest in advocacy, government relations, public policy, legal/regulatory issues, administrative law, and human resources.

Connect with Ian: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Skills Ontario Website

Volunteer Opportunities with Skills Ontario

Ontario College of Trades

Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing

Ontario Centre of Innovation

Hopin Event Software

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode on the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. I had an amazing conversation months ago with Shelly Travis, who is the, the state president, the national director of skills USA, which is a career and technical skills student organization. And after the conversation ended, she gave me the name Ian Howcroft to follow up with and hopefully get him on the show as well.


Sam Demma (01:06):
Ian is the CEO or Chief Executive Officer of Skills Ontario, an organization dedicated to promoting skill trades and technology, careers to young people. We have a phenomenal conversation on how COVID affected their operations and what they’ve done to adjust and pivot. . You probably all hate that word by now, but we talk about how he’s pivoted his organization, how they’re continuing the work they’re doing and still making an impact on the lives of so many young people and students. I’ll see you on the other side of this interview, enjoy. Ian, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. It is a huge pleasure and honor to have you on the show today. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and why you got into the work you do with young people today?


Ian Howcroft (01:53):
Well, thanks Sam, I appreciate the opportunity. I am with an organization called skills Ontario. We’ve been around for just over 30 years and our raise on debt is to promote skilled trades and technology careers to young people. I got interested in that from my former job at an organization called Canadian manufacturers and exporters. I was there for almost 30 years in a variety of capacities, but every year I was there, one of the top three priorities, and usually the number one priority was a skilled shortage. We’re not gonna have the skilled workers for the future. How can we make relationships with schools and other organizations to promote skilled trades? So I was always involved in that and I ended up on the board of skills Ontario. And when the opportunity came to take over as CEO I was contacted and thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about solutions and things that we can do to help move things forward and create a clearer pathway for young people to understand what the potential is, how they can follow their path of, of career aspirations and how we can do some linkages with business and better engage them and also wanted to do things to promote to young people, but also part of that was getting to their parents and getting to some other audiences because they have a huge impact and influence on their kids. And many of them don’t know what the real opportunities are with regard to a future in skilled trades or technology careers. They say go to university not knowing what the full opportunity is. So we’re trying to dispel some myths and create some realities about the positive aspect of a career in skilled trades and technology careers.


Sam Demma (03:21):
Did you know when you were working in manufacturing that one day you’d be in an organization running an organization like Skills Ontario did you plan to do this when you were younger or like when was the moment when it was like, whoa, I’m making this shift and I’m, I’m gonna make this pivot?


Ian Howcroft (03:38):
Well, I was I, I thought when I went to Canadian manufacturers, I would be there three to five years get some experience make some contacts and move on, but that organization afforded me a whole lot of opportunities to do a whole lot of different things from, from membership business development, policy work speaking dealing with a whole variety of manufacturing related issues, one of them and skills. So I ended up staying there for almost as I said, 30 years, but my role changed and the issues changed and my passion continued to grow. So I also realized at some point I did not want to retire from an organization that I started with. So I was keeping my eyes and ears open for opportunities that I had an interest in and passion for myself. So when this one came up, I thought this is something I should look at. And and, and I did thankfully and I’ve been there for about two and a half years now.


Sam Demma (04:29):
That’s awesome. So cool. And I’m sure the first year working there with working with skills, Ontario has a, has been a lot different than this current year.


Ian Howcroft (04:38):
Yes. Yes. And when I started there, I thought there’s huge challenges, always with challenges come opportunities. And we got things moving forward. We had a lot of staff changes. We were trying to do things a little differently. Last year we’re off to a great start. And then we experienced here in Ontario, the labor disputes for the teachers. I thought to myself, what could be more challenging? The teacher dispute for like skills Ontario, nothing could be more frustrating. Nothing could be more problematic than that, but I was proven wrong again, as we got into the pandemic in March and that just changed everything we could deal with the teacher strike. We would work around that, but the pandemic just caused us to go back to basics and say, what do we need to do? How can we do that? Given the restraints the constraints and the realities that we have to face knowing that the health and safety of, of students staff and everyone was the number one priority.


Sam Demma (05:30):
Hmm. I like how you said with every challenge though comes an opportunity. And I wanna focus on that for a second because what we focus on grows, what opportunities have you seen along with the challenges in co of it right now?


