fbpx

California

Becky Stewart – Music Director at Yuba Gardens Intermediate School

Becky Stewart - Music Director at Yuba Gardens Intermediate School
About Becky Stewart

Becky Stewart (@ygtreble) is starting her sixth year as director of music at Yuba Gardens Intermediate School in Olivehurst, California. She graduated with honours from California State University, Sacramento with bachelor’s degrees in Flute Performance, studying with Laurel Zucker, and Music Education.

Becky is a recipient of the 2015 CTA Outstanding First Year Teacher Award, the 2019 Outstanding New Educator award for her district and the 2020 winner of the California Music Educator Association’s Middle School Music Specialist Award. Becky has presented at both California Activity Directors Association and CASMEC state conferences as well as regional student and adult CADA conferences on how to create a positive culture for music at schools.

In 2021, Becky has also had the privilege of being selected to be on the K-8 Music Curriculum Review Team for the Department of Education for the State of California and is on the music faculty for Sugarloaf Fine Arts Camp and Cazadero Performing Arts Camp.

This year, Becky will also be taking on an advocacy role on the Capitol Section Board of the California Music Educator’s Association. Becky is also starting her third year as a mentor through the Tri-County Induction Program for beginning music teachers. In her spare time, Becky enjoys Spartan Racing and cruising around in her 1965 Mustang.

Connect with Dave: Email | TikTok | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Caring Teacher Award (CTA)

California Music Educator Association (CMEA)

Cazadero Performing Arts Camp

Spartan Racing

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 Becky Stewart. Becky is starting her sixth year as the director of music at Yuba garden’s intermediate school in California. She graduated with honors from California state university Sacramento with a bachelor’s degree in flute performance, studying with Laurel Zucker and music education.


Sam Demma (01:04):
Becky is a recipient of the 2015 CTA outstanding first year teacher award and 2019 outstanding new educator award for her district and the 2020 winner of the California music educator. Association’s middle school music specialist award. She has performed and spoken at dozens of state conferences and associations. And in her spare time, Becky enjoys Spartan racing and cruising around in her 1965 Mustang. I hope you enjoy this amazing high energy conversation with Becky Stewart, and I will see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (01:44):
Becky, welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you virtually all the way from the states, on the podcast here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about, you know, what you do with the educator audience?


Becky Stewart (02:00):
Awesome. So hi, I’m Becky’s Stewart. I am honored to be the music director at Yuba gardens intermediate school in Northern California. And I teach seventh and eighth graders music all the way from beginning band to wind ensemble and choir too.


Sam Demma (02:17):
That’s amazing. And what got you into the arts and music?


Becky Stewart (02:23):
I, my, my story with getting involved involved in band is kind of lame, but I always, my parents, you know, would put on different different shows and, you know, there’s like the public access television, you see different concerts being put on and I saw a flute on stage and it was really shiny and I knew I wanted to play because it was shiny. So, so that’s, and I got, I, my parents were nice enough to buy me a used flute for my next birthday. That’s awesome. So I got, hrivate lessons, hor my 10th birthday, ho get ready for band in middle school. So starting in sixth grade and, h got to be in band in sixth grade, which was a total blast and I went to a private Catholic school growing up and, heah, and that year the band director retired.


Becky Stewart (03:14):
So I only got one year with him. And then after that went through a couple different of, of band directors, but I, I loved band. I loved playing my flute. And then when I got to high school, I ended up switching to a different high school, my, my sophomore year because my middle school ended up closing due to low enrollment. My high school ended up closing due to low enrollment. So I ended up going to a public school in beginning of my junior year. So it closed sophomore year. And then I was able to experience marching band and show choir and jazz band and all these super fun things, got to have the opportunity to play saxophone and some ensembles, and really just had a great time and then decided to major in it in college.


Sam Demma (03:53):
That is so cool. And then when you were growing up, did you think you were gonna play in like an orchestra? Did you end up playing in any groups or did you know while you were going through it that one day you would use that to springboard you back into education?


Becky Stewart (04:08):
Oh yeah, not at all. I knew I enjoyed it a lot. I actually wanted to like switch to electric base my eighth grade year. I don’t no idea why. I think like some other girl was playing it and I was like, that is so cool. And my mom’s like, I bought you this thing, like no way. So I was glad you did that. But I, I just had such a blast with all of my friends in high school. I, my goal when I, cause I originally wanted to be a Marine biologist and that really interested me oceanography really interested me until I got to honors chemistry and my junior year of high school. And I went, oh no, this, this math and science is super, super, super hard. And I was like, I was not having a good time. Yeah. And the one class that I kept coming back to that I kept wanting to the subject that I was excelling at and really found myself wanting to work hard in that class wa was band was instrument. So I like broke the news to my parents saying, Hey, I wanna, you know, major in music in college and mixed reviews. Lots of concerns happen there.


Sam Demma (05:11):
Tell me more about that for a second because I don’t think only students, but also educators sometimes make difficult decisions and following your passion is one of the


Becky Stewart (05:22):
Oh definitely. Definitely. I it was definitely tough because you know, the whole family is like, oh, maybe you should have a plan B you know, and cause nobody else in my, and my family plays music. So it was kind of hard to hard to forge that path. But I knew that I wanted to do it. I knew that it was right thing for me. So I, I kept on going and,uit’s kind of hard, like when your parents don’t fully support you at the beginning, but you know, later on they’re like, oh, I’m glad you did that. You’re like, yeah, I know


Sam Demma (05:52):
And you all along


Becky Stewart (05:54):
So it was, it was definitely tough. And I came from a household where neither of my parents had graduated college. So they, I think they were just happy that I was going to college at, you know, they came to that realization. But yeah, it was definitely, definitely not easy. But when you know that like you were made to do something that this is your passion, then you have to follow it. But at the beginning I was a performance major for the first years of college. Like the, the dream goal for me was to play in a studio orchestra and a studio band to be hired, to play for movies and to do soundtracks. And,uthe farther I got in my college career, I, I was playing in all kinds of ensembles, all kinds of bands and having the best time, our major in the marching band and,uhad some conducting experience.


Becky Stewart (06:40):
And I ended up with a couple of injuries , which I think is go, is just like your story. I think, from what I saw and I, cause being a performance major requires so much practice time. And,uwhile like my mind was willing and able my body really wasn’t and I didn’t want to, you know, facing like, you know, perspective surgeries in the future and all these. And I was like, Ugh, I don’t think I wanna deal with that. Like so early in life. Yeah. Uso I was, you know, approached by some of my mentors, my junior year of college. And I mean, not, not because the injuries or whatever, but, you know,uI was like, I, I was going for, I was like, I’ll still do it. I’ll still do it. And then they were like, you know, we really think you should look into education. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, I, that, as a, as a second major, there aren’t very many, like many more units to take on top of music performance to get into music education. So I was like, okay, you know, graduate with two degrees. That sounds great. But it ended up being a really, really great move for me. And I wanna have changed it for the world.


Sam Demma (07:40):
That’s so amazing. Music fascinates me because it’s like all in your head, it’s like, you, you, you envision something and then you bring it to life. And it’s, it’s something to start as just an idea. Now it’s a thing that people can relate to and enjoy hearing and listening to. And I’m just really fascinated by aspir artists. I don’t care if you paint or write or sing or make music. It’s like, it’s such an inspiring field to watch someone pursue. And I’m sure you get so inspired by seeing kids passionate about it as well. Like what is, what is, tell me more about the experience of being in the classroom teaching band to grade sevens and eights and why you wouldn’t trade it for the world.


Becky Stewart (08:20):
It’s and it’s so cool. Cuz we just had our first concert last night after two years away so it was crazy. Cause our last concert was December of 2019. So last night we, we had our first show, which was the such a cool experience. Uso the kids that performed, they all learned their instrument over distance learning, which wow. Had its own challenges. You know, I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t, I, I think the hardest part about teaching online was like, here’s your, here’s how we’re putting our mouthpiece together. Here’s how we’re putting our read on. And it’s like, cuz usually I would be able to make small adjustments for them cuz it’s so hard even when you’re still developing those fine motor skills and you cuz it has to go a very certain way for it to be successful. And I wasn’t able to do that at all.


Becky Stewart (09:06):
Yeah. And you know, and then the cameras were all off and I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know what your arm looks like, but it sounds okay. Like I can kind of like hear what you’re doing and know what adjustments you need to make. So it was like a really big test in my ear, but it was amazing last night seeing the kids cuz before that you know, you get kids like, oh I don’t, I’m not sure if band was for me and I don’t know. And I’m like, okay, you, you haven’t even had a concert yet. Like you scratched the surface of what band is like we’ve gone through these first sounds together, which is my favorite thing. I love seeing their faces light up when they’re successful at something, the whole class is clapping for them. I’m screaming their name.


Becky Stewart (09:40):
Like we’re having a good time and yeah. Then just cheering each other on and, and bonding together as an ensemble. And as a class is just the coolest thing to see. They’re truly a family unit like a month into school, like they’re, they’re already bonded. And last night we, like I said, we finally got our concert and the band kids got to really see what being in band is all about. Like they were all so nervous before the show and and then they, they thought they were gonna die. And they’re like, what if I faint? What if I fall over? You’ll be, it’ll be okay. And then they, you know, they, that common experience of like being so nervous, but really, really preparing for that moment and then performing and then everybody clapping for you at the end is so cute. The kids are high fiving each other and looking at like, we did it. So those, those moments like that are really what really, what makes it so special.


Sam Demma (10:30):
I love that. I think the journey of seeing a kid progress from a nervous and uncomfortable situation into a space of confidence and self belief is what fuels every teacher, whether you’re teaching music, whether you’re teaching math, it doesn’t matter what the subject is. It’s like that journey from not knowing to knowing is just so cool to watch. That’s so amazing to hear. And did you always, when, when you started teaching, did you always teach band to great sevens and eighth? Or did you start at a different grade or has this always been where you’ve been so far?


Becky Stewart (11:01):
It’s so funny because when I like, cuz I, I, like I said, I didn’t, I, the education field was not like in the cards for me, I thought at the beginning. And then when I got my student teaching assignment, I was like, all right, you know, everybody’s in college coming off this hot high school program, like I’m gonna go to high school, we’re gonna have three jazz bands and we’re gonna have the best marching band ever and blah, blah. And so when you get your student teaching assignment, everybody’s like crossing their fingers and toes for like the big high schools that are around and like, all right, I’m ready for it. And I got a middle school placement and I was like, are you kidding me? I was, I was like, I was mad. I was like, I was like, I want middle school.


Becky Stewart (11:39):
What the heck? This is dumb. Cause I, I did not have a good, like a great middle school experience. Like my, our band was like I said, private school, super bare bones. Like non-competitive like, yeah, one period of band a day, like it was super small. And so I was like, like, this is dumb. So, and then come to find out where, you know, it’s just, I got place, this amazing middle school program totally fell in love with the age group. I fell in love with teaching them right from the beginning. Mm. I thought that was so cool where you can teach them exactly the way that you want them to be taught. Whereas in high school, you know, you have kids coming from all over of different ability levels. And I feel like that that level of that achievement gap just grows as soon as you get to high school. But it’s great having them for those two years saying, okay, I know I started you I know why you’re having these issues and how to fix it. And then we can, you know, along our two year journey, but,uyeah, it’s always been seventh and eighth grade. I got,umy current position I interviewed for it. Ubefore I graduated from the credential program. So the credential program, I did middle school and as my student teaching and then I went right into the middle school position right after that. And it’s been awesome.


Sam Demma (12:50):
Nice. That’s awesome. And let’s go back to the time in your life where you felt as a student going out on stage and performing your first time. Not actually in the musical sense, like metaphorically, that feeling of not knowing how something’s gonna go. I think every teacher went through that experience when COVID initially hit. And it sounds like you did too with being a music teacher virtually which,


Becky Stewart (13:14):
Oh yeah. Everybody kept asking me, how are you gonna do it? I’m like, I dunno, but we’re figuring it out as we go.


Sam Demma (13:20):
So how did that experience go? And like, how did you overcome that difficult situation and continue teaching and figure it out along the way?


Becky Stewart (13:28):
Oh yeah, it was crazy because I was used to seeing, seeing, actually seeing my, of kids in front of me every, every day. Cuz that that’s how our schedule is. I get to see them for, for 43, 48 minutes every day. And uthey’re like, okay, it’s gonna be distance. Like, okay, that’s, that’s hard, but you know, we’ll, we can do it, you know, we’ll, we’ll do our best. And I’m like, okay. And then,uMondays, we are only gonna meet with one class for 30 minutes and then it’s all meetings all. Okay. So now I see them four days a week, right? Nope. Now I got two days where you see them for an hour each day and I’m like, oh my gosh. I’m like, that’s, that’s like two days regularly. That’s crazy. So if a kid missed like one day of class, I don’t see them.


Becky Stewart (14:08):
So if they miss like a Wednesday, I don’t see them until the next Monday. Mm. It was crazy. So I did a lot of like being really purposeful about what exactly we were going over that day. So we really slowed everything down. And I tried to have as many cameras on as possible where it really wasn’t very many, but we worked a lot with Flipgrid like where kids recorded their own video and then posted on a page where everybody could see each other video. And I was like, oh, that’ll be fun. And they’re like, Nope, hate this. I don’t want everybody to see it. And I was like, okay, I will make it. So it’s only me. That’s use it. That’s fine. And then, you know, that went well for a little while and giving them feedback because I didn’t wanna make them play in the zoom.


Becky Stewart (14:51):
And then I realized the parents didn’t want, didn’t sign up to have an instrument in their home. Playing like at 8:00 AM twice a week. Like like, I’ve got a meeting with this trumped blaring behind me trying to learn how to play. And I was like, I know, like I know like it’s fine. Uho dealing with that too, cause not everybody could play their instrument at 8:00 AM. Okay. Just get your mouth piece out. And uhust buzz while you’re doing the valve combinations. Umo a lot of videos with that feedback, I, hodified like my band karate system to, so the kids could have a, an end goal at the end that they could see and have like different levels to achieve. And, me incorporated a lot of fee cuz I wasn’t sure when we were coming back, like there were some spots like maybe we’ll come back in November.


Becky Stewart (15:36):
Nope. Maybe we’ll come back in December. Nope. So we really got purposeful about what exactly the kids were doing. I incorporate a lot of different softwares, like smart music to assess the kids so they could record at home, use Flipgrid a lot. We got, like I said, we got to incorporate a lot of theory that we wouldn’t normally do in the classroom. We got to incorporate a lot of music history, which I really loved. And we got to collaborate with the history department with what they were doing. Like they were working on like seventh grade history does world history. So they’re working on the medieval times and the prehistoric era while we’re learning about the music from the Renaissance and the medieval times and the prehistoric and it was, it was just really cool being able to do those cross-curricular things.


Becky Stewart (16:15):
But I’ve made our program so performance heavy, like we just got our shirts and I do tour dates on the back and the whole back of the shirt is all the concerts for the year. So it is it’s amazing full. So it was really odd coming to terms with like that’s the whole identity of our program is being so performance based and like I can have zero performances this year. So it was, it was interesting take completely taking away the performance expectation and making sure that every kid was able to like do exercise number one. Okay. You’re good. Do exercise number five without like, okay, in a month we have a concert and you gotta go. But even so my, my students become performers and it’s, it was kind of weird not having that last year, but but I think they, they all got better as the year went on. They all stuck. Most of them stuck with their instrument, which was really what we were going for. And as long as they had fun last year, it was, that was, that was the main goal. Like as long as I still like band at the end, then we’re good.


Sam Demma (17:13):
That’s awesome. And I’m sure that, you know, there are some kids that realize band’s not for me. And there’s some kids that realize this is fun. I’m gonna try it again. And there’s a certain select few that are probably like, this is my life. Like they fall in love with it. Right. Yeah. Like, and you’re one of those kids when you were in school. But tell me a story of a student who maybe in grade seven to be beginning of the year, you know, was nervous, shy. And by the time they left to school in grade eight, we’re just like totally different human being. And like, you know, sometimes educators forget their purpose of their work and it’s to, you know, put belief in kids. And then sometimes you don’t hear about the impact your work has until like 10 years down the road when the kid is like in their mid thirties and has a family or something. Oh, for sure. But uyeah. Tell me like about a student like that who..


Becky Stewart (18:01):
Oh Yeah. One of my, one of my favorite kids is in the high school band right now, I saw him perform last night. He was like in this, in this group that kind of moved along together. And my school in particular has a lot of really rough families. They have great, great, great families. But there are some, like, it’s a very high socioeconomic scale. Like it’s 95% free, reduced lunch, 95, like lots of family below the property rate. I’ve had students where at least one parent isn’t prison it’s, you know, very bleak outlook on the future. So when they come to me, music and band sometimes does not seem like a priority at all. So this one student in particular, every single day and he, he sat front, playing clarinet, sat in front every single day. He’d look me dead in the eyes and be like, I hate band I’m quitting.


Becky Stewart (18:56):
And I was like, Nope, like I believe in you please say you’re doing so well. Cause I could tell he was, he was a great player. Like, no you’re doing great. And you know, when I would compliment him, he would just kind of look and be like, yeah, whatever. And every single day I hate band I’m changing electives. I hate band I’m changing electives. And I was like, oh my God. You know, at the end you’re just like, fine. Like if this isn’t for you, like whatever. But he had his first concert and I knew this is always like the biggest moment of buyin for them is because, like I said, they have this, this joint experience together where, where they’re all nervous and they all perform and they realize everybody’s doing great. And sometimes this is the first time their parents are, have come to watch them or tell them good job or say that I’m proud of you, which is really, really cool.


Becky Stewart (19:35):
And so after this performance, we always do our little reflection and he, he was like a completely different person afterwards. And he, you know, always brought his in home cause I made him. But after that was, you know, totally by choice. And uthe end of his seventh grade year, he’s just P playing and playing and working through the book and doing so well and excelling above everybody just because he is, he’s working so hard. And then the next,uhis eighth grade year,uhe ended up getting into honor band, which was amazing. So we went to the section honor band and he did fantastic on clarinet and he’s playing this music. That’s like high school music for, for junior high. And he’s,uright now auditioning for,uthe Western international band conference honor band as a sophomore in high school. And he’s yeah, he’s just absolutely killing it. He got the director’s award from me with the rest of his clarinet section as an eighth grader. Yeah. He was in two honor bands that year as an eighth grader, actually he was in the district honor band and yeah, so that was, that was very, very cool to see. He’s, he’s one of my, my favorite stories cuz he started off as definitely like, you know, the thorns on the rose and then, and then completely bloomed afterwards.


