About Paul Turner
Paul Turner is a passionate Language and Literature high school teacher at Upper Canada College in Toronto, Ontario. Paul has been teaching for twenty-eight years (twenty-five in public education with the last three at the college). Educated at McMaster University with a B.A in English and a B.A. in sociology, he later completed Teachers’ College at Jordanhill College, Strathclyde University, in Scotland, where he received teaching awards in both English and Individual In Society. Paul also has a Specialist in Guidance Education.
Recently, Paul has elected to work exclusively with Year 8 and 9 students to give them solid foundational skills for their high school and post-secondary educational journeys to come.
Paul’s passion for travel is demonstrated with regular trips with students, most recently a food and culture trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca, Mexico. In March, he will accompany students to Costa Rica on a community service trip where students will volunteer with environmental projects in local communities. Ten years ago, Paul and his wife Jennifer (also a Language and Literature teacher) took their two children Elizabeth and Jack on a 315-day trip around the world.
When not enjoying his phenomenal family and teaching career, Paul loves the time he is able to spend up at their cottage on a lake just outside of Algonquin Park.
Paul is committed to many whole-school, extra-curricular, and sports activities, in order to help students enjoy their entire secondary school experience. Although he is able to retire from teaching this year, he is not interested in doing so; “there’s just too much to accomplish with the kids I teach and my own personal growth as an educator!”
Connect with Paul Turner: Email
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Resources Mentioned
Upper Canada College
McMaster University
The Transcript
**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.
Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator. This is your host, Sam Demma. And today we are joined by Paul Turner. Paul and I connected, I want to say about a year and a half ago, or maybe more like a year ago. What I didn’t know about Paul, and we’ll uncover a lot about his work in education.
Sam Demma
What I didn’t know about Paul is that some people take trips, but Paul took a 315 day trip with his family a decade ago around the globe. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are, Paul, and what that trip was, and then we’ll bridge the gap to what you’re doing in education right now?
Paul Turner
Absolutely, and thanks for having me, Sam. It’s an honor, for sure. So my wife is also an educator. She’s an English teacher, and so she’s the big idea person in our family, and one day she said to me,
Paul Turner
we need to take a teacher-funded leave. And that’s going to take place over a six-year period. We’re going to put into it until we can take one full year off. And in doing so, we pulled our kids out of school and we started an Odyssey that took us to around 26 or 27 countries and 300, yeah, as I think you said, 315 days straight, and we did, in fact, go all the way around the globe.
Paul Turner
And it was spectacular. It was probably the best learning experience of our lives, 100%.
Sam Demma
Why? Like, what was the passion behind that idea?
Paul Turner
So our school board, and lots of school boards do this, they actually encourage people to involve themselves in a teacher funded leave. And there’s a bunch of benefits. Obviously the most clear benefit is that when you allow your teachers to go out and immerse themselves in the world,
Paul Turner
you come back as a much more powerful educator, for sure, being able to have witnessed and immersed yourself in so many different cultures and experiences. So, you know, the school board encourages it. I think that there’s a benefit to the school board as well
Paul Turner
because usually you’ve got to be a long-on-the-tooth educator and they get paid more than the young ones. So they can get two teachers for one salary. But I think that ultimately the justification is that, you know, that you come back a better educator and a better person for it.
Sam Demma
It’s obvious education is at the heart of what you do. You are in a position now where you could retire but choose not to. Can you tell me about what got you passionate about education years ago and what keeps you passionate about it now?
Sam Demma
That’s, you know, I think that,
Paul Turner
I worked in public education for 27 years, and not to run anything down, but that’s a slog. It was, for the first 15, it was amazing. And then I just started to find that the education system in Ontario has been, consistently by different governments, has just been emptied. And so anybody who knows an educator
Paul Turner
in the public school board system knows that they’re tired, that they are, that they’re under-resourced, and the expectations are greater than ever. With that being said, still a wonderful job, and I have so many friends who are in the public education system.
Paul Turner
My wife continues to be. But I got an opportunity to come to a wonderful school in Toronto called the Upper Canada College and I think that I was probably on the verge of thinking about retiring after a fairly long career. And when I got here, I recognized the value of, it’s important to remember, I’m a huge supporter of public education, so it’s almost a small irony that I work in a private education field.