Ian Howcroft (05:43):
Well, I, I think we’re learning new and, and different ways to better engage our staff and, and our audiences. We’re not allowed to hold in person events right now, which is a challenge when you’re trying to promote skilled trades. You want to have that hands on experiential opportunity, but we can’t do that. So what we did was pivot and started offering everything online, virtually remotely tried to have an experiential component to that, so they could do it in the classroom or, or, or do it at home. But we were, I think being very, as I like to think innovative and creative is how, how can we make this a meaningful experience? How do we get the, the interaction there? So we were able to link in with with students and with parents when everyone is in lockdown at home, we came up with a skills at home program.


Ian Howcroft (06:27):
Here’s something that parents can can learn from and watch encourage their kids to take part in it. The first one was a, a rollercoaster challenge using materials. You could readily find at home, build a rollercoaster and see how long you, you keep a marble in the air for, or on the roller coaster for. So we started looking at how we can do things to continue to engage our audiences, to continue to engage our partners, and also work with our main partner, the, the government of Ontario to deliver what their message was, was there’s an important opportunity and we need skilled trade. We need technology people and this is an opportunity for, for skills on Ontario to really come in and, and fill that, that vacuum that was left when everything else was being shut down.


Sam Demma (07:07):
That’s awesome. A lot of people have told me recently that the state of education right now, or anyone who works in, in the educational industry is like throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what’s the, and,


Ian Howcroft (07:20):
And I, and I think, you know, we’re, we’re all trying different things. We’re all faced by the, the same challenge. So how do we, how do we do something that’s still gonna be impactful, still gonna create a learning environment for kids. And I know the, the teachers and the boards of education and the other partners involved are, are trying on to do everything they can to make it still a meaningful year for them. But it is a, it is a challenge, but I think as you said there’s creative ways to come up with new ideas and opportunities to, to address some of these challenges. One thing I’d just like to add is that with the remote delivery of our programs, we found out that that’s not something we’re gonna stop when the pandemic is over and we can go back to in person. We also think there’s still an important complimentary role to have remote delivery and virtual delivery. We’re able to engage everybody around the province. Whereas sometimes it might have been a geographic possibility for someone to attend an event or to come to a competition or to be in something that we’re doing a, the remote delivery allow us to engage them in a whole different way. So we’re gonna continue with that and use that as a complimentary program for for moving forward after the pandemic.


Sam Demma (08:29):
And it makes the presenter more easily and readily available. Like last week I did three presentations, one in Saskatchewan, one in New Jersey, one in Toronto, all from my bay. Like there’s no, you know, it’s, it’s from a delivery and an audience perspective. There’s so much possibilities in the virtual world. Tell me more about some of the things that have stuck. I love the skills at home, the, the challenge to build a roller coaster. What else have you experimented with as an organization over this time that has worked well so far?


Ian Howcroft (09:00):
Well, some of the things that we’re doing now we were talking about, but we moved forward a lot more quickly. We talked about having a podcast, but hadn’t yet done that. So this allowed us the opportunity to create the podcast. And one of our folks guy named Dan Cardinal put together a podcast. So we’re doing a podcast that we’re using to promote skilled trades and highlight individuals, highlight partners, highlight people that have gone through and become a, a skilled trades person and what they’ve done, how they overcame some challenges and are now leading a satisfying career and doing, doing really well. We, in the summer run something that we call our the summer camp program. We did about 25 camps around the province. They were in person weeklong camps. Couldn’t do that this year. So we said, if you wanna provide again, that opportunity for kids.


Ian Howcroft (09:46):
So we came up with 35 different camps and they were half day, full day or two day events. And we engaged twice. As many kids had over 800, approximately 800 kids involved in our summer camp program, which is almost twice what we would normally have and the results that we got, the evaluations we got were even more positive than what we’d had in the past. Now, our event, our, our evaluation in the past were very positive, but these ones were were even more positive because it allowed more kids to get involved in a whole variety of things and try things at home. Some were like tutorials, how to fix a bike, how to change a bike tire or, or a bike chain, but others were doing some, some cooking or baking at home. So we tried to make sure there, there was something there for everyone. So even when we go back to our in-person camps, we will have the complimentary virtual camps for those that can’t make it to a college, or can’t make it to one of our sites where we’re hosting an in-person camp. So it’s been a, a great experience in that regard. And we’re using that to, to learn by and move forward with. Oh,


Sam Demma (10:43):
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s really amazing. And, you know, despite the challenges, skills, Ontario has done an amazing job, it seems at, at pivoting. But I’m curious to know, are there any challenges that you have learned from cause we talked a lot about what what’s worked really well. But I think with any challenge, there’s great learnings. Like what is, what are some learnings that you think might be beneficial for other educators to hear about this new world?