Sam Demma (20:41):
Sometimes those things that seem like an annoyance, like end up being a kid’s greatest strength, you know, maybe, maybe his stubbornness is what made him. So, you know, committed to playing the clarinet afterwards, you know, it’s true. True. Oh, that’s such a cool story. And if you could like transport back in time and speak to younger Becky, when you in your first year of teaching, like knowing what you know now what advice would you give younger self?


Becky Stewart (21:06):
Oh, oh gosh. I would say it’s going to be great because you are involved in it. Mm. Like to like know like no self doubt cuz like I, like, I feel like I pretty high self-confidence but like just, just not, not doubting. You’ll be like, what you’re doing is great. Keep going. What you’re doing is great. Keep going. Like it will be great because, because it’s you mm


Sam Demma (21:36):
That’s a really good piece of advice for everyone. So thanks for sharing but uhhank you so much again for coming on the show today and just sharing some of your stories. Umf someone’s listening and it’s been inspired by it or maybe teaches me music in their school and are, hnterested in hearing more about how you did it virtually, if they’re still teaching virtually or just curious to hear more about your program, what would be the best way for them to reach out or just get in touch?


Becky Stewart (22:01):
My email for sure. I’m also on Instagram. Our school has our Yuba gardens music, Instagram @Yubagardensmusic. And then I have my personal Instagram as well. I don’t know if it’s okay to say it or if it’ll be linked on the podcast. My email is rstewart@mjusd.com. So it’s my real name is Rebecca, but nobody calls me Rebecca.


Sam Demma (22:30):
Nice. Love it. Becky, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.


Becky Stewart (22:35):
Thank you for having me!


Sam Demma (22:36):
Yeah, this is awesome. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon. Awesome.


Becky Stewart (22:40):
Thank you so much.


Sam Demma (22:41):
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 is 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 Becky

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.

December 31, 2021 by Music Educator Student Success Teachers 0

Sara Daddario – English Teacher and Director of Student Activities at Kennedy High School

Sara Daddario - English Teacher and Director of Student Activities at Kennedy High School
About Sara Daddario

Sara Daddario is a teacher in Southern California who believes that all students can achieve if they know that they are seen, supported, and have a voice. She has been working with teens for 15 years teaching resilience, success maintenance and integrity through the subjects of English and Student Leadership. 

When she was little she told her parents she wanted to be a Jedi when she grew up, and figures that teaching is just about as close as you can get to that.

The Force is strong with her. 

Connect with Sara: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Ellen Caldwell (Sara’s University Professor)

Anaheim Union High School District

TikTok Challenges

“These Kids are Killing me” (Tumblr) Blog

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 Sara Daddario. Sara is a teacher in Southern California who believes that all students can achieve if they know that they are seen, supported and have a voice. She has been working with teens for 15 years, teaching resilience, success maintenance, and integrity through the subjects of English and student leadership. When she was little, she told her parents, she wanted to be a Jedi when she grew up and figures that teaching is just about as close as you can get to that. The force is strong with her. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Sara and I will see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (00:47):
Sara. 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 to some of the educators that are tuning in?


Sara Daddario (00:56):
Okay. Hi my name is Sara Daddario. I have been an English teacher and activity director for 14 years in Southern California. And I’ve, I think in those capacities, I’ve taught every grade level between seven and 11, for some reason, 12th grade still evades me. I get to teach seniors in my leadership class, but they won’t give me a senior English class. But you know, careers are long stuff. We’ll get there eventually. I’m sure.


Sam Demma (01:25):
That’s awesome. And did you know growing up from a young age that you wanted to become a teacher?


Sara Daddario (01:31):
No. and if you had told me at any age that I was gonna be a teacher, I would’ve told you, you were insane. I probably would’ve screamed profanity at you and laughed in your face. It was something that I came to way later in life and I’m, I’m so glad I think as a teacher, you really have to know who you are to be effective. And I think that not knowing that this was what I wanted to do, kind of gave me time to figure out who I was and the world, and I didn’t come to teach until I was almost 30. And I’m so glad because I had so much life experience to bring in with me.


Sam Demma (02:11):
How did you come to teach? What does, what did the journey look like?


Sara Daddario (02:17):
Okay. So when I started college straight out of high school, I’m first generation college graduate in my family. And the only reason I really signed up for college was because my friends and I found out we could get out of our senior econ class. If we went on the field trip to the junior college and while we were there, they immediately registered us. So really it was a, a planned, a ditch class that , but I I’m a musician, I’ve been a musician my whole life. So I a was like, oh, I’ll be a music major. And then I always kind of kept an English class in my back pocket and was like, oh, I took, you know, 12 music classes, but, and this one English class, cuz it’s easy for me. And I sort of kept going down that path and I realized sort of at the end, when it was time to transfer to a university like, oh, I don’t actually enjoy the study of music, but I really like English at the same time.


Sara Daddario (03:09):
I don’t know what I thought I was gonna do with it. And I was just like, I’m transferring as an English major. Still didn’t have a plan to be a teacher, but was doing a lot of volunt with teenagers. And it was funny. I went to the, I went to the university guidance counselor and was like, I don’t know what to do with my life. Like, I’m gonna get a degree in English. I don’t know, law writing. And she’s like, you have years of volunteer experience with teenagers, have you considered teaching? And I was like, oh, that’s a thing I should maybe think about and there was no going back for me. It was obviously the right path. The second I started doing it and started doing my pre-service hours in my credential program, I was like, oh, this is what I wanna do. And I tell my students, like when you’re doing the thing that you’re meant to do that saying like, you never feel do what you love and you’ll never work a day. And you, if like I get up at five o’clock every day, it has to be something I love to get up at five mm-hmm. like, I like sleep a lot, but I like teaching more. So that’s how I got here.


Sam Demma (04:08):
That’s that’s so cool. And do you still set aside time to explore your musical passions?


Sara Daddario (04:15):
Oh yeah, I do. Like just like hop. I mean really mostly at this point it’s probably far too many concerts on school nights that I, you know, shouldn’t be doing, but absolutely. You know, wh when there’s time, those are things that we love to do.


Sam Demma (04:30):
That’s awesome. And so aside from your guidance counselor, who seems like they really pushed you in this direction, or at least opened up your mindset to this op this option, did you have other teachers or people in your life that after you started talking about teaching kind of nudged you in that direction and what did they do for you?


Sara Daddario (04:47):
I have some teachers that that I a hundred percent credit for me being here and they’re they’ve happened at all times in my life. So I remember my 11th grade English teacher, Irene Matthews, who is now my neighbor, she’s long retired and she lives down the street for me. Nice. I see ire her out, doing her walk every day but she was the first teacher that I had that actually told me I was kind of a rotten kid. I was really in trouble a lot. I was not motivated. I was motivated by social things and not my school things. And she was the first teacher that said, Hey, you’re pretty good at writing. And you have a really good kind of grasp of reading. I think this class is something you can enjoy. And so from that moment, I sort of someone recognized that I was more than just a body in a chair and I had become like, oh, I have a gift for this.


Sara Daddario (05:40):
I should start trying and put an effort. And college is an English major. I had a professor who passed away a few years ago Dr. Ellen Caldwell. And she was just a teacher that I, if I ever could describe what I try to embody in the classroom. It’s this woman, it’s like an absolute acceptance of meeting your students where, where they’re at, but holding them to such a high standard and believing that they can get there no matter like it, with the right supports they can get there. And I didn’t even know when she was my professor that I wanted to be a teacher, but when I kind of decided I was gonna go into a credential program, I approached her about writing my my recommendation letters. And she said, this is absolutely the thing you should be doing. You were born for this, you’re helping other people in class.


Sara Daddario (06:30):
Like this is your path. And I was like, it is okay. And then just, I got so, so lucky at the beginning of my career. A and I don’t know, and some of these are people I still work with today cuz I still work in the same district I was hired into eventually. I mean, initially there was a lady that worked on the teaching staff, at least Bikeman at my school, first school I hired into and she I’d like teacher burnout is real because you’re new and because you’re good, they’re gonna ask you to do 500 things. I’m gonna protect you for your first two years and not get you on committees and I’m gonna get your feet under you. The person who was the district curriculum specialist was my mentor. I had administrators that were super encouraging and really fostered kind of personal connection with your colleagues and your students.


Sara Daddario (07:22):
And it’s almost, education’s kind of gone away from that kind of mentoring. In the last, I would say probably six or seven years, but having that foundation has allowed me to see like I should be that for other people. So I’m always reaching out to new teachers and giving them PEPs. And I know don’t wanna commit to being on this committee. But they’re the people that really kept me in it and having other teachers that I was colleagues with to look up to that I could just wander into their classroom and just observe and come away better is the best gift I have been given in my career. So I really think I was super lucky to just have all these amazing people that fall in my path.


Sam Demma (08:02):
That sounds like the perfect scenario, you know, like kinda it yeah. Like having great veteran teachers, having awesome mentors that walk up to you and are like, I’m about to protect you for these first two years. Like that’s, that’s like a gaurdian angel kind of thing, you know? Yeah. So you say that things have kind of shifted away from that in the past six, seven years. What, what do you mean by that?


Sara Daddario (08:27):
I think I see a lot of kind of trends in education. You know, I, I came into my career at the end of the nickel bee era when standardized testing was everything. Mm. And now we still have standardized testing, although it happens less frequently. And their kind of high stake testing happened fewer times in a student’s career. But, but definitely like there’s a lot of demand on a teacher now to perform more, to do more that teachers are not doing enough. And it’s funny, I think during COVID I don’t think there’s a teacher on the planet that felt like they were doing enough when we were all home because there’s nothing you can like there was, we could do. And we knew where those shortcomings were and we knew that those need and need conversations in the classroom with students that motivate them every day is the thing that keeps us go, keeps us going.


Sara Daddario (09:25):
But everyone is looking for like right now in education, there’s such a push for two things that I see. One and like student mental health supports, which is huge. Like students are screaming for it. Districts like mine are pretty progressive about getting students the support that they need and having recess resources for them. But but there are some that are just like it’s a family problem. That’s not our problem. And teachers who are struggling to help students kind of get to a point where they feel like they can seek out those supports or where their classrooms are safe spaces, where they can say this is happening in my life and it’s not okay. So that is a huge, it’s a huge thing that impacts us because whether a teacher is willing to accept the responsibility or not for a, a child’s wellbeing, that responsibility is still there.


Sara Daddario (10:19):
And especially for the, you know, at whatever your site is 54 minutes that you have them in the room, you have a responsibility to that child, whether you’re willing to accept it or not. Mm. And when you are a teacher who students share their stories with and share your lives with that becomes exhausting and crippling because there’s, your hands are tied so much. Yeah. but the other is the push for students to really, I mean, I teach high school and I see more and more now for students to sort of bridge that gap between high school and their adult life and make those transitions so much earlier. My district has many partnerships with like we have one with Google, we have one with Tesla and we have these pathways for students to, which are amazing opportunities. The campus I work, I work on has an artificial intelligence program that is, can make a pathway into a career and artificial intelligence.


Sara Daddario (11:15):
But when there’s that kind of pro pressure there’s, there also comes from the students. They don’t get that opportunity to be a kid and to just be a kid sitting in the stands at a football game with their friends on a Friday night. And so finding a way to bridge those gaps between the demands of sort of the world and the requests of the future on these students, and then allow them that last little bit of their adolescence that they get is, is a thing that’s really hard on us. I sit in my leadership class and I talk to them about, I have kids in here that are melting down because they, they don’t know what they wanna do for the next 60 years at 17. And they feel like their entire life is a failure because they don’t have that figured out and having the tools to have those conversations is hard. And that’s definitely a huge change from when I started my career and students were like, yep. Gonna go to college, I’ll figure it out. Like, and now they’re just live.


Sam Demma (12:13):
Yeah. You’re speaking to my younger self. I’m only 22, but I at 13 moved to a different country to pursue a dream and a goal. And then at 17 took a fifth year of high school and stayed back and then took a gap year and then went to university and then dropped outta university. Like I thought I was making your path. Yeah. I thought I was making all the wrong choices. Right. I think those conversations are so important. How do you, how do you think you’ve effectively tried to navigate those conversations so far in your classrooms? Like how do you have those discussions?


Sara Daddario (12:40):
I have an analogy I use with my kids all the time and, and they’re hysterical. I say, there’s a party on Friday night. How can you get there? And they’ll shout out a million answers. Like I’ll take the bus, I’ll walk, I’ll ride a skateboard, I’ll have a friend, I’ll call an Uber. And they come up with a, like, I love, I love the ones that are like, I’m gonna ask the pizza delivery guy to pick me up on his way, or I’m gonna hire sled dogs. Yeah. And I say, okay, all these ways that you get to the party, do they take the same amount of time? And they say no. And I said, right, it’s the same with college and the rest of your life. You’re on your own timeline. And you’re on own path. How you get there is doesn’t matter.


Sara Daddario (13:17):
Doesn’t matter how long it takes. You doesn’t matter how you get there. What matters is that at the end of the day, you’re happy with the choices you made and you get somewhere. And I think being a person who really struggled kind of just out of high school to know what I wanted to do, and everybody just kind of said, figure it out. I didn’t have mentors or th or people like that. But a, and being able to say to them, like I didn’t become a teacher until I was almost 30. Like, and I’m glad because I needed to figure out that that was the right thing for me is a, is an easy into for the kid. Who’s like all my friends, sorry, lunch, just standard. So that’s the bill. you know, all my friends know where they’re going and I have no idea what I’m going, what I wanna do with my life. And I tell them, you know, you’re gonna get to college and all your friends are going to realize that a business major, wasn’t what they really wanted to do. And they’re gonna change their major and start from scratch, or they’re gonna figure out that college wasn’t for them. And there were these other options, or they’re gonna find something that makes them amazingly happy and they’re gonna get out of their bus and they’re gonna hop in a car and go to their party. And it just matters that they get there.


Sam Demma (14:23):
I love that. That’s such a cool analogy. Did you hear that somewhere or did you just kind of come up with it?


Sara Daddario (14:29):
No it was just lots of years of talking to students.

Sara Daddario (14:33):
There you go. That’s Sara’s wisdom. There’s a lot of ways to get to the party. Just get there.


Sam Demma (14:38):
Did you have to navigate that as a child? Did you know, did you have no way to the party and you just started calling the pizza person?


Sara Daddario (14:45):
Kinda I was a child that grew up with a pretty significant amount of trauma. I have my mom was a single mom. I have, fortunately, I have four parents, which is great. You know, my parents divorced and remarried, but when I was in high school and I was navigating that they were sort of sorting out their own lives. As adults now, it has been nothing but character building. Like I said, I have the great, the best relationship with all of my parents, but at the time I grew up in a different time and, you know, parents weren’t as focused on their kids in the eighties and the early nineties as they are now. So I didn’t really have anybody to help me figure that out. I had a counselor in high school who, this is maybe my favorite, favorite thing about career.


Sara Daddario (15:31):
I should have mentioned her as a mentor earlier, but she was a brand new counselor, my senior year of high school. And I got myself into a situation in high school where they weren’t entirely sure I was going to finish. And thankfully I overcame the, the struggle that I was going through and finished very high in my class did very well, but that counselor kind of never gave up on me and said, you know, you’re, where are you gonna go to college? You gotta go to college. What’s your plan? And I was like, I don’t know, I’ll go on the field trip. You know, like I mentioned, and then it was about my third year of teaching because in education there’s always budget cuts and shuffling. And I got moved to a, a junior high site and it was that same counselor.


Sara Daddario (16:12):
It was for last year of her career as a counselor. And I got to be her colleague. Wow. and so she really like made such a huge impact and, and you got, I got to kind of see the scope of her life and what I was doing, but she was that person for me that said like, you know, she was the one with the pep talk that said, and I, of course at 17 was like, okay, lady, whatever. . But to be able to kind of reconnect with her as an adult and look her in the face and say, no, I’m here because of you and your life has your career has directly affected mine. And now here we are together is a pretty cool thing.


Sam Demma (16:49):
And not only does those experiences occur with colleagues and teachers that taught you, but I’m assuming that now it also happens with you and your former students, right?


Sara Daddario (16:58):
Yes. Yeah. And you know what, thank God for social media, because I know we see so many negative things on social media, but I think we gotta, I I’m, I’m making an argument with my district right now that because of these TikTok challenges that are happening that are so negative , they’re like we wanna challenge kids to do a weekend on social media. And I’m like, why don’t we challenge ’em to do something positive with it instead. Yeah. But because of social media, I’m still connected to so many students that I’ve taught. I’ve been invited to their weddings, I’ve held their babies. And I don’t feel like I’ve been a teacher that long. I don’t feel that old, but I am. And so I’m waiting, I know some time in the next few years I’ll get the first, oh, you were my mom’s teacher. And that I hear about that from colleagues and that’s what I’m waiting for. So


Sam Demma (17:42):
That’s so awesome. Yeah, that sounds great. And I’ve talked to other educators and they’ve told me they have a, a rainy day file on their desk where they keep all the thank you notes from past kids. Is that true?


Sara Daddario (17:52):
Yes, that’s true. I had a really, really great administrator my first year teaching, who said, keep an envelope in your desk, put all that stuff in there. And if a couple years goes by and you haven’t put anything in the envelope, maybe think about retiring. So we all have it. And we all, it’s great. Sometimes you pull out and you have a good cry and sometimes you pull it out and you go, I have no idea who this kid is anymore, but all right. I thought I made an impact. sometimes you pull it out. And, and the ones that I love the most are the ones with the kid that is the biggest pain in the butt. That is never absent. That is the reason you grind your teeth at night. You know, the one that makes you question every choice you’ve ever had, and that you would never name your child. That, because that name is forever ruined because of this child. I have notes from those kids. Yeah. And those are the things, or I have work from those kids, cuz that’s a good reminder. Like if I could got, if I could get that student to be successful, then I need to keep doing this.


Sam Demma (18:50):
Amazing. And you know, because there’s a lot of negativity going on right now in the world. I’m curious to know if one of those stories of transformation kind of sticks out in your mind. Maybe there’s one kid you can remember or think of and something that happened. And if it’s a very serious story as well, you can change their name. You know, we can call them Bob or something, but curious.


Sara Daddario (19:10):
Yeah. There’s tons of them. Oh my gosh. I have so many I think, okay. So I, I don’t wanna get political in this, but I always, when my students are frustrated with something, like my district has a very strict dress code policy that the students can argue is gender bias. I, I kind of take a, you can complain about it or you can do something about it. Mm. So I had this student, he was a freshman. I had him about six years ago. I’m going to change his name to Michael. Nice. And we’re gonna refer to the student as Michael. So he’s graduated now and gone on with his life. But when I had this student as a freshman, he was really impossible to connect with. And that’s the thing that I strive to do in my classroom. I tell my students on the first day, I, if you don’t like English, that’s okay.