Paul Turner
But at the same time, it’s rejuvenated my career. I just absolutely love what I do now, and so I have committed to a couple more years at least to stay in the education system and just keep going.
Sam Demma
Did you know when you were a student yourself that you wanted to work in schools or how did you find this vocation?
Paul Turner
So actually no, I had really, I went to see my guidance counsellor and she basically said, you know, what do you want to do? My family was very involved in law enforcement and so I said, you know, I think that I’d probably like to be a police officer or a teacher. And so after I graduated from high school, I started going to college for law and security. I was immediately hired by a police force and became a police officer for a few years. And I recognized very soon that simply having a high school diploma,
Paul Turner
a little bit of college, of course the police force will pay for you to be educated on a part-time basis, but it would have taken me 10 years to get a university degree. And so I took the leap to quit and with the intent of going to university, getting a degree and then returning. But the further and further away I got away from policing and the more leadership opportunities I had in university taught me that I wanted to be an educator. in a community education teaching role. And then ultimately went to Teachers College
Paul Turner
and never looked back. It sounds like your time at UCC was so special. It revitalized your passion for education.
Sam Demma
What is it about UCC in comparison to other places you worked in the past that brought that passion back out of you? So I think it’s a very holistic approach passion back out of you?
Paul Turner
So I think it’s a very holistic approach that they have here as a staff, as a team. I’ve never felt more… The administration of the school is there to help me, whereas, you know, oftentimes in education, it can be adversarial with the administration because they’ve got their mandates. You know, the quintessential response that I have for my friends or anybody else who asks me is that every day I come to
Paul Turner
work in one way, shape, or form, I’m thanked for the work that I do, parent, student, administrative, other colleagues. Somebody thanks me in one way or another. And when that happens, it just makes you feel like, okay, I’m doing something that’s important
Paul Turner
and people are recognizing that. And it’s not about me, it’s more about the ethos and understanding of this culture of appreciation. The boys that we teach here are, I won’t lie, they’re very, many of them are very wealthy, but you don’t know that.
Paul Turner
It doesn’t feel like that. They’re here to learn, and they love the learning that they’re doing, and so when I can facilitate that, or help facilitate that, it’s very encouraging. It’s very, it makes you feel great. And walking onto this campus in downtown Toronto,
Paul Turner
30 acres, with the storied history of this building, we’re coming up on our 200th anniversary, obviously. That’s a big deal. 2029, yeah. So, you know, when I walk onto the campus, I feel like a $100 bill.
Paul Turner
It just feels great to be on here. The energy and the enthusiasm is amazing. So, yeah, that’s why I’m gonna stay.
Sam Demma
So you didn’t know at first
Sam Demma
that education was the vocation for you, and then you found that passion through leadership experiences in university, found yourself in public education, transitioned to UCC. Throughout that journey, have you had mentors that have been very instrumental in your personal professional development, or resources that were very helpful? And if so, what were those resources and who are those individuals and what do they do for you?
Paul Turner
I have to say that the biggest resource that’s available to an educator is the human resource of other educators. And so, yeah, I’ve had no one specific mentor, just one after the other after the other of impressive colleagues that are so passionate, so brilliant, so intense about the things that they do. And so, when you get into a, like anywhere, you have people who fill your backpack and people who empty your backpack, right?
Paul Turner
So, I think that in any environment, you have those two kind of different people. What I’ve typically done lately, well, for most of my careers, is align myself with people who are really smart, who are really passionate, who really were interested in developing positive educational relationships with kids and learn from them and just draw down on that. Alternatively, though, I find that I learn a great deal from the kids.
Paul Turner
The kids, they drive you, they want to succeed. And so I take a lot of my cues about how I learn from the kids themselves, because sometimes they ask me questions I don’t know the answer to. I go, okay, well, let’s go find that out.
Paul Turner
Let’s figure this out together. Yeah, so I think that, you know, and I’ve met, as I said, the human resources are the most important part. The people that I’ve met in my journey in education have been phenomenal and so varied in their experience and their approaches. And you just try and pick out the best of everybody and then make it your own and try and figure out a way to ball all of that up so that you can get it out to the kids and create opportunities for their success.