Ian Howcroft (11:06):
Well, in, in general, I think what I’ve learned or had reconfirmed is don’t just go on assumptions. Mm-Hmm that, oh, that won’t work or this won’t work try things. And if it doesn’t work, adapt it, change it modify it, tailor it because if you just say, so that won’t work or that hasn’t worked before, I don’t think this will work. You’re gonna limit yourselves. Whereas if going with the more positive attitude and say, let’s let’s, what do we wanna do? Let, let’s try this. And if it’s not working or it’s not resonating with the audiences, partners make some, make some changes and, and don’t, don’t be afraid. This gave us an opportunity. Let’s try things. We we’re all in new territory here. So we don’t have to worry about, about failing. We everybody’s floundering.


Ian Howcroft (11:50):
So this, that gave us an opportunity to try things that perhaps we had talked about, but hadn’t done, but we’re able to move forward with, and, and we’re we’re as a, we have about 35 staff around the province now. And when we could get together, we did it a few times a year. But that was it. But now we’re, we’re getting together with, with teams, meetings or zoom meetings, and we’re engaging and trying to make sure we have no or, or fewer internal silos, so that we’re all leveraging what each other are doing, better understanding what each other are doing. So we may be farther apart physically, but I think we’re closer together a as teamed members and as colleagues within the organization. And I think that’s allowing us to do more and again, have more impact with our audiences, with the students, with the partners, with the educators.


Sam Demma (12:33):
That’s awesome. And I’m sure with the increased internal communications, you’re hearing a lot more about what the students want. What are you hearing as a whole organization from students right now? What is it that they’re, they’re asking you for? What are they challenged with specifically that, that you’ve heard of?


Ian Howcroft (12:50):
I think there’s a, a real appetite for information and how do I enter a skilled trade or technology career? And it’s much broader than many people think, you know, think they, they think of the traditional trades or traditional skills, but there’s like 152 skilled trades in Ontario. And we, we broader with, with technology. So we’re doing coding, we’re doing robotics mechatronics a whole lot of opportunities. So there’s a lot of interest in that, even though we’re having to do that remotely and doing the presentations virtually to the classrooms, there’s, there’s still an awful lot of interest in that. And we’re are going, we’re looking at how do we get the skills kits put together to give them that experiential opportunity at home? How do we make sure that they’re able to engage and get some experience with the limitations that have?


Ian Howcroft (12:50):
I think there’s a, a real appetite for information and how do I enter a skilled trade or technology career? And it’s much broader than many people think, you know, think they, they think of the traditional trades or traditional skills, but there’s like 152 skilled trades in Ontario. And we, we broader with, with technology. So we’re doing coding, we’re doing robotics mechatronics a whole lot of opportunities. So there’s a lot of interest in that, even though we’re having to do that remotely and doing the presentations virtually to the classrooms, there’s, there’s still an awful lot of interest in that. And we’re are going, we’re looking at how do we get the skills kits put together to give them that experiential opportunity at home? How do we make sure that they’re able to engage and get some experience with the limitations that have? So we, we still feel we have a very important role and there’s still an awful lot of interest.


Ian Howcroft (13:40):
And the Ontario government is highlighting the opportunities and skilled trades. So we’re working with our partners in business, our partners in labor, our partners in the education system to make sure that kids aren’t at a disadvantage because of the COVID limitations. We’re still able to provide them with the information to promote the skill trades and to give them information that that they can benefit from. When we were in, in, in the March and April timeframe, we tried to, well, what are the programs that we have? What are the products that we have? So let’s modify them so that we can put them available on our website or make them digitally we’ve updated some young women in, in trades. Our other programs that we have, we do first nations programming. So how do we make sure that we’re still offering relevant, impactful, and, and exciting events that will engage kids and provide an interactive experience for them?


Sam Demma (14:31):
Well, that’s awesome. That’s really cool. And you mentioned zoom calls and go Hangouts. What has been successful with virtual events? Is it doing a zoom webinar? Is it when all the students can see each other’s face on zoom? What has worked the best for you guys?


Ian Howcroft (14:48):
I, I think it depends on the event and we’re somewhat guided by what platform schools will allow. You know, Google hangout was one that I think the schools were, were using and we were getting into the, the classrooms that way. Yeah. We used WebEx for some of our larger events. We do when we have our normal competition, we have at, at the Toronto Congress center, we have about 2,400 hundred kids competing. We have almost 40,000 visitors. We hope the largest young women’s conference in Canada with 2000 participants, girls and young women and supporters, mentors, volunteers come out. So we had to gravitate towards the virtual delivery, but I was really pleased with our young women’s conference. We had about almost 1500 people sign on, lot more registered, but we have 1500 participants in our virtually young women’s conference.