Sara Daddario (20:06):
Like if you hate reading, if you’ve been fake reading your whole life, or if you have never written a paper, if you are very familiar with the spark notes website for every assignment you’ve ever been given that’s okay. But you’re gonna know in this room that someone sees you and knows what you’re doing and is connected with you. And no matter what I did, I could not connect with this student. And the behaviors were escalating and we did data dives into family history. We had meetings and, and meetings and I couldn’t connect with the student no matter what I did. And then the election happened the first election when president Trump was elected to office and the next day this student came in and was visibly shaken up. And I said, I said, just off the cuff, like, Hey Michael, I know you don’t trust me, but will, you know, if you wanna talk about something I’m here for you.


Sara Daddario (20:59):
I know I’m not the person you connect with, but talk to someone. And he held back after class and it was because my class was right before lunch for him. And if a student wants to stay in at lunch, like of their own free will is pretty serious because nothing is going to make a high school child miss lunch. So he said, can I talk to you? And I was like, sure. And I sat down and he said, you know, I feel lost right now. I feel scared. I feel afraid, but I feel like I have to do something about it. This student then became the biggest proponent of student voter registration, student education. He’d be out there at lunch, telling people I don’t care who you vote for. I don’t care where your politics are. I don’t care if you agree with me, if you wanna sit down and talk about it, we can talk about it.


Sara Daddario (21:41):
But I care that you do something because not enough people are doing something and to get to see that student really struggle and then take action and become like this amazing student who was participating in youth in government day for the local city. And has gone on to study politics in college because this was a moment. And all I did, he did not wanna connect with me at all. But when he was, he knew my room was a safe space and I would guide him to help take the action he needed and he took it. And that, that is one of the biggest things for me, because it’s so affected his life. I have students that have come out in my class with, you know, and, and students have changed their gender identity. Students who have been the Vic victims of bullying have confronted their bullies in my classroom and to watch them become whole and go out and live these amazing lives. And knowing that my room was the safe space, where that happened is absolutely the reason to show up every day.


Sam Demma (22:44):
How is that safe space created? I’m like, I would assume that every educator listening is like, I want my kids to know that they can come to me when they’re scared. You know, what, what do you think allows your students to have that level of trust with you?


Sara Daddario (22:56):
Okay. So I think it’s a bunch of things. I believe really strongly in the say, do ratio. And so when I go over that with my students, and that’s what percentage of what you say you’re going to do, do you actually do? And I live that every day with my students. If I say, I’m going to come find you in another class to check up, to see you’re okay, I’m gonna do that. I’m a child of divorce and thank God. My dad said repeatedly as a kid, like to us, when we were kids, if I say, I’m gonna be there, I’m gonna be there. And that was a value that, that was kind of instilled in us. You’re worth is the most important thing that you have, and it reflects your character. Two, the other one comes from my mom and my mom, my mom, when she, she, my mom passed away a few years ago, but she was a lady who her entire philosophy in life was you love people as hard as you can.


Sara Daddario (23:49):
And when they are difficult and they push you away, you love them harder. whether you like it or not. And if you are struggling with loving somebody, then that’s your problem and you need to get better at it. so I think that’s another thing that I really kind of use with my students. They are loved and accepted in my classroom. It doesn’t matter how awful they are that day. And certainly we have those days. But they know when they come back in the next day, they get a fresh start every day. So keeping your word, creating a space where a student knows they’re seen and valued and safe and creating a space, a community where they really know each other. Hmm. I utilize social contracts in my classroom. So my students, my students create the environment they want to be in.


Sara Daddario (24:32):
Which if I, I, it’s funny, I’m in my boardroom and there’s two doors and the, this quote is on one, but the social contracts on the other one, and I can’t like turn for you to see it. That’s okay. They come up with the most amazing things and they sit in groups and they have discuss about what do we want this room to be like for us? So they create their own environment. And all I do is I hold them to it. And I say, no, we said, we were gonna do this. Are we doing that? And do we need to change that? So giving student voice in your classroom, giving them choice and supporting them unconditionally, knowing that they’re not gonna hold a grudge with them is kind of the best way to create that space and giving them a fresh start every time they need it. I don’t know what I’m doing every day. I can’t imagine a 14 year old knows or is in control of their emotions every day. Yeah. Oh, and I teach , I should tell you this. I teach freshman English, but I teach it to RSP students in English learners. So I have the toughest population on our campus at the you age. Like, and I I’m their favorite class. Like, so if I can do it, anybody can do it. yeah.


Sam Demma (25:33):
I love that. That’s so cool. That’s such like a, and you probably feel so fulfilled cuz you’re doing such meaningful work, you know, every educator should.


Sara Daddario (25:41):
Feel fulfilled. I feel tired.


Sam Demma (25:44):
Yeah,

Sara Daddario (25:46):
But I feel


Sam Demma (25:48):
Well, maybe you gotta stop doing those after-school concerts, Sara. Totally joking. But oh, this has been awesome. If you could go back in time and give your first year yourself in education as a teacher, one or two pieces of advice, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self?


Sara Daddario (26:07):
Get involved with something you love on campus? I work with the student leadership program and I, my third year teaching another amazing teacher mentor, Alan Carter said, Hey, I want you to come advise this class, cuz I think it’s the right fit for you. And I’ve been working in student activities ever since because that, for me, I love teaching all students, but getting out of bed and making an impact to my campus through my student activities program is the reason I get outta bed, my leadership kids like that time that we’re spending, setting up an assembly or a rally building balloons. And I get to watch them kind of put on this creative, amazing event and they’re goofy and they’re silly with each other. Like I live for that. Yeah. Because I get to see their work pay off. And if I would’ve, it’s not something I would’ve ever thought of being involved in.


Sara Daddario (26:58):
If this other person didn’t say you need to have something in your day, besides teaching, besides grading, besides parent phone calls, like find something you love, even if it’s advising a club, that’s one of your hobbies. Something that you have in common with students, find a way to put that in your Workday because that’s your break. That’s your Oasis in the middle of the day. And then the only other piece of advice I would give is remember that parents so rarely hear positive things about their kids, especially the really difficult kids and try and find something positive to share with their families because they wanna hear good news sometimes too.


Sam Demma (27:36):
Love that. That’s such a good piece of, I actually never heard the second one before on the show, so that’s awesome. that was fresh. Well, nice. There you go. If someone wants to reach out to you ask a question or just get in touch and it’s another educator listening, what would be the best way for them to do so?


Sara Daddario (27:51):
Email (daddario_s@auhsd.us) and I will make sure that you have my email so that you can attach it somewhere. Cuz my last name is very long and complicated it Italian’s gotta love. Yeah. So but email’s the best way to get to me and it may take me a couple of days to get to you because I’m an activities director and we’re in homecoming season. So the emails are long. But I will, I will answer your question. I’ll try to help. I also write a teacher blog on Tumblr. If you’re on Tumblr, the last social like Tumblr will be the last social media standing after everyone dies. So find “these kids are killing me” is the name of my tum bug. So you’re welcome to come to find me there and we can talk about PD.


Sam Demma (28:36):
That’s awesome. Sara, thank you so much. I know no one can see the video, but I’m surprised you didn’t use your hands like this the whole time.


Sara Daddario (28:43):
I’m keeping ’em below the screen.


Sam Demma (28:46):
That’s awesome. But thank you so much. This has been great. Keep up the awesome work and we’ll talk soon.


Sara Daddario (28:52):
Thank you.


Sam Demma (28:53):
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 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 2 20 21 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 Sara

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.

December 22, 2021 by Experiential Learning Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Leslie Loewen – Campus Culture Manager at Fresno Unified School District

Leslie Loewen, Campus Culture Director
About Leslie Loewen

Leslie Loewen (@MommaLoew) has been an educator for more than 23 years, serving the students of California’s Central Valley as a teacher, coach, club sponsor, and administrator. She has always been focused on active learning, positive relationship-building, and planting the seeds of knowledge and leadership through student engagement.

As Fresno Unified’s current Campus Culture Manager she strives to engage ALL students in Arts, Activities, and Athletics, through a wide array of opportunities, so that they may connect with an adult champion and learn how to be the best version of themselves. “Every student has an essential purpose, and it is our job to open their eyes to their greatest potential and path to success.”

Connect with Leslie: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

California Association Directors of Activities (CADA)

Fresno Unified School District

Icebreakers & Team Builders to Build Community (August Webinar)

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 on the show is Leslie Loewen, or as her 75,000 students would call her MommaLowe. Leslie is the campus culture manager at the Fresno unified school district. She’s also a wife and a Momma. She loves her job and family is one of the values that is high on her list, which is why it’s no surprise that even her students refer to her as Momma Lowe. She prides herself in building relationships with kids and providing them with opportunities and experiences that can have a significant impact on their life now, and also a future development. I hope you enjoy this amazing conversation with Leslie and I will see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (01:31):
Leslie, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Please start by just introducing yourself.


Leslie Loewen (01:38):
Good morning, Sam. It’s awesome to be with you. My name is Leslie Loewen and I am the campus culture manager for Fresno unified school district. This means I’ve been a teacher for 20 plus years and then went into campus culture, which is what we call maybe activities directors at other school sites. She call them campus culture directors because we were more than Reaper chugs and pies in the face. And Julie, from the love belt, you’re too young, but other people know what that means, but we just, we wanna make sure that kids feel a sense of belonging and place and connection to our schools. And we know that that starts with the culture of your campus. And so been doing that now for 15ish of the 20 plus year.


Sam Demma (02:30):
Oh, that’s awesome. I heard someone told me, I think it was a little bird that students sometimes call you momma loew. Is that is a true story?


Leslie Loewen (02:38):
That is my street name. It’s it’s behind me. I don’t know which way to write it. Right. Because some, sometimes the camera’s flip or not. So yeah, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter there. It’s mostly just stuff I retweet about all of our awesome kids in Fresno unified. I’ve got 75,000 kids. That’s it.


Sam Demma (02:56):
That’s it?!


Leslie Loewen (02:57):
I mean, you know, I didn’t birth them all, which was good.


Sam Demma (03:02):
Yeah. Where did the nickname come from?


Leslie Loewen (03:06):
I had a student one time. So every time I would leave the room, which you should never do with children, right? Like that’s the golden rule with never leave the room as a teacher. But I would leave the room cause we, my leadership kids in there and they would sticky bomb my walls and they would put notes and things on there. And one day, one of my students said 2000 kids and counting mama loew the next reality show. And so I giggled cause that’s what I always used to say. They’re my kids. Like you didn’t pick me just like you didn’t pick your biological mother. You’re welcome. And now we’re going to move forward as if your mind, because you are mine. And and so when I got this job, the student was super cute. He crossed it off and put 75,000 kids in counties. So it’s my reality show and I love it. So


Sam Demma (03:57):
Amazing. And so tell me more about your journey and education. Did you know from a young age that you wanted to work with kids specifically in a school setting? Or how did you stumble upon this calling?


Leslie Loewen (04:09):
Well, my parents were both teachers, so the answer was heck now I am not going to be a teacher. My mom taught elementary school and she worked really, really hard and she, she I come from a long line of hand-raisers. So, you know, when there’s something that needs to be done, we’re like, okay, I’ll do it. Okay. I’ll do it. And so she did everything in elementary school. She was the cheer coach when they lost their music teacher, she knew how to play piano. So she, she was a music director. She, you know, my dad was a science teacher in high school. He was a coach. And so I was always on the field with him, with them. January would roll around, he coached baseball. So January would roll around and it was like, okay, dad, we’ll see in a couple of months and you know, we’d have coffee and donuts for all the coaches, all his kids, you know, we have these big camps and that’s just kind of what you did.


Leslie Loewen (05:09):
And I have a degree in dirt now. I know all the dirt was the grand soils and chemistry from Cal poly. I thought I was going to redo baseball fields to make the water drains. So you could play on it faster or, you know, beyond a golf course and make sure that the greens were awesome. And then my sister had her first child and she said, Hey, get your masters and come and take care of drew. And I did. And I hated my masters. So I was like, now what my mom said, why don’t you stop? Just make some extra cash watch drew. And then on the days that you’re not watching drew, just so you know, I taught dance for more than 10 years. And I thought that was, that was different. Turns out it’s, it’s pretty close. You know, you got kids that just want to be the best they can be and find their spark.


Leslie Loewen (06:13):
And I mean, when they do that magical things happen. And so I started sobbing and I thought I could bring my bag of tricks. That’s great. But I’d like to be with these kids more than just today. Like I, I built a relationship today and they’re saying, are you going to be here tomorrow or where, you know, and I did, I didn’t know where I was going to be every day. So my, my mom and dad both said that they saw it. They just didn’t want to push me. I had to see it for myself and turns out I really liked kids. So and I just love connecting with them and showing them their potential and really just kind of teasing that out. Have a little fun.


Sam Demma (07:10):
How do you help us students see that in themselves? What does that look like in the classroom? Cause I think a lot of students, especially at a young age, like high school and middle school, even elementary school they don’t fully have the self-confidence maybe yet at that stage in their life. And I’m sure you’ve had students who started in your classrooms, not that confident and maybe left a whole different person sometimes. And other times you don’t even know until 15 years in the future when they come back and tell you, but how do you think you help students see the potential within themselves and find their spark and chase the things that they love?


Leslie Loewen (07:49):
That’s like, I mean, that’s a great question. I think it comes from listening with everything you have. So you’ve got to be an active listener with your eyes, with your ears, with your body, with, with everything you have. Right. And I didn’t realize that really until you said that. And and I I’m one that kind of tries to connect the dots, right. So I got to be a fifth grade teacher on Friday. Right. So during this whole, you know, COVID stuff, we’re, we’re down teachers and subs and administrators and everything. So even though I worked at the district office, I got to work, I got to be a fifth grade teacher on Friday. You never know what yet. So I go in and I’m talking and I’m laughing and I’m introducing myself and we’re, we’re getting things done. Well, of course we’re behind, already, we’re behind on the list of tasks.


Leslie Loewen (08:44):
Right. And as a sub, I was wanting to get everything done on my list. And so we’re behind. And so I looked at the kids and I said, I need everyone to work diligently right now. And I don’t know if that’s a fifth grade where I don’t know what lexicon that is please. I mean, so I was, and they kind of looked at me and I said, do we know what diligently means? Okay. Let’s think about this. I need you to do what we’re supposed to do in an hour and 30 minutes. And one kid goes, I want, I need to work fast. I said, yes, I need to focus. Yes. I need to not talk. Yes. Okay. All of those things work diligently and I’m talking, just talking to my, my biological kids at home. My, my youngest said the other day, mom, you never talked to us like we were babies.


Leslie Loewen (09:32):
So I think number one, listening with everything active listener, but number two, like treating kids as you want them to be, or as you see them to be like, as they’re grown. I, I spent majority of my teaching time in high school. So when I had my biological children, my two boys I, I wanted to, even as young children, I wanted them to be great high schoolers. I wanted them to be, you know, to talk with adults in a way that was engaging and confident. And so I think so listening and then, you know, talking to kids where you want them to be. And so I, again, I don’t know if diligently as a fifth grade, we’re about that whole class knows the word diligently. I use it several different times. She’s had a lot of fun and they did, they got it done.


Leslie Loewen (10:31):
And they celebrate that life. I would, I would say the third thing is see something, say something applies to things that are dangerous, but also when things are good, I was walking around the classroom and I noticed the two boys in the back that sat in the back and were pretty quiet, always had their tasks done, always had it. I mean, their papers looked really nice. And then they were just quietly working in the back. Right. Maybe they don’t get a lot of attention because they weren’t acting naughty and they weren’t, you know, raising their hand and given all the answers. Well, I just walked back and I said, you know what? I have noticed that every time I walked back here, you’ll have everything done. You’re rock stars. You’re like ninja rock star. So they’re like, you know, and it’s kinda got a little puffed up, you know go see something and say it, you know, tell them when they’re, when you’re in their presence. So I don’t have all the answers. And I think that’s kind of how, how I’ve tried to do my best.


Sam Demma (11:38):
Yeah. I love that. Those are all things that I think can apply even outside classrooms with every day, human beings, friends, family members, right. Treat people the way, you know, they can be hold them to a higher standards. Right. That’s kind what that comes down to. And you know, if they’re doing something well, tell them people sometimes just need a little reassurance. And I think even, especially right now, teachers need some reassurance that the impact they’re having is being felt and being realized. I, I would guess that not only are you responsible for the 75,000 students, but some kids, but you’re probably also responsible for some teachers.


Leslie Loewen (12:16):
We’ve got 10,000 adults that we have fun with. So that is good. You know, I wrote down, I wrote down my phone phone number, you know, for the teachers to call me even, you know, back in the day, my home phone number before we had cell phones, but wrote my phone number down and I said, just call me. And so the teacher actually did call me and say, Hey, did you get to that paper? I said, I am so sorry. I didn’t get to that paper. Like I came in and I said, I did my bucket. Like my, my little bucket that I got to have. And I said, but first let me just tell you, you have great kids. They were amazing. They welcomed me into the room and I could tell over the phone I’m listening. It was the whole south that her countenance changed at first.


Leslie Loewen (13:02):
She was worried that, that she didn’t get everything on her list maybe. Right. I don’t know why she was out. I don’t, you know, I don’t know any of the details, but I know that there was some anxiety. She kind of came in hard, you know, where’s this paper. And I said, you know, Hey, I’m was doing the best we could, but you know, who helped me? I said, these two help me in these two, got their work done. And this one was really awesome. And so I got to share with, with her who made my time, they’re really fun. And and then we have a team back here at my office that just looks to do and looks to stand in the gap. So our office manager, for lack of a better term she, she bosses us all, which is awesome.


Leslie Loewen (13:58):
We need it. She said, Hey, you’re there. Look and see who needs a backpack look and see who needs a backpack and school supplies look and see who needs anything. And so I kinda walked, you know, as I walked around, I looked, you didn’t have one hanging or maybe the one that was hanging was a little scroungy. And so I suddenly up two or three backpacks that we need, but they didn’t have headsets, all of them. And again, I don’t know why, and they’re supposed to, but I’m not whatever. And so today I’m excited. She was put on my calendar, we’re going over and we’re bringing in headsets and backpacks and, and she said, you know, and I’m going to wait for you. I thought you might want to go. Yeah. I want to go see our kids, you know, and take care of them and just say, thanks for my fun day on Friday.