Sam Demma
Were you always someone who did things extracurricularly in schools? Did you have to find your footing for a while before you dove in? I know that today you do a lot outside of the classroom as well.
Paul Turner
So, schools take, not take advantage, but they recognize young people who are hungry, who want to secure their position in a way that will be creating some degree of longevity. So they tap you pretty early to say, what can you do for us, right? And so I think that in my early career, I was, along with a group of peers, we were kind of the go-to people.
Paul Turner
I used to have a vice principal who said that the reward for good work is the expectation for more good work. And so, you know, in a building, you see that there are lots of people who take a leadership role
Paul Turner
in terms of the extracurriculars. And you typically find that about half the staff is controlling about 90% of the extracurricular activities and coaching and things like that. I was for a very long time very engaged, did everything, anything anybody asked me to. When I had my own kids, I pulled back a little bit. I justified that in my mind that, you know, I’ve been looking after other people’s
Paul Turner
kids for a long time. Now I have my own children and I’m going to pour as much as I can into them. As my children have grown up, and they are pretty almost there, I’ve been able to get involved in a lot of things. And so the involvement that I’ve had at Upper Canada College has been spectacular for me, as well as providing, you know, I enjoy providing my time and the efforts But I’m growing as a person because of my involvement in those extracurricular activities as well
Sam Demma
When you think about all the experiences you’ve had in education This must be a very difficult question to answer that I’m about to ask you are there any experiences that stick out on your mind as things that brought you so much joy and fulfillment or moments that you are incredibly proud of being a part of throughout your educational journey?
Paul Turner
You know, there’s a lot of times where teachers feel beat up or, you know, sometimes, you know, you’ll have a bad day, you’ll have a run in with a kid or a parent will, you know, take in a task on something rightfully or wrongfully. And those days are difficult. And one colleague that I met very early on in my career
Paul Turner
gave me a piece of advice. And what he said was, every time you get a card from a kid, every time you get a note from a parent or a child or a supervisor that’s positive in nature, read it, put it in a box. And essentially what they indicated was that on those bad days where you think that, you know,
Paul Turner
am I in the right career? Did I do something wrong? And you’re feeling bad about something. You go to that box and you look through and you see, you see that those things outweigh the negatives by a long shot.
Paul Turner
And you see the positive impacts that you have on kids. And because to get to receive a letter or a note from a kid is very special because they generally, you know, I found that generally they don’t do that unless they’re really motivated to. And so as a consequence, you know, those are things that come from the heart. And yeah, so I mean, the other thing that I’m really proud of, and I try and instill this in new teachers as well, is that I did something that was, quite frankly, I still think about it, and it amazes me, is that my mother passed away many years ago. And we were having a coffee one day, talking about, probably about something that I was doing at school.
Paul Turner
And she said, you know, that must be amazing. You know, and I said, well, yeah, I have an amazing job. And so I said, would you like to come to my school and watch me teach for a day? And she said, I could do that. And I said, absolutely. So, arranged it and she came in, had a lesson planned for her so she could follow along.
Paul Turner
And we taught my class and she saw how I interacted with the kids and took her out for lunch and, you know, introduced her around to the building. And of course, her experience at school is vastly different than what goes on in the school in recent memory. And so, you know, when she was ill before she passed away, she told me that that was probably one of the best days of her life.
Paul Turner
And that’s something. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, this job has provided me with so much joy and so much good karma, I think. Definitely bumps along the road, but generally speaking,
Paul Turner
something that I’m gonna look back on fondly.
Sam Demma
You can feel your heart through the screen, through the podcast. I actually lost my grandfather when I was 13 and we share the same name. And he only ever knew Sam, and Sam, the guy who played sports,
Sam Demma
and Sam, the soccer player, and he never got to meet in person. Sam, the author and speaker and all the other things, and I wish I could have had him, you know, in my corner at this stage of my life to have conversations with,
Sam Demma
and I think that’s such a beautiful opportunity, and I hope that other educators that are listening that still have their parents around, if their parents are able to and interested in joining them for a day of work, bring your parents to work day. It should be a new thing.