Ian Howcroft (15:36):
We did a, a business summit. So we’re looking at the various platforms to continue to make sure that they’re continue to be more and more interactive and engaging for, for the participants as cuz we’re right now, we’re going to, we’re planning to do our competition virtually in the, in the spring we were won’t I don’t think be able to have in person events. And if we do, they’ll be smaller and have to modify that for the most part, we’ll be doing it virtually. So we’re looking at what’s the best platform to do that. What gives the kids the best opportunity to have an experience that they can have as meaningful, that they can win and be proud of their gold or silver or bronze medal. And how do we also use that to make sure our partners and our other supporters and volunteers are still engaged with us and realizing the value and benefits that they normally do through Skills Ontario.


Sam Demma (16:23):
Oh, that’s awesome. Really cool. There is a cool platform that was used recently with an event. I was a part of called hop in; might be worth checking out. They have like virtual booth. So a networking section where you meet one of’em with random people, there’s a main stage option, really cool stuff. And yeah, I’m sure you guys will probably build something in house and and build something really cool, but it might be worth, worth checking out. If anyone listening to this has been intrigued by any part of the conversation wants to connect with you, maybe ask some questions, bounce some ideas around, maybe they have some ideas for you. What would be the best way for another educator to reach out to you?


Ian Howcroft (17:00):
Well, I would refer everyone to our website. That has a lot of information about the programming that we’re doing. We have our Halloween spectacular skills experience based around some Halloween caution design pumpkin painting carving , a few other things around the Halloween theme. It’s all on our website as is all our other program information but that’s www.skillsontario.com. And I’m always encouraging people to reach out and contact me directly at ihowcroft@skillsontario.com. Contact information is on our website, but what we do is engage young people, engage parents, engage educators, labor and business. So we’re trying to do as much of that as we can. So I love hearing from students particularly, but I love hearing from our other partners and anyone else, that’s looking for some information about skills, promotion skills opportunities, and how they can work with Skills Ontario.


Ian Howcroft (17:51):
I just wanna point out that we have 35 staff, as I said, but we could not do what we do without our volunteers. And volunteerism is so important. We probably have up to a thousand volunteers that help us deliver our, our programming, our competitions, our contests. Again, right now we’re restricted to the virtual reality, but we look forward to engaging our volunteers in a variety of ways as we move forward, virtually as well. But also when we get back to doing our, our carbo boat races and the contest and the qualifying competitions, and again, we’ve also been able to offer a few new programs. We couldn’t do the car boat races, which have to take place at a pool and teams design it, but we’ve moved to an airplane glider contest that you can do it into schools could even do it at home if you had to. So we have a competition based on that. So there’s a lot of exciting things that are coming forward from this tragic COVID experience that we have to deal with.


Sam Demma (18:40):
Ian. That’s awesome. And thank you so much for sharing. There’s a lot of great ideas and insight coming outta this podcast. I’m sure a ton of people will, will be reaching out. Thanks again, for taking time to have this conversation, it’s been a real pleasure having you on the show.


Ian Howcroft (18:53):
Thanks, I’ve really appreciated the opportunity, Sam. Hopefully our paths will continue to cross.


Sam Demma (18:57):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating in review so other educators like your find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

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

January 16, 2022 by Cooperative Education Founder and CEO Student Success 0

Ash Baer – Mental Health Advocate and speaker

Ash Baer - Mental Health Advocate and speaker
About Ash Baer

Ash Baer (@ashbear_) is a mental health advocate and speaker who has been facilitating leadership programs for the past nine years. She’s travelled across Canada and to Europe, working with the coolest student leaders and sharing her passion for authentic, positive, and fun leadership experiences.

Ash is a Summer Camp enthusiast and spends her summers at Youth Leadership Camps Canada (YLCC) as the Summer Camp Director. For the remainder of the year Ash is planning for the summer ahead as well as supporting student leadership conferences across Canada, empowering youth to reach their full potential to make their own positive impact!

Ash’s passion is to create safe and positive spaces for the youth she has the opportunity to work with. She incorporates important leadership lessons into fun and interactive activities, and works hard to be a strong mental health advocate.

Ash is excited to learn and grow with you through her two workshop opportunities; Mental Health Awareness and Leadership Team Building.