Leslie Loewen (14:57):
And here’s this, we’re going to give it to your teacher. And they’re not, I mean, they’re good backpacks, right? They’re like chance for backpacks, they’re turtle headsets. So, you know, like they’re the gamer headset, but I mean, I made sure now they are turquoise, but those are the only ones that he got, but, you know, they’re good stuff for kids. And, and I think seeing where you can plug in and just do whatever you can, it doesn’t, they keep me grounded here on like, you’re always just looking. You’re always looking for ways that we can take care of our kids and maybe providing them an opportunity for something new.


Sam Demma (15:38):
I love that. It sounds like you also intentionally focus on the positive side of things, always because, you know, when you were explaining to me about your time in the classroom with the fifth graders, every example you gave me was a positive one. You know, you said there was two kids in the back who did really well. It was kids who helped me, kids who yelled out, you have to work fast, you have to work diligently well in every classroom. There might also be someone who’s a little more difficult to work with, or a student who interrupts or a, and none of those things are inherently bad, but you made a point of not mentioning any of them. And I’m curious to know if you have a belief as an educator in person to try and focus on the positive things in life and how you pass that along to other teachers and kids.


Leslie Loewen (16:21):
Well I did have one that was trying to act out and be naughty. She was flinging her hair bands and a little colored hair bands. So the first one, you know, flung and the kids are giggling and everything. I just picked it up and I just put on my wrist, like girls do that put on my wrist. Right. That’s why your hair tie goes. And I didn’t say anything. And I just said, Hey, let’s, you know, we’re back to work. Are you almost done five minutes left? You know? Cause if I focus on that, not focusing on the other 20 plus kids, I don’t even know. I didn’t, I didn’t count them. There were a lot on the point, right on the other kids that are doing the right thing. If I get upset about that, I mean, I don’t know why I, this is my first day it’s in the first point. If I focus on that, then I don’t know what happens. So I just grabbed it, put on my wrist a couple minutes later, I flicked another one at stuck on the ceiling. I grabbed a yard stick, I flung it off and I grabbed it like snagged it, you know, they’re not my wrists. Look back now. I got to, so I walked by a little later and, and she just happens to fling another one. I snag it out of the air. Like I, you know,


Leslie Loewen (17:45):
I put it on my wrist and you know, there’s, there’s this there’s that, but I’m still focused on, Hey, we got two minutes left or a member here’s the change and recess is coming. And you know, I’m just it’s. And one of the, one of the students sitting in the middle looks to me and says, how tall are you? 5, 6, 5, 7. I don’t know, depends on if I’m wearing Chacha heels, I get goals and goes, you look like a basketball player. And I’m like, thanks, dude. I’m going to take that as a compliment. I’m like, all right. So, I mean, I think that was his way of reaffirming in me that I didn’t have that that was going to happen. Right. I could have written a detention slip, you know? But I do choose because again, there’s one and if I go back or when I go back you know, could I have a conversation with that student probably, but it’s going to be more if I bring back, right. I ended up walking out with those all on my wrist because I pay attention because it wasn’t important that wasn’t important. And so, you know, when I take those back and I put him in and talk him in, in her desk for her and, you know, I don’t know. I think that says more then any words could.


Sam Demma (19:24):
Yeah, I totally agree. I love it. I just wanted to ask you about that because it’s a, I think it’s an important thing, not only for educators, but for everyday people, you know, you can focus on negative things and it’ll bleed into the rest of your life, or you can try and see the good in other people in another situations and it’ll bleed into your life as well. And you’ll have a great one. And I think that goes back to how you bring the most out of kids, right? You know, maybe the next conversation you have is one where you have a heart to heart where it’s explained to this young person, I see you up here. Like, I see you doing this. I see you doing that. You know yes, you have good flicking skills, but, you know, save that energy for other tasks. It could be something that changes that young person’s life or perspective forever as opposed to a detention slip, like you were saying when you were first starting in teaching knowing what you know now, if you could like transport back in time to that first year, Leslie, and give yourself some advice, like, what would you say, or what would you share with your younger self?


Leslie Loewen (20:39):
I don’t know that I would do anything different. So not that I was perfect, but the things that were around me, the people that were around me and maybe, I guess what I would say to new administrators who were helping their new teachers, surround your new teachers with people who I can show them the way can be their mentor. They’re they’re not going to be perfect either, but you know, my, my first year I did everything I just wanted to be and do. And so I just said yes to everything I, I taught I have to even count them up five different classes. I was on a cart for two classes. I took on learning the AP chem curriculum. I coached the dance team. I coached the stomp team. I had ski and snowboard club. I was assistant activities.


Leslie Loewen (21:47):
I had an orange chair in my room that I took naps in because I, I was 30 minutes from home, newly married. And my husband did say like, I want you at home when you’re home. So you can’t bring homework home. My parents were both teachers. I mentioned that, right? Like they brought homework home. They brought grading home. They brought this home and my husband had grew up that way. And he said, when you’re home, I need you home. So you gotta figure out your work life to, to not bring that homework home. So, you know, when you’re coaching, you, you realize like you can’t have, I was teaching science. I can’t, you have to grade in the class, you have to grade in the moment. You can’t just save it all for later. Cause there isn’t a later, because after school there’s coaching and after coaching there’s clubs and after clubs, there’s go home, make dinner, be a wife and figure that whole thing out.


Leslie Loewen (22:46):
Right? Like, so there’s not time later. So I, I started paring down the assignments. Like I never wanted to give busy work. I always wanted to teach to mastery. And if the students could demonstrate that they understood, like I’m doing my job, I’m teaching teach, learn, you know, learn, get excited. So how do you grade that? Well, I mean, it’s, it’s a challenge, but I did a lot of checking for understanding before that was even a pool term. Right. Like I, I just checked in with my kids a lot. I had them present to me. I’d have them teach to me, teach to me this or reteach this. Like I would, that was the worst unit. Like, or that was the worst lecture I’ve ever given. You, you come up here and teach that like, you can do a better than me and then I’d go and I’d sit in their desk.


Leslie Loewen (23:39):
And I take a guy to take notes on this, like, and it would empower the kids that they were a part of the, and then they got to demonstrate to me that they understood. And when they did then yeah, we do quizzes and we do things. And if it goes, can I take that again? Right? Sure. I mean, it’s not, I get two overs. I put out a bad email with, you know, a grammar mistake will not usually cause I am the grammar police. I did. I did that. I, some kids when we worked on our grammar assignments. So but like if I have some mistakes in there, if I do a wrong date or I mean, who, who fails me and sends it back and says, Nope, I’m not coming to your meeting. That was the worst, you know, I’ve ever seen in my life.


Leslie Loewen (24:27):
Like, it doesn’t happen like that. So why are we doing that to kids? So sure. You can take that again. What parts are you struggling with? Let me help you figure this out. Let’s figure it out together. You know, did your neighbor have, you know, get it right. Maybe they can teach you if you didn’t learn it. For me, I’m still giving grades. Like I still like, and doing homework is important. Like building that muscle, like I still, but I tell the kids why that’s important because building that muscle is important and right. You, you, I can’t coach you in the game. You’re not listening. That’s what I got from my dad, the coach, right? I can’t teach you something in the game. You’re not learning in the game. You’re executing. So I can’t teach you on the test. You have to practice. I know it before you go in.


Leslie Loewen (25:17):
And that’s where those pre tests, those, that homework, if you don’t ever do your homework, I don’t know where you are. I can’t help you. And so I think taking that tactic for me as a newer teacher and trying to figure out ways to make meaningful lessons that I, that I only, I only give you what I really want you to do. There’s not busy work in my classes. And even in leadership, right? Like I reminded students that we gotta do the standards in the stuff like we have stuff to do. I know we got stuff to do. We got rallies to put on and we’ve got this, but you’re learning communication when we’re, when we’re working on the rally, you’re, you’re learning interpersonal skills. When we’re, we’re hashing these ideas out, you’re learning how to present and, and do governance when we’re asking our school for their opinions. And when you go on the bulletin, I want you to know that you’re, you’re doing all those, you’re learning leadership skills in the stuff. One of the things that, that I started saying to the students is like teamwork happens when real work happens. A lot of people want to do teamwork or team building. I’m doing a whole thing today, Kat on team building. But I’m going to tell them to teamwork happens when real work happens, do something real. And you’ll see how your team executes.


Leslie Loewen (26:45):
You can work on yourself and you can work all your tools and DQ, wind up all your resources. But the team work happens when you’re actually doing work as a team. And you figure out if you’re an effective team or if you’re a hot mess pretty quickly. And then you go back and regroup. Again, I think that comes back from my, from of the coaching, right? Like after the game you sit down and you talk, can you, okay, let’s talk about this. It’s like, yeah, clearly we weren’t doing a good job, you know, with pitching or with our fielding or we, you know, like what can we do? How can we get better? You know, where was the, and so even after like those big events in leadership, let’s okay, we’re coming back to work. We’re going to have an exhausting feedback session where we just got to celebrate the wins because we’re always hard, hardest on ourselves. Go celebrate the wins, but then we’ve got to go, okay. Like what would be the small things that we could do that would make a big impact later? Yeah.


Sam Demma (27:51):
All right. I love that. That’s so awesome. I hope the name of your talk is the teamwork happens when you do real work. That’s like a, some leg drop line right there. This is awesome. You’ve raised so many good points. Thank you so much, Leslie, for coming on the show and spending half, half an hour of your day sharing some of your experiences, your own principles and values as a educator. If someone is listening to this right now and has been inspired by the conversation, what would be the most efficient way for them to get a hold of you? If they want to ask a question or send you some love?


Leslie Loewen (28:27):
Well, you can, you can tag me on Instagram at Twitter @MommaLoew it’s spelled weird cause I’m a littleweird. But also they can send me an email to my work account. This is, this is work and it’s first name dot last name, Leslie.lowen@fresnounified.org. Just shoot me an email and say, Hey, you know, HELP, and I’ll help where I can.


Sam Demma (29:03):
Cool. Awesome, Leslie again, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. Enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll talk soon 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 want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www dot high-performing educator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Leslie

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.

December 10, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Bridgit Moore – Leadership Teacher and Student Activity Director at Grace Davis High School

Bridgit Moore Student Activity Director Grace Davis High School
About Bridgit Moore

Bridgit Moore (@MooreBridgit) is the Leadership teacher and Activity Director for Grace Davis High School.  She has been an educator for 20 years and has done a variety of positions such as math and psychology teacher, school counselling, and coaching. 

She is married and has 4 kids ages 9, 10, 14, and 16, and this year, opened up her house to a 15-year-old exchange student from Germany.  She loves her job and loves helping inspire students to be leaders!

Connect with Bridgit: Email | Facebook | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bitmoji’s Explained

Shoe Box Float Parade Idea

Example of the ABS Advisor Manual

PHAST (protecting health and slamming tobacco)

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):
This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest on the podcast is Bridgit Moore. Bridgit Moore is the leadership teacher and activity director for Grace Davis high school. She has been an educator for 20 plus years and has done a variety of positions, such as math and psychology teacher school, counselor, and coaching. She is married and has four kids age 9, 10, 14, and 16. And this year has a 15-year-old exchange student living with her from Germany. She loves her job and enjoys helping and inspiring students to become the best leaders they possibly can. I hope you enjoy this interview with Bridgit. I will see you on the other side, Bridgit. 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?


Bridgit Moore (01:36):
Well, my name is Bridgit Moore and I am a leadership teacher and activities director at Grace Davis high school in Modesto. I have been teaching since 2001. I started out as a math teacher. I actually did do activities that my very first teaching position for a couple of years, but then when I switched schools in 2003 to the school I’m currently at I kind of went out of that role, but I’ve taught math. I’ve taught psychology. I’ve been a school counselor and I’m going on my fifth year now in a row of being the activities, director leadership teacher, which I love. It’s a lot of fun.


Sam Demma (02:16):
That’s awesome. And what, like what brought you to where you are today? Like if you had to go back in time to when you were a student, you know, growing up, kind of tell me the progression of how it went from growing up as a student to getting involved or interested in education and then becoming a teacher.


Bridgit Moore (02:33):
So when I was a student, I kind of always had this feeling of, I want to be a teacher. I would go back and forth between, I want to be a teacher or I want to be a Marine biologist or I want to be a teacher or I want to be I don’t know, I can’t even remember some of the other stuff, but it always came back to wanting to be a teacher. So I finally settled on that. I was a very involved student. I liked getting involved. I was involved in dance production. I was in a whole bunch of clubs. I was in the Raleigh club. They had that at the time. Just various things. I was involved in sports. So I just kind of was always a very involved student. I wasn’t actually in student council when I was a student, but I got involved in homecoming floats and things like that when I was actually attended Davis high school, the school that I work at.


Bridgit Moore (03:24):
So I’m an alumni working at the school, but I went to kind of fun. So I did that. And then when I got to college I had a hard time picking a major. So I did settle on psychology and I thought, oh, well maybe I want to be a school counselor at some point, but I still kind of went back to, I want to teach, took a while to figure out what I wanted to teach and realized, well, I’m pretty good at math. So let’s do that. So I, I, I did major in psychology because I picked math kind of late in my college education career and graduated from UC Davis with my degree in psychology and then wanted to go right into my teaching credential, but I didn’t have enough subject matter competency in math based on what I took at UC Davis. So I went back to Stan state and took a bunch of math classes. And I guess I kind of say I double majored. Cause I took all of the classes for a math major. I just don’t have a piece of paper that says math degree.


Bridgit Moore (04:33):
I have one that says psychology, but I literally have every class that would constitute a math degree. So I did that after my psych degree at UC Davis, I got all the math classes done at Stan. And then I did my teaching credential at San. And then my first teaching job was at Waterford high school and I was offered an 80% math position, but they said, oh, but we can make you a hundred percent if you’re the activities director and teach leadership. So I got one period of leadership there and was the activities director. So I mean, it was fun, but it was a very small school and I was a new teacher. So it was kind of a struggle. But at the time I was also coaching at Davis high where I currently work at the same time. I was coaching diving at the time because I was you know, a big diver back in the day, did gymnastics and diving.


Bridgit Moore (05:29):
And so when I came over here to Davis teaching, they recruited me to come over, Hey, you’re already coaching here, come teach here. We need math teachers. And it was when there was a big boom in education back in 2003, the schools were growing and there were just a ton of kids. So I came over here and just ever since I started teaching at Davis because I was invested in activities at my previous school and because I was very involved student, I just kind of naturally got involved in things. I was the advisor for our fast club, PHAST protecting health and slamming tobacco was kind of a big program. I did that for nine years. We put on red ribbon week and different tobacco prevention days and things like that. We won the Stanislaus county red ribbon week contest a couple of times. So that was pretty fun. And then I also helped out with the programs every 15 minute program where we stage a crash, like a drunk driving crash scene on campus. So I would help with people putting that on and I would help with this activity or that activity. Well, when this position became available, it just kind of seemed like a natural fit because of all the things I had already helped with. Now I’m in charge of that’s kinda what led me to what I do now.


Sam Demma (06:53):
That’s awesome. And for someone who doesn’t understand what a student activity director is and does, like, how do you, how do you explain that role?


Bridgit Moore (07:02):
Okay. So the way I explain it is this, cause this was a very strange role and I’m very alone in my role at my site. Every buddy that has this position, it’s done differently at different schools, but at my site, I’m a hundred percent activities and I teach the zero period as my optional class. I get paid a little extra for that for my leadership and it’s, I oversee the student council. So anything that’s not academic and not a sport is under my umbrella. So like student mentor programs, all the clubs. So like the activity or the athletics director oversees all the sports and the coaches. So I would oversee all the clubs and the club advisors. That’s one piece of mine. I, I helped put on that. Like I said, that every 15 minute program, or I’m also in charge of helping with just overall school culture and helping build up positive school culture within the school climate and coming up with ideas and leading committees on that all the different activities that my leadership kids put on. I’m kind of the background I’m in the, I’m the, the person doing all those things, that kind of thing.


Sam Demma (08:17):
Okay, cool. And when you were growing up, did you have educators in your life that kind of steered you towards teaching? Or where did that initial passion come from to want to be a teacher?


Bridgit Moore (08:29):
It’s kind of funny because as I went through school, the grade or age I was, that was the type of teacher I wanted to be. So, you know, fifth grade, I loved my fifth grade teacher, so I wanted to be a fifth grade teacher, sixth grade, oh, I love sixth grade, my sixth grade. Teacher’s awesome. I’m going to be a sixth grade teacher. Once I got into high school, I kind of struggled with exactly what I wanted to teach still because I science and I loved math and I love this and that. So it wasn’t just one particular teacher. I don’t think I just really loved the idea of teaching. And I had several different teachers in my life that I looked up to. I had a very distinct English teacher, my senior year, who I would never want to teach English, but just the way she taught her class was very inspiring ahead as particular math teacher who, you know, I still remember the circles, the perfect circles that he would draw on the board. Like we would all just blow our mind. He would do a circle and it would be super fast and it would be perfect and the whole class would go crazy.


Sam Demma (09:38):
Wait, wait, is this the guy on YouTube that that’s like 4 million views or something? And he draws a perfect circle?


Bridgit Moore (09:45):
That tired at this point, so.


Sam Demma (09:48):
Oh, okay, cool. That’s awesome. That’s so that’s all amazing.


Bridgit Moore (09:53):
Yeah. He would play chess with us and he wouldn’t be looking at the board. He would just like, look at us and we would be playing chess against him and he wasn’t, he just had the board memorize. So things like that. He’s very inspiring and was kind of, you know, it’s very nerdy math teacher, but very inspiring that teacher and very memorable.


Sam Demma (10:15):
Yeah. Super memorable. It sounds like that’s so cool. You mentioned that your English teacher, the way she taught was really inspiring as well. What about that class kinda stuck out to you?


Bridgit Moore (10:25):
He was very she was very strict, but she had a system, you know, it was very similar every day. She went over this, she had a for vocab we’re on the board and we had to make sure we looked that up and then she would tell stories about mythology and then she would go into some other things. So she had this system where it made things interesting because here we’re learning about these cool mythology stories, but then we’re turning around and learning about now, whatever other story they will. Things like that, that we had to do senior year. She just, she sat on her stool. She had different heels every day that were, I don’t think she ever wore the same pair of heels every day. So just little things about her, but then the way she taught the class, it made it. So, you know, you either thought she was really strict and you’re like, I don’t want to be in this class. Or you were like, this is the best teacher ever. I want to learn from her. She’s inspiring.


Sam Demma (11:26):
I like that. Not the self by 365 pairs of shoes. That’s so awesome. That’s amazing. And then why didn’t a university study university, your first teaching job you said was math.