Sam Demma
I think that that idea is worth this conversation and goal, and I appreciate you sharing that experience. Yeah, that’s amazing. When you did that, did other teachers in the building, if you can remember, did they say like, oh my goodness, this is a great idea,
Sam Demma
I should bring my parents, or was it just like a-
Paul Turner
Absolutely, and I have motivated a few people to do that in the various locations, and I take student teachers every once in a while, I’ve got one coming in in February, and it’s something that I always relate to them, that there’s so much magic in that, you know, our parents
Paul Turner
fill us up with with so much and they really Rarely ask for anything in return and to be able to give them an example of well to give my mother An understanding of the success that she created Was it was you know something that I felt was really important for me as a person, but also I wanted to show her just how much I appreciated that she got me there to a place where I was very happy and successful. So yeah, it was magic for
Sam Demma
sure. You are involved now in lots of extracurricular activities. You know, you’re teaching full-time in the school, you’re raising the kids. When you’re not pouring into others. How do you feel, how does Paul fill his own cup?
Sam Demma
Yeah, so we’ve got
Paul Turner
good friends that we spend time with and we have, we’re very very fortunate to have a property up north on a lake and so we get up there as often as we can, we can use it in the winter and so you know, I mean there’s a bunch of things that I like to do. I have to admit sometimes I can be a bit of a couch potato and watch some really good series on Netflix or what have you. I listen to podcasts. I really enjoy spending time with my family.
Paul Turner
And so that time takes different forms because my son still lives at home, home but my daughter is at university and she plays varsity volleyball for university and so we try to get to as many games as we can throughout the province and yeah so and like you we’re just gearing up for the holidays and our very small family will get together at the cottage for the whole time and it’s going to be terrific. So I like to, yeah, my wife and I go for walks
Paul Turner
up north. Sometimes I sit on the deck and watch hummingbirds as they go by. So yeah, so I really enjoy being in nature and so as a consequence that’s where, you know, we spend our whole summer up at our cottage and so that’s really a great place to recharge and get things done. I love, just as a side note, I love, people think it’s weird, but I love to chop wood and I kind of try to figure out why that is. I finally figured it out is that, you know, in education, the process sometimes is slow, right? Your engagement with a kid, you see them for only an hour a day and then over a period of time and you don’t even know if you’re having any impact. Sometimes you do,
Paul Turner
sometimes you don’t. More times than not, you don’t even know if you have any, had any impact. More like water on a stone. And so, you know, I found that the act of chopping up a tree, cutting it into blocks, and then splitting it, stacking it, and drying it, and then being able to use it down the road to warm the house that my family lives in. It’s very tangible, kind of beginning, middle, end, done,
Paul Turner
where I don’t get that necessarily. Most of us don’t, in our jobs, get that beginning and finish. So I find it very relaxing and it’s good exercise.
Sam Demma
I don’t think it’s weird at all. I love it. And Rocky Balboa does too. We didn’t get a chance to talk about your international trips with students, the service learning that you’ve done with students. When you mentioned Hummingbird, I thought of a bird that I saw in Costa Rica for a conference I was in a few weeks ago,
Sam Demma
and I know you’ve brought students there as well. It sounds like you get thanked a lot at UCC by your colleagues, by parents, and also the students, but I wanted to thank you personally as well for the work that you’re doing in education, choosing to maintain in this beautiful vocation.
Sam Demma
There’s a lot of young teachers that are listening to this right now, and you’ve just put a beautiful spotlight on what’s possible. And I hope that other people listening reach out to you if they have questions or to thank you as well. And if they do, what would be the best way
Sam Demma
for them to get in touch or share a note of gratitude?
Paul Turner
Well, because I’m an old school guy and old, old, old, I-
Sam Demma
He chops wood guys, he chops wood.
Paul Turner
I don’t have any socials, but if somebody had the inclination to reach out to me, they can do so at my email address, which is pturner@ucc.on.ca.
Sam Demma
Oh, thank you so much. Keep up the amazing work and enjoy the the time of North with the family.
Paul Turner
Thank you so much for having me Sam. It’s been a great Thank you so much for having me Sam. It’s been a great experience.
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