Connect with Ash: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Baer Leadership

Youth Leadership Camps Canada (YLCC)

Global Student Leadership Summit (GSLS)

Ontario Student Leadership Conference (OSLC)

Canadian Youth Speakers Bureau

Mental Health Awareness Workshop

Leadership Team Building Workshop

Nipissing University

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Ash, Ash Baer has been facilitating leadership programs for the past nine years. She’s traveled across Canada and to Europe working with the coolest student leaders and sharing her passion for authentic, positive, and fun leadership experiences. Ash is a summer camp enthusiast and spends her summers at YLCC as the summer camp director.


Sam Demma (01:02):
She now does mental health programs across the nation and today she talks a little bit about those presentations, managing student mental health and your own mental health and how her journey in education has shifted due to the recent challenges. This is a very awesome conversation. I hope you enjoy it. Take lots of notes. I will see you on the other side, Ash, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself, who you are, and how you got into the work you’re doing with young people today?


Ash Baer (01:33):
Yeah, perfect. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here so thank you so much for the opportunity. So, I currently work with youth in a couple different capacities. The one that I’ve worked in the longest is through youth leadership camps, Canada (YLCC) and in their summer camp program, I am the summer camp director. I also help out with, we also run the Ontario student leadership conference, the global student leadership summit and events like that. So I’m also helping out with that with the student volunteers there. And then another thing with youth leadership stuff is I do Baer Leadership. So my last name’s bear. So that’s where the bear comes from. And I’ve been doing programs along the lines of mental health and team building.


Sam Demma (02:24):
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And what got you into the work that you’re doing with young people? Why did you decide to join Y L C C? Was there a teacher that pushed you in that direction or was student leadership a big part of your life? What led you down this path? Totally.


Ash Baer (02:39):
So definitely was really involved in high school leadership. I went to Waterloo, Oxford and Jeff Gerber was my advisor. And he really created an environment where there was no limits to what we could do. So I really enjoyed that sort of environment in the, the environment of student leadership where you can think big and do big things. And there were the only barrier was your own perspective. So I was really into that. And then from that involvement, I got involved with OS L C and then got to know Stu Saunders who owns Y L C C in the camping world. And I haven’t left since, so it’s all kind of merged together into a beautiful timeline of what I’ve done.


Sam Demma (03:33):
That’s awesome. And you went to school in Waterloo. Did you also go to university in Waterloo or what you do?


Ash Baer (03:40):
No, I did university in north bay at Ning.


Sam Demma (03:43):
Nice. That’s awesome. Did you study something along the lines of social work or teaching or working with young people or was it something totally unrelated? Unrelated? nice. No, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Right. Like I was studying environmental stuff before getting into this work. And like now doing totally different things. So there’s no, there’s no one right path to any destination. Right, exactly. So you do a lot of presentations now and programs in schools what kind of led you down that path? So you took a step towards doing your own thing on the side, where did that all stem from?


Ash Baer (04:19):
Yeah, for sure. So, so for the last 10 years I’ve worked with Y L C C. And like I said, I’m the camp director there for our summer programs. And with that, I really fell in love with the concept of being able to have a lot of fun. So that’s what we do at camp have tons of fun, but there’s also always messages embedded in everything that we do and leadership opportunities and growth there. So I fell in love with the team building aspect of that got to travel a lot with Y L C C been to Europe and all across Canada running programs and then started to develop some things on my own. And then also from the mental health perspective of it, I started to recognize in youth that mental health was something that was widely talked about and people were aware of what mental health was and stigma is going away, which is awesome.


Ash Baer (05:14):
But I also recognize that even though that stigma’s going away the language of how to talk about it, isn’t really there. So there’s not that toolbox of what is the definition of depression? Am I depressed or am I feeling sad? Is this anxiety, or am I just like worried at this exact moment? So I wanted to kind of take my own journey and learn a little bit more about my own mental health and got educated in courses like mental health, first aid and some living works courses as well to better facilitate and create safer environments for the students that I was working with. And then from that, I was like, if I have the opportunity to speak to more students. Awesome. actually one thing that I really push for in the student leadership conference world was I was like, I wanna see more women on stage because there’s lots of student leaders who are identify as women. And I want them to see themselves on stage too. And whenever I would go to even myself or other conference coordinators, I’d be like, Hey, get some more women on stage. And they were like, well, why don’t you just do it? And I was like, well, okay, fine. I feel comfy with a mic , I’ll learn some stuff and I will also share some messages there that way too.