Bridgit Moore (11:41):
Yeah. My first official teaching job was at a Brett. It was a brand new high school. They were just starting Waterford high school, super small town. And I was teaching algebra four periods of algebra. And then I had my one leadership class that was the fifth class that I taught.


Sam Demma (12:02):
Awesome. That’s so cool. And I’m sure activity directing from that school versus the one you’re in now looks a little bit different especially with COVID and things that have happened over the past two years. It was probably a little challenging for awhile. But what if you could tell your younger self advice, what advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now in the position?


Bridgit Moore (12:27):
Oh well, honestly, when I first did this position at my first high school, I had no idea what I was doing. So I think I would go back and tell my younger self read the ASB advisor manual, look at all the rules, make sure that you’re proactive in recruiting students who are passionate about leadership and putting on activities. It was, you know, we had a bunch of students, it was a very small school, was brand new. And so we had a very small group of students that were in leadership. And I guess I’ve been know really how to recruit students that were going to be passionate about that kind of thing. And so the students that I had in there, they struggled a little bit with wanting to get things done or wanting to do whatever or being creative. One of the kids that were in there were just kind of in their, for a title. And so it’s really important to get kids in this program because they do put on a lot of work and a lot of time you want kids that are truly passionate about what they’re doing and otherwise you’re going to be the one doing all the work.


Sam Demma (13:42):
Yeah. It makes sense. And what do you think look different about activities over the past two years than maybe three, four years ago because of the pandemic?


Bridgit Moore (13:52):
Oh, so, well, I mean, think about it. So before the pandemic, so go back to 2019, 2020, right? So at the beginning of that school year with like any other normal school year, we had a big event at the beginning of the school year. We had beginning of the school year advance where kids came and danced and we have our big homecoming events where we had royalty and his regressing up and planning activities at school and how to float and did all these things. Right. We had a, we had a winter formal event where the kids came, dressed up and got to do that dance. And then we’ve got to do the same thing for our winter homecoming. Well then COVID hits in March, boom promise, canceled. Every other dance that we have is canceled no more rallies for the rest of the school year.


Bridgit Moore (14:47):
My job at that point became social media market manager because everything that I was able or allowed to do was digital in online social media. So my position definitely shifted and changed right at the beginning, I had to learn all kinds of different programs. I had to learn how to do video editing, which I didn’t really know how to do very well. I had to learn how to compile different videos and helping use that to inspire students, not to lose heart. I mean, at the end of that first school year where COVID hit the, our district was not making kids super accountable for their work because they thought, oh, we can’t really make them accountable at this point. So a bunch of kids weren’t doing anything. And then how do you try to get them to do something, even leadership kits. So they were even losing heart. These are the, you know, the heart and soul of the school. And they’re getting all frustrated because they’re missing out on all the fun things they to do on plan. You know, we didn’t even have a in-person graduation that year.


Sam Demma (15:53):
The district.


Bridgit Moore (15:54):
Yeah. We recorded it and everything. So


Sam Demma (16:00):
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s funny. Same, same stuff happened. All the schools here and in an effort to help, I actually made like a graduating speech for like the graduating class of 2020. I ended up making more than 20, 21 as well because schools here were still shut down. But yeah, it seems like the past two years have been really difficult, but amongst the challenges I’m sure there’s some positives and I’m curious to know like what did work and what did go over well. And maybe some programs you ran or things that you think the school really enjoyed


Bridgit Moore (16:33):
Well with learning how to do all those different new media outlets. We did learn how to do some fun things. We did something called the five days of winning, leading up to Christmas or winter break. And a bunch of kids got up. We just posted a little thing on, Hey, comment on this. What’s your favorite Christmas movie. And then anybody that responded got put into a drawing and we got to post that drawing up on social media and the kids got subpoena fries, things like that. We wouldn’t have come up with, or for winter homecoming, we did a shoe box float parade. So we had all the leadership kids create shoe boxes based on the homecoming theme. And we created a spray or, you know, they can’t come to school and dress up. So for homecoming, we did dress up your Bitmoji.


Sam Demma (17:33):
And for those, and for those, for those people who are like, what the heck is a Bitmoji, you want to explain it real quick.


Bridgit Moore (17:39):
So a bit Moji is this digital character caricature of yourself that people create and you can send them in text messages and stuff like that. And I think it originated from Snapchat, but there’s this whole thing, this whole Bitmoji world and be classrooms and yada yada yada. So we got kids to dress up their Bitmoji or like create a digital background. So we had these kids that created these funny digital backgrounds and for an action adventure. One of them was like, action adventure. Since the thing was Netflix, I want to say. And so this kid had, it looked like a dinosaur was right there. And then she was like, made it look like she was in the movie screening. So that was kind of cool. So different creative ways to dress up. Quote unquote.


Sam Demma (18:29):
That’s so awesome. Yeah. It sounds like you guys got really creative Yeah. And try different things. And what is this year looking like so far?


Bridgit Moore (18:42):
This year is actually looking more like it did previously. You know, I know COVID cases are starting to come up again, but at this point our school is running and functioning close to a normal school year. So as far as my position and my students though, they are planning for a normal homecoming, you know, like what we’ve done in the past. And we got to put on one of our big beginning of the school year events. We just couldn’t allow people to dance at it, but we could do every other piece to it that we used to we’re doing activities at lunch, encouraging kids. The kids did our lunch rally. So they did it outside. This was the first week of school. And so they are getting, you know, they’re kind of being somewhat creative, but also going back to things that we’ve done in the past. So it is good. The kids feel refreshed and re invigorated. They’re, they’re getting excited to be able to do things like they used to do.


Sam Demma (19:47):
That’s awesome. Oh, that’s amazing. That’s really good to hear. And if, you know, I asked you advice on activities directed, like on your role as an activity director, overall, as an educator, there might be someone listening who’s getting into their first year of teaching. Like if you could give a first year educator a piece of advice or a couple of pieces of advice that you think would have been really helpful for you to hear when you first started what would those things be?


Bridgit Moore (20:12):
Don’t be afraid to ask your fellow experienced educators for help and advice. There’s gotta be at least one or two people at your school site. That’s willing to help you out because the first year is daunting. And I think the biggest thing that most educators struggle with when they first start out is how to manage their classroom. And that’s not really something they teach in the classes that they do in the credential program. For some reason, that’s not a class it’s not, oh, cluster management 1 0 1, no, they don’t have that. I don’t understand why they have all these other classes that they want you to take, but they don’t have that one. And that is probably the most important piece that you need to know to be able to actually do all those other things that you learn in the credential program. If you don’t have a functioning classroom, then you’re not going to be able to teach them anything.


Bridgit Moore (21:05):
So just getting advice and getting tips and tricks from different people. And then even just, if you pick one or two things that you like, that somebody else is doing and you implement them in your classroom, and then once you have that down, you go to the next thing. Okay. I really want to try to add this in or, or use this piece. Then you, you add that in and just little by little, they’ll get into a routine and they’ll figure it out for themselves, but also not to get discouraged that first year is hard. The second year is still hard, but a little easier if you don’t kind of really get into that full rhythm until maybe your third year, honestly, you know, it, it takes some time, so just be patient. And if it was your passion, just keep it up. Keep going.


Sam Demma (21:59):
That’s awesome. And if someone’s listening right now and liked any part of this interview and just wants to chat with you or reach out, or it would be the best way for them to do so.


Bridgit Moore (22:11):
Well they could email me, I guess. So my email I’ll give my personal email is bridgit777@gmail.com.


Sam Demma (22:26):
All right. Cool, Bridgit, thank you so much for coming on the show. Keep up the great work. I can’t wait to stay in touch and see what the rest of the year turns out to be like for you.


Sam Demma (22:39):
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 want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Bridgit

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.

November 29, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Aubrey Patterson – 30-Year Teacher, Principal, Superintendent & Founder of Warm Demanders

Aubrey Patterson, CEO Warm Demanders
About Aubrey Patterson

Aubrey Patterson (@PattersonAubrey) spent 30 years as a teacher, principal, and superintendent in a high-performing school district. Today, he is the CEO and Founder of Warm Demanders, an educational consulting company that provides coaching and online programs. Their goal is to help leaders build a high-impact remarkable culture, provide clarity with a smile, and find the time for the things that matter most!

Aubrey works with leaders to effectively use technology to develop structures and procedures as the means to improve learning conditions for teachers and students. To this end, Aubrey has developed highly regarded systems to recapture time and provide for exceptional communications.

These systems, like the extensive induction, formative job descriptions, truly collaborative meetings, and professional learning programs for teachers and administrators, are built upon three distinct leadership stages that much like dominoes, fall in succession: simplify, clarify and amplify. For more information go to: WarmDemanders.com

Connect with Aubrey: Email | Linkedin | Website | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Principals Seminar

Simon Sinek’s TEDx Talk

David Allen; Getting Things Done (book)

Getting to Inbox Zero

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 (00:03):
Aubrey, 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 also sharing a little bit behind your journey? What brought you to do the work you’re doing today?


Aubrey Patterson (00:15):
Yeah. Well, that’s great to be here, Sam. Thank you for having me here today. Yeah, I’ve was a teacher and a coach and a principal and eventually a superintendent and I had like all these different roles in education and, you know, absolutely loved it. And I did that until 2017. And then after that time, I, you know, wanted to make some different dance in the universe. And so I, I started creating some, some new opportunities for people with with our educational companies. Nohea, and principal seminar were the first couple, but the main thing that, that I focus on right now is Warm Demanders that’s our, our newest company and, we help mostly school and district administrators you know, with their, with their day to day functions.


Sam Demma (01:12):
That’s awesome. Where did the, where did the passion come from or what was like the Eureka moment when you were going down the teaching path that you decided to make different dents and, and how did you kind of develop the courage to make the jump?


Aubrey Patterson (01:29):
Well it, when we go through like go through it, a teaching career, we, we always talk about growth mindset, the growth mindset ideals. And we talk about this all the time and it’s become kind of cliche, but if you really want to, you know, embrace those kinds of ideals, you have to be willing to take a, take a risk. You have to be willing to fail forward. And man, I’ve done a lot of that. And and, and honestly, I just never really had a problem with making mistakes. And I used to encourage them with the, with the people around me. So taking a leap, isn’t a, a difficult thing for me, it’s actually, you know, taking a leap and then sticking with things and trying to make that really big damp, that thing that will, that will really, you know, imprint success and, and pathways upon the people that we think we serve.


Sam Demma (02:25):
Oh, it’s amazing. I love that. And what, like, what is the principal seminar and Nohea and explain maybe the name behind the years? Cause I know it has an interesting backstory.


Aubrey Patterson (02:36):
Yeah. So my, one of my passions, like I have this deep belief that, that especially principals and also superintendents, assistant superintendents, like, like all of these people are so encumbered by all of the stuff that comes at them. Day-To-Day and it’s really unfair because everybody wants to have deep conversations with their people and everybody wants to have this amazing school culture. But they just can’t get there because there’s just so much stuff that comes at them. And a lot of that happens right at the front doors and often at the front office. So originally when I was looking to, to try, you know, help some people out, we started focusing on the school office and I spent a lot of time in, in Hawaii, especially in Maui and love a lot of the Hawaiian, the Polynesian ideals, and no Hayah is kind of like you know, everybody’s familiar with the Aloha spirit.


Aubrey Patterson (03:40):
It’s like the Aloha spirit plus leadership, like strong leadership. And, and what I really love about it is that it, it, it really allows you to be kind, and at the same time, you can be, you know, fanatically meticulous about systems and details and things like that. So it allows those, those people who, you know, like to get things done, to also be able to smile during the day. So know, Hey, I was focused on the school offices, principals seminar was, and is focused on new principals, helping new principals, but all of that has kind of evolved into our largest entity, which is warm demanders. And that’s where we have actually taken over those, those particular courses and brands and put them into this package to, to help all school and district leaders. And, and of course, warm demanders is kind of just as it sounds, we help people who, who want to be true to themselves in every part of their lives. You can be nice and be the principal. You can be kind to people and be really firm. You can, you know, be there for all the right reasons and love the kids and do all that stuff and still be very careful and with your processes and things like that. So anyway I see what you do, Sam. I just go on and on about this stuff. Once you get me started.


Sam Demma (05:09):
Hey, that’s why I brought you here today. I want you to continue speaking so warm demanders. What does the company do? Is it, is it solely providing courses consulting? Like if you had to explain it to a principal or a superintendent listening right now, how would you explain the whole organization?


Aubrey Patterson (05:30):
Yeah, so, so we, we do have multiple courses that, that we’ve released. We just opened up the doors in may. We’ve been overwhelmed with a huge, huge response with it. It’s, you know, it’s asynchronous learning at its best. And so that’s been really, really helpful, but like, that’s, that’s the courses, but we also do one-to-one coaching and that’s probably 60% of what we’re doing right now is one-to-one coaching virtually helping, helping school and district administrators you know, to, to get through all of the, the things they need to meander through in the, in these crazy times. And then we also provide these menus of you know, one stop shopping for, for schools and districts, where they can have an abundance of courses, you know, one click access for teachers or for administrators, et cetera. There’s a, there’s a lot there.


Aubrey Patterson (06:31):
So ultimately I would just kind of sum it up with everything is focused on helping people who want to be warm demander leaders. It is not focused in any way upon a traditional educational leadership where there’s a lot of hierarchy or there’s a lot of bureaucracy. I spend most of my time helping people get through the bureaucracy, get rid of the bureaucracy all of that, that kind of a thing. I’ve found a lot of success with it, both as the principal and a superintendent. And, and I like to help people, you know, with those kinds of things. And, and I honestly, it just finds that a lot of people don’t know which domino to flip over first. Right. And once we get them started, it’s, it’s just amazing. I just love it. Ultimately I, I love the one-to-one coaching the most, just love it.


Sam Demma (07:31):
I love that. That’s amazing. I want to selfishly go back to Maui and Hawaii for a second in my mind. So let me ask you, like what brought you out there and how were you exposed to these ideas of Nokia and this type of leadership?


Aubrey Patterson (07:51):
I honestly, I just got there like many people from some friends recommendations and then I stayed there longer and longer, more and more. I’ve always had an affinity to to hang out in, in Hawaii, like who doesn’t right, but like Hawaii and Southern California for whatever reason we do, I would say 70, 75% of our contacts right now are coming from the west coast. And there’s a particular vibe that really, that we really resonate with. And that I think that, that we give off in our, in our work that is, you know, with that warm and friendly part. And that part that you can be, you know, true to yourself in every, in every part of your life. And I think that’s what actually appeals to me the most about, about Hawaii, about, about many of the cultures that I, that I love is, you know, you can be the same person at home hanging out with your friends or, you know, leading a school or a school district. Like you should be able to always be comfortable in your skin. And I found that those ideals really allowed that. And and that’s where I kinda got, I don’t know, that’s where we got the vibe, that’s where we got the whole concept of, of know-how and you know, probably we would have called that first company Aloha, but, you know, that’s been used


Sam Demma (09:23):
And it didn’t go with that main stream. Right,


Aubrey Patterson (09:25):
Right.


Sam Demma (09:27):
That’s awesome. And when you were growing up, I want to, I want to go back for a second. Did you know that you wanted to get an initially into education and become a teacher superintendent and principal, or were you kind of steered down that path by other people in your life?


Aubrey Patterson (09:44):
Yes, I did. I, well, I knew that I wanted to coach my, my dad is, was an amazing teacher and basketball coach. Like he was, you know, won multiple provincial titles. He’s that, that guy that everybody loved in the community, he was a fantastic role model. And I, and I want it to be that, you know, I want it to be just like that. And at the same time I did quite well in school. I wasn’t a typical student that you know, that does well, that is, is studying a lot. And all that things came easy to me. I was just really lucky for, with that. And, and so I had a lot of people actually telling me, oh, you shouldn’t be a teacher when I wanted to be a teacher. And those people were encouraging me to go into business or to go into, you know be a lawyer, be a doctor, be these other things.


Aubrey Patterson (10:38):
And I listened to them at the start. And so my first year in university, I was in, I was in business and, and I did really well with the marks and all that. Like I loved that I was on the Dean’s list, but I hated it. And I quickly switched into education and everything felt right. And so and you know, from there, I was just really, really lucky to have fantastic role models when I was becoming a, a new teacher. And then I got to meet all these people that were like incredible leaders. And I said, huh, I think I could do that too. And I could, you know, and I keep on going and, and, and it was the same with coaching. I’d be coaching basketball. And I was around all these fantastic basketball coaches that just wanted to be better at it. And so that’s always been something for me is to, to see people that I’d like to emulate the qualities or the values that they have that I’d like to emulate, or that I’d like to, to grow. And, and, and that’s always, what’s been, been driving me.


Sam Demma (11:39):
Where does your principles come from? You mentioned earlier that failure is something you encourage and you want to fail fast and you want to fail quicker. Was that something that your dad instilled in you growing up or people in your life, or maybe a coach R where, yeah. Where did that come from? Because I feel like it’s such an important lesson, but not only high school administrators or any school administrator, that’s something that they need to embrace as well, but it’s hard to embrace. I find sometimes for all human beings.


Aubrey Patterson (12:09):
Yeah. Like I like, honestly, I, I think I, I got that. Yeah, definitely from my dad, but also from, from all of the coaches that I had when I was in, in school. You know, I was, again, really lucky to be in in some fantastic athletics programs, you know, as a player. And, and we always knew, like, for example, in baseball, you’re, you’re going to fail. If you fail 70% of the time, like you’re, you’re doing really well, like, like black junior right now is, you know, failing 680% of the time. You know, when he’s batting and he’s, he’s, you know, leading the league, like, like it’s just, it’s, it’s just part of getting better and it’s, it’s just what we have to do. And, and so I’ve always been comfortable with that concept. I know it’s become really cliche to say things like fail forward in that now, of course.


Aubrey Patterson (13:06):
But I’ve actually heard that for a long, long time. And, and I always encourage it and people, I know there’s a, there’s a guy that I hired years ago as a teacher. He came over from from a district close to us and, and he came up to me the very first day, you know, when he was kind of like an opening days thing. And he said where, what’s your number one word of advice. And I, and I had known him fairly well in the community is a great guy. And and I said, make a lot of mistakes the next time I see you, I’m going to ask you to tell me about your mistakes. And he started laughing and he said, no, really what? And I said, no, seriously, like, it didn’t make a lot of mistakes. Like I want you to make a lot of mistakes. And if, because we didn’t bring you over here to play it safe. And, and so anyway, he, he tells me all the time now that I’ve been gone for quite a while, and that when I bumped into him on the street, he’ll say, I’m still making lots of mistakes. I’m still making lots of mistakes. And so honestly, I think I was really lucky to have people encourage me to make mistakes. And I’ve just really always embraced that I’ve been comfortable with it.