Sam Demma (06:32):
Awesome. No, that’s amazing. And what challenges are you currently face with right now? Because of the current state of the world?


Ash Baer (06:40):
Yeah, for sure. Obviously there’s ton . And I think for me specifically if I look at our programs that we traditionally run in a year through conferences and camp camp specifically was shut down with no other option for the summer. So we kind of adapted in a way that we brought everything online conferences obviously in person were canceled. It was great to see you at O S L C you got to come into the first hybrid of a sort of event where you were on stage in front of a green screen. So obviously the challenges of just kind of figuring out how we keep leadership alive in these programs alive when we can’t be literally sitting beside each other or interacting in the way that we typically would.


Sam Demma (07:30):
Amazing. And if an educator’s listening and is thinking the exact same thoughts, what advice do you have to share, or what could you share with them that might be, do you have any ideas that have worked so far during COVID or things that you’ve tried that you think are worth sharing?


Ash Baer (07:44):
Yeah, for sure. So I think first of all, I wanna say to all educators listening, like you’re all amazing and adapting to such different times and I’m sure one day is completely different than the next day. I I’m a lot, I have a lot of close friends who are educators and I just have so much respect for them right now. And I’m wishing them in a couple weeks, two weeks of just the ability to sleep over the holidays. But some things that are tangible that I have seen happening specific with us, we the moment that things shut down, back in March, we opened an online camp on zoom. The schools shut down on Thursday and the next Monday I was like, yeah, we gotta do it. It’s like a March break zoom camp. And I honestly expected, it would be like a two week thing.


Ash Baer (08:39):
We do some crafts of the materials that I have in my home, which is like paper and Q-tips and we bring it to life, but we ended up running it for 30 weeks on zoom. And obviously this is lasting a little bit longer than anyone would’ve been anticipated. But I think the overall for adapting to the challenges that are happening right now, it’s important to not cut anything out that you think is important. Right. So if you run an event at your school that is so important for your school culture don’t say like, well, COVID canceled that. I think it’s important to bring it to life in some capacity, obviously there’s barriers. And obviously it’s not gonna be the exact same, but how can you still bring that to life via something virtual or maybe going super old school and doing a snail mail, like stuff like that. Like there’s ways to like, still build that community, but it might not be the exact same, but like thinking outside of the box. And I think the students that we’re all working with have the answers, right? Like, they’re, they’re so creative, they’re so smart. They want it to happen. So if they want it to happen, they’ll find a way.


Sam Demma (09:56):
That’s awesome. And with your, with regards to your own presentations, how are you delivering them right now? I know things are a little bit different.


Ash Baer (10:03):
Yeah, for sure. So whatever sort of online platform via zoom or Google room sort of thing, I’ve been delivering speeches that way. and just, I’ve done a couple throughout the summer that were in person and distanced, but I, I really am craving the opportunity when we can all just be in one room together.


Sam Demma (10:31):
yeah, me too. And, you know, you spend a lot of time hanging around with students. You understand there’s struggles, you’re not far removed as well. What do you think would be the best way to support our youth, like right now through this challenging time?


Ash Baer (10:45):
Totally. I think the best way would, and I think this is the way, no matter if there’s COVID or not COVID is to meet people where they’re at. And I think ESP with youth meeting them where they’re at is, is where you’re going to have the most success. And I think there’s so much authenticity that comes from that. So, you know, I don’t think there’s a cookie cutter answer to that of being like, well, this will work for all students, cuz I know everybody listening knows that that’s not the case either. Like for some students social media is, is a great way to connect with them and get on their level for some people that’s not. And I think it’s just on a very individual meet people where they’re at sort of vibe.


Sam Demma (11:36):
Awesome. Sounds good. And that makes a lot of sense and I totally agree. I think you can approach every kid with the same plan because they all learn different. It’s like trying to teach your curriculum the same to every single student. You can’t support every single student the same either. That’s awesome. I cannot wait to see you back on a stage or at camp or in a classroom doing a speech. If an educator is listening right now, wants to reach out to you, bounce some ideas around, maybe have a conversation about your programs or anything that they, that they heard today on today’s episode, what would be the best way for them to get into touch?


Ash Baer (12:13):
For sure. So a couple different ways. Email is ash@baerleadership.ca and Baer is spelled “baer”. And then Instagram or Twitter @ashbaer_ because somebody already took my name so.


Sam Demma (12:33):
All right. Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Ash. Really appreciate it. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Ash Baer

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

January 15, 2022 by Association Director Founder and CEO President Student Leadership Student Success 0

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