Sam Demma (14:14):
Yeah, I like that. I love it a lot. And you mentioned before we even started this call, that one of the trainings you did when you were growing up was the seven, the seven habits with Stephen Covey. Where does your, your endless curiosity you continue learning come from? And do you think that’s like an important attribute of not only being an educator, but you know, someone who’s working with young people?


Aubrey Patterson (14:39):
Yeah, no, I, I, I’ve always been fascinated with how things happen, like the algorithms of how things happen. And like I love for example I think it was back in what, 2008, 2009 originally when Simon Sineck was first doing his Ted talk and talking about my why, and you know, where the, why came out in the whole, the whole thing of the golden circles and talking about apple and all of that. And that’s kind of been, become cliche for people to say, you know, what’s my why instead of saying, what’s my mission, what’s my, why I’m not against that. Please don’t get me wrong. I, I use it to what, what I’m saying is people are so focused on it that they often forget the importance of how and when, who, and where, and when we’re actually serving people, taking care of people, clarity is kindness, especially in difficult times like we’re facing right now.


Aubrey Patterson (15:34):
People really need clarity when they’re scared, when they’re nervous, they want, they’re looking for that, that step. It’s like when you jump into the deep end of the swimming pool for the first time, when you’re a little kid it’s exciting and you’re happy. And it’s like, look at me. And you’re in there about three seconds and you’re reaching for the side, you’re reaching for something solid. People want that clarity. And I think that clarity is exposed with the how, when, who, what, where, and again, I am not diminishing the why part at all, like completely believe that I love it. It’s a great starting point, but I’ve always been fascinated in the algorithm. The, if this, then that the how part, and that’s what I work with people on all the time is, and that, you know, we S we always say, we can save you anywhere from 10 to 20 hours or so 10 to 20 minutes in a day.


Aubrey Patterson (16:32):
And when we add up that amount of time, that, that adds up into like 6,000 minutes in a year, a hundred hours, you know, like and it’s really easy because we just have to go through and look at the algorithm and get really scientific with it. So going back to your original, what, you know, where did I get excited about all this kind of stuff? I was always fascinated with what led to that, you know, and in basketball, we would, we would put on a, you know, a press, a full court press. And I was always interested in, you know, what caused the turnover, you know, both as a player and as a coach. And typically it wasn’t actually the trap that on the ball that, that, you know, came that most people were focused upon. It was the, if this then that’s around it like that, that, that person had no place to pass. No, because you know, all of these other things happen. So anyway, you know, I’ve, I’ve always been fascinated by, by the how, by the way, the dominoes fall. And it just gets me to dig into things all the time. See, you just sent me down that rabbit hole. Again, I love the algorithm. Rabbit hole is my favorite. Then know,


Sam Demma (17:49):
Because you have a phenomenal mailing list, then you share algorithm type content through it all the time. And you do have like the free videos and tech tips on your website. That really helped me with the tabs that you told me to subscribe to. So like, if you had to give some quick organizational tips, things that you think need to be known and make the biggest ROI instantly what are like a couple of little things that you’d recommend people look into or educators


Aubrey Patterson (18:23):
For sure. Well, I, I love the research of David Allen who originally wrote, he wrote getting things done. And so, you know, 30, 40% of what I teach is based upon David Allen’s work or his, his original research and his, his most famous concept is the two minute rule. So if you can do something in two minutes, unless, you know, it’s rude, like, you know, you get up from a conversation or dinner and run through something and a while you’re, you’re, he should, you gotta be present with people, right. But if you can do something in two minutes, you should, because it will take you more time to file it away and bring it back. Then it would you know, just to do it in, in that two minutes. So most often, you know, we’ll, we’ll refer to email when we talk about this.


Aubrey Patterson (19:10):
So if you get something in your inbox and you take a look at it, and it’s, it’s gonna take you less than two minutes, if you can take the two minutes right now, we’ll do it. Cause it’ll take you more time to put it away and bring it back after. But that’s not only the reason that you do this with the two minute rule, because it also breaks your chain of thought in the future. It breaks your, your focus to have to go back and redo the, all these little things. And so all of these, you know, five seconds, 20 seconds, one minute here and there add up, but they don’t just add up to time. They add up in giving you an opportunity to focus better. And so my favorite or my second favorite tip is the two-minute rule. No matter what, if you can do it in less than two minutes, if you can, whether it’s email, whether it’s, you know, picking up a dish and putting it in the dishwasher, you know, whatever it is like day-to-day life or work, you know, you can do it less than two minutes, do it.


Aubrey Patterson (20:12):
This, my favorite tip is the next best action rule, which is have all of your subject lines in your email, in your things to do lists in your notes, in the posts that you write yourself, have every subject line begin with a verb with an action, and then you will always hit the ground running when you restart with that. So, for example, if I send you, if I write down on a, on a posted, you know mum’s birthday, you know, and if I just write down mom’s birthday and I come back to that a week later, I have to think, what, why did I write down mom’s birthday? Of course, I know her mom’s birthday is coming up, but am I getting her a present? Do I need to get something? Do I need to call my brother? Do I need to arrange something? Do I have to get some time off? What, why did I write down mom’s birthday? Now, the simple fact that I just wasted 20 seconds asking myself that is a problem. That’s a time problem, but I’ve also broken my train of thought on whatever else I was working on at that particular time. What if instead on that post-it I took the extra two seconds and wrote, get mom a present


Aubrey Patterson (21:29):
Order. Mom’s cake, no, start with that verb. What if I sent you an email Sam? And instead of saying podcasts in the email, but if I, instead I said reschedule podcast, because I’ve got a problem, then we can see, you know, the action that’s going with it. When we pick up that email or when we pick up that posted, or when we pick up that item in the things to do is we can, we can hit the ground running with it and we can keep our ideas flowing all the time. So what we’ve done is we’ve created an algorithm to keep her, our ideas flowing simply by using a verb at the end, in all of our emails and in all of our things to do. And we pass this gift on to other people you know, in emails and calendar invites, et cetera, by using, by using over. So that’s the next best action or what’s my next best action by mama cake? You know,


Sam Demma (22:27):
I love that. And when you do the, you mentioned that 60% of the work you do is with a one-on-one coaching. What aspect of the coaching do you enjoy the most? Like selfishly? Like what part of the journey of the teaching? Like what lessons do you enjoy sharing the most?


Aubrey Patterson (22:44):
Oh man, I’m going to sh when we get off the podcast here, I’m going to show you that what I get is I get a lot of texts. And so selfishly, because this puts a lot of fuel in my engine. I get, I get at least two or three texts a month that say something like, and I got this one, two nights ago, so I’m, I’ll show it to you after we got here, I got, I got this one from from a superintendent in California and it’s, and he just said, I got down from 25,000 emails to zero in 30 minutes because we have a system to do that right. To get to inbox, Sarah. And, and he went through one of the videos and I was coaching him on that kind of stuff. And he just said, I had the best sleep ever.


Aubrey Patterson (23:32):
Like he used just so happy. And it’s not that we should be so fanatical about inbox zero. I am. I like that because you don’t want to have your focus, be your email all the time. And that too. However, if you’re always worried about missing something or you’re wasting time going back into messages, or, you know, all of those kinds of things, which happens to a lot of great leaders, like they, this guy is a fantastic leader, but he he’s a fantastic leader at the expense of his own peace of mind. And, and this, this inbox, like he literally, he showed me, he had over 25,000 emails in his inbox, like aside from the technical problem, with that, like with this computer restarts and running through all of those multiple PowerPoints of that, that he’s got in there, right aside from that, it was driving him crazy.


Aubrey Patterson (24:23):
And, and so we worked on that last week and I referred him to one of our courses called manage chart lead easy that, that has that, that algorithm in it. And you know how to start with the two minute rule and to work through those things. Well, we start with inbox zero and he was so excited. And so selfishly, I love getting the texts that say I got to inbox zero, and I get a lot of those. And, and I just know that, that, you know, these people just feel so good about it. And I just, yeah, that’s just, that’s what I love the most is, is when somebody transfers those, those wonderful feelings, just with a nice text. Yeah.


Sam Demma (25:08):
I love that. Thanks for sharing that. I, that’s a cool story. Putting on your superintendent hat one, one more time for one quick, last question. Like if you could go back in time and give younger Aubrey advice when you were still in that role. But knowing what you know now, like what, you know, a couple of pieces of advice, would you give your younger self with the experience you have now?


Aubrey Patterson (25:33):
Yeah, no, I that’s. That’s a good one. I actually go back on that. I actually think about this a lot because I see the successes of all these people that I’m working with. And I think, oh man, am I on my best day? I didn’t do what you’re doing on in your everyday. Like, like, so I see these people doing these things. So I have a lot of, I wish I had a redo on this and this and this. And I, I did spend a lot of time in the schools and I did spend a lot of time, you know, working with principals and, and, and teachers on, on a variety of things. But if I had a, if I had a redo on it, I’d actually, I’d spend more time with the people that, that are impacting the teachers the most. And in our district that in our division, that was like the instructional coaches and the tech coaches and the people like that.


Aubrey Patterson (26:31):
Because those, those people have a lot of fantastic ideas and they often don’t have the authority or the wherewithal to, to actualize those ideas. And we did, you know, take advantage of those things a lot, but I see all of these incredible ideas that people have, and they talk to me about it now, like the people that I’m coaching, and they’ll say, I’ve got this idea, how do you think I could get this across? And, and I wish that I had spent more time. I wish I could have a bit of a redo and go back to, you know, extract more ideas to, to add, create systems that would allow the people that lead without authority. The people that you know, are a little bit nervous to get those ideas out, like just to find ways to do more of that. So yeah.


Sam Demma (27:22):
Oh, cool. I love that. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Ideas are a really interesting thing. In fact, I was, I actually bought a book about ideas called thinker toys, and it’s like a book that encourages exercise that lead to more creativity to hopefully come up with new ideas. Yeah, that’s a really cool learning. I appreciate you sharing that. And like, we’ve had a great 30 minute conversation now it’s flown by if an educator or a superintendent and principals listening to this wants to reach out to you or get in touch, what would be the best way for them to do so?


Aubrey Patterson (27:58):
Well, I’m really easy to find because you just go to www.warmdemanders.com and I’m all over the place there. But you can also email me at aubrey@warmdemanders.com. You can find me on Twitter. Instagram, I’m easy to find. And, and just DM me, just find me. I’d love to have conversations. I never, by the way, if anybody contacts me, I never hard sell anyway, anybody I’m like, I’m always telling people what I think would be their best next action, you know, like their best lead domino. And quite often, it’s not to work with us. Like quite often, it’s like to work with one of these amazing other people that I’m working with and that too. So anyway, if somebody wants to find me and to do anything, just, just email me, www.warmdemanders.com or go to the website and click on something and just find us.


Sam Demma (28:50):
Okay. Sounds good. Awesome. Thank you so much for taking some time to chat. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Aubrey Patterson (28:58):
Thank you, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Aubrey

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.

November 22, 2021 by Experiential Learning Founder and CEO Principals Superintendent Teachers 0

Paul Dols – Climate & Culture Coordinator at Monrovia High School in Southern California

Paul Dols Student Leadership
About Paul Dols


Paul Dols (@PaulDWildcat) is the Climate & Culture Coordinator at Monrovia High School in Southern California. His responsibilities include being Activities Director, Renaissance Coordinator, and Link Crew Coordinator. 

A classroom teacher for 26 years, his passion and goal are to create a school that every student and staffulty member calls home and no one wants to leave.  Paul believes that education is the noblest of professions and provides the opportunity to “Sow the Seeds” each and every day.

Connect with Paul: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

Josten’s Renaissance leadership program

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want to 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 other 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 dot high-performing educator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the high-performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Paul Dols. He is the climate and culture coordinator at Monrovia high school in Southern California. His responsibilities include being activities, director Renaissance coordinator, and link crew coordinator, a classroom teacher for 26 years. His passion and goal is to create a school that every student and Staffold T member calls home. And no one wants to leave. Paul believes that education is the noblest of professions and provides the opportunity to sow the seeds each and every day. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Paul and I will see you on the other side, Paul, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by just introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about why you do the work you do today in education?


Paul Dols (01:34):
Sure, sure. Sam, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I’m flattered. So I I’ve started in education back in the previous century. I had my first classroom in 95, 96 at a middle school in Northridge, California. I did middle school for a couple of years. And then in 1997, I moved to Monrovia high school. For those who don’t know where Monrovia is, we are in the foothills of Los Angeles about 10 miles from Pasadena in the rose bowl, which is kind of our GeoCenter for everybody. Who’s not sure where we are. And I’ve been at Monrovia ever since. It is a home away from home for both my wife and me. She’s an elementary teacher in the district. She’s my reason for being in Monrovia. And we, we have been invested in the kids and the families of this community now for gosh, 23, 24 years.


Paul Dols (02:26):
And it’s a passion, it’s a passion for, for this community. And especially for the kids who grew up in this community. I was social studies teacher by training and, and love government and, and politics and that kind of stuff. So that was what I taught for a long time. In 2008, I got tapped to take over something called the Josten’s Renaissance leadership program from a friend and mentor of mine who moved into administration. And that kind of started my divergent journey a little bit towards student leadership and towards reaching into the more social, emotional side of things which is where I’ve kind of been ever since. I, in 2017, I picked up activities as the activities director created a title for myself. I started calling myself the climate and culture coordinator and, and encompasses the Renaissance side of things and the activity side as to do our link crew program for our freshmen mentor project.


Paul Dols (03:25):
And I’m all about the social emotional side of education now. And it’s something that I didn’t think about when I started, I was all about the curriculum. And now it’s complete 180 and I am preaching for the mountaintops that we’ve got to take care of our kids on the social emotional side first and throwing out the, you know, the Maslow before bloom phrases become very popular lately. We’ve got to take care of what our kids need first before we give them that curriculum. So in a nutshell, that’s me, man. I I love what I do. I’m super spoiled here that I get to focus on that side of things almost exclusively. And that’s it, man. That’s, that’s the, that’s the nutshell version.


Sam Demma (04:09):
It’s it seems like social, emotional learning is finally coming to the table of discussion in all schools, across the, hopefully the world for an educator out there. That’s still unsure why it’s important and what it’s all about. Like how do you explain social emotional learning to someone and why you think it’s so important?


Paul Dols (04:27):
You know, I think the easiest way to do it. And I think one of the most important things to understand with there’s such a wide range of where teachers are and educators are on the spectrum of this is it’s okay, wherever you’re at. For some folks, they get into this, this job and it is it’s the, the subject they teach that they love. And they come to realize that they love the kids even more than they love the subjects that they’re teaching. And, but it can be hard for people. People have had all these different life experiences and maybe being a little bit more open with their own life with students is not something that they’re really comfortable doing. But the way I, the way I try to, to bring people to my side of things is basically just to reminding them that the world that we’re creating for these kids now, the businesses that are looking to hire these kids, when they get out of high school and college, the corporations that are trying to grow, they’re now looking at what used to be called the soft skills and it’s everything that they’re looking for.


Paul Dols (05:27):
It’s no longer about their GPA or their sat scores. And people are finally beginning to realize that those measurements really only measure one very small part of who a person is. And when you’ve got corporations like Google and Microsoft and, and even the banking firms are looking for people, AI that can work well together, that can critically think and analyze a problem and then work with other people to solve them. These are things that we don’t teach that well in America, we don’t really focus on it. It’s more about that rugged individualism still, but I think coming through COVID especially, and I don’t think we’re completely through it obviously, but through what we’ve experienced over the last 18 months, I think we realized that that individual I’m just going to get through this on my own kind of mentality is actually really detrimental to what we’re trying to accomplish.


Paul Dols (06:18):
And once we kind of realized that, and for me, I tried to instill in my kids as the leadership kids on our campus, to demonstrate that through how they act you know, practicing kindness above everything else, putting other people first taking and putting themselves in somebody else’s shoes, that empathy gap that Michelle Barbara talks about in her book, selfie is just incredibly true. And you know, that she cites a statistic that says that the more that we have less, less empathy, we have, the more anxiety we have, and we’re seeing this huge uptick in anxiety in kids. And we’re lucky enough, we came back. This is our second or first day of our second week back to school and we’re back fully in person and God-willing we get to stay there. But the anxiety that I see on kids’ faces and the concern and the unsuredness of what they’re doing is very, very real. And if, if that is the case, then we have to practice that empathy with, for those kids. And that is where I come at with, with staff work question, you know, I don’t know if I want to do this or not. We have to remind them that they’re not going to learn if they don’t feel safe. And like my buddy, Phil Campbell says, if they’re not seeing her in love, they’re not going to learn. How do we make them feel seen, heard, and loved.


Sam Demma (07:40):
That’s awesome. I love that. And the, the principles are so important. And you even have one behind you right now. I know this is only an audio podcast, so most people won’t see it, but it says leadership is an action, not a position. What does that line mean to you? And how do you use that to help students understand that we can all be leaders?


Paul Dols (08:00):
You know, I think it’s, we, we put that up there right before the pandemic. It was, it was ironic, but we so often, especially with, with like the ASB mentality or the Renaissance mentality of kids who come in and I’m lucky enough that I have classes, I have an ASB class, I have a Renaissance class. So it’s about 75 kids who are in our leadership program for a lot of people. Sometimes it’s a title. It’s something that they drop on a college application. It’s I was the senior class president. I was the ASB treasurer. I remind them on a daily basis. It’s not who you are. It’s what you do. It’s, there’s a, there’s a poster, the Maya Angelou quote up above me. You know, they’re not going to remember, you know what you say, they’re not going to remember what you do, but they’re going to remember how you made them feel.


Paul Dols (08:50):
For me, that is, you know, I just hung that up. We came back to school because I needed to see every day to remind myself or my kids leaving the room feeling better than when they came in. And for my student leaders, that same challenge as the case when they go into, when they’re in here and in my classroom, our classroom, it’s easy. It’s easy to, to be that empathetic kind soul. But what are you doing in math class and hour later, what are you doing at lunchtime to make other people in your campus feel important, feel connected, feel seen. And so it is that’s there to remind them and they see it. They can’t help, but see it cause it’s right above the board. And you know, it’s also to remind them that people watch them. I think it’s really important that, you know, there’s, I don’t, I can’t attribute the quote to somebody, but it characters what you do when people aren’t watching. And I think that is important for students to realize, even when you’re out in the community, your actions that you’re taking is going to determine who you are.


Sam Demma (09:53):
And they also impact other people, whether we know it or not driving by and looking over, right. One of the reasons why we would, we would always pick up trash on Saturday morning in large groups in very populated areas is because our hope was that someone would drive by look and instead of throwing their cigarette butt out the window, say, oh, maybe I should actually not. When you see 20 young kids picking up their garbage, you know it’s true. Every action has an influence. And I’m curious to know if something influenced you when you were growing up that directed you towards education. Like, did you know from a young age, on your own career journey that you were going to be a teacher, or did you like fall into this? What was the story behind your own career journey?


Paul Dols (10:33):
You know, I, I just told the story yesterday in class. That’s kind of funny. So I knew from the sixth grade off I was, I was blessed and I use that word very carefully, but I was blessed with incredible teachers from the little tiny private school that my brother that I went to in Baltimore through my middle school journey and then high school out here in California, I was blessed with teachers that just got it. They cared, they, they were invested in me as a person, not as a number on a roll book. And I I’d had a natural love for learning that I think came from my mom and dad that that really kind of drove me. I love to read. I love to learn about stuff. I don’t know. And that’s from a very young age, you know, I remember this is going to date me, but there was a huge deal when my parents bought the world book encyclopedia.


Paul Dols (11:26):
So for all the young people listed here, there used to be these books that took the place of the internet, the internet replaced the encyclopedia. But I just remember every year that we would get an update of everything that was new for the year. And I thrived on that book, I would page through it and just, it was amazing. So that love for learning drove me. In my brain, I always thought I was gonna coach basketball and teach U S history. That was, those are my two loves. The history part kept growing and the love for basketball is still there, but the idea of coaching and, you know, to all of the coaches out there, God bless you for what you do for the small amount of compensation that comes to you financially. And the time you give it’s amazing. But I made a decision when our, when our first child was born, that I can’t give up that kind of time with the family to do that.


Paul Dols (12:19):
But I just knew from the first time I stepped into a classroom as an educator, this was it. This was what I was supposed to do. I don’t have a ton of stuff left over from my time at a middle school, but there’s one picture in my office that it was my very first class and it’s just a class picture. It was super weird eighth graders, like, what are we doing, dude? But still hanging in my office to remind me of that day. And, you know, I think it is just, it’s such a privilege to do this job. When you realized that, you know, anywhere from 120 to 180 kids a year, you, you have somebody’s most precious possession and what you do with that can shape their entire life and you never know. See, and that’s the funny part. You never know when you’re going to influence somebody.


Paul Dols (13:13):
And when you’re going to say something that just sticks, that’s a little scary. Cause it gave me as I have a first period conference I’m blessed to be blessed. You know, I think it’s, it can be really intimidating when you realize that if you’re not in the right Ted space and you say something to a kid, it could send them the other direction. And there are days where that could happen. Cause because as human beings, man, we people forget that the teacher in the front of the room may be having a bad day too. And it may have nothing to do with anybody in the room. It could be something going on at home. It could be something that happened on the freeway. It could be an illness, especially, you know, with everything going on now. And so I think it is if you maintain that idea of being a privilege to serve and you approach it that way, you get so much back in return and these, these kids that I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years.


Paul Dols (14:13):
I mean, they’ve gotten me through some really hard times. I’ve lost both of my parents in the last five years, six years now. But other than my wife and two children, the people that got me through it were my students, their reaction to when I came back the way they would lift me up and, and just kind of carry me through and just messages of encouragement that periodically see, and they give it to you. And they, you know, there was a kid who left me a note on my desk just the other day. She said, Hey, you look tired. I noticed the first week, but thank you for who you are. I don’t know who sent it. I don’t know who left it on my desk, but I was like, Ugh. So they give as much as we probably more than what we give. And it’s a, it’s a need for us to be able to look at a kid regardless of where we’re at right now and say, okay, that kid has a story. They’re writing their story right now. And we were lucky enough to be a part of it. And because of that, you have to take that role seriously. You have to step into it and embrace it and cherish it really.


Sam Demma (15:16):
I love that. That’s so awesome. That’s so cool. The note on the desk too, and it’s so true that every student is writing their own story chapter by chapter. And the coolest part is that the things that you say, the way that you hold yourself could actually alter the way they write their chapter. Right? That’s the, that’s the coolest privilege. You know, you mentioned you had, you were blessed to have teachers that just got it. What does that look like? Like what did those teachers do? That another educator listening could strive to do something similar in their own classroom to have a, you know, a positive effect on their students. Can you recall any of the things that those teachers did for you that made a huge difference?


Paul Dols (15:55):
You know, I think for, for, to have an impact on a kid, you have to be real with them, be authentic with them. And it’s, it’s, it’s not simple, but it sounds simple. And it’s, it’s being open with them about who you are as a person and making sure that you see them as people, not just as kids, the, the phrase you’d all well, kids these days, and then you fill in the blank. It’s, it’s always irked me a little bit when, when people talk about, oh, how could you teach high school? They’re so hard. They’re, they’re, they’re just disrespectful then. I’m like, no, they’re not, they’re not. You know, I think, you know, Diane dollar was my AP us history teacher and inventor at point of high school. And she had a passion for history and she taught her butt off every single day.


Paul Dols (16:49):
And she held us to a really high standard and it was hard. It was the only AP class I took in high school. I wasn’t one of, I was an okay student. I wasn’t a great student, but, you know, I took it because I wanted to have her as a teacher because I had heard you’re going to learn more than you ever can imagine. So I took that challenge and it was hard. And, but, you know, I still have contact with her and we still periodically, we’ll sit down every couple of years and have a cup of coffee and, and I get messages from her on Facebook and to just be encouraging, I mean, and that’s been good Lord, it’s 30 plus years now that I was in her class and you know, not every teacher is going to be like that. And I don’t think there’s a mold to create what that looks like, except for the fact that if, if you care about your kids as people first and you really delve delve into who they are as people and realize that those stories that they’re writing, that you’re just lucky to be in it.


Paul Dols (17:54):
And in operate from that mentality. I think one of the hardest things is there was always this idea of classroom management that we get taught in teacher school, which you know, is kind of the worst and giant waste of time that we do because you can’t really teach how to teach. You just have to get in there and do it. But you know, it was always, I’m going to respect you as the students, when you respect me first. And that’s actually the reverse of which had happened. And it’s hard for adults, especially the longer you do this. It’s, it’s hard to look at a 13 or 14 year old kid and say, I’m going to respect you for first. And then eventually you’re going to come back and respect me as the older person in the room, because that’s the opposite of what we teach in society, respect your elders, respect your elders, respect your elders, which is true.


Paul Dols (18:46):
And they should. But when you’re coming at an adolescent, who’s dealing with his own stuff at home and has a 50 to 60% chance of coming from a broken home where there’s, you know, one parent or there’s a divorce or whatever they’re dealing with and you add onto it, their mental health and their mental wellbeing. And if you come at a student and you say, look, respect me in their brain, the question should automatically be, why would I respect you? What, why is that required of me? But if you come at them with love and you come at them with compassion and you come at them with empathy, they can’t help, but respect you. I have a couple of kids that I’ve been working with for three years now. And it’s been a three-year battle for me to break down the walls that they’ve put up.


Paul Dols (19:33):
I’m starting to see that happening with them. And it’s just persistence. It’s an unwillingness to give up on, on that relationship. And I think when we throw that word into it, when you throw the relationship word into it, it gives some people back off a little bit because they believe there has to be this barrier between the teacher and the student. But if you build that barrier, you’re putting up an unnatural obstacle to the relationship. And so I think for me, that is, is what I focus on a lot. When I was teaching my content back in the day, I was never the most effective AP government teacher. You know, back, we used to have rate your teacher.com. I think they still have it. I would periodically be brave enough to go out there and read what they said. And, you know, my comments were always positive for the most part, but that was kind of said the same thing.


Paul Dols (20:24):
I may not have learned a lot, but I know he loved me. And I don’t know if as a, as a teacher, maybe that’s not the best compliment in the world for some, but for me, I’m okay with that. If, if kids leave here and they know what it means to be a good person and if know what it means to be kind to others and how to work with each other and to work their way through problems critically, I’m okay with that because I think that’s what the world needs. The world doesn’t need somebody, you know, that, you know, understands how the war of 18, 12 formed had happened and what was the relative salt of it because they live in a world now where that information is at their fingertips. They need to know how to relate to each other because that’s what honestly, that’s, what’s missing right now.


Paul Dols (21:17):
We’ve messed this place up so badly collectively as the adult for young people that we can’t fix it, the young people are going to have to fix it. And the only way it’s gonna get fixed is if they learn how to communicate, how to compromise and realize that it’s okay to have divergent opinions, if you’re willing to listen to each other and not see each other as that person is my enemy, they may have a different belief system. They may have a different faith. They may have a different opinion on masks. They may have a different opinion on a vaccine, but they’re still human. They still are writing their own story. And if we just talk to each other respectfully, we may not agree, but we have to be okay with that. And the adults in the room, whether it’s Congress or your state legislature, or your school board, or whoever, the adults in the room, aren’t modeling that. And because of that, what kids are seeing is society embracing conflict instead of compromise yeah.


Sam Demma (22:22):
Or discussion, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s so true. It’s so, so true. If something that someone else says triggers you, it’s, it’s a, it’s an opportunity to go internal as well because people can’t make you angry. You know, they can say things, but at the end of the day, you’re, you’re in control of your emotions. And of course, sometimes, you know, we get upset and we say things, and again, that goes back to the idea that we’re all human, but, and then that all ties back to the importance of social, emotional learning and regulating your emotions. This has been such a great broad conversation. Paul, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your journey into education, some of your own beliefs and principles that have served you and also the other teachers that had an impact on you growing up, if someone’s listening and wants to reach out and just have a conversation, another educator from somewhere in the world, what would be the best email to, to, to send or to get in touch with?


Paul Dols (23:15):
No, I would love that. I love talking about this stuff, man. I think, you know, one of the biggest, it’s a community of learners who do this job. I learn more from colleagues and from people all over the country that I’ve been lucky to meet through some of the stuff that I’ve done that social network and that, that PLC or that personal learning community. So yeah, you can reach out to me pdols@monroviaschools.net. I’m also on Instagram and Twitter at Paul D Wildcat. And I’m not on social media as much anymore because I watched the social dilemma. I am out there a couple of times a week posting some stuff and reposting some of the encouraging stuff that I see. But yeah, I would love to connect to anyone who wants to talk about social, emotional learning, what we do and why we do it and share stories. Cause I think it is incredibly important to pursue that.


Sam Demma (24:22):
Awesome. Paul, this was amazing. Thanks so much. Keep up the great work and I will talk soon. Thanks brother. Appreciate it. 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 want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 Paul Dols

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.

November 1, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Teachers 0

Brent Mattix – Activities Director for Roseville High School in California

Brent Mattix Activity Director California
About Brent Mattix

Brent Mattix is the current activities director for Roseville High School, in Roseville, California.  He had the honour of attending Roseville High School as a student (Class of 1992).  His two sons are graduates of RHS and his daughter is a junior.  Brent Mattix began coaching in 1994 and has coached over 50 teams, from varsity football to t-ball.  He has coached football, wrestling, water polo, soccer, basketball, baseball, flag football, and is the current track and field coach for the high school.  

Mr. Mattix began teaching in 1999 and has taught English, speech and debate, positive power, leadership, and student government.  He has served as a class advisor, club advisor, smaller learning communities program coordinator, and link crew coordinator.

For nine years, Brent Mattix was an administrator, working as an assistant principal at Granite Bay High School for seven years and principal for two years at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School.

Driven to make a positive difference, Mr. Mattix loves working in the community in which he grew up.  In addition to teaching, Mr. Mattix is also a scoutmaster, magician, and pyro-technician.

In his free time, Mattix is passionate about spending time with family and friends in the outdoors via camping, hiking, cycling, canoeing, backpacking, and rock climbing.

Connect with Brent: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Workshop)

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens (Book)

Phil Boyte (Learning For Living Program)

Link Crew Transition Program

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (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 Brent Mattix. He is the current activities director for Roseville high school in Roseville, California. He had the honour of attending Roseville high school as a student in the class of 1992. And his two sons are graduates of R H S and his daughter is now a junior.


Sam Demma (01:04):
Brent began coaching in 1994 and has coached over 50 teams from varsity football to T-ball. He has coached football, wrestling, water, polo, soccer, basketball, baseball, flag football, and is currently track and field coach for the high school. Mr. Mattix began teaching in 1999 and has taught English speech and debate positive power leadership and student government. He has served as a class advisor club advisor, smaller learning communities, program coordinator, and link crew coordinator for nine years. Brent was an administrator working as an assistant principal at granite bay high school for seven years and principal for two years at Thomas Jefferson elementary school, driven to make a positive difference. Mr. Maddox loves working in the community in which he grew up. In addition to teaching, he is a scout master magician and pyro technician in his free time. Brent is passionate about spending time with family and friends in the outdoors via camping, hiking, cycling, canoeing, backpacking, and rock climbing. I hope this bio does an awesome job of encapsulating everything that is Brent Mattix. He is a phenomenal person and educator. I had such an amazing time speaking with him on the podcast, enjoy our conversation, and I will see you on the other side, Brent, 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 your story and what brought you to where you are in education today?


Brent Mattix (02:46):
Sure. My name is Brent Mattix activities director at Roseville high school in Roseville, California saved by the bell. Love it. There we go. We get long bells here. So I actually had the pleasure of attending the high school in which I teach, which was outstanding. So I’m class of 1992. I also, some of my backstory is I got kicked out of Roosevelt high school my senior year. So February 21st was my last day of my senior year. I pulled a prank. I was the top student in the school and suffer the consequences. So I guess the only way I was coming back was via education. And so I started coaching at Roseville when I was 20. And then in the interim, I was working on my teaching credential and came back to Roseville high school as an English teacher in 1999 and taught for eight years and then took an administrative position.


Brent Mattix (03:43):
So as an administrator for nine years and then came to my senses and wanted to get back into the classroom. One of my big motivations is my own three kids were at Roseville high school and I kind of had this scare where I realized my baby has seven years before she turned 18 and was out. So my mission shifted a little bit and I was very fortunate to get the activities director position. And now I’ve got two years left with my daughter. My two sons have graduated. I got my oldest boy in the us air force and my second is just graduated and he’ll be starting at UC Davis here in a few weeks.


Sam Demma (04:23):
Wow. That’s awesome. I mean, you can’t mention prank without explaining what the heck happened. You got to bring me back and tell me what’s going on back there.


Brent Mattix (04:33):
Well, I’ll tell ya. That was in 98 and 99. That was in 92. And you know, it was just one of those things where we had had some stuff going on with our rival. And so it was one of those feeling like, Hey, I’m the all American kid you’re supposed to pull off this epic prank where I went wrong as I involved firecrackers. And so that was right on the cusp of school violence. This was pre Columbine, but we had had a shooting and all of hers, which is not too far from us. And so I haven’t been an administrator and looking back, I can definitely get a sense of the concerns administration and the community had with, with stuff going on. And so anyway, what I tell students is that you make a mistake, you learn from the mistake you grow and that’s what life’s all about. And so took responsibility for it. And then it was really cool being able to come back and actually participate in graduation as a teacher. But I counted it.


Sam Demma (05:37):
Oh man. That’s awesome. That’s a good story though. Go, it goes to show that your, your current situation doesn’t have to equal your future, your future destinations as well. What, okay, so what led you down the path of education though? So after high school ends, you get it, you know, you go to school like what made you decide yeah. Want to go back to education where you direct them down that path, or did you know from a young age at that, that’s what you wanted to do?


Brent Mattix (06:05):
Yeah, I actually in high school wanting to go into politics because I I’m a community person. Yeah, I was really active when I was in high school, making a difference for the community and just wanted to give back in some capacity. I had the opportunity to go to Washington DC on a youth leadership, going into my senior year and went back and spent a couple of weeks at, we actually stayed at Georgetown and set up a mock Congress. And so that was an outstanding experience, but I realized some of the challenges in politics. And, and I remember, you know, here I am 17 and I’m thinking, holy smokes, this is going to be a grind to really make effective change. And so I, I think that’s when I started to shift gears and felt like I could be more inspirational and a benefit to the community by going into education, I’ve always wanted to help people.


Brent Mattix (06:59):
And I started coaching, you know, like I said, I was only 20 years old when I was coaching and, and just had to make a shift in a little bit of thinking and maturity in the sense of I wasn’t playing anymore. So now it’s all about a drive to help others loved English. I grew up reading and had a passion for it. And if I could teach anything, I wanted to teach a course called life. And they didn’t teach that in class. And I felt like English gave me the most flexibility to kind of hit some of those components again, just to be an inspiration and had some really good teachers in college and had some good folks that I was when I grew up, I had outstanding teachers and coaches. And so I think just probably looking at two, what they modeled and the impact they had had on me was, was what got me going.


Brent Mattix (07:51):
So I do have a little side note. One of my heroes was my Spanish teacher in high school. And I started coaching at the same high school I got kicked out of. And so Mr. George IVIG would always be working the gate as one of the supervision assignments. And so I’d come in with the football team and usually interacting with, interact with them for a few minutes. So when I finally made the decision, okay, this is where I’m headed and made a shift. I let him know and he looked at me and he said, don’t do it. And he was dead serious. And that was a little crushy cause I just idolized them. And he was just such an outstanding teacher and really did well with his curriculum, cared about his students. And for him to say, don’t do it. I, it, it caused me to pause and think like, okay, what’s that all about?


Brent Mattix (08:44):
And what he was trying to communicate was a, was a shift that he felt with the responsibilities as, as being a teacher and feeling a little bit set up where the challenges were going to outweigh the benefits. And so, thankfully I didn’t listen to him. So I hadn’t seen him in quite a while and then had the opportunity last year to sit now with him at just a little social gathering. We were, we were all outside cause of COVID we all were masked. And so it was great to catch up. So I reminded him that he told me that he kind of laughed and said, well, I’m glad you, you stuck it out. But I have seen it change a lot. And so that was the kickoff, just jumping in a full go right out of the gate, you know, I’ve lucky to get hired.


Brent Mattix (09:30):
I actually went to go see the assistant principal or sorry, the assistant superintendent who was in charge of discipline and said, Hey, do you remember who I am? And he laughed and said, oh yeah, you like to play the firecrackers. So I, I told him where I was in my life and I said, I didn’t want to waste his time or waste my time. And he said water under the bridge go ahead and apply. So yeah, I was fortunate right out of the gate. I, I got a job at a school that I knew really well and had a passion for and, and just jumped in as much as I could. So I, my first year of teaching, I got married, bought a new house, had the new job, and then about oh seven months after we got married, we were pregnant with our first kiddo. So I said, Hey, the four stressors in life, the biggest stressors, they’re all, they’re all. No, man, I don’t have to worry about anything else. Now that’s all.


Sam Demma (10:25):
The early stuff out of the way. Yeah. So you mentioned coaching a few times and it sounds like coaching is also an important part of your life. If I read your mind correctly, you coach tennis. Tell me more about it. And also is that a sport you played growing up or do you coach multiple things?


Brent Mattix (10:44):
So I actually have not coached tennis, but my daughter was leaving my class. So I have, I’m fortunate to have her in my class. Got it. She was out, she, she is playing tennis and a couple of her girlfriends that she was with are playing tennis. So they have their first match today. So we’re going to go check that out afternoon. Nice. So you’re going to get me on my soap box for youth athletics here. I’ve coached, I think somewhere between 50 and 60 teams anywhere from probably half of them at the high school level, from varsity football down to, with my own kids T-ball and little bitty soccer, so, and everywhere in between. So I’ve done football at the high school football wrestling on the current track and field coach and water polo, which I knew nothing about and just the coaching that had a blast with that for six years.


Brent Mattix (11:38):
And then at the youth level we had baseball, basketball, soccer, flag football. So, you know, a variety of stuff. I grew up loving athletics. She has had so much fun and was fortunate to be on really successful teams with coaches that were positive and it wasn’t about winning. So I think the winning piece was probably a lot of a by-product of just having this really engaging atmosphere that was enjoyable and, and made a lot of relationships. So I’m still best friends with my football buddies from high school and we still get together, you know, 30 plus years later. So it’s been a definitely an important part of my life. And just seeing where I feel athletics has changed with students where I, I see for a select group of students, it’s outstanding because that’s their life. And they really want to dedicate a lot of energy or all their energy to it.


Brent Mattix (12:42):
I’ve seen a lot of students just not have as much fun where it becomes a little bit more of a job and had conversations with them where they feel and communicate that they’re burned out. And so after I think it was 15 years of coaching in high school, that’s about when my, my kid was my own kiddos were getting into athletics. And so I jumped down to the youth stuff and there’s some amazing organizations that really focus on making it fun for the athlete and informative where they get to learn and grow. And then there are some programs that are difficult to work with because, you know, like my wife said, one time first graders should not be crying after a game. You know, so much intensity that gets pushed upon them by the Allston. It’s, it’s a difficult deal to work with. So I’ll tie this into education. I had a psychology of education professor that one of my other heroes in my teaching credential program and something that he would pull out often as there needs to be more teaching and coaching and more coaching and teaching. And that’s something just stuck with me through the years.


Sam Demma (13:51):
That’s a, I love that. It’s awesome. I played sports my whole life. I was supposed to go to Memphis university on a full ride scholarship and had three knee surgeries rip that apart. But yeah, I think sports are such a crucial part in development. And even if it’s not a sport getting involved in something outside of the classroom, I think is just so important. Did you play a lot of sports growing up yourself? Like was that a big part of your childhood also?


Brent Mattix (14:20):
Yeah, I started in like first grade with the T-ball did soccer, did flag football. And then once I got into middle school, we started with with football, with tackle football and that was my main sport in high school. Then I also swimming and wrestling and then just a ton of intermurals, but, you know, I grew up I’m 47. So I grew up in an era where that’s all you did as far as athletics. Cause if you weren’t playing with an organized team, you were playing out in front of your house, on the street, your front yard, if you’re playing tackle football is two and touch right in the street, less, less we wanted to get bloody. Yeah. I mean, constantly we, we would kind of mirror the professional sports where we’d be playing basketball and then the basketball season’s done and then we’re playing some baseball or football or whatever the case may be. So it was kind of 30, some kids in the neighborhood that would be in and out doing unorganized sports. And that was just an amazing experience where we had to figure it out ourselves and, and we kept score, but it was you know, it, wasn’t about just the score. It’s mostly about being together and having a good time.


Sam Demma (15:37):
And you mentioned at the beginning of this interview, that if he could have taught any class in the world, you would have taught a class called life. What does that mean? And if it was to be a legit class that does exist, what would it include and why are those things crucial?


Brent Mattix (15:53):
So I, I guess even when I was young, I, I gotta tell you when I was in high school, I was probably the shyest kid in the school. I at least successful, but I was an introvert. And I was always a teacher’s pet. I always could have great conversations with adults, but when it came to interacting with my peers, I really struggled. So I was talking about that youth leadership program. I went to and flew back to Washington DC, and we had to wait for another group to come in before they put us on the shuttle. So it was about a 45 minute wait. And we sat about a half hour in our seats, in the airport waiting for this other group to show up. And I think there’s probably between 12 and 15 other students all the same age. And nobody said a word for like a half hour.


Brent Mattix (16:41):
And I remember it was so painful for me to sit there because I wanted to say something, I just couldn’t get myself to, to do that. And finally somebody broke the ice and it wasn’t me. And within like seconds, we were just having this really great conversation because everybody’s the same age. Most of us were AP students. So we had just taken the AP exams. And so, you know, we were in the same place in life and we just, just got going. And that was a watershed moment for me, where I thought, why did I just spend 30 minutes of wasted time? Because I didn’t have the courage, the guts, the gumption to just, you know, say something. And so I started shifting where I pushed myself more to interact. So I say that as a foundation, for whatever reason, when I was in high school and even younger and early adult, a lot of people would come to me and just ask me for advice.


Brent Mattix (17:36):
Or they would share things with me where I felt like I was helpful. And so I think that carried over. So it was just that wanting to help people and make a difference for them. And that’s where the life piece comes in. So I had really, I was so fortunate. My second year of teaching, I had an administrator come to me and say, Hey, we’d like you to teach a class, a leadership class. And I didn’t know what that was. And I said, oh, that sounds awesome. What is it? And she looked at me and said, we don’t know you’re going to figure it out. So they said, we want you to write this course. They sent me off to a Stephen Covey workshop. And Stephen Covey is probably most famous for writing the seven habits of highly effective people. And that program was repackaged to the seven habits of highly effective teens.


Brent Mattix (18:27):
And that was what they were teaching. And so I remember I, it was a two day workshop and I spent the first day just not being very excited by it. Cause I, I, you know, wasn’t grasping where they’re going with. I hadn’t read the book before. And, and then day two, I think we were halfway through day two. And all of a sudden the light bulb went on for me like, oh my gosh, this is what I can use for my class. So that became the foundation for their, our leadership class. And so I’ve been teaching that I, I said I was nine years in administrator. And so I was away from the class for nine years, but you know, otherwise I’ve taught leadership for a lot of years. And just teaching students, some foundational elements or habits has been fantastic. What I have seen in the last five years that I’ve been an activities director is that a lot of students struggle with skills.


Brent Mattix (19:27):
So their managers, if I give them a task sheet, they will get it done, especially if I attach a grade to it. So if I put points on it, that’s been something that we’ve been working on is changing things from being expensive motivator to intrinsic motivator. And I’m so proud of the students in our program because we’re, we’re almost to that point where that’s where everybody is, but the points piece for kids. Yeah. It gets them going. So they’ll do stuff if you give them the list, but if you give them a task, which is, or I’m sorry, a project, which is where we are with activities, I’ve seen a lot of struggle and I’m in the midst of rewriting where we are with our student government program and also come back and retool our leadership program, where it just gives students the opportunity to create or learn more skill sets that they can then apply because they, a lot of times have the desire. They want to make a difference. They just, they don’t have as much life experience. I think adults have done too much for them as we have. They’ve been growing up and they have some pretty good skill sets maybe when it comes to English and math and science and history, but just some of the leadership stuff that we need to see from them as is painful. Watson, try to grow wings there. Yeah.


Sam Demma (20:52):
I love that. That’s awesome. It sounds like such a rewarding class. How many students are roughly in there? Is this a large group, a small group? Like what does it look like?


Brent Mattix (21:01):
So our, our traditional student government program, which is the student leaders that get elected. So we have four ASB officers that are elected by the student body and then for each class. And we’re a nine through 12th grade high school frees class. They have three officers that are elected. The other students that are in the class for student government get in through an application process. And so we are generally it ebbs and flows, but generally the numbers there between 45 and 55. Yes. And I continually say, Hey, I’ll take a hundred. If we have students that are engaged in taking care of business, then we’ll take as many as we can get in. We we only have so much space in the physical classroom we’re in right now. So that kind of dictates a little bit just the functionality of the room.


Brent Mattix (21:58):
And then our leadership class is an elective. And that traditionally is right around 40 students. And those students that are in the class are it’s a wide spectrum. So I’d say I ended up with about 40% freshmen, 40%, maybe 35% sophomores. And then the other group would be juniors and seniors, and anywhere from students that are super motivated and want to take the course so that they can learn some more skills to get into student government, to students that are behavior issues on campus and a counselor or an administrator said, man, we got to get them in the leadership class. And that’s what I love because we have just across the gamut and when we do our group work and when we’re in our committees and working together, there’s so many different ideas because we have so many different walks of life involved in that class.


Brent Mattix (22:53):
Sometimes I say we’re a little incestuous in the student government program in the sense that the same type of students attract their friends who want to be in the program. And so that can be a good thing. It’s a double double-edged sword to some degree because you get into that group think sometimes, and it’s hard to break outside that mold. So that’s something we’ve been challenging students with. Now that we’ve kind of changed at our school, changed the, the culture of the student government program, where it’s more about the school than just the students are in the classroom. It’s a matter of, okay, now we got to get out to our stakeholders and make sure we’re understanding what their needs are and what their desires are and give them a voice and get them a more, more involved that way.


Sam Demma (23:39):
And which of the seven habits have you integrated in the classroom that you think has been the most impactful on the students and why?


Brent Mattix (23:50):
That’s a great question. You know, I, I tell the students in my leadership class, but we’re going through a particular topic or habit. I say, Hey, this is the most important day. And then I tell them, okay, I know I’m always saying that. So it’s, it’s difficult. I’ll tell you the, the habits and the concepts. I think that are probably, I, I see that are most powerful is one of them is, and it’s not particularly a habit, but it’s the circle of control and no control. And I asked students, I don’t say anything about the circle of control, but I asked students about a time that somebody made him really upset. And I tried to get a few volunteers that will share a story with the class. And my goal is, and that interaction to get that person upset and reliving the experience.


Brent Mattix (24:43):
And a lot of times it gets to that point. And usually it’s something with a friend or sometimes a parent. And to the point where sometimes, I mean, they’re, they’re yelling, they’re fleshing in the face and at the end of them telling their stories, I tell them, now, wait a minute. I asked you guys to share a story about a time where somebody made you mad and you guys all lied to me. And then they get more upset at me when I tell them that I did not lie to you, Mr. Maddox, and they go, go and go. And then we start talking about the circle of control and no control. And the goal is for them to understand that somebody didn’t make them mad. They allow themselves to become mad and that they are empowered and they need to they need to really control that and understand there’s very few things in life that they can control.


Brent Mattix (25:31):
And when that sinks in, you see some students that really kind of have an awakening because they’ve had crap in their background in their life. And they understand that, Hey, I, that was outside of my control and I can’t get upset and emotional about it. Or if I do, I got to have some tools to back down from it and, and take back my control, take back that power. So that’s my favorite lesson plans. I think that the just creating habits to begin with and that habit number one is be proactive and getting them. And that’s where the, the control piece comes in and get them to understand that how they respond to everything that’s coming at them is so important. And having some tools that they’re at their experience and disposal to be able to utilize and pushing pause, and maybe not reacting is just outstanding.


Brent Mattix (26:31):
I feel for these kiddos with how bombarded they are with everything technology. I tell a story where I was a sophomore and we had lockers back when I was a sophomore. We don’t have lockers at the school anymore. And so I get to school and I go to open a lock my locker, and right as I open it, this piece of paper falls out. So I bent down to pick it up. And as I’m bending down to pick it up, I’m realizing that there’s in the row, there’s like five or six other students that are picking up this kind of same piece of paper. So I look at it and it was a letter that one of my fellow students had written about his girlfriend. They had just broken up and the most worst message, disgusting comments. Her secrets were on this sheet of paper that were typed out.


Brent Mattix (27:19):
And I mean, they were horrific. I didn’t know that young lady, but that young lady was gone that day. We did not see her back at the high school again. And I don’t know what happens her. She transferred schools and went elsewhere. And so I juxtapose that with, we had a student that was incoming and it was from tech. He was coming in from Texas. And some kids were talking about him coming to the school and they were talking about the baggage. He was bringing from an incident in Texas. And I just had this realization that, I mean, these kids can’t escape the negativity sometimes and, and heartbreaks for that a little bit. It, it breaks for the kids that have stuff. That’s just a constant reminder of things that they feel are inefficiencies or challenges or, or bad stuff in their life.


Brent Mattix (28:11):
And so back to trying to empower them where they can take control and, and reprogram themselves and be proactive, come up with a plan is just really, really important. So the first three habits focus on what’s called the private victory. And so I teach leadership in that. You’ve got to, you’ve got to teach yourself, you’ve got to control yourself. You’ve got to your beer best you before you work with others. And so then the public victory where we transition into working with others habit four is think win-win. And so that’s really trying to empower them with some tools and how they can work well with others. And come up with ideas that are bigger than themselves, right? It’s about what they want, it’s about what others want and how they’re gonna work well together. And then my favorite habit is habit six, which is synergy and synergizing and working well with others.


Brent Mattix (29:08):
And to me, that’s what LIFE life is all about. And bringing us full circle back to athletics. There is nothing more powerful than when you’re working with a group of people that have the same mission, and you’re just hitting stride and in the flow and, and winning and winning doesn’t mean you got the highest score. Winning just means that you’re working well together and make a magic happen. So I love seeing that. I love it when students create those types of events on our campus and when they have that same experience in the classroom. So I got end with saying that you know, I’m super Pollyanna and positive all the time, but going back to that circle of control, I say, now, you know, the reality is you’re going to get awesome times. And when I get frustrated and I’m at home and my wife and I are in a disagreement, or I’m having a challenge with one of my kiddos and I feel my blood come up and I’m just starting to shake a little bit you know, I’ve got to back myself down. So it’s one thing in theory, it’s another thing to actually put it into practice. And so that’s the, that’s the toughest part. And, and trying to model that for the students is really important for me as well. Yes.


Sam Demma (30:21):
Oh, such an important book. I was, I was lucky enough to stumble across the seven habits of highly effective teens back when I was a freshmen in grade nine.


Brent Mattix (30:33):
Good for you.


Sam Demma (30:34):
Yeah, because I was a, I mean, you didn’t mention sharpening the saw or the, the, the square, the four places where you could spend your time, the time charger. But yeah. I know those are, it’s such a good book and I think it’s so cool that you’re teaching it in class. If you could, if you said you’ve been teaching now, how many years?

Brent Mattix (30:54):
Well, I started my student teaching in 1998. So what’s that, I’m not a math teacher. So 23 years, somewhere 24, I don’t know.

Sam Demma (31:04):
Yeah. So if you could go back to year one with the experience and understanding that you have now, what advice would you give your younger self? Because there might be an educator listening. Who’s just getting into education and might be willing or able to learn from something you’ve experienced. Sure.


Brent Mattix (31:23):
So you, you talked about sharpen, the saw, which is habit seven in the book, and this is by the way, I don’t get any royalties from FranklinCovey foundation. The sharpen, the saw is probably where I’ve most struggled and sharpen the size just about reenergizing yourself, taking care of yourself. And, you know, I feel for educators, we get emotional here was setting boundaries because our profession is a passion. It’s a calling. And I really think that a strong majority of educators are in this to make a difference for our kids difference for our community. And education has evolved where it’s not just about teaching the content that we were trained, that when we got our master’s or whatnot in we’re teaching the whole student, and there are so many things that come at us with working with special education students and working with English language learners and working with behavioral issues, I can go on and on and on.


Brent Mattix (32:25):
And I think I struggle with this. And how do you set healthy boundaries? Because we all care. We want to make a difference. That’s why we chose a profession. And I don’t know. I don’t know what the advice is. I haven’t done yet, but trying to set up those healthy boundaries where you take care of yourself and, you know, Hey, I’m in a good place. I I’m healthy. I’m happy with my job. I work my butt off and it’s a constant struggle to keep up. I don’t know what I could have done earlier, except maybe downsize what I was doing, mess the job.


Sam Demma (33:09):
No, I appreciate you sharing that. And you know, all the students that, and parents that haven’t told you, you know, you’re making a huge difference and not only you Brent, but everyone listening, you know, it’s a, it’s a profession where sometimes you plant the seed in and then someone else watches it grow. So it’s a, yeah, it’s a great way for y’all doing


Brent Mattix (33:29):
Well. Okay. So one of my, one of my good friends, I’m a name drop here, Phil boyte, who has a company called learning for living. And he’s the gentleman who started the link crew program. I had an opportunity for him to mentor me for awhile. And he, and I think I brought up setting healthy boundaries and he said, Brent, you know, what I’ve found is you’re juggling a lot of balls to use an analogy. And those balls are all up in the air. And if you drop them, I’ve found that most of them you’re going to find are made of rubber. They’re going to bounce back up. You’re going to be able to get them back in the game. The two balls that are made of glass are your health and your family.

Sam Demma (34:12):
Boom. We just dropped the mic there and call it a day.


Brent Mattix (34:17):
Well, you know, that’s why he’s got a company. He’s a smarter guy than I am, but I it’s like talking to Yoda.


Sam Demma (34:23):
That’s awesome, man. So cool. I’ve seen Phyllis speak at some conferences, which is phenomenal. But thank you so much for taking some time to share some of your stories and experiences. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Yeah. Keep up the great work. If another educator is listening and wants to reach out to you and have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to do so?


Brent Mattix (34:42):
Sure. Well, I’m setting healthy boundaries, so don’t call, I’m just teasing. We’re all in this together. And so my emails, my to-do task lists, that’s what I keep coming back to. So my email address is bmattix@rjuhsd.us


Sam Demma (35:09):
Yeah, I’m going to put it in the show notes as well.


Brent Mattix (35:12):
Emails that email’s the best way. And Hey, if I can make a difference and share anything with anybody, happy to do that because you know that old metaphor or analogy or whatever it is is I am an English teacher of the pebble and the pond is so true. And, and we’re in this together. Keep doing good stuff for kids because they truly are our future and deserve everything.


Sam Demma (35:38):
Awesome. Brent, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it again, keep it up and we’ll stay in touch. My pleasure, Sam, 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 want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to 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 Brent Mattix

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.

October 24, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Teachers 0

Join Over 2100 People Subscribed to Sam's Newsletter

Download Sam's Debut Bestselling Book (For Free)

https://www.highperformingeducator.com/